From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[UndetectedButthurt]

With good stat investment and no infusion chaos blade doesn't sport that much more AR than Uchi/Manslayer/Berserker. -50 HP is a drag too. With manslayer you get bonus poison and identical base/scaling to Uchi. I guess range is the only thing, but Uchi isn't that much shorter.

At 99/99 - Uchi (378), Berserker (391), Chaos (410). I don't think some 30 AR, a boatload of bones and an intensity 2 boss soul is worth it.

Even at 40/40 Uchi vs Chaos is 333 vs 362.

 

[praetor]

the problem of most CBs is they're often paired with Flynn's and at least a buff and/or SO so they deal quite a bit of damage. i use it just with RoB and a resin here and there and it's fine (that 50HP/hit isn't that small a thing... 4 swings at a shield and i'm down 200HP). i wouldn't mind a nerf to the counter taking it into the realm of 130, but anything more than that would be overkill and would make straightswords and the estoc much much more powerful (and they're already arguably at least on par if not better than a CB... a decent estoc shuts down anyone but top CB players)

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Counter damage is OP in general. In PvE it makes every boss a complete joke. It's amazing that spears/rapiers have worse tracking/damage output AND less counter damage than the top tier katanas.

Equp 150 counter damage katana, walk back and hit when you are being hit. BoB rank 3 in no time.

 

[DragoFireheart]

With good stat investment and no infusion chaos blade doesn't sport that much more AR than Uchi/Manslayer/Berserker. -50 HP is a drag too. With manslayer you get bonus poison and identical base/scaling to Uchi. I guess range is the only thing, but Uchi isn't that much shorter.

At 99/99 - Uchi (378), Berserker (391), Chaos (410). I don't think some 30 AR, a boatload of bones and an intensity 2 boss soul is worth it.

Even at 40/40 Uchi vs Chaos is 333 vs 362.

Uchi is mediocre based on my own experience.
Berserker is too short.
Bones are not an issue.

The aspects of the Chaos Blade are quite good (besides the HP loss).

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

With good stat investment and no infusion chaos blade doesn't sport that much more AR than Uchi/Manslayer/Berserker. -50 HP is a drag too. With manslayer you get bonus poison and identical base/scaling to Uchi. I guess range is the only thing, but Uchi isn't that much shorter.

At 99/99 - Uchi (378), Berserker (391), Chaos (410). I don't think some 30 AR, a boatload of bones and an intensity 2 boss soul is worth it.

Even at 40/40 Uchi vs Chaos is 333 vs 362.

Uchi is mediocre based on my own experience.
Berserker is too short.
Bones are not an issue.

The aspects of the Chaos Blade are quite good (besides the HP loss).

How is ~30AR difference and slightly less range a big deal? My HP doesn't notice any difference between manslayer/uchi/chaos/berserker counter fishing. They all produce similar results with slight differences on the R2 attacks.

 

[DragoFireheart]

How is ~30AR difference and slightly less range a big deal? My HP doesn't notice any difference between manslayer/uchi/chaos/berserker counter fishing. They all produce similar results with slight differences on the R2 attacks.

The range is the biggest one among those. There are times when an uchi would miss where a chaos blade won't. It's quite significant.

 

[Kanedias]

speaking of things needing a buff... the possessed armour sword. that buff lasts what, 20 seconds? it's ridiculous how stupidly bad it is

It scales with your stats! So if you have high int and faith it will last much longer, for example....25 seconds. Yeah. The duration gained from stats is laughable.

I tried using that sword but I can't really like it because of that, and the damage output in general. If they have good defenses, you just deal too little damage.

--

On another note, I have a character that can't really find its weapon, I already respecced him countless times. Anyways this time I went for powerstance bewitched alonne swords and it's quite fun. Shame that I'm a robflynn rolling at 59% equip load, which is shitty, but the moveset is kinda fun to use. Not really viable because of how much stamina drains, but I like it. I may leave the character like this. It feels like a DeS black skeleton or something.

 

[Murk]

The flame sword is alright if fire infused. It has about 500 AR with rob+2 at 99 across the board, but the buff is shiiiiiiiiit. It should either last longer or be some kind of ridiculous damage boost for how short it is and for the 10 dura cost.

I dislike that the 3 very neat straightswords we got from the DLC all have some kind of split BS going on. Bleed sword is still baller tho cuz of the moveset <3

 

[praetor]

Counter damage is OP in general. In PvE it makes every boss a complete joke. It's amazing that spears/rapiers have worse tracking/damage output AND less counter damage than the top tier katanas.

umm... exclusively poking weapons having less tracking than slashing ones makes sense... from whatever PoV you want to argue it. i agree rapiers should have higher counter than katanas, but not by increasing theirs. and why would spears have higher counter than other shit? they already outrange 99% of the weapons.

Equp 150 counter damage katana, walk back and hit when you are being hit. BoB rank 3 in no time.

equip pate's spear/estoc, walk back and hit whenever (with stone ring if you need help). gg CB

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Counter damage is OP in general. In PvE it makes every boss a complete joke. It's amazing that spears/rapiers have worse tracking/damage output AND less counter damage than the top tier katanas.

umm... exclusively poking weapons having less tracking than slashing ones makes sense... from whatever PoV you want to argue it. i agree rapiers should have higher counter than katanas, but not by increasing theirs. and why would spears have higher counter than other shit? they already outrange 99% of the weapons.

Equp 150 counter damage katana, walk back and hit when you are being hit. BoB rank 3 in no time.

equip pate's spear/estoc, walk back and hit whenever (with stone ring if you need help). gg CB

If you try to roll into/around a defensive player, katana R1 spam will likely mean GG for you because of range/straight sword-like tracking. With spears it becomes trivial to just keep rolling into/around over and over until they fuck up.

