Dark Souls III

I haven't admittedly watched the thing, so I wouldn't spot it. My bad.

How is Mytha bad though? For that matter, why is she even back?

No, Mytha isn't back, Vaati just included her item descriptions in his notes to remind people about how Earthen Peak is poisoned without coming up with a better system for marking this than italics.

edited 9th Feb '17 12:37:01 PM by TheCuriousFan

...I honestly thought Mytha was one of the more original bosses in DS2.

I mean, she's a Gorgon that uses her own severed head as a sorcery catalyst, and is fought in an arena surrounded by poison pools that heal her and hurt you.

Really, her main downside is the fact that she's incredibly easy if you burn away the poison beforehand, especially if you bring a certain jester to fight her for with you.

i cant really think of a ds1 boss that she resembles all that much tbh. conceptually she isnt that interesting but her boss fight isnt bad or anything.

I sure can't wait to go back to Dark Souls 3 when that DLC makes its way to digital storefronts. Then I'll play that and Ariandel.

I went for Drang Hammers, Twin Warden Blades, and the boring halberd last time around. Is the general weapon hierarchy the same, or is Estoc no longer bestoc.

edited 11th Feb '17 7:05:53 AM by mrsunshinesprinkles

From what I've seen, the meta-game (at least in PVP) favors high DPS weapons with speed and reach, hence why the Dark Sword, straight swords, dual blades and katanas are so popular. Most of the Astoria weapons are pretty popular too due to how well they scale when upgraded.

Most Magic spells (save for Pyromancies) suck due to the high lvl requirements to make it practical and lack of efficient builds, and most of the slow, heavy-hitting weapons are best saved for PVE, due to how easy it is to dodge-roll vs the previous Dark Souls titles.

Just remember: whatever happens, sorcery will never be competitive.

And that the only time From will be quick to nerf something is when spellcasters get something good.

I still remember one of the big patches before Ashes being one that was supposed to buff a lot of sorcery. It turned Farron Crystal Hail from a literal waste of resources that didn't hit anything and did no damage to... a literal waste of resources that hits four or five times and does two damage per hit.

the downfall of sorcery is almost poetic given the whole nature of things decaying and falling apart in dark souls

ever play Demon's Souls, sorcery was fucking busted in that game

imagine Iron Flesh but with no downsides

Wasn't it also pretty powerful in DS 1?

it was pretty good in dark souls 2, iirc.

not having to get anywhere near enemies to kill them saved a lot of grief, especially early on.

It's not terrible in PVE in 2 or 3, but it's pretty awful for PVP mostly. At high levels I mostly only used Magic Shield.

That's why I love my compound bow in DS III. Being able to both snipe enemies, and even riddle them with arrows in melee range, is a bloody boon.

Well, the issue with magic is that it's usually balanced as "better range and power than weapons, but is ammo-dependant (whether MP or spell charges) and casters are squishy". But in Souls Pv P, neither of those matter because fights are short and everyone dies in like three good hits at best. So you get magic that would be objectively better if they didn't make it objectively worse by tanking damage values or adding long cast times. As the gameplay of the series stands now, they'll probably never be able to get it right, outside of glitches that quickly get fixed.

edited 16th Feb '17 1:42:17 AM by ExeloMinish

I like how Nioh did it, or tried to do it at least - magic is more about buffs and debuffs and such, rather than just flavors of soul spear. There are direct damage spells, but even they're more useful for building up the elemental status effects. You still need to get in there and throw down.

edited 16th Feb '17 5:28:15 AM by Hydrall

Magic and Miracles require too many pieces of equipment to work, plus the mana and skill point constraints. As it stands, Pyromancy is typically the most practical of the spells since all you need is just the Pyromancy flame in one hand. Said flame costs nothing, has zero weight, and doesn't really even factor in as to whether it's equipped or not once a spell is cast: that's what buffing intelligence and faith does. Whereas the magics and/or miracles require staffs and/or chimes to work, have a bunch of often useless variants of the same spell, and sometimes take too long to cast or the buffs don't last long enough to be practical.

Oh, and lets not forget how mana doesn't regenerate on it's own, and that magic and pyromancies don't have much in the way of healing spells, miracles have little to no offensive spells, or worse, how said spells are directly affected by how high your faith and intelligence stats are. Which, if you want to be a good healer, means you'll need a significant amount of skill points dumped into those two trees to see real results. Basically, you're better off using the Estus flasks for regaining HP rather than keeping MP for healing.

i can kinda see why patches thinks its okay to kick clerics into dark pits.

they're just useless and prone to backstabbing.

