From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[praetor]

what ?

so undead burg/anor londo is a good location for pvp/co-op not because of its level design and great boss fights but because it is arenalike area with bonfire nearby?do i understand you correctly?

so is iron keep than.

people co-op O&S because they are hard. Smelter Demon is hard so we co-op him. and he is hard because not everyone have 32 str build with fucking gyrm shield

yup, you're incredibly retarded. the vast majority of people co-op Burg is to counter-grief the griefers. Burg is (on PS3) the no 1. PvP hotspot for the reasons i mentioned. you can make up whatever "fact" you wish to back up your claims, but that won't change the actual facts.

and people co-op O&S, not necessarily AL (i'd say about half my time co-oping there was for the boss exclusively, but of course i have no hard evidence to back that up, just personal experince) because as you say it's a hard (and fun boss to play). and it's (or more like it used to be) a PvP hotspot because it's active for PvP after you kill the boss and make it dark (and near devoid of enemies). and yeah, it's also quite well designed, unlike the iron shithole, so there's lot's of fun to be had there other than stock arena-style duels.

Smelter hard? are you one of those braindead retards i keep co-oping with who run to him at half health after every plunge attack to be killed instantly by the AoE? you don't need no fucking greatshield, dodging his attacks is trivial (+5 royal kite shield here), just equip some decent fire protecting gear and use an orange burr/flash sweat

the same as oolacil townshit? you want pvp you stay at iron keep not in black gulch. also not liking black gulch...whar are you casual?

i never said that iron keep is good location because of its level design/boss fight. it has great pvp spot and great co-op raids therefore its not "1/10 would not play area again" like demons ruins/lost izalith. are we clear?

black gulch is shit. you can excuse however you like it, it's a lazily designed, shitty location at least on par with Izalith. PvP is abundant at IK because of the convenience of a large, empty space right next to a bonfire, it's not a late game area, and the bosses technically aren't mandatory (and only Smelter gives you a decent weapon, while OIK is just crap even rewards-wise, although i see plenty of red signs around even with dead bosses, so i guess they finally figured out how retarded that limitation was... if only they'd hire a monkey to code their netcode and chatbot to balance shit, the game would improve 100fold). if Izalith was sufficiently early, didn't have a mandatory boss and had a good, convenient arena, you bet your ass there'd be people PvPing there regardless of the shittiness of the area (and it was the primary no-poise PvP area on PS3 for a loooong time, so there you go, nitwit). and stop putting PvP and co-op in the same basket, different animals

"great co-op raids" in IK? about 75% (of the 20% times that summoning actually works) of the time the host dies because of chronic retardation (read above), Smelter is a boring fight that ends quickly if the host/phantoms aren't braindead, and OIK is a shit, boring boss, co-op or not. that you got 20 or 30 sunlight medals co-oping there because it's an easy, painless, quick run is entirely irrelevant. almost every other boss so far has been at least 10 times as interesting/fun as Smelter in co-op, and infinitely better than OIK

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

if Izalith was sufficiently early, didn't have a mandatory boss and had a good, convenient arena, you bet your ass there'd be people PvPing there regardless of the shittiness of the area

iron keep is sufficiently early, doesnt have mandatory boss(the bridge at least) and has a good convenient arena. and somehow you shit on it as if it was the greatest crime in video gaming history and at the same time you defend that shitty, empty ,dead, borring lost izalith and even try to find some redeeming qualities in boss fight that From Software officialy appologised for.

yeaa i am done

also not everyone that play ds2 have put 1000+hours in demons/dark souls1. but i am sure its feels great to be such a pro player compared to all those noobs in ds2

 

[DragoFireheart]

On another note, look how underpowered mundane is in PvP...

Mudane Santier's Spear.
Mudane Dagger.

Mudane looks like it would work well with a Hexer. Hexers need all stats anyways.

i hate iron keep

Ok, the area felt gamey and generic. I'll take gamey Iron Keep over retarded dinosaur feet and Bed of Cunt any day of the week.

 

[praetor]

iron keep is sufficiently early, doesnt have mandatory boss(the bridge at least) and has a good convenient arena. and somehow you shit on it as if it was the greatest crime in video gaming history and at the same time you defend that shitty, empty ,dead, borring lost izalith and even try to find some redeeming qualities in boss fight that From Software officialy appologised for.

yeaa i am done

why are you such a gigantic retard? what has "it's a good, convenient PvP spot" (because of the previously stated reasons) have to do with the quality of the level? it's shit, get over it. the PvP arena is right there at the beginning next to the bonfire. you don't even have to see the fucking level to PvP there. Izalith is also shit, as are a dozen more locations in both games. but at least the ubershit locations in DaS1 looked and felt like fucking locations, not shitty supermario levels with next to 0 redeeming qualities

also not everyone that play ds2 have put 1000+hours in demons/dark souls1. but i am sure its feels great to be such a pro player compared to all those noobs in ds2

definitely not pro, but i won't overstate the difficulty of bosses just to "prove" a point. i died plenty of times to najka, mytha, pursuer etc. and it's one thing to be "pro", and another entirely not to be a dumb fuck and run into the same predictable AoE move that took away 75% of your health the 4 previous times, so of course it's gonna kill you when you go at it with 50%. somehow i have a feeling you'd fit in nicely with the 2nd group

