Since the General thread is on page 12 and doesn't seem to want to move from there, I'll start another one

it's berenstein, faggot

yes, a frozen decayed former home of the gods now occupied by every warlock's idol.

And you don't have a problem with them reusing it? to be fair, it is just a re-treading on it being a wasteland full of nutjobs.

And one of the things they keep yammering about is the eternal cycle of fire and dark, so there's that.

Keep Grinding enemies for grass. It has a decent droprate, so go for it. If you were grinding Darkmoon proofs, i would tell you to ditch the covenant and go for something else

Which entirely goes against the theme of the first game.

I just imagine the devs listening to Vaati's videos of stealing theories about the lore of the game and just placed that shit about the Cycle, because why the fuck not.

They already stole the neo 80s idea for that one trailer, so why the hell not, right?

considering they use it along with other obvious clues to point out the irilythians are the descendants of the old gods.

its not, the fire fades and you have a choice.
do you feed it, so it might burn longer.
do you let it fade, so you might survive.
or do you snuff it out forever and give rise to the age of the abyss.

This firelink gear is fresh as fuck.

My biggest grip with DS3 is that I swear they let the game have bugs left in it where enemies can hit through walls, have poor hitboxes, fucking change their swing direction mid swing and shit. Its 2016 the fucking current year and they cant fix their hitboxes? What the fuck?

For instance the dog skeleton teleports mega fast. Lycanthrope suddenly moves fast as fuck, skeleton archers arrows curve sideways, and their crossbows have 20x range than yours. Let alone some enemies have a shit ton of stamina and regain it in half a sex.

Boss fights are so sloppy, its a real shame, its like they didnt really try to make bosses any good or interesting, once you find out a certain simple method to beat them, its not skill but cheap tactics that kill them.

Poise does not do anything and apparently armor does not do much either. Kind of bullshit is this? You arnt even rewarded much.

I have to use cheap tactics and not my skill to hunt these fucks, thats not fun thats just cheap gaming.

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I haven't had any problems with the game itself. Honestly as long as it doesn't force me to think about killing myself like ds2 it's fine with me. The real problem is the shit fest that is pvp

Watch the intro cinematic again OP, then read what I have to say.

Lothric is the merging grounds of kingdoms. Time is fucked is an understatement. Every lords kingdom is sewn together in this world, so you can find them and make the fuckers sit down
Firelink, or to quote the literal nippon translltion, shrine of the fire's successor , is just a place where the first flame was lit and serves as a hub

I like to think that the dark ruins is just the normal one, but everyone's hiding to pop out and scream "surprise! Happy birthday!"

Then they died waiting.

i shiggy diggy

Pro tip: You can too you idiot.

Bread is slow so I'll post some scrub lord stories while I do some pvp outside the homo Bros boss.

NG+ is such a fucking slog, is Bleed really as useful as people say it is for chewing through these sword-sponges?
I'm starting to dread NG++ and I haven't even gotten to the Twin Princes.

why is there a crab inside the skeleton ball, Holla Forums?

i chuckled

Follow up story
People are using sheilds
Why?

that fight is pure annoyance.
between the teleporting drop attacks, magic missles, additional fire damage sneaking through blocks and above all that the fucking resurrection.
this fight seems like it was made to stop you at all costs.

What level are you guys at for ng+?
I've been procrastinating on it for a while cause I like being able to max out weapons whenever I want but I want to see if ng+ will actually fucking challenge me

The issue isn't disjointed hit boxes ie Dark Souls 2. The issue is fucking awful enemies like the ladder doges that have one huge hitbox covering most of their body, then they just charge at you and all you can do is keep rolling through them.
That webm is really cool. It'd be nice if you could actually play the game like that. Like a weapon/shield that could slow down time.

Tracking is fucking cancer and so is enemies with long ass range hitting you through walls, ceilings and floor, where the player bounces off for so much as clipping one.

so i can have block and my weapon skill.

it sucks that the black knight shield requires 18 str now.

Why block in pvp. Not one person can take 3 hits while I have knight slayers ring on and expect not to be open for riposte

Weird. That was one of the few bosses I had fun with. Also one of the few musical themes that was enjoyable.

Can we all agree that DaS1 has the best music of the series? DaS3 has some great pieces, like the main menu theme and the Dancer, Abyss Watchers and Dragonslayer Armour themes, but nothing quite comes close to Ornstein & Smough and Artorias.

This is not a bug. This is a sensible feature because otherwise ranged enemies would be absolutely trivial.

so i can still have that emergency block even while using my weapon's full attack set.

and CSR works very well with the leo ring, thrust angle needs to be a bit lower to extend its operable range.

this is true.

of the dark souls games sure, but gherman's theme takes the cake.

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Abyss Watchers, Oceiros, Gundyr and Twins have the best boss music.

Spent 5 hours grinding silver knights, and only got 20 concords. 2,000,000+ fucking souls and too much full sets of silver armor. Really hope Darkmoon blade is worth the hassle.

sucks that the spear didn't make it even though one of them uses it.

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I'm not too bothered by this because there are plenty of great spears in the game, including twin spears and the delicious greatlance.

BB is better in every way. As far as soundtrack goes ds2 is 2nd best and ds1 is close. Demons souls soundtrack is original but it just worse in quality(or may be its my personal taste). And ds3 have worst soundtrack. Just fucking choirs all the way with the same sounding music.

Vit is essential for fashion souls, friend. The scaling on it is pretty fucked though - it really should give raise the equip load ceiling by more for each point, especially at lower levels. Fine if it starts to have diminishing returns before allowing you to wear the heaviest sets, but at the moment it sucks too many points away from other things.

The DaS2 soundtrack is absolute trash. The atmosphere is all wrong and none of it is remotely memorable.

The atmosphere is all right. Remember that one god looking location with water? Or meeting with the king. Even majula is good.

No it's not. It's grating, especially for the hub you have to return to to level up and upgrade equipment, etc. DaS1 Firelink Shrine got it right, the music was pleasant but somewhat haunting which prevented it from becoming too cosy. Majula in contrast is obnoxious twinkling which doesn't fit the setting.

you want pressure?
16/40/10/40
RH dragonslayer swordspear LH pyro flame
spells: power within, sacred flame, GCFO

I've played a sorcerer, then in NG+2 respecced to pyro. Jesus christ is the difference insane. I actually had fun as pyromancer.

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What the fuck did you just fucking say about me you little chosen undead? I'll have you know I am the world first killer of the Lord Cinder, and I have over 300 farmed dark swords.

...

HUE

That's the character I retired yesterday. Used him to get through NG+2 for all those fucking +2 rings for the achievement.

i played pure int, and i do mean pure, as a challenge on this game for my first run.

my god sorcery is shit this time round, what the fuck?
at least CSR exists and is available early enough thank god.

currently CSR, pyro flame, and blick knight sheild are all i have.

started ng+ and already have some waifus waiting for me at firelink. sweet.
also this shit is easy as hell the second time around, I thought ng+ would be way more difficult.
as for dark firelink, I think it's the 'real' firelink. the one that we visit exists in a "fixed" timeline where the flame was linked, this one exists in the lothric we teleport to where the flame is quickly fading(as evidenced by the ebin berserk reference sun)

NG+ honestly disappointed me. No new enemies at all, just replaced all soul pickups with bigger ones, and added +1 rings in NG+ and +2 rings in NG+2. Some real variety.

For all its faults, DaS2 has a NG+ that made it worth to keep playing.

You need +1 +2 rings for achievement?

Just about everyone has said the exact same thing now, I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that you're not the only one who thought so.

Yes. This achivement was honestly more tedious than the collect all rare weapons one from DaS1. You basically have to complete the game 3 times, because the last +2 rings are on top of Grand Archive, in Undearthed Graves and after Nameless King.

we all have those maxed out chars, don't lie.

mine is effectively a deathknight what with casting swarms of bugs and dark enchanted blade.

My highest level character is 80, who I stopped playing to wait for the DLC, because I didn't want to do the DLC in NG+. So I have a bunch of rotating characters.

