SA2's Gaming Blog Topic

[ganonfloyd]

yessssssssssss

Dragonrider is such a disappointment. When I first saw his name on the boss lists I thought he would be so much more than he actually was.

[Marie Rose]

I originally went in planning to magic spam him since I picked up great soul arrow & figured it was strong enough, didn't go so well after the first ten seconds, fortunately, upping STR & DEX let me use this fire longsword I found that was really good. Beating Dragonrider only required 3 things:

- Shield up
- Circle Strafe all day
- Get in one hit whenever I got behind him, two if he used a move which left him wide open

Aside from the first hit, he never touched me after that.

[ganonfloyd]

Yup, more or less.

[Marie Rose]

Oh, I forgot to mention, I fucking love the backstab animation, that always felt so satisfying to land that

[ganonfloyd]

The axe one is nice and brutal.

[Marie Rose]

For a short period till I had enough DEX to wield the longsword, that's what I was using since the daggers I started with sucked & let enemies get free hits on me numerous times.

[Spring-Loaded]

so i saw your name change and recently looked this up

[Marie Rose]

Yup, saw it on Youtube around the time too, still pretty impressive reflexes

Been doing co-op for Old Dragonslayer, barely found anyone decent enough to stay alive during the fight, one guy got killed moments after walking in, I knew he would too since he had like half his health left. Only one decent guy so far but OD randomly turned around mid combo & killed me in two hits after 2/3's of his life was done, I'd be surprised if the guy didn't manage to finish him off after that.

[Marie Rose]

So I run though the Forest of the Lost Giants with my two hander, smacking bitches about left & right. Find some big knight sitting by a tree soon enough and stomped him into the ground because I felt like it. Sorry man, this is Dark Souls. Met this crazy fool who flew in on a hawk or some shit, all them casuls call this noob the Persuer, well my foot’s about to pursue his ass…but later. So I delve deep into the depths of this forest where the Last Giant resides. This scrub tries to stomp the yard & smack me around using his own arm, this guy wasn’t on my level, you giants better not come round here no mo’. Moved on to Heide’s Tower of Flame, smacked Dragonrider into the ground like a faggot, stay free. Went back to the Forest since I forgot about that noob, the Pursuer. I called this fool out & he drops down from his hawk again, pulling out those visor eyes & floating like he’s hot shit. This fool was nothing, I showed him how to dodge & put him 20 feet under, get rekt, scrub, get that glow in the dark sword outta my face. Put on my nikes & ran through Heide to the Cathedral of Blue, oh shit, it’s my boy, Pikachu, shame his homeboy isn’t with him, probably too busy with dem twinkies. Now I’m not gay but I’d totally suck this guy’s dick. Slim felt the sequel was too easy & came back to represent, show them other bosses how its done. Sadly I took him to school, too easy, what happened to you, man? I guess we all have our off days.

I go the way of the other path down to No Man’s Wharf, double teamed that Flexible Sentry from both ends with dat girl, Lucatiel. Don’t know what makes him so flexible but it doesn’t matter because he’s dead. Flew the coop to The Lost Basille, eventually came face to face to the Sentinel triplets. They may be casuls but don’t say there ain’t strength in numbers. These fools somehow caught me by surprise at first, got lucky & knocked me down…but then I got back up & pwned them. Pfft! These casuls thought I was done, PFFT! I don’t die, scrub, I don’t even block, I dodge those. I don’t get hit, like a true player, get on my level.

Cereal:

- Until No Man’s Wharf, I hadn’t died yet, really. Outside of co-op at least but I don’t count that. Last Giant came close, Old DS came close twice. What was my first death? Walking into water I couldn’t see on the screen near the beginning. Bull, that wasn’t even a legitimate death.
- I got a little lucky against Old DS, nearly got me halfway through then again when he brought out his spear skewer grab. Unfortunately, he never realized that if I’ve seen the attack once, I’m not gonna fall for it again, but he kept spamming it so I got free hits.
- Pursuer was rough, I could’ve died at any moment during that fight. Why the hell does blocking any attack take so much damn stamina? I had to learn to get used to the wonky roll here, since 2-3 clean hits was enough to kill me
- Flexible Sentry was easy, that’s about it. Only summoned Lucatiel because she needs to survive 3 boss fights to get her stuff. The other three chances I’m dreading because Lost Sinner & Smelter Demon are two of them, I at least know enough that fighting these guys solo is gonna be frustrating for me, let alone trying to keep an NPC alive while doing so.
- Was about as nervous about the Sentinels as I was for O&S. 1st attempt, slowly killed the first on the small platform with melee, the second jumped up & got a BS hit before even landing, taking 60% of my health. Third quickly joined & it quickly went downhill. 2nd attempt, tried magic spam & quickly went back to melee as I was doing more damage that way (not sure what half these other guys are doing that say magic in DkS 2 is so easy). Started hammering away at the second Sentinel, when the third joined I rolled to the bottom area before I got cornered, had the second at half health. Then I played keep away with great soul arrow whenever an opening appeared. Had to really learn how to dodge here since spells actually consume stamina now. Once I had one down, it was done. Just a repeat of the first circle akin to the Dragonrider, but with even more space. Surprisingly enjoyed it only because most rolls actually came out right.
- Oh, and I died right after on the way to the bonfire because a zombie randomly exploded behind one of the jail cells. What's that thing people like to say again? About how every death is entirely fair & always your fault? Never gonna agree with that crap after witnessing that BS

