I don't want to imagine how awful the grind will be now that there probably aren't as many people co-oping the boss as before
I was getting summons like every 2 minutes or so and it still took the better part of 3 to 5 hours
Really hope the team does some post-DLC support to ease up a few of the more tedious aspects of the game, like they did with Dark Souls 1.
If you didn't have internet I imagine it would be a matter of ascetics wouldn't it? I haven't done this boss I just know it apparently requires you to kill it multiple times.
Man it would be ridiculously awful if you had to do that. Fortunately the mooks continue to spawn after you beat the boss and return to the arena, though it's still a lot slower than being summoned.
and it's definitely not recommended without the giant souls (though it's pretty easy with them)
edit: oh yeah, no crown. yeah, you're kinda boned. fight's doable with 4 souls. have you done the ancient dragon? willing to ascetic the black gulch a couple times?
i'm not entirely sure why. it feels like a solid level, that still retains a little bit of distinctiveness to a build. but i do need to make some sacrifices to keep my level that low, and i know no one else is bothering so it's more than a little bit foolish
i'll probably end up just going fuck it and getting 50 in my scaling stats and health and stamina at some point.
in other news, i got an ice rapier and it is not really a big deal. apparently it's more of a thing magic infused.
also i was super excited about the strength-scaling (S!) curved greatsword, but in practice it's underwhelming. it has 500ish AR, which is more or less in line with most greatswords, but has high stat requirements and pretty huge stamina consumption. i can only swing 4 times on 40 END. it gets extra damage on higher NG+'s but if i planned to go high in those, i'd have started a long time ago
kind of a boring DLC as far as gear goes.
You think?
DLC ITEM SPOILERS
They gave us another two pieces with "regen health" effects. Throw those + Regenerators Ring on and you're looking at a pretty significant health regen.
Symbol of Avarice for obvious reasons (farming ho!)
Elyium Loyce weapon which can heal other players or you
The Bone Fist ft. the previously unused "martial arts" moveset
"Crystal staff" equivalent (Best scaling for reduced spell casts)
A sword that scales with Number of playthroughs completed
A ring that gives you human appearance as a Phantom
Although there are some items I find rather useless.
Ring of the Embedded. A point bonus inverse to points allocated to a certain stat. I guess SOMEWHAT useful in the very beginning of the game - which makes it too bad that you get it at a really late point of the game. Not to mention that it goes against SM which encourages you to just level every stat to the max.
Vessel Shield: Another one of those "get +1 point bonuses for tradeoffs" items. Nope, still useless.
Personally, I'm more disappointed in the spells.
Or rather, lack thereof. Iron King included a bunch of great Pyromancies. This has a "soul shower" equivalent for Mirracles, a "Force" equivalent for sorceries and a dark magic I still need to test.
i'm not entirely sure why. it feels like a solid level, that still retains a little bit of distinctiveness to a build. but i do need to make some sacrifices to keep my level that low, and i know no one else is bothering so it's more than a little bit foolish
i'll probably end up just going fuck it and getting 50 in my scaling stats and health and stamina at some point.
in other news, i got an ice rapier and it is not really a big deal. apparently it's more of a thing magic infused.
also i was super excited about the strength-scaling (S!) curved greatsword, but in practice it's underwhelming. it has 500ish AR, which is more or less in line with most greatswords, but has high stat requirements and pretty huge stamina consumption. i can only swing 4 times on 40 END. it gets extra damage on higher NG+'s but if i planned to go high in those, i'd have started a long time ago
kind of a boring DLC as far as gear goes.
You think?
DLC ITEM SPOILERS
They gave us another two pieces with "regen health" effects. Throw those + Regenerators Ring on and you're looking at a pretty significant health regen.
Symbol of Avarice for obvious reasons (farming ho!)
Elyium Loyce weapon which can heal other players or you
The Bone Fist ft. the previously unused "martial arts" moveset
"Crystal staff" equivalent (Best scaling for reduced spell casts)
A sword that scales with Number of playthroughs completed
A ring that gives you human appearance as a Phantom
Although there are some items I find rather useless.
