It's hard to say. It wasn't anything I was actively trying to do, but then I did do it twice, so it's at least probably not altogether difficult. It may simply be that the buff is relatively low priority, and that if he has a better attack opportunity, he'll take it. Could be a matter of how close you are. Since I've gotten a handle of the fight in any case, most of the time - if he buffs - he buffs somewhere in his last quarter of HP.
Ok, got the dlc. I finally used a bow for the first time to shoot some of the switches in Shulva (also had to go grab binoculars, which I did not own). I made it to a fog door/an obnoxious pyromancer dark spirit, and just gave up instead of looking through the door to see what was there. Having very meticulously killed everything up to that point at least once and looted everything, I think I might just run to the fog door to see what's inside.
I'm really happy with the onion hat, though. best loot so far.
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.
No, he does not buff at a certain HP. Nobody knows exactly what causes it, but I had to fight Fume a lot of times before I got him the first time, and I can tell you it's 100% not just HP based or time based. My best guess is that after a certain amount of time passes, he'll do it, and there may be an HP parameter too. I've seen speculation that whether he does it is based on his sword doing that half glow thing, somehow related to his overhead smash attack.
All I know is that if I didn't get hit at all in phase 1, and thus never had to spend time healing, so I could spend all my openings on attacking him, he only ever had 30% or less health when he went into phase 2.
Hence my statement that the better you do in phase 1 the easier you make phase 2. If I had to heal myself 4 or 5 times in phase 1 i'd always end up with him going phase 2 with like 70% health left.
I disagree completely about Alonne. Alonne to me is a cakewalk. I beat him the first time i ever fought him, because he does such little damage I could just eat hits and heal it back up with no danger. I probably got hit by him like 12 times and still one shotted him the first time i walked into his boss room.
It felt doubly like a joke since i fought him right after fighting Artorias 2.0 aka Fume. Hell, the path to get to Alonne is harder than the boss itself. I don't want a boss that doesn't punish me at all for failing.
So are there still weapons that allow for immediate parries? I hopped on yesterday to start a new character for the DLC, got promptly invaded by a sorcerer who did something that immediately parried me mid swing with no animation.
If it was right at the start of the game, then they be hacking, most likely. I BELIEVE they reintroduced the instant parry frames on the monastary scimitar, but that's so far into the game that there would be no way to get invaded by someone with that at the beginning.
If it was right at the start of the game, then they be hacking, most likely. I BELIEVE they reintroduced the instant parry frames on the monastary scimitar, but that's so far into the game that there would be no way to get invaded by someone with that at the beginning.
Oh, was obvious he was operating way under his actual soul level with the gear he was packing. Was just wondering about the 0 frame parry, because last I heard (before the DLCs hit) they'd nerfed the scimitar.
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.
No, he does not buff at a certain HP. Nobody knows exactly what causes it, but I had to fight Fume a lot of times before I got him the first time, and I can tell you it's 100% not just HP based or time based. My best guess is that after a certain amount of time passes, he'll do it, and there may be an HP parameter too. I've seen speculation that whether he does it is based on his sword doing that half glow thing, somehow related to his overhead smash attack.
All I know is that if I didn't get hit at all in phase 1, and thus never had to spend time healing, so I could spend all my openings on attacking him, he only ever had 30% or less health when he went into phase 2.
Hence my statement that the better you do in phase 1 the easier you make phase 2. If I had to heal myself 4 or 5 times in phase 1 i'd always end up with him going phase 2 with like 70% health left.
I disagree completely about Alonne. Alonne to me is a cakewalk. I beat him the first time i ever fought him, because he does such little damage I could just eat hits and heal it back up with no danger. I probably got hit by him like 12 times and still one shotted him the first time i walked into his boss room.
It felt doubly like a joke since i fought him right after fighting Artorias 2.0 aka Fume. Hell, the path to get to Alonne is harder than the boss itself. I don't want a boss that doesn't punish me at all for failing.
