From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[80Maxwell08]

A quick word of advice, grinding souls gets really easy later. Losing 15k souls won't really hold you back. Even if you don't want to use bonfire ascetics, which I never do, there's areas later in the game where grinding souls is easy. Especially the DLC if you keep going that far.

As for the pursuer, yeah for some reason the Scholar of the First Sin edition decided one of the fixes needed in enemy locations was adding the pursuer a ton more times. In vanilla it was just 3 times. At least the extra spawns give twinkling titanite I guess.

I also really suggest investing in adaptability at some point. I'm one of the people who think agility was arguably the worst thing DS2 tried to do. Your refusal to be forced into it is commendable so if you are going to keep with it, I would keep a few sets of armor and rings with different physical and elemental resistances.

 

[Multidirectional]

The smart thing to do is just pump it early game to where you need it and forget about it. I'm always done with AGL by the time I'm exiting Forest of Fallen Giants. Sure, it's annoying that there's one stat you absolutely must invest in but that way you can be done with it very fast at least. It's not like you'll lack level ups, by the end of playthrough I'm usually at least SL 180.

I think the only way you can skip AGL is to play a super heavy shielded turtle style that doesn't dodge at all. But even then you'd want to have that faster item use.

 

[NJClaw]

[...] Even if you don't want to use bonfire ascetics, which I never do, [...]

List of important things to do in DS2 as soon as possible:
- reach AT LEAST 92 agility;
- kill Maughlin in Majula;
- use a bonfire ascetic to fight Mytha the Baneful Queen a second time.

Whenever I go through the game, I don't even see these steps as optional.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I'm not concerned with grinding souls, just keeping SM low for neatness, OCD and challenge reasons.

Too late to pump agility now, at the rate i'm growing levels now it will take 20 hours to get to 105.

 

[Multidirectional]

List of important things to do in DS2 as soon as possible:
- reach AT LEAST 92 agility;
- kill Maughlin in Majula;
- use a bonfire ascetic to fight Mytha the Baneful Queen a second time.

Whenever I go through the game, I don't even see these steps as optional.

I've never done second and third. What's so important about them? Yeah I never used ascetics, because I thought it might ruin the NG+ experience in case I wanted to do it, which I then never did. I started NG+ once but stopped soon because I thought those added high health red phantom enemies were gay.

 

[NJClaw]

List of important things to do in DS2 as soon as possible:
- reach AT LEAST 92 agility;
- kill Maughlin in Majula;
- use a bonfire ascetic to fight Mytha the Baneful Queen a second time.

Whenever I go through the game, I don't even see these steps as optional.

I've never done second and third. What's so important about them. Yeah I never used ascetics, because I thought it might ruin the NG+ experience in case I wanted to do it, which I then never did. I started NG+ once but stopped soon because I thought those added high health red phantom enemies were gay.

Maughlin drops the Tseldora set: each piece increases souls gained (2.5% for the head, 5% chest, 10% hands, 5% legs) and, if I'm not mistaken, they stack multiplicatively. In NG+ Mytha drops the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring +2 (30% more souls), so you get that with a bonfire ascetic.

 

[Silverfish]

I'm not concerned with grinding souls, just keeping SM low for neatness, OCD and challenge reasons.

Too late to pump agility now, at the rate i'm growing levels now it will take 20 hours to get to 105.

You're fine, actually. Agility is a meme the community won't let go. With low adaptability, DS2 is more like a fighting game, where spacing, timing and footwork play a bigger role. Dodging is, funnily enough, more like dodging, in that you use it to get away from things rather than go through them.

 

[NJClaw]

I'm not concerned with grinding souls, just keeping SM low for neatness, OCD and challenge reasons.

Too late to pump agility now, at the rate i'm growing levels now it will take 20 hours to get to 105.

You're fine, actually. Agility is a meme the community won't let go. With low adaptability, DS2 is more like a fighting game, where spacing, timing and footwork play a bigger role. Dodging is, funnily enough, more like dodging, in that you use it to get away from things rather than go through them.

Obviously it's possible to go through the game without increasing agility, it's just harder (at least for me).

