Sunlight Blade, Darkmoon Blade, Crystal Magic Weapon.

Genuinely... with all my heart, I ask you...
What were they thinking?
So we all know attack rating has increasing returns. 325 does far more damage then 300, respectively 350 is larger then 325 by a lot, and once you get into the 400's, you're really hitting a train wreck of increasing returns then.

Let's face it, buffs are not balanced well. The SL120 level cap makes this a bit less noticable: namely with the fact that it enforces capping at diminishing returns, which caps most buffs at the low 400's in total contributed damage. This only causes us to only scrape the surface of how broken these skills are however.

Crystal Magic Weapon adds 411 AR, which against 300 magic defense is 206 damage, but if it's full potential of 442 AR was permitted it would do closer to 235 damage with each hit.

Sunlight Blade similarily does 406 lightning with our enforced cap: which is against 300 defense about 206 damage, and 432 AR at max value, edging about 228 damage. (Which makes it in every way inferior to CMW, but this is aside the point)

Then we've got Darkmoon Blade, 275 additional damage against 300 magic defense, but if we could get to 99 faith, that's 300 damage.


I rated this against 300's, and this is about as high as our magic defenses ever get unless we make a build specifically designed for high magic or lightning defense.

This is thrown on top of our weapon AR, which often already is 340 or more, and creates a very broken system that rewards dexterity weapons far more then strength.

Throw darkmoon blade on a Falchion and you're set to do upwards of 700 damage a hit, yeah... you could throw it on your demons greataxe and do 1050 damage in a single hit: but that Falchion swings three times as fast, takes less stamina per swing, and now even has the DPS advantage over you. It's not because it's a dex weapon, or because it's a curved sword (The same effect can be achieved with almost all dex weapons, and even most quicker strength ones), it's because buffs are badly implemented.



If buffs were designed to so drastically increase your weapons power, why did they get rid of curse weapon? Curse Weapon is the only buff that "competes" with the doubling/tripling of the AR that DMB and CMW give to dexterity weapons, which just goes to show that either the devs hate strength weapons or they didn't think things through.

What were they thinking?

SL 700 character do a lot of damage and dexterity weapons have better DPS than strength weapons. More at eleven.

Someone's never been BSed by a buffed Large Club.

Flachions and Estocs WILL attack more often than great clubs or DGMs but they do far less damage per hit. With Buffs yes their DPS outpaces strong weapons. But Strongman weapons have a tone of cool stuff about them dex weapons don't have. Like huge poise damage, Monstrous AR levels (easily reaching over 600 ar, where breaking 400 is pretty good for dex weapons) Which as you explained is actually worth a lot more than the simple 150 extra, because it's at the top of the scale it's the biggest 150 AR gap.

Also testing buff values at 50int or fai is a little unfair as most buff builds focus on weapon scaling and use the minimum/opti level of their buff stat(30fai, 25or32int) Which puts the extra buff AR more in the 300s not 400s

I think weapon buffs were probably origionally meant for intelligence and faith people who don't have strength or dexterity. Sunlight Blade has about 310 AR at the minimum faith requirement. It could turn an unupgraded weapon with minimum stats into a killer.

Once I killed a level 130 character with an unupgraded straight sword hilt buffed with Darkmoon Blade +2 with 30 faith. The range was bad, but the damage and speed was good.

Thats more my issue. +0 with dmb>+10 divine
Using an uchi its under 200 damage through 350. DMB all by its self beats that.

What were they thinking?
That the game is a PvE experience first, and that without assistance/wiki/crapton of exploring; the three best weapon buffs are fairly difficult to acquire and are huge rewards for players who persevered enough to get them. Also, they were thinking that most players who would be able to use these well would be geared toward casting and see bad returns on their weapons OR that they would be melee characters who would be able to use these effectively without a ton of effort and maybe it would convince those players (like me) that magic is worth a try.

It's only now that there is a gigantic population, all refined and maxed to near perfection that these things come to light as PvP nuance concerns.

Not really. Curse weapon was essentially the same thing, with the same problems. Not as extreme though, if I remember right, because you still had to invest in the weapon you were using for it to have real power.

^ Also, Cursed Weapon drained your health.

Buffs were very different with regards to PvP balance in Demon's Souls. Re-casting a buff in the middle of a fight was a reasonable task, and CW had nearly 0 cost for a 50% damage boost so almost every Dexterity and Strength build used it.

They were thinking about creating a game better than Demons Souls. "Better" meant making drastic changes which they made.

Thanks to Rss, we can always have the exact duel specifications we want. Meaning, its our choice to be involved in situations where randoms use buffs. I personally think it adds another element to the game for users to enjoy. Not to mention it is fun defeating or even coming close to winning against a skilled opponent who uses buffs as well (rare).

...Dark Souls II.....

Buffs were very clearly made for PVE. The intention behind them were probably to encourage cast users to seek to a more "Up close and personal" approach in certain situations. The way they are being exploited in PVP is just a massive flaw behind this idea.

I prefer to keep my distance from an opponent with buffed equipment, until their buff runs out. Then I move in to punish them.

Once you got around 40+ in magic light weapon outdid cursed weapon. I used loved the idiots with cursed weapon and the graverobbers ring, you could see the health drain a mile away as they thought they were hidden.

Agree on the buffs, on a faith build some dude got thick with me and DMB and i gave crap back to him. It was only when i went with a qual of str build that i realised how annoying they are. I think they need to cut the time to 30 seconds and give 2 casts instead of 1. Anyone i bump into at the moment is falchion dmb, 2 hand and swing like mad. you don't dare try parry because if you miss you're as agood as dead.