brinstar's dark souls idiot journey

[Zanchief]

Low lvl mats will become very cheap very soon. I wouldn't worry too much about upgrading a weapon you won't be using for long. You can farm any mats in DS1, even twinkling titanite, but that will be much later.

I'd concentrate on upgrading a weapon first.

[Zanchief]

DS2 is not easier than DS.

Yes, it is.

Being able to reset your toon whenever you want pretty much trivializes the whole experience.

No, it doesn't. I've played through DS2 many times and I've never used a soul vessel. No ones forcing you to use that mechanic. There's also very few of them in the game so it's not like you can just use them "whenever you want".

[brinstar]

Low lvl mats will become very cheap very soon. I wouldn't worry too much about upgrading a weapon you won't be using for long. You can farm any mats in DS1, even twinkling titanite, but that will be much later.

I'd concentrate on upgrading a weapon first.

killed greatsword pigmonster tower BK, killed cripple demon, bought both weapon reinforcement kit and armor reinforcement kit. explored down into the basin, found the grass shield and blew a couple of titanite shards on it (got a few off the rapier knights while farming souls in the church so i felt spendy). turned the fuck around at the wyvern area because nope

dicked around in the garden/forest thing, got a stone greatsword off the first stone giant i came across. killed the 4 tree people + 2 stone giants around the elite knight suit. had to run to meet a friend for beers so that's all for the evening

[Zanchief]

Elite Knight Armor used to be the best armor in the game. I think they nerfed it though. Its still good though.

[brinstar]

oh that's hella good to know

during my first playthrough i remember buying a super flashy bp off of the guy in the sewers next to the gaping dragon, but now that i check the wiki it seems you can't upgrade it so EK is probably the better choice anyway (and it's free!)

tonight is prob my last truly free night to binge (got band practice + lake party tomorrow, and then band practice + garden party + picking up GF sunday) so i'm gonna make it count. hoping to get through the forest and lower burg and at least partway through depths

e: the EK armor page says it was nerfed in patch 1.04 but buffed again in 1.06? w/e it's an upgrade either way lol

[Zanchief]

Its a good medium weight armor, which is more my play style. I tried not to go under 50% load but was ok above 25% (Or was it 66% and 33%). DS2 has a better system of having speed and rolling distance scale gradual with weight rather than have arbitrary cutoff points. One of many reasons the mechanics are better in DS2.

[brinstar]

digging through a map of garden it looks like there's also an eastern armor set lying around - the eastern hat and gloves look like they give better physical defense than the EK hat and gloves, does it make sense to mix and match armor sets or is there a "set bonus" for wearing all the pieces that i would lose out on?

[Zanchief]

No Bonus. I always mix and match. Some sets have better gloves, others have better hats. It all depends.

[brinstar]

good

i know it's pretty nitpicky but i greatly prefer the eastern hat graphic over the EK hat graphic

[Zanchief]

Fashion Souls is like half the game, Brin. Basically wear what looks cool. Almost all armor is the same.

[Drem]

been AWOL on this thread, sorry

you just can't upgrade most armor to +10 or +15 or whatever EK can get up to

i personally went with silver knight. lots of people think black knight armor is the way to go. up to you, really

-DS2 might have a roll distance scale, but after 70% it's the same as DS1's 50% rule. i still don't get all this talk about DS2 being superior to DS1. it felt like the same game to me aside from DS2 being smoother graphically and having a far less-interesting world.

-i don't understand what's harder about it, either. i died hundreds of times in DS1 and i've died maybe five or ten times total in DS2. it's easy as fuck assuming you already know how to play Dark Souls, because it's the same shit all over again and everything about it's been made easier except maybe humanity, which doesn't matter anyways because i never die

[Zanchief]

How many times do you die in DS1 when you play it now? I'll answer for myself, almost never.

Stamina recharge is also gradual based on weight which it isn't in DS1. Many different mechanics have been enhanced. What DS1 has over DS2 is it was first and we all played it to death. If there reverse happened, and we all played DS2 first and fell in love with it and we were then given DS1, we would all talk about how neat the world was, but how sloppy the mechanics were. You're blinded by nostalgia.

[Drem]

How many times do you die in DS1 when you play it now? I'll answer for myself, almost never.

