help a dark souls 2 noob.

[Ulquiorra4sama]

-Snip-

I saw one thread dealing with Caestus builds where the title was something along the lines of "THE STUNLOCK IS REAL!!!". I'm gonna guess that was PvP though 'cause in my entire playthrough with Caestus i don't think i stunned a single enemy unless i was in an area i'd already beaten and leveled past. Smelter Hammer is the shit though.

Actually the stunlock is in fact real. If you powerstance dual caestus with the stone ring, and use the L1 (LB) 1-2 punch, you can stunlock pretty much every enemy that isn't double your size. The 1-2 punch with the stone ring does TONS of poise damage, and even enemies with high poise, like PvE red phantoms, get completely wrecked.

Hm... well i've been stuck at the endgame with that character for so long maybe that i've just forgotten. I mean i powerstanced the entire game, but since beating the final boss i never went to NG+ 'cause i was waiting for the DLC's and those're the only thing i've played for the past two months.

Stun is quite real with a lot of other weapons too though. It's no wonder everybody's been saying Poise is fucked in Dark Souls 2.

 

[Riddle78]

Adopt a slow,calculating approach. Rushing in will get you killed. Know what your buttons do. Take the time to swing your weapon at the air in Majula to learn the moveset. Learn about equipment scaling,and take the time to read the help tooltips (press "Select" by default on a 360 controller) to understand what does what.

Understand that different builds will perform differently in different scenarios. Some enemies are so resistant to magic they might as well be immune,while some enemies are the same to physical damage. Sometimes,a shield will be your best friend. Other times,it'll be your undoing. Don't be afraid to do a suicide run,just so you can learn what's what. Now,some tips from a veteran who ISN'T a god at the game.

-Infusion is powerful. It modifies a weapon or shield to have new stats. Some attributes (often physical) are reduced,while other attributes are raised,or even newly given. However...

-Infusion is a tactical choice. No every weapon is a good infusion candidate. Some weapons will laugh at their infused counterparts,because their unmodified stats and scaling are just that good. The Sun Sword,and the Fume Ultra Greatsword spring to mind. However,on the flipside,some weapons are purpose-built for infusion,like the Butcher's Knife. Or Handmaiden's Ladle...

-Dodge speed isn't as critical as people make it out to be. While it certainly helps to have a faster roll,it isn't back-breaking on it's own. With proper use of spacing and blocking,your time spent rolling is easily minimized.

-Scaling. Most pieces of equipment improve in effectiveness relative to your stats. You can see their scaling values on the equip screen,with letters underneath certain symbols. From worst to best,the grades are E,D,C,B,A,S. As a note: Weapons with great scaling often have mediocre base damage to compensate.

-Weapons can be...Fragile. Repair powder is extremely rare for the first half of the game. You'll be relying on Lenigrast,bonfires,and replacement weapons until then. ALWAYS pack a backup.

-Keep ranged weapons handy. They can deal a crazy amount of damage,but,more importantly,they allow you to pull,weaken,or even kill select enemies from the safety of range.

-Help Sunbros. If you see a brilliant golden summon sign,use it. They are members of the Heirs of the Sun covenant,and their standing in the covenant is directly tied to how often they're summoned,and succeed in assisting the host. To snub a Sunbro is to deny them their rewards.

-Invaded? Unleash the beast. They didn't ask. You had no say in the matter. Invaders abandoned all pretense of honour and fairness when they forced their way into your world. As such,do everything you can to stack the fight in your favour,without outright cheating. Summon phantoms. Chug Estus like it's Sunny D. And if they whine? Their own damn fault for using such an uncontrolled means of PvP. Tell 'em to use a Red Sign next time.

-If at first you don't succeed,try,try again. Dark Souls is about perseverance. You will likely hit a brick wall. Remember that it's a wall. Walls can be torn down. Either keep at it,or find a different way. Learn from your mistakes. The game very rarely cheats. Oh,and if you find the boss fight for the Ancient Soldier Varg,Old Explorer Ceraph,and Afflicted Graverobber? They cheat.

-Death or glory. If an opportunity presents itself,seize it.

-It won't get easier. The game doesn't compromise. You need to step up if you want to conquer it. It'll make you earn it. But,when you do? You'll feel GOOD.

