From Software Dark Souls 3

[Blaine]

He's just trying to deflect the fact that he had no idea how shields work. He probably hasn't even played the game and just wants to get in on farming that sweet, sweet Dark Souls street cred.

We're finished with Dancer now in Lazing Dirk's game, or as I like to call her, Whirly Twirly Swirly Girly, AKA Generalette Grievous. She does have a really nice ass, I'll give her that.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

We're finished with Dancer now in Lazing Dirk's game, or as I like to call her, Whirly Twirly Swirly Girly, AKA Generalette Grievous.

On the second try, no less. We know who to call if there's any grass-cutting that needs to be done. Swoosh swoosh.

She does have a really nice ass, I'll give her that.

Spoiler

 

[Hyperion]

thesheeep The true secret is to use a Moaning Shield +5 or Greatshield of Glory +10, then cast Magic Shield on yourself. Magic Shield gives a flat +18 to Stability, and these are the only two shields in the game that hit 82 or better, which negates all Stamina loss on block. It has a fairly short duration, but most bosses should have some periods of enough downtime to recast it. Blocking also works a lot better if you don't turtle behind a shield, but time each block as you would a roll, so you can regain some of the stamina lost between attacks.

Yeah, it's unfortunate what they did to heavy armor in this, especially compared to what it did for you in DS1, where it could very easily be argued that it was flat out overpowered because Life and Weight were tied in a single stat. Going to be hilarious seeing 6-way PvP of all GiantDads in the remastered release. But, that's the price to pay of trying to cater to the PvP crowd, who draw the biggest numbers on Twitch beyond the first playthrough, instead of balancing around their PvE. You could tell the game was doomed once they removed the ability to upgrade it, and made strictly for fashion like in Bloodborne. Plus, the hideous heavy armor designs where every one makes you look like the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man, but with skinny legs is enough to scream, "Don't ever put me on!"

As a side note, I got a little fired up to play again hearing Blaine and Lazing Dirk talk about their playthrough. Lasted about 15 minutes, but quickly got disgusted and uninstalled (currently trying out Battlechasers, even though Celerity went full bore into it with his review, just like DD). I'm actually shocked I played through this once, tbh. It's like playing Bloodborne at 0.5 speed, and just frustrating all around.

 

[Blaine]

Current state of Dark Souls:

>magic is trash
>miracles are trash
>bows are trash
>light melee weapons are trash

Basically, you've got a few choices of build, but they are all variations on armor guy with a two-handed weapon and a shield on his back; armor guy with a two-handed weapon wielded in one hand and a shield; or armor guy with dual-wielded two-handed weapons. You can crank armor, shield, and weapon weight to fatroll levels if you want, but it's probably not advised in most cases.

The series has declined immensely, everyone defending it in this thread is human garbage and an agent of the decline, and I'm finished with the series after this installment. If any of you haven't played Hollow Knight yet, you should.

 

[cvv]

Even the retards defending this turd had nothing more positive to say about DS3 than: "Um, it is a good game but I'm ready now to see FromSoft doing something new". Translation - grate gaem but the formula has run its course.

Bullshit. I came late to the party so I played 1. DS1, 2. DS3 and 3. SotfS.

After DS1 I fell headlong in love with the series and half-way through DS3 I was "ready to see something new by FromSoft" just like everyone else. And then I played SotfS and it was a joy and a delight again.

The formula is fine. It's just that DS3 is lazy, drab, disinterested, half-assed dog vomit.

 

[Blaine]

The formula doesn't matter if they're just going to carry on making shittier games with each iteration.

SotFS was breddy gud, except for the gank rooms and redundant nonsense in some of the DLCs. The green sunken city bit with the phantom knights and cackling priestesses and the acid dragon at the end was p. gud.

Even in SotFS though, melee guy was the best and most viable build. I had a lot of trouble as a sorcerer, because it's been nerfed to Hell and back and "balanced" around being SL 70 with all the rings and the best staves and whatnot; then I switched to melee, and breezed through everything.

The series needs real, and fully viable, build variety moving forward or I'm not interested anymore, period. Dragon's Dogma did this beautifully, although it was perhaps too easy after a certain point.

 

[sullynathan]

Dragon's Dogma is boring though while Dark Souls is not.

 

[cvv]

SotFS was breddy gud, except for the gank rooms and redundant nonsense in some of the DLCs.

I hear a lot about gank mobs in DS2, as if it was something new. DS1 was full of ganking tho - Undead Burg/Parish, New Londo, Archives, Oolacile, you name it. Haven't noticed anything redundant in the DLCs, loved every minute of those, except the co-op areas.