Ring of the Embedded. A point bonus inverse to points allocated to a certain stat. I guess SOMEWHAT useful in the very beginning of the game - which makes it too bad that you get it at a really late point of the game. Not to mention that it goes against SM which encourages you to just level every stat to the max.
Vessel Shield: Another one of those "get +1 point bonuses for tradeoffs" items. Nope, still useless.
Personally, I'm more disappointed in the spells.
Or rather, lack thereof. Iron King included a bunch of great Pyromancies. This has a "soul shower" equivalent for Mirracles, a "Force" equivalent for sorceries and a dark magic I still need to test.
the eleum loyce curved sword is kind of questionable. it replaces like, one attunement slot for heal or warmth.
bone fist, curved nil greatsword, ring and mimic head are cool. the staff has a garbage cast time, too, so i wouldn't get too excited about that. i'm interested in seeing how significant the health regen stacking can get, but i have my doubts that it'll be anything to write home about.
the vessel shield is okay when it comes to meeting stat requirements you don't want to change your build around for. i have 26 dex on my strength character, so i have the option of slapping it on to use the Fume Ultra Greatsword. Ring of the Embedded seems like it's there for people doing SL1 challenges. extra damage taken as a side effect is right in their wheelhouse.
in other news, i actually beat the challenge path
brightbugs OP plz nerf (i was knocking off 20% a hit!)
Yeah, the game has a lot of stat boosting items that run counter to the soul memory system. They're only useful briefly while leveling or for people who deliberately stay low level, or if you want a small stat boost for a specific task without respeccing with a soul vessel. Completely useless for high levels.
Finally got out of Blighttown. Only to find, well... you know what happens. Time to go kill you-know-who. Going to wrap up a few loose ends, however... like killing a few Black Knights.
So hit a few roadblocks with progression, but was able to figure it out. I knew the dynamic duo was in Anor Londo, but I couldn't figure out where to go after taking the elevator. So I went back, explored some more. Killed Sif with the help of a skilled player. Headed back and took a really close look at the environment.
"Okay, a bridge? No. Lever or button? No. Dead ends the other way... looking around the landscape... URG... wait, is that part of THAT roof connected to... oh Goddamn it FromSoft."
Maybe that path is obvious to some, but it SUPER wasn't for me. :P But hey, that's Dark Souls!
I seem to be approaching the end of Dark Souls 2. But at the moment I can't kill the Throne Watcher/Throne Defender before what is I think the final boss, so I decided to go kill Vendrick, which also appears to be fairly challenging, but totally doable once I get the timing right.
I also haven't done the pilgrims of the dark area yet nor have I killed the ancient dragon. (I experimentally aggro'ed it after talking to it, got OHKO'ed, and elected to walk away).
Not sure if I want to buy the DLC. If I do, should I get it now and play it during these final stages of NG, or should I just do the DLC in NG+, if I start a new game after beating it the first time, which I am not 100% sure I will do?
I really like the Judgment Set, which looks awesome, and I also love the ring of making you look human while you are undead.
The lore/story remains completely opaque to me
The green herald told me dragons made her and that I'm trying to become king? The king went overseas and brought back something that giants didn't like? The queen is evil for some reason? And what am I trying to become king of; is this a country I've been wandering around? I have no idea what's going on.
The reason the queen is evil is told to you, but not explicitly until you read her item descriptions so you have to beat her first. It's also related to the lore of the 3 DLCs, but again not going to spoil anything. RE: The emerald herald and what Vendrick stole from the giants, those things are not elaborated upon.
My best speculation re: the emerald herald is that she's the old lady in the opening cutscene, the 4th firekeeper, and she's the only one who is still trying to get a new undead to link the first flame again. The other firekeepers are just chilling in things betwixt, having given up their keeping of the fires. She sends you there and that's why she guides you through. As to why she's a dragon/human hybrid, maybe it's just a callback to Priscilla, maybe they meant for it to mean something else. Not sure.
