I think the difficulty is fitting because Manus is the closest thing the series has ever had to a big final villain.
Hmm... it's hard to call him a villain though.
I felt much better with the final boss of the normal game. He had it fucking coming.
Manus is tragic, but the Abyss is pure entropy. Manus wrecked a civilization just by existing. Motivations are irrelevant when everything you come in contact with goes insane and/or erupts in body horrors.
Gwyn, his motivations were partly motivated by fear of humans. But he was actually friends with a number of humans like Havel, the Four Kings, etc. And ultimately he chose to die to preserve the age of fire, which results in a temporary reprieve in the curse of the undead.
It all depends on what you view as the natural state of humanity, "our" world, the one of living and dead people with civilizations that are recognizable are all tied to the age of fire. It may fade, but everything does. If you view the predatory "unlife" of the Darkwraiths and Kaathe as the "true" nature of man, then a world of dark is preferable.
Neither is 100% good or bad in this setting, but an age of dark is just that, a post-apocalypse society which would function by questionable means and would survive only as long as there was humanity to feed upon.
manwiththemachinegun on
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I'm getting near the end of my DS1 playthrough and I'm not sure I want to get involved with the DLC. These last few areas have been really... not fun. I kinda just want to beat the game so I can say I did .
I agree with Phobos. The DLC, while very challenging, is very well done...especially when compared to late game vanilla. Also, there is a LOT of lore/story info in it.
Speaking of potentially missing out on some lore.. I finally did the darkwraith covenant this playthru and holy crap! There's a lot of lore you can only find out by aligning with Kaathe.
It really feels like people forgot that before the DS2 DLCs came out From told everybody that each one was going to have a "co-op" area where the enemies would be tuned to be done cooperatively. Iron Passage, Frigid Outskirts, and Cave of the Dead were those areas. So much so that people who don't own the DLC can co-op in those 3 areas.
As far as I'm concerned, they're basically tacked on multiplayer areas, not even really part of the core of the DLCs. That's how I always treated them. That's why people get so frustrated when they decide to solo the areas.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
Quelaag is being kind of a dickhole to fight. I think I am having issues with being patient, because her blast attack is killing me.
Definitely fight without lock-on, and keep an eye on what the woman part of her is doing. She actually has a pretty obvious tell when she's about to go nova: she will learn forward and put her arm down on the spider part. Start rolling away as soon as she does this and you should escape the explosion.
A balder side sword dropped on like, the first balder knight I killed. I understand that's a very rare drop and a decent weapon so now I'm tempted to spec for it instead of the Zweihander because a lucky drop like that has to be an omen, right?
Balder Side Sword is one of those weapons that if you get early is a good reason to entirely derail your build plans to use, yes. It attacks really fast, has a great range on the poke attacks, and does good damage.
Bonus with a Dex build you'll be able to use bows to their full extent, ie. getting enemies to come to you and now they're at half health before they get to melee range.
I have never liked the Zweihander though. Heaviest i'm willing to go in DS1 is Black Knight Sword.
I believe the only finer Dex weapon is the Scythe. Good damage and a rock-solid moveset both 1H and 2H. It's hard not to recommend the Swag Sword, but if you want to poise n' pancake, stick with the Bass Cannon.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
A balder side sword dropped on like, the first balder knight I killed. I understand that's a very rare drop and a decent weapon so now I'm tempted to spec for it instead of the Zweihander because a lucky drop like that has to be an omen, right?
4 more points in Dex and you can at least use it. Depending on what else you were planning to up, It could make a nice Magic/Enchanted or Divine/Occult side weapon. It's mainly based on Dex, and very useful as a swift sword while not quite being a rapier.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
I believe the only finer Dex weapon is the Scythe. Good damage and a rock-solid moveset both 1H and 2H. It's hard not to recommend the Swag Sword, but if you want to poise n' pancake, stick with the Bass Cannon.
Discounting two weapons from one boss... yeah, more or less.
It really feels like people forgot that before the DS2 DLCs came out From told everybody that each one was going to have a "co-op" area where the enemies would be tuned to be done cooperatively. Iron Passage, Frigid Outskirts, and Cave of the Dead were those areas. So much so that people who don't own the DLC can co-op in those 3 areas.
