TLDR: my warrior fully upgraded their main weapon and now face a deficit of titanite chunks to upgrade other weapons, severely limiting my build in time when mages gain several new awesome spells as well as resources to upgrade their pyromancy flame and catalyst.
I’m replaying Dark Souls 2 (SotFS) after years of not touching the game and generally not spending much time with Souls-likes. I went for a warrior type, focusing on swords and crossbows. Despite not having access to any magic, I have a blast!
Yet, once the early game full of experimentations with weapons and drip fashion reached its’ end and I settled on a claymore +10 and a pretty looking “armor” set, my build became stale. I used up my titanite chunks on the claymore and I can’t gain more since the useless ore merchant can’t sell shit until you are 2 bosses away from winning. I have murakumo +7 and I switch to it sometimes but it’s hard to compete with a fully upgraded claymore.
The game throws twinkling titanite to me and I would love to use it on some cool weapon… but there are none! The only special weapon that could fit this build, Drangleic greatsword, is just worse than my claymore in terms of reach and moveset. Maybe it has a bit more damage when it’s fully upgraded but I’d still prefer the more convenient option.
Now, there are also boss weapons. Again, there’s only one that actually interests me - the flexile sentinel’s curved greatsword. It’s pretty similar to my murakumo except it weighs more and… that’s it? Stat scaling is a bit different but moveset seems identical. It looks cool though. But I dunno if it’s worth the investment. Are there other interesting boss weapons worth waiting for? I don’t really want to grind for petrified bones…
It’s especially aggravating because, when a mage reaches Drangleic castle, they get such a huge upgrade. Great combustion, several fire seeds, Soul greatsword, Firestorm, twinkling titanite for the best catalyst… it’s arguably the best part of the game for casters.
Yeah that fire sword is the sword I use on probably every single character I’ve ever played at least through the end of Heide’s Tower, lol. It’s very valuable for the early game and it really never falls off if you keep its upgrade level up to date. It’s boring, but very effective.
Have you considered a rapier?
Regular old rapier is my go-to weapon for casters, for a couple of reasons. First of all, they look swaggy as hell. Second of all, rapier heavy attack is a parry, which means you have a defensive option in your hands even when you’ve got both hands full of sword and staff (or in this case, sword and
guncrossbow). That parry is probably one of the most dangerous and ballsiest moves in the whole game, but it also comes loaded with the biggest dopamine dump in the whole game when you actually pull one off.Rapiers also universally have high critical modifiers, and also additionally benefit from the Old Leo Ring. I think your crossbow should also benefit from the Leo as crossbow shots deal piercing damage.
When I think of “sword-and-gun stance” the first sword that comes to mind is the katana, and the second that comes to mind is the rapier. At least personally.
Several rapiers have something cooler than the parry as their heavy attacks, but I find them a bit lacking, and I usually end up going for the regular non-specialized Rapier that you can buy right in Majula. Spider’s Silk is also a good one though.
Tell me about it 🙄 I think you can technically defeat Nashandra and then just walk out without taking the Throne, but I don’t remember the specifics. I usually leave her fight for last so I don’t have to be concerned about it, and also so that I can come obliterate her body with my maximum power level.
Besides, Throne Watcher/Defender gear is great, their swords and shields are peak. Defender Shield almost always ends up being my end game shield in sword and board builds. Watcher’s sword is also very cool and powerful.
Moonlight Greatsword, Chaos Blade, Crypt Blacksword, and Dragonslayer Greatbow. They also can get you some spells instead, which aren’t as useful here - specifically, Crystal Soul Spear (excellent, off-build), Flame Weapon (also excellent, might be considered), Numbness and Blinding Bolt (both useless for you right now).
Remember that Straid also will let you access some boss soul items that Ornifex doesn’t, and vice versa.
Out of those options, MLGS is good but probably not fit for your build. Crypt Blacksword is damn good but also doesn’t fit the build quite perfectly, however it’s just about the only colossal weapon that I actually prefer to use one handed instead of 2H. CBS was my go-to PvP weapon back in the day. That boy hits like an isekai truck.
