Micolash, Host of the Repetition

Shoot him in his dumb fucking face the moment he starts telegraphing it. If you time it right, he'll be staggered out of the cast. Then, dodge in and possibly aside if he starts trying to tentacle jab you and stunlock the shit out of him before dodging out again from the definite tentacle jab that'll come from that.

Additionally, while this is not a problem for you right now, never, ever fight him in co-op. Not as a host or a cooperator. You'll get lagged to death by a sudden Ebrietas tentacle or Call Beyond and one shot.

Yeah I figured that out the fourth time I got to the second phase. The problem I had was I got too paranoid and started shooting him whenever he did anything other than a punch; I was shooting to stagger even when he was using Ebrietas instead of waiting to see which tool he was using, which killed me consistently since I was expecting ACB every time. I get the general strategy now; stick to his ass like glue so he only punches and uses Augur.

What I need to do is learn the timing for ACB. I'd been dodging as soon as I see the dots appear, but that only protects me from the initial blast. The residuals catch me every time. I need to experiment to see if I can dodge at him when he does that, because side-stepping seems to be a death knell.

I don't fight bosses co-op. I don't do anything in Souls games co-op unless it's PvP or helping other people.

I'm done trying him for the night though. I'll try again tomorrow.
I'm bummed out. I just wanted to fight the Wet Nurse. Easily my favorite boss in the base game.

I did two playthroughs and never died to him.
I died 15 times to the living failures because of the slowwwwwww windup then FASTSMASH. Threw me off really badly.

Micolash is the best souls boss.
In between all cryptic messages and item description stories you finally have a character who knows what the fuck went down and how to stop it.

But no, all he wants to do is jump around mirrors, howl and laugh at you. I fucking love him.

stop burning up all your stamina, you can stunlock micolash to death with a lighter weapon, and if you really want to ruin his fucking day use beast roar to knock him down and recharge your stamina

I don't have the DLC yet, so I can't empathize. I'm sure I'll share your frustration soon enough, but for now, NG+2 Micolash has given me the most trouble. Daughter of the Cosmos didn't give me as much trouble, and Ammy was a game of patience just like Rom.

I know what my problem is; I need to close the distance and keep the pressure on. I don't have the patience to keep going tonight though.

I still think he's the worst boss of the base game though. You run around in circles waiting for his AI to lead him where he needs to go, which can take anywhere from 15 seconds to 5 minutes, dodge the adds, then try your damndest to not get one-shot. Even during my initial playthrough, it wasn't fun. It's a massive waiting game.

In my opinion, lore is irrelevant if the gameplay isn't fun.
His boss fight is not fun.
If you have the patience to see through that, more power to you.
Then again, I hate just about any Souls boss with adds, and loathe mage bosses. He's both, so I'm not too fond of him.

I can get behind you on that but for Micolash you can just sprint past them, the only ones you really need to take care are the two in the fight room.

I know, the adds aren't the problem. Read up a bit. My problem with him was that he started casting ACB as soon as I dropped in on the second room, giving me little to no time to avoid.

When I did manage to get in on him during that phase, I panicked and shot whenever he casted either Augur or ACB because I expected ACB every time. I know that's my error, but it felt like he used nothing but ACB even when I was in range for Augur of melee. Maybe I just got bad RNG, but it threw me off pretty badly.

My bad, I was in a rush to respond on another thread and forgot. You're right I panicked like shit every time he'd throw Augur at me.
On the gameplay note, he sucks ass. If not for Augur and ACB he only has the punch which is trash but those other two might one shot you and since this was my first souls game I was still a little bitch, so I sucked at dodging. Learned enough to improve myself on DS games though.

Either way, he could have a better gameplay design to complement everything but the spam was really annoying.

yeah i like the character but the boss fight is a disaster. getting one shot by call beyond is not fun and his version of call beyond has way better tracking then your has.

NG+ runs are pretty much the sole reason why I hate mage bosses. Unless your build is specifically designed to tank magic/arcane damage, they'll one-shot you at your first mistake.

Honestly, that's not even why I hate him so much. I loathe Micolash because it's a tedious experience. If I could jump straight to the second phase, I wouldn't mind so much. I hate the fight because I have to wait for his AI to path to the right locations, and then I can get one-shot.
I wish I could see past that trash fight to appreciate the lore, but NG+2 ruins it with OHKO arcane hits. I know I need to get better with dodging, but it's still cheap as shit for him to start casting as soon as you drop down.

Speaking of NG+ I never tried using the Loch Shield, does it work against him?

No idea. I don't have the DLC yet. Judging from the description, the arcane reduction is significant compared to the plank shield.
Looks like it's all about elemental defense. It'd probably help, but personally, I wouldn't feel good about using it. Bloodborne is not a game for shields, so I'd feel like using one is akin to surrender.
I did try the Plank shield out of desperation though. It does literally nothing against him. Same damage as if I just stood there and ate it.

Wait I just realized what you said.
BB was your first Souls game? Hell of a way to start out, man. You jumped in the deep end for sure.

Shit you know what I'm picking up my BlackBox4 tomorrow from my brother and gonna give it a try, give me your favorite build user.

Trial by fire I guess.

AWOOOOOOOOOOOO

Shit forgot to add again. I went in it for the Harry Potter Lovecraft and then before the last 2 weeks of DS3 release played through 1. Got disappointed in 3, convinced a friend to try 1, went through the whole game with him and now I'm waiting for him to get 2 so we can fuck around.

