It's funny to me that EpicNameBro has taken to calling increasing his adaptability as "Getting my placebo frames." Basically he's not even sure if you get i-frames for increasing adaptability, and if you do, how many it is and if it even makes a difference. But everybody has just taken it as fact that it happens, so everybody gets agility. And he worked on the official guide to the game and worked firsthand with From on parts of it. You'd think they might've told the people making the official guide what the stats do, but apparently not.
It reminded me of last week when I was watching one of the guys who streams PvP on twitch. He was invading a guy who just kept dodging him and knocking him down with a greatbow. This guy must've dodged him perfectly like 25 times in a row. So he's like "fuck this guy must have so much agility," and he messages the guy and asks what his ADP is. The guy is tells him and it's like 8 or 10 or some shit. And he's like damn, he must have sky high attunement and get his agility from that. So he asks and the guy tells him he has like 6 attunement.
The long and short of it is adaptability really doesn't do as much as people think. I beat NG, and NG+ on my Paladin with a medium roll and not even that much agility. The only agility I got was from my attunement, and it wasn't that much.
Then I played a light weight dual wielder and pumped ADP to the moon and had 110 agility, and you know what? Dodging enemy attacks feels exactly the same on both. The only thing that makes dodging feel better to me is lower equip load which just makes you roll further. That has a real and legit effect because there are attacks that you can dodge and get out of the way of that with ~69% you would clear initially but then still be in range to get hit by the back end.
It makes a noticeable difference. I can't point you towards evidence, and I couldn't point out the exact differences, but it's something you instinctively notice, especially when you play lots of videogames. Maybe it's overstated, sure, but it's definitely not a "placebo".
Scaling question. Posting in both threads for assistance.
Dex weapon does 155 damage at base stat requirement at 25 DEX.
The weapon scales S with DEX.
If I bump DEX to 40 for the softcap, that's 15 more levels.
What will be the damage difference at 40 DEX?
Basically:
25 DEX = 155 Damage with S scaling
40 DEX = ??? Damage with S scaling
Can someone help fill in the blank here? Thanks in advance.
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
It's funny to me that EpicNameBro has taken to calling increasing his adaptability as "Getting my placebo frames." Basically he's not even sure if you get i-frames for increasing adaptability, and if you do, how many it is and if it even makes a difference. But everybody has just taken it as fact that it happens, so everybody gets agility. And he worked on the official guide to the game and worked firsthand with From on parts of it. You'd think they might've told the people making the official guide what the stats do, but apparently not.
It reminded me of last week when I was watching one of the guys who streams PvP on twitch. He was invading a guy who just kept dodging him and knocking him down with a greatbow. This guy must've dodged him perfectly like 25 times in a row. So he's like "fuck this guy must have so much agility," and he messages the guy and asks what his ADP is. The guy is tells him and it's like 8 or 10 or some shit. And he's like damn, he must have sky high attunement and get his agility from that. So he asks and the guy tells him he has like 6 attunement.
The long and short of it is adaptability really doesn't do as much as people think. I beat NG, and NG+ on my Paladin with a medium roll and not even that much agility. The only agility I got was from my attunement, and it wasn't that much.
Then I played a light weight dual wielder and pumped ADP to the moon and had 110 agility, and you know what? Dodging enemy attacks feels exactly the same on both. The only thing that makes dodging feel better to me is lower equip load which just makes you roll further. That has a real and legit effect because there are attacks that you can dodge and get out of the way of that with ~69% you would clear initially but then still be in range to get hit by the back end.
It makes a noticeable difference. I can't point you towards evidence, and I couldn't point out the exact differences, but it's something you instinctively notice, especially when you play lots of videogames. Maybe it's overstated, sure, but it's definitely not a "placebo".
Like I said, I've played 90 AGI characters and 110 AGI characters both and neither one of them ever felt any different to me with regard to dodging. Estus drinking, lifegems, even recovery time after getting hit, certainly, but never i-frames. That's not to say I don't believe it, and in fact one of those videos on the last page someone posted seems pretty convincing to me that it does give you extra i-frames at the beginning of your roll.
It certainly lets you play a bit looser. Gives you a bit of a handicap.
It's funny to me that EpicNameBro has taken to calling increasing his adaptability as "Getting my placebo frames." Basically he's not even sure if you get i-frames for increasing adaptability, and if you do, how many it is and if it even makes a difference. But everybody has just taken it as fact that it happens, so everybody gets agility. And he worked on the official guide to the game and worked firsthand with From on parts of it. You'd think they might've told the people making the official guide what the stats do, but apparently not.
It reminded me of last week when I was watching one of the guys who streams PvP on twitch. He was invading a guy who just kept dodging him and knocking him down with a greatbow. This guy must've dodged him perfectly like 25 times in a row. So he's like "fuck this guy must have so much agility," and he messages the guy and asks what his ADP is. The guy is tells him and it's like 8 or 10 or some shit. And he's like damn, he must have sky high attunement and get his agility from that. So he asks and the guy tells him he has like 6 attunement.
The long and short of it is adaptability really doesn't do as much as people think. I beat NG, and NG+ on my Paladin with a medium roll and not even that much agility. The only agility I got was from my attunement, and it wasn't that much.
Then I played a light weight dual wielder and pumped ADP to the moon and had 110 agility, and you know what? Dodging enemy attacks feels exactly the same on both. The only thing that makes dodging feel better to me is lower equip load which just makes you roll further. That has a real and legit effect because there are attacks that you can dodge and get out of the way of that with ~69% you would clear initially but then still be in range to get hit by the back end.
