Also my problem with mace is how slow it is. Fighting one on one this isn't so much a problem but against groups the thing causes me to take much more damage than other, better weapons for that sort of thing.
Slow? It hits not any slower than my claymore, and for better damage on practically everything.
It does have problems against groups but that is more due to not really having any decent sweep.
Man I miss the Large Club's old R1. The step sweep was so fun.
A mace hits for significantly less damage than a claymore does if infused (at least for me), certainly less damage than the Defender's Greatsword even without it's built in miracle active, and swings at about the same speed for worse range, worse AoE, and worse tracking (again, all in my experience).
I loved the mace for a while, but I just couldn't get into it. It didn't swing fast enough to hit multiple targets when I was being swarmed, the mace's poise break was right below the cutoff for several larger enemies (esp. the iron keep knights) that claymore could stagger, and the R1 chain had several problems; on enemies the mace could stagger, an R1 from outside of fisting range would miss the third or fourth blow; on non humanoid enemies the upward strike after the downward would frequently track poorly.
It's a fine weapon and I used it for a long time, but I don't find it to be that superb. Strike damage is very good when you have tons of strength scaling, but I don't think the moveset works out in PvP or against certain mobs and if you're going to be hitting mostly with infused damage (also best in PvP, from my experience), weapons with higher base damage or innate non-physical damage offer more power there.
It's only got C scaling on the Magic Mace.
Really this is a case of never actually really branching out because you were content with what you had. You can't just instantly pick up a new weapon and it is better. You have to upgrade them to the same level at a minimum and they need to be weapons appropriate to your build.
Considering both of them were appropriate to my build at the time, and the mace was still hitting for less than a claymore, and either way I preferred the moveset of the claymore, I'm not sure what you are talking about.
I picked up both the claymore and mace at a time I was making a primarily strength character, and both at +10 and ~35 strength and claymore-minimum dex, with and without infusion, the claymore was always the outperformer. Admittedly, my testing was primarily on the enemies around the blacksmith (so the lightly armored crossbow/sword knights, dogs, and those giant mummy guys), but... I think it's fair to say that I tested both. Maybe not both in completely optimal conditions, but in conditions that were very similar for both of them, and I don't see myself loving the moveset any more if it does start to deal as much as an infused claymore with the right build.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
Also, would appreciate if the suggestion doesn't require Dragon bones to upgrade. Because I kinda feel like some of the boss weapons look pretty gorram good (that curved Dragon Greatsword looks like it has some really great damage potential) but the sheer amount of annoyance involved in upgrading them enough to compare is just blah.
I might be a terrible person. I brought my pure Hexer character into new game+, joined the blod bros and bought a whole bunch of cracked red eye orbs and the extra invasions ring. Now I am working on getting my sin level up high enough to start getting invaded by the blueberry boys, and after that it will be all pvp, all the time.
Hexing feels a bit broken sometimes, honestly. I love all the options I get for pvp too much to stop though. Currently I am running dark orb for medium range, mostly to lull people into a false security, dark hail for close combat and getting the finishing blow on people who charge me out of desperation, affinity for distraction and the occasional free kill, dark storm for close combat shenanigans and greater resonant soul for when I am desperate.
All in all it is a very versatile package, though admittedly juggling five spells and two focuses can get a bit tricky. There are tons of fun tricks you can get up to in close combat, like manually aiming dark hail at where an enemy is likely to roll, or to surprise people by charging into melee and using dark storm/affinity/dark hail only to switch to greater resonance the moment they try to back out. Dark storm is great at surprising people who try to backstab you too!
All in all I can very highly recommend trying a Hexer character. It has been far and away the easiest character of my three playthroughs, the others being pure melee katana power stances and sword and board faith sunbro. The damage output you get is enough to put even greater lightning spear spamming faith builds to shame.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
Huh. Actually I haven't done a quality build yet.
I know strength and I know dex.
I haven't done much with both.
Just looking at the wiki there are a TON of quality weapons that piss all over the mace for scaling and damage.
Also have you tried a bastard sword? It's got better counter damage than the claymore. I don't like its moveset much but, eh. Some people seem to like it.
Just for reference, your dex is more or less completely wasted on the mace. It only has E scaling for dex.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
That said, a note: I'm not saying the mace is the best weapon in the game or anything. I was mostly saying that it speaks rather positively to the common effectiveness of strike damage that something as simple and no frills and honestly without that great an attack score as a friggin basic mace can actually keep up.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
I dunno if strength/dex builds really wind up amazing in this game, especially with double-dipping infusions and magical weapon buffs. Even for your mace, though dumping most of that dex back into strength would probably create more damage output.
I might be a terrible person. I brought my pure Hexer character into new game+, joined the blod bros and bought a whole bunch of cracked red eye orbs and the extra invasions ring. Now I am working on getting my sin level up high enough to start getting invaded by the blueberry boys, and after that it will be all pvp, all the time.
Hexing feels a bit broken sometimes, honestly. I love all the options I get for pvp too much to stop though. Currently I am running dark orb for medium range, mostly to lull people into a false security, dark hail for close combat and getting the finishing blow on people who charge me out of desperation, affinity for distraction and the occasional free kill, dark storm for close combat shenanigans and greater resonant soul for when I am desperate.
All in all it is a very versatile package, though admittedly juggling five spells and two focuses can get a bit tricky. There are tons of fun tricks you can get up to in close combat, like manually aiming dark hail at where an enemy is likely to roll, or to surprise people by charging into melee and using dark storm/affinity/dark hail only to switch to greater resonance the moment they try to back out. Dark storm is great at surprising people who try to backstab you too!
All in all I can very highly recommend trying a Hexer character. It has been far and away the easiest character of my three playthroughs, the others being pure melee katana power stances and sword and board faith sunbro. The damage output you get is enough to put even greater lightning spear spamming faith builds to shame.
My experience with people using hexes is very scattered. I fought one red-sign hexer 5 times and then he either got busy or left; he got one win off of "Oh it's that poison cloud. Oh, I didn't have my poison+healing item hotkeyed because I haven't PvP'd in a while," and then I won four times, three of which were basically "you probably shouldn't cast in melee range/cast slow orbs against a guy throwing lightning bolts" and one of which was him trading weak hits with my claymore. Then I get people who have been basically capable of chunking me from range, but aren't very creative besides that, and quite a few other people who poison me and run off, only to get confused when I'm not actually damaged. I've never seen many of the more unique hexes aside from the homing soulmass analogue, except as allied bellbros, but the ones who are creative/relentless seem like they'd be really scary.