[ganonfloyd]

I tried desperately to keep her alive in those fights. I came close in the Lost Sinner fight but Smelter Demon seemed almost impossible without summoning a second person.

[Youef]

- Until No Man’s Wharf, I hadn’t died yet, really. Outside of co-op at least but I don’t count that. Last Giant came close, Old DS came close twice. What was my first death? Walking into water I couldn’t see on the screen near the beginning. Bull, that wasn’t even a legitimate death.

Yeah, my first death was stupidly running off a cliff in Things Betwixt. I also died a lot through the levels, particularly when I get impatient with enemies.

Also, I could only keep Lucatiel alive in the Flexile Sentry fight. I summoned her for the Lost Sinner and she died almost instantly and provided with no help. I'm hoping I can get her to stay alive for the other two.

[Marie Rose]

Those shield zombies in the Forest regularly got free hits on me because they took ages to drop their guard & wouldn't let me backstep either so I could move on.

Looked it up earlier & heard you can buy this red eye ring from that cat, it gets nearby enemies to focus on you. Actually tried it in co-op, works pretty well.

[Marie Rose]

I'm currently passing over a few things I should be doing to go down a path where I'll finally find the Sunlight Altar. Normally wouldn't do this but someone apparently thought it was a good idea to place the altar so far from the start.

[Marie Rose]

Rail cereal:

- So I looked up where the Sunlight covenant was so I could join it & get my 30 sunlight medals so I could stop worrying about being too high levelled, what with soul level affecting the number of people that could summon me. I actually had to go look up where to go after exploring Huntsman Copse & getting knocked off a cliff by a NPC red phantom of all things since I didn’t see the path behind the waterfall. Fought the Skeleton Lords, when the bonewheel skeletons showed up, I wasn’t happy, like an elderly retired man experiencing Vietnam flashbacks. Then I found out their spin dashes don’t stun lock & cause instant death like in 1 & took them for granted. Next thing I know my health was all gone. Yeah, Pursuer didn’t get me, Oreo didn’t get me, but these guys did. But yeah, these guys are easy, just thank god they aren’t the ones from the first game that stun locked you on the spot for days if they so much as grazed your leg. One point here for magic.

- Ran through Harvest Valley & found the covenant in that cave towards the end, missed the first bonfire completely when I entered the area. Before that, I walked into an ambush area with 4 of those sickle guys. Thought there was 2 at first but found out 4 show up on my 2nd attempt. Took me 5 tries to kill them after noticing there was a second floor so I could run around & spam magic to whittle them down. As I mentioned before, I went back to No Man’s Wharf at level 57 to grind out my sunlight medals. I was getting summoned at least once every few minutes, which confused me. I had pretty high soul memory since I was buying every kind of spell I came across, and the lowest I’d assume people would have to be to summon me is like 42 or so, so why was I getting so many summons there? Think I cleared that area in my mid 30’s & even then I did grind a few levels to make it easier to keep the NPC alive. Many summons went fine, some were a complete waste of time because the hosts were being morons. One of these had the host get killed aboard the ship right before the boss, I went left & he went right then died within 10 seconds. I have no idea how, he full had health last time I checked, still baffles me.

Whenever a boss came, I wore the red eye ring so the boss would focus on me since I’d rather the host didn’t die & waste my time when I already know the boss’ pattern. After the first few summons I decided to wait by the bonfire when the summons increased a lot. Didn’t know I could still get a medal just for killing a certain amount of enemies or keeping the host alive for like 5 minutes. Makes it easier as long as the host isn’t dumb enough to fight the lanky monsters close up that inflict massive bleed damage & actually take two hits, I soon started to run on ahead & magic spam them just to not risk it. Also got invaded for the first time in the middle of this, decided to wait by the bonfire, the area was small but I’d rather not clear out the entire area for the guy. I had that giant seed that has enemies attack invaders & the guy somehow died before he even got to me, laughed my ass off, free 15k souls, as if I didn’t have a massive amount on me after getting 21 medals.

