So yesterday, I'm fighting the last boss of the base game for the first time, things are going really well. So well that I'm sure there must be another phase.
There is! Health resets and he gets tougher! But still not too bad! I put him down again, ready for the next phase!
...THE END.
Huh. Okay!
Today, it's time for the first DLC. I've never been past Vilhelm, so I bumble through the area after him for a while. Get frustrated until I recognize a certain pit full of bullshit enemies as being the same as a different pit full of bullshit enemies and sure enough, there's the same way to progress.
Boss fight! Huh, I heard this was really tough! Oh, another phase, right. Oh, this is...hm, I think my UGS is breaking this fight. The big guy staggers then take a big riposte to the face. I win! Wait...a third phase?
Ruination follows. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Fourth or fifth try, I decide to give up on dodging everything and go for trades on her regular swings, which ends it pretty quick.
Now, I've seen people saying 100+ for the second DLC, but I'm only at 85 right now. I guess I should go find Archdragon Peak, since I just this second as I type this realized I never did it.
I was 91 and I did fine, if you "got gud" and it sounds like you have, then you should be good to go.
Prisoner's Chain now increases damage taken by 3%, down from 8-10%. Enormous buff. Probably a must-use ring up there with Ring of Favor now.
The upshot of this is that you can have strong Vit/End and high Str or Dex (or go something like 40/30) and have Lightning Blade or Darkmoon Blade as well at SL120. Allows for some very powerful offensive builds if you want to stay in the PvP meta range, especially with the recent buffs to Heavy and Sharp that make high Str/low Dex and high Dex/low Str builds able to compete with the physical damage output of 40/40 builds.
Prisoners chain was a staple in my Superheavy STR/Faith build, I'LL TAKE IT.
Yeah no the Prisoner chain buff is for the fuck you heavy builds.
Basically, the way it used to work is that, the Prisoner's chain gives you 15 levels of stats, and in exchange, you basically lost an armor class. This was so you could, feasibly at SL120/125 Equip something like Full Mourne's/Havel's/Cathedral Knight/Iron Dragonslayer, use heavy weapons and a tower shield, and still have decent health and Stamina because you're dumping an unhealthy amount of stats into Vit.
However, before the Heavy Armor Buff, that just made Heavy armor MORE useless than it already was. Even with the buff you needed to dedicate a slot to Steel Protection+1 and up to mitigate the armor value loss.
Now you can feasibly wear a FAP +3 and the Puri Puri Chain, and either eat the negligible 3% loss, or Steel Protection it up and have a free Ring Slot for Chloranthy's.
Initially I went dex with faith for miracles, then it turned out that miracles kind of suck. Then it turned out that dex kind of sucked too. So I added points into strength and beat the game with the dark sword plus miracle buff spells.
I guess that combo isn't absurd anymore but it served me well at the time.
I'm actually kind of enjoying my new pyromancer a lot. Spells that actually do damage and don't cost a ton of mana what a novelty. Plus a raw weapon so I can focus on int/fth while still doing ridiculous damage yes please.
Well, a raw weapon until I went into the painted world to get the Onyx Blade. At level 35. That wasn't fun. Fighting a bloodborne npc who can heal themselves and also kill me in two hits isn't great!
But you know what is?
The goddamn onyx blade against all these shithead fungus monkey people in Farron Swamp that's what.
Dex builds are actually super legit after the latest patch.
I mean... kinda. Quality or STR is still the best way to go.
Are they? A decent number of the classic meta weapons do better with a 20/60 sharp setup, and if you're willing to go a bit crazy on offensive stat investment Dex has been changed to start getting good returns again past 60. AFAIK, estoc is still the best weapon if you're willing to play patient.
1h estoc is
377 refined 40/40 vs 386 sharp 40/40.
397 sharp 20/60
423 sharp 10/80 but of course then you can't use a big shield.
1h Lothric Knight Sword is
413 refined and 411 sharp at 40/40
425 sharp at 20/60
461 sharp at 11/80
With longsword and broadsword both doing slightly more but without being as swag. And if you go 66/10 and 2h for max effective strength, the broad sword only hits 458 heavy.
