From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[praetor]

Shadenuat
Lurker's melee is dark. just infuse transgressor's shield and it's 100% dark resist with 53 stability. the one dropped by grave wardens is also pretty good (and has higher fire resist for that fireball attack).

btw, lore speculation: Darklurker's souls is not the "dark" kind, so i guess he's not a creature of the Dark/Abyss (i.e. a fragment of Manus, like Nash) or corrupted by it (like Velstadt or the Thoners) but an entity that just... lurks there. maybe it's linked to the 4Kings who lurked in the Abyss somehow? a creature who found their shard of Gwyn's soul? it also kind of reminds me of the 4Kings fight if you let more than 1 spawn. oh, and someone somewhere noticed the figure in the Shrine of Amanda looks a bit like the Darklurker

 

[praetor]

OMG, the fire salamanders in NG+. I just went against them, and FUCK THAT. HP on each must be around 15000, and their attacks are fucking weird, doing unblockable surfing-on-belly attacks as if the ground was fucking ice. Gave up on that after 10 minutes and 3 deaths.

way too much shit on NG+ relies on HP bloat, OHKO damage and extreme ganking. i appreciate what they were trying to do with NG+, but this is (mostly) not the right way to do it

 

[aris]

Video is funny, but damn I am rolling my eyes seeing people in that fucking Havel armor. Why is that even in the game...

Guy beat the crap out of two invaders simultaneously wearing havels armor without wearing it though :D

 

[Shadenuat]

way too much shit on NG+ relies on HP bloat, OHKO damage and extreme ganking. i appreciate what they were trying to do with NG+, but this is (mostly) not the right way to do it

I started to seriously doubt my armor choice when Last Giant on NG+ killed my knight in full heavy set with 30 vit and life ring in one swipe (I caught a little gentle push from his hand hitbox while standing at his side poking his leg with claymore). And I thought I was fat

 

[DragoFireheart]

praetor

How do you do the parry-backstep? Which shield? Is the timing both buttons or one slightly before the other?

 

[Damned Registrations]

One thing I've noticed is a lot of enemies (both bosses and normal enemies) have attacks where they telegraph the move before they're in range, then run forward to chop your head off. The thing is, if it's your first time fighting a given enemy, you have no idea what the range on that attack is or where it'll land, so having it pop out instantly when he gets to ~some random range you can't know about~ is kinda bullshit. It may as well not be telegraphed at all, it's not like an enemy running towards you is going to stop and shake your hand as opposed to attacking.

 

[Surf Solar]

praetor

How do you do the parry-backstep? Which shield? Is the timing both buttons or one slightly before the other?

I think this is done with curved greatawords or katanas.

 

[Elwro]

In my NG (up to Drangleic Castle, the Dragonrider bonfire) I have to say the bastard sword (upgraded just to +6) has been a very efficient weapon. It breaks surprisingly many enemies' poise and has quite a decent range. (Still, I often switch to my Large Club + 10 for fun; I don't remember dealing 1000 damage in Dark Souls with any weapon...)

 

[praetor]

praetor

How do you do the parry-backstep? Which shield? Is the timing both buttons or one slightly before the other?

i think it can be done with anything, but most people use the monastery scimitar (painting guardian "sword") because the parry frames start as soon as the animation does, unlike other swords and small shields. just press L2 and circle at the same time

just met one parry-BS spammer in the arena with my pyrodex. he buffed with GMB so i did not have much options (forgot to equip my bow, goddamnit! )

 

[DragoFireheart]

How about a GRS, Bat Fog, GMB, Profound Still, Mudane Avelyn, Monastery Scimitar parry spammer?

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

How about a GRS, Bat Fog, GMB, Profound Still, Mudane Avelyn, Monastery Scimitar parry spammer?

i think you only missed mundane santiers spear with resonant weapon

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

fucking darklurker

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

So I just made it to rank 3 on both BoB and BS. High level PVP in this game is fucking torture. I didn't even bother making a "build" - I just cheesed everything with invisible mundane avelyns and butterfly armor to distract people.

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/cdDEtzQ.jpg

I've encountered ~15 cheaters since release on PC and some of them more than 10 times during invasions. I've seen people ganking for hours, people abusing stunlock with axe/greatsword axe/lance longsword/greatsword combos and hexer katanas. BUT the ultimate hell is overlevelled havels that are triple buffed with 5 affinity orbs. They just stand there chugging estus as you try to chip away at their health.

Soul memory is shit.

 

[Shadenuat]

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/cdDEtzQ.jpg

The face of Dark Souls pvp

...you look fabulous

 

[80Maxwell08]

wiping the floor with darklurker after it split without letting it get more than one hit off was so worth it.

now go fight him melee. easily the best, most satisfying PvE fight in the game fought him pure melee last night with a fire chaos blade... killed him with the hit that killed me so i had to do it all over again 'cause in the excitement i forgot about the CB health drain :D

I've been trying but the curved dragon greatsword is doing pathetic damage to it.