That reminded me that I had a specific plan for the very early game in DS2: specific way to get through the Giants Forest and then I always went to the Tower with McDuff’s hammer. This was primarily due to the limitations of the Deprived, mind you, but it was still quite tedious.
My problem with rapiers is that they have low poise damage and their narrow attacks are poor against groups of enemies. Since I don’t need to save on strength and dexterity (unlike casters) I can afford stronger options for my weapon.
I believe you won’t be allowed to leave (either it will teleport you to the same spot or won’t work at all) once you’ve beaten her. But maybe I’m thinking about DS1.
Hm, I’ve never considered their stuff. By the time I’m fighting them by build is so well developed that I turn ignorant to the new options.
CSS (huh) is so fun in PvP actually! Most players will easily dodge it if you just straight-up shoot it at them but if you add to this Soul Shover or especially the mist spells… panic and blocked vision turn Spear into Dark Souls’ save-or-suck spell!
That’s a good option if I end up with spell slots.
It’s interesting how it uses the greataxe movement despite being an ultra greatsword. I need to take a look at it!
My favorite PvP troll build of all time packed Blue Flame and as many casts of CSS as I could scrounge. Blue Flame is A) a sword, so you don’t expect it to be able to cast spells on its heavy unless you’re very familiar with the game, and B) casts just a hair slower than most staves do so it would fairly reliably throw off people’s roll timing once they did see the CSS incoming. That might have been my most successful blood arena build I ever made. I miss DS2 PvP quite a lot, I think it might have been the best in the series, but I might also be blinded by the rose tinted glasses. I was very active in the DS2 reddit for a couple years after release and again after Scholar came out. It was a good time.
Fair points on the rapiers’ poise damage, personally I keep the Stone Ring equipped pretty much from the cradle to the grave so that’s never bothered me all that much. If your build is otherwise ring dependent though I can see that being a problem. They definitely aren’t group attack weapons either, you need to bait and funnel to be effective with them. I’d argue that DS2 is heavy on the bait and funnel strategy anyway regardless of what you’re wielding, though. Drangleic loves a good gank.
Through Majula, into the Forest. Pick up the fire sword. Run Forest to Last Giant. Kill him. Parry Purse User to death. Dip into Bastille to grab the chest items, optionally open McDuff. Back to Majula, go to Heide’s. Farm Heide’s for a couple thousand souls and then kill Dragonrider. Skip Ornstein for now, back to Bastille. Wake up McDuff, grab his hammer. 2H the hammer and apply magic grease to kill the Ruin Sentinels. Pick up the target shield on your way out. Now the run begins.
I bet I did that exact set of steps probably a dozen times, lol.
Ooh, if this has been your attitude, you’re in for a treat for the DLC areas. Have you been to them before? You kind of give the impression that you haven’t. I know the first time I went to them I walked out with a half dozen new pieces of gear I wanted to upgrade immediately, from each of the three places. Fromsoft always cooks up something special in the DLCs, they’re commonly considered the best areas of their respective games and always have the coolest gear. But, they’re also almost always end game areas, so you don’t get a ton of time to enjoy your new stuff, other than just taking it with you into the next DLC area or into NG+.
I definitely completed them all in one save but I have trouble remembering how many times had this happened:
Then, of course, there were a few other saves when I went for one DLC but not the others. E.g., my Dragon Slayer went to Shulva to beat Sinh’s ass but the other two have no dragons so I skipped them. I also had a challenge run: I rushed the frozen DLC and went through the entire Eleum Loyce using Warmth spell as my only way to heal. I’d managed to beat Aava without healing but the Ivory King proved too much for me.
But in the end, the game is so long that most of my playthroughs ended somewhere around Drangleic Castle as my focus wanders off to something else. I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun in the DLCs thanks to my relative unfamiliarity!
