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Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

ErIog posted:

Okay, I'm getting pretty pissed off. Where the gently caress is the loving first bonfire in the area directly down the stairs and elevator from the starting bonfire where you need to use a consumable to be able to even damage anything. I've even unlocked a drat shortcut in this zone already without being able to find a bonfire. At this point I just wish this game had levels like Demon's Souls did because I'm getting pretty tired of going on my 8th hour of not really knowing if I'm going in the right direction.

Yo you're talking about the area right after the tutorial area, that grassy place right? And the stupid skeletons that dont even drop souls in the graveyard? You're going the wrong way. Theres another staircase to the right somewhere that leads to enemies you can actually kill. I died there like a million times before I figured it must just be the wrong way. It feels like you can get through with good fighting and you kind of can but it gets even harder so you should probably go the easy way.

Also after the 2nd bonfire I seem to have hit my first real path choice. Too bad I can't beat club guy, big demon bridge dude, or black knight guy. which one did all you other guys with the J version fight? Or am I missing an easy path again?

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Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

I just got a little OCD with my morning coffee, heres my patch observations on scaling and stuff.

1. You regained has been changed to 'Retrieval' but I kind of liked You Regained

2. I tested a bunch of weapons. This is after patch only.

My character has 32 Str 22 Dex 12 Faith, so we'd hopefully see some good benefits from that much strength, at least.

Dagger Holy +5 does 76 +11 and 92 +6, plus the mysterious 110 holy that seems to add no damage.
The total on paper should be around 185 without the holy, or 295 with. Scaling is E D C Str Dex Faith.
Actual damage:

vs Burg soldier = 57
vs Tree, level 1 = 36
vs basic Snake guy = 25 (kind of low..)

Longsword +5 is 120 + 71, scaling C C, 191 total and in one damage type.

vs Burg soldier =106 (strange that this is double the dagger, almost.)
vs Tree = 84
vs Snake = 31 (snakes must be slash resistant? this seemed really low.)

Large Club +10 does 240 + 182 now for a total of 422, one damage type, scaling A to strength only.

vs Burg = 316
vs Tree = 295
vs Snake = 196

For comparison here's the damage of a +4 lightning spear. I dont remember what the stats add up to but it didnt change and it was around 200-220 + 200-220 for around ~450

vs Burg = 373 (must be weak to lightning)
vs Tree = 231
vs Snake = 146

I tried to compare 3 different types so the results wouldn't be muddied too much by resistances. The break even point for strength beating elemental weapons after the patch seems to be somewhere below 32 strength, and that's only on a +10 club, not a +15 one. Granted, also only a +4 spear. I imagine damage might be pretty significantly better now for stronger characters. I cant really test Dex but it's probably still hurt by it's weapons not having a very high base damage- the club seems to do well because of it's 240 base. Holy weapons still seem really off- the dagger should have been doing more considering it's 185 only a little less than the longsword with one damage type and about 1/3 of the lightning spear with 2 types, yet it does about 1/6 of the damage. Does everything resist magic or does magic damage still blow?

I tried to do some PVP too but no one is online right now in Japan. I'll try to test the fog ring later.

Spiking fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Nov 2, 2011

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Oh yeah also the patch appears to make drops much more common. While I was testing with no drop ring, something dropped from a burg soldier almost every time I killed 3, which seems like more than before. No crazy humanity either.

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

I pretty much can't disagree with a single thing in this patch. What a good developer.

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Space Hamlet posted:

So if this data is correct, weapon stat scaling is still pretty much worthless in 1.04. Upgrading a weapon to +15 gives it approximately a 15% buff to the scaling bonus, where it really needs to be more like 100% to tie with elemental. Plus which, most boss weapons continue not to upgrade their bonuses.

Welp!

Edit: Assuming I'm reading it correctly. What does the number under the letter grade actually mean?

Heres a repost of my effortpost from a million pages back on this.
I tested a bunch of weapons. This is after patch only.

My character has 32 Str 22 Dex 12 Faith, so we'd hopefully see some good benefits from that much strength, at least.

Dagger Holy +5 does 76 +11 and 92 +6, plus the mysterious 110 holy that seems to add no damage.
The total on paper should be around 185 without the holy, or 295 with. Scaling is E D C Str Dex Faith.
Actual damage:

vs Burg soldier = 57
vs Tree, level 1 = 36
vs basic Snake guy = 25 (kind of low..)

Longsword +5 is 120 + 71, scaling C C, 191 total and in one damage type.

vs Burg soldier =106 (strange that this is double the dagger, almost.)
vs Tree = 84
vs Snake = 31 (snakes must be slash resistant? this seemed really low.)

