The Official Souls Forum (Demon/DS1/DS2)

[LEGEND]

Pure dex builds definitely cant compete with the hybrid builds using weapon buffs damage wise, but i've been using poison lately and that definitely makes up for it

Hybrid builds are still probably better at poison tactics though . Dex just seems very underwhelming atm compared to all of the borderline broken shit going around

 

[TheSpore]

So I started all over since I really wanted to do a dark mage dex build. Spent several hours playing coop to get the souls I need to place my stats where I want them, but for the love of God have a freaking reason to summon me either you want help with an area boss or you just can't get to the boss, don't summon me and then expect a dinky mage with a few soul arrows to carry the weight when your the melee tank and don't just run in swinging like some full in a Monty Python movie. Seriously the ones who wanted help were some of the most idiotic players I have ever had the displeasure of aiding.

Sorry not a big PvP kinda guy!!!

 

[LEGEND]

Co-op can be so frustrating.

 

[TheSpore]

So whats a good armour set for a dex/dark mage build anyway, never even did much magic nor faith in DS1, always went dex thief route back then.

 

[Killphil]

So whats a good armour set for a dex/dark mage build anyway, never even did much magic nor faith in DS1, always went dex thief route back then.

I'm doing dex/intelligence and I just picked up the lion mage's outfit. Each piece increases casting time by 6 for a total of 18. Super lightweight. Like almost not wearing any armor, so you'll need to upgrade it to at least +5/+6 to resemble a base medium armor. Black witch's hat is good for an extra attunement slot or the chaos helm for extra casting speed iirc. Pretty positive there's more, but that's what I got for now.

Also side note: apparently it wasn't a waste getting the santier's spear from the tombs of pharros.

 

[smokey]

As far as dex goes i would say the new "quality" builds should be elemental focussed. Pick your weapon, get the str/dex for it and then pump faith or int/faith up so you have either 30/30 or 40/40 for dark damage, 40-50 faith for lightning, or a total of 60 int/faith for fire damage. Also can go full int for Magic damage (with Crystal magic weapon).

Double dips the scaling/stat bonus when you are using a weapon that already deals damage for the type (black knights/fire build are DAMAGE) as you get a solid increase plus a % damage increase on the respective elemental buffs (resonant weapon gives +50% dark damage/fire gives 30%/sunlight gives 30%/CMW gives 30%)

So basically to pump the damage on most weapons to a decent level without needing the 40/40 str/dex quality is just to pick an elemental buff and raise your bonus in that type of damage, give it the right infusion and then bring along a weapon buff spell.

 

[LEGEND]

As far as dex goes i would say the new "quality" builds should be elemental focussed. Pick your weapon, get the str/dex for it and then pump faith or int/faith up so you have either 30/30 or 40/40 for dark damage, 40-50 faith for lightning, or a total of 60 int/faith for fire damage. Also can go full int for Magic damage (with Crystal magic weapon).

Double dips the scaling/stat bonus when you are using a weapon that already deals damage for the type (black knights/fire build are DAMAGE) as you get a solid increase plus a % damage increase on the respective elemental buffs (resonant weapon gives +50% dark damage/fire gives 30%/sunlight gives 30%/CMW gives 30%)

So basically to pump the damage on most weapons to a decent level without needing the 40/40 str/dex quality is just to pick an elemental buff and raise your bonus in that type of damage, give it the right infusion and then bring along a weapon buff spell.

this is basically what my first character is now. Started him of as a swordsmen without realizing that a Swordsmen isn't the best class for a dex build (lol) but it worked out for me since Swordsmen is apparently the best class for almost any kind of magic/combat hybrid

Infused Rulers GS + Buff. Only requires 20 str and dex and does well over 500 damage pre buff.

Also now that two handing a weapon doubles your str, 20-25 is a pretty great place to stop at as weapon buffs/infusions will deal more damage than going with the str scaling anyway and the one handed attacks of strength weapons are usually meh anyways (aside from the smelter's, godlike one handed R1 that you can chase rolls with and can bait n punish BS attempts with the follow-up)

 

[TheSpore]

I'm doing dex/intelligence and I just picked up the lion mage's outfit. Each piece increases casting time by 6 for a total of 18. Super lightweight. Like almost not wearing any armor, so you'll need to upgrade it to at least +5/+6 to resemble a base medium armor. Black witch's hat is good for an extra attunement slot or the chaos helm for extra casting speed iirc. Pretty positive there's more, but that's what I got for now.