Update on my DS2 playthrough:
I went through all the shops that could offer some weapons and bought out everything that looked interesting. Checked all the bought stuff, upgraded some all the way to +6 and then checked out around Drangleic. Some thoughts:
I bought rapier and estoc to check them out. I liked estoc a bit more because it has higher poise damage (it’s actually the same as of the longsword!) and better stat scaling for my build so now it’s my fastest weapon in the arsenal. It helped a lot clearing through Drangleic’s “surprising d6” with ruin sentinels.
I added uchigatana to the lonely washing pole and checked both of them out. Holy damn!! Washing pole is crazy, feels like I’m a boss, with my attacks reaching for half the arena lol. I knew it was quite large but not this much! Uchigatana is a nice fast weapon, it might replace my longsword in the long run. I really appreciate that both of them have thrust as their strong attack.
I got the regular twinblade back in the Castle so I checked it out - and was disappointed as in one hand its’ attacks are pretty basic. Only at the end of the session, when I got to the entrance of the Crypt, had I found the red twinblade - and this one does have a unique moveset even when held with one hand! I’ll check it out later.
I also bought red rust sword and shield crossbow with no real plan on what to do with them (if anything). The rust sword is pretty interesting as it seems to have the moveset of axes while shield crossbow will likely just be in my collection of crossbows as it doesn’t look as cool as the light crossbow.
Now, all this departure felt really good because the next place I needed to go to was the dreaded Shrine of Amana. The way to the third bonfire was nerve-wracking. Fighting the ogre knowing that it will murder me in two successive hits is fucking scary. Not to mention the precarious paths for the estus shard, with all the deep water around…
In the end, I managed to get through the Shrine without dying at all. I believe it might first time doing it deathless. And I got everything I could except for the crown. Pyromancers killed me plenty though :D Why do they have poise???
The Crypt is next and I’m excited as I quite like it!
Nice!!
I never liked the estoc much, myself. I’m not sure why, really, I just never used it over other thrusting swords I guess. I liked the rapier for its parry and mostly stuck to that one when I wanted to go fencing.
Estoc is good though! Nice and fast, and long. Speaking of,
Lmao, no kidding. “I am the boss fight now” is a great way of describing it, actually, lol. Watch that durability though. Thing snaps like a twig at the slightest provocation, DS2 is really the only souls game that I find myself actively worrying about my equipment durability sometimes. Keep those repair powders on deck.
Funny story, actually, durability loss used to be WAY WAY WORSE and got patched down. Something to do with how the game calculated durability combined with now running at 60FPS meant that you could break certain weapons literally on a single hit. I think it was because the weapon spent a lot of time inside the enemy model and subtracted durability for every frame it was intersecting. It was REAL bad.
Re: Twinblades, they are definitely 2H weapons. You can swing them one handed but generally you shouldn’t, I wouldn’t advise them unless you’re ready and willing to put both hands on it regularly.
I like the rust swords, I don’t think they’re the best in their respective weapon types but I like wearing them as a paired set, they’re neat.
Shield crossbow I think is just bad, unfortunately, lol.
Nice job on Amana! I don’t hate it as much as I think most of the playerbase does because I’ve learned to game it pretty effectively by now, and I think it’s really pretty. It’s rough going in unfamiliar with it though, and I still usually have some trouble with the big arena near the end with all the red phantoms and snipers. This place also got nerfed in difficulty in a patch, lol.
Crypt is not my favorite area in the game but the boss fight there might be. Good luck! And remember to come back and see Agdayne after you’re finished here to buy a cool sword.
I have no idea why did they get rid of the mechanic in their next games. It’s pretty good IMHO. Sure, it doesn’t influence every hour of play but I like how it incentivizes me to pick up and upgrade more than one weapon, just in caze. Honestly, it could be even more aggressive. And that’s me talking with the Champion’s covenant!
Well, I had the feeling it isn’t anything good.
