Dark Souls 2: Lvl 55, Still can't beat The Pursuer.

Realitycrash

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garjian said:
DarkishFriend said:
Honestly you can literally skip The Pursurer, he is an entirely optional boss. If you want to proceed just got through Hiede's and the Wharf.
Meh. Honestly I'd say the No Man's Wharf area is much harder than the Pursuer for most builds. It's often the area I never bother doing because I always end up taking damage from the super-fast startup running attack that the pirate guys have if I'm using a weapon slower than a straight sword, and that annoys me.
I guess that's why I feel that area is the one which requires least attention and planning; Because both my Cleric and Warrior has is dual-wielding Heime Kight's Sword and Flame Sword. Just run in, slash R Slash L, they go down. I find dual-wielding to be more efficient in general, especially when fighting multiple foes, as the broad arc of the slashes tend to hit several opponents.
Have yet to come about a truly awesome two-handed weapon, though. Stacking Strength on Cleric, so might be worth.
 

j0frenzy

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First of all, in Dark Souls 2 the best way to grin is by being summoned. Never be afraid to lay down the old summon sign at the nearest bonfire, you don't have to wait long to get summoned and it's good experience (both in souls for victory and in learning how to fight the boss with little penalty)
Secondly, I found the best strategy to fight him was really just to strafe right around him and attack him 1 or 2 times when he's done swinging. I'm not sure if he's easier to fight ranged. The one time I fought him as a caster I had a meat shield to distract him and spent the entire fight away from him casting soul arrows.
Lastly, he is entirely optional. You can always just skip him.
 

Rosiv

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Realitycrash said:
hazabaza1 said:
Zhukov said:
Just use the Dark Souls 101 tactics for humanoid enemies.

Get close and circle him, hugging his shield.

He'll miss a lot. A couple of his attacks have long recovery times. Wait for them then smack him around. Don't get too greedy with the follow ups, try to leave enough stamina for one block.
Yup.
Get close, roll towards the swings, attack once when the opportunity arises then go back to keeping defensive position so you have the stamina to dodge/block and swing again.
Don't forget that your stamina raises lower when blocking so keep your guard down whenever possible.

He also gets absolutely wrecked by lightning damage. If you can get some range and throw lightning spears, even at the lowest faith requirement you'll take off a tenth of his health per spear.
Rosiv said:
Dodging in the game is affected by the Adaptability stat. The more of it you have, the more "invincibility frames" you will have. For example, if you have low adap right now a dodge might only give you 1 sec of "avoidance" for a attack, where as pumping it up higher would give you more, ( the actual stat that adaptability affects to give you the "better" dodging is Agility, for my mage, since he had light armor, i made him have it at least over 100 to get easier dodges.)

I also wouldn't bother to use a reg. shield to block unless its from weak mobs. For a boss you want a great shield with high stability, since the way poise works in the game is a bit gimping for heavy characters.
So in order to get a better dodge, the aim is to get higher Agi, not necessarily Adaptability?
I have a lvl 45 Cleric (did ye ol grind as well) that I just beat Dragon Rider with, and boy was that boss easy. If it is true that Pursuer is weak vs Lightning then my cleric should be able to beat him.
For the Cleric I was planning on going melee-dual weild with faith and high health but little armor. Is it better to go for the strenght-attribute and dual-wield, or go for dex since it pumps Agi as well?

Also, I have noticed that for certain classes certain attributes increases Poise, while for other classes it does not. How does that work? Or am I merely confused? Adaptability seem to raise poise for my swordsman, but Vigor appears to raise it for my Warrior.
I use wiki's for more "legitimate" sources than what i hearsay, and this is what they said in regards to adaptability.

http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Agility#.U12rT6L3wSU

info copy pasta'ed below:

"Increasing Agility
Agility is primarily increased through the Adaptability (ADP) stat and the Endurance (END) stat. Increases to ADP only begin to effect AGI after ADP is higher than 10, and returns begin diminishing once ADP is in the 38-40 range. Attunement (ATT) also seems to raise AGI, only on a smaller scale. To get to the maximum of 120 AGI, both ADP, ATT, and END must be maxed out at 99 points. (NOTE: Agility is primarily scaled based on your lower stat between END and ADP, increasing ADP only will not raise your agility, only points into the lower stat of the two increase agility as of patch 1.04, 1.05 calibrations)
Effects of Agility
The effects of high agility are not readily apparent at this time, but the following is what we know right now and is subject to change as we learn more. What we do know is that Agility has no noticeable effect on the speed of attacks, parries, or spell-casting.
Effects on Item Use
Higher agility allows characters to use consumable items (like life gems and the estus flask) with greater speed, meaning the player is exposed for less time while using such items. At the cap of 120 Agility, the time it takes to drink from the estus flask is reduced by about half of a second. This may not seem like a lot, but it is, and can absolutely make the difference when, for example, trying to consume an Estus Flask in a tight boss battle.
Frame-Rate Data For Rolling

