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[Dark Souls 2] Estus: Don't Leave Majula Without It.
Fawst
The road to awe.Registered User regular
The road to awe.Registered User regular
Welcome to the Dark Souls thread!
Stolen from Satsumomo by Fawst
Dark Souls is a hardcore action-RPG by From Software, a spiritual successor to their previous game Demon's Souls. It's also as "difficult" as you've heard it is, but provides an experience that you rarely get in other modern games. But rather than difficult, the game is more unforgiving than just being artificially difficult. You overcome this difficulty by becoming better at the game, not because you increased your stats (Although they do matter!)
There are no difficulty levels and no manual saves, you cannot pause and combat is entirely skill based. By defeating enemies and using certain items you gain souls, which are everything. You use them to level up your character, buy and upgrade items and magic and in certain cases create powerful unique weapons.
As well as souls, there is a secondary resource you'll be collecting called humanity. You start the game as an undead (hollow), weaker and overall less effective than you are in human form. By collecting and spending humanity you can revert yourself back to human form, increasing certain resistances and improving your item discovery rate. Becoming human also allows you to be summoned to and invade other players worlds.
Doesn't sound too bad right? Well let's talk about death. You'll see this a lot. Death is as much a part of Dark Souls as collecting the precious souls themselves. If you die you keep your items but lose all your souls and humanity and leave behind a bloodstain. If you make it back to your bloodstain you can recover them, but die on your way back to your corpse and you lose them for good.
Rush forward with abandon to pick up that shiny item? You're going to die. Let your guard down because you've been through the starting enemies 20 times before? You're going to die. You'll learn to respect death as it starts out by beating you into the ground but then teaches you that every step forward, every dark corner and every closed door in this place demands respect.
Despite the shadow of death following you everywhere you go, there is one place you can gain some respite.
Bonfires are the one place you can rest and restore. You can spend your souls to increase your character stats, repair your weapons and armour and restore a limited number of healing flasks. Spend your humanity here and you can also make them more powerful and have them restore more healing items. Bonfires are also your only checkpoints, as long as you've lit one you will return to it once you die.
Of course it's not that easy. Anytime you touch a bonfire or warp back to one after dying, every enemy you've previously killed respawns ready to take you down again.
So that's Dark Souls. Prepare to die.
Multiplayer
or as we prefer to call it
Co-op
When co-opping in Dark Souls you can either summon players to your world or be a phantom summoned to another's world. To summon you must be human but phantoms can be either human or hollow. The summoning system isn't your normal "invite to game" thing though. In game you throw down a summoning sign and anyone within 10 levels of you can bring you into their world until you die, exit or kill the boss of that area.
PVP and Invading
Although becoming human allows you to summon others to your world when you want, it also opens you up to being invaded by anyone with an easy to obtain consumable item. The invader however doesn't choose what world to invade, it is random but limited to the zone you are currently in. Invasions and PVP can also be initiated by joining certain covenants that hold specific conditions.
Other Online Stuff
If you're not engaging in co-op or PVP, it still pays to play while online. Players can leave messages around the world warning of traps or monsters, giving instructions for hidden items or just being dicks and fucking you over. You'll also see other player's bloodstains throughout the world that show you how they met their maker.
Screenshots
Tips, guides & tricks
DSFix by Durante
Download here!
http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=dsfix
DSFix is an amazing tweak for Dark Souls on PC. It will allow you to render the game at higher resolutions, and it includes several other tweaks, such as better lighting, texture mods, save backups, mouse cursor fixes and more. It is highly recommended to use this mod!
NOTE BEFORE INSTALLING DSFIX!
You MUST run the game first without DSFix, and disable the in-game AA option. Otherwise your game will crash on launch.
Here is a small example of the difference between Vanilla and with DSFix:
http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=dsfix
DSFix is an amazing tweak for Dark Souls on PC. It will allow you to render the game at higher resolutions, and it includes several other tweaks, such as better lighting, texture mods, save backups, mouse cursor fixes and more. It is highly recommended to use this mod!
NOTE BEFORE INSTALLING DSFIX!
