The appeal of Strength builds

Sentiel wrote:This is the only Dark Souls related site I visit and it's the only video game community I am a part of. I'm still not familiar with many terms and if a new one pops up, I rather ask than try to find the answer myself. I remember the last time I searched for it myself and it created quite a flame in some swag/yolo thread.

The word "tier" is exactly what piqued my interested, because only relevation I can think of is Poise, or roll speeds, labeled as tiers. Thus the questions. I apologize if it was poorly written and offended anyone.

Tier lists are used a lot to rank the relative power of options in games. E.G., a tier list for Dark Souls weapon classes might look like this:

A tier: Greathammers, Axes, Spears
B tier: Bows, Ultra Greatswords, Thrusting Swords
C tier: Everything Else

According to this (randomly ordered) list, the best weapons in the game are Greathammers, Katanas and Spears. Bows, UGS, and rapiers are all average weapons. Everything else is relatively weak.

A tierwhore is somebody who tends to use stuff from the top tier.

That's a much better reply than your previous post, Sat. Can you keep the condescension to a minimum?

This is minimum condescension for me.

Honestly it depends on my build for me. But i believe i hit a more quality/dex weapon, though i have some str weapons i adore. All in all str weapons are generally too slow and with whatever happens with my ps3 i get parried and riposte'd on the first hit with most str weapons. But even in the str weapons i find some to be faster, have a decent moveset and decent in power. Though i have to admit i have gotten destroyed by experienced people and str weapons so i agree that they are underappreciated because of the lack of skilled users.

It's alright Animaaal, nothing happened. But you shouldn't take examples from me. You might go crazy from that and end up in the asylum right next to me.


Thank you Sat.

Now I understand what you meant.
It basically means that the term is used for a person who always has to use the most effective gear possible.
Damn! I think I'm one of them.

I recently took detour from that path... fatrolling havel time... oh god the fishing... the FISHING!!!
so then I switched the dragon tooth for the dragon greatsword and started dead angling everyone... still though beating flippy-dippy builds while fatrolling just makes me feel all fuzzy inside, though i'm still working on how to beat dead angle wog spam.

ps: if you make a fat roller, have a bow or crossbow on you at all times... my heavy xbow has closed so many fights now that I just can't give it up even though my weapons r2 is a ranged attack...

Sentiel wrote:...It's alright Animaaal, nothing happened....

I STRONGLY disagree with that.  

twilightwarwolf wrote:... All in all str weapons are generally too slow and with whatever happens with my ps3 i get parried and riposte'd on the first hit with most str weapons. But even in the str weapons i find some to be faster, have a decent moveset and decent in power...

I'm tossing around a str/faith build idea right now, but this concerns me greatly.  I'm thinking maybe an Occult Composite Bow/DWGR could help to compensate, but even then I'm not so sure unless I resort to TWoping while in "archer mode".

@ Animaaal

Umm... Sorry?

i honestly think that in a weapons only comparison str weapons are really balanced (vs. dex/quality). no need to compromise in roll speed and poise, i've got a pure str guy with 76poise/fast roll and a black knight weapon guy with 61poise/fast roll, both @ lvl100/~1500hp. also there are certain popular weapon categories that get trumped by str weapons, at least in an (stat)investment/benefit calculation (greatswords, arguably halberds). the problem is that it takes more investment to be successful in pvp than katana R1 spam or spear runaway tactics.
personally i really prefer str gameplay, much more tactical, satisfying and execution heavy.

I do/dislike str builds
There fun 2 use but in more serious pvp then just get stomp on so hard since they are 2 slow and get outplayed hard also u cant really use them against randies since most just bs after bs, No fun counter bsing all day....

shadowzninjaz wrote:...most just bs after bs, No fun counter bsing all day....

The thing is that no matter what you use, be it Str, Int, Faith, Dex, most people and by that I mean over 3/4 of the players you meet randomly will bs fish you. It's easy, safe (invulnerability for the course of the animation), does huge damage and can be used over and over again. Most people thus do just that. They will bs fish you with either basic circling up to advanced stuff like reverse roll bs, but they will bs your every move. If you're too good to get bsed, or counter bs them, most will either give up and switch to spells, or spamming. But there are those that will try to bs you even though you bs cancel each other for the twentieth time.

