The gear, and why its seen like it is.

There's a lot of hate on varying things in the DKS world and I will be doing my very best to explain why this is (from a mechanical standpoint), and hopefully reduce its prevolance, however it requires serious context so bear with me.

I am also open to suggestions and questions, which I will answer to the best of my ability as the purpose here is to provide information. Keep in mind however that I will remain objective, so my response may not please you if you are looking for validation of your opinion.

THIS IS NOT AN ETHICAL DEBATE. I am simply doing my best to explain and mitigate the animosity towards varying equipment/spells in Dark Souls (and the players that use them) by detailing the facts about their abilities in a reasonably objective manner.

The basic playstyles are Proactive and Reactive.

Few players use any one exclusively, most switch back and forth but every action in a pvp setting can be classified as one or the other.

Proactive styles are either agressive or methodical. Creating opportunities to attack effectively with flurries of attacks intended to overwhelm the opponent, or careful planning that leaves the enemy exposed.

Reactive styles are about adaptability and patience, waiting for opportinities to present themselves before they strike.

Both can be sub-divided but thats the basic idea, and every style is encompsed by those two archtypes.

Now Proactive does not mean agressive. A Proactive player is seeking to CREATE opportinities. A defensive player could easily do this. Stall untill they can parry then drop you like a bad habit. Its a proactive style because they were actively seeking an opportinity to attack effectively.

Similarly a Reactive player, isn't necessarily defensive. A player with a pike who continually pokes from outside your range could be a reactive player, and the opportunity to strike you without fear of reprisal is simply everpresent as they have a greater range. However agressive they may be, they are responding to, not creating an opportunity to strike.

For further context, there are also 3 basic gear setups

Light-prioritising mobility, they tend to be specialised and use faster weapons and or spells for the greatest movement freedom. Proactive as they must actively seek ways to harm their enemy in the desired manner, and their low defense doesn't lend itself to atrittion.

Medium- balancing speed with defence and/or offence, they are the most varied but generally wish to retain some dodging ability while allowing for heavier weapons or armor. Usually a combination of Proactive and Reactive, the majority fall here as it allows for the most adaptable character.

Heavy-Sacrifising speed, heavy is about extreme defense or offence, relying on their shield or weapon in combination with their armor to protect them.

I have noticed the most ill will directed specifically at Tranquil walk of Peace, back stabbing, wrath of the gods, and great combustion, among other things. I will try to explain why these things recieve so much attention in the context of the above archtypes.

The Dark wood grain ring allows medium setups to retain the full dodging ability and so remain light setups in practice.

Tranquil Walk of Peace: Its a proactive spell that prohibits the dodging ability coveted by the reactive type. It cripples the light types, and seriously hinders the medium types that rely more heavily on dodging due to the dark wood grain ring. As that description fits the majority of the players, the majority of the players dislike tranquil walk of peace. For setups featuring heavy weapons or spells however, it is exceptionally helpful in that it stifles attemps to dodge their slow attacks, and allows them to position themselves in a manner more benificial to their attack type. Particularly against the longer weapons like the washing pole, it may be the only way a demons great axe user will ever land a blow. Heavy characters (unless they are using specific weapons, like the spear or great club), characters with the more powerful or longer weapons or aoe attacks, characters whos weapon isn't condusive to excessive dodging (halberd, 1h large club), and characters who properly utilise their shield in the situation are largely unaffected. Swiveling with an attack will turn them fast enough to prevent a backstab, wrath of the gods and great combustion will punnish careless approach, and a parry may outright kill the caster.

Wrath of the Gods and great combustion: Generally reactive spells and the only damaging spells with the casting speed necessary to be called such, They recieve animosity because they are fast, and force a split second reactionary response from any setup without an appropriate shield, with a steep price for failure to respond in time. They also afford relatively few options of punishing a cast due to their speed and the fact that, as they are magic, they cannot be parried. Now, users of these spells are often accused of "spamming" and looked upon with disdame for doing so, the complaints often mentioning the lack of skill involved in using them effectively. Having used both, appropriately timing a cast of either spell is a complicated and dynamic process and "spamming" hardly ever works out side of small spaces, however effective and simple it seems to use them. "Spamming" is also no different than attacking more than once with any weapon, some of which offer significantly less time to dodge and/or deal more damage in the majority of situations. They are exceedingly effective when used by a player with the skill to use them yes, but no more so than any of the weapons in Dark Souls. Spears, specifically, come to mind when thinking of a similarly effective, low risk method of attack.

