From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[UndetectedButthurt]

My overlevelled completionist char has 115 agility and I frequently get stabbed mid-roll while almost behind the opponent. Syan/Santier/Lance are probably the weapons I die most to. At least the latter can be monastery bullshit parried.

 

[Random]

Random Are you talking about human effigies? Yeah, you don't get that -- just your human form restored.

I assumed you meant humanity as in human form.

Also, the Milfanito (if you save all 3) can help you turn human when you are out of effigies. It's in the weird room that you can only enter while Hollow (in Shrine of Amana).

So... yeah.

My human form has never been restored when soapstoning. I'm aware of the Milfanito altar, but that's rather late game and effigies are only a problem early game unless you decide to kill the old crones at the start of the game.

 

[pakoito]

I just finished NG for the first time with a crappy STR melee build just for fun. I rolled pretty much the same build in DS1 when I finished it a year ago, except this time Zweihander and STR scaling were nerfed to oblivion.

Anyway, I'm thinking of rolling a PvE character based on magic, probably a hex Sorcerer or similar. My question is, how will I enjoy it more, rolling him from scratch and acquiring spells and equipment when due, or just backing up my current char and respecing him with a Lord Soul starting NG+ with everything unlocked and SL130?

Or just uninstall Dark Souls 2 and never looking back again. The backlog is still quite strong.

 

[Murk]

My human form has never been restored when soapstoning. I'm aware of the Milfanito altar, but that's rather late game and effigies are only a problem early game unless you decide to kill the old crones at the start of the game.

Whut.

Dude, I think you have a big issue then. I get my human form restored as soon as 'duty fulfilled' hits with either big or small white soapstone. That's been my go-to way to be human instead of using effigies.

EDIT: Apparently I'm the one with the problem. Apparently this full human return is a bug? And soap-stoning only reverses a single tick of hollowing or has a chance to restore a certain amount but not always the full thing.

Random, are you playing on PC or console? Why do I have the bug but you don't?

2nd EDIT: Also, aside from farming from enemies, the crows also give human effigies for smooth and silky stones (fucking hate the tedium of this). You get effigies for other items too, but that one has the highest for an effigy. Prism stones also have a chance, and blah blah blah.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Ever since I discovered the rings of protection near the end of my first playthrough I've never had the need for effigies. Right now on my ng+ dude I have a 99 stack in item box and 80 on hand.

 

[Random]

Whut.

Dude, I think you have a big issue then. I get my human form restored as soon as 'duty fulfilled' hits with either big or small white soapstone. That's been my go-to way to be human instead of using effigies.

EDIT: Apparently I'm the one with the problem. Apparently this full human return is a bug? And soap-stoning only reverses a single tick of hollowing or has a chance to restore a certain amount but not always the full thing.

Random, are you playing on PC or console? Why do I have the bug but you don't?

You're a lucky duck then. I'm on the console, because I didn't want to wait for PC release and my ancient PC couldn't run the game anyways. PS3 specifically.

Like I said before, I only had my humanity tick up by one increment once in the multitude of times I got duty fulfilled.

 

[Damned Registrations]

my ancient PC couldn't run the game anyways.

I kinda doubt that. I'm still running windows XP32 with 2GB ram and the game ran just fine. Had one hiccup during the opening movie (missed about ~5% of the footage) and otherwise it runs fine. No slowdowns, and it's not even on minimum settings.

Edit: In fact, it runs BETTER than Dark Souls 1 did, which has massive slowdowns if a boss gets too close and I have DOF turned off. Not to mention the usual crap with fire effects on giant enemies and blighttown, etc.

 

[Random]

I kinda doubt that. I'm still running windows XP32 with 2GB ram and the game ran just fine. Had one hiccup during the opening movie (missed about ~5% of the footage) and otherwise it runs fine. No slowdowns, and it's not even on minimum settings.

Edit: In fact, it runs BETTER than Dark Souls 1 did, which has massive slowdowns if a boss gets too close and I have DOF turned off. Not to mention the usual crap with fire effects on giant enemies and blighttown, etc.

