Ok put in some serious hours testing and early heavy armor sucks, you don’t have the endurance to block and counter attack bosses and with the amount of shit the mages throw at you the more mobile you are the better.
Endurance appears to be king in this game, I had an easier time going no armor then heavy, dodged faster and further and stamina recovery was better.
I hope they balance it but as of now a speedy character seems to be the way to go. Who knows what mid to end game will bring so I may stick with heavy Scythe user.
They made ranged attacks S tier though you want to do as much damage as possible to the mages before they become boss fights and the less time you spend dodging and getting hit the better.
Huge focus on co-op and multiplayer in general so they might be tuning this stuff for a party of 2.
The whole mage thing and how they fight everything including other mages is awesome, really adds a fresh take to the souls like genre.
For those that don’t know you accept mage hunts and they point you in the general direction once found in the area they will be attacking everything near them usually killing whatever is there, you can step up and damage it until it teleports away. Repeat until boss fight, I had 1 mage at 25% health by the time it got to the boss room and I one shot it. Others I barely wounded and got my ass handed to me, this forced me to abandon the hunt to explore elsewhere and level.
Level design is top notch, lots of double backs and short cuts but so far easy enough to remember due to unique backgrounds and set pieces everywhere vs something like Hollow Knight where I got lost constantly.
I don’t like the gathering to recharge estus flask, sure some respawn points have the thing next to it to gather but many don’t and if you want to bang your head against a boss you can’t until you stock up. This goes against the freedom of what these games usually allow.
Last gripe is you have to go back to town to level up... I get the whole mage hunt thing but not being able to level at every respawb point just feels bad. I hope they change it to cant level up while on a mage hunt mission. Would keep what they going for and allow the player to save a little time.
As is you run around killing stuff and wait to find a shortcut that leads you back towards the start, return to town, run west then up some stairs, level up, run all the way back down to teleporter and go back to start of zone, use the new shortcut to continue progress.
I found myself skipping mobs and rushing through whole sections just to pick up where I left off and it feels bad, especially when you die on the return run.
Skill tree is even more crazy this time, new terms to learn etc but anyone with previous souls or salt experience can navigate it with a plan in mind. Knowing what weapons and armor will be available when will really focus your choices but until that is known just going for general improvements will be a blast to explorer.
Overall the mage hunt loop is awesome and I really looking forward to release.