Dark Souls 3

[Necronopticous]

I really need to work on my parries in the game. The timing is once again 'different' (at least with medium shields), and so I found myself just going for stability and screwing off parries, which is too bad. It does seem like parries are significantly easier with small shields and even easier with the caestus, so I need to get around to messing with those.

The timing is a little different, but really I think the main thing that makes parrying so difficult in this game is that they REALLY mixed up the first hit from rest animations in the common enemy movesets: some come out lightning fast and others are perfectly delayed such that if you tried to parry the lightning fast one your parry animation will end just as the attack lands. Even after multiple playthroughs I find it extremely difficult and not consistent enough to be worth it to attempt to parry most first hits, but parrying the second or third hit in a combo is often just as easy/consistent as in previous games because the timing between two attacks in a combo is 100% constant and memorizable.

[Obscura]

What made this fight easier for me (and Aldrich too) was giving up on the shield. Blocking feels really useless on both these fights. Is Dancer even significantly different than the frost knights beyond the massive health bar?

I wonder if this is why I had such an easy time with those two -- I played the entire game shieldlessly, going with 2-handing the Sellsword Twinblades.

[rapoon]

what opinion do you guys have on casters so far? I really haven't touched miracles but have characters focusing on sorcery (which I've found to be terrible from an offensive perspective & cast times are too long) and i'm a bit bewildered with half the staves being faith-based, particularly when sorcery requires a significant investment in INT before reasonable damage output. pyromancy on the other hand has been fantastic. my 3 most used spells have been great chaos fire orb (no surprise), boulder heave, and sacred flame.

[Necronopticous]

Utility sorceries are amazing. I'm a bit lukewarm on the offensive sorceries as they requires a huge investment and very specific setup to be viable, and even then it's difficult to really put them to use against most of the bosses in the game. I'm positive you could make them work, but I'm not sure it is worth the effort unless you just really enjoy that play style.

[Marc]

twin dragon great shield requires 16 strength, cathedral knight great shield requires 32, wolf knights great shield requires 30......

no wonder you are finding the bosses so hard if you've put so few points into your main damage stat......

I've got the Twin Dragon but there's no massive advantage with that one. Not at home now, but I'm sure if the greatsheild I've ground, the min STR requirement is around 35 - I'm level 60 at the min and have raised STR to 30, so I'm not far off, just sure I remember getting to use one much earlier in the other two games.

I'm still of the opinion that they've nerfed a tank build with this one. My approach with previous games was to turtle my first play, then experiment from there after. It just doesn't feel as dependable here. Previous games I could block a few attacks in boss fights, and had a good idea when I was going to be staggered. This time it feels like some attacks simply go right through a shield as though you didn't have it raised, staggering seems to be far more frequent... I'm not getting that feeling if being a heavily armoured tank. It's weird, can't put my finger on it exactly, just doesn't feel right.

[CMoon]

On the home stretch. Finally have a quiet weekend so I'm imagining I'll see the end credits shortly. Like Obscura using the sellsword twinblades which just becomes stupidly powerful with the sharp infusion and a buff. Been hiding behind a shield, but this is meant for bloodborne blades of mercy style gameplay, and enemies (even bosses) go down really fast when played this way. That said, I'm definitely overleveled but that's what first playthroughs are for.

[Squire Grooktook]

Spellsword? PFFFT. Bandit Twinblades for life yo

Dat Bloodborne Step

[CMoon]

Spellsword? PFFFT. Bandit Twinblades for life yo

Dat Bloodborne Step

What weapon are you talking about? The Brigand Twindaggers?

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah yeah.

Was having a hard time finding combat fun after Bloodborne but those were enough to get me back into it.

[CMoon]

Yeah yeah.

Was having a hard time finding combat fun after Bloodborne but those were enough to get me back into it.

Did you do any particular infusion with that weapon? Most people seem to be preferring the warden's twinblades or gotthard twinswords.

