From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Gozma]

Logged off the Codex, tried one more time, killed him first try by running up and Great Combustioning him twice while he was powering up the second time

I thought the black burst at the end of his powerup was a damage explosion for some reason, so trying to melee him would be risky, but it's actually just cosmetic.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I think you found some wonky hitboxes, because his Devil Trigger Flux powerup explosion always did a hefty amount of damage whenever I decided it was a good idea to try and poise-break the guy with a low-tier weapon (Velka's Rapier has S-scaling in swag, though).

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Frankly, you can wait for him to do one of his charging attacks (or the jumping attack), then hit him once with the club's R2, roll away immediately.You will never get hit, and he's really not difficult to read. You will have a much worse time with Manus and Kalameet at SL1.

You should also be using a Chaos Reinforced Club with 10 Humanity against enemies who aren't fire resistant.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It is a damage explosion, but only if you don't break his poise before he finished charging.

Also, LOL @ trying to poise break artorias with a rapier. Would probably be harder to poise break him before he dies than it is to kill him with bare hands.

 

[Gozma]

^^^ dying way too much just exploring etc. to try to keep 10 humanity. I'd lose it a few times on failed retrievals and ragebite my thumb off.

Edit - I dunno what happened with the damage explosion; I was watching him closely to see if I could break the charge-up with spells and he never did the stagger animation. I might have perfectly panic-rolled through the hitbox or something without realizing it.

Is it totally out of the question to pyromancy the other two DLC bosses? I did 100% of the damage in the Artorias fight with pyro and still had like half the castings of regular combustion left and 2-3 of greater (using the spell damage up ring and hat).

 

[Damned Registrations]

Pretty sure they're both vulnerable to fire. Only quelaag and other obvious shit in the demon ruins/izalith tends to be fire immune. As long as you've got the right spells it should be doable.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Use your Lightning Club against Kalameet. Against Manus it depends on how you fight him - I would wait for him to slam his fist down and jump attack that, so Pyro was really impractical for me.

 

[praetor]

This is meaningless.

Dark Souls 2 is it's own thing, a hybrid of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.

yeah, too bad most of the DeS things are the shitty ones and they ignored some (most? all?) of the ones that made DaS1 great i have to agree with the "no soul" comment. it's a pastiche of fantastic ideas and improvements over the 2 previous games, but it's put together without that much thought

and iirc Pyro against Manus doesn't work all that well. i think it's ~1/3 of his health will all the great combustions? maybe black flame would be good?

 

[Gozma]

Black flame does like ~80% of the damage great combustion does on Manus, some resistance shit I guess

16 combustions and 8 great combustions (max pyro glove + damage boosters) is just shy of killing Manus factoring in a few inevitable misses, as I learned... and then learned again thinking hey just don't miss... to my extreme annoyance. Have to switch to doing about 1/3 damage very slowly wif da klub before switching. It's still worth doing because it lets you punish more of his stuff and the slow stuff much harder DPS-wise, so you can get through his second phase quickly with minimal fumbling with the silver necklace item. He likes to get stuck in a loop doing this uppercut move that will always zero-stamina stagger an SL1 with the balder shield out of block but that you still have time to safely punish with a combustion and be ready with most of your stamina if he decides to stop looping and do a string. With 3 attunement slots to throw in Black Flame or Power of One it would be free. Or maybe a seance ring...

Manus is hard enough execution-wise that it took the shine off the teehee you gotta run back from the bonfire over and over thing and made me wish for fighting game style training mode (edit: the bonfire-boss jog is fine for the "real thing" obviously). It's one thing when you're fighting corny spectacle bosses like Seathe where it's oddly fun to get annoyed and toy-frustrated and another when you are playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!! against Manus' animations and running back to do it again is one long loading screen interrupting your reaction time practice. Ornstein and Smough is the good exception to this because it's genuinely a spatially interesting fight you can think about until you solve it.

