Pro tips. Maybe I can go back in to get the rest of the loot.
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Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin |OT| Your weapons are weak, old man
- Thread starter VisceralBowl
- Start date
affleck1981
Member
Quick question - don't want to know too much but I think I might be going off track. I've just completed Dark Souls, moved on to Dark Souls SOTFS over the weekend. Beat the Pursuer boss, moved to the Lost Bastille and defeated the Ruin Sentinels - somebody mentioned that they should be about the 5th boss so I think I might be out of order somewhere...I'm currently in a flooded place called Sinner's Rise and the flooded area seems to be a bit tricky. Should I be somewhere else?
Seems good to me. I did Last Giant -> Pursuer -> Ruin Sentinels too and I've been fine.
affleck1981
Member
Thanks - Ruin Sentinels gave me a bit of bother, but I'm already sick of the Pursuer following me around. Never liked that mechanic in games. Got my Uchigatana though and loving it.
I don't know if I'd call him a mechanic, Lost Bastille is the worst of it. Outside Forest of Fallen Giants and the Bastille, I think there's only two other encounters in NG?
affleck1981
Member
Cool - thought he was going to be everywhere!
DarkHeartedKill
Member
He pops up a few times, but it's more in-line with his lore, so I kinda like it. The vanilla DaS 2 only had him as a random encounter once in NG.
Episode 35, myself vs. Smelter Demon 2.0: https://youtu.be/PwcHQebKwwI
I've only really done this for completion's sake to be honest, there is absolutely nothing special about the Smelter Demon in Iron Passage other than it's blue.
They could have at least given it a unique phase, or attacks, or anything instead of this.
I've only really done this for completion's sake to be honest, there is absolutely nothing special about the Smelter Demon in Iron Passage other than it's blue.
They could have at least given it a unique phase, or attacks, or anything instead of this.
Twice technically in NG+.
Yes, but the problem was that to find that island you had to wander through a huge lake of poison swamp at a snail's pace.
Just look at that shit. Like 80% of it is just empty nothing.
Blighttown accomplished the same idea, only you'll find something no matter which way you go at any given location rather than vast empty tracts of nothing for no reason.
You do make a good point for sure! But I will still love the hopeless feeling in Valley of Defilement
True that!
Anyways, I just killed the Demon of Song which has got to be the easiest boss in the game so far. To be fair, there were some messages before the boss fog telling me to try ranged, so I did - and this guy had no change at all. Slow, big, with easy moves to dodge, it was just a matter of patience to kill him of - which I actually did on my first try. Anyways,hope Im finished with this area for now, really sucks to search for secrets here when you always risk falling off somewhere.
There's an island with three Giant Depraved Ones camped out around an item.You do make a good point for sure! But I will still love the hopeless feeling in Valley of Defilement
I still don't know what that item is...
Yeah I remember that, but couldnt you do them ranged from the nearby village (if you could call it that)? Anyways, quite sure the item sucked and was not at all worth the effort,
But back in DS2, it freaks me out every time i meet that flaming bonfire. Interestingly enough, there are a ton of bloodstains around him here, guess people got scared and started attacking him? I know I almost did that myself first time I met him
Is there anything with the third singing girl, or is that a complete dead end? What about the disappearing one right before the boss, anything special with her?I did get some loot from her, but it was really nothing special, which is why I asked if I had maybe missed something. Anyways I just got killed down in the crypt, so guess thats it for me tonight. Btw, why is DS2 considered lesser than the other games? i seriously thinks its awesome.In DS1 people said that the demon ruins, lost izalith and other late-game areas was less good, while Anor Londo and Undead Burg where highlights. What is considered good and bad in this game? My opinion is that it just gets better as it goes along btw, with Iron Keep to now (the crypt) all being ace.
I don't think DS2 level design ever gets as bad as the nadir of 1, but neither does it reach the same heights. I personally prefer 1's interconnected world to 2's series of linear progression routes, too.