EDIT: The mace is probably the best basic hammer in the game, and I don't think their movesets differ enough that branching out winds up being super relevant. It keeps up, but basic hammers seem to have little variety outside of the chime one and it has similar base damage and better scaling than most anything else.
Also, scaling letters are weird and don't mean the same thing for the same stat, or even for the same stat between different weapons. It's especially obvious for infusions, but also just how weapons can "gain" stat scaling (like the mace going from B to A at +10) without actually increasing the stat-scaled damage.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
Huh. Actually I haven't done a quality build yet.
I know strength and I know dex.
I haven't done much with both.
Just looking at the wiki there are a TON of quality weapons that piss all over the mace for scaling and damage.
Also have you tried a bastard sword? It's got better counter damage than the claymore. I don't like its moveset much but, eh. Some people seem to like it.
Just for reference, your dex is more or less completely wasted on the mace. It only has E scaling for dex.
Yeah, I know it's wasted there. I pumped it up expecting to replace the mace with the Sun Sword, which had As on both sides, which sounded plain yummy.
Boy did that plan not work. Understand, I wasn't intending to keep the mace forever. It just sort of happened.
I don't remember enjoying the bastard's moveset much when I tried it a bit at the beginning, but I can give it another whirl, sure. It's easy to upgrade.
Though Dex does give me bow damage. My bow has gotten SO much work this game. I am a shameless cheeser that wouldn't know a fair fight if it bit him in the leg.
I like my Thorned Greatsword for my Faith/Strength build personally. Though I'll mess with the Defender's Greatsword just to see if I like the moveset.
SL150 sorcery/hex pvp is pretty simple. run the moonlight greatsword, spam dark fog until it applies, run up with soulmass and spam soul greatsword or MLGS specials. if you keep up the pressure with dark fog it seems very, very difficult to lose with that build.
edit: I shouldn't have said to spam dark fog, rofflor is 100% correct in that if you get touched by the tiniest pixel of its range you immediately get toxic'd. it ruins invasions and duels to an absolutely shocking extent, to the point where if I see it's a caster I have black crystal at the ready just in case.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
Huh. Actually I haven't done a quality build yet.
I know strength and I know dex.
I haven't done much with both.
Just looking at the wiki there are a TON of quality weapons that piss all over the mace for scaling and damage.
Also have you tried a bastard sword? It's got better counter damage than the claymore. I don't like its moveset much but, eh. Some people seem to like it.
Just for reference, your dex is more or less completely wasted on the mace. It only has E scaling for dex.
Yeah, I know it's wasted there. I pumped it up expecting to replace the mace with the Sun Sword, which had As on both sides, which sounded plain yummy.
Boy did that plan not work. Understand, I wasn't intending to keep the mace forever. It just sort of happened.
I don't remember enjoying the bastard's moveset much when I tried it a bit at the beginning, but I can give it another whirl, sure. It's easy to upgrade.
I edited above, but stat scaling in this game seems very scattered. Especially regarding infused weapons, but just between stats and between weapons, an A does not mean even close to the same thing (likewise, the mace's B and A are almost identical, if not absolutely identical).
To the Dark Fog stuff: Dark Fog would be far less annoying if the poison AoE remotely matched where the cloud appears to be. It reaches far beyond where the cloud is, and I think it's an issue with the spell as a whole and not lag because I had that problem in the Undead Crypt. It's also toxic-disguised-as-poison, or at least it seems to damage much faster.
EDIT: That reminds me of the other thing that hexers did that confused me. I suppose it makes sense when invading to keep pressure up so I can't heal... but if you've got a build that's weak against melee and I'm poisoned, ultra-aggressive pressure rather than safer pressure seems silly. I've "won" a few fights (some with enough time to chug, most not) just by a dude taking a stab at me and then dying to a single R2R2 combo when I was close to dying of poison.
The bat staff and dark fog is absolutely retarded in PvP. Poisions INSTANTLY, like they only have to touch the edge of the cloud for a second.
Gonna be honest, that sounds so terrible I'm going to avoid the bat staff on principle. Interestingly I have never once encountered dark fog in my 100+ pvp encounters. I should probably try it out, though I fear what juggling yet another spell will do to my reaction time.
That said, a note: I'm not saying the mace is the best weapon in the game or anything. I was mostly saying that it speaks rather positively to the common effectiveness of strike damage that something as simple and no frills and honestly without that great an attack score as a friggin basic mace can actually keep up.
Nah its just the B scaling and your strength mate.
Most weapons normalise in this game. You can beat the game comfortably with most weapons if you stick with them and learn how to use them.
That's why I say moveset is the most important factor. Sure you can hit a few points harder, sure that seems good. But then you get a weapon that can hit a few points lower with fantastic flexibility, you end up living through situations your slower, worse recovery weapon got you killed in, and you realise...maybe damage isn't so great. Maybe that min max per hit aint as cool as you thought, when you can fight multiple mobs and never get touched with an in theory "worse damage" weapon.
In your case you've been using a bow to deal with situations your mace sucked at, right?
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
it's not that the range on dark fog application is broken, it's that the cloud can be a foot from you and a single laggy tick gets you toxic'd. it's annoying that on my faith guy one of my spell slots needs to be dedicated to poison removal and it's not like you'll get the cast off in duels.
EDIT: That reminds me of the other thing that hexers did that confused me. I suppose it makes sense when invading to keep pressure up so I can't heal... but if you've got a build that's weak against melee and I'm poisoned, ultra-aggressive pressure rather than safer pressure seems silly. I've "won" a few fights (some with enough time to chug, most not) just by a dude taking a stab at me and then dying to a single R2R2 combo when I was close to dying of poison.
they were doing it wrong, all they have to do is spam soul greatsword/dark orbs/MTGS and you will just flat die to toxic damage or eat an 800+ damage attack.
Well poison in general is faster in DS2 than in 1.
It's tons faster, yeah, but there's a noticeable difference between Dark Fog and other sources of poison. At least in PvE, I can't be fully certain how poison applies in PvP based on weapon. As a "test" I passively encountered, one hit from a lifegem was enough to stabilize/slightly increase my HP over time with the butterflies that inflict poison, but the Dark Fog enemies took two lifegems to stabilize. The wiki seems to contradict this, though, so I may be misinformed.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
Huh. Actually I haven't done a quality build yet.