Large Club +10 does 240 + 182 now for a total of 422, one damage type, scaling A to strength only.

vs Burg = 316
vs Tree = 295
vs Snake = 196

For comparison here's the damage of a +4 lightning spear. I dont remember what the stats add up to but it didnt change and it was around 200-220 + 200-220 for around ~450

vs Burg = 373 (must be weak to lightning)
vs Tree = 231
vs Snake = 146

I tried to compare 3 different types so the results wouldn't be muddied too much by resistances. The break even point for strength beating elemental weapons after the patch seems to be somewhere below 32 strength, and that's only on a +10 club, not a +15 one. Granted, also only a +4 spear. I imagine damage might be pretty significantly better now for stronger characters. I cant really test Dex but it's probably still hurt by it's weapons not having a very high base damage- the club seems to do well because of it's 240 base. Holy weapons still seem really off- the dagger should have been doing more considering it's 185 only a little less than the longsword with one damage type and about 1/3 of the lightning spear with 2 types, yet it does about 1/6 of the damage. Does everything resist magic or does magic damage still blow?

Basically I don't know about Dex but Str is looking pretty good, I'm at +12 now and the club is ~270 + ~220 at 36 str- the numbers don't compare great to a lightning zwee but I wish I could test the damage on enemies (I don't have one) because the lightning spear had higher numbers on paper but did significantly less damage except to the Burg night. I also want to test out the Demon Great Axe which has better scaling, and also the Dragon Tooth/ Smaug's hammer, which have much better base damage but not very good scaling. I can say that the dragon tooth has better range for PvP than the zwei, with a sweeping side-swing thing that has crazy range.

Edit: If that wiki is right +4 spear has slighly Less damage on paper at 416, not more. Oops! So maybe not so impressive.

Spiking fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Nov 4, 2011

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Adrian Owlsley posted:

It would be more valuable to compare a +15 spear with a +5 lightning spear or some other weapons that are equivalent. The large club has a slower moveset than the spear and there are all kinds of other variables.

I'd really like to compare it with another large club but I can't seem to get one to drop! Just poo poo from the poo poo ogres. When I do I'm gonna make a lightning/fire one and compare. Its not really helpful to compare two spears because their scaling isnt good enough. Even after patch I wouldn't bother trying to +15 a weapon without A/S scaling.

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Since I have the patch and the multiplayer is truly pretty broken until they give us another patch here in Japan maybe I'm gonna test out a character using a Dex scaling weapon. I have a feeling it's not going to be as impressive as the Str weapons though, simply because of the low base damage. I'm wondering what weapon a Dex build should aim for. For high damage The best options are Scythe, Uchigatana, and Iaito, But the Bandit's knife has about 265 to the Uchi 416 and probably would proc a bleed effect much faster...

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Everyone talks about how easy Nito is but he killed me a couple of times post patch- maybe he gets a buff? Did his room always have giant skeletons, because when I tried to keep away from his AoE a giant skeleton anally raped me. Also his AoE did pretty drat good damage even shielded from a stone giant shield, and so did his sword through the ground move. His slashes were underwhelming but he usually seemed to want to do the AoE, and I felt I couldn't really run from it because there were at least 3 giant skellies lurking. His big weakness I think was just that he didn't have enough HP- I got him in like 12~ smacks on my strength build, but he still made me use all 5 of my estus. I think if he had like, double health, he would be a really hard and interesting fight- not too threatening on his own, but chips away at you unless you clear the room.

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

For people rocking the strength build I've been doing what gimped PvP is possible in 1.04 and I've found the most success without a shield and 2-handing/using an off hand weapon that's light. Without having a heavy rear end shield I can get my poise up to 76~ so that I can eat heavy hits, and also be able to use the flip ring and havels ring and keep under 50 so I'm mobile. For PvE there are choices but for PvP I can't see using anything except the black knight axe/and or large club, which is great for it's strong attack that lunges forward and hits in about a 180 degree half circle. When I don't have a shield I find people more likely to swing like crazy and they become good targets for the large club lunge.

Also mobility is the best when you have strength weapons because a backstab or a parry is probably a one hit ko!

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Just want to mention since I don't think anyone has, patch 1.05 has turned this game from empty ghost town to internet heaven. I invade within 2 minutes anytime I try and I've been getting a surprising number of white phantom summons in the demon ruins of all places to fight that pathetically easy firesage demon.

If you invade someone in the demon ruins and they've just entered, kick them off the thin cliff! Kick is the ultimate pvp move.

Too bad none of you will play patch 1.05 because of microsoft or whatever. Personally I blame bed of chaos, that lovely boss is probably delaying the patch.

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

What weapons has everyone seen usable in PvP? There seems to be a surprisingly good variety that are viable.

Shotel for ignoring sheilds.
Bandits dagger for bleed/backstab, although this seems to get beaten by heavy weapons.
Black Knight Greataxe can break any guard if you keep swinging, and tends to tag people trying to run around for a stab.

All of the 'behind a shield' attacking weapons seem viable, if you have the Great shield of the doggy.

Zweihander of course. But usually seems to lose to Black knight axe.
Large Club sadly ONLY R2 or backstab or parry. Not really as good as BKG but I've killed people with it.

The moonlight sword of course.
The dragon? great hammer, or whatever hammer has the special R2 AoE, if you combine with poise, the R2 AoE does a LOT of damage

Iron golem axe for ranged knockdown and OK damage. Decent attack set also but damage is low.