I would play through the DLCs before going to NG+ if I were you. Some of the bosses in the DLC are harder than Watcher and Defender, so you may not want to wait to face them in a harder difficulty. Speaking of W&D though, if you're not set on soloing every boss, summon Benhart for them. It's not unlike O&S, in that summoning a phantom allows you to split them and makes the fight a lot easier, though I think W&D are much easier than O&S were anyway. They can be a pain though.
Also, the atmosphere and level design in the DLCs is at times the best Dark Souls 2 has to offer, so they're most definitely worth playing. I really enjoyed the lore of all 3 DLCs as well.
My best speculation re: the emerald herald is that she's the old lady in the opening cutscene, the 4th firekeeper, and she's the only one who is still trying to get a new undead to link the first flame again.
But what on earth does it mean to link to the first flame?
Speaking of W&D though, if you're not set on soloing every boss, summon Benhart for them. It's not unlike O&S, in that summoning a phantom allows you to split them and makes the fight a lot easier, though I think W&D are much easier than O&S were anyway. They can be a pain though.
I haven't played Dark Souls 1, so I haven't fought O&S, whoever those may be. I'm sure I can figure out how to do Watcher&Defender; I was just really pleased at killing the Defender and then the Watcher healed him so I ragequit. (me: "I'm going to throw my computer out the window"; husband: "I think you'll be sad if you throw your computer out the window"--but what does he know; he refuses to play Dark Souls and just laughs at me as I flail through it)
I solo'ed the vast majority of the bosses but totally wimped on a few. Like the Guardian dragon I didn't feel like trying by myself even once, I just ate a human effigy and saw that some rando was willing to help--and I hit it with like two soul spears and then chugged estus while the summoned phantom beat it to death. Likewise, for Velstadt I probably could have done it myself but summoned Agdayne and let him tank it without even trying to solo.
And, um...I killed Benhart at the very beginning of the game before I understood what the deal was with NPCs (this was when I was very confused about everything and also spent quite a while at SL1 because I didn't see the Green Herald). So...yeah, I can't summon him, I think. But I do have his spiffy armor and sword.
Hm, maybe I will get the DLC and do it now, then. Would be more fun than these remaining boss fights, I bet, and I am a fan of atmospherics/new environments.
But what on earth does it mean to link to the first flame?
This is from the first game, though you get more information in the second to elaborate on it. Linking the first flame means to sacrifice your soul, now super powerful from absorbing the souls of other powerful beings, to keep the fires of the world burning. In Dark Souls 2 it's revealed that this is a never ending cycle: the fires fade, the undead curse returns, an undead gathers the souls of powerful beings together and burns them, the souls get scattered and a new age of fire begins.
My best speculation re: the emerald herald is that she's the old lady in the opening cutscene, the 4th firekeeper, and she's the only one who is still trying to get a new undead to link the first flame again.
But what on earth does it mean to link to the first flame?
Speaking of W&D though, if you're not set on soloing every boss, summon Benhart for them. It's not unlike O&S, in that summoning a phantom allows you to split them and makes the fight a lot easier, though I think W&D are much easier than O&S were anyway. They can be a pain though.
I haven't played Dark Souls 1, so I haven't fought O&S, whoever those may be. I'm sure I can figure out how to do Watcher&Defender; I was just really pleased at killing the Defender and then the Watcher healed him so I ragequit. (me: "I'm going to throw my computer out the window"; husband: "I think you'll be sad if you throw your computer out the window"--but what does he know; he refuses to play Dark Souls and just laughs at me as I flail through it)
I solo'ed the vast majority of the bosses but totally wimped on a few. Like the Guardian dragon I didn't feel like trying by myself even once, I just ate a human effigy and saw that some rando was willing to help--and I hit it with like two soul spears and then chugged estus while the summoned phantom beat it to death. Likewise, for Velstadt I probably could have done it myself but summoned Agdayne and let him tank it without even trying to solo.
