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I haven't had much time to play this yet (only beat two bosses so far) but I'm pleased with my basic axe I bought from the blacksmith. It's the fastest/lightest-feeling axe in a Souls game so far, almost like a heavy katana, and its wide swing plays well with my often-no-lock-on style. I'm considering switching to the halberd (particularly as I chose Warrior to be able to use high-stat weapons if I find one I like) but I'm not sure the moveset is doing it for me. (I do like that you can try out movesets without needing to meet the stat requirements in this game.)

I think I might keep using the axe until I find something I really like. That being said, if Large Titanite Shards are as rare as somebody mentioned, maybe I should go for the bigger damage output...

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I like the layout of Bastille a lot. I figured out yesterday that the routes are set up so that you have to beat any two out of three of Flexile Sentry, The Pursuer, and Ruin Sentinels and the other one can be skipped. I actually skipped past Ruin Sentinels (it's complicated: you have to get a key from the Pursuer side, break a wall on the other end, unlock a door past it, then later use a lockstone to open a secret passage containing a cage elevator) and lit the Sinner bonfire, then went back to beat them hoping it would unlock some other path, but no luck. Speedrun-wise the choice is not very interesting though as I expect all the runners will skip Flexile.

I don't know about the enemy design in it though... all those ugly little swordsmen that mob you near the boss door, seriously? Too many of the enemies in this game are uninspired humanoid characters; when I think back to the first game with its classics like the skeleton wheels, animated trees, curse frogs etc, it seems a bit lackluster.

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Yeah the small shard starvation is a real problem. I bitterly regret allocating some small shards to unimportant uses as it's seriously limiting my ability to try out different weapons. I did read somewhere online there is an infinite small shard merchant somewhere. I guess I'll read up on exactly how to unlock it since I guess it doesn't happen naturally if mauve still doesn't have it.

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I brought in human white phantoms for Pursuer and Ruin Sentinels. It's like, I could solo them, but right now I'd rather enjoy the jolly cooperation and fast progress rather than teeth-grinding frustration and triumph.

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Hmm, I only ever found one bonfire in the forest. (Probably the second one, the one with the statue and merchant.) Come to think of it it did come across as a bit of a long way there.

Even so I didn't have any trouble with the forest proper, maybe because I was freely consuming lifegems at that stage, correctly surmising that this would be the most useful time in the game to consume them. But as for Pursuer, I couldn't figure out how to reliably dodge him and my shield wasn't good enough to block him, so I quickly wrote him off as too hard and I went off to do a lot of other things. Then, even coming back leveled-up he still came across as a bit hard so I co-oped him.

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I just looked up how to get more titanite, and apparently the motherlode of shards are obtained by progressing through the fourth major path out of Majula. I never did find the entrance to that path and already got to Sinner and The Rotten (endpoints of two paths as I understand it), so it's no wonder I'm feeling starved. For those who are having the same problem, you have to exhaust conversation with the miracles merchant next to the second Heide's Tower bonfire. She vanishes and shows up in the path between Majula and Heide's Tower. Exhaust her conversation there and she opens the path. Even though I did the first part because folks were warning about it earlier in the thread, I never revisited that area thanks to bonfire warping...

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Eh, alpha and beta versions of all games are full of glitches like that, looks like a couple of the rarer ones slipped through testing here. (I haven't seen such a bug yet.) I'm sure DJ is taking this as a personal failure :)

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I saw some people complaining about the stamina regen shield being underwhelming earlier. Has everyone in the late game here found the Cloranthy Ring +1 in the foggy part of Shade Woods? That is one hell of a ring. Go back there and pick it up if you missed it.

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Pharros Lockstone glowy-face hidden passages are still opened by whacking them. But normal hidden walls are opened by pressing the contextual action face button (cross or A). The change does have the virtue of making it faster to check lots of walls for passages just by hugging them and mashing the button. Ironically I learned the latter, then couldn't figure out how to open the Pharros passages...

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By the way, have you guys realized the shape of the strange structure you're inside in the final Iron Keep bonfire? You can see it in the distance from Sol Belfry.

I love Iron Keep. The silliest, most videogamey area in Dark Souls 2 and also one of the hardest.

