Dark Souls 2 respec

[jademunky]

So my first playthrough in DS2 is winding down. I have just unsuccessfully fought the Ancient Dragon. I have all the giant's memories souls, just getting ready to go back to the castle.

Anyway, rather than going back and finishing the game, I am thinking of respeccing for PVP. Right now I have a hopelessly poorly built lv 146 with 35 to vitality, 45 to int, 30 to atn, 30 faith, 20 stamina and 18 agi.

I've never gone dual-wield and would probably like to go in that direction. What build and equipment work well? I have 2 Rickard's Rapiers and am kinda curious if anyone has tried dueling them.

Not totally sure of this belongs in the Gaming or Advice forum.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Dual wielding rapiers is a decent choice, but I'm not sure there's much reason to go with Ricards over other options outside of if you just have a ton of extra points to put in Dex. You'll also want a lot of stamina so that you can essentially lock down a target and poke them to death. Another important thing to keep in mind when speccing to dual wield is to put enough points into both the Str and Dex requirements of a weapon to allow you to power stance dual wield. You'll need 150% at minimum of both requirements to open up the power stance (hold your Two Hand the Weapon button for a second or two). If you have high enough stats and have two weapons equipped, you'll see your character adjust their grip on their off hand weapon. If you don't, your character will just switch to two handing one of the weapons. This opens up a couple of new moves on what would be your left hand normal and power attack buttons, some of which are extremely useful like the dual wielded mace power attack.

I'm not sure what sort of play style you're used to though given those stats so more than a specific build I think a good first step would just be to get used to dual wielding in general. Especially with dual rapiers, you're going to have to get used to having a very linear attack pattern, and that will open you up to rolls and possibly parrying by a human opponent.

 

[jademunky]

So no rapiers? Okay, first thing tomorrow, we go with dual Katanas. I have one that does poison and I think I have an artifact that I can use on the other to inflict bleed.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Theres a lot of good info on Youtube for builds and guides. Heres a randomly picked one of a warrior pvp build from a guy I recommend, He does heaps of builds. His names Fightincowboy


And heres a guy who can help you figure out what weapons you want. Hes trialled TONS of weapons and made vids like this. Heres one on Ricards Rapier.


edit: Oh shit thats Dark souls 1 lol, but still he does showcase a lot of DKS 2 weapons too now.

 

[demoman_chaos]

A buddy of mine found out that you can power stance mixed weapons, and is using the scimitar with a rapier for immense damage (he might switch to the Uchigatana once he gets the Dull Ember). The R1/R2 are from the rapier alone, so you have pokes and a parry, the L1/L2 are the dual-scimitar attacks.

 

[Syntax Error]

I've been watching Strippin's LP of the game and he went from STR 2-handing hammers to dual wielding Katanas.

Also, is it just me or is the combat from the first more fluid than the second? I say this purely as an observer, since I haven't actually played the game and just watched other people play it (Hurrah for LP Culture!).

 

[Dandark]

I've been watching Strippin's LP of the game and he went from STR 2-handing hammers to dual wielding Katanas.

Also, is it just me or is the combat from the first more fluid than the second? I say this purely as an observer, since I haven't actually played the game and just watched other people play it (Hurrah for LP Culture!).

I would say it's the opposite. I've heard people bash the game for many things from story to immersion to design but I've always found the feel and flow of the second game is much better than the first one. It could just be that the second one works better on PC now but movement and melee weapons feel a lot smoother and better, the PvP gameplay is much better than the first in my opinion.

 

[Syntax Error]

I've been watching Strippin's LP of the game and he went from STR 2-handing hammers to dual wielding Katanas.

Also, is it just me or is the combat from the first more fluid than the second? I say this purely as an observer, since I haven't actually played the game and just watched other people play it (Hurrah for LP Culture!).

I would say it's the opposite. I've heard people bash the game for many things from story to immersion to design but I've always found the feel and flow of the second game is much better than the first one. It could just be that the second one works better on PC now but movement and melee weapons feel a lot smoother and better, the PvP gameplay is much better than the first in my opinion.

RE: Combat

I got that opinion from seeing people get hit after dodging one too many times. Sometimes it's from a missed I-frame, sometimes it's from unfair stuff like the Smelter Demon clipping you with his sword when you were CLEARLY out of the way already. That, and all the tracking attacks. It looks odd to see weapons change directions mid-swing.

 

[Dandark]

I've been watching Strippin's LP of the game and he went from STR 2-handing hammers to dual wielding Katanas.

Also, is it just me or is the combat from the first more fluid than the second? I say this purely as an observer, since I haven't actually played the game and just watched other people play it (Hurrah for LP Culture!).

