The Gaming Den

I'm an inveterate souls fan by this point, so I got the season pass. Waited and waited for the DLC. When it was coming close, I even made sure to have some Titanite Slabs on hand in case I found any really interesting weapons.

I wasn't disappointed there. Ashes of Ariandel has basically no bad weapons. They're all interesting and probably even useful, and the DLC really shines with the twin weapons. There's one that's a gladius and a shield that function as a twin weapon. Another is a rapier with a set of big throwing daggers held in the knuckles.

Challenge? Man, this game was brutal in parts. The NPC mook hit squads of about five enemies with varied weapons will wreck you unless you drop a couple of them right off. And then literal, actual wolfpacks show up, and you get to fighting giant crow-men with some ninja moves.

Lore? I'm used to wringing Dark Souls lore into some sort of coherent head-canon for my own satisfaction. I only have about 50% of this worked out after playing through it with two characters.

Enviroments? It's got big environments that reward exploration. There's nooks and crannies with loot and gear and, as said, there aren't really any totally boring weapons in this thing. And the swag? Seriously, poke around enough and do the right things and you can get a Titanite Slab. It's a beautiful DLC with big vistas and it makes me feel cold just to look at it.

No, what pissed me off is this DLC was so fucking short. Two damn boss fights, and about five rough divisions of areas. They were both pretty challenging bossfights that weren't like other bossfights in the game, but still. Two damn bossfights. And one of them is optional!

Dammit, From.

Boss fights

Both fights feature duo fights, where you fight a human at the beginning, and then a big ass monster shows up, but the monster is so big and so active, that the human basically turns passive, because otherwise you would never notice it while it kills you.

But yeah, it's mostly really good level design, the wolves are really good, but I honestly didn't like any of the giants, they were all basically shit I dealt with before, but the bigger ones seem to basically be mini gundyrs in that their moveset is just slightly to fast to be reasonable.

I didn't have too much trouble with the big guys, for some reason. Their moves chain in the same way, and it seems like if you dodge to your left you can get behind their shoulder and backstab. I also use a heavy weapon, so the shield-users, I could stagger, especially if I caught them after an attack,.

The bossfights, well

yeah, they were duos, but one of them having a shared lifebar made it interesting, and it was a different dynamic; I didn't notice the paired lifebar guy getting much more passive, he got me a couple of times with spells, and another couple by getting up in my grill while I tried to dodge his partner. I imagine both fights are trivialized by having a co-op partner; I got both bosses with backstabs a couple of times, so I'm sure a smart pair could trade off aggro and backstabbing them. The giant critter in the bossfight in the open space would be more difficult with a partner, though. All those big attacks would screw up people who were careless. I'm still not convinced I've seen its whole moveset because I kept trying to bait it into the double bites and punishing that.

On the upside for the DLC, I found a new main weapon for someone who'd been using Vordt's Hammer forever, so that was cool. And a new miracle talisman for him.

I recently got the Dark Souls complete edition, had played through the base game with no expansions before.

I suck with parrying with a shield now, but uchigatana parries have been sweet. I'm gonna try to run through the game without a shield now 'cause the katana and longsword stances are sweet looking and I really don't like how DS characters just hold their weapon at their side by default

Been grinding through without online mode, suddenly I'm online and I'm not sure if I button mashed my way into the 2 day PSN trial or there's a free day going on

I wandered into the Ashes DLC at SL 70 or so as i ignored the lotrhic castle route. The level design is really nice for sneaking around enemy patrols.

Because my SL was so low the content felt quite long, that avalanche area with the wolves felt vast with how carefully I had to fight them.

Once I got to SL120 and got online phantoms though I can see how short it was, the wolf area was actually not very big when you're one shotting the doggos

The tower with the big dudes, I totally missed that at my low level romping. Also totally missed the bridge ladder until I went online.

I think the broken tower area with giant dudes could've been expanded on and made mandatory instead of a side thing, like if it's before the Corvian settlement and has a bonfire in a ruined keep. Could've definitely had a boss fight too, like one huge guy or a bunch of huge dudes like Abyss Watchers.

I've put 6+ hours into Ashes and feel satisfied, but if I had gone in at SL100+ with phantoms first thing I would've probably gotten to the final boss battle in 2 hours or so.

To be fair, the Dark Souls III DLC was impressive, but the novelty wore off surprisingly fast. As much as I disliked Dark Souls II in hindsight, the DLC for that game was more enjoyable to me when I compare the two. All three games were pretty fun to run through with the classic Str build and a few others, but yeah, the DLC for each kind of jumped around in quality.

The one thing that gave me a headache in the Ringed City were those giant fat headless bastards though, and the giants summoning archers in the swamp. Fuck that shit.

Edit: Tired Icy made typos.

Yeah, I remember being real frustrated with everything in the Ringed City save for the big finale boss (I thought that one was good, even as a squishy wizardly type), and some of the goodies to be gained from it I liked (+3 rings, Great Soul Dregs, Lightning Arrow, the Demon's Scar sword which was a scimitar made of fire that cast pyromancies, Great Soul Dregs).

The first boss of it was alright, the angels gave me laser envy (why can't we get a miracle that shoots precise lasers like that, instead of literal spray 'n' pray divine pillars of light), the last boss was grandiose, and the side boss can go fuck itself with its own dragon dick.

Yeah, I was on NG+3 when I fought Midir the first time. It was ass cancer, both solo and co-op. I eventually managed to kill it by stacking buffs and getting lucky dodging one of his instant kill dark beams.

The only time I ever beat Midir was with a faith caster. I used Lightning Arrow and shot him in the head a lot, ran out of healing estus, and kept myself going by being a cheeky bastard and casting heal spells when I had the opening to.

Archmage Joda wrote:The only time I ever beat Midir was with a faith caster. I used Lightning Arrow and shot him in the head a lot, ran out of healing estus, and kept myself going by being a cheeky bastard and casting heal spells when I had the opening to.

I used a mix of Pestilent Mercury, heals, and running around tagging him after I got all his tells memorized. It's a thing in Soulsborne that once you stop being afraid and playing super-defensive, there's more openings than it looks like. But first you have to get through that running/dodging stage where you're just going "OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT"

Pestilent Mercury with a phantom cooperator made the fight not too hard. I had heard Midir was Shin Godzilla like and imagined him to be more malformed, but still a fun fight.

Here's a hack that has Midir fight everyone in the ringed city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Rd_i84KPE

Got Bloodborne for 13$ with the PSN new years sale, almost to the Old Hunters DLC content. Trying out the Hunter's Axe and it's spin 2 win goodness, the goal is to get to Cainhurt and the chikage for a bloodtinge build

Maxus wrote:

Archmage Joda wrote:The only time I ever beat Midir was with a faith caster. I used Lightning Arrow and shot him in the head a lot, ran out of healing estus, and kept myself going by being a cheeky bastard and casting heal spells when I had the opening to.

I used a mix of Pestilent Mercury, heals, and running around tagging him after I got all his tells memorized. It's a thing in Soulsborne that once you stop being afraid and playing super-defensive, there's more openings than it looks like. But first you have to get through that running/dodging stage where you're just going "OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT"

See, I have never managed to get Pestilent Mercury cheese to work for me there. He always, always jumps to the other side of the arena when I try it.