Dark Souls

[Mcjon01]

A bit more from the official site and not secondhand news stories:

• New Bosses - Including Artorias of Abyss, Chimera of Tomb, and more
• PVP Online Matchmaking System - Quick matching for co-op or PVP
• New Areas – Including Oolacile Tomb, Old Ruins and more
• New Enemies – Including Abyss Guard, Chained Prisoner and more
• New NPCs – Including Hawkeye Gough and more
• New Weapons and Armor – Equip some from the new bosses, enemies, and NPCs

More details to be revealed...

I'm pretty neutral about GFWL since I've never had problems with it, but I hear it can be a pain if it acts up.

[deadfish]

Uh. So what happens to us PS3 users.

[Mcjon01]

Maybe you'll get DLC. Maybe you'll buy another copy of the game and a new PC to go with it. Bamco hasn't released that information yet. Hopefully it's the former.

EDIT: And it looks like the PC version is going to be DDL only, which is what I'd guessed.

[Rainrir]

The extent of the new content makes me suspect that console users will get a "expac disc", asssuming From doesn't screw over the core console player base.

I am still glad Gough and Astorias are in, now if they would oinly restore the Oscar/Peterus/Shiva sidequest and throw in the only Female Knight Ciaran too..

[Apple]

So I hex edited and got Shiva's black eye orb and an 'avoid death' miracle. The miracle has no image but it casts. Havent tested what it does yet though.

Does anyone know where I ought to try invading shiva's world, if at all?

[Rainrir]

It is dummied out. I don't think you will be able to find the event triggers for it...even if you have the orb. I assume Shiva never leaves his two locations even if you do have the hacked orb.

[Apple]

Aw, shucks. I wanted to give it a shot :\

It's kinda weird that they had all this content already in the disc. The text logs, the orb, the miracle, the questlines... someone mentioned that the chimera boss's also inside unfinished, but I don't have the skill to find any traces of it.

Also I never realised how cheap WOG is. I just ran in, spammed all three casts of it on Lautrec and killed him and his lackeys in a heartbeat. He was still muttering about moths and flames after his body faded from existence.

[Rainrir]

WOG is cheap only if you can't roll it in PVP. Also 3 casts, might be good for Leutrac, but there isn't many places where 3 WOG will make a big difference.

On the other hand, I abuse Force in duels....

[Apple]

Haha, I abuse dragon roar. BWAAAAARGH FUCK DESTRUCTIBLE OBJECTS

Not working out too well though, I need more poise... or maybe a better weapon

[Rainrir]

Poisewise, I always go with two pieces of Paladin and two pieces of Black Iron. This is enough to take one hit from most weapons, without flinching and being comboed. Then if you use a heavy weapon yourself (like say, a Claymore, or a Murakumo). You can probably stunlock someone faster than they can stun lock you.

However, if you really want to take BKGA hits, I think going Black Iron and Havels is the way to go. Even better is to learn how to fight BKGA users by dancing in and out of their range. For example, using Balder Side Sword's 2H Backstep R2 or Claymore's 1H Backstep R2, or the Estoc's 2H R2.

Alternatively, shields and spears combos are excellent against people who like to zerg people down with swings. Especially with the longer spears...like DSS and Silver Spear. Holding up your shield and poking does good damage when you use them as counterhits. However, you need to mix up your Turtle swings with the 2H swings to avoid being parried (because spear swings are easy to parry if you spam them and have low poise damage).

[Apple]

I can't go full dragon and keep armor.

Wolf ring doesn't do shit against claymore stunlock. BUT I WANT TO ROAR LIKE A BOSSSS, IT'S LIKE INFINITE CAST WOTG

Also turtling sucks.
1) Too slow
2) Difficult to punish estus, even if I get a backstab in they heal more than I deal
3) I get backstabbed from the front, every single time

My best win ratio was obtained using full havel's, grass and a VIT/END gouge. Hop/run around like a lunatic until they make a mistake and backstab them with chaos rapier. Full Havel's is practically impossible to stunlock, I can't die from a backstab, and I do massive damage.

But I want to play a dragon, not a fat guy in a stone suit using a stick...

[Rainrir]

Then you need to learn to dance in and out of range, preferably with a weapon that has a good backstep lunge attack like Estoc or BSS. Or do the spear/turtle combo. People without Poise really need to be careful on how they fight people with poise and heavy poise damage weapons.

Wolf ring (+40) would not be enough because you need at least 53 poise to take a Claymore hit without being stunlocked. You might be better off with DWGR (since your combined weight is light) for more mobility to dodge attacks and BS setups.

Dragon Roar is is not as good as WoG because it drains Stamina for me. WoG and Force are like stamina-less 4th swing, dragon roar cannot do that.

[Apple]

Oh, I try, but Katanas fuck me over. And everyone and their mother uses them.

The phantom range on those things is insane. Even if I roll before they swing I still get hit. Even if I don't get hit the bleed builds up. If I get hit I get instastunlocked. If I want to parry I have to beat my shield a fraction of a second in advance BEFORE they swing (as in, before they raise their sword to swing. Before the animation starts. Dunno if it's my connection or lollatency).