You MUST run the game first without DSFix, and disable the in-game AA option. Otherwise your game will crash on launch.
Here is a small example of the difference between Vanilla and with DSFix:
Playing with a Keyboard + Mouse?
While it is STRONGLY recommended to play with a gamepad (Preferably an X360 gamepad), there are some things you can do to improve your experience when doing KBAM.
Here is a guide, with links to improve KBAM controls in Dark Souls.
Dark Souls Connectivity Fix
DSCfix aims to improve the online experience when attempting to engage in jolly cooperation with friends. It is an interception DLL intended to be used with DSfix and functions by adding any online GFWL friends to your P2P connection pool before searching for random peers. This means that direct connections to friends are established right away, whereas in vanilla Dark Souls this only happens after the first successful summon or invasion (if you were even lucky to get that far).
Download here: http://darksouls.nexusmods.com/mods/334//?
Download here: http://darksouls.nexusmods.com/mods/334//?
Tips for new players (No spoilers, but I'm spoiling it anyways!)
Blendtec's armour guide
Humanity: The number to the left of your health bar, occasionally obtained from defeating enemies. Used to return to human form to summon others, kindle bonfires (5 more estus flask uses) and level up some covenants. Increases item drop rates and Chaos damage (cap at 10).
Endurance: Increases stamina and maximum equip burden. Stamina is used for attacking, blocking, sprinting and rolling – basically everything. Under 25% of your max burden and you can roll freely, 25-50% and your movement speed and roll are slower, 50-100% and you’re much slower and roll heavily with a long animation to get up. Over 100% and you plod ridiculously slowly and can’t roll at all.
40: The stamina hard cap, increasing past this point will only raise your equip burden.
Attunement: Determines how many spell slots you have for all sorceries, miracles and pyromancies.
10/12/14/16/19/23/28/34/41/50: 1-10 spell slots, 4-6 is generally sufficient.
Vitality: Your health. 30-50 is a good number for PvP and NG+.
Strength: Determines whether or not you can swing a weapon or use a shield effectively, increases damage dealt with weapons that scale with it. Multiplied by 1.5x when two handing a weapon.
16: Claymore, Zweihander (two handed), Eagle Shield, Black Knight Shield. The go-to value for non-strength builds.
28: Covers every weapon that might benefit from both dexterity and strength, hits 40 when two handed.
40: Diminishing returns on damage scaling past this point. Can one hand almost everything and two hand everything else.
(51/58/66): Every shield/one hand every weapon/max possible damage two handing (none of these are worth it).
Dexterity: Increases damage for weapons that scale with it, slightly increases casting speed.
18: Lets you use all Black Knight weapons and crossbows.
25: Covers every weapon that has a dexterity requirement to wield at all.
40: Diminishing scaling returns past this point.
(45): Max casting speed (not worth it).
Magic: Requirement for sorceries, increases damage for sorceries and weapons that scale with it (Magic/Enchanted).
10: Let’s you buy spells from the vendor at Firelink and Logan at the Archives, can use some basic utility spells.
Mag 16: Oolacile Catalyst, all utility spells, Dark Beads
Mag 25/32: Crystal Magic Weapon/Tin Crystallisation Catalyst and 5 orbs with the Soul mass spells and the Pursuers dark sorcery
44: Crystal Soul Spear sorcery.
(50): White Dragon Breath sorcery (not really worth it).
Faith: Increases magic defence, requirement for miracles, increases damage for miracles and weapons that scale with it (Blessed/Occult).
18: Emit Force and Homeward utility miracles.
28/30: Wrath of God miracle/Darkmoon and Sunlight Blade weapon buffs.
40: Diminishing returns past this point.
(50): Sunlight Spear (not really worth it).
Resistance: Joke stat, disregard. (Increases poison resistance, and increases defence slightly faster than other stats).
Poise: The most important stat on your armour. Higher poise means that you won’t get staggered when you’re hit by heavier attacks, which is particularly useful in PvP.
40: One hit from most one-handed weapons.
53: One hit from larger weapons (notably the Claymore and its ilk).
76: One hit from very large weapons, eg. Black Knight Greataxe and Zweihander.
