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Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin |OT| Your weapons are weak, old man

I am at 1,000,000 Soul Memory and I just arrived at Drangleic Castle. Am I higher or lower than the average SM at which people get there ? Also, should I keep leveling up or should I equip the Agape Ring soon ?
 

drotahorror

Member
I am at 1,000,000 Soul Memory and I just arrived at Drangleic Castle. Am I higher or lower than the average SM at which people get there ? Also, should I keep leveling up or should I equip the Agape Ring soon ?

I'd say you're around where you should be. Around 1.5mil when you 'beat' the game. Moreso after you complete the DLC. I'd equip the agape ring when you above 1.5mil (if you want to pvp and such)
 
I'd say you're around where you should be. Around 1.5mil when you 'beat' the game. Moreso after you complete the DLC. I'd equip the agape ring when you above 1.5mil (if you want to pvp and such)

Ok. I am not interesting in PvPing as I already have done what I need for the trophies. I just want to ensure that I can summon other players as allies for the DLC and the new game + bosses.
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
I'm soul level 260 and I'm just now about to roll over to NG+ but I'm a compulsive grinder. I'm still hesitant to start NG+ because I know I'm going to lose access to all my favorite grinding and farming spots. I may need help.
 
I'm soul level 260 and I'm just now about to roll over to NG+ but I'm a compulsive grinder. I'm still hesitant to start NG+ because I know I'm going to lose access to all my favorite grinding and farming spots. I may need help.

Can you easily summon other players ?
 

Tarkus

Member
I'm soul level 260 and I'm just now about to roll over to NG+ but I'm a compulsive grinder. I'm still hesitant to start NG+ because I know I'm going to lose access to all my favorite grinding and farming spots. I may need help.
I'm interested to know your Soul Memory for comparative purposes.
 

Bossun

Member
I'm soul level 260 and I'm just now about to roll over to NG+ but I'm a compulsive grinder. I'm still hesitant to start NG+ because I know I'm going to lose access to all my favorite grinding and farming spots. I may need help.

AH I'm not far from that, still on my first playthrough too. Seems like we have the same way of playing.

I have a soul memory around 16 000 000 I think. I die a lot.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
I've got some serious work to do with this game. I'm at the part, basically near the beginning, where I drop down the ladder in the Forest of Fallen Giants, and I cant make it by the next area. I've tried like 10 times now and I just cant do it. First off, the nearest enemy right after sliding down the ladder, lying on the ground, my attack always bounces off the walls, making me vulnerable to the enemy's next attack. This gets me 75% of the time, already causing me to use a health item. Then I'm usually ok until I get to the turtle shell guy. At which point I've been knocked off the ledge 3x already and killed outright 2x.

Considering I've done all this shit before in the vanilla DS2 game, it's fucking unreal that I'm so god damn awful right now.
 

Tarkus

Member
I've got some serious work to do with this game. I'm at the part, basically near the beginning, where I drop down the ladder in the Forest of Fallen Giants, and I cant make it by the next area. I've tried like 10 times now and I just cant do it. First off, the nearest enemy right after sliding down the ladder, lying on the ground, my attack always bounces off the walls, making me vulnerable to the enemy's next attack. This gets me 75% of the time, already causing me to use a health item. Then I'm usually ok until I get to the turtle shell guy. At which point I've been knocked off the ledge 3x already and killed outright 2x.

Considering I've done all this shit before in the vanilla DS2 game, it's fucking unreal that I'm so god damn awful right now.
The beginning is really tough at a low level. I noticed that recently when making a new character.
 
Finally jumping back in. Last time I played was during vanilla, and I only got roughly halfway through. I haven't played any of the DLC or any of the balance patches.
 

Brakke

Banned
I will say No-Man's Warf in 2 is one of my faves. And then the Flexile Sentry is weird and ugly to look at and p good to fight. Those dudes that lurk in the dark are fuuuucking cool.

Ok so. King's Pet Aava in Loyce kicked my teeth in twice just now. Is that a tough fight or am I just a clown?
 

Quikies83

Member
I will say Mo-Man's Warf in 2 is one of my faves. And then the Flexile Sentry is weird and ugly to look at and p good to fight. Those dudes that lurk in the dark are fuuuucking cool.

Ok so. King's Pet Aava in Loyce kicked my teeth in twice just now. Is that a tough fight or am I just a clown?
What level are you?
That's the easiest boss of that area ;)
 

Bossun

Member
I will say Mo-Man's Warf in 2 is one of my faves. And then the Flexile Sentry is weird and ugly to look at and p good to fight. Those dudes that lurk in the dark are fuuuucking cool.

Ok so. King's Pet Aava in Loyce kicked my teeth in twice just now. Is that a tough fight or am I just a clown?

Not that hard, very easy to roll through its attacks.
 

Brakke

Banned
Hah yeah I buckled down and wrecked him right quick. He was ruining me with that bite attack; just kept a little stamina handy so I could always do a roll on demand.