Only way I know of is to beat them is Havel's. Poise through their samurai swords and stick it in their rear.

[Rainrir]

Beat katana rushdowns by blocking and circle backstab. Alot of players tend to go apeshit with Katanas once they see you blocking because they hope to fill the bleed meter on you quickly, because of how bleed mechanics work (aka need to fill that bleed meter asap). This leaves them open to backstabs that a normal player wouldn't be.

Normal Katanas (Iaido/Uchigatana) don't have very high poise damage. Wolf's ring is sufficient against them (but not for swing contests, they will beat you because they might have more poise AND the have bleed). You can poise-rush-backstab, if you know how to do it.

Since your ring slot is not that occupied (because of low weight), you can use bloodbite to counter the bleeds..

[Apple]

When they go apeshit I parry. Even with the ridiculous latency it's surprisingly easy to get off a successful riposte on them, because it's obvious they aren't gonna stop swinging.

I'm talking about the katana users who actually bother baiting and reading moves, the ones who roll in, poke, roll out, roll in, slash, poke, roll out, circle, backstab, etc. They will wail on you if they see a stunlock, and the bleed meter doesn't go down fast enough against those guys.

AND they dead angle.

How do you poise rush backstab?

[Rainrir]

If they read, they usually wouldn't build enough bleed unless the battle is really dragged out. You can always reset the situation by running away. Since you are light and they tends to be heavy (heavy armor + katanas are a standard combination), it means you have 1) faster runs 2) faster stm recovery. I still can't understand why you cannot outrange them, normal Katanas have pretty crappy range and most of the longer western swords outrange them significantly on their thrust attacks. Use BSS.

Dead angles are more fearsome on Washing Pole/Murakumo users because they actually have the range on their "backswings" to hit someone through the shield. However, Washing Pole/Murakumo still suffers from the range deficiency if you can backstep properly. Dead angles are only deadly if you turtle all day and is relatively immobile for them to set it up. Otherwise, they have crappier range and may/maynot make you easier to BS.

[Apple]

Haha, my recent battles typically have been dragged out. I've been trying to setup parries lately.

Also the normal katanas have insane range, much much longer than the actual blade. Maybe it's lag screwing me over, but I tend to get hit and dead angled when they're slashing 20 degrees or 2m away from me.

It happens sometimes with other weapons, but usually only if the other guy is warping around the room (a sure sign of lag). On the other hand it always happens with katanas regardless of enemy teleportation or not.

I haven't tried the balder swag sword extensively yet, I found the damage rather lacking compared to my MSGS and claymore. As for poking with western swords, I find the claymore poke ridiculously slow. I've successfully backstabbed so many people who attempted it that I don't even want to try it myself. Afraid the same thing will happen to me lol

[Rainrir]

Claymore 1HR2 is slow, but it is not stabbable slow unless you do it naked or you do it up close. If you can backstab someone doing it, then he is obviously using it wrong. It is best used as a predicted-counter tool. In that sense, it excels as it has the range and damage needed. Never ever attempt to follow a 1HR2 (hit or not) done at max range, because almost nothing that follows can reach its to combo and there is a longer windup than average to follow up. These mistakes are what I see often in new users of the Claymore

Katanas having longer than perceived range is probably because of the standing animation of the swings. Which cause the "backswing" of the Katana to appear to have a shorter range that it should. The reality is that it extends a circle of the katana's range from the centre of the character (which is not necessarily the head of that character). Still, it still only have the range of a normal katana swing at best (lesser in fact). It will not be able to outrange the Claymore step1HR2, Estoc 2HR2, or the BSS step1HR2/step2HR2 done right.

BSS has roughly the same damage as a Uchi. Uchi has bleed, but BSS has far better range and broken tier moves in the step1HR2/2HR2 and the normal R2 itself. The scaling advanatge vanishes if you use the non-default versions (fire/lightning/enchanted etc) of the weapons. Since you mention MLGS and Claymore, I think see where your problem lies. You used slow weapons on a low poise character (LPSW). This combination is extremely suboptimal (as compared to HPSW or HPFW or LPFW), as whiffs make your vulnerable due to slow swings and you lack poise to survive counter attacks to whiffs (all counters that hit will become a unrecoverable death combo).

[Apple]

With the hitcone of a poke, anything that slow is backstabbable. >_>" I suppose I could try it though. I'm at 99 humanity anyways.

Man serpent greatsword (MSGS), actually. Not Moonlight Greatsword (MLGS). I lack sufficient dragon scales and can't farm them.

What does the step notation mean btw? I read gamefaqs so I'm more familiar with WD and WR (while dashing/while rolling).

What is considered 'high poise', anyway? I know about the 53 (claymore) and 77 (greatsword/greataxe) breakpoints but I'm not sure what is considered 'high' or 'low'.

[Rainrir]

Attacks that follow a backstep. While they appear similiar to their normal R2 counterparts in some weapons, in other weapons the character actually takes a bigger step forward/run before they strike...greatly increasing its range. This also applied to some weapon's backstep R1.

MSGS is actually even worse, I think MSGS is slower than the Claymore.

I seriously doubt someone will have enough time to run in for a backstab for a max range Claymore 1HR2. Unless they rolled it because the predicted it.