The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Behold, [Elden Ring]! Don't Give Up Skeleton! (SPOILER WARNING!)
yeah Physical resistance is important but the real stat to look for is Boost, which dictates how much stamina you lose when you block.
I think someone here once made the joke that the eagle shield in DS1, a greatshield with low weight and requirements but 95% physical block, exists as an object less in why stability is more important than block%.
I honestly don't understand why. If I'm using a shield to block a thing, my intent is to take no damage, otherwise avoiding the attack is the better idea even if that's harder.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
yeah Physical resistance is important but the real stat to look for is Boost, which dictates how much stamina you lose when you block.
I think someone here once made the joke that the eagle shield in DS1, a greatshield with low weight and requirements but 95% physical block, exists as an object less in why stability is more important than block%.
I honestly don't understand why. If I'm using a shield to block a thing, my intent is to take no damage, otherwise avoiding the attack is the better idea even if that's harder.
The chip damage is pretty trivial unless it's a real shit shield. Even something like 80% block is enough to take most boss's heaviest hit and not even need an estus. There are some occasions where chip damage will affect the outcome of a fight, but they're way less common than you'd expect. With the way you tend to lose your health in really big chunks, losing a sixteenth from block chip damage usually doesn't bring you any hits closer to death, and with the way you usually heal before you'd be low enough to get all the healing out of your estus, the chip damage usually just comes out of the healing you'd have been wasting anyway.
Low stability leads to stuff like getting guard-broken mid-combo and blown up, or not having enough stamina left after blocking to put damage on the boss and still dodge after. Having less than 100% block means you have to deal with a little bit of attrition, but having low stability means more things just kill you.
Of course, it's usually a moot point, because most shields with high stability also have 100% block, save for the lightest greatshields. But I guess if you're ever like, using the turtle shield or the briar shield and going like "oh I don't wanna block with these, they have under 100% block," don't worry abut it, they've got more than enough block to save your life.
Elden Ring also buffed various colossal weapons to have very respectable block stats that aren't 100% in one of its patches. Like the Greatsword has 84% physical defense, 50% for elemental damages, and 61 boost with a physical affinity (67 with nothing), more than adequate if you're not blocking nonstop.
Basically, if the shield would be better and I don't have to go much further than "wield a claymore" to get there (like, a point or two), then I'd consider it. But most of the time the greatshields are just too damn heavy.
Edit: Eagle Shield, Twin Dragon Greatshield (in DS2 and 3), and Lordsworn's Shield are the best greatshields near the Claymore requirements. But if the shield doesn't have 100 physical block, I ignore it instantly. Any shield I use, instant requirement is that if I block a physical hit, I don't take any damage. Anything less isn't good enough. And to get there takes far more Strength investment than I'm ever interested in.
Personally, I find focusing on 100% physical block to be a bit of a red herring. You're either paying a huge strength premium or losing ridiculous amounts of stability for that extra 3% block the Twin Dragon is missing (I'm talking DS2 here - iirc it got hit in 3 significantly). It's basically street fighter chip damage. Heck, wear the regen ring and you don't even notice you take damage. I'm running around the Dragon Shrine with vigor 5 and the only time you actually can see the chip in the HP bar is when I block giant hammer dudes, and since I'm wearing said ring by the time I find the next pod of enemies the chip is gone.
Heck, I HAVE the strength to wear a 100% block greatshield now, because I'm doing quality build and aiming for 40/40 str/dex eventually so I'm at a good 30/30 now, and I'm not bothering to change the shield I've been using since an hour into the game. They have basically the same stability, and 3% extra physical block and some extra fire resistance feels hardly worth losing a bunch of status resists on the block and weighing nine units more. I might change it later, iirc there's a couple heavier but genuinely better shields around? It's been a bit. But this thing is probably going to get me through at least normal endgame, and who knows how long into the DLC.
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
edited January 2023
Generally speaking, I have 16 strength, about, on any build because that's what I need to wield a claymore. And I'm not usually trying to block spell damage, I'm usually trying to get the hell out of the way. So all I care about is physical damage and how much stability/Guard Boost a shield has. This does sometimes get me into trouble when the physical hit isn't fully physical, but that's about it. Like, if I'm standing there with a shield blocking a fireball or dragon breath or something, then something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
But I'm also never building a tank, so . . . I dunno.
