Rant about weapons

Sentiel wrote:
Chaos Blade also deals decent damage and it looks great, but it's moveset is terrible (those R2s...).

I find the one hand R2 can throw people off in a melee fight. But if you still don't like that try it in your left hand with a different class weapon in your right, it can be quite useful IMO.

Sentiel wrote:
Rapier, Ricard's Rapier and Silver Knight Spear have good movesets and look great, but they are situational weapons.

Try the Estoc! You'll find it's R2s make it much more versatile, and because of it's base stats at 40Dex you are doing more damage than with Ricard's, I believe.

luvz2fight wrote:No single weapon is Dark Souls is arbitrarily superior to any other weapon. The person who wields it determines its worth. For me, SKSS is my perfect weapon but its not THE perfect weapon.

Well said.

luvz2fight wrote:In your case it sounds like your leaning towards the claymore. A respectable decision. I too absolutely love the Claymore. But there is just something special about the SKSS, at least for me.

I don't like Claymore, however it's very good and very easy to use. I was hosting in Burg yesterday and managed to constantly win with it for over an hour.

befowler wrote:Honorable mention: dragonform unarmed claw attacks. These things seem worthless at first, but do astonishing amounts of damage on critical hits and get a HR bonus. My dragonoid routinely does 800-900 backstab damage with no buffs beyond a HR on in PvP, and more on ripostes. This for something that has fast attacks, no encumbrance weight, and almost always makes your opponent fatally overconfident. Just satisfying as all get out to use.

I was a Dragonbro for some time so I know how good it can be and how much people underestimate Dragonbros. Thanks to that, I know how to attack them in their Roar and how to parry their claws. Most people try to cheap their way out of the fight with them by using spears and stuff like GT spam, which made me drop it. It's not that I can't win against such odds, but it's so annoying to fight the same thing over and over again...

Animaaal wrote:What about a straight up sniper?

Bows, crossbows, ranged magic....

Maybe have a Bandits Knife for people good at pressuring?

I use Composite Bow as backup. Maining it requires a LOT of space and patience, but it's doable.
Crossbows are meh.
Usable, but the loading killed them. I'd like to tell my character to stop being an idiot and don't load after every goddamn shot. You can reload later.
Spells are meh, but I did that as well. Ever since DLC arrived I hate casters and don't wanna join them. Nothing against magic, I love it, but everybody just spams nowadays and don't give a care, because thanks to DB, you can't punish them like in the old days. They're still easy to beat, but the fight drags on and it's annoying to fight the same spammer 100 times.

Bandit's Knife huh?
Hmmm...
High Crit and Bleed. Usable moveset. Terrible range though. Easy to parry.
Nah, but good idea.

CrackSouls wrote:Try the Estoc! You'll find it's R2s make it much more versatile, and because of it's base stats at 40Dex you are doing more damage than with Ricard's, I believe.

Estoc was my first Piercing Sword that I used. It deals the most damage and has great range, but it's slower than the other rapiers. Ricard's is fine and it's R2s can be used on wake up and on low Poise builds, but I prefer Vanila Rapier. It's R2 is a long range lunge that has the range of SKS and has no recovery time, so I can instantly counter any punishes. Estoc's R2 can be good to Dead Angle and to catch bs atempts, but out of all rapiers, they seem the worse imho.
Estoc is best to use with Leo Ring though.

The Estoc isn't slower on the first hit, only on R1 "spam" combos.

FullSpe3D wrote:The Estoc isn't slower on the first hit, only on R1 "spam" combos.

Aye, it is, it has slower recovery.
It's very similar to Washing Pole and other katana.
R1 spam just makes it more visible.

Sentiel wrote:

Animaaal wrote:What about a straight up sniper?

Bows, crossbows, ranged magic....

Maybe have a Bandits Knife for people good at pressuring?

