| Thrawn's Tedious Dark Souls II Newbie Guide; Or how you learned to stop worrying and believe I'm right | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 16 2014, 09:12 PM (308 Views) | |
| Thrawnma | Mar 16 2014, 09:12 PM Post #1 |
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Sophisticated Ancestor of Reptiles and Birds
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So Dark Souls II is out and boy is it a doozy. Unlike Dark Souls which had a slew of classes more or less balanced and even (but not really) since everyone started with a melee weapon and some type of shield but came with more or less good things we all took a Pyro with a Master Key since that offered the greatest benefits. Dark Souls II minimized the number of classes and made them all a bit more distinct. Each class is a little more uniquely expressed, but whether all unique expression is equal is what remains to be seen (it isn't). For reference, let me just say these are just some impressions after playing my first character to about level 50-60, starting a new character because I didn't like the weird white patches under my first one's eyes, playing that to level 90, and getting pissed off at Executioner's Chariot after getting pissed off at Earthen Peak or whatever it's called. So I decided to make new characters. All of them (Except Cleric, Id made a Cleric and I can already tell what's going on with them [I lied, I'm making a Cleric as I type]). So let me reiterate: these are opinions. Merely opinions. But these are opinions influenced by playing through the game a few dozen hours already and seeing how certain things pay off. Character classes only matter for the first few hours and by then soul levels and equipment have made your character its own thing. I am only going to talk about the first few hours of the game where your character class actually kinda matters. Don't get me wrong, nothing here is truly awful in the sense it'll detract from your game and if you want to play as any of these for flavor purposes then by all means. I just mean to offer some advice on how to minimize any headaches/maximize any benefits for potential players. There's only one unbalanced class and this is unbalanced to the OP side. We're going to go down the list. The first character class is the Warrior. Lets update this: The Warrior aint bad. He's a little slower to get rolling than the Knight, but in reality even though his armor is hideous it's not that much worse than the Falconer set the Knight comes with, and it includes a helmet which adds some more points. He starts with a shield, which is nice, and while the Broken Straight Sword is awful you can obtain and use a Spiked Mace which does damage almost as good as the Broadsword along the way into Majula (it's along a lower ledge on the coastline before you enter the village area). Also, after some testing, the Warrior is probably best suited to Powerstance dual-wielding for maximum damage and profit than the other classes. It requires about the same number of souls to dual wield Shortsword, but you could easily buy a second Handaxe and be axe crazy with no other stats invested, but I think it's worth it to go for the Shortsword since it has good attack patterns. If you want a BIT more of an offensive edge and don't mind having to scrape by with your equipment a little more in comparison, the Warrior is an adequate offensive counterpart to the Knight. Next is the Knight, and anyone who has tolerated my presence in the AIM chat for the last few days will know that this is the melee character whose praises I sing highest. Tank stats to start with, the best armor you can have for a while in the game, and one of the best weapons to go along with it. High quality gear, good stats. If you're going to choose a character with anything resembling a melee focus, this is the one to go with. Not the Swordsman, looks flashy. Two swords man! But you're going to use one at a time, even with two out. Dual-wielding is a gimmick here, you can't attack with more than one weapon at a time and unless you have two separate weapons for offering more options your best bet is still board and sword or even two handing a weapon for maximum damage and profit. The weapons the Swordsman comes with are both +1 Upgraded but neither does as much damage as a base Broadsword the Knight comes with. ALso, getting them to +2 is more difficult than getting the Broadsword to +1 since a Titanite shard is easily available in the armor shop's second story. So the +1 upgrades are rather moot. The shortsword IS rather nice, and you'll want to switch to this as your main handed weapon when you start playing. The Scimitar is... okay. It attacks quickly but the Shortsword penetrates armor better and has a more flexible range of attack motions. The armor looks cool, but again isn't as effective defensively as the Falconer set. And with the way dodge roll now works you can have decent armor and still be pretty mobile. You want to hit someone with a sword? Look above. The Powerstance is not available from the start and other classes can achieve Powerstance just as easily. Meh. The Scimitar is honestly the thing holding this class back most, but it's upgraded and scales off your best stat. Meh. Bandit is next. This ugly mix of a Shortbow and a Handaxe is best passed on. You get 20 wooden arrows. And that's it. The opportunity to get more arrows occurs after you unlock the blacksmith shop. You know what you get the moment you walk into the blacksmith shop? A Shortbow. You get a few brief moments of happiness with the improved bow mechanics and then it's all taken away from you and you have to run around with a handaxe. That by the way doesn't do as much damage as the Broadsword. And then you get a second shortbow of no benefit to you. If this class had a way of getting more arrows sooner, or came with a different type of bow I'd be less critical, but by the time you can restock you can LITERALLY get the one advantage this class had for all of five minutes. Want a melee character who can fire a bow? In the same amount of time, you can be more effective with the Knight and get the bow when you get the chance to actually buy arrows. Go with the Knight. Or Warrior. Cleric... will be edited in later! I promise. And here it is! It was quick but I did do a Cleric run through long enough to see what I felt I needed to see. The Cleric's