 

[Multidirectional]

Maughlin drops the Tseldora set: each piece increases souls gained (2.5% for the head, 5% chest, 10% hands, 5% legs) and, if I'm not mistaken, they stack multiplicatively. In NG+ Mytha drops the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring +2 (30% more souls), so you get that with a bonfire ascetic.

Irrelevant for me then. While I don't particularly care about SM I also avoid inflating it with bonuses from items, so I'd never use these. Game is generous enough with soul drops as it is anyway.

 

[Curratum]

You have to be a clinical-grade retard to keep parroting that agility does not make a difference and / or is not needed.

DS1's medium roll is 11 iframes.
DS2 unlevelled agility is 5 iframes.

That's not even counting flask time, which is retarded at unlevelled agility.

Also, best of luck getting AWAY from attacks that cover around 2-3 full rolls worth of space and come out in the time you need to make 1 roll and are used by both bosses and regular enemies.

 

[Multidirectional]

Fastest item use kicks in at 100 AGL, right? If yes then I would say it's a bare minimum anyone needs. It also adds additional backstep i-frame. I personally go for 105 to have same i-frames as DS1 fast roll, but I could see 100 being enough.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Fine, i'll try the agility shit. Got like 50000 souls for killing the guy in Sinner's Rise. That ought me to put close, but i still need to get to 17 adt for 100 agility. That still sucks.

How many respect thingies do you get? Used one as i started out pumping strength but i switched to faith as soon as i got my hands on the lighting infusion.

I also just noticed that the mace still has a b scaling for strength even with lighting infusion? Is it worth putting some extra points in there? At 12 strength i can't even use the light cross bow. I got the +5 faith ring plus if i can get my hands on the deus vult i mean the insolent set that's another two, which means i can save 7 points to get to 50 faith i can put somewhere else.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Gotta love the contradiction though.

"Stop trying to min/max just play the game bro"

"Dude, you gotta raise agility wtf is wrong with you"

Lmao

 

[DJOGamer PT]

You have to be a clinical-grade retard to keep parroting that agility does not make a difference and / or is not needed.

I didn't touch agility in my first run (strength based knigth), nor in my wizard build and had no frustations. So no agility isn't needed to beat the game.

 

[Multidirectional]

I didn't touch agility in my first run (strength based knigth), nor in my wizard build and had no frustations. So no agility isn't needed to beat the game.

How did you do in PvP without AGL? Can't imagine dodging player attacks is very reliable with low i-frames when there's also some latency involved.

 

[toro]

You have to be a clinical-grade retard to keep parroting that agility does not make a difference and / or is not needed.

I didn't touch agility in my first run (strength based knigth), nor in my wizard build and had no frustations. So no agility isn't needed to beat the game.

It looks like no brain is needed to beat the game either

 

[80Maxwell08]

Fine, i'll try the agility shit. Got like 50000 souls for killing the guy in Sinner's Rise. That ought me to put close, but i still need to get to 17 adt for 100 agility. That still sucks.

How many respect thingies do you get? Used one as i started out pumping strength but i switched to faith as soon as i got my hands on the lighting infusion.

I also just noticed that the mace still has a b scaling for strength even with lighting infusion? Is it worth putting some extra points in there? At 12 strength i can't even use the light cross bow. I got the +5 faith ring plus if i can get my hands on the deus vult i mean the insolent set that's another two, which means i can save 7 points to get to 50 faith i can put somewhere else.

You get 11 soul vessels in one NG runthrough according to the wiki. You can infure the mace if you want to and don't have a lot of str. Sunlight blade should stack with the lightning infusing and give you a lot more damage.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I didn't touch agility in my first run (strength based knigth), nor in my wizard build and had no frustations. So no agility isn't needed to beat the game.

How did you do in PvP without AGL? Can't imagine dodging player attacks is very reliable with low i-frames when there's also some latency involved.

Aside from my first run back when the game released, I didn't do much PvP.
When I get invaded I just limit myself to either summon help, employ hit & run tactics until they get tired or bait them into traps.
Then in my 1st run I joined the Blue Sentinels and most PvP came in the form of helping other players.

It looks like no brain is needed to beat the game either

Well this is the same company that made Sekiro

 

[Silverfish]

You have to be a clinical-grade retard to keep parroting that agility does not make a difference and / or is not needed.

DS1's medium roll is 11 iframes.
DS2 unlevelled agility is 5 iframes.