Edit: looks like DS2 is the only one where I needed 20 to wield the claymore. So it's almost assured I've never had more than 20 in any of the games, though I'd need to redownload 1 and 2 to be sure.
Kalnaur on
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
0
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
edited January 2023
Well, I tried going back to my Int mage build but the pull of dragonclaw spam was too strong.
I folded and respecced back to communion. I'm a dragon man at heart.
Generally speaking, I have 16 strength, about, on any build because that's what I need to wield a claymore. And I'm not usually trying to block spell damage, I'm usually trying to get the hell out of the way. So all I care about is physical damage and how much stability/Guard Boost a shield has. This does sometimes get me into trouble when the physical hit isn't fully physical, but that's about it. Like, if I'm standing there with a shield blocking a fireball or dragon breath or something, then something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
But I'm also never building a tank, so . . . I dunno.
Edit: looks like DS2 is the only one where I needed 20 to wield the claymore. So it's almost assured I've never had more than 20 in any of the games, though I'd need to redownload 1 and 2 to be sure.
I mean, yes, you mostly use the shield to block physical hits, though honestly there's a lot of shields with good elemental resists that can save your bacon on specific fights. A shield with good fire resist helps a lot with Smelter Asshole, for example.
What I'm kind of getting at is that in exchange for taking a bit of basically negligible chip damage you can get a whole lot of extra stability (plus the greatshield effect that makes a lot of enemies - and even some bosses! - straight up bounce off your shield on block) with the Twin Dragon, so if you're getting to near 20 str for the claymore anyway you might as well, you know?
Generally speaking, I have 16 strength, about, on any build because that's what I need to wield a claymore. And I'm not usually trying to block spell damage, I'm usually trying to get the hell out of the way. So all I care about is physical damage and how much stability/Guard Boost a shield has. This does sometimes get me into trouble when the physical hit isn't fully physical, but that's about it. Like, if I'm standing there with a shield blocking a fireball or dragon breath or something, then something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
But I'm also never building a tank, so . . . I dunno.
Edit: looks like DS2 is the only one where I needed 20 to wield the claymore. So it's almost assured I've never had more than 20 in any of the games, though I'd need to redownload 1 and 2 to be sure.
I mean, yes, you mostly use the shield to block physical hits, though honestly there's a lot of shields with good elemental resists that can save your bacon on specific fights. A shield with good fire resist helps a lot with Smelter Asshole, for example.
What I'm kind of getting at is that in exchange for taking a bit of basically negligible chip damage you can get a whole lot of extra stability (plus the greatshield effect that makes a lot of enemies - and even some bosses! - straight up bounce off your shield on block) with the Twin Dragon, so if you're getting to near 20 str for the claymore anyway you might as well, you know?
Now that is a good reason to take that kind of shield. I didn't know they had an extra effect to them.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Also, man, I do not remember fucking anything about where stuff was in Shulva. I am currently running around extremely lost, which is being rather slow progress because the enemies in this place aren't free if I trigger more than two at a time so you gotta take it careful.
You can block with weapons in every Souls game, just need to be two-handing.
Don't know if its ever been worth it though.
Can't imagine its even half as effective as shield or just dodging instead.
It's better than dying when you're going to eat something; the bigger weapons you're most likely to 2h are often similar to light shields for blocking. In Elden Ring in particular, they went and buffered colossals' defensive stats quite a bit a few patches ago, to the point that unless you're really passive or have an insane amount of carry weight and want a tower shield, I'm not sure a shield is ever worth using with one. The chunkier colossals have better numbers than any small shield, in line with the wooden and leather medium shields.
Also worth taking some damage for a guard counter sometimes in ER even if you don't need a shield.
You can block with weapons in every Souls game, just need to be two-handing.
Don't know if its ever been worth it though.
Can't imagine its even half as effective as shield or just dodging instead.
