From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Rolk's Drifter]

Crown of the Sunken King is too short but so far the most consistent DLC. The final boss fight was pretty epic and I beat it in one go, that Dragon gave me kalameet vibes man. Now, onward to vendrick and completing the game.

Are you going into NG+? I highly recommend it if you enjoyed the game. It's not just the same shit with health bloat etc. There's genuinely a lot of exclusive stuff in the later cycles. At the very least I recommend asceticing (sp?) the King's Gate bonfire and paying a visit to the throne room.

As for Frigid Outskirts... I like that area. Those horsies are pretty cool imo... two of them at once is fucking crazy but one on their own is a pretty fun fight.

And about Iron Keep... yeah the aggro range is bullshit but I think it's an improvement overall. Especially as now the firey room is actually relevant. If you make use of it, the level is still pretty easy.

 

[sullynathan]

I'll probably delete the game immediately after I beat it. I like DS2 but there are lots of games I want to play so I will revisit DS1 & 2 in the future and hopefully I will have a legal DS2 copy by then so that I can try PVP.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Just played Crown of the Sunken King... damn, that was great. I was pleasantly surprised by the level design and the enemies (especially the fucking ghosts), the bosses were solid, they got so much mileage out of the 2 major areas in the DLC. This seriously kicked ass. I thought this was for sure better than any of the main areas of the game.

 

[sullynathan]

told you.

I just beat darklurker, the dark pilgrims are easy. I don't know why I didn't complete it earlier, it's because that havel was too strong. Maybe I should beat the game now.

Beat the ancient dragon. He has a lot of health.

 

[Excidium II]

told you.

I just beat darklurker, the dark pilgrims are easy. I don't know why I didn't complete it earlier, it's because that havel was too strong. Maybe I should beat the game now.

you are not hoodoo

 

[sullynathan]

I beat the game. Can't help but feel like Nashandra and the old scholar were lazy boss fights. I was surprised that the game had three NPC summons so I used them anyway, made the fights less boring. I linked the fire unlike my playthrough with DS1. Gonna delete the game now.

 

[Excidium II]

Gonna delete the game now.

Change your avatar right after.

 

[Akratus]

Speaking of bosses, has anyone ever died to the covetous demon? EVER? Does it take the honorable place as easiest boss in a souls game? I think this is even easier than pinwheel was.

I looked it up, and, sure enough:

 

[Jezal_k23]

Finished up Crown of the Old Iron King... well, that was definitely tougher than the Sunken King DLC. The Fume Knight and Sir Alonne both gave me such a difficult time, and the tower itself had a bunch of really tough segments. Smelter Demon #2 was kinda lame though. Overall as with Crown of the Sunken King, great level design and enemies overall. WTF @ the lava giants. I'm really pleased with the DLC. Makes it feel like they were holding back on the original DS2 levels for some reason.

 

[Wolfe]

Yeah, Crown of the Old Iron King was my favourite among the DLCs. Fume Knight and Alonne are two amazing boss fights, with Alonne being the best in the entire game for me.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Done with all the DLC, I'll agree that it's absolutely excellent overall. Old Iron King was definitely the toughest, Sunken King was in the middle and Ivory King was the easiest, except for the Frozen Outskirts, an area that I have not yet finished and I don't even know if I will. I just find it boring as all fuck.

 

[Akratus]

Vaati said it's a co-op area. So it's not meant to be solo'd, apparently.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Vaati said it's a co-op area. So it's not meant to be solo'd, apparently.

It's still boringly designed regardless. It's all atmosphere and no level design. Even if you are playing offline for whatever reason, just grab the 3 npc summons next to you and move from building to building, healing at the second one, then fight the same boss you fought earlier but now there's 2 of them.

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

Done with all the DLC, I'll agree that it's absolutely excellent overall. Old Iron King was definitely the toughest, Sunken King was in the middle and Ivory King was the easiest, except for the Frozen Outskirts, an area that I have not yet finished and I don't even know if I will. I just find it boring as all fuck.

What was your build? I ask cos I'm surprised you found Ivory King to be easiest. Not that I think there's too much in it but was hardest for me. Speaking of which... if you like greatswords it's probably worth finishing the Frozen Outskirts. You can get probably the best greatsword in the game from the boss soul there.

Summons + Santier's Spear stunlock or Great Hammer pancakes make it a trivial area. You can always de-summon the phantoms for the boss fight using the black crystal at the fog gate. As people have said it's not a particularly great area (altho I like it) so it's not worth struggling over.

