On top of the Abyss Seal? Those would be some pretty hard-hitting hexes!
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Dark Souls II |OT++| Bearer of...Seek...Seek...Lest
- Thread starter Vazra
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On top of the Abyss Seal? Those would be some pretty hard-hitting hexes!
Braag
Member
Guys what's some good gear for me to pop on before Nashandra? I'm not very into getting cursed left and right and I really wanna get into NG+.
If you're able to summon Vengarl and Benhart, the boss fight becomes a cakewalk.
If you've got the second dlc you can get the hollow mask which negates curse completely.Guys what's some good gear for me to pop on before Nashandra? I'm not very into getting cursed left and right and I really wanna get into NG+
Oh right, Bernhart did say he'd be there for me at my darkest hour! But my main issue was getting cursed and being overrun by "wtf do I do with all these curses", damage wise I could take her ez-pz.
Waiting for the final DLC to drop and then get the season pass and do them all in succession and/or do the DLC's in my NG+ run
They nerfed the Abyss Seal pretty hard. From 20% to 7.5% I think. And you still take damage from using it.
I was interested in buffing my dark weapons though, so they can nerf the Seal even harder if they want.
Orochinagis
Member
Oh right, Bernhart did say he'd be there for me at my darkest hour! But my main issue was getting cursed and being overrun by "wtf do I do with all these curses", damage wise I could take her ez-pz.
Waiting for the final DLC to drop and then get the season pass and do them all in succession and/or do the DLC's in my NG+ run
Look at her aura, she just put the aura off after summoning the curse orbs.
You can a get the ring that gaves you more cursed resistance to the absolve sin guy if you have 30 faith, ups 35 faith or kill him.
You can destroy the black floating ball things that cause curse with a weapon swing. Generally if you stop as soon as you see her get ready to summon them and swing at the closest one as soon as it pops up, you will be able to stay out of range of all the curse causing stuff in the fight besides her actual melee swings. Once she walks a little towards you you can fully melee and run around her and not get cursed at all.
DarkHeartedKill
Member
That's not the problem, it's when I run away to go heal, and I start seeing her do the gesture, that whole slow motion of "nooooooooo" occurs then explosions. Once She used forbidden sun, it launched me across the room...into another forbidden sun. Truly was a sad day.
Guys what's some good gear for me to pop on before Nashandra? I'm not very into getting cursed left and right and I really wanna get into NG+
Edit: I feel kind of dumb for completely forgetting about the ring of binding.
You can destroy the clouds of curse. Just hit em once and they go poof. That's what I always do when I'm a summon for that fight, I just go and quickly attack the orbs to help my host not die.
Oh right, Bernhart did say he'd be there for me at my darkest hour! But my main issue was getting cursed and being overrun by "wtf do I do with all these curses", damage wise I could take her ez-pz.
Waiting for the final DLC to drop and then get the season pass and do them all in succession and/or do the DLC's in my NG+ run
I don't think you can get the season pass after all the DLC is out, I could be wrong, best to double check and make sure some games pullt he season pass others don't. Depends on the developer I guess. GreenManGaming has a coupon that let you get anything for 23% off, and they have the Dark Souls 2 season pass, so you get it for around $19 rather than $25. Lastly, don't do the DLC in NG+ unless you hate life. It gets ridiculous in NG+, and becomes even more ridiculous in NG++. Unless you like that sort of stuff, then by all means go ahead heh.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
I thought he was dark elemental, not magic? Also pretty sure my pyros did jack shit either. :\ I didn't want to respec just for one boss.
IIRC my faith didn't do such great damage either, which was lightning-based, and he was in NG (albeit Company of Champions). I think he's resistant to all elemental.
I did that, twice, already, to get MLGS and CSS, back in NG. Since I'm in NG+ at the end-game, that bonfire is like 4 or 5 lol. I have two copies of CSS attuned.
What is the hollow mask?
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Do you mean Flame Swathe? Or does she do Forbidden Sun in NG+? I never noticed.
Based on my testing with a friend, this doesn't help much. The curse clouds you see are not the same that the host sees and vice-versa. :S I attacked every cloud and they were all gone, but my host said there were still 3 there. When we tried the opposite, with me as host, the same thing happened. I watched him swing empty air and he said he destroyed every curse cloud, but they were still there for me.
I don't know if it's a glitch or intentional but it's very annoying. This happens on PS3 anyway.
A mask that replicated the skin of a hollow makes guidance messages show up and gives complete cure resistance.
Nahr hood
nahr armour
tsedora leggings
tsedora gloves
Covetous Silver Serpent Ring +2
this combo will net you over 500K souls per kill.