I run with the block held down in ER areas i cant horse and in the souls games with my chonker 2handers. It saves me all the time with getting hit from surprises and ranged things i cant see.
Edit: General question about DS2 for anyone: Is it 99 or 100 dex you want to get to? I see some say 105 but most say to stop at the 99/100 one but seeing both 99 and 100 heh.
You can block with weapons in every Souls game, just need to be two-handing.
Don't know if its ever been worth it though.
Can't imagine its even half as effective as shield or just dodging instead.
I run with the block held down in ER areas i cant horse and in the souls games with my chonker 2handers. It saves me all the time with getting hit from surprises and ranged things i cant see.
Edit: General question about DS2 for anyone: Is it 99 or 100 dex you want to get to? I see some say 105 but most say to stop at the 99/100 one but seeing both 99 and 100 heh.
I always run 105 by the time I'm doing DLC bosses. It's 99 for the previous iframe increase on the roll, 100 for the iframe increase on the backstep and iirc maxed out estus drinking speed.
You can block with weapons in every Souls game, just need to be two-handing.
Don't know if its ever been worth it though.
Can't imagine its even half as effective as shield or just dodging instead.
I run with the block held down in ER areas i cant horse and in the souls games with my chonker 2handers. It saves me all the time with getting hit from surprises and ranged things i cant see.
Edit: General question about DS2 for anyone: Is it 99 or 100 dex you want to get to? I see some say 105 but most say to stop at the 99/100 one but seeing both 99 and 100 heh.
I always run 105 by the time I'm doing DLC bosses. It's 99 for the previous iframe increase on the roll, 100 for the iframe increase on the backstep and iirc maxed out estus drinking speed.
Ahh ok thank you! Ill just go to 105 ive got this far without any armor on so might as well go on up.
You can block with weapons in every Souls game, just need to be two-handing.
Don't know if its ever been worth it though.
Can't imagine its even half as effective as shield or just dodging instead.
I run with the block held down in ER areas i cant horse and in the souls games with my chonker 2handers. It saves me all the time with getting hit from surprises and ranged things i cant see.
Edit: General question about DS2 for anyone: Is it 99 or 100 dex you want to get to? I see some say 105 but most say to stop at the 99/100 one but seeing both 99 and 100 heh.
You can block with weapons in every Souls game, just need to be two-handing.
Don't know if its ever been worth it though.
Can't imagine its even half as effective as shield or just dodging instead.
I run with the block held down in ER areas i cant horse and in the souls games with my chonker 2handers. It saves me all the time with getting hit from surprises and ranged things i cant see.
Edit: General question about DS2 for anyone: Is it 99 or 100 dex you want to get to? I see some say 105 but most say to stop at the 99/100 one but seeing both 99 and 100 heh.
I assume you mean agility, not dex?
Yes I did but Kamar understood and clarified regardless of my misstatement.
I just have my demon 2h hammer, a loincloth and the lightest shield I can equip heh.
0
GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I'm starting up the ds2 dlc now and first impression is that they really did not make it easy to figure out how to get to it. I had to get a key from a pit that opened a door in another pit that opened a door behind two different fires, and I never would have found it myself without the internet.
I'm also maybe slightly over leveled for end of game but I beat the main content pretty easily. None of the last bosses leading up to the end gave much of a challenge. I think I'm around level 160, but the bosses are just predictable and slow compared to Bloodborne or Elden Ring in general.
I'm starting up the ds2 dlc now and first impression is that they really did not make it easy to figure out how to get to it. I had to get a key from a pit that opened a door in another pit that opened a door behind two different fires, and I never would have found it myself without the internet.
I'm also maybe slightly over leveled for end of game but I beat the main content pretty easily. None of the last bosses leading up to the end gave much of a challenge. I think I'm around level 160, but the bosses are just predictable and slow compared to Bloodborne or Elden Ring in general.
DS2 base is often criticized for its bosses
There's some much better stuff in the DLC, don't worry. Some legit all-timers. One encounter is my most treasured memory of any souls game; after I finally beat it, sweaty and shaking from actual adrenaline, I surged to my feat and roared in wordless triumph.
soloing the gank squad in sunken king
+4
firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
I adore DS2, but goddamn that fight is just brutal.