Eh? I never said Alonne was hard. I just think he's a lot fairer than Fume knight.
Pluse the room you fight him in looks a lot more epic.
I've yet to figure out what you mean by "one-shotting". The way I've always understood is "killing an enemy in one hit", but it sounds more like you're referring to "getting in one hit at a time". Which sounds more likely as Alonne and the Fume knight don't have that long opening windows.
If it was right at the start of the game, then they be hacking, most likely. I BELIEVE they reintroduced the instant parry frames on the monastary scimitar, but that's so far into the game that there would be no way to get invaded by someone with that at the beginning.
Oh, was obvious he was operating way under his actual soul level with the gear he was packing. Was just wondering about the 0 frame parry, because last I heard (before the DLCs hit) they'd nerfed the scimitar.
Yup. You are correct. I went and looked, and the monestary scimitar did not get it's parry timing changed back. He was most likely hacking his weapon to do that.
If it was right at the start of the game, then they be hacking, most likely. I BELIEVE they reintroduced the instant parry frames on the monastary scimitar, but that's so far into the game that there would be no way to get invaded by someone with that at the beginning.
Oh, was obvious he was operating way under his actual soul level with the gear he was packing. Was just wondering about the 0 frame parry, because last I heard (before the DLCs hit) they'd nerfed the scimitar.
Yup. You are correct. I went and looked, and the monestary scimitar did not get it's parry timing changed back. He was most likely hacking his weapon to do that.
Are you talking about the monastery scimitar's ability to instantly parry? That actually DID get reverted. I wanna say it was during the Old Iron King DLC release.
Why? No one knows.
Edit: Unless... they fixed it, then broke it again, and then fixed it again.
If it was right at the start of the game, then they be hacking, most likely. I BELIEVE they reintroduced the instant parry frames on the monastary scimitar, but that's so far into the game that there would be no way to get invaded by someone with that at the beginning.
Oh, was obvious he was operating way under his actual soul level with the gear he was packing. Was just wondering about the 0 frame parry, because last I heard (before the DLCs hit) they'd nerfed the scimitar.
Yup. You are correct. I went and looked, and the monestary scimitar did not get it's parry timing changed back. He was most likely hacking his weapon to do that.
Are you talking about the monastery scimitar's ability to instantly parry? That actually DID get reverted. I wanna say it was during the Old Iron King DLC release.
Why? No one knows.
It did? Okay. I couldn't find any information on it getting reverted.
If it was right at the start of the game, then they be hacking, most likely. I BELIEVE they reintroduced the instant parry frames on the monastary scimitar, but that's so far into the game that there would be no way to get invaded by someone with that at the beginning.
Oh, was obvious he was operating way under his actual soul level with the gear he was packing. Was just wondering about the 0 frame parry, because last I heard (before the DLCs hit) they'd nerfed the scimitar.
Yup. You are correct. I went and looked, and the monestary scimitar did not get it's parry timing changed back. He was most likely hacking his weapon to do that.
Are you talking about the monastery scimitar's ability to instantly parry? That actually DID get reverted. I wanna say it was during the Old Iron King DLC release.
Why? No one knows.
It did? Okay. I couldn't find any information on it getting reverted.
Reddit post from less than a month ago says it was fixed. I'm really confused now. I haven't done any PVP lately so I have no idea.
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.
No, he does not buff at a certain HP. Nobody knows exactly what causes it, but I had to fight Fume a lot of times before I got him the first time, and I can tell you it's 100% not just HP based or time based. My best guess is that after a certain amount of time passes, he'll do it, and there may be an HP parameter too. I've seen speculation that whether he does it is based on his sword doing that half glow thing, somehow related to his overhead smash attack.
All I know is that if I didn't get hit at all in phase 1, and thus never had to spend time healing, so I could spend all my openings on attacking him, he only ever had 30% or less health when he went into phase 2.