The Masks. The masks are arguably the most potent set of head pieces in the game, rivaled only buy the crown of dusk and the crown of the dark son. These are often seen as overpowered (ugly and boring are not quantifiable, objective reasons for disliking a piece of equipment). This is for several reasons. Their effects stack multiplicatively with rings that grants similar bonuses, allowing for large spikes in equip weight, health, or stamina regeneration which are unattainable through other methods. They also posses negligable weight allowing nearly any build to utalise them, and the effect diminishing returns has on defense usually renders the bonus a build would recieve from using a helm with better defense negligabe at best. The bottom line here is, they are among a set of 5 helms that render any other mostly useless (though specific builds would legitimately benifit from using a different helm.) As such, it could be argued that they're overpowered, but it seems to me that diminishing returns renders other helms underpowered. So its the relative ineffectiveness of the other helms, combined with the prevolance of the masks, that generates the animosity.

More later, will do anything i remember seeing as disliked by a relatively large group of people, and things I'm asked about. Assuming of course, that I don't get the impression that it would be wasted effort

Again my purpouse is to be informative. To explain how what is over powered to you, is useless against others, and vice verca. The entire game has a big "rock, paper, scissors" aspect and I'm trying to explain it in hopes that it will cut down on the recent trend of alienating people who use gear or tactics othes see as unacceptable.

Hornets ring: The hornets ring provides a 40% damage increase to critical attacks (backstab and ripost). A very large number of players voice dissatisfaction with the apparent ease of landing a backstab. Naturally any item that increases backstab damage will generate mixed feeling. The biggest complaint is the "ohko lagstab" or the player being killed in one attack, by a backstab that latency made unforseeable or very difficult to avoid. This ability is largely due to the hornets ring. For the ultra great swords, and great hammers, it just adds the extra push to make a backstab fatal for builds with above normal health. For the high critical rated weapons, it adds enough damage to kill builds with average health. It allows a zweihander user who is losing the fight to score 1 blow and outright kill his opponent. This essentially the problem. Due to the ring, one can lose to a player one feels is unskilled or undeserving of the victory, and losing in such a manner harms their pride. Quite predictably, as its always the case when pride is a factor, they find something else that is "at fualt" instead of them, and the hornets ring is among the recipients of the blame. Now, in practice, a instant kill from a crystal soul spear or fire tempest, made possible by the bellowing dragon crest ring, is no different. They take longer to cast, but if cast in an enclosed space, while hidden, when the opponent is out of stamina, or as the opponent recovers from being incapacitated, can be far more difficult to predict or avoid, with latency having very similar effects on said difficulty. The spells of such power are simply slower in execution so it is widely thought that using them effectively takes more skill. Back stabbing is a skill, and baiting for an instant kill with the hornets ring is the same tactic as baiting for an instant kill with the bellowing dragon crest ring. The difference in execution being that the hornets ring effects melee weapons, so the user has the ability to distract them with melee combat first, then suprise their opponent and end the fight at the same time.

This one focuses on the people more than I would like, but I did my best.

Min/maxing: Minimising and maximising or min/maxing is used to describe players who spend as few points as possible on the majority of stats, and stack as many as possible in between 1 and 3 others. It is used most commonly as a slanderous term to refer to players who use elemental weapons to keep the stat investment as low as possible, then put the remaining points into vitality and so reach hit point pools unattainable through normal means. Now, the animosity here is based on the fact that these players often seek a slugging contest, whitch they'll almost certainly win, and so are either scorned by the comparitively burst dps builds as "boring" or "over powered," quite possibly because the "burst" nature doesn't lend itself to the battles of atrittion the min/maxers specialise in. The trade off is that such builds are incredibly rigid, due to the way their stats are spread out, they have to be exclusively melee (though cross bows are fairly common) and they lack the pure damage capabilities nearly every other build type has. The big thing here is that the community here is big on the "burst" dps style and so our meta has tweaked itself to deal with other "burst" builds. The min/maxers are sacrificing attack power and versatility, use these facts to your advantage and keep them in mind as you build, and you should fare better.