Fought Radahn for the first time and he pushed my shit in pretty thoroughly. Fucking ouch.
This is going to be a real test of if the game can finally make me use summons for a boss fight for the first time.
Bare minimum, you have to summon Patches, that entertaining piece of shit. Should be a little ways in front of where you spawn in from the teleporter.
Yeah, this really feels like the first From boss where they were like "no, you really need to use this" since it feels like it was designed to give you a small army at your disposal even though I can see how you could still solo it. I feel like I could have eventually but since its such a unique encounter, I just said to hell with it and broke my no summoning rule. Pretty fun fight.
Radahn's horse's suffering is legendary, even in hell. My god, that thing's back.
He is definitely easier than he was. But I summoned with him like I have in all games where ive seen the sign. Because it is no big deal to use summons to tank for you in games designed to be as unfair as possible but still beatable. They make the AI not all that intelligent anyway. I used my summon to break into Sol the other day and it just stood there in the frost breath heh. I did a chalice run in bloodborne and the summon blocked me in the door against the mist so the boss could curb stomp us.
I'm replaying ER after a long time, having originally finished it on release.
Last time I did DEX build, and my character ended up in NG+ being Malenia, including her flower Incantation and waterfowl dance.
I'm happy to see that they buffed it, because back then it was just a very bad but pretty spell, and now it's at least fast. Even though the build will never be great, as you're splitting between Dex & enough faith to do the bloom, but you also want Arcana...
So, I rerolled, and I was thinking: I really liked the idea of buffing weapons with effects, but on my original run, I ended up with mostly unique weapons, that you can't enchant.
What's a good build for enchanting stuff? I was thinking Str + Faith, but perhaps I should do Str + Arcana and find the talisman that allowed Arcana scaling to work on incantations?
Also, what's a good weapon for this? Currently I have a random Soldier's greatsword, but I'm finding it "so-so", and the Uchikatana is tempting, but I already did Katana on my other character.
Twinblades might be fun, can they work with an enchanting playstyle?
Maybe Scythes, Have never really used them, but they have a nice arc to them.
Finally, I was sending my jolly-co-op stick to all summoning pools, and I have to say... Wow, either twinking or cheating is becoming very common in PvP, I was jolly co-opping and we were invaded by someone:
1. Around level 25 - 30 ? (I was 28)
2. With a twinblade
3. With a hand ballista
4. With 5 poison perfumes (or another way to make poison clouds)
5. Capable of casting dark-flame magic
6. with at least 1.5k health
7. and 5+ estus flasks that healed them for full
9. and a light roll
11. Wearing medium armor, it looked like
Either they had figured out the one godly stat-spread, but seeing as at lvl. 30 I don't even have enough stats to be on medium roll, decent-ish health, and I can't wear both my sword and bow (I'm busy on upping my equip load max, as I refuse to fat-roll) It seems they just had the stats of at least a lvl 90 or so.
0
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
I'm doing FTH/ARC at the moment, my primary dps is incantations and dragon magics though I have enough END and STR to have a Brass Shield. The Dragon seal scales on Arcane but also has C scaling for Faith, making it very powerful.
I have a Longsword to proc either bleed or holy, depending on where I'm at. I'm currently in Farum Azula and despite only having 27 Fth (I just started scaling VIG/FTH/ARC now that I'm at 40 MND) the big corpse guys go down in like 2 hits of the weapon art. The small guys go down with 1 holy frisbee.
I'm doing FTH/ARC at the moment, my primary dps is incantations and dragon magics though I have enough END and STR to have a Brass Shield. The Dragon seal scales on Arcane but also has C scaling for Faith, making it very powerful.
I have a Longsword to proc either bleed or holy, depending on where I'm at. I'm currently in Farum Azula and despite only having 27 Fth (I just started scaling VIG/FTH/ARC now that I'm at 40 MND) the big corpse guys go down in like 2 hits of the weapon art. The small guys go down with 1 holy frisbee.