I know strength and I know dex.
I haven't done much with both.
Just looking at the wiki there are a TON of quality weapons that piss all over the mace for scaling and damage.
Also have you tried a bastard sword? It's got better counter damage than the claymore. I don't like its moveset much but, eh. Some people seem to like it.
Just for reference, your dex is more or less completely wasted on the mace. It only has E scaling for dex.
Yeah, I know it's wasted there. I pumped it up expecting to replace the mace with the Sun Sword, which had As on both sides, which sounded plain yummy.
Boy did that plan not work. Understand, I wasn't intending to keep the mace forever. It just sort of happened.
I don't remember enjoying the bastard's moveset much when I tried it a bit at the beginning, but I can give it another whirl, sure. It's easy to upgrade.
Though Dex does give me bow damage. My bow has gotten SO much work this game. I am a shameless cheeser that wouldn't know a fair fight if it bit him in the leg.
That said, a note: I'm not saying the mace is the best weapon in the game or anything. I was mostly saying that it speaks rather positively to the common effectiveness of strike damage that something as simple and no frills and honestly without that great an attack score as a friggin basic mace can actually keep up.
Nah its just the B scaling and your strength mate.
Most weapons normalise in this game.
Man, my Sun Sword has more total attack rating and on many enemies hits for nearly 100 damage less. The entire thing just feels silly, basically.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
Huh. Actually I haven't done a quality build yet.
I know strength and I know dex.
I haven't done much with both.
Just looking at the wiki there are a TON of quality weapons that piss all over the mace for scaling and damage.
Also have you tried a bastard sword? It's got better counter damage than the claymore. I don't like its moveset much but, eh. Some people seem to like it.
Just for reference, your dex is more or less completely wasted on the mace. It only has E scaling for dex.
Yeah, I know it's wasted there. I pumped it up expecting to replace the mace with the Sun Sword, which had As on both sides, which sounded plain yummy.
Boy did that plan not work. Understand, I wasn't intending to keep the mace forever. It just sort of happened.
I don't remember enjoying the bastard's moveset much when I tried it a bit at the beginning, but I can give it another whirl, sure. It's easy to upgrade.
I edited above, but stat scaling in this game seems very scattered. Especially regarding infused weapons, but just between stats and between weapons, an A does not mean even close to the same thing (likewise, the mace's B and A are almost identical, if not absolutely identical).
it's not that the range on dark fog application is broken, it's that the cloud can be a foot from you and a single laggy tick gets you toxic'd. it's annoying that on my faith guy one of my spell slots needs to be dedicated to poison removal and it's not like you'll get the cast off in duels.
EDIT: That reminds me of the other thing that hexers did that confused me. I suppose it makes sense when invading to keep pressure up so I can't heal... but if you've got a build that's weak against melee and I'm poisoned, ultra-aggressive pressure rather than safer pressure seems silly. I've "won" a few fights (some with enough time to chug, most not) just by a dude taking a stab at me and then dying to a single R2R2 combo when I was close to dying of poison.
they were doing it wrong, all they have to do is spam soul greatsword/dark orbs/MTGS and you will just flat die to toxic damage or eat an 800+ damage attack.
I think both are issues, honestly. The bat staff's bonus allowing for near instant poisoning is really frustrating, but hitboxes being messed up also makes it difficult to position against it, bat staff or no; if I want to walk forward or circle a bit while casting a spell at them, I don't know if I'm going to end up in the poison while I'm tossing it because it's invisibly a couple feet farther in all directions. Even without the bat staff, if you get stuck in the dead center of it when it casts you're going to be poisoned unless you have super low equip rate, since I don't think it can apply poison during i-frames.
Doing it wrong: Possible! But even those spells could be punished if timed improperly, and many of these people were reacting to me using poison as an excuse to immediately get in their face and usually hit them once right after the cast ended (they unilaterally seemed to believe I would attempt to evade it, which I stopped trying to do very quickly). If I'm in melee range, then a passive rollaround is going to get me close to death from the poison, but aggressive attacks or casting spells at me is probably unsafe, and that tended to be their choice.
I ate an engineer
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I edited above, but stat scaling in this game seems very scattered. Especially regarding infused weapons, but just between stats and between weapons, an A does not mean even close to the same thing (likewise, the mace's B and A are almost identical, if not absolutely identical).
Letter grades have different tiers. Think of it as A- A A+, only really there's many more levels than that.
Similarly to how sometimes you put a point in str and get no return on your AR even though your raw physical attack went up, I would imagine their formula for scaling would mean that when a B+++++ turns into an A minus minus minus etc nothing would change given the same stats. Their formulas use multiple decimal places but the stats screen only shows round numbers.
(Wanted to do - for the A minus but that just got me a line.)
It's been this way in all souls games, what is confusing the thing in this one is that scaling is not based on the base damage of the weapon anymore. It used to be that base damage was part of the formula so low base damage weapons with S scaling still did shit damage. Now the S scaling, being static, will increase at the same value. Again, when stats are constant. They still increase when stats increase.
Mundane is the best example, since it applies the same extremely high S scaling to every weapon you mundane. No matter which weapon you mundane, your bonus damage will be identical. Upgrading the weapon does not change this number, because upgrading a mundane weapon cannot affect the mundane scaling.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Beat the Looking Glass Knight and Twin Dragonriders today, make it through Drangleic Castle. Here is where my character stands just before that:
My Lightning Mace +10 is doing quite well but folks are right in here, its moveset is a bit lacking. I haven't decided yet what I might switch to, if I ever do switch.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
Huh. Actually I haven't done a quality build yet.
I know strength and I know dex.
I haven't done much with both.
Just looking at the wiki there are a TON of quality weapons that piss all over the mace for scaling and damage.
Also have you tried a bastard sword? It's got better counter damage than the claymore. I don't like its moveset much but, eh. Some people seem to like it.
Just for reference, your dex is more or less completely wasted on the mace. It only has E scaling for dex.
Yeah, I know it's wasted there. I pumped it up expecting to replace the mace with the Sun Sword, which had As on both sides, which sounded plain yummy.
Boy did that plan not work. Understand, I wasn't intending to keep the mace forever. It just sort of happened.
I don't remember enjoying the bastard's moveset much when I tried it a bit at the beginning, but I can give it another whirl, sure. It's easy to upgrade.
Though Dex does give me bow damage. My bow has gotten SO much work this game. I am a shameless cheeser that wouldn't know a fair fight if it bit him in the leg.