 

[80Maxwell08]

It looks like I actually got insanely lucky with the Lizard staff then. Dropped on the second one of those casters in Huntman's Copse I killed. Also the Magic Mace is doing wonders at +7 save the enemies that are resistant to magic.

 

[DragoFireheart]

It looks like I actually got insanely lucky with the Lizard staff then. Dropped on the second one of those casters in Huntman's Copse I killed. Also the Magic Mace is doing wonders at +7 save the enemies that are resistant to magic.

If From is going to make some spawns super limited, it should make drops on some of those enemies 100% chance to drop.

Lizard Staff, while not being that great of a staff (Sunset Staff trololololol), making it so hard to get is exceptionally retarded on From's part. FFS, the Skull Lantern from Dark Souls 1 was a guarantee drop from the Necromancers. Fucking dipshits (or brilliant trolls trying to piss off OCD achievement whores.)

EDIT:
Speaking of staves, this game really wants you to use Hexes. There are exactly TWO staves with no dark scaling: The starting Sorcerer Staff, and The Staff of Wisdom. You are HANDED the best Hexer Staff early on in the game (2 hours or less if you play your cards right). You can buy and use Resonant Soul that early as well and deal about triple to quadruple the damage your puny Soul Arrow does.

From: We made a new magic system NOW FUCKING USE IT HERE HAVE THE BEST SHIT BEFORE YOU EVEN FIGHT THE LAST GIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Trying to go pure sorcery without hexes seems like a bad idea.

 

[Surf Solar]

I like the iron keep :/ ha fun there

 

[praetor]

^you don't even need it for any achievement, there's not "collect all loot" achievement anymore. it's just the earliest good staff you can get (that's before an effing late game area like Amana) without going the Hexer route, and it can cast pyros (and i have yet to see one. so far with 3 chars i had the travelling hat and prisoner shirt with a rusted coin, and still nothing)

 

[DragoFireheart]

^you don't even need it for any achievement, there's not "collect all loot" achievement anymore. it's just the earliest good staff you can get (that's before an effing late game area like Amana), and it can cast pyros

Sunset Staff.

 

[praetor]

Sunset Staff.

sorry, i edited in the relevant part just as you posted

 

[DragoFireheart]

Sunset Staff.

sorry, i edited in the relevant part just as you posted

But why wouldn't you go Hexer when the game is screaming at you to do so.

From:

Here's a shitty starting Sorcerer staff. But if you have the DLC there's a better staff already! ANd it even has better Int scaling! And look at this COOL GRIM DARK HEXER GUY don't you want to try our new magic system huh, huh, huh!? You can kill The Last Giant in 5 Resonant Souls even with a basic Chime just level Faith and Intelligence a bit cmon now ok here we have a Bone Staff at The Lost Bastille it has A scaling in dark too! Wait that's not enough, well ok we have an NPC that sells some of the best Hex spells after the shitty Dragonrider boss AND if you have high enough FTH and INT we'll give you FREE AND COOL STUFF! The robes are badass looking and hood gives you more spell uses! Don't you wanna be grim dark? Like Blood Mage from Dragon Age grim dark?

GRIM
DARK
just fucking do it.

...

ok you still want just Sorcery ok we put the best staff at the end of the game fuck off.

 

[Castanova]

Bros, it's about to be April. That means we're less than a month away from the master version. Bwahahahahahaahahaahahahhaahahaahaa

 

[Hobo Elf]

Yep. Then you get to finally play the same game that we all completed more than 50 times already.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Yep. Then you get to finally play the same game that we all completed more than 50 times already.

But he doesn't get ROCK LOBSTER!

 

[praetor]

But why wouldn't you go Hexer when the game is screaming at you to do so.

i'll definitely play a hexer later on, but first i want to make a sorc run. but yeah, that's kinda what i meant, Hex is already badass and you get 3 (archdrake, sunset, bone) great (end-game?) staves (and them robes!) very early on, while with Sorc, without a very very lucky drop, you're stuck with the basic staff until almost-endgame. that's shit design right there (and i forgot to mention previously that i agree with everyone who pointed out that Sorcery is shit in the "you're basically casting variations of soul arrows until end-game" way)

 

[Hobo Elf]

The best thing about Souls PvP videos is that at least half of them are Kafkaesque and just as surreal as the games themselves.