Agility does have a noticeable but slight ability to increase the length of Iframes of rolling as shown in this test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrrymfvwDv0

Agility effectively makes it easier to roll through attacks. With low agility its best to roll away from attacks. Having about 95 - 100 agility (which 20 ADP will give you regardless of your attunment) seems to be best since anymore will have marginal benefits. Note that you can still roll through attacks with low agility but the timing is much more difficult to pull off and not feasible to preform consistently.

Basically, if you're a melee class you will want to get at least 20 ADP because it will make it much easier for you to roll through attacks. This allows you to stay close to an enemy and maybe even get behind them while dodging their attacks. For ranged characters a low agility will be just fine as long as you roll away from attacks and have a light equipment load for longer rolls. "

As for my opinion on the matter, ive done a decent amount of pvp. Ive gotten over 60 wins in the dragon covenant and over 50 in the brotherhood of blood. In my time fighting, ive noticed that lighter armor specs are more popular, but if i did encounter a heavy, they were using mostly Havel's set, which i assume has the best poise/def. And since dex affects attack speed, id say duel wield = dex, heavy weapon = str.
 

Calcium

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I beat him earlier tonight with my Deprived, though I was at least level 65 when I went back to fight him. I stayed real close to him and circled, tanking swings with my shield (Twin Dragon shield - the one from the merchant in Mejula). Would swing once or twice with my weapon whenever he was recovering from an attack. At the time I must have had stats along the lines of: 20 Vigor, 12 Vitality, 12 Endurance, 10 Attunement, 20 Strength, 20 Dexterity, 12 Adaptability.
 

teebeeohh

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he melts reasonably fast to magic damage, after the first time he kills you(when he rises out of the ground) you can land about 3 heavy soul arrows (my casting speed is like 90ish) on him before he gets to you. after that you unlock, run to the other end of the area, wait for him to charge, roll back twice and fire one or two spells. rinse and repeat.

as for melee, my quick and nimble swordmaster had a hard time with him, she died in two hits(and if he hits you once he usually hits you twice) and i had trouble figuring out what exactly telegraphs which swing he does as the third hit in his combo. i eat him by always waiting for the thrust attack and only attacking when he does that, easier to dodge
 

garjian

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Realitycrash said:
I guess that's why I feel that area is the one which requires least attention and planning; Because both my Cleric and Warrior has is dual-wielding Heime Kight's Sword and Flame Sword. Just run in, slash R Slash L, they go down. I find dual-wielding to be more efficient in general, especially when fighting multiple foes, as the broad arc of the slashes tend to hit several opponents.
Have yet to come about a truly awesome two-handed weapon, though. Stacking Strength on Cleric, so might be worth.
What is it with people and Fire Longsword?
It's just a fire infused Longsword... it's pretty terrible. If it were magic and you had Magic Weapon, I'd get it but...
 

Realitycrash

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Rosiv said:
Realitycrash said:
hazabaza1 said:
Zhukov said:
Snip
As for my opinion on the matter, ive done a decent amount of pvp. Ive gotten over 60 wins in the dragon covenant and over 50 in the brotherhood of blood. In my time fighting, ive noticed that lighter armor specs are more popular, but if i did encounter a heavy, they were using mostly Havel's set, which i assume has the best poise/def. And since dex affects attack speed, id say duel wield = dex, heavy weapon = str.
Oh, so dex increases attack-speed? Did not know that. Thanks!
 

