I can see him being a giant pest if you're doing some sort of dex build with a short reach weapon which is something I never end up getting very far with because I find strength weapons to be so much more satisfying in DS3.
i don't think the tells on it are particularly good and the animations definitely look janky
the hitboxes are pretty questionable too
That's really interesting! It's one of the few creatures I find easy to read the tells.
Its fastest attacks (side bite-spins) are each communicated with the Beast turning its head in the direction of its oncoming attack, growling, and pausing for a moment before attacking. It's a giant "Roll Now" signal (toward the bite). The charge attack has a special stance with a wide-mouthed scream (and a long pause), the lightning breath has an exaggerated pulling back and an anime energy attack charge animation (that's the "Run slightly away" tell), and the "gaping dragon attack" (weird fanged mouth-stomach overhead slam) has a different pulling-back animation and scream (and different front leg positions).
For most tells, it's as simple as "dodge as soon as you see the tell" - there's no artificial delay that some of the tougher (to me) enemies like to add, such as the greatsword cathedral knights or the winged knights. The charge is different, but that's just dodge (to the side) when it's about to reach you, and of course the lightning that requires a short run instead of a roll (usually behind the Beast so you can get in free hits or use Estus).
One thing I do remember is that the Beast can be tougher with slow weapons. It can chain its spin-bites, so sometimes it'll bait the player into an ill-conceived attack after it finishes its typical two-bite combo. One thing that helps here is relying on roll-attacks. You'll do less damage, but the faster recovery time can save you hits.
I can see him being a giant pest if you're doing some sort of dex build with a short reach weapon which is something I never end up getting very far with because I find strength weapons to be so much more satisfying in DS3.
One BIG help: they're extremely weak to Bleed. You can eviscerate them very quickly with a good Bleed weapon. A Bandit Knife will do; Grave Warden Twinblades are even better.
Pestilent Mist is also extremely effective. Starting around NG+3 I basically just used it exclusively and rolled around while they died.
Also, if you can manage a Great Heavy Soul Arrow to the face (recommended after it completes a charge), you can get an instant stagger and crit.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Things went way better today! I got over my walls! Bridge-dude? Dead! Chaos demon? Dead! And I worked my way through a bunch of the Boreal Valley, though that place is friggin' huge and I have a lot left. I stumbled into the dungeon part completely by accident while missing at least two obvious routes. Best of all, the enemies here give tons of souls. You can grab a few thousand just by clearing that warehouse of spooky ghost girls. The only thing that gave me pause are the Ice King dudes with the flexible ice-sword-whips. They killed me an embarrassing number of times so far. Well, and the black knights in the fancy place, but that's a given.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
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Pontiff Knights hit hard and have unique attacks that throw pretty much everyone off the first time. I almost always die a few times when I first get in there even if I'm carrying a weapon that can break their guard.
I used two characters. One got all the pyromancies & miracles and the other got all the sorceries and hexes. Beat all bosses at least once. Beat Fume Knight on both characters. Fun fact: I didn't discover until about 2/3 of the way through the NG+ run on my miracles character that I was overriding Sacred Oath with Great Magic Barrier.
Now on to Dark Souls 3.
What do I need to know going in? What are some good tips for a first run-through? I've played Bloodborne, DS1, and DS2, in that order.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Bigger weapons have bigger multipliers to your poise during swings.
Base poise from armor is much lower in DS3, so you need those multipliers for it to really work well.
But if you're in big boy armor swinging big boy weapons, you'll be poisy enough. You can also get really strong multipliers with certain weapon arts on weapons that otherwise don't have multipliers or have weak ones.
This is basically how it works in all three games, with the differences in feeling mostly coming from differences in the actual values, i.e. poise on armor, poise multipliers on attacks, poise damage from being hit with different weapons.
Poise was always there, it's just super cryptic how it works. Each weapon attack has its own poise multiplier, and it's invisible. 2h big weapons tend to give the most, but that's only a rule of thumb.
Also you take poise damage when you're hit (each attack has a hidden poise damage factor), and it auto-heals after a few seconds but chains with additional hits. That's also invisible.