I use Composite Bow as backup. Maining it requires a LOT of space and patience, but it's doable.
Crossbows are meh.
Usable, but the loading killed them. I'd like to tell my character to stop being an idiot and don't load after every goddamn shot. You can reload later.
Spells are meh, but I did that as well. Ever since DLC arrived I hate casters and don't wanna join them. Nothing against magic, I love it, but everybody just spams nowadays and don't give a care, because thanks to DB, you can't punish them like in the old days. They're still easy to beat, but the fight drags on and it's annoying to fight the same spammer 100 times.

Bandit's Knife huh?
Hmmm...
High Crit and Bleed. Usable moveset. Terrible range though. Easy to parry.
Nah, but good idea...

Maybe this:Archer Dude

I get the idea you're just looking for something different. I'd bet my bottom dollar you know what build you'd make for a 5k cash tourney lol.

This build offers variety and a way to handle every build. Its not op in any area, but effective in all.
Its just something different. If nothing else maybe it will get the gears turning.

befowler wrote:

-- Balder side sword. The classic. An absolutely perfect moveset that is extremely fluid in combat and inhabits the "spaces" left in the movesets of opposing weapons very well, while adding in low stamina and stat costs and the ability to pile up counter damage. While powerful along any elemental or regular path, it notably gets A scaling in Int at +5 enchanted, making it a surprisingly great complement on a mage build if you don't want another 3.0 weight and 16 str for the MLGS, and actually does more damage if opponent uses GMB since you at least get some physical too.

Don't all weapons get an A Scaling in Int when Enchanted?

Animaaal wrote:

Sentiel wrote:

Animaaal wrote:What about a straight up sniper?

Bows, crossbows, ranged magic....

Maybe have a Bandits Knife for people good at pressuring?

I use Composite Bow as backup. Maining it requires a LOT of space and patience, but it's doable.
Crossbows are meh.
Usable, but the loading killed them. I'd like to tell my character to stop being an idiot and don't load after every goddamn shot. You can reload later.
Spells are meh, but I did that as well. Ever since DLC arrived I hate casters and don't wanna join them. Nothing against magic, I love it, but everybody just spams nowadays and don't give a care, because thanks to DB, you can't punish them like in the old days. They're still easy to beat, but the fight drags on and it's annoying to fight the same spammer 100 times.

Bandit's Knife huh?
Hmmm...
High Crit and Bleed. Usable moveset. Terrible range though. Easy to parry.
Nah, but good idea...

Maybe this:Archer Dude

I get the idea you're just looking for something different. I'd bet my bottom dollar you know what build you'd make for a 5k cash tourney lol.

This build offers variety and a way to handle every build. Its not op in any area, but effective in all.
Its just something different. If nothing else maybe it will get the gears turning.

I already have one.
http://mmdks.com/1cph
It doesn't have Sorceries though, just one Att slot for BF. That's all spells I need lately.

It's not over, not yet...

So I ended up using the following.

Claymore
SKSS
Katana (doesn't matter which really)
Shotel (dat R2 )
Rapier
Composite Bow

I guess there's no 'the right' weapon for me, so I'll use all those that I like and switch through them.

I have another question though.

Shields.
I use one of the three Crest shields for 98% of my Dark Souls time and lately I noticed people using strange shields, like Small Leather, East West, Warriors Round etc.
Are people just fooling around, or is there more to these shields than meets the eye?

Small leather is 0.5 units, same as dark hand, but better. The others, I dunno. I know heater weighs 2 units for 100% block and quick parry. In fact, a lot of people use shields to parry, and that's it. I dunno, i haven't played in a few weeks.

A crystal black iron greatshield has 88 stability. That's like the Greatshield of Artorias. Huh.

Well I use shields mostly to parry myself. I start turtling only when there's lag, gank, or something fishy going one.

I might have to give the Small Leather a shot then.

Your weapon when two-handed is the best shield.

Seriously, try the small leather. From watching my opponents, it's probably the best choice.

Sentiel wrote:Well I use shields mostly to parry myself.

How can you parry yourself?

