From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Jaedar]

God, the endgame is fucking awful. I've long since passed the point where additional souls make me stronger, but even if I did want them to become a fighter/mage/priest/rogue/dragonborn or whatever the fuck, I'm now fighting enemies that give 200 souls when slain. Who can still fucking one shot me. What the fuck. You've already established I have over a million souls, and you're giving me shit like this, and bosses that don't even fork over 30k?

Considering starting over as a mage simply because they seem to keep getting goodies even lategame in the form of spells dropping/stashed in random places. And branching from sorcery to other forms of magic is way more viable than going from str to dex weapons, which offers no real improvement anyways and requires finding and upgrading whole new sets of equipment.

Sorcery is crap. If you want to be a caster, go faith and then hexing. And yeah, the endgame is crap.

 

[Murk]

Faith is indeed broken; you can get lightning bolt right at the beginning game (mace is op; you can easily kill dragon rider with it) and spend the souls on the cleric chick. Light bolt's 9 castings can easily shred any boss to pieces in the early game, and in no man's wharf you'll find emit force which is a bit worse but still very, very good. Depending on your attunement you should have at least 16 castings of damage and that's more than enough for any boss until you get the 4 old ones. Even then, I really only recall The Rotten being resistant (at which point i just slapped some charcoal resin and bashed him).

I made a sorc and so far it's a lot more pew pew and less actual killing. Might make him a hexer instead since I haven't dumped too much into Int just yet.

Of the areas so far, No Man's Wharf is pretty cool. Good looping shortcut, decent ambushes that make sense and don't rely on "lol gotcha", use of the torch to stun the monsters (and good use of a Pharro's Lockstone).

I ran some bros through it earlier today and it was p fun just jumping around, going through buildings in reverse order, and just having some fun. Too bad so many of the other areas are just corridors.

 

[Shadenuat]

No Mans Wharf has a very solid design, it's what I expect from Dark Souls game, reminded me of castles and sewers from DS1 with it's pace and difficulty. Now if only it had been connected to the world in not a such mind boggling way... but we already past that I guess.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Of the areas so far, No Man's Wharf is pretty cool. Good looping shortcut, decent ambushes that make sense and don't rely on "lol gotcha", use of the torch to stun the monsters (and good use of a Pharro's Lockstone).

Can't remember Lockstone being used in this area, pray tell where do you use it and what does it do with as little spoilers as possible... (I've finished the area already)

 

[Shadenuat]

Iron Keep's Geography

I lol'ed at replies. "B-but developers love us, they would never fuck up something like that!". And yeah theory makes sense.

Of the areas so far, No Man's Wharf is pretty cool. Good looping shortcut, decent ambushes that make sense and don't rely on "lol gotcha", use of the torch to stun the monsters (and good use of a Pharro's Lockstone).

Can't remember Lockstone being used in this area, pray tell where do you use it and what does it do with as little spoilers as possible... (I've finished the area already)

It's either after first or second stairs to the right, where varangian is throwing oil at you. Using lockstone there makes huge lantern on the ceiling glow, which in turn makes all the gorilla-like monsters avoid light areas and hide in dark, clearing your way.

 

[Jaedar]

I think the best way to become a hexer is to pop a soul vessel to get you to 16/14 stats or something like that. It's somewhat pointless to spend 10 levels on raising a stat you're not using, when you could instead spend it elsewhere and then move the points. Not like soul vessels are rare.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Goddamnit I can't kill Royal Rat Autority :X

 

[Jaedar]

Goddamnit I can't kill Royal Rat Autority :X

I found the best way to do it was to bait his right paw attack, go under his head while he's doing it, and hit the leg. He has a lot of attacks that are hard to dodge and drain a lot of stamina to block, but that one is very reliable.

 

[Murk]

That's the big rat, right? Stay behind him. His lunge attack is hard to time on the doge, but if you stay behind his legs you're safe. I stayed behind his left leg and just strafed with him, hitting whenever he did a swipe. He didn't have any hits, other than the far reaching swipe that could touch me (and that's because I was attacking instead of moving behind him.)

For the little rats I used an AOE; heavenly thunder and then just picked off the remaining one to avoid toxic.

And what Shadenaut said. The stairs up, to the right before the oil-throwing guy there's a bandit + dog with 2 archers on the building. To the right is a face-spot on the ground. Lights the lantern giving you farther lock-on range, too (for spells and what-not) so you can snipe the archers with magic. Also, if you fall off the ledge there, there is the item above the hut the first monster was in (when you first cross the bridge/plank over).

 

[subotaiy]

Even if you're not a caster, you can use a bow (dragonrider's i think has B scaling in strength) to snipe all the little ones from entrance except one.

