Dark Souls & Other Souls-Likes

I'm not saying spam, I'm saying their script likes to decide whether a new combo is going to start up as quickly as it can, or if it's going to give you some leeway. Either way, I'd be fine with a lighter weapon.

Not so much with my current weapons. Maybe there's a tell I'm missing, but as of now, I'm not enjoying the wait forever for a very specific, low priority attack to safely do a single attack.

This is from a game play stand point only. Thematically, I'm enjoying the fight very much.

but they should have stamina to some degree, shield enemies show this. Haval especially. If you let him finish his attack and you see him put his shield up, if you attack he staggers and you can counter him from that.

I don't know how poise works in DS3, but I'm talking about the staggering when you run out of stamina holding your shield up. Enemies do that too, after a very long or repetitive moveset, and they hide behind their shield some.

Unless he just simply has no poise, which then I'd be completely wrong about my whole idea about how their staggering works.

That's not only that fight though. There have been many, many bosses where you pretty much only had a few windows for certain heavy weapons to take advantage of unless you decided to hyper armor through something.

Poise was literally flipped off for players at some point before release. PC players can do an apparently easy 0-> 1 change in the games code, and suddenly DS1 style poise is a thing for them in game.

I want the lore gravestones! Hoping they are finished/released for DLC or pre-DLC.

They ere called Epitaphs D;

It's possible them and the bonfire mechanic were just scrapped due to time limitations. ;(

Papa Dragon and the Pontiff are the only ones that currently stand out as having stupidly small windows of opportunity, from my personal experience.

And I guess technically The Deacons, but trading with them was always a win on my end and didn't cost me a quarter of my HP.

My first playthrough was done with a Greataxe, and no, not the cool BK one lol. The one which only has one attack pattern/direction/type. It made for a very difficult time, and on my 2nd playthrough, I was very glad I had not found/forgot about the optional areas on my first. The Lothric fight took me around 13 tries with my greataxe(as well as with summoning Sirris of the Sunless Realms for aid).

Basically how I wound up fighting anything with my greataxe was, I would dodge as much as necessary into what I perceived as the optimal angle of attack(a position where the boss can miss you from). One or two hits due to stamina limitations, but I realized later that more stamina still couldn't be used for offense most of the time due to expedient boss retaliation, and the fact that poise is useless. There were several bosses that I could not perform well against with such a weapon, because I hadn't given myself the resources to beat them(a coherent great weapon setup).

Like basically, fighting with great weapons in Dark Souls 3 is like intentionally limiting yourself to a very Bloodbornesque fighting style, but with far greater limitations on your weapon of choice. You maximize stamina, HP, and recovery options(Estus Ring, Estus upgrades, Divine Blessings, intentional non embered state ember use etc). Once you have that and your minimum weapon requirements(which is also another grave disadvantage for most great weapons), you can seriously start contending with fights. You can't rely on the use of a shield, at least I wouldn't, because you have to priortize stamina for swinging your weapon/dodging attacks outright(I mean, without GMS, you're asking to be staggered unless you're rocking a great/high tier mid shield).

Of course, this same style of play can be adapted now to weapons that require far less stat investment, like dual wield scimitars/clubs etc. All that swing faster, take less stamina, and deal more damage via getting more hits in. It's really kind of a slap in the face to 2handers that poise is so useless currently, because with these long wind ups and attacks that need to be timed correctly, the 2handers are mostly outclassed.

TL;DR If you're playing with a great weapon, and completely obliterating everything, then you got the touch. YOU GOT THE POWER! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH

Final Boss best fight in the series, IMO.

Arena, thematics, model, music and how the boss behaves and adjusts throughout the encounter are absolutely top notch.

and that phase 2 music........ mmmmmmmm nostalgia

Also, got tired of using heavy weapons and swapped to my Washingpole to deal with the princes.

Was able to sneak attack in between every combo or heavy attack the prince did and won the fight easily.

Thematically awesome, disappointing as far as weapon viability balance went.

Full of spoilers ofc.

