Wait a second. Did I screw myself by giving me a +5 Claymore for the Capra Demon? I haven't seen any summon signs so far. SL 24 right now.
You're not screwed, the weapon matchmaking is really broad. A +5 weapon guy can matchmake all the way from +0 unupgraded weapon guys to +11 very large ember guys.
Am I crazy, or is the camera going downhill in From games over time?
DeS and DS1, I can't think of any problems I ever had with the camera, though it feels kinda loose like everything in DeS.
DS2, the camera feels awful and locks feel weird.
BB, the camera moves fine but you're constantly tripping over knicknacks and furniture you couldn't see and making it freak out. Also it's often impossible to see anything but the enemy model glitching through the camera in boss fights.
DS3, the camera feels fine, mostly, but breaks lock fairly often.
Sekiro, the camera is miserable trash. It breaks lock constantly and walls freak it out. Also every enemy pushes you back during your deflects, so you're going to meet those walls often. And seeing specific tells has never been more crucial, so oof.
I suppose it's probably all the same camera, except the weirdo slow camera in DS2, and how bad it feels is more a factor of environments getting busier and movement speed rising?
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Sekiro gives me the least camera trouble by far, out of all of the From games. There's something like two fights where terrain is somewhat regularly obnoxious in interacting with the camera, and maybe one or two others where the camera can get iffy under very, very specific circumstances (like breaking lock if you move in a certain direction after a big, fast enemy movement). Getting backed against a wall can be a problem, but I count that as a legit design decision because it's a decent reflection of the fact that a player backed against the wall has failed to pick their placing well; Sekiro has to have the room to maneuver for dodging or getting a breather when blocking, and that means not letting yourself get pressured into a corner. Pressuring an enemy into a corner gives you a serious tactical advantage, makes sense to me that the reverse should also work against the player.
But the big thing there is that Sekiro has far fewer enormous enemies compared to Soulsborne games, and those are ALWAYS what cause me consistent and infuriating camera problems. Most Sekiro enemies are only somewhat larger than the player, the larger enemies are still smaller than most big Soulsborne enemies, and the one extremely large enemy gets a special camera orientation that makes it difficult to not be seeing that enemy at all times during the fight. In comparison, each and every Soulsborne game has multiple instances of enemies too big to properly fit on the screen.
I would never not lock-on to an enemy in Sekiro, but there are multiple Soulsborne enemies where using lock-on is actually a major disadvantage because the camera system is so fucky.
knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Just a slight disagreement on the camera lock in Sekiro.
There are a couple bosses where I feel like they’re almost designed, either by size or move set or a combination of both, to break camera lock multiple times per fight.
But on the whole I agree it doesn’t have the camera issues in general that other FROM games have.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
yeah I'm having more trouble than I expected last time I attempted him. Cleared the Gaping Dragon by just removing all my clothing to fast roll. I'm gonna double back and kill him for his ring.
Combustion/Great Combustion/Black Flame: fast, short range, high damage.
Fireball/Fire Orb/Great Fireball/Great Chaos Fireball: ranged AoE attacks.
Power Within: 40% damage buff to everything you do, minor HP cost.
yeah I'm having more trouble than I expected last time I attempted him. Cleared the Gaping Dragon by just removing all my clothing to fast roll. I'm gonna double back and kill him for his ring.
Also, what pyromancies should I pick up for PvE?
Backstab works and is safe, but parrying him to death is easier than you might think, about on par with parrying normal sword Black Knights. Though it's high risk high reward since you'll die miserably if you don't get at least a partial parry.
There's a moment when he swings where the head of the Dragon Tooth goes from being behind him to in its final attack line overhead/in front of him, hit parry there and it's fine.
Main risk is not noticing him changing from 1h to 2h and changing the timing on that, or him using the backstep attack since he runs forward, but it's still that frame 'When it is in front of him' regardless of how long it takes to get there.
yeah I'm having more trouble than I expected last time I attempted him. Cleared the Gaping Dragon by just removing all my clothing to fast roll. I'm gonna double back and kill him for his ring.
Also, what pyromancies should I pick up for PvE?
There's a super cheesy strat for Havel, spoilered if you wish to fight with honor by stabbing him in the back instead.