It's not so much a matter of system specs (though having an integrated graphics card that draws on the RAM directly sure doesn't help) as a terrible heating and cooling issue that causes the P.O.S. to overheat whenever I run any game with a higher system tax than a flashgame. I've done everything I can think of to fix it (like setting the processor output limit to 90% and shit) but it's a cheap laptop to begin with so I can't be assed to care that much anyways. I'm getting a new one pretty soon. I'm not much of a computer guy anyways, I know full well that if I was sane I'd build my own desktop and everything but I'm a lazy fuck and I accept that I'm going to have a subpar experience because of it.

 

[Murk]

My "gaming" laptop runs this like a champ; but its specs are p good. DS 1 still runs like horse-shit tho (fucking Witcher 2 on high to max settings runs fine tho, wtf).

I guess the bug is only on PC. GAMING MASTER RACE INDEED

 

[mediocrepoet]

What the fuck were they thinking? Those curse orbs are just too obnoxious. "damage because damage, also, max hp reduction lolololol"

Did you forget about King Allant of Demon's Souls? That motherfucker would drain your levels because, hey, fuck you. This is just a curse state that you can eat an effigy to get rid of. Allant's level drain could be permanent (if you died and didn't get recover it before you died again) and it was permanent if you killed him after he drained you. God I hated that guy. It was awesome. lol

 

[Malpercio]

Holy shit.

 

[Elwro]

I just finished NG for the first time with a crappy STR melee build just for fun. I rolled pretty much the same build in DS1 when I finished it a year ago, except this time Zweihander and STR scaling were nerfed to oblivion.

Anyway, I'm thinking of rolling a PvE character based on magic, probably a hex Sorcerer or similar. My question is, how will I enjoy it more, rolling him from scratch and acquiring spells and equipment when due, or just backing up my current char and respecing him with a Lord Soul starting NG+ with everything unlocked and SL130?

I have a similar question, having just finished the game with a non-magic build. On the one hand, I want to try something new. On the other, I want to see NG+. These two combined may be a bit much Which would you guess will be more fun?


Unrelated: I missed the chest with the pyromancy flame after you-know-which-boss. Does this mean I simply will not get the flame in that playthrough?

 

[Damned Registrations]

If you've played through before and know where to find the magic, it'll be a lot easier. Dunno if that makes it better or worse in your opinion. Probably better imo since fighting everything with 90 soul arrows sucks balls.

 

[Heresiarch]

I just finished NG for the first time with a crappy STR melee build just for fun. I rolled pretty much the same build in DS1 when I finished it a year ago, except this time Zweihander and STR scaling were nerfed to oblivion.

Anyway, I'm thinking of rolling a PvE character based on magic, probably a hex Sorcerer or similar. My question is, how will I enjoy it more, rolling him from scratch and acquiring spells and equipment when due, or just backing up my current char and respecing him with a Lord Soul starting NG+ with everything unlocked and SL130?

I have a similar question, having just finished the game with a non-magic build. On the one hand, I want to try something new. On the other, I want to see NG+. These two combined may be a bit much Which would you guess will be more fun?


Unrelated: I missed the chest with the pyromancy flame after you-know-which-boss. Does this mean I simply will not get the flame in that playthrough?

I've literally did the same - first finished NG with a crappy ultra greatsword wielding STR character (and deleted her afterwards because she was just so awful) and then another NG with a magic character.

Restarting from scratch seems to be fun to play with because in my first playthrough I literally ignored all the spells I've collected. So this time when I do find new spells, I was much more excited and feel rewarding. You will also get a much better feeling of the progress of spells.

Besides, if you want to use Hex heavily, you must have BOTH high INT and FTH, which means you need to change your playstyle from relying more on high HP and strong blocking to more rolling and kiting. A NG helps more with learning that.

 

[Murk]

What the fuck were they thinking? Those curse orbs are just too obnoxious. "damage because damage, also, max hp reduction lolololol"

Did you forget about King Allant of Demon's Souls? That motherfucker would drain your levels because, hey, fuck you. This is just a curse state that you can eat an effigy to get rid of. Allant's level drain could be permanent (if you died and didn't get recover it before you died again) and it was permanent if you killed him after he drained you. God I hated that guy. It was awesome. lol

Never had a PS3; never played Demon's Souls.