I respect this area. It’s arguably the hardest mandatory location in the main game, particularly the run between the second and third bonfires. Mages, clerics, ogres, those sneaky bastards, treasure luring into deep water… it’s just a very cruel place in general. I remember being particularly terrified of the archdragon clerics in my first playthrough.
Durability technically exists in every main line Souls game as well as Bloodborne, it’s just mostly a non-issue (until you forget about it entirely and your main weapon breaks mid boss fight). I think it mostly just serves as an annoyance in Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne, because the game never really goes out of its way to tell you that you need to repair your weapon, and in DS1 you have to go out of your way to buy a whole smithbox about it or go visit a smith in person.
2 solves this by making your gear repair at bonfires, which was a GREAT change and I was a big fan of it. Many people were not. It also didn’t help that durability was bugged for a while to be even worse than it was intended to be. In response to that backlash DS3 technically shares the same mechanic, but durability was buffed to such an extent that I don’t think I’ve ever actually been in danger of breaking any of my gear, unless being hit by acid attacks, so in practice they just removed durability but in truth it’s still there hiding in the background.
In Bloodborne they went back to having to repair your weapon at the smith station in the Hunter’s Dream and the decision baffles me, but you also only ever have to do it like once every 7 hours so it was whatever.
How’s the Crypt been treating you? Did you light the torches?
The way durability works in DS2 is by far my favorite. In DS1 it’s just a chore you must do from time to time, and in Demons Souls it’s actually quite a big tax on your souls, at least in the early game.
And I didn’t know that Bloodborne also use this type! I mean, it kinda makes sense since you can’t sit at a checkpoint but it could just as well be removed from the game entirely tbh. But I never played Bloodborne (no PS4) so what do I know!
In DS3 it’s so lenient that it might as well may not exist. I don’t think I ever depleted even half the durability bar on my weapon. I generally have issue with how DS3 devs tried to streamline everything and seriously overdid it (removed poise, return to mana, covenants as items, etc).
I haven’t played since the Amana session. Job hunting drains my time and energy, and summer’s heat is already here so it’s hard to just comfortably sit down at my PC and game for awhile. I do want to play though!
Hah, return to
monkemana might be my favorite change Fromsoft made for DS3. I was very glad to see it carry forward into Elden Ring. I have a whole rant and a half about Vancian magic, I never liked it, I don’t like it in D&D and I don’t like that they brought it to Dark Souls. I am a wizard, and I can cast exactly three fireballs. I’m not out of magical power after that, I’ve still got lightning bolts and magic missiles that I can sling at you, but I’ve completely forgotten how to cast the fireball I just cast 18 seconds ago. Gonna need a lil nap to address that.Mana bar just makes more sense to me. I stop casting fireballs because I’ve exhausted my innate supply of magical power, not because “i forgor 💀”
Ughhhhhhh. Yeah, been there. Best of luck to you my friend. Imagine a big “Unemployment Defeated” banner coming up when you’re finished, that’s from me.
Update: aaand Velstadt’s done! It was surprisingly easy, not counting quite a few shameful deaths from the blue flame-wielding ghosts. I’m still not fully done with the Crypt since I haven’t lit up the place but the royal ring’s on me.
Adgayne gave me his drip and it’s great. His katana is funny but I’m not a fan of it being nearly invisible at some angles so I threw it into my endless box.
Avelyn… avelyn!!! Such a great crossbow. Switched to it as soon as I could upgrade it. It’s a bit slower but I’m fine high risk, high reward.
The ore seller finally got them chunks! I bought out all 10 and maxed out avelyn and murakumo. I figured washing pole is too unreliable with its low durability, and it’s a bit slow to swing; uchigatana is nice but it’s diagonal attacks miss quite a lot, especially against small opponents; longsword is a bit too short and is kind of a boring choice honestly; and estoc is fairly situational - it’s great against slow armor-clad opponents but isn’t much against mobile enemies who may easily dodge estoc’s narrow attacks. Also, murakumo looks badass with the new Agdayne+thief set of mine!
