Thank you, Brakke.
I love this game and I really like writing about my adventures in there. Really glad some people are still reading this thread and playing the game for the first time as well!
I will do the two DLC bosses, mang.
Just gotta GIT GUD...
Yoooooo that tiger wasn't invisible for me. >.> Seems you took a "wrong" turn. I never even went that way until I had searched all the other path.
Just to make sure you know: don't challenge the King of that area until you have rescued all the knights. Once you've rescued the first, that should be obvious, but if you never even realized there were knights to rescue, that'd be a disaster...
Wow @ Fume Knight
Dropping out of this thread until I beat him. He already destroyed me 10+ times... never got him below 40% health and I can finish his first form without getting hit at all.
Currently am trying different shield combinations, Rebel's seems the best even if I take some damage during his first form.
Now I understand why he is one of the most hated bosses in DaS2.
See you guys in uhh... a couple of days when I nail him
Yeah he can be a real bish, but just one of many bosses and mobs that I think the developers were pushing people toward using the powerstanced dual wielding set ups. I wont say its easier to fight without a shield, but it s far more rewarding. It was simply boring to watch Man vs. Game or Patrick Klepik tank up and turtle their way through both souls games....I think Miyazaki trolling the shield user in Bloodborne wasthe final evidence needed to confirm my theory that despite haivng to cater to the masses to get enough sales, Miyazaki and co. always have the 'real' souls game hidden underneath the advertised title. I am not joking when I say the real DS2 was meant to be played as a dex "ninja type" if not a Vanquisher's seal fist only character. I was skeptical myself until I tried fist only, but they made it hard to do as to reward the diligent. I developed a strat using the older Vageta 311 videos as a guide, but found I could get all the ascetics necessary to kill Rhoy the exploer from the DLC instead of killign too many reg game bosses or trying to get teh awestones at lowe level PVP. As such you can get the Vanquisher's seal run started a few hours into a new character and still have all but the Rotten and Rat vanquard to do fists only. I made a video on how to do this early. I took only a few housrs to do the whole preparation phase but the video is sped up at times and condensed into a 13 minute vid. I strongly encourage you all to try to the Seal run...it makes it a whole new game!
Decided to give this game another shot. I purchased and played about 25 hours when it was originally released for pc, pre-SOTFS release. Started playing this on PS4 this time, and the game is a bitch. I don't remember it being this hard in the beginning area. I haven't even made it to the first boss yet. Is the re-release considered a harder challenge that the original?
I came powering into the game straight from the end credits of Bloodborne, kinda expecting to sail through a good chunk, and I got brought down a peg or two real quick.
Wow @ Fume Knight
Dropping out of this thread until I beat him. He already destroyed me 10+ times... never got him below 40% health and I can finish his first form without getting hit at all.
Currently am trying different shield combinations, Rebel's seems the best even if I take some damage during his first form.
Now I understand why he is one of the most hated bosses in DaS2.
See you guys in uhh... a couple of days when I nail him
This is Dark Souls II in a nutshell, and why I think so many people remain so salty about the game. So much of the criticism I've read seems to me a deflection covering the basic truth that the complainant had their ego checked and they really didn't like it.
Its always rationalized away that the game is "unfair" or "cheap" compared to its predecessors. which simply isn't the case.
Sorry, I guess there is are lots of holes in the blurb if you dont already know what a Vanquisher's Seal run is. The idea is that if you join that Champions COvenant in Majula you can get these awestones for killing invaders and level up in the covenant...the grand prize for 50 awestones is the Vanquisher's seal ring, which enables you to2AdEPT: What is this I don't even
Took out Fume Knight and the other boss from that DLClast night. I had a lot more trouble with the latter. I was surprised how well I did against Fume, but I remember in vanilla it took me forever to kill him. Now on to Loyce, which I never got around to in vanilla despite owning it.not sure if StoppedInTracks knows about Sir Alonne
Damnit, this makes me want to try fists+vanquishers. I was so close to done with the game, too...
Thanks for the vid to get the seal early. I wish vageta were still making videos.
