Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Culise]

So, I'll get to play this this weekend! Yay!

I heard they buffed magic, with items to recharge spell usage without going to the bonfire. If that's true, and the spells themselves haven't been nerfed to oblivion, I'm definitely playing sorcerer again for my first playthrough.

Its true. You can also get a bunch of items to speed up casting speeds and they improved the homing on a lot spells. Sorcerers are pretty buff atm.

That sounds amazing.  I've always played a sorcerer build first in DS and DS1, but it sounds like it's going to be even more fun this time around. ^_^

[Facekillz058]

Sorcerer is really hard to get off the ground, though.
Just a warning.

[nogoodnames]

Not really. You just need to make some initial investments in strength and dex so you're not stuck with just a dagger and some soul arrows. I recommend enough to use a longsword since you can get a fire longsword fairly early on and fire damage scales with int.

[Culise]

Seems fair.  In Demon's Souls, I had to go with curved blades as an early supplement, and in Dark Souls 1, I went spears.  Both are DEX weapons, which was especially nice in Dark Souls where DEX also affected casting rate.  Fire + INT sounds like a good, synergistic opportunity.

[WillowLuman]

Woah, woah, woah. Fire scales with INT now? Aww yeah...

[nogoodnames]

Woah, woah, woah. Fire scales with INT now? Aww yeah...

Int and Faith. I suppose it's to encourage mixing pyromancy and other types of magic.

[WillowLuman]

Pyromancy scales with stats too now? Or is that scaling with int for fire buffs applied to swords, as well as fire swords?

[Evilsx]

Woah, woah, woah. Fire scales with INT now? Aww yeah...

Int and Faith. I suppose it's to encourage mixing pyromancy and other types of magic.

Int and Faith scales with most of the magic weapons in the game

[nogoodnames]

I'm pretty sure pyromancies (at least the fire damage ones) scale with your fire attack bonus, which is related to Int and faith. Magic/elemental damage types now have their own damage bonus stats, affected by your attributes, which related weapons scale off of.
I haven't gotten far enough in the game to know if there's a pyromancy fire weapon buff, which would presumably scale with the strength of your pyromancy, but there is fire resin. I can't be sure if resin scales with your damage bonuses. If someone's tested it, I don't know.

Your pyromancy flame is still upgraded by pyromancer teachers, but I think it can scale now too. Also, sorcery and miracle catalysts can now be reinforced with titanite like a normal weapon, which increases their magic adjust.

You can also cast buffs on non-normal weapons now, which is nice.

[Sindain]

The weapon buffs also work differently than in past games. Rather than just scaling with magic adjust they all give +50 flat damage and then a percentile bonus to any preexisting elemental damage on the weapon. So if you cast flame weapon on a weapon that's already upgraded with flame you get +50 fire damage and then +30% of your weapon's base fire damage.

*Edit*
The Rat King is a cool guy, I'm kinda sad I'll be leaving his covenant.

[Yoink]

Man, this game's dodgy collision detection is really pissing me off.
Trying to fight the first (I think?) boss, with the big-ass halberd looking thing. No matter how much I dodge, no matter how far I am from his attacks, he always somehow manages to hit me and take off more than half my health.

Am I supposed to be able to level up this early in the game, or something?
Or am I just Doing It Wrong^TM? Do I need to try parrying everything instead?

[Facekillz058]

Are you fighting the Dragonride?
You went the wrong way, hard.
A few things:
You level up, and reenforce the Estus Flask at the Emerald Herald in Majula.
The first area is down the tunnel across from Lenigrast's place, near the bonfire.
Also, I wouldn't call the collision detection 'dodgy.' Rolling just doesn't make you magically immune to damage anymore.

[nogoodnames]

I have noticed that the game can be a bit screwy with collision detection for certain attacks. There also seems to be less feedback when you take a heavy hit than in Dark Souls 1, which can make it harder to learn and predict when attacks will hit you and when they wont. I'm hoping it gets cleaned up a bit in a patch, but they're most likely focusing on the PC release right now.

You did take a wrong turn, although both areas are viable there is an easier one to take on first which might be better for you if you're just starting. Go back to Majula, next to the bonfire there should be some ruins and a path leading down.

You can level up as soon as you get past the tutorial area. I assume you haven't met a very important NPC in Majula. Look for a woman in a green cloak, she may be standing overlooking the cliff past the bonfire. Talk to her a few times until her dialog menu opens up.

I don't know where you got the impression that the key to winning a souls game is to parry everything, but it's wrong. Pretty much only humanoid enemys which are roughly the same size as you can be parried. In Dark Souls 2, parrying is even less of a be all end all tactic because they are a lot harder to pull off and you are no longer invulnerable while performing a riposte.

[Yoink]

I actually figured out how to level up a while after posting that. Thanks for telling me about the wrong turn, though!
Both the bosses I tried to fight seem impossible. >.> Let's see if I can get through this way.

Also, it wasn't a matter of me expecting dodging to make me invulnerable, but that I would successfully dodge an attack, see their strike land where I had been a moment ago, and still somehow take damage. Blah.

[Facekillz058]

Hm, I haven't had that happen to me at all, and I've fought both bosses multiple times...
In the case of the Halberd guy, did the shaft happen to hit you? His shaft can do a lot of damage if it hits you.