Also side note: apparently it wasn't a waste getting the santier's spear from the tombs of pharros.

Thanx for the tip I knew I didn't want anything heavy, so far I am building the character to be one hell of a caster.

 

[smokey]

this is basically what my first character is now. Started him of as a swordsmen without realizing that a Swordsmen isn't the best class for a dex build (lol) but it worked out for me since Swordsmen is apparently the best class for almost any kind of magic/combat hybrid

Infused Rulers GS + Buff. Only requires 20 str and dex and does well over 500 damage pre buff.

Also now that two handing a weapon doubles your str, 20-25 is a pretty great place to stop at as weapon buffs/infusions will deal more damage than going with the str scaling anyway and the one handed attacks of strength weapons are usually meh anyways (aside from the smelter's, godlike one handed R1 that you can chase rolls with and can bait n punish BS attempts with the follow-up)

Defenders greatsword has a really good 1 handed moveset so i decided to grab a second one and have dual wield, but i was considering your idea before that.

A club or UGS would be my go to for this, something that has a nice 2 handed move set and requires too much strength to 1 hand (Giant warrior club with 30 str was the idea- normally needs 60str to wield). Grabbing 40/40 int/faith, the minimum strength/dex to 2 hand it, then going Dark Imbue + Resonant Weapon... Something like that is going to be pretty scary when you have like 20 free strength points to put into other stats, as well as being able to cast spells, hexes and miracles.

 

[smokey]

I'm doing dex/intelligence and I just picked up the lion mage's outfit. Each piece increases casting time by 6 for a total of 18. Super lightweight. Like almost not wearing any armor, so you'll need to upgrade it to at least +5/+6 to resemble a base medium armor. Black witch's hat is good for an extra attunement slot or the chaos helm for extra casting speed iirc. Pretty positive there's more, but that's what I got for now.

Also side note: apparently it wasn't a waste getting the santier's spear from the tombs of pharros.

Some real cool armor effects in DS2, worth checking this list out-
http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/21txwe/buildwiki_help_stat_bonus_casting_speed_and/

 

[Juggs]

If anyone on XBL is around SL150, please add me for some duels. Want to play some good players who actually think, rather than herp derp mashers who get pooped on for free. I'm in NG right now but I already beat the game, just a few stuff I still wanna do so haven't went to NG+ yet.

Also, started my SL1 playthrough today. So far it isn't too hard, but it's not the beginning I'm worried about for a SL1 playthrough. It's going to be much tougher than DS1, since deprived is the SL1 of this game with horrid stats. Love the challenge of it though!

 

[Qwark28]

ATM my build is full on hexes with dex.

Using nashandras chime for S hex scaling, great resonant wep for the dps buff, ring of blades +2, dragons +3 etc.

the build can only go like 24 dex but the increased dmg is worth it, I'll be doing about 800dmg per blackblade/uchi/man slayer hit

 

[smokey]

ATM my build is full on hexes with dex.

Using nashandras chime for S hex scaling, great resonant wep for the dps buff, ring of blades +2, dragons +3 etc.

the build can only go like 24 dex but the increased dmg is worth it, I'll be doing about 800dmg per blackblade/uchi/man slayer hit

I realised last night that the only thing my build needed was this spell: http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Profound+Still#.Uz5onvldVeg

Ultimate counter to any magic user, some guys i have fought don't even have secondary weapons, so they are totally fucked from the start.

 

[Qwark28]

So, just made my build, chime of want +5, man slayer +5 with resonant weapon

Hit some dude with medium armour for 450 a hit, a sorcerer for 550 a hit and 650 counterhit.

Meh, doesn't look like there's much difference, what I noticed is that the dark bonus is REALLY low on my manslayer, probably because it scales off of int which is only 15 and gives a +17 dark bonus.

I might drop the S rating of chime of want for a cheaper A rating and more int for dark bonus, probably something like 23 int 24 faith and spices to lower resonant weapon requirement if I don't reach it.

edit: hit some dude with 600s and looked like he was wearing medium armour. I need to try upgrading something like a claymore or a good greatsword. The dark halberd from skeleton lords has a dark rating even without infusion, that might do hella damage if upgraded.

 

[Qwark28]

Right now just pvping and testing, using "mercy" on the scrubs I kill while bowing to those who offer good fights, loving the mercy emote.