I tried starting an archery build because everyone told me that it was totally doable, and then found out that everyone is a bold-faced liar, because you can only hold 99 of each type of arrow.

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From what I've read from others the word filter is easily fooled by capital letters. You could make Donald TrumP or the like.

Enjoy fam.

just make adolf hitler.

wait isn't that the name of the tengu this time?

The point of hatemail is that it's supposed to be hatemail because you BTFO someone. If you beat someone in a 2v1 and then goaded them to get angry, the hatemail is shit.

I left vit at 15 on my quality build and haven't leveled it at all. Only thing you need it for is fat shit armor.
Oh wait, I guess you could stack up some poise right?

i've been playing instead of shitposting for once, so I wouldn't necessarily know.
I doubt I'll do ng+2 only really doing ng+ so I can have some more fun while I level up enough to use fume ugs + this fashion.

my guy's named ghost and shows up as gst, and knight is k*ht. from went full retard on the filter.

He added me, here's some genuine ragemail to make up for it.

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more.

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pretend the reposted one didn't exist.

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Those all suck.

What kind of silly question is that?

I don't. If I can't do a NG+ at the level I like, then I don't do it. I liked 40 in Dark Souls, but got stuck on Four Kings in NG+++.

That's why they weren't in the first batch.

The r u one always cracks me up though.

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I recognize the music at 1:16 but I forget what it's from. Ace Combat?

That's like NG7 or NG8, right? He's not 387 in NG right?

What difference does it make? The point is that he's playing for PvP with a level 387 character.

What does the symbol next to people's names mean? I've seen it a few times now.

So, were is the way of the blue even located anyhow? I felt like doing some charity work at the cathedral, but I realize I never even found it.

When the old bitch gives you the banner, talk to her again.

I think it's when you summon a high level player through a password and they get gimped to compensate for the host's lower level. If you see that when invading you're either invading a guy with his friends or a gank squad.

jesus christ, my guy's only 174.

I don't really get it, why play that long? The game has lots of replay value with different challenges and play styles you can try, and yet you hold onto the same character and level them up to ridiculous proportions for what purpose? What are you going to do with that character?

This. The fun is in the journey, not the destination.

This.

I'd rather make a new character than play through the game again with the same one

They're wildly stronger than anything else at the level still.

Seriously? That's an awfully stupid way to lock careless new players out of it.

Half the enemies have excellent hitboxes, the other half is fucked. I assume it's to throw off the player and make certain fights artificially hard.

I dunno, maybe this is because equipment/starting gear factors in, but it just doesn't seem to really click. A deprived is level 6 with a combined stat total of 88. A pyromancer is level 1 with a combined stat total of 84. There's no real explanation for that 1 level discrepancy. Deprived starts with a really strong weapon (the club) which supercedes most other starter weapons, sure, but they start with no armor and no spells. How does pyromancy not weigh in to pyromancer level?

I wish FromSoft would release their planning notes and give us insight into how they came to figure the starting levels for each class. At least in Dark Souls III it's all uniform.

Dark Souls has always been full of things like this. A careless new player might never get the white sign soapstone from Solaire if they choose the wrong dialogue option.

Ah yeah, I suppose that's true, I actually missed Solaire completely on my first playthrough.

Wasn't that option something like
"No I don't want to be you're friend?"
Cause if someone answered that way they should kill themselves

i typically use him to test out weapons at their max.
him having 40 in all the dmg stats allows me some interesting possibilities for builds that i then whittle down to the bare essentials.

Smart man
Just remember the soft cap for sorcery is 60, I assume it's the same for faith and pyromancy is 30\30

It's not that bad. You can still go back and talk to her again.

Oh fuck off From.

The question is "will you listen to my proposal?" And then "the way I see it, we should work together for some jolly cooperation, wouldn't you agree?" for both the default answer is no. To check to see if the player is actually reading it. You can talk to him as many times as you like to repeat this dialogue, and he'll not leave the spot until you accept his proposal.

If someone doesn't listen and just keeps clicking through, it's their own fault.

And when she dies, she drops both the way of the blue and the urn, so there's never a moment where you're locked out of WoB.

Password summons with artificially lowered SLs. Encountered one of those with Dragonslayer's Axe. Fucking wrecked my shit on the spot.

You need not only the base versions of the rings, but the upgraded versions too. This is what makes this retarded.

both pure int and faith max out their spell's damage at 60 of their respective stat.
but sorcery isn't worth it right now.

NG, NG+ AND NG+2.

Of course, but my problem with it is that there are already way too few people wearing it, seems counterproductive that it's easy to miss.

Neither are miracles, for that matter. Pyromancies at 40/40 is the most combat proficiency in spellcasting you will get.

For all it's faults, spell casting in DS2 was actually fun.

It's your fault and nobody else's.

Shit nigger I don't mind not having it, I mind that other people don't have it.

Ive seen some really good sorcery damage at level 81. Souls spear did half my health and farron flashsword did about half the damage of a dark sword

So it's still shit.

Sorcery is viable, against enemies who don't have high defense against sorcery, provided you're wearing ALL the sorcery buffs. At level 65 great heavy soul arrow will usually take a good 40-80% off of people I encounter in pvp.

I would argue the dark sword is just
OPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Demons Souls is amazing tho dawg.

youtube.com/watch?v=AGDY4r951Zc

youtube.com/watch?v=QFjotdhdBLM

youtube.com/watch?v=PBYLtyaGXP8

youtube.com/watch?v=aY-CEFD8X1Q

youtube.com/watch?v=6mwkyH1aUU8

i have a 60int/40dex sorc, i know where the road ends.
and for someone who likes brutal magic alongside their swordplay, sorcery is shit this time around.

good thing my pyromancy is still really powerful as a sorc cause i love CSR's stance attacks.

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Absolute garbage taste
The only memorable theme in DaS2 is the bellfry gargoyles theme which is straight up ripped from DaS1

Just recently got a ps3 on the cheap for autistic reasons. Would you recommend getting demons souls or am I too late to that train to enjoy it properly?

Sure. It's a bit dated and the framerate is just shit, but the atmosphere of the game and bossfights are fucking glorious. Community is alive and well too, i've replayed it couple of months ago and was surprised to see phantoms in almost every location.

Sounds like ds1 to me

Interestingly enough it combines elements of all three DaS games and introduces some completely new ones. Retrospectively speaking of course.
Unique mechanics:
You can be overencumbered by having too much shit in your pocket.
By far the most interesting thing in DeS. By doing specific actions you can change the state of the area of the game. By doing good shit and killing bosses game basically becomes easier (among other things). By dying like a bitch (in human form) and killing NPCs you make the game harder, but also make enemies drop more souls and special hostile NPCs appear. Shit's convoluted and awesome as fuck.

That sounds fucking amazing. Tons of replay value. I saw a picture of what I determined to be a runic sword. Is that sword super awesome or lame?

Don't forget those disgusting demon worm things

The rune sword is just ok.
There's much more interesting shit in the game such as the blueblood sword.

They're not worms, they're paramecium.

Miya said he tried to imagine what a primordial demo would look like back when all life forms were simpler, before evolving.

To this day it's still one of the most brilliant design ideas he ever had and one of the most underappreciated ones.

Is that the original anris straight sword. Scales off luck? Sounds cool if it's not garbage

It's one of the best swords in the entire series in terms of damage, reach, and moveset.

Who was the idiot who said hollow scaling was about a C? I have a hollow weapon with D scaling in strength, and the AR grows literally twice as fast with strength than it does with luck. Do the people talking about this game online even play it? There's so much guess work that obviously wasn't tested.

As I understand it anris is the only one with decent luck scaling. If you keep something in your off hand infused with hollow it'll give you bonus luck to help you min max though

Does anyone ever use anything else? Sounds like pvp might be kind of lame

I still can't believe they even gave that thing an attack animation.

There was lots of ridiculous, powerful shit to choose from in DeS.

Luck is for bleed anyway, not so much for hollow weapons.

Yes.
PVP wasn't the focus of DeS, it was full of goofy shit, it was just a quirky little addition to the game.
PVP should never be the focus when designing a souls game, else you get DaS2.
A souls game should be designed as a singleplayer game that has a co-op and invasion element added onto it.