He's vulnerable to fall damage and is willing to jump off ledges after you. If you show up naked, aggro him and run up 2 flights of stairs, jumping off at the last moment, he will fall after you. You take some damage but so does he. Repeat until he dies. I found this the most consistent and easy way to kill him.
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DS1 pyromancy is just amazing for all builds because it requires no stat investment. Whatever build you're playing, you can have max pyromancy. It's kinda dumb if you're playing some barbarian dude with a club and 0 intelligence that you can cast Chaos Storm, Great Chaos Fireball and Toxin Cloud as well as a pure mage, but you can go nuts with all of it. Toxin Cloud can be very cheesy.
Currently on a DS3 run trying to get to and finish NG+8, the difficulty cap. I've never passed +2 (did that only for the platinum). Doing this with a Moonlight Greatsword for now, nearly finished with NG+1. This build really stomps most of this game.
You do the boss fight. Loot Sunlight Blade and Brass Armor. Then the fire keeper attacks you when you walk outside, so you get the FK soul without randomly attacking her, if that bugs you.
I'm curious, what do people like as their standard or preferred build?
I pretty much always default to some sort of sword (straight, great, or ultra) with the normal side to side sweeps, pyromancy, and maybe a shield (though the shields don't get much use at this point). Vertical ultras in 2 or 3 are good too, but definitely my tier 2.
I'm curious, what do people like as their standard or preferred build?
I pretty much always default to some sort of sword (straight, great, or ultra) with the normal side to side sweeps, pyromancy, and maybe a shield (though the shields don't get much use at this point). Vertical ultras in 2 or 3 are good too, but definitely my tier 2.
I have only played 1 and 2, but when in doubt I always go with the ability to 2hand a large club. It can solve all problems.
Partizan and weapons with that moveset for #1 weapon I keep trying to make work in PvE but it does not work well (except in 2, where spears are godly in PvE because of the way counter damage works).
i usually do melee, physical (occasionally melee with split damage), almost never casting
as far as weapons go it's kind of all over the place. i tend to go for specific weapons rather than specific weapon classes. usually i like weapons for certain traits. for example, i like the murakumo in all three games, but for different reasons in each (1: one-handed moveset, 2: the parry, 3: hyper armor + weapon art combo).
greatsword are always generically good. i'm coming around to the simplicity of light spears. iai katanas are sic
favorite weapons in 1 are the kumo, silver knight spear, large club
2 probably the kumo, partizan, mirrah greatsword, weapons with the greataxe one-handed moveset, pate's spear, loyce greatsword, powerstanced fists, rapiers
3 probably the astora greatsword, black knight sword, partizan and kumo again, bastard sword, crucifix of the mad king
then i just slap a parry shield on and figure out a fashion souls that gives me a good roll
I'm curious, what do people like as their standard or preferred build?
I pretty much always default to some sort of sword (straight, great, or ultra) with the normal side to side sweeps, pyromancy, and maybe a shield (though the shields don't get much use at this point). Vertical ultras in 2 or 3 are good too, but definitely my tier 2.
I have only played 1 and 2, but when in doubt I always go with the ability to 2hand a large club. It can solve all problems.
i love that one of the constants of the series is that the clubs are always good
there's always variance in which clubs are the best
but there's a club near the top of the heap every time
I'm curious, what do people like as their standard or preferred build?
I pretty much always default to some sort of sword (straight, great, or ultra) with the normal side to side sweeps, pyromancy, and maybe a shield (though the shields don't get much use at this point). Vertical ultras in 2 or 3 are good too, but definitely my tier 2.
Fast dex-based weapon (usually a rapier type), fast roll weight class, parry shield or dual wield. Often I mix very light spellcasting in for some basic slow HoTs and simple ranged options if I don't feel like dealing with bows.
I consider that a "hard" build, as it relies a whole bunch on player skill. You get punished hard for mistakes, you can't really poise through anything, and spike damage comes solely from critical hits.
If I just want to toast the game, I'll wear heavy armor and use a greatsword class or similar-sized weapon (Lucerne and Gargoyle Flame Hammer in DS3 are great) along with a high-stability, 100% phys-def shield (or just the Grass Crest if enemy damage is low enough). Toss on a regeneration ring. That's power level for the win. I don't really feel that I get the true "Dark Souls" experience this way as it's pretty low risk tank-and-spank, but it does usually let me waste invader players, which is a pretty rare experience (I'm rarely set up for proper PvP).