Alternatively, you can see on this spreadsheet someone on the DS3 subreddit just made that dex is looking fine these days
Initially I went dex with faith for miracles, then it turned out that miracles kind of suck. Then it turned out that dex kind of sucked too. So I added points into strength and beat the game with the dark sword plus miracle buff spells.
I guess that combo isn't absurd anymore but it served me well at the time.
I'm actually kind of enjoying my new pyromancer a lot. Spells that actually do damage and don't cost a ton of mana what a novelty. Plus a raw weapon so I can focus on int/fth while still doing ridiculous damage yes please.
Well, a raw weapon until I went into the painted world to get the Onyx Blade. At level 35. That wasn't fun. Fighting a bloodborne npc who can heal themselves and also kill me in two hits isn't great!
But you know what is?
The goddamn onyx blade against all these shithead fungus monkey people in Farron Swamp that's what.
About that NPC at low levels
You can pull him out of the church, waiting for him to do his leap at you, run behind him, then shield bash him over and over until he falls off the cliff. At a certain distance he isn't even trying to fight back, just walk past you to return to his area.
It would be moderately amusing under normal circumstances...add in his top tier edginess and it's absolutely hilarious.
Finally beat Friede, it was a super intense fight. But it was just one of those runs where everything clicked. I still had to summon Gael however. I only used a few Estus' on the winning run, like most Souls bosses.
Phase 1 and 2 were par for the course. Having never played Bloodborne, I can only assume the absolutely relentless pace of phase 3 is representative of that game's level of speed. It wasn't impossible, but it's definitely faster than EVERY other fight in the game.
So, I saw an interesting lore speculation on the DS3 reddit based on something from DLC2.
Basically, the idea is that the seal of fire mentioned for restraining dark things is either the predecessor to or itself the Dark Sign undead have.
It could either be a curse that shows up on unusually powerful humans to restrain them OR something hidden on every human alive to make them die when they die, which loses power as the flame fades and shows up on the chests of more powerful humans and causes them to hollow as it half-fails.
Of course, this doesn't really explain why the Dark Sigils cause the Ashen One to start physically hollowing. If true, then I'd speculate that either the curse is intrinsically tied to the Dark Soul or the need for the Dark Sigils to interact with the First Flame necessitates involving the curse as part of a back door.
edit:
Oh, or the unkindled have their limiters taken off as part of being unkindled. As normal humans under the curse, they failed to become Cinder. In the dire circumstances of DS3, they're released from the curse to play their part for Fire, using all of their hidden human potential. When they betray that role by embracing the Dark again via Dark Sigils, the curse kicks right back in. Or the curse is part of the sigils as a backdoor, like I mentioned.
So, I saw an interesting lore speculation on the DS3 reddit based on something from DLC2.
Basically, the idea is that the seal of fire mentioned for restraining dark things is either the predecessor to or itself the Dark Sign undead have.
It could either be a curse that shows up on unusually powerful humans to restrain them OR something hidden on every human alive to make them die when they die, which loses power as the flame fades and shows up on the chests of more powerful humans and causes them to hollow as it half-fails.
Of course, this doesn't really explain why the Dark Sigils cause the Ashen One to start physically hollowing. If true, then I'd speculate that either the curse is intrinsically tied to the Dark Soul or the need for the Dark Sigils to interact with the First Flame necessitates involving the curse as part of a back door.
I never liked that.
DS1 and 2 established that being Hollow is the shittiest thing imaginable, and that death would be preferable, and the Artorias DLC established that Humanity running wild was the opposite of being Hollow. 3 threw out exploring this by introducing Londor, a city of asshole Dark junkies, going "whohoo, Hollow rocks, be a zombie with me!"
Uncontrolled dark IS super dangerous, that's why Gwyn slapped the seal on to begin with. However, light can be just as bad as dark with things like Chaos demons emerging from twisted flame. While humanity going wild wasn't the same thing as as the undead curse, they are related because humanity is from the dark to begin with.
So, I saw an interesting lore speculation on the DS3 reddit based on something from DLC2.