My favorite BB build? I know more about Dark Souls builds than BB since I only started playing it about a week ago, but Skill seems to be the most fun for me personally, both for PvP and PvE. I use Burial Blade because it's phenomenal at chasing people down, and the range on the swings is orgasmic.
If you invest in skill, you can get the most out of Chikage and Blades of Mercy, which - while they're better for PvP - can help you out a lot for tanky bosses.

If you mean a Dark Souls 1 or 2 build, Faith + Dex is downright OP if you know what you're doing.
I'm pretty sure I brought someone to tears with my Dark 1 build. They sent me a string of butthurt messages after a few repeat invasions, and they just broke down over time. Fun stuff.

I meant BB user. Also if you're Chikage go for a blood build and you will decimate anything.

And if you want to get the dlc I'd recommend it immensely, it was the only dlc I've ever bought in my life and it's a very nice addition.

Also, get the DLC before you go too much further. You should be able to clear it before you take on the wet-nurse.

I'm not really prone to using the Chikage for anything except bosses where speed is beneficial, but I'm more PvE-minded than anything. I love the gameplay with Burial Blade too much. It's got a satisfying delay to a few attacks, which makes dodging and countering much more satisfying than your average R1 spam.

My Bloodborne build is a few posts up, but I wouldn't necessarily refer to it if I were you. That build is my first playthrough, and I turned it into a quality build to compensate for a few mistakes. I didn't know how the different stats worked since I went in mostly blind, so I just rounded it out.

Reflecting on it, I'd probably still do skill + bloodtinge on repeat playthroughs. It's incredibly satisfying.

as shitty as it sounds, the Old Hunters is by far the best content in the game and is pretty much a must buy if you have bloodborne

Oh wow it's exactly like my first character. Putting stats to satisfy needs because I had no idea what to do, still got trough the game in 50 grueling hours and the small build variety taught me how to make builds properly.

If you're going on blood build there will come a point where you really won't bother with skill anymore, blood will tear a new asshole into enemies so fast it'll be a walk in the park.
So far I've done SK+BL, STR+ARC and now was focusing on SK+ARC.

Also if you want some satisfying moves with good damage output, I always go for the R1,L1,L1 attacks.

Now post favorite tracks.

Re-read that again, friend. I do plan on getting the DLC, just not right now. Bills and such.

Well I have a completely different mindset when building a character for PvP compared to PvE. Like Dark Souls 1, my go to PvP build is faith + dex, whereas PvE is usually pure strength.
You're right though, transform attacks deal mad damage and are incredibly satisfying to pull off.

right i misread it, tired sorry

I never delved much into PVP, not my preference, but from what I see/gather skill pretty much takes the cake and by this point everyone has the best gems ingame so I don't even stand a chance.

You can have the best gems too if you don't mind grinding out Chalice Dungeons for hours, but the PvP in Bloodborne is honestly not worth it. The aggressive play style is incredibly fun if you get a fair duel, but gankers are more tedious to deal with.
I have an unpopular opinion; Dark Souls 2 shat the bed in a lot of ways, but I had the most fun in PvP with it.

Anyway yeah, Skill seems to benefit you most in terms of weapon variety and damage. Strength weapons kinda take a backseat in BB since poise doesn't exist and hyper-armor usually only comes into play during the last few seconds of a strength weapon's charge.

While you have to grind through the chalice dungeons or make your way through the Old Hunters, vit-gouging ARC builds are incredibly fun for a second playthrough. The elemental saw-spear or elemental saif, along with Augur and the Eye (and ACB) are actually incredibly fun to use/play.

The HMS is good, but it's more of a quality/arc hybrid weapon than a pure ARC one.

DS2 seemed so pvp focused, that's why I didn't take as much enjoyment out of it as I could

Grinding for gems doesn't seem like a thing I'd enjoy doing, I usually only do chalices when I'm in the mood to help other players. I prefer helping out others than hunting their asses to be honest.

The build you're describing seems like it'd be more PvP focused than anything, and I much prefer BB's PvE. In a perfect world where everyone was honorable, I'd give it a shot. There are too many sourpusses and gankers in BB for me to focus on a good dueling build though. You can say the same about pretty much every other Souls game, but poise does help in such cases.
So does WotG.

Dark 2 is my go-to for PvP. Arena duels are fun as fuck, especially with the Blacksteel. The chasing potential on the R2 consistently catches people off-guard and it's so satisfying to pull off. Plus, backstep-cancelling always throws inexperienced players off so they don't know how to react. I treat Dark 2 like a fighting game overall.

Same, but that's usually because a lot of people resort to Havelmage-ing after a certain point. I would love to have fair duels all the time, but too many people suck shit and resort to ganking, lag-switching, or hacking. Kinda ruins the fun.

I didn't do any PVP with that build when I played it.

It's just the nature of the game's stat system - arcane scaling is inverted when compared to STR/SKL and it only really starts getting good around 40-50. The viable max for ARC is 99.

That seems like a long road, unfavorable road for someone like me to go down. I've never liked magic builds in any Souls game. I only went for Faith for buffs in previous entries. I can definitely see where the damage would be beneficial, but I feel like it'd ruin the game for me. Casting just isn't as satisfying to me as learning patterns and reacting appropriately.

Much like the mage that sets up Homing Crystals with a Soul Spear; yeah, you punished their roll and OHKO'd them, but you didn't really do anything except stand there. Know what I mean?

Magic is completely different here user. Magic is either done by items, weapon transformations and gem damage scaling.

What's your pet weapon, and why is it inferior to my favorite weapons, Rakuyo and Simon's Bowblade?