On a side note, the term min/maxing is only used to refer to vitality stacked builds, when in reality most every build is min/maxed as they to have met the basic requirements for the stats they don't need, and stacked the stats they do.

The Dark wood grain ring: The Dark wood grain ring increases the maximum equipment weight to retain fast movement speed and dodging ability TO 50%, and can be combined with the ring of favor and protection and/or havels ring and/or the mask of the father, essentialy allowing a build with 40+ endurance to wear the heaviest armor, use the heaviest weapons, and still move quickly. By comparison, this quite effectively renders light armor worthless for most melee builds, and severely reduces the benifit of medium armor.

To give a specific example of the relative power of the ring:
At 40 endurance 80 pounds is the maximum equipment burden, meaning the players equipment burden must be at or below 20 pounds.
The Dark wood grain ring increases that to 40 pounds.
Without the dark wood grain ring, Havels ring jumps the max burden to 120, making the fast roll weight 30.
Adding the ring of favor and protection increases the max burden to 144, making the fast roll weight 33.5.
Adding the mask of the father increases the max burden to 165.6, making the fast roll weight 41.4

The dark wood grain ring does to the fast movement speed equipment limit, in one slot, what every other equipment burden modifying item combined does.

Swaping the ring of favor and protection with the dark wood grain ring sees the fast roll speed weight limit hit 69 pounds. Enough to wear full havels, the heaviest armor in the game at 50 pounds, and still use any weapon, save 5. The dragon sword, the dragon king great axe, the demons great axe, the demons great hammer, and smoughs hammer.

The reason for the animosity is that many players prefer variety, but the dark wood grain ring, by rendering most any non heavy armor ineffective, creates "clones" or players in full havels or giants using katanas, claymores, or zweihanders seeking to stunlock or backstab their opponent, using the dodging ability to stay out of harms way, and the poise made possible by it to "soak" a hit without staggering leaving their opponent exposed to said backstab, untill they succeed. It is also frequently paired with the hornets ring and associated with min/maxing, both of which posess a similar stigma.

Now, it's quite possible to have an effective build without the dark wood grain ring, casters, turtles, stealthers and dragons specificly, receive the least benefit, as their stat point spread is focesed on magic, shield strength, or critical damage and so frequently benefit more from other rings.

What can I say? Its seriously OP. Its a love hate relationship.

The Black Knight Greataxe: This one gets its own section. The Black Knight Greataxe is the weapon I see called over powered most often, by an overwhelming margin. The reason is simple. While it is technically a greataxe, it is unique in the catagory, posessing below average power, but a range, hitbox size, and, to a lesser extent, speed far beyond other greataxes. All things considered, its much more an ultra great sword than a greataxe, though it out ranges and is a touch faster, with dramatically lowered "stuck" time when the user ends a swing, than the ultra great swords. It also posesses an ability to "dead angle" or strike through a guard, that is comparable to the ultra great swords. It also uses far less stamina per swing than other weapons of its size and is significantly faster in one hand as well, allowing a user to use a shield effectively and in tandem.
So, the black knight greataxe is disliked because it is faster than, longer than, consumes less stamina than, is better in one hand than, dead angles better than, any other weapon of its size, with only a small power trade off.
It is however still a huge weapon and has similar weakness. Roll back stab punishing a missed swing is highly effective, as are thrust attacks from longer weapons (demons spear, zweihander) as it is generally to slow to punish them. Crossbows and spells are also effective ways to punish them from outside their range. They are also subject to the up close r1 spam weakness posessed by spears, meaning buffed katanas and claymores are devastating up close due to their speed, far more so if a poise break is achieved.
From a mechanical view, it is hands down the best weapon of its size. It also posesses numerous and unique weaknesses, unshared by and even exploitable by other weapons in its class.


