From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[DragoFireheart]

All katana users whiff their run attack when you strafe, and they tend to do the 2 hit combo every time even if they miss their first R1. So yes, very easy.

It's really amazing how many katana users will run around in circles and/or do a backstep into a running lunge attack. It's like: "dude, I know what you are going for, it's not going to work".

The running attack is decent for chasing, but I refuse to open a fight with one. Waste of time and it's easy to get backstabbed.

It's really annoying when you face a good Chaos Blade cheeser and he knows to just play patiently and trade every time you want to get a hit in, though. Their damage on counters is disgusting.

I do exactly this. If they get cute and hope the self damage will kill me, out comes the Puzzling Sword!

 

[Murk]

Shield up n backpedal is the worst, I agree. Guard breaking is pointless as it misses (and gets you smacked in the face). And any shield piercing attacks are pretty damn weak. I used to always have spider's silk or mail breaker or something on me, but now I just use magic. A great heavy soul arrow does about as much damage to most shields people use as the 100 or so damage that a spider's silk does and I don't have to swap my catalyst.

I donno about a fix to this. Shields in general are just gross IMO and I always play without. Nothing more obnoxious than an invader who shield walls and tries to BS fish.

The unlocked spazzes that do run attacks over and over are another category of "scum" that I've grown to hate (right up there with ornstein spear and people who use gowers to shield while healing and constantly swap the ring out to unbroken ones).

Depending on the weapon I've found that playing unlocked is a good idea but you have to compensate for their backstep addiction and swing later than usual. Another is to bombard them with ranged attacks (slow magic like homing arrow helps) and then use the defensive roll they do to catch them in a hit. Still, it's a fucking pain.

 

[praetor]

am i reading this right? you guys would want them to nerf the stuff that makes defensive play good, so to balance it towards aggressive play because that's the style you prefer and you're bored fighting defensive players? if not, please do explain

 

[Kanedias]

Walking backwards 24/7 gives you better positioning against most weapon classes, and because of the high speed at which you can backpedal you make the opponent way more predictable (because they will either spam a gap closer attack like a running attack, or run up to you and R1). It is simply too good. I am not talking about overall defensive play, I am talking about simply walking backwards through the entire fight. Doing this with a shield also makes guard breaking useless for its intended purpose becase it never connects with the shield and gives you free hits if the opponent tries to guard break. You reduce their behavior to constantly trying to close the gap, while you can use your full moveset.

 

[praetor]

Walking backwards 24/7 gives you better positioning against most weapon classes, and because of the high speed at which you can backpedal you make the opponent way more predictable (because they will either spam a gap closer attack like a running attack, or run up to you and R1). It is simply too good. I am not talking about overall defensive play, I am talking about simply walking backwards through the entire fight. Doing this with a shield also makes guard breaking useless for its intended purpose becase it never connects with the shield and gives you free hits if the opponent tries to guard break. You reduce their behavior to constantly trying to close the gap, while you can use your full moveset.

how about cornering them? they can't walk backwards if there's a wall behind

It's really annoying when you face a good Chaos Blade cheeser and he knows to just play patiently and trade every time you want to get a hit in, though. Their damage on counters is disgusting.

and what should a good katana user do other than play to the strength of the weapon? roll over and die as to not annoy you? as you pointed out, the stab attacks are easy to dodge, and the R1s have kinda shit range. should they just roll all day for the roll attacks? not trying to get counter hits with a katana is playing dumb (i'd be okay if they nerfed the counter to 130, but then they need to give something else otherwise it'd be almost pointless to use them when the warped sword is faster, lighter amd has more poise damage. range is pointless when the only attacks with good range are easy to dodge)

 

[Kanedias]

Walking backwards 24/7 gives you better positioning against most weapon classes, and because of the high speed at which you can backpedal you make the opponent way more predictable (because they will either spam a gap closer attack like a running attack, or run up to you and R1). It is simply too good. I am not talking about overall defensive play, I am talking about simply walking backwards through the entire fight. Doing this with a shield also makes guard breaking useless for its intended purpose becase it never connects with the shield and gives you free hits if the opponent tries to guard break. You reduce their behavior to constantly trying to close the gap, while you can use your full moveset.

how about cornering them? they can't walk backwards if there's a wall behind

In open spaces like in the arena you can do this without fearing getting cornered, and like I said its a big advantage over most weapons unless they have magic or are using spears, etc. It's a mindless way to get good spacing and it takes 0 effort and creates boring fights where you chase someone that endlessly backpedals away from you in a big circle.

