"Reasons Why?" (possible series)

Hello forum goer and welcome to a thread I like to call "Reasons Why?" and in this thread we will discuss many topics concerning balance, aesthetics, and overall implementation of certain aspects the game is designed to accommodate. We will explain various reason why people like and dislike certain aspects and what had drawn them into such a conclusion. Perhaps even, open up a few eyes and shed some light on a few things.

Today's Topic!

Faith

Lets go over why people like or dislike faith. The stat was implemented in DmS first so obviously it is something that FROM wanted to accomplish and make very fun.

I personally think that Faith is "cool" or interesting based off of how unique the idea is. No other game of this quality has made a faith stat and made it useful as well. Faith for me is fun because it's both an alternative and a counter to many magic and other "overpowered Strategies." Faith also lets me play a more tankish like character which I enjoy. My one complaint is that we (as in faith based users) are not as versatile in certain ways as pyromancy and magic. I find faith to be balanced well though. It is a paladin's/healer's last defense under extreme pressure. it will make your opponent think twice before rushing in.


Now I wanted to go over a few things specifically about faith. The first thing I suppose I will touch on is TWoP. A lot of people are still very bitter towards this spell. I think it was an incredible way to work around the imbalance of glass cannons smoking tanks from DmS. In DmS our protection was limited to regen magic and revive. The regen magic is barely in DkS so there went half the defense faith users used to have. I also believe that if you choose faith over magic you are basically saying I like tanking. Tanking should be an option. There is no Second Chance (or revive) in DkS. This alone cuts our chances of survival (which is the idea) by another decent margin. That being said our healing spells are slightly more varied, but a well placed sword in the face pretty much negates that. Back Stabs run very rampant in both games but they got a significant buff in the new game. TWoP did a good job of countering these glass stabbers (some say too good) and so it was nerfed. both in duration and in strength. It is now limited and difficult to pull off successfully. These once stunned glass cannons have much more freedom to completely negate the aspect of tank in this game. I find myself having a very limited time to get to my opponent after casting TWoP and what do they do? back pedal or rush around for a bs. The spell is absolutely useless in the grand scheme of things. The hatred for this spell should have dispersed by now. Get over it. Your toons can now punish anyone who uses it and quite easily I might add. The characters you lost are dead and gone now. It is in the past and I feel as if the community should move on from this malcontent of a now relatively weak countering spell. In the immortal words of the baboon from The Lion King,"it is time", or "It doesn't matter, it's in d'past!"

DMB/SLB seem to be getting a lot of attention since TWoP has become less frequent. At this point it is a matter of the whole mechanic that people hate. No one mentions healing spells because its a defensive strategy that is so easily punishable hardly anyone uses it. DMb and SLb stack up right next to the sorcery equivalent. CMW/GMW, and in fact sorcery gets more options earlier in the game too. I'm not going to explain to you that DMB or SLB is easy to counter or such because I think we all know the outcome of a battle no matter what buff you use. If you get hit by a buffed weapon it is going to hurt and if you expect any less of that then you are being bias and ignorant.

To close, I would like for people to comment, but in a civil manner on the faith mechanic. You don't have to comment me or talk about the same things I did, but just explain in your own words why you don't or you do like the mechanic. Thank you and have a nice day.

It's an interesting read, in regards to buffs I thought it might be worth mentioning the actual extra damage on some builds. For some builds, like PvE ones when using buffs it goes off the fact that bosses don't have resistance to say, lightning/etc. Now, in PvP your armor has much more defense, so it actually doesn't deal too much more damage.

EDIT: Also most of the hate for TwoP comes from gankers who use it, and spawn campers. They'll use this spell then just BS the host to death, spam GC or WotG, or have three guys at once just slamming down greatswords. Even while nerfed, it's still deadly.

Tolvo wrote:It's an interesting read, in regards to buffs I thought it might be worth mentioning the actual extra damage on some builds. For some builds, like PvE ones when using buffs it goes off the fact that bosses don't have resistance to say, lightning/etc. Now, in PvP your armor has much more defense, so it actually doesn't deal too much more damage.

EDIT: Also most of the hate for TwoP comes from gankers who use it, and spawn campers. They'll use this spell then just BS the host to death, spam GC or WotG, or have three guys at once just slamming down greatswords. Even while nerfed, it's still deadly.

