From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Murk]

*sigh* respawning magical frozen ponies... who the fuck thought that area was a good idea ? It mars an otherwise awesome DLC.

According to some guy on reddit who probably spent more time there than necessary; they are finite and do stop spawning after the usual dozen+ kills of them. They are 'invisible' but they patrol around, and only during a windy phase can they materialize to attack you.

Tho, unless you want to spend like an hour+ just depleting them, you'll hug a wall (the entire area is enclosed by a wall) and run to the chasm at the end. I suggest going from the "right side" than the "left".

 

[DragoFireheart]

*sigh* respawning magical frozen ponies... who the fuck thought that area was a good idea ? It mars an otherwise awesome DLC.

Somewhere in there exists a My Little Pony joke.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Bros, do I have to kill Vendrick to obtain the fourth crown?

Yeah, you need to collect Vendrick's crown, which involves killing his hollowed out form and the travelling to the Shrine of Amana to open the locked door past the "hidden" (underwater) bridge. I believe you also need to be human in order to open this and collect his soul, armor, and crown.

Fighting Vendrick isn't particularly pleasant. It's one of those bosses designed more for atmosphere and "demFeelz" as opposed to fun. Vendrick's anemic looking swings deal enormous amounts of damage which I surmise is meant to showcase the hollowed king's power and make the player question just how powerful he was in his prime. Unfortunately, while this may make for an interesting piece of lore to sperg about or make videos earning you six figures on Patreon, it makes for a stultifying boss encounter. You want to bring along at least 4 giant souls, if not a full 5 in NG+ and beyond. Once in the fight, hug his left (?) buttcheek and attack during the recovery period of his swings. Try not to let him get backed up against a wall either. You'll want to equip yourself either for lots of damage (Ring of Blades, Flynn, Old Leo) or to avoid being one-shotted (Ring of Steel Protection +2, decent armor, Life Ring +3, Third Dragon Ring). If you have access to the Denial miracle, you might want to use that as insurance.

*sigh* respawning magical frozen ponies... who the fuck thought that area was a good idea ? It mars an otherwise awesome DLC.

I actually somewhat enjoy that area, but only once I equipped my characters correctly. Fighting the ponies is really easy if you wield a Raw Santier's Spear buffed with Fire/Dark resins. The two-handded light attack, emulating a twinblade, stunlocks the crystalline equines, allowing for easy kills. I had no problem taking down Bonfire Intensity 2 horsies in two uses of the R1 with Ring of Blades +2 and the Flynn's Ring, but it does become a bit harder on higher intensities*. You want the Santier's Spear specifically for it's unbreakable property; that attack absolutely kills the durability of regular Twinblades.

*Mostly on account of the nasty Black Phantom spawns on the aforementioned higher intensities.

 

[StaticSpine]

Bros, do I have to kill Vendrick to obtain the fourth crown?

And if I do, will he talk to me in his memory? I remember something being said that if you kill him, you can't trigger the memory.

you most certainly can kill him, and yes you need to to get his crown. be prepared for a really shitty boss fight

Bros, do I have to kill Vendrick to obtain the fourth crown?

Yeah, you need to collect Vendrick's crown, which involves killing his hollowed out form and the travelling to the Shrine of Amana to open the locked door past the "hidden" (underwater) bridge. I believe you also need to be human in order to open this and collect his soul, armor, and crown.

Fighting Vendrick isn't particularly pleasant. It's one of those bosses designed more for atmosphere and "demFeelz" as opposed to fun. Vendrick's anemic looking swings deal enormous amounts of damage which I surmise is meant to showcase the hollowed king's power and make the player question just how powerful he was in his prime. Unfortunately, while this may make for an interesting piece of lore to sperg about or make videos earning you six figures on Patreon, it makes for a stultifying boss encounter. You want to bring along at least 4 giant souls, if not a full 5 in NG+ and beyond. Once in the fight, hug his left (?) buttcheek and attack during the recovery period of his swings. Try not to let him get backed up against a wall either. You'll want to equip yourself either for lots of damage (Ring of Blades, Flynn, Old Leo) or to avoid being one-shotted (Ring of Steel Protection +2, decent armor, Life Ring +3, Third Dragon Ring). If you have access to the Denial miracle, you might want to use that as insurance.

 

[praetor]

StaticSpine
one more thing regarding venDick: if you have a weapon with decent (and relatively fast) bleed (uninfused!), equip the shadow gauntlets, apply the bleed serum and proc bleed, he's quite susceptible to it. i took him down with relative ease with a falchion on my dex char (with 4 giant souls), probably faster than on my str build with a large/great club

 

[StaticSpine]

StaticSpine
one more thing regarding venDick: if you have a weapon with decent (and relatively fast) bleed (uninfused!), equip the shadow gauntlets, apply the bleed serum and proc bleed, he's quite susceptible to it. i took him down with relative ease with a falchion on my dex char (with 4 giant souls), probably faster than on my str build with a large/great club

Well, I'm pretty OP after finishing all DLCs and shitton of sunbroing I'm 200+ SL in NG. So Vendrick and Nashandra were a joke to me. At last I've finished the game. Fuck I've played Souls all year long. Need some rest.