That's not even counting flask time, which is retarded at unlevelled agility.

Also, best of luck getting AWAY from attacks that cover around 2-3 full rolls worth of space and come out in the time you need to make 1 roll and are used by both bosses and regular enemies.

Agility certainly makes a difference, but it's not needed. Between proper spacing / timing, good armor or a decent shield, just about any kind of character build can complete the game with base adaptability and barely struggle. It only becomes an issue if you're bound and determined to play DS2 like the other games where rolling i-frames are arguably too generous and trivialize a lot of enemies.

So far as "attacks that cover around 2-3 full rolls worth of space and come out in the time you need to make 1 roll" go, you can unlock anytime and run in the opposite direction.

Well this is the same company that made Sekiro

 

[Multidirectional]

Sekiro is a great game, fuck the haters.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I'm a simple man. I see ninjas bouncing off shit and i avoid.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

They REALLY should make a Dark Souls II - 2.
It was the most wholesome game of the series.
Not a half-finished multi-platform port of ps3 exlusive with arbitrary changed setting due to legal reasons, and not a soulless fanservice game which was more unoriginal and creatively bankrupt than any of the so-called souls clone (including Dark Sasi).

 

[Black Angel]

They REALLY should make a Dark Souls II - 2.
It was the most wholesome game of the series.
Not a half-finished multi-platform port of ps3 exlusive with arbitrary changed setting due to legal reasons, and not a soulless fanservice game which was more unoriginal and creatively bankrupt than any of the so-called souls clone (including Dark Sasi).

Excuse me sir, but have you heard of THE Dark Souls 2? No, not the Scholar of the First Scam which released at April 2015, but the original at April 2014. If you bought the latter, you didn't get ANY discounts at all for the former during the earlier period of SotFS. You literally had to buy the game AGAIN at FULL PRICE, just to gain access to the features that should've been there in the first place for PC version, no matter if you've bought all the DLCs or the season pass.

Speaking of the DLCs, did you know they initially promised not to release any DLCs at all, because the game would be complete, full experience Day 1? And then they just go whatever, release not one, not two, but THREE DLCs.

I know this was more likely all fucking Scamco decision, but come on, don't be dishonest on the state of the series as a whole.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

They REALLY should make a Dark Souls II - 2.
It was the most wholesome game of the series.
Not a half-finished multi-platform port of ps3 exlusive with arbitrary changed setting due to legal reasons, and not a soulless fanservice game which was more unoriginal and creatively bankrupt than any of the so-called souls clone (including Dark Sasi).

Excuse me sir, but have you heard of THE Dark Souls 2? No, not the Scholar of the First Scam which released at April 2015, but the original at April 2014. If you bought the latter, you didn't get ANY discounts at all for the former during the earlier period of SotFS. You literally had to buy the game AGAIN at FULL PRICE, just to gain access to the features that should've been there in the first place for PC version, no matter if you've bought all the DLCs or the season pass.

Speaking of the DLCs, did you know they initially promised not to release any DLCs at all, because the game would be complete, full experience Day 1? And then they just go whatever, release not one, not two, but THREE DLCs.

I know this was more likely all fucking Scamco decision, but come on, don't be dishonest on the state of the series as a whole.

I've played as soon as it came out on ps3. By the time it came out on pc I've already beaten it and maxxed out bell keepers covenant. I also own original version and sotfs edition on steam.
I also played demon's souls before all the hype and was a HARDCORE member of souls pvp community.
Here's my pvp build in dark souls 1:

 

[toroid]

Souls pvp is cancer. Before DS1 got popular its pvp was actually interesting.. it was asymmetrical and unfair but that fit into the Souls theme as an extension to the pve experience with pve clearly being the focus. Popularity ushered in a tryhard pvp culture of using every exploit for maximum advantage. DS2 (and DS3) was balanced around pvp and so the pve experience suffered as a result; character progression was more or less railroaded through systems that kept low level characters from becoming too strong too early and required much more stat/time investment to have decent attack and defense. DS1's pve-centric design allowed the player to have the satisfaction of utterly roflstomping the game after earning enough knowledge and experience, whereas the restrictive mechanisms of DS2 try their hardest to prevent that satisfaction just for the sake of regulated pvp.