Definitely do not do this, unless you want to make the game extremely easy and repetitive and kill all your fun and immersion. Explains a lot about Silverturd's sour attitude towards Elden Ring, though, the scrub never got gut, started relying on cheap tricks like Blood Pistol, then comes in whinging about minor flaws to justify his incompetence.
Spamming a powerful weapon art is indeed a good plan, there's plenty to choose from. I'm personally also a fan of shield poking with a rapier or spear. Because of the way poise works, being able to consistently hit enemies without giving them a breather tends to trigger staggers more often than you'd expect, even with a light weapon like a rapier. Impaling strike and giant's hunt are both crazy good weapon arts as well, if not as flashy as most.
The best advice is not to take it personally. I know a lot of people, both irl and on the internet that during the Dark Souls rise to fame tried the game and got so frustrated, they thought that them dying is somehow offensive to them. One of the dudes even refused to believe that people actually beat these game, because he couldn't, he thought people just pretended they beat the games, it was very fucked up. Most of these people still baffled that FS games got so popular, though some got into their games later.
I guess the shield/rapier or spear poking build needs a decent investment into Endurance so you survive a few blocks without getting winded? My character has 20 at the moment (along with 20 Vigour and 22 Strength so I can two-hand the Greatsword). What sort of numbers should I be working towards to get this sort of playstyle working as an alternative when smashing things around doesn't work?
I've looked at Ashes of War but at the moment none of the ones I have seem to actually boost the numbers on my main weapon (a +4 Greatsword) I think it's because my Strength isn't high enough to make up for the base weapon damage falloff.
I've not had a problem with encounters in general, it's specifically these Banished Knights I'm having a problem with; they seem designed to specifically counter my main weapon and I don't have enough HP to survive if I make a mistake. The first one was difficult to evade because it spawned in a totally dark room and killed me while I was carrying a lot of runes, and every time I went back to pick the runes up again it would kill me. I finally managed to beat it after a lot of rolly-polly backstabbing.
So the thing that matters most with shields is actually strength and encumbrance; because the amount of stamina lost when taking a hit is determined by the guard boost stat of a shield. Bigger, heavier shield > More guard boost. It's the % of stamina loss that the shield (or weapon, you can block with a 2 handed weapon as well) ignores. If you had 100 guard boost, attacks would cause no stamina loss at all. The second most important thing with shields is a hidden stat called hardness; this is what determines whether attacks bounce off it and interrupt a combo. It only goes up to 3, and even greatshields generally only have 2. But it's the difference between an enemy doing a 7 hit combo on your shield and draining your stamina, or bouncing off and looking retarded after the first swing. The third important thing with shields is just learning which attacks to block; but it's fairly intuitive. Thrusting, one handed, and quick attacks tend to be easier to block. If something is really easy to dodge or backpedal away from, you probably shouldn't block it. Though even then it's often a safe option if there's no follow up; you'll reel back but recover before you can get hit again. Also, upgrading your shield does boost guard boost a little. Not a big deal for early on, but makes a big difference later when you can apply 10 levels to a hefty shield. The last thing to remember is your stamina recovers very slowly while blocking; you don't need to time blocks perfectly by any means, but don't hold your shield up if your stamina is low and you're feeling safe.
Strangely enough, I have a couple of tips for you... get sober and stop crying about Dragon's Dogma 2 losing a Codex popularity poll
Levelling Vigor is extremely proficient, as it continues to give you large numbers of added HP till the late 60s, IIRC. When I hear stories of difficult enemies oneshotting new players, low level of HP is always the culprit. Also, if you ever hugged Fia, then she sucked some of your max hp from you as well so you have to use Baldachin's Blessing item she gave you and then die for the debuff to wear off.
Definitely do not do this, unless you want to make the game extremely easy and repetitive and kill all your fun and immersion. Explains a lot about Silverturd's sour attitude towards Elden Ring, though, the scrub never got gut, started relying on cheap tricks like Blood Pistol, then comes in whinging about minor flaws to justify his incompetence.
Yes.
It's a literal compass that shows north/south/etc. You keep pretending this is a valid complaint. You're still retarded.
Can be useful in an open-world game, also, the game will never automatically set them for you, so if you don't like this feature just don't use it, lol. "Oh no, I have the optional ability to mark a location on the map that I never need to use if I don't want it, UBISOFT TRASH!!"
Quality of life improvement that should have been there since Demon Souls. Therefore, UBISOFT TRASH!
Stop breathing.
They didn't even care to explain why it doesn't deplete when you're not in combat, to the point where you can handle 2-3 strikes to an unsuspecting enemy without spending stamina. It's a very bad addition and I hope it won't be replicated in their next game.
Because it's a video game.
They can do better. A better system would be a danger proximity feature, where if you're out of danger your stamina doesn't deplete when you're running and deplete when you're attacking, but restores extremely fast, which also informs you on how much stamina is needed for each weapon action. And it should work on enemy proximity radius, not on enemy aggro state as it currently works.
Oh, but it should.
Running out of stamina while sprinting outside of combat does not make the game more sophisticated in any way, shape or form.
Yes.
Can be useful in an open-world game, also, the game will never automatically set them for you, so if you don't like this feature just don't use it, lol. "Oh no, I have the optional ability to mark a location on the map that I never need to use if I don't want it, UBISOFT TRASH!!"
It works perfectly fine as it is and removes a lot of frustration that results from repetitively having to slow down and wait for stamina to recover all the time. And who said that every gameplay feature requires an "explanation"? It's a video game lol.
That's one of the main reasons I fell in love with Dark Souls 1. Felt the same in the final boss's arena in Elden Ring. Oh, and also when I looked closely at pillars in Hunter's Dream.
That's a shame. Multiverse theory is the worst literary device ever used, and stuff like multiplayer and respawning need zero explanation or acknowledgment from the game's characters. It never makes any sense, anyway.
40 SL is slightly higher than I'm used to when dealing with Stormveil Castle, but that shouldn't matter that much, as long as you had fun in the process. Intentionally limiting yourself is not a good choice when you're new to the games. You're not getting oneshotted anymore, so it's a good thing, because it will be less frustrating to play. Still, you will encounter more dangerous enemies later in the game, so it won't be a cakewalk for a long time.