I can tell you from experience that there's a colossal difference between 85 agility and, like, 92-94 or so. At 85 I successfully dodged Old Knights exactly zero times. Once my Adaptability hit 14-ish it became easy. Of course, at that point, if you're good at rolling, it becomes practically impossible to tell whether or not there's a difference between 93 and 100 or 100 and 110. For my part I hit an even 100 and then stopped, and I probably could have stopped at 95 if I felt like I needed another stat more.
What S represents varies between different weapons, but I believe with DEX it's anything above 0.85*DEX bonus.
According to that, by bumping DEX to 40 I only get 12.75 extra damage added to the base?
I may not be understanding that correctly. For example:
S: 0.85 * DEX BNS (120)
Does that mean 0.85 multiplied by the number of additional points in DEX? Because that is how I'm getting 12.75. It doesnt look right. I'm hoping I'm missing something.
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
It's funny to me that EpicNameBro has taken to calling increasing his adaptability as "Getting my placebo frames." Basically he's not even sure if you get i-frames for increasing adaptability, and if you do, how many it is and if it even makes a difference. But everybody has just taken it as fact that it happens, so everybody gets agility. And he worked on the official guide to the game and worked firsthand with From on parts of it. You'd think they might've told the people making the official guide what the stats do, but apparently not.
It reminded me of last week when I was watching one of the guys who streams PvP on twitch. He was invading a guy who just kept dodging him and knocking him down with a greatbow. This guy must've dodged him perfectly like 25 times in a row. So he's like "fuck this guy must have so much agility," and he messages the guy and asks what his ADP is. The guy is tells him and it's like 8 or 10 or some shit. And he's like damn, he must have sky high attunement and get his agility from that. So he asks and the guy tells him he has like 6 attunement.
The long and short of it is adaptability really doesn't do as much as people think. I beat NG, and NG+ on my Paladin with a medium roll and not even that much agility. The only agility I got was from my attunement, and it wasn't that much.
Then I played a light weight dual wielder and pumped ADP to the moon and had 110 agility, and you know what? Dodging enemy attacks feels exactly the same on both. The only thing that makes dodging feel better to me is lower equip load which just makes you roll further. That has a real and legit effect because there are attacks that you can dodge and get out of the way of that with ~69% you would clear initially but then still be in range to get hit by the back end.
It makes a noticeable difference. I can't point you towards evidence, and I couldn't point out the exact differences, but it's something you instinctively notice, especially when you play lots of videogames. Maybe it's overstated, sure, but it's definitely not a "placebo".
Like I said, I've played 90 AGI characters and 110 AGI characters both and neither one of them ever felt any different to me with regard to dodging. Estus drinking, lifegems, even recovery time after getting hit, certainly, but never i-frames. That's not to say I don't believe it, and in fact one of those videos on the last page someone posted seems pretty convincing to me that it does give you extra i-frames at the beginning of your roll.
It certainly lets you play a bit looser. Gives you a bit of a handicap.
Litereally what I was about to post. Maybe you've got the timing down to the point where you don't need that extra bit of convenience anymore? I know that even if I did, I'd still like at least some room for errors.
Another point about PvP: You lose in exactly all the ways you don't normally lose in dark souls. That's ass.
Shitty hit detection? Dark Souls would rarely ever burden you with that... but if you're online and lag is happening, you bet your ass you can circle strafe somebody while targeting them with a greatshield up, and somehow still get hit as if you stopped blocking, or randomly do the same to your opponent.
Tells on attacks that basically always allow you to avoid them? Who needs those, you're going to take damage and then see the hit, or start your second swing and then see if your first stunned.
Consistent hitstun? Nope! Whether you can swing once, twice, three times, or until your stamina runs out while attacking your enemy is seemingly random! And the previous issue means you don't even know if they rolled until your first missed swing!
Instakills? Occasionally present, in obvious danger. But here? You have to assume the merest touch of a sword, and every single spell you have zero way of having seen before, will kill you!
Yes, a lot of this is, essentially, whining about lag. Except I'm on a 10 MB/s internet connection that averages 20-40 ping on other steam games, so it isn't even my lag that's being problematic. I love dark souls, but everything about it's PvP is and seems forever likely to be ass.
Do you play with like, a lot of people from around the world? Maybe set the game to restricted or what it is called.
All my PvP interactions on the PC has been lag less and so much fun. I seriously haven't seen any of the issues you bring up.
What S represents varies between different weapons, but I believe with DEX it's anything above 0.85*DEX bonus.
According to that, by bumping DEX to 40 I only get 12.75 extra damage added to the base?
I may not be understanding that correctly. For example:
S: 0.85 * DEX BNS (120)
Does that mean 0.85 multiplied by the number of additional points in DEX? Because that is how I'm getting 12.75. It doesnt look right. I'm hoping I'm missing something.
No, it means 0.85 multiplied by the number of your DEX bonus(this goes up when you increase DEX.)
For example, if 1 additional point of DEX gives you 3 DEX bonus(not uncommon at certain levels), then you would get 3*0.85=2.55 damage just from that point of DEX. It should also be noted that these are lower values than STR in DS2. S scaling on STR is I think 1.3*STR bonus and up, so basically DEX weapons plain don't scale as hard as STR ones.
There are some really good scaling DEX weapons, I know the blacksteel katana's S is very good for example. But moveset and poison/bleed bonus are supposed to be things that appeal for DEX weapons.
IMO(and this is only my opinion), DEX weapons are best served by using them with minimum requirements and putting them in infuse builds. Most DEX weapons have very good movesets, so if you use rapiers, rather than go 40 DEX I prefer to go minimum DEX required, then FTH and lightning infuse your weapons, or go dark bonus and dark/resonant infuse, or even INT and magic infuse. That way you get the moveset but you typically get considerably higher damage out of the weapons.
