sorry, but that IS being stupid. how can you not realise that Vit and End are crucial if you were paying any kind of attention? i mean, "more HP = good" is self-explanatory, and if you were paying attention to the equipment or level-up screen or just during combat you'd have seen that having more stamina is a very good idea, as is having more equipment without hindering movement speed.
Of course it's a 'good' idea, but the player asks himself, hey, maybe I can bypass the need for absurd amounts of end/vit if I get 20 dex/str to be able to use such and such a bow, thus make my character viable for ranged combat! Or maybe he's thinking, hey, maybe I should focus on being able to wield that hammer which requires 40str earlier. Sure I won't be able to roll around as much but I shouldn't need it with such a whack hammer! And then you end up with a character that's not viable for PvP and is very very annoying to play in PvE, hence you need to restart your game.
And it's not even these extreme cases that matter. Say you want to make a cooping/pvping character that's SL60. Even knowing endurance and vitality are quite important, it's extremely extremely easy to spread out your stats too much, for example, if you want wrath of god + MLGS, without knowing that to be viable for multiplayer at that level your character needs at least 27vit/end. Or, here's an example that happened to me in my second character: I knew end/vit were important, but I spent my stats on being able to wield Gravelord Sword and use the MLB miracle (for a claymore). I aimed for level 60. My character had something like 24 end and 22 vit, making it 'ok' for co-oping and solo play but trash for PvP. Had to discard it. My first character also ran into similar problems, due to MLGS.
if you're good at avoiding damage (either by smart using of blocking or effective dodging), i can understand not putting much points in vitality, but forgoing endurance is dumb. you can try to excuse it however you want, but unless you're larping a pure caster, it's extremely obvious that endurance is likely the most crucial stat in the game. and i'm happy the game punishes you for being stupid in your builds
27vit is not "needed" for coop. and wanting to use MLGS and WoG at such a low level is being stupid since one is a Fth spell with relatively high reqs (especially for such a low level) while the other is pure Int weapon, again with relatively steep reqs for the level (and if you don't realize that putting points both in Int and Fth is a bad idea so early on, you deserve to be punished). no way around it (i mean, for MLGS you have need least 28 Int, and stopping there it's a pretty dumb investment considering the Int breakpoints.. and WoG has a 28 Faith requirement, meaning that at the very least, without any other stat investment you're already at lvl40 at the very least. dumb, especially for coop... and WoG isn't really a very useful coop spell. HCSM or soulspear or even lighting spear are much better for PvE, excusing the high Int investment.. i played plenty of coop sessions at sl55-75 in anor londo and beyond as a pure caster, even in ng+. it's surprisingly easy). so in the end you're complaining that your poor stat choices lead you to crappy PvP performances? surprising!.. not. in PvP you can manage very well with subpar gear once you get used to it, but you'll get slaughtered if your stats aren't allocated to use that gear (excusable for your first build, which shouldn't be used for PvP anyway...)
You cannot. I can see pure sorcerer being somehow viable in PvE, but you need to really know your shit, and it's definitely not viable in PvP. I beat O&S (solo) with a pure sorcerer in my first runthrough. Was a pain in the ass. Sure, if I try it today I'll probably be able to do it since I know what I'm doing, but that just means I'm good in O&S due to beating it billions of times, not that a sorcerer is somehow viable. A bowman is the same. The only sense in which it's PvE viable is if you're really good and know the game very well. And it's definitely not viable for PvP (other than dragonbow/avelyn trolling), which is pretty much obligatory if you intend to use the multiplayer element at all.