What about the sun sword didn't work out for you?
Basically, it has the same problem the mace does (small reach that makes approaches risky) but doesn't attack much faster, does less damage, and hitstuns less. So it has the same weakpoint I already had and more besides for no gain. This annoyed me because I was looking forward to Solairing it up so much.
Honestly, the companion of my mace has been, if anything in the end, an Estoc. Mostly because it covered what the mace didn't, ie poking those bellyflopping zombies before they flop. But even then, I never got it past +6, because it was not really there to deal damage, because it didn't. It was there as an interrupting button to stop squishies quickly while getting me closer.
generally every single encounter with a hexer of the type under discussion goes like so (spoilered because I'm sure this is tedious for many):
- eat dark fog, immediately toxic'd. probably two-thirds of the time I am being summoned as a red invader or invading with orbs, so the only counter I have to this (a non-faith user has none) is to back up and use great heal or the poison cure spell. most of the time this isn't possible unless you're going to be lame - which I am forced to do often vs. hexers - and sit behind mobs to heal.
- as I am dealing with this they sprint at me because this silly spell generates an unbelievable amount of pressure at no risk and they now only need me to make a mistake. I really don't have to proceed past this because I have to play perfectly to not die and they only need to not walk into my weapon range. it is possible with more offensive builds than mine (30/30/50 str/dex/faith with BKGS and emit force) that one good roll could win it for them, but with 10+ hours of DS2 pvp under my belt the people at SL150 that die that easily without rolling or having the poise or health pool to survive one combo are in a distinct minority.
I edited above, but stat scaling in this game seems very scattered. Especially regarding infused weapons, but just between stats and between weapons, an A does not mean even close to the same thing (likewise, the mace's B and A are almost identical, if not absolutely identical).
Letter grades have different tiers. Think of it as A- A A+, only really there's many more levels than that.
Similarly to how sometimes you put a point in str and get no return on your AR even though your raw physical attack went up, I would imagine their formula for scaling would mean that when a B+++++ turns into an A minus minus minus etc nothing would change given the same stats. Their formulas use multiple decimal places but the stats screen only shows round numbers.
(Wanted to do - for the A minus but that just got me a line.)
It's been this way in all souls games, what is confusing the thing in this one is that scaling is not based on the base damage of the weapon anymore. It used to be that base damage was part of the formula so low base damage weapons with S scaling still did shit damage. Now the S scaling, being static, will increase at the same value. Again, when stats are constant. They still increase when stats increase.
Mundane is the best example, since it applies the same extremely high S scaling to every weapon you mundane. No matter which weapon you mundane, your bonus damage will be identical. Upgrading the weapon does not change this number, because upgrading a mundane weapon cannot affect the mundane scaling.
Stat scaling is a continuum, yes, but the same rank on different weapons is clearly different, especially with infusions, which clearly have far worse scaling (at the same letter) than a weapon with that letter by default.
I ate an engineer
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
In my experience maces and clubs etc don't have to deal with sweet spots as much as slashing weapons. The damage doesn't really change much based on where you hit them.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited May 2014
So what are people thinking is the best weapon to infuse with lighting for a str/faith melee? Right now I'm using the Heidi Knight Sword because it comes "pre-infused" if you will, but I've seen a lot of love for the lightning zwei?
If it matters, I plan to use a shield as well...so maybe a lightning long sword is a better idea?
Ok one last really bad deed for the day. Summoned by looking glass knight, with bat staff. One cast of dark fog to clear everybody away and poison them, then cast warmth and heal the boss.
That is fun one time, and one time only, and I feel terrible.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I edited above, but stat scaling in this game seems very scattered. Especially regarding infused weapons, but just between stats and between weapons, an A does not mean even close to the same thing (likewise, the mace's B and A are almost identical, if not absolutely identical).
Letter grades have different tiers. Think of it as A- A A+, only really there's many more levels than that.
Similarly to how sometimes you put a point in str and get no return on your AR even though your raw physical attack went up, I would imagine their formula for scaling would mean that when a B+++++ turns into an A minus minus minus etc nothing would change given the same stats. Their formulas use multiple decimal places but the stats screen only shows round numbers.
(Wanted to do - for the A minus but that just got me a line.)
It's been this way in all souls games, what is confusing the thing in this one is that scaling is not based on the base damage of the weapon anymore. It used to be that base damage was part of the formula so low base damage weapons with S scaling still did shit damage. Now the S scaling, being static, will increase at the same value. Again, when stats are constant. They still increase when stats increase.
Mundane is the best example, since it applies the same extremely high S scaling to every weapon you mundane. No matter which weapon you mundane, your bonus damage will be identical. Upgrading the weapon does not change this number, because upgrading a mundane weapon cannot affect the mundane scaling.
Stat scaling is a continuum, yes, but the same rank on different weapons is clearly different, especially with infusions, which clearly have far worse scaling (at the same letter) than a weapon with that letter by default.
The only way to compare them is to equip one of them and look at the other one (ie go to switch weapons and use the compare feature). If its letter is red it is less scaling. If it is the same it is equal. If it is blue it is better. You also do NOT look at total attack rating, you look at bonus damage. For split weapons there will be bonus damage for str and your element, and the bonus damage numbers will be different.
If you are saying that even with all this there are differences then I'd like to know which ones. When I make my weapon testing duder I'm going to spend some time sorting this out.
I know there are different ranks of weapons. What I want to know is if there is random variability within each rank, or if all weapons of a particular type basically do the same thing. By that I mean: normal weapons you can buy, weapons you can only get via drops, weapons with existing infuses you can only get via drops and boss weapons. These are the weapons that are already known to work distinctly differently.
I don't think it is based on individual weapons. I think it is based on classes that have nothing to do with the weapon categories (ie "greatsword") and more to do with the categories I just mentioned.
With exceptions, because they love exceptions.
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(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
So what are people thinking is the best weapon to infuse with lighting for a str/faith melee? Right now I'm using the Heidi Knight Sword because it comes "pre-infused" if you will, but I've seen a lot of love for the lightning zwei?
If it matters, I plan to use a shield as well...so maybe a lightning long sword is a better idea?
Claymore into Defender's Greatsword. Str/faith is really pump faith while increasing strength to the point you can use the weapon. The defender's sword comes pre-lightning *and* can be infused with lightning; at that point you've got something that has "S" (infused from A) faith scaling and decent lightning base damage with essentially the same slash/thrust damage as a non-infused defender's sword. Then you kill stuff with it, because it also comes with ~6 free casts of Sunlight Blade.
