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From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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Also, I dunno if it applies to scythes, but I know a lot of weapons have a 'sweet spot', and if you don't contact the target with that part of the weapon, you don't deal full damage. Maybe you landed a shabby hit after buffing the weapon?
 

aris

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Is your magic stat weak? Armor in DaS is damage-reducing. Since the magic damage is a separate damage type from regular damage it has to pass a separate damage-reduction component, and below a threshold it will do no or almost no damage at all.
Not really, I don't have high int, but I'm using the Oolacile catalyst, so the added magic damage should be 198. I'm really surprised if the silver knight at first playthrough has more magic defense than that. Furthermore, power within should buff that damage by 40%, as it buffs all damage by 40% according to the description.
Also, I dunno if it applies to scythes, but I know a lot of weapons have a 'sweet spot', and if you don't contact the target with that part of the weapon, you don't deal full damage. Maybe you landed a shabby hit after buffing the weapon?
I don't think it's that. I've tried the same several times, and every time the same result.
 
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Cowboy Moment

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Equip the Red Tearstone Ring, and you will see that there is indeed no damage cap. You already have a Black Knight Halberd, world first Any% speedrun record awaits.
 

Kanedias

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That's not 198 pure damage. It's 198 magic attack rating (AR) which then gets reduced a LOT by the various resistances.
 

aris

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WTF is wrong with Artorias as a boss? I can understand and appreciate that the devs thought the other bosses were too easy, but this one is just insane. Artorias is just fine in normal mode, but it's when he goes into berserker mode, you can pretty much forget dodging unless you have mastered it to perfection, forget blocking as he burns through your stamina faster than you can say gaaaaay, and forget quaffing potions. You're pretty much dead when he go into berserker mode. Now all that's fine, except for one thing

HOW THE FUCK DO I STOP HIS CHARGE UP??
:x

Immediately when I see him running backwards, I resolutely run towards him, get of a running attack and then two quick R2 attacks with my 40 dex character with a +14 great scythe and power within, dealing a solid 602 damage to the insane amounts of defense he has during build up. AND IT STILL DOES NOT BREAK HIS BUILD UP. How much can the devs possibly ask to break a mode, in which the boss is all but invincible? Somehow, I was able to break his build up twice with DN halberd with another char once, and thus won the fight after about 20 tries, and I have no idea how it happened.

Seriously, for me, Artorias is by FAAAAAAAAAR the hardest boss in the game, none other even comes close.
Equip the Red Tearstone Ring, and you will see that there is indeed no damage cap. You already have a Black Knight Halberd, world first Any% speedrun record awaits.
Also, at one point during the fight, I could have sworn I had less than 20% HP and got in an R2 swing on him, he still took the exact same amount of damage as he did when above 20% HP. It's very possible that I was wrong about being below 20% hp though.
 

aris

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How? I can't possibly get in more swings during his build up than I already have. It's not like getting good will magically allow me to swing faster.
 

praetor

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with an arrow to the knee head. or break his poise. or, as Manatee said, just git gud. dodging him is very easy since he telegraphs his moves quite a bit in advance (only the big leap&stab can be a bit quirky to dodge correctly, but you can avoid it by staying at close/mid range), and he gives plenty of time to heal up.

How? I can't possibly get in more swings during his build up than I already have. It's not like getting good will magically allow me to swing faster.

no, but gitting gud will allow you to suck less and stop you from looking like a 12year old CoD Diablo3 kid whenever the game challenges you, and then maybe you'll be able to dodge him without "mastering it to perfection"
 

aris

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Would a dragon slayer arrow to the knee work to break his poise? I actually have one, with the stat req met.
 

praetor

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a normal arrow to the head is enough. damage is not that relevant iirc (did it recently with 24/13 on a composite bow), so with 40dex and a longbow you should be fine. and how the hell do you think you can pull off a DS arrow with that long drawing speed, when you can barely dodge him? :D git gud, indeed :P
 

aris

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I think I'd prefer to do something more reliable than attempting to do a headshot in the middle of the heat. Does crescent axe break his poise? It seems to have an amazing ability to do just that with regular monsters at least.
 

aris

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Whats all this talk about dodging shit, your salvation lies in havel's and iron flesh.
Thanks, took him relatively easily now! That advice was way more useful than "git good". Never used iron flesh before, seems like an excellent noob helper.
 

praetor

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and then you cry how "cheap" the game is, but you use the cheapest tactics available to kill one of the most (if not the most) interesting, cool and challenging bosses in the game :bravo:
 

aris

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Why do you have so much sand in your vagina praetor? I've never said the game is cheap, it's mostly completely fair. Also, it's not a cheap tactic, but a perfectly valid one that the developers intended you to use if you couldn't get the timing of the dodging right.