 

[Rednog]

Dark Souls 2 was pretty much my introduction into the series, I highly recommend watching the first few episodes of the Two Best Friends doing this game. It is honestly the most solid introduction into the game and how stuff works, after the first 10 or so episodes I dove into the game and quickly bypassed them and had an incredibly solid starting point in the game and was able to just fly through the rest of the content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD-rgHP7RdE&list=PL57hJfweW_2t9hMXgGAYZF46ouOlvXy5b

Or, you know, don't. Seriously, every episode Pat gets at least 2 major things wrong about how the game mechanics work. You're better off not listening to him. He spent multiple episodes telling Woolie that the crossbow can't be hard aimed, and was constantly wrong about various equipment stats, and he was consistently wrong about the locations of important items.

That is why I said the first 10 or so episodes, that pretty much just the Forest and Heides Tower of Flame. The beginning advice he gives was solid enough for me when I was a complete beginner to the souls series.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

-Snip-

I saw one thread dealing with Caestus builds where the title was something along the lines of "THE STUNLOCK IS REAL!!!". I'm gonna guess that was PvP though 'cause in my entire playthrough with Caestus i don't think i stunned a single enemy unless i was in an area i'd already beaten and leveled past. Smelter Hammer is the shit though.

Actually the stunlock is in fact real. If you powerstance dual caestus with the stone ring, and use the L1 (LB) 1-2 punch, you can stunlock pretty much every enemy that isn't double your size. The 1-2 punch with the stone ring does TONS of poise damage, and even enemies with high poise, like PvE red phantoms, get completely wrecked.

Hm... well i've been stuck at the endgame with that character for so long maybe that i've just forgotten. I mean i powerstanced the entire game, but since beating the final boss i never went to NG+ 'cause i was waiting for the DLC's and those're the only thing i've played for the past two months.

Stun is quite real with a lot of other weapons too though. It's no wonder everybody's been saying Poise is fucked in Dark Souls 2.

Yeah, stun is very real with pretty much any fast weapon, and yeah, the poise system is kind of broken. Poise was too OP in Dark 1 and they nerfed it to the point of relative uselessness in Dark 2. I also didn't mean that the caestus had the best poise breaking or anything, it's just that the stunlocking is basically their only saving grace considering they have no range and don't deal much damage. I mean seriously, a caestus that's fully upgraded with 50 points in both strength and dex still doesn't break 300 AR. How ridiculous is that?! Still, that's half the fun.

Where exactly are you stuck? I mean, I'm still in the midgame so I probably can't really give you any advice, but I'm just curious.

 

[sataricon]

so i limited my FPS to 30.
Made a new knight and i killed this big ogre or troll in the starting area
Man now i can roll....i can dance

 

[sataricon]

Killed the first boss...the huge giant.
Now i noticed something with all that gear the you collect what do you with it?
I mean i picked up 3 halberds they are just sitting there.

 

[Riddle78]

Halberds are what's known as a "Quality" weapon,meaning a weapon that scales well with both strength and dexterity. Halberds in general have excellent reach,and hit like trucks,but they have issues with hitting terrain,and tend to be heavy and slow. Pretty much,experiment with all the gear you get. Find what you enjoy. Also,enjoy the Pursuer. He gun b gud.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Killed the first boss...the huge giant.
Now i noticed something with all that gear the you collect what do you with it?
I mean i picked up 3 halberds they are just sitting there.

Later on you'll meet an NPC named "Gavlaan" who you can trade things in exchange for souls. He doesn't give you much and a lot of players don't think it's worth it, but I visit him once in a while to trade him my duplicates. Just make sure to only trade him duplicates, you never know when you might decide to change your character around and respec into some new skills so even if you don't think you're going to use something it may be worth while to keep it around.

 

[RetroAXE]

Killed the first boss...the huge giant.
Now i noticed something with all that gear the you collect what do you with it?
I mean i picked up 3 halberds they are just sitting there.

Later on you'll meet an NPC named "Gavlaan" who you can trade things in exchange for souls. He doesn't give you much and a lot of players don't think it's worth it, but I visit him once in a while to trade him my duplicates. Just make sure to only trade him duplicates, you never know when you might decide to change your character around and respec into some new skills so even if you don't think you're going to use something it may be worth while to keep it around.

Here's a link to his wiki page, it tells you all about him: http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Gavlan

Also, you first meet him in No-Man's Wharf.
When you talk to him he's going to move to Harvest Valley and then again to Doors of Pharros where he stays.