I am missing bonfires in areas I have "finished" and now that I know that it is driving me crazy. I wish they had never added in the ones I don't have.

One of them is an ENTIRE AREA?!?! WHAT?!?!

Do you know about the ones behind illusory walls?

PVPing with Irithyll Rapier +4. It's really short like the normal rapier, possibly shorter. Can't tell if I ever trigger frostbite lol. It does have a swift from behind the shield poke. Caught quite a few people offguard with it/traded hits with them hitting my shield.

Found out that even with Great Magic Shield, if you attack someone from behind the shield while they are striking you, you will lose like half the stamina you normally would, plus the stamina of your poke.

Some PVP related shenanigans.

So I was farming Silver Knights for Darkmoon Blade before I go on Journey 2 finally. Get bored of it after farming 2million+ souls on Silver Knights(17 Proofs of Concord Kept). So I start summoning in duel signs to liven up my evening. Never did I think I was gonna spend a birthday evening looking for fun in a Souls game's PVP lol.

Anywho, I pick who I summon by how interesting I find their name or if I think that no one should name their character that unless they are really skilled(or no one should name their character that because, ugh, no, that is SO FAR AWAY FROM SOULS UNIVERSE CHARACTERIZATION THAT IT MUST DIE!).

First guy I summoned was some dude named Quality in Yuria's mask and Abyss Watchers armor and stuff. He was using a small shield and one of the curved great swords(exiles I think). I knew parrying was gonna be a thing at some point, just wasn't sure when. We start fighting, and he can't dodge or do much of anything for ***, so I'm kicking his ***. He backs up before I can deal the final blow, throws out a parry(I was using a straight sword), and kills me from full HP(1484) in one riposte with his Gsword(had this happen several times with different people, much to my chagrin, if you're dope at parries or whatever, just do it at the start please, thanks). So I switched to the Irithyll Rapier, summoned him again and charge in at him. This cocky *** turns his back to me, and tries to parry me with his back turned(because it's a thing in DS3). Well, unfortunately for him, my timing was lucky and I backstabbed him. Then we had a little bit of a scrambling duel, and I poked him to death while he was trying to roll away and set himself back up for reading me.

After that I summoned and was summoned by several other people. Fights weren't all that interesting. Mostly a bunch of people who'd never dealt with GMS before. Only guy that beat me was some dude using a luck build with a hollowed black blade or uchi, couldn't tell. I screwed up and took a hit or two without my shield raised, so my bleed meter was nearly fully. Really put me on the defensive(not carrying moss), because his hits were really strong. I had to back up, because the bleed hits still raised it by a good amount even with GMS up. We played the roll around, chip away game for a while. He never managed to bleed me, cause I was too good at staying away, and he wasn't going to try and chase me down. Eventually we hit each other at the same time, and I died. He lived with like, idk, 60 HP? It was close.

I moved from the stairs in that area with the Silver Knights to that courtyard after the Pontiff. Summons there were more or less the same, except now everybody was using Fume Ultra Greatswords for some reason. The first guy I dueled there was a guy who named himself, "The Black Swordsman." Even modeled his face to look like a really pissed off, really young Guts.

When, "The Black Swordsman" came into my game, I bowed to him as is customary(I just feel like a *** if someone bows/emotes and I don't). He put on like 4 or 5 buffs while I was bowing lol. He cast the sunbro self buff or tears of denial, couldn't tell. Then he used Darkmoon Blade. Then he ate Stamina Grass. Then he cast something that did something weird to his feet, but it wasn't Spook. All I cast was Great Magic Shield. He charged me, started swinging his Fume Ultra in every which way. CLANG BANG CLANG ZWANG, no damage to me, no stamina loss, nothing. I stabbed him in retaliation with my rapier at least 4 times, and he rolled away and popped an estus. Moved forward, let him hit my shield a bunch again, did the same thing, but he had a lot of HP, and GMS wore off. Then he countered and shield staggered me. I rolled away just in time, still got clipped for like half my HP lol. Rebuffed my shield(yay Witchtree Branch cast speed), blocked him some more, and put him out of his misery with a few pokes and a backstab.