Basically, the idea is that the seal of fire mentioned for restraining dark things is either the predecessor to or itself the Dark Sign undead have.
It could either be a curse that shows up on unusually powerful humans to restrain them OR something hidden on every human alive to make them die when they die, which loses power as the flame fades and shows up on the chests of more powerful humans and causes them to hollow as it half-fails.
Of course, this doesn't really explain why the Dark Sigils cause the Ashen One to start physically hollowing. If true, then I'd speculate that either the curse is intrinsically tied to the Dark Soul or the need for the Dark Sigils to interact with the First Flame necessitates involving the curse as part of a back door.
I never liked that.
DS1 and 2 established that being Hollow is the shittiest thing imaginable, and that death would be preferable, and the Artorias DLC established that Humanity running wild was the opposite of being Hollow. 3 threw out exploring this by introducing Londor, a city of asshole Dark junkies, going "whohoo, Hollow rocks, be a zombie with me!"
Yeah, I did not enjoy Londor's quest or ending.
Even back in the Artorias DLC, I read Abyss as the Dark equivalent of Chaos--you play with it too much, twist it the wrong way, and shit gets bad. I never took that to mean anything about Dark itself.
Original Dark Souls formed my basic ideas of Dark Souls, so I'm not partial to later parts clashing with that. Humanity makes me not hollow. Humanity makes Darkwraiths not hollow.
Original Dark Souls formed my basic ideas of Dark Souls, so I'm not partial to later parts clashing with that. Humanity makes me not hollow. Humanity makes Darkwraiths not hollow.
Also ugly monster, but I digress.
Oh man, I didn't even think about humanity in DS1.
You need an infusion of Dark to overcome physical hollowing, not anything Flame-related. That's pretty straightforward.
edit: You can honestly build the theory I'm talking about purely on DS1, no major jumps, retcons, or the like necessary.
In DS1, we know that since the flame started fading, some humans have started to not quite die.
We know that when we die and revive, we start to become more corpselike. Eventually, you're a zombie, and then you die (presumably for good,
since we never see a hollowed NPC come back after we kill them).
We also know that if we use Humanity, something that looks intrinsically Dark and is confirmed to be such by Humanity Sprites in the DLC, we can come all the way back to life.
Add this to what Kaathe tells us, and we can speculate that the flame is why humans die during the Age of Flame and why powerful humans hollow in its twilight--the 'undead curse' is part of the ascent of man as the Flame suppressing us fades, not part of our fall as the Flame supporting us fades.
Lemme take a shot try and explain the whole Dark/Hollow/Darksign/Humanity and the nature of "Hollowing" with all the Ringed City info we have.
The Dark is not Humanity.
Humanity is not the Abyss.
And the Abyss is not the Dark.
All three things are separate entities.
The Dark was born when the First Flame was introduced to the world, as part of the introduction of duality. Light and Dark, Life and Death, ect.
Humanity as was stated in DS1, are fragments of the Dark Soul, which all humans have a fragment of. This is NOT the Dark, as Humanity/The Dark Soul are, like the Lord Soul, pieces of the FIRST FLAME, that's an important distinction. The First Flame brought duality, light and dark. The Lord Souls were akin to Fire. The Dark Soul, was attuned to Dark. Both, however, were still pieces of the First Flame. The Dark, is akin to Fire.
And as the Dark is akin to Fire, The Abyss, is to Dark, as Chaos is to Flame. Both states are unnatural creations due to outside forces manipulating the natural order. Chaos due to the Witches of Izalith trying to enhance fire enough to make it akin to the first flame, and the Abyss the nasty side effect of Gwyn's seal on the Dark. When the Fire Fades, the Dark increases in power, however, because Gwyn effectively put a lid on it, EVERYWHERE, both in the world and in pygmies/humans, when it grew too powerful to be contained by that lid of flame, it exploded out uncontrollably and unnaturally. That, is the Abyss.