 

[gigastar]

Honstly, i think you should be staying away from shields and guarding entirely.

Mostly because evasion is just better, but also because guarding is a liability against large mobs and most bosses. And thats without mentioning the things that will guard break you, especially other players.

Spoiler

Now, my turn for a smattering of pointers.

While your choice weapon for your playthrough is largely up to you, if your weapon has 40 or less durability then i reccomend that you upgrade at least two of them so you can use the other as a backup.

I highly reccomend having a bow. In addition to drawing specific enemies from long range, most are pretty decent at killing things too.

I dont reccomend a caster biuld. Mostly because of the DLC areas and most enemies in them having a very high elemental resistance, but also because youll probably run out of spells on the rather limited number of spell scrolls available early on. And of course most bosses just dont give a fuck unless youre bringing at least 4 scrolls of Soul Spear cast from the best sorcery catalyst in the game.

If you insist on having spells, then i reccomend the heal miracles.

In general, boss weapons are a frivilous waste of time. Most of them dont get the job done that much better than a ordinary weapon of the same type. There are a few that are absolutey worth having but you wont really need them for your first playthrough.

 

[Riddle78]

Honstly, i think you should be staying away from shields and guarding entirely.

Mostly because evasion is just better, but also because guarding is a liability against large mobs and most bosses. And thats without mentioning the things that will guard break you, especially other players.

Spoiler

Now, my turn for a smattering of pointers.

While your choice weapon for your playthrough is largely up to you, if your weapon has 40 or less durability then i reccomend that you upgrade at least two of them so you can use the other as a backup.

I highly reccomend having a bow. In addition to drawing specific enemies from long range, most are pretty decent at killing things too.

I dont reccomend a caster biuld. Mostly because of the DLC areas and most enemies in them having a very high elemental resistance, but also because youll probably run out of spells on the rather limited number of spell scrolls available early on. And of course most bosses just dont give a fuck unless youre bringing at least 4 scrolls of Soul Spear cast from the best sorcery catalyst in the game.

If you insist on having spells, then i reccomend the heal miracles.

In general, boss weapons are a frivilous waste of time. Most of them dont get the job done that much better than a ordinary weapon of the same type. There are a few that are absolutey worth having but you wont really need them for your first playthrough.

There are numerous reasons why blocking is preferred. The heavier shields,especially combined with the Baneful Bird Ring,have a high enough stability to make the stamina drain on a block less than that of a dodge roll. Furthermore,sometimes,the terrain is very unkind to rolling,due to doom drops,environmental hazards like gouts of flame,or simply enemies moving in for their pound of flesh. Use of a shield is a science,and it boils down to positioning,timing,and choice of shield. If you get surrounded,your own damn fault. You put your shield up at the wrong time,then you must chagrin the hit,or the guard break. Using a shield is ideal for when you're stuck in confined quarters,or when you need to stand your ground so you can get a solid hit in,instead of those half-strength rolling hits. There's more to using a shield than simply cowering behind it.

Shield 101

-Footwork. Know where to put yourself. Always keep moving. Keep your enemies in front of you,just a little bit beyond weapon's reach.
-Timing. Know when to raise your shield. The Guard Break punishes you for cowering behind your shield. You see their shoulder move,you put that shield up. Use the opening this creates to punish your foe. You're bound to take a few scratches from blocking too late,but you take extra damage if you get hit while rolling,so it's a decent alternative. Also,your stamina regenerates REALLY slowly while blocking.
-Stability & You. Stability is a stat used to determine how effectively a weapon or shield absorbs the force of an attack. Weapons,obviously,tend to have garbage stability. Larger shields often have higher stability. More stability,the better.
-Resistances. Every shield is good for blocking different things. Always keep a full set of shields handy,at least one for every damage type. If you have it,the Transgressor's Leather Shield gets 100% Dark blocking when infused with Dark,making it an excellent choice for stopping that Climax dead while you rush the now soulless (crippled) Hexer who threw it,just as an example. Fore every damage type,there's at least one shield in the game that can stop it dead.
-Mix it up. Sometimes,defending with a shield won't cut it. For these instances,you need to be able to use another strategy. Two hand your weapon. Strike with the shield. Not only will this keep your other skills sharp,it will also give you some options that just might confuse a human opponent.

I have a decent enough PvP record. I rarely roll. I'll say this once,and only once: Fuck. The. Meta.

 

[sataricon]

i got a shield with 100% block.
I did beat the pursuer which IMO an extremely annoying and hard after the giant but i killed him non the less which took from me 2 human effigy.

Went to the tower of flames and killed 2 bosses also, one of them was a wimp "the one with the halberd and the other was not hard but ok.

I think i'm staring to get used to the difficulty and the idea of dying and learning by trial and error.
Only thing now is now i don't know any thing about build at all and frankly i just level up things to use weapons and dump the rest in health or stamina.
I guess i need to consult the wiki in regards to good PVE build "that's all i care about in this game...for PVP i go to MMOs".

Thank you guys for giving me the courage to face this game.
I'll keep you posted and i'll post here if i have any questions.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

i got a shield with 100% block.
I did beat the pursuer which IMO an extremely annoying and hard after the giant but i killed him non the less which took from me 2 human effigy.

Went to the tower of flames and killed 2 bosses also, one of them was a wimp "the one with the halberd and the other was not hard but ok.

I think i'm staring to get used to the difficulty and the idea of dying and learning by trial and error.
Only thing now is now i don't know any thing about build at all and frankly i just level up things to use weapons and dump the rest in health or stamina.
I guess i need to consult the wiki in regards to good PVE build "that's all i care about in this game...for PVP i go to MMOs".

Thank you guys for giving me the courage to face this game.
I'll keep you posted and i'll post here if i have any questions.

Don't worry too much about what you want your "build" to be. There are these things in the game called "Souls Vessels" which allow you to change around your skill points. Once you've gone a little further in the game and kind of gotten your play style down you can figure out what you want your build to be based on what weapons and spells you're interested in, and then you can use a soul vessel to change out your skills for what you need.

Any build is viable for PvE though, so don't worry too much about whether or not you're perfectly optimized. There's enough areas and bosses that cater to different strengths and different character types that you'll never be perfectly optimized for every challenge anyway.

Personally I think that on a first play-through of a souls game the most fun thing is to just play a straight up melee character (or one that's mostly melee with a couple of spells as an emergency "oh fuck button"), so putting most of your points into strength/dex and health and stamina isn't a bad idea.

I'd also recommend putting points into adaptability. Adaptability is kind of a weird stat to explain because it affects a lot of stats and its scaling is also affected by other stats. It's an important stat though because raising adaptability raises your "agility" stat which is what determines how many invincibility frames your roll has. You get to the soft cap for i-frames at 110 agility. As a knight you started with 9 adaptability which gives you roughly 8 frames of invincibility (at 87.75 agility), and at around adaptability level 35 or 40 you'll have 13 frames (that doesn't sound like a big difference but it helps immensely). The reason I'm being kind of vague on what your adaptability level needs to be is that agility is also affected by the attunement stat, and whether you put any points into that will depend upon whether or not you're going to use any magic, miracles, or pyromancies. It's actually possible to get your agility to 120, which would give you 16 i-frames, but it's not worth doing because it requires you to put 99 points into both adaptability and attunement.

Hope this helps you rather than confusing you more.

 

[sataricon]

I kinda of understand what you mean but i almost can't apply what i did understand in the gameplay if you understand what i mean....that in term of adaptability.

Now for build i will go with a melee build because what i've seen so far even if you are a mage you must use a weapon so learning how to time your rolls and blocks is the most important thing in this game.

I say i've a long way ahead of me still but i'm really glad i picked this game up and who knows maybe after i finish it i'll play Dark souls 1.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I kinda of understand what you mean but i almost can't apply what i did understand in the gameplay if you understand what i mean....that in term of adaptability.

Now for build i will go with a melee build because what i've seen so far even if you are a mage you must use a weapon so learning how to time your rolls and blocks is the most important thing in this game.

I say i've a long way ahead of me still but i'm really glad i picked this game up and who knows maybe after i finish it i'll play Dark souls 1.

Here's how to apply what I said in the gameplay.

Every enemy attack has a specific timing and a specific hitbox, and it's possible to use your roll to roll through attacks without taking damage because of the presence of invincibility frames. The more invincibility frames are in your roll the more forgiving your roll timing will be for every attack. Right now you have the minimum number of invincibility frames with 8 frames, meaning that if an attack hits you during the beginning of your roll, and for 8 frames during your roll you won't take any damage from the attack. Adding points into adaptability increases the number of invincibility frames, and at 110 agility you'll have a 1.75x the number of invincibility frames, so you'll be able to roll through more attacks and do so much easier.

Here, this video will probably demonstrate things better than I can explain them:


Now he isn't quite correct about how adaptability works (the video is fairly old), but the video demonstrates the i-frames in action and lets you see the differences.

Here's the thresholds for increased iframes:

Agility = iFrames
85 = 8
90 = 9
95 = 10
100 = 12
105 = 13
110 = 14
115 = 15
120 = 16

 

[JagermanXcell]

... Ooooohhhhh~ if you love using the caestus, then please by all means... try out the Bone Fist.

You can only get it in the Ivory King DLC, but you're able to powerstance it with a Caestus since they're both fist weapons. When you do, by god it's glorious. You will immediately fall in love with it because not only is it more powerful, but the move sets are wicked awesome. They're extremely fun to mess around with, you will feel like an insane power house who can knock back the biggest of enemies and the special attack is literally ripped off from Street Fighter. You'll see what I mean when you try it.

Yeah, sadly the Defender Greatsword and nearly all Cleric related miracles + weapons have been nerfed for some reason. I can't comprehend as to why From Software nerfed faith that hard where people will not want to bother entering that route. I mean, for god's sake- Hexes and Sorcery needs nerfing more than anything XD have you seen the damage a Drakekeeper sword infused with magic with 50 int can do? Especially since buffs can be added onto an already infused weapon to make it just way stronger than it should?

Actually, the moveset you speak of that's apparently ripped off from Street Fighter... is actually from Tekken! That's right, Bamco actually put Heihachi's animations from Tekken in Dark Souls 2. And boy is it literally the best weapon in the game. Bone Fist vs Bone Fist pvp is where the true Dark Souls 2 begins.......... and it only costs $30 and a mediocre vanilla experience... worth it.

As for the best faith weapons atm, it's actually narrowed down between the Dragonslayer Spear, Dragonslayer Crescent Axe, Thorned Greatsword, and Drakeblood Greatsword infused with lightning, ever since the Defender got nerfed. But unfortunately due to B teams hate for clerics that would make even Patches blush, it requires some mad investment to center builds around the specific weapons I listed. You need some high faith numbers and the use of the lightning clutch ring to even be able to barely keep up with the other element's damage, but the damage is there.

I also wish the new miracles weren't so situational. Denial is handy only sometimes, and Blistering Lightning Bolt is just teeeeerrible unless you're fighting at pvp newby. Otherwise they're just examples of Fromsoft's hate for faith.

 

[JagermanXcell]

OT: It's great that you're going melee, but don't be afraid to dish some points into spells and such for additional range and variety. Being a spellsword is a whole lot of fun in this series, but if you're still deadset on strict melee, then you're in luck because bows and crossbows rule in this game. So pick one up so you can get yourself out of some future snags involving ranged combat.

And remember to manage your stamina, cause if you get greedy with spam, PVE will punish you severely. (that and 60fps quicker durability decrease on PC is literally Hitler) Luckily in Dks1 you won't have to deal with most of the stuff I listed when you get to it.

 

[sataricon]

Wow thanks man didn't know this.
I'll make sure to dump some points into adaptability every now and then.

This is really helpful and now i know why when i ran the game at 60FPS i was getting hit left and right and why things became alot easier when i lowered it to 30 FPS.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Wow thanks man didn't know this.
I'll make sure to dump some points into adaptability every now and then.

This is really helpful and now i know why when i ran the game at 60FPS i was getting hit left and right and why things became alot easier when i lowered it to 30 FPS.

Since you're using a shield I wouldn't necessarily dump a lot of points into adaptability, but it is a useful stat. It takes a pretty big investment to go all the way to the soft cap, but getting your agility to 100 so that you get 12 frames is totally worth while. Later in the game you'll encounter some enemies that have unblockable attacks, and some enemies who hit so hard that if you block they'll immediately guard-break you and make you lose all your stamina, so having a good roll is important. I'd say put one point into adaptability for every 2 points that you put into stamina (stamina is the most important stat to have a lot of points in when using a shield).

 

[sataricon]

Some weapons require mad amount of Str to use like i got a mace from the birds called the daemon hammer.
It needs like 50 Str and it's funny that i got this item in the tutorial area.
You get by giving the birds the something smooth and silky that you find in the beginning of the game....They are birds right? i mean they are in a nest and every thing and they sound cute