my uchi is +7 now. all of my other attempts at weapons have been garbage. fire brigand daggers? garbage. blessed reinforced club? garbage.
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going much better today. got back in the souls swing of things, I guess. one shot vordt.
I thought I’d stick with the uchi, but at least in the early game the astora straight sword has proven to be quite useful, and the dark axe from the mimic under the dragon did some work. I’ve always been a fan of the varying straight swords, so I’ll probably get some more use out of the astora and try out the claymore, which was my go to weapon in at least one of my DS1 playthroughs.
any thoughts on halberds/lucerne in this game?
I’ve been maining halberd. Superficially it’s similar to the DkS1 halberd, but it’s not OP anymore, just a respectable choice, because the base damage and poke speed are both slightly decreased. The range is really useful and it pairs naturally with the Twin Dragon Greatshield (same strength requirement and weight class). The R2 seems like it should be good for crowd control but is actually not in practice, it’s too slow to start up and wind down and doesn’t one-shot anything.
I’m at the ash lake
I’m at the iron keep
I’m at the combination ash lake and iron keep
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Could you spoiler-tag please if that’s a secret area
The catacombs are extremely cool. I can see this being a fun place to revisit on later playthroughs. Actually, the entrance to them is very, very reminiscent of the entrance to one of King’s Field 4’s places.
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This is probably just me, but so many enemies in this game just feel incredibly fast and lethal and my character feels like they’re underwater. Right now this is what the Abyss Watcher fight feels like. I’d probably wouldn’t mind it if managing the runback wasn’t so much of a chore. I’ve had him within one hit multiple times and somehow I manage to screw it up I guess, but honestly there’s very little room in this fight to do anything but dodge and maybe get a hit in if you have some stamina left??
I can’t wait until I start fighting the “actually hard” bosses later!
the trick to beating the abyss watcher is to train yourself to roll forward and to the right when he does that overhand slash. I botched at least a couple runs when I was a few hits shy of winning, then once I learned to anticipate that, it became pretty easy.
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So far I enjoy the combat of this game more than the other games in the series. I’m also dying a lot more than in the other games as well. Normally play a Sorc but this might be the first time I beat a Souls game first with a melee character. Still considering.
Game definitely seems to want to check all the boxes when it comes to area design, which, in spite of there being so many of them, are kind of… I dunno. I don’t find myself stopping to look at them nearly as much. Enemy designs vary in quality quite a lot. Despite that, this game is immensely polished and there are some gorgeous enemies and views. I’ve also had to vary my playstyle a lot more than any of the games in the past, and that’s quite refreshing.
I like weapon skills. I’m not sure if they’re as good an idea as trick weapons, but the sheer variety is impressive (the fact that it extends to all weapons is awesome). Scale in general in this game is impressive - and I think this is the game that, so far, has taken me the longest to beat in the series as well.
For the fist part I mostly led them around the room and let the red-eyed one do some extra damage to the main figure. For the second half I kept a very wide space between myself and the watcher and limited my strikes to being after their couple of long-range stinger-type moves. It’s not a very impressive approach, and does require a fair bit of patience that may feel weird coming off of Bloodborne, but it worked for my level 35 brigand-axe-wielding character.
You shouldn’t listen to anything anyone says about which Souls-y game is the hardest/easiest. The whole conversation is a vortex of mud. In fact, I don’t know how you’d go about judging that in a concrete way. Number of deaths? Most people probably aren’t keeping a record of that, although DS2 did have that obelisk.
I laughed because the first chest I bothered to attack before opening was the only mimic I’ve run across so far.
the farron greatsword is the first dual weapon I’ve come across in this game that actually seems pretty neat but there’s no way trying to use it won’t screw me up
I think I’m somewhere between the 1/2 and 2/3 mark at this point, having a good time. it does feel a little egregious that this game is so linear that any of several different bridges in the catacombs (for example) is the only link between one half of the world and the next, but that’s very much an in-principle rather than in-practice issue.
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This weapon is so much damn fun to use. In spite of its looks, it IS practical in PvE and PvP (but definitely has a learning curve). Hopefully the “adjustment” that’s coming doesn’t make it useless.
Also, while Great Magic Shield doesn’t trivialize bosses, it makes them a hell of a lot easier to manage. Near as I can tell, it makes any shield absorb most (all?) Magic/Fire/Dark damage for very little stamina cost, as well as any physical damage. Seems to make the shield 100% absorb all AND increase its stability tremendously.
In spite of everyone saying the game is linear, I wouldn’t say it feels any more linear than any of the others - and the game world is still heavily interconnected. I’m still getting lost despite being pretty close to the end. Granted, I’m also generally avoiding guides unless I’m genuinely stuck.
oh wow the area after the catacombs is fantastic
the biggest problem with great magic shield is that it makes it inconvenient to cast great magic weapon which most people will find more useful, because of which hand you have the catalyst in
Been putzing around in small chunks exploring the early areas, had a quick question I forgot to check earlier: are their any attribute cut-offs that are important in this game? I recall last game having to get some stat to a certain level for the rolls to work properly and certain… “wise” cutoffs if you were a melee character in terms of strength/dex in a game before that, just curious if there is anything along those lines to be aware of. That and formerly the upgrade paths were the only bits of info I liked to know beforehand.
generally in these games strength/dex become not very useful after 40 unless you really want to equip one of those things that takes 50 strength. pretty sure 40 endurance is still the stamina break point too.
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yeah, 40 is the traditional Souls Stat Cutoff Point. You generally get very little after that, and then almost nothing after 50.
(ds2’s agility was such a bad mechanic)
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Breakpoints have changed pretty significantly, near as I can tell. You gain a ton of health up until 30 VGR, then good gains until 50. Same with END.
For INT and FTH the soft-caps are 60 each, 30 for each (INT/FTH) if the spell is dark-aligned (though only weapons/staves/chimes that have both INT and FTH scaling benefit from this).
Soft-caps for STR and DEX are also at 60, though most weapons are a combo of these two, meaning you get significant gains with those weapons until you hit 40 STR/DEX. The soft-caps are weapon-dependent, but are always at 40 or 60 regardless of the weapon type.
Probably better to plan out a build of what you would like the char to look like at level 30, and then level 80, then 110. Who you can play with is also dependent on how upgraded your gear is, as well as your level (no Soul Memory, just weapon level and character level).
Past the soft caps the gains are VERY minimal.
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this game seems to have very thoughtful stat distribution so far, I’m in the low 50s and the only thing I’ve raised past 20 is dex.
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Yeah, definitely. No matter what build I would suggest pumping VGR. Enemies will get to a point where they will one-shot any char that doesn’t pump it. I’m currently at 30 VGR and there are a few endgame enemies who can two-shot me.