Interviewer: It’s hard for me to even imagine playing Dark Souls with a mouse; a gamepad is ingrained into my mind. Is there an advantage to using a mouse, or just preference?
Methanhydrat: This is something that always comes up when talking about the Souls games. Some people even go so far and claim that those games are impossible to be played with mouse and keyboard. This is of course nonsense. All the games can be played fine with mouse and keyboard from start to finish. It is of course undeniably true that you lose a little control of the movement, because you are trading an analog stick for binary keyboard input, but in practice this actually makes very little difference. The two relevant movement speeds can be specified with a modifier key and using the eight rolling directions the keyboard offers work perfectly well to do anything you need in those games. On the other hand, you gain fine control of the camera with a mouse, which makes some things such as aiming with a bow easier. But I would be the first to admit that this also does not have a major impact to the overall gameplay, unless maybe you are playing a bow-only build.
So for most people it is not about getting an advantage, but rather personal preference. I personally cannot stand using a controller for any game in which I have direct control over a 3D camera. Even though precise input is not necessary from a gameplay stand point, I am just more comfortable with a mouse and keyboard. One of the beautiful aspects of PC Gaming is that everyone can use the control scheme he or she prefers, even though it may deemed to be inferior by other people.