Using these tactics is much easier than actually learning the weapon's moveset and it nets them more wins as well, because only few are skilled enough to effectively counter this. How to handle the weapon correctly, spacing and more, which is required for non-critical melee is a mystery to such people in most cases, which you can see once you position yourself against a wall, or disable the possibility of getting backstab in any other manner. Most of them will back away and try to lure you out, for example by healing, because they just can't deal with this kind of situation.

All IME whenever and wherever I go to PvP with randoms.

I agree with a lot that has been said. Years ago when i first started playing i automatically set out to find a big hard hitting weapon and fell in love with the zwei. Back then though, i had no clue how PVP worked and got angry when someone invaded me because i would lose every match. I didn't even understand how to summon people/be summoned. Obviously since then my skills have grown tremendously and i lean towards dex builds like a lot of people. I can be very productive with str weapons, and win a lot of matches, but as most people said, i also enjoy fast weapons. It really depends on my mood because i have so many builds/accounts i can play with anything i want. If i'm taking it serious though i usually just load up one of my many dex builds and go to town.

At the same token, strength builds are very fun. Who doesn't like swinging around a 6 foot sword and if done right can do damage to someone even if they're blocking. It's awesome. I have a SL620 that can obviously use everything and i love SNB bluffing a zwei and having a crazy sword that does 1020 damage. It is a bit overkill, but it's an SL620. At that high of a level, everybody has crazy high AR weapons. I have played against people at SL100-125 who have completely destroyed me with strength weapons. Like someone has already said, i had no answer for them. You get frustrated when you run into someone who can outplay you in every way possible. Granted, that rarely happens with str weapons, it is possible. You can concur PVP if you know exactly how to use a Zwei. Just the patience and time to learn the weapon is killer.

though i'm still working on how to beat dead angle wog spam.

I gave it some thought.  There are a few ways IMO:

1.  For higher level builds, pick up vow of silence.  Not just WoG, but dark beads and other such nonsense is completely negated.

2.  For less statistical commitment, you can get magic barrier at 14 faith and 1 attunement slot.  Since you're fatrolling anyway, you could swap in a spell stoneplate ring.  These two things together + 4 casts mean that the limited times WoG will hit you while fatrolling won't be impressive.

My only issue with MB is that you can't use power within sadly.  PW is pretty amazing on heavy builds not just for the damage but also for the stamina recovery.  I suppose people can just run from a fatroller using PW though, making MB a safer choice.  Giants, Havels, Stone, or Guardian + spell stoneplate + magic barrier will probably shut down all but the most dedicated of dead-angle WoG spam, especially if you can trade with them in any fashion at all.

 Zwei's been my weapon for a few weeks now.  It's very fun to use and most people don't use it even close to its potential (i'm getting better).  Spacing with it is vital but so is positioning.  You always want to be unlocked with it just about (unless you're doing a fat-roll lock roll attack on a WoG guy or something, couple exceptions but not many).  However, favoring one side alters how people can attack you and that makes a big difference to what otherwise appears like a very basic moveset.  If you position off to a side and swing certain ways it makes it extremely difficult to secure roll BS, and a 2nd swing can catch people trying to poke.  It turns into a situation like any other with skillful weapon use; the zwei can force the opponent to guess.  If they're good, they also force you to guess/predict, which is when fights are actually fun.

 Plain old halberd might still be my favorite weapon overall in Dark Souls though.  It's versatile, hits hard, and is good both PvE and PvP.  Unlike slow swing Zwei it can even put up 2 hits between most 4kings attacks.  I was doing a fast run through the game to stat up a new character and made a raw halberd + power within just to clear the game.  It makes short work of everything and is very easy to get for what can effectively be an end-game weapon...and it's good enough +5 to get you even past quelag if you don't want to backtrack.  Any run with the 12 dex should consider it IMO .

yeah im considering bumping the heavy build up to 120 for the faith buffs like gmb and replenishment...

To beat DA WoG, attack them as they're casting WoG and swap escape. Then BS them out of their recovery. They'll be facing away from you, so it should be easy to get to them.

Or, if that is beyond your skill, just turn 180 degrees around and block.

i got the attack while casting part working but im still working on the swap bit, and i tried the 180 block as im using havels shield but they just turned around and hornet ringed me... more practice then!

I prefer strength weapons.