Oohh... I like that, and you have a normal longsword? That moveset is less... clunky then a great sword, so I would like that. And Since I started with a broad sword, I could use that one again. (I switched because I wanted a bit more reach, but not sure if it's worth the speed decrease)
Do you want a fast weapon for lot's of build-up, or does the build-up scale with weapon-slowness?
I'm replaying ER after a long time, having originally finished it on release.
Last time I did DEX build, and my character ended up in NG+ being Malenia, including her flower Incantation and waterfowl dance.
I'm happy to see that they buffed it, because back then it was just a very bad but pretty spell, and now it's at least fast. Even though the build will never be great, as you're splitting between Dex & enough faith to do the bloom, but you also want Arcana...
So, I rerolled, and I was thinking: I really liked the idea of buffing weapons with effects, but on my original run, I ended up with mostly unique weapons, that you can't enchant.
What's a good build for enchanting stuff? I was thinking Str + Faith, but perhaps I should do Str + Arcana and find the talisman that allowed Arcana scaling to work on incantations?
Also, what's a good weapon for this? Currently I have a random Soldier's greatsword, but I'm finding it "so-so", and the Uchikatana is tempting, but I already did Katana on my other character.
Twinblades might be fun, can they work with an enchanting playstyle?
Maybe Scythes, Have never really used them, but they have a nice arc to them.
Finally, I was sending my jolly-co-op stick to all summoning pools, and I have to say... Wow, either twinking or cheating is becoming very common in PvP, I was jolly co-opping and we were invaded by someone:
1. Around level 25 - 30 ? (I was 28)
2. With a twinblade
3. With a hand ballista
4. With 5 poison perfumes (or another way to make poison clouds)
5. Capable of casting dark-flame magic
6. with at least 1.5k health
7. and 5+ estus flasks that healed them for full
9. and a light roll
11. Wearing medium armor, it looked like
Either they had figured out the one godly stat-spread, but seeing as at lvl. 30 I don't even have enough stats to be on medium roll, decent-ish health, and I can't wear both my sword and bow (I'm busy on upping my equip load max, as I refuse to fat-roll) It seems they just had the stats of at least a lvl 90 or so.
It’s not stats. It’s a) knowing the game well enough to hunt down specialized gear and/or b) having people mule gear for them between characters. The only real “matchmaking rules” are like, equipment upgrades and character levels. It doesn’t even take into account flask upgrades of either kind.
0
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
I'm doing FTH/ARC at the moment, my primary dps is incantations and dragon magics though I have enough END and STR to have a Brass Shield. The Dragon seal scales on Arcane but also has C scaling for Faith, making it very powerful.
I have a Longsword to proc either bleed or holy, depending on where I'm at. I'm currently in Farum Azula and despite only having 27 Fth (I just started scaling VIG/FTH/ARC now that I'm at 40 MND) the big corpse guys go down in like 2 hits of the weapon art. The small guys go down with 1 holy frisbee.
Oohh... I like that, and you have a normal longsword? That moveset is less... clunky then a great sword, so I would like that. And Since I started with a broad sword, I could use that one again. (I switched because I wanted a bit more reach, but not sure if it's worth the speed decrease)
Do you want a fast weapon for lot's of build-up, or does the build-up scale with weapon-slowness?
Yeah, it's a quick-hitting weapon. The bleed art I use (Bloody Slash) does insane damage with 40+ ARC and the bleed buildup is something like 100, so 2-3 hits and the bleed proc hits. Bleed does scale up with weapon-slowness, but I find the maneuverability of a longsword and how quickly the attack animation finishes here to be more valuable.
Plus, again, you open yourself to being able to use bleedflame, poison armament, holy ashes of war for undead enemies. And if you go with mimic tear like I do, you'll just see all kinds of dragon breath and sleep pots during boss fights.
Posts
I honestly don't understand why. If I'm using a shield to block a thing, my intent is to take no damage, otherwise avoiding the attack is the better idea even if that's harder.
Low stability leads to stuff like getting guard-broken mid-combo and blown up, or not having enough stamina left after blocking to put damage on the boss and still dodge after. Having less than 100% block means you have to deal with a little bit of attrition, but having low stability means more things just kill you.
