Weapons not doing their Proper Dmg! wtf?

[Thanks for the Bow/CrossBow Clear up guys, but what about the fist wepaons?]

There are two items ive been experimenting to use, and upon achieving them found out they do Zero dmg.

I hear that certain weapons are bugged (Heavy Crossbow not doing Lighting dmg making it useless) so im wondering if these are also bug'd.
First the Long bow turned into a Magic Weapon wont do the magic dmg, or it will only do about half (if not more) then what it states. meaning it does say 150 dmg, but only does about 60-80 to most basic Npcs; these are tests vs basic troops so magic resistance shouldnt a problem.

The other problem i have found are Dual wielding the early Fist weapons the dmg is 1/5 of what it states, and the left hand Does even less (about 10 dmg instead of the 60).

Am i doing something wrong? or are these just the many bugged weapons in the game

What a weapon displays isnt its damage,, but its attack rating. This is its value before the enemies defences reduce the damage. For the bow, elemental bows only do elemental damage if you are using the same elemental arrows. SO unless you are using magic arrows the bow will only do physical damage.

If the combat mechanics were as simple as that... I won't go into it

For the bows, you need to grab arrows of the appropriate element to the weapon you have to use their damage. Annoying I know, but the resulting damage is worth it I find.

The reason the damage isn't the same is that's your weapon's attack rating. Then when you hit someone their defenses affect the damage that comes out. Pure damage is better than split damage if it has the same AR as it has to go through only 1 defense not 2.

Hope this clears up your confusion.

yes and no Thanks guys, BUT..

What about lighting enchanted Bows? there are no lighting Arrows...

And this doesnt solve the issue with the Fist Type weapons doing next to no dmg. i would like to clear this up for i would like to make a kick boxing type build, but both do just about zero dmg and the off hand does next to nothing even though it states it does alot more. something that does 100 dmg should not do 10 to basic mobs...

And again Thanks for helping me guys.

The fist weapons are just generally low powered. I'm fairly sure a caestus does similar damage in right hand R1 that it should compared to other weapons with 100 AR. HOwever, the jab is different. It's a weaker attack (dunno what percentage but it is), for the sake of it being faster.

It's justs like the curved sword 'kick' that does less damage but does a hit then a back roll.

light and heavy crossbows are not useless, make them +15 not elemental.

As has already been mentioned:

- Attack Rating (AR) is not to be confused with damage. The number you see on the stats screen is the AR; the number you see when you attack an enemy is damage. Roughly: AR - enemy's defense = damage (there's also a multiplier in there depending on what attack you use and with what weapon, but that's more information than you need).

- Split attack types (weapons that deal elemental and physical damage, or magical and physical) have to go through 2 respective defenses, whereas pure attack type weapons (pure physical, or the 2 pure magical melee weapons in the game; Moonlight Greatsword and Moonlight Butterfly Horn) only have to go through one. So pure weapons, despite having lower ARs, can deal higher damage than split attack type weapons.


What hasn't been mentioned yet:

- AR is subject to increasing returns. That means the higher the AR, the less of it will be blocked by defense, proportionately. So weapons with very low ARs have a high percentage of it blocked by your enemy's defense. That's why your fists, with very low ARs, are dealing very, very low damage. (This is also the reason split attack type weapons are weaker than pure weapons.)

Well i hope they fix this in the DLC... there are far to many weapons that are either useless, or overshadowed by other better weapons.

of course that is more of a pvp perspective. but even in pve there are weapons that make you go "why the hell would i use this??! even for Rping?!?"

ALSO i hope they make dual wielding actually useful and not gimmicky

(like duel-weilding the same weapon and doing more dmg i.e swinging twice at a time.)

Fix what? It works as it should.

And which weapon is useless? None of them are.

Also, dual wielding is a very good tactic. I agree that the offhand moveset could benefit from more varied attacks like the main-hand moveset, and that dual wielding could be more interesting if it had a special moveset itself. But even with the current system, dual wielding is very useful.

dual wielding sucks as is.

question blaine, when i back stab someone with a +15 rapier with hornet ring with 40 40 st/dex i get less damage than a +5 lightning rapier with hornet ring backstab.... do bs's mess with defense or negate a lot of it?

^I don't know... We didn't do the critical hits research! And I have to admit, it is pretty mysterious to me. I do think it ignores a good chunk of defense, though, yes. Because split weapons won't suffer as much on critical hits as they do on regular hits, compared to pure weapons. Also, sometimes I'll buff a weapon, and it seems that the buffed amount doesn't get a critical boost, only the base damage does. So the buffed weapon will do less critical damage than a split damage weapon that has a similar AR. Then I perform a critical hit with a pure physical weapon, and it does ever so slightly more than a split damage weapon, etc... I just don't know how defense affects critical damage.

I know my Bandit's Knife +15, at 40 Dex, does slightly more damage on Black Knights than it used to do when it was Lightning +5. But beyond that, there isn't much I know for sure about critical damage calculations.


