From Software Dark Souls 3

[CthuluIsSpy]

If you get poise from swinging the weapon how does that interact with the points you get from your armor? I guess it just gets added?

You activate your poise only when you execute certain attacks, and the amount of attacks you can "poise through" depends on your poise stats (which is determined by your armor).

Lyric Suite whatever thing you try to do with your armor, keep all body slots covered. You are better off with a full set of light armor than with just chest and legs pieces of a heavy one.

Yeah I did read something about that, that you do actually receive more damage if you have uncovered body parts. Which makes sense I guess, better than just wearing Havel Gauntlets and tanking through stuff like you could do in Dark Souls 1.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I solo'd Gael as a Pyromancer. Chaos Bed Vestiges is great.
Took a few times because he kept killing me with that flying move.

 

[v1rus]

God darn sister Friede. Took me way too long because I insisted on taking her with medium roll and a shield.

Respecced to a Dex mofo, buffed weapon with lightning, and got her. Ringed City is all thats left (except Soul of Cinders ofc), but I think I burnt out. Have no fucking idea how I'm gonna make it through Gael or Midir.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, that's the problem with Dark Souls 3 DLC, they really burn you out because of how bullshit they are.
Ringed City is even worse; there's some pretty bad enemy placement en par with Dark Souls 2 DLCs and they really want to take away player choice.
Want to remain unembered so you don't have deal with invaders or players? To bad, you're getting invaded anyway.

Want to play as a pyromancy build? To bad, the enemies are either fire resist, dark resist or both, or just have so much elemental resistance that you do half your damage against a boss that has 15k health.
Even against Gael, who's supposed to have no real resistances against fire, I was dealing only 400 damage with the CBV, and that's with a +10 Pyromancy Flame, 30/30 int / faith, Old Witch Ring and Flame Clutch Ring.

Want to use heavy weapons? Good luck trying to land a hit on a boss or enemy that won't stand still because apparently the Dark Soul is a key ingredient in Prozac.

Ringed City is pretty and well presented, but the game play is a bit of a chore.
Ashes is kind of dull except for the dialogue and soundtrack.

For Midir get a summon. Ignore everyone telling you that's a bad idea. I tried soloing him and it was a bastard to do it. When I got a Sunbro Midir focused on him and I just shoved Pestilant Mist up his arse because fuck Pyromancy I guess.

For Gael you should be fine though. I had trouble with him because I didn't have any fast weapons available to really combo him, so I had to make do with kiting him and chipping away at his health with CBV. Apparently he's weak to frost so grab that frozen weapon spell from Ashes. He's also weak to poison, which I thought was hilarious, but you need a lot of hits for the rotten pine to proc and Toxic Mist is too unreliable, so don't bother with that.

 

[Gerrard]

Both DLC tie together in that regards too. You end up being able to give the dark soul blood pigment to the painter girl in Ariandel only because you went so far into the future that Gael could absorb the dark soul from everyone. Feel this, the world this little painter girl is creating is made from the dark soul pieces of all slain humans/undeads.

I wonder what the point of being able to give it to her was though, did they actually have more DLC planned? Or is it just a Bloodborne reference?

You do get a little damage reduction, but its so slight its negligible.

It can be as much as 30%+ reduction, unless you hove no HP and die in 2 hits anyway, then I guess it makes no difference for you.

 

[v1rus]

For Midir get a summon. Ignore everyone telling you that's a bad idea. I tried soloing him and it was a bastard to do it. When I got a Sunbro Midir focused on him and I just shoved Pestilant Mist up his arse because fuck Pyromancy I guess.

Ty matey, but summoning arrgh'nt an option! :p

Even if it was, I wouldnt do it tho. Thats gonna my last boss in Souls series (not counting Bloodborne i guess, dont have a ps4), and Ive soloed each and every one of them. Midir aint gonna break me.

Well, i used a npc summon in DS2 2 tiger bullshit fight. And I didnt do that because snow area was such a bullshit, but because my right analog started drifting. You think navigating an open area where EVERYTHING is white is bullshit? try doing it while your camera has a mind of its own, and you cant fucking tell when and where its moving

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Both DLC tie together in that regards too. You end up being able to give the dark soul blood pigment to the painter girl in Ariandel only because you went so far into the future that Gael could absorb the dark soul from everyone. Feel this, the world this little painter girl is creating is made from the dark soul pieces of all slain humans/undeads.

I wonder what the point of being able to give it to her was though, did they actually have more DLC planned? Or is it just a Bloodborne reference?