It's really annoying when you face a good Chaos Blade cheeser and he knows to just play patiently and trade every time you want to get a hit in, though. Their damage on counters is disgusting.

and what should a good katana user do other than play to the strength of the weapon? roll over and die as to not annoy you? as you pointed out, the stab attacks are easy to dodge, and the R1s have kinda shit range. should they just roll all day for the roll attacks? not trying to get counter hits with a katana is playing dumb (i'd be okay if they nerfed the counter to 130, but then they need to give something else otherwise it'd be almost pointless to use them when the warped sword is faster, lighter amd has more poise damage. range is pointless when the only attacks with good range are easy to dodge)

I didn't say that it was wrong, that's how to use katanas properly. I just mentioned that it is annoying, because of the inflated damage and 150 counter modifier making them trade favorably with even ultra weapons.

 

[praetor]

It's really annoying when you face a good Chaos Blade cheeser and he knows to just play patiently and trade every time you want to get a hit in, though. Their damage on counters is disgusting.

and what should a good katana user do other than play to the strength of the weapon? roll over and die as to not annoy you? as you pointed out, the stab attacks are easy to dodge, and the R1s have kinda shit range. should they just roll all day for the roll attacks? not trying to get counter hits with a katana is playing dumb (i'd be okay if they nerfed the counter to 130, but then they need to give something else otherwise it'd be almost pointless to use them when the warped sword is faster, lighter amd has more poise damage. range is pointless when the only attacks with good range are easy to dodge)

I didn't say that it was wrong, that's how to use katanas properly. I just mentioned that it is annoying, because of the inflated damage and 150 counter modifier making them trade favorably with even ultra weapons.

you wrote "cheeser", i interpreted that as a negative . btw, if ultras traded favourably with every other weapon, what would be the point of the other weapons? everybody would just use any ultra (i.e. the most damaging one), stack poise, put on jesters, 2H and mash R1. i'm actually very happy the vast majority of ultras are bad in PvP, as they should be

 

[Murk]

am i reading this right? you guys would want them to nerf the stuff that makes defensive play good, so to balance it towards aggressive play because that's the style you prefer and you're bored fighting defensive players? if not, please do explain

I don't want them to nerf it; I just hate going up against it (tho it does cause me to adjust my playstyle so that's cool I guess).

Things I do want them to nerf: Katana counter rates (the 130 at most is a fine level and keeps rapiers as the premier counter weapon) and the fuggin ornstein spear. Gowers is too little too late -- shoulda been a covenant reward so you can only have one per char unless you trade. Or at least make it once per cycle and not farmable via ascetic. But, too little too late.

I do think you guys are a bit off with the r1 range tho; chaos blade has pretty good range (at the cost of 50 per swing).

p.s - have them swing at you while you're near boxes/barrels and they take 50 per box/barrel they break (and another 50 from whiffing your iframes). P fun.

sidenote: powerstancing 2 manslayers is ridiculously good for most pve things against beastly enemies like say last giant or the dragons, or vendrick. Each swing does an easy 700-1k damage with l1 if you hit on a counter (no phantom, ng+6), and in 2-3 swings you should poison anyone who can be poisoned. Manslayer is ridiculous -- good AR, 150 counter, and freebie poison. At least washing pole and blacksteel have 130 counter.

 

[Stonewolf]

the fuggin ornstein spear

Can you elaborate how is that spear so good? I'm not pvping much but it seemed utter shit in pve (and you cant put flame weapon on it which made me particularly angry since I made a character specially for that combo).

 

[Murk]

Stonewolf For PVE heide spear is better (for damage output), but what's good for PVE is different than what's good for PVP.

It has tremendous range, has very quick attacks, has a good AR (it's pre-split but still has a lot of phys scaling [320 near max]) and totals about 520 AR (not counting ROB, Flynn, or Clutch ring).

On top of it all it has that 130 counter which means that if you hit someone while they're doing something (attack, cast, roll) you get an extra 30% damage. You can also use the leo ring for another 10-15% on top of that. It's high damage with very little risk because of it's range. The 20 poise break is useful too since you're pretty much always 2handing it (up to 160+ poise breaks when 2handing it).

Most users spam 2 hits then roll then 2 hits then roll and it's hard to keep up with it unless you are a parry pro.

It, near 500AR is comparable to Syan's halberd which has around that AR as well -- yet Syan's 2h poke does way less damage, despite it being pure phys AR.

My main counter to dragonslayer spear so far has been to outspear them with the stone soldier spear. Playing defensively and causing them to go on the attack, and baiting/punishing accordingly. Going aggressive like I usually do fails miserably against the spear because I Just get outranged -- and just rolling into the attack doesn't work as well as it does against lances or greatswords or what have you.

