From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Declinator]

Had a good run a couple of days ago. I had finished all the starting areas but had also basically run up into a wall with a few bosses, but in the span of about an hour I managed to kick the asses of the Old Dragonslayer, the Pursuer, and the Flexible Sentry (without relying on summons and other nonsense, that's the easy way out). I think I'm almost done with Lost Bastille now - another fun area, though I found its boss(es) to be easier than expected.

I will say that I think difficulty in this game versus Dark Souls 1, while a bit higher, is also a lot more consistent. There aren't any stupid-crazy spikes with cheap sections or bosses, and while it's challenging, I feel more like I learn with each death than in the first game.

I think the unpredictability was a good thing in Dark Souls 1. In Dark Souls 1 I was always wary entering new sections as I did not know how difficult it was going to be or whether I could even do damage to the opponents. In Dark Souls 2 on the other hand, as you said, the difficulty is consistent and you can't even go to the more difficult parts until later on. I can't say I ever enjoyed poison lakes I had to wade through (ala Blighttown) or places where you had to have a torch (Tomb of the Giants) but in Dark Souls 2 no area really seemed all that special. There are many memorable locations in Dks1 but only a few in Dks2.

Have to say that the lack of enemies like Black Knights or Red Eye Knights is a bit disappointing also. Sure, there are more phantoms in Souls 2 than in Souls 1 but they really aren't a replacement for the dread the Black Knights caused (before mastering them.)

I just find that so many bosses in DS2 simply lack in moves. In wiki they have 3-5 moves noted, while guys like Kalameet are as rich to have 10+. Many enemies in DS1 also had fewer moves, but then add-on picked up and went into right direction, it had Manticore, Kalameet, Artorias, Manus... and I thought DS2 would have bosses like that everywhere.

Yes, I though the same. The DLC bosses were easily some of the best in DkS1 and I was really expecting more of that from the bosses in Dks2. I think the only boss that could possibly be on the DLC level is Darklurker but I hear that using magic it's very easy. No boss was as intense as Artorias or as difficult as Kalameet though Ruin Sentinels took a lot of tries for me and I enjoyed fighting 4 gargoyles at the same time.

It almost seemed like they had judged the DLC bosses too difficult and lowered the intensity a bit.

I don't understand his complaints about fighting multiple opponents either. I thought it (having to fight multiple opponents at once) was one of the best things about Dark Souls 2 in comparison to 1. Just because he could not keep track of multiple enemies at once and resorted to dealing with them in a very cheap way (which was always an option in Dks1 too.)

Personally I liked pure Estus healing much more than I did this life gem thing. Actually, I rarely even used life gems as Estuses still worked just fine even though you began with less of them. I rarely used more than 5 Estuses in Dark Souls 1 so I was just fine with what I had for most of the game (6).

Lifegems are a far cry from Humanity. The heal from one is really slow, even if it's a decent amount, so it's only of practical use when out of combat (I have not tested if you can stack multiple lifegems for a faster recovery, but it's still a far cry from Humanity pops).

Though I didn't use life gems that much they were perfectly fine in battle because you could move (slowly) while using them. The healing took time, sure, but not long enough to make their usage unviable in combat.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It occurs to me, magic damage seems to work differently now. Like defense vs it is entirely % based instead of having a flat component. This being the case, split damage weapons might actually be very nice vs heavily armored enemies because part of your damage is effectively bypassing the armor anyways. Has anyone really tried this?

 

[abija]

You can stack them, and unlike humanity, which was rather limited and required you to remain stationary, lifegems abound and even when moving that slow most enemies fail to track you fast enough.

Meh, the only PvE moments that made me think about healing balance were "shit, double flask chug would have saved me here"...

 

[Malpercio]

How much estus you can have doesn't really matter when you can easily get nigh unlimited amount of lifegems.

Lifegems are a far cry from Humanity. The heal from one is really slow, even if it's a decent amount, so it's only of practical use when out of combat (I have not tested if you can stack multiple lifegems for a faster recovery, but it's still a far cry from Humanity pops).

You can stack them, and unlike humanity, which was rather limited and required you to remain stationary, lifegems abound and even when moving that slow most enemies fail to track you fast enough.

You could farm humanity from rats AND THE WHOLE FUCKING AREA FROM THE DLC WERE THEY DROPPED LIKE HOT POTATOES. They were FAR more broken and common. Getting 99 humanity in DS1 was piss easy.

Meanwhile life-gems drop sometimes, and heal you sloooooowly. Humanity healed you FULL AND INSTANTLY.