Oh god several people quoted my "Mo-Man's" typo before I could fix it >.<
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
Can you easily summon other players ?
Yeah, there was a time where it was really hard for me to find co-op, but I think my soul memory eventually got high enough that I circled back around and started getting a lot more summon signs and summoned into more peoples' games, but I was being summoned into their NG+ (or higher) games.

I'm interested to know your Soul Memory for comparative purposes.
I just did some Giant Lord grinding up to 280 cause I wanted to have 40 STR before NG+ and my soul memory is just about 24 million.

AH I'm not far from that, still on my first playthrough too. Seems like we have the same way of playing.

I have a soul memory around 16 000 000 I think. I die a lot.

Once I find a good spot to grind I get real hung up on it and then I just make myself powerful enough that I actually never need to worry about the consequences of dying because losing even tens (or hell, hundreds at this point) of thousands of souls means nothing to me. For all intents and purposes my character is soft capped on everything except DEX and stuff like maxing attunement, which isn't really necessary. I remember when I rolled over to NG+ in the first Dark Souls I started having a lot less fun because enemies were harder but I wasn't any stronger, so this time I wanted to be as strong as possible.
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
Aava is simple. The hard fight is when you have to fight two of them in the Frigid Outskirts.
 

Tarkus

Member
I just did some Giant Lord grinding up to 280 cause I wanted to have 40 STR before NG+ and my soul memory is just about 24 million.
Yeah I wouldn't invade or put a Red Sign at your Soul Memory unless you want a challenge. You would be likely to come across a very high level (SL500+) person because you move into the infinity tier with your Soul Memory. Good fights tho.
 

Bossun

Member
I disagree, even with full summons it took me a ton of tries to finally kill it, and that was with the help of a summoned mage with op spells lol

But, summoning doesn't help making boss easier, especially in the DLC.
Bosses end up with a ludicrous mana pool, and most often than not you have the safe feeling of being safer and you get bolder.

Try alone and see how much mode damages you make.
 
I'm at Soul Memory 1,180,000. I am located at the last bonfire before the boss in Shrine of Amana (in the cave with the mushroom monsters). I have waited for hours for summon signs to appear and none have. Is this normal ? I didn't have this problem the last time I got here with my previous character.
 

Tarkus

Member
I'm at Soul Memory 1,180,000. I am located at the last bonfire before the boss in Shrine of Amana (in the cave with the mushroom monsters). I have waited for hours for summon signs to appear and none have. Is this normal ? I didn't have this problem the last time I got here with my previous character.
It's just the Demon of Song. You got this.
 
It's just the Demon of Song. You got this.

Yeah, I know. I'm simply growing impatient as I am on my second character. I had to redo it as I was too high level for the covenant stuff for the trophies. The area before the boss also drives me to want a partner, but I guess I could simply sprint past the enemies.
 

derwalde

Member
Anymore build ideas?

I Have:
A str/dex build
A int build
A fth build
A hex build
A fire build
A poison build

All with different weapons, armors and such... I love this game but im running out of ideas.
 
Started the first chronological DLC (Shulva City) and uh... mobs of poisonous archers all around me. Plus aggroed melee hitters. I will have to extinct them, no other way.

Was Anor Londo as annoying?
 

EUA

Member
Anymore build ideas?

I Have:
A str/dex build
A int build
A fth build
A hex build
A fire build
A poison build

All with different weapons, armors and such... I love this game but im running out of ideas.

Maybe a character dual-wielding greatswords or greathammers? This can be fun. Or do a challenge run.

I'm myself preparing for a no death\no bonfire run which I think can be really easy on ng+. Grind all the bosses on ng for several copies of their souls until you have enough to get your SM to 2 millions, use the souls on ng+, buy the branch from the Hag and go directly to Drangleic. How cool is that?
 

Brakke

Banned
Loyce is cool as shit. Non-linear, flavorful objectives, some area variety. Really, really loving it. Even the replay-area-after-the-thaw thing (which could be kind of cheap as an excuse to re-use areas) I like. I think I only have one more knight to find, just got the key from the Flexile Sentry in the cave.

Started the first chronological DLC (Shulva City) and uh... mobs of poisonous archers all around me. Plus aggroed melee hitters. I will have to extinct them, no other way.

Was Anor Londo as annoying?

If you hit those little prism pillars it'll move towers up or down. You can block off line-of-sight from some of those archers so you can engage individually or two-at-a-time. Shulva isn't so bad as long as you have an ok-range bow for triggering various switches and pull enemies from afar.
 
Are there NPCs that cannot be parried? I tried parrying the dark phantom that invades your game on the bridge leading to the Dragon Shrine (some swordswoman), and simply could not do it. Nothing happened no matter how many times I pressed L2.
 

Tarkus

Member
Are there NPCs that cannot be parried? I tried parrying the dark phantom that invades your game on the bridge leading to the Dragon Shrine (some swordswoman), and simply could not do it. Nothing happened no matter how many times I pressed L2.
Shouldn't be, but it depends on the weapon, attack type, and 1 hand vs 2 hand. Here's a parrying guide.
 