Claymore is there because it scales reasonably well with faith and strength when you get it and teaches you the moveset, along with being a good generalist weapon compared to the zwei or more ultraswords.
In my experience maces and clubs etc don't have to deal with sweet spots as much as slashing weapons. The damage doesn't really change much based on where you hit them.
That could also be part of why I get more consistent damage out of hammers, yes. I'm not a very good player and never pretended to be, and honestly don't know anything about sweet spots. I just hit enemies when they give me an opening and are in range :P.
So what are people thinking is the best weapon to infuse with lighting for a str/faith melee? Right now I'm using the Heidi Knight Sword because it comes "pre-infused" if you will, but I've seen a lot of love for the lightning zwei?
If it matters, I plan to use a shield as well...so maybe a lightning long sword is a better idea?
Claymore into Defender's Greatsword. Str/faith is really pump faith while increasing strength to the point you can use the weapon. The defender's sword comes pre-lightning *and* can be infused with lightning; at that point you've got something that has "S" (infused from A) faith scaling and decent lightning base damage with essentially the same slash/thrust damage as a non-infused defender's sword. Then you kill stuff with it, because it also comes with ~6 free casts of Sunlight Blade.
Claymore is there because it scales reasonably well with faith and strength when you get it and teaches you the moveset, along with being a good generalist weapon compared to the zwei or more ultraswords.
So should I build mostly str/dex for now, until I can get the claymore and get it lighting infused then soul vessel to reallocate, or should I get the 20 str/13 dex required for the claymore, then pump faith and keep using the heidi knight sword until I can get the ember for McDuff?
So I started again this evening. Decided to pick a knight character so I'd have a bit of a simpler experience than I did on my mage. Went through last giant and old dragonrider without dying once then blew all my souls to get prepped towards using some miracles. Currently I'm using the Heide Knight Sword which I've upgraded a decent amount. I'm finding it's move set super nice for everything except tiny enemies (only the heavy swing aims down at them).
My current miracle set up is force and heal. The plan is to work towards getting enough faith to get lightning spear for flexibility.
Below's my current stat read out, any advice would be much appreciated:
As much as I enjoyed my mage I have to say the game is much more enjoyable when I don't have to spend an hour grinding up souls to be able to use every weapon I find.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
In my experience maces and clubs etc don't have to deal with sweet spots as much as slashing weapons. The damage doesn't really change much based on where you hit them.
That could also be part of why I get more consistent damage out of hammers, yes. I'm not a very good player and never pretended to be, and honestly don't know anything about sweet spots. I just hit enemies when they give me an opening and are in range :P.
I'll just let you know.
Swarming is going to be a much, much bigger problem in NG+ with your mace unless you are willing to run.
Like, a lot.
So buy a lot of poison arrows.
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SL150 sorcery/hex pvp is pretty simple. run the moonlight greatsword, spam dark fog until it applies, run up with soulmass and spam soul greatsword or MLGS specials. if you keep up the pressure with dark fog it seems very, very difficult to lose with that build.
edit: I shouldn't have said to spam dark fog, rofflor is 100% correct in that if you get touched by the tiniest pixel of its range you immediately get toxic'd. it ruins invasions and duels to an absolutely shocking extent, to the point where if I see it's a caster I have black crystal at the ready just in case.
When I was Dragoning the other day, almost every other summoner was using this strategy. Except they were all so terrible that I immediately stabbed them to death before I died from the poison. The only one that beat me was the one who whiffed the cloud (or I i-framed it or something) and then nailed me with some dark spell that I dodged wrong because its cast time was way different from Dark Fog.
I edited above, but stat scaling in this game seems very scattered. Especially regarding infused weapons, but just between stats and between weapons, an A does not mean even close to the same thing (likewise, the mace's B and A are almost identical, if not absolutely identical).
Letter grades have different tiers. Think of it as A- A A+, only really there's many more levels than that.
Similarly to how sometimes you put a point in str and get no return on your AR even though your raw physical attack went up, I would imagine their formula for scaling would mean that when a B+++++ turns into an A minus minus minus etc nothing would change given the same stats. Their formulas use multiple decimal places but the stats screen only shows round numbers.
(Wanted to do - for the A minus but that just got me a line.)
It's been this way in all souls games, what is confusing the thing in this one is that scaling is not based on the base damage of the weapon anymore. It used to be that base damage was part of the formula so low base damage weapons with S scaling still did shit damage. Now the S scaling, being static, will increase at the same value. Again, when stats are constant. They still increase when stats increase.
Mundane is the best example, since it applies the same extremely high S scaling to every weapon you mundane. No matter which weapon you mundane, your bonus damage will be identical. Upgrading the weapon does not change this number, because upgrading a mundane weapon cannot affect the mundane scaling.
Stat scaling is a continuum, yes, but the same rank on different weapons is clearly different, especially with infusions, which clearly have far worse scaling (at the same letter) than a weapon with that letter by default.
The only way to compare them is to equip one of them and look at the other one (ie go to switch weapons and use the compare feature). If its letter is red it is less scaling. If it is the same it is equal. If it is blue it is better. You also do NOT look at total attack rating, you look at bonus damage. For split weapons there will be bonus damage for str and your element, and the bonus damage numbers will be different.
If you are saying that even with all this there are differences then I'd like to know which ones. When I make my weapon testing duder I'm going to spend some time sorting this out.
I know there are different ranks of weapons. What I want to know is if there is random variability within each rank, or if all weapons of a particular type basically do the same thing. By that I mean: normal weapons you can buy, weapons you can only get via drops, weapons with existing infuses you can only get via drops and boss weapons. These are the weapons that are already known to work distinctly differently.
I don't think it is based on individual weapons. I think it is based on classes that have nothing to do with the weapon categories (ie "greatsword") and more to do with the categories I just mentioned.
With exceptions, because they love exceptions.
Compare any two distinct stats with each other and the same letter scaling, with the same stat, will not approximate to the same gain in damage.
As for specifics: Lightning Defender's sword (C str) has less strength to damage than a Zwei, which is D scaling in strength. Infusions screw the system up tremendously, and a lack of stat parity screws the system up significantly.
Finally, stop treating me like I'm both an idiot and have not played the game. It's tremendously goosey. You are not the most unilaterally knowledgeable person in this thread.