Hence my statement that the better you do in phase 1 the easier you make phase 2. If I had to heal myself 4 or 5 times in phase 1 i'd always end up with him going phase 2 with like 70% health left.
I disagree completely about Alonne. Alonne to me is a cakewalk. I beat him the first time i ever fought him, because he does such little damage I could just eat hits and heal it back up with no danger. I probably got hit by him like 12 times and still one shotted him the first time i walked into his boss room.
It felt doubly like a joke since i fought him right after fighting Artorias 2.0 aka Fume. Hell, the path to get to Alonne is harder than the boss itself. I don't want a boss that doesn't punish me at all for failing.
Eh? I never said Alonne was hard. I just think he's a lot fairer than Fume knight.
Pluse the room you fight him in looks a lot more epic.
I've yet to figure out what you mean by "one-shotting". The way I've always understood is "killing an enemy in one hit", but it sounds more like you're referring to "getting in one hit at a time". Which sounds more likely as Alonne and the Fume knight don't have that long opening windows.
One shotting has multiple contexts. One of them is "beating the boss the first time you attempt it." That's the context I was using, as in I killed Alonne the first time I fought him because he doesn't do enough damage and has huge openings for healing so it basically felt impossible to lose the fight.
Your reasoning for liking Alonne is totally fine and I respect it, but your reasoning for thinking Fume isn't as good as I think it is I can't agree with. The fact that he DOES punish healing so hard and he will kill you 2 or 3 hits in phase 2 is the reason the fight is so good. Your performance in phase 1 determines his health when he hits phase 2, and the fact that you can actually lose if you screw up even once in phase 2 is why I love it so much.
I wish the game had way more bosses that were that punishing. None of the Souls games really have that many bosses that are that hard. In DS1 Artorias, O&S, and Manus were really the only ones I felt punished my mistakes hard enough. In DS2, Fume knight might be the only one. Maybe Lost Sinner, but she's probably still a little too predictable.
They probably nerfed the golf swing on UGS because they didn't want people to be able to get launched out of bounds and reach unfinished parts of the maps in the 3rd DLC, based on the timing of the change.
I highly doubt From cared at all that people were using it to knock people to their death off the iron keep bridge, even the poor fight club hosts. =P
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.
No, he does not buff at a certain HP. Nobody knows exactly what causes it, but I had to fight Fume a lot of times before I got him the first time, and I can tell you it's 100% not just HP based or time based. My best guess is that after a certain amount of time passes, he'll do it, and there may be an HP parameter too. I've seen speculation that whether he does it is based on his sword doing that half glow thing, somehow related to his overhead smash attack.
All I know is that if I didn't get hit at all in phase 1, and thus never had to spend time healing, so I could spend all my openings on attacking him, he only ever had 30% or less health when he went into phase 2.
Hence my statement that the better you do in phase 1 the easier you make phase 2. If I had to heal myself 4 or 5 times in phase 1 i'd always end up with him going phase 2 with like 70% health left.
I disagree completely about Alonne. Alonne to me is a cakewalk. I beat him the first time i ever fought him, because he does such little damage I could just eat hits and heal it back up with no danger. I probably got hit by him like 12 times and still one shotted him the first time i walked into his boss room.
It felt doubly like a joke since i fought him right after fighting Artorias 2.0 aka Fume. Hell, the path to get to Alonne is harder than the boss itself. I don't want a boss that doesn't punish me at all for failing.
Eh? I never said Alonne was hard. I just think he's a lot fairer than Fume knight.
Pluse the room you fight him in looks a lot more epic.
I've yet to figure out what you mean by "one-shotting". The way I've always understood is "killing an enemy in one hit", but it sounds more like you're referring to "getting in one hit at a time". Which sounds more likely as Alonne and the Fume knight don't have that long opening windows.
One shotting has multiple contexts. One of them is "beating the boss the first time you attempt it." That's the context I was using, as in I killed Alonne the first time I fought him because he doesn't do enough damage and has huge openings for healing so it basically felt impossible to lose the fight.