An excellent point. No one could ever replace their virgin run through whichever soulsborne game they did first...for me it happened to be Demons' but usually whichever game anyone plays first holds a special poace in their heart, if it isnt their favourite. Even DS2My final theory about the DS2 hate stems from fans wanting it to be more than a game - a replication of the feeling they first had playing Demon's / Dark Souls - and the backlash ensued after it turned out to be just a game. A great game, just not a nostalgic one to them - though I've heard people talking about DS2, if it's the only Souls game they've played, talk about it in the same way as other fans talk about Dark Souls.
Just two hand your weapon and wreck him!
There's a guy who beat FK without rolling or blocking if you need some motivation.
My final theory about the DS2 hate stems from fans wanting it to be more than a game - a replication of the feeling they first had playing Demon's / Dark Souls - and the backlash ensued after it turned out to be just a game. A great game, just not a nostalgic one to them - though I've heard people talking about DS2, if it's the only Souls game they've played, talk about it in the same way as other fans talk about Dark Souls.
Yeah, I've never heard the phrase "artificial difficulty" thrown around so much in my life. Had I not played the game, I'd think that it required a Guitar Hero controller to play or something. But no, they're talking about having to change tactics to deal with multiple enemies.
I've not encountered anything unfair other than after beating the Sentries, a dude blows up in a cell. I had basically no health left, as I mentioned earlier, and it killed me, making me drop like 20k+ souls.
I had the incredibly tense run back, with the mobs of great sword wielding guys. Managed to pick it up, but I thought it was fucking cheap.
I love DeS, DaS and BB but I honestly didn't enjoy DaS2 even after restarting it twice over. I don't think it's anywhere as good as the other games. Haven't played SotFS though.
I've not encountered anything unfair other than after beating the Sentries, a dude blows up in a cell. I had basically no health left, as I mentioned earlier, and it killed me, making me drop like 20k+ souls.
I had the incredibly tense run back, with the mobs of great sword wielding guys. Managed to pick it up, but I thought it was fucking cheap.
One of my favourite bits in the game, and I think the one most instructive of the design approach is the "room of death" in Brume Tower. The game shows you a room full of enemies (big dude by the door, snipers on a ledge and in the corner, axe wielding baddies waiting for you to step off the ladder plus a flaming nadalia idol...) basically begging you to jump in and try your luck against stacked odds...
...Or you can take the hint offered by the barrel holding hollow near the trap-door and work your way round to another room with more of these unfortunates and basically shepherd as many as you can down into the danger zone where you can detonate them tactically from afar using a combination of flame arrows and alluring skulls.
I just beat Nashandra and I have to say she was the easiest boss I had faced in a while in this game. Definitely easier than Gwyn. There's still so much I haven't done in this game but I'm going to dive into Bloodborne for now. I may pick up Scholar of the First Sin since I don't really mind starting a fresh character, but we'll see. There are other games outside of From Software after all
Guys I just beat Aava!!! The Ice Tiger!!!
Holy shit my heart is still pumping.
For the past 3 days I was trying to beat one of the two bosses: Fume or Aava. Both were killing me easily and you cannot believe the frustration that culminated in those 72 hours inside me.
Here's how it went:
The Tiger killed me I don't know...30 times at least. As always I first tried a turtle build with Havel's Shield +5. It blocked majority of his hits fine but then I was still eating damage and stamina drain was just too much - didn't left me for any openings to attack.
So I decided, after 90 hours of playing this game, to cheat and level up my Adaptability which was sitting at 6 points for the entire game. Yesternight I spent 4 hours killing Ruin Sentinels over & over again and gathered about 1M souls in the process (3k a piece that means I killed 300+ Ruin Sentinels...) This allowed me to level up Agility stat to 105 for fast rolling.
It feels bad man... whole game without upping the Adaptability and two DLC bosses make me to up it I mean SL1 runs have it at 6 so the problem is in me.
Then I dropped Havel's Shield, Havel's set and went with my old & trusty Drangleic set. Mace +10 of course and the Blosom Shield for faster stamina regen. Equipment-wise I was ready for the fight. Skill wise - I was not.