 

[Kanedias]

So apparently Chaos Blade makes people exceptionally butthurt on reddit. Then again, it is reddit. Oddly enough I never generate any hatemail when I use it.

I'm guessing it's because I don't go the full Gyrm Havel Jester setup. Still, you'd think wearing jesters and using a katana would generate hatemail (especially after I use the "No way" gesture).

I expected some kind of haveljester chaos blade user but I was pleasantly surprised by seeing you using the Scythe of Want pretty well. People normally suck with it.

Fun fights. Can't believe I found you randomly in the arena, haha.

I'm still trying to get used to these dual katanas. They do really good damage but they are easy to dodge if you roll past them and they take so much stamina to swing. I have to fight much less aggressively than normal.

The flame sword is alright if fire infused. It has about 500 AR with rob+2 at 99 across the board, but the buff is shiiiiiiiiit. It should either last longer or be some kind of ridiculous damage boost for how short it is and for the 10 dura cost.

I dislike that the 3 very neat straightswords we got from the DLC all have some kind of split BS going on. Bleed sword is still baller tho cuz of the moveset <3

The only good thing about the buff is how it looks. It has the fire effect on the blade but it doesn't turn the whole weapon orange. Why couldn't they apply this to Flame Weapon? In fact, I wish this was how they handled weapon buffs in general. SLB only adding lightning instead of turning the entire weapon into that cheesy yellow, Dark Weapon adding only the black smoke instead of turning the entire thing purple and so on.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I expected some kind of haveljester chaos blade user but I was pleasantly surprised by seeing you using the Scythe of Want pretty well. People normally suck with it.

Fun fights. Can't believe I found you randomly in the arena, haha.

I'm still trying to get used to these dual katanas. They do really good damage but they are easy to dodge if you roll past them and they take so much stamina to swing. I have to fight much less aggressively than normal.

God scythes are so bad... I end up doing more with pyromancy than my scythe. I fought lots of people just moments ago and it must be easy to reaction parry a scythe because I got parried extremely easy. And I'm normally good at varying my attacks. Oh, and Scythes are godawful against even a competent straight sword user. I eventually raged and went back to my Fire Chaos Blade to make up for some of the losses. Fun weapon, but I might use it only outside the arena where fights are more casual and losing is less meaningful.

That setup you saw me using is typically all I ever use now, with only the weapon changing. Solid elemental defense, backstab immune, moderately fashionable. I call it Cow Clown.

 

[Kanedias]

You can reaction parry them with small shields and bucklers if I recall. Reapers just have a bad moveset in general, only good against very few setups and playstyles. What I hate the most about Reapers is that patient, overly cautious playstyles destroy them completely. They don't seem to have any neat combo to surprise patient people, they are too easy to dodge on reaction.

As for my tryhard setups, I have my Fume Sword build and my Black Flamestone Dagger build. I still prefer using the dual katana character or the bleed build more at this point. If I use some tryhard setup, most fights are boring except ones against very competent people.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Scythe of Want is the only one that follows poise rules too. Other reapers break max poise even if you miss the sweetspot one-handed.

 

[Murk]

There's some seriously stupid shit on reddit. Why do people make guides for completely inane things? Some mofug made a 3 minute video explaining how to kill dragonrider... jesus fucking christ the guy kills himself, the NPC kills him for you, or you can just face tank his ass and still beat him.

I'd understand if it was a breakdown of how to do the fall down trick (which takes all of 10 seconds to teach) but 3 minutes of 'analysis'?

there's even a line where she says "there's a better way to defeat him from an engagement perspective"

an engagement perspective? ffs

 

[praetor]

imgur album of new screenshots from polygon, so you don't have to give them clicks. there's also a new short video on gamespot

edit: so the official DaS facebook page put up the news with that polygon article... the majority of the comments are "polygon? really?!", "polygon link? no click" and similar... pretty damn awesome. #gamergate

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I like the art style more than the other two DLCs, judging by screenshots alone. The environments are appropriately desolate and ruined. They also seem very big.

 

[DragoFireheart]

So we get Ice magic, right? From couldn't resist adding that magic type.

I can finally cosplay as a Final Fantasy black mage.

 

[Murk]

Huhh so they're including the heihachi/tekken moveset thing?

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Huhh so they're including the heihachi/tekken moveset thing?

yep and jedi lightsaber

 

[Murk]

I hope they fixed the kung-fu moveset then; I've fought some cheaters who modded it in and the state it was in was shiiiiiiit.

 

[Kanedias]

I hope they fixed the kung-fu moveset then; I've fought some cheaters who modded it in and the state it was in was shiiiiiiit.

From that screenshot it seems like the visual effect for the Hadouken looks better than it does now, so hopefully the moves themselves were updated too. The visual effect for the "Soul Sword" also seems upgraded.

--

That new armor looks sweet. Finally a frogmouth helmet that doesn't look as silly as the Ruin Helm. Should be nice for my faith build, I have been thinking about updating it for a while and this will be the perfect time.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Huhh so they're including the heihachi/tekken moveset thing?

yep and jedi lightsaber

If there's a staff-light saber then the Darth Maul cosplays will be coming.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I just beat a straight sword user with Black Dragon Armor, a mundane Ladle in my left hand, and a Scythe of Want in my right hand. No magic/pyromancy. Finishing blow was with Dragon Head Stone fire breath.

Did I win Dark Souls 2 yet?

 

[Murk]

No, cuz I beat a guy in turtle armor + greatshield + greatsword with a torch.

I am the derkest of sulz

(seriously tho, I did -- softened him up with a sword first but the last third of his HP was all torch)