Arrogant, hateful, devious, power-hungry, that sums up the clergy in all of Soulsborne lore.

edited 16th Feb '17 10:34:03 AM by TAPETRVE

I agree, it's sort of the reason that I don't like doing new characters based on magic builds.

You spend like 3/4 the game looking for drops, upgrading poor usage stats for a hard time.

It's for this reason that I opted to perform a paladin run in NG+ rather than start a new character. I still need to settle on what my stats should be respecced to, but the overall direction is definitely on having a solid physical build from which I can build faith.

edited 16th Feb '17 10:37:17 AM by QuestionMarc

Magic is good at the start (of DS2 and DS3 - If I remember right, the poor tracking and aiming in DS1 made it mostly unusable anyway), but the enemies scale up pretty fast. Having a good physical basis is vital, just like having a good grasp on dodging is a good idea even if you think you're gonna be able to kill everything before it reaches you... because you won't.

I wonder: what would you guys do to fix the magic system in DSIII to make it competitive against the other builds?

One idea I have in mind would be to remove the time limit on some of the buffing spells. It'll prevent the headache of wasting precious mana on buffing all of the necessary attributes, plus prevent you from running out in the middle of a pitched battle. Failing that, another solution would be to keep the lack of a time limit on the more powerful spell buffs such as the magic greatswords, but in return it puts a cap on a certain amount of your maximum mana per flask, until the spell wears off or is turned off.

For example, you have a flask that contains 10 MP. The greatsword spell costs 3 MP. You activate it, removing 3 MP from your mana pool to kill a nearby enemy. You also cast an arrow spell, which costs 2 MP, leaving only 5 MP left. However that was the only enemy nearby, so you decide to deactivate the greatsword; that results in an MP refund of 3 MP, leaving you with 7 MP in total.

That sort of system would really help to encourage builds seeking to rely almost entirely upon magic, whilst still allowing them to keep a decent balance of Estus healing flasks versus Mana flasks. It would also serve to limit just how many spells could be active at once, preventing spellcasters from becoming unstoppable ATK or DEF hulks with absurd stats due to having a ton of buff spells simultaneously active.

That idea would utterly screw spellswords by reducing them to nothing more than guys with glowing swords and three spells before they run out. If you're that worried about buff stacking, speed up the throwing animation for duel charms.

Really, the main thing spellcasters need is more variety, better tracking and the ability to hold back spells and mix up timings so that they aren't utterly predictable.

So, after being a fan of the series for a while, I finally got the chance to play it through DSIII and GameFly. I had wanted to start with the first game but I have no way to play it an beggars can't be choosers.

I had watched ENB and Team Four Star play through the game blind. I watched ENB's From the Dark and his Bloodborne playthrough and what little there was of his Let's Play DSIII series. I watched Dan from Extra Credits play through all of the first game and a large chunk of the second blind. I thought I had a solid grasp on how the game plays and the mentality needed for it.

Things started off well. I created my character (Mercenary with Life Ring), got through the tutorial easily enough and made it to the first bonfire (I ignored the overgrown Crystal Lizard thing). From the bonfire, I got to the boss door but decided to replay the area over and over until I could do it without taking damage. It took a few tries but I got to that point and challenged the boss. I got him down about halfway (second phase would have started in another hit or two) but died.

Second attempt, things went better. I learned how to dodge that overhead swing of his and felt damn good once I did. Got him to his second phase, contemplated whipping out my firebombs, then decided against it since I'd probably die and I should save those for when I feel like I could win.

I didn't take any damage during the second phase and killed him.

I felt pretty good. Got to Firelink, leveled up, died to the Master several times, pushed the Master off the cliff, got the Uchigatana, got the Estus Shard and Covetous Silver Serpent Ring since I knew how to get them early; everything was looking pretty good.

I have died so many times in the High Wall of Lothric. I usually make a little bit of progress with each death- get a new item or go a little further than I did last time- but it's a major struggle and progress is slow. After spending a couple of hours in the area, I ended up stopping for the night after unlocking the shortcut by the first bonfire.

Never before in my gaming career has there been such a disconnect in knowing what I need to do and being able to do it. It's amazing how unprepared I was for this game and I feel like I was more prepared than most newbies.

I'm not giving up or anything, I just wanted to vent. Any advice is appreciated.

Oh, and I don't have PS+ so no online play.

What are you finding is giving you the most trouble in terms of the enemies? Also, what gear are you using right now?