major advantage is the Faith stat. It's built sorta strong/tanky like the Knight but lacks the armor and flexible weapon. The Mace the Cleric uses is certainly strong, but the Cleric lacks the stats to one-handed it. In fact the Cleric lacks the stats to use a Dagger (Dex is that low). He's got Attunement and Faith, but the kicker is that the Healing Miracle, while useful, is not enough of a deal breaker to choose this class over others. When you couple that with the fact you can get a Chime to cast Miracles, a spiked Mace with similar attack stats and all before technically entering Majula from the tutorial area this guy seems less and less special. Yeah, you need 12 Faith and an Attunement slot to cast Heal, but with Lifegems and the easy capability of getting a second Estus flask in Majula right off the bat, the Healing Miracle loses some of the luster it had from back in Dark Souls when all you had were Estus. And in the early game there's enough Bonfires along the way you'll be okay, the game is built for all the classes to succeed after all. So the major upside to the Cleric is his relative tankiness, but if you want something that can tank take the Knight... better armor, better tank stats, and a weapon that can be one-handed so you can put a shield in the other hand. You can make the Knight a faith build easy enough, but the Knight will start off with much better advantages than the Cleric technically offers. Still, if you love those bitchin' white robes, just don't forget you can put on your old pants and gloves for added defense. Sorcerer. Okay, here's where we're getting to that unbalanced class I was talking about. Unlike the Bandit who gets a measly 20 arrows the Sorcerer gets 30 magic arrows, which completely recharge at each bonfire. And, by the way, do more damage than any arrow a stock Bandit fires. Using this class I took out three tough enemies I affectionately call Hiclops (they look like a hippo fucked a cyclops and their mutant spawn had both side's bad personalities) and walked out of the tutorial area having never taken more than a scratch and about 4k souls. Compare that to the ~600 souls I got on average from the rest due to having no safe way to handle the Hiclops (seriously they're nasty even at higher levels, quicker than they should be with a basically OHK attack with no tell). It takes 12 soul arrows to kill one, I get 30 per charge. The melee weapon is a dagger but who gives a shit. And I was easily able to purchase a better set of armor for survivability and then took what would have been my normal souls I earned going through and got enough strength to wield a much better melee weapon. The game also gives you the easy opportunity to add another 30 Soul Arrows to your arsenal within the first hour, and a better Soul Arrow spell is found lying around in the first area you explore. With a few well spent levels, you can waltz around with 60 Soul Arrow shots and 15 Great Soul Arrows. This is enough firepower to down basically anything and everything you encounter in that first area. Seriously, let me take a moment here. The Sorcerer was highly, great imbalanced. I used those 4k souls and just upgraded my armor for more toughness then I tossed enough souls into my strength to use a handaxe I found (the starting weapon of the Bandit, there's also a Shortsword lying around which is a Swordsman starting weapon, and a Broken Straight Sword which is the Warrior's, only thing not lying around is the Knight Broadsword hm...). If you can play with even a modicum of caution the Sorcerer will eat the opening parts of the game alive. There's no good reason NOT to take this class unless you favor melee and have no interest in magic. I mean it. It's as close to broken as you can get in a game which kills you as easily as Dark Souls. Explorer is fun. That's about it. It comes with a decent equipment set the highlight of which is a piece of head armor which boosts item discovery (drop rate). Now, you can buy this from the first merchant lady you find at a bonfire in the game, but starting with it is a nice advantage. Statswise it's pretty mediocre, but it comes with a decent ring for spell defense (but that's not really an issue at this point in the game) and a lot of resources, including a rare Pharros Lockstone which you cannot have too many of (they unlock secrets). It takes a little work to get this guy viable, but he does come with enough tricks to make him survivable. Looks goofy, this is a fun class. Not really in the same category as anything else. You can get the major advantage this class has (item drop rate) super quickly so it's not a dealbreaker, but like I said it's a different challenge and fun in its own way. If only the melee classes could have been designed so deliberately. Deprived. This is the Soul Level 1 character. The game starts you off as close to buck nude a rated T/M game will allow. The Devs are assholes though, your character starts the game wearing clothing and then when you choose your character you get your new clothes. In this case, you take off your clothes, but you keep your original set in your inventory. For the sake of protection, go back into your inventory and just put your damned clothes back on. Other than the clothes that were taken off your back and put back on, the class has nothing. Just an item that can be traded for a shot at a random good item. But, you find a dagger along the tutorial way and enough gear can be scavenged along the way that you wont be horribly disadvantaged. In this case, the disadvantage is the appeal. It's where you start with when you want some challenge, when you want a little more scraping along. There's nothing special at all about the Deprived, and that's its own special appeal. One positive point though is none of the stats are below a six... it's sorta neutral as they're all the same. Some of the other classes, depending on focuses, have stats that are below sixes while other stats are well above. So this class isn't LACKING in any way, but it's also not advantaged. Upside, soul levels cost more and more the higher level you go up, so the initial level investments will be all the cheaper. And it lets you customize your character like none of the others do. Well, thanks for humoring me. I'm probably wrong. Just to wrap up, I'd honestly rather have seen the Swordsman, Bandit, Edited by Thrawnma, Mar 17 2014, 03:35 PM.
