The gear, and why its seen like it is.

WarriorOfBenOwnage wrote: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.

Poise is a regenerating invisible bar that is like stamina so the more you have the less likely you are to reach Zero when hit with heavy poise damaging weapons aka Ultra great swords & great swords.

If you are hit with a great sword two handed R1 and you have 56 poise you wont be stun locked (one exception MoonLGS does 56 poise so 57 poise is suggested against them)

Against ultra GS the can do about 74-75 poise dmg so the suggested is 76.

phantom hits (the ones that register sound but not dmg done when one is usually dodgeing) still dmg poise but only half of the intended amount.

WarriorOfBenOwnage wrote: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.

And full giant's +5 has the most defense in the game.

about the crown of dusk... is there some sort of easy hit weapon that does primarily magic damage (outside of magic builds) to take advantage of the 33% reduction in magic defense? also most of the armors in the game are pretty balanced... havels is heaviest but offers the most poise, giants is the strongest but has less poise, etc... and really looking at the benefits of the masks... if you actually upgrade a helmet to +9 they are about equal in usefulness (after one stamina regen item the benefit of anothers is unessescary, father mask provides no defense or poise and a fully upgraded helm can provide enough to withstand an extra hit, the mother mask adds around 200 hp or generally enough to survive an extra hit but again at the cost of defense and poise, try a steel helm it looks awesome and offers decent poise and defense as does the gargoyle helm.)

sparkly-twinkly-lizard wrote:about the crown of dusk... is there some sort of easy hit weapon that does primarily magic damage (outside of magic builds) to take advantage of the 33% reduction in magic defense? also most of the armors in the game are pretty balanced... havels is heaviest but offers the most poise, giants is the strongest but has less poise, etc... and really looking at the benefits of the masks... if you actually upgrade a helmet to +9 they are about equal in usefulness (after one stamina regen item the benefit of anothers is unessescary, father mask provides no defense or poise and a fully upgraded helm can provide enough to withstand an extra hit, the mother mask adds around 200 hp or generally enough to survive an extra hit but again at the cost of defense and poise, try a steel helm it looks awesome and offers decent poise and defense as does the gargoyle helm.)

+1 my friend.

This is a great thread with some excellent points. I think people too often forget how wonderful of a job FROM developers did. Minus a few controversial items/strategies used, there really is a counter to every item in a game. The balance is wonderful.

I'd imagine something like the Catch pole would be able to do the damage you want. It still scales with int but it doesn't need you to have any. The MLBH is pure magic damage so there's that as well.

grant, gsoa, moonlight horn, cant remember the other at the moment.

cloudyeki wrote:I'd imagine something like the Catch pole would be able to do the damage you want. It still scales with int but it doesn't need you to have any. The MLBH is pure magic damage so there's that as well.

Ah, but remember how it doesn't follow rules. It doesn't count as magic damage to GMB, so why would it to the Crown of Dusk?

@ Eolan I don't care what your opinion on wog is.On your actual points, 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.

@Dubscythe, In practice, it is irrelevant. Helms accomplish nothing on most builds due to diminishing returns effect on defense. The masks and magic boosting crowns are useful as they provide benefits asside from defense. Hence the masks are not rendering other helms useless, diminishing returns is. Hence the other helms are underpowered, and there the problem lies.

@wisp. When you're a 6ft 2 helm of usefulness, surrounded by 5'2 helms of mediocrity, then the argument is perfectly valid. Now if you'll please rephrain from any further sardonic remarks. They're not helpful.

I spose I should have prefaced that with I like the thread and most of your points. Also, I'm not against the masks, MoM is my most commonly used helm.

Having said that, using the anomalies as the standard of normal, and saying all the non-anomalies are too low, isn't good practice. OP and UP is always relative, and should be judged the average, not the outliers. It is especially important to consider that helms seem roughly where they should be when compared to other armour types, the other armour types just don't have equivalents of the masks in terms of relative power level.