 

[DragoFireheart]

But why wouldn't you go Hexer when the game is screaming at you to do so.

i'll definitely play a hexer later on, but first i want to make a sorc run. but yeah, that's kinda what i meant, Hex is already badass and you get 3 (archdrake, sunset, bone) great (end-game?) staves (and them robes!) very early on, while with Sorc, without a very very lucky drop, you're stuck with the basic staff until almost-endgame. that's shit design right there (and i forgot to mention previously that i agree with everyone who pointed out that Sorcery is shit in the "you're basically casting variations of soul arrows until end-game" way)

Sorcery is shit in spell variety beyond spamming Soul Arrows at everything. Boring shit.

Meanwhile, Hexers get better soul arrows, cool looking spells that can debuff or poison, Diablo 2 corpse explosion, some cool swirly storm of death, 1.5 sec invulnerability, etc.

 

[Hobo Elf]

No matter how you look at it all the magic in these games are incredible gay despite it being my favorite style of play (I just always wanted to a Wizard, man, ok?). Dragon's Dogma really raised the bar high for cool looking magic in a 3rd person Action RPGs, but I doubt FROM will ever attempt to challenge Capcom's realistic Wizard physics.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It bears mention that without the internets a lot of people might not have known that the Sunset Staff is the strongest Hex staff. When you get it, it actually has a really low attack value (60, that's the lowest staff attack value in the game I think), it's only when you try to upgrade it you realize it upgrades REALLY big.

Personally I still prefer the Black Witch's Staff, since it functions both as a Chime and a Staff.

 

[DragoFireheart]

It bears mention that without the internets a lot of people might not have known that the Sunset Staff is the strongest Hex staff. When you get it, it actually has a really low attack value (60, that's the lowest staff attack value in the game I think), it's only when you try to upgrade it you realize it upgrades REALLY big.

Personally I still prefer the Black Witch's Staff, since it functions both as a Chime and a Staff.

Even without Internets, the scaling should have tipped you off that it's powerful.

 

[Kanedias]

^yup, that's why i hate IK with a passion. by far (faaaaar) the most gamey level (and it's not even good in a gamey way). the nadir of the series. other locations ranged from "cool visually, bland mechanically" (like Heide) to fine/solid and even some great ones (Forest/Cardinal tower is probably the best opening level in the franchise) and utter, retarded shit (black gulch with the "lol here's hundreds of poison statues" is waaay worse than Izalith's "lol here's dozens of dino asses on lava") so far (still have to do a bunch of the later ones)

Kanedias
a couple of quick (not really :D) questions:
-Manslayer: infuse with poison or not (40 dex)? is the increase in poison worth the damage decrease?
-Spotted Whip: same question
-Santier's Spear: really can't decide here... on one hand Raw would give the most raw damage with my current build, but like you did, i plan to maybe get 10Int/Fth for some Dark buffs and i heard mundane is pretty awesome even at 10 in a stat (any conclusive info on that?), while on the other hand, the unbreakable 2H twinblade moveset would make for a pretty cool poison weapon (a better ricardo's raper, in a way ). decisions decisions... help! :D

btw, from wikidot regarding the ruler sword:

At SL 361 with 99 str and 99dex, with a ring of blades +2, this weapon reaches an attack rating of 713, which makes it one of the, if not the strongest all physical weapon in the game.

That's the theory, anyway. In practice, this sword is hopeless outclassed by the Black Knight Greatsword in all the damage tests done (normal and fire infusion on the rulers sword), even with massively higher AR and a similar moveset. The reason is not clear, so more testing is required to understand what's going on.

Manslayer... it's your choice really, but I wouldn't infuse it with poison if you also have a spotted whip. It's quite an overkill. Poison infusing decreases its damage significantly.

Spotted Whip, definitely poison. It does bad damage anyways and the poison buildup goes through the roof with the infusion.

Santier's Spear...I have no idea. Raw probably outdamages a mundane Santier's Spear if your lowest stat is at only 10, but I don't know if Raw would be better than Dark in this case.

 

[Castanova]

Yep. Then you get to finally play the same game that we all completed more than 50 times already.

We still get to the play the same game. Well, except mine is on a better platform with better graphics and better load times and doesn't require you to sit for 5 minutes while the Playstation whirs to a start and loads the game and allows me to use third party hacks and allows me to put in an game file edit so I don't need to watch the opening logos and cinematics. And I only had to pay for it once.

So, yeah, April 25th. Booya.

 

[DragoFireheart]

and allows me to use third party hacks and

Have fun with infinite HP hackers.

 

[Kanedias]

You can skip the opening logos in Dark Souls 2 on consoles as well.

 

[DragoFireheart]

You can skip the opening logos in Dark Souls 2 on consoles as well.

But there wasn't a download for this mod. HOW WAS THE PC MASTER RACE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111