In my experience maces and clubs etc don't have to deal with sweet spots as much as slashing weapons. The damage doesn't really change much based on where you hit them.
That could also be part of why I get more consistent damage out of hammers, yes. I'm not a very good player and never pretended to be, and honestly don't know anything about sweet spots. I just hit enemies when they give me an opening and are in range :P.
I'll just let you know.
Swarming is going to be a much, much bigger problem in NG+ with your mace unless you are willing to run.
Like, a lot.
So buy a lot of poison arrows.
I am perfectly willing to run, don't worry. Standing your ground is for suckers or people out of options.
But what I'm trying is to find something else to play other than the mace!
Well, I'll give it some thought tomorrow after uni.
I edited above, but stat scaling in this game seems very scattered. Especially regarding infused weapons, but just between stats and between weapons, an A does not mean even close to the same thing (likewise, the mace's B and A are almost identical, if not absolutely identical).
Letter grades have different tiers. Think of it as A- A A+, only really there's many more levels than that.
Similarly to how sometimes you put a point in str and get no return on your AR even though your raw physical attack went up, I would imagine their formula for scaling would mean that when a B+++++ turns into an A minus minus minus etc nothing would change given the same stats. Their formulas use multiple decimal places but the stats screen only shows round numbers.
(Wanted to do - for the A minus but that just got me a line.)
It's been this way in all souls games, what is confusing the thing in this one is that scaling is not based on the base damage of the weapon anymore. It used to be that base damage was part of the formula so low base damage weapons with S scaling still did shit damage. Now the S scaling, being static, will increase at the same value. Again, when stats are constant. They still increase when stats increase.
Mundane is the best example, since it applies the same extremely high S scaling to every weapon you mundane. No matter which weapon you mundane, your bonus damage will be identical. Upgrading the weapon does not change this number, because upgrading a mundane weapon cannot affect the mundane scaling.
Stat scaling is a continuum, yes, but the same rank on different weapons is clearly different, especially with infusions, which clearly have far worse scaling (at the same letter) than a weapon with that letter by default.
The only way to compare them is to equip one of them and look at the other one (ie go to switch weapons and use the compare feature). If its letter is red it is less scaling. If it is the same it is equal. If it is blue it is better. You also do NOT look at total attack rating, you look at bonus damage. For split weapons there will be bonus damage for str and your element, and the bonus damage numbers will be different.
If you are saying that even with all this there are differences then I'd like to know which ones. When I make my weapon testing duder I'm going to spend some time sorting this out.
I know there are different ranks of weapons. What I want to know is if there is random variability within each rank, or if all weapons of a particular type basically do the same thing. By that I mean: normal weapons you can buy, weapons you can only get via drops, weapons with existing infuses you can only get via drops and boss weapons. These are the weapons that are already known to work distinctly differently.
I don't think it is based on individual weapons. I think it is based on classes that have nothing to do with the weapon categories (ie "greatsword") and more to do with the categories I just mentioned.
With exceptions, because they love exceptions.
Compare any two distinct stats with each other and the same letter scaling, with the same stat, will not approximate to the same gain in damage.
As for specifics: Lightning Defender's sword (C str) has less strength to damage than a Zwei, which is D scaling in strength. Infusions screw the system up tremendously, and a lack of stat parity screws the system up significantly.
Finally, stop treating me like I'm both an idiot and have not played the game. It's tremendously goosey. You are not the most unilaterally knowledgeable person in this thread.
I'm not treating you like an idiot. I'm doing what I always do in a discussion and laying out exactly what my definitions are so we are both on the same page. In service of that I try to be as clear as possible. I apologise if this came across as talking down to you.
I know you are aware of how the mechanics work to a high level. I have seen your discussions on the last few pages. I am discussing this with you in good faith because I am interested in what you know.
The defenders sword is a boss weapon and the Zwei is a normal weapon. They work to different formulas.
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Mace and Bandit Axe. Bandit axe has better stat scaling than the magic mace despite having worse scaling in both strength and dex, and neither are boss weapons. The Defender's and Zwei could have been that my six dex was giving more of a boost to the Zwei than the decrease in strength scaling, so this example is actually more sturdy.
The only reason examples are not easier to provide is that I am not in possession of a vast trove of infused weapons to compare and most of mine, for whatever reason, have C scaling, which appears (on first glance) to be incredibly broad.
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Considering both of them were appropriate to my build at the time, and the mace was still hitting for less than a claymore, and either way I preferred the moveset of the claymore, I'm not sure what you are talking about.
I picked up both the claymore and mace at a time I was making a primarily strength character, and both at +10 and ~35 strength and claymore-minimum dex, with and without infusion, the claymore was always the outperformer. Admittedly, my testing was primarily on the enemies around the blacksmith (so the lightly armored crossbow/sword knights, dogs, and those giant mummy guys), but... I think it's fair to say that I tested both. Maybe not both in completely optimal conditions, but in conditions that were very similar for both of them, and I don't see myself loving the moveset any more if it does start to deal as much as an infused claymore with the right build.
And before you suggest like Pursuer's Greatsword or something, keep in mind, I kind of can't deal with Ultra Greatswords. I can't hit anything for shit with them. Large Club is about my absolute limit for recovery, even if it's still a surprisingly functional weapon if you just use it to poke and roll - it's my backup, really. I think I don't use it more because its R1 seems to eat unreasonable amounts of durability (for some reason, it seems that if I fight using primarily the R1 the Large club will barely last a boss fight, while if I use the R2 it will last as most weapons. It's weird. And "hit with one R1 and roll away" is kind of how I can get bosses with the Club) and because trying to use it against normal mobs just ends with me eating a SHITLOAD of damage, for the same reason as aforementioned greatswords.
Also, would appreciate if the suggestion doesn't require Dragon bones to upgrade. Because I kinda feel like some of the boss weapons look pretty gorram good (that curved Dragon Greatsword looks like it has some really great damage potential) but the sheer amount of annoyance involved in upgrading them enough to compare is just blah.
Hexing feels a bit broken sometimes, honestly. I love all the options I get for pvp too much to stop though. Currently I am running dark orb for medium range, mostly to lull people into a false security, dark hail for close combat and getting the finishing blow on people who charge me out of desperation, affinity for distraction and the occasional free kill, dark storm for close combat shenanigans and greater resonant soul for when I am desperate.