For more generalised weapon information check
https://soulswiki.forumotion.com/t1166-weapons-and-magic-what-to-use

Though I may still do small segments on ultra great swords, the moonlight great sword, and thrust weapons (and/or thrust attacks) as they're reasonably commonly complained about.

There were also a few questions asked and points raised, here are my responses, in the interest of avoiding having the same thing brought up multiple times.

WOG: Press r1 untill they die is an effect strategy with the claymore or moonlight greatsword. It easy to do, may well stun the enemy, and will kill most players with 1 full stamina bar combo. And stamina is an infinitely regenerating resource, where the number of times one may cast a spell is limited. In reference to my spear analogy you can block wog if you have the shield for the job, and its an excellent way of baiting the caster of using several at once to little effect, and at the edge of the demons spear or pikes range, parrying is neigh impossible and even should you succeed a ripost cannot be scored in time because you're to far away. So the standard roll, poke repeat strategy with those weapons can and does present less of an opportunity for punishment, while doing comprable damage.

You can roll any direction to dodge wog. And with the demons great machete, or greatclub, hit them for 600+ damage before they cast again. Though the timing for punishing them is very precise, the're stuck there, where the spear user can roll away

Masks: I'll be speific.

As I said, some builds legitimately benifit from a normal helm. Especially those that are lighter armored and need to hit the poise break, and/or haven't hit the diminishing returns point in the low 300s. That said, the diminishing returns point is fairly easily obtainable with decent armor, so the users of the mask of the father use it to free up a few endurance points, wear a heavier setup for more poise, or free the spot potentially taken up by havels ring. All of which are most probably more beneficial to a character with 300+ defense, especially if they have 99 humanity like many pvp builds do.

The mask of the Mother doesn't add 200 health, it adds 15%, and it stacks multiplicatively with other items. So at 1300 hp, it adds about 200, which is maybe enough for 1 more hit, which a helm probably wouldn't do. up hp to 1500 with the rofap or 10 vitality however and it now adds 300 jumping you to 1800 which is enough to eat 4 attacks from a lightning zweihander and live assuming you have 350 ish defense, which a normal helm definitely cant do.

The mask of the child alone is somewhat less useful but it will allow a shield of choice rather than the grass crest for the same benifit without using the otherwise midling shield, However stacked with either regen ring, or the shield, a full 160 point stamina bar is regenerated in about 1 second allowing the wearer to attack or dodge with relative impunity as even a fraction of a seconds stop will regenerate enough stamina to allow a responde to a threat.

So alone, the validity of other helms in general is definite. But when stacked for their benefits, the masks are rivaled only by the crowns.

HRing: Similarly, a bs id generally easily avoided by backpedaling, and the user has to be close. Lag influences how close it looks like they are but they must actually be close regardless. Where css in no way requires the opponent to be close or far away. A clever mage can pivot cast and blow you up as you try to bs punish them, as well as hit you at range.

The only real differences I can see from a mechanical view are that people tend to fight in open areas, where landing a bs is easier and landing a css is harder, Increasing the prevolance of hring bsing and decreasing css 1hkos, and the range, bsing must be done up close, css does not.

As far as exclusive fishing goes, a bs fisher in an open area is worlds easier to handle than a mage who got me in a stairwell or hallway, then casts css. Css is also deceptively wide, being beside the caster can get you killed, where being beside the fisher is an excellent opening to counter bs.

And refusing to attack with the mage untill you find a narrow area or get off a twop is also relatively easy. In enclosed spaces , and argueably from stealth, a css is superior because its more difficult to avoid and has greater range.

I intentionally shied away from discussing back stabs in depth because its far more complex than the other topics, and that did impact the article. However the problem there is the fisheing, not the ring. even without the ring, a bs from a ultra great swoed, great hammer, or great axe will do 12-1400 and a lightning gaxe will almost certainly kill you. Were the ring removed, the fishers would simply use it instead.