It's the sort of thing that works fine in a fighting game, but it's rather strange in an RPG. I mostly ignore it, but I see the effect frequently enough in high SL runs. Havel's with a harald curved greatsword, it definitely shows up.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
The only noticeable difference of the DS3 approach is that you can't just walk through projectiles, and if you want to trade without staggering with lighter weapons you'll need to use their weapon arts. And I mean, you have to be trading, not just eating attacks and mashing R1.
TBH, like most of the DS3 gameplay changes I think it's a change for the better. DS3 has plenty of weaknesses, but the gameplay's probably the best in the genre.
Poise was always there, it's just super cryptic how it works. Each weapon attack has its own poise multiplier, and it's invisible. 2h big weapons tend to give the most, but that's only a rule of thumb.
Also you take poise damage when you're hit (each attack has a hidden poise damage factor), and it auto-heals after a few seconds but chains with additional hits. That's also invisible.
It's the sort of thing that works fine in a fighting game, but it's rather strange in an RPG. I mostly ignore it, but I see the effect frequently enough in high SL runs. Havel's with a harald curved greatsword, it definitely shows up.
Dark Souls on the combat side is closer to a fighting game than anything else. If you're using lock-on, it's even a 2D fighting game (barring adds).
large weapons also have a range advantage, so you don't actually have to trade all the time. there's a couple scenarios where big weapons are harder to use, but there's also a bunch where having a big fuck-off sword makes things a lot easier. there aren't many PvE situations where using a great weapon is a serious liability imo
The important thing is that you can still put on heavy armor and a heavy weapon, walk up close enough to aggro an enemy, and then just spam charge R2s forever. For the charge-thrust UGS, for example, the hyperarmor starts pretty early. And then they're knocked down and it's all a question of timing your meaties to hit them on wakeup.
Yeah, the jump attack is a bit slow to execute due to the long jump animation. Poise modifiers tend to be good, though, so it still works. It's just easier to dodge in PvP, and you may need to be willing to exchange hits (and probably suffering counter damage in the process, haven't tested).
There's a number of ultra greatswords that can send enemies flying, but that's not quite the same as pancaking. Wolf Knight GS I think can pancake?
There's rumors that the Black Blade pancakes under certain combo circumstances, but it's not been reliably replicated, and it wouldn't be at all similar regardless.
The Stomp WA sends enemies flying, and the animation can differ by weapon. Maybe try out those and see if one is close?
Combos might recreate a similar playing experience. Dragonhead Greatshield's Art, Dragon Roar, will stagger an enemy, making them vulnerable to a slower DS3 pancake weapon swing (among many other options).
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
So hey, how about that Pontiff, ehh? When I went up to fight a dude called that, I don't know what I was expecting. Some long range magic, probably. Maybe another "group" battle, even though I just fought the Deacons of the Deep a bit ago. I was definitely NOT expecting the friggin' Fume Knight with self-duplication powers, but that's sure what I got! I killed him eventually, like an hour later, but I sincerely hope that The Sauce underrated him on that list.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
I think he's considered to not be a big deal, as long as you're really good at parrying. He was a huge road block in my own playthrough that I wasn't able to beat at all, *period* without laboriously learning how to parry him and also switching from my Zwiehander to a faster short sword
Yeah, the jump attack is a bit slow to execute due to the long jump animation. Poise modifiers tend to be good, though, so it still works. It's just easier to dodge in PvP, and you may need to be willing to exchange hits (and probably suffering counter damage in the process, haven't tested).
There's a number of ultra greatswords that can send enemies flying, but that's not quite the same as pancaking. Wolf Knight GS I think can pancake?
There's rumors that the Black Blade pancakes under certain combo circumstances, but it's not been reliably replicated, and it wouldn't be at all similar regardless.
The Stomp WA sends enemies flying, and the animation can differ by weapon. Maybe try out those and see if one is close?
Combos might recreate a similar playing experience. Dragonhead Greatshield's Art, Dragon Roar, will stagger an enemy, making them vulnerable to a slower DS3 pancake weapon swing (among many other options).
The DS1 zweihander moveset was hilarious. The first 2h heavy attack is a decently-fast-for-a-giant-weapon overhead swing that has a very generous hitbox and pancakes most enemies that are able to be knocked down, including almost all the humanoid enemies other than the silver/black knights, the giant knights in anor londo and the rotting giants in blighttown, pretty much anything the same size or smaller than the player, lots of things that are larger than the player like the large skeletons and the skeleton beasts in the tomb of the giants, and etc.