 

[Kanedias]

Hurrah for oversight

 

[Invictus]

Like your Darklurker theory praetor, if you see the descrption from Nash she is stated as beign the smallest piece of Manus, perhaps she was the piece which clung to humanty and took a human form while the Lurker is a more pure form of Dark, without rage and more attuned to the calm of death. We know that Amala and and the Melfanito are tied to Death and Calm, and Darklurker's Dark looks to be more of a numbing calming influence to the living rather than the transformative aggresive Dark of Manus and Nash.
It is almost like Dark itself is NOT evil but it is weilded by mad or evil creatures themselves

 

[Silva]

Does anyone have a reason for the DEX nerfing in this game ? Did the devs told anything about it ? Being a Dex guy myself (finished the first game with a Thief build), Im totally frustrated. No good Dex weapon appear until very late, when you charge weapons with special properties the DEX is de-scaled (but not Str.. go figure), and 90% SPECIAL MODAFACKA BADASS Boss souls weapons are heavy or ultra heavy shit. Even the Thiefs Knife is nerfed here, in the first it did an ridiculous amount of crit damage, but now its useless.

Someone with a really short dick must be behind this.

 

[Fockatar]

So I've killed the last of the lord soul bosses or whatever they're called and I just can't get into this game. There's just something missing for me. I'm ca. 115 in SL and a strength learning quality blade so I can try out a lot of weapons but nothing is standing out for me. Maybe I should respec and resort to miracles. Nothing seems fun.

The challenge often seems to come from frustration rather than clever level design and the atmosphere really just doesn't seem in this one. I don't know maybe it will pick up from here. Also constant invasions. Which I don't mind it's just the damn lag. I had this fight earlier where I tried to backstab somebody - got behind them, got the animation going - and somehow they backstabbed me. This is typical when you're not getting one shot hex'd like a bitch.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Does anyone have a reason for the DEX nerfing in this game ? Did the devs told anything about it ? Being a Dex guy myself (finished the first game with a Thief build), Im totally frustrated. No good Dex weapon appear until very late, when you charge weapons with special properties the DEX is de-scaled (but not Str.. go figure), and 90% SPECIAL MODAFACKA BADASS Boss souls weapons are heavy or ultra heavy shit. Even the Thiefs Knife is nerfed here, in the first it did an ridiculous amount of crit damage, but now its useless.

Someone with a really short dick must be behind this.

Curved Dragon Greatsword.

Dagger.

That's about it.

 

[Murk]

My last char was a str guy but I ended up getting a ton of dex because even greatswords scale better with dex than str; apparently.

The super heavy weapons are fun; their aiming/tracking is shiiiiit and so I have to be very precise and careful with my moves. I didn't realize it but my first play through was done with no shield (until fucking shrine of amanautor's ICBM homing arrows; and even then I just ran past them to the bonfire).

Bros; what is a fun challenge build that I should try to respark my interest? I do not care about efficacy -- just fun.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Bros; what is a fun challenge build that I should try to respark my interest? I do not care about efficacy -- just fun.

Mundane Ladles.

 

[Shadenuat]

Does anyone have a reason for the DEX nerfing in this game ? Did the devs told anything about it ? Being a Dex guy myself (finished the first game with a Thief build), Im totally frustrated. No good Dex weapon appear until very late, when you charge weapons with special properties the DEX is de-scaled (but not Str.. go figure), and 90% SPECIAL MODAFACKA BADASS Boss souls weapons are heavy or ultra heavy shit. Even the Thiefs Knife is nerfed here, in the first it did an ridiculous amount of crit damage, but now its useless.

Someone with a really short dick must be behind this.

Curved Dragon Greatsword.

Dagger.

That's about it.

I've seen knights in IK drop some good scaling katana

oh it's this one I think: http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Blacksteel Katana#.U2lwQldIXct

I get it nobody uses dual wielding in PvE? It would probably be some fun to play a master fencer with a sword and parrying dagger in left hand, wearing hat with a feather

 

[DragoFireheart]

Does anyone have a reason for the DEX nerfing in this game ? Did the devs told anything about it ? Being a Dex guy myself (finished the first game with a Thief build), Im totally frustrated. No good Dex weapon appear until very late, when you charge weapons with special properties the DEX is de-scaled (but not Str.. go figure), and 90% SPECIAL MODAFACKA BADASS Boss souls weapons are heavy or ultra heavy shit. Even the Thiefs Knife is nerfed here, in the first it did an ridiculous amount of crit damage, but now its useless.

Someone with a really short dick must be behind this.

Curved Dragon Greatsword.

Dagger.

That's about it.

I've seen knights in IK drop some good scaling katana

oh it's this one I think: http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Blacksteel Katana#.U2lwQldIXct

It's... decent.

You're better off just meeting the minimum stat requirements and either choosing Raw, Mundane, or an elemental upgrade.

 

[Murk]

I found the Uchigatana was better than the blacksteel Katana (but weight is a big deal to me).

Shadenuat if you dual wield maces you can basically stunlock a ton of bosses with the power-stance combo. It's a bunch of hits that easily break poise.

DragoFireheart that seems more painful than fun =(

I saw both endings to the pate/creighton quest line and props where due-- this was a solid event. Nice and ambiguous, you don't really know who's telling the truth or if they are both full of shit.

I have no clue what Lucatiel's end is as after seeing her in... uhh... the third place (no man's wharf; lost bastille; and.... earthen peak?) i no longer saw her and no longer cared.