Btw, does iron flesh scale with the pyromancy flame? If so, I think I could have made the fight easier, as I only had a pyromancy flame +3.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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Crescent Axe is enough to break his poise when he's charging iirc, but the damage would be painfully low. If you want to go that route, you're better off with some kind of axe/hammer/greatsword with straight up normal damage. Even Grant does really pathetic damage, there's just no split damage weapons that will hurt him decently. And curved greatswords/scythes are shit at breaking poise. I think the black knight halberd might do the trick too, iirc it has higher poise breaking than other weapons with that moveset.
 

aris

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Crescent Axe is enough to break his poise when he's charging iirc, but the damage would be painfully low. If you want to go that route, you're better off with some kind of axe/hammer/greatsword with straight up normal damage. Even Grant does really pathetic damage, there's just no split damage weapons that will hurt him decently. And curved greatswords/scythes are shit at breaking poise. I think the black knight halberd might do the trick too, iirc it has higher poise breaking than other weapons with that moveset.
Well, it would really just to break his poise, change to crescent axe when he's charging up, change back to the main weapon when poise is broken. In the end, I did it without too much problems using iron flesh as pipeweed suggested. Maybe I will do that in NG+
 

dunno lah

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are you on NG+? coz I can assure you that Artorias' poise is easy as fuck to break in NG. I did it with 1 charged r1 and 2 r1s of my divine longsword+10(don't ask why I used that weapon..) during his charge-up. You either took too long to get to him or you're exaggerating...

More pointless shit: I took maybe 50 tries to beat Artorias. :oops: If only I weren't so stubborn with my continued use of divine weapons, but I regret nothing. In fact, I feel mighty proud to be able to beat Kalameet and Artorias with the stated weapon.
 

aris

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gaudaost
are you on NG+? coz I can assure you that Artorias' poise is easy as fuck to break in NG. I did it with 1 charged r1 and 2 r1s of my divine longsword+10(don't ask why I used that weapon..) during his charge-up. You either took too long to get to him or you're exaggerating...

More pointless shit: I took maybe 50 tries to beat Artorias. :oops: If only I weren't so stubborn with my continued use of divine weapons, but I regret nothing. In fact, I feel mighty proud to be able to beat Kalameet and Artorias with the stated weapon.
Nah, I'm at my first playthrough. Well, then I guess your weapon had a much higher poise break, because I'm 100% sure that every time he started charging up, I got in one runnning attack and then two strong attacks (same as you) with my great scythe +14 with 40 dex and power within activated before he was done charging up, which is the max that I could possibly get, I was very precise with the timing on that build up. But as damned registrations pointed out, poise break with scythe is shit. It's kind of too bad that you need specific weapons to break his powerup.
 
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i did not know you could break his charge up until my 5th or 6 th character fighting him and before that i never managed to kill him before his 3 rd charge up:M
 

aris

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You don't have to break it, you know.
Yeah, in the end I didn't when using iron flesh, I just stood there and took it while attacking him relentlessly back and quaffing potions. The only hard part was to time the second iron flesh as the first ran out. It is a very nice strategy actually. Boss attacking you relentlessly without giving you breaks? Well then say fuck you, and attack him relentlessly right back at his face. I've also seen people dodge-attacking him when he is in turbo mode too, but those are people that have mastered the barrel roll to perfection. I haven't the time or patience to do such things.
 
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By "charging up" you mean preparing for the AoE attack? You can just back off and use this time to heal.
 

aris

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No I mean where he takes a double backflip and then does this goku thing before going purple and becoming much more powerful.
 

dunno lah

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The AoE attack also boosts his damage output.

I've just checked DaS wiki on poise and it shows that straight swords and the great scythe have equal poise drain, either 1-handed or 2.
 

aris

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Man I just thought about the ultimate way to troll all the bosses in dark souls. Crystal soul spear and homing crystal soul mass WITH iron flesh. This guy

trolled his way through pretty much all the bosses using those two spells and power within (see him beating artorias, like he's nothing), now imagine that with iron flesh, holy shit
:troll:
Definitely gonna try in NG+ and ++++ once I get my int score up
 

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