And then the follow up second 2h heavy attack was basically just the same move again with a slightly different animation that pancakes them again. You could stunlock stuff forever by letting your stamina regenerate while the enemies are trying to stand up, and then pancaking them again once they struggle back to their feet.
So hey, how about that Pontiff, ehh? When I went up to fight a dude called that, I don't know what I was expecting. Some long range magic, probably. Maybe another "group" battle, even though I just fought the Deacons of the Deep a bit ago. I was definitely NOT expecting the friggin' Fume Knight with self-duplication powers, but that's sure what I got! I killed him eventually, like an hour later, but I sincerely hope that The Sauce underrated him on that list.
That entire area, boss and all, I consider to be a huge difficulty spike. The Pontiff can be extraordinarily difficult - however, as mrpaku mentioned, he's extremely vulnerable to parrying. A buckler or target shield combined with just spamming the parry button can often be enough with just a bit of luck. His split animation also leaves him very vulnerable, and you can damage both him and his copy while he's performing the split, shortening the fight substantially.
He's a very difficult boss if you don't know the "way" to fight him and rather negligible if you do.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
The lesson: Get your stamina up high enough that the R2 doesn't empty you out and leave you helpless, get some poise so you an errant sneeze doesn't interrupt your swings, just parry Havel even if you can stagger him because it turns out you can't predict that shield all that well oops.
Ugh, parrying. I was never good at that as far back as DS1, and that was before they changed the system up again. It explains why I had so much trouble with the Pontiff.
On the plus side, I moved on past him, made my way to Anor Londo, took a detour to finish/endure Smouldering Lake, then finished the Dungeon and Profane Capital, mostly in one marathon session. The extended sequence to save Seigward was a bit ridiculous; I never would have found that open window without e-help. But at least it made the second Lord of Cinder hilariously easy.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
I think I'll spoiler this since we have one or two people running a fresh playthrough. DS3, NG+7 (max difficulty) run update:
I've hit an enormous brick wall named Slave Knight Gael.
I probably threw 4 hours at him yesterday. Got close once, got to phase three maybe six times.
He is brutal at this difficulty. I can't find anything that does decent damage to him, and he has approximately a zillion HP. Many of my losses are grueling 10-minute battles. A single mistake can end your run at full health, even in Havel's with Tears of Denial on (phase 2 has brutal 6-hit combos that you absolutely do not want to get caught in with your stamina depleted).
The old tricks are generally ineffective. Frostbite was dealing something like 485 damage to him, which is less than two swings from an Art-charged Greatsword of Judgment, and didn't appear to slow him down at all. Pestilent Mist is similarly useless, with mediocre damage against a very fast-moving target. I'm not even going to bother with Toxic or Bleed given the difficulty of proc'ing them on him.
The good news is this is the last wall. Take down Gael and a comparatively simple run against Lord of Cinder and I'm done.
Nothing, not even Friede, has blocked me like this. What a worthy series boss.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
So as a clear demonstration of the way everyone reacts to bosses differently, I killed
Aldrich
in only two tries!
The Dancer
was a bit harder, taking about 5-6 tries or so. But I actually came close to killing it on my first try, albeit when I was still kindled. After that, I think I just let myself get psyched out. Though either way, you have to admit that grab attack is bullshit.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
I picked Knight and the fire gem as my starting class and gift. Imbued my long sword with the gem and when paired with the Fire Clutch ring it's been a beast. Made it to the Cathedral of the Deep so far.
I'm looking at the Sellsword Twinblades with a sharp gem and the Lothric Knight Sword with a refined gem as potential endgame weapon choices. I'm thinking I'll probably go quality at first so I can try out more weapons, but I've seen some interesting suggestions about dex/faith builds with the twinblades too.
Where is a good early place to level up/ grind shards? I've been using the Vordt of the Boreal Valley bonfire for the moment.
edit again: Though a lot of weapons get quite substantial AR gains pushing towards 80 dex with sharp, if you can find the stats for it
and another edit: If you did Farron Keep before Cathedral, you can find ashes to let you buy shards if you poke around some more. Otherwise, I guess what you're doing is your best bet? I wouldn't recommend it, though, and would instead wait until you find those ashes in Farron.