DarkHeartedKill
Member
Do you mean Flame Swathe? Or does she do Forbidden Sun in NG+? I never noticed.
Based on my testing with a friend, this doesn't help much. The curse clouds you see are not the same that the host sees and vice-versa. :S I attacked every cloud and they were all gone, but my host said there were still 3 there. When we tried the opposite, with me as host, the same thing happened. I watched him swing empty air and he said he destroyed every curse cloud, but they were still there for me.
I don't know if it's a glitch or intentional but it's very annoying. This happens on PS3 anyway.
She never used Fire Swathe on me, odd. Maybe she ups it in NG+. As for the the clouds, that might be an issue on PS3, because I've been summoned where the other phantom destroyed a couple clouds.
you have to remember that when you summon a NPC the boss gets twice as powerful compared to taking it on alone.
sometimes I found it easier to fight the bosses alone.
Orochinagis
Member
Pretty resistance to all forms of magic except poision while the others bosses have high def to all forms of magic, all so you have to go melee in this DLC......
Nashandra is definitely not one of them where summons make it harder. With two summons, you can kill one curse orb and spend the whole fight at range killing her with a bow as she tries to melee the phantoms to death and you will win. Or go into melee and she will rarely attack you and you can basically just poke her in the butt over and over.
Also, the boss doesn't exactly get twice as powerful. It gets an HP boost (I think it was 50% additional HP per phantom?) but doesn't do any more damage with phantoms there. But definitely sometimes phantoms make bosses harder.
their defense gets doubled per NPC.
DarkHeartedKill
Member
It's 1.5x health per phantom, and their defenses also go up. As for hitting harder, I don't know, they might?
Guys what's some good gear for me to pop on before Nashandra? I'm not very into getting cursed left and right and I really wanna get into NG+
Edit: I feel kind of dumb for completely forgetting about the ring of binding.
Engraved Gauntlets and Agydane's armour has decent curse resistance. Add a Cursebite Ring and you should be good.
Keep it handy for the 2nd DLC. You may need it there too.
After some advice here yesterday I made myself a Bow of Want and stuffed it full of dragon bones to +5. I was unsure if it would be better off dark or lightning so I did the following:
- Infused it with dark
- Warped to the first bonfire in forest of the giants and hit one of the guys there with a dark arrow for 375 damage
- Warped back to McDuff and infused it with lightning
-Warped back to the forest and did the same thing again but with a lightning arrow and got 350 damage
I picked the guys in the forest as I figured they'd have low resistances being so early in the game. The guy was the same distance from me both times
Would I best going back to dark? People mentioned that splitting the damage 3 ways would be a detriment. My main attack stats are 25 DEX, 30 INT and 30 FAI - lightning bonus is 102 while dark bonus is 162 so I'm guessing I'd be better sticking with dark (not counting enemies with high dark resistance of course)?
- Infused it with dark
- Warped to the first bonfire in forest of the giants and hit one of the guys there with a dark arrow for 375 damage
- Warped back to McDuff and infused it with lightning
-Warped back to the forest and did the same thing again but with a lightning arrow and got 350 damage
I picked the guys in the forest as I figured they'd have low resistances being so early in the game. The guy was the same distance from me both times
Would I best going back to dark? People mentioned that splitting the damage 3 ways would be a detriment. My main attack stats are 25 DEX, 30 INT and 30 FAI - lightning bonus is 102 while dark bonus is 162 so I'm guessing I'd be better sticking with dark (not counting enemies with high dark resistance of course)?
DarkHeartedKill
Member
Wow, once Fume gets his flame sword shit gets whack. He backstaps out of my attacks, and then he has no goddamn hitbox sometimes. I swiped in between his legs twice :/.
3 way split damage is a detriment as it means triple the amount of defenses are taken into account with each shot. The reason you're getting more is because it is adding the dark scaling to the weapon giving you extra damage output.
You can go back to dark if you want but I'm not sure why you want to use that bow if you're not FTH build to take advantage of the special attack.
Possible, but what you have to keep in mind is that double defense doesn't mean they take half as much damage in Dark Souls 2.
Actually, my own testing is giving very strange results. I fought the Last Giant with and without Mild Mannered Pate. Without Pate, I did 240 damage with one hit, and did 9.5% of his total life bar in damage (I recorded the fight and measured the percentage drop in his HP bar in photoshop). Did the same with summoning Pate, and I hit the Last Giant for 160, and it did 5.6% of his total health bar.