No problem here. It just means you have to time your rolls to the precise moment they start bringing their swing home.
I find it amusing and infuriating at the same time that there are so many enemies with long running-up-your-nose charges that cap off with super delayed wind-up swings. That fucks with me to no end, even when I know they're likely to do it. It's only my fault when they get me, though, so I have no problem with it.
Those fucking thralls with the tracking berserker charge that goes on for miles always make me panic and roll backwards like an idiot, and then make me eat shit.
Enemies being able to variably charge their strong attacks like the player can also messes with me occasionally.

This legit sucks, because it's 100% a bug.
Fuck the what.

Jeyzuz, those giants with clubs in Tower of Flame track you in every animation of their 4 hit combo. Shit's fucking ridiculous.

This. Fight clubs are absolute cancer and I'm extremely glad they didn't include a dedicated PvP arena in DaS3.

Ironically, it's the very people who play the game just for PvP who are summoning three phantoms to steamroll every boss so they can get to the items they want for their build as fast as possible, which means they end up being the worst players of all because they don't challenge themselves to improve. They spend all their time in the designated fight club areas and the rest of the game world is just a place for them to collect the items they want for PvP.

There is actually a PVP dedicated arena. It's right after Pontiff Suhlyvan and you can always see dozens of summoning signs and bloodstains around.

Still, you have a point. So far, i've done thematic builds in the game with the sole focus of having fun by myself and helping people wreck bosses. Dedicated PVP builds are ususally garbage in PVE and most players will need to be carried by phantoms in order to beat the game

It's a player-chosen arena. DaS1 had the DLC arenas after Artorias (which nobody ever uses) and DaS2 had the Brotherhood of Blood arenas (which suck dogdick, especially the bridge).

If it were tracking on its own it'd make since, yes, otherwise it would be way too easy to dodge attacks. But tracking combined with inconsistent to the point of schizophrenic animations just makes it a pain in the ass. You can not know when an attack will land without first having seen it many times before. It's not based on any rule or logic. Some large weapons swing fast, some small weapons swing slow, some have wind up, some do not. So at the end of the day the only thing you can rely on is 100% reactionary iframe rolls.

And this isn't counting the weird cases where enemies track AFTER they start the actual swing of an attack.

That is indeed awesome.

The first rule of fight club. You do not talk about fight club. The second rule of fight club. You do not talk about fight club.

Is there ANY way to prevent them from fucking your health? Even looking away sometimes doesn't help.

You kill them before the red light starts eating away at you too much.
Killing themk quickly is the only way.

The first time you're fighting an enemy, yeah, there's no way to predict what they'll do 100% so you'll get hit by stuff that's 100% reflex-based. That's good design. If you could predict everything on your first run, where's the challenge.
This is more a game about memorizing enemy behaviors than predicting them. PvP is the opposite, I suppose.

real clever, user :^)

When they're looking at you and their eyes are yellow/the lamp is red, you'll lose max health.

If you're behind them or above them, they can't see you and your health is fine. After a few seconds they turn the lamp off if they lose sight of you, too, so you have a moment to charge in and get behind them.

No, there isn't. In The DaS1 DLC there was the Battle of Stoicism and in DaS2 there was a dedicated PvP area after the chariot boss. DaS3 rightfully avoided including anything like this. The Irithyll fight clubs are just that - fight clubs organised via summon signs. It's not an area which was designed specifically for PvP.

Oh, also, the steam cloud they produce when they see you looks like curse gas, but it's 100% harmless. It's just there to scare you away from getting close. It's a cute trick.

Didn't the fart clouds slow you down, so they could grab and cattle prod your anus?

I think it's silly to say From didn't intend for the area after Sulyvahn to be used for PvP. But it is definitely better than saying to the players "LOOK! It's PvP!"

Do they? I've never noticed that. But you have to be in front of them to get branded, anyway, and that's the one place you should never be.

So you'd think. But you can solve this whole thing by just abusing iframes and doing everything by reaction using rolls, completely invalidating the need to either predict OR memorize.
Besides, there's a difference between building intelligent mechanics which the player has to learn and understand over the course of the game (where the difficulty is meant to come from), and introducing unintuitive elements every new level that exist solely to trip up the player and invalidate their experience up to that point. That's called artificial difficulty.
At some point you learn that the only thing you can rely on is iframes and just running passed all the enemies. Because it's the only thing that the game will never just throw back in your face. It will always work.

The point is that there are no stupid portals to walk through or platforms to stand on which match you with other players in an area geographically disconnected with the rest of the world which serves no purpose other than for players to fight in. Stuff like that breaks the fourth wall since it's not part of the normal game world.

There are plenty of large, open, flat spaces where 'honourable duels' can easily be arranged in DaS3. The community just happened to latch on to that one.

Even running doesn't work because some enemies aren't leashed. See Cathedral of the Deep.

Which ones? I did run through cathedral of the deep, at least until I opened all the doors and could just sit at the bonfire.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Fucking Anor Londo Rafters 2.0, with those Cathedral Knights.

Also FUCK Sulyvahn's Beasts forever and a day.

You can only do that if you're reasonably good at the game. For anybody new to the series, they get dryfucked for hours before they develop the muscle memory and reaction time needed to just roll up and ace shit like that.
It's similar to MonHun in that respect - any new player who claims they walked up to their first Nargacuga and beat it without getting it is straight up lying - but beating them without getting hit is really easy for someone who's played the game enough.

You should try doing a sword and board playthrough where you specifically never roll. Keep yourself above 70% equip weight to remove the temptation. It's quite a different game, more about stamina management than split-second timings.

The Grave Wardens or whatever they're called, also the thralls but they just have unusually long leashes I think.

I know for a fact that for example Crystal Beasts have no leash.

Their weakness is that they're incredibly easy to stagger and stunlock. You just have to wait for them to give you one opening, and they're fucked.

I haven't noticed that, even with a claymore they never stagger.

And get bleed. Put Carthus Rouge on a weapon and on 3 hits they will lose 500 HP from the bleed

If you just R1 spam, maybe. Try two-handing and using strong/charge attacks.
There's really no reason to not always be two-handing your weapon, even if it's a dagger.

Enemies in DaS3 have tons of hyperarmor when they perform certain attacks.
He's talking about stunlocking them during their downtime when they aren't attacking.
It's honestly pretty terrible design but that's just DaS3 for you.

Also this.
Like many enemies in this game, their only real weapon is intimidation. They try to scare you into panicking and getting yourself killed.

The 2H damage bonus in DaS3 is really tiny. In DaS1, if I remember correctly, 2-handing most weapons gave them a 50-100% damage boos. In DaS3, it's 5-10% at best, but in most cases it adds like +10 damage, at the expense of 30-50% more stamina used.

The damage bonus is about 20% now, but the real reason to 2H is that your attacks have much more stagger power and thus utility when you double-fist them.

Im trying to Gnaw them to death (the ONE time offensive Miracles are useful) but these fuckers are BB fast and have retarded reach.

If you're standing in front of them, they will facefuck you. If you're at range, they will close that gap from extreme range almost faster than you can physically react.
But if you just get behind them, they can't do shit. They have that one telegraphed turn-and-swipe attack and that's it.

Always wait for them to do their charge attack. They are wide open right then. Just don't stay on their sides or they will do an incredibly fast attack. And since they will turn around, they will do it twice because they aren't facing you

I also found that they are tougher with slower weapons, because their windows of opportunity are so tiny. You can R1 spam them to death with a straightsword very easily (nevermind the general cakewalk that straightswords make out of the game), but if you're 2-handing a zwei or something similar, you'll have far fewer opportunties to hit them without eating shit in return.

Finally got the last one down. It killed me with a lightning breath regardless.

Try dashing through

Ultra Greatswords, great hammers and Greataxes are pretty crappy for PVE. They are great for PVP because of their swing arc and theyr reach, plus they allow you to poise tank through most of the weapons of the game.

