dark souls 3 hype

[Esme]

BB PvP had the potential to be excellent, but the gem system, the grind for top tier gems and the gems themselves, and the bell maiden system kinda squandered its potential. It's still pretty fun despite all that, though. It's also (imo) the most balanced game as far as PvP is concerned. Everything was perfectly viable and nothing was really shitty or redundant.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Esme

[Shahrivar]

WotG spam was also annoying considering I used a Large Club most of the time.

I'm just saying that the PvP has never had any pretenses of being balanced, so I'm not sure why everyone complains about a new cheap tactic when a new Souls game comes out - it's always been like that. The Estoc in particular has always been a top-tier weapon.

Sometimes it just seems like people conveniently forget all the pvp bs that has existed before... like cheese buffed dex builds

By the way Demon's Souls pvp is the worst, just terrible

Certain weapons and spells were always better, but magic wasn't completely useless in the previous games (pvp). At least for me that's the major concern.

I haven't done any PvP in Demon's Souls and Bloodborne (although the latter one's PvP gets insulted a lot) as I don't own any Sony console besides a Vita. I guess the netcode is even worse.

[Tryhard]

I get that, but outside of Wrath of the Gods, which is now understandably much slower, I don't think magic was ever effective for pvp. How much effort did it take to dodge a Lightning Spear or Homing Soulmass? The spells are mostly the same.

The most you could say is that magic isn't as varied or viable as DS2, and I would agree with that. But I played a pure mage and pre-nerf Great Resonant Soul and Flame Swathe were disgusting. The only reason they did so well is that people didn't know how to dodge them yet, just the same as Pursuers and Dark Bead in DS1.

Am I missing something about DS1 pvp? When was magic viable outside of like WotG (as above), Tranquil Walk of Peace and Pursuers/Dark Bead cheese. Souls has never done magic right, DS2 probably being the closest. Hell, I've been playing Salt & Sanctuary and an indie game like that manages a mage playstyle better.

I do like when people can make it work like in this video, though (after 0:55):

Demon's Souls had farmable divine blessings for everyone, so you could have 99 full heals every fight and they heal as fast as DS3 estus flasks or DS1 divine blessings. It had less variety in weapons and the netcode and detection of backstabs/teleporting was horrendous. It's understandable, it was the first game and was budget, but even still when the series has the same problems after DS1-3 and Bloodborne...

As for Bloodborne, the PvP had cheap tactics but everything was fun to use, the problem is that it had "opt-in" pvp where you had to be in co-op for an invader to even show up, and even then you could kill a bell maiden in every level to disable it as far as I understood. So I've only had a few pvp experiences with it.

Edited June 9, 2016 by Tryhard

[Shahrivar]

The spells are mostly the same, but rolling isn't - in DkS 1/2 rolling was more restricted and you could easily punish bad stamina management with fast spells like Forbidden Sun (I remember using GLS in addition to WoG in Dks1, but I haven't played done any PvP there for at least 2 years). Running around with Outcry, Forbidden Sun and Great Chaos Fireball wasn't a display of great variety, but all of them were actually useful without going 30/30 or 40/40 in int/faith (I prefer to go hybrid or 40 dex before spending points in magic related attributes).

This guy's free aim is incredible, but half of his spellhits are thanks to the npcs (with either the help of their attacks or simply throwing spells through their models). I doubt it would work out the same way in a duel (yeah, I know this isn't the point of the game).

Do you have any idea of popular dagger builds in Demon Souls? I'm kinda sad that I can't find the video on youtube, the guy was using a weapon buff with a golden glow and wrecked people by endlessly spamming R1 with a dagger.

the problem is that it had "opt-in" pvp where you had to be in co-op for an invader to even show up

Isn't it (almost) the same for DkS3? Not counting Aldritch/Watchdogs of Farron.

[Tryhard]

Rolling/Estus drinking is faster like in Bloodborne. I've heard a lot of people complain about it (and in that game too) but it never really bothered me. I suppose I just have trouble getting over the fact that magic never seemed useful in PvP to me except for one or two cheesy things. Moonlight GS beams have always been fun though.

Dagger builds in Demon's Souls? I never really used any of them, but I've heard the Baby's Nail is only useful for inflicting plague (which is toxic in DeS). I've heard the Secret Dagger has really good backstab damage if you upgrade it to the Fatal path (which boosts critical damage, kinda weird), but I've also heard that a Fatal Estoc is better than that because of base damage.