That's not to say just DEX weapons aren't fine though. On the character ENB is playing on the PC version he's dual wielding rapiers and they seem to hit very damn hard in power stance with 40 DEX and uninfused. He's not even using esper rotaters yet either (shoutout to @Morninglord )
What S represents varies between different weapons, but I believe with DEX it's anything above 0.85*DEX bonus.
According to that, by bumping DEX to 40 I only get 12.75 extra damage added to the base?
I may not be understanding that correctly. For example:
S: 0.85 * DEX BNS (120)
Does that mean 0.85 multiplied by the number of additional points in DEX? Because that is how I'm getting 12.75. It doesnt look right. I'm hoping I'm missing something.
No, it means 0.85 multiplied by the number of your DEX bonus(this goes up when you increase DEX.)
For example, if 1 additional point of DEX gives you 3 DEX bonus(not uncommon at certain levels), then you would get 3*0.85=2.55 damage just from that point of DEX. It should also be noted that these are lower values than STR in DS2. S scaling on STR is I think 1.3*STR bonus and up, so basically DEX weapons plain don't scale as hard as STR ones.
There are some really good scaling DEX weapons, I know the blacksteel katana's S is very good for example. But moveset and poison/bleed bonus are supposed to be things that appeal for DEX weapons.
IMO(and this is only my opinion), DEX weapons are best served by using them with minimum requirements and putting them in infuse builds. Most DEX weapons have very good movesets, so if you use rapiers, rather than go 40 DEX I prefer to go minimum DEX required, then FTH and lightning infuse your weapons, or go dark bonus and dark/resonant infuse, or even INT and magic infuse. That way you get the moveset but you typically get considerably higher damage out of the weapons.
That's not to say just DEX weapons aren't fine though. On the character ENB is playing on the PC version he's dual wielding rapiers and they seem to hit very damn hard in power stance with 40 DEX and uninfused. He's not even using esper rotaters yet either (shoutout to @Morninglord )
I rarely infuse unless it's a clear, clear best choice. I'm going to hopefully progress to the point where I can test infusions on this particular S-dex weapon tonight. Infusing anything on my STR build seemed to be a waste of time though, even on something that only had B scaling. The straight un-infused damage always won out.
Having said that, I almost never resin either on my STR builds. People always die in 2-3 hits even infused with say Dark resin so I'm not sure I need to spend the souls on resin stocks.
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
0
Sirialisof the Halite Throne.Registered Userregular
On the PS3, I have gotten more positive/neutral/friendly PSN messages after Invasions and Duels than hatemail. It's actually kinda nice.
I remember getting oh so much hatemail on the PC version of DS1.
This is definitely true for Brobox360 too in my experience, I have gotten like 2-3 angry messages, but nothing resorting to namecalling, one guy complained about being killed, another dude thought it was rude that I didnt bow before killing him etc.
But I think I got like 10+ positive messages, thanking me for helping out with a boss mostly, others have been for showing secret stuff, best Co-op experience I had, was a guy I summoned in the Belltower, I got invaded just after summoning him and the invader killed my summoned dude
I killed the invader and resummoned the dude again, we killed the Gargoyles with no trouble at all, he messages me asking for my help with them, I put down my sign and was summoned promptly, it went off without a hitch again and he was happy, this was like in the span of 15 minutes even.
Compare this to Call of Duty, where a guy once wished for me to die from cancer because I killed him.
EDIT: Oh, you were talking about Covenant of Blood encounters, whoops! I meant as in overall online experience.
I really wish I could reverse the RB/LB controls to RT/LT and vice-versa.
Some people suggested using X360ce, but for the life of me I can't get that program to work. Every time I try to save the changes as a preset, it just resets to default controls upon playing the game.
So, I know blunt weapons are known to hit really hard against armored enemies, and I have a +9 mace that tends to be a fair bit better than my +9 Fire Claymore or +9 Lightning Halberd. Assuming ~30 strength and faith, would infusing it with lightning make it better or worse for this purpose? I know in Dark Souls 1 high-protection enemies tended to resist split damage pretty well, but I'm not sure how different that is this time around.
I really miss getting random messages from people, even the rude ones. With steam that just won't happen.
In other news, PC users should be cautions about installing graphic mods. I don't know what "VAC"-secured means but people on reddit says that anything that modifies dlls and/or possibly adds more dlls to the game can get you banned.
It's funny to me that EpicNameBro has taken to calling increasing his adaptability as "Getting my placebo frames." Basically he's not even sure if you get i-frames for increasing adaptability, and if you do, how many it is and if it even makes a difference. But everybody has just taken it as fact that it happens, so everybody gets agility. And he worked on the official guide to the game and worked firsthand with From on parts of it. You'd think they might've told the people making the official guide what the stats do, but apparently not.
It reminded me of last week when I was watching one of the guys who streams PvP on twitch. He was invading a guy who just kept dodging him and knocking him down with a greatbow. This guy must've dodged him perfectly like 25 times in a row. So he's like "fuck this guy must have so much agility," and he messages the guy and asks what his ADP is. The guy is tells him and it's like 8 or 10 or some shit. And he's like damn, he must have sky high attunement and get his agility from that. So he asks and the guy tells him he has like 6 attunement.
The long and short of it is adaptability really doesn't do as much as people think. I beat NG, and NG+ on my Paladin with a medium roll and not even that much agility. The only agility I got was from my attunement, and it wasn't that much.
Then I played a light weight dual wielder and pumped ADP to the moon and had 110 agility, and you know what? Dodging enemy attacks feels exactly the same on both. The only thing that makes dodging feel better to me is lower equip load which just makes you roll further. That has a real and legit effect because there are attacks that you can dodge and get out of the way of that with ~69% you would clear initially but then still be in range to get hit by the back end.
I've been pumping ADP to 100 agility on my recent characters. The rolls feel better, but I'll be goddamned if it's just placebo in truth.
My ADP is 3. My ATN is now back down to 2. It was briefly 10.
