Dark Souls 2 Console Thread: Now on PS4/Xbox One

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Dark Souls 2 Console Thread: Now on PS4/Xbox One

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

IGgy IGsen posted:

You can get all the items you need for Navlaan without killing anybody. Which incidentally is why Navlaan's Quest sucks. No one is really forcing you to decide whether it's worth it to kill the NPCs. Hell, it's particularly jarring in Gilligans case because the item you need to bring to Navlaan is one you can buy from him.

The only real reason to kill anyone in that questline is killing Cale because otherwise you need to wait until after you kill Nashandra. Otherwise you have a) an item you can buy starting much earlier than that (and at a discount if you do it at Earthen Peak), b) an item you get from a mimic right before Navlaan, and c) an item you're given in the very next area.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 18:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:37

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Polo-Rican posted:

Thinking about it some more, a big part of the problem is just how poison works now. It's so much more dangerous, but there's zero sound effect or visual indication. I'd say a good 50% of my deaths have been waiting too long to drink estus while poisoned because I'm distracted by an enemy.

There's a meter in the middle of the screen that builds up, changes color once poisoned, and counts down until the effect is gone. There's a red "Poisoned!" popup. I'm pretty sure there's also a slight green miasma around you while poisoned. That's a lot of visual indications.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 20:52

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Polo-Rican posted:

At the end, when you sit on the throne, your character has been hollowed (Nashandra's curses seem unavoidable, so you basically cannot complete the game as a human),

I don't think I've ever beaten the game not as a human. Ranged attacks make Nashandra a joke, and you can always just pop an effigy during the fight or afterwards before you approach the throne.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 20:10

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Lets! Get! Weird! posted:

Yeah but some of us played this game like men.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Summoned together
Headgear filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We put on the Ring of Whispers
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over acid-broken gear
In our grave of saints

Shape without dragon form, shade without purple colour,
Paralysed by spammed Force, gesture with Mock;

Those who have crossed
With whitened eyes, to the Kingdom of Drangleic
Remember us�if at all� as lost
Violent souls, and only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a Praise the Sun! but a Prostration.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 22:40

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

MarshyMcFly posted:

Cool, I'll keep that in mind. Another thing, I just found out that the dark mask gives a bonus effect that gives the user 1 faith and 1 intelligence. Is there any armor that gives more faith? If so how would you know?

Saint's Hood gives one faith. To check, go into the selection screen for the armor slot you want to check, switch view to show your stats, and choose the armor piece.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2014 22:18

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

CJacobs posted:

Ideally you will have basically 0 souls on your person at all times because there is never any reason to keep them aside from being too lazy to go back to Majula.

You don't want to run around with tens of thousands for very long, but it's not a bad idea to keep some around to be able to repair your Rings of Life Protection once or twice. Souls come a lot easier than human effigies, and sometimes you have no idea what the right area to drop a small white soapstone sign in is.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 17:14

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

The Zombie Guy posted:

Is anybody else hoping that the special secret in the Majula chest will be a non-cracked Red Eye Orb?

A guy can dream, can't he?

If there's going to be an uncracked Red Eye Orb, it's not going to be put right at the beginning of the game where everyone can start invading everyone else immediately and completely destroy what From was trying to do with Soul Memory.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 07:25

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Genocyber posted:

Except that wouldn't affect SM at all? The scarcity of orbs in ng and SM are entirely different methods of addressing balance in low level invasions. That you can invade a lot early on doesn't change the fact that playing the game (to get gear) and invading will push you into further SM tiers.

It's not a matter of balance, it's whether invasions happen at all. Part of the point of SM is that it's incredibly rare to get invaded in the early game, because cracked orbs are rare early on and people can't come back later to invade new characters. Put in an early uncracked orb and players will flood FoFG with invasions. If you get bumped out of SM range, you can roll a new character and be back invading in ~10 minutes. It won't quite be Parish 2.0 since invaders won't have access to the sort of gear that could be brought to bear previously, but the sheer volume of invasions would likely cause the same sort of complaints. There's always burning effigies, but most players will only have a couple at that point and doing so would kill off the fairly robust co-op scene the Forest has.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 08:10

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Static Rook posted:

I only have it on PS3, but I think the Mammoth Halberd just has way less durability than others. I think it's only 70. That, plus my awesome strategy of "spaz out until everything is dead"is where my repair issues came from I'd bet.