But on PVE they are the most wortheless piece of crap evenr created. They take huge chunks of stamina to swing, they are slow and most enemies will poise tank through them when they do their most strong attacks.

Do you know it takes the same amount of hits to break the poise of a Silver Knight with a Straight sword/spear than with an ultra greatsword?

Yeah, the UGS in this game and the great hammers feel harder to use without eating shit than previous games. I'm not sure if it's because they move more slowly or because I've forgotten how to use them effectively. Probably the latter.
Great axes and halberds, though, are amazing and have both super fast attacks and high stagger potential. Roll-attacks and backhop-attacks in particular, depending on which animation set your weapon has.

Congrats, user. You'll respawn but that fucker won't, so the joke's on him.

The dog doesn't have sentience, so the joke is still on respawning guy.

I wonder if one day vidya will exist where all characters within it are sentient.
Would it be immoral to play? Or would it just be more fun?

Both.

Halberds are good primarily because you can outrange most enemiesand stagger them before they even begin their attack animations.

Unfortunately they are pretty piss poor in PvP because their moveset is quite telegraphed which makes for easy dodging and parrying.

Of course don't try bumping it. That would only be the smart thing to do.

Then again you're a soulsfag so pants on head retardery is expected.

Try it with rollan image next time, then maybe you'll start being less butthurt about Souls thread.

You literally could not read two posts down at . I can't believe I'm responding to such obvious bait.

The Red-Hilted Halberd has been serving me very well in PvP. So far, nobody's managed to parry me despite trying, though I almost never use the poke. I just use the overhead chop and the diagonal slash primarily, and they're great for harassing and chasing down people trying to get distance to estus.
They also fuck up estoc memers pretty hard.

WEAPON AR CALCULATOR
WEAPON AR CALCULATOR
WEAPON AR CALCULATOR

I was a few days late to the punch noticing this, but here it is. I'll be adding it to the OP from now on.

trogg.net/DS3Calc/
trogg.net/DS3Calc/
trogg.net/DS3Calc/

I wish From would come out and tell us what they intend to do with the game and the current balance. They started off so nicely with the early patches but now there's only dead silence.

Shadow of the Colossus

The new firelink looks nothing like the one from the first game though

I'm playing a pyromancer right now and I was thinking about settling at SL 99 for invading and just general pvp, how does something like this look?
Maybe I should work in another spell?

Right now I'm using a Raw Astoria's Straight Sword but I want to try the Red Hilted Halberd cause I hear the poise ability is super good.

Go for it. Perseverance is the most broken weapon art in the game. You can poise tank through every single attack that doesn't flatten you

The funny thing is, if they'd just enable poise, it would balance perseverance - essentially making it pointless to use except on light armor builds.

Ok. So after a couple weeks of pvp I think I've come to a conclusion. Somehow, even with the back stabs fixed, this games pvp is worse than any of the other games. Bloodborne was more fun than this. My reasons for this are as follows:
1. Riposte damage is too high
I'm cool with parried one shot ring people, but it's now most people just spam parry now because they don't know how to play otherwise. BS fishing has been replaced by parry fishing.
2. Not enough viable weapon variety.
Even though they focused more on having unique movesets, that doesn't matter because most weapons have complete shit damage. When a straight sword gets more AR than most greatswords do for less investment, there's an obvious balance problem.
3. Poise and defence are worthless. The only thing that affects build variety are weapon choices.
This is what made Bloodborne so boring. The only builds you see are just the weapons they're using. You don't have tanky builds. There are no hyper aggressive builds. There are no unique damage type builds. There are no viable caster builds.
4. Rolling is too strong.
While we all hated the AGI attribute in DaS2, I'm starting to miss it. Rolling is incredibly unpunishable. Even if you predict the roll and attempt a roll catch, an input queued roll will start fast enough to protect them.
5. Small and standard shields are too weak, and greatshields are too strong.
Shield pokes also don't give you protection from attacks. They're pretty much just hyper armor now.

I can keep going. The only good thing about this game's pvp I've seen so far are that ultra weapons are actually viable again. Everything else feels like shit. Don't even get me started about how fucked up the balance of startup and recovery frames on weapons are.

What's a good infusion to go for with a 40/40 fai/int spread? Must be Dark or Chaos even though I wont be able to cast flame arc any more right?

True. But they have a crapload of shit to fix in this game, like Darkmoon covenant being totally useless.

Enchantments generally increase damage more than infusions. Infusions are kind of the easier/lazier route for if you don't want to be constantly buffing your shit.

So true it hurts.
All they had to do was make Darkmoon summon to the world of absolutely anybody being invaded - or at the very least anybody who isn't a Finger of Rosaria getting invaded.

This. Stick with Carthus Flame Arc and Dark Weapon. Infusions are good if the weapon you infuse already has built in damage (Like Drakeblood greatsword. Infuse that thing with Lightning and it will deal around 400 lightning damage with 30 faith).

It's easier: Recover Sin mechanic. That was what make previous games' blue covenants viable: Invading the world of sinners. And if you want to go overboard, get back Indictments.

I honestly don't understand why the Darkmoon covenant exists in DaS3 when it's virtually identical to the Way of Blue, which is itself rendered pointless by the fact that the red eye orb prioritizes hosts with phantoms.

Why make two duplicate covenants which are both useless for the same reasons?

Wait I can still enchant a Dark infused weapon? I didn't know that. Also is that Witch's Locks whip any good? I know whips are generally terrible in souls games but it seems interesting.

You can enchant some weapons that come with elemental damage in their base stats. Like the Drakeblood Greatsword, for example.
It's the same reason you can enchant curved swords - they come "infused" with bleed damage, but you can still use spells or another infusion on them because it's base bleed.

Pvp has been great for me but I do wish I was facing more variety. Ultra weapons are impossible to knock out of animations, even with other ultras it seems.
Plus dark sword r1 spam, frankly it's just gotten old, fucking scrubs could at least use the r2 for the cool spin moves.
Ive been running a carthus swordsman, carthus curved sword plus carthus flame arc. If I could get the skeltal armor of them I would. Gonna get 40 40 20 20 str dex int faith and see if I can get pyromancer to at least do some chip damage to punish chugs

welp

Why is Dancer such a shit

Holy fucking shit, that's fucking insane

Because if it's not a big blob of shit that does weird stuff you can hardly predict, it's a dude in armor with huge reach and 360 degree attack arcs.

>The first phantom runs out of estus and tags the Farron watchdog in, now I have to fight him while the phantom sits down

It was fun but getting two invaders was definitely shit when I was still a ways from the crystal sage wall.

Good to see vageta's legacy lives on

...

he has a point. inb4 poster is buffed estoc with knight armor and washing pole offhand

Nah, UGS are alright, the huge forward reach you get on them means that you get a lot of situations in PVE where you can hit a boss and his son too at free ranges, without necessarily eating punishment unless you went for the third hit like a greedy cunt, notable bosses that become cakewalks with UGS are the Pontiff and the Twin Princes, special mention going to Abyss Watchers First Phase.

I honestly think UGS does fine in PVP because most players you'll run into will try and trade with their straightswords and fail.

Admittedly I used the Burger King UGS and the feeling of catching someone out with the BATTA BATTA BATTA SWING! move is a indescribably pure, despite how annoying it is to pull off.

They totally need an AR buff or something though, going through my second run with a straight sword and doing comparable damage for far less risk was definitely a bit of a let down.

You have to acquire skill before you can use it.

git gud fgt

Don't forget to buy Dark Souls 4! They'll get it right next game, you just have to give them more money until they do!

...

I think one-handed straight swords need to be made utterly mediorcre, because that's what they are. They have versatile and easy-to-use movesets, but those benefits should come at the cost of mediocre damage. Straight swords in the souls games have generally been too powerful. This provides less incentive to use other kinds of weapons or to forgo a shield - basically anything other than vanilla sword-and-board.