- Is it me or does armor make pretty little difference? It seemed that way for a while, like I’d wear weak plate armor, then upgrade to one which has over twice as good stats & the damage reduction would be pretty damn minimal. Either that or damage enemies inflict is just random. While grinding out sun medals, I just decided to stop wearing armor. Bare in mind, I’m playing as a toned chick with purple pigtails & bushy dark purple eyebrows, and I stripped off all armor then used my sword two handed. Still got plenty of summons while doing this. Not sure if it was because they needed someone, just wanted a sunlight medal, or assumed I was a godlike player who naturally played like that (and I would if there was no penalty for doing so), my character’s name being ‘Rek’ also makes that kind of play style more amusing.

- After offering my 30 medals to the shrine & maxing out the sun cov, as well as getting their stuff, I went on into Earthen Peak because I heard Iron Keep was after it & the merchant there gives you a +1 ring that raises drop rates. Took me a minute to realize the stone statues I thought were scenery were actually enemies who were trying to poison me, there was one on a platform below I killed & it dropped an item. I ran off the edge, landed on the platform then the game rolled me off the edge into the swamp & lost my human form, thanks game, much appreciated. Covetous Demon must somehow be related to Pinwheel since I consider him up there in terms of easy bosses.

- Another thing, what **** on the developers team decided what this game needed was more 10 foot jumps where your character’s animation covers 4 feet at most. This wasn’t called Platformer Souls last time I checked, stupid jumps like these kill me more than the enemies. I either wasn’t pixel perfect to just barely make the jump, or the jump gets delayed so I’m in the middle of running off by the time I jump. I lost 10,000 souls (the only significant amount so far) to one of the stupid jumps here, I knew I should’ve done the smart thing & homeward bone rather than jump back over, but I’m stupid for assuming I could make such a badly designed jump twice in a row. Hated the knights with glowing blue spears here, since I couldn’t stagger them, so I spammed magic. Enemies like this are what I save the spells for, if they’re gonna be assholes than I’m gonna be a dick & spam magic all day. I knew to burn the poison producing thing, not that its hinted where to specifically go unless you were told.

Boss was annoying, I went in magic & it went horrible, like she turned on a lag switch since everything seemed a second off, plus she spammed more wide range powerful magic than I did when I stayed back, of course. When I rolled as she threw her head, the AoE still hit me even though I wasn’t near it. Tried again with melee this time, staying close & circle strafing like usual, she eventually grabbed me 2/3’s through so I kept my distance a little more so I could actually dodge. Fight was far easier even if some of my actions still seemed a little delayed, point to melee. This was probably the most annoyed I’ve been so far, even though no boss has taking me more than 2 tries so far.

- Went on to Iron Keep, knights here were also annoying since they randomly stagger & I have no idea when they do. Got my drop rate ring, didn’t wanna risk getting the item by the fire since in this game that’s likely to kill me. Pretty sure I met that one knight on the bridge Youef mentioned, tried to lure him back inside using a soul arrow & he somehow killed himself. Finally got the legendary bass cannon and picked up the dull ember before leaving for the moment. Now I can finally get my Uchi, hopefully a lightning one won’t suck.

[Marie Rose]

Transversing through the fog gate…

WOO! Land safety on a small platform, a lanky sentinel to my left, long hammer in his hands, huh, I think I can take this guy
BAM! Block a strong swing, pay attention to the chip it does, study this guy carefully, let’s see him try that again

Strafe. To. The left, block, then strike his leg. Strafe. To. The right, roll, then strike again. Move. Around. The wide swing, just get two swings in. Roll. Through. Another. Swing, get 2 more in. I’m staying on top, I’m messing him up, I’ll stagger his ass then unleash 5 swings in a row that is guaranteed to finally make him drop.

Now I can take a sec to chug my estus, yet another Sentinel’s now in my face, better start to put him in his place, but now it feels like a race, because the third won’t give me space.

Two on this platform may spell my dooooom, drop off the edge to give me more rooooom, it’s suddenly become two on ooooone, now the real fight’s beguuuuun, better brace myself because here they come.

Avoid the overhead, strike him back instead, try to back up from dat spinning attack, block the first swing, get punished for striking again, when is it safe? It’s hard to tell when. Don’t block too much, keep an eye on that bar, these guys may not look tough but they hit like a car, this fight’s nearly won, don’t hesitate to run, the second guy’s nearly down, it’s almost done.

This tenseness is toooo reeeaaal…I’ve nearly got this woooon…bide my time….get in those two hits & get that kiiiiill.

One. On. One. With. The. Last. Sentinel.
I’ll. Take. My. Time. And. Se-cure. My. Glo-ri-uous. Vic-tory.
It’s done, your time has come.

Slash, then roll, strafe, and block, bait him out, I’m not all talk, get him stunned, estus if need be, he’s still free, it’s the last bit, land that final hit, time to emote, so I can truly gloat, shove those souls down my throat