Don't you think that perhaps the issue could be a static spawn point? Even if you don't have TWoP weighing you down, it's a troll attempt. is it enough to outcast the entirety of the mechanic? I think a lot of stuff could be fixed if they made invasions to where you spawn where you set your orb down.

It's still useful in certain ways, just not out in the open. As well it can also work as a deterrence for fighting in an area. You don't wish to fight where you are, but where you want to fight is behind your enemy. Cast it and push them there. Have you cornered them, don't give them a chance to roll by and get out, cast it there. In areas like the Catacombs, it is an incredibly deadly spell to use. You've got to think of it more from the point of how invaders are using it against questers, because that is where most of the complaints will come from.

I like faith because of it's versatility, with healing spells, AoE spells, long range spells, buffs... the list goes on.

It's my favourite in terms of ideas compared to the other two, though I like sorcery the most. Dunno why they decided to give the antidote spell to sorcery though..

hmm...

So in a situation where the quester has rushed through half of any given level, ignored enemies and was invaded by a darkwraith with Havel's gear, a bandit knife, and doing ninja flips, who or what is to blame? What kind of action should be taken to alleviate the quester's frustrations?

If you've just found your way to the first bonfire in the Catacombs, and while down there you get invaded. Someone runs in with Twop, meaning you are trapped utterly.

TWOP is fine: the backstab mechanic is not.
TWOP could have been infinitely better balanced if while under it's effect you could not be backstabbed. That removed a large majority of it's negative impact. Reducing it to 10 seconds does not, instead it punishes the proper use of the spell.

Rynn wrote:TWOP could have been infinitely better balanced if while under it's effect you could not be backstabbed.

Never occurred to me, but that's about as perfect a solution as I could think of.

Why hasn't this change been implemented yet? Seems like it would be easy enough to put into action, all the while controlling one the more annoying aspects of a controversial miracle.

Win, win.

Fundamentally Faith is merely part of the casting trio to me. Sorcery uses INT and Pyro uses nothing (hmm) And I like spells. I have always liked spells. I will probably like spells well into old age should I make it there.

When deciding how to fill my attunment slots typically I find I must choose between Sorcery or Miracles and can use Pyro whenever on anyone. So what makes me think "Definite faith build" over say "total int rocker"

Utility Utility Utility. First lets get some similarities out of the way, Both INT and FAI casting have 'wind up' spells Most only consider for PvE (The lightning spear and soul spear series of spells) Int has MORE of them, but if you've ever jammed everything you could into faith and gotten the first two lightning spears your first visit to the altar well you'd know 20 casts is pretty solid for bonfire to bonfire needs. overall I'd say Sorcery maintains an edge allthough slight over faith in terms of shoot em hard from back here.

Both can buff. At the minimum stats needed to buff(Note Int minimum considered enough to use Tin Crystal Cat, rather than the actual 25 needed for CMW itself) (you're buffing a scaling weapon aren't you? you don't have TIME for 50 fai/int) The damage difference is slight enough that varying opponents defence stats will cause one or the other to perform better. A true Dead Heat. So instead 'we' the player look at the collateral benefits of Faith and Int. And boy is this a silly comparison.

Int is for jerks.

Faith is for worse jerks.

We have a saying in the fighting game community "The bigger *explitive* wins the match every time"

Before we all run out and call each other bad words for using spells lets look at why I think people who use Int are jerks. The main reason is that NOONE should be unable to dodge sorcery like Soul Arrow series, or even soul spear, and "Homing" spells? What exactly are they homing on? The damn wall they slip on? No, the best spell Int has for hitting another player with sorcery is Chameleon, because ambushes with CSS work wonders. While it is fair game in PvP to ambush, bamboozle it's not a very un-jerky thing to do. But like I said the worse names people want to call you the better you're doing.

Faith's Shoot em from afar spells are so laughable in PvP, I've seen unlocked pyros hit all kinds of GC, GCFBs even some tempests /whips. If someone has footage of some gigaballer unlocking(or locking hell) GLSs into people during a pvp fight I'd love to see it. While Int has a myriad of shoot em good spells, faith has a myriad of "why even bother" sorts. Greater heal Excerpt? I've heard once or twice Karmic Justice worked for someone somewhere. No Much like HCSM CSS Chameleon to me define the philosophy of Int there are three spells Faith casters are "reknown" for if you will. Since this ridiculous diatribe started as an explination as to WHY FAITH I will be perhaps too in depth with my thoughts on these spells.