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
I don't like the ultra heavy weapons in Dark Souls. They are way too slow for me. The series deliberately doesn't have animation cancelling and i'm not good enough to know enemy movesets to be able to plan when to use an attack that takes multiple seconds to execute. So I always go with one handed and shield in Dark Souls 1.
Dark Souls 2 made some slight changes to where I do like the greatsword and ultra- classes for whatever reason. Not sure if they are faster or I just spent enough time with them finally. My favorite build in the series ended up being hex focused, with the Sunset Staff in my offhand and the Crypt Blacksword in my main hand (though I would 2H it when I actually had to swing, getting enough str to 1H that thing is its own focus). I fucking love hexes in Dark Souls 2. They are so much fun.
Which wraps back around to my pet topic of shitting on Dark Souls 3- because they ruined hexes and turned them into crappy miracles. I would also argue though they ruined spellcasting entirely by going away from spell slots and into that shitty mana system. Dark Souls 3 I do like the Twins' Greatsword, but also Friede's Scythe is a loooooooot of fun especially on the super attacks when you bust out the smaller one for the big spinny whirlwind of death.
In whichever of the games i'm playing, I never go heavy armor ever ever. I need my roll speed.
I was never able to full-time spellcast in the earlier games because I always ran out of spell slots (and when I didn't, I still ultra-conserved them because I was afraid of running out when I needed them). So "caster build" mostly meant "caster-based melee weapon with a few blasts to use in the tough spots" for me.
The FP system and Ashen Flasks is the only pure caster I've enjoyed in the series, as after about a third of the way in or so it's almost all spells all the time. And the trade-off of losing regular flasks felt really natural and impactful.
Hexes in DS2 were amazing, though, as individual spells. Only did that run once, but I liked it a lot.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
In 2 once you're well on the way to dedicating yourself you can have like 40 casts of one spell and 20 of another with 10 of your big one on standby if you need it. It was never a problem for me in that game. You just have to build up to it instead of being able to rely on it from the start.
It's exactly the tradeoff of HP flasks vs FP flasks that ruined it for me in 3. Because that never was a tradeoff before. It made me decide between my health and my spells and it's a freaking dark souls game of course i'm going to choose health.
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I've only ever done one run through Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2, and each time I've ended up as some strange battlemage hybrid of sorts.
The first game I started as a Pyro, and ended mainly wielding an Enchanted Claymore and some Medium Shield, a fully upgraded Pyro hand for when I wanted to torch things, and went into sorcery the moment I could, bumping my Intelligence or whatever it was up to cast higher level spells. I also had a bow around, and I was generally able to fight well in medium armor casting quick spells and swinging my sword.
My DS2 run ended up more or less like my first game run, but with enough Dex to dual-wield a pair of katanas as well.
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My first Demon's Souls run was the quintessential failure character. I was going for the dex-focused build mentioned before, but I didn't really know how to stats (and to be fair, info was scarce at first).
I wound up putting points into whatever I needed at that moment to equip or cast something interesting, which meant I was all over the place and terrible at everything.
I relied on low damage sorcery and poking stuff to death when it got close. The game utterly intimidated me, so I played it like a survival horror, tentatively picking my way around and running away a lot. Relied entirely on summons for nearly every boss.
That was one hell of a first experience. The kind you get with games only a few times in life, honestly. The game doesn't hold up, but I'll always remember how it felt to dive blindly into it. It was something very special.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
I can't remember my first run of DaS, tbh, because I kept making new characters to try different builds and scooting them all to the same point, scared of progress. Then one would go a little further, and I'd bring the others too. This is how I play all of these now.
First finish was all vit end with a lightning scythe (the glaive one, not the great scythe), pyromancy, and elite knight.
Easiest for DS1 has to be all vit and endurance chaos/lightning zweihander, with pyromancy for the things that aren't trivialized by spamming the zwei r2.
Or crossbow cheese.
edit: I can see axes being easy, tbh, but it's burned into my brain as a pain since the one axe clear on my spreadsheet was my SL1 run
I tend to end up as some sort of pyromancer-gish in dark souls. My all time favorite was my punch princess in ds2 though - bone fist focused with surprise! Fire! Really messed with people.