[Squire Grooktook]

I got em at 10+, haven't done any infusion because (if I'm reading the stats right) they seem to drop a bit with all of them. Need to experiment with that.

I like em because they're the fastest feeling weapon I've seen so far (in terms of start up), and also give you infinite use of that rad Bloodborne style step/dash. They also have amazing stunlock capability and once upgraded a bit do a fair bit of damage to bosses with fairly safe strings. Also works very well with the Pontif eye ring that restores hp for doing combos.

I'm on Nameless King right now btw. Playing for like an hour a week lol.

[CMoon]

Hahahaha! We're the two slowest dark souls players right now.

From what I've read, the brigand twindaggers might really do best with a raw infusion, and then tossing on the carthus rouge buff + pontiff right eye (the one that deals extra damage after a few hits.)

[Marc]

You're not dude, Lothric Castle and a total of 46 hours played since release date. It's made me want to replay the original and Bloodbourne, then I realise how long it would take me in reality....

[CMoon]

I got em at 10+, haven't done any infusion because (if I'm reading the stats right) they seem to drop a bit with all of them. Need to experiment with that.

Wanted to come back to this because I've been messing with infusions on my dex build. Some weapons really don't seem to be helped too much by infusions. I have my sellswords sharp infused at +10 and it just doesn't seem like any infusion will bring the warden twinswords EVEN close to the kind of damage that the sellswords do. My other weapon of comparison are the dual katanas, which slightly out damage the sellswords at +10, but weighs a lot more, attacks a lot slower and once again, the sharp infusion doesn't really seem to help it out that much. As I've started looking at the weapon stats on some of the webpages, it really doesn't look like a lot of weapons even benefit that much from infusion. Surprisingly, the dual katanas aren't even really designed to be dex weapons...they actually scale better as a str weapon. Why?

With that in mind, I've been messing around with the bleed stat because it actually seems quite powerful in DS3. Ideally this makes weapons like the warden twinblades and dual katanas look great because they have inherent bleed, but I'm still getting it to proc quite rapidly with the sellswords which again are both faster than the dual katanas and do significantly more damage than the warden's when using carthus rouge. I'm pretty sure the warden's might proc even without applying carthus rouge and should mess around with it---might make it worth it even with less damage. Need a big, slow enemy to test it out on

[Obscura]

The entire point of the Warden Twinblades is the bleed. They're otherwise inferior to the Sellsword Twinblades.

Does the Carthus Rouge stack with a weapon's innate bleeding and the bleed infusion? If so, you could probably get the Warden Twinblades to proc bleeding damage like crazy.

[Necronopticous]

Does the Carthus Rouge stack with a weapon's innate bleeding and the bleed infusion? If so, you could probably get the Warden Twinblades to proc bleeding damage like crazy.

It does, and you absolutely can. I created a low-level, +2 refinement character completely around the combination you mentioned and bled out noob squads on the high wall for many hours. Unfortunately the actual blood infusion counts an added weapon effect or else it would be even more insane than it already is. Honestly, Carthus Rouge is so fucking good that there is really no reason to ever use the blood infusion as it currently stands.

[CMoon]

Yeah, basically everything Necro said. TBH, bleed is probably a little overpowered in this game, but maybe that is entirely because of twin weapons. What I'm curious about is whether the innate bleed from the warden twinblades is really enough to make a difference when you factor in the increased damage from the sellswords. Worth messing with since the warden twinblades are a little difficult to get.

Anyone made the build with the old wolf greatsword as your left hand weapon since it has the same effect as the two pontiff rings (which it actually stacks with? Twinblades should be super viable this way, and paired with bleed that's just retarded.

Edit: for what it's worth, CR + sellsword twin blades utterly wrecked the angel knights that I'd heard nothing but horrific things about. Smashing them in one combo. Man, I hope they don't nerf this set-up.

[Marc]

I rage quit for the first time yesterday. Finding the difficulty spike at Lothric Castle a bit cheap - old enemies simply buffed to fuck isn't making for much entertainment. That armoured beastie guarding all the chests fucked me up I don't know how many times, and those Knights with the blessed Greatswords... To many one hit deaths for my liking.