Geez people, if you want to nitpick, do it right.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It occurs to me, magic damage seems to work differently now. Like defense vs it is entirely % based instead of having a flat component. This being the case, split damage weapons might actually be very nice vs heavily armored enemies because part of your damage is effectively bypassing the armor anyways. Has anyone really tried this?

My observation so far is that you're correct. On the average a Dark Greatsword +10 does 200 more damage than non-infused counterpart. The sole exception against split damage is when an enemy has an exceptionally high resistance to your particular choice of damage type (based on my own recollections, this is mostly a problem for Fire; Dark is probably the godtier split damage type due to few enemies having Dark resistance and Dark BNS being really easy to pump up).

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's the instant heal aspect that was the biggest change for sure. In the first game once you got a decent hp buffer and poise you could sit in front of pretty much anything and chug estus all day long without fear.

 

[Jaedar]

How much estus you can have doesn't really matter when you can easily get nigh unlimited amount of lifegems.

Lifegems are a far cry from Humanity. The heal from one is really slow, even if it's a decent amount, so it's only of practical use when out of combat (I have not tested if you can stack multiple lifegems for a faster recovery, but it's still a far cry from Humanity pops).

You can stack them, and unlike humanity, which was rather limited and required you to remain stationary, lifegems abound and even when moving that slow most enemies fail to track you fast enough.

You could farm humanity from rats AND THE WHOLE FUCKING AREA FROM THE DLC WERE THEY DROPPED LIKE HOT POTATOES. They were FAR more broken and common. Getting 99 humanity in DS1 was piss easy.

Meanwhile life-gems drop sometimes, and heal you sloooooowly. Humanity healed you FULL AND INSTANTLY.

Geez people, if you want to nitpick, do it right.

Life gems cost 300 souls each. That means every enemy after the first few areas drops several every time you kill them. You might not think humanity is rare, but trying to compare their rarity to lifegems and saying the former is more common is simply retarded. I might also argue that bringing up that an item is easily farmed at the very end of the game is not a very good argument.

It occurs to me, magic damage seems to work differently now. Like defense vs it is entirely % based instead of having a flat component. This being the case, split damage weapons might actually be very nice vs heavily armored enemies because part of your damage is effectively bypassing the armor anyways. Has anyone really tried this?

I think I read somewhere that physical defense works as sort of a threshold(each X points removes Y points of damage taken), but all the other defenses are % based.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

What's the best pyromancies for pvp? Currently using fire whip and flame wreathe.

Great Combustion is okay, and Flame Whip has some minor uses, but most pyromancies besides Forbidden Sun and Flame Weapon (on a Fire-Infused weapon) are pretty garbage in PvP. Even Flame Weapon and Forbidden Sun are completely outshone by their other magical counterparts (especially Hexes).

I understand that having the "everyman magic", the arcane art that requires little to no stat investment, be top-tier would be silly (and DkS1 was very silly)...but did they have to make so many of them slow, unwieldy, and weak? Patch 1.03 absolutely murdered them.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

How much estus you can have doesn't really matter when you can easily get nigh unlimited amount of lifegems.

Lifegems are a far cry from Humanity. The heal from one is really slow, even if it's a decent amount, so it's only of practical use when out of combat (I have not tested if you can stack multiple lifegems for a faster recovery, but it's still a far cry from Humanity pops).

You can stack them, and unlike humanity, which was rather limited and required you to remain stationary, lifegems abound and even when moving that slow most enemies fail to track you fast enough.

You could farm humanity from rats AND THE WHOLE FUCKING AREA FROM THE DLC WERE THEY DROPPED LIKE HOT POTATOES. They were FAR more broken and common. Getting 99 humanity in DS1 was piss easy.

Meanwhile life-gems drop sometimes, and heal you sloooooowly. Humanity healed you FULL AND INSTANTLY.

Geez people, if you want to nitpick, do it right.

Life gems cost 300 souls each. That means every enemy after the first few areas drops several every time you kill them. You might not think humanity is rare, but trying to compare their rarity to lifegems and saying the former is more common is simply retarded. I might also argue that bringing up that an item is easily farmed at the very end of the game is not a very good argument.

It occurs to me, magic damage seems to work differently now. Like defense vs it is entirely % based instead of having a flat component. This being the case, split damage weapons might actually be very nice vs heavily armored enemies because part of your damage is effectively bypassing the armor anyways. Has anyone really tried this?

