The Gaming Den

Playing dark souls 3, I sure miss the move sets of individual Bloodborne weapons.

Finally getting a chance to play this. I am definitely enjoying it, aside from how you have to go throgh a bunch of loading screens to level up and upgrade equipment. I do not have a great feel for the rhythm of the combat yet. So I have spent too much time doing either the Dark Souls thing of "attack once, then dodge away", or just standing and trading blows with the mobs. The sword-cane is undeniably great though.

Blicero wrote:Finally getting a chance to play this. I am definitely enjoying it, aside from how you have to go throgh a bunch of loading screens to level up and upgrade equipment. I do not have a great feel for the rhythm of the combat yet. So I have spent too much time doing either the Dark Souls thing of "attack once, then dodge away", or just standing and trading blows with the mobs. The sword-cane is undeniably great though.

Fast weapons like the cane-mode you can get in 2-3 swipes before dashing away. Long range weapons like the whip-mode you can hit from afar, if I remember correctly the backstep whip shoots straight forward for great reach.

Heavy weapons like the transformed axe/hammer/greatswords often stun humanoid opponents, I like to charge up an R2 while the foe walks into getting smashed to the floor.

The cane's strong attack--the lunge--also penetrates armor better than the normal attacks or whip's attacks. It was my first playthrough's weapon. Fun times.

It feels like the lock-on system and camera in general are a lot more finicky in this than they were in Dark Souls. I am not sure if it is because the combat is so much more fast-paced and dodge-heavy, or if there is some other reason. I've died several times because I killed an enemy and did not automatically lock-on to someone else in the mob. Mildly frustrating as these things go.

Just beat Moon Presence. (A friend who had already beaten the game told me about the Umbilical Cords.) Moon Presence was pretty easy, but Gehrman was definitely a satisfying fight. Although, honestly, the only post-Gascoigne boss that gave me a lot of trouble was Ebrietas. I probably died to her at least twenty-five times.

I sort of stubbornly refused to learn how to parry throughout the entire game. And so I am vaguely pleased that I was still able to defeat all of the bosses. I did ignore the Chalice dungeons entirely, though.

Definitely a fun game.

Now go ye unto the DLC, and weep hot salt tears as thy pride is humbled

Maxus wrote:Now go ye unto the DLC, and weep hot salt tears as thy pride is humbled

Unfortunately, the person whose PS4 I was using does not own the DLC. He was not a huge fan of the game, so it is unclear if he will get it. Console exclusives are the worst.

I might get the DLC as I love katanas. Also the story and pacing is good from what I've read, with seaside spookiness

OgreBattle wrote:I might get the DLC as I love katanas. Also the story and pacing is good from what I've read, with seaside spookiness

It's a while before you hit the katana. And the seaside. Just fair warning there.

But I do recommend the DLC, it includes a fair amount of content and challenge. And the new weapons are pretty fun to play with.

So I've started playing Bloodborne and I like it a lot, there's nothing in gaming like the feeling you get from finally figuring out a difficult enemy or set-piece. I'm not very far in though, just got the emblem to open the gate in the Cathedral Ward (and poked my nose into Old Yarnham just far enough to get shot by the guy with the gatling gun.)

But there's one thing I'm wondering about - I have a couple of different armor sets now, but the stats mystify me -especially how there is an overall Physical Defense, but also Blunt and Piercing Defense which are apparently substats -yet some armor sets have higher Blunt and Piercing defense but lower overall Physical Defense? What does that mean?

I would like to be able to use the right tool for the job but as things stand I don't understand the impact of the tradeoffs I'm making, so I'm just using the Yarnham Hunter set that you get at the beginning of the game because it seems to provide the best overall protection.

(The other two sets I have are the Hunter set (with the top hat) and the Black Church set.)

Okay so, the first thing is that the stats don't matter at all, and you should wear what looks cool, because the variations on stats are so minor.

The second thing is that it secretly has D&D's damage system:

Slashing, Piercing, Blunt. The "default" physical is slashing.

Most attacks are "slashing" with a limited variety of special attacks that do blunt or piercing. Bosses also all have at least two types.

When it comes to what type of damage is done, the best you can do is look at the attack, and try to decide if it is slashing/piercing/blunt. But like I said, the vast majority of attacks are the slashing.

Yes, it is really dumb how Piercing and Blunt are written as subsets of slashing which is labeled as just default physical defense. No I have no idea why it is done that way. But that's what all those things really are.

So, I finished Bloodborne a few days ago.

Granted, I took the easy way out, because I felt like my poor character deserved a break. And I've got to say, as fun as the whole game is, when you do that, it feels like quite an anticlimax.

So naturally, I'm going to replay the game, to try out a different build. (One of the few big design mistakes in this game IMO is that NG+ really isn't conducive to changing up your build, and the weapon upgrading discourages doing so mid-game.) That will also give me an opportunity to play the Chalice Dungeons, which I ignored in my first playthrough, and finish the DLC. (On my first playthrough I got stuck on Ludwig because he is the most horrible boss in the entire game.)