Also, grab hit boxes are fucked, Soul Memory is fucked, DEX builds are fucked, etc.
Why are dex builds fucked?
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
I'm not sure what his reasons for saying it are, but for me:
Most enemies have armor + a fuckton of poise, so you can't stagger them, yet Dark Souls 2 doesn't let you be nimble enough to dodge around and poke at them.
Damage becomes awful partway through NG+ and only gets worse from there.
Dex scaling (or physical scaling in general, a lot of the time) is not that great.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
They're easy
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
I'm using Ricard's Rapier +10, but now that I'm at the Ivory King DLC it isn't cut it. The enemies in the Ivory King are incredibly difficult to stagger, so I have to rely on strafing around them, otherwise for every hit I do against more than 1 enemy, I'll take a hit back.
Dark Souls II is just floatier. It takes less than an hour to get used to, then you go back to any other Souls game and suddenly you're turning too fast.
Dark Souls II is just floatier. It takes less than an hour to get used to, then you go back to any other Souls game and suddenly you're turning too fast.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Are you using the Stone Ring?
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
I didn't know about that until now. I even found that ogre for the first time at the start of this playthrough. It seems to be helping, but now I'm stuck at Aava, who is not only hard to hit with a rapier, but easily one of the hardest bosses in the series. Bananas damage output and HP. Not sure if there's any way to improve the damage output of Ricard's Rapier at this point.
It definitely is. I noticed it with Dark Souls 1, and after 35 hours of Dark Souls III, Dark Souls II felt like I was underwater.
Chaos Blade absolutely destroys everything through. It even can stagger DLC mobs.
The mace you can pick up right at the start is even stronger than it, strike damage is very strong in this one.
What mace is this?
Guessing the stock standard "Mace" you can buy from the Blacksmith. Thing owns pretty hard, I had it with me all the way to the end of NG+++ on my STR/FTH build.
I didn't even know about this until recently. If you're not looking you won't see the cliff edge.
Stone Ring is awesome. I stagger a lot. Usually I'll either dodge/roll and 2H, or shield block and back up, and then swap to 2H and wail on them. Massive damage and they just stand there.
Just the normal mace you get from Leingrast the homunculus mace is stronger owing to its higher base damae but is available only post Looking Glass Knight which is why few probably use it.
It's usually got a message right above the drop.
is that the one in Huntsmans Copse?
It is the one found in the Copse.
You probably want to wait till later it is more end game balanced than early but it is doable if you want to go in now.
Yup. Those guys used to be NG+ exclusive in an area that didn't have NG enemies, and they mostly stood still launching falcons at you. SotFS gave a very good demonstration of why they weren't widely used in the original version of the game.
FrontalMonk
Banned
I'm wrapping up my first playthrough of DaS1 (cleared all four lords, and going through the DLC before going to the last boss) and after I do that I want to start up SotFS. I went through DaS1 with a vit/end/str build and am taking a claymore all the way through. I feel like this would be a pretty solid type of setup to go with in this, but I also kinda wanted to try out a spellcaster. Do you guys have any build suggestions?
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Claymores and other greatswords are still pretty good in DS2, VIT/END/STR builds always work (although in DS2 and 3, Vitality has been replaced by Vigor for HP, and the Vitality stat affects equip burden independently of Endurance, so only raise it if you want to wear heavy armour).
Magic is very very good in DS2, lots of fun to use. There's many options there; do you want a spellcaster that uses support/buffing magic to complement your mostly melee build, or do you want to mix up occasional offensive spells with melee, or do you want to pew-pew everything and nuke bosses?
affleck1981
Member
So, kept on going through Sinner's Rest, beat the boss there and got one of the sticks that get rid of the statues.
Went back to Things Betwixt as I knew I'd seen one there, went through the Basilisks, fought two ogres on a beach and guess who pops up?
The Pursuer!