Is Lumenwood unviable or am I just bad? I know a lot of people went nuts over broccoli builds, but by the time I got a character to a good ARC stat with the lumenwood rune and the Kos Parasite, I was on either NG+3 or 4, and the sluggish movement combined with the higher damage scaling was pretty tough to work with.

You should be baiting attacks and then attacking, using your way better dodges to kick ass.

If you're split between strength and arcane rather then going all the way with arcane, you should pick up the moonlight sword instead.

Is there any point whatsoever in not dying to the first wolf-beast thing other than bragging rights?

It just seems a lot better to let it kill you, go get a proper weapon, then come back and get through the next few areas without needing to lazily karate chop your way through them.

KirkHammer
No.
R2 charge.

You'll just need to encounter him so you'll get some insight to unlock the doll for leveling.
The good shit comes with the first mandatory boss of the game. PapaG will set your shit straight.

Refresh my memory, what makes the dodges "way better"? It's been a while since I tried being broccoli, but I remember the dodges having the same distance and a slower animation with the same number of i-frames.

I think you're rewarded with 10 blood vials if you kill it on the first encounter, so no, it's not a huge reward.

Ah but if I wanted to deus vult I'd just use Logarius's Wheel

Yeah, if you play an ARC character the differences are mostly that you don't use your gun and you use blood gems/weird weapons like the Kos Parasite.

I think he means the werewolf in Iosefka's Clinic, not the Cleric Beast

Since I was desperately trying to force my way through the beginning areas without actually facing the horde and failing to do so at certain choke points, I know that blood vials are pretty fucking plentiful but that's all I really know.

also I have two pet weapons that I switch around to adapt (and confuse the fuck out of the enemy), Ludwig's Holy Blade and the Burial Blade.

Burial Blade's untransformed state comes out at odd angles that cover the sides, while Ludwig's untransformed state is fast and simple.

the Burial Blade's scythe is made for dodging and retaliating quickly, and I've always been good at using heavy blades like Ludwig in Dark Souls pvp.

Oh! Now that's a different case. Purging the degenerates takes a special tool.

Right, my bad.

more invincibility frames then it looks, and your character dodges low which literally dodges under most horizontal attacks, if I remember.

also it changes the flow of combat enough to fuck up most players on timing.

Vials are pretty plentiful in Central Yharnam but their drop rate goes down the more you collect. The idea is that you're supposed to be using them at the same rate that they drop from the enemies and getting any excess vials from the fountain in the dream. I think the healing system was a really creative compromise between DeS and DaS systems, too bad so many people seem to dislike it.

Oh yeah, Burial Blade is the shit, it's been a while since I tried that. Great for crowd control, especially the charged R2.

Yep, that was exactly my problem, I couldn't keep up with Gascoigne.

Is this a moderately good face or should I delve deeper into the sliders?

Chin looks better now user.

The one reborn is worse than micolash, you can stun lock him with beast roar and any(?) weapon, just hit until your stamina is gone use beast roar rinse and repeat.

You'd be surprised how hard it is to get the chin to not look like arse without messing up the entire rest of the face somehow.

Fuck sliders, man.

Surprised so many knew about the beats roar thing tbh.

I've given up by this point and just follow some random slider I think looks nice.

I didn't, so thanks user.

i really love my chikage build character

In terms of just quality or overall annoyance? They're certainly the two weakest fights in the main game, wouldn't say that The One Reborn is particularly annoying.

Yeah, and he can be knocked down by any attack that knocks down humanoid enemies, like the Burial Blade's charged R2, or the Hunter Axe's spinning attack. Beast Roar just has the shortest windup.

God dammit I hate going full autist on this but shit just looks really good.
The fast pacing, the quicksteping, the weapon transformations and combos. Fuck me, I can't stop loving the style of the game.

Pic unrelated I don't have much media of BB, this is what it would be like if it was heavily casualized.

Never cared much for high vitality builds, just enough to keep from getting oneshot is good.

I have about 20+ wallpapers and the full artbook, what do you want?

Never liked wallpapers but artbook is beautiful. Post it on the vola so it won't bother the other anons. Unless, of course, they want to see it too? If it's not a hassle for you user.

DS1 > BB
Fite me

I didn't try the bb dlc tho

On my last playthrough I missed the hunter gear and forgot where you actually found it. I was using the starting clothes until I got the Yharnam Hunter set.

The chikage constantly drains your HP while tricked.

They're both nice, it's your preference user. Like what you want.
Also please don't start a fight.

Full artbook should be up on the vola within a few minutes, uploading the full works of Lovecraft as a bonus.

I'm aware, I've used the Chikage before, but the Chikage drains your HP by percentage, not by integer, it subtracts 1% per second, so dumping points into VIT shouldn't change anything.

Thanks a bunch user. But I already have the full works too. I only read a few before BB, it got my interest going again. I'm currently atThe Terrible Old Man.

Woops, I'm an idiot.

I made a BLT build, but I thought the Bloodletter was a much better BLT weapon and largely used it instead.

Why does the Logarius Wheel use arcane if it saps health? Shouldn't it have blood scaling?

while it does drain a percentage, you'll still have more health left over with the drain compared to having lower Vit, so you do benefit from having more health even if you lose it at the same rate. I mean i think that build has like 50 vit or something because i just went even further beyond and never stopped leveling i think. But you'd still need like 40 + vit to not get one shot on NG+6, which that build is on currently

Maria pushed my shit in a lot harder than Ludwig and found ludwig easy by comparison.

Might have had something to do with my first runthrough of the dlc being on NG+6

she's diddling me BL4

They're both 9.5's as far as I'm concerned.

Curiously enough I had the problem the other way aroud.

I don't think it saps health, I think it damages you while you use it.