Now, back to making sardonic remarks about things...

Forum Pirate wrote:@ Eolan I don't care what your opinion on wog is.On your actual points, 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.

@Dubscythe, In practice, it is irrelevant. Helms accomplish nothing on most builds due to diminishing returns effect on defense. The masks and magic boosting crowns are useful as they provide benefits asside from defense. Hence the masks are not rendering other helms useless, diminishing returns is. Hence the other helms are underpowered, and there the problem lies.

@wisp. When you're a 6ft 2 helm of usefulness, surrounded by 5'2 helms of mediocrity, then the argument is perfectly valid. Now if you'll please rephrain from any further sardonic remarks. They're not helpful.

well said. +1.

Forum Pirate wrote:@ Eolan I don't care what your opinion on wog is.On your actual points, 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.

.

Im not really giving my opinion, im suggesting why people gear towards shield builds. So you tell me there's a shield for that job?

The spear is reasonable because i can side roll it. I can dodge it or riposte it or block it.

Its a discussion board mate, you need to expect opinions, and i put mine forward about the same amount as you did.

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

@Wisp Your point is valid, but its really just semantics, we're saying the same things with different words

^Forum would you mind responding to Sparkly's point?

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, you can viably argue the validity of other helms. When stacked for their benifit (stacking defense doesn't work, lessening regular helms usefulness) There is no longer any comparison in most circumstances.

Oh, for the record, I spend upwards of an hour on each topic. So, while I don't require you to agree, and I'm by no means infallible, I am putting a great deal of time and effort into this. My points are all reasoned as well as I can manage. If that wasn't evident.

So please state what you disagree with and why, from the most objective view possible, (you don't like it because it kills you isn't objective) if you wish a proper response.

ah so the MoM is a percentage, that does make it rather nasty.

Forum Pirate wrote: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, you can viably argue the validity of other helms. When stacked for their benifit (stacking defense doesn't work, lessening regular helms usefulness) There is no longer any comparison in most circumstances.

I would +1 you. But I'm out. Haha! I'm just here to make you feel rewarded from separating your personal identity from the subject in order to stay objective. I know how hard it could be, and a lot of time it doesn't feel rewarding. I am rewarding you... when I can XD

Forum please add something about high poise. Everyone uses high poise for backstab fishing and stunlock. If two players are trying to stunlock one another, the one with the highest poise wins. Also I've tried pivot and backstab fishing with low poise and it gets interrupted because they stun me with a single hit. Also DWGR deserves an explanation, and why everyone use it for easy roll backstabs. (Telling you my experiences dueling at the Burg). Excellent thread +1.

Working on it, as I said. Each thing takes around an hour, so it will take days to get everything I'd like to done.

Updated with the hornets ring, dark wood grain ring, and min/maxing

Honestly I disagree with your comparison of Hornets ring to CSS or tempest in certain contexts. Neither of those abuse lag and weird hitboxs to accomplish their goals. They are also limited in use compared to melee. This is in the contet of BS fishers.

CSS and tempest can abuse lag though, Dough. When it's fired at you it always seems to fly in a straight line. However from the caster's end the CSS will always try to track like the soul arrow. Tempest is similar, but it's random nature means it wouldn't really matter anyway.

Ok, didnt know that. I;ve never used it so I just assumed it flew straight always. My point about limited use stil stands though.
Forum you also say "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.". Thats 4 scenarios you gave wher ethe spells are equivalent. You also say "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. " My main point is these statements cant be applied to all contexts. BS fishing requires very little skill. Baiting someone until they expose themself is different. I dont think here you are addressing the issue most people have with the ring. I think more people have a problem with the ring when its used in conjunction with BS fishing rather than people who use their skil to get a BS.

DoughGuy wrote:Ok, didnt know that. I;ve never used it so I just assumed it flew straight always. My point about limited use stil stands though.

I guessed that >_> You should make it a point to try out EVERY common weapon and spell for pvp. It'll teach you how they really functions.