You do get a little damage reduction, but its so slight its negligible.

It can be as much as 30%+ reduction, unless you hove no HP and die in 2 hits anyway, then I guess it makes no difference for you.

I tried wearing more armor against Midir and he still killed me in about two hits from his claws. This is with 30 Vigor. The armor did literally nothing. Do I need like 40 vigor in order for armor to be good?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Both DLC tie together in that regards too. You end up being able to give the dark soul blood pigment to the painter girl in Ariandel only because you went so far into the future that Gael could absorb the dark soul from everyone. Feel this, the world this little painter girl is creating is made from the dark soul pieces of all slain humans/undeads.

I wonder what the point of being able to give it to her was though, did they actually have more DLC planned? Or is it just a Bloodborne reference?

I suspect its to get a bit of hope.
The Dark Souls, like the First Flame, is implied to be weakening as well and on the way out. Gael had to kill and drink the blood of the entire Pygmy race in order to get just enough of the Dark Soul needed for the painting.
The Painting is implied to be the world of the painting; whenever the painting is restored the world within is restored as well, so adding the Dark Soul in it would introduce humanity into its very foundations. So even if the world on the outside dies or goes barren, humanity can still live on in the painting.

 

[Silverfish]

Want to play as a pyromancy build? To bad, the enemies are either fire resist, dark resist or both, or just have so much elemental resistance that you do half your damage against a boss that has 15k health.

Just as an aside, I love the nonsensical scaling of pyromancy in DS3. It starts off as complete shit. Low damage, the amount of stamina consumed makes for terrible dps, you don't have enough estus yet to properly balance health and mana and you can't upgrade your pyro flame until the Undead Settlement. Once everything falls into place, though, you feel damn near unstoppable. Like Smoldering Lake and the Demon Ruins were included just to slow you down a bit. Then the Ringed City hit, and pyros suck even worse than in the early game. GG, From.

For Midir get a summon. Ignore everyone telling you that's a bad idea.

Yeah, Midir is like DS' equivalent of a raid boss. I can respect people wanting to take him on solo, but remember that DS3 in general is pretty gimmicky with boss fights and Midir is no exception.

Apparently he's weak to frost so grab that frozen weapon spell from Ashes.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Well yeah, mist spells suck. Its why I suggested frozen weapon.
I tried using Toxic Mist on him, and it was...unreliable.
Mean, when it worked it worked great, but it usually didn't work because the game is a little inconsistent when it comes to toxic build up on NPCs. Sometimes he immediately got poisoned, other times he just walks through the mist like its nothing.

I like how Gael is basically Dark Souls Santa.

Tbh, I really don't like how pyromancy requires stats. I understand why they did it in Dark Souls 2, because you could basically just get free spells if you have the attunement cost with no stat investment, its just I don't like how easy it is to spec into dark magic. They both use the same stats, so you can just make a dark build on the fly.

I don't think there's a lore reason as to how do you can do that? The Dark Soul, the source of Dark, isn't the same as the Life Soul, the source of pyromancy.

 

[v1rus]

Finished with all open levels, finally. Gael, Midir and Soul of Cinders is all thats left.

Dex build, win blades and buffs. Well see how longs its gonna take. My stamina bar kinda short, because i put lots of points in whatever increases equip load. Well see is it worth it, and I still have 2 respecs left.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Wow, i joined the fat guy covenant (the one with the candlestick the fuck is he called) and i'm getting a summon every other minute, at level 65 with a +6 weapon. Got 10 tokens in less than an hour. That was a surprise.

I'm finally starting to get the hang of the PvP, and not sure i like it. I switched to the Lotric Long Sword and all i do is spam R1. Rolling seems to just lead to you getting fucked if you can't calculate when the iframes are going to run out so the best way is to just walk to the guy straight to his face and see if you can get him before he gets you with an opening attack, which means you have to be super aggressive all the time, but it's better to try to catch them mid swing because they might try to parry you. And that's it. So far i've won a good amount of fights and lost an equal amount but many of the ones i lost all used a long trusting weapon and i'm not sure how to get around that. If i roll, they get me, and the reach of the Lotric Sword is too short to catch them on a swing up close because they get me before i can.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Wow, i joined the fat guy covenant (the one with the candlestick the fuck is he called) and i'm getting a summon every other minute, at level 65 with a +6 weapon. Got 10 tokens in less than an hour. That was a surprise.