Hitting someone for 700 damage in one hit is fun.

reim0027 wrote:Or, if that is beyond your skill, just turn 180 degrees around and block.

 Not really viable IMO, and even less so even with minor lag.  The issue is that people who WoG dead angle routinely don't always do a 180, sometimes they do a "slightly more than 90".  The point at which they can turn and still land the spell is inside most people's reaction time, and with lag it's inside everybody's reaction time.

It's probably *easier* to just toggle escape and attack them, or to roll + r1 them after 1st hit, or to do practically anything aside from trying to block it by spinning...especially because they CAN just cancel the animation and BS you instead (and they lose nothing but 1 cast out of likely many to see that you're  going for blocks).

Blocking probably isn't worth the effort.  IMO any other counter would be better.

Technically, vow of silence is magic though .  More amusing would be to run a buff just before casting it haha.

But if people really hate magic, at LEAST run magic barrier.  For all of the "it does too much damage" complaints you see virtually nobody runs MB or GMB as a counter, and both have multiple castings on 1 slot (IE if they run to burn it out, you can re-cast it...obnoxiously frequently in MB's case).  I'd say for mid level elemental builds just MB would be fine, but then as you go up you can become a full on faith + weapon scaling build with a buff + anti-magic stuff.

I smash things, given a choice. The dgm and large club are my favorites. The appeal is exactly that, smashing things. I'll have trouble landing a hit, and I'll have to be very patient, but if I land a hit you can kiss your health goodbye because chances are you're eating 1400 damage.

I took my 28/40 and slapped on full Black Iron set, Greataxe/Mace with Crest Shield/Avelyn. It's not exactly a Str build, but the damage is there if I two hand everything.

Landing a hit is very difficult, especially on DWGR users, but when they get hit, it feels very good. For me at least, for them...not so much.
But I usually used the Mace on them and tried to infinite stunlock them. I expecte everyone to Toggle Escape the fourth hit, so after three hits, I always go for a bs. Works like a charm.

As you can imagine, I had Medium Roll. This was on purpose so that I don't roll bs everyone that starts to tick me off. Evading spells was pretty hard with this, so I rather blocked them with Crest Shield. It's not that I can't evade with Medium Roll. FinPeku can tell you about that no doubt, but most of the casters I met in the past several days had incredible lag, that allowed them to land some ridiculous hits on me.

Well, the main problem with using a Str weapon was that having it on my shoulder somehow creates a magnet on my back that everyone is attracted to. It's not that hard to counter bs attempts, but I admit that I didn't want to bs with Greataxe if at all possible. I had to a few times, but avoided it in most cases. However those aren't the issue. While it makes the fights incredibly boring when everyone tries to bs you, most of my deaths don't go there. Most of my deaths are to fast poking weapons, like Rapier, or spears. So, I got a taste of my own medicine.

Fighting gankers and GT spammers never felt so good. I had a guy in Full Havels + Wolf run at me with GT. 
"You really wanna do this buddy?" 
The "I have 161 Poise" doesn't work here, because while he staggers me first, I will hit him twice with Greataxe and switch to Mace and proceed to infinite stunlock him with a nice bs finisher.
That felt super good.

Unrelated to using a Str weapon. Just wanna blow off some steam.
I had the 'pleasure' of meeting four, yes, four, not one, not two, but four, hackers within one hour of PvP in Burg. On PS3 mind you.
All had infinite HP and Stamina and couldn't be bled.
It was really embarassing when one guy 'pushed' me with Dragon Head attack from one side of Burg to another and off a edge with me. I can't Toggle Escape from that. :/
Anyway, these four pricks ticked me off so bad I'll be taking a break from Dark Souls.

Sentiel wrote:
Unrelated to using a Str weapon. Just wanna blow off some steam.
I had the 'pleasure' of meeting four, yes, four, not one, not two, but four, hackers within one hour of PvP in Burg. On PS3 mind you.
All had infinite HP and Stamina and couldn't be bled.
It was really embarassing when one guy 'pushed' me with Dragon Head attack from one side of Burg to another and off a edge with me. I can't Toggle Escape from that. :/
Anyway, these four pricks ticked me off so bad I'll be taking a break from Dark Souls.

Same thing happened to me today. Probably was the same people too. And i am also taking a break too. It's bull.

Get their names and report them. It seems to at least make a difference with Sony.