Ringed City spoilers
I imagine at the Advent of the First Flame, the beings that became the God's got all huge and super strong and could spit fire and lightning and shit, meanwhile, the pygmies got to control this dark creepy substance which could not only hurt the dragon's, but the god's, and THEMSELVES, as well. To everyone involved, Fire seemed to have no side-effects, while the Dark was something that could possibly be dangerous to everyone involved.
It's no wonder the pygmies agreed to be linked to flame while also putting a seal on the Dark. At the time, it probably seemed like a win/win. They got the godlike powerups of lookin pretty and spitting fire and lightning, while also suppressing their natural connection to the Dark so it couldn't harm anyone. Those pygmies who's connection to the Dark was already so strong it couldn't be completely suppressed by Gwyn's Seal of Fire(The Pygmies with the largest pieces of the Dark Soul, the now Ringed Knights) were gifted the Ringed City at the edge of the world and everyone lived happily ever after the end.
I don't think either party could even imagine that the Flame would fade, and the Dark would simultaneously gain power. Since that concept was foreign in the first place. Which kind of explains everyone freaking the fuck out when the fire started fading.
I think the Dark Sign, as it would become known, was meant as more of a gift, and not a curse. Gwyn just patched together a backup plan when everything else failed, using the Pygmies/humans natural immortality and forced connection to fire to make good on a "bad" situation.
Another thematic and mechanical concept which is core to Dark Souls is that there are many instances of "reality". Things can be a little (or a LOT) different between them, and weird stuff going on in one instance can cause weird stuff to go on in others.
I'm pretty comfortable mapping different interpretations of the Souls universe onto somewhat divergent threads weaving their way through the same general tapestry.
0
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
edited April 2017
Going to take another shot at Dark Souls 1 soon. Only one I've played and never really got very far.
Figured I would give pyromancy a shot to help offset my piss poor dodging and defensive timing. Been reading up on it abit and I've been told you can't play a pure mage in this game but still sounds pretty potent.
Pyromancy takes Dark Souls 1 and breaks it in half over its knee. You will be just fine going through the game that way.
Just keep in mind that the only thing affecting your ability to pyro is the equipment you're wearing (and how upgraded your flame is) and how much attunement you've got, for spell slots. Throwing fireballs is not dependent on your character stats at all, so you can play pyromancer with any kind of character build you like. I went heavy armor/strength pyro from NG through to NG+2 and it worked great
Here's something fun for you about fire and disparity. Reconstructed etymology suggests a progression from words implying fire to words separately implying shining, bright things and scorched, dark things. Blank. Bleak. Black.
Pyromancy takes Dark Souls 1 and breaks it in half over its knee. You will be just fine going through the game that way.
Just keep in mind that the only thing affecting your ability to pyro is the equipment you're wearing (and how upgraded your flame is) and how much attunement you've got, for spell slots. Throwing fireballs is not dependent on your character stats at all, so you can play pyromancer with any kind of character build you like. I went heavy armor/strength pyro from NG through to NG+2 and it worked great
Yeah, Pyro is kinda great in DS1 in that respect because it becomes essentially an add-on to any normal non-caster build that gives you a nice but limited series of aids to get around tough encounters.
You basically melee your way through the game and then occasionally set anything that is gonna be too much of a pain in the ass on fire.
I think I'm going to give this game a second chance, see if I enjoy it more the second time around. If I get to endgame without going "bluuuuurgh" I'll get the DLC.
For now I've rolled a new character. Let's see if magic still sucks.
I think I'm going to give this game a second chance, see if I enjoy it more the second time around. If I get to endgame without going "bluuuuurgh" I'll get the DLC.
For now I've rolled a new character. Let's see if magic still sucks.
If you're talking fireballs, well fireballs solve every problem.
Oh, right, I had almost forgotten how miserable PVP is in this game. I was summoned to help a dude (I like getting summoned before every boss to get a refill), host was invaded, and we spent what felt like fifteen bloody minutes fighting. Ugh.
Posts
I was 91 and I did fine, if you "got gud" and it sounds like you have, then you should be good to go.
Prisoners chain was a staple in my Superheavy STR/Faith build, I'LL TAKE IT.
