[Megathread] Dark Souls 3

[plantation]

I was hearing people say that the last boss was the toughest boss in all of Dark Souls. Interesting to hear that Pyro roflstomps it.

I'm a pure pyro, beat it on 3rd try just spamming chaos bed vestige which probably isn't even close to being optimal.

[Baconeggcheese]

Dark Souls DLC is top tier. It often features some of the best bosses in the series as well as some really phenomenal new weapons and builds to experiment with.

Would you say that of the ds3 dlc? I'm kind of on the fence, the game was fun and all but there was only 2 bosses that took me more than a couple pulls to kill and this was my first DS game, makes me kind of hesitant to spend the $ if its just a couple bosses that are mostly gimmicky and fall over quick.

[Poppincaps]

Would you say that of the ds3 dlc? I'm kind of on the fence, the game was fun and all but there was only 2 bosses that took me more than a couple pulls to kill and this was my first DS game, makes me kind of hesitant to spend the $ if its just a couple bosses that are mostly gimmicky and fall over quick.

The DLC bosses are traditionally the hardest in the series. I haven't beaten the newest DLC but I played 2 hours of it (haven't gotten to the first boss yet) and it was quite fun. The new enemy types are interesting.

As for being "gimmicky" honestly DS3 had more gimmick bosses than the previous 2. The DLC bosses are typically much more standard fights although they are mostly unique.

[Lime]

Pretty meh DLC for me.

- I'm a bit tired of snow levels, but that's a personal thing for me and is in no way major anyways.
- No new invasion mechanics. 3 new areas to invade even though all 3 are connected. Lots of areas to get stuck. Spawnpoints are weird.
- The new enemies were alright. I loved the new wolves.
- One of the bosses was particularly lame. The wolf. Every attack is extremely telegraphed.
- Another boss was fun, but not challenging either. Friede suffers from the same problems that Maria did.
- New NPC felt completely un-needed. One moment he's looking like a badass, the next, he's wanting to fight you.
- The Arena is what I expected. Some fun, but seemingly unbalanced with it's brackets. That being said, I do love all of the modes it offers.
- The new miracle is awful. Literally does 150 damage with 99 FTH and 263 spell buff. Considering how much miracles have been lacking in the damage department, I figured this would make up for it, or at least be decent.
- The new weapons: Crow Quills is fun, although I don't ever see it being useful outside of riposte damage. Claws are just a massive gimmick. Valorheart is just asking to be guardbroken. Sabre has the potential to be a meta weapon, but only time will tell as it's still weaker than CCS. Scythe has a very misleading AR, and it's WA can be seen coming from a mile away.

It's a nice distraction, but I don't think I'd say it's great. It's cool that others are loving it, though.

[Deleted]

So I posted on this thread before and said my biggest problem was the way it rehashes things from DS1, and constantly references it. And what does this DLC do? We go through the same rope bridge as in DS1. Ariandel is called the painted world for no reason. The first boss fight is a gant wolf with a humanoid master, and the fight is on a graveyard with a black sword sticking out of a mound. The second boss is a female, wields a scythe, can go invisible and leaves footprints. Really? They are completely out of ideas. And the DLC is patheticaly short too. If we discount the boss fights and the time you wipe on them, you can clear and explore everything in 2 hours. Terrible. Atleast the second boss fight is kinda fun. That's all I can say.

[Remilia]

You can find Priscilla's arena too if you go through a invisible wall in the wasp area.

[barackopala]

I ended up buying salt and sanctuary instead of the dlc considering all the mixed comments on the DLC, man that game had some bullshit moments but i liked it 8(

[Poppincaps]

Finally got around to beating the DS3 DLC because life has been hectic and I gotta say I'm disappointed. It's not necessarily that what's on display is bad. In fact, it's quite good even though I'm not particularly fond of snow levels at this point. It's just that there is so little of it. There are 2 bosses in the DLC total, which is a record low even though the price of the DLC is that of Artorias of the Abyss (which had 4 PHENOMENAL bosses) and while the main boss is pretty great, the side boss is kinda meh. I get what they were going for but it is just an extremely easy fight.

SPOILERS BELOW

With the Gravetender you literally just kill the 3 wolves, which isn't that hard, and then you can pretty much just spam the Gravetender down really easily. I had no problem killing him before the big wolf came in. The big wolf is kinda challenging but you've fought him a few times throughout the DLC so you kinda know what to expect. I one shot the boss with only 2 Estus used. That's a little bit too easy for my liking.

