From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[CthuluIsSpy]

I fucking did it. After 5 hours and Idk how many deaths, Raime is dead. Being naked is totally viable, fuck everyone who complains about bikini armor.

 

[Orma]

I fucking did it. After 5 hours and Idk how many deaths, Raime is dead. Being naked is totally viable, fuck everyone who complains about bikini armor.

Great boss

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Iron Passage is indeed cancer.
Whoever thought it would be a good idea to give those mages that much health and a slow is a cunt. Likewise for the cunt who designed the murder corridor, with its glitchy gate hit box.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Iron Passage is indeed cancer.
Whoever thought it would be a good idea to give those mages that much health and a slow is a cunt. Likewise for the cunt who designed the murder corridor, with its glitchy gate hit box.

Yeah Iron Passage blows.

Fortunately you can just run past all the enemies there fairly easily since they won't follow you after you drop down.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Iron Passage is indeed cancer.
Whoever thought it would be a good idea to give those mages that much health and a slow is a cunt. Likewise for the cunt who designed the murder corridor, with its glitchy gate hit box.

Yeah Iron Passage blows.

Fortunately you can just run past all the enemies there fairly easily since they won't follow you after you drop down.

Yeah, I discovered that you can run past the first area fairly easily.
Its the final area that's a pain, as you have to deal with the slow hex and the iron warrior and that greatbow sniper.
Is the boss supposed to enter his final stage 20 seconds into the fight? I barely damaged him and he gets out his overcharged lightsaber of death.
How much magic resist do I need for this guy? Magic barrier is not an option.

 

[Arnust]

Like the Smelter or the Ancient Dragon, at their final phase they go full elemental. Meaning that you can effectively reduce to a 1% their damage to you. Just stacking resistance. Spell Quartz +3, Dispelling +3, Magic Barrier (yes), and the most you can get out of gear (don't remember which is the perfect combo). As close as you get to 900 resist, the better.

Alternatively, beat the boss normally?

 

[MicoSelva]

Damn, I am hooked on this game. I found myself trying to play it at every opportunity, which is very rare for me these days. I only wish I had more time to enjoy it.

Currently trying to figure out how to beat The Pursuer - he proves to be a much tougher nut to crack than The Last Giant.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Damn, I am hooked on this game. I found myself trying to play it at every opportunity, which is very rare for me these days. I only wish I had more time to enjoy it.

Currently trying to figure out how to beat The Pursuer - he proves to be a much tougher nut to crack than The Last Giant.

Yeah, he's tough early on. You don't actually have to beat him to progress, but you do get some nice stuff.
Try keeping on his shield side and don't heal unless he's doing one of his lengthy combos. If you see his sword glowing gtfo because that will hurt if it hits.
Also, you can parry him and get a few free hits in.

 

[cvv]

Heh I don't think I've ever beaten the first Pursuer in a fair fight, I think I've always crossbowed him, including the first time.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Heh I don't think I've ever beaten the first Pursuer in a fair fight, I think I've always crossbowed him, including the first time.

He's fairly slow and predictable, it's not too difficult to beat him normally. For extra funsies, kill him when the eagle drops him off the first time. I did that in NG+, very satisfying.

Fighting a pair of them is a bit trickier though.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, using the ballistas is also viable, but its a bit hard to do when soloing him.

 

[cvv]

Yeah, using the ballistas is also viable, but its a bit hard to do when soloing him.

It's actually quite easy, I've never needed more than a couple of attempts. You have to stand in front of the trebuchet and then wait for his long combo. Works every time.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Huh, when I tried doing that he either destroys the ballista or immediately recovers and rushes me. I guess it depends on luck.

 

[Hyperion]

Bait out his dash attack, parry it, then fire the ballista. Parry window begins right as his sword lifts off the ground.

 

[Walden]

Huh, when I tried doing that he either destroys the ballista or immediately recovers and rushes me. I guess it depends on luck.

Try to parry him with the buckler and then shoot with the balista. Took me 20 seconds.
Btw I started for first time the game the other day, and I find rather annoying the 50% hp reduction when hollow. I managed to handle the drangleic sword, but the moveset is.. weird.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I'll have to try that in another playthrough. I'm already way past the Pursuer.
I can finish my current run any time I want, I just want to do the DLC first.
Speaking of DLC, is it me, or is the Ivory King DLC the weakest level design wise? I liked Shulva, I liked Brume Tower, but Eleum Loyce feels like a sprawling, barely visible mess to me.

 

[Blaine]

I've finally gotten around to playing this, many years after playing Dark Souls and years after purchasing Dark Souls II on Steam. Performance issues, control issues, and bugs (2x durability loss, etc.) caused me to Alt-F4 DS2 in disgust a couple of years ago, but SotFS seems to have solved the performance issues and most of the bugs are gone. It's still wickedly difficult to perform guard breaks with an Xbone controller, but possible to nearly always succeed if your timing is near-perfect. I'm still looking for a better solution. I might use AHK and bind the command to spacebar on the keyboard, then reach over and tap it when needed.