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I can see him being a giant pest if you're doing some sort of dex build with a short reach weapon which is something I never end up getting very far with because I find strength weapons to be so much more satisfying in DS3.
Its fastest attacks (side bite-spins) are each communicated with the Beast turning its head in the direction of its oncoming attack, growling, and pausing for a moment before attacking. It's a giant "Roll Now" signal (toward the bite). The charge attack has a special stance with a wide-mouthed scream (and a long pause), the lightning breath has an exaggerated pulling back and an anime energy attack charge animation (that's the "Run slightly away" tell), and the "gaping dragon attack" (weird fanged mouth-stomach overhead slam) has a different pulling-back animation and scream (and different front leg positions).
For most tells, it's as simple as "dodge as soon as you see the tell" - there's no artificial delay that some of the tougher (to me) enemies like to add, such as the greatsword cathedral knights or the winged knights. The charge is different, but that's just dodge (to the side) when it's about to reach you, and of course the lightning that requires a short run instead of a roll (usually behind the Beast so you can get in free hits or use Estus).
One thing I do remember is that the Beast can be tougher with slow weapons. It can chain its spin-bites, so sometimes it'll bait the player into an ill-conceived attack after it finishes its typical two-bite combo. One thing that helps here is relying on roll-attacks. You'll do less damage, but the faster recovery time can save you hits.
One BIG help: they're extremely weak to Bleed. You can eviscerate them very quickly with a good Bleed weapon. A Bandit Knife will do; Grave Warden Twinblades are even better.
Pestilent Mist is also extremely effective. Starting around NG+3 I basically just used it exclusively and rolled around while they died.
Also, if you can manage a Great Heavy Soul Arrow to the face (recommended after it completes a charge), you can get an instant stagger and crit.
spin to win
I'd rank it higher than some Soulsborne titles already, so unless it fumbles the landing...
I used two characters. One got all the pyromancies & miracles and the other got all the sorceries and hexes. Beat all bosses at least once. Beat Fume Knight on both characters. Fun fact: I didn't discover until about 2/3 of the way through the NG+ run on my miracles character that I was overriding Sacred Oath with Great Magic Barrier.
Now on to Dark Souls 3.
What do I need to know going in? What are some good tips for a first run-through? I've played Bloodborne, DS1, and DS2, in that order.
Yeah, don't try to figure out big swords and armor the first time through. Just play it like Bloodborne but shields work.
Kill the first mimic for a good weapon. Also there's a covenant in the church that lets you respec, so maybe look up those details.
Greatsword, The or The Great Machete->Yhorm's Great Machete will trivialize DS3, if you just trust in STRENGTH.
It's DS1, but faster. Not Bloodborne.
Though I'd feel pretty confident with The Greatsword in Bloodborne, too, so.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Bigger weapons have bigger multipliers to your poise during swings.
Base poise from armor is much lower in DS3, so you need those multipliers for it to really work well.
But if you're in big boy armor swinging big boy weapons, you'll be poisy enough. You can also get really strong multipliers with certain weapon arts on weapons that otherwise don't have multipliers or have weak ones.
This is basically how it works in all three games, with the differences in feeling mostly coming from differences in the actual values, i.e. poise on armor, poise multipliers on attacks, poise damage from being hit with different weapons.
Also you take poise damage when you're hit (each attack has a hidden poise damage factor), and it auto-heals after a few seconds but chains with additional hits. That's also invisible.
It's the sort of thing that works fine in a fighting game, but it's rather strange in an RPG. I mostly ignore it, but I see the effect frequently enough in high SL runs. Havel's with a harald curved greatsword, it definitely shows up.
TBH, like most of the DS3 gameplay changes I think it's a change for the better. DS3 has plenty of weaknesses, but the gameplay's probably the best in the genre.
Dark Souls on the combat side is closer to a fighting game than anything else. If you're using lock-on, it's even a 2D fighting game (barring adds).
now, PvP on the other hand
The ridiculous range and poise damage on the DS1 version trivializes the entire game.
There's a number of ultra greatswords that can send enemies flying, but that's not quite the same as pancaking. Wolf Knight GS I think can pancake?
There's rumors that the Black Blade pancakes under certain combo circumstances, but it's not been reliably replicated, and it wouldn't be at all similar regardless.