 

[Akratus]

That time I didn't even try.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Done with all the DLC, I'll agree that it's absolutely excellent overall. Old Iron King was definitely the toughest, Sunken King was in the middle and Ivory King was the easiest, except for the Frozen Outskirts, an area that I have not yet finished and I don't even know if I will. I just find it boring as all fuck.

What was your build? I ask cos I'm surprised you found Ivory King to be easiest. Not that I think there's too much in it but was hardest for me. Speaking of which... if you like greatswords it's probably worth finishing the Frozen Outskirts. You can get probably the best greatsword in the game from the boss soul there.

Summons + Santier's Spear stunlock or Great Hammer pancakes make it a trivial area. You can always de-summon the phantoms for the boss fight using the black crystal at the fog gate. As people have said it's not a particularly great area (altho I like it) so it's not worth struggling over.

I'm playing a STR build using either a mace +10 or a claymore +10 and drakeblood set. Burnt Ivory King was tough, but overall the regular enemies in the DLC didn't do much for me.

 

[Caim]

Today I discovered that the puddles in the Black Gulch where the hand worm things pop out of will catch fire if you hit them with a Pyromancy or a fire-infused weapon, killing the enemies in one go.

Pretty neat trick.

 

[AetherVagrant]

I bought DS2 over a year ago and couldnt get into it. I couldnt seem to make any progress, the controls made no sense, and after getting killed by those stupid pigrats in town for the millionth time I gave up and declared it stoopid.
The other day my gf was hogging the pc for Fallout 4, so I gave DS2 one more crack...and something clicked. I caught the soul fever after beating a few zombies, tricking the rats off the cliff, and finally levelling up....and 10 hours later I was on my 3rd new character build, running melee (i never play melee characters) and when my gf popped in I was at the same bonfire i was 6 hours before, and appeared to her to have made zero progress, and she was dumbfounded by my grin and shout that i was whooping ass as it looked to be anything but.
and now i have something to play on the console when the pc is busy.
(good lord its ugly as sin on 360, but in a few hours that crased to matter)

 

[Murk]

Today I discovered that the puddles in the Black Gulch where the hand worm things pop out of will catch fire if you hit them with a Pyromancy or a fire-infused weapon, killing the enemies in one go.

Pretty neat trick.

fire arrows -- standing on the cliff near the 2nd bonfire and shooting them is an easy way to farm chunks/large shards early on if you can't be bothered to bell-bro it up. You can also just punch it with a pyro glove or swing at it with a torch. It's neat stuff.

 

[Immortal]

I bought DS2 over a year ago and couldnt get into it. I couldnt seem to make any progress, the controls made no sense, and after getting killed by those stupid pigrats in town for the millionth time I gave up and declared it stoopid.
The other day my gf was hogging the pc for Fallout 4, so I gave DS2 one more crack...and something clicked. I caught the soul fever after beating a few zombies, tricking the rats off the cliff, and finally levelling up....and 10 hours later I was on my 3rd new character build, running melee (i never play melee characters) and when my gf popped in I was at the same bonfire i was 6 hours before, and appeared to her to have made zero progress, and she was dumbfounded by my grin and shout that i was whooping ass as it looked to be anything but.
and now i have something to play on the console when the pc is busy.
(good lord its ugly as sin on 360, but in a few hours that crased to matter)

Sometimes I think about making a video game.. but then I read stuff like this.

 

[AetherVagrant]

I take back my statement of it being ugly now that im further in. Forest of Giants felt bland and muddy , character models, clipping errors and worst - huge framerate dips that made the Last Giant battle unbeatable. I almost gave up and started DS3 on the pc instead, but cleared the cache on the 360 instead, and gave it one more go.
Still massive stuttering but better, was able to get past him...and now i havent had nearly as much of the same problem with the next 3 bosses, and Heides Fire and Cathedral of Blue are absolutely stunning in comparison. I lost almost a whole other day to it yesterday.

 

[Akratus]

on the 360

 

[AetherVagrant]

Id play it on the computer, but that would defeat the purpose of having something to play when the pc is occupied.

 

[Anthedon]

Did they change enemy resistances with Scholar? I'm pondering another playthrough and remember thrust weapons being the shit against the DLC bosses in the DX9 version. Slashing weapons were pretty terrible. Might just grab the DX11 version if they changed that.

 

[Murk]

Thrust weapons were always good against unarmored bosses; strike weapons against armored bosses. You get straight up bonus damage, basically and they also have high counter ratings for even more bonus damage when you hit the bosses 'during an animation', which they are basically always in.

Rapier and craftsman's hammer are OP; battle axe is OP.

What they did buff was elemental resistance, so if your weapons are infused the DLCs enemies/bosses will shrug off about half the damage.