Your reasoning for liking Alonne is totally fine and I respect it, but your reasoning for thinking Fume isn't as good as I think it is I can't agree with. The fact that he DOES punish healing so hard and he will kill you 2 or 3 hits in phase 2 is the reason the fight is so good. Your performance in phase 1 determines his health when he hits phase 2, and the fact that you can actually lose if you screw up even once in phase 2 is why I love it so much.
I wish the game had way more bosses that were that punishing. None of the Souls games really have that many bosses that are that hard. In DS1 Artorias, O&S, and Manus were really the only ones I felt punished my mistakes hard enough. In DS2, Fume knight might be the only one. Maybe Lost Sinner, but she's probably still a little too predictable.
Then we'll have to disagree for multiple reasons, the first being the inconsistency of what you claim is consistent behavior. I don't record the game when I play so I can't back it up with solid evidence, but as I said, even playing with people who would take off 10% of his health in one hit (usually two-handing ginormous weapons) he always buffed at around half health or more for me. Although, only two of my Fume Knight fights were actually solo. Once beating him normally, then again after crafting his soul into an unwanted weapon by accident.
Re: Healing punishment: I actually have a different experience here. Due to the slow speed of some of his attacks I actually never had difficulty healing during the fight.
I don't think this argument is getting us anywhere though. I think one of the reasons I don't like the Fume Knight is that he isn't optional if you want to progress through the DLC. Another boss I actually really HATE is the Ancient Dragon - but I don't really care if others agree with me there or not as 1. he's entirely optional and 2. there's no achievement/trophy or otherwise "completion percentage" related thing tied to him.
I think Fume knight punishes healing more than any other boss in the entirety of Dark Souls 2. That's a huge part of why he only gets beaten 7% of the time he's faced so far. Not so much in phase 1, but phase 1 is basically just a test to see how much health you manage to knock off before phase 2 anyway. But in phase 2, if you get hit by anything he does, you risk getting finished off before you can manage to heal if you try to heal at anything except the best opportunities.
If he didn't punish healing like he does he'd be easy in phase 2. If it was easy to heal during the fight you'd just heal up any time you got hit and win easily. I never once lost to Fume knight getting hit from 100% to 0. It was always getting hit by something, then trying to use my next opening to heal and he punished my healing, especially with his dashing thrust attack which he often seems to use specifically to punish estus.
I don't feel like we're really arguing btw, we just have different viewpoints, which is fine and expected in a Souls game. I think it's great that people have different experiences, viewpoints, and like and dislike different elements of a game.
I agree with you completely on ancient dragon. I just don't count him as a boss fight to be honest, because 4/5 souls of a giant is enough to make Vendrick basically a regular boss and you get those through normal play. If ancient dragon was a required boss in his current state, i'd consider him hugely shit design, because he's basically just a 1HKO machine that requires not reaction and good play, but just manipulating the AI into using the easiest to handle attacks.
learning when you can safely chug on fume knight is half the fight
i flipped out on day 1 once, because i managed to get him on the opposite side of the arena, chugged, only to have him cruise missile to my position and kill me before the health regen even kicked in
#rekt
he has healing opportunities, but it takes a little while to recognize when it's truly safe, and you'll probably have to dodge a couple of attacks before that point.
alonne is actually pretty straightforward in that regard, since he doesn't combo like, ever, so there's a chance to heal after almost every attack
also i'm kind of curious how difficult ancient dragon actually is now. i don't know the fight at all, but my understanding is that the big killer is the AoE fire attack? considering how much fire defense it's possible to stack now - chaos/smelter sets, flame Quartz 3, dispelling ring 1, pharros mask wet status, flash sweat, it seems like it'd be doable to pretty effectively tank through it.
So, I finally realized why I was having so much trouble getting back into the game to do another playthrough to get to the DLC. See, my first run on PC was the most fun run I ever had, and anything after just paled in comparison. Why?
