Question: has anyone found out if any of the sets actually have a bonus? I never noticed any of them giving a bonus on my first playthrough. Is it perhaps just NG+ gear?
Are you sure you're looking at ds2? I've beat every single boss by rolling and 2 handing. Including all the dlc bosses and never had a problem with the roll screwing me over. It was always my fault when I died. Get your adp up.
That's the problem. The default roll is trash and you need to raise your AGI (not necessarily ADP) to around 90 - 110 before it stops sucking ass.
I am currently playing as Rogue in this game and they really do start out rough as hell compared to the "herp derp" Warrior class. You can run around in the Warrior armor too if you wish, since you find it relatively early, but you do actually want to be more mobile when using AGI based weapons. I could never recommend playing a Rogue as a starting class, but for a second playthrough it's pretty fun.
Pros:
1. Movement speed obviously (you can do the same with STR/FTH but it somewhat clashes with the playstyles and weapons)
2. Daggers and Short Swords can stunlock or interrupt a hell of a lot of enemies, including spiders. The energy to damage ratio is also probably the best.
3. Parry/Riposte quicker strafing for backstabs, and it seems like faster weapons either hit the backstab window easier or they just have a wider "spot" to hit, because they are super easy. Parrying is brain dead easy too after a while except on the asshole Demonic Tower Knight guys. I have to switch to a fucking tower shield to open them up with a charge since you can't do that with a buckler. Feels really dumb using a tower shield as a "Rogue".
4. Staff type weapons are pretty fun too, but I'm not quite decided on which I prefer yet. They seem to have a harder time backstabbing.
Cons:
1. I haven't really found much use for dual-wielding. The risk never seems to be worth the damage at all. Most of the time where I would be in a good position to do a dual-wield combo, I could have just one-handed backstabbed for the same or more while using a shield.
2. Has to "waste" more points into endurance than a STR class to reach a similar equip load. Only a small con though since you will still be at best a medium speed as a STR class in all heavy armor.
3. Those huge tower shield knights completely and utterly suck. They are rough for anyone, but they are especially bad with a lower health, lower armored character and I feel like I am forced to use a tower shield of my own. I can wreck them when using a tower shield and not in a narrow ass hallway, but it just feels lame to have to play that way.
4. Not so much a con as conflict of interests regarding playstyles. I have no idea which magic school would be the best. I want to use Deception, but Solace has everything going for it for a character that needs a better way to avoid damage or recover health on top of supremely easy options for backstabbing. Won't have enough mana to abuse much from Deception, and it will also be somewhat hard to get the spells up to 3/3 if you're trying to play with lower FTH.