 

[Elwro]

Restarting from scratch seems to be fun to play with because in my first playthrough I literally ignored all the spells I've collected. So this time when I do find new spells, I was much more excited and feel rewarding. You will also get a much better feeling of the progress of spells.

Besides, if you want to use Hex heavily, you must have BOTH high INT and FTH, which means you need to change your playstyle from relying more on high HP and strong blocking to more rolling and kiting. A NG helps more with learning that.

Thanks for the input. I increased HPs very little so I also had to rely on not getting hit which made a mostly-melee playthrough more engaging. But I guess I will try an INT / FAI char now.

 

[abija]

My overlevelled completionist char has 115 agility and I frequently get stabbed mid-roll while almost behind the opponent. Syan/Santier/Lance are probably the weapons I die most to. At least the latter can be monastery bullshit parried.

Syan and Santier feel like they keep the huge halberd box while executing spear/twinblade moves. I have no issue with those moves on their original weapons (unless there's a lot of lag but w/e) while constantly being clipped with syan/santier even though on my screen weapon is nowhere close.

 

[Shadenuat]

Playing with Syan's halberd now, interesting stuff, moveset is faster and more poky (and it's pokes are fast, devastating and totaly stunlocky). Yet to see any wallstabs (well maybe one, guy in havel's died from a poke while running past me), but large slash is good. Unlike Mastodon's, this one feels like it's better used two-handed only.
Killed a few parry-fishers while they were all spinning their parry sword.

My char feels kinda messy now

Spoiler

But I don't wanna respec every time I decide "I wanna be Gatsu today", or "I wanna lolo stab with grandlance today".
Might as well try all the stuff.

...lmao what this thing does to parry fishers parryspin - WHOOSH-stab-stab-stab-gg

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

I keep landing 4 hit stunlocks with stone ring. It's ridiculous how simple and insanely OP this weapon is. I would fucking love for them to nerf it so that I can stop abusing it, along with bat fog and all the other shit that's going on.

 

[praetor]

My human form has never been restored when soapstoning. I'm aware of the Milfanito altar, but that's rather late game and effigies are only a problem early game unless you decide to kill the old crones at the start of the game.

Whut.

Dude, I think you have a big issue then. I get my human form restored as soon as 'duty fulfilled' hits with either big or small white soapstone. That's been my go-to way to be human instead of using effigies.

EDIT: Apparently I'm the one with the problem. Apparently this full human return is a bug? And soap-stoning only reverses a single tick of hollowing or has a chance to restore a certain amount but not always the full thing.

Random, are you playing on PC or console? Why do I have the bug but you don't?

ummm no. it kinda was a bug/glitch, but then they decided to make it a full feature so it's now 100% guaranteed since the latest patch (from release on PC) and i've never seen anybody mention anything to the contrary until Random here.

UndetectedButthurt

yeah, it's insanely good while using it over the last couple of days the only matches i lost were when i fucked up majorly or once or twice when i encountered players who knew wtf they were doing and were clearly better than i was. still, fighting monastery bullshit spammers with Syan's never gets old. NEVER

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I am starting to think there's something wrong with me. As melee with no shield (currently washing pole with warped sword, planning to swap the latter for an espada ropera), Watcher/Defender were literally the hardest boss in the game for me, by far. Casually oneshot every halfway challenging boss, including Darklurker, and then spent upwards of an hour dying to these cocksuckers and their endlessly chained combos.

 

[Shadenuat]

I don't even remember if I fought them 1 on 1.. er 2. You have to wait until both of them totally run out of combos and then land like, one hit? And then it's all the fucking over again.

And unlike O&S, no pillars for you!

 

[Damned Registrations]

Don't forget the big fuck-off cliff of instant death.

But they're just a lame sword boss right? No thinking required, just strafe right like always, that seems to be the consensus.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

I think I just noticed that when you miss in PvP but it still "registers" the hit with sound it still counts that as durability loss. I'm sure this is "intended" behavior like 2x dur. loss when hitting corpses.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I keep landing 4 hit stunlocks with stone ring. It's ridiculous how simple and insanely OP this weapon is. I would fucking love for them to nerf it so that I can stop abusing it, along with bat fog and all the other shit that's going on.

Knowing that this weapon shits all over Monastery Scimitar makes me happy.