 

[MapMan]

The most useful advice since my initial post asking for build help was "git gud, casul". Still better than dota community though.

 

[praetor]

The most useful advice since my initial post asking for build help was "git gud, casul". Still better than dota community though.

ummm... but Mikayel actually asked you to provide some notes about what you like to play to give more meaningful advice. and suggested to respec so you don't have barely enough endurance to get your cock out and take a piss before collapsing from exhaustion

so yeah, definitely level up more (150 at the very least, 175 would be better, 200 is a bit OTT but quite a few in the community have accepted it as "standard" because they're scrubs . but feel free to level as much as you want because SM is still a thing )

for starters, respec by maxing out only one between Dex and Str (for now. you can bump it later), and focus only on one between Int and Fth if you want buffs or other spells (for the duration), you can respec later into a hexer if you want, when you have more points to spare. and put remaining points in Vig, End (start at 20, then go by multiples of 8 to optimize the Third Dragon Ring bonus) and Vit. i personally wouldn't concern myself with Adp early on (and if you have the 2nd dlc, you can get a ring that gives you +5adp) and i'd level it past 95Agl only when i have points to spare.

for armour, if you want to be "optimized", jester's is pretty much a must for the backstab prevention (and great elemental defences. it's obnoxious how OP it is. seriously, it's by far the most retardedly OP item in the whole game, but you'll see people crying about spears or katanas 1000 times more often), headwear i'll leave to you (king's crown is good for the 6 free levels if you're a hexer with high att, but imo black hood is better for the ~10-20% increase in cast speed + 4 free levels and very solid elemental defences. anyway, the jist is to use something that gives you a relevant bonus + good defences. or just good defences like tryhard's gyrm's greathelm)

for weapons, refer to Mikayel's original post: give us some notes about what you like

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Sir Alonne's music ended up growing on me, initially I thought it was just a generic "epic" theme, but I keep getting the urge to listen to it. Boss music in general has been very good in the DLCs thus far, compared to the base game.

Because of all these things, second game generally replays better, while the first game provides a more memorable first playthrough and leaves one with a stronger impression in general.

I don't really know about that. The original dark souls has all sorts of cool sequence breaks and stuff you can do, right off the bat. Dark souls 2 is more controlled, areas don't generally open up until you are more or less guaranteed to have gained enough souls to be able to handle them. Can't particularly say I feel it improved the gameplay a lot either. Oh well.

I suppose that's a distinction between replaying a game in order to do some kind of challenge run (which is where the ability to heavily sequence break actually matters), like a speedrun or SL1; and replaying it just to try a different build or playstyle. DaS1 is better for the former, for obvious reasons.

Personally, I've both finished DaS1 at SL1 (not that difficult once you know the game well), and speedran it in under 3 hours (much more challenging), and I'm very reluctant to try any of these in DaS2, seems much more intimidating.

Why would you restart in Ds2 to try a new build? There's respecc items in the game you know.

Because you want to play through all the content naturally with it? There is a difference between equipping an SL200+ character with optimal gear and fucking around at a random higher intensity bonfire vs actually starting from the beginning, you know.

 

[praetor]

Sir Alonne's music ended up growing on me, initially I thought it was just a generic "epic" theme, but I keep getting the urge to listen to it. Boss music in general has been very good in the DLCs thus far, compared to the base game.

i can agree it's a good piece of music, i just don't think it's fitting or an "eastern honorabburu nippon steel" duel. at all. way too much choir in it

Because you want to play through all the content naturally with it? There is a difference between equipping an SL200+ character with optimal gear and fucking around at a random higher intensity bonfire vs actually starting from the beginning, you know.

but NG+ is where "the real" (tm) dark souls begins!

 

[DragoFireheart]

for armour, if you want to be "optimized", jester's is pretty much a must for the backstab prevention (and great elemental defences. it's obnoxious how OP it is. seriously, it's by far the most retardedly OP item in the whole game, but you'll see people crying about spears or katanas 1000 times more often),

I had someone tell me once that Havel's is more overpowered than Jesters.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Sir Alonne's music ended up growing on me, initially I thought it was just a generic "epic" theme, but I keep getting the urge to listen to it. Boss music in general has been very good in the DLCs thus far, compared to the base game.

i can agree it's a good piece of music, i just don't think it's fitting or an "eastern honorabburu nippon steel" duel. at all. way too much choir in it

A huehue telling real nipponese what their honourable duel music should be like, have you checked your privilege recently?