The Mammoth Halberd does indeed have 70 durability, but 70 is the top end for non-Santier's halberds and is higher than most weapons of any sort.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 17:27

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

sector_corrector posted:

Where do people tend to summon for Freya? I really hate the run to the boss door since it saps so many resources. I can usually do the run myself only burning both of my Med. Heals and not touching estus, but taking a phantom there and making sure it doesn't die tends to take at least a few Lightning Spears and some estus. Helping people from the first bonfire also tends to mean fighting the pick-axe phantom, which is a pain in the rear end.

When I see signs along that run, it's usually right near the boss door.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 18:37

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

The Zombie Guy posted:

I think it would have been great to have access to non-cracked Red orbs in the early game.

If people tried to invade right off the bat, you would have a much higher chance of having a Blue Cop come to the rescue. It would really give the two Blue Covenants a real membership boost if there was the constant thread of red invaders all through the game.

A bunch of invasions in the early game is what the entire Soul Memory/Cracked Orb system is supposed to prevent. Your design goals are diametrically opposed to the ones From chose.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2014 19:59

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

The Zombie Guy posted:

I'm doing a Pate cosplay run, and I need some Twinkling Titianite ASAP to upgrade my spear. I grabbed one from the chest McDuff sits on. Is there any other early game spots I can grab a few, without relying on getting a lucky drop from crystal lizards?

Crystal lizard drops are fixed in DS2, unless by lucky you mean "actually hit them instead of swinging weapon uselessly over them or watching them run off into a pit."

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 18:46

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

actionjackson posted:

I think after 80 deaths I should take a break

What NG cycle are you on? And are you summoning Transcendent Edde?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 01:03

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

HnK416 posted:

Fuckin' clowns, man

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Dark Souls II: Down With the Clown

# ¿ Jul 30, 2014 21:29

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Deckit posted:

I only summoned the one fist lady. She'd keep the bosses attention while I dealt with the big summon. Continue with the boss, got skeletons. Killed all but one and continued with the boss.

Summoning an additional NPC, even another player, isn't that helpful I feel. Just adds more HP to go through.

Steelheart Ellie seems like a bad summon who does little damage. Benhart is much better for that fight.

I can generally beat the ganksquad just fine on my own, but trying to bring anyone else just creates a huge headache, both with trying to get them to the fight and with the fight itself. Elana is a tossup; sometimes a summon will be a huge help, and sometimes they'll mess up and get blown out by one of her flame swathes and you're screwed. Sinh benefits a lot from a good summon who will take the pressure off when it's time for happy hour.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 04:16

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

The MLGS is an effective weapon in the DLC for int-focused characters, even up through NG++ (which is the highest I've done it on). Sorcery builds can also kill the ghost-form sanctum knights prior to finding their tombs.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 16:10

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

The Witchtree Branch is a good general-purpose staff that doesn't rely on random drops from scarce enemies.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 00:28

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

THE PENETRATOR posted:

What are:
1) good item builds for spooky skeleton invasions

It doesn't get much bonier than the Bone Scythe.

You could also try and use Whisper of Despair; your opponents might panic because they've forgotten it even exists and they won't know what the big skull coming towards them is.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2014 16:07

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

My character with 20 Str, 25 Dex, & 45 Fth and a +10 Lightning Heide Spear was doing much more damage to everything in the OIK DLC than my character with 40 Str, 40 Dex, and a +5 Warped Sword, which ordinarily hits like a truck, and about the same as my character with 40/40 and a +10 Red Iron Twinblade.