[Strider77]

Rage quitting is the best.

[Marc]

Well, finished it, but slightly annoyed. Was so pissed at Lothric Castle and that last stretch of Grand Archives, that after getting smashed down a half dozen times by the last boss I summoned. He proceeded to absolutely destroy him with fuck off huge soul arrows and I'm regretting doing it now. Having said that, the closing music was beautiful, and I can't wait to start with a DEX build. Or maybe even my first ever full caster.

[CMoon]

Wow! Finally beat nameless king. I'm sure I was overleveled, but the first phase of this fight feels like such bullshit to me, while the second is very much akin to lord of cinder (which I'd already smashed.) For those struggling, definitely help others with the white soap stone. Great way to get the patterns down while not losing your embered form.

On to NG+?

[evil_ash_xero]

This gets a patch before the "Ringed City" DLC drops on the 28th.

It gets Pro support, and will improve the framerate on that system. Yay!

EDIT: It will probably be variable, so we may have another FFXV situation on our hands.

[Obscura]

So, has anyone played Ringed City yet?

After being disappointed by AoA, I'm wondering if this is a return to form, or if it's another "big nothing with one really hard boss" expansion.

EDIT: People on TTLG are saying that the difficulty is waaaaaay over the top, and that it's tons more difficult than anything else in Soulsborne, even Old Iron King DLC and The Old Hunters. I'm kinda hoping their descriptions are overblown, because I really don't want something that's basically unplayable outside of coop...

[evil_ash_xero]

The difficulty....well...there are these angels that will give you a bad time, in some of the early parts. If you don't know how to get rid of them permanently (and there is a way), it will make the early parts just "run around like a chicken with your head cut off".

The second part, which is the "main part", isn't like this. It does have a couple of enemies that are similar to the angels, but not quite the same.
The only thing that makes this as hard as people are saying are the angels. And if you don't know how to get rid of them, you will think this is bonkers difficult. But if you get rid of them, it's quite manageable. Tough, but nothing I haven't seen before from the series. Especially when considering Old Hunters DLC.

The bosses....I'm stuck on two of them. They take a LONG time to kill. There's one I don't even think I can beat (the optional one), since I am on NG++ and I'm getting nowhere with him.
I would say a couple of the bosses are really pushing it, difficulty-wise. Mainly because of their massive health pool.

It's definitely more "meaty" that AoA. I like it. If they had released that and this as an expansion, like they did with BB...I think people would have been a lot happier.
They connect, story-wise.

[Weak Boson]

I personally thought the angels were awesome. In fact I really enjoyed the whole thing. The difficulty overall wasnt too much but then again I'm only in NG.

Spoiler

But even at this level Midir was a slog of a fight. It took me a while to work out how to even damage him safely, but once I settled on booping him on the snoot with ugs running attacks between his combos I was able to keep my distance, learn his patterns and whittle him down. If you're aggressive enough it is possible to do critical attacks on him by hitting him enough and staggering him. It also looks like you should be able to do a sweet riposte while he's recovering from his 2nd phase crazy laser spam but I never landed it since the attack is too scary.

[kaicooper]

that Dancer shit boss lol..i remember spent 5 hours fighting with him
then when i figured out his weak point..i just killed him without Shield

[Immryr]

not sure what you're talking about. dancer doesn't have a weak point. very few souls bosses do.

[Squire Grooktook]

He may have meant weakness/exploit.

[Necronopticous]

Bleed? Hiding behind the pillars?

[guigui]

I just started the Ashes of Ariandel DLC, will do Ringed City after it.

I'm getting kind of tired of my Dragon Slayer Great Axe weapon, but only have one respec left before going to NG+, so would like to choose carefully.
I only play PvE and was kind of tempted by a bleed build with Warden Twinblades or O&U, but not sure this is very fun to play.
Any efficients builds you guys could suggest me ?