Endurance: Increases stamina and maximum equip burden. Stamina is used for attacking, blocking, sprinting and rolling – basically everything. Under 25% of your max burden and you can roll freely, 25-50% and your movement speed and roll are slower, 50-100% and you’re much slower and roll heavily with a long animation to get up. Over 100% and you plod ridiculously slowly and can’t roll at all.
40: The stamina hard cap, increasing past this point will only raise your equip burden.
Attunement: Determines how many spell slots you have for all sorceries, miracles and pyromancies.
10/12/14/16/19/23/28/34/41/50: 1-10 spell slots, 4-6 is generally sufficient.
Vitality: Your health. 30-50 is a good number for PvP and NG+.
Strength: Determines whether or not you can swing a weapon or use a shield effectively, increases damage dealt with weapons that scale with it. Multiplied by 1.5x when two handing a weapon.
16: Claymore, Zweihander (two handed), Eagle Shield, Black Knight Shield. The go-to value for non-strength builds.
28: Covers every weapon that might benefit from both dexterity and strength, hits 40 when two handed.
40: Diminishing returns on damage scaling past this point. Can one hand almost everything and two hand everything else.
(51/58/66): Every shield/one hand every weapon/max possible damage two handing (none of these are worth it).
Dexterity: Increases damage for weapons that scale with it, slightly increases casting speed.
18: Lets you use all Black Knight weapons and crossbows.
25: Covers every weapon that has a dexterity requirement to wield at all.
40: Diminishing scaling returns past this point.
(45): Max casting speed (not worth it).
Magic: Requirement for sorceries, increases damage for sorceries and weapons that scale with it (Magic/Enchanted).
10: Let’s you buy spells from the vendor at Firelink and Logan at the Archives, can use some basic utility spells.
Mag 16: Oolacile Catalyst, all utility spells, Dark Beads
Mag 25/32: Crystal Magic Weapon/Tin Crystallisation Catalyst and 5 orbs with the Soul mass spells and the Pursuers dark sorcery
44: Crystal Soul Spear sorcery.
(50): White Dragon Breath sorcery (not really worth it).
Faith: Increases magic defence, requirement for miracles, increases damage for miracles and weapons that scale with it (Blessed/Occult).
18: Emit Force and Homeward utility miracles.
28/30: Wrath of God miracle/Darkmoon and Sunlight Blade weapon buffs.
40: Diminishing returns past this point.
(50): Sunlight Spear (not really worth it).
Resistance: Joke stat, disregard. (Increases poison resistance, and increases defence slightly faster than other stats).
Poise: The most important stat on your armour. Higher poise means that you won’t get staggered when you’re hit by heavier attacks, which is particularly useful in PvP.
40: One hit from most one-handed weapons.
53: One hit from larger weapons (notably the Claymore and its ilk).
76: One hit from very large weapons, eg. Black Knight Greataxe and Zweihander.
Stats Calculator
A bunch of helpful calculators can be found here:
https://sites.google.com/site/darksoulstats/
A bunch of helpful calculators can be found here:
https://sites.google.com/site/darksoulstats/
Dark Souls II
Dark Souls II is scheduled to release on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in March 2014. No current plans for a next-gen release.
DSII has been extensively shown on the floor at E3 2013, and several journalists have confirmed that the game is just as hard and unforgiving as its predecessor.
Features that have been confirmed:
- Dedicated servers for multiplayer
- 3 weapon slots per character
- Dual wielding
- Projectile deflecting
- Backstabs no longer work as a "grab"
There may be more info, but I am keeping myself in the dark about DS2, I like playing through blind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHgUuhOsHoA
DSII has been extensively shown on the floor at E3 2013, and several journalists have confirmed that the game is just as hard and unforgiving as its predecessor.
Features that have been confirmed:
- Dedicated servers for multiplayer
- 3 weapon slots per character
- Dual wielding
- Projectile deflecting
- Backstabs no longer work as a "grab"
There may be more info, but I am keeping myself in the dark about DS2, I like playing through blind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHgUuhOsHoASo, once again, welcome to the Dark Souls thread!