There are a couple of particularly schizophrenic design decisions regarding shields. They've made guard-breaking a lot easier and there are now more ways to do damage through a shield, so there's less incentive to use one. But for some bizarre reason they've completely gimped the traditional two-handed bonus you got in the previous games. Two handing a weapon now significantly increases the stamina cost of attacks but only marginally increases their damage no matter what your strength is. Since two-handing is the standard go-to alternative to using a shield (as opposed to dual-wielding or using a specialised off-hand), these design choices make no sense. They have simultaneously dis-incentivised using a shield and not using a shield.

More exotic weapon types with more difficult movesets should do more damage or have other significant benefits. This encourages people to try new and different things as well as appropriately rewarding high-skilled players. If a weapon is overpowered but difficult to use then that's fine. An overpowered weapon is only a problem when it requires no particular skill to use.

WHAT

I tried doing it with the Uchi weapon skill and it never worked for me. Shit's wonky.

Just got a darkmoon invasion after doing invasions as a red for about 8 hours straight.
Fuck this gay faggot shit

or you just didn't time it properly

...

Since I was heading through the Dungeon anyway, I figured I'd test it out. I can confirm that the cloud doesn't do anything to you at all. It just looks scary. They do have a nearly instantaneous forward tap with their branding iron that barely even has an animation, and that's an instant stagger so they can then grill you like a panini.

Also made two reference screencaps for this.
Eyes yellow + red lamp is the tell for their health drain bullshit, but hiding behind this tiny bit of wall made me totally safe.
Once the lamp turns off and their eyes stop glowing yellow, the health drain effect goes away, and you can safely approach them and shove your weapon up their ass to the hilt.

The timing is very different to what you expect, and I've never gotten it down properly. From what I can tell, you have to time it so that your rising parry slash animation intersects the incoming attack animation when they're both almost exactly 50% through their respective animations.
I have no idea if this is accurate or not, but the frames of actual parry seemed to be when the uchi was about halfway up.

Someone who actually uses that thing regularly could probably confirm that.

you could be DONALD TRUMP

or TRUMP2016

I win literally 19/20 fights with this SL60 pyromancer. God fucking forbid I pumped this motherfucker up to 40/40 and upgraded my flame past +6

Does that actually stack?

whats the best place to farm embers before dancer?

Yes, and it fucks up both players and bosses.

You just fucking reminded me, I got invaded in the dungeons by some guy named Alice in full jailer gear.

For some reason my health drained despite him being the only enemy in sight. And whenever he hit me with the branding iron my screen shook violently. Never was on the receiving end of that weapon so I don't know if that's normal.
Fucking bizarre invasion.

Shit, that sounds fun. I've been meaning to make a brigand twindaggers build.

Neither of those were normal.

You got invaded by a hacker making an Alice in Chains joke.

Please no

Guess the joke was lost on me.

I mean I got like three times the amount of screenshake that you usually get upon being hit. Couldn't tell at first if it's normal or not.

It might be laziness, but the real reason I think they reused assets from firelink is because for the longest time Firelink Shrine has been your home, your place of rest where you and other undead feel most comfortable. Now obviously unless you're retarded you were probably able to pick up the fact that you're in an area that looks a lot like Firelink Shrine, but seems to be swallowed by the abyss.
Now this may mean that there was another identicle universe that ended before the events of DS3, but what I like to believe is a much more likely explanation is that since the abyss is an abstract plane of negativity, betrayal and general nightmarish feelings, it portrayed to you a delapidated, abyssal version of the place you consider safest: firelink shrine. So basically that entire area can be chalked up to no more than an illusion that abyss portrayed to you.

On a related note, I feel as if this area was left unfinished for how significant it is, they could have fleshed out the abyss way more than "ITS THE FIRST AREA FROM THE GAYM AGAIN, SPOOKY XDD"

Do you remember how you died?
Do you remember your near death experiences?
Do you remember the faces you saw, before you woke up?

I didn't say it was a GOOD joke.

If you manage to get to Dark Firelink and talk to the Handmaiden without talking to her in normal Firelink, she has special dialogue that implies she remembers you from Dark Firelink, which suggests Dark Firelink is in the past. Also, Ludleth mentions that he remembers it and it was what inspired him to Link the Fire.

It seems to me that it's just a what-if scenario, especially considering what the old merchant woman says, and the souls of both gundyrs.
Basically, "what if the bells never tolled to summon the lords and unkindled to their duty?"
The fire goes out, and that's that. A few things linger, like that old woman who's dressed like a DS2 firekeeper, and the black knights who are just basically haunted ash in knight form.

What I find most interesting is that they're literally the same zone. You'll find the same messages written on the ground in both firelinks, in the same places, and if you open the silver serpent ring chest in one of them, it'll be empty in the other.

Oh wow, I missed that dialogue. Gotta go check that out.

This doesn't make much sense, though, because Ludleth's Lord of Cinder throne is present in Dark Firelink. Wouldn't that mean he linked the fire before your visit to Dark Firelink?

As in, don't talk to the handmaiden for the entire game up until you get to dark firelink?

This sort of shit annoys me. I like the number of secrets in Dark Souls but that's the kind of thing no one is ever going to try by themselves and the only reason we know about it is due to dataminers.

I feel like this image is incomplete because it doesn't have some kind of unnecessary knocks and whiffs at PC players.

youtube.com/watch?v=H5mHuSFRzZM

That's the part that has people talking about time loops and other bullshit. And it's the part that makes NO sense so far.

Also, for the record, Firelink and Dark Firelink are literally the same map data in the same location in the game world, just with different skyboxes, lighting, active elements, and entities. If you go to Cemetery of Ash and moon jump up through the door you'll end up in Oceiros' area, where you can actually see through the broken roof that the sky is black already.

It's waaaay easier on New Game Plus. I did the Dancer glitch with the Sword Master, then solo'd Oceiros, then killed Champion, and voila. Dataminers didn't find this one, actually, though they DID find dialogue that either Anri can save Greirat in Lothric Castle or that the content was cut.

Dragon Ball Souls

thats my webm you stole it

Not if you don't know it's even a possibility. Who is going to start a new game and say to themselves "I am going to purposefully not talk to this hub NPC for the entire game just to see if anything happens?" It's ludicrous. The fact that you can glitch the game to get the dialogue quickly is completely besides the point.

How do you moon jump? Is this a potential sequence break, or does it just let you clip slightly so you can see outside the map boundaries?

It's not that ludicrous. What reason do you even have to talk to the merchant lady on a NG+ or especially NG++ run? She sells bullshit.
It was likely either put there as an easter egg, or left in there accidentally from some abandoned quest line.

Cheat Engine. Someone on 8ch posted the webm showing Oceiros' room loading and I wish I had saved it.

One of the Youtubers with early access to the game actually made a point of killing all of the ones in Firelink as soon as they could, which is how we knew Yuria references Kaathe before the game came out. Given that important NPCs drop key items when you kill them (Ingward in DS1, for instance), it's not really surprising that someone would try killing Emma to get the Dancer fight early.

From there, it's just a matter of exploring the possibilities. "Oh, I killed Dancer, I can get into the castle now… oh, I can't access the Archives. Can I get to Dark Firelink? Hell yes!" And then the logical extension, "If Ludleth acts like this is in the past, what happens if I talk to the Handmaiden there first before talking to the normal one?"

-You want to buy titanite to upgrade a new weapon you want to try out.
-You want to buy something to try trading it to the crows
-You want to buy some consumables rather than farm them
-You want to buy some of the boss armour
To think of a few

My point is that it's bad design because it's not rewarding in the right way. It's a secret they put there just because they could. It's not a reward for being observant or investigative like a good secret should be.

It's an Easter Egg, not something good or important. It's a line of dialogue. Games have been doing this shit forever, with far more obscure means of seeing them.

Looks pretty logical to me.

Lol no.

No glitches you could arcane spec and one shot people with the fucking cannon. even with huge hp investment.

You could also go rifle spear and literally spam shots and win while tanking hits from opponents.

I didn't say it was better. I said it was more fun. Bloodborne was horrifically balanced, but it was different. This is like a broken version of Dark Souls

Except there were only like 3 areas in the game you could actually get invaded.

And after you killed the bell lady you were safe from invaders

God I hate Aldriches fucking deathray, it's the only attack of his that actually hits me, but it kills me every time.