30 STR, 25 DEX, 32 VIT, 16 VGR, 10 END
Right Hand: Lightning Bastard Sword +10
Left Hand: Bastard Sword +10
Full Smelter Demon Set
I slaughter about 80-90% of the PvP foes I've come across. Therefore, ADP is unimportant to me. I'm not saying it is ineffective or doesn't work or anything, but I do fine without it so I frankly don't care about it at all.
If you're going pure Poise/Defense/HP Tank and don't focus on rolling, Agility isn't as important to your build.
You can make builds that don't need it. It's just important if you want to dodge things.
I roll around a lot both in PvP and PvE. I don't always escape attacks and yes, I can take a few hits, but by and large I'm fairly successful at evading attacks. Abstinence (from damage) is still the best policy.
So here's some newbie questions that I'm sure overall have been covered here, but I've only just looked at the thread, so I apologize for that.
I started off as a knight then ended up remaking as a cleric so I wouldn't have to worry about buying heal right off. I'm only a little bit into the first area. I'm trying to do a sort of melee cleric thing.
I was leveling up the Mace that I started with. Are the shards a limited drop or are they rare drops? It seems like I'd find something better than the standard mace but I saw suggestions elsewhere to raise it. I use it with a preorder shield I have, though I mostly go two handed for the speed.
Is there any purpose to lighting torches? I went back and did all the ones in the beginner area expecting..something. Didn't seem to do anything. Seems like maybe their only purpose is to have a nearby source where you can light a torch, perhaps?
I was thinking I'd mostly focus on Str, Vit, End, and make sure I have enough of the stat that lets me roll decently when I have heavier armor on. And I was going to play Miracle and such by ear as I progress and see what sort of spells become available.
Oh and I didn't play much Dark Souls 1 but I played a bit of Demon's Souls. Is there any sort of ring for hollow mode so that you aren't always down such a huge chunk of health?
I had a few more questions but I forgot what they are =p.
EDIT - oh yeah, and can I sell any of this tons of hollow gear and stuff I get?
So here's some newbie questions that I'm sure overall have been covered here, but I've only just looked at the thread, so I apologize for that.
I started off as a knight then ended up remaking as a cleric so I wouldn't have to worry about buying heal right off. I'm only a little bit into the first area. I'm trying to do a sort of melee cleric thing.
I was leveling up the Mace that I started with. Are the shards a limited drop or are they rare drops? It seems like I'd find something better than the standard mace but I saw suggestions elsewhere to raise it. I use it with a preorder shield I have, though I mostly go two handed for the speed.
Is there any purpose to lighting torches? I went back and did all the ones in the beginner area expecting..something. Didn't seem to do anything. Seems like maybe their only purpose is to have a nearby source where you can light a torch, perhaps?
I was thinking I'd mostly focus on Str, Vit, End, and make sure I have enough of the stat that lets me roll decently when I have heavier armor on. And I was going to play Miracle and such by ear as I progress and see what sort of spells become available.
Oh and I didn't play much Dark Souls 1 but I played a bit of Demon's Souls. Is there any sort of ring for hollow mode so that you aren't always down such a huge chunk of health?
I had a few more questions but I forgot what they are =p.
Thanks!
Titanite Shards are a bit scarce early on, but in the midgame you can find/buy a lot of them and a bit after that you can just buy an infinite amount. Large shards are about the same (you can buy an infinite amount early if you find the right vendor), and chunks can be farmed though the Bell Keeper covenant.
Torches tend to not do much beyond giving you light and maybe affecting the behavior of some enemies. There's one or two exceptions, but you can realistically expect that lighting a brazier won't make a hidden wall open up or anything like that.
Lightning-infused weapons scale with Faith (and fire as well), so you might want to consider hitting your minimum strength requirements and then focusing a bit more on Faith rather than taking Strength purely for damage.
The Ring of Binding halves the health lost to hollowing. You can find it extremely early in
So here's some newbie questions that I'm sure overall have been covered here, but I've only just looked at the thread, so I apologize for that.
I started off as a knight then ended up remaking as a cleric so I wouldn't have to worry about buying heal right off. I'm only a little bit into the first area. I'm trying to do a sort of melee cleric thing.
I was leveling up the Mace that I started with. Are the shards a limited drop or are they rare drops? It seems like I'd find something better than the standard mace but I saw suggestions elsewhere to raise it. I use it with a preorder shield I have, though I mostly go two handed for the speed.
Is there any purpose to lighting torches? I went back and did all the ones in the beginner area expecting..something. Didn't seem to do anything. Seems like maybe their only purpose is to have a nearby source where you can light a torch, perhaps?
I was thinking I'd mostly focus on Str, Vit, End, and make sure I have enough of the stat that lets me roll decently when I have heavier armor on. And I was going to play Miracle and such by ear as I progress and see what sort of spells become available.
Oh and I didn't play much Dark Souls 1 but I played a bit of Demon's Souls. Is there any sort of ring for hollow mode so that you aren't always down such a huge chunk of health?
I had a few more questions but I forgot what they are =p.
EDIT - oh yeah, and can I sell any of this tons of hollow gear and stuff I get?
Thanks!
Mace is good, if you like it stick with it. All the shards that upgrade weapons such as the mace eventually become unlimited purchase items and also are found/dropped plenty frequently. Don't worry about using them. Twinkling titanite/Petrified dragon bones upgrade specialty items and are a little more premium so don't sling them around as crazy.
No purpose for torches beyond giving you light/another place to light the torch if you want.
Yes, there is a ring of binding that is basically a better version of the cling ring(I think the max HP it lets you keep is higher than 75% though i'm not perfectly certain about that). You get it in Heide's tower of flame early game.