Stamina recharge is also gradual based on weight which it isn't in DS1. Many different mechanics have been enhanced. What DS1 has over DS2 is it was first and we all played it to death. If there reverse happened, and we all played DS2 first and fell in love with it and we were then given DS1, we would all talk about how neat the world was, but how sloppy the mechanics were. You're blinded by nostalgia.

nah i still die in DS all the time. less than my first playthroughs but.... ok man i don't want to talk to you about this anymore. DS2 was not very good to me. it wasn't good enough to convince me to finish playing it like DS1 did four times over. i felt most of the changes were weak and made the game easier and also thought the world was bad. just plain bad. i could not get immersed the same way as the first game

there's really nothing you can argue or say that will change my mind because we obviously look for different things in our video games. i want story and atmosphere, you want polished gameplay

cool, great, let's agree to disagree

[Lyion]

So I picked up DS2 with all the DLC on PS4. Holy fuck, the Tiger in that first DLC area beat me down 4 times easily before I ragequit, the last two with the worthless NPC summons guys.

[Zanchief]

If you played it four times over like I have, then went back to DS1, the differences would be harder to get over. That's my point. It's not that I think that DS2 is better, it's that it ruined DS1 for me. When I play DS1 I just can't get past the things that are different. When I play DS2 I get over the atmosphere issues because those wash away after a while. It also has some great moments along the way too. I think the way the story unfolds in 2 is better, although I love the minimalist style of the first one. You have to understand DS1 was probably my favorite game of all time in the years leading up to two. I'm not saying two is better, I'm just saying it ruined DS1 for me.

[brinstar]

been AWOL on this thread, sorry

you just can't upgrade most armor to +10 or +15 or whatever EK can get up to

i personally went with silver knight. lots of people think black knight armor is the way to go. up to you, really

ohhhhh okay i just looked at max upgraded stats and EK crushes both black knight and silver knight, plus it's way easier to upgrade (don't need twinkling) and SK/BK aren't even found until way later in the game anyway

[Zanchief]

+15 items usually have better max stats but are harder to upgrade to max. Every 5 levels will require a new mat. Higher level ones are rare and titanite slabs aren't that common ( to go from 14 to 15). Still worth upgrading at least to +5 right now. Decide later when you get other mats (large/chunks). Twinkling titanite is rare in the game, but you can farm them pretty easily (much) later on.

[brinstar]

so take all my EK shit to +5 as quick as possible, and that should carry me through a good chunk of the game?

doing so with a weapon is more problematic, as my three options are currently:

noobgear broadsword (needs titanite, but even a +15 broadsword BARELY beats +0 drakesword)
draketail sword (needs dragonscales???)
black knight sword that i still can't properly wield yet (so far i only have 2 twinkling)

[Zanchief]

I was never a fan of the move set of a broadsword. Longsword served me better. You can also get a Bastard sword which is a good inbetween 1handed and 2handed. I used a +15 bastard sword for the entire game once. You have to take scaling into account. It may seem a small difference but a +15 greatclub will do 400+ dmg with the str scaling. It adds a lot in the end. Depends on your build. Really, right now, pick something you like the moveset for. Baldurs Sidesword if you get one (rare drop from those knights in the gargoyle tower) has one has one of the best move-sets in the game. I really enjoyed the Uchigatana too.

I've used so many weapons on my builds over the years. Hell a regular club, or cestus can do very well with the right stats.

[brinstar]

yea when i reread this thread i saw that i scored an uchigatana at some point

no such luck this time through, at least not yet

i did score the rare catchpole from the (first?) cripple demon, but its moves are pretty worthless

[Zanchief]

If you want an Uchigatana just kill the merchant near the bonefire in the Undead Burg (the merchant past the shielded hallows, you go down some stairs).

Kill the merchant and he drops the Uchigatana. He will never come back though. He doesn't sell anything unique though (I don't think).

[brinstar]

oh THAT'S where i got it - i think accidentally ganked him the first time around lol

[Drem]

yeah it's all good Z. at some point i'll finish DS2, think i'm in Shrine of Amana at the frog boss with the face inside a face. i have heard the DLC are pretty awesome but that's a big chunk of change and i don't have so much time right now to play video games

and yeah keep killing the baldur knights (dudes with the little capes up in the cathedral area) til you get a side sword. but really the drake sword is your best bet right now til you can upgrade and enchant a weapon. i think, like Zan, i used a fire bastard sword that somebody dropped for me in co-op for the whole game. it dominated shit

also going back to armor, it is time consuming and difficult to upgrade the EK to max iirc. the last few ranks take ingredients that are hard to come by. whereas you will reach a point where you can farm twinkling titanite and take most of the special sets up to max easily. that being said, silver knight and black knight armor are really good for their different resists. i just really liked the look of silver knight armor, too. tho i believe i used a different helmet. because Fashion Souls

that aspect of the game reminds me of pre-dye Everquest. love it

[Zanchief]

I used the Silver Knight gloves because they are some of the best gloves in the game. I also had Logans Big hat, the bloody dress. Can't remember my legs. Maybe Crimson set? That was my dex build.

[Tossica]

I used fully upgraded armor that you get from the giant blacksmith. Side sword and gargoyle halberd were my fave weapons.