Min/maxing: Faie enough. They are better at lower sl's.

Other builds though have the ability to cast, buff, and generally augment their regular damage without the hp drain of power within, something min/maxed builds can't do. As well, heavier hitting weapons, the dgm, the great club, are more than capable of severely out damaging anything the min/maxed builds can manage excluding the 2h elemental zweihander, unbuffed. Add slb and a non hring bs will do around 1600. Adding twop, wog, gc, hcsm, css to the mix gives more standard builds far superior adaptability. That is how one must beat them. Don't play their game, and they have serious issues due to the highly restrictive nature of such builds.

I'm not implying that none of these things need balancing, just trying to explain how they work, the reason for the stigma they possess, and what to do to counter them, often attempting to do this by comparing them to other things.

On the ring side of min/maxing, thats really just being competitive. Everyone in halo fights for the shotgun, because it gives them an advantage over people without it. Same thing with ring setups. you don't have the rings giving you eqip weight, you're slow or fragile, neither is desirable most times, so they use rings to fix it in the interest of winning.

Being competitive isn't bad or good, it just is, and some people will always (quite justifiably) do anything short of cheating (hacking, save modding, touching the soccer ball with their hands) to win.

Nothing is rock paper scissors when you have a badass longcoat.
OT: True, how true. I really think that you hit the mark on people's reactions to certain equipment and such.

Awesome thread. I would love to see you do more stuff in the future, like possibly the BKGA or the Hornet Ring. Good job.

^ This.

it IS possible to parry spells for reduced damage and negating stagger. Its just extremely difficult and a very big gamble to try.

I really like where this is going, but alot of people fall into a mixed category. At least from the duels I've had anyway.

Gear can say a lot about a player, so I try to stick to ambiguous gear at the front and keep my aces up my sleeve. My pyro-glove is a perfect example, because when I hunt I use the faith based DSS as my front weapon. People will initially think I'll punish any bs attempt with a WoG till I catch them with a GCF and keep them stunlocked for lava damage. So when I say be deceptive, I mean don't give your main game away.

+1 sir for looking at DkS with a scientific outlook. Very difficult indeed, and even harder to explain, for I cannot do such things.
Loveya.

cloudyeki wrote:it IS possible to parry spells for reduced damage and negating stagger. Its just extremely difficult and a very big gamble to try.

I really like where this is going, but alot of people fall into a mixed category. At least from the duels I've had anyway.

Gear can say a lot about a player, so I try to stick to ambiguous gear at the front and keep my aces up my sleeve. My pyro-glove is a perfect example, because when I hunt I use the faith based DSS as my front weapon. People will initially think I'll punish any bs attempt with a WoG till I catch them with a GCF and keep them stunlocked for lava damage. So when I say be deceptive, I mean don't give your main game away.

Most are mixed, purely reactive or proactive styles are rare. Every action can be classified as one or the other, and the frequency and volume of proactive vs reactive actions determines the overall style. I mentioned that, but I can see how it may have been lost in the sea of text

Fantastic read, though you seem to elaborate alot less on the Dark Wood Grain Ring than you do on the rest of the pieces. I have somewhat lightened my stance against the ring from the olden days, and I apologize in advance if this sounds selfish or accusing or anything, but with the amount of attention and care you put into the rest of the mechanics you seem to be underplaying the significance of the Dark Wood Grain Ring. I'm not going to go into a tirade about what I think is wrong with it since, as you said, this is not an ethical debate. However, there is alot more at play with that mechanic than the one line you gave it.

One major thing about the dwgr is it's I-frames which ensures no damage at all till your standing still and upright.

cloudyeki wrote:One major thing about the dwgr is it's I-frames which ensures no damage at all till your standing still and upright.

I heard it has the same actual invincible pixels, but it has a longer start dodge time and a longer recover dodge time. the only advantage to having it is the length of the dodge. Idk if it's been tested, and I don't think it should.
Let people believe me! And let it go down in flame!