Because that run was my punchmans run. After that, I would use different weapons. Try 'em out but...It wasn't the same, and I always found myself growing bored. However, a few days ago, once I realized this, Lady Punchman was created, and I have been going through to get to the DLC, and I'm having A WONDERFUL TIME AGAIN!
I think Fume Knight is a spectacular fight in NG and a very poor one in NG+.
In NG, his damage and health are very well balanced so that you are pushed to avoid attacks but have enough leeway that you don't need to be perfect to win. It is the closest you'll get to Artorias in DS2.
In NG+, this balance is almost completely ruined by him having way, way too much health and doing way, way too much damage. A single landed attack in P2 is two flasks for full health, and you're going to need to hit him many, many times. It turns the fight into a tedious quest for perfection rather than a fun learning experience.
It also teaches you to hate how many of his attacks have dubious hitboxes. Part of the brilliance of Artorias is how precise all of his hits are. They are fast and unrelenting, but you will never be at any loss to know when they'll hit you. The only exception is the spinning one, which is just a thing you learn. This is not the case with Fume Knight, in P1, he's got that absurdly fast counter with the short blade. In P2, the flame on the blade itself can hit you by itself, never mind dodging the orbs.
It asks too much perfection and just isn't the sort of gameplay I like out of Souls games. It feels more like rote memorization than learning a rhythm. This stuff is easier to overlook in NG, because he doesn't have that much health. It is not in NG+.
also i'm kind of curious how difficult ancient dragon actually is now. i don't know the fight at all, but my understanding is that the big killer is the AoE fire attack? considering how much fire defense it's possible to stack now - chaos/smelter sets, flame Quartz 3, dispelling ring 1, pharros mask wet status, flash sweat, it seems like it'd be doable to pretty effectively tank through it.
I'm not so sure about that. Give it a try! My money says it kills you unless you're fire immune
So I started the DLC finally, Started with sunken king...
Not enjoying it. Did we REALLY need yet another poison area? I mean, 2 of the 4 paths to the great souls are focused primarily on poison. I'm almost to the end of the iron keep, so I'll start that one instead, get some levels there, THEN do sunken king.
I wouldn't really classify the sunken king DLC as a poison area myself. I got poisoned a grand total of 0 times going through that DLC on two different characters. I mean, the sanctum knights have poison build up on their attacks and the last boss of the place is poison related, but it's more to do with the lore than actual poisoning.
It's certainly nothing like the gutter/gulch or even harvest valley/earthen peak where you would actually get poisoned a lot trying to get loot and explore and what not.
I wouldn't really classify the sunken king DLC as a poison area myself. I got poisoned a grand total of 0 times going through that DLC on two different characters. I mean, the sanctum knights have poison build up on their attacks and the last boss of the place is poison related, but it's more to do with the lore than actual poisoning.
It's certainly nothing like the gutter/gulch or even harvest valley/earthen peak where you would actually get poisoned a lot trying to get loot and explore and what not.
This. There's a grand total of one enemy encounter that features a serious ammount of poison buildup and even then you can avoid it.
And if you're not enjoying Sunken King that's something I can get behind, but, especially if you own the Season Pass, you should give the other 2 DLCs a go. Sunken King was the only one that I got little enjoyment out of.
Yeah, well I started Iron king. Cant do ivory yet, of course, but I'll give iron a go. And hey, already I've gotten meaningful loot in a nice ring for my 4th ring slot.
M A G I K A Z A M
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
If you haven't in Sunken king yet, go back and do this.
Whack the white poles sticking out of the ground.
Marvel.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
If you haven't in Sunken king yet, go back and do this.
Whack the white poles sticking out of the ground.
Marvel.
I don't think I've even seen those.
Yes you have, they're in the first level. They're all over the place.
They're just part of the level geometry. Pillars with white bits on them.
Now go hit one.
Right now.
And then when you are done with the next, like, hour of giggling and mad fun times you can move on if you like.
But it is unique in a dark souls game. You should experience it.