All in all it is a very versatile package, though admittedly juggling five spells and two focuses can get a bit tricky. There are tons of fun tricks you can get up to in close combat, like manually aiming dark hail at where an enemy is likely to roll, or to surprise people by charging into melee and using dark storm/affinity/dark hail only to switch to greater resonance the moment they try to back out. Dark storm is great at surprising people who try to backstab you too!
All in all I can very highly recommend trying a Hexer character. It has been far and away the easiest character of my three playthroughs, the others being pure melee katana power stances and sword and board faith sunbro. The damage output you get is enough to put even greater lightning spear spamming faith builds to shame.
Can you help me? I've been wanting to change my mace but I'm completely lost on what weapon I should change to.
http://i.imgur.com/8jeRHcf.jpg
Huh. Actually I haven't done a quality build yet.
I know strength and I know dex.
I haven't done much with both.
Just looking at the wiki there are a TON of quality weapons that piss all over the mace for scaling and damage.
Also have you tried a bastard sword? It's got better counter damage than the claymore. I don't like its moveset much but, eh. Some people seem to like it.
Just for reference, your dex is more or less completely wasted on the mace. It only has E scaling for dex.
I dunno if strength/dex builds really wind up amazing in this game, especially with double-dipping infusions and magical weapon buffs. Even for your mace, though dumping most of that dex back into strength would probably create more damage output.
My experience with people using hexes is very scattered. I fought one red-sign hexer 5 times and then he either got busy or left; he got one win off of "Oh it's that poison cloud. Oh, I didn't have my poison+healing item hotkeyed because I haven't PvP'd in a while," and then I won four times, three of which were basically "you probably shouldn't cast in melee range/cast slow orbs against a guy throwing lightning bolts" and one of which was him trading weak hits with my claymore. Then I get people who have been basically capable of chunking me from range, but aren't very creative besides that, and quite a few other people who poison me and run off, only to get confused when I'm not actually damaged. I've never seen many of the more unique hexes aside from the homing soulmass analogue, except as allied bellbros, but the ones who are creative/relentless seem like they'd be really scary.
EDIT: The mace is probably the best basic hammer in the game, and I don't think their movesets differ enough that branching out winds up being super relevant. It keeps up, but basic hammers seem to have little variety outside of the chime one and it has similar base damage and better scaling than most anything else.
Also, scaling letters are weird and don't mean the same thing for the same stat, or even for the same stat between different weapons. It's especially obvious for infusions, but also just how weapons can "gain" stat scaling (like the mace going from B to A at +10) without actually increasing the stat-scaled damage.
Yeah, I know it's wasted there. I pumped it up expecting to replace the mace with the Sun Sword, which had As on both sides, which sounded plain yummy.
Boy did that plan not work. Understand, I wasn't intending to keep the mace forever. It just sort of happened.
I don't remember enjoying the bastard's moveset much when I tried it a bit at the beginning, but I can give it another whirl, sure. It's easy to upgrade.
Though Dex does give me bow damage. My bow has gotten SO much work this game. I am a shameless cheeser that wouldn't know a fair fight if it bit him in the leg.
edit: I shouldn't have said to spam dark fog, rofflor is 100% correct in that if you get touched by the tiniest pixel of its range you immediately get toxic'd. it ruins invasions and duels to an absolutely shocking extent, to the point where if I see it's a caster I have black crystal at the ready just in case.
I edited above, but stat scaling in this game seems very scattered. Especially regarding infused weapons, but just between stats and between weapons, an A does not mean even close to the same thing (likewise, the mace's B and A are almost identical, if not absolutely identical).
To the Dark Fog stuff: Dark Fog would be far less annoying if the poison AoE remotely matched where the cloud appears to be. It reaches far beyond where the cloud is, and I think it's an issue with the spell as a whole and not lag because I had that problem in the Undead Crypt. It's also toxic-disguised-as-poison, or at least it seems to damage much faster.
EDIT: That reminds me of the other thing that hexers did that confused me. I suppose it makes sense when invading to keep pressure up so I can't heal... but if you've got a build that's weak against melee and I'm poisoned, ultra-aggressive pressure rather than safer pressure seems silly. I've "won" a few fights (some with enough time to chug, most not) just by a dude taking a stab at me and then dying to a single R2R2 combo when I was close to dying of poison.
Gonna be honest, that sounds so terrible I'm going to avoid the bat staff on principle. Interestingly I have never once encountered dark fog in my 100+ pvp encounters. I should probably try it out, though I fear what juggling yet another spell will do to my reaction time.
Nah its just the B scaling and your strength mate.
Most weapons normalise in this game. You can beat the game comfortably with most weapons if you stick with them and learn how to use them.
That's why I say moveset is the most important factor. Sure you can hit a few points harder, sure that seems good. But then you get a weapon that can hit a few points lower with fantastic flexibility, you end up living through situations your slower, worse recovery weapon got you killed in, and you realise...maybe damage isn't so great. Maybe that min max per hit aint as cool as you thought, when you can fight multiple mobs and never get touched with an in theory "worse damage" weapon.
In your case you've been using a bow to deal with situations your mace sucked at, right?
they were doing it wrong, all they have to do is spam soul greatsword/dark orbs/MTGS and you will just flat die to toxic damage or eat an 800+ damage attack.
It's tons faster, yeah, but there's a noticeable difference between Dark Fog and other sources of poison. At least in PvE, I can't be fully certain how poison applies in PvP based on weapon. As a "test" I passively encountered, one hit from a lifegem was enough to stabilize/slightly increase my HP over time with the butterflies that inflict poison, but the Dark Fog enemies took two lifegems to stabilize. The wiki seems to contradict this, though, so I may be misinformed.
What about the sun sword didn't work out for you?
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Man, my Sun Sword has more total attack rating and on many enemies hits for nearly 100 damage less. The entire thing just feels silly, basically.
Yeah, predicting scaling seems... weird. Really weird.
I think both are issues, honestly. The bat staff's bonus allowing for near instant poisoning is really frustrating, but hitboxes being messed up also makes it difficult to position against it, bat staff or no; if I want to walk forward or circle a bit while casting a spell at them, I don't know if I'm going to end up in the poison while I'm tossing it because it's invisibly a couple feet farther in all directions. Even without the bat staff, if you get stuck in the dead center of it when it casts you're going to be poisoned unless you have super low equip rate, since I don't think it can apply poison during i-frames.