Man I miss the bone fist. Such a wonderful large moveset
Posts
You're not screwed, the weapon matchmaking is really broad. A +5 weapon guy can matchmake all the way from +0 unupgraded weapon guys to +11 very large ember guys.
DeS and DS1, I can't think of any problems I ever had with the camera, though it feels kinda loose like everything in DeS.
DS2, the camera feels awful and locks feel weird.
BB, the camera moves fine but you're constantly tripping over knicknacks and furniture you couldn't see and making it freak out. Also it's often impossible to see anything but the enemy model glitching through the camera in boss fights.
DS3, the camera feels fine, mostly, but breaks lock fairly often.
Sekiro, the camera is miserable trash. It breaks lock constantly and walls freak it out. Also every enemy pushes you back during your deflects, so you're going to meet those walls often. And seeing specific tells has never been more crucial, so oof.
I suppose it's probably all the same camera, except the weirdo slow camera in DS2, and how bad it feels is more a factor of environments getting busier and movement speed rising?
Sometimes they’re just far enough away that I can’t lock... so I rotate or something instead, only to give them free hits.
But the big thing there is that Sekiro has far fewer enormous enemies compared to Soulsborne games, and those are ALWAYS what cause me consistent and infuriating camera problems. Most Sekiro enemies are only somewhat larger than the player, the larger enemies are still smaller than most big Soulsborne enemies, and the one extremely large enemy gets a special camera orientation that makes it difficult to not be seeing that enemy at all times during the fight. In comparison, each and every Soulsborne game has multiple instances of enemies too big to properly fit on the screen.
I would never not lock-on to an enemy in Sekiro, but there are multiple Soulsborne enemies where using lock-on is actually a major disadvantage because the camera system is so fucky.
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
There are a couple bosses where I feel like they’re almost designed, either by size or move set or a combination of both, to break camera lock multiple times per fight.
But on the whole I agree it doesn’t have the camera issues in general that other FROM games have.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
You can. At low levels it can be the only way to deal half-decent damage to him.
Also, what pyromancies should I pick up for PvE?
Fireball/Fire Orb/Great Fireball/Great Chaos Fireball: ranged AoE attacks.
Power Within: 40% damage buff to everything you do, minor HP cost.
These are the three pillars of pyromancy.
Backstab works and is safe, but parrying him to death is easier than you might think, about on par with parrying normal sword Black Knights. Though it's high risk high reward since you'll die miserably if you don't get at least a partial parry.
There's a moment when he swings where the head of the Dragon Tooth goes from being behind him to in its final attack line overhead/in front of him, hit parry there and it's fine.
Main risk is not noticing him changing from 1h to 2h and changing the timing on that, or him using the backstep attack since he runs forward, but it's still that frame 'When it is in front of him' regardless of how long it takes to get there.
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
There's a super cheesy strat for Havel, spoilered if you wish to fight with honor by stabbing him in the back instead.
DS1 pyromancy is just amazing for all builds because it requires no stat investment. Whatever build you're playing, you can have max pyromancy. It's kinda dumb if you're playing some barbarian dude with a club and 0 intelligence that you can cast Chaos Storm, Great Chaos Fireball and Toxin Cloud as well as a pure mage, but you can go nuts with all of it. Toxin Cloud can be very cheesy.
And now, some power metal about Dark Souls:
Do I miss out on a lot of stuff if I don't kill Gwyndolin Gwynevere and go to Spooky Londo? I...just really don't want to do it.
You do the boss fight. Loot Sunlight Blade and Brass Armor. Then the fire keeper attacks you when you walk outside, so you get the FK soul without randomly attacking her, if that bugs you.
That's 100% of the content associated, afaik.
Man I'm debating which I should do first. I forgot to return to the Undead Asylum and I still have the Painted World to go.
Can't do Painted World without going back to the Asylum.
Make sure you go all the way back to the start!
Also, surprise that can be frustrating but is also part of the 'experience', so I'll spoiler it
And probably die and get kicked all the way back to Firelink Shrine.
So skirt the edge and sit at one of the bonfires, if you want to avoid that trip.
I pretty much always default to some sort of sword (straight, great, or ultra) with the normal side to side sweeps, pyromancy, and maybe a shield (though the shields don't get much use at this point). Vertical ultras in 2 or 3 are good too, but definitely my tier 2.