Of course, it's usually a moot point, because most shields with high stability also have 100% block, save for the lightest greatshields. But I guess if you're ever like, using the turtle shield or the briar shield and going like "oh I don't wanna block with these, they have under 100% block," don't worry abut it, they've got more than enough block to save your life.
Personally, I find focusing on 100% physical block to be a bit of a red herring. You're either paying a huge strength premium or losing ridiculous amounts of stability for that extra 3% block the Twin Dragon is missing (I'm talking DS2 here - iirc it got hit in 3 significantly). It's basically street fighter chip damage. Heck, wear the regen ring and you don't even notice you take damage. I'm running around the Dragon Shrine with vigor 5 and the only time you actually can see the chip in the HP bar is when I block giant hammer dudes, and since I'm wearing said ring by the time I find the next pod of enemies the chip is gone.
Heck, I HAVE the strength to wear a 100% block greatshield now, because I'm doing quality build and aiming for 40/40 str/dex eventually so I'm at a good 30/30 now, and I'm not bothering to change the shield I've been using since an hour into the game. They have basically the same stability, and 3% extra physical block and some extra fire resistance feels hardly worth losing a bunch of status resists on the block and weighing nine units more. I might change it later, iirc there's a couple heavier but genuinely better shields around? It's been a bit. But this thing is probably going to get me through at least normal endgame, and who knows how long into the DLC.
But I'm also never building a tank, so . . . I dunno.
Edit: looks like DS2 is the only one where I needed 20 to wield the claymore. So it's almost assured I've never had more than 20 in any of the games, though I'd need to redownload 1 and 2 to be sure.
I folded and respecced back to communion. I'm a dragon man at heart.
You can block with weapons in every Souls game, just need to be two-handing.
I mean, yes, you mostly use the shield to block physical hits, though honestly there's a lot of shields with good elemental resists that can save your bacon on specific fights. A shield with good fire resist helps a lot with Smelter Asshole, for example.
What I'm kind of getting at is that in exchange for taking a bit of basically negligible chip damage you can get a whole lot of extra stability (plus the greatshield effect that makes a lot of enemies - and even some bosses! - straight up bounce off your shield on block) with the Twin Dragon, so if you're getting to near 20 str for the claymore anyway you might as well, you know?
Most of them look super lame.
Now that is a good reason to take that kind of shield. I didn't know they had an extra effect to them.
Can't imagine its even half as effective as shield or just dodging instead.
Just stay alive! Don't stand in the clearly marked AOE field!
It's better than dying when you're going to eat something; the bigger weapons you're most likely to 2h are often similar to light shields for blocking. In Elden Ring in particular, they went and buffered colossals' defensive stats quite a bit a few patches ago, to the point that unless you're really passive or have an insane amount of carry weight and want a tower shield, I'm not sure a shield is ever worth using with one. The chunkier colossals have better numbers than any small shield, in line with the wooden and leather medium shields.
Also worth taking some damage for a guard counter sometimes in ER even if you don't need a shield.
I run with the block held down in ER areas i cant horse and in the souls games with my chonker 2handers. It saves me all the time with getting hit from surprises and ranged things i cant see.
Edit: General question about DS2 for anyone: Is it 99 or 100 dex you want to get to? I see some say 105 but most say to stop at the 99/100 one but seeing both 99 and 100 heh.
I always run 105 by the time I'm doing DLC bosses. It's 99 for the previous iframe increase on the roll, 100 for the iframe increase on the backstep and iirc maxed out estus drinking speed.
Ahh ok thank you! Ill just go to 105 ive got this far without any armor on so might as well go on up.
Yes I did but Kamar understood and clarified regardless of my misstatement.
I just have my demon 2h hammer, a loincloth and the lightest shield I can equip heh.
Some weapons in Elden Ring have block frames during an attack.
One of those where you know pretty quick what you need to do but then die a couple dozen times in the attempt anyway
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I'm also maybe slightly over leveled for end of game but I beat the main content pretty easily. None of the last bosses leading up to the end gave much of a challenge. I think I'm around level 160, but the bosses are just predictable and slow compared to Bloodborne or Elden Ring in general.