This is where things get weird. If you do the math, that means the boss had a total of 2520 HP when I was alone, and 2826 HP when I was with Pate, or that his HP only raised by around 12%. His defense did go up, but it didn't halve my damage, but instead cut it down to 2/3 normal value. For the test I used Silverblack Spear, a weapon that does split damage, because I wanted to favor the defense boost if possible (spear does split damage so a defense boost should be extra effective against it). Same test using a Scimitar yielded expected results, that the boss's defense buff was even less effective but still present.
Interesting, not what I expected at all. I wonder if boss HP boost really works that differently for NPC vs player phantoms.
Edit: I also tested damage taken and I took very similar damage each time, but it was harder to be sure since damage has ranges and attacks are variable and whatnot.
Braag
Member
That's right. Some bosses which have easy attack patterns or not many extra enemies running around (like the smelter demon) are very easy alone. But in some boss fights the distraction which NPCs provide against the boss makes things a whole lot easier.
DarkHeartedKill
Member
ughhhhhhhhhhh
I don't think I'ma be able to solo fume on NG+. That guy is relentless and I keep messing up my rolls. I have around 64% of my equip load so my stamina regen is heavily impaired .
.Orochinagis
Member
ughhhhhhhhhhhI don't think I'ma be able to solo fume on NG+. That guy is relentless and I keep messing up my rolls. I have around 64% of my equip load so my stamina regen is heavily impaired
Dont use a shield, always roll and only hit him after his chain combo ends and don try to hit him in his sides if he is still doing his chain attacks. take your time.
His hitboxes are HUGE but broken at the same time, sometimes it didnt register the hit and sometimes it hits you from far away
Your armor doesnt matter in this fight, you will die if you are a bad roller.
Try to use a medium armor with dark resistance and stick to his left.
DarkHeartedKill
Member
I have not used a shield in the longest time. I've been powerstancing a lot. My armour does help...I think. His combos usually take me to half health. I get him to half and then it goes downhill from there.
Orthogonal
Member
Make sure you are less than 50% equip load and have a minimum of 100 agility, maybe go to 105 if you want a few more iframes. WIth that setup, and knowledge of the moveset, I rarely get hit by him anymore. Also, get a weapon with a quick strike so you have time to dodge before the next combo starts.
I find that in his first phase, circle strafe right and roll to the right works best and when he goes to phase two, circle strafe left and roll left works best. I love when he does the slow sweep attack, just roll through it for a free double hit.
Orochinagis
Member
Most of the fight you will deal like two hits then retreat, FK have a stun animation which is triggered when he perform his heavy chain combo or his strong attack but is really hard to notice.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Man, got
easily on my mage in NG+, solo even.
was actually more dangerous. Go figure. I did have to use one rouge water to refill some casts, but just once. Here's my sorcery setup if anyone is interested:
Level 215
VGR 50
END 30
VIT 5
ATN 60
STR 20
DEX 23
ADP 14
INT 62 (65 with crown)
FTH 7
(Str and dex were to powerstance the blue flames but I never really used it. I could just keep 18/18 for the MLGS. I raised ADP slightly to reach 105 agility for that extra i-frame.)
LH1: Royal Kite Shield +10 (for emergency blocking)
LH2: Pyro flame+10 (not used for this fight)
RH1: Magic Moonlight Greatsword +5 (not used for this fight so I unequipped it for lower burden and faster stam regen)
RH2: Magic Staff of Wisdom+5
Head: King's Crown+5 (for 3 extra int, could be the hood that increases attunement or casts or whatever, but I play Fashion Souls xD)
Body: Lucatiel Vest+10 (for Fashion Souls)
Arms: Lion Mage Cuffs+10
Legs: Bone King Skirt+5 (fashion again... I want to look like a badass queen)
Rings: Third Dragon Ring, Sorcery Clutch, Clear Bluestone+2 (still helps despite the nerf), Chloranthy+2. I could have replaced Chloranthy with Southern Ritual+2, too.
Spells: Crystal Soul Spear x8, Soul Spear x12, Homing Crystal Soulmass x10
Hotkey either amber/twilight herbs or rouge waters or something to refill magic. I honestly could have attuned just one copy of HCSM (cast at beginning, and when he's turtling behind his sword, but otherwise it's not as strong as CSS or SS) and used more Soul Spear, but eh, it still worked. I tried Focus Soul and Soul Geyser and Soul Vortex in a first try, but I didn't like the damage for the risk since they're slower and drain stamina more. Turns out just pew pewing with soul spears while staying as far as possible did the trick.