Even in SotFS though, melee guy was the best and most viable build. I had a lot of trouble as a sorcerer

Don't know if a pure pew-pew sorcerer has ever been a particularly good build, never played one, but in DS2 a sorcerer with the MLGS or Blue Flame, bolstered with Soul Vortex for AoE and Soul Geyser for bosses, utterly tears the game apart. Easily the most powerful PvE build I've ever tried.

Spoiler

 

[sullynathan]

I hear a lot about gank mobs in DS2, as if it was something new. DS1 was full of ganking tho - Undead Burg/Parish, New Londo, Archives, Oolacile, you name it. Haven't noticed anything redundant in the DLCs, loved every minute of those, except the co-op areas.

He's probably talking about the Lost Bastille gank room

 

[Blaine]

Don't know if a pure pew-pew sorcerer has ever been a particularly good build, never played one...

Oh, it was. In DS1 you started out pretty weak (as is usual with spellcasters), but by midgame you'd be wrecking shit left and right.

...but in DS2 a sorcerer with the MLGS or Blue Flame, bolstered with Soul Vortex for AoE and Soul Geyser for bosses, utterly tears the game apart. Easily the most powerful PvE build I've ever tried.

Ah yes, perfect solution to the lack of viability for magic users: Use a melee weapon!

Unfortunately From had nerfed the MLGS into the ground by the time I finally played SotFS, so I didn't bother with it. I actually had two upgraded Blue Flames, but they went by the wayside when I respecced to melee guy.

 

[cvv]

MLGS is still one of the best weapons in the game. IIRC you just can no longer buff it which it's perfectly fine coz with the Crystal Weapon it was absurdly OP. As for the pure magic viability, my experience is the spells are plenty powerful it's just the high-level ones are in limited supply. Even with the herbs you would soon run out. Plus smacking mobs with a greatsword is more fun anyway.

 

[Blaine]

Yes, eventually if you stack enough points into INT and ATN, in DS2 you can run lots of copies of the several middling-strength, high-usage spells that are fairly strong and that will carry you through various areas.

The problem is stat investment and cast time. Even if your spells are fast relative to default casting speed, you're left much more open for far longer than when using melee weapons, and for the most part you aren't allowed to "kite" enemies, either. The stat investment to deal adequate damage and have a satisfactory number of spell uses is also tremendous, far greater than what's needed to use a decent greatsword and shield; those are points that, with a reasonable melee build, can be spent on more roll invincibility frames, more health, and more Vitality for heavier gear. Adding to that, the damage from all but the strongest spells is no higher (and possibly lower) than the equivalent amount of damage you can deal during the same time period with a decent upgraded greatsword.

Of course, you can't backstab with a spell.

The biggest problem though is that From's convocation of game design geniuses gave all of the DLC enemies blanket 50% (or possibly higher, but minimally 50%) resistance versus all magic types, with few exceptions. I think in one DLC Dark might have been effective, and in another Pyromancy was effective, but not to any noticeable degree. Certainly, versus Arcane, they had massive resistances, and those enemies are bullet sponges to begin with. I tried doing them with magic, almost ragequit the game, then came back as melee and rolled around and backstabbed everything, no problem.

It IS true you can summon phantoms (or not), spam high-level spells, and win some of the boss fights easily, but that's practically cheating so I didn't much like doing that, either.

Make all the excuses you want, but I played through it all, and did quite a lot of experimenting, too. They simply don't know how to implement anything but melee properly, and it sucks.

 

[Blaine]

Fuck's sake, I've finally started tootling around to finish some of the solo shit I need to take care of, but I'm finding out that I missed this or that quest permanently because I had to do it before defeating this or that boss.

Monster Hunter World can't come to PC soon enough. Can't wait for a git gud-style game with far better boss fights and proper co-op.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Current state of Dark Souls:

>magic is trash
>miracles are trash
>bows are trash
>light melee weapons are trash

Basically, you've got a few choices of build, but they are all variations on armor guy with a two-handed weapon and a shield on his back; armor guy with a two-handed weapon wielded in one hand and a shield; or armor guy with dual-wielded two-handed weapons. You can crank armor, shield, and weapon weight to fatroll levels if you want, but it's probably not advised in most cases.

The series has declined immensely, everyone defending it in this thread is human garbage and an agent of the decline, and I'm finished with the series after this installment. If any of you haven't played Hollow Knight yet, you should.

lol like there was time were things were different in Souls games.

