Board 8 > Yo im playing Dark Souls II for the first time [ATTN Fromsoft people]

(+) Yeah! (+)

If you go straight to Aava without getting the Eye of the Priestess first, she's invisible. And that's still totally winnable, but the game makes it clear you shouldn't be doing it.

Approaching the fog wall for the first time, a voice warns: "Go back. Aava is watching". After entering the mist, the voice speak again: "Poor Aava, do you miss your king? The one without the sign has arrived. Do be merciful, and end things swiftly." Aava is initially invisible and will attack the player in this form.

kevwaffles posted...

If you go straight to Aava without getting the Eye of the Priestess first, she's invisible. And that's still totally winnable, but the game makes it clear you shouldn't be doing it.

Lol thats really cool actually. I went right instead of left when i first arrived, so i cleared the entire area until i ended up back at the first bonfire like wut

Also

Bro what even is this frigid outskirts shit

oh my god i got to the boss with 0 flasks and its just two reskins of a previous boss

all this just to fight a boss reskin

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f20a11c6.jpg

TomNook7 posted...

Bro what even is this frigid outskirts shit

The worst thing they've ever done intentionally by a wide margin.

Each DLC has an area that the idea was to force co-op without actually forcing co-op. None of them are great but this one is not only awful, playing co-op really doesn't "solve" anything about it. Except the boss I guess.

Im legit sitting here wondering if i should go to the dark souls ii discord and find someone to help me

Damn, Dark Souls II. Youre DLC was so lit, i was ready to forget and forgive

And now this

https://youtu.be/HEb1jZErYeE?feature=shared

I know you fought the trio. I may have missed you talking about it, but the boss at the end of the other co-op section is even worse than these two.

Blue Smelter Demon

Yeah alolan smelter was corny with his giant whip that can reach all around him, and his annoyingly overpowered aoe thats impossible to predict, but once i went shieldless bloodborne mode and learned all his bullshit he was a chump

Frigid outskirts tho my goal was to beat every boss in the game, and ultimately every fromsouls boss, but damn. They are trying my patience lmao

Yeah, I guess by "worst" I really meant laziest. He's certainly the easiest!

Emeraldegg posted...

if that 3 is the 3 I'm thinking of, that's the "extra hard" part of the DLC and you absolutely don't have to do that to finish the dlc stuff. Each of the 3 areas has one.

Remember when I said this? Frigid outskirts is one of those. have fun

Yeah it would be way less offensive if the boss run wasn't what it is

The reason boss runbacks get largely reduced or removed in later games is that they fall into one of two categories. They're either easily trivialized once people learn how to play these games, or they're awful bullshit like this.

Even then Elden Ring tosses in the Placidusax runback for no reason.

Also the runback for either Chariot or Skeleton Lords (I forget which) becomes pretty stupid in NG+. DS2 is like the only game that really adds shit to NG+, but it's not always for the best.

Lol my message on the elevator leading to placidusax got a lot of love

It was me laying down spread out like ah elevator, in other words time for dragon

I took a break from the frigid outskirts run, and chased down the dark chasm sidequests. I discovered this old man in the basement of Drangleic but I never knew wtf he was supposed to do until now. All three dark chasms are now done, and I just beat Darklurker after several attempts this morning.

I ran big dum strength build for Sir Alonne, but respecced back to Str/Int so I could use magic on Darklurker. Very fun fight - constantly had to spin the camera to keep an eye on both their attacks and pew pew with my soul arrows whenever i could. The only thing that sucked was using effigies to be able to enter dungeon v_V why dark souls ii, just why

So yeah according to a guide I only have 4 bosses left:

1. Lud and Zellen
2. Vendrick
3. Nashandra
4. Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin

I don't wanna google too much, but I'm guessing Nashandra isn't the true final boss or something? Do I have to trigger something to fight Aldia?

Vendrick I guess I need Giant Souls to decrease his defense. I only have 3 because I used my others like an idiot (but really i just blame the game because i needed them for soul memory), so I'm hoping I can resurrect the two below the Gulch with an Ascetic.

TomNook7 posted...

Do I have to trigger something to fight Aldia?

I think it's all stuff you've either done or will do. Light the Primal Bonfires, defeat Vendrick, etc. Nothing too out of the way.

Yeah in the base game the final boss was Nashandra

You just have to run into Aldia every time you can, which all happens at pretty obvious bonfires.

PeaceFrog posted...

Yeah in the base game the final boss was Nashandra

Aldia actually did get added to both versions of DS2 when Scholar came out, for whatever reason.

Oh, btw, as far as Consecrated Snowfields goes, there are tactics I don't think if we ever covered.

1. If you're actually in one of the limited shelter areas during the snowstorm, no enemy will spawn. The problem is the spacing is so fucked that it's very hard to work with that and at some points literally impossible.
2. I've never done this myself, but supposedly they're permanently despawnable like any other DS2 enemy with repeated kills.

>i actually only have 1 giant soul because i used them all for soul memory and had no idea they were important

>okay ill use a bonfire ascetic and respawn the giants in the gulch and farm giants soul

>that only works in the original release. They removed it for scholar. Now the only way to farm them is to ascetic NG+ ancient dragon over and over, which isnt even a real boss, but more a cinematic test of patience

>try to fight vendrick anyway, weapon keeps breaking, only doing 1 damage



>>just go to nashandra, summon an npc, he tanks her, and i just bitterly and anticlimactically cheese her with magic without getting hit once or doing anything

Fuck it. I had fun playing this despite everything, but i gotta move on with my life lmao

heres my review!

By 2014s standards:

Dark Souls: 10/10
Dark Souls II?
-0.2 soul memory
-0.2 torch
-0.2 crossbow chests
-0.2 too many regular armored knight bosses
-0.2 that one door that led to a pitfall
-0.2 black gulch

8.8/10 for the base game

but hey the DLC was hot! +0.2

9/10

but wait theres more
-0.1 for frigid outskirts
-0.1 for giant souls

8.8/10 still

Or more simply:
Dark Souls 1 - S tier
Dark Souls 3 - A tier
Dark Souls 2 - B tier

Fromsouls i beated so far
Demons Souls
Dark Souls
Dark Souls II
Bloodborne
Dark Souls III
Sekiro
Elden Ring

Ive only got one left! Im looking forward to making that topic one day :)

Thanks everyone for helping me out with this dum gaem lol. Your advice and general fellowship helped motivate me more than youll ever know

TomNook7 posted...

Fuck it. I had fun playing this despite everything, but i gotta move on with my life lmao

Valid!

I should replay sekiro one day... i never was able to beat it. Can't grind, just gotta get good.

PeaceFrog posted...

I should replay sekiro one day... i never was able to beat it. Can't grind, just gotta get good.

Same Elden Ring DLC is about to take priority and suck my life away, but maybe I can get to Sekiro towards the end of the year or beginning of next year

Also after thinking about it a bit more, I think DSII tries too hard to be hard lol. But at the same time, its funny how the worst game in a series can still be significantly better than most other games. Dont tell zelda fans!

Sekiro third best game

more people need to play it

and git gud at it

I think ds2 generally tests different skills than the other souls games do, namely "how do you manage multiple enemies of varying threat" and camera management.

The big armored dudes complaint makes sense, but at the same time those tend to be among the best bosses in the series when they're handled well. The problem ds2 has is just that a lot of them are reskins or derivatives of each other, which imo is less of a "big guys in armor" issue and more of a "moveset and design creativity" issue.