[Spoilers] Dark Souls 2 part Deux

[Muttering Bill]

(unless there's already a way to unfreeze that statue near the beginning)

You could unlock that area with a little effort, but it's a bit tougher and you're not really meant to go there yet. The Forest and Heide's are the intented starting areas.

I started as a Knight, and have been leveling up STR and DEX, but I just bought Soul Arrows because I hated bows in the first game and wanted/needed a ranged attack, so now I need to get INT up for that.

You don't have to manually aim bows. Just lock on and shoot. It's going to be very helpful to have one on hand for a certain area later.

I like a challenge, I don't like essential items being hidden in a way that you'll almost certainly never figure out where they are without the internet's assistance.

Estus Shards are hidden, but if you're exploring the areas then you shouldn't have any trouble finding them. I found them all without having to look them up. Messages will point them out anyway.

[TheEvilKing]

Anyway, its only been a few hours but I'm liking the game. A lot of the mechanics feel the same as the first game, but, so far at least, it all feels a bit more intuitive. The help button is slightly more descriptive, I appreciated the tutorial section at the beginning, and there seem to be a lot more useful messages from other players than last time (although maybe that's because its only been out a few months, whereas I picked up the first game years after it came out; only snarkers remained). And, even though its early, I'm happy that I haven't, yet at least, encountered something where I had no idea what to do. I like a challenge, I don't like essential items being hidden in a way that you'll almost certainly never figure out where they are without the internet's assistance.

Speaking of which, since you're near Pate, did you get the White Soapstone?

[Fez]

Speaking of which, since you're near Pate, did you get the White Soapstone?

I don't remember. I'll have to check when I'm playing tonight. Embarrassingly though, I've forgotten where Pate is and I'll have to figure out how to get there again. I'm sure he's nearby, but I ended up going in another direction in the forest and found a guy who gave me a key to the mansion in Majula. There's a lone Skeleton down there that I beat pretty easily the first time and who dropped around 700 souls; I figure the first thing to do is kill him a bunch of times so that I can go on a shopping spree and level up a few more times.

After that, I'll figure out where Pate was again, and presumably get killed by whatever trap it was that he was talking about.

[Muttering Bill]

There's a lone Skeleton down there that I beat pretty easily the first time and who dropped around 700 souls; I figure the first thing to do is kill him a bunch of times so that I can go on a shopping spree and level up a few more times.

Skeleton only spawns once per playthrough. Next time there will be 2, then 3 and so on, but you'll need to go to NG+, so it doesn't help you any.

[Fez]

Skeleton only spawns once per playthrough. Next time there will be 2, then 3 and so on, but you'll need to go to NG+, so it doesn't help you any.

Well, that's a shame. Guess I'll need be a bit more adventurous to build up some souls. I don't want to grind too much, since I gather that having too high a soul memory can cause its own issues, but I wanna gear up/level up at least a bit.

[Muttering Bill]

I wouldn't worry about grinding. Just playing through the areas normally and beating the boss will get you enough Souls. Upgrade materials are kind of scarce for the first 2/3's of the game, so focus on upgrading just a couple of weapons and levelling up.

What I typically do is after beating the boss, warp back to Majula and consume any Soul items I've picked up. Purchase whatever new equipment I need, upgrade what I can, level up, and then stock up on Lifegems/Arrows with whatever's left over.

I'll finish NG at around SL 170. That's much higher than you really need to be.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I don't usually sell games back to Gamestop but I'm doing it with this one today. I can't let it take over my life anymore, I can't stop playing...AGH!

[MerenthaClone]

I'll finish NG at around SL 170. That's much higher than you really need to be.

Thanks to the relatively idiotic SM system, there's also no reason to not keep leveling, so there's that.

[Fez]

I wouldn't worry about grinding. Just playing through the areas normally and beating the boss will get you enough Souls. Upgrade materials are kind of scarce for the first 2/3's of the game, so focus on upgrading just a couple of weapons and levelling up.

What I typically do is after beating the boss, warp back to Majula and consume any Soul items I've picked up. Purchase whatever new equipment I need, upgrade what I can, level up, and then stock up on Lifegems/Arrows with whatever's left over.

I'll finish NG at around SL 170. That's much higher than you really need to be.

Yeah, I'm discovering that. Without grinding, I'm already SL 32, and all I've really done is kill the Last Giant (first try too, thanks Mild-Mannered Pate!). I also beat that heide knight fella and got his sword, which I upgraded to +2 and have been tearing stuff up with. So I guess I'm good, although I am still wearing all my starting knight gear.