have you played the game, like, at all? in PvE pure casters are piss easy. and in PvP having very damaging HCSM, CSS and pyromancies is quite viable (dusk crown + bellowing dragoncrest make for some insanely damaging spells... often killing dudes with a simple combust + spell combo. learn to land them instead of complaining pointlessly). O&S solo with a sorc was a pain in the ass?! jesus fuck how? they take so much damage from a simple soul spear (and magic/magic weapons in general) it's not even funny. whomever you choose to kill first literally dies before you're out of SS casts, while the other you can easily finish off by rolling around leisurely under the protection of your HCSM (and considering how fun and challenging that boss fight has been in my previous melee playthroughs with sometimes a bit of pyro backup, even cooping in ng+ and not realizing it, playing as pure sorc was less than trivial and disappointingly easy). and how is a bowman
not viable? arrows are cheap as fuck, you have quite a few bows & arrows to choose from early on (all viable except maybe the shortbow. and of course some nonsensical upgrade paths like lightning bows or fire crossbows), enemies don't react at all from long distances (making sniping especially easy and boring... very much so with a long range bow like the pharis one and poison arrows). have you tried using a pure bow build in PvP? obviously not, because otherwise you'd know it was more than viable (check out the wikidot forums if you don't believe me. even a good-but-not-great player like Morrigan manages to win more than lose with a pure archer build)
I use Flip&Fap myself, but they by no means support more experimentation. Like Havel's/FaP for PvP twinks, they allow you to use equipment you weren't meant to and move in it in unusual speeds. The only thing they really achieve is making light armor completely useless, since they allow you to wear heavy armor without any penalties whatsoever. This is not encouraging experimentation, it's letting players create ninja flipping Havels, putting builds that wear armor that's any lighter at a huge disadvantage. The reason most players use these two rings is that they outclass everything else so much that it's almost impossible to be PvP viable otherwise.
huh? there's exactly 0 reasons to use Havel's over DWGR or FaP. do you understand the stat system at all? by using the DWGR and RoFaP you effectively significantly lower both Vit and End requirements for being competitive in PvP, thus freeing a lot of points to put in other areas, promoting lots of hybrid builds, or otherwise "standard" builds tweaked to use "non-standard" weapons. with FaP alone you can have very competitive gear and HP starting at 45Vit/30End (if not even 40vit. using DWGR, of course). using heavy armour (especially exclusively) has the penalty of stamina regen. sure you may make up for it by sacrificing a ring slot (very bad idea), head gear (quite bad idea) or having the grass shield (not a bad idea depending on your build (str and dragonoid having the most benefits), but you're sacrificing
a lot of versatility and mix-up by not having something offensive like a spear or cat/tail/pyro in your left hand slot. of course, you can have both, but then again maybe those 3.0 additional weight points could've been used elsewhere to make your build better or End lowered for more Att/Vit/Dex/whatever. yeah, there's the grass consumable, but that lasts only a minute, and unless you're playing by rules that allow pre-buffing, your matches will last more than that and mid-match grassing will get easily punished by a good player). with a bit of practice, you can learn to roll through all big weapon swings, all spells and just avoid damage, making poise much less important than it's made out to be (but still very important, unfortunately). just take a look at the jap players outside the painted world ('cause that's where all the pros hang. going there with no poise and subpar gear/stats is a death sentence), especially the burg. plenty of 0 or low poise. and the area before the centipede demon is the "official" 0poise duelling area so if you dig that feel free to hang there and stop complaining because you suck so much.