Fume Knight
Smelter 2.0
Level 215
VGR 50
END 30
VIT 5
ATN 60
STR 20
DEX 23
ADP 14
INT 62 (65 with crown)
FTH 7
(Str and dex were to powerstance the blue flames but I never really used it. I could just keep 18/18 for the MLGS. I raised ADP slightly to reach 105 agility for that extra i-frame.)
LH1: Royal Kite Shield +10 (for emergency blocking)
LH2: Pyro flame+10 (not used for this fight)
RH1: Magic Moonlight Greatsword +5 (not used for this fight so I unequipped it for lower burden and faster stam regen)
RH2: Magic Staff of Wisdom+5
Head: King's Crown+5 (for 3 extra int, could be the hood that increases attunement or casts or whatever, but I play Fashion Souls xD)
Body: Lucatiel Vest+10 (for Fashion Souls
)Arms: Lion Mage Cuffs+10
Legs: Bone King Skirt+5 (fashion again... I want to look like a badass queen)
Rings: Third Dragon Ring, Sorcery Clutch, Clear Bluestone+2 (still helps despite the nerf), Chloranthy+2. I could have replaced Chloranthy with Southern Ritual+2, too.
Spells: Crystal Soul Spear x8, Soul Spear x12, Homing Crystal Soulmass x10
Hotkey either amber/twilight herbs or rouge waters or something to refill magic. I honestly could have attuned just one copy of HCSM (cast at beginning, and when he's turtling behind his sword, but otherwise it's not as strong as CSS or SS) and used more Soul Spear, but eh, it still worked. I tried Focus Soul and Soul Geyser and Soul Vortex in a first try, but I didn't like the damage for the risk since they're slower and drain stamina more. Turns out just pew pewing with soul spears while staying as far as possible did the trick.
Orochinagis
Member
Man, goteasily on my mage in NG+, solo even.Fume Knightwas actually more dangerous. Go figure. I did have to use one rouge water to refill some casts, but just once. Here's my sorcery setup if anyone is interested:Smelter 2.0
Level 215
VGR 50
END 30
VIT 5
ATN 60
STR 20
DEX 23
ADP 14
INT 62 (65 with crown)
FTH 7
(Str and dex were to powerstance the blue flames but I never really used it. I could just keep 18/18 for the MLGS. I raised ADP slightly to reach 105 agility for that extra i-frame.)
LH1: Royal Kite Shield +10 (for emergency blocking)
LH2: Pyro flame+10 (not used for this fight)
RH1: Magic Moonlight Greatsword +5 (not used for this fight so I unequipped it for lower burden and faster stam regen)
RH2: Magic Staff of Wisdom+5
Head: King's Crown+5 (for 3 extra int, could be the hood that increases attunement or casts or whatever, but I play Fashion Souls xD)
Body: Lucatiel Vest+10 (for Fashion Souls
Arms: Lion Mage Cuffs+10
Legs: Bone King Skirt+5 (fashion again... I want to look like a badass queen)
Rings: Third Dragon Ring, Sorcery Clutch, Clear Bluestone+2 (still helps despite the nerf), Chloranthy+2. I could have replaced Chloranthy with Southern Ritual+2, too.
Spells: Crystal Soul Spear x8, Soul Spear x10, Homing Crystal Soulmass x10
Hotkey either amber/twilight herbs or rouge waters or something to refill magic. I honestly could have attuned just one copy of HCSM (cast at beginning, and when he's turtling behind his sword, but otherwise it's not as strong as CSS or SS) and used more Soul Spear, but eh, it still worked. I tried Focus Soul and Soul Geyser and Soul Vortex in a first try, but I didn't like the damage for the risk since they're slower and drain stamina more. Turns out just pew pewing with soul spears while staying as far as possible did the trick.
You were like NG++++++++ character against a NG+ Boss
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Not really, I didn't grind or anything like that. Hell I have millions of souls in my bank that I haven't even spent, lol.
mickcenary
Member
That's arguably the easiest area in the entire DLC. Those barrel dudes scamper for the trapdoors/ladder holes as soon as they see you.
All you have to do then is wait until one of them walks beside the huge fire-spewing hammer guy (or use some fire arrows if you're impatient) and KABLAMO! Usually sets off a chain reaction killing everything.
I thought From made it pretty obvious what the "gimmick" is there.
Orochinagis
Member
Your spells.....
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
? I used an ascetic to get an extra copy of CSS when I was in NG. Now I'm in NG+ and got a 3rd copy. That's hardly NG++++++ or whatever you said.
I did that, I let one of them drop down, then went down the ladder and the giant dude didn't aggro, one or two other guys did. I couldn't see the one with the barrel at all.