Aside from buffs the three draws to Faith are TwoP WotG VoS. (replenishment isn't bad, I've just never said to myself "oh damn better bump attune up to 19 I need that slot for replenishment!")

TwoP was talked about earlier in the thread, even nerfed it's a strong tool.

WotG says two things 1. GET BACK 2. I'm a spammy jerk. Not that you have to spam WotG but it has a reputation. It's damage and knockback are again strong tools

VoS is situational but it absolutely shuts down some builds, as DEX pyro became more popular my trips to fetch this spell became more frequent.

At their heart all three of these are used primarily to tell an opponent "No you cannot play how you want, we play how I want, I am the boss of this engagment" and that is quite a powerful thing to be able to say, it makes people uncomfortable and give you a psychological edge from the get go.

At their heart all three of these are used primarily to tell an opponent "No you cannot play how you want, we play how I want, I am the boss of this engagment" and that is quite a powerful thing to be able to say, it makes people uncomfortable and give you a psychological edge from the get go.

I'm going to have to disagree. I think you are correct that many people perceive it this way, but it's not accurate at all.

I'll start out very easy. Wrath of The God's is one of the only useful offensive spells that is a sure hit for faith users. You can boost Emit Force and Gravelord Swords to be decent, but WoTG is our one truly useful offensive skill aside from buffs. Even Sorcery has things like Dragon breath, while limited is still effective.

As for Vow of Silence, if you've built a pure caster why am I the jerk for picking a more diverse character? It would be kind of like saying that I didn't raise my end to 30 but you did so it's just unfair. Everyone has choices to make, and if you rely so heavily on pyromancy, sorcery, or miracles than someone who has your counter is justifiably fair. The developers even stated before release that they want to see more variety in people's characters. I think what it should be telling opponents is that "wait... I am more one dimensional than I thought." There are work arounds and counters to every spell in the game and even multiples of these.

What we should be saying is INT is for sorcerer's whom draw upon things such as dragon powers etc... and Faith is for clerics/paladins whom draw on the power of the God's etc... Not who is the bigger jerk for using a tested mechanic in the game.

WoG isn't really an offensive spell. Its used as one by many, but WoG works far better as a counter or deterant. IE when the opponent tries to backstab, stop it with WoG. Now not only are they short a good 300hp, sometimes up to 1k hp, but they're not likely to try it again as long as the talismine is out. Its a loud scream of "BACK UP," if used as an attack rather than a defense, it suffers the same problem as most attacks, easy to avoid and rather predictable. Combined with limited casts, where stamina is infinitely regenerating, its severly diminished as an offensive tool.

He wasn't actually calling anyone a jerk, but saying that the fighter who's the meanest will likely win the fight.

Forum Pirate wrote:WoG isn't really an offensive spell. Its used as one by many, but WoG works far better as a counter or deterant. IE when the opponent tries to backstab, stop it with WoG. Now not only are they short a good 300hp, sometimes up to 1k hp, but they're not likely to try it again as long as the talismine is out. Its a loud scream of "BACK UP," if used as an attack rather than a defense, it suffers the same problem as most attacks, easy to avoid and rather predictable. Combined with limited casts, where stamina is infinitely regenerating, its severly diminished as an offensive tool.

He wasn't actually calling anyone a jerk, but saying that the fighter who's the meanest will likely win the fight.

What action are you taking when you cast WoTG's?


Likewise, I didn't say that he was calling anyone a jerk.

Defensive. I cast to deter bsing, interupt roll poke sprees, buy space fot stamina regen, stun someone out of an attack, stop a charge and (only on rare occasions) to break a turtles guard, but I generally kick instead to save my casts.

I use it to interrupt my opponents actions, to keep me alive. The same as I use force, though WoG hurts so it works better.

WoTG is most efficient on me if used to deter my attacks, rather then to attack me.

