Dark Souls 2
- Thread starter Malt_sl
- Start date
Needless
Toe Sucker
- 9,225
- 3,300
You'd think having more strength would allow you to swing a weapon a little faster depending on what the initial strength requirement is.
If i have a club that requires 12 strengh, and i have 50. I think i'd be strong enough to whirl that shit around like a rag doll. Why isn't this a thing? Slacker developers.
If i have a club that requires 12 strengh, and i have 50. I think i'd be strong enough to whirl that shit around like a rag doll. Why isn't this a thing? Slacker developers.
Raes
Vyemm Raider
- 3,264
- 2,718
Any tips for Armana Shrine? Im okay with the annoying magic hadoken casters.....I'm having an issue with the giant mushroom guy at the 3rd bonfire. He keeps destroying at the least 1 of my rings, and they're costing a fortune to repair. Trying my best to avoid ranged attacks, and I really don't have the arrows needed to repeatedly take him down everytime I die. Is there some sort of item I can use to prevent the corrosion of my armor/rings?
Thanks in advance
Thanks in advance
Str scaling is apparently a lot better than dex scaling point for point. Someone crunched the numbers and dex turned out to give only 65% damage bonus compared to strength. It of course also gives bleed and poison damage, which is probably why the direct damage scaling is lower, but I've yet to see a build that really makes great use of these damage sources in a way that makes it as strong as a str build with a great club or something similar.
There's a few dex weapons that look like they could be viable, such as Ricard's Rapier, but then it turns out that it has only 45 durability which just isn't enough to be viable unless you're willing to reinforce and infuse two sets of weapons. I have trouble keeping my 70 durability weapon intact between bonfires, and that's a halberd that swings hard and slow. Wouldn't wanna see how quickly a super-fast weapon with 45 gets worn out.
There's a few dex weapons that look like they could be viable, such as Ricard's Rapier, but then it turns out that it has only 45 durability which just isn't enough to be viable unless you're willing to reinforce and infuse two sets of weapons. I have trouble keeping my 70 durability weapon intact between bonfires, and that's a halberd that swings hard and slow. Wouldn't wanna see how quickly a super-fast weapon with 45 gets worn out.
As far as I know, there isn't any clear way to resist it. I've never dropped it as a melee, I've always used arrows. Then again, my bow is strong enough that I drop it with two shots, so it was never a problem. All said, if you have to stand in its mist so long that somsthing breaks, you're probably better off just running through the mist and past it. Less breakage, same result. I'd recommend piling up some arrows though if you can.
Angelwatch
Trakanon Raider
- 3,053
- 133
Yeah, I've gone through several hundred arrows in the Shrine of Amana alone and I'm only at the 2nd bonfire. Like I said in an earlier post, I'm brute forcing it by killing a few enemies and, inevitably, dying to something over and over and abusing the enemy extinction "feature." Iron Arrows with the Dragonrider Greatbow are doing just short of 400 points of damage per hit.
Derkon
Trakanon Raider
- 2,457
- 1,193
Yeah read this on reddit as well. Happy I went with my gut when I started and went for a STR build. I was debating trying dex since I have a few soul vessels but eh, looked at the low durability of katanas and was turned off. Haven't ran into any great dex weapons beyond that. Have the basic Ultra Greatsword at +8 with a Dragonrider bow and have been doing pretty well with that.
- 11,083
- 2,277
I went with a dex build and was using both bleed and poison, bandit knives with poison, and to be honest I think it was pretty weak. The upside is pretty much no boss that I've fought is immune to poison or bleed, unlike previous games. Mytha is obviously not a boss you want to poison, but other than that everything could be poisonned. That said I got the smith fairly late for the poison stones so I didn't do every boss with this setup(specifically I didn't do the fat guy in the poison area with it to see if he was also immune). In terms of damage though, they were both pretty low. Bleed is capped at 200dmg max because it's % based off the life of the mob but that'd be broken for bosses I guess, still 200 is a shit value for a cap considering it takes 6 to 8 hits to proc on anything and poison damage I'm not entirely sure how it calculates but it seemed to do 15 per tick regardless of the mob and duration looked to be about 30secs, and it LOOKED like the ticks were faster with mytha's bent blade than with bandit knives so maybe the DPS is based on the speed of the ticks instead of their value. Regardless though, it wasn't high damage, and aside from that bandit knives +10 hit for like 2 to 10 on most bosses due to armor and shit, so it's basically more or less entirely about those procs.
You could use non shitty daggers to apply the procs, I haven't tested enough but for example the rapier that applies poison didn't seem to apply it any faster than bandit knives. The manslayer katana also didn't, it looked like about 6hits for poison, even though it's about twice as slow as a dagger.