For the first 20-25 tries I decided that the best strategy would be to always roll backwards when Aava attacks. Any single attack: claw swipe, AoE burst, munch jump etc. I would just roll backwards. That was fine but it did not give me many opportunities to punish him. Moreover, rolling backwards worked as long as we were staying along the long battle arena and not with a wall against my back. The moment we were staying across the arena I was fucked cause I could not roll backwards. So that had to be changed! I started experimenting with rolling to the right. Sometimes worked, sometimes not... he kept on killing me. Then I decided to always roll to the left. ALWAYS. From every claw swipe or running jump. Surprisingly... this worked. I learned his claw swipe delay in the meantime and could 99% of the time punish him with one heavy 2H swing of my mace after doing the left side roll. When he casted Souls Spears I would immediately run towards him and hit him twice while the spears crashed to the ground.
The strategy worked VERY WELL. I used only 3 Estus flasks in the last attempt and all were used at once I was chugging like crazy and instead of two gulps I took three It was very tense and very nervous - especially when he had < 50% health left (for the first time EVER! Can you imagine?!? Getting him to < 50% health for the first time ever and killing him in the same fight. Woo!) Sometimes I am thinking boss battles would be easier if you could disable the boss HP bar... It distracts you and makes you incredibly tense when the red part touches for the first time the letters forming the name of the boss...
He hit me only twice (!!!) in the entire round. Impressive no? From getting totally WRECKED by him not even knowing when to attack and eating every single hit to killing him in almost a perfect clean way.
Most important thing for me: if I can beat Aava w/o shied just by rolling I CAN ALSO BEAT FUME KNIGHT W/O SHIELD JUST BY ROLLING! This victory has given me strength and confidence that it is possible. Yes, it is possible. I just have to work on my timings and learn his attacks, memorize the fuck out of them!
Woo!!! Fume - you bitch, YOU ARE NEXT!!!
That's what Homeward Bones are for. Come on!
So, The Pursuer that turns up during the Lost Bastille is still kicking my ass, I don't know why but I just can't get this guy down, i've beaten harder and faster bosses in Bloodborne but this guy is wrecking me and i'm slowly watching my health bar deteriorate, nothing else so far in this game has given me as much trouble as this guy, I can't parry to save my life but even dodging around him I still get smashed!
Pursuer the boss or mini-Pursuers?
LOL.
Git Gud
make sure to try fist characters in DS2 at some point!! With the vanquisher's seal, the improved dual weilding powerstance, and the bone fist from Loyce, you can make a whole new game out of it.There is no game in all of Miyazaki land that did as well a job on fist only characters, The bone fist easily has the best moveset of any weapon in any game of the soulsborne series. Most people didnt even try it on once I bet...I didnt until someone gave me a strong recommendation, well here's my strong recommendation to you!
Got the three Crowns from the three DLCs. For some reason the Ivory King battle was super annoying for me: sometimes the Charred knights would gangbang me and kill me, I couldn't for the life of me time the King's impale attack so he *always* impaled me etc. To be fair he killed me only 4-5 times before I nailed him but still the approach to him was super annoying. What's interesting is that for this battle I always rolled to the right and it worked. Another no-shield boss fight, though. I simply *loved* the Eleum Loyce area. All the different shortcuts, all the buildings and towers you can go in from one side & out on another where you have already been before 2 hours ago was magnificent. The DLCs have incredible level design.
Memory of the Old Iron King <--- lol. The road to the boss (Sir Alonne?) is incredibly shitty. Gonna extinct every single fucker out there.
Important question: I have the three crowns. Can I leave Sir Alonne for later? I mean go kill the last boss, kill the second last boss (hidden DLC ending) and I would still not trigger NG+ and be able to go to Memory of the Old Iron King?
I second this opinion. Fucker has human AI, endless stamina, and HP.the road to sir alonne is awful. but you can run straight to it. you just have to be quick and dodge at the right time. having said that, i thought sir alonne was harder than fume knight (the timing of his attacks is seemingly random) so good luck!
Yeah, go get Vendrick to bless the crowns (have to kill him first and have his crown from Shrine of Amana) beat the game and you can still do whatever before moving to NG+.
Just keep in mind that the story effect of the crowns will no longer work when / if you move to NG+.