From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[praetor]

What do you mean it's "meant" to be played in co-op? How do you know? Where does it say?

other than what Multidirectional said, they were advertised as such rather explicitly. it's probably still mentioned somewhere in the DLCs blurb on steam or bamco pages or somewhere official. but yeah, all 3 of the challenge areas are just lazily designed bullshit. they seem to be inversely proportional in quality to the main areas

 

[cvv]

I guess some players do find thrill fighting gank squads, even AI, whatever. Not my idea of fun.

Anyway playing Brume Tower now and incredibly it's even better than Sunken. They sure as shit didn't lie when they said the DLCs are a highlight of great Souls design.

 

[Perkel]

I guess some players do find thrill fighting gank squads, even AI, whatever. Not my idea of fun

Never understood this. If you invade you have mobs on your side and shitload of other stuff you can do to handle gank squads.

 

[cvv]

Beat the Fume Knight, after maybe 15 tries. I know people love these kind of bosses but they're not my favourite ones at all - Fume Knight, Pontiff, Dragon Armor, SoC...they all require surgical precision with your controls and reflexes and you don't exactly have those if you play on a keyboard and you're over 30. Boss fights like this feel more like a chore than anything else. I know Alonne is another one of those so whoo hoo, looking forward to him. Not.

DS2 has waaay to many knight-type bosses and not enough Sinhs.

EDIT: So the only way to learn Alonne's moves is to go through the entire memory area over and over again. Jesus. Gone through it four times and two of those he instagibbed me with his special sword stab that's FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE TO DODGE. Yeah, this is a coop fight for me.

I've also checked out Iron Passage and it's goddamn insane. I suppose Alonne is relatively easy for a good player but I don't believe anyone would find the Iron Passage a cakewalk.

 

[sullynathan]

Fume Knight is the ultimate test of reflexes. The 2nd hardest boss in the series after the two cats in the frozen region

 

[Hyperion]

Some of his attacks have multiple timings for you to learn as well. Others are extremely slow, so if you're tense you end up dodging too soon and getting wrecked. And he has that one attack that follows the final overhead smash at the end of his main combo where he twitches and then slashes behind him in a 270 degree arc. He only starts doing it when low on HP. That one fucking got me twice. Looks safe, then fuck you you're chopped in half.

His sword gets enchanted with both dark AND fire, preventing chip damage is pretty much impossible.

Raime is just a fucking beast.

DS2 has waaay to many knight-type bosses and not enough Sinhs.

Fun fact about Fume Knight. If you enter the fight wearing Velstadt's Helm, his first phase is completely bypassed and he opens the fight by enchanting his sword. You're then stuck with Phase 2 from 100% -> 0 instead of ~50% -> 0.

I've also checked out Iron Passage and it's goddamn insane

It's honestly worse than pre-patch Shrine of Amana. But, you gotta applaud them for putting in the giant Fuck You to people who would try to dash through in the form of the Mages casting that stone golem spell on you.

 

[Ivan]

Looking forward to Old Iron King.

so jealous

 

[pakoito]

I member the pre-patch Shrine. All 10 hours of it. Iron Passage is bearable if you take the alternate route armorless, or with like phantom armor.

 

[praetor]

i don't think Fume is all about reflexes. quite the contrary, he's all about timing. he's nowhere near Gundyr or Pontiff or Friede when it comes to speed, and his attacks have quite varied speeds that require different timing. that's why he's one of the best bosses in the series

 

[cvv]

Fun fact about Fume Knight. If you enter the fight wearing Velstadt's Helm, his first phase is completely bypassed and he opens the fight by enchanting his sword. You're then stuck with Phase 2 from 100% -> 0 instead of ~50% -> 0.

Nice :D I honestly found the second phase easier, because more predictable. I agree he's more about timing than reflexes but he's also quite unpredictable in his 1st phase, what with the jumps, backslashes and irregular combos.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I guess some players do find thrill fighting gank squads, even AI, whatever. Not my idea of fun

Never understood this. If you invade you have mobs on your side and shitload of other stuff you can do to handle gank squads.

What? No you don't, if it's a gank squad they either cleared the mobs out or used a seed to get them on their side. Even if there were monsters they're not going to chase you into them, they're just going to sit on the high ground until you either walk into them and die or disconnect.

 

[Murk]

Gank squad still makes me grin.

A fashion souls dex fag with estoc + bow annoyance

A 2kat dual wielder with the alva armor (DS 2's elite knight, p much)

And a full havel "biggest numbers are best numbers" retardo

it's like they observed the meta at the time or something.