I run the chalice dungeons on most playthroughs so it's hard to tell what level you're supposed to be at during which NG+ round, since the depth 4 and 5 dungeons give you so many echoes. I usually just cap everything at BL120.

Maria-chan's probably my favorite boss but come on, man, I don't think any enemy that can be parried the whole way through should be able to push your shit in.

It saps hp the more you charge the L2 IIRC.

thats fair, a lot of the meta centered around level 100 when the game was really alive online. I just wanted as much as i could get out of a bloodtinge build so i farmed for all the bloodtinge gems and have like 50 BLT and 40 SKL, so the stats are kind of retarded - though its probably only like level 170 something iirc. My highest level character is like 280+ which has like almost 200 hours on it alone

The one reborn is just a poorly designed fight that looks cool, big open arena with peons throwing shit at you while it does slow attacks then when you get down to it you can fight it and kill it by just wailing on it repeatedly without having to dodge.
Aesthetically they're both cool as fuck which is a shame.

The One Reborn is probably the worst boss in the game.

Not easiest/hardest, just lowest quality.

I had to use beast blood pellets in the end and out dps her as I never discovered what could be parried and was limited to dodging her attacks which is important when 50% one shot me and the other do about 60% of my health.

i think Living Failures and Witches are worse than one reborn tbh

From can't really find a nice balance between lore bosses and good gameplay.

HELP

HOW MAKE EYES LESS ALIUM

Ah but it's not just a poorly designed fight that looks cool, it's a fight with a lot of neat ideas and a lot of poor oversight.

For one thing, it improves on the biggest oversight in the Tower Knight fight, which was that the Tower Knight could do practically nothing to damage you while you took out the archers. The One Reborn will actually swipe at you and has unique animations for climbing up onto the higher ledges to get a better look at you.

There's one big thing they need to change to make a huge improvement to the fight, which is that it can easily be damaged at the base, where the legs are. They did this for Amygdala and made it take practically no damage if you just swiped at the legs, so you would be forced to face it head on and take the fight seriously, and making you face The One Reborn head(s) on would be a huge improvement. For another, they should have made it clearer that the boss is designed with co-op in mind, and if you've ever fought it with a co-op partner that becomes obvious. They want you to have the partner distract it while you take care of the archers, and then you each fight one of the heads on each side, so that it isn't constantly spinning like it's on a lazy susan.

Even with all of the rough edges it's not as boring as the Witches of Hemwick or as annoying as Micolash, which is a retread of the excellent NPC fight at Byrgenwerth without any of the things that made that fight cool.

i mean if you're playing at blood level 4, when she changes movesets to two handing it all of those attacks will instantly kill you. her overhead attack also insta kills you. Like you have to race to get her to transform to get good damage in both times to really have a good shot, or get backstabs in on her when she does that jump attack

move them closer together and slightly higher

It's just a big fleshy seesaw that flails at you and gets sick.

Neat reference on the first pic

Did you ever notice that they referenced Dracula's Keep in the silhouette of Cainhurst? That structure is where you fight Logarius.

Yeah I would never put myself through the hell of a level 4 playthrough, that shit is masochistic.

see image pls

Ludwig is harder BL4 than Maria, but Orphan is definitely the hardest and i haven't even gotten there yet

it makes me feel really inferior when TolomeoR did everything BL4, no dodging, rolling, blocking, parrying NG+6

No but the whole game has a van hellsing/castlevaniaish vibe.

i think they need to be slightly closer and higher. If anything just move them up a bit - it makes her face looked scrunched with her low they are

Would anons like to see a sequel to Bloodborne? Or are you afraid they'll fuck it up?

Don't forget From is announcing a dark fantasy game soon.

True but I think that area was made specifically for a vampire reference.

It's still made trivial by weapons that can reach it's head to put it in riposte mode.

I'd like to see a sequel if it was done by A team, B team would make a balls of it even if they did okay for ds3.

...

If it was B team at least it's wouldn't poise as much trouble.

They'll fuck it up.

Even outside of the Vilebloods clearly being vampiric, "Cainhurst" is a vampiric reference; first half of the word comes from the myth that vampires are descendants of Cain, and "hurst" is a germanic word for a nest or a home to a group of things. The vileblood rune is also a vampiric symbol.

To be fair the same can be said of Amygdala and Ebrietas, and I love both of those bosses.

...

Eh?

I think I've got it.

Any further suggestions?

Why are her cheeks snow white?

Living Failures has some neat ideas and is a lot more frantic/engaging. Witches is actually more interesting and asks you to make more decisions/choices than TOR does (prioritising the different witches/fighting the spawns/spotting them as opposed to running along the top, killing the witches and then running back down to beat on it).

The aesthetics of the fight are really neat when it enters, but they don't really do anything fun with it. I hardly even know what the thing's attacks actually are beyond the spell, vomit and leg-flailing because you never need to worry about anything else.

Got what? a hideous giraffe neck beast?

I still hate how long pc necks are in bb.

I'll do my best.

Living failures is also aesthetically amazing, especially with the build up to them and some of the moves they do.
I don't think the fight is that bad although it did only take me two tries.

She looks like a blow up doll.

RESTART, USE A PIC OF SOMEONE AS A REFERENCE. YOU HAVE MADE THIS WORSE THAN IT ORIGINALLY WAS, LOOKS LIKE A FROG (not that it matters at all)

Scaled the head with the body as best I could.

Sliders ran out of juice.

Not much else I can do.

I don't know about you, but I was expecting one of these things when I first saw that dark silhouette against the moon.

It's more or less the same set of moves as the Amygdala, lots of sweeping attacks and slams.