Yes, there is a dude who loves to wheel and deal who will buy your crap for souls. You meet him, then he moves and you meet him again, then he moves to a permanent location.
So here's some newbie questions that I'm sure overall have been covered here, but I've only just looked at the thread, so I apologize for that.
I started off as a knight then ended up remaking as a cleric so I wouldn't have to worry about buying heal right off. I'm only a little bit into the first area. I'm trying to do a sort of melee cleric thing.
I was leveling up the Mace that I started with. Are the shards a limited drop or are they rare drops? It seems like I'd find something better than the standard mace but I saw suggestions elsewhere to raise it. I use it with a preorder shield I have, though I mostly go two handed for the speed.
Is there any purpose to lighting torches? I went back and did all the ones in the beginner area expecting..something. Didn't seem to do anything. Seems like maybe their only purpose is to have a nearby source where you can light a torch, perhaps?
I was thinking I'd mostly focus on Str, Vit, End, and make sure I have enough of the stat that lets me roll decently when I have heavier armor on. And I was going to play Miracle and such by ear as I progress and see what sort of spells become available.
Oh and I didn't play much Dark Souls 1 but I played a bit of Demon's Souls. Is there any sort of ring for hollow mode so that you aren't always down such a huge chunk of health?
I had a few more questions but I forgot what they are =p.
Thanks!
Titanite Shards are a bit scarce early on, but in the midgame you can find/buy a lot of them and a bit after that you can just buy an infinite amount. Large shards are about the same (you can buy an infinite amount early if you find the right vendor), and chunks can be farmed though the Bell Keeper covenant.
Torches tend to not do much beyond giving you light and maybe affecting the behavior of some enemies. There's one or two exceptions, but you can realistically expect that lighting a brazier won't make a hidden wall open up or anything like that.
Lightning-infused weapons scale with Faith (and fire as well), so you might want to consider hitting your minimum strength requirements and then focusing a bit more on Faith rather than taking Strength purely for damage.
The Ring of Binding halves the health lost to hollowing. You can find it extremely early in
Heide's Tower of Flame
Thanks for the info, very much appreciated. I just got to the area mentioned in your spoiler, though I've not yet actually completed the Forest of Fallen Giants.
I don't know what my minimum str requirements are yet since I don't know what all is in the game yet but I'll try and balance it out some with faith, as you suggested.
I had heard souls are limited in this game in some way so as to discourage grinding, though I don't know the specifics, so I was concerned even buying things might become an issue if I do too horribly, though I'm doing somewhat decently so far.
@joshmvii - Excellent! That is good to know. My inventory was starting to get quite cluttered. Getting some extra souls for all my junk will not make me at all sad
I really should drop my dream of doing "competitive" pvp. Half a second of lag is half a second too much. I hit a guy right before he hits me, it registers late so he continues his attack animation and we both take damage and flinch at the same time. This happened three one-handed R1s in a row, my thorned greatsword vs a goddamn zweihander. I get hopelessly outpaced by anyone toting a washing pole (so, you know, every other guy), and that's not even considering the bullshit known as phantom range.
If I hear a meaty chunk when my weapon hits a guy at the start/end of his roll, is that supposed to mean I connected? Because in my experience it does not.
I was wondering why I could stomp less-than-stellar opponents to the ground and still get wrecked by people who don't consistently leave themselves open and aren't afraid to punish mistakes and commit.
Good god. I just literally spent a whole hour bashing my head against the Ruin Sentinels solo. I got pretty close about 10 times, but each time one of their bullshit perfectly timed across-the-map combos would take me out.
I really really want to love that boss fight in the way I did S&O, but I just feel that it is worse designed. There is no sense of an intense duel, just endless, merciless deaths caused by an attack somehow clipping me at the very edge of range and invulnerability frames.
So, random thoughts with my weekend experiance with DS
Holy shit do you start off weaker then in Dark Souls 1. In Dark Souls, I was pretty comfortable making theme builds with minimumish vitality and endurance, and instead pumping my stats to use different weapons/builds.
Dark Souls 2 is having NONE OF THAT SHIT. Start off as a Warrior? Grats you have some pretty nice starting stats to equip different things! But WHOOPS, KINDA ignored Endurance/ADAPTABILITY, THE MOST IMPORTANT STAT IN THE GAME.
Oh, and by the way, there are no 100% physblock shields FOR A WHILE. And they all have SHIT stability. And your rolls are SHIT GARBAGE USELESS.
So you can't block much, and you can't roll anything. And poise is useless...But...uh...grats on being able to equip some of the pre-order stuff?
Did we mention you only get 1 Estus flask and limited consumable health items to start?
I am the master of alts, so it took awhile(pretty much a day) to figure out anything that wasn't Cleric(olol Heal crutch)/Swordsman/Knight was going to be an INFURIATING early experiance. Warrior is the trap. Knight is the light, giving you decent health, bare minimum acceptable endurance, and actually functional Adaptablility.
SPEAKING OF STATS.
Adaptability. I can't believe I loathe a stat so much, and love it at the same time. For one, it creates BUILD PROBLEMS. MASSIVE early on build problems. You have 3 stats that are fairly necessary.
ENDURANCE
Vitality
Vigor
Endurance lets you do things. Pretty important. But since they split DS1 Endurance into Endurance and Vitality, you will need a minimum amount of Vitality to make sure you can at least Medium roll in heavy armor. Vigor, of course, is straight health. Which could be ignored, except that with the lack of healing items/limited estus early on, having more than minimum health is VERY good, especially with the hollowing penalties. However, ALL of these hilariously important stats, are dwarfed in comparison, to
ADAPTABILITY.
It's so much better than three HILARIOUSLY NECESSARY STATS, it borderlines on DUMB FUCKING SHIT. Would you like to roll out of the way of an attack? ADAPTABILITY. Would you like to raise your shield in an appropriate amount of time? ADAPTABILITY. Would you like to MOVE, AT AN ACCEPTABLE SPEED? ADAPTAFUCKINGBILITY.