 

[LivingOne]

Dark Souls II PC Censored Character Names
All credit goes to gibbed/rick http://blog.gib.me/

There's also Gaydar in there.

Btw what should I forge with Vendrick's and the Throne duo's souls?The shields seem to have some good specific resistances but the scaling for the swords(Vendrick) and the buffs for the duo seem nice too.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Defender's Shield is the best medium shield in the game, get that one with the Throne Defender Soul. King's Sword is theoretically the highest damage weapon in the game, as long as you carry several million Souls with you.

 

[AngryEddy]

Dark Souls II PC Censored Character Names
All credit goes to gibbed/rick http://blog.gib.me/

There's also Gaydar in there.

Btw what should I forge with Vendrick's and the Throne duo's souls?The shields seem to have some good specific resistances but the scaling for the swords(Vendrick) and the buffs for the duo seem nice too.

Rulers Sword has an awesome R2 combo that is made even better with its huge damage that it gets from soul scaling and a dark buff.

 

[Jaedar]

So I left ratbro covenant after I got the final rank. Joined blood guys, but I've lost every match I participated in. Gimmick build is too bad, and I'm not sure I can be arsed to play more PvE to get better gear and what not. All the cool stuff needs dragon bone and twinklers anyway, and that stuff is locked away in the shitty part of the game that I really don't feel like doing again.

 

[nimateb]

Some criticism:

Weapons no longer feel unique, they are just palette-timing-swapped. In DaS1 they had at least one special move.

Designs lack elegance, the Miyazaki interview comes to mind (http://imgur.com/zO6CcDq).

Most bosses suck ass, some are cool.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Finally got around to installing and playing around for a bit.

Immediate impressions, whoa, this game looks like shit.

Second impression, Whoa, i'm getting my anus packed in, dudes chasing you down is definitely noticable

 

[Damned Registrations]

Some criticism:

Weapons no longer feel unique, they are just palette-timing-swapped. In DaS1 they had at least one special move.

Designs lack elegance, the Miyazaki interview comes to mind (http://imgur.com/zO6CcDq).

Most bosses suck ass, some are cool.

Nah, lots of weapons have unique movesets, or at least varied ones. The twinblades for example, heide's sword (I'd kill for another weapon with that moveset without the shitty split damage) and some oddities like the archdrake hammer, which is classed as a great hammer (and breaks poise and shields like a giant club) but has the moveset of a halberd.

There are simply so many more weapons that there's more overlap now, but there's more variety too. And the fact that you can infuse elements in special weapons is awesome (albeit rather pointless in most cases, no way in hell I'm going to make a weapon split damage between 3 elements or add poison or bleeding or poison to a heavy weapon.)

As for bosses, I feel like they've done a better job this time around. Yeah, lots of them have generic sword attacks, but what else are they going to do with a sword? Still feels very different fighting pursuer dashing around compared to other ones for example, and lots of fights have interesting terrain or multiple enemies. And there are so many more bosses it feels like a lot more variety even among the duels.

 

[nimateb]

Some criticism:

Weapons no longer feel unique, they are just palette-timing-swapped. In DaS1 they had at least one special move.

Designs lack elegance, the Miyazaki interview comes to mind (http://imgur.com/zO6CcDq).

Most bosses suck ass, some are cool.

Nah, lots of weapons have unique movesets, or at least varied ones. The twinblades for example, heide's sword (I'd kill for another weapon with that moveset without the shitty split damage) and some oddities like the archdrake hammer, which is classed as a great hammer (and breaks poise and shields like a giant club) but has the moveset of a halberd.

There are simply so many more weapons that there's more overlap now, but there's more variety too. And the fact that you can infuse elements in special weapons is awesome (albeit rather pointless in most cases, no way in hell I'm going to make a weapon split damage between 3 elements or add poison or bleeding or poison to a heavy weapon.)

As for bosses, I feel like they've done a better job this time around. Yeah, lots of them have generic sword attacks, but what else are they going to do with a sword? Still feels very different fighting pursuer dashing around compared to other ones for example, and lots of fights have interesting terrain or multiple enemies. And there are so many more bosses it feels like a lot more variety even among the duels.

I meant there's little difference between weapons of each class, some difference (like Iaito vs Uchi) makes it more fun. Take a look a these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slqP4-Sa4V8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZTXCVcTotA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz9prKXqO2c

As for bosses, the designs are OK (not great but OK), but the strategy varies very little between them.

 

[Jaedar]

I feel they did a lot worse job with the bosses. Most of them have what feels like very samey movesets, and the ones that are unique(covetous and song demons for instance) are insanely easy. Honestly the only boss I really like is Darklurker.