@Callipy:

I disagree. The most obvious use of dual wielding is a catalyst/ talisman/ flame in the offhand and a melee weapon in the right. This is great use of dual wielding. As for pure melee, it works best when you mix weapon types to take advantage of their strengths. I love to use the notched whip in my offhand because it can parry, causes bleed, has a decent offhand attack, and can't be parried. Mixed with any weapon in the main-hand, the notched whip is great, but with the Painting Guardian Sword it's especially good. The PGS has terrible range, and is prone to getting parried, so the whip is a great complement with more range and being unparriable. And both deal bleed, so it keeps the pressure on your opponent. You just need to find combos that work for you. I'm not a fan of offhand spears, but another user on the forums (sorry, forgot who) loves to dual wield it with the Great Scythe in the main hand, because both complement each other greatly. And thinking about it, I can definitely understand why.

Dual wielding is greatly underrated.

BLA1NE wrote:Fix what? It works as it should.

And which weapon is useless? None of them are.

Also, dual wielding is a very good tactic. I agree that the offhand moveset could benefit from more varied attacks like the main-hand moveset, and that dual wielding could be more interesting if it had a special moveset itself. But even with the current system, dual wielding is very useful.

"Fix what?" -> The fist weapons do 10-40 dmg with lvl 3 lighting enchant that does about 150/150ish dmg. Sooooo fix that... because... its broken.

"Which Weapon is useless?" -> there are a few but one off the top of my head (other then the fists weapons doing no dmg) for example is the heavy crossbow being bugged and not doing the lighting dmg... so yea a few are.

And for duel-wielding.. Am i seriously the only person who Knows what duel-wielding means??!?!? It means Attacking with both weapons at the same time with fury and rage and awesomeness!!! Not one after the other making it "Worthless" because it doesn't attack any faster then using one hand. Screw The special move set, screw different kinds of attacks allow me to hit someone with both at the same time/Continuously barrage them with Sword swings!

That Good sir is what i am talking about.

Fists aren't broken, that's just how the system works. They do not do 150/150 "damage"; they have 150/150 AR. Are they underpowered and borderline useless? Maybe. Do they need to be "fixed"? No. Should they be buffed? Possibly, yes.

And I guess I answered which weapon was useless... The caestus isn't very useful. Its only pro, as far as I know, is that it doesn't stagger on any shield--not the greatest asset imaginable, I know... It could be useful for challenge runs or just fun runs, but as far as a balanced weapon, I'll concede that the caestus could be called useless. Other than that one, though, I can't think of one.

As for attacking with both weapons at once, it would be completely unrealistic, and severely broken. It would be way too powerful. And try to imagine a warrior swinging two weapons at once, each 1-handed. For one, the moveset you could even do in such conditions would be very restricted. And you wouldn't be able to get as much power out of either weapon as you would if you were properly swinging only one of them. "Dual wielding" by attacking with both weapons at the same time, and combining the power of each to boot, would greatly damage Dark Souls's credibility. As far as melee combat goes, it seems like From tried to be as realistic as possible, and I think it's one of the things that make Dark Souls so great. Start having barbarians swinging dual weapons completely unrealistically and I think you'd detract from the game's experience.

BLA1NE wrote:As for attacking with both weapons at once, it would be completely unrealistic, and severely broken. It would be way too powerful. And try to imagine a warrior swinging two weapons at once, each 1-handed. For one, the moveset you could even do in such conditions would be very restricted. And you wouldn't be able to get as much power out of either weapon as you would if you were properly swinging only one of them. "Dual wielding" by attacking with both weapons at the same time, and combining the power of each to boot, would greatly damage Dark Souls's credibility. As far as melee combat goes, it seems like From tried to be as realistic as possible, and I think it's one of the things that make Dark Souls so great. Start having barbarians swinging dual weapons completely unrealistically and I think you'd detract from the game's experience.

I'm SCA guy... i know how realistic DualWielding is... as uncommon as it is. its still done and Darksouls doesn't do it right.

What's SCA?

And saying "Darksouls doesn't do it right", I feel, is disrespectful to the developers. The people at From either made a conscious decision how they wanted dual wielding to work, and developed it that way, or they were squeezed by time constraints. There are a lot of weapons in Dark Souls, and a great amount of unique movesets. To demand to have dual-wielding on top of it, I think, is being ungrateful. And it ignores the fact that we even can wield whatever we want however we want. Not many games allow that in the first place, and not as well as Dark Souls.

Blader baine is right. dual wielding weapons is actually less efficient than single handing 1 weapon properly. and even dual wielding you wouldn't swing your sword around like your implying. Since a dual wielder has no defensive options except dodging they cant swing like a maniac and waste precious stamina and energy. And From did a great job with the dual wielding aspect of the game

Dual=2
weild=use or handle
dual+wield=handle 2

sorry to rain on your parade, but even samurai and vikings, famed for dual wielding, didn't attack with both weapons at once, they blocked, distracted and parried with 1 hand and attacked with the other or alternated hands to chain a series of blows intended to overwhelm a defense.