The Stomp WA sends enemies flying, and the animation can differ by weapon. Maybe try out those and see if one is close?
Combos might recreate a similar playing experience. Dragonhead Greatshield's Art, Dragon Roar, will stagger an enemy, making them vulnerable to a slower DS3 pancake weapon swing (among many other options).
The DS1 zweihander moveset was hilarious. The first 2h heavy attack is a decently-fast-for-a-giant-weapon overhead swing that has a very generous hitbox and pancakes most enemies that are able to be knocked down, including almost all the humanoid enemies other than the silver/black knights, the giant knights in anor londo and the rotting giants in blighttown, pretty much anything the same size or smaller than the player, lots of things that are larger than the player like the large skeletons and the skeleton beasts in the tomb of the giants, and etc.
And then the follow up second 2h heavy attack was basically just the same move again with a slightly different animation that pancakes them again. You could stunlock stuff forever by letting your stamina regenerate while the enemies are trying to stand up, and then pancaking them again once they struggle back to their feet.
He's a very difficult boss if you don't know the "way" to fight him and rather negligible if you do.
he stops doing spammy combos and the second one telegraphs all his shit
I am having more trouble than I expected hitting Dark Souls inputs instead of Code Vein inputs.
Enemy runs up and I start chugging as it smacks me in the face.
The lesson: Get your stamina up high enough that the R2 doesn't empty you out and leave you helpless, get some poise so you an errant sneeze doesn't interrupt your swings, just parry Havel even if you can stagger him because it turns out you can't predict that shield all that well oops.
On the plus side, I moved on past him, made my way to Anor Londo, took a detour to finish/endure Smouldering Lake, then finished the Dungeon and Profane Capital, mostly in one marathon session. The extended sequence to save Seigward was a bit ridiculous; I never would have found that open window without e-help. But at least it made the second Lord of Cinder hilariously easy.
It is pretty hard. I would recommend saving it until after you've defeated the Lords of Cinder.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
I probably threw 4 hours at him yesterday. Got close once, got to phase three maybe six times.
He is brutal at this difficulty. I can't find anything that does decent damage to him, and he has approximately a zillion HP. Many of my losses are grueling 10-minute battles. A single mistake can end your run at full health, even in Havel's with Tears of Denial on (phase 2 has brutal 6-hit combos that you absolutely do not want to get caught in with your stamina depleted).
The old tricks are generally ineffective. Frostbite was dealing something like 485 damage to him, which is less than two swings from an Art-charged Greatsword of Judgment, and didn't appear to slow him down at all. Pestilent Mist is similarly useless, with mediocre damage against a very fast-moving target. I'm not even going to bother with Toxic or Bleed given the difficulty of proc'ing them on him.
The good news is this is the last wall. Take down Gael and a comparatively simple run against Lord of Cinder and I'm done.
Nothing, not even Friede, has blocked me like this. What a worthy series boss.
Took 3 days and, on the winning run, 5 Siegbrau. I did the first phase so much I started perfecting it every time, zero damage.
It's late, so the victory lap with the original final boss will have to wait.
I picked Knight and the fire gem as my starting class and gift. Imbued my long sword with the gem and when paired with the Fire Clutch ring it's been a beast. Made it to the Cathedral of the Deep so far.
I'm looking at the Sellsword Twinblades with a sharp gem and the Lothric Knight Sword with a refined gem as potential endgame weapon choices. I'm thinking I'll probably go quality at first so I can try out more weapons, but I've seen some interesting suggestions about dex/faith builds with the twinblades too.
Where is a good early place to level up/ grind shards? I've been using the Vordt of the Boreal Valley bonfire for the moment.
Probably its strongest infusion if you build for it, except maybe Dark. Depends on what you're doing.
edit: Chart of ARs, with strongest picks highlighted https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/151rdCnXVxKPaMcF8XUq9le2fFBS2uOFsv0kCouNpFpc/edit#gid=357720482
edit again: Though a lot of weapons get quite substantial AR gains pushing towards 80 dex with sharp, if you can find the stats for it
and another edit: If you did Farron Keep before Cathedral, you can find ashes to let you buy shards if you poke around some more. Otherwise, I guess what you're doing is your best bet? I wouldn't recommend it, though, and would instead wait until you find those ashes in Farron.