The ultra big stuff is useless, just because of terrible movesets that only have straight line slams. Its fine for PvE but you cant use any of them for PvP.
All of the medium/small weapons seem OK but I don't see why you wouldn't just use the fastest you can get since those weapons all fall into the category of playing hit and run Vs someone who has one of the Big and Good weapons, so probably the bandit's dagger or the dagger that can attack from behind a shield are the best.

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Elysiume posted:

Painting guardian swords are one of the few (5?) weapons that scale A or better with dexterity. The problem is that it is bad, Priscilla's dagger isn't great, and the bows just aren't all that good for combat. I might be forgetting a weapon.

How exactly is scaling getting changed? I know it's getting buffed, but how so? Are they improving how much an average B scales by, or bumping some weapons to higher tiers? I do know that it still leaves them worse than elemental until really high levels, though.


Don't just look at the raw numbers. I'm in 1.05, I have only 46 Str, but my Str scaling Black Knight Great Axe will always do more damage than max lightning anything at this point in PvP, usually by about 100~? Because it only does one damage type so It's only checked against one defense. This isn't from any testing but just lots of PvP last night. I usually hit for about 300 and people usually hit me for about 200 if they had a big weapon, or much much less if they had a thin pokey elemental weapon. If people are in light flippy armor I usually hit them for more like 400, and a full BKG 5 swing combo will kill almost anyone. Also, big strength weapons do much more poise damage and gaurdbreak.

Dexterity, I still haven't tried... just seems like it would fare worse since the base damage of the weapons is so much lower. S scaling has gotten buffed quite a bit, though, so maybe the bow with S scaling could be good?

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Elysiume posted:

I love helping people, but it limits builds. Velka's Rapier looks amazing, but it scales C/B dex/int, which means I'd need to pump those to make it worthwhile. I get a ton of summons at Capra, but pretty much poo poo-all at O&S. Doesn't matter if I'm 31, 50, or 55.
I know that a single damage type is better; I was underwhelmed by the Moonlight Greatsword at first, but it's actually really awesome. It's partially what you said, that dexterity weapons have pretty low base damage to begin with. I've never tried a dex-pumpy build to a significantly high level, partially because of what I said above (can't easily assist past a certain point), and partially because I was so unimpressed by how things were going.

The two benefits of dex weapons is that they're faster, which means quicker recoveries, and they don't weigh 16 lbs.

I think I'm gonna try a sorcery/dex build, to use the fast cast times from Dex. I also wanna try checking Res: if you pump this stat at low levels, you get big increases, do these stack on top of later leveling increases, so that a character who put say 20 points in to Res at first would end up with significantly more defense at level 50~? Of course they would have a lot more defense at level 25, but I'm wondering about 50-100; maybe someone with dragon head glitch could test this?

Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

Mad Pills posted:

Do you know anything about that forest grinding trick? The one with the suicidal forest guardians.


You can still do it, but honestly if you really want souls just use online, it's the easiest and also not a boring grind. Assisting with queelag/gaping should be faster now that online is fixed for you guys too.

Oh yeah also I dont know if anyone mentioned this, I did once, but after the patch grinding for any item is massively easier. Clearing the depths with 410 discovery should get you about 3~ humanity and 1-2 dark eyes. Finally gravelording is possible!

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Spiking
Dec 14, 2003

I've been doing a lot of PvP against good people lately so I thought I'd write down my thoughts-

About 5~ weapons seem the best at PvP; washing pole(shorter katanas too but the range is really worth it), BKG, Moonlight sword, Demon spear, and any of the short knives with crit bonuses, they're all about the same since people who use these only use them for backstabs and parries. Honorable mention to Demon great hammer and Iron golem R2's but these are really hard to hit someone with if they know what the weapons do.

One viable strat that a lot of people roll with is having just enough poise to block a little and still flip, and using a shield, a good crit weapon, and I assume the crit ring. For PvP please note that if you lock on and the other person dosn't they can easily juke behind you and backstab if they are at max run speed. It took me a little while to figure this out but don't lock on to people who are looking for crits. If you don't lock on then as they try to circle behind you you are just as likely to get the backstab on them instead. Don't swing wildly at this kind of player either because if you do a simple combo to try and break gaurd (BKG) they will start mashing parry and probably parry for about 1000 damage or so. I use a high strength setup and I can usually beat this kind of player with a mix of kicks to break gaurd and randomly timed single R1's from the BKG. If you connect with an unblocked kick it should be a free R1 from most fast weapons, but you don't usually have time to react with lag.

I would say PvP seems kind of like rock paper scissors to me. High strength/BKG seems to beat crit users fairly easily, but I usually lose to magic players, since I have the fat roll. I think that flips are essential for fighting magic because otherwise you're going to get blasted after a bad roll or just during recovery frames. On the other hand if you can flip almost all spells are trivial besides wrath of god and firestorm. The best spell to rock is probably 2-3x wrath of god, PvP wise, although Chameleon is good of course, and the soul masses are really frustrating to fight against.

A few people have done OK with the demon spear that I've seen too, but most spears seem to give a guaranteed backstab to your opponent if you're locked on and whiff a stab against a juking backstab guy.

Probably every character wants at least 35~ end, so they can survive one hornet backstab/parry, unless you like getting one hit. These parries do a shitload of damage even when I'm in full +5 stone giant.

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