When you put an excessive amount of points into it? It's God. Plain and simple. It's better than anything. You can be naked with a highly upgraded single weapon Vs. someone who made the most ridiculous overpowered Saniter's spear build of all time. If they had 3 adaptability vs. your 40? You could literally walk all over them.
PvE? More I-frames and roll range then God ever intended man to ever have. Without it? Good luck BLOCKING THINGS.
All of this, and I haven't even gotten to, you know, your MAIN, PRIMARY STATS THAT ALLOW YOU TO EQUIP DIFFERENT WEAPONS AND ARMOR.
They are BAD in comparison to Adaptability/Endurance/Vitality/Vigor. BAD. The ability to wear different things, and equip different classes of weapons are BAD, TERRIBLE, in comparison. That's a LITTLE bit of a problem.
Now I know this was a concious descision From made, and I know it becomes less of a problem when you get aclimated to the game.
Now I know all of that sounds like I hate the game, but it's still hilariously good, which speaks volumes. And I haven't even gotten to complaining about the enemy design.
I've played for like 40 hours on PC, mostly on one character. I started as a swordsman, and I might have added a point or two of adaptability, but certainly not a lot. I'm not convinced it's at all necessary. I'm using a dex character, and I dodge pretty much everything pretty easily. My go-to method of fighting is to bait out a swing, dodge it, and counter attack. The regular backstep+R1 attack is a great move for a lot of the weapons I use. My friends were actually commenting that I was great at dodging when we were doing the Old Knight area, because I fought them man mode with my shield on my back while dodging and swiping without getting hit.
Moral of the story- I don't think adaptability is required. I hesitate to say it's a bad stat, because I haven't leveled it to any real extent, but I sure as Hell don't miss it (at least, not yet).
Derrick on
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Nostalgia is the best drug there is. Anything that killed you in Dark Souls was "intense, harrowing, super fair, great design" but in DS2 it's "fucking cheap bullshit bad game design"
What you heard about souls is more about the fact that enemies stop respawning after being killed 12 times. It's in place so people who have a tough time on a boss will eventually make the enemies go extinct and have an easy path back to the boss.
It really does not serve at all to limit souls acquired, and even if you wanted to "level grind" you can just get summoned to do co-op and get souls that way on top of your regular ones.
I'm gonna take a break before getting into DS2. I feel like going straight from DS1 obsession to DS2 is making me frustrated by every little change. I keep trying to play my starting Knight in DS2 like my late game Knight in DS1, and it is bad.
What you heard about souls is more about the fact that enemies stop respawning after being killed 12 times. It's in place so people who have a tough time on a boss will eventually make the enemies go extinct and have an easy path back to the boss.
It really does not serve at all to limit souls acquired, and even if you wanted to "level grind" you can just get summoned to do co-op and get souls that way on top of your regular ones.
I was a bit upset about the enemy extinction at first. Then I actually tried co-op.
Oh man.
The co-op is SO MUCH BETTER in DS2. They fixed that net code but good. You'll never be at a loss for souls if you want to farm them. It's completely a non-issue in that regard.
Just first time'd the Belfry Gargoyles at Luna with help from a friendly spirit.
Never felt so good.
Congrats! I managed to stumble onto that fight without being prepared (wasn't healed, didn't summon anyone, etc.). I just managed to eke out a rather longish solo victory against them. It was stressful but I was sooooo happy.
I'm gonna take a break before getting into DS2. I feel like going straight from DS1 obsession to DS2 is making me frustrated by every little change. I keep trying to play my starting Knight in DS2 like my late game Knight in DS1, and it is bad.
DS2's difficulty is part change, part actual awesome increase in difficulty, and part legit bullshit.
Like DS2 is a whole nother beast compared to DS1 mechanically. You start off weaker, and enemies start off stronger, and never like coming alone. Your rolls are different, some of your attacks are different, Estus flasks are limited and there are new systems to explore. This is all change.
Your standard garbage infantry hollows have 4 different attack patterns with various timings. There are even enemies that don't even HAVE set attack patterns, and can vary the timing on any of their initial attacks. This is awesome increase in difficulty.
And then there are groups of bullshit exploding zombies that can repeatedly explode for no reason whatsoever doing ridiculous amounts of damage that are not visible because they are sitting in water and if you don't have a decent sweeping damage weapon they are going to fall right before they get to you and you will miss and they will explode in your face, because they are lazy, terrible piece of shit enemy design. There is nothing reedeeming about these things from ANY perspective other then OLOL DAK SOULZ. That, is just straight up legit bullshit
Thankfully, it's the only instance I have found so far.
Ring of Binding seems good. I had it on constantly in my now-aborted, first, PS3 playthrough. But I haven't worn it at all in my current playthrough.
The reality is, you're much better off staying in human form. The game basically throws Human Effigies at you. And once you get a Ring of Life Protection, you can retain your humanity almost eternally anyway. I've spent 95% of my current playthrough in human form, usually with with a ring of life protection equipped (though not all the time).
Every time I messed up, I used an effigy almost immediately and I don't think I've ever had much less than 8 or 10 for my entire playthrough.
In ~90 hours and two characters I have been legit invaded exactly one time on NG. This is not counting the PvP areas of course. I still have yet to beat the game but I'm pretty close on the one guy so this may change but yeah. I'm wondering where all these invaders are.
Nostalgia is the best drug there is. Anything that killed you in Dark Souls was "intense, harrowing, super fair, great design" but in DS2 it's "fucking cheap bullshit bad game design"
I don't suffer nostalgia.
S&O was complete utter fucking bullshit and killed DS1 for me.