If you're a caster, use Vow of Silence and it makes the fight a fucking joke.

Just found out by gesturing to the level up waifu, you can get her to react.

Pure sorceror, not enough faith.

Is that someone's gamer poser OC?

Which looks more like a KANGZ?

I'd say second one. I like the feathery/hair crown.

3rd one

Out of those two, the latter.

first two and last two are identical

Alternatively, I change a couple facial features…

I'm not talking about the accessibility of the PvP. I'm talking about the content of the fights. If accessibility determined thebvalue of fun, then angry birds is the best game ever

eyes not smug enough

What would the viability of an item that banishes phantoms for an invader be?
Say, like the loyds talisman stopping estus, there would be a talisman stopping/paralyzing/banishing host phantoms.

Maybe there's a side effect in which the invader loses half health in using the item.

I believe those are called weapons, user.

3v1 fights aren't fun, user.

Got a big stack of embers saved up, anyone wanna help me out with Aldrich?

I've found using iron flesh really fucks up gank squads. Especially as a mad phantom. Buff yourself up, let them start wailing at you, and double hit them back because lolinfinitepoise. Usually you'll kill one or two of their phantoms, enabling you to get your shackle and leave.
Mind the extremely shitty quality webm, I made it just now and I don't care enough to optimize it yet.

That's just the host being a dumbass and not chugging though.
Which I guess you have to bank on because he can outlast you

Iron flesh is beautiful if the guy you're fighting is fucking garbage that is

if you're gonna use iron flesh like that, use something like the exile greatsword with rouge on it or the exile greatsword that can kill people in 1 combo. Sacred flame also works.

This is why the game just needs to prioritize balancing instances out. Summon one Darkmoon for every invader beyond the first.

I actually got invaded in the archives and had it summon two darkies for a single invader. Was a tad odd.

And of course the invader faggot wouldn't accept that I was willing to wait and let him fight one on one and just bum-rushed me.

get the Sellsword helmet - if you didn't start with it, the set is in the same area as the Black Knight guarding the Farron Coal in Crucifixion Woods - on the second floor, it looks just like KANGZ

What's a better quality greatsword than the claymore? I'm using a +10 refined claymore wwith like 34/30 stats, and still doing fuckall damage it feels.

I wish hosts wouldn't treat dorkmoon as a free ganksquad.
The VERY rare time I get summoned as a dorkmoon and the host lets me 1v1 the invader feels great, but most of the time I end up just playing as Souls Cop, sitting around making gestures while the host fights the invader, waiting for somebody to do something dickish (dark sword spam I usually intervene a little, more invaders I fight off, if invader hides behind enemies I kill the enemies, etc.).

Poise when

Go fuck yourself, unfunny moefag trash

Exactly. The way I figure it, two on one, you're almost always going to lose if they're competent at all. But if you fight one on one, at least one of you will get a covenant reward.

I was so tired of the lack of darkmoon summons that the last three or four areas of the game I'd just pop an ember and use the dried finger before going through.

It was actually quite a bit of fun, though a little sad when I'd make it through and area without issue, having killed seven or eight invaders.

Heavy weapons are so fucked outside of PvP. Just because the game is SLIGHTLY faster, anything slow(i.e. a greataxe, club, or ultra greatsword), is totally fucking worthless.

Shit fucking sucks.

The game doesn't count Resistance for the stat total.

I get summoned so rarely, that I don't even bother trying to enjoy it. I just sprint in and bring the full fury right up the phantom's ass while he's distracted. I can't risk not getting a concord, because at the current rate of summoning, it'll take me more than a month to get 30 concords.

Poise should give you damage reduction when you do an attack that has hyper armor. That way we can still have poise do something while avoiding havel fags with estocs and dark swords mashing light atacks all day.

Wrong. You just need to account for the fact that it'll take you all that extra time to swing. It's an adjustment period, but it's not that hard.
If you go in trying to swing it like it's a straight sword, though, you're going to get fucked.

With an ultra greatsword you get one swing, and an eternity of recover time. In that same timeframe, I could get 5-6 hits in with a straightsword, and do more damage.

Meanwhile

Like I said, only good in PvP, where hyper armor is ruling the fucking roost.

That's very true, but you're forgetting the most important aspect: greatswords look fucking cool.
That's literally the only reason to use 90% of the weapons or armor in any Souls game - the rule of cool.

Any chance to get a better quality version?

Also, I should mention, the best way to use UGS is two-handing them, and going for charged R2's instead of wasting your time with R1s. You can do insane damage with a single swing that way, but it takes time and patience to find the right opening.
A typical straight sword like a +10 chaos dark sword can outdamage the fuck out of any UGS for sure, but if you find something you like because it looks really cool, you just have to suck it up and git gud with it, and accept that it's sub-optimal.

It doesn't make the game any harder, it just makes certain fights take a little longer. Like when I had to solo Aldrich with my +3 halberd because I didn't want to upgrade it any further for matchmaking reasons, and I was forced to chip him down ~67 damage at a time. It took about 100 hits.

on top of that weapon buffs scale so much better with fast weapons because they all just slap X amount of AR to each swing rather than increase weapon damage by X% which is what they should do. sure you have cursed weapon/power within but it's shit this time around.

oath is still fantastic, though, and it stacks wonderfully with weapon buffs. both combined give about a 40% damage increase, though oath only lasts 15 seconds.
oath also stacks with deep protection, so all three can boost your base damage to about +50%.

you can have more than one body/weapon buff?

See:

How does the whole password thing work? Does it cover everything or just soapstones?

The armors in this game are dull as hell. The default knight armor is great, but other than that they all start to look samey. Plus none of the adopted armors from ds1 and 2 look as good as they originally did.

And the legs of your char are too damn thin.

soap

I want to make a strength build and aim to use the Spiked Mace or until it bores me. I've been playing pyro and sorcery builds a lot, what are my best ranged options on a more strength focused build? Can crossbows be decent? Firebombs? Any bows that don't require much dex but scale with str? I plan on using Flame Arc since it's just a 2 point investment if I start with knight and Spiked Mace can be enchanted.

Avalyn has no scaling but good base damage to make up for it. Greatbows scale more with dex than str but are still a valid option.
Put carthus rouge on that shit. Anything vulnerable to bleed will fucking melt.

Weeb katanas with rouge or Kirk's longsword with rouge?

Warden twinblades.

Oh shit didn't even realize it was a bleed weapon, does the L2 + R2 combo properly apply bleed, unlike the spin combo of Wardens Twinblades L1 that barely does anything for the amount of hits you do?

Also what's good earlier in the game?

dragonrider bow, only needs 15 dex.

The twinblades apply a ton of bleed per hit, the fuck are you on about? Either you're attacking something that's resistant/immune to bleed or you were trying to hit another player who was lagging a bit.
You can get the mace as soon as you get to the undead settlement. The only bleed weapon you can get sooner is the uchi.

slow ass weapons like spiked mace are terrible for proccing bleed and great hammers are even slower than greataxes.

As someone who used the spiked mace from the settlement until fucking anor londo, I can tell you that you'll get a bleed effect probably once per boss if you're really being aggressive.

The buildup is about the same as other bleed weapons, but you're hitting a third as many times.

The rolling r1 and held r2 and quite fun to use, but as with everything else, it's vastly outclassed by faster shit.

My #1 favorite complaint there is the third picture. I usually hear it from people playing fighting games though. "waah waah u only use 1 or 2 moves over and over again and it's cheap!!!1" If your opponent seriously only uses two moves over and over again and never anything else, just figure out how to counter those two moves, jesus christ.

Charging R1 with katanas threw me off at first because it's just so much faster than any other charge, but I got gud and now any time I see somebody holding a katana running at me I know exactly when to dodge and they can't hit shit.

The weapon skill can trap people and get enough hits to proc easily in addition to doing a bunch of raw damage in the process.

A lot of bosses are really resistant to bleed.

Doesn't stop the warden's twinswords from pumping out a bleed three or four times per encounter.

I mean shit, a regular dagger infused with bleed builds it up faster than the fucking mace.