Sentiel wrote:Well I myself use shields mostly to parry.

That's what he probably meant to say.

EeAyEss wrote:

Sentiel wrote:Well I myself use shields mostly to parry.

That's what he probably meant to say.

I know. Trying to be funny. Guess I failed.

Nah, Reim. You made me crack a smile. I was trying to be a grammar nazi. lol

All I know is that it was with the Velka's Rapier that I finally started becoming successful in PvP. That's as good an endorsement I can give a weapon in this game.

I noticed that Small Leather as well as many other smal shields have faster parry animation recovery.
Will this allow me to setup parry weapons that Medium Shields can't? Like a katana R1 spam for example?

PS: Now I know how to make people come to my topics, spelling errors.

You may also be locked in the block animation longer after a successful block. Haven't tested, but I'm going to guess no, because I haven't heard about it before now and thats a pretty obvious thing to try.

I was thinking about trying Buckler and Target Shield (have to make some first).
I'm starting to slowly focus on parrying features rathen than resistances and stability of the shield. I'd like something that parries fast, even with longer recovery, so that I can setup parry, or tank parry even very fast weapons.

One can tank parry a kat with any shield that parries (I actually prefer mid shields for parrying, in part for that reason, but I do mostly blind parries)

With daggers (and maybe 2h falchions type weapons, though its probably less extreme) the target shield will always parry r1 spam with little or no thought to timing, because the parry window is longer than the time it takes to complete 2 swings.

My biggest concern is GT and katana spam. It's too fast for a setup parry (except for Washing Pole). While I can tank parry then, it's not always an option (low Poise, low HP etc) and to be honest, if I am to tank it, I prefer to bs them instead as I have 100% certainty that it will work, while parry doesn't have to. Not only that, but GT spam can kill you if you fail the parry even once. Damage + bleed tend to eat away my HP with astonishing speed and I rock 54 Poise, so I get staggered and eat some more.

I'd keep a ranged option on hand. Kite them with spears, halberds, bows, crossbows or magic. The tracer especially, is short so if you're fast rolling (and you'd better be if your poise is under 53) then kiting will work beautifully. Its trickier with katana, as they're longer, but if its just r1 spam, you can block the first hit, partial parry the second and parry the third with a mid shield, but they kinda have to suck for you to pull that off.

Blind parrying is my best defense against katana, that running attack is predictable (if quick) and so its a good attack to blind parry.

Forum Pirate wrote:I'd keep a ranged option on hand. Kite them with spears, halberds, bows, crossbows or magic. The tracer especially, is short so if you're fast rolling (and you'd better be if your poise is under 53) then kiting will work beautifully. Its trickier with katana, as they're longer, but if its just r1 spam, you can block the first hit, partial parry the second and parry the third with a mid shield, but they kinda have to suck for you to pull that off.

Blind parrying is my best defense against katana, that running attack is predictable (if quick) and so its a good attack to blind parry.

I awlays have my trusty bow ready.

Tracer is short, but the damned thing damages even on phantom hits. It hits me even after I complete my roll and I'm meters away from it. It's seriously pissing me off by now. Normally I just backstab the guy, or blind parry him, but I met a few who didn't fall for any of that. They had a lot of Poise and went on me unlocked, so parrying didn't work because they were dead angling and if I tried to roll bs them, they just turned around and hit me right as I exited my roll.

I have to parry on the second attack. Yes, there are those that will keep spamming and I will get my parry, but any decent katana user will just backstab me/back away/switch to something else after that partial parry.

Blind parrying works well against katana, but it does horsedung sometimes. I had lot of cases when I timed the parry for the running R1 perfectly, but the attack was slightly to the side of my shield and the the thing completely ignored my parry and did full damage. Also, a good kat user will attack with the tip of the blade.

I'd prefer something more foolproof.

tl;dr
I have to get better I guess. :|

befowler wrote:Some of my favorites:

Spoiler:

I remember teaching you how epic that weapon is... <3