And, um...I killed Benhart at the very beginning of the game before I understood what the deal was with NPCs (this was when I was very confused about everything and also spent quite a while at SL1 because I didn't see the Green Herald). So...yeah, I can't summon him, I think. But I do have his spiffy armor and sword.
Hm, maybe I will get the DLC and do it now, then. Would be more fun than these remaining boss fights, I bet, and I am a fan of atmospherics/new environments.
Apologies, the reference to linking the first flame assumes you have Dark Souls 1 knowledge. Dark Souls 2's story, while still a standalone, is really related to Dark Souls 1 in many ways, and one of them is the Flame versus Dark connection.
Putting spoilery but not really big deal stuff behind spoiler tags just in case you don't want to read it:
At the end of Dark Souls 1, you follow in the footsteps of the last guy to do it and sacrifice yourself to basically rekindle the first flame, which means all the other bonfires in the world will keep going for another cycle. Not doing so means the bonfires will die out, and a new age of dark will begin with you as the dark lord. Dark Souls 2 has the same cycle. You defeat the 4 bosses who have great souls, and get yourself powerful enough to make the decision, and then you decide whether to link the first flame or let it die out.
O&S refers to Ornstein and Smough, a boss from Dark Souls 1 which ends up a road block for a lot of players. It's a fight where you take on 2 big guys at once, which is why the comparison to W&D comes out. Also going to spoil the "gimmick" of W&D which you may have already figured out:
When one dies, the other one will heal them after a certain amount of time. So basically you need to knock down the health on both of them, take one down, take the other down before the first heals.
You should still have access to Vengarl to summon for W&D even without Benhart if you want to go that route. I think both their summon signs show up right outside the boss fog. Even one summon makes that fight very easy since it makes you able to just focus on one of them while the other beats on your summon, then just brute force down the 2nd one.
All the DLCs are really good, though at times they can be very hard too. Definitely worth it to play them imo.
After three hours of combat over three days, O&S are DAMNED TO HELL. I did have to summon a Sunbro ultimately to progress, but I was able to kill Smough several times... and then got trashed by super saiyan Ornstein. I still contributed to the fight and did what damage I could. Again, this was without guides so really it was a waiting game. I seemed to have the best results using a two hand great sword and just running between pillars, trying to hit their blind side. But that damn autotracking lunge from Ornstein skewered me again and again.
I did return the favor by helping another bro defeat them afterwards.
So some data from Fromsoft shows that Fume Knight is the hardest boss in the game, beating challengers almost 93% of the time. I had a feeling he would be if a list like this came out. It doesn't include data from the 3rd DLC, but I don't think anybody will take his throne from ivory king. Interestingly, 4/5ths of the "toughest" boss fights up through the first 2 DLC were DLC bosses. Fume Knight, Alonne, Elana, and Sinh were all in the top 5.
I get Fume. I get Alonne, because not everyone goes around with a big shield (which utterly trivializes him) and he looks mighty harsh without a shield. I get Sinh. But Elana?
Not surprising that the newest bosses are the ones that people haven't yet mastered. If they run those numbers again in another ~3 months, I expect the rankings will be a little different.
Ruin Sentinels are actually the boss that has been challenged the highest number of times which is kind of funny since it's optional, and players have like a 75% success rate against it.
And while yeah, lack of experience is obviously a factor, I just think it's funny that only 7% of Fume Knight fights end in victory. I love it.
I get Fume. I get Alonne, because not everyone goes around with a big shield (which utterly trivializes him) and he looks mighty harsh without a shield. I get Sinh. But Elana?