I started as a Sorcerer and made it a ways past The Last Giant with only three deaths, none of which were from being reckless, incautious, or falling for the innumerable ambushes or jump scares. Soon after the Giant I got destroyed by Dennis (with 0 spell uses remaining, thank you Dark Souls), and my deaths-per-hour ratio has significantly increased since then, but it's still not bad. Usually they happen when I'm experimenting riskily, and once I got invaded and got rekt hard. I'm past Old Dragonrider now and I'm up to ten deaths, so I finally used an Effigy just recently.

What I'm noticing about Sorcerer is that magic is sort of an "I win" button because it's lock-on ranged, but also fairly weak (at least early on) if I'm traveling through any quantity of hardy enemies, since I have to blast each one a lot of times. Fat Ninja Turtles require about five shots from the basic Soul Spear, for example, while Big Fat Brown Knights With Final Fantasy Weapons require 8-10 unshielded. Great Soul Arrow does more damage, and I've pumped INT, yet it has half the uses for under 50% more offensive power. Great for bosses, though.

I squeaked in enough STR and DEX to wield the (upgraded) Fire Longsword and a better shield, and now the game's much easier. Fatties go down like a sack of potatoes to the sword, and so do Shiny White Knights and Fancy Tower Shield-with-a-tree-motif Knights. The only thing that's given me trouble are the fatties with enormous maces, since they have stupendous reach and dash-sperging and for some reason are far harder to circle behind/to the side. The Shiny White Knights are dangerous too, because they're fast. I was killed by one, once.

The fucking Sorcery merchant better show up soon. I have a feeling it will, since the Miracles merchant just did. I can't decide whether to fully hybridize moving forward, or to keep the basic Fire Longsword investment and go full-on Sorcerer with a smattering of survivability/adaptability now and then.

 

[praetor]

Blaine

sorcery was always the "i win" method in Souls (except DS3 where it's garbage) only in DS2 (particularly with all DLCs/SotFS) it also has loads of options and is pretty fun

yes, the starter sorcery merchant is pretty soon (just proceed on the Old Dragonslayer/Dragonrider path)

what do you mean by "hybridize"? you mean spellswording, i.e. int + dex or str? don't. if you want to "hybridize" sorcery in DS2 go for int/fth as it gives you access to all 4 schools of magic and makes your elemental defenses really strong

 

[cvv]

II can't decide whether to fully hybridize moving forward, or to keep the basic Fire Longsword investment and go full-on Sorcerer with a smattering of survivability/adaptability now and then.

All caster-type builds are definitely more efficient and fun to play with some melee weapon alternating with your staff. Playing purely pew-pew style is more like a challenge run.

Forget the Fire Longsword, long-term you want someting with INT scaling. You can use the Moonlight Greatsword or basically any weapon infused with a fainstone. I think a mace scales well after the infusion, or an estoc. You can even throw a bow in the mix, when something is too far for a spell.

 

[Blaine]

praetor Well, I imagine I'll eventually have enough (and strong enough) spells to make do with just spells, at which point I might use a Soul Vessel and spec out of melee entirely. Then again, having a good shield is a good idea on any build, and Flame Longsword is just a few points of DEX more than a good shield.

The game loves to cram you into tiny cliffs or rooms with big-ass whomper knights and such as usual, and melee is (for the moment) generally much faster and noticeably safer to use in close quarters, and makes dinky spell uses go a whole lot further between bonfires. In fact now that I'm working my way through Wharf, I've been using only it. When the game allows me to have some space though, spells are good. I know full well that powerful spells and high INT later on will allow for true cheesemancer mode, though.

II can't decide whether to fully hybridize moving forward, or to keep the basic Fire Longsword investment and go full-on Sorcerer with a smattering of survivability/adaptability now and then.

All caster-type builds are definitely more efficient and fun to play with some melee weapon alternating with your staff. Playing purely pew-pew style is more like a challenge run.

Forget the Fire Longsword, long-term you want someting with INT scaling. You can use the Moonlight Greatsword or basically any weapon infused with a fainstone. I think a mace scales well after the infusion, or an estoc. You can even throw a bow in the mix, when something is too far for a spell.

The Fire Longsword does get indirect fire scaling from INT, which is nice.

Also, it's possible to "snipe" with spells using the binoculars, as I accidentally discovered by pressing RB while looking through them. They do dissipate after a certain distance, though. Another thing I discovered while practicing melee at the first Forest bonfire was that enemies eventually despawn permanently, sans Ascetics I suppose.

I really wish that trap room with the portcullis near the second Forest bonfire could be re-entered so that I could conveniently practice fighting five trash mobs all at once. Amazingly I survived that encounter the first time through.

 

[Hyperion]

Forget the Fire Longsword, long-term you want someting with INT scaling. You can use the Moonlight Greatsword or basically any weapon infused with a fainstone. I think a mace scales well after the infusion, or an estoc. You can even throw a bow in the mix, when something is too far for a spell.