Smelter 2.0 - dash through the first room, fall down, go through the second room (roll through the stabby dude), roll around the dude at the end of the hall. Fall down, heal up if you got hit on the way through. Run to the other side of the room and run along the edge to avoid aggro on the big fucker. Zone in.
Dodge his shit until he does a verical chop or downward stab/charge, then Toxic Mist him. Repeat with poison must. Dodge his shit like a pussy until poison and toxic wear off. Repeat. Eat an herb. Toxic/poison one last time. Dodge like a pussy. You defeated!
Dodge his shit until he does a verical chop or downward stab/charge, then Toxic Mist him. Repeat with poison must. Dodge his shit like a pussy until poison and toxic wear off. Repeat. Eat an herb. Toxic/poison one last time. Dodge like a pussy. You defeated!
It's not too difficult to get a single hit in after you dodge.
No need to drag out the fight
cleaned up the DLC2
overall:
BOSSES:
Other than the bosses, I like the mages among the new enemies the rest are just not all that interesting. Level design was boring too. Elevators everywhere, not exactly a fan of. Loot still isn't all that interesting, simpleton ring is cool I guess, I will definitely equip it for rolling around in boss fights. The other rings seem superficial at best.
DLC#1: good level, meh bosses
DLC#2: meh level, good bosses
DLC#3: third time they will get it right, right?
overall:
BOSSES:
FK: took me like 15 something tries, lol. I couldn't reliably dodge his AOE attack and some of his pot shots and 270 degree sweeping one had ridiculous range, it was hard to tell if he can reach you or not. It took me awhile to adapt, simpleton ring seemingly helped a lot with rolling
SA: This was a lot easier but more entertaining, didn't have much problem with it. Why FROM can't use that floor reflection in more areas? it looked really pretty. But I didn't understand what the story was supposed to be? where was that place? why would I want to kill this guy? not making much sense.
Smelter: This was nothing special, rebel shield is pretty good for the fight. It's the same fight as before more or less. The area before the boss was awful though uhh.
SA: This was a lot easier but more entertaining, didn't have much problem with it. Why FROM can't use that floor reflection in more areas? it looked really pretty. But I didn't understand what the story was supposed to be? where was that place? why would I want to kill this guy? not making much sense.
Smelter: This was nothing special, rebel shield is pretty good for the fight. It's the same fight as before more or less. The area before the boss was awful though uhh.
DLC#1: good level, meh bosses
DLC#2: meh level, good bosses
DLC#3: third time they will get it right, right?
Beat Fume again. My method of fighting him is to use my Greatshield to block the shortsword and roll through the big sword. When running low on Stamina I back off and let him come at me. I still keep the shield up for phase 2 just in case, I'm not an expert at dodging. But this time I was just having trouble. And wanted to try something a little different. My equip load was at 64% and I have a Chloranthy Ring+2 and never had trouble with managing Stamina or rolling. But against Fume I sometimes get clipped when it looks like I rolled through it.
This time I equipped Dark Armor and Dark Leggins, Drangelic Gauntlets, and that Lost Sinner mask that ups my equip load by a little bit. Maxed all of them out so at least the Dark Armor had decent stats. Also put on The Soldier Ring +1 (or 2 I forget) and popped an effigy to have max health. My equip load went from 64% to 41% and I regained stamina by a little over 1 second faster.
Got him that time.
Definitely took noticably more damage this time. The armor I had on before was Alone Knight Captain armor +10 and matching Leggings and Helm maxed out. Looking Glass Gauntlets maxed out.
I want to try this load out against the Alone Knight next.
Orthogonal
Member
What is the difference between Dark Weapon and Resonant Weapon? The wiki says they both give +50 Dark damage and +30% dark element damage yet Resonant Weapon takes 2 slots and costs 2000 souls to use. What gives?
Resonant Weapon used to give 50% dark elemental damage, but it got nerfed to hell at some point, and is quite useless at the moment.
Just use resin.
So here's something I've been wondering: Do the spelltool requirements matter when casting buffs? As in, if I'm casting with the Black Witch's Staff with only 10Int/10Fai with its requirements being 20/20, does it affect the duration or power of buffs?
I'm leaning towards no since everything about buffs except the duration seem to be static, but I wanted to check before I commit.
I'm leaning towards no since everything about buffs except the duration seem to be static, but I wanted to check before I commit.
Cannon Goose
Member
I could be wrong, but I think if you don't meet the requirements for the catalyst then your character will just give it a puzzled look when you try to cast anything.
Nope, casting works with both Sanctum Shield and Black Witch Staff at 10/10. Just tested with a Soul Arrow.