The lumenflower arena is very striking, I think the Failures themselves were a little underwhelming visually after that huge buildup in the Research Hall. I think the Living Failures and Celestial Emissary fights should have been consolidated into one fight, they each half some half-baked ideas about having a mob fight and could have combined to be a great fight.

Mob boss fights are always bad though I can't think of a single great one in any game.

...

Just play the fucking game already.

Specifically in Souls, or any game period? It's true, there's never been a good mob boss fight in Souls.

As much as I don't like 3, Abyss Watchers was pretty nice.

I don't think there are enough Watchers active at the same time to technically call it a "mob" fight, but the infighting was a creative idea.

Whip Cane
Innumerable reasons
Aesthetics

True, I realized it a few moments after I posted it.

Does class/origin matter a whole lot?

I ask because I'm just gonna pick the highest Endurance one (Troubled Childhood) unless there's a compelling reason to go for something else.

What the game really needed was A: more content/areas and B: a functioning beast transformation system.

Some of the ideas that they were throwing out during development sounded incredible, like being able to infect yourself with a certain strain of the disease and eventually end up turning into a beast. Unless I'm making something up, I recall hearing about the possibility of actually losing your character to beasthood completely, and showing up as a boss in another player's game.

That would be very nice, but maybe they'd do it like 3's NPC summoning bitch.

Too easy, like nearly all of ds3, but again it was aesthetically great.

Every souls boss is fucking trash.

Personally I think they should have done it as part of an actual covenant system. You'd be able to have a really interesting dynamic between:

People who lose themselves to Beasthood
Beast hunters
Hunters of Hunters
Executioners
Vilebloods
Lumenwoods

If getting killed by a hunter while you were a beast lowered your "beasthood" level/amount it'd make the multiplayer incredible. Obviously all this would take another year of development, but I think it'd be worth it (and sell a lot more PSN+ subscriptions).

WHY AM I SO GREEDY

lol iktf

What is pic 2 from?

That's when you finish them off with a rock.

So it's this way, into the sewers, or back to try and fight the Cleric Beast one on one (saved up all my molitavs and the two oil urns so maybe I'll have a decent chance against him this time?)

What do.

Cleric beast is incredibly easy and if you have molitovs and oil urns you'll crush him.

By easy you mean "telegraphs his moves for days," right?

Because realtalk when I fought him it was a long and arduous battle because I only did like 40 damage every time I hit him and it became a serious trial of my patience. I don't know if it's because I got greedy or just if his movements changed, but after I got him below 50% health I started pretty consistently getting hit every time I moved in for an attack.

WHAT DO!?

You can break his legs/arms, which makes it a lot easier to open him up for a Visceral, which is how you'll do most of your damage. He's also a beast, meaning he takes extra damage from serrated weapons and is super weak to fire.

fun / 10 game

-Nito
-Bed of Chaos
-Four Kids
-Dragonrider
-Twin Dragonrider
-Mist Dragon
-Deacons of the Deep
-Dancer of the Boreal Valley
-Dragonslayer Armor

...

soulsborne games are pretty much Berserk doujin games

Oh I know, but just the fact that Ludwig (who I would have considered to be a grand knight) is fucking rape horse… Like WUUUUUUUT. Crazy.

I like One Reborn's design enough to see past the fact that you can just wail on him. Pretty much everything about Hypogean Gaol I enjoy, because it's the closest thing to a nightmarish hellscape in the game.
I'm the type of person that loves Zdzisław Beksiński artwork, and played the shit out of Shadowman when I was younger, so that's my bias. He's not a good boss fight, but it's a nifty design in my opinion.

I still hate Micolash because of the waiting.

Okay I can see that
How so? If we compare her to the other Boreal boss fight close to her (Vordt) it is the more interesting fight

Spin to win has always been something I've hated. Instead of designing good boss fight we'll give this character with unlimited stamina a spin attack, now try not to get hit by it.

That's crap.

Can't you outpace her even with base stamina?

It's annoying, sure, but name a boss that isn't just arbitrarily annoying in the name of making them more "difficult"

Yooooooo.

Thanks for the Beast Roar tip everyone!
Took him out first try this time.
Kinda pissed at myself that it took nearly two hours of one-shot failure last night, but what's done is done.

And? In 2nd phase you can literally stand behind her right leg and not get hit once by the beyblade-attack.

The upload is really appreciated

Entirely depends upon wether Sony makes a big deal out of it or not. If they do we'll see an overblown marketing campaign, a Season pass and likely a rushed release, which would probably make the game shit. Truth is, if you'd just let From Software do their work with sufficient time, the product will be very good. I absolutely would want a second Bloodborne if it matched the first one in quality.

you overdid it, user. 3/10

micolash isnt hard and you can trap him.

1 you can poison him with knives.
2 you can trap him and not let him shut that door. you can make him run towards you while he heads for that room, so you keep attacking him and not letting him pass and lock the door (that forces you to drop from above) he will not attack properly and not use a good moveset while you have him here.
3 take your time killing enemies so you dont get raped.
4 his octopus arm attack can kill you in 1 blast. avoid by either relentlessly attacking him (he staggers easily) or constantly side-stepping while attacking. dont get cocky, at any moment he can kill you if he lands that blow.
5 his multishot is hard to dodge (for me, some say its easy, i dont) so either constantly attack him (and buff with fire to increase how often he staggers) and he will never be able to pull the attack off.
6 the fight is not timed. you have alot of time to kill enemies and pace yourself.
7 learn how to chase him in the 1st room to get him to run into the hall. makes that 1st fight end quickly. if you see him standing infront of the door hes supposed to run through. stop. go around. and charge at him so if he runs directly away from you he runs straight in there.

fire buffs also work.
equip shit for arcane resistance.