Fire Bonus, like Dark Bonus, is based on the lower number between your Intelligence and Faith. There's really not much of a reason to not level both as a caster in this, since Hexes are extraordinarily powerful.

Blaine
Don't forget you can have multiple copies of the same spell equipped to double your casts so long as you've the attunement slots for it.

If you go Dexhexer I'll never look at you the same again D:

 

[cvv]

Fire Bonus, like Dark Bonus, is based on the lower number between your Intelligence and Faith. There's really not much of a reason to not level both as a caster in this, since Hexes are extraordinarily powerful.

I know, my advice was aimed at sorcery since that's what he said he wants to be. And there definitelly IS a reason not to level both INT and FTH for dark - an extra stat to level. Just like with a quality build I usually spec into a hexer only on NG+ and further, with enough levels in the bag to make the carnage go smoother.

The Fire Longsword does get indirect fire scaling from INT, which is nice.

As Hyperion already mentioned fire doesn't scale from INT but from the lower number between INT and FTH (if you have INT 30/FTH 8 your fire will scale only from FTH 8).

Anyway, you obviously CAN play and finish the game with just a Fire Longsword. Even unupgraded. It's possible to punch through the game just with your bare fists. In Souls games the question is never "what is viable", since everything is, but rather "what is most efficient".

 

[Mozg]

Fire Bonus, like Dark Bonus, is based on the lower number between your Intelligence and Faith. There's really not much of a reason to not level both as a caster in this, since Hexes are extraordinarily powerful.

Fire actually scales with the _sum_ of your int and faith, soft capped at 60. Therefore pyromancies and fire infusions work pretty well for both int and wis builds.

Obviously great weapons for casters (just get the minimum stats to wield and infuse with whatever): Longswords, battle or bandit axe, uchigatana, rapier or estoc.

Since DS2 doubles your strength for minimum stats to wield while two-handing, lots of greatclubs, greataxes, and UGS can be infused to hit stupidly hard with cheap stats. Most have pretty limited two-handed movesets, though.

That's relatively normal game shit, you can do things like get a black dragon weapon from the end of the game but no one would bother in a normal playthrough.

You also don't need to worry about matching your infusion and buffs. You can get flame weapon and buff a lightning bandit axe and it works perfectly well; there's no synergy bonus for buffing a dark infused weapon with dark or whatever, the Dark Souls wikis and so on that say that shit are wrong. And because DS2 doesn't use a DT system on elemental damage like DS1 and DS3, split damage weapons aren't trash, even split 3 or 4 ways.

The damage from weapons buffs also doesn't scale with your casting strength (it only scales with the total base attack power of the weapon without stat scaling, meaning buffs work really well on abnormally high base damage weapons like an infused malformed skull or lost sinner sword) although I think the duration does scale.

 

[Blaine]

Fire Bonus, like Dark Bonus, is based on the lower number between your Intelligence and Faith. There's really not much of a reason to not level both as a caster in this, since Hexes are extraordinarily powerful.

Ah, okay. Cool, I guess. I've been considering a Sorcerer/Cleric/Pyro type of deal also, although the burden of leveling two stats AND ATN to get some decent slots is a pretty hefty tradeoff for versatility. Edit: Thanks for the clarification, Mozg. Now that you mention that I vaguely recall reading it at some point.

Don't forget you can have multiple copies of the same spell equipped to double your casts so long as you've the attunement slots for it.

Oh, I know. If I couldn't, I would have restarted as melee or something by now, because God damn. I know you can hit shit with the staff and I often did, but spells deplete its durability also. I've heard rumors however that the Wharf has by far the beefiest run between bonfires (at least I hope there's a bonfire somewhere at the end of this shit), and I'm doing okay. Down to 23 casts and half durability on the Broadsword and I think I've cleared most of it, including the spindly black creepazoid shack.

Anyway, you obviously CAN play and finish the game with just a Fire Longsword. Even unupgraded. It's possible to punch through the game just with your bare fists. In Souls games the question is never "what is viable", since everything is, but rather "what is most efficient".

Oh, I know it's possible, but fuck that. The thing I like to do is find the best-designed challenging boss fight in a game and practice it until I can finish it without being hit for prestige points. Unfortunately that's tough to do without a large stack of Ascetics, each of which makes it take longer to kill the damn thing.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Don't forget you can have multiple copies of the same spell equipped to double your casts so long as you've the attunement slots for it.

Oh, I know. If I couldn't, I would have restarted as melee or something by now, because God damn. I know you can hit shit with the staff and I often did, but spells deplete its durability also. I've heard rumors however that the Wharf has by far the beefiest run between bonfires (at least I hope there's a bonfire somewhere at the end of this shit), and I'm doing okay. Down to 23 casts and half durability on the Broadsword and I think I've cleared most of it, including the spindly black creepazoid shack.

There is not. One bonfire, and that's it.
Its not...the worst bonfire run in the game.
Sentry isn't too hard anyway, so you should be fine.