Goddammit Friede you bitch.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
the thing that bugs me is that people are like
yay a buff for mages
and i'm like
pfffft like a mage has a ring slot to give up
should i give up the ones that make me actually do damage, or the ones that let me cast fast enough to hit anything HMMMM
Basically, the way it used to work is that, the Prisoner's chain gives you 15 levels of stats, and in exchange, you basically lost an armor class. This was so you could, feasibly at SL120/125 Equip something like Full Mourne's/Havel's/Cathedral Knight/Iron Dragonslayer, use heavy weapons and a tower shield, and still have decent health and Stamina because you're dumping an unhealthy amount of stats into Vit.
However, before the Heavy Armor Buff, that just made Heavy armor MORE useless than it already was. Even with the buff you needed to dedicate a slot to Steel Protection+1 and up to mitigate the armor value loss.
Now you can feasibly wear a FAP +3 and the Puri Puri Chain, and either eat the negligible 3% loss, or Steel Protection it up and have a free Ring Slot for Chloranthy's.
Mages tho, mages need FIVE ring slots.
dex builds? get outta here, this is dark souls 3, you're not allowed
I've been playing a dex/caster hybrid.
Just kinda brainstem reflex after all these years.
I'm so sorry.
I mean... kinda. Quality or STR is still the best way to go.
I guess that combo isn't absurd anymore but it served me well at the time.
I'm actually kind of enjoying my new pyromancer a lot. Spells that actually do damage and don't cost a ton of mana what a novelty. Plus a raw weapon so I can focus on int/fth while still doing ridiculous damage yes please.
Well, a raw weapon until I went into the painted world to get the Onyx Blade. At level 35. That wasn't fun. Fighting a bloodborne npc who can heal themselves and also kill me in two hits isn't great!
But you know what is?
The goddamn onyx blade against all these shithead fungus monkey people in Farron Swamp that's what.
Are they? A decent number of the classic meta weapons do better with a 20/60 sharp setup, and if you're willing to go a bit crazy on offensive stat investment Dex has been changed to start getting good returns again past 60. AFAIK, estoc is still the best weapon if you're willing to play patient.
1h estoc is
377 refined 40/40 vs 386 sharp 40/40.
397 sharp 20/60
423 sharp 10/80 but of course then you can't use a big shield.
1h Lothric Knight Sword is
413 refined and 411 sharp at 40/40
425 sharp at 20/60
461 sharp at 11/80
With longsword and broadsword both doing slightly more but without being as swag. And if you go 66/10 and 2h for max effective strength, the broad sword only hits 458 heavy.
Alternatively, you can see on this spreadsheet someone on the DS3 subreddit just made that dex is looking fine these days
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nUNgXA-SnYFEClTkvcui-X1JBgjpsvDbVJrqVIdo98U/edit
About that NPC at low levels
It would be moderately amusing under normal circumstances...add in his top tier edginess and it's absolutely hilarious.
Phase 1 and 2 were par for the course. Having never played Bloodborne, I can only assume the absolutely relentless pace of phase 3 is representative of that game's level of speed. It wasn't impossible, but it's definitely faster than EVERY other fight in the game.
It could either be a curse that shows up on unusually powerful humans to restrain them OR something hidden on every human alive to make them die when they die, which loses power as the flame fades and shows up on the chests of more powerful humans and causes them to hollow as it half-fails.
Of course, this doesn't really explain why the Dark Sigils cause the Ashen One to start physically hollowing. If true, then I'd speculate that either the curse is intrinsically tied to the Dark Soul or the need for the Dark Sigils to interact with the First Flame necessitates involving the curse as part of a back door.
edit:
I never liked that.
Yeah, I did not enjoy Londor's quest or ending.
Even back in the Artorias DLC, I read Abyss as the Dark equivalent of Chaos--you play with it too much, twist it the wrong way, and shit gets bad. I never took that to mean anything about Dark itself.
Also ugly monster, but I digress.
Oh man, I didn't even think about humanity in DS1.
You need an infusion of Dark to overcome physical hollowing, not anything Flame-related. That's pretty straightforward.
edit: You can honestly build the theory I'm talking about purely on DS1, no major jumps, retcons, or the like necessary.