Please note, this might work differently for a non,poking weapon, but i use a rapier, so when Wrath of the Gods is used offensively, i inflict more damage to you then you inflict to me. I trade 20-90 damage for 200-400 damage. However, if you instead use Wrath of the Gods offensively, i am severely punished! You see, i do running attacks a lot. The easiest way to punish and kill me is with either a greatsword R1 timed for when i perform a running attack, followed by a stunlock, or with a Wrath of the Gods charged right during my running attack. Both will just knock the wind out of me hard! Wrath of the Gods does about 400 damage this way to me, which generally trades 200-400 for 400 damage: often leaving you a net balance for the trade. and you sure as hell bet i try to not let it happen again.

Rynn wrote:WoTG is most efficient on me if used to deter my attacks, rather then to attack me.

Please note, this might work differently for a non,poking weapon, but i use a rapier, so when Wrath of the Gods is used offensively, i inflict more damage to you then you inflict to me. I trade 20-90 damage for 200-400 damage. However, if you instead use Wrath of the Gods defensively, i am severely punished! You see, i do running attacks a lot. The easiest way to punish and kill me is with either a greatsword R1 timed for when i perform a running attack, followed by a stunlock, or with a Wrath of the Gods charged right during my running attack. Both will just knock the wind out of me hard! Wrath of the Gods does about 400 damage this way to me, which generally trades 200-400 for 400 damage: often leaving you a net balance for the trade. and you sure as hell bet i try to not let it happen again.

Just to clarify, based on the rest of your post, I'm going to assume this is what you mean. Its a great example though.

wotg'ing someone at the end of their roll or during a whiffed attack is pretty viscious.
spamming it get's you roll stabbed.
spamming anything is just basically asking your opponent to punish you.
gc, gcf.. whatever. all of it you can dodge.

twop on the other hand.. once someone uses that in a fight its basically telling me that my character needs to be gimped for you to win. at that point any kind of a rule or courtesy has been thrown out the window, never to be seen for as long as i remember your gtag/psn.

if we compare dark souls to any kind of fighting game, like mortal kombat, that's like taking away the players ability to dash and jump. was a horrible idea for pvp setup around arenas (which from knew existed).

i don't even care if they nerfed it, it's avoidable, and it's punishable.
it's like a boxer trying to setup matches vs a person in a wheel chair.

Rifter7 wrote:wotg'ing someone at the end of their roll or during a whiffed attack is pretty viscious.
spamming it get's you roll stabbed.
spamming anything is just basically asking your opponent to punish you.
gc, gcf.. whatever. all of it you can dodge.

twop on the other hand.. once someone uses that in a fight its basically telling me that my character needs to be gimped for you to win. at that point any kind of a rule or courtesy has been thrown out the window, never to be seen for as long as i remember your gtag/psn.

if we compare dark souls to any kind of fighting game, like mortal kombat, that's like taking away the players ability to dash and jump. was a horrible idea for pvp setup around arenas (which from knew existed).

i don't even care if they nerfed it, it's avoidable, and it's punishable.
it's like a boxer trying to setup matches vs a person in a wheel chair.

I think this is the most popular outlook on TWoP. People feel gimped if thy get caught in it, because perhaps their not quite quick witted enough to counter the trap. I personally have never been trapped by TWoP, but people have tried to use it against me. I think the one question we should all ask ourselves is...

Is it any more fair to have a Havel's, ninja flipping, spear wielding, eagle shield raising, backstabber?

Fair has no place. If one has an advantage available to oneself, use or gimp oneself against those who do. The decision is neither good nor bad either way, it just is.

On a side note, I like/use twop. Its the only concrete way I've seen to stop a dss user just roll poking me to death from 3 miles away. I both lose to lesser players than myself, and beat better players than myself, simply because the non-spear use couldn't counter the super long range pokes.