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Another thing: maybe I just never noticed this properly in past Souls games, but the distinction between Strike and Slash damage is a seriously big deal in this game. I finally got an upgraded club and when fighting an armored boss (Pursuer mark II in Iron Keep), I noticed it did literally 2x the damage as a similarly upgraded axe. And I noticed that Covetous Demon seemed to have a pitifully low amount of health for how big he was, probably because my Axe was slashing his flesh.

Whereas in Dark Souls I sometimes used slash and sometimes strike weapons and never noticed a major difference. It's enough that it's probably worth carrying around both an upgraded Strike and Slash weapon for the entire game, and use the appropriate one on armored and fleshy opponents.

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Also re: Drangleic castle golems. I got summoned to a world at the central Drangleic bonfire where the guy hadn't unlocked the elevator and had killed every single enemy in the area. He was running around summoning phantoms in the hope that one of them would show him where to go, and when they figured out what was going on they would leave. I was a shade so I just automatically got Duty Fulfilled after hanging around for ten minutes. Kind of sad, and there was no way to communicate to him he needed to sit at the bonfire and try the golem room again.

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I finally figured out what the Iron Key unlocks. It's the door to flame lizardville next to the Last Giant bossfight. A bit disappointing considering I already looted that whole area early in the game by running naked through the top entrance and dodging the fireballs.

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And oh man those Giant's Memories. I never expected this game to turn into Call of Duty: Giants. I agree with everyone that the endgame content is outstanding.

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Two weeks after release, this thread is already prostrats

I am doing fine with my little Magic Mace +10 okay guys. I do not need a Mundane Broken Santier Spear or a Lightning Curved Dragon Greatsword.

(not really mad about this, just think it's funny)

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I dunno, I certainly chose it after trying out many other options, though the mace damage still seemed a bit underwhelming on some of the late-game bosses, particularly the Undead Crypt one where I thought it would be a good fit. Maybe that boss has resistance to magic or something. And my STR is also unnecessarily high for it (31 -- I've been using greatshields, and thought I would've found a heavy weapon I liked by now). So I could probably do better.

To get into actual mace prostrats, it looks like the preorder bonus mace has a base damage of 130 which is 10 higher than the highest regularly upgradable small hammer. That will probably turn into a big damage increase when fully upgraded. So it seems like that equipment is worth a damn after all, and I should get around to acquiring that in the PSN store.

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I heard ascetics didn't respawn chests? Is this somehow a different kind of chest? What's the rule on that?

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There's nothing wrong with Bastard Sword, although in the Keep specifically you'll deal a lot more damage with a Strike weapon since everything except the boss is armored.

For red invaders, keep in mind they can't ever heal. (Gray ones can.) That's why they all rush you down. Play defensively and whittle down their health if possible. Shields are really important in PvP in general, much moreso than PvE because it's much harder to dodge an unpredictable opponent.

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Have you tried Way of Blue covenant? It's supposed to summon blue phantoms to defend you, evening that problem out. I don't know if it works in practice. (I played through most of the game never getting invaded, because everybody was too busy winning the game during launch week.)

Might be funny to try the Giant Seed item too. It's supposed to make all enemies target the invader. They might be wrongfooted by that, it's incredibly hard to PvP while enemies are targeting you.

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The translators had a bit of fun with the Crushed Eye Orb item text:

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Poison can definitely kill you if there's some enemy around distracting you from flasking. You put off the flasking a little bit to dispatch it, then die as you're lifting the flask to your lips. I died that way several times in the Gutter and Earthen Peak.

Poison also makes the boss of Earthen Peak almost impossible if you haven't drained the poison pool by burning the windmill. I tried challenging it that way a couple of times but it was just intractable. (That's unlike the Dragonrider boss who I defeated just fine without filling in the pit.)

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Ascetics are a profoundly strange and great mechanic. I think it's this game's biggest mechanical innovation. From is still thinking more creatively than anybody else about fundamental questions of game design.

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Well, From made a good effort to keep the message tone a particular flavor by restricting the vocabulary. They just didn't expect this wordplay. I guess it could be patched out by replacing "hole" with "pit", although I doubt that will happen (particularly since it probably doesn't happen in Japanese so it wouldn't get on their radar).

I've been bothered by cases where it's impossible to give a particular hint with the vocabulary given. The Drangleic golems in particular cannot really be explained in a message (why isn't "soul" a word?).