We know that when we die and revive, we start to become more corpselike. Eventually, you're a zombie, and then you die (presumably for good,
since we never see a hollowed NPC come back after we kill them).
We also know that if we use Humanity, something that looks intrinsically Dark and is confirmed to be such by Humanity Sprites in the DLC, we can come all the way back to life.
Add this to what Kaathe tells us, and we can speculate that the flame is why humans die during the Age of Flame and why powerful humans hollow in its twilight--the 'undead curse' is part of the ascent of man as the Flame suppressing us fades, not part of our fall as the Flame supporting us fades.
The Dark is not Humanity.
Humanity is not the Abyss.
And the Abyss is not the Dark.
All three things are separate entities.
The Dark was born when the First Flame was introduced to the world, as part of the introduction of duality. Light and Dark, Life and Death, ect.
Humanity as was stated in DS1, are fragments of the Dark Soul, which all humans have a fragment of. This is NOT the Dark, as Humanity/The Dark Soul are, like the Lord Soul, pieces of the FIRST FLAME, that's an important distinction. The First Flame brought duality, light and dark. The Lord Souls were akin to Fire. The Dark Soul, was attuned to Dark. Both, however, were still pieces of the First Flame. The Dark, is akin to Fire.
And as the Dark is akin to Fire, The Abyss, is to Dark, as Chaos is to Flame. Both states are unnatural creations due to outside forces manipulating the natural order. Chaos due to the Witches of Izalith trying to enhance fire enough to make it akin to the first flame, and the Abyss the nasty side effect of Gwyn's seal on the Dark. When the Fire Fades, the Dark increases in power, however, because Gwyn effectively put a lid on it, EVERYWHERE, both in the world and in pygmies/humans, when it grew too powerful to be contained by that lid of flame, it exploded out uncontrollably and unnaturally. That, is the Abyss.
Ringed City spoilers
It's no wonder the pygmies agreed to be linked to flame while also putting a seal on the Dark. At the time, it probably seemed like a win/win. They got the godlike powerups of lookin pretty and spitting fire and lightning, while also suppressing their natural connection to the Dark so it couldn't harm anyone. Those pygmies who's connection to the Dark was already so strong it couldn't be completely suppressed by Gwyn's Seal of Fire(The Pygmies with the largest pieces of the Dark Soul, the now Ringed Knights) were gifted the Ringed City at the edge of the world and everyone lived happily ever after the end.
I don't think either party could even imagine that the Flame would fade, and the Dark would simultaneously gain power. Since that concept was foreign in the first place. Which kind of explains everyone freaking the fuck out when the fire started fading.
I think the Dark Sign, as it would become known, was meant as more of a gift, and not a curse. Gwyn just patched together a backup plan when everything else failed, using the Pygmies/humans natural immortality and forced connection to fire to make good on a "bad" situation.
I'm pretty comfortable mapping different interpretations of the Souls universe onto somewhat divergent threads weaving their way through the same general tapestry.
Figured I would give pyromancy a shot to help offset my piss poor dodging and defensive timing. Been reading up on it abit and I've been told you can't play a pure mage in this game but still sounds pretty potent.
Just keep in mind that the only thing affecting your ability to pyro is the equipment you're wearing (and how upgraded your flame is) and how much attunement you've got, for spell slots. Throwing fireballs is not dependent on your character stats at all, so you can play pyromancer with any kind of character build you like. I went heavy armor/strength pyro from NG through to NG+2 and it worked great
Yeah, Pyro is kinda great in DS1 in that respect because it becomes essentially an add-on to any normal non-caster build that gives you a nice but limited series of aids to get around tough encounters.
You basically melee your way through the game and then occasionally set anything that is gonna be too much of a pain in the ass on fire.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Nah. There are spells with high bleed buildup but that's really it, nothing approaching the power level of the Ariandel maggots.
For now I've rolled a new character. Let's see if magic still sucks.
If you're talking fireballs, well fireballs solve every problem.
I don't think this is actually in reference to DS3 but it fucking should be, I like every word in this post.