Realitycrash

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garjian said:
Realitycrash said:
I guess that's why I feel that area is the one which requires least attention and planning; Because both my Cleric and Warrior has is dual-wielding Heime Kight's Sword and Flame Sword. Just run in, slash R Slash L, they go down. I find dual-wielding to be more efficient in general, especially when fighting multiple foes, as the broad arc of the slashes tend to hit several opponents.
Have yet to come about a truly awesome two-handed weapon, though. Stacking Strength on Cleric, so might be worth.
What is it with people and Fire Longsword?
It's just a fire infused Longsword... it's pretty terrible. If it were magic and you had Magic Weapon, I'd get it but...
It's simply decent for what you have that early. I honestly have little knowldge how Dark SOuls-weapon works or what is good to infuse and what not. I just try to keep my eyes open for a weapon with decent scaling. Hoping the Katana will do the work.
 

Augustine

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Well...
It pays well to learn the Pursuer patterns of attack since this in not the last time you'll meet him/them.
There is an optional encounter with him earlier in the Forest, but I know you are fighting him in the area with the ballistae. The utterly trivial way to beat him there is to summon a tanky player, and while he keeps the Pursuer busy, line up a ballista shot and instantly reduce his health by 80%...

But. Like I said, you will fight him again, and it may be useful to know how to beat him head-on. Circlestafing his shield-wielding side is good, but he still can get you there. Plus, in later fight he gains a stunningly powerful close range move that can kill instantly. What I learned during his later fight is that, counter-intuitively most optimal dodging direction against him, and many other foes, is not to the sides or away, but diagonally forward-right.
Keep your distance, as far as you can. This will prompt him to do a lunge/charge attack - this is what you want. Do the forward-right dodge into his charge. This will put you behind him when he stops. Hurt him and back out before he recovers.
Repeat.
I heard that parry works on him, but its harder to pull off.

Remember this dodge move - you'll need it again.
 

Leaper

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Realitycrash said:
Any tips concerning what I could do to win? Except summon other players.
Strafe RIGHT while having lock-on. Stay CLOSE to him, dont do more than 2 swings. If you have to dodge, dodge INTO him, not away, or his lock on will chop you down.

I had problems with him too, until I started using my head, then he became cakewalk :d
 

Realitycrash

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Leaper said:
Realitycrash said:
Any tips concerning what I could do to win? Except summon other players.
Strafe RIGHT while having lock-on. Stay CLOSE to him, dont do more than 2 swings. If you have to dodge, dodge INTO him, not away, or his lock on will chop you down.

I had problems with him too, until I started using my head, then he became cakewalk :d
Using your head or not is irrelevant if the problem comes down to keeping up a split-second timing non-stop for the ten minutes it takes to kill him. I know what I am supposed to do, but the margin for error is so ridiculously small that it becomes near impossible. Any other early game boss (Dragonslayer/Dragonrider/Giant) has no-where near as unforgiving mechanics.
 

Realitycrash

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Augustine said:
Well...
It pays well to learn the Pursuer patterns of attack since this in not the last time you'll meet him/them.
There is an optional encounter with him earlier in the Forest, but I know you are fighting him in the area with the ballistae. The utterly trivial way to beat him there is to summon a tanky player, and while he keeps the Pursuer busy, line up a ballista shot and instantly reduce his health by 80%...

But. Like I said, you will fight him again, and it may be useful to know how to beat him head-on. Circlestafing his shield-wielding side is good, but he still can get you there. Plus, in later fight he gains a stunningly powerful close range move that can kill instantly. What I learned during his later fight is that, counter-intuitively most optimal dodging direction against him, and many other foes, is not to the sides or away, but diagonally forward-right.
Keep your distance, as far as you can. This will prompt him to do a lunge/charge attack - this is what you want. Do the forward-right dodge into his charge. This will put you behind him when he stops. Hurt him and back out before he recovers.
Repeat.
I heard that parry works on him, but its harder to pull off.

Remember this dodge move - you'll need it again.
What bothers me is that I am having a hard time keeping my distance and baiting out his charge-move. After he does it the initial time I am in melee-range and after that I have a really hard time getting out of melee-range. Criclestrafing to the left constantly seem to be a reliable way of beating him, but the timing required...Urgh. People say that I should strafe right..Maybe better?
Like I said, I had Adapt 10 on this fight, before I skipped it and did entire Wharf instead. Now I am respecced with light-armor and Adapt 28 at lvl 60, so maybe I should go back and give it another try.
 

Augustine

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Realitycrash said:
Augustine said:
Well...
It pays well to learn the Pursuer patterns of attack since this in not the last time you'll meet him/them.
There is an optional encounter with him earlier in the Forest, but I know you are fighting him in the area with the ballistae. The utterly trivial way to beat him there is to summon a tanky player, and while he keeps the Pursuer busy, line up a ballista shot and instantly reduce his health by 80%...