The type of person who sends hate mail isn't the kind of person who has the capacity to improve as a player. They've got some form of brain damage between them and gud.

I'm interested in trying it for the moveset, the weapon is also easy to move away from with the stat req's in mind if I find it boring/bad since I want to mainly make a strength build and it's 21/13 str/dex.

Yeah that's what I was thinking, if I can hit them with a combo and I have rouge applied on it most people should bleed right?

Unrelated but got some new stuff and fashioned away on my pyromancer. Thoughts?

Also on the topid of bleed and pyromancy, I really wish it got spells that buff with statuses. Bleed might be a bit of a stretch but poison is totallt in line with what pyromancy does.
A frost resin in general would be nice too, just for the option.

Or a corrosion buff so we can have our scraping spears back finally.

No, that's a bit too mean. It would either be absurdly broken and used everywhere or not do jack shit.

Isn't the branding iron a good dick weapon?

Maybe some truly absurd shit, then, like a ring that turns you into one of those dive-and-explode guys from DS2 - the damage/status you deal is determined by your equipment, which all breaks once you kaboom.
Your death is delayed by 5 seconds after the kaboom, so you get credit if you succeed in allahu ackbaring your prey, but if you miss or they block they get to reap the rewards for your death as well as a hearty laugh at your expense.

This idea is complete shit, and yet part of me actually wants to see it, just for a little while.

It's unclear to me if the branding iron actually works as advertised. I don't think it really blocks players from healing like it claims to, but I haven't extensively tested it.

It needs to have some utility in the game outside of pvp. So perhaps you use it on yourself like iron flesh and after x number of hits, you make a little explosion.

Getting hit with a fire attack makes it go off immediately and frost attacks slow down the buildup.

That's just dumb and bad.

It only reduces recovery, not block it entirely. The best way to use it is to invade in the dungeon with full jailer set and corrosive mist.

Germans are subhuman cucks worse than filthy BR huefags.
I didn't think it was possbile for me to hate something more than I hate BR scum.
But germans have taken that mantle.
All of the most obnoxious gankers I have encountered have always been Germans.

They are always using Solaire armor, Artorias armor, Dark Swords, "sunbros", and other Dark souls meme trash they are literally Reddit: The Country
I'm glad they are being cucked out of existence right now, because they deserve genocide

This is the second time this has happened.
Bleed feels like shit, I might as well just go back to a quality build.

Are dark swords the newest meta or something? Been seeing a ton of people using them, last I'd seen it was estoc spam that was flavor of the month.

Are you using it for PVP or PVE ?

Because its pretty devastating in PVP.

You're not infusing with bleed on a bleed weapon, right? It's just a waste, go quality or sharp and use a rouge.

People use dark swords because they're straight swords with the reach and damage of claymores and some of the highest scaling in the game. It's just a factually op weapon.

Huh, must just be retards using them that I've come up against then.

I'm using it for PvE; I'd heard some nice things about it being good for grinding winged fatties and churning through bosses but I'm not having much luck with it.
I'd poked around for info but the most information I can find is empty wiki pages and MLG PvP videos; I'll try working out a few more weapons for it and see how it goes; maybe some Refined Warden Twinblades.

I used the Dark Sword for my first entire playthrough because it happened to drop and I loved it from DaS1.
I can attest that people who use the Dark Sword almost exclusively R1 spam because that's all you have to do to beat the entire game with it. It doesn't teach you shit about actually playing the game or improving your skills.

When I did my second playthrough with a UGS barbarian, it was like culture shock.

Op weapons do tend to attract retards.

If you're going to high level the best way to abuse bleed is actually with hollow weapons and high luck.

Carthus Curved Sword is a great one to try out. Good balance between bleed procs and base damage. Two-hand that shit and go farming happily along.

Are there concrete numbers yet on where the luck soft cap is, and how much value it actually has? It seems interesting, but it also seems like the kind of build that's not viable until a pretty high SL.

Pretty sure the soft cap is 40 like every other stat, but keep in mind that hollow weapons give +5 luck.

Estoc and Dark Sword are the shitter meta.

They arent hard to face when you are dealing with one, because they are predictable and parry bait.

But when you have mutliple of them being thrown at you at once is the issue, they have the reach of a great weapon, the damage of a ultra greatsword and can be swung 6+ times in a row.

Its phantom range is annoying, but it can be parried.

Ok, so there is a time travel or time-fuckery aspect to all of this?
See I didn't really know that.
I've been trying to pull it all together through what little I know about 1 and 2.

Because honestly, it seems like the purpose of your character and the purpose of the world change CONSTANTLY.

in 1 I was lead to believe that you were dumped into this place because you were undead. Like the whole kingdom was some sort of crazy prison/asylum. sort of how they used to do with Australia or better yet how they used to have leper colonies on islands.

In 2, it seemed like you being undead would make you WANT to go to that world. Like it was just a necropolis and once there the whole idea was to become the biggest swinging dick because what else are undead fucks gonna do?

in this one, its even a bit more murky because you seem to be starting out in the whole undead land. Like you rise from the grave.
And given how many graves and shit are around the place I have to wonder if its not just a whole land where every single possibly living person has completely died already. That the death didn't just pile up to a point where undeath was the only answer or something like that.

I guess there are more mystical/magical things in play here right? Like, not every demonic creature thing is some twisted form of a once normal human that became undead for too long. Many of them are legit monsters in some way.

The only other confusing thing is that some of these cities and realms seem to be functioning. Like these undead have like jobs and shit that they tend to do.

I don't know, I'm always just so confused.

Does anyone 100+ want to help out with the nameless king?

In 1, only the Undead Asylum was an actual undead asylum. The rest of the game was just various crumbling kingdoms and ruins of the past. You're strung along by the snakeman (and fate, I suppose) on a path to see if you're strong enough to get the lord souls and link the fire.
2 made very little sense from a motivation perspective.

The big part of the first one is that all humans at this point are undead, and when you lose your purpose you go hollow (fucking batshit insane). It was a huge theme of the first game; almost all NPCs you meet will go hollow if you get everything from them you can.

Most demons are creatures that manifested directly from the Chaos Flame. Some few of them, like Quelaag and her sister, were twisted and deformed by it, but the rest just came into existence out of chaos itself.

Time fuckery exists within the bonfire system itself, as explained by Solaire. Basically, all of the NPCs exist in different time periods to you - all within the same crumbling post-civilization era, but thier journeys all take place weeks or even years apart. The bonfires sort of "shuffle" you back and forward in time, and allow those journeys to occasionally converge. This is also the explanation for the phantom/invasion systems.
It explains why you can help some NPC out on their quest line, and then discover their long dead and decayed corpse later on - where they obviously died years before you even met them.

I assume this comes into play in the same way in 2 and 3, though it's never explicitly mentioned again.

The corners in the bonfire room are great for hiding

Ok that clears up a whole bunch of shit and weirdness.
See, I was under the impression that the land of Lothric (I suppose that's where all the games take place) was just one big necropolis kingdom. A place that was cursed where cursed people (cursed to be undead) go.
2 made it seem like only a select few end up undead and would thereby get sort of "called" to Lothric.

But from what you say, I should treat the whole place not as like a weird spot on a map but as the entire land completely sort of like Nosgoth in the Legacy of Kain games.

Yeah, pretty much. As the fire fades, reality sort of crumbles. Countries that used to be on the other side of continents are suddenly sucked together. Also, ultimately all humans succumb to the curse.

It's unclear exactly how that works, but my personal thought is that it's like an equilibrium between light (flame) and dark (humanity). As humans flourish and multiply, the humanity in the world increases, which increases the world's dark and causes the flame to begin to fade. As the flame fades, even more darkness is able to manifest and the abyss begins to seep out and consume places - the abyss being the source of humanity, the two pull on each other and so the abyss always appears under or within cities and other large areas of population.
This sounds like it shoud be great for humans, since humanity (the titular "dark souls") come from the abyss to begin with. I think the reason it's a curse, is that corporeal human form is only gained when dark humanity souls combine with the "light" souls that are produced by the Flame. The Flame is incredibly powerful, but ultimately finite, whereas humanity and the abyss appears to be able to continue to grow endlessly, and so eventually the amount of "light" souls sustained by the Flame dwindles to a critical level, and humans begin to lose their living forms as the abyss begins to reclaim them one by one - manifesting as the dark sign on their skin. When the humanity is finally drawn fully back to the abyss, they hollow out and become just the outer crust - a human body animated by "light" souls, but with no "dark" soul left to give it that human spark. This explains why all the hollows you kill give you only souls and not dark souls.