As far as I'm concerned, they're basically tacked on multiplayer areas, not even really part of the core of the DLCs. That's how I always treated them. That's why people get so frustrated when they decide to solo the areas.
Iron Passage and Cave of the Dead I can do pretty easily solo (just run past everything) but Frigid Outskirts I summon as many phantoms as I can and still ended up giving up on due to those BS shadow gazelle things.
Saying their basically multiplayer areas makes a lot of sense.
I only got through the Frigid Outskirts by making the ice stallions extinct. Fuck trying to run through that nightmare with those things still around each time I died to the boss.
I forgot how much of a pain the Stray Demon can be. I might leave and come back when I have shit to trade to that stupid bird, now that I've got what I wanted from the asylum.
+1
never-ending-reignPolish Catholicentering a world of painRegistered Userregular
So just finished NG. Totally forgot to do the Dark Lord end smh. Oh well. On to NG+ and to hopefully remember.
Regarding Gwyn...I won't say I'm the first to do it but I thought of it, tried it and it worked amazingly well. If you built for max Pyro, as soon as I walked in I took just a couple steps toward Gwyn and let loose with Fire Tempest. His opening jump puts him directly in it. Literally half his health was gone (or close enough to round). From there I hugged him like a lost lover and great combustion'd him. It only took a few. I was honestly a little shocked that a new tactic worked THAT well on first attempt. My hope is this will help someone in the future. Can only imagine what chaos storm would've done.
Ha, it's hard to stop me from just lighting the final fire. The whole game I've been looking for these things and lighting them, what's different about this--oh, cutscene.
I'm glad DS2 doesn't force you into NG+ for that reason.
Ha, it's hard to stop me from just lighting the final fire. The whole game I've been looking for these things and lighting them, what's different about this--oh, cutscene.
I'm glad DS2 doesn't force you into NG+ for that reason.
It is very nice to be able to finish the end boss and go do clean up after the fact. Aside from clutch items I even went and grabbed some of the later unique weapons just in the off chance I wanna use them.
O&S are definitely easier to me than Manus and Kalameet. But everybody struggles on different bosses in Soulsborne games. It's possible that some people might have O&S as the hardest boss in the entire game for them, because they have a hard time adjusting to fighting 2 targets at once. You have to fight them differently than you fight other bosses.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
O&S are definitely easier to me than Manus and Kalameet. But everybody struggles on different bosses in Soulsborne games. It's possible that some people might have O&S as the hardest boss in the entire game for them, because they have a hard time adjusting to fighting 2 targets at once. You have to fight them differently than you fight other bosses.
I pretty much can't fight two at once. I had to take Solaire in to beat them.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
I started up another playthrough of DS2 while I wait for DS3.
Doing a Dexterity build this time, planning on dual wielding Blacksteel Katanas eventually.
Worked my way through the forest last night, it's actually kind of funny, the enemy placements were consistently surprising me because I have multiple playthroughs of Vanilla DS2, but only one playthrough of SotFS. So all of my "memorized" enemy and item placements are from the vanilla game, not scholar.
It's like I get to play DS2 blind again outside of knowing the level layouts and where the really important items are.
Steam: Spawnbroker
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I will also say that while I probably could have eventually beaten the Ruin Sentinels alone, I found it much easier to just bring the NPC with me and then let them aggro him so I could blast them with spells one by one. It didn't hurt that his spells were even more powerful than mine.
I am not good at being able to figure out what an enemy is doing if they aren't in my direct line of sight.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Posts
Manus is tragic, but the Abyss is pure entropy. Manus wrecked a civilization just by existing. Motivations are irrelevant when everything you come in contact with goes insane and/or erupts in body horrors.
Gwyn, his motivations were partly motivated by fear of humans. But he was actually friends with a number of humans like Havel, the Four Kings, etc. And ultimately he chose to die to preserve the age of fire, which results in a temporary reprieve in the curse of the undead.
It all depends on what you view as the natural state of humanity, "our" world, the one of living and dead people with civilizations that are recognizable are all tied to the age of fire. It may fade, but everything does. If you view the predatory "unlife" of the Darkwraiths and Kaathe as the "true" nature of man, then a world of dark is preferable.