Then I had a bunch of duels like that, and then I was thinking about hanging it up for the night but then... there was a guy in half Artorias armor, half Abyss watcher armor, with the Farron Gsword who named his character, "Kirito," after the protagonist in Swordart Online. This triggered the, "THIS CANNOT STAND IN THE SOULS WORLD, KIRITO MUST DIE!" effect in my brain, so I summoned him on impulse, stopping once to think, "Man I will be so sad if a guy named Kirito kicks my ***."

Kirito comes in, we bow and hey at each other. I ended my emotes faster and went to try to stab him right off, but he rolled away. I buffed with GMS, and let him breakdance slash at me a bunch. I'm always mindful of the angles of that though, because it can catch you if you try to block it from the wrong angle. And then I catch him full force with a bunch of rapier stabs. He rolls away, pops 2 Estus, switches to a Washing Pole, and tries to I guess bleed me? Without luck and rouge though, my bleed meter basically didn't move. Then I'd just retaliate with pokes. He'd roll away and Estus. He had at least 7 Estus. He ran out. When he did, I had him at about half way. He turns and just runs runs runs. I chased him, did a few dashing stab attacks, two that caught him. He was alive with a sliver, and intent on putting as many enemies between me and him as he could. He ran up the butresses/arches, you know the ones. You know the ones.

Well, I remembered a little late that I had a Seed. I used it, but by then he was already at the elevator, so I went back around to the ladder shortcut and came, and got onto the elevator with him. He was at the top already though, and he was running up the stairs just as I stepped out at the top. When he saw that the enemies were hostile to him, he turned back and came at me for one last try, but of course I just pricked him with my rapier and finally put him down. \o/

Then I dueled this really annoying Pie Romancer named, "Little Creature." Kinda find the name neat. They were in the witch garb, had a straight sword, and their Pie Romancing flame. They would buff their feet with that dark mist thing from before. Then they'd walk back and forth waiting for me to attack. If I moved towards them at all, they'd throw a Great Chaos Fireball at me or infront of me, usually in front of me, so that if I tried any distance closers I'd have to take the residual lava. Well, that's no problem for GMS, so I kept closing the gaps, but they were playing the roll roll, roll some more, and lag stab. They hit me once from across the residual lava. When I got low they did the flamethrower hand thing. That's how they killed me the first time. The second time I switched to my Refined Estoc +9, and they would have died if it was a +10, but nope, they lived with like 20 HP, and I died as we simultaneously struck one another. I had been wearing the Eastern set, so I got all serious business mode, and put on my Dark Armor and the ragged mask. Equipped my Heavy Dark Sword +10. Equipped my resins. Summoned them again. Neither of us wasted time with bowing. I went suicidal aggression mode. I ran through the lava the first time without no shield up, and caught them with two swings. Then they backed off and started flamethrower hands, so I backed off, healed, and put GMS up. You can walk through flamethrower hands with GMS up. I closed the gap and caught them again with a slash. They decided that Pie Romancy was useless now, so they started playing the rolling game and come out of roll thrusting/hoping for lagstabs. They hit me a few times, but we were both healing now. They didn't want to lose to me lol, and I was just specifically there for revenge. They rolled back onto the bridge between the lift and the walkway, hoping to bait me into a precarious ledge battle, but I rolled forward and pushed them back towards the stairs. I got them wedged between the railing and the corner, and since they could no longer really roll much of anywhere, I killed them. I did not see their summon sign again for the rest of the evening at either location.

Just heard on a podcast about purple invaders, sounds fun!

Also last night I couldn't remember if the girl on top of the frozen staircase was important (DS2) so I killed her >.>

Crap. Oh well, I was not planning on farming that stuff.

Heads up for PC players. Some players are rumored to be going around and invading players and 'infecting' their victims characters with data that flags them as cheaters.

/cheer Malcolm Reynolds!

Those players are *** and they know it, even under the guise of "exposing the game's flaws"