I have only played 1 and 2, but when in doubt I always go with the ability to 2hand a large club. It can solve all problems.
as far as weapons go it's kind of all over the place. i tend to go for specific weapons rather than specific weapon classes. usually i like weapons for certain traits. for example, i like the murakumo in all three games, but for different reasons in each (1: one-handed moveset, 2: the parry, 3: hyper armor + weapon art combo).
greatsword are always generically good. i'm coming around to the simplicity of light spears. iai katanas are sic
favorite weapons in 1 are the kumo, silver knight spear, large club
2 probably the kumo, partizan, mirrah greatsword, weapons with the greataxe one-handed moveset, pate's spear, loyce greatsword, powerstanced fists, rapiers
3 probably the astora greatsword, black knight sword, partizan and kumo again, bastard sword, crucifix of the mad king
then i just slap a parry shield on and figure out a fashion souls that gives me a good roll
there's always variance in which clubs are the best
but there's a club near the top of the heap every time
like every goddamn one has it
I consider that a "hard" build, as it relies a whole bunch on player skill. You get punished hard for mistakes, you can't really poise through anything, and spike damage comes solely from critical hits.
If I just want to toast the game, I'll wear heavy armor and use a greatsword class or similar-sized weapon (Lucerne and Gargoyle Flame Hammer in DS3 are great) along with a high-stability, 100% phys-def shield (or just the Grass Crest if enemy damage is low enough). Toss on a regeneration ring. That's power level for the win. I don't really feel that I get the true "Dark Souls" experience this way as it's pretty low risk tank-and-spank, but it does usually let me waste invader players, which is a pretty rare experience (I'm rarely set up for proper PvP).
Dark Souls 2 made some slight changes to where I do like the greatsword and ultra- classes for whatever reason. Not sure if they are faster or I just spent enough time with them finally. My favorite build in the series ended up being hex focused, with the Sunset Staff in my offhand and the Crypt Blacksword in my main hand (though I would 2H it when I actually had to swing, getting enough str to 1H that thing is its own focus). I fucking love hexes in Dark Souls 2. They are so much fun.
Which wraps back around to my pet topic of shitting on Dark Souls 3- because they ruined hexes and turned them into crappy miracles. I would also argue though they ruined spellcasting entirely by going away from spell slots and into that shitty mana system. Dark Souls 3 I do like the Twins' Greatsword, but also Friede's Scythe is a loooooooot of fun especially on the super attacks when you bust out the smaller one for the big spinny whirlwind of death.
In whichever of the games i'm playing, I never go heavy armor ever ever. I need my roll speed.
The FP system and Ashen Flasks is the only pure caster I've enjoyed in the series, as after about a third of the way in or so it's almost all spells all the time. And the trade-off of losing regular flasks felt really natural and impactful.
Hexes in DS2 were amazing, though, as individual spells. Only did that run once, but I liked it a lot.
It's exactly the tradeoff of HP flasks vs FP flasks that ruined it for me in 3. Because that never was a tradeoff before. It made me decide between my health and my spells and it's a freaking dark souls game of course i'm going to choose health.
The first game I started as a Pyro, and ended mainly wielding an Enchanted Claymore and some Medium Shield, a fully upgraded Pyro hand for when I wanted to torch things, and went into sorcery the moment I could, bumping my Intelligence or whatever it was up to cast higher level spells. I also had a bow around, and I was generally able to fight well in medium armor casting quick spells and swinging my sword.
My DS2 run ended up more or less like my first game run, but with enough Dex to dual-wield a pair of katanas as well.
I wound up putting points into whatever I needed at that moment to equip or cast something interesting, which meant I was all over the place and terrible at everything.
I relied on low damage sorcery and poking stuff to death when it got close. The game utterly intimidated me, so I played it like a survival horror, tentatively picking my way around and running away a lot. Relied entirely on summons for nearly every boss.
That was one hell of a first experience. The kind you get with games only a few times in life, honestly. The game doesn't hold up, but I'll always remember how it felt to dive blindly into it. It was something very special.
First finish was all vit end with a lightning scythe (the glaive one, not the great scythe), pyromancy, and elite knight.
my successful run was bandit, which is the actual easiest imo
Or crossbow cheese.
edit: I can see axes being easy, tbh, but it's burned into my brain as a pain since the one axe clear on my spreadsheet was my SL1 run
Man I miss the bone fist. Such a wonderful large moveset
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