The weapons on the other hand really steal the show. There are a lot of really great build worthy weapons on display here. From Friede's scythe, to the sword and board combo of Valorheart, to the awesome Crow Quills. I'd say the DLC is worth it alone based on the weapons because I could see myself doing an entire playthrough focused around these weapons.

Also Friede is pretty amazing. The fake out after Phase 2 definitely had me fooled. I do feel like it's really hard to find her when she goes invisible in the second phase though which is a bit of a problem. Also she has the Dark Souls 3 curse of ridiculously long combos that require you to just spam dodge until they're over, but all in all I'd say she's Top 10 Soulsbourne potential for sure.

I really hope that the second half of the DLC is far meatier than this. We need at least 3 bosses in the next one.

[Baconeggcheese]

@Poppincaps yeah I didn't buy it because it seemed incredibly bare bones for the price. Though I gotta say I just looked up that fight and that character probably instantly became my favorite of the whole series. So badass.

Fight looked really forgiving though outside of the very last part, which is really disappointing. Especially considering people are going to be walking into that with maxed out estus they can just chug away at.

[Poppincaps]

@Poppincaps yeah I didn't buy it because it seemed incredibly bare bones for the price. Though I gotta say I just looked up that fight and that character probably instantly became my favorite of the whole series. So badass.

Fight looked really forgiving though outside of the very last part, which is really disappointing. Especially considering people are going to be walking into that with maxed out estus they can just chug away at.

Not really, I mean Phase 1 is pretty easy but in Phase 2 if you get hit at all you're going to have 70%+ of your health gone. Then there's the final phase which you likely won't even live to chug an estus if you mess it up.

But it can't be too crazy due to having 3 long phases in it. It'd be extremely frustrating if phases 1 and 2 were crazy hard.

[Baconeggcheese]

Not really, I mean Phase 1 is pretty easy but in Phase 2 if you get hit at all you're going to have 70%+ of your health gone. Then there's the final phase which you likely won't even live to chug an estus if you mess it up.

But it can't be too crazy due to having 3 long phases in it. It'd be extremely frustrating if phases 1 and 2 were crazy hard.

Considering what the game is supposed to be, your extremely frustrating scenario should be the case imo. I want to be challenged, and the game gave me surprisingly very little of it for what's supposed to be one of the most infamously challenging games.

I mean, I watched these two:

https://youtu.be/oIR7iPxVNHU <-- this only had p1
https://youtu.be/0KeKFc0xGr8 <--- this had the whole fight

And both of these people played really poorly and still got through the fight with plenty of estus left. p1 and p2 both have massive openings and huge slow tells from the looks of things. You can read those moves a mile away. Dude gets hit a bunch of times is those phases and just chugs his way through it. P3 actually looked like fun, that dude crutched the fight by having a spirit tho which again gave him opportunities to chug. And even then I think some of those moves should do more dmg, like he got grappled which imo should straight up kill you or leave you at basically 1hp.

Imo DLC should be ass poundingly difficult. You have most of the main game being a lot more forgiving than I was expecting, at the very least the totally optional stuff you buy on the side should be tuned to really give the dedicated player that next level of challenge.

[Lime]

But it can't be too crazy due to having 3 long phases in it. It'd be extremely frustrating if phases 1 and 2 were crazy hard.

I'd much prefer that tbh. Something that could help me recapture beating a hard Souls boss after many wipes. But the fight turned out to be an easy phase 1, even easier phase 2, and a moderate phase 3.

The boss had the potential to be a wall, but they made it easy just so everyone could do it, which devalues it tremendously.

[Poppincaps]

/shrug the fight was well designed. That's all that matters to me.

Also, this idea that Dark Souls is like some crazy impossible game or even needs to be needs to stop. There are games way harder than Dark Souls. Hell, bosses like Lingering Will in KH2 have killed me more than any boss in Dark Souls.

Dark Souls needs good design first and difficulty second. Sure, Friede and Ariandel could've been harder but the fight was more about endurance rather than raw difficulty.

Also you linked a video where the guy summoned an NPC as a good show of the difficulty of the fight... lol

[Lime]

Also, this idea that Dark Souls is like some crazy impossible game or even needs to be needs to stop.

The opposite is true as well. Dark Souls doesn't need to be some game that any grandma can pick up and beat. Also, you can have a hard boss in a game that's not supposed to be about difficulty. Dark Souls 3 doesn't, unfortunately.

[Poppincaps]

The opposite is true as well. Dark Souls doesn't need to be some game that any grandma can pick up and beat. Also, you can have a hard boss in a game that's not supposed to be about difficulty. Dark Souls 3 doesn't, unfortunately.