Nothing in DS2 is that bad. Okay, Ruin Sentinels is kinda shitty but not as bad.
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It makes a noticeable difference. I can't point you towards evidence, and I couldn't point out the exact differences, but it's something you instinctively notice, especially when you play lots of videogames. Maybe it's overstated, sure, but it's definitely not a "placebo".
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
Dex weapon does 155 damage at base stat requirement at 25 DEX.
The weapon scales S with DEX.
If I bump DEX to 40 for the softcap, that's 15 more levels.
What will be the damage difference at 40 DEX?
Basically:
25 DEX = 155 Damage with S scaling
40 DEX = ??? Damage with S scaling
Can someone help fill in the blank here? Thanks in advance.
Like I said, I've played 90 AGI characters and 110 AGI characters both and neither one of them ever felt any different to me with regard to dodging. Estus drinking, lifegems, even recovery time after getting hit, certainly, but never i-frames. That's not to say I don't believe it, and in fact one of those videos on the last page someone posted seems pretty convincing to me that it does give you extra i-frames at the beginning of your roll.
It certainly lets you play a bit looser. Gives you a bit of a handicap.
You should check this as it's the main testing I've seen done:
http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/20qjf2/guide_weapon_scaling/
What S represents varies between different weapons, but I believe with DEX it's anything above 0.85*DEX bonus.
According to that, by bumping DEX to 40 I only get 12.75 extra damage added to the base?
I may not be understanding that correctly. For example:
S: 0.85 * DEX BNS (120)
Does that mean 0.85 multiplied by the number of additional points in DEX? Because that is how I'm getting 12.75. It doesnt look right. I'm hoping I'm missing something.
Litereally what I was about to post. Maybe you've got the timing down to the point where you don't need that extra bit of convenience anymore? I know that even if I did, I'd still like at least some room for errors.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
Do you play with like, a lot of people from around the world? Maybe set the game to restricted or what it is called.
All my PvP interactions on the PC has been lag less and so much fun. I seriously haven't seen any of the issues you bring up.
first time i went ham and forgot about his explosion
No, it means 0.85 multiplied by the number of your DEX bonus(this goes up when you increase DEX.)
For example, if 1 additional point of DEX gives you 3 DEX bonus(not uncommon at certain levels), then you would get 3*0.85=2.55 damage just from that point of DEX. It should also be noted that these are lower values than STR in DS2. S scaling on STR is I think 1.3*STR bonus and up, so basically DEX weapons plain don't scale as hard as STR ones.
There are some really good scaling DEX weapons, I know the blacksteel katana's S is very good for example. But moveset and poison/bleed bonus are supposed to be things that appeal for DEX weapons.
IMO(and this is only my opinion), DEX weapons are best served by using them with minimum requirements and putting them in infuse builds. Most DEX weapons have very good movesets, so if you use rapiers, rather than go 40 DEX I prefer to go minimum DEX required, then FTH and lightning infuse your weapons, or go dark bonus and dark/resonant infuse, or even INT and magic infuse. That way you get the moveset but you typically get considerably higher damage out of the weapons.
That's not to say just DEX weapons aren't fine though. On the character ENB is playing on the PC version he's dual wielding rapiers and they seem to hit very damn hard in power stance with 40 DEX and uninfused. He's not even using esper rotaters yet either (shoutout to @Morninglord )
As soon as I figure out how to infuse things
I rarely infuse unless it's a clear, clear best choice. I'm going to hopefully progress to the point where I can test infusions on this particular S-dex weapon tonight. Infusing anything on my STR build seemed to be a waste of time though, even on something that only had B scaling. The straight un-infused damage always won out.
Having said that, I almost never resin either on my STR builds. People always die in 2-3 hits even infused with say Dark resin so I'm not sure I need to spend the souls on resin stocks.
This is definitely true for Brobox360 too in my experience, I have gotten like 2-3 angry messages, but nothing resorting to namecalling, one guy complained about being killed, another dude thought it was rude that I didnt bow before killing him etc.
But I think I got like 10+ positive messages, thanking me for helping out with a boss mostly, others have been for showing secret stuff, best Co-op experience I had, was a guy I summoned in the Belltower, I got invaded just after summoning him and the invader killed my summoned dude
I killed the invader and resummoned the dude again, we killed the Gargoyles with no trouble at all, he messages me asking for my help with them, I put down my sign and was summoned promptly, it went off without a hitch again and he was happy, this was like in the span of 15 minutes even.
Compare this to Call of Duty, where a guy once wished for me to die from cancer because I killed him.
EDIT: Oh, you were talking about Covenant of Blood encounters, whoops! I meant as in overall online experience.
Some people suggested using X360ce, but for the life of me I can't get that program to work. Every time I try to save the changes as a preset, it just resets to default controls upon playing the game.
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In other news, PC users should be cautions about installing graphic mods. I don't know what "VAC"-secured means but people on reddit says that anything that modifies dlls and/or possibly adds more dlls to the game can get you banned.
I roll around a lot both in PvP and PvE. I don't always escape attacks and yes, I can take a few hits, but by and large I'm fairly successful at evading attacks. Abstinence (from damage) is still the best policy.
I started off as a knight then ended up remaking as a cleric so I wouldn't have to worry about buying heal right off. I'm only a little bit into the first area. I'm trying to do a sort of melee cleric thing.
I was leveling up the Mace that I started with. Are the shards a limited drop or are they rare drops? It seems like I'd find something better than the standard mace but I saw suggestions elsewhere to raise it. I use it with a preorder shield I have, though I mostly go two handed for the speed.
Is there any purpose to lighting torches? I went back and did all the ones in the beginner area expecting..something. Didn't seem to do anything. Seems like maybe their only purpose is to have a nearby source where you can light a torch, perhaps?