I think if they updated the enemies there a few times a year with the current meta that would have been even more hilarious. gyrtle with numb + gmb + resonant dagger spam hahahahaaaaaaaaaa

 

[cvv]

So the game plus all the DLCs finally conquered. Turns out both Alonne and the Blue Smelter are retardedly easy with the Havel shield. I could probably do Alonne shieldless with a little luck but the Blue Smelter would be pain in the dick trying to dodge everything. Some of his moves are pretty damn upredictable and one mistake with this dude usually means GG.

In the end the only bosses I couldn't solo were the 2 cats, the gank squad and the Ivory King (only because the retarded 1st phase). All in all I won't lie - I had as much fun with SotFS as with DS1. It's an awesome game, fullstop. Plus I'm told NG+ is chock full of added value, unlike DS3 which was fucking pathetic. My only regret is I haven't played it 2 years ago, with more lively community. Duelling on the bridge or in the Arena is still fine but in my 140 hours I've been invaded like 4 times and trying to invade as a red or blue spirit only rarely succeeds. And waiting for co-op is such a FUCKING pain, jesus. Such a shame, all the online messing around is such an awesome feature, wihout it the game feels diminished.

Well now on to NG+ to see what's new and then maybe NG++. Anything but going back to DS3.

 

[Caim]

I thought that Elite Knight armor was Dark Souls II's Elite Knight armor.

 

[Murk]

the true nablet progression was donglake -> vengarl -> havel

 

[Hyperion]

I think my favorite part of NG+ was running through areas I thought I knew only to get my shit pushed in by new enemies in a thousand different ways, and having to proceed through very carefully. That, and fighting The Last Giant again and then understanding the very short cutscene as you enter due to the relationship between him and the Chosen Undead was a pretty cool revelation.

 

[pakoito]

NG+ was easy, in NG you could bonfire ascetic yourself for most of the important bosses and you'll still beat them. The only funny bit are the extra encounters with pursuer and such, and a couple of items that were not available with ascetic.

 

[Murk]

FYI there's new stuff up to something like NG+9, I think.

Usually in the form of new enemies, but eh.

The one red phantom on the way to donglake castle was a particularly nice touch, and probably pushed various people's shit thoroughly in. (the one with the drakekeeper hammer/halberd thing)

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

FYI there's new stuff up to something like NG+9, I think.

Wut

 

[Murk]

FYI there's new stuff up to something like NG+9, I think.

Wut

Yeah, new monsters in areas. Usually just red phantom versions added in of the regular ones (even in the DLC areas.)

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

FYI there's new stuff up to something like NG+9, I think.

Wut

Yeah, new monsters in areas. Usually just red phantom versions added in of the regular ones (even in the DLC areas.)

I thought it was only NG+, nothing new after that

 

[Murk]

Nope. The first few cycles bring in new enemies and for a while it seems to stay static, but after the 9th cycle you get some more.

I went through multiple cycles with a friend (he was 2 cycles ahead of me) and would notice a difference in a few areas. It's nothing major, but surprising that they were willing to even do it.

The difference between NG and NG+1 is the biggest, without a doubt, but there's still some bits after.

 

[sullynathan]

So I finally started NG+ from my game last year. Coming back into ds2 is teh hard. The game is super sluggish compared to Bloodborne which I was recently playing.

The NG+ difference hits you straight in the face with all new enemies that spawn and weren't there in normal NG. Then the red phantoms appear. I don't know if these red phantoms respawn or not but the ones under the rat area were poorly placed and I just cheesed the fuck out of them after dying too many times.

I'm gonna beat most bosses without a summon. I really want to try sir alonne without summons because a lot of people hype him.
I ran through the gutter and it really wasn't bad, I actually used the torch this time around and it was a different feeling when playing it. I will say that the area that came afterwards with the boss was pretty shit though.

I also best the dragon rider without cheese. Either gonna fight Ornstein or skeleton lords next. I surprisingly cut of the hand of the rotten boss, I didn't know you could do that.

 

[Zerginfestor]

As I recall, Sir Alonne is not that much of a challenge, the only reason people get tilted by him is his animation que's, but if you play it like Dark Souls 1 and time your rolls, you can pretty much solo him, using any resin for your weapon and those lightbugs make the fight a breeze.

 

[sullynathan]

this game went full retard in sinners rise. You have a giant hallways with water to slow you down. One boss turned mini boss, two weird super creatures and 5 characters that explode when they want to.

The lost Bastille and sinners rise combo is really retarded. When you go to fight the gank trio the fist time, the enemies come at you in pockets. After you've done it before and unlock all the shortcuts, they swarm you like flies.

I still don't get the hype for lost sinner, I watched a video and found that he's high ranked as a good boss fight in this game. He just has a basic attack pattern with really wide swings. BS that red phantoms drop when he reaches lower health.

I also didn't know that if you kill the puruser early on in the forest, you don't have to fight him as a boss.