I would say it's the opposite. I've heard people bash the game for many things from story to immersion to design but I've always found the feel and flow of the second game is much better than the first one. It could just be that the second one works better on PC now but movement and melee weapons feel a lot smoother and better, the PvP gameplay is much better than the first in my opinion.

RE: Combat

I got that opinion from seeing people get hit after dodging one too many times. Sometimes it's from a missed I-frame, sometimes it's from unfair stuff like the Smelter Demon clipping you with his sword when you were CLEARLY out of the way already. That, and all the tracking attacks. It looks odd to see weapons change directions mid-swing.

If in PVP then it is probably just lag, learning to fight in PVP is learning to anticipate the lag.

In PVE though i'll agree you have a point. Some of the enemies weapon hitboxes are really weird like the greatsword wielding stone knights in Heides tower of flame. You can learn the hitboxes and still dodge them but it is pretty annoying to have to learn the invisible hitboxes through trial and error.

Not sure about the tracking attacks, I don't mind them myself and just consider them surprise attacks that I need to watch out for.

 

[Syntax Error]

I've been watching Strippin's LP of the game and he went from STR 2-handing hammers to dual wielding Katanas.

Also, is it just me or is the combat from the first more fluid than the second? I say this purely as an observer, since I haven't actually played the game and just watched other people play it (Hurrah for LP Culture!).

I would say it's the opposite. I've heard people bash the game for many things from story to immersion to design but I've always found the feel and flow of the second game is much better than the first one. It could just be that the second one works better on PC now but movement and melee weapons feel a lot smoother and better, the PvP gameplay is much better than the first in my opinion.

RE: Combat

I got that opinion from seeing people get hit after dodging one too many times. Sometimes it's from a missed I-frame, sometimes it's from unfair stuff like the Smelter Demon clipping you with his sword when you were CLEARLY out of the way already. That, and all the tracking attacks. It looks odd to see weapons change directions mid-swing.

If in PVP then it is probably just lag, learning to fight in PVP is learning to anticipate the lag.

In PVE though i'll agree you have a point. Some of the enemies weapon hitboxes are really weird like the greatsword wielding stone knights in Heides tower of flame. You can learn the hitboxes and still dodge them but it is pretty annoying to have to learn the invisible hitboxes through trial and error.

Not sure about the tracking attacks, I don't mind them myself and just consider them surprise attacks that I need to watch out for.

In short, I find combat in DS1 "elegant" while DS2 is more "gamey". Neither is right or wrong. I just prefer watching combat in DS1 more.

 

[MHR]

I've only done one build with dexterity/health/endurance and just enough faith and attune to cast a heal and a spell shield for PvP. Bandit is the perfect template for this because of 1 intelligence and 9 starter faith. 20 Adaptability minimum for all characters unless your plan in life is to fatroll through PvP which is a good way to lose all your duels.

I've been using a single falchion I found at the beginning of the game and a target shield for almost everything. Wrecks people. I've won >80% of my PvP. With how easy it is to stunlock people in this game, I think that I can most of the time just drain my whole stamina bar into my main-hand falchion light attacks, which, when on paper, means that dual wielding seems a bit unnecessary. It's worked pretty well so far, and it looks reaaally cheesy locking someone down for 6+ swipes. That, and getting good at parries in PvP makes you a god. Seriously, yesterday I dueled this same tryhard invader with a dual-sided staff weapon in PvP, everybody hates those weapons, but since they have such announced and predictable attack patterns, I was able to parry/execute the guy all 3 times and make him look like a tool.

Parrying does suffer from lag though. You have to parry when you think the enemy is about to attack because lag is not on your side, but man when it works, ooooooooh dat feel. It almost always one-shots someone who doesn't have a lot of health or armor and has a slow-mo animation of you executing the guy flinching out of fear and some really crunchy sound effects. Using certain weapons does more damage. You can switch out to a dagger which gets bonus damage for this type of thing since a parried player is just sitting on the ground stunned for quite a while.

I think it has more to do with your equipment than your build. It's gonna be pretty expensive or even difficult to upgrade a new set of gear if you're even going to change armors along with your weapons. Although, looking at your stats of high int and faith, I'd say there's some hexes you could really be taking advantage of. Some of them work by taking your lowest stat, either intelligence or faith for the scaling. Having high of both would scale the damage nicely, but everyone is gonna hate you in PvP 'cuz hexes.

At least I think that's how it works. I've never done anything but Falchion/small shield bandit in DS2.

 

[Syntax Error]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9-LMGVLAUA&src_vid=DhY7xY2c0pI&feature=iv&annotation_id=channel%3A51ee5c75-0-27f0-867e-f46d043c8212

This was the guy I've been watching. He respecced again. Now to dual-wield Anvils on sticks.