Elana is no joke when she summons Velstadt
i still haven't figured out a good way to approach the fight when she does it, and usually end up dying until she doesn't
being stuck in a room with 270-Degree Swings McGee and a Nashandra that teleports and spams projectiles from offscreen is a lot to handle
she's given me much more trouble than sinh or alonne ever have
elana also apparently sometimes summons those goddamn pig things from Majula that are almost invincible. awful.
when she summons Velstadt, that fight gets much, much harder. I think I solo'd her, but only after a number of failed attempts with phantoms. the main thing that makes her harder to solo is that you can't just smash her health away really quickly to limit the summon's impact on the fight, because she does that dark burst attack so frequently when you're nearby. i think she is best tackled with a summon or two so that you can split into groups and take down Velstadt, or at least tank him, while still doing damage to her.
pretty much every other DLC boss (aside from that goddamn gank squad, and maybe Aava) is best solo'd, I think. your damage output just doesn't scale enough at high levels to match the defense buff they get from extra players being summoned.
Elana would be a better fight if they had designed a boss fight that was actually challenging because of her attacks, and not because fighting Velstadt or Skeletons while trying to also have the camera in position so you can see her attacks to dodge is annoying.
Ruin Sentinels are actually the boss that has been challenged the highest number of times which is kind of funny since it's optional, and players have like a 75% success rate against it.
And while yeah, lack of experience is obviously a factor, I just think it's funny that only 7% of Fume Knight fights end in victory. I love it.
Eh, I don't. If it weren't for his damage output he'd be one of my favorite fights. But since he kills even tanky characters in 2 or 3 hits he's just cheap. He's basically Vendrick levels of cheap without being optional.
I get Fume. I get Alonne, because not everyone goes around with a big shield (which utterly trivializes him) and he looks mighty harsh without a shield. I get Sinh. But Elana?
Elana is no joke when she summons Velstadt
i still haven't figured out a good way to approach the fight when she does it, and usually end up dying until she doesn't
being stuck in a room with 270-Degree Swings McGee and a Nashandra that teleports and spams projectiles from offscreen is a lot to handle
she's given me much more trouble than sinh or alonne ever have
Both Elanas and Velstaedts attacks are pretty easy to read and have lenient dodge windows. But once again, the two bosses don't communicate attack patterns with each other, making the fight largely RNG based as to when you can attack and when you just need to keep dodging.
I don't think there's anything cheap about Fume Knight. To me, he's Dark Souls 2's version of Artorias. The beauty of Fume Knight is that his 2 phases play off each other so well. He doesn't do very much damage in his first phase, at all. I've fought him using a character with very light armor, and one with medium/heavy armor, and on either one I could eat hits during the regular phase without risking dying.
The beauty of the design is that if you take a lot of hits in the first phase, you spend more time healing yourself and so his health isn't as low when you go into phase 2, the real dangerous part of the fight. And the first phase is great, because like Artorias, he has branching combos, so it's not as simple as just memorizing the patterns and dodging proactively. You have to properly react to what he's doing or you're going to eat some hits.
Phase 2 is tough too, but again, if you've played the fight correctly then he won't have much health left for this phase. His slow moving sword beam isn't a 1HKO and is easy to avoid, you just have to make sure not to dodge early. His AOE explosion isn't a 1HKO, so again you just have to dodge it. His sword combos with the flaming sword are brutal but not all that hard to dodge. The hardest part about phase 2 is that he punishes healing hard so you have to really make sure when you go to heal it's really a safe time to do so.
Frankly, most of Dark Souls 2's bosses were too easy to me, so having something like Fume Knight that made me recall Artorias and actually killed me a lot while I learned it was welcome as hell for me.
Eh, the branching combos aren't hard to memorize and tell in advance though. Dodging him is easy enough.
And I have absolutely no idea what you mean by "Phase 2 is tough too, but again, if you've played the fight correctly then he won't have much health left for this phase". My experience, which includes obviously beating the Fume Knight myself as well as numerous CooP fights, tells me that he buffs after reaching a certain point of health (wiki backs me up on this). You're right in that his damage output isn't that high pre-buff, but afterwards it really will kill you in 2-3 hits. Add in stagger and the fight is more frustrating than it needs to be.