So the only advantage to dex I'd see is if you do use a poison stone on a slower weapon, you'll get some damage bonus, on bosses, but not that much. You're probably better off using a raw stone on a dex weapon or an elemental one and get damage all the time. I don't even know how useful the poison stat is either, it's hard to tell, but you could probably use a poison stone on a str weapon and get similar results even without the dex bonus, so yeah. I think bleed bonus from dex should also increase the cap of bleed procs, as for poison I'm still unclear on the exact mechanics of what poison bonus does.
You could use non shitty daggers to apply the procs, I haven't tested enough but for example the rapier that applies poison didn't seem to apply it any faster than bandit knives. The manslayer katana also didn't, it looked like about 6hits for poison, even though it's about twice as slow as a dagger.
So the only advantage to dex I'd see is if you do use a poison stone on a slower weapon, you'll get some damage bonus, on bosses, but not that much. You're probably better off using a raw stone on a dex weapon or an elemental one and get damage all the time. I don't even know how useful the poison stat is either, it's hard to tell, but you could probably use a poison stone on a str weapon and get similar results even without the dex bonus, so yeah. I think bleed bonus from dex should also increase the cap of bleed procs, as for poison I'm still unclear on the exact mechanics of what poison bonus does.
Phazael
Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
- 14,173
- 30,367
The spears are solid, if a little low on raw damage. Most of them scale off of one of the casting attributes, so they are good for someone going magic like I am. Halberds were my favorite mele weapon, but there are not a lot of good ones in here and it seems like it takes a while before you can get to the point where you can smith a custom elemental one yourself.
Phazael
Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
- 14,173
- 30,367
PS- The poison hex is the most retardedly busted spell in the game for gimping bosses. I got sick of losing to smelt so I farmed my faith up enough to use it and killed him the very next try by stacking 8 casts on him and following it up with some poison throwing knives. Dude dotted to death so fast he spent more time doing his transition animations than actually attacking heh.
My go to weapon in DS2, the Halberd, absolutely sucks balls in this game. Right now I'm pretty much rocking the Giant Club, Heidl Lightning Sword, or the Magic Mace depending on the fight.
In Earthen Keep, is there any way to open the locked gate/door upstairs from the second bonfire? I've cleared the area and killed the boss but not figured out how to open that or what's behind it...
In Earthen Keep, is there any way to open the locked gate/door upstairs from the second bonfire? I've cleared the area and killed the boss but not figured out how to open that or what's behind it...
- 11,083
- 2,277
If it's the one I'm thinking of, where Pate is(but that might depend on his story advancement and shit I don't know darksouls had the same stuff), you have to go all the way up, then drop down and open it from the other side, it's a "doesn't open from this side" door right? Don't really remember any other door in this place.
Angelwatch
Trakanon Raider
- 3,053
- 133
I upgraded the Magic Mace I found to +10 and that's my main weapon. It's fast enough for me and does decent damage to enemies who are armored up. It's not great for swarms but I tend to switch to magic to take those out one at a time. My backup weapon is the Sun Sword also at +10. It does slightly less damage than the mace so it's pretty solid as a backup when the mace gets low durability.
I also use the Dragonrider Bow at +4. My go to arrow are the Iron ones. They do solid damage and are cheap enough that I don't mind splurging on a couple hundred when stocking up.
I'm still using the armor found near the Pursuer. It takes Twinkling to upgrade but I've been upgrading it slowly. Now that I'm in the Shrine and have access to a lot ofTwinkling, I'll be upgrading it all fairly high.
Other than the one Dragonrider soul, I've kept all of my other souls (which includes a 2nd Dragonrider Soul from the two in the Castle). Any recommendations to spend them on? My STR and my INT are my highest stats right now with DEX in the low 20's (just enough to equip some stuff).
I also use the Dragonrider Bow at +4. My go to arrow are the Iron ones. They do solid damage and are cheap enough that I don't mind splurging on a couple hundred when stocking up.
I'm still using the armor found near the Pursuer. It takes Twinkling to upgrade but I've been upgrading it slowly. Now that I'm in the Shrine and have access to a lot ofTwinkling, I'll be upgrading it all fairly high.
Other than the one Dragonrider soul, I've kept all of my other souls (which includes a 2nd Dragonrider Soul from the two in the Castle). Any recommendations to spend them on? My STR and my INT are my highest stats right now with DEX in the low 20's (just enough to equip some stuff).
khalid
Unelected Mod
- 14,071
- 6,775
Well, Im not far in the game at all, but my goal as far as stats has been to raise my str/dex to the point I could use the weapons I wanted, enough faith for heal and vitality to wield weapon+100% shield, and then start getting vigor/end to their softcaps of 20. If this game is anything like the first two games, it is NEVER a bad idea to level up endurance and hp.