Umbassa Zealot wrote:snip

feel gimped? are gimped.

as for being "quick witted", you can't always just run away or roll around if that's the counter you're using. it's not a weapon buff.

never been caught in twop? how long have you been playing dark souls?

you find that setup -> you can poison them, you can dead angle them, pyros will usually poke thru their shields or they'll take damage from lava, homing crystal soulmass can force them to roll so you can punish, wotg them at the end of a roll or push their shield back (dmg usually goes thru), you can parry them and they poke directly straight ahead so rolling in at angles unlocked while they're attacking works... dwgr has a decent chance at roll stabbing or just roll r1'ing them too.

i mean i just came here from fighting a japanese player for probably 10 minutes today with a shield and spear. beat him with a katana, a grass crest, a bow and a pyro flame, he died trying to use a purple moss clump.

you get caught in twop -> spam every abusable spell , attack when you can and try to parry if you're not already getting spammed by wotg.
ya, wow that sounds like fun.

would rather fight spear/shield users.

fair has nothing to do with it, gutting a players mobility and forcing extremley shallow tacitcs where this games pvp is based entirely around mobility is just bad gameplay. a bad design choice in general.


just for the record i feel that wearing extremely heavy armor and flipping around is insane as well. i've been for nerfing the ninja flip to 25% for a long time... but that doesn't completley gut any kind of competitive play and tactics as nearly every build can use it and the effects are on the player with it on.

I don't believe its mobility based, not to the extent you suggest at least. People believe its based on mobility because the beiber ring and lag have given people a "fast roll or die" mentality. This is a fualty mindset. The entire point of twop as I see it, is to temporarily allow low mobility builds to slow down dodgy bastards long enough to hit them, which it does quite well. My dgm build is almost completely unaffected by twop, because I can just tank until it ends, or switch to the large club and go on the offensive with jump attacks and the 1hr2.

I never said spears couldn't be dealt with, only that twop was the only concrete (read:consistent) way I have found to counter them.

you know i actually don't mind if a fatty uses twop. back when dks was first released i had a friend that would cast it, cast iron flesh and wander around with a stone shield and a great axe in darkmoon garden pummeling phantoms.

leveling the playing field is fine in terms of gameplay, and i wish twop would have some kind of a drawback to promote fatty builds.

i just can't stand when some noob with a bkga casts twop as im bowing and starts spamming r'1s or wotg at me. yeah i mean i can wotg spam or gcf at their feet and gc spam if they get staggered, but what kind of gameplay is that..

So don't bow until the fights over, and don't let a solo player cast twop at all. I could twop as you spawn and kill you right off the bat, but you can't prevent that, so its on me. But by bowing before the fight, you are knowing leaving yourself open to attack. Thats on you.

Either its worth the risk to be polite, or its not.

yeah. fool my once shame on you.
fool me twice..

its just to bad that ps3 doesnt have a reliable history list and a prefered/avoided marking system. i used to just stand up there and freaking WAIT for them on xbox.

attacked a person on my friends list like that once tho ahahah he didn't show up on the recent played.

This will be my final reply to this topic because it's a new day and we must move on, however anyone may still comment.

@Rifter

I think as irrelevant as my seniority is I could share it with you. I may not have joined the wiki, but that does not mean I didn't pick up Dark Souls early. I did in fact play Dark Souls since launch and Demon's Souls for a very long time. This could have been good enough reason why I've never actually been trapped by TWoP. If you ever played DmS you will understand what's in the spoiler and why I may play with such intensity.

Spoiler:

As far as being gimped, the spell Tranquil Walk of Peace does not take your spells from your hands, or your weapons and gear. In this respect you and the TWoP user are equal. You also have access to just as many spells, weapons, and armor as everyone eles characters.

Now we get into what the topic is about. Explain to me the definition of shallow tactics? I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. it seems as if you are twisting the definition to serve a moot purpose, but I could be wrong. Parries, timed attacks, and choosing the right spell for the situation is what makes the pvp interesting in this game. At least for me. When I build a character I spend a lot of time before I start the in game process trying to figure out what my weakness' are and if I am confident enough to handle them with at least a 50/50 win ratio. For instance, that Samurai build we had discussed earlier. I have been evaluating how multidimensional he is and if he is too singularly dimensional to actually try.

When there are builds out there that can 1hko everything with a bs I think TWoP is a good design choice. Especially considering how flawed bses are with lag and the hit box.

I want to sum up what my examples were trying to demonstrate. This is that every fight is a fair fight because everyone has the same amount of access to each skill set. This nullifies the boxer analogy and makes fairness a non-issue. Additionally, it should be known that a multidimensional character will be far better than someone who has specialized in one aspect such as mobility.

To close I want to recap that TWoP is incredibly weak and easily avoided since the nerf. It is somewhat of a skill set check. it is now so useless in most organized pvp that I would like to implore the community to be a little less critical of it.