Please tag your spoilers, but don't hesitate to ask for help, we'll be as helfpul as possible, without spoiling anything.
Praise the Sun!
Fawst on
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This discussion has been closed.
Posts
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
My next playthrough is going to be a fat tank 1 handing ultra greatswords and greatshields with heavy armor. Buuuut, I am going to want a ranged option, and i'm trying to decide if I just want to go with a Pyro flame +10 and enough attunement for a couple pyromancies(I won't be levelling INT/FTH at all), or if I could get by with just a crossbow+10. My current run I only took my crossbow to +2, but it's just so damned weak due to no scaling. I hate having to shoot a dude 20 times to kill him from range.
Avelyn+10 would probably work fine. Or Dragonrider Bow if you pump dex, since it has good STR scaling.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I suppose you could get lucky in Iron Keep and land a greatbow?
Otherwise, just equip Southern Ritual Band and pyromancy I guess.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
NPC invaders at least aren't dicks the way PCs can be. I'm very glad to know they changed around a lot of the mechanics of such in DS2 to make some of that dickery harder.
I started a sorcerer in DS1 to get a feel for playing a caster last night and was hitting a wall on the gargoyles. Summoned one phantom, it worked! Attempts to summon another failed. Then all summoning signs disappeared and I got invaded by a dickwraith dual wielding Avelyns. All further attempts at summoning players that night failed of course and I burned more humanity (which you don't have much of this point in the game) to use Solaire to kill the gargoyles.
Then I killed the Capra demon solo on my first attempt because the world is crazy.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Yeah, I think i'm just going to cheese with poison arrows/bolts on my super tank dude. My plan is to use ranged as little as possible and man mode everything. Even Shrine of Amana should be no problem since i'll just equip a magic blocking greatshield for that part and run up on those fools.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Also, now that I've beaten the final boss, I think I'm going to start a new character. I know there are items you can only get in NG+/++, but are those just bling? Or is there something substantially worth getting? I find my fun is more in making new characters to play the game in different ways. At least, that's how I did things in Dark Souls. If anyone finds an analogue to Velka's Rapier in DS2, let me know, because I will immediately change my mind and go Sword-cery.
It happens all the time if you are trying to dodge and have low ADP. Probably the single biggest example I can think of is the pursuers glowy blue stab attack. You can roll right 'past' to the left or right and visually it misses you but then you get teleported backwards and impaled on the weapon. OTOH with much higher ADP I reliably dodged that attack every single time it came out.
There are also a couple straightswords that don't quite match up between visual range and actual hit range. And there's one kind of wonky spell that I suspect might be similar.
This isn't quite right. It's more like 'enemies of the same type do not damage other enemies of the same type'. Different type enemies can and do damage each other.
You can totally get Oscar to kill the black knights for you when you return to the undead asylum. He backstabs them even, if you arrange them right
And of course, who can forget the hydra's water blasts killing the crystal golems? Or the dragon incinerating all the undead on the bridge? I'm pretty sure the stray demon can kill the two hollows that drop down through the floor with you as well.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
Twohanded shield-build. Biggest shield.
I use the dragonrider bow, which actually has quite good str scaling.
Sadly, not only does it use a lot of stamina, but the draw time is much longer than the draw time on a shortbow.
No, there are definitely significantly good items that are NG+ only, even some boss soul trade ins, for example.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
IIRC, each one gives access to one final spell of each type.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
My win record against PC invaders is actually much better than my win record against NPC invaders
The red phantom before undead purgatory owned me several times.
Sinner...vosgel? The guy with the spear? Owned me about six times in row in that tiny area where you drop down into him and a million dogs. His backstabs one shot me. Then he has owned me again in several areas where I used bonfire ascetics and did NOT expect him to show up! There's no invasion message so you're just bopping along, saying "Ok, I know these areas already, I know the NPC attacks, sure they hit harder, so I just need to not get hit AAAAH THERE IS A SPEAR IN MY BACK - YOU HAVE DIED".
I got invaded (again) in no mans wharf yesterday, it was a spell using guy. Dodged his poison clouds and direct damage fire spells, only took very minor damage from the flame tempests (love my fully upgraded allone armor, so much fire resist, really ruins pyromancers) and destroyed him with lightning sword.