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| Thrawnma | Mar 16 2014, 10:01 PM Post #2 |
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Sophisticated Ancestor of Reptiles and Birds
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Things to note in the beginning: There's a Hiclops before you technically enter the home of the old Firekeepers. There's a side path behind some bushes before you go over the bridge. I suggest that unless you are a Dark Souls god, a Sorcerer, or a Bandit in this case, you ignore him for a bit. He drops a Stone Ring which helps you break enemy poise, and that's nice, but that's not enough to waste souls going after him. Either tackle him when you're a much higher level, or IMMEDIATELY after character creation and igniting the bonfire, that way you have no souls to lose. He'll also give you 1k souls, which is nice. The other two Hiclops will be encountered on a shoreline with a casket nearby. You CAN cheese them off a bridge you knock down, but it's tricky because of their aggro range. Sometimes they'll track you and sidestep off the bridge, sometimes they walk over, others they just back off when you get on the bridge. The Sorcerer and spells are the only guaranteed way to off these guys easily, unless you come back with a bow (and I recommend that path) Housekeeper Milibeth will give you a ladle if you light all the torches in the Tutorial area. I've seen online guides say she does this for killing the Hiclops on the shore, all the Hiclops in the area, whatever, but I've done that and all she does is repeat herself. Then I lit all the torches and she acknowledged me as clearing the area. I ASSUME it's either a combination of the two, or just lighting the torches. I presume the latter, since that's easily achievable by a new player and the torches are strewn about the tutorial path. There is plenty of time to light them all with one 5 minute torch, but I recommend clearing the area and opening the pathways first and doing it with no enemies around. She gives you a useless ladle. In front of the house is another area similar to one where the first Hiclops is, but on the house side of the river. It's a little path that leads to a ledge by the waterfall and you get a Smooth and Silky Stone there. Use the Leave command in the nest along the Tutorial path and you'll immediately get an item. No reset required Dark Souls/Demons Souls players. Along the way to Majula, there's another path going up to an area with an NPC hanging out in front. Don't worry about this area, just get the item on the ground. There's some nasty enemies you can encounter inside who can poison you easily. They're killable, but honestly not worth it. Just grab the item on the ground and turn around. There's an item beneath a tree on the way into Majula. And then on the way in along the coastline path is an open spot with a ledge below. Dropping down, then dropping onto a ledge pathway and you can turn around and get a spiked mace, and a cleric's chime. Follow the path further and you get binoculars and can enter Majula. Roam around and pick up the flashy things. Knock the stone into the well to get an Estus Shard, these give you more Estus flasks. Go talk to the guy near the monument by the cliff until he offers to let you join the Covenant Way of Blue. You get a Cheevo for that, and a nifty ring that buffs HP. Not bad to start with, and you can always leave and keep the ring. Talking to the Emerald Herald (lady by the coast in a hooded cloak) enough times and you can spend some souls to level up (might not have enough yet) but you can also use that Shard to get another Estus flask. Do so now, it's worth it and there's no benefit to holding on to them. A shield can be found in a chest in a tunnel up the coast further. A second pathway leads up to a corpse with some items, take those. Do not enter the Covenant by the corpse, unless you want the game's difficulty cranked up on you. Seriously, it makes enemies tougher, and there's been no confirmation yet if souls dropped increase as a compensation. Follow the tunnel I mentioned till you come upon an alcove with a chest, take the shield there and leave. No reason to continue further through here for the moment. The shield sucks, but it's free. In the armorer's shop there's a ladder leading to a second flight with a chest. It has a Titanite shard in it. If you're a Knight, I recommend this going into your Broadsword. If you're anything else, I recommend holding off on upgrading anything till you get a hold of a higher quality weapon. Longsword, Broadsword, Bastard Sword, etc. From the bonfire look for a lower path, this leads into the Forest of Giants and where you're essentially supposed to start your quest. There's a chest along the way that's semi hidden, you'll pass a low wall, just go on the other side of it and there's a chest. That's pretty much it for immediate things you can do in the Majula area. |
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| Marik_K | Mar 17 2014, 09:14 AM Post #3 |
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Nautical Robot Stand Invading Your Bathroom
