Dark Souls 2 [360, PS3, PC] Review

[Silvergun X]

1. Why am I never summoned to help out the good samaritan Blue Rinse squad? (If I don't see some action I may ditch 'em for next covenant I come across).

I think things are flaky with this right now. I started off as part of the Blue Sentinels, and I only ever got called to action to 'defend a world in need' once in 17 hours. The connection failed.

Whenever I use a Cracked Blue Orb to try and invade a world of the guilty, it doesn't even try looking - It just immediately fails saying it can't find a guilty world.

There seems to be a problem with red spirit invasions at the moment, in that there's only a finite amount of cracked red orbs and even though you can earn more by sparring with your guild partners, I don't think many people are figuring this out.

I left them and joined the Bellkeepers instead and I'm very, very glad I did. They're exceptionally fun!

Regarding Bellkeeper unlocks, specifically relevant to a Melee / INT hybrid character interested in PvP -

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I got 32 PvP kills in the Belfry Luna last night, and just unlocked Hidden Weapon. This is a Sorcery that you cast and use on your other hand weapon that makes it invisible, so the player can't see what you're wielding... It sounds like great fun but I've gone Strength and Faith so it's not so relevant to me unfortunately.

[Golgo]

Thanks, Mr. Wong, that's very helpful. Seems the online/covenant system is no less abstruse than previous games. I've been able to invade a world with cracked red, for example (and got pounded), but blue orb is always greyed out.

[Silvergun X]

Something awesome today, regarding the smooth and shiny stones:

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I traded in 8 of the stones at the bird's nest in Things Betwixt, and one of the items I got back was a Channeller's Trident, which is AWESOME. Hold it two handed and use your strong attack, and you do the Channeller's dance from Dark Souls, and buff the attack of your allies.

Could be mega useful when going co-op on bosses.

[fuse]

I would just like to say a very quick but heartfelt

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**** the Smelter Demon

.

[chopemon]

I would just like to say a very quick but heartfelt

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**** the Smelter Demon

.

SAME HERE.

As a general question, I am playing with a sword and shield. Ive put loads of points into dex and have a top level Falchion. Against normal enemies I'm fine but against every boss my damage output is tiny. For my sword and shield play style would I better respeccing to strength and use a strength weapon?

Has anyone had experience with the Black Steel Katana and the Uchi with a dex class? Is their damage output significantly better?

[Silvergun X]

Ive put loads of points into dex and have a top level Falchion. Against normal enemies I'm fine but against every boss my damage output is tiny. For my sword and shield play style would I better respeccing to strength and use a strength weapon?

Doesn't Bleed proc on bosses? I would've thought with a high DEX build and a bleed capable weapon you'll be doing burst damage on bosses whenever you reach the bleed threshold.

[chopemon]

Never seen bleed damage come up on bosses or any enemies for that matter

[Uli]

anyone who made some experience with the Black Armor DLC weapon set? i all looks like useless junk for my Knight character...

[Silvergun X]

Never seen bleed damage come up on bosses or any enemies for that matter

I must test this!

I went Dex build on Dark Souls and loved it. I'm absolutely adoring my strength cleric build at the moment though, simply because Emit Force is far too easy to use in PvP.

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GTFO my Bell Tower >=(

[chopemon]

Yeah, I dexed in DS1 and always felt good about my damage. Now I feel really underpowered.

[Golgo]

I use a morning star with high bleed damage. Never seen it registered as a meter on any enemies, assumed it was invisibly calculated in somehow...? It's calculated as part of total damage in weapon stats.

[Tobal]

Damage definitely various between blunt, thrust and slash. I can completely smash hollows and skeles with my mace or hammer, but everything else damage is normal or lower on heavy armoured. As far as I know every enemy and boss has a resist bar like ours, you just have fill it for it to take effect, normal enemies are likely to die before you fill the bar. I've seen enemies in Earthen Peak, wade in to toxic sludge and only start taking damage after 6-10 seconds in it.

I thought I was near the end... far from it, still opening up new areas and the enemies, traps and tricks are intensifying. Just lost 30,000 souls being hasty .

[Silvergun X]

Bleed damage doesn't register as anything different, you notice it in the same way as you did with Dark Souls - You'll hear a specific sound effect going off and all of a sudden your damage will jump up, so you'll be hitting for 54, 54, 54, 300, 54, 54, 54, 300, etc.

[briareos_kerensky]

I'm joining the thread.
Started off with my usual knight, since Demon's knights saw their metal armours scaled down...now even an open helm! I was relieved to find a sturdy metal helment somewhere in the Forest of Fallen Giants. Now at the

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Fire Tower/No Man's Wharf, found the basic knight set from the first Dark Soul but only the breastplate offers better protection of what I have

.
I spent a fair amount of time trying to get rid of the

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Pursuer

; once I gave up and started to explore other areas: this unearthed

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a fire longsword near in the tunnel with the spitting Salamander, attacked the sleeping knight near the beginning of the Forest and got a lighting longsword

. I ditched

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the fire longsword

almost immediately, because thanks to stat bonuses the old and trusty broadsword was more effective;

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the lighting longsword was a step up

, but still not quite enough to get me through the

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Pursuer.

..summoning time! And with the help of a fine lad, I was able to defeat the

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Pursuer

.
Went to the

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Lost Bastille via eagle express but it's a dead end from there

...or is it?
Then I got invaded, only to see the invader stumble to his death in the

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Bastille's

narrow passageway.
The souls from the

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Pursuer

were used to increase strenght and now I'm happy with a +1 bastard sword, which I used to make short work of the

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Dragonrider

...a rather anti-climatic battle.

Anyone noticed how dead enemies seem to move from time to time? I would move around an area, only to make a sharp turn and see a dead body ragdolling its way from where it shouldn't have been.

[crocky-chocky]

Anyone noticed how dead enemies seem to move from time to time? I would move around an area, only to make a sharp turn and see a dead body ragdolling its way from where it shouldn't have been.

Aye. They return to being totally lifeless once you've looked back at them for so long. It's a bit creepy.

Speaking of creepy, has anyone encountered a Mimic yet? Good grief.

Got to the top of the

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Earthen Peak

. A bit of a low point for me so far.

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Downright ugly aesthetics with an N64 murk palette and two particularly naff bosses.

I do love that DS2 has more plentiful bosses, but so far they're a bit uneven next to the immaculate cast of the original.

I've had some fantastic scraps against Phantoms so far where I've used hazards to my advantage. Does anyone know why a Phantom's attack breaks through my guard even with 100% physical damage reduction on my shield?

EDIT: Cheers Silvergun!