They didn't attack by swinging both weapons at once, thats just begging to be impaled. Rarely does a game do anything accurately. I praise the good and encourage further effort for improvement if possible, because they did the best I've seen so far.

sweet we have pirate agreeing as well and i didnt not samurai dual wielded or are you talking about the secondary sword they carried with them and occasionally used to parry attacks with

The tanto was carried by many, but there were also those that specialised in fighting using the katana in one hand and the tanto in the other. If I remember correctly, the technique was actually to keep the opponent focused on the katana, then stab and kill with the tanto, not the other way around, as the tanto was made to pierce armor and the katana is less than ideal for that task.

RailBladerX wrote:

BLA1NE wrote:As for attacking with both weapons at once, it would be completely unrealistic, and severely broken. It would be way too powerful. And try to imagine a warrior swinging two weapons at once, each 1-handed. For one, the moveset you could even do in such conditions would be very restricted. And you wouldn't be able to get as much power out of either weapon as you would if you were properly swinging only one of them. "Dual wielding" by attacking with both weapons at the same time, and combining the power of each to boot, would greatly damage Dark Souls's credibility. As far as melee combat goes, it seems like From tried to be as realistic as possible, and I think it's one of the things that make Dark Souls so great. Start having barbarians swinging dual weapons completely unrealistically and I think you'd detract from the game's experience.

I'm SCA guy... i know how realistic DualWielding is... as uncommon as it is. its still done and Darksouls doesn't do it right.

Yeah... you're obviously falsely boosting your credibility then... because I've never been told by SCA during demonstrations to swing both my weapons at once.

The only think Dark Souls did wrong with Duel Wielding is not letting us buff left hand weapons, or letting us do a combo with our left hand.

As forum said, most weapons that have been used in the Off Hand were used for purposes on the defensive side, and even then not usually as well as a shield. It isn't like star wars, where technically a lightsaber is great for dual wielding. With actual physical weapons, there is weight, you have to swing, you have to block with enough force, and strike hard enough. Just because a blade makes contact doesn't mean it is going to do damage, it isn't as simple as swinging blindly.

Forum Pirate wrote:The tanto was carried by many, but there were also those that specialised in fighting using the katana in one hand and the tanto in the other. If I remember correctly, the technique was actually to keep the opponent focused on the katana, then stab and kill with the tanto, not the other way around, as the tanto was made to pierce armor and the katana is less than ideal for that task.

yea thats wat i thought you were talking about and thats exactly wat the tanto wat used for

ill just copy paste this here for those that missed it.


"Guys clearly i must not be getting the point out correctly, but to put simply i want "Comboing attacks", this is not in darkSouls. otherwise there would not be countless threads online about "how dual wielding doesn't work."

And on the matter of realism i was merely commenting on the paradox of pointing out realism in a fantasy based game.

So you think dual wielding is fine as is? cool.. i dont. i am an aggressive style gamer. i like dual wielding weapons, and being the berserker in most games. You don't, you are contempt with holding two weapons and then state "I'am dual-wielding"... that is cool i am not.

but its fact that dark souls does not have a "fantasy based dual weilding experience." you want proof? ill link every "I'am disappointed about dual wielding" thread on the netz. I have come up with easy ways of implementing, and balancing them in game. You dont like the idea? then dont read it.

again all will be explained in the future thread."

This thread's been dead for two weeks, you couldn't just let it go? I'm not going to re-read the whole thread, but off the top of my head, your suggestions were either unreasonable or unbalanced.

Asking for dual-wielding movesets is a good suggestion, I agree on that, and you're not the first to have thought of it or brought it up. But you need to look at what we already have: 16 melee weapon categories, each of which have their own unique movesets, plus many weapons that have unique attacks and combos. Each moveset comprises: 1h-R1, 1h-R1 combos, 2h-R1, 2h-R1 combos, 1h-R2, 1h-R2 combos, 2h-R2, 2h-R2 combos, 1h-running-R1, 2h-running-R1, 1h-rolling-R1, 2h-rolling-R1. Plus backstabs, ripostes, hornet-ring humanoid backstabs and hornet-ring humanoid ripostes. That's for each melee weapon category. That's a hell of a lot more than any game I can think of right now, and you want another entire set of dual-wielding moves on top of that? Yes, I agree, dual-wielding combos would be awesome. But that'd take at least as much work as the existing moveset took--asking to double up an entire moves list for a game that already has an extensive one is a huge demand. And don't even get me started on balancing an entire new dual-wielding moveset with the current moves, that'd be a gargantuan task.

And other suggestions like adding up the damage of both weapons by swinging them both at the same time just screams broken. That would be way too powerful, as I think I've said before, if I remember correctly--was a while ago.

There are some things that, when many people complain about in unison, they're right about. Others that they aren't. If everyone was complaining about the DWGR, I'd agree. But everyone complaining about dual wielding, I do not agree with. They're either not competent enough with the current very deep and very competent combat mechanics we've got, or they're not being realistic in their expectations. At best, if From kept roughly the existing moveset for the next Souls game, then yes they could probably throw on an entire new dual-wielding moveset on top. But if they start almost from scratch again, like they did when you compare Dark Souls with Demon's Souls, then expecting them to do double the work they did this time is unrealistic. When you talk about realism in a game, you also need to consider real-world realism; as in, development deadlines and budgets.