If an user were to develop a game which had similar gameplay to Dark Souls, would you play it or refuse because it's made by a Westerner/not by FromSoft?

Most Souls-clones I've played weren't good, but half of the Souls games From has made are also not good, so I wouldn't say there's really anything wrong in principle with a westerner trying to make the game. Especially since most of the roots of the game are western.

I'd much prefer if an user were to develop something which the market is lacking, and the market isn't lacking games taking inspiration from Souls.

That's a novel idea, but at the same time I would say that expecting someone to fulfill your own desire (in this case, for a "new idea") is kind of like playing ideas guy. If someone decides to work on a project of their own interest, that's a big motivator. But once you start making people work on something they don't want to make just so that they're not filling a niche is a bit iffy. This is just my opinion, yadda yadda. At the end of the day the real question is "would my peers (that is, all of you) be willing to play/try my game or would they reject it solely because I'm not Japanese/working for From."

As to your assertion of "half their souls games not being good," I'll agree to disagree with you.

see that wooden ledge across? thats where you need to be. its passed the dogs in cages and angry old lady.. where you are now is a dead end with clothes. "hidden area"

I had the idea once of creating open source "Fromsoft engine" that would feature the core mechanics and traits of Souls series games. Combat system, inventory system, movement, item drops. You could take it and create levels for it. I was really fascinated by the idea but the thing is that it's not even close to being as easy as it sounds. And even if you managed to build the engine, even just creating a single boss requires more than a fully professional developer can usually do on his own, with animations, textures, sound and programming.

I don't think they'd reject it because it isn't Japanese or it wasn't made by FromSoft, but I do think it's more likely that it would be rejected because of the oversaturation of the market. If you see preview material from the game and it mentions that the creators are fans of Souls, do you not instinctively think, "Great, another one"?

For example, when was the last time you played a good first-person action dungeon crawler? Grimrock? Something like that would really stand out in the market, and could still take inspiration from Souls without being as obviously derivative as all of the other "Soulslikes" out there

Nioh (though team ninja, not a western developer) has surpassed fromsoft in this genre.
combat is fun. more complex. faster. bosses feel more like bosses instead of more difficult fights. and it lets you have many weapons (and be viable) without having to focus on one.

also it has the diablo "piece of candy" feel because drops are so common.

its actually my most anticipated game and will be the first game i pre-ordered since half life 2.

the games are fun if they dont focus on the hard meme. thats not what these games are about (except ds2, which is why it wasnt as fun)

capturing the feeling and momentum of these games is extremely difficult. the sense of progress and completion is also important. being able to look back on where you were and fight enemies and see how far you've come is a great feeling. but the weight of the weapons and moves and movement is very important to the series… just as, if not more important than the mesh vs hitbox.

I would save my praise until we see how much they dumb it down after the focus testing.

As to your point that it's surpassed this "genre", I'm not really sure they're the same genre. If you take Souls as straight action games they're 5 or 6/10 at best because of how limited they are compared to other games that focus entirely on the action, but they have a lot of other redeeming qualities that I didn't see in the Ni-Oh alphas, or other games in general.

i played the alpha. then the beta. little/no change. the only reduction in challenge came from cleaning up and streamlining shortcut menus.
the beta is actually arguably harder with that damn warrior of the west.

its team ninja. they regularly release hard games to the general public. ever play ninja gaiden? it is not a casual journey like most games today.

did you play the beta? you know how theres 4 weapon types? the full game says 20+ types.

i dont see how this is a different genre. there is more action, but it has everything fromsoft games have when it comes to RPG elements and strategy. what sets dark souls apart from this game?

No idea.

It's from some Russian kid, says it's an original character from his own fictional universe
render.ru/gallery/work/113098

They're only similar in a vague sense where a lot of other games would also be similar. Four piece equippable armor, stat investment, stamina management.

Level design with a strong focus on verticality and an emphasis on shortcuts centralized around a single checkpoint, stronger focus on environmental storytelling, generally stronger focus on artistic elements like the music and sound design. No telling how much freedom the game is going to have in terms of nonlinearity, and even in terms of the gameplay similarities I'm not sure they're all that similar, I don't remember Ni-Oh using the stats as baseline requirements or scaling factors.

Come February or whenever that game is coming out, it's only going to be harmed by comparisons to Souls instead of the much more reasonable comparison to Ninja Gaiden.

it did.
you need certain stats to equip certain weapons/armor and scaling/upgrading with diminishing returns. strategy and build variety. (a guy built for strength isnt goign to be great with a bow or dual swords, etc)
also the 5 piece equippable armor (boots, pants, chestplate, gauntlets, helmet. + accessories.

the level design is based around opening shortcuts and opening "shrines" aka bonfires. it even has "souls" that you drop when you die that you can retrieve if you make it that far again.

4 quick select items. gestures. PVE works the same except you get offering tea instead of ring bells or soapstones.

nioh is much more than an action game user… there has been barely any storytelling. 2 short sequences that leave you with more questions than answers. (sound familiar?) "fear the old blood" "ring 2 bells"

the 2nd level in the nioh alpha is an entirely flat level, btw. shortcuts include opening 1-way gates. enemies respawn when you "rest" or "pray" at a "shrine" or "bonfire" but hard enemies/bosses do not.

its no question a souls clone. but i have to admit, they did it better. they went in the direction of bloodborne, but fully committed to it.

well, clergymen in Bloodborne are the ones that turn into the most deformed beast a la Amelia, Laurence, etc. - and Ludwig was the first church hunter

Nioh looks cool - I'm gonna buy it second hand to punish the devs for not releasing it on PC though.