I was thinking I'd mostly focus on Str, Vit, End, and make sure I have enough of the stat that lets me roll decently when I have heavier armor on. And I was going to play Miracle and such by ear as I progress and see what sort of spells become available.
Oh and I didn't play much Dark Souls 1 but I played a bit of Demon's Souls. Is there any sort of ring for hollow mode so that you aren't always down such a huge chunk of health?
I had a few more questions but I forgot what they are =p.
EDIT - oh yeah, and can I sell any of this tons of hollow gear and stuff I get?
Thanks!
Never felt so good.
Torches tend to not do much beyond giving you light and maybe affecting the behavior of some enemies. There's one or two exceptions, but you can realistically expect that lighting a brazier won't make a hidden wall open up or anything like that.
Lightning-infused weapons scale with Faith (and fire as well), so you might want to consider hitting your minimum strength requirements and then focusing a bit more on Faith rather than taking Strength purely for damage.
The Ring of Binding halves the health lost to hollowing. You can find it extremely early in
Mace is good, if you like it stick with it. All the shards that upgrade weapons such as the mace eventually become unlimited purchase items and also are found/dropped plenty frequently. Don't worry about using them. Twinkling titanite/Petrified dragon bones upgrade specialty items and are a little more premium so don't sling them around as crazy.
No purpose for torches beyond giving you light/another place to light the torch if you want.
Yes, there is a ring of binding that is basically a better version of the cling ring(I think the max HP it lets you keep is higher than 75% though i'm not perfectly certain about that). You get it in Heide's tower of flame early game.
Yes, there is a dude who loves to wheel and deal who will buy your crap for souls. You meet him, then he moves and you meet him again, then he moves to a permanent location.
Thanks for the info, very much appreciated. I just got to the area mentioned in your spoiler, though I've not yet actually completed the Forest of Fallen Giants.
I don't know what my minimum str requirements are yet since I don't know what all is in the game yet but I'll try and balance it out some with faith, as you suggested.
I had heard souls are limited in this game in some way so as to discourage grinding, though I don't know the specifics, so I was concerned even buying things might become an issue if I do too horribly, though I'm doing somewhat decently so far.
@joshmvii - Excellent! That is good to know. My inventory was starting to get quite cluttered. Getting some extra souls for all my junk will not make me at all sad
If I hear a meaty chunk when my weapon hits a guy at the start/end of his roll, is that supposed to mean I connected? Because in my experience it does not.
I was wondering why I could stomp less-than-stellar opponents to the ground and still get wrecked by people who don't consistently leave themselves open and aren't afraid to punish mistakes and commit.
I really really want to love that boss fight in the way I did S&O, but I just feel that it is worse designed. There is no sense of an intense duel, just endless, merciless deaths caused by an attack somehow clipping me at the very edge of range and invulnerability frames.
I've played for like 40 hours on PC, mostly on one character. I started as a swordsman, and I might have added a point or two of adaptability, but certainly not a lot. I'm not convinced it's at all necessary. I'm using a dex character, and I dodge pretty much everything pretty easily. My go-to method of fighting is to bait out a swing, dodge it, and counter attack. The regular backstep+R1 attack is a great move for a lot of the weapons I use. My friends were actually commenting that I was great at dodging when we were doing the Old Knight area, because I fought them man mode with my shield on my back while dodging and swiping without getting hit.
Moral of the story- I don't think adaptability is required. I hesitate to say it's a bad stat, because I haven't leveled it to any real extent, but I sure as Hell don't miss it (at least, not yet).
It really does not serve at all to limit souls acquired, and even if you wanted to "level grind" you can just get summoned to do co-op and get souls that way on top of your regular ones.
I was a bit upset about the enemy extinction at first. Then I actually tried co-op.
Oh man.
The co-op is SO MUCH BETTER in DS2. They fixed that net code but good. You'll never be at a loss for souls if you want to farm them. It's completely a non-issue in that regard.
Congrats! I managed to stumble onto that fight without being prepared (wasn't healed, didn't summon anyone, etc.). I just managed to eke out a rather longish solo victory against them. It was stressful but I was sooooo happy.
DS2's difficulty is part change, part actual awesome increase in difficulty, and part legit bullshit.
Like DS2 is a whole nother beast compared to DS1 mechanically. You start off weaker, and enemies start off stronger, and never like coming alone. Your rolls are different, some of your attacks are different, Estus flasks are limited and there are new systems to explore. This is all change.
Your standard garbage infantry hollows have 4 different attack patterns with various timings. There are even enemies that don't even HAVE set attack patterns, and can vary the timing on any of their initial attacks. This is awesome increase in difficulty.
And then there are groups of bullshit exploding zombies that can repeatedly explode for no reason whatsoever doing ridiculous amounts of damage that are not visible because they are sitting in water and if you don't have a decent sweeping damage weapon they are going to fall right before they get to you and you will miss and they will explode in your face, because they are lazy, terrible piece of shit enemy design. There is nothing reedeeming about these things from ANY perspective other then OLOL DAK SOULZ. That, is just straight up legit bullshit
Thankfully, it's the only instance I have found so far.
The reality is, you're much better off staying in human form. The game basically throws Human Effigies at you. And once you get a Ring of Life Protection, you can retain your humanity almost eternally anyway. I've spent 95% of my current playthrough in human form, usually with with a ring of life protection equipped (though not all the time).
Every time I messed up, I used an effigy almost immediately and I don't think I've ever had much less than 8 or 10 for my entire playthrough.
Being human just makes the game more enjoyable.
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The only thing better than the bottom of Sinner's Rise is Straid's bonfire.
I don't suffer nostalgia.
S&O was complete utter fucking bullshit and killed DS1 for me.
Nothing in DS2 is that bad. Okay, Ruin Sentinels is kinda shitty but not as bad.