Shouldn't be, but it depends on the weapon, attack type, and 1 hand vs 2 hand. Here's a parrying guide.

That chart actually only applies to PvP, parrying NPCs seems to be different for some reason. In PvP two-handed great hammers can't be parried, and yet I was able to consistently parry the Havel in the Gank Squad boss fight no matter what attack he threw at me.
 

Z..

Member
Just bought the season pass for ps3, can't go wrong with 55% off! I've missed this game, it's been almost a year...
 
Well, I finally beat the Smelter Demon. I just hated that fight...so many times. Can't believe I got it done.

Congrats. Always a great feeling of accomplishment after you beat a motherfucking hard boss that blocks your progress (or even does not block but just lingers in your mind, taunting you constantly that you did not beat him yet...). You should have just farmed a Gyrm Great Shield and be done with it. (I did not farm it it just dropped once. But then I am playing 100% of the game with Item Discovery headgear on. I have like 4x of each item in the game, ha.)
 

Seanspeed

Banned
I'm *really* enjoying this. I'd played through the normal DS2 like 95% of the way through, but no DLC.

Yet starting all over, and only just now beating the first major boss, I'm totally hooked again. It does help I'm playing a bit differently, with no shield(that might change in the future), but still, at this point, I cant help but get a reinforced feeling this game was totally underrated. Forest of the Fallen Giants is such an excellent area and very well designed. All kinds of branching paths, optional areas, a couple shortcuts, interesting and surprise enemy encounters, and its all very well balanced in terms of progression. I know not every area is as good as this one, but I think this area stands among the best I've played in the Souls series yet I never see it get mentioned.

One thing I suppose I'm slightly disappointed by is that it doesn't feel much different from the original DS2 area. I was hoping for more of a shakeup with the enemy encounters and item placement, but it feels largely the same with only a couple little differences. Do other areas see a greater shakeup?
 

Seanspeed

Banned
Is there any mod to get rid of the overbearing character effect when buffed by something like a Choloranthy Ring or something? It seems like its much stronger than it was in the original DS2 and I fucking hate it.
 

Torraz

Member
Do I have to do the DLC before killing the final boss?

Would killing the final boss first move to to NG+, making me finish the DLC in a harder difficulty?

Thanks
 
Do I have to do the DLC before killing the final boss?

Would killing the final boss first move to to NG+, making me finish the DLC in a harder difficulty?

Thanks

The final boss does not automatically put you in NG+. However, I think if you kill the final boss before doing the DLC, you miss out on the optional new boss in SotFS.
 
I'm at Sinh, the last boss of the first DLC, and have not encountered a single summon sign of other players. Are the DLCs not popular for coop ?

The final boss does not automatically put you in NG+. However, I think if you kill the final boss before doing the DLC, you miss out on the optional new boss in SotFS.

The only requirement for encountering the new final boss is answering "yes" to his two questions when you meet him at some occasions. You can safely finish the main game before tackling the DLC. It's what I did.
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
Saddened to discover Vendrick's Blessing doesn't carry over on the crowns into NG+. I guess it's not a huge deal since I have like 70-something humanity, but I was looking forward to not having to deal with the hollowing mechanic at all while going thru the game a second time. At least the game doesn't seem to be as hard as Dark Souls 1's NG+ was, even with all the new, extra cheap enemy placements.
 

Bossun

Member
So Frozen oOutskirts is kind of a problem, huh? Is there a way to get better visibility?

Nope, just power through it, grind your teeth, rage before the mediocrity of the DLCs, finally beat the boss of the area and swear on everything that is dear to you that you'll never ever come back here.
 

Brakke

Banned
I'm at Sinh, the last boss of the first DLC, and have not encountered a single summon sign of other players. Are the DLCs not popular for coop ?

He's a chump, you got this. Sinh specifically is bad co-op because he causes extra weapon wear. If you buff up his HP with a summon you'll be crushing through repair powder...

Nope, just power through it, grind your teeth, rage before the mediocrity of the DLCs, finally beat the boss of the area and swear on everything that is dear to you that you'll never ever come back here.

I really really loved everything in Loyce. This area just seems aggravating. I'll probably ditch it for now. If I want the S Rank on achievements I suppose I only need to kill whatever boss is there if their soul creates a spell. I'll just check that right before beating the game.
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
Boss of Frigid Outskirts isn't needed for achievement completion. You should still beat them tho unless you're a casul.

I'm being invaded a lot in NG+ at 25 million soul memory and it's pretty annoying. I have a zillion humanities, I think I'm going to start burning them. I haven't lost a fight yet tho. I'm 5/5 in thwarting invaders. Crypt Blacksword is a very strong weapon.
 

Manu

Member
Nope, just power through it, grind your teeth, rage before the mediocrity of the DLCs, finally beat the boss of the area and swear on everything that is dear to you that you'll never ever come back here.

The DLC are far from mediocre.
 
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