I finally downed the smelter demon. I just gave up on keeping lucatiel alive. The fight isn't that bad once I'm no longer trying to race the demon down against lucatiels tiny hit point pool. I'm sad that this probably means I lose out on some content.
Maybe at some point I'll try again with a dedicated cleric/healing character that could potentially keep her alive.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
Red-eye ring, though.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
You probably don't have enough points in Agility. It provides VERY noticeable immunity frames and chunks of time off healing that matter in the heat of battle. The stat has a soft cap of 110, where until then ADP provides 0.75 points and ATN provides 0.25 points per point in their respective stat. How much Agility you want depends on the type of character you are: a shield user or ranged caster can get away with less while a melee shield-less melee fighter would want more.
20 points in Adaptability for any melee build is very noticeable though, and well worth the investment.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Even if it didn't, lucatiel was too dumb not to get hit by the aoe's and stuff
That's good news though that the smelter demon at least is optional for her. From definitely put some thought into this!
I wish I could have buffed her with flash sweat or something
After lucatiel, I promise I will never comlain about Solaire's AI again. At least that guy knew how to use a shield.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
I'm getting inconsistent results at differing soul levels.
At SL 70-90 or so, wearing Drangleic Armor, I could still be stunlocked, but if I traded attacks I would not stagger and I would complete my swings. This was consistent. If I was caught by the initial blow at neutral, then the followups would stunlock. It acted like armoring through attacks only if my attack was already initiated. This is consistent with what has been described by some on this board. Poise at this time was about 58-66.
At SL 130-135, wearing Creighton armor/helm plus some heavier pieces, I'm at 36 Poise, and my attacks are now interrupt-able. However, I switched to Alonne Captain armor/Vengarl helm etc for 68 poise, and would still occasionally get staggered or interrupted.
One of my theories is that at lower SL's, available weapons don't do a whole lot of poise damage, which becomes less common as players advance into higher SL's and have access to stronger weapons.
I really hopethe pvp level range can be finalized soon so better testing can be done with the different weapons and armor/poise breakdowns.
Edit: This is regarding PVP only.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
Caster who could backpedal about as fast as I could sprint towards them. It was close. I used terrain to get estrus heals off during casts that weren't dodgaeble. But eventually I got killed in a mad dash to get the last hit and face tanked a spell.
It was fun though. And I appreciated that the invader backed off while I killed the zombies in our area then we duel bowed and started. Was cool.
I need to figure out what to do with stats and build though and find more weapon options. Using a fire long sword +3 and a morning star +3 and the dean helix shield these days.
Just added some points to faith to use the chime but I don't have any miracles yet hah.
Also, RE: NG+, there is new stuff going way up in the numbers. I don't think we've come close to finding it all out. NG+ has a couple new boss soul trade weapons, including the Moonlight Greatsword which is god tier of all god tiers for INT users.
Also, if you want to know true hell, know this: You know how the Pursuer shows back up in Smelter's room on NG? Well, on NG+ 2 of them show up in the Drangleic Throne room. And remember how on NG+ Lost Sinner gains a couple pyromancer adds? Well, I read that on one of the late NG+s(I think it was NG+7) Lost Sinner's 2 adds are now Pursuers.
Lost Sinner plus 2 Pursuers. One must truly git gud in order to take on such a fight.
Sinner + 2 Pursuer, all of which probably have ungodly amounts of HP, would just be depressing.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
I'm assuming it's bullshit like the white ring making your red soapstone look friendly, but maybe this one isn't.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
On a side note, does poison work on ANY bosses? All the ones I've tried (with poison mist and poison broadsword) seem to be immune to it.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
There's enemy phantoms who will "invade" with no message. It's not really invading they just spawn when you pass a certain point in an area. You'll notice that they aren't players because 1. they don't move like one and 2. they ahve a chance to drop items.
I've seen "try poison" messages right in front of the Ancient Dragon boss fight.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/215elq/spoiler_bosses_you_can_poison_quite_easy_complete/
Smelter