Did 300 damage on some dude with almsot no armour, wtf. He had me 1 hp or so, no health visible, hit him once, accidentaly pressed forward and guard broke his roll ( ??? ) and finished him off with another hit, spent a second or so trying to realise what happened and his retaliation ring got me.

 

[LEGEND]

Manslayer isn't going to be as good for infusions and buffs, washing pole, berserker and chaos blade are all better kitanas. Also you can infuse catalysts with dark or magic to increase their scaling on spells as well

 

[Qwark28]

Manslayer isn't going to be as good for infusions and buffs, washing pole, berserker and chaos blade are all better kitanas. Also you can infuse catalysts with dark or magic to increase their scaling on spells as well

Good to know.

 

[BaronVonRupert]

Just finished my no bonfire run and got my exalted ring. The true brokeness starts here.

 

[Qwark28]

This game's farming is retarded.

Farm effigies to farm ascetics to farm dragon bones and vessels to upgrade weapons.

 

[BaronVonRupert]

This game's farming is retarded.

Farm effigies to farm ascetics to farm dragon bones and vessels to upgrade weapons.

there is one decent staff for int users that have no faith that can only be gotten from the necromancers that don't respawn in huntsmans copse. the only reasonable method of obtaining it is going into the chariot boss and killing the necromancers as fast as you can and warping out. i've been doing this for an hour now.
i really fucking hate this game sometimes.

 

[TheSpore]

I decided the Old Iron King is a terrible coop boss run

 

[Qwark28]

Found my DBS <3.

Doing 1,1k damage per swing on people in the arena.

 

[Juggs]

I made a new character for my STR build and just decided to try out the maces early on since I haven't used them yet. Has anyone else found out how broken dual wielding power stance maces are for PvE? Like, you can literally hit a boss 4 times with the L2/LT attack and they die. Not to mention that it often stun locks them so you can regen stamina and do it again before they can recover (on the bosses that can actually get stunlocked though). And they one shots the ninja turtles, shit is broken as fuck.

Anyway, doing pretty good on my SL1 playthrough. I like the challenge but it does get boring. I need to get streaming/recording equipment so I can get through the playthrough, it's really tedious.

Also, found out you can make the jump from cardinal tower to the end game area where you need the king ring to open the gate. Was watching some guy do a speedrun and he tried it a bunch and made the jump. So after many attempts I as well made it. Doing crazy skilled jumps has been my thing in many different games, so it's cool there's some shit like that in this game.

If you're having trouble farming Human Effigy's and have a few Bonefire Aesthetics, go to the first Spider bonfire that is in a tent with the farmers and pigs. There's a chest there that you can get to by jumping in the well that respawns if you use an Aesthetic. You might have to break it after opening it for it to respawn, that's what I've been doing. The only downside is you have to do that boss fight against the priests each time which becomes a problem after the 3rd Aesthetic (they were 2 shotting me with their lightning spears). But, it's still worth it to get 15 human effigys where it would have taken me probably 2 hours to farm that much. They definitely made effigys a little too rare imo, pretty annoying really.

 

[Qwark28]

So, I found out that the washing pole suits me better, way more range for poking than the katanas, bit sad that I have to let them go after 5 years of pvping with them.

Had some dude message me "Healing twat" after I chugged estus when he toxic clouded me from the other side of the arena, asked him if he was salty and he said that I should try using a smaller weapon.

Next time I saw him, I chased him so long my washing pole almost broke, switched to dual uchis and finished him off, you'd be surprised how many people can't grasp the concept of rolling through attacks in pvp.

Of course, I did mercy and then I waved. He hasn't responded.

The long range got me thinking, maybe I could use the long ass poke of the washing pole to force them to rolling early and just dash in with my manslayer's shorter attack which will probably hit. I could do it with the pole too though. I need to find a katana-only strength, I wanna use them but phantom range too stronk.

 

[Smoke_Of_Finland]

Stabbing swords and spears were moderately useful for PVE in the earlier games. Dragonslayer spear was good for PVP as well in DKS1, but in this game they are just useless. The Zweihander sucks balls in this game, I only have 20 dex and a +5 lightning Arced sword does more damage than a +10 lightning Zweihander with faster attacks.

Are there any strength weapons that have uninterruptable attacks? (like the meat cleaver in Demon's Souls). I am getting stunlocked by whips...