Because you want to play through all the content naturally with it? There is a difference between equipping an SL200+ character with optimal gear and fucking around at a random higher intensity bonfire vs actually starting from the beginning, you know.

but NG+ is where "the real" (tm) dark souls begins!

The whole game is just a tutorial for the NG+ Drangleic Castle throne room encounter, obviously.

 

[praetor]

I had someone tell me once that Havel's is more overpowered than Jesters.

it used to be when physical defences mattered (before that first huge patch back in.. may? i think. when phys def scaled linearly with stats up to 99 and each 100pts of phys def reduced a flat amount of phys damage. coupled with buffed stacking...)

 

[DragoFireheart]

I had someone tell me once that Havel's is more overpowered than Jesters.

it used to be when physical defences mattered (before that first huge patch back in.. may? i think. when phys def scaled linearly with stats up to 99 and each 100pts of phys def reduced a flat amount of phys damage. coupled with buffed stacking...)

The removal of buff stacking really helped mitigate the effectiveness of Havels. It's still good for poise, but it's easy to cut through it with a RoBFlynn build or a buffed elemental weapon.

 

[Murk]

praetor

I agree that Jesters is OP at lower levels (<200) mainly because so many rely on elemental infusion and buffing for extra damage. At this point I have pretty much forsaken all elemental damage (other than spells and resins) in favor of pure phys and so Jesters only cancels backstabs when I'm up against it, which is fine IMO. I hate backstabs so I don't mind when people use it. I do agree, however, that it is pretty OP against a dedicated caster or anyone who uses purely infused weapons. the 74 resistance it gives across is basically 8% damage reduction on all elements.

To me, being able to swap 1 of 50 gowers rings is a much bigger issue and the closest to a definition of "try hard" I have encountered so far (despite the 'communities' use of it to describe people who min-max).

MapMan

Ok, let's start like this. Do you like to be defensive in pvp? (hold shield up, let enemy make first move, react to them, etc.)

If you do prefer to be defensive then great shield + long weapon like a greatsword or spear is a good option. You'll want to be under 70% equip load to roll and you'll also want to practice timing your blocks so you don't keep getting guard broken left and right.

Do you want to be aggressive? For now, I suggest using a quick weapon like a straight sword, katana, dagger, curved sword, or thrusting sword. The heavier/slower weapons (especially ultra great weapons) leave you with glaring openings and often are more effective when playing without lock-on -- a bit more advanced. I'd suggest using something like one of the new straight swords and testing that out to see how you like being on the offensive.

Depending on which stats you have and which moveset you like more -- try out the ashen warrior sword (especially 2handed), the red rust scimitar (again, 2 handed), the rapier or espada ropera (either 2h or 1h) or the black flamestone dagger (2h) or manikin dagger (2h). For katanas you should check out the manslayer or the chaos blade -- they both have some quirks to them. You'll want to time your hits to take advantage of their 150 counter which does 50% more damage when you hit your enemy during an 'action' (attack, roll, item use, cast, etc.).

As for stats... honestly, we can talk about minmaxing and what have you but in truth it comes down to what weapons you want to use and what spells you want to use. Like a weapon that has an A scaling in dex? Get dex. Like using hexes? Evenly distribute faith/int. Like heavy weapons? Get str. Regardless of the differences, stamina is very important, so everyone wants high endurance and you're going to want at least around 1.6k hp to be able to take 4+ hits to be killed. At low hp you'll die in two swipes. You can use the dragon rings or the life ring to compensate for hp. Right now with 3rd dragon and life ring +3 I'm at almost 3k hp which is worth more to me than another 1000 armor of any type.

Anyway, give some more info and we can better give you advice.

 

[praetor]

praetor

I agree that Jesters is OP at lower levels (<200) mainly because so many rely on elemental infusion and buffing for extra damage. At this point I have pretty much forsaken all elemental damage (other than spells and resins) in favor of pure phys and so Jesters only cancels backstabs when I'm up against it, which is fine IMO. I hate backstabs so I don't mind when people use it. I do agree, however, that it is pretty OP against a dedicated caster or anyone who uses purely infused weapons. the 74 resistance it gives across is basically 8% damage reduction on all elements.

i wasn't saying that the 74 resists were particularly good per se, i just noted that one of the best light armours around (probably top 5, if not top 3 just for the stats) also provides BS immunity (which by itself is pretty big) without any drawbacks. Gower's is OK (or rather, it would be if you couldn't easily get 5000 of them, like you noted) since it weighs a ton for a ring, has low durability and only reduces damage from the back. meanwhile ironclad is decent-to-average stat-wise but also weighs a metric fuckton (iif i were in charge of balancing, 'd also make it so that you can't fast-roll with it, whatever your EQ... big advantages should also mean some hefty disadvantages, imo, so that you have to actually think what to choose )