I know how to respec though, and I'm thinking maybe I should. Adding magic seemed like a good idea, but I had to put so many points into attunement and INT that could've gone into more melee-important stats that I'm worried I'm spreading myself too thin. Particularly since the heide sword has a faith scaling component. Or are the soft caps low enough that its fine to be raising pretty much every stat to that point and only then sticking with a couple to go heavy on?

[Muttering Bill]

I know how to respec though, and I'm thinking maybe I should. Adding magic seemed like a good idea, but I had to put so many points into attunement and INT that could've gone into more melee-important stats that I'm worried I'm spreading myself too thin. Particularly since the heide sword has a faith scaling component. Or are the soft caps low enough that its fine to be raising pretty much every stat to that point and only then sticking with a couple to go heavy on?

I'd recommend levelling STR and DEX to weapon minimums, and then going all in on whichever magic you like best. STR and DEX scaling is not that great. STR is... ok. DEX sucks except for bows. It is viable if that's how you want to play. NG shouldn't give you any trouble for doing that; the game isn't all that hard once you get used to it. But elemental weapons are always going to pay off better. Even if you want to play only melee, elemental weapons are still going to stronger.

You're going to have to wait a bit before you can infuse weapons though. You'll be fine with just regular weapon upgrades until then.

You'll be able to infuse 4 different elements (and other stuff like Poison) - Lightning scales off FTH, Magic scales off INT, Fire and Dark scale from both. Dark is going to be the most OP, but they're all pretty powerful. Plus you get to use spells, so there's no downside.

Most stats soft cap at 50. Fire and Dark at 60, FTH and INT combined. Cap ADP at whatever gives you 105 Agility. That will vary since ATN also affects Agility. For a mage I like 40 ATN, 20 ADP.

[MerenthaClone]

Fire is the average of Fth and Int. Dark just scales off the lower. A person with 10/10 Int/Fth has 10 fire scaling and 10 dark scaling. A person with 50/10 Int/Fth has 10 dark scaling and 30 fire scaling.

Incidentally, the power of magic weapons in this is just stupid. The scaling is this game is all kinds of poorly designed.

[Muttering Bill]

Fire is the average of Fth and Int. Dark just scales off the lower. A person with 10/10 Int/Fth has 10 fire scaling and 10 dark scaling. A person with 50/10 Int/Fth has 10 dark scaling and 30 fire scaling.

Incidentally, the power of magic weapons in this is just stupid. The scaling is this game is all kinds of poorly designed.

Thanks for clarifying. I was never sure exactly how it worked, just what was recommended.

Also, you can still buff elemental weapons, and the buffs end up being about a lot stronger than when used on non-elementals.

[Fez]

Thanks. So what should I be doing VIG, END, and VIT? I haven't put any extra points into VIG or VIT, on the theory that its best to just not get hit; but that's often easier said than done for me. And I haven't put any into END because I just haven't gotten around to it; and I haven't had that many stamina related problems since finding the Chloranthy ring.

[aceluby]

I finished up DS1 on Saturday. Gwyn gave me more trouble than I care to admit, but I eventually got him on like my 10th try. He was easily the most difficult boss of the original game unless you get parrying down pat (which I did not). Started up DS2 yesterday and am postponing my champions run and just doing a regular STR run, waiting to do the champions run w/ a straight Fth build instead.

Thanks to the relatively idiotic SM system, there's also no reason to not keep leveling, so there's that.

There's never been a reason to not keep leveling except player created meta, which can still exist in this game if the community wants to (and probably will). The only reason not to is if you wanted to be an invader in DS1, if you hosted you could keep leveling and be invaded by SL120's all day long. The only real difference is that now both invaders and hosts have the same ability, for better or for worse, but it's really not that drastic of a change besides encouraging higher SL's for PvP.

Regardless, a decent SL150 build focusing on one or two stats should be competitive against any SL, you'll just have more limited options, which IMO has always been a point of 'builds'.

[MerenthaClone]

Thanks for clarifying. I was never sure exactly how it worked, just what was recommended.

Also, you can still buff elemental weapons, and the buffs end up being about a lot stronger than when used on non-elementals.

Yeah, this is the part that bothers me. A guy going all-in on Dex, say, gets much less damage than someone who goes the minimum for the weapon and then goes all-in on their chosen spell school. Not only does the second person get better flexibility, they're actually better at doing damage than the Dex user with similar gear.

There's never been a reason to not keep leveling except player created meta, which can still exist in this game if the community wants to (and probably will).

Yeah, except that before, if I leveled out of the range, I'd only have an advantage when hosting and I'd lose access to a large pool of combatants. Now, I lose absolutely nothing since the top SM bracket is huge. Personally, I like fighting builds instead of dudes with 99 Vig in Havels' with Avelyns everywhere. Or Hexing. Hexing should theoretically be the all-in magic class, since all your stats are in Fth, Int, and the other casty-stuff. Not really, since you can just max out Hexing and then add the other stuff without a problem. SM is garbage.