But. Like I said, you will fight him again, and it may be useful to know how to beat him head-on. Circlestafing his shield-wielding side is good, but he still can get you there. Plus, in later fight he gains a stunningly powerful close range move that can kill instantly. What I learned during his later fight is that, counter-intuitively most optimal dodging direction against him, and many other foes, is not to the sides or away, but diagonally forward-right.
Keep your distance, as far as you can. This will prompt him to do a lunge/charge attack - this is what you want. Do the forward-right dodge into his charge. This will put you behind him when he stops. Hurt him and back out before he recovers.
Repeat.
I heard that parry works on him, but its harder to pull off.

Remember this dodge move - you'll need it again.
What bothers me is that I am having a hard time keeping my distance and baiting out his charge-move. After he does it the initial time I am in melee-range and after that I have a really hard time getting out of melee-range. Criclestrafing to the left constantly seem to be a reliable way of beating him, but the timing required...Urgh. People say that I should strafe right..Maybe better?
Like I said, I had Adapt 10 on this fight, before I skipped it and did entire Wharf instead. Now I am respecced with light-armor and Adapt 28 at lvl 60, so maybe I should go back and give it another try.
If you successfully dodge his first lunge, you will be behind him, and you have enough time to hit him and back out. As long as you are not directly in front of him, there shouldn't be any problem getting back out. Only thing I can add is not to be greedy and use up all of the stamina attacking.
I mean, I did on Deprived character with 6 adaptability. It can be done. Pursuer teaches a lot of lessons on damage avoidance, and the sooner they are learned, the better off you are down the line.
 

Realitycrash

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inu-kun said:
If you can get Old knight shield, you'll be able to block pretty much everything and the game becomes much easier, also Volarian sword (the one from the pirate cove) is damn awesome weapon.
Which sword is this? Can't find any sword named Volarian Sword in the wiki. Pirate Cove = No Man's Wharf?
 

gonzo20

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he was pretty tough the first time but when you get used to him you can cheese him by just rolling through his attacks, i rarely use a sheild now, the roll is king, you need at least 20 adaptability to have a good roll.
 

XDSkyFreak

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for the guy before me asking bout the sworf: Varangian Sword or something along those lines. Am using it on my knight.

Now the Pursuer and bos fights in general:

Leason 1: Learn to adapt. Think about the boss you face and decide what you should focus on

To ilustrate: The Pursuer is one of the best examples of a boss that can be beaten with both types of builds: fast and tanky (talking as a mele fighter as that was what the OP had problems with). Fast builds should have lower than 50% equipment load with an armour as protective as posible (this depends alot on your own weight limitations so there is no dedicated set for this) and a SMALL SHIELD for parying at first, then when wight allows it a greatshield because of its stability (honestly IDK what medium shields are for ... they offer neither the speed of lights when parying nor the stability of greatshields when blocking ... jacks of all masters of none). The most important thing is having the long dodge and mastering it. The fast build excels versus large hulking bosses that can easily crush your guard (Old Iron King, Freja, Rotten ... the sort) and also versus tag teams (Sentinels, Gargoyles, Pursuer NG+)

Tanky builds: Go all out. Fuck the weight limits and get the heaviest most protective tin can you can find and the biggest most badass greatshield you can get. You won't dodge as much as circle your foes blocking their every hit and getting in a few hits yourself when stamina allows it. And laugh as they don't even damage you. Tanky builds can dodge but you will mostly use it if you PvP with them to prevent a pesky backstab. I also recomend a spear or halebard with this build as it's attacks are short and you can easily recover from them plus they give you reach (axes work well too but with short range). Boses bulnerable to this are mostly the humanoid ones (Old Dragonslayer, Lost Sinner, Dragonrider, Flextile Sentry) because boses never go for the backstab.

The ideal state of the mele character is one where he can keep his heavy tanky armour and his long dodge, but that needs alot of grinding to happen.

Leason 2: Study the boss

Obvious, I know. But did you ever go into a boss fight and spend a minute without atempting any attack what so ever and watching just what the boss likes to do against you? You may be shocked how usefull that can be if you plan to solo (also if you are soloing join the Champions covenant, it helps imensly to force you to learn).