Lets take a look:

DeS
>magic is boring pew pew with Royalty class or broken shit with running firestorm bug
>miracles are utter trash, there are like 5 spells overall and everyone use second chance
>bows are trash to pull out mobs
>light melee weapons like crescent falchion are viable

DS1
>magic is borring pew pew or broken OP shit with pursuers or dark bead
>miracles are shit and every retard can mid-roll trough WotG
>bows are trash with great bows only useful for PvP shenanigans against noobs
>light melee weapons like chaos blade, balder swag sword or furys sword are viable

DS2
>magic and hexes are best in series and are viable from start to end unless you want go through dlcs spamming great heavy magic arrow or dark orb. fuckton of spells and casting tools with situational shit like dead again etc.
>miracles are easymode than nerfed hard but still viable only now you cant have 44 lighting spears cast around fighting Rotten anymore
>bows are trash used only in Shrine of Amana to snipe bitches with poison arrows
>light melee weapons are viable with RoB-Flynn builds

BB
>lol dont even think about arcane or bloodtinge unless you really know what you are doing

DS3
>magic and hexes are shit until late game and heavy investment in stats and 3 rings than are ok
>miracles are shit until late game spells than are very strong with lighting arrow/stacke/storm
>bows are trash
>light melee weapons are cancer with carthus curved sword beeing OP as fuck until very late patches. still very good in PvE/PvP. straight swords are top tier

Souls games were always about sword&board or two-handing your zweihander. The only real diversity in builds you had maybe around DS2 with broken or OP shit like mundane builds,RobFlynn,Havelynns, 4 different magic schools, power-stancing and unique weqapons like twinblades, blue flame or puzzling stone sword etc.

 

[Blaine]

There are grains of truth in all of your descriptions, but in all of them your agenda is showing.

While magic may have been OP prior to Dark Souls 2, it wasn't "best in series" in 2, either. It was easymode win against many bosses, and shittier than melee even in early- and mid-game PvE due to leaving you more vulnerable and less able to dodge hits and take damage, while not dealing significantly more damage. But hey, everyone has a different definition of "viable," I suppose.

Tryhard faglords always get asspained when magic is too OP, then clap like toddlers when it's no stronger than melee offensively but far inferior tactically and defensively. That's not viable, in my books. It's shit.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

There are grains of truth in all of your descriptions, but in all of them your agenda is showing.

While magic may have been OP prior to Dark Souls 2, it wasn't "best in series" in 2, either. It was easymode win against many bosses, and shittier than melee even in early- and mid-game PvE due to leaving you more vulnerable and less able to dodge hits and take damage, while not dealing significantly more damage. But hey, everyone has a different definition of "viable," I suppose.

Tryhard faglords always get asspained when magic is too OP, then clap like toddlers when it's no stronger than melee offensively but far inferior tactically and defensively. That's not viable, in my books. It's shit.

Bro do you even hexes in DS2? You kill one boss, meet Felkin and buy Resonant Soul, Dark Orb, Dark Weapon. You dont need anything else to trash the rest of the game. Early-mid game RS and GRS are fucking overkill if you dont give a fuck about Soul Memory. If you dont deal more damage against trash mob with RS or Great Heavy Arrow than with your Longsword than you clearly doing something wrong. Aside from Brume Tower magic melts everything in PvE.

I do agree that From overreacts with nerfes and cant balance shit but it will not change as long as they try to combine PvE with PvP ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Blaine]

I do agree that From overreacts with nerfes and cant balance shit but it will not change as long as they try to combine PvE with PvP ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, that's the key issue, and they're bad at that too considering that in DS3 we went from being farmed mercilessly when we first started the game to spanking almost all of our invaders after we got past the second or third major boss. The first thing many of them do now is hope we follow them into a roomful of mobs, and I can't blame them. This changed slightly when covenantfags began invading when we were in the midst of a bunch of silver or black knights, but our win ratio was still significantly better than 50/50.

There was one memorable guy whose strategy was to bore us to death by eternally rolling and running away as a DEX build, and it worked. After about 10-15 minutes of chasing him, we gave up and let him kill us.

Lazing Dirk abandoned me in the middle of a bunch of silver knights with a covenantfag up my ass by rudely falling off the roof. Never gonna forgive him for that. Some warrior of sunlight he turned out to be!

 

[Arnust]

Hm, thread unwatched itself. Missed anything?

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Hm, thread unwatched itself. Missed anything?

Nope, sorry; the game's still a sub-par caricature of a real Souls game. The jolly co-op has nearly reached its end, and then it's an instant uninstall.