Speaking of the grave warden’s set, I completely forgor that special equipment can only be upgraded to +5 so I spent most of my twinkling titanite maxing out the robe and kilt haha. It’s not such a big problem as I got an extraordinary amount of twinklies from enemies in the Shrine but it’s quite a silly situation.
Well, hit points are also very unrealistic in what they’re trying to depict. Game mechanics often require suspension of desbelieve to avoid making games actively painful to play (“oh no I was hit by an enemy now I have a 20% chance to suffer a deadly disease and I can’t heal from it because we’re in a medieval kingdom!”).
For me, the advantage of Vancian magic is the way it encourages the player to use “expensive” spells. Technically, both Vancian magic and mana system have a similar cost - preparing/casting one spell limits your ability to use other spells. But something about preparing spells at a bonfire instead of casting it in the middle of a journey makes it easier to sacrifice efficiency (using the most practical but boring spell like Soul Arrows to solve every encounter) for cooler and more powerful but also more expansive (less uses, more takes slots) spells like Storm pyromancies.
Thanks! “Humanity Restored” will follow quickly after.
That’s a fair point I guess about Vancian magic. I’m still not a fan, but I suppose I understand the reasoning behind it a little better. Because I am the kind of wizard that will find the most efficient mana-per-damage spell in my arsenal and sling that almost exclusively. Elden Ring got a whole lot of Carian Slicer and Glintstone Arc out of me.
Avelyn is a banger, that one used to be a monster in PvP. I kind of forgot it existed though lmao. Don’t think I’ve ever used it myself, even once. But for someone who wants to off-main a crossbow, it’s probably the best one you’re going to get your hands on. There’s an argument to be made for the Sanctum Crossbow I think, that one was my go-to, but it loses out on raw damage per trigger pull and you don’t get it until about halfway through Shulva which if you don’t do that DLC first may as well be postgame.
After poking the wiki about this, I also learned today for the first time ever that you can dual wield powerstance a pair of crossbows. I guess it makes sense that you can, I just never thought to try. John Wick akimbo build incoming.
Aw, lame, that’s the exact reason I like Darkdrift lol. It’s a bootleg Hidden Weapon that you don’t have to cast all the time, or do a no-death-no-bonfire run for the illusory rings. It’s not really useful, that effect does nothing in PvE and in PvP your opponent can still see that you’re swinging Darkdrift if they’re paying attention, it’s not like Hidden Weapon where you could be swinging anything with any amount of range under that spell. But it’s cool as hell though. Darkdrift is mediocre as katanas go in DS2 but a mediocre katana is still head and shoulders above most other weapons. It’s also possible to get a matched pair of them in the same NG+ cycle by abusing a bug, so long as you don’t mind having to murder Agdayne once your business is complete with him. Suppose that doesn’t help you much on this build, but maybe next time? Dub katanas is an easy dex build win.
I believe she upgrades one more time to unlimited chunks after you beat Watcher and Defender. It’s worth hitting them as early as possible for that reason. You’ll still have to go hunt down elemental stones and titanite slabs though, stay stingy with those.
… Matter of fact, now that I think about it, now that you have the King’s Ring in your pocket I think you can go fight them right now and just get that out of the way. You’ll need the Ashen Mist Heart and etc. to actually complete the game but I don’t think that comes into play until after Nashandra.
And frequently end up with as good or better stats than a whole +10 regular item. Special items scale a ton per upgrade. A +1 special weapon will often carry me just as far as a +3 or +4 regular weapon. This extends to armor too. Don’t be afraid to invest in them, they’re “special” for reasons. Twinkling Titanite is also relatively infinite so long as you don’t mind farming for it, so it’s not like you’ll run out. If you don’t plan on going into NG+, ascetic the Dragon Aerie a few times when you get there and just sprint through it destroying all the crystal lizards and ignoring everything else, you’ll leave with a few dozen twinklies and elemental stones.
If you do plan on going into NG+, uh, don’t do that. Ask me how I know. 😅