I do like the fact that you can make it easer/harder for yourself though by destroying/leaving intact the Ashen idols.
Now, the fight against Sir Alonne? There's a good fight. Ashen idols aside it isn't that much different mechanically from the Fume knight, he just doesn't do literal fucktons of damage after buffing.
If you keep Fume Knight pressured, he won't hit phase 2. I've beaten him a couple of times without him ever going into it.
You can do the same with Velstaedt (although less reliable possibly?). I always figured it was more of an exploit as my only possible explanation is that you somehow force the AI out of its buff pattern, which may sound like splitting hairs but I think there's a big difference between an actual script that intentionally stops him from buffing under X conditions and using some kind of exploit to alter enemy AI.
"Attack fast enough/do damage fast enough" doesn't seem to do the trick - I've seen various speedrun attempts bring said two bosses to fall in record times and yet they buff 99% of the time.
Posts
Man it would be ridiculously awful if you had to do that. Fortunately the mooks continue to spawn after you beat the boss and return to the arena, though it's still a lot slower than being summoned.
but the droprate is garbage and you only get 3 at a time
it is rather more than that for the actual boss fight
it's not happening unless i ascetic
probably six runs so far and zero souls
got zero souls as i was fighting the boss
so i'm 15 souls short of my 15 soul goal
this isn't happening
Don't want to know what it is. I just want to know if you guys think it's actually worth it.
They're alright
stacking farming gear seems to be bullshit for this
success rate seems to have improved since i starting just wearing the mimic head
poor fucker
edit: summoned by a dude with only one helper
good god man
turn around
turn around
edit: yesssss 15 i'm out
edit: good looking armor. perfect match for the faraam helm. i approve. 15 is probably worth shooting if pretty princess dress up is a priority
ugh i guess i have to kill vendrick now
i think i used all my giant souls because i wasn't interested in fighting him, lawl
maybe i'll just got to NG+, i have little interest in that slog
and it's definitely not recommended without the giant souls (though it's pretty easy with them)
edit: oh yeah, no crown. yeah, you're kinda boned. fight's doable with 4 souls. have you done the ancient dragon? willing to ascetic the black gulch a couple times?
You think?
DLC ITEM SPOILERS
Symbol of Avarice for obvious reasons (farming ho!)
Elyium Loyce weapon which can heal other players or you
The Bone Fist ft. the previously unused "martial arts" moveset
"Crystal staff" equivalent (Best scaling for reduced spell casts)
A sword that scales with Number of playthroughs completed
A ring that gives you human appearance as a Phantom
Although there are some items I find rather useless.
Vessel Shield: Another one of those "get +1 point bonuses for tradeoffs" items. Nope, still useless.
Personally, I'm more disappointed in the spells.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
bone fist, curved nil greatsword, ring and mimic head are cool. the staff has a garbage cast time, too, so i wouldn't get too excited about that. i'm interested in seeing how significant the health regen stacking can get, but i have my doubts that it'll be anything to write home about.
the vessel shield is okay when it comes to meeting stat requirements you don't want to change your build around for. i have 26 dex on my strength character, so i have the option of slapping it on to use the Fume Ultra Greatsword. Ring of the Embedded seems like it's there for people doing SL1 challenges. extra damage taken as a side effect is right in their wheelhouse.
in other news, i actually beat the challenge path
brightbugs OP plz nerf (i was knocking off 20% a hit!)
"Okay, a bridge? No. Lever or button? No. Dead ends the other way... looking around the landscape... URG... wait, is that part of THAT roof connected to... oh Goddamn it FromSoft."
Maybe that path is obvious to some, but it SUPER wasn't for me. :P But hey, that's Dark Souls!
I also haven't done the pilgrims of the dark area yet nor have I killed the ancient dragon. (I experimentally aggro'ed it after talking to it, got OHKO'ed, and elected to walk away).