I also just started the DLC and really enjoyed that bit (which I think I only knew about because I had seen it incidentally in a video). Sadly, I do not enjoy the next area, in which these dinosaur thingies are kicking my ass and I can't find
the armor to materialize the immaterial dudes in the spiky room. I may have to just give up and look it up online. Or maybe I should just try to loot the place while running away from the immaterial dudes.
. I could probably just run by the dinosaurs, but I am hampered in this game by the compulsive need to kill everything at least once.
So I got frustrated and went to the DLC off the Iron Keep, and that one is even harder...I don't think I have the skills to handle this. (I have SL~165, so that's not the problem. I fight with either the Olenford staff and soul arrows+spears or fully upgraded Fire Longsword or Dragonslayer Crescent Axe, holding each in both hands.)
Steam, LoL: credeiki
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited October 2014
Oh man I totally ran straight through that room on the basis that screaming and charging madly past everything in my way is a good survival strategy.
Long story short I made it to the next bonfire.
Yeah I don't know. Sometimes I do things and honestly they only really work because I'm used to getting myself out of the messes I get myself into.
They'd be suicide for anyone else.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
You have to make sure you loot the thing that lets you activate the contraption in the room with the big legged dudes to progress, but other than that you don't miss a lot by skipping through the area with the ghostly dudes. It's not really hard to find the room with the armors to make them corporeal if you're into it, it's not really hidden. Just have to do a bit of exploring.
I think Fume Knight is a spectacular fight in NG and a very poor one in NG+.
In NG, his damage and health are very well balanced so that you are pushed to avoid attacks but have enough leeway that you don't need to be perfect to win. It is the closest you'll get to Artorias in DS2.
In NG+, this balance is almost completely ruined by him having way, way too much health and doing way, way too much damage. A single landed attack in P2 is two flasks for full health, and you're going to need to hit him many, many times. It turns the fight into a tedious quest for perfection rather than a fun learning experience.
It also teaches you to hate how many of his attacks have dubious hitboxes. Part of the brilliance of Artorias is how precise all of his hits are. They are fast and unrelenting, but you will never be at any loss to know when they'll hit you. The only exception is the spinning one, which is just a thing you learn. This is not the case with Fume Knight, in P1, he's got that absurdly fast counter with the short blade. In P2, the flame on the blade itself can hit you by itself, never mind dodging the orbs.
It asks too much perfection and just isn't the sort of gameplay I like out of Souls games. It feels more like rote memorization than learning a rhythm. This stuff is easier to overlook in NG, because he doesn't have that much health. It is not in NG+.
i strongly disagree, and my first fume kill was NG+
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I'm really happy with the onion hat, though. best loot so far.
No, he does not buff at a certain HP. Nobody knows exactly what causes it, but I had to fight Fume a lot of times before I got him the first time, and I can tell you it's 100% not just HP based or time based. My best guess is that after a certain amount of time passes, he'll do it, and there may be an HP parameter too. I've seen speculation that whether he does it is based on his sword doing that half glow thing, somehow related to his overhead smash attack.
All I know is that if I didn't get hit at all in phase 1, and thus never had to spend time healing, so I could spend all my openings on attacking him, he only ever had 30% or less health when he went into phase 2.
Hence my statement that the better you do in phase 1 the easier you make phase 2. If I had to heal myself 4 or 5 times in phase 1 i'd always end up with him going phase 2 with like 70% health left.
I disagree completely about Alonne. Alonne to me is a cakewalk. I beat him the first time i ever fought him, because he does such little damage I could just eat hits and heal it back up with no danger. I probably got hit by him like 12 times and still one shotted him the first time i walked into his boss room.
It felt doubly like a joke since i fought him right after fighting Artorias 2.0 aka Fume. Hell, the path to get to Alonne is harder than the boss itself. I don't want a boss that doesn't punish me at all for failing.