Here's a quick pop quiz: What DS3 boss starts off with a relatively standard and slowish moveset, then powers up half way through the battle to gain elemental damage, and faster, wider-ranging attacks with longer combos?

Spoiler

Trick question, it's every single fucking one. Well, at least the ones that aren't gimmicks.

 

[Multidirectional]

Souls games were always about sword&board or two-handing your zweihander

Don't know about the third one yet but first two to me are always about going for either STR or DEX weapons, light or heavy armor and Pyromancy as backup. I am completely uninterested in idea of having magic as main source of damage in Souls games, those spells just seem boring to use. I hear Pyro is not as useful without actual stat investment in DS III so maybe that won't be the case there.

I am giving DS III yet another go and I think I am actually gonna be able to finish it this time, finally managing to enjoy it a lot more than on previous tries.

 

[Arnust]

Here's a quick pop quiz: What DS3 boss starts off with a relatively standard and slowish moveset, then powers up half way through the battle to gain elemental damage, and faster, wider-ranging attacks with longer combos?

I'd say there still are some fantastic bosses in 3, as much DS2 dick I suck it probably is more consistent than it; but they do lack the depth and detail of it. Some of the fights defined by that are easily my favourite; Demon Prince, Abyss Watchers, Gundyr, Princes, but the rest just feel like fan favourites, retreads and poor ideas sticked together and awkwardly plastered over the mandatory second phase. I don't know you but I'm not going to forgive them making Yhorm a mismash of like four Demon's Souls bosses while still being as unremarkable as it gets. Pages ago also described the worst boss in the series; the Ancient Wyvern.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Hm, thread unwatched itself. Missed anything?

Nope, sorry; the game's still a sub-par caricature of a real Souls game. The jolly co-op has nearly reached its end, and then it's an instant uninstall.

Here's a quick pop quiz: What DS3 boss starts off with a relatively standard and slowish moveset, then powers up half way through the battle to gain elemental damage, and faster, wider-ranging attacks with longer combos?

Spoiler

Trick question, it's every single fucking one. Well, at least the ones that aren't gimmicks.

Artorias , Manus and O&S? Or maybe Fume Knight, Sir Alonne and Darklurker? Nope that must be Ludwig, Maria and Orphan...

 

[sullynathan]

What DS3 boss starts off with a relatively standard and slowish moveset, then powers up half way through the battle to gain elemental damage, and faster, wider-ranging attacks with longer combos?

There's probably only 3 or 4 bosses that do that but that won't stop your agenda against the game

 

[Arnust]

we_irl

 

[Lazing Dirk]

What DS3 boss starts off with a relatively standard and slowish moveset, then powers up half way through the battle to gain elemental damage, and faster, wider-ranging attacks with longer combos?

There's probably only 3 or 4 bosses that do that but that won't stop your agenda against the game

Iudex Gundyr ☑
Vordt ☑
Greatwood ☑ (Ish)
Crystal mage ☑ (Sorta)
Abyss watchers ☑
Pontiff ☑
Aldrich ☑ (Ish)
Oceiros ☑
Gundyr again ☑

And can't judge the remainder, not got to them yet. As for the others, 3 of them are gimmicks, Wolnir might've been like that but could hardly see what he was doing anyway, and the old demon king was seemingly the only normal one. A few of them might not get elemental damage, or just attack a bit more often instead of combos, but it's basically the same story for every one of them. They don't get their own gimmick, they have to share. And that gimmick is HAHA NOW THE REAL FIGHT BEGINS WHAT A SURPRISE. And I don't have an "agenda"; I got the game for free for christ's sake. It's not like I'm mad about wasting money. It's just annoying seeing the same shit over and over again. Oh hi there Untended Graves, you look familiar...

Artorias , Manus and O&S? Or maybe Fume Knight, Sir Alonne and Darklurker? Nope that must be Ludwig, Maria and Orphan...

But not the Asylum Demon, Capra Demon, Ceaseless Discharge, Centipede Demon, Queelag, Priscilla, Gwyndolin, Firesage, Gaping Dragon, Sif, Gwyn, Iron Golem, Moonlight Butterfly, Nito, Seath, Taurus Demon, Aldia, Nashandra, Vendrick, The Pursuer, Old Dragonslayer, Elana, Lost Sinner, Old Iron King, Freja, The Rotten, Giant Lord, Guardian Dragon, Sinh, Ruin Sentinals, Demon of Song, Covetous Demon, Dragonrider, Najka, Flexile Sentry, Rat Authority, or Aava. Christ, I forgot how many there were.