Not sure if I want to buy the DLC. If I do, should I get it now and play it during these final stages of NG, or should I just do the DLC in NG+, if I start a new game after beating it the first time, which I am not 100% sure I will do?
I really like the Judgment Set, which looks awesome, and I also love the ring of making you look human while you are undead.
The lore/story remains completely opaque to me
My best speculation re: the emerald herald is that she's the old lady in the opening cutscene, the 4th firekeeper, and she's the only one who is still trying to get a new undead to link the first flame again. The other firekeepers are just chilling in things betwixt, having given up their keeping of the fires. She sends you there and that's why she guides you through. As to why she's a dragon/human hybrid, maybe it's just a callback to Priscilla, maybe they meant for it to mean something else. Not sure.
I would play through the DLCs before going to NG+ if I were you. Some of the bosses in the DLC are harder than Watcher and Defender, so you may not want to wait to face them in a harder difficulty. Speaking of W&D though, if you're not set on soloing every boss, summon Benhart for them. It's not unlike O&S, in that summoning a phantom allows you to split them and makes the fight a lot easier, though I think W&D are much easier than O&S were anyway. They can be a pain though.
Also, the atmosphere and level design in the DLCs is at times the best Dark Souls 2 has to offer, so they're most definitely worth playing. I really enjoyed the lore of all 3 DLCs as well.
But what on earth does it mean to link to the first flame?
I haven't played Dark Souls 1, so I haven't fought O&S, whoever those may be. I'm sure I can figure out how to do Watcher&Defender; I was just really pleased at killing the Defender and then the Watcher healed him so I ragequit. (me: "I'm going to throw my computer out the window"; husband: "I think you'll be sad if you throw your computer out the window"--but what does he know; he refuses to play Dark Souls and just laughs at me as I flail through it)
I solo'ed the vast majority of the bosses but totally wimped on a few. Like the Guardian dragon I didn't feel like trying by myself even once, I just ate a human effigy and saw that some rando was willing to help--and I hit it with like two soul spears and then chugged estus while the summoned phantom beat it to death. Likewise, for Velstadt I probably could have done it myself but summoned Agdayne and let him tank it without even trying to solo.
And, um...I killed Benhart at the very beginning of the game before I understood what the deal was with NPCs (this was when I was very confused about everything and also spent quite a while at SL1 because I didn't see the Green Herald). So...yeah, I can't summon him, I think. But I do have his spiffy armor and sword.
Hm, maybe I will get the DLC and do it now, then. Would be more fun than these remaining boss fights, I bet, and I am a fan of atmospherics/new environments.
This is from the first game, though you get more information in the second to elaborate on it. Linking the first flame means to sacrifice your soul, now super powerful from absorbing the souls of other powerful beings, to keep the fires of the world burning. In Dark Souls 2 it's revealed that this is a never ending cycle: the fires fade, the undead curse returns, an undead gathers the souls of powerful beings together and burns them, the souls get scattered and a new age of fire begins.
Apologies, the reference to linking the first flame assumes you have Dark Souls 1 knowledge. Dark Souls 2's story, while still a standalone, is really related to Dark Souls 1 in many ways, and one of them is the Flame versus Dark connection.
Putting spoilery but not really big deal stuff behind spoiler tags just in case you don't want to read it:
O&S refers to Ornstein and Smough, a boss from Dark Souls 1 which ends up a road block for a lot of players. It's a fight where you take on 2 big guys at once, which is why the comparison to W&D comes out. Also going to spoil the "gimmick" of W&D which you may have already figured out:
You should still have access to Vengarl to summon for W&D even without Benhart if you want to go that route. I think both their summon signs show up right outside the boss fog. Even one summon makes that fight very easy since it makes you able to just focus on one of them while the other beats on your summon, then just brute force down the 2nd one.
All the DLCs are really good, though at times they can be very hard too. Definitely worth it to play them imo.
I did return the favor by helping another bro defeat them afterwards.