Forcing me to pick between the game looking good or playing good is some real shit when I have a machine that could do both right here.

Is blunt damage terrible?

Kirkhammer is doing subpar damage compared to other weapons I have.

Depends on what you're attacking and what attacks you're using. If you're fighting kin, they're weak to piercing attacks.

what is blunt damage good against then

I think it deals bonus damage to breakable limbs

… is that it?

So blunt damage is terrible?

I said it deals bonus damage, it still deals normal physical damage. If you're finding it that bad, you might consider upgrading it or finding better gems.

The axe is both faster and stronger unupgraded, does this disparity continue along its upgrade line (if anyone knows)?

For how slow the Kirkhammer is, it really doesn't do commensurate damage.

For example, most enemies that die in 3 hits of the Axe will take 3 hits of the Kirkhammer as well (hammer mode or switch attack, that is) and that's not very great considering the speed of the weapons comparatively.

At the end of its upgrade path the Axe will deal a base damage of 196 and have B/D scaling with STR/SKL. At the end of its upgrade path the Hammer will deal a base damage of 210 and have A/E scaling with STR/SKL. Aside from that, the Hammer deals more stagger to enemies and might stagger enemies the Axe can't. Church Giants, for example.

Can't really give a recommendation beyond that because I don't have an attachment to the Hammer and haven't used it very much, might ask if he's still around.

I want to go through the game again with a new build. STR SKL BLT ARC or a hybrid?

Did From intentionally put Ned Kelly in Bloodborne or did they just google search "Victorian Armour" and think "Yeah that looks good, put it in the game."

Bloodletter with a side dish of Cannon.

Do what this guy does and make a STR/BLT build. You'd be surprised how useful the guns are outside of parrying.

Valtr has a pretty metal backstory, if you paid attention to the descriptions in the DLC, upon arriving in Yharnam he killed and ate a beast with his bare hands, and then went on to forge the League to cleanse the unclean in the town with his giant-ass sawblade.

No idea if it's an intentional reference, but I doubt it's out of the question, they did a lot of research in other areas. The whole team even took a trip to Sighisoara to study the architecture.

Yeah Valtr is great, Ned Kelly inspired or otherwise. I wish I could summon him with Alfred at some point and just go purging everything.

Do you really think a nip dev would just put in something foreign they know nothing about?

Always wanted to use the gattling gun.

Beast roar and Ludwig's Holy Blade untransformed.
R1 stunlock him until you're about out of stamina, beast roar and let your stamina regen while he's down, repeat.
Works best if you get him in a corner. LHB untransformed isn't the only possibility but the shortsword's R1 has almost flawless tracking.

It was a fun little gimmick for an early game boss that didn't need to be challenging.

I would a Bloodborne sequel if and only if it is a prequel, Miyazaki wants to make it, and FROM isn't pressured to shit it out before it can be refined.
That is to say almost certainly not.

I'd like to see a Spiritual Successor

SPIRITUAL SUCCESSOR

Have the most interesting and fun mechanics (transforming weapons, for example) in a completely different setting with completely different characters.

Someone probably already mentioned this, but Micolash's second phase can be VERY easily cheesed with Poison Knives or a Cannon.
Just stand on the edge of the platform before the drop and lock on.
Enjoy winning.

Sword of Kirkhammer's R1 doesn't have nearly enough stun for a transform attack to be viable, and R2 doesn't cancel into transform attack.

Fuck Kirkhammer, yo.

My faint hope is that they pull the same thing they did with Demons/Dark and make a multiplat spiritual successor to Bloodborne. It would explain why they said "Dark Fantasy" instead of Bloodborne sequel. Then again Sony probably has sufficient contracts this time around, they can't be that dumb.

I never said it had to be challenging. I just said I could see someone making an argument for it not being a good boss fight. Personally I think it is fair to compare it to the Prowling Magus & Congregation fight in DS II, and between these two the Deacons fight is what I consider to be the better fight.

Even more than being a boring fight, it's a boring fight that's been done twice before in the series. Royal Rat Vanguard works exactly the same way, and so does the beginning of the Celestial Emissary fight.

If you go back to interviews with Miyazaki before the release of Dark Souls he claims that they could have called that game "Demon's Souls 2" if they had wanted to, with no copyright infringement or contract violation, so who knows what the hell is going on in the legal side of things.

Is there a way to get bloodborne and the dlc on one retail disc? Is it only in europe?

In my opinion that is bad game design. Still love the game though.

I assume you are talking about arcane, and it isn't really useless. Ludwig's holy blade and other weapons early game have some arcane scaling along with dex and strength.

Demon's Souls was published by Atlus, while Bloodborne is published by Sony directly. I think that might be a crucial difference.

Nope.

I'm not allowed to talk about bloodborne anywhere but this thread, why is nobody here?

Alright, what did you want to talk about?

how to mine 4 insight?

The chalice dungeons will give you insight with every boss you defeat, so that is a steady supply of insight if you need it. Other than that I think one enemy drops madman's knowledge

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If you're mining insight for blood chunks/rocks, you also get some from defeating harder chalice bosses, like FRC Isz (you usually get 1-2 chunks from the first two bosses, and either chunks or a rock from the final boss).
This chalice for example is pretty good for that (bosses are Brainsucker, Weight Watchers, and Celestial Ayymmisary, who are all pretty easy to cheese at Cursed health).
ptwrx6tb

Who hurt your feelings?