Doing it wrong: Possible! But even those spells could be punished if timed improperly, and many of these people were reacting to me using poison as an excuse to immediately get in their face and usually hit them once right after the cast ended (they unilaterally seemed to believe I would attempt to evade it, which I stopped trying to do very quickly). If I'm in melee range, then a passive rollaround is going to get me close to death from the poison, but aggressive attacks or casting spells at me is probably unsafe, and that tended to be their choice.
Letter grades have different tiers. Think of it as A- A A+, only really there's many more levels than that.
Similarly to how sometimes you put a point in str and get no return on your AR even though your raw physical attack went up, I would imagine their formula for scaling would mean that when a B+++++ turns into an A minus minus minus etc nothing would change given the same stats. Their formulas use multiple decimal places but the stats screen only shows round numbers.
(Wanted to do - for the A minus but that just got me a line.)
It's been this way in all souls games, what is confusing the thing in this one is that scaling is not based on the base damage of the weapon anymore. It used to be that base damage was part of the formula so low base damage weapons with S scaling still did shit damage. Now the S scaling, being static, will increase at the same value. Again, when stats are constant. They still increase when stats increase.
Mundane is the best example, since it applies the same extremely high S scaling to every weapon you mundane. No matter which weapon you mundane, your bonus damage will be identical. Upgrading the weapon does not change this number, because upgrading a mundane weapon cannot affect the mundane scaling.
My Lightning Mace +10 is doing quite well but folks are right in here, its moveset is a bit lacking. I haven't decided yet what I might switch to, if I ever do switch.
For now... onward.
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Basically, it has the same problem the mace does (small reach that makes approaches risky) but doesn't attack much faster, does less damage, and hitstuns less. So it has the same weakpoint I already had and more besides for no gain. This annoyed me because I was looking forward to Solairing it up so much.
Honestly, the companion of my mace has been, if anything in the end, an Estoc. Mostly because it covered what the mace didn't, ie poking those bellyflopping zombies before they flop. But even then, I never got it past +6, because it was not really there to deal damage, because it didn't. It was there as an interrupting button to stop squishies quickly while getting me closer.
- as I am dealing with this they sprint at me because this silly spell generates an unbelievable amount of pressure at no risk and they now only need me to make a mistake. I really don't have to proceed past this because I have to play perfectly to not die and they only need to not walk into my weapon range. it is possible with more offensive builds than mine (30/30/50 str/dex/faith with BKGS and emit force) that one good roll could win it for them, but with 10+ hours of DS2 pvp under my belt the people at SL150 that die that easily without rolling or having the poise or health pool to survive one combo are in a distinct minority.
Stat scaling is a continuum, yes, but the same rank on different weapons is clearly different, especially with infusions, which clearly have far worse scaling (at the same letter) than a weapon with that letter by default.
If it matters, I plan to use a shield as well...so maybe a lightning long sword is a better idea?
That is fun one time, and one time only, and I feel terrible.
The only way to compare them is to equip one of them and look at the other one (ie go to switch weapons and use the compare feature). If its letter is red it is less scaling. If it is the same it is equal. If it is blue it is better. You also do NOT look at total attack rating, you look at bonus damage. For split weapons there will be bonus damage for str and your element, and the bonus damage numbers will be different.
If you are saying that even with all this there are differences then I'd like to know which ones. When I make my weapon testing duder I'm going to spend some time sorting this out.
I know there are different ranks of weapons. What I want to know is if there is random variability within each rank, or if all weapons of a particular type basically do the same thing. By that I mean: normal weapons you can buy, weapons you can only get via drops, weapons with existing infuses you can only get via drops and boss weapons. These are the weapons that are already known to work distinctly differently.
I don't think it is based on individual weapons. I think it is based on classes that have nothing to do with the weapon categories (ie "greatsword") and more to do with the categories I just mentioned.
With exceptions, because they love exceptions.
Claymore into Defender's Greatsword. Str/faith is really pump faith while increasing strength to the point you can use the weapon. The defender's sword comes pre-lightning *and* can be infused with lightning; at that point you've got something that has "S" (infused from A) faith scaling and decent lightning base damage with essentially the same slash/thrust damage as a non-infused defender's sword. Then you kill stuff with it, because it also comes with ~6 free casts of Sunlight Blade.
Claymore is there because it scales reasonably well with faith and strength when you get it and teaches you the moveset, along with being a good generalist weapon compared to the zwei or more ultraswords.
That could also be part of why I get more consistent damage out of hammers, yes. I'm not a very good player and never pretended to be, and honestly don't know anything about sweet spots. I just hit enemies when they give me an opening and are in range :P.
So should I build mostly str/dex for now, until I can get the claymore and get it lighting infused then soul vessel to reallocate, or should I get the 20 str/13 dex required for the claymore, then pump faith and keep using the heidi knight sword until I can get the ember for McDuff?
My current miracle set up is force and heal. The plan is to work towards getting enough faith to get lightning spear for flexibility.
Below's my current stat read out, any advice would be much appreciated:
As much as I enjoyed my mage I have to say the game is much more enjoyable when I don't have to spend an hour grinding up souls to be able to use every weapon I find.
I'll just let you know.
Swarming is going to be a much, much bigger problem in NG+ with your mace unless you are willing to run.
Like, a lot.
So buy a lot of poison arrows.
Compare any two distinct stats with each other and the same letter scaling, with the same stat, will not approximate to the same gain in damage.
As for specifics: Lightning Defender's sword (C str) has less strength to damage than a Zwei, which is D scaling in strength. Infusions screw the system up tremendously, and a lack of stat parity screws the system up significantly.
Finally, stop treating me like I'm both an idiot and have not played the game. It's tremendously goosey. You are not the most unilaterally knowledgeable person in this thread.
I am perfectly willing to run, don't worry. Standing your ground is for suckers or people out of options.
But what I'm trying is to find something else to play other than the mace!
Well, I'll give it some thought tomorrow after uni.
I'm not treating you like an idiot. I'm doing what I always do in a discussion and laying out exactly what my definitions are so we are both on the same page. In service of that I try to be as clear as possible. I apologise if this came across as talking down to you.
I know you are aware of how the mechanics work to a high level. I have seen your discussions on the last few pages. I am discussing this with you in good faith because I am interested in what you know.
The defenders sword is a boss weapon and the Zwei is a normal weapon. They work to different formulas.
The only reason examples are not easier to provide is that I am not in possession of a vast trove of infused weapons to compare and most of mine, for whatever reason, have C scaling, which appears (on first glance) to be incredibly broad.