Leason 3: Pick you weapon smartly

Don't just look at the damage value of the weapon. As a veteran I can tell you this: damage is 25% of the weapon, move set if the rest. Go in Majula and see how you move with each weapon, how fast you swing, what types of swings and hits it uses. Pick a move set that suits YOU and one that exploits your enemy: some have long recovery times, others only give you seconds to hit them then you need to go back on the defensive. Some of the fastest, most usefull weapons for this are halebards, spears, reapers, normal swords (curved and straight) and katanas.

Also consider what each boss is vulnerable to (reading a wiki on elemental weakneses isn't shamefull. Beyond that the algorithm is simple: heavyly armored and/or metalic? Lightning; Organic corpse or animal? Fire; In doubt and clearly not an arcane/poison boss? Use magic or poison. Usefull for all? Enchant mundane and get 40/40 str/dex.

Leason 4: How to deal with congregations

When the boss has his retinue of little creatures with him, just ignore the boss and wipe our the smaller creatures. Believe me, this will save you alot of pointless deaths.

Leason 5: Calm, patience and focus trump adrenaline and greed.

Keep calm, focused and don't let the adrenaline and greed make you take unecesary rinsks. You are not under a time limit. So just take your time.
 

Riddle78

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You can parry him. Can't riposte him,but if you parry him,he'll be a sitting duck for a few seconds. Use the window to either beat on him like a cheap drum,or,if the angle's right,unload with the ballistae. Aside from that,summon in a tanky helper,and take turns smacking him around a little. But,considering your aversion to summoning? Orbit,backpedal,bait attacks. Those ballistae can REALLY tear him down.
 

Dandark

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Realitycrash said:
garjian said:
Why has nobody mentioned the ballista?

Go through the fog,
Wait... maybe move to the right a little,
Dodge the attack, (or apparently, parry him, but I've never bothered to try myself)
Sprint to the ballista,
Shoot him for 98% damage.

Even without that he's fairly easy. He telegraphs all of his attacks a lot and therefore easy to roll. I know it's early days but rolling is a must-learn mechanic. Also, leveling doesn't do very much in comparison to upgrading your equipment... being even max-level, 838, will not help you that much if you're not good with the game's mechanics.
Also also also, shields are terrible... there aren't many circumstances blocking with a shield is better than rolling, and having a shield just hinders you from learning how to roll effectively because it's easier to do, and weighs you down.

Edit: 1 person actually did mention the ballista... which still surprises me 'cause I was sure that's how everybody did it on anything other than their first time just to get it out of the way quickly.
I've never been able to reach the ballista and fire it on him without him showing up and destroying it before I can use it, so there's that.
Just beat him with my Cleric. Going to try with my Warrior. And yeah, Shield DO seem rather useless.

Anyone have a tip for a high-def/low-weight armor that can be acquired early? Best I have found so far is the Bandits-armor in No Man's Wharf. Are there any better?
I don't have any fancy stats or math to back this up but for me my favourite armour early on is the falconer armour. The knight starts with it but you can also get it from the armourer in Majula. I use the leggings, gloves and torso armour but I don't wear a helmet at all.

It's fairly light and has some decent defense, I don't use a shield for the most part so I rely on rolling and the falconer armour lets me keep decent defense while also staying below 50% equip load. When deciding armour you want to keep in mind how much it weighs, your roll changes to become slower at 70%. You generally want to stay below 70% as it butchers your roll so try equipping lighter armour and you may have more luck against the pursuer .
 

Lotet

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Dandark said:
When deciding armour you want to keep in mind how much it weighs, your roll changes at 25%, 50% and 70%. You generally want to stay below 70% as it butchers your roll so try equipping lighter armour and you may have more luck against the pursuer .
Actually, your roll is the same, move different distances below 70%. Above 70 is when your roll changes to a different, slower animation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP-FPz53t_0
here, a 50 second video showing 70% to 0% is only different by distance, not speed.
The latter half of the video also shows how fast stamina recovers at different weights.
 

White Lightning

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Dude you know you can parry him right? Just stand in front of a ballista and parry him, run to it and shoot him. You can kill him with 1 throwing knife after. Can't parry? Get him in front of a ballista and have him start a 3 move combo. Just run to the ballista when he starts and shoot him.

In all honesty this is probably one of the better bosses in the game but he's really easy. Just wait until the Smelter Demon or Velstadt start raping you and your incredibly large and shitty hit box, seriously I can't even begin to understand how Fromsoft fucked up the hit boxes so badly.