with your proposed nerf/removal of FaP/DWGR you'd make heavy armours useless (try fighting even a decent player by mid/fat rolling and die repeatedly as he laughs in your face even with 0 poise). the main thing is that there's no real "malus" to having 53/76 poise or a benefit for going 0-low poise over high-poise (it could've been balanced, for example, by making the stunlock-escape time window inversely proportional to poise). 53 poise is "standard" because there's no real alternative vs good players (and if you see somebody flipping in full havel's you can be certain he's a bad player)
Here's what I'd do to answer both your concerns. Remove FaP. Make DWGR only work for <25%, remove Havel's ring completely (it just encourages stupid twinks). Make family masks heavier and nerf them by a lot (MoM should increase HP by 3-5% at best), maybe remove them altogether. Make long ranged pyromancy faster in general but closed ranged pyromancy (combustion) slower. Make EWGR do what you said, but only for crystal weapons (unless EWGR doesn't do anything about special R2 attacks, I'm not sure if it does that. My concern here is that we get MLGS moonlight wave spammers.). Tiny being ring should have some health regen, yes, and cloranthy ring should be boosted, but the grass crest shield should have its defensive values nerfed. Lingering dragoncrest should do 75%, perhaps. And yes do what you said about Slumbering/Fog. The changes about seance ring/sunborn/leo/ring of the evil eye I completely agree with. Nerf Hornet's by a lot and remove stab hitbox while rolling/jumping (so no chainstabs). All greatshields should have their weight and stat reqs increased. Nerf Giant's and Havel's somewhat, perhaps by making them weigh more so you pretty much have to be a med/fatroller to use them. Make Halberds faster and give black knight weapons a stat req increase, also make BKGA slower. This both makes PvE harder (since you've removed the OP rings) and PvP better.
no. just now. this just shows how little you understand of the game. removing FaP would do no good. it would hurt the game very much and it would make builds much more restrictive and once again we'd see much less variation like in DeS. Havel's encourages twinks? bullshit. it's likely the least used ring in the game because of how much it's outclassed by DWGR and FaP. MoM is the only mask in need of a nerf (and that's only in the health boost department, like i already mentioned. making it both heavy and boost a negligible amount of health would make it useless. and that's not good balancing. you're just taking away yet another useful item). pyro is fast enough if you take the time to learn to cast it unlocked and invest in Dex to speed up casting animation. i agree that EWGR shouldn't do anything about special attacks, but extending the "no durability loss" to normal attacks for every other weapon is negligible since they loose little durability anyway and it'd be a ring used by people focusing on crystal weapons anyway (and the MLGS R2 is easy to avoid since most users of that weapon are shitty players). nerfing grass crest would accomplished little since it's used mainly by str builds as passive regen (since most str weapons are passive 2-handed weaps) or for parrying. making the ring regen more stamina than the shield would make for some interesting build combos. ligering 75%? 15 seconds more would hardly matter. completely removing the BS hitbox during rolling wouldn't be such a good idea because it would take it back to DeS days where just pressing O would cancel a BS. chain BS isn't that big of a problem anyway (it's a 50-50 bet anyway, and if you know your opponent is going for a chain you can always try to face him and parry. it makes for some pretty cool and rewarding punishment if you manage to pull it off
), but the BS hitbox in general should be significantly reduced 'cause right now it's easier to land backstabs than regular R1 attacks (hell, 90% of backstabs i did were by accident since i actively try to avoid exploiting the BS mechanic). 100% agreed about the greatshields (with the added caveat that the Eagle should have higher stat reqs and lower stability). havel's doesn't need a nerf, giants very little (but then you also need to nerf black iron and smough). if anything some armours should have bumps in poise to bridge some big gaps (for example, there's no hands/legs piece that gives poise between 14 and 18, nothing between 23 and 28, nothing between 18 and 21) 'cause it would make for more varied combinations for the important breakpoints of 53 and 76. halberds need no tweaks, they're fine as is, and BK weapons definitely don't need a stat req increase, that's just insane 'cause they require specific builds tailored around them anyway (and except for the BKGA, they're hilariously bad in PvP compared to their competition). learn to parry BKGA, it's not hard. PvE will never be harder unless the enemies are given faster reaction/turning times, more mixups and at least slightly randomized spawn points.
tl;dr: from your post i can gather that most of your complaints can be generalized by "i don't know how to use/counter X, please nerf it", and that's just bullshit (and would lead to retarded nerfing like the 1.05 patching of iron flesh, RoF, crystal shield etc.. that made previously OP items completely useless). it needs rebalancing by making other, underpowered items useful, not by making powerful stuff completely useless. keep practising 'cause you suck a lot
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