Also, you're seriously underestimating how much scaling can make Havels' gear turn you into a ridiculous tank. At 40 Str and 30/30 Int/Fth, my maximum damage on a bastard sword backstab (all buffs up, etc) should not be ~140. Not when the guy has at least 2k health. Yeah, its doable still, but now that there's no incentive to not level, things just get dumb.

[Muttering Bill]

Thanks. So what should I be doing VIG, END, and VIT? I haven't put any extra points into VIG or VIT, on the theory that its best to just not get hit; but that's often easier said than done for me. And I haven't put any into END because I just haven't gotten around to it; and I haven't had that many stamina related problems since finding the Chloranthy ring.

For VIG - as well as the damage stats - your best returns come in at 30-40, but soft caps at 50. IIRC, 50 gives you around 2000 HP. You only get a couple extra HP per level after that.

END is more variable. Up to 20 you get 2 stamina points per level, after 20 you get 1 stamina point per level. Go up as high as you feel you need. For melee characters I like to push it up to 40. My mage is sitting comfortably at 15.

For VIT each level gives you an additional 1.5 equipment burden. There's no soft cap on stat gains; it's all down to how much you need. Fat roll kicks in at 70.1% equip burden and higher. 70.0% and lower for fast roll. Going lower than 70% will increase your roll distance, but it's gradual so there are no other noteable breakpoints. Level it as high as you need to equip all your desired armor/weapons and stay at least under 70%.

[aceluby]

Yeah, this is the part that bothers me. A guy going all-in on Dex, say, gets much less damage than someone who goes the minimum for the weapon and then goes all-in on their chosen spell school. Not only does the second person get better flexibility, they're actually better at doing damage than the Dex user with similar gear.

Yeah, except that before, if I leveled out of the range, I'd only have an advantage when hosting and I'd lose access to a large pool of combatants. Now, I lose absolutely nothing since the top SM bracket is huge. Personally, I like fighting builds instead of dudes with 99 Vig in Havels' with Avelyns everywhere. Or Hexing. Hexing should theoretically be the all-in magic class, since all your stats are in Fth, Int, and the other casty-stuff. Not really, since you can just max out Hexing and then add the other stuff without a problem. SM is garbage.

Also, you're seriously underestimating how much scaling can make Havels' gear turn you into a ridiculous tank. At 40 Str and 30/30 Int/Fth, my maximum damage on a bastard sword backstab (all buffs up, etc) should not be ~140. Not when the guy has at least 2k health. Yeah, its doable still, but now that there's no incentive to not level, things just get dumb.

My point is that a lot of high SL people did host and have access to the same combatants as a SL120 host for the most part. So again, the only real difference is that it allows you to invade down, which was something that happened in dark Anor Londo and the Forest too. Granted, those were where I did most of my PvP, so I don't see it as any kind of huge deal.

And the issue you're talking about w/ Havels is an issue w/ scaling, not w/ SM. Armor scaling, buff scaling, and mundane scaling is frankly broken. Part of it is highlighted due to SM, but if they fixed the scaling issues (and they are in some cases, but they need to do so more) SM wouldn't be a problem at all.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I did it, I finally broke the curse of the dark sign! The problem is every time you assume the throne the only way to progress the world is to start over in new game plus, and then in new game plus the old bosses start dropping even older souls, right?

Well right at the end of new game plus, to stop it from repeating and to finally end the curse you have to do the following:

1. Go back to Majula

2. Go to bonfire

3. When you see the option "Begin journey to Drangleic 2" (or 3?) back out from the bonfire

4. Open your menu and quit the game

5. Eject the disc

6. Take it to gamestop and trade it in for something else

7. And done. You've broken the curse

The problem is actually getting past step 4, but I did it. I finally did it. I forgot how it looks when the sun shines outside. I forgot what the fresh winds of summer bring.

[Muttering Bill]

Well right at the end of new game plus, to stop it from repeating and to finally end the curse you have to do the following:

My method of breaking the curse is a little different. It goes like so:

1. start a new character as a mage

2. play to around the halfway point

3. become bored

Probably just me, but that same method has worked on all 3 games.

The problem is actually getting past step 4, but I did it. I finally did it. I forgot how it looks when the sun shines outside. I forgot what the fresh winds of summer bring.

I still don't know what it's like outside. I fell out of one addiction and straight into another - Dynasty Warriors 8. But I've been through this summer thing before. It brings nothing but disgusting heat. I'm better off without it.

[aceluby]

You guys are just talking crazy now. Not play a souls game? Just blaspheme.... I still have at least two more characters to make :)