Yeah, the Celestial Children up in the orphanage sometimes drop them.

I've been trying to see if there's a link here other than just the name

nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Kos

It seems that Kos is just a bastardized form of the word "Chaos," but I can't figure out much more than that.

Most people on Holla Forums. God forbid someone enjoying a console game while the only argument retards have is "lmao you only shill it because it's the only game ps4 has. once it gets a port it'll be shit u'll see."

this opinion is objectively correct if you don't take into account the BB DLC

Demon's Souls still gets that kind of posting seven years later, I don't think it's going anywhere.

I doubt it would have anything to do with Chaos, since Kos (or some say, Kosm) is only ever shown to be a benevolent god in the game.

Remember, Sour Grapes. Bloodborne has even worse chances to ever be accessible to PC than Demon's. It's published directly by Sony and PS4 emulation won't be here for the next decade because Moores Law is dead. It's also the only Souls that is significantly different to the others, if you don't have Demon's you still have three other games that are basically clones and sequels of it.

Then again you shouldn't defend this shit either. The PS4 and XBone are consoles in name only, couch multiplayer is dead and their strategy is to get as close as possible to gaming PCs. They hold these exclusives hostage. I mean sure, BB wouldn't exist without Sony but the hardware is just garbage.

The smug chesire is correct

I would love if I had three other games that are basically clones and sequels of Demon's Souls, but there were a lot of changes in the design philosophy between DeS and the Dark trilogy that made me always prefer the former. From was right in all of their pre-release interviews saying that BB would be the true successor to DeS while also moving in a new direction, it's a shame most people seem to think it's a successor to Dark Souls instead.

Started a new playthrough last night because fucked if I can find anything good to play. Planning to go STR/ARC and eventually main Logarius' Wheel. Should I kill Alfred to get the Wheel Hunter Badge or just wait until the end of his questline? That would mean waiting until after killing Logarius.

I'm pretty much stuck in Old Yharnam.

No blood vials and nothing is dropping them any more.

That happens regularly if your skills are anywhere below very good. The easiest farming route thats always available is
That route yields about 10 vials, if you're finished you tp back, if not you jump down the hole in the tunnel and repeat.

Buy them, don't farm them. You can easily buy two or three times as many vials from the fountain in the dream with the blood echoes you will acquire while trying to farm them.

I usually go,
Always gives me 14 or more

And with the blood you get from the farm, spend the rest on more vials.

Thats even smarter i think. Either way still worse than the Yahar'gul route, or the one guy that drops five directly in front of Ludwigs fog gate, or of course the kamikaze piggies in Mergos Loft.

If you're not dead-set on maining the wheel, it's usually better to put off using it until you can dive into chalices. The normal wheel's gem setup isn't as good as the lost/uncanny, and you can only get that version from Great Pthumeru Ihyll (and if you've manage to make it there, you can just steamroll Logarius).
Otherwise, I'd just kill Alfred now (unless you want to be an authentic Executioner, since you can only get the covenant rune by doing his storyline)

I'd built up so many blood vials in Central Yharnam that I thought it wouldn't hurt much to practice my parries and trying to find ways to rally my health back after getting blood bullets

I didn't realize how badly I could fuck myself over doing this though and ended up flat running out of blood vials.

I also tried to practice parries on the hunter near Djura and that didn't go so hot either.

In my efforts towards gitting gud I have gotten myself in a pickle.

I have bad memories of Ludwig so that area belongs in the repressed memories. It is a quick farm.

Well shit user, all I'm doing now is helping players in dungeons, if you need a farm hand let me know.

I'm willing to deal with a subpar gem setup on NG if the alternative is making it all the way down to the depth 5 chalices, since I can always pick up a Lost or Uncanny alternative later on.

Well the reason I ask is that I tried to take on Eileen in an earlier playthrough to get the Blade of Mercy before the blood moon phase, and that bitch is tough at low level.

Nah, I don't have PS+, I can't invade any heretics.

600 vials in storage might sound like a shitload, but realize that it equates to thirty rounds of twenty vials, lots of people make the mistake of overusing.

This was for you user.

I can recommend the odeon rune that gives you health / bullets for landing a parry. That way you can practice endlessly if you hit once in a while

There is one little blood drenched ghostly thing hammering at a steel gate, if you kill him he'll drop 5 vials. Can't miss him on the path to Ludwig.

I only had like 40 in storage, but I'd always been getting more at a much faster rate than I was losing them.

Insofar as I can tell, most of the creatures in the start of Old Yharnam don't drop blood vials at all and the ones that do are very rare.

If anyone has discord and wants to be friends or just play bloodborne together at any point send me a friend request

Tesla Coil Tonitrus is a surprisingly nice weapon, but I think I'll like it better as a secondary weapon after I snag my Logarius' Wheel. That low durability is giving me flashbacks to DaS2.

I'm face to face with Logarius but his bolt/arcane resistance is sort of dicking over my weapon's main tactic.

Going back to I think I solved the mystery of blunt damage, they explain it on the Hunter Axe description. Apparently it allows for higher rally.

i wanna
no way im buying a ps for a single game tho

That's probably more of a trade-off for how slowly the weapon attacks.

will I ever find my match?

Is that things's left shoulder a jew nose?

Isn't that applied to all heavy weapons? I think they have higher rally to compensate for the slow attacks.

how bout we organise a time and day where we all start new characters and ring our bells together

I'm sure it is, but the only place I saw it explicitly mentioned was on the Hunter Axe's weapon description. I don't think I even saw it mentioned on the wiki.

There's an event like that for Demon's Souls coming up in a few weeks

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pic related