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Does the Swordsman have Powerstance already to start or does that come later? My room mate has the game and has been trucking people with double maces. |
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| Thrawnma | Mar 17 2014, 02:27 PM Post #4 |
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Sophisticated Ancestor of Reptiles and Birds
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Hm, I hadn't messed around with that and I sped through the tutorial stages so if it was something explained there it might have been in the Swordsman's section. Lemme mess with this real quick and get back on it. |
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| Thrawnma | Mar 17 2014, 02:48 PM Post #5 |
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Sophisticated Ancestor of Reptiles and Birds
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Loaded up my (close to) stock Swordsman char and used his stock weapons. Can't enter the Power Stance. Apparently you need stats that are 1.5 times the minimum req for the weapon. To test this further, I saw something on the Dark Souls II wikidot about using an Explorer with Power Stance. Since I have all these new chars saved I'm going to load my Explorer real quick and test this out. Now my Explorer isn't stock, but his stats are high enough on my current character (and not that far off from stock) to use two daggers in Power Stance, hopefully. Daggers have super low stat reqs which is why I'm going to the Explorer in this case. With three soul levels the Explorer has two daggers he can Powerstance with. Powerstance, from what I can see, turns the offhand into a semi-specialized attack. So you attack normally with the right hand, while the offhand will do special two-weapon attacks. With this info it certainly appears Dual Wielding has more purpose here (thanks for bringing that to my attention so I could test it out) but the Swordsman from what I just tested cannot enter powerstance on his stock stats. Swordsman starts with a Shortsword +1 and a Scimitar +1 and stats of 9 and 16 for Strength and Dex respectively. The Shortsword's Reqs are 7/10 Str/Dex and the Scimitar is 7/16. To use your starting gear here you need to invest 3-4 levels into Strength and another full 8 levels into Dex if you choose to keep the Scimitar. While they were only Daggers, I was able to get the Explorer Powerstancing with only three levels invested (and no souls were spent on the Daggers as the Explorer comes with one and finds another through the Tutorial). There ARE other swords you can obtain which will be easier to meet reqs for, but the issue here is that none of them are starting weapons with upgrade investments already, which is meant to be an appeal for the Swordsman. Just as a reference back to the class who I've fellated most for melee, the Broadsword only needs 11/6 STR/DEX and a Hand Axe which only requires 9 STR is found near the Cardinal Tower bonfire in the room above it (there's a locked, broken door you can unlock after killing Last Giant or you can smash open now just by hitting it enough). Both the Broadsword and Handaxe outdamage the Swordsman's upgraded weapons, and the same 12 levels used to Powerstance the Swordsman's starting weapons can easily be applied here to Powerstance the Axe and Broadsword, probably half the soul levels in fact since the Knight starts with 8 Dex and you only need one more point to 1.5 the req for the Broadsword's Dex, and another six levels means you're saving 4-5 soul levels getting the Knight to do the Swordsman's own gimmick... with better damaging weapons, and better armor. |
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| Thrawnma | Mar 17 2014, 03:19 PM Post #6 |
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Sophisticated Ancestor of Reptiles and Birds
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As a further addendum, I reviewed some stats for the starting classes and I have to give the Warrior some credit that I didn't originally. His stat spread is great for a melee class and his armor honestly just looks like crap but isn't that far off from the Falconer set in what it can defend. It's also a complete set, since the Knight starts with no helmet. You're still going to want to ditch the Broken Straight Sword, but there's a Shortsword and a Handaxe easily obtainable on the way to the Cardinal Tower bonfire. With the starting stats of 15 and 11 for the Str/Dex of the Warrior, it would only take about 4 Dex levels to Powerstance wield a Handaxe and Shortsword for the Warrior. Couple that with his decent armor set and fairly good attack stats and you have a better Dual Wielder than the Swordsman class with minimal investment. And just to speak on it, if you do take Swordsman but omit the Scimitar you're still looking at investing at least 3-4 Strength levels to wield two Shortswords. It takes just as much work to get the Swordsman to Dual Wield as a Warrior would, but the Warrior has better Strength by far and better armor. And he comes with a shield, which you can use off the bat. |
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