 

[Zetor]

I killed Vendrick in my blind playthrough in NG as a sorcerer because I thought killing him was necessary to progress with the story ("seek the king" and all that). It was... unpleasant. Slowly killing him with various types of soul arrows took forever even with the 3 (?) giant souls I had, not to mention the long-ass run from the bonfire every time. I have no idea why the designers thought that fight is fun on any level -- especially compared to a boss like Pursuer v2 (who could OHKO my squishy ass just the same if I fucked up a dodge, but at least he had the courtesy to die under 10 minutes).

 

[Murk]

With 4 or so souls I find using a high counter katana or the red iron twinblade to be effective. Powerstanced 150 counter katanas = 750+ damage on each hit, and that's in ng+5 and beond.

 

[ghostdog]

I actually somewhat enjoy that area, but only once I equipped my characters correctly. Fighting the ponies is really easy if you wield a Raw Santier's Spear buffed with Fire/Dark resins. The two-handded light attack, emulating a twinblade, stunlocks the crystalline equines, allowing for easy kills. I had no problem taking down Bonfire Intensity 2 horsies in two uses of the R1 with Ring of Blades +2 and the Flynn's Ring, but it does become a bit harder on higher intensities*. You want the Santier's Spear specifically for it's unbreakable property; that attack absolutely kills the durability of regular Twinblades.

*Mostly on account of the nasty Black Phantom spawns on the aforementioned higher intensities.

Indeed santier's spear makes the ponies cheese. Now all I have to do is kill the trololo pets. So many pets in dis gaem. Funny how you can once more summon Abbess Feeble and once more she is fucking useless since both the ponies and the bosses have high lightning resistance. The fight is probably much tougher with both summons, as usual, since the boss gets a crazy HP bloat. I got somewhat close to winning but the last pet got crazy and grabbed in his jaws with a super fast move. I'll probably try them again tomorrow with only vengarl, or maybe only me.

 

[Murk]

Use the summons to get to the boss; they have tons of HP but are horrible at fighting so they are useful meatshields. Get there, black crystal them out, equip rapier of some kind, use fire resin, win.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

the biggest problem of the vendric fight is that it's boring as fuck. he's again one of those bosses where you become quasi invincible once you realize you can just right strafe/roll. he has a shitton of resistances and health even with 4 or 5 souls so the difficulty of the fight is you not flipping your shit out of frustration.

design is law.

 

[praetor]

so... in the current patch notes From suggests going to Cromwell to get rid of your sin if you got any from the Burned IK fight bug, where you get some if the friendly Noyce k***hts die. but, you get the other kind of sin that can only be removed by getting killed by arbiter spirits.

B-Team, Based team doesn't even know their own systems. lulz

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Finally got around to killing the two cats, the fight itself is actually quite fun and decently challenging, as their fairly slow and obviously telegraphed moves can be dangerous if you have to worry about two at the same time. It's also quite difficult to keep both of them in your field of view, as they run and jump around a lot. The route itself sucks though, it's just really long, stags are annoying (I swear to god there's some kind of cheat involved in their charging attack, it's like they speed up or slow down midway depending on what you do), so once you get to the boss you just want to get it over with and never have to fight stags again.

Loyce Greatsword is pretty cool though.

 

[Murk]

The stags' charging attack is like the artorias flip or smelter run attack in that it has an invisible "kick" that catches you offguard before the full hit itself. Basically, the attack is already over right when they duck their head down, instead of when they actually "swing up" with it.

The cats are p good for a 2v1 fight. They're not broken in that they can hit through one another, and often it is a good idea to use one as a shield when healing/buffing/whatever against the other. They don't do 'unfair' stuff like say the throne duo can with their attacks clipping through one another and hitting you.

Also, chaos rapier so guuuuud. Stack magic resist and cast gmb, fire resin on chaos rapier and you do 800+ damage per swing on a counter and their magic barely damages you. (often I let myself get hit by magic to go invulnerable to avoid one of their melee hits).

 

[Elwro]

I finally beat Fume Knight yesterday night

First, I went to Foyer to try that challenge level. I summoned a guy and we went right to the point where I should use a rod and I somehow didn't have one (and I was sure I explored everywhere!). Not knowing what to do, I lead him down and died stupidly on my way to the boss.