I'm finally starting to get the hang of the PvP, and not sure i like it. I switched to the Lotric Long Sword and all i do is spam R1. Rolling seems to just lead to you getting fucked if you can't calculate when the iframes are going to run out so the best way is to just walk to the guy straight to his face and see if you can get him before he gets you with an opening attack, which means you have to be super aggressive all the time, but it's better to try to catch them mid swing because they might try to parry you. And that's it. So far i've won a good amount of fights and lost an equal amount but many of the ones i lost all used a long trusting weapon and i'm not sure how to get around that. If i roll, they get me, and the reach of the Lotric Sword is too short to catch them on a swing up close because they get me before i can.

How's your progress?

 

[v1rus]

Got it. All done.

Gael was a good, and fun boss, but not particularly challenging. Loved the atmosphere tho.

Imho, Midir wasnt as hard as people make him to be (TNK and Friede are way more challenging imho), but hes bullshit, and thats why people hate him. Bullshit camera, bullshit timings, and combos that start the same but end up differently (which is a good thing usually, but not when combined with rest) and bullshit (laser) moves that you better hope he wont do. Combine all that with a huge health pool and a shitty run to the boss, and he truly is PITA. Otoh, just learn his moves and variations and DONT. GET. FUCKING. GREEDY. and he should be done quite fast.

I loved the Soul of Cinders fight. Such a nice boss, and a great idea. I took him down way too easy tho, probably because I did all dlc content and I'm way too overleveled (SL 110 i think)

All in all, a pleasant Dark Souls experience. First one is still the best, but DSIII is a worthy entry.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Wow, i joined the fat guy covenant (the one with the candlestick the fuck is he called) and i'm getting a summon every other minute, at level 65 with a +6 weapon. Got 10 tokens in less than an hour. That was a surprise.

I'm finally starting to get the hang of the PvP, and not sure i like it. I switched to the Lotric Long Sword and all i do is spam R1. Rolling seems to just lead to you getting fucked if you can't calculate when the iframes are going to run out so the best way is to just walk to the guy straight to his face and see if you can get him before he gets you with an opening attack, which means you have to be super aggressive all the time, but it's better to try to catch them mid swing because they might try to parry you. And that's it. So far i've won a good amount of fights and lost an equal amount but many of the ones i lost all used a long trusting weapon and i'm not sure how to get around that. If i roll, they get me, and the reach of the Lotric Sword is too short to catch them on a swing up close because they get me before i can.

How's your progress?

Went up all the way to the Dragon Armor guy but i decided to backtrack and i'm trying to kill the boss in the Untended Graves instead. I'm trying to get my hands on the Prisoner Chain as i want to see how that works with my build. Currently level 71 with a +6 weapon. Trying to keep myself within limits because i want to remain within lowish PvP for now, as i feel i need more practice before i tackle the people at the 120 meta level. I have enough chunks to take my weapon to +9 plus i got the slab from the onion knight but so far i feel i'm still doing "normal" damage to bosses. I am however starting to feel i'm a bit short in terms of health. My vigor is at 20 plus i wear the ring of favor and i still got one shot by the Dragon Armor guy, plus some people in PvP as well. I want to get the chain to see if i can post pone raising my vigor so i can pump damage a bit more. Considering i have both DLC to finish plus the main game i reckon i'll probably be around level 85 or 90 when i'm done? Getting a shit ton of souls even from regular mobs since i returned to Lotric. I even tried to dump souls on consumables or arrows and stuff but i'm still leveling very fast now.

By some miracle i managed to complete all of the NPC story lines lmao. I think i have to kill a twin boss before i finish the story line of that lady with the silver armor (which i'll be able to loot once the story is over), the one you have help with summons (which i did), and after that i should be able to finish the one with the guy with the silver mask (even though i essentially completed the one with the lady i believe if i try to do the guy with the silver mask she won't be there as a summon on the twin bosses and i'll still fail to get her stuff).

HOWEVER, i forgot to kill Creighton before killing Pontiff. So i managed to fuck that up but it's not bad considering its a first play through.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, killed the Champion. I tried to do it "legit" but he has WAY too many bullshit combos in the second phase so i just parried the shit out of him. Cool boss, sad i had to do it this way but i ran out of patience after he kept hitting me with combos before i even managed to get up after he slammed to the ground.

 

[Perkel]

Well, killed the Champion. I tried to do it "legit" but he has WAY too many bullshit combos in the second phase so i just parried the shit out of him. Cool boss, sad i had to do it this way but i ran out of patience after he kept hitting me with combos before i even managed to get up after he slammed to the ground.