Neither is 100% good or bad in this setting, but an age of dark is just that, a post-apocalypse society which would function by questionable means and would survive only as long as there was humanity to feed upon.
Every single Forlorn I've run into kills me in about 3-4 hits, and I barely can make a dent in their health. So yeah, not so much a plus.
https://medium.com/@alascii
I agree with Phobos. The DLC, while very challenging, is very well done...especially when compared to late game vanilla. Also, there is a LOT of lore/story info in it.
Speaking of potentially missing out on some lore.. I finally did the darkwraith covenant this playthru and holy crap! There's a lot of lore you can only find out by aligning with Kaathe.
I never finished the game. My interest faded after O and S.
Locked on, I find it can be easy to miss the tell, or harder to get out when it happens
Iron Passage says otherwise
As far as I'm concerned, they're basically tacked on multiplayer areas, not even really part of the core of the DLCs. That's how I always treated them. That's why people get so frustrated when they decide to solo the areas.
Definitely fight without lock-on, and keep an eye on what the woman part of her is doing. She actually has a pretty obvious tell when she's about to go nova: she will learn forward and put her arm down on the spider part. Start rolling away as soon as she does this and you should escape the explosion.
Bonus with a Dex build you'll be able to use bows to their full extent, ie. getting enemies to come to you and now they're at half health before they get to melee range.
I have never liked the Zweihander though. Heaviest i'm willing to go in DS1 is Black Knight Sword.
4 more points in Dex and you can at least use it. Depending on what else you were planning to up, It could make a nice Magic/Enchanted or Divine/Occult side weapon. It's mainly based on Dex, and very useful as a swift sword while not quite being a rapier.
Discounting two weapons from one boss... yeah, more or less.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Maybe I'll go Bastard Sword. Suboptimal, but badass looking.
*bows head
Iaito then, but... yes. It annoys me more about the dagger, because it's absolutely gorgeous looking in addition to being ridiculously deadly.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Iron Passage and Cave of the Dead I can do pretty easily solo (just run past everything) but Frigid Outskirts I summon as many phantoms as I can and still ended up giving up on due to those BS shadow gazelle things.
Saying their basically multiplayer areas makes a lot of sense.
Regarding Gwyn...I won't say I'm the first to do it but I thought of it, tried it and it worked amazingly well. If you built for max Pyro, as soon as I walked in I took just a couple steps toward Gwyn and let loose with Fire Tempest. His opening jump puts him directly in it. Literally half his health was gone (or close enough to round). From there I hugged him like a lost lover and great combustion'd him. It only took a few. I was honestly a little shocked that a new tactic worked THAT well on first attempt. My hope is this will help someone in the future. Can only imagine what chaos storm would've done.
I'm glad DS2 doesn't force you into NG+ for that reason.
It is very nice to be able to finish the end boss and go do clean up after the fact. Aside from clutch items I even went and grabbed some of the later unique weapons just in the off chance I wanna use them.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
I just beat blighttown. Ugh. Such an awful place. 100% as bad as I remembered. And I skipped most of it!
Then I realized I have to beat Siskel and Ebert to get to the Archives and access the DLC, don't I...
I don't know about that. To date I've never beaten O&S without help (I think?) but I have solo'd every DLC boss multiple times.
I pretty much can't fight two at once. I had to take Solaire in to beat them.
A fun video, but I think it's reaching a bit too hard. It feels like a theory in search of evidence, rather than the other way around.
Also, so many DS2 examples to support Miyazaki quotes, when I thought he wasn't making the majority of decisions on that one.
Doing a Dexterity build this time, planning on dual wielding Blacksteel Katanas eventually.
Worked my way through the forest last night, it's actually kind of funny, the enemy placements were consistently surprising me because I have multiple playthroughs of Vanilla DS2, but only one playthrough of SotFS. So all of my "memorized" enemy and item placements are from the vanilla game, not scholar.
It's like I get to play DS2 blind again outside of knowing the level layouts and where the really important items are.
I am not good at being able to figure out what an enemy is doing if they aren't in my direct line of sight.