The golden glow is probably Light Weapon. Best buff for a weapon that doesn't have good base damage like a Strength weapon (in which case Cursed Weapon is better but has an HP drain and just gives a flat +50% damage boost)

It was probably something like this: http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/character-builds:310

Be warned that farming for a Pure Bladestone to upgrade a dexterity weapon to Sharp +5 is a contender for the lowest drop in the series and is just dire. It might be lower than getting a Titanite Slab from the Darkwraiths in DS1.

No, you can be solo invaded in DS3, just that it's more likely to match you with co-opers. I play Bloodborne mostly solo so it never really came up. You can't kill a bell maiden, and I've heard something about Sunbro invaders being more likely to match with solo players, but that might have just been a rumour. It's true that invading life is hard life in DS3, though.

Edited June 10, 2016 by Tryhard

[Shahrivar]

He didn't backstab or inflict poison at all, he simply smashed R1 (and had enough stamina for at least 25+ hits) and killed everyone with it. I'm unable to play the game anyways, but I enjoyed watching the build.

I know you can, but I got only 1-2 invades in at least 100 hours below level 100. Invasions seem to strongly prefer people with phantoms.

On another note, did you take a look at the patch notes? While my Bandit Knife got a harsh nerf (as they changed the way WA interacted with low FP), it seems like there were a lot of decent changes like decreasing Miracle cast times, increasing Warmth heal and so on.

[peener weener]

in ds1 plenty of magic was useful in pvp tho

great combustion/black flame were useful, pursuers and dark bead shut out tonnes of options and could be hard to punish, obviously lolwotg which could be dead angled for some god forsaken reason, even stuff like great fireball and emit force could be used effectively. i would say none of this is hella cheesy like firestorm and twop either, they're all pretty straightforward, even if dark sorceries were super gay

i mean yeah all of that stuff was punishable but it was about as viable as anything else lol

there's also weapon buffs if you count that as magic

what is true of dark souls is that it's hard to use magic as a first choice, though. you need a melee weapon and it has to be your primary choice or you're kind of fucked outta luck, and that goes for both pve and pvp

edit: i can't speak for ds2 pvp cause i never did any

Edited June 10, 2016 by fuccboi

[Tryhard]

buffs were great but i wasn't really including them since they have always been great and that hasn't changed

I actually do like using great combustion in DS3 pvp, but here's what I don't like about DS1 pyromancy: it had no stat investment required. anyone could use it as long as they upgrade the pyromancy flame. pretty dumb imo. I prefer that it requires faith + intelligence now.

I don't know if i'm super hardcore xD or didn't play against good mages but I never had trouble with dark bead/pursuers which I could just roll through easily if dumb twop was not active. i'll still give props to Great Magic Barrier or Vow of Silence because it pisses the dark sorcery scumlords off

as for great fireball and emit force, I've never seen anyone use them. freeaiming them could work well but it could work just as well in DS3.

so like I guess I'm saying that magic has always been so inconsistent that there is like 4-5 offensive spells maximum that are effective at all and while others may be called "useful" I'm not sure that as a whole the games can claim a good implementation of magic

edit: i do feel for mages since the whole blue flask is directly a nerf over spell casts

He didn't backstab or inflict poison at all, he simply smashed R1 (and had enough stamina for at least 25+ hits) and killed everyone with it. I'm unable to play the game anyways, but I enjoyed watching the build.

On another note, did you take a look at the patch notes? While my Bandit Knife got a harsh nerf (as they changed the way WA interacted with low FP), it seems like there were a lot of decent changes like decreasing Miracle cast times, increasing Warmth heal and so on.

Yeah, Fatal upgrade increases backstab damage but Sharp upgrade is the Dexterity scaling upgrade path like the named same in DS3.

Patch looks good but haven't played yet.

Edited June 10, 2016 by Tryhard

[Esme]

It's wonderful. Can't be bothered to type out everything, but Reddit's got a thread detailing everything that was changed.

I'm actually surprised that they completely changed Farron Hail. It's actually legitimately useful now.

Warmth is also so goddamn GOOD. I hope Pestilent Mercury gets the Warmth/Hail treatment in the future.

[Esme]

Not yet, but I want those Crow's Quills so badly.

[spoiler=DLC datamining stuff]Looks like stamina consumption, FP consumption and damage values were added to the Tracers (Ciaran's weapons in DaSI.). They were found in the original game, but didn't have any values aside from a moveset and weapon models. They're probably going to be introduced in the final DLC.

Also, a moveset for a pair of greataxes was found. No models or stats or anything like that were found, though. Just the moveset itself.

[Ein]

Claws that deal about 1000 damage with one button press are dumb