I never understand why so many people had issues with Champion fight. I did it first time and i never had any issue with him.

Probably because i died way to many times with Gundyr at start...

Yeah, poise is convoluted nonsense.
Basically, if you want poise to work you need to use a certain weapon in a certain way. Ultragreatswords, for example, will give you poise and hyperarmor regardless, but greatswords will only give you poise and hyperarmor if you 2 hand them.
The poise only works if you don't get poise broken, which varies according to weapon. Swords deal less poise damage than hammers, for example.
The game never tells you this. It doesn't tell you if a weapon allows you to use poise or gives you hyper armor, nor does it tell you how effective a weapon is at breaking poise, which is weird because in Dark Souls 2 there was a literal poise breaking stat.

So yeah, poise is useless unless you use certain weapons in a certain way against certain weapon types. Its pure grade pedantic shit. Dark Souls 2 did it so much better, where you got poise during active frames, no matter what weapon you were using, so you didn't just get stun locked into oblivion by some dickhead with a knife because you dared to use a claymore one handed.

I swear DS3 community when it comes to DS3 and poise produced so much misleading crap... It is not really convoluted. Just ton of idiots at release claiming each different things before someone actually found out you can switch on old poise in engine by simply switching 0 to 1 in cheat engine.

Here is how poise works in DS3:

on/off - Poise doesn't work until you make attack with a weapon.
weapon type - gives buff to poise. Using greathammer or UGS gives best boost to poise in attack.
armor stat - it works but only when you make mentioned attack with weapon
poise break - it exists, you can't go full poise and expect to never flinch when attacking

Literally you can switch poise on via mod so it works all the time and game plays entirely like DS2 poise wise.
Yes it is fucking stupid that they switched poise to work only when someone attacks, probably stupid legacy from BB as it is same engine using similar things to make gameplay. The trully bad part is that it has poor efficiency. You can stack poise and it will give you some small boost as your weapon boost is more important than armor stat.

That being said as dude who played a lot with Ghammer as long as you play "the right way" aka you actively attack people like you should with Ghammer tanky build it plays like one bar some stupid rat that can stunlock you sometimes.

Now if there is something broken in DS3 they are defense stats. As long as you wear any piece of equipment it pretty much is meaningless what you wear due to damage calculation. The difference between lightest rags and havel armor is basically 2 hits more by enemy.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

If you dig into the values and technicality though it does get convoluted.
Like, if you single hand a greatsword (weapon class) you get nothing, but if you two hand it you suddenly gain the ability to not get staggered. And the stagger depends on what weapon you're getting hit by and how its getting used.
I don't know why they just didn't retain the Dark Souls 2 version of poise.

Yeah, I noticed that armor and damage calculation works weird.
Dark Souls 2 had a weird system too though, where if you have 500 physical defense it only reduces damage by like 50, and its a flat value. You can upgrade the armor to get more defense, but it still means that in higher level of play armor becomes meaningless.

They should have retained the ability to upgrade armor, especially with the sheer amount of resources they give you.
Then armor can truly shine.

 

[Perkel]

If you dig into the values and technicality though it does get convoluted.
Like, if you single hand a greatsword (weapon class) you get nothing, but if you two hand it you suddenly gain the ability to not get staggered. And the stagger depends on what weapon you're getting hit by and how its getting used.
I don't know why they just didn't retain the Dark Souls 2 version of poise.

You are mislead by people. Each type of weapon gives multiplayer to poise when you attack. Even one handed UGS gives that. What dual handing weapon does is that it increases even more that multiplier and not just for UGS but for all weapons. Though dual handing big weapons naturally get the biggest boost.

But yeah i don't get either why they decided to not revert back to DS2. Probably like i said they were revisiting BB to DS3 mechanics and forgot or they didn't care much about poise. Defense is another stat that got fucked with port from BB.

 

[Riddler]

So i let Anri die, 'cause fuck waifus. Have absolutely no idea what the hell her story was or what the whole story of this game is. There's also two NPCs missing, the depressed guy in the beginning, which i haven't seen for a long while, that lady with the hat that gave me the cracked red orbs, and the other one with the silver armor, which is also nowhere to be seen, and i'm up to Anor Londo now.

I didn't have an issue understanding the story in DS1 or DS2 and follow the NPC quest lines but here i just have no idea what is going on and what the hell anyone is talking about.