I think that it either has less frames to i-frames or has more i-frames to frames than the fast roll. You can't fast roll against a fire tempest caster and not get burnt crispy, but you can flip against the caster and avoid damage completely.

cloudyeki wrote:I think that it either has less frames to i-frames or has more i-frames to frames than the fast roll. You can't fast roll against a fire tempest caster and not get burnt crispy, but you can flip against the caster and avoid damage completely.

I have seen the flip act strange against a stationary object in the way of the flip. It may be simply that against an object, you can recover faster and flip again if you run up against it? These are just ideas. But I should stop, since this is getting off-topic.

JoeBroski09 wrote:I heard it has the same actual invincible pixels, but it has a longer start dodge time and a longer recover dodge time. the only advantage to having it is the length of the dodge. Idk if it's been tested, and I don't think it should.
Let people believe me! And let it go down in flame!

I assume this is compared to the <25% somersault dodge? This may be true when considering someone with 0 equip weight, but at someone with 24.9% equip weight it may not be. It's not something that's really been tested too well in depth.

Imarreteet23 wrote:Awesome thread. I would love to see you do more stuff in the future, like possibly the BKGA or the Hornet Ring. Good job.

Yeah Forum... Something on BKGA and Hornets please

It'd be difficult to single out a single weapon because it's all about how you use it. It would be easier, even a little, to do it by weapon categories.

Hornet's ring is just stupidly useful. It can turn just about turn anything into a one-hit wonder! Though I wonder if the hornet's ring would effect bow headshots. If so then hornet and hawk for when Archery nights.

the bkga and hornets ring will be added, as will buffs and the dwgr.

Unsure on back stabbs in general, as its highly subjective and very complicated and has many pieces contributing to its stigma that all require rather extensive analysis and explanation.

The bkga specifically will see its own section due to its power/speed ratio. Though I like your weapon by class idea, I may well do that.

". "Spamming" is also no different than attacking more than once with any
weapon, some of which offer significantly less time to dodge and/or
deal more damage in the majority of situations. They are exceedingly
effective when used by a player with the skill to use them yes, but no
more so than any of the weapons in Dark Souls. "

Twog is not hard to use at all. My gf who never plays games got a kill with it the other day because i said "just run up and press this button till one of you's dead.". It has an area of effect around the player and as i keep saying about it, it makes glass assasin builds useless. Which for an rpg game is a damn shame. It needs to have a blind spot as 19/20 encounters i have they spam it over and over again whenever im nearby and they dont seem to run out. I dodge it often but it really is disproportionately easy to use.

I can parry a spear and i can dodge it. If im fighting someone with a shield who just spams that every time i come close then i have to use a shield too. That, in my opinion, is the main reason so many builds you encounter are the same. Peoples experience in pvp is "I need more health endurance and strength because guys just blow me to pieces unless i have the shield turtle set up"

An aoe spell is one thing but a 360 degrees, 7ft radius "smart bomb" is different.

how would poisining with a bow at the start then swapping to melee? what kind play style would that fall into?

"It could be argued that I'm tall, but actually, everybody else is just short"

Forum Pirate wrote:the bkga and hornets ring will be added, as will buffs and the dwgr.

Unsure on back stabbs in general, as its highly subjective and very complicated and has many pieces contributing to its stigma that all require rather extensive analysis and explanation.

The bkga specifically will see its own section due to its power/speed ratio. Though I like your weapon by class idea, I may well do that.

I want to add a note somthing on the speed of black knight weapons it seems to me the the R2 attacks of BLK weapons benefit from Dex. (not the R1's though)

Was using the BLK GreatS and the two handed R2s was alot faster with 99 dex than on my strength toon.

thats interesting

I wonder if all the bk weapons r2 attacks' speed scales with dex

I really like this thread. Perhaps you could do one on Poise? To help me understand why on Earth someone would use full Giants. In fact, maybe you could do one on Flipping Mask Tanks in general? You arguments, especially regarding the masks, seem to make them a lot more palatable. I don't want to rage as much now when I see one.