But again, this is just my own pet theory, and all of this is open to interpretation because vague is the name of the game when it comes to writing Dark Souls lore. Take all of this with a mountain of salt.

This is only tangently related, but, for what it's worth, those fuckers down in Londor seem to have figured out hollowing. They're all described as hollows, but they don't seem to have succumbed to the curse and remain completely sane. Plus, they seem to worship Kaathe.

Shit's whack yo.

They were probably founded by a chosen undead who went dark lord ending.

This makes sense, especially with what Ludleth and the Firekeeper say during the Betrayer ending.
There must have been many times that the fire simply wasn't linked - betrayers or hollow lords and so on. But the fire is inevitable, and will always eventually flare up again spontaneously. Linking the Flame is just a way to keep an already ignited Flame burning just a little longer.

I guess that starts to make sense.
The whole point of linking the flame is to keep the current age going.

So that makes one wonder if each dark souls game is actually happening in times where the flame has actually died out before. Like perhaps the actual canon ending for these games is an ending where the flame isn't linked?

It's my personal theory that the "marriage" ceremony is somehow involved in their techniques to maintain their sanity, as you absorb the dark sigils from Anri, but he/she remains alive and sane and can be seen in the Usurpation ending.

they're not succumbing to a curse, undeath is humanities' natural state.

No, undeath isn't their natural state. Humanity is. The black giggling ghosts in the abyss, basically. Humans don't naturally have a physical body.

It's probably just an endless cycle of dark to light to dark.

Most of Dark Souls just gives us the building blocks of a plot to play with as we like, rather than an actual, canon plot, at least in my view. We do know, if Ludleth and the Firekeeper are correct, that if this Fire burns out, more will eventually be lit. We also know Fires can be created artificially, as the Witch of Izalith did. One thing I wonder about is the Profaned Flame from DS3. Is this a new, imperfect flame a la the Flame of Chaos, or has the First Flame somehow been irreparably tainted?

I could be wrong, as it's never actually stated exactly what all the effects would be if the Flame went out, but I feel like the fact that Gwyndolin was still alive and kicking for quite some time after the events of DS1 would have to mean that some Chosen Undead had to have linked the fire. I suppose an Age of Dark doesn't necessarily mean the Gods would all spontaneously die, but I always felt like it would be such a cataclysmic event that their influence would have been rendered completely null.

I believe the whole legend of the Chosen Undead was created by the Gods to trick the pygmy's children into burning their souls to prop up the Age of Fire. I also believe, since you fight Gwyn in the kiln, that Dark Souls 1 has to canonically be the very first cycle of linking the flame (second if you count Gwyn himself doing it).

Dark Souls 2 could have had the protagonist walk away from linking the fire, though. I think Vendrick and Aldia figured out the plot and openly worked against the Gods, and though they failed, the things they left behind could have given that age's Chosen Undead the capacity to reject the linking entirely. I think DS2 actually has a ton of value to the series from a lore perspective. Vendrick warred with the giants in order to steal the Throne of Want. I think this was intentionally to sabotage the linking of the fire.

I assume it's a new flame, similar to the Flame of Chaos, but it could also be that artificially linking the Flame to prolong it ultimately corrupts it somehow. We know that the Chaos Flame has almost completely extinguished by DS3, because of all of the descriptions from shit in the Demon Ruins. The Chaos Flame is what sustains the demons, and the very last spark of it that was left exists inside the Old Demon King.
All the other demon corpses, as well as the stray demon, are solid rock and have lost all of their flame.

The two other demons that you see in Undead Settlement and Catacombs of Carthus appear to be different, so I'd guess they're the next generation of demons from the new Profaned Flame. They could just be remnants of the old Chaos Flame, though, lingering to the last just like the Old Demon King.

This makes a lot of sense, because burning up humanity removes Dark from the world, which then allows the Flame/Light to increase. I feel like the existence and proliferation of humanity itself is what causes the flame to fade over time.
If the Flame went out completely, though, I imagine the Gods would die pretty soon thereafter just like the Demons did when the Chaos Flame died. In that sense, the Flame and the Chaos Flame are really just the same thing, but with slightly different properties, like two sets of natural laws coexisting but neither being less natural than the other.

I think that's a neat idea, and probably right. We see the demons are horrific and unnatural, because they are unnatural *to us*. I wonder if the demons, with whatever senses and sensibilities they possess, see the world outside of Izalith and the surrounding lava flows as horrific and terrifying? If they see humans as being just as unnatural as we see them.

Kind of Lovecraftian maybe. We exist, they exist, both have their place, but should never overlap lest madness ensues.

We already know what happens when you combine a demon with some dogs.

that's the dark soul, something the divides and multiplies with humanity.
and even then it doesn't coagulate like that without being excited by the abyss.

both mortal death and undead hollowing are effects of the curse placed upon humanity when gwyn linked the dark soul to the age of fire.

all fires, be they gwyn's, chaos, the abyss, or the profane, are centers for a race's life.
the fire's strength effects how many there are in future generations.
its analogous to blood strains in the bloodborne universe and shows why exactly pyromancers are despised.

I agree, but I wouldn't call the chaos flame natural, given that the Witch of Izalith made it.

Anyway, what the fuck is the Deep. There's so little explanation over what caused a major fucking religion.

I assumed that the Deep was the same thing as the Abyss.

They're different, somehow. The deep can support some kind of life, as it's full of those insects in Gnaw.

Deep DLC?

The Deep and the Profaned Flame both seem really fucking important, but I can't figure out either. Additionally, they both relate back to the Archdeacons of Irithyll.

Deep Protection miracle states:
"The deep was originally a peaceful and sacred place, but became the final rest for many abhorrent things."

Deep infuse does dark damage, so it could be related to the Abyss, but Alrich's boss soul says:

"When Aldrich ruminated on the fading of the fire, it inspired visions of a coming age of the deep sea." So assuming the translation is correct and not some kind of esoteric metaphor, The Deep would literally mean the watery depths of the sea.

Finally, the Soul of Aldrich, the Soul of the Deacons of the Deep, and the Human Dregs you collect from Alrich's covenant all have a very distinctive dark blue color to them, very different from the white/gold or orange of most souls, or the black of humanity.

y-y-you too

Holy shit I fucking lost it, I wish I was recording that shit.

Th-thanks.

Also, holy fuck this guy has killed like 20 people in a row at this fightclub.

...

Bitch

Hey m8, fight clubs are comfy and pretty much free souls.

busting fight clubs is also pretty great, yeah

Yorms Machete is pretty good.

Its range is what makes it viable, however it doesnt seem to guarentee a two hit stun which is pretty annoying.

Trying to come up with bizarre concepts for theme runs. Current theme is maximum passive healing.
This is what I've come up with so far. Am I missing any other rings or maybe some armor pieces that have built-in healing stuff?

Throw on Mimic Head and forbid the use of Estus and that's a pretty neat idea for a challenge run.

there is a greatshield you can get from dragons peak that provides constant regen

great dragon shield or something like that

its looks like tha adjucators shields from DeS

You could also make use of the blessed infusion on the arstor spear, which would add on some hp regen.

...

Every boss that has one of those fucking special grapple/unique combo attacks does this and its fucking obnoxious; I'd rather they just fucking one-shotted me.

Stop getting hit in the first place.

Thanks, that worked!

...

they mistranslated, its the abyss.

It's correctly referred to as the Abyss elsewhere, why is it only changed to "Deep" in reference to Aldrich and the church of Irithyll?

i have suspicions but nothing really concrete to back them without knowing who did the translation and knowing them well enough.