I get Fume. I get Alonne, because not everyone goes around with a big shield (which utterly trivializes him) and he looks mighty harsh without a shield. I get Sinh. But Elana?
The echoes could be heard for miles.
And while yeah, lack of experience is obviously a factor, I just think it's funny that only 7% of Fume Knight fights end in victory. I love it.
i still haven't figured out a good way to approach the fight when she does it, and usually end up dying until she doesn't
being stuck in a room with 270-Degree Swings McGee and a Nashandra that teleports and spams projectiles from offscreen is a lot to handle
she's given me much more trouble than sinh or alonne ever have
E: 86 this post. Got it to work finally. Had to uninstall reinstall but it finally took.
PSN: BrightWing13 FFX|V:ARR Bright Asuna
when she summons Velstadt, that fight gets much, much harder. I think I solo'd her, but only after a number of failed attempts with phantoms. the main thing that makes her harder to solo is that you can't just smash her health away really quickly to limit the summon's impact on the fight, because she does that dark burst attack so frequently when you're nearby. i think she is best tackled with a summon or two so that you can split into groups and take down Velstadt, or at least tank him, while still doing damage to her.
pretty much every other DLC boss (aside from that goddamn gank squad, and maybe Aava) is best solo'd, I think. your damage output just doesn't scale enough at high levels to match the defense buff they get from extra players being summoned.
Eh, I don't. If it weren't for his damage output he'd be one of my favorite fights. But since he kills even tanky characters in 2 or 3 hits he's just cheap. He's basically Vendrick levels of cheap without being optional.
Both Elanas and Velstaedts attacks are pretty easy to read and have lenient dodge windows. But once again, the two bosses don't communicate attack patterns with each other, making the fight largely RNG based as to when you can attack and when you just need to keep dodging.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
The beauty of the design is that if you take a lot of hits in the first phase, you spend more time healing yourself and so his health isn't as low when you go into phase 2, the real dangerous part of the fight. And the first phase is great, because like Artorias, he has branching combos, so it's not as simple as just memorizing the patterns and dodging proactively. You have to properly react to what he's doing or you're going to eat some hits.
Phase 2 is tough too, but again, if you've played the fight correctly then he won't have much health left for this phase. His slow moving sword beam isn't a 1HKO and is easy to avoid, you just have to make sure not to dodge early. His AOE explosion isn't a 1HKO, so again you just have to dodge it. His sword combos with the flaming sword are brutal but not all that hard to dodge. The hardest part about phase 2 is that he punishes healing hard so you have to really make sure when you go to heal it's really a safe time to do so.
Frankly, most of Dark Souls 2's bosses were too easy to me, so having something like Fume Knight that made me recall Artorias and actually killed me a lot while I learned it was welcome as hell for me.
And I have absolutely no idea what you mean by "Phase 2 is tough too, but again, if you've played the fight correctly then he won't have much health left for this phase". My experience, which includes obviously beating the Fume Knight myself as well as numerous CooP fights, tells me that he buffs after reaching a certain point of health (wiki backs me up on this). You're right in that his damage output isn't that high pre-buff, but afterwards it really will kill you in 2-3 hits. Add in stagger and the fight is more frustrating than it needs to be.
I do like the fact that you can make it easer/harder for yourself though by destroying/leaving intact the Ashen idols.
Now, the fight against Sir Alonne? There's a good fight. Ashen idols aside it isn't that much different mechanically from the Fume knight, he just doesn't do literal fucktons of damage after buffing.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
You can do the same with Velstaedt (although less reliable possibly?). I always figured it was more of an exploit as my only possible explanation is that you somehow force the AI out of its buff pattern, which may sound like splitting hairs but I think there's a big difference between an actual script that intentionally stops him from buffing under X conditions and using some kind of exploit to alter enemy AI.
"Attack fast enough/do damage fast enough" doesn't seem to do the trick - I've seen various speedrun attempts bring said two bosses to fall in record times and yet they buff 99% of the time.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird