☠ Souls Series Symposium ☠

[isiolia]

Basically mother freaking Bahamut and another insane Allant/Gwyn/Cinder type that I love. And I think I messed up my chances of getting a summon for the Bahamut archdragon fight, that one seems like it will be even tougher than Gael.

If you killed the NPC that asked you to kill Midir, then yeah (I did that too). Second time around I made a point to kill him first after the Demon Prince in order to actually turn in the quest.


If you can cast it, then Pestilent Mercury eats Midir alive since its per-tick damage is based on max HP and he has a shit-ton. You still need to dodge him, but considering he only takes full damage if you're hitting his head, it's an easier way to do damage.
Otherwise, from what I've seen, learning his pattern to stay in front of him is best.

Gael is intense, but really not too bad once you get some experience with him.

[Xeogred]

I don't think I took out any NPC. But I think I read if you reach the sleeping Queen before finishing off Midir, you can't summon help anymore. Maybe I'm missing the sign though. But I also noticed the woman at the door earlier in the city is no longer there as well (reminded me of those hidden Bloodborne NPC's).

Pestilent Mercury... probably not, my current build is Faith/STR. Dang.

Gael seems like a beefed up Ringed Knight basically. They've been a bit tricky because they have this strange delay with a lot of their attacks, otherwise the huge swings can sometimes be pretty easy to avoid. But yeah... should be fun times.

I'm a little disappointed there wasn't more of the city/elegant areas in this DLC, but I guess when I think about it I did play for like 6 hours yesterday so it's not short or anything.

[isiolia]

I don't think I took out any NPC. But I think I read if you reach the sleeping Queen before finishing off Midir, you can't summon help anymore. Maybe I'm missing the sign though. But I also noticed the woman at the door earlier in the city is no longer there as well (reminded me of those hidden Bloodborne NPC's).

Ah, I suspected as much, though maybe you can get the sin forgiven? She'll end up attacking you near where you fight Gael, so the first time I played the DLC I saved Midir for last and had ended up killing her.

[Xeogred]

I had to fight her too...

Lightning Arrow is pretty cool.

Gael was awesome, but yeah I guess not too bad after awhile. Darkeater Midir has a bigger pool of health though, I think it's gonna be a long fight. lol

[retrosportsgamer]

Apologies if noted already but the current PSN Extended sale has two good prices for PS4:

Dark Souls II Scholars of first sin $11

Bloodborne Complete (all dlc, which I think was just one?) $17.99

I picked up DSII but waiting for a touch less expensive on bloodborne

[Xeogred]

Apologies if noted already but the current PSN Extended sale has two good prices for PS4:

Dark Souls II Scholars of first sin $11

Bloodborne Complete (all dlc, which I think was just one?) $17.99

I picked up DSII but waiting for a touch less expensive on bloodborne

Yes, Bloodborne just had one DLC. Definitely some meaty chunky good stuff though. It was like ~4-5 new areas/bosses.

The irony on the prices there is that DS2 Scholar is like 3x the content of Bloodborne.

[Sload Soap]

I beat the main game for Dark Souls II the other day. Nashandra (spelling?) was a pretty lame final boss but I liked the giant memories section, even if it does feel a touch out of place in a Souls game.

My opinion on the game softened the further I got into it but I still think it's the weakest entry in the series. The DLCs add some cool new areas and concepts but they are still stymied by being bolted onto DSII's wonky combat, uneven difficulty and over-reliance on human type enemies. They also don't make up for the glut of visually impressive but technically uninteresting areas in the base game. I also thing DSII contains both the worst bosses in the series and the worst areas proceeding them.


However, it is by no means a bad game. It's still a very good one as far as these things go. It's just that DSII is in a series of such outstanding quality that even slight dips of form become very noticeable.

I'd rank the series with Dark Souls as the best, Dark Souls II as the worst and Dark Souls 3 and Demon's Souls being pretty equal in quality.

[Xeogred]

"Dabbling" into Dark Souls on PC = I'm about to ring the Gargoyle bell. No stopping this new replay now.

Went with Cleric at the start which has been a hilarious crutch... not liking this armor at all and I'm pretty terrible with maces. Holding off on buying any equipment for awhile though. Got a claymore and halberd now. I figure I'll go with my usual Faith (Lightning) Strength build. Knight maybe would have been a better choice early on but it doesn't really matter after awhile.

I got troll invaded at the first Undead Burg bonfire. Of course!!! I just laughed at it as I died.

It's definitely a game changer playing on PC with DSfix.

[isiolia]

Full-on Faith build is one I haven't done yet. I did some replays earlier this year, which were the start of me dropping off the Games Beaten thread map (I think DS1 was NG+ and then a Sorcery run, at least, also did a DS3 Sorcery run that I recall). Not sure how maces stack up in DS1 - it's a very good weapon in DS2, only really tapers off in late game and DLC.

I've only really played DS1 on PC with DSfix. I own the PS3 version too (CE, even), but have never opened it.

[Xeogred]

I think my last complete run of Dark Souls was with a pure brute force STR build and just used a maxed out claymore, haha. It was so vanilla. I started getting more into the hybrid builds in DS2 and DS3 which seemed to go over a lot better, especially with invaders since elemental damage can bleed through shields sometimes, or the magical effects can stun enemies. Lightning Spear rules too so I'm looking forward to getting that. I still usually stop at only like 2-3 attunement slots and stick to melee.

I don't know if I can bring myself to do a magic character, it'd be really hard for me to force myself to that play style, lol. I've been thinking I'll do it in Demon's someday.

I'm thinking the PS controllers feel better, but it was pretty easy to adjust to the X1 controller which I'll stick with for the PC versions. For DS1 I think I'd have to tinker with settings and get a mod to change the button prompts, so I just said forget it and accepted using a different controller.

I'll buy DS2 and DS3 on PC again as well for an excuse to replay them. I assume they are good to go at 1080p/60FPS out of the box? Scholar runs that well on the PS4.

Since DS1 is fresh in your mind, I forget but was there no way to see how much exp you need for a next level up in your stats menu? I think the only way to see that is at a bonfire while leveling up in this one.