(After dying something like 15 times, but I do that to all bosses first time I meet them, then at some point just... stops dying to them. Ever.)
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Oh, was obvious he was operating way under his actual soul level with the gear he was packing. Was just wondering about the 0 frame parry, because last I heard (before the DLCs hit) they'd nerfed the scimitar.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Eh? I never said Alonne was hard. I just think he's a lot fairer than Fume knight.
Pluse the room you fight him in looks a lot more epic.
I've yet to figure out what you mean by "one-shotting". The way I've always understood is "killing an enemy in one hit", but it sounds more like you're referring to "getting in one hit at a time". Which sounds more likely as Alonne and the Fume knight don't have that long opening windows.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
Are you talking about the monastery scimitar's ability to instantly parry? That actually DID get reverted. I wanna say it was during the Old Iron King DLC release.
Why? No one knows.
Edit: Unless... they fixed it, then broke it again, and then fixed it again.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
Reddit post from less than a month ago says it was fixed. I'm really confused now. I haven't done any PVP lately so I have no idea.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
the UGS golf swing doesn't work as well as it used to anymore, and supposedly great hammers can't combo like, at all
the chaos blade remains untouched because priorities
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
i've never heard anyone complain about either
except hackers, i guess
(the golf swing still knocks people away, but it has no vertical element anymore, so it can't flip people up over walls or railings)
One shotting has multiple contexts. One of them is "beating the boss the first time you attempt it." That's the context I was using, as in I killed Alonne the first time I fought him because he doesn't do enough damage and has huge openings for healing so it basically felt impossible to lose the fight.
Your reasoning for liking Alonne is totally fine and I respect it, but your reasoning for thinking Fume isn't as good as I think it is I can't agree with. The fact that he DOES punish healing so hard and he will kill you 2 or 3 hits in phase 2 is the reason the fight is so good. Your performance in phase 1 determines his health when he hits phase 2, and the fact that you can actually lose if you screw up even once in phase 2 is why I love it so much.
I wish the game had way more bosses that were that punishing. None of the Souls games really have that many bosses that are that hard. In DS1 Artorias, O&S, and Manus were really the only ones I felt punished my mistakes hard enough. In DS2, Fume knight might be the only one. Maybe Lost Sinner, but she's probably still a little too predictable.
I highly doubt From cared at all that people were using it to knock people to their death off the iron keep bridge, even the poor fight club hosts. =P
Then we'll have to disagree for multiple reasons, the first being the inconsistency of what you claim is consistent behavior. I don't record the game when I play so I can't back it up with solid evidence, but as I said, even playing with people who would take off 10% of his health in one hit (usually two-handing ginormous weapons) he always buffed at around half health or more for me. Although, only two of my Fume Knight fights were actually solo. Once beating him normally, then again after crafting his soul into an unwanted weapon by accident.
Re: Healing punishment: I actually have a different experience here. Due to the slow speed of some of his attacks I actually never had difficulty healing during the fight.
I don't think this argument is getting us anywhere though. I think one of the reasons I don't like the Fume Knight is that he isn't optional if you want to progress through the DLC. Another boss I actually really HATE is the Ancient Dragon - but I don't really care if others agree with me there or not as 1. he's entirely optional and 2. there's no achievement/trophy or otherwise "completion percentage" related thing tied to him.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
If he didn't punish healing like he does he'd be easy in phase 2. If it was easy to heal during the fight you'd just heal up any time you got hit and win easily. I never once lost to Fume knight getting hit from 100% to 0. It was always getting hit by something, then trying to use my next opening to heal and he punished my healing, especially with his dashing thrust attack which he often seems to use specifically to punish estus.
I don't feel like we're really arguing btw, we just have different viewpoints, which is fine and expected in a Souls game. I think it's great that people have different experiences, viewpoints, and like and dislike different elements of a game.