Any grandma can't beat Friede. She's not the hardest boss in the series but she is FAR FAR FAR from the easiest. If we're gonna talk about difficulty we should talk about how faceroll Gravetender is. That fight is an absolute joke.

[Baconeggcheese]

I mean, I got through most of the game 2-4 shotting the bosses and this is my first dark souls and I played as a deprived without ever using a shield and I'm no veteran player of these kinds of games. I was really excited for nameless* king because I was under the impression he was quite the challenge, IIRC that took me 6 pulls. Pontiff was the only one that actually took me more pulls than I cared to remember and the pull I finally got to p2 he just fell over cause the fight gets significantly easier.

I haven't played through the rest of the series, but DS3 at least wasn't very challenging. It could be, but there's too many crutches in the game imo. The amount of power the estus flask ends up getting is absolutely ridiculous for instance. By the time you get to anything that might be mildly challenging it basically NEEDS to gib you otherwise you can just chug your way through it.

Was keeping an eye on the DLC to see if it would be that bit of challenge I was hoping for but so far no dice. That characters definitely badass though, love scythes.

[Deleted]

I mean, I got through most of the game 2-4 shotting the bosses and this is my first dark souls and I played as a deprived without ever using a shield and I'm no veteran player of these kinds of games. I was really excited for nameless* king because I was under the impression he was quite the challenge, IIRC that took me 6 pulls. Pontiff was the only one that actually took me more pulls than I cared to remember and the pull I finally got to p2 he just fell over cause the fight gets significantly easier.

I haven't played through the rest of the series, but DS3 at least wasn't very challenging. It could be, but there's too many crutches in the game imo. The amount of power the estus flask ends up getting is absolutely ridiculous for instance. By the time you get to anything that might be mildly challenging it basically NEEDS to gib you otherwise you can just chug your way through it.

Was keeping an eye on the DLC to see if it would be that bit of challenge I was hoping for but so far no dice. That characters definitely badass though, love scythes.

Be prepared for people telling you that you didn't really finish the game because you only played NG and that's not supposed to be hard.

[Baconeggcheese]

Be prepared for people telling you that you didn't really finish the game because you only played NG and that's not supposed to be hard.

I was actually considering pushing up the NG+'s but apparently that barely changes scaling wise for a few playthroughs and they were lazy and didn't actually change anything about mob positioning or mechanics etc etc to give it any replay value. I ended up getting bored some amount into my 2nd playthrough cause I knew where everything was, there was nothing to really hunt for besides rings, and the mobs didn't change or get any more difficult.

[stross01]

I'm on NG11 and things are a little different up here.

You cannot block more than one boss hit without being staggered. Every boss hit does at least some damage, even if blocked. A lot of boss mechanics that really hurt at NG0 just kill you in NG11: Yhorm's anything, Aldrich's arrow barrage thing, Lorian/Lothric's anything, Oceiros' charge or breath, Nameless King's anything, any Sulyvahn's wolf attack, any of the Black/Silver/whatever Knight's attacks. Even a fuckin' mimic's kick just lays you out in any armor. The Corvian knights at high NG are also very raw.

Almost all Soul Spears are lethal without a block/dodge. The overpowered Dark Sword begins to lose its overpoweredness when you can't cut an enemy from full to nothing in one stamina bar.

Fight dynamics change when you're unable to chain-hit down an enemy, as well. You can't just charge up to anything and chop it down.

If you're looking to stroll through the game, bring two summons to any fight. If you're looking for a challenge, go up a lot of NGs and bring no summons. Bosses are more difficult when they're in your face the entire time.

- - - Updated - - -

I was actually considering pushing up the NG+'s but apparently that barely changes scaling wise for a few playthroughs and they were lazy and didn't actually change anything about mob positioning or mechanics etc etc to give it any replay value. I ended up getting bored some amount into my 2nd playthrough cause I knew where everything was, there was nothing to really hunt for besides rings, and the mobs didn't change or get any more difficult.

Some invaders are added, as well as ring upgrades in different spots for higher NG.

I will agree that the DLC was pretty short, though. Too much packed into a tiny space.

[Velshin]

I agree that the dlc should have been longer than this. It should be at least similar to old hunters dlc of Bloodborne or something like that. I do like the atmosphere, and the lore of the dlc I can't wait for the second incoming dlc yay.

The awesomeness of the voice acting and bad assery of Sir Vilhelm (I wish he was more challenging though) is just beyond epic specially that last line he kinda reminded me of Vingarl the paladin who was protecting Lady Astraea in Demons Souls.