I don't know that the enemies have notably higher defenses, but they do all have tons of HP and a bunch of them have huge poise.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 17:43

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

actionjackson posted:

The blue smelter thing is kind of annoying, mainly running to it. It's easier to do the fire gates as you can avoid those fuckers that slow you. Is his attack when he's sword becomes blue considered fire damage?

I'm reasonably sure it's magic damage; a Magic Watchdragon Parma can nearly completely negate the damage from a swing. I never made it through the first gate, but just running and rolling seems fine for the main route if you're not weighed down enough that the slow spell puts you over 100% burden.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2014 20:25

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Sharzak posted:

I upgraded thr dragon great sword all the way and it seems to be performing subpar.

Black Dragon Greatsword or Curved Dragon Greatsword?

quote:

Also when should I stop putting points into strength?

There are three points you could stop: enough to wield the weapon, enough to power stance your weapons, or 40 if you're planning on using weapons with good strength scaling.

quote:

Also what's the infusion strategy on strength stuff?

Don't infuse weapons with good scaling. Do infuse weapons with little or no scaling. Don't infuse weapons with innate elemental damage with a different element.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 08:06

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

HnK416 posted:

...I stand corrected I guess I don't know as much about historic armour as I thought I did.

Domnhall's helmet was also real.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2014 07:40

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

!Klams posted:

Now I'm banging my head against the second smelter. Once he goes full HAM I just can't get any hits in. Even with a buddy I'm taking tons of collateral damage from his whip thing. Is he magic damage or fire? Is he weak to anything? I'm just clobbering away with the kings ultra greatsword, is there a smarter way?

He's magic damage. He's probably weak against strike damage, at least relative to other damage types, and magic damage is probably a bad idea. The best things you can do against him that I know of are to have good agility (100 or 105), git gud at dodging at the last second because his timing is different than the fire version (and might be variable) and trying to dodge too early is a good way to get yourself killed, and bring along a Watchdragon Parma for its high phys and magic block.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2014 18:27

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

actionjackson posted:

40 dex
50 faith

Bow of Want.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2014 02:34

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Judge Clayjar posted:

can someone with sm 2 mil help me kill sinh on xbox? this boss is really hard.

Have you tried summoning Transcendent Edde (and not Abbess Feeva, she's not very useful)?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 03:46

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Judge Clayjar posted:

he sucks really bad at living and cuts my damage down a lot without compensating

That's strange, he always tanks like a champ for me.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 04:56

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Harrow posted:

If you want to see laziness, look at Lost Izalith and to a lesser extend the Tomb of the Giants.

From what I recall, LI wasn't laziness so much as "we are out of time and need to ship RIGHT NOW." Some people don't like TotG, but I think that's more a matter of taste than laziness on the part of the developer.

quote:

Dark Souls has reskinned main bosses and nobody complained.

This is flat out untrue, plenty of people complain about the Butt Trio.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2014 20:50

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

aegof posted:

Smelter cemented himself early on in my mind as "the co-op boss." The walkway outside his door was basically paved with white and gold for a while at release.

Back when you had a useful number of lightning casts, Smelter fights were mostly comprised of 3 people circling the edge of the room while recreating the "Gwyn's army vs. the dragons" sequence of the DS1 opening.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2014 01:13

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Sharzak posted:

Alright I have the dragon stone but the elevator down the stairs from the first bonfire isn't up at the top. Where do I go to turn it on?

The glowing pillar switch that turns on the elevators between the base and the first bonfire is down at the bottom if you haven't activated it yet. If you have, there should be a switch on the ground that calls the elevator.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 00:43

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Akuma posted:

You could also ascetic the Black Gulch bonfire for an easy giant's soul.

Doesn't work anymore, as far as I can tell. I asceticed the first bonfire a couple days ago, went down and killed the giants again, but no soul dropped.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 23:33

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

I've read that resins add 50 + 30% elemental AR, but haven't seen real confirmation of it.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 17:29

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Basebf555 posted:

Its "existing lighting/fire damage", so I think that means if you put pine resin on a lightning sword you get a 30% bonus. Doesn't help me for this character because I'm not using elemental weapons.