Has been a while since I played the game, this was my take from it. The fire fades. The cyclical nature of the dark souls world is coming to an end, and noone can stop it.
The three endings reflect three possible reactions you and the world can take to this. Oppose the decay and keep to the dream of a world of fire and rekindle, accept the decay and willingly let the fire fade, leading the world headlessly into a new age, or ursurp the fire and become the new god of the world. Every NPC reflects one of those possible paths:

Anyway if you havn't beat Pontiff yet, I found him much easier when you bumrush him as soon as he summons his shadow jutsu clone bullshit. He spawns so close to him that you can usually capture both in the same hitbox, and you can kill the clone before he does anything. So his summoning turns from the beginning of the hardest part of the fight to just literally free damage for you. He is much easier with faster weapons than with slow weapons in general, much like the entirety of Dark Souls 3.

That's how I understood how the story works as well.
Though the Angels confuse me; its heavily implied in the base game that the Angels have something to do with the gods as the Winged Knights have similar weaknesses and resistances to Silver / Black Knights, Gertrude, the prophet of the Angelic Faith has a Grubman nearby and they serve Gwynevere / Rosaria, and you see instances of conflict between the Winged Knights and Lothric, which would happen as the Lothric princes refused to link the first flame, something that the gods really wanted them to do.

But then the ringed city comes along and introduces an angel enemy that's actually summoned by a hollow who's metamorphosing into something else, implying that Angels are actually hollow and as such opposed to the gods. Its weird.

Yeah, they made slow weapons too much of a viability. They sped up the enemies but not the player, and that's no fun.

I'm not sure what the nuance between the Lord of Hollows ending and Age of Dark ending is; in both cases Dark will reign and humanity will rise. Is the implication of the former ending that the Age of Dark is permanent, as there's a Dark god ensuring its continuation, whereas the latter ultimately changes nothing as there's already been countless Ages of Dark before?
I guess that would mean that the Lord of Hollows ending is the "good" ending, as a permanent Age of Dark would end the undead curse.

I thought the point was that the endings didn't matter and that the universe was coming to an end regardless of what you did. Space time was literally collapsing with locations being pulled together both in time and space towards a single point.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

If you dig into the values and technicality though it does get convoluted.
Like, if you single hand a greatsword (weapon class) you get nothing, but if you two hand it you suddenly gain the ability to not get staggered. And the stagger depends on what weapon you're getting hit by and how its getting used.
I don't know why they just didn't retain the Dark Souls 2 version of poise.

You are mislead by people. Each type of weapon gives multiplayer to poise when you attack. Even one handed UGS gives that. What dual handing weapon does is that it increases even more that multiplier and not just for UGS but for all weapons. Though dual handing big weapons naturally get the biggest boost.

But yeah i don't get either why they decided to not revert back to DS2. Probably like i said they were revisiting BB to DS3 mechanics and forgot or they didn't care much about poise. Defense is another stat that got fucked with port from BB.

Really? Because I get staggered all the time if I try to single hand a claymore, and even on the wiki it says the hyper armor and poise only becomes active when two-handing.

 

[Perkel]

Really? Because I get staggered all the time if I try to single hand a claymore, and even on the wiki it says the hyper armor and poise only becomes active when two-handing.

Welcome to DS3 confusion central known as poise. Brought you by idiots on and shortly after release. Half of DS3 people still believe that DS3 has "hyper armor" like DeS and there is no actual poise in game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I never understand why so many people had issues with Champion fight. I did it first time and i never had any issue with him.

He is very RNG. The number of combos he likes to pull during the second phase seems to vary from fight to fight. I remember at some point i had him almost killed because he didn't do that many combos but then he did like five combos in a row, which was nuts. He eventually got me with a kick at the end of it and then killed me with a sixth combo before i was able to even get up. That's where i gave up and i just killed him by parrying his attacks.

 

[v1rus]

I never understand why so many people had issues with Champion fight. I did it first time and i never had any issue with him.

He is very RNG. The number of combos he likes to pull during the second phase seems to vary from fight to fight. I remember at some point i had him almost killed because he didn't do that many combos but then he did like five combos in a row, which was nuts. He eventually got me with a kick at the end of it and then killed me with a sixth combo before i was able to even get up. That's where i gave up and i just killed him by parrying his attacks.

Plus the run to the arena is a pain in the ass.

I went sorta like Lyric, but it was 5 am, and i really wanted that ring of his, so when he randomly killed me and my CMW win blades on 10% for the third time, i just jizzed all over him with crystal soul spear.

 

[a Goat]

The best of the series for sure.