In my first playthrough I went Skill/Endurance with the Threaded Cane, with a minor investment in Arcane to use the Augur. For my next playthrough I'm planning on going Strength/Bloodtinge, because the pistol was so good even with an absolutely minimal investment and Evelyn looks even sweeter. But I'm not sure which starter weapon I should go for - what are the pros and cons of the Axe vs. the Saw Cleaver? Which one is most fun to use?

I kind of have the impression that the Axe is easy mode, and I generally think faster weapons are more enjoyable to use, so I've half convinced myself to go for the Saw Cleaver. But I would also like my second playthrough to be as big of a departure from my first one as possible, playstyle-wise.

Try the axe and go for the Kirkhammer. Saw cleaver is nice, but also kinda boring somehow.

I'm still playing through BB, since I only started 'really' playing it within the last month. This is a terrible game for my nerves as just the act of walking around puts me on edge. I just recently lost 100k Blood Echoes after doing something in the DLC that kind of changed the tower I'm in (made vague for spoilers) and then I died because for some reason someone fed a bunch of caffeine to the very next trio of enemies I met and they killed me immediately. So I respawn, everything is different, and I die again with only about 20k on me. This is truly a Hunter's Nightmare I'm in. Ludwig didn't give me that much trouble though. There are two people you can beckon not far from the entrance of that boss fight and they are pretty good at distracting him. Otherwise he kills me in two hits.

That being said I kind of feel like I decided to go with a shit weapon. I've watched what other people do when I beckon them and this Threaded Cane just does not seem to have the same impact as pretty much every other weapon I've seen used. The damage isn't terrible but I can't seem to stun lock enemies as effectively as I've seen other people. Or maybe I'm just shit at this game.

Threaded Cane is good at hitting tall bosses, but against regular enemies you have to fight at distance and not be as forward aggressive as the axe or saw.

In cane form it'll do more damage, but I just like the Belmont stylishness of whip form.

Dark Souls 3: I finally saw Shin Godzilla today, and got reminded that From Software like straight up ripping-off things.

Anyone who's fought Darkeater Midir, does this look familiar to you?

What a beautiful movie

Schleiermacher wrote:So, I finished Bloodborne a few days ago.

What ending you got?

(On my first playthrough I got stuck on Ludwig because he is the most horrible boss in the entire game.)

I see you didn't meet Orphan of Kos.

In my first playthrough I went Skill/Endurance with the Threaded Cane, with a minor investment in Arcane to use the Augur. For my next playthrough I'm planning on going Strength/Bloodtinge, because the pistol was so good even with an absolutely minimal investment and Evelyn looks even sweeter. But I'm not sure which starter weapon I should go for - what are the pros and cons of the Axe vs. the Saw Cleaver? Which one is most fun to use?

I kind of have the impression that the Axe is easy mode, and I generally think faster weapons are more enjoyable to use, so I've half convinced myself to go for the Saw Cleaver. But I would also like my second playthrough to be as big of a departure from my first one as possible, playstyle-wise.

Bld/Str is sweet. Cannon + Bloodletter will trash everything in your way.

Guts wrote: What ending you got?

Sunrise in Yarnham. Like I said, I took the easy way out.

I see you didn't meet Orphan of Kos.

As I mentioned, I ignored the Chalice dungeons and couldn't finish the DLC. So there's plenty of unexplored content waiting for my new character.

Bld/Str is sweet. Cannon + Bloodletter will trash everything in your way.

I heard about the Bloodletter. Pity it's a DLC weapon... the way upgrading works you're kind of incentivized to stick with one or two weapons, or else grind a lot. I kind of wish they'd limited the upgrades to runes and blood gems, so you could mix it up more.

There's a "Return to Yharnam" community event for spooktober month, people are invading and summoning heavily

I'm gonna return with an Arcane build, get some 'physical to arcane boosted damage' gems and run about with tools shooting stuff out

Doing an arcane build, just base stats and leveling vitality with the spinning axe got me to the blood starved beast with no deaths

My first Death was missing a jump

Got to the boss door to Pthumerian Queen in the chalice dungeons

Been dungeon diving with community root chalice dungeons filled with goodies, it's fun even though rooms are reused and rearranged. Making me think about level design, encounter design, how they use elevation and narrow corridors and so on.

Oh shit I didn't know this thread existed! I just got into bloodborne earlier this year. I haven't actually played in a while and I'm still on my first play-through, but I just wanted to brag that I beat Ludwig on my first try after stumbling on him by accident and Igot BSB second try while drunk. Though, I think it's mostly to do with grinding through Yharnam for 12 hours which gave me like 20 levels and some good practice with the saw cleaver. Still, didn't know I had it in me as I'm not that into videogames and mostly got bloodborne for the aesthetic.

Try an arcane build, the arcane tools are fun and arcane/elemental conversion gems make most weapons viable

You will also do massive damage with the flame sprayer to any boss weak to fire