The percentage is applied after the 50, afaik, so you get 66.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 18:54

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

turtlecrunch posted:

Is there a specific part you are having trouble with? Generally if you are having trouble with a slow weapon, try a faster one, but iirc the IK mobs don't have the crazy poise the SK ones do.

Ashen Warriors don't have much poise, but Possessed Armors have a ton.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 16:45

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

MZ posted:

What's a good DPS weapon?

Thrusting swords have really good DPS. If you don't want to go all the way into dex, the Black Scorpion Stinger only needs 18 dex, doesn't scale, and puts out some very respectable numbers in addition to poisoning. Its downside is low range and durability, but if you're looking for something to jam into boss' ankles just pull it out for boss fights. Go with a Raw infusion to boost both damage and poison with no downside. And then there's the Ice Rapier, which is long, powerful, and benefits enormously from infusion (especially magic, which puts the projectile on par with soul spears).

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 20:45

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Darth Walrus posted:

Basically, don't use lockstones in the rat burrows unless you're a covenant member. Almost all of them are designed to inflict pain, and the ones that aren't offer nice but missable rewards. If you are a member, though, the traps are easy to navigate, and any invaders you kill drop more lockstones so you can ruin people's days even harder.

Doors of Pharos has two that are worth opening. One has a Faintstone and Twinkling Titanite, the other has a useful weapon.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 23:55

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

paco650 posted:

Sorcery clutch, NRB +2, Flynn's and a floater, usually either 3rd Dragon, CGS +2 or a Life Protection depending on how brave/greedy I'm feeling.

This is the first I've heard of someone actually using the Northern Ritual Band.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2015 07:49

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Kimmalah posted:

From what I can find you've probably had a hex cast on you called Promised Walk of Peace. Kill the Astrologist guys that cast it.

Alternately, don't bother fighting anything in Iron Passage, just book it for the fog door and roll through any attacks that come your way because i-frames aren't affected.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2015 18:20

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

FiestaDePantalones posted:

Is there a boss weapon that really shines on a quality build? If not I'm about to get my levelling on.

Fume Knight Ultra Greatsword requires 40/30 and Curved Dragon Greatsword requires 30 str and has S scaling in Dex, so you need a somewhat quality build to run them.

# ¿ May 25, 2015 08:44

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

dat one portagee posted:

The Estoc is also really good, it has all the poking power of the rapiers with a nice R2 slash attack (one-handed) that comes out really quick that's great for catching people who are avoiding the thrust attacks.

The downside to the estoc is that its counter damage is mediocre, so you won't get the same damage output that the dex rapiers (other than Spider's Silk) have.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2015 17:48

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:37

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Bass Bottles posted:

So now it's a "Magic Battle Axe +2" and it's WEAKER than it used to be! I do not understand how magic works in this game, I pretty much pump all my skill points into Strength, Stamina, and Health because those are the most obvious. I've tried googling how this stuff works and all of the hardcore RPG talk is overwhelming. I literally can't figure any of it out even with walkthroughs and FAQs.

Is there anything I can do to make the axe stronger again? Can it actually do magic? Because it says it has magic dmg now but it's definitely weaker than it used to be.

If you're not doing an Int build, take your axe to Andre and revert it to +5, then ascend it to +6 (presuming you found the Large Ember in the Depths) and start upgrading it with large titanite shards until you hit +10.

The Magic Axe is weaker for you for two reasons. First, because it splits its damage between two types, physical and magic, and because of the way defenses work having to deal with two sets of resistances has a more drastic effect than trying to get through one even though the total AR is higher. Second, because you're not putting points into Int you aren't getting good scaling out of its magic damage and its strength scaling was greatly reduced along with the base physical damage.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2015 17:29

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Dark Souls 2 Console Thread: Now on PS4/Xbox One

«‹›2 »