I agree with you completely on ancient dragon. I just don't count him as a boss fight to be honest, because 4/5 souls of a giant is enough to make Vendrick basically a regular boss and you get those through normal play. If ancient dragon was a required boss in his current state, i'd consider him hugely shit design, because he's basically just a 1HKO machine that requires not reaction and good play, but just manipulating the AI into using the easiest to handle attacks.
i flipped out on day 1 once, because i managed to get him on the opposite side of the arena, chugged, only to have him cruise missile to my position and kill me before the health regen even kicked in
#rekt
he has healing opportunities, but it takes a little while to recognize when it's truly safe, and you'll probably have to dodge a couple of attacks before that point.
alonne is actually pretty straightforward in that regard, since he doesn't combo like, ever, so there's a chance to heal after almost every attack
Because that run was my punchmans run. After that, I would use different weapons. Try 'em out but...It wasn't the same, and I always found myself growing bored. However, a few days ago, once I realized this, Lady Punchman was created, and I have been going through to get to the DLC, and I'm having A WONDERFUL TIME AGAIN!
In NG, his damage and health are very well balanced so that you are pushed to avoid attacks but have enough leeway that you don't need to be perfect to win. It is the closest you'll get to Artorias in DS2.
In NG+, this balance is almost completely ruined by him having way, way too much health and doing way, way too much damage. A single landed attack in P2 is two flasks for full health, and you're going to need to hit him many, many times. It turns the fight into a tedious quest for perfection rather than a fun learning experience.
It also teaches you to hate how many of his attacks have dubious hitboxes. Part of the brilliance of Artorias is how precise all of his hits are. They are fast and unrelenting, but you will never be at any loss to know when they'll hit you. The only exception is the spinning one, which is just a thing you learn. This is not the case with Fume Knight, in P1, he's got that absurdly fast counter with the short blade. In P2, the flame on the blade itself can hit you by itself, never mind dodging the orbs.
It asks too much perfection and just isn't the sort of gameplay I like out of Souls games. It feels more like rote memorization than learning a rhythm. This stuff is easier to overlook in NG, because he doesn't have that much health. It is not in NG+.
I'm not so sure about that. Give it a try! My money says it kills you unless you're fire immune
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Not enjoying it. Did we REALLY need yet another poison area? I mean, 2 of the 4 paths to the great souls are focused primarily on poison. I'm almost to the end of the iron keep, so I'll start that one instead, get some levels there, THEN do sunken king.
It's certainly nothing like the gutter/gulch or even harvest valley/earthen peak where you would actually get poisoned a lot trying to get loot and explore and what not.
This. There's a grand total of one enemy encounter that features a serious ammount of poison buildup and even then you can avoid it.
And if you're not enjoying Sunken King that's something I can get behind, but, especially if you own the Season Pass, you should give the other 2 DLCs a go. Sunken King was the only one that I got little enjoyment out of.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
Marvel.
They're just part of the level geometry. Pillars with white bits on them.
Now go hit one.
Right now.
And then when you are done with the next, like, hour of giggling and mad fun times you can move on if you like.
But it is unique in a dark souls game. You should experience it.
I was just using those as cover before but...that can really help.
I also just started the DLC and really enjoyed that bit (which I think I only knew about because I had seen it incidentally in a video). Sadly, I do not enjoy the next area, in which these dinosaur thingies are kicking my ass and I can't find
So I got frustrated and went to the DLC off the Iron Keep, and that one is even harder...I don't think I have the skills to handle this. (I have SL~165, so that's not the problem. I fight with either the Olenford staff and soul arrows+spears or fully upgraded Fire Longsword or Dragonslayer Crescent Axe, holding each in both hands.)
Long story short I made it to the next bonfire.
Yeah I don't know. Sometimes I do things and honestly they only really work because I'm used to getting myself out of the messes I get myself into.
They'd be suicide for anyone else.
Open a chest in the Iron king DLC and HEY! Have a free Caestus +8! Which to me was basically a free titanite chunk, but still.
i strongly disagree, and my first fume kill was NG+
poor thomas didn't get a chance to do a thing