I think I read somewhere that physical defense works as sort of a threshold(each X points removes Y points of damage taken), but all the other defenses are % based.

dude humanity healed u instantly to 100%hp and the only lifegems you can buy are lifegem (which is shit at higher lvls) and later in-game radiant lifegem (also slow and shit ) you can buy only finite amount of old radiant gems, divine blessings (which are even slower in use) or elisabeth mushroom. and you could farm humanity on rats in depts or rats in Painted World so hardly at the very end of the game

 

[aris]

By the way, unless you guys haven't noticed. The mastodon weapons are reaaally good for strength builds. I've got the mastodon greatsword and the halberd. Both of them have fantastic movesets, hit hard as hell and are really quick. Especially the R2+R2 combo of the mastodon greatsword kicks ass. I think these weapons must have some of the highest DPS in the game

 

[aris]

FUCKING BELFRY GARGOYLES

I don't understand why people have such problems with this boss. I beat them in both NG and NG+ with little or no problems.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

FUCKING BELFRY GARGOYLES

dude i heard it is a cheap rehash. you beat them already in DS1 cant u beat them now? afterall same moveset, same animations& attack patterns

 

[Jaedar]

FUCKING BELFRY GARGOYLES

I don't understand why people have such problems with this boss. I beat them in both NG and NG+ with little or no problems.

Same actually. They're not that aggressive, if you just run into one side of the arena they'll typically leave you plenty of time to chug an estus, regenerate your stamina, and find an opening to do damage. Ranged weapons are incredibly effective because of this.

 

[Shadenuat]

without relying on summons and other nonsense

If you won't summon NPCs I think you'll never learn their stories or get their unique equipment "the good way".

I don't understand why people have such problems with this boss. I beat them in both NG and NG+ with little or no problems.

I've eaten a whole lot of life gems but yeah, also beaten them on first try. Their moveset is not very complex so just retreating, blocking and killing them one by one is doable.

 

[Shadenuat]

using the wooden shield since I think it has the best damage resistance of any I've found so far

I managed to kick the asses of the <...> Pursuer

...wait what.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

...wait what.

The gear you're thinking of isn't very easy to find for most players. I missed it on my first playthrough and probably would never have thought to look there, had I not read chatter about the

Spoiler

Drangleic Set/Sword/Shield

on every forum and critique. Without that, the first 100% Physical Resist standard shield most players will find is the

Spoiler

Royal Kite Shield, which requires picking up the ember in Iron Keep and opening up McDuff's Workshop in Lost Bastille.

 

[Jaedar]

Depends on your equipment and build. I'm full melee, dex build, using the stock Swordsman armor and using the wooden shield since I think it has the best damage resistance of any I've found so far. I can see how ranged attacks would be very effective, but don't really have any I'm especially good with.

Try throwing knives or poison arrows(or poison throwing knives). I think the gargoyles are susceptible to poison. Special arrows in general are very effective regardless of your stats.

 

[Shadenuat]

The gear you're thinking of isn't very easy to find for most players

Yeah I'm using Royal Kite Shield still actually, instead of Drangleic (and I am on my way to opening gates to Drangleic Castle). It has a more all-around resistances and it very light. I like the mixed gameplay with it, since using heaviest shield just makes rolling obsolete.
Also it's not RKS shield or Drangleic which most people probably will find, but a Tower Shield which will be first. Also, the Leather Shield I think is first with 90% phys resistances which I always end up getting after Last Giant, but never manage to remember where the hell I just picked it up.
Tower Shield is not an option for DEX builds though...

Anyway Sea you'd better find McDuff's workshop cause if you missed it yourself you'll miss on the new infusion system too... although it would take a long fucking run to make him trade with you.

 

[AngryEddy]

How much estus you can have doesn't really matter when you can easily get nigh unlimited amount of lifegems.

Lifegems are a far cry from Humanity. The heal from one is really slow, even if it's a decent amount, so it's only of practical use when out of combat (I have not tested if you can stack multiple lifegems for a faster recovery, but it's still a far cry from Humanity pops).

Lifegems means that I never have to worry about using precious estus until boss fights, which in turn grants me a much less difficult experience for both getting through the level, and ending the level at a boss fight.

 

[Tripicus]

Depends on your equipment and build. I'm full melee, dex build, using the stock Swordsman armor and using the wooden shield since I think it has the best damage resistance of any I've found so far. I can see how ranged attacks would be very effective, but don't really have any I'm especially good with.

I also try not to metagame too much, farm much, etc. so obviously if you have a heavily built up "optimal" character you're gonna have an easier time than my "play through the game as-is" approach.

Let 4 come out. I'm serious about this. Their AI is extremely limited at 3+, trip over each other, and they're far less agressive. Given their preference for flame breath with that many (3 often breathing flame), you'll find far more opportunities to strike back at the striker. Plus they're far more predictable at 4, and less risky than 2.

The first time I beat them I had all 4 out very quickly, and it's now my preferred method of fighting them. Just don't get caught tight into a corner. Run and roll along the side to get to the opposite roof end. With only one attacking you physically it's not that hard to avoid.

