Caltrops - Demon's Souls





	[quote name="Lizard_King"][quote name="Arbit"]Bulletpoints! I don't really attack with the shield up that much. Usually, I use it to finish something off safely, and for dogs (regular and tiny firebreathing variety). I just let them slam up against my shield and stab at the same time; it staggers them, then a quick followup blow kills them. I've got the spear up to +8 now and having upgraded a few other weapons to +5 and I'm starting to notice the lack of damage (notably with the itaio or whatever - at +5 with dex and str bonuses it's not far behind the +8 spear). Why am I using a generic spear instead of the winged spear, you ask? Because I have a hilarisad tendency to commit resources to something five minutes before it becomes obsolete. Let's spend 5k souls juicing this shortbow up to +5 and explore darkroot! walks directly to longbow Also, did not find the blacksmith until well after I killed the gargoyles.[/quote] The big thing is not to get stressed out about marginal differences. It has a lot more to do with being willing to switch to a more effective tool for a particular problem or being able to adapt your strategies to your available moves. Your resource chokepoints change significantly as you get farther in the game, so it's not going to be a big deal for long. As for getting normal weapons up to +10 and others at +5 or better, well, you soon won't mind as much (just look at the wikis, it's a bit confusing...+5 lightning = +10 Fire = +15 Normal = +10 magic in terms of being at the top of their arc, but they all have different material combos and the like). For instance, right now, I'm about 5/8 through a soul level 1 run, which has made me completely re-assess the value of gear that I'd swept past before when I could access the better equipment because I had the stats for it. My humble reinforced clubs (+10 fire, +5 lightning now) are amazing in terms of staggering enemies. I usually avoid pyro, but now that I need it to survive, combining it with the bellowing dragon ring and the dusk crown means I'm at +40% damage right off the bat. The light crossbow, of all things, is my only available ranged weapon, and it's really good whether locked on or manually aimed with the binoculars. The hand axe (+9 fire) is my backup weapon for speed. The balder shield is typically outclassed by having strength 14-16 open up knight shields and the eagle shield, but now that it's just strength 12 I'm finding it tremendously versatile for high stability along with the two crest shields that I've always liked. And so on. [quote]I was aware of poise, but the tips on 2H vs 1H and shield stability are revelations. Thank you. I'm pumping dex, so am I losing out big time on the 1.5x strength bonus from wielding shit 2H? [/quote] Not at all. The strength bonus only applies to the actual bonus damage from scaling per se, so it's more than balanced out by dex weapons having equivalent bonuses to backstabs and parry crits as well as other nasty side effects like bleed and poison. You can go with large, high damage dex weapons like the Great Scythe (right there in the catacombs), or you can steal/earn the tracers from the DLC area which are unbelievable once you get the hang of switching between two very light weapons. For instance, the gold tracer is incredibly fast and easy to generate bleeds with, and the silver tracer has a toxin R2 hit as well as doing ridiculous criticals (160% of bonus dex damage rather than the usual 100). The Painting Guardian sword is also a great choice, especially if you do a magic hybrid build and enchant your weapon for special occasions. The uchigatana and iaito make excellent daily drivers, and were my go to for a long time as elemental weapons to capitalize on vulnerabilities. Strength builds are among the easiest melee builds to play in terms of just surviving, simply because they put out so much raw damage and can get incredible shields and the like to up their defense, and they need huge stamina to survive so they often have space to wear it. But my dexterity builds can dominate entire areas of the game with just a bow if needed, they tend to favor mobile builds so you end up becoming a lot better at some really handy core skills, and they can be really hard to counter in PvP. [quote] I just did a frantic run down to Pinwheel through the catacombs at 2AM last night, carving up skeletons with my samurai sword, decked out in stone armor and a flowy red skirt. Holy shit this game is good. It's like they took a 80s/90s CRPG, made it 3D and suffused it with gorgeous gothic fairytale artwork.[/quote] I just learned today that I can save an NPC without joining the covenant that is supposed to be the only way to save him in the end, for a savings of 30 humanity and the ability to keep my sl1 darkwraith safely invading everyone without interruption for a story covenant. I learn new goddamned things every week about this game, after hundreds and hundreds of hours. [/quote]