 

[Murk]

"without any drawbacks"

sir i do not believe you are acquainted with the cum unity's fascination with fashion souls

 

[procrastinator]

"without any drawbacks"

sir i do not believe you are acquainted with the cum unity's fascination with fashion souls

 

[MapMan]

praetor & Mikayel

Thanks for the advice! I was actually joking a little, some of your posts been really helpful and I missed the spoiler asking for more info from me. As to my preferences: I played almost whole game in heavy set with shield and great sword. I wan't something fresh. I'm up for builds without shield, that rely more on agility. A two handed weapon or dual wield sounds noice. Something fast and tricky, something aggresive, outsmarting and outskilling the player is what I seek instead of relying on very heavy defenses and mistakes of the opposing player to hit him once or twice. I have almost 400k souls and im fine with total respec. I've been hoarding all the stones so I can reinforce any weapon if need be. So, what would the weapon/style suggestions be? What stat's should I get, I'm unsure if the requirements you posted above (like 1400 HP) are unbuffed or with rings etc...

 

[DragoFireheart]

praetor & Mikayel

Thanks for the advice! I was actually joking a little, some of your posts been really helpful and I missed the spoiler asking for more info from me. As to my preferences: I played almost whole game in heavy set with shield and great sword. I wan't something fresh. I'm up for builds without shield, that rely more on agility. A two handed weapon or dual wield sounds noice. Something fast and tricky, something aggresive, outsmarting and outskilling the player is what I seek instead of relying on very heavy defenses and mistakes of the opposing player to hit him once or twice. I have almost 400k souls and im fine with total respec. I've been hoarding all the stones so I can reinforce any weapon if need be. So, what would the weapon/style suggestions be? What stat's should I get, I'm unsure if the requirements you posted above (like 1400 HP) are unbuffed or with rings etc...

Dual Poison Spotted Whips.

Scythe of Want.

Estoc right hand, Warped Sword left hand.

Smelter Demon Hammer.

 

[praetor]

• fast and aggressive? katanas (but seriously, most of them are too good: chaos blade is awesome and has it all at the cost of 50HP per hit, manslayer is a bit short but has poison, uchi is the average of the bunch, darkdrift looks cool and bypasses shields with the R2, blacksteel combos really well and people won't cry foul when you kill them with it since it's one of the katanas that aren't considered a bit OP due to the 130 counter)
• straight swords (sun sword if you go 40/40 str/dex, drakekeeper/varangian is excellent even though it has that crappy broadsword moveset [best at 40/40 but good even at 20/40 or 40/20], longsword is always reliable and has a very good moveset [better than sunsword, imo], but is also a 40/40 weapon, if you have the DLCs: puzzling stone sword is pretty good (this one is pure dex!), fume sword is excellent (very long, fast, plenty of poke attacks, it's mostly Dex, but has a Dark component so it's best on a dex/dark hybrid but it's good on a pure dex with some dark resin], ashen sword is the baller sword of DaS2 [or rather, it would be if it wasn't for the really poor damage, cause the moveset is excellent])
• warped sword (good for powerstancing due to the special spinning L2)
• estoc [best rapier in game... a pity it's a Str weapon for some weird reason ], espada ropera
• santier's you can finally use without feeling dirty (although they nerfed the twinblade attacks to the point of near-uselessness)
• heard good things about black flamestone dagger/royal dick + stone ring. anyway, always keep a mundane bandit/manikin knife in your inventory for riposting
• murakumo!
• heard good things about small axes (bandit/battle, and even the butcher's)

the jist is: Estoc/1H axes/some straightswords if you go Str, katanas/warped sword/some straightswords if you go Dex... all of the above if you go 40/40

i'm sure Kanedias can chime in with some more advice. have fun!

edit: for stats, aim at a multiple of 8 for End (24 is the lowest of the low, imo, and you should aim for at least 30-32), Vig aim for 30 and upwards, Adp aim for 100 or 105 agl, i'd suggest to have some Att for some spells because i think it's fun to mix it up (pyrodex 4 lyfe! ), but that's up to you, Vit aim at 9-14 if you have the 1st DLC for flynn's ring and you plan to use those fast, light weapons otherwise just get to a comfortable point where you're under 50-60% load with your preferred armour+weapons combo