 

[SophosTheWise]

Man, I just can't get into the Souls games. I love their premise in theory, I love the art-design and the atmosphere. But honestly, that game just loses me after the 10th run through the same territory with the same skeletons and the same traps. I get the whole "learn from your mistakes and make a perfect run"-thing, but really, I'm bored extremely fast.

Not trying to be mean but that probably just means you're bad. It shouldn't take ten times. I would suggest going into human form, summoning help, and going through the game co op. Can be quite fun.

Ten was more of a figure of speech, so I don't know. Maybe you're right or I'm just an angsty coward who goes back to the bonfire all the time. Also, I'm not really one for coop, for some reason.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Dude. You're missing out on the opportunity of screaming at the top of your lungs "I PUT MY WASHING POLE INTO SOLAIRE'S GAPING DRAGON" over the voice chat and then fighting the boss alone but all pumped up because they used the Black Crystal thing

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I agree that, on the whole, DaS1 would have the better healing system IF humanity didn't heal, and Rite of Kindling didn't exist. As is, both games kinda fail at forcing you to treat your healing items as a valuable resource. DS2's system is better just because you can't chain-chug flasks while getting smashed in the face, though.

Also, the reason DaS2 has lifegems and very limited estus is the insane number of bonfires present in the game. With DaS1's system, there wouldn't be any attrition at all, since you'd get a full refill every five steps.

sea, if you want to use pure melee and not have to fight 5 Gargoyles at the same time, you need to abuse their AI somewhat. Generally speaking, hurt gargoyles will hang back and breathe fire, while full-health ones will lunge at you and engage in melee. If you have three gargoyles up, you normally want to keep two at low health (one of which you focus on), and one at full. Don't just attack whatever is available, or you'll end up with 5 hurt gargoyles breathing fire. Also, don't hesitate to trade damage, they don't hit that hard, and it's often beneficial to just zerg one down as long as you don't die in the process. Just don't get caught in a 3 hit combo.

Smelter has very obvious and easily exploitable openings, but his damage potential forces the player to constantly heal through the damage from his aura and blocking the occasional attack.

I really can't name anything more boring than a big armored dude with flaming sword and horns. And lingering elemental damage... there's that arena, why not make enemy like that create some fire pits or slow flying fireballs that do the same, but allow player to roll around them or dodge. Where's imagination in automatic damage?

It "plagiarizes" Four Kings just as much (if not more), and is actually better and more challenging than its two predecessors.

It's not an easy fight, but I just can't get any fun out of fights like that because they feel like I'm playing DarkSouls 1 NG+ instead of DS2. "Gargoyles were fun? 4Kings was fun? Here, you can has both!!11 awesum!". I've seen all that, it's just not new to me.

I actually wish the Souls games would have more endurance bossfights, where you take some level of unavoidable damage throughout (or you are forced to take avoidable damage in order to get anything done), and the challenge lies in being efficient, rather than avoiding being oneshot. So yes, in the context of this series, a boss with a damage aura is imaginative.

And, well, a good amount of boss designs in DaS1 are actually recycled from DeS (oftentimes dumbed down in the process, like Fool's Idol -> Pinwheel or Tower Knight -> Iron Golem), so I suppose I just came to accept the content recycling and moved on. I will be disappointed if endgame doesn't have some Manus/Kalameet level bosses, but I'm not going to complain about Belfry Gargoyles - especially since it's an improvement on Bell Gargoyles, just like the latter was an improvement on Maneaters.

 

[Gozma]

Has anyone on the developer side ever said if the whole humanity being pretty easy to get thing was a late addition to DS1? It seems like with the PvP stuff and I guess kindling they were trying to make a "humanity economy" to some extent, then obviated the systems they'd made. Especially with solid humanity being a farmable healing item which you can even use in invasions/co-op that are theoretically partially balanced by the estus lock out.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Humanity (and drops in general) had the drop rate increased in a patch immensely soon after release. Basically the game was too hard so they toned it down.

How you deal with the gargoyles depends entirely on your build. I had a good shield and heavy armor, so for me it was the flame breath that was problematic rather than the melee attacks. Focusing one down at a time proved far more effective.

Where the hell do you get the Bastille key? I've finished that whole branch now with my mage but missed it somehow. Prolly sitting in the corner of some fucking cell.

Also, sorcery is steadily becoming more and more dissapointing as I gain levels. All the cool sounding/looking spells are shit once you use them. Soul vortex, homing souls, soul shower, all fucking useless. I look forward to getting that soul greatsword thing and having it clip enemies for 50 damage.