Then, I resumed my attempts to kill the FK. Usually I could only get 1 human sign; but at that point I was able to summon 2: one was the guy I told you about above, and the other was one I tried to help earlier but failed miserably. I wasn't even sure they'd want to help me at all But during the fight itself things went really well, each one of us grabbed FK's attention in turn and so we finally managed to kill him. I also learned how to dodge these red-black bullets.

Amusingly, the Steelheart Ellie summon, even though dealing negligible damage, is not without his strengths: when he lands a few hits in a row, the Fume Knight is actually stunned for a short time.

I also killed Vendrick and now I'm wondering what to do with all the three crowns.

 

[LivingOne]

 

[Murk]

Most of those look pretty shitty, or are just boss/enemy variants. The 3 dark orbs are the ones Elana uses, Darklurker's dark spear, etc.

I am warming up to Dark Dance quite a bit -- it's very fast and has a good AOE that stuns enemies. If the orbs hit as well (have to be close) it does decentish damage, but mostly, it's great for interrupting people. if Soul Flash had the same AOE/speed I'd be all over it but it's slower and has worse range.

 

[Stonewolf]

There is something hilarious about a guy putting text with his name and watermarks in all his on top of the footage so noone, uh, steals(?) his precious youtube videos.

 

[Murk]

He's the same guy who did the bloodborne video where his username was HUGE and right in the fucking middle of it.

My comments then and my thoughts still:

Nothing says asshat like an endless giant watermark in an already dark game full of similar colors of gray.
Seriously, you pretentious twat, your fucking name is already on youtube. If you're worried someone will steal your footage then put it in the corner where it doesn't distract from the content. Ugghhh

 

[Elwro]

Just helped a few people with Fume Knight. Felt pretty

Now, the important thing I missed: for melee, pure physical damage is best. I dealt more damage that way than with the lightning resin, which many people seem to be using.



A DLC question: at the beginning I explored around and somehow managed to find the Murakumo. It turned out to be awesome and I'm using it at +10 now. But at the same chest (!) I now found a Longsword. (Yeah, it got closed again!) Is this normal?

edit: ah, OK : http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Events

 

[Utgard-Loki]

yeah, as you discovered they give out free recoloured goodies via basement chest.

alos elwro you are doing gods work helping people agaisnt the fume knight.

just died becau ei am too drunk to dodge the old iron king. this arena is deadlier than the boss itself. fuck my life.

 

[Murk]

Just helped a few people with Fume Knight. Felt pretty

Now, the important thing I missed: for melee, pure physical damage is best. I dealt more damage that way than with the lightning resin, which many people seem to be using.

Infusions are problematic, but resin or weapon buff will never lower your damage. My go to standard is to keep all non-pre-split weapons to be phys infused (standard, raw, or mundane) and to only elementally infuse weapons that are pre-infused (like possessed armor sword or heide spear).

With the exception of DLC 3 and the base game, elemental stuff is never a good idea unless you're doing super low pvp where people have no elemental resistance.

part of this is because elemental resistance is % based where-as physical damage is linear.

 

[Elwro]

Just helped a few people with Fume Knight. Felt pretty

Now, the important thing I missed: for melee, pure physical damage is best. I dealt more damage that way than with the lightning resin, which many people seem to be using.

Infusions are problematic, but resin or weapon buff will never lower your damage.

Well, I tried the Fume Knight many many times and I could swear my resin'd weapon dealt less damage than unresin'd. Then again, it might've been during a fight with two other people, while the unresin'd bit was when I used just a single summon (which is what I usually tried).

Anyway, the boss is wildly different for different people; I guess I didn't know the difference would be so big. I got summoned to help a guy fighting a version which I was stupid enough to let me hit once. It was enough to kill me, while my own char was always able to survive 1 or 2 hits.

With the exception of DLC 3 and the base game, elemental stuff is never a good idea unless you're doing super low pvp where people have no elemental resistance.

part of this is because elemental resistance is % based where-as physical damage is linear.

Whoa. Didn't know that!

 

[Murk]

Elwro more summons = more HP and also more defense, and a single summon makes a huge difference but a 2nd summon also makes a difference (this applies to NPC and PC summons). Also, I imagine you are in NG and not NG+ but when you do go to NG+, the cycles also matter.

Also, elemental damage is curved more harshly with summons than physical damage. Rough example, you alone are using a regular longsword and a fire longsword and do 300 phys damage and 350 elemental damage with the two weapons, respectively. You summon a player to help. You now do 250 phys damage and 220 elemental damage.

Also, if you are being summoned or even in your own world, use the ring of steel protection +1 -- it gives a % based reduction of damage from all PVE sources (including npc invaders) and is hugely helpful for bosses, often making it so you can take a whole extra hit or more (depending on the boss and the attack).

I can't stress how useful the ring of steel protection is now. If you're in NG+0 then you can only get up to the +1 version from the lucatiel quest line, all you have to do is talk to her every time you see her.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]