 

[Murk]

Do all weapons fail to go from r1 to r2 attack combos?

also I guess you can do a dash attack just by jumping back and hitting r1. press the run button while standing still then r1 and you do a brief dodge-back fakeout and counter attack.

I cannot figure out parrying yet, it seems.

 

[AngryEddy]

http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/...r_project_beast_from_software_ps4_looks_like/

Apparently this is a leak for FROM's new game. I don't know how authentic these pictures are, but here you go.

 

[JudasIscariot]

I saw this sort of when I fought the Pursuer.

 

[Murk]

That gif is a bit confusing but I'm imagining you mean the weird hit-box/tracking issues?

I'm not sure if this was an agility issue but earlier in the game I noticed I would get hit when I was not even visually near the enemy's weapon/attack. Later, this wouldn't happen. I do not know if I got better or if it was because I raised adaptability and subsequently agility.

IMO Pursuer is a really fair fight, more so than giant rat, Vendrick, salamanders, or dragon shrine guardians who seem to have endless stamina, unblockable hits, heinously difficult to dodge attacks, or in Vendrick's case just way too much reach for the arena.

Pursuer has clear tells, takes a while for each attack to play out, and he does some stupid flashy animation afterwards giving you a nice spot to hit him, heal, or dodge away. Makes for a good early boss and a chance to learn the exact same attacks you can expect to see with 80% of the other bosses (or larger humanoid enemies.)

The biggest issue with pursuer is if you are co-opping some other idiot nails you with the ballista.

 

[JudasIscariot]

That gif is a bit confusing but I'm imagining you mean the weird hit-box/tracking issues?

I'm not sure if this was an agility issue but earlier in the game I noticed I would get hit when I was not even visually near the enemy's weapon/attack. Later, this wouldn't happen. I do not know if I got better or if it was because I raised adaptability and subsequently agility.

IMO Pursuer is a really fair fight, more so than giant rat, Vendrick, salamanders, or dragon shrine guardians who seem to have endless stamina, unblockable hits, heinously difficult to dodge attacks, or in Vendrick's case just way too much reach for the arena.

Pursuer has clear tells, takes a while for each attack to play out, and he does some stupid flashy animation afterwards giving you a nice spot to hit him, heal, or dodge away. Makes for a good early boss and a chance to learn the exact same attacks you can expect to see with 80% of the other bosses (or larger humanoid enemies.)

The biggest issue with pursuer is if you are co-opping some other idiot nails you with the ballista.

I parried Pursuer and then shot him with one of the ballistas. Yes, you can parry the bastard :D

 

[Murk]

Nice. I tried to parry a bit but I can't seem to get the hang of it down unless I am up against a "normal" human enemy (like invaders or other players). I think my old tell of when to parry no longer applies with current animations/timing. I used to parry when the enemy's hand was about to hit me in DS 1; worked on small enemies and big enemies alike. My issue then was parrying too soon, now it seems I'm parrying too late.

I donno if I care as much tho, the riposte and subsequent effects take too long to pull in a group fight and with a boss or single enemy I can just chain 2-3 hits instead. Still, gotta get good I guess.

Looking over a video of parrying it makes no sense. The visual animation looks like the guy gets "knocked away" before even swinging. This is the case with backstabs too, I have idea when I managed to fire off a backstab other than the animation being out of control. That part is kind of clunky and doesn't feel as tightly responsive... at least yet.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I meant there's little difference between weapons of each class, some difference (like Iaito vs Uchi) makes it more fun. Take a look a these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slqP4-Sa4V8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZTXCVcTotA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz9prKXqO2c

I don't really see your point. DaS1 had like what, 5 thrusting swords? 4 of them being the same as here. Except not, because now the mail breaker actually has a useful R2. And Velka's rapier was irrelevant anyways, while Tark's sword is actually quite nice. It didn't even have twinblades. And it's halberds had less variety no matter how you slice it. You're basically bitching that there are extra weapons with different stats/looks with the same moveset in addition to the weapons they had before. The first game didn't have movesets like the royal greatsword, or the heide weapons, the whips were vastly inferior, and there was a major lack of variety in appearances and parameters, since a lot of them were just the exact same shit with 5% more speed and less damage, like scimitar/falchion, club/reinforced club, longsword/sunlight sword/broadsword. Not to mention shitloads of totally useless weapons like the silver knight weapons, or generally anything with elemental damage in small amounts like the demon spear, astora's sword, dragonslayer spear, etc.

And again, for the bosses, you had what, Iron Golem, flame centipede, ceaseless and 4 kings as pretty much the only ones that had some sort of interesting mechanic. Gwyndolin and BoC were different but not in an interesting way. I could easily name twice as many noteworthy bosses in the sequel.