Edit - and I limp across the finish line after hours of retries having completely given up on my original "quick" pyro strategy (I am too old and broken to react quickly/precisely enough to always avoid that 5-hit instant death combo he does if I'm strafing around at short range like the pyro strategy required) instead using something directly copied from Youtube like a bitch (sit at long range with the dark wood grain ring backflipping through the small move pool he uses at that range). Fuck Super Macho Man, Fuck Kalameet, fuck video games

 

[StaticSpine]

hey bros, will there be any decent alternative to Drake Sword and where/when? (I've just killed Quelaag)

I play a strength/endurance/vitality-based knight.

 

[DragoFireheart]

hey bros, will there be any decent alternative to Drake Sword and where/when? (I've just killed Quelaag)

I play a strength/endurance/vitality-based knight.

 

[Jaedar]

hey bros, will there be any decent alternative to Drake Sword and where/when? (I've just killed Quelaag)

I play a strength/endurance/vitality-based knight.

In general, any decently upgraded weapon will be a superior alternative to drake sword if you have decent strength. Make sure to find one that has at least a C scaling in strength though.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

hey bros, will there be any decent alternative to Drake Sword and where/when? (I've just killed Quelaag)

I play a strength/endurance/vitality-based knight.

 

[StaticSpine]

hey bros, will there be any decent alternative to Drake Sword and where/when? (I've just killed Quelaag)

I play a strength/endurance/vitality-based knight.

THE LEGEND NEVER DIES

 

[StaticSpine]

hey bros, will there be any decent alternative to Drake Sword and where/when? (I've just killed Quelaag)

I play a strength/endurance/vitality-based knight.

In general, any decently upgraded weapon will be a superior alternative to drake sword if you have decent strength. Make sure to find one that has at least a C scaling in strength though.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

And really, Zweihander is a great all-around weapon if you need to put points in other stats. It can stagger almost any enemy you can run across.

 

[Gozma]

I started a normal game to make an elemental zweihander character and... boy it's slow. It's great for tough but "human poise" level enemies because the strong attack is semi-fast and does this knockdown stun that gives you time to combo into the chained second strong, which is usually a kill. It's especially good against bot invader characters because they aren't immune to the knockdown like real bosses but they have enough HP that it's worth doing. Against bosses it's useless because the damage isn't that good for such a slow move and the recovery is horrible if the enemy isn't flat on the ground, but in that case you just do the "You dodged a boss attack you get a free hit!" punishes with the jump attack, which is the common ground pound jump attack but it's the zweihander so it hits hard as hell. The R1s are also pretty crappy for being super slow, but they have a lot of hitting area so you can catch a lot of enemies in one attack.

The random not-honorable-duels-bushido-gesture-for-thirty-seconds-fuck-off-jesus PvP I've done with it is just shitty lag fumbling but hey if an R2 hits for no good reason because no one can tell what is going on I win.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Zweihander also has long reach as well. The name of the game is timing and picking your spots instead of being aggressive. I prefer weapons like that myself in DaS, I could never get into fast close-up combo weapons.

 

[Gozma]

Oh it also had a nice long range thrust poke like the balder sword or claymore strong attack, but on the Zwei it's the rolling attack, which would theoretically be cool for pvp if the apparent position of another player wasn't pure speculation on the netcode's part.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah you wouldn't want to use something like the Gravelord Sword, that won't hurt anything.

 

[Gozma]

The Gravelord doesn't really lead towards a "final build" very well, it's a high strength req weapon that also needs 15? dex. I guess if you want to eventually use Murakumo it's perfect but I wanted to get through a regular game with an elemental zwei to get endurance and vitality up first in what I guess will eventually be a strength char.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Gravelord sword is so good people that don't learn it don't understand.

DAT TOXIC R2 POKE!

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think for most people their 'final build' involves 40 in whatever their weapon scales off the most and a bunch of other random stats to meet requirements for trying shit out.

Minmaxing to use one weapon only on your first playthrough is missing half the point of the game.

 

[Gozma]

I didn't say anything about a first playthrough tho

And first playthrough you shouldn't find the gravelord in the first place, it is 10x as much the internet spoiler weapon that the drake sword is.

 

[Damned Registrations]

True, but he's obviously on his first playthrough if he's using that and obviously wants internet spoiler weapons.