DS2 base is often criticized for its bosses
There's some much better stuff in the DLC, don't worry. Some legit all-timers. One encounter is my most treasured memory of any souls game; after I finally beat it, sweaty and shaking from actual adrenaline, I surged to my feat and roared in wordless triumph.
I'm gonna need a minute.
This is going to be a real test of if the game can finally make me use summons for a boss fight for the first time.
Bare minimum, you have to summon Patches, that entertaining piece of shit. Should be a little ways in front of where you spawn in from the teleporter.
Radahn's horse's suffering is legendary, even in hell. My god, that thing's back.
While some bosses may be tuned around summoning, the entire encounter of Radahn is designed around it. Lil different.
Yeah, that's like the whole point. Fighting Radahn without your summons would be like fighting Rykard without <REDACTED>
Last time I did DEX build, and my character ended up in NG+ being Malenia, including her flower Incantation and waterfowl dance.
I'm happy to see that they buffed it, because back then it was just a very bad but pretty spell, and now it's at least fast. Even though the build will never be great, as you're splitting between Dex & enough faith to do the bloom, but you also want Arcana...
So, I rerolled, and I was thinking: I really liked the idea of buffing weapons with effects, but on my original run, I ended up with mostly unique weapons, that you can't enchant.
What's a good build for enchanting stuff? I was thinking Str + Faith, but perhaps I should do Str + Arcana and find the talisman that allowed Arcana scaling to work on incantations?
Also, what's a good weapon for this? Currently I have a random Soldier's greatsword, but I'm finding it "so-so", and the Uchikatana is tempting, but I already did Katana on my other character.
Twinblades might be fun, can they work with an enchanting playstyle?
Maybe Scythes, Have never really used them, but they have a nice arc to them.
Finally, I was sending my jolly-co-op stick to all summoning pools, and I have to say... Wow, either twinking or cheating is becoming very common in PvP, I was jolly co-opping and we were invaded by someone:
1. Around level 25 - 30 ? (I was 28)
2. With a twinblade
3. With a hand ballista
4. With 5 poison perfumes (or another way to make poison clouds)
5. Capable of casting dark-flame magic
6. with at least 1.5k health
7. and 5+ estus flasks that healed them for full
9. and a light roll
11. Wearing medium armor, it looked like
Either they had figured out the one godly stat-spread, but seeing as at lvl. 30 I don't even have enough stats to be on medium roll, decent-ish health, and I can't wear both my sword and bow (I'm busy on upping my equip load max, as I refuse to fat-roll) It seems they just had the stats of at least a lvl 90 or so.
I have a Longsword to proc either bleed or holy, depending on where I'm at. I'm currently in Farum Azula and despite only having 27 Fth (I just started scaling VIG/FTH/ARC now that I'm at 40 MND) the big corpse guys go down in like 2 hits of the weapon art. The small guys go down with 1 holy frisbee.
Oohh... I like that, and you have a normal longsword? That moveset is less... clunky then a great sword, so I would like that. And Since I started with a broad sword, I could use that one again. (I switched because I wanted a bit more reach, but not sure if it's worth the speed decrease)
Do you want a fast weapon for lot's of build-up, or does the build-up scale with weapon-slowness?
It’s not stats. It’s a) knowing the game well enough to hunt down specialized gear and/or b) having people mule gear for them between characters. The only real “matchmaking rules” are like, equipment upgrades and character levels. It doesn’t even take into account flask upgrades of either kind.
Yeah, it's a quick-hitting weapon. The bleed art I use (Bloody Slash) does insane damage with 40+ ARC and the bleed buildup is something like 100, so 2-3 hits and the bleed proc hits. Bleed does scale up with weapon-slowness, but I find the maneuverability of a longsword and how quickly the attack animation finishes here to be more valuable.
Plus, again, you open yourself to being able to use bleedflame, poison armament, holy ashes of war for undead enemies. And if you go with mimic tear like I do, you'll just see all kinds of dragon breath and sleep pots during boss fights.