1821

That is at least something, but only works for - as you said - normal weapons, which excludes for example divine weapons, as I mentioned. They are stat based as well.

In my mind, all weapons which are stat base should have a slight advantage over fixed weapons.

1822

They do. Eventually. The Soul Level cap is well past 700 if you care to go that far. At that point, or really any point past SL 120ish, the scaling weapons (whether they are normal branch or the divine/magic/enchanted/whatever) will outperform any of the fixed damage options like fire or lightning.

1823

I agree, and I think dexterity in particular suffers from being one-dimensional in what it upgrades. Bow damage is nice but not essential.

OTOH, I love it when carefully balanced PVP invaders woefully underestimate the strength my character has and punt a brick wall before getting smashed in the face with my deceptively small primary weapon. So at least that aspect of str scaling is really kind of interesting.

On the third hand, I really liked finding out that a +10 big fire weapon still had a lot to offer me in NG+ in terms of clearing stumbling blocks.

1824

Same base weapon type, I presume?

Poking at a weapon damage calculator, divine/enchanted weapons should be equal to or outdamaging fire by the time you have 50 faith/intelligence. Some weapons scale better than others, so the exact crossover point varies. 35 faith seems rather low at level 100 if you’re going for stat scaling, however.

Divine/magic/enchanted weapons can’t have any of the extra-damage effects applied to them.

1825

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in my response to ZeitGeists post, but when he spoke of “scaling weapons” my mind went immediately to the Normal +15 Branch, without considering that the other branches could be considered “scaling weapons” as well.

1826

This seems pretty spoilerific, but I haven’t gotten past Undead Berg yet, so what the heck do I know.

1827

I haven’t played as much of Dark Souls as I have of Demon’s Souls but the weapons, stats and scaling seems to be quite similar. With that I’d have to agree that 35 in your scaling stat isn’t actually all that high and Divine weapons don’t scale particularly well (D in Str and C in Faith typically). Perhaps branching your weapon down the Occult path if you want to scale by Faith or a Str scaling weapon (miracles will still gain from the faith stat) would be an option if you want to use a scaling weapon.

Splitting your points between two scaling stats isn’t generally a good way to go if you want to make use of scaling weapons. It seems weapon scaling is toned down overall in Dark Souls compared to Demon’s Souls, there are very few A scaling and almost no S scaling weapons (except for bows) in Dark Souls while you could get almost any weapon to an S scaling in Str or Dex and A in Mag or Faith with the upgrade paths.

1828

The problem with the Capra Demon was his dogs, I think. The trick was to run at about one/two o’clock when you arrive and immediately roll when you see him leap, then roll left and roll onto the stairs (or something like that- you may take a few attacks from the dogs). From there, there is a ledge he mostly can’t hit you on. The dogs can reach you there, so kill the dogs (they may fall, in which case good luck) as they come to you. Once they’re dead, the demon itself is actually quite easy because his bastard attacks are telegraphed.

I think that blog post hit on the best part of the Souls games. They’re fully complete worlds, of a beautiful, rough and real fantastic style. The mechanics fit into them perfectly. Dark Souls (more than Demon) reminds me a lot of a more serious and thoughtful [companion to?] the comedy-styled Monster Hunter in that way. Monster Hunter had a fully-realised world hidden between the frames, and a highly technical and rewarding combat system. The larger amount of gameplay-level technicalities in MH (things like frame cancelling and learning animation lengths and timings were, if I remember, part of learning the game) that were just natural extensions of the mechanics in Souls games.

1829

Well, I can’t just dump every point in faith when I’m playing a melee character.

And as far as I know, the stat scaling breaks off (diminishing returns) after about 50 in faith. On the other hand, I had my maxed fire damage weapon with what? level 30?

My suspicion is, please correct me if I’m wrong, that even with ‘maxed’ stat gains from strength, dexterity and faith, a +10 divine weapon is still slightly weaker than a +10 fire weapon (even now, after the patch). And that just doesn’t make sense, if true.

1830

That is correct. I think there is a broader architectural focus on accessible PvP builds that clashes with what seems logical on a broader PvE build scale. It doesn’t make sense, I agree, but there it is.

1831

Also, note that in Demon’s Souls, since fire weapons didn’t scale at all, the opposite was true, only instead of fire weapons being slightly worse than scaling weapons, they were significantly worse.

1832

That looks like fun. When I got the full silver knight set I dressed up fully as one and went through Anor londo a couple of times in costume, but never got invaded. I was hoping to meet an invader on one of the mid-level corridors and stand in for an expected knight, but then bust out a handfull of Great Combustion as they saunter past.

1833

Maybe she is just standing behind the sofa in bondage gear cackling… “Foolish traitor to the king!”

My thoughts on the weapon scaling have to do with the NG+ replayability. DkS seems to encourage more multiple playthroughs, especially for those seeking all the trophies. Many of the covenants are exclusive to each other, are convoluted or hard to join through “natural” play, and also require grinding (PvP or PvE) for advancement. To me, this says they expect more characters and/or playthroughs and less doing everything with one char in one playthrough. Many more char slots suggest this too.

The first game encouraged you to do all the black and white events with each char each playthrough to maximize loot and experience (e.g. Colorless souls). I played my first char into NG+++ to get some souls/weapons, but beyond a certain point it didn’t seem worth it to keep leveling up anything ; END and VIT and such with diminishing returns, and my Blessed weapons already ruled the house. Now in DkS, if I am playing through several times, I will still have to level my Dex/Faith up, because I still have elemental weapons I am hoping to exceed with a higher damage Raw or +15 or Occult. It is a way to softly raise the useful level cap, if the new scaling does catch up eventually.

1834

An interesting armor weight calculator, just download and use in your browser.

Also today I was exploring with my new character and decided to go into the woods, clearing the hostiles in the usual cliff jumping manner. That’s when I ran face first into a new resident in the forest waiting with a 2h sword right in the midst of where you usually start the loop. Nicely played, From.

I ended up killing him by the same exploit, but still.

1835

No but you can stop putting points in other damage scalers (Str, Dex, Int) and put them in Faith instead and keep building your End and Vit as you see fit. If you have a Divine or Occult weapon this shouldn’t be a big difference.

And as far as I know, the stat scaling breaks off (diminishing returns) after about 50 in faith. On the other hand, I had my maxed fire damage weapon with what? level 30?

Pretty sure that’s when all stats see significant diminishing returns. Also how soon you can upgrade a weapon isn’t terribly relevant, you need to evaluate your current situation. Yes the advantage of non-scaling weapons is you can get more damage out of them early.

My suspicion is, please correct me if I’m wrong, that even with ‘maxed’ stat gains from strength, dexterity and faith, a +10 divine weapon is still slightly weaker than a +10 fire weapon (even now, after the patch). And that just doesn’t make sense, if true.

That might be true, again look into an Occult weapon instead it scales much better than Divine. I think Occult weapons are intended for Faith builds while Divine weapons are more general purpose so other builds aren’t completely screwed when fighting skeletons and such.

You do gain other advantages from Faith, such as magic defense and miracle power. Str and Dex only contribute to weapon damage and have no other benefits (beyond meeting weapon requirements anyway). Also Divine/Occult weapons gain the above mentioned advantages over certain enemies.

I don’t know about Dark Souls but in Demon’s Souls Faith builds were some of the best PvP builds around. Elemental weapons didn’t beat out Faith scaling ones at the typical PvP level range (around 120) but faith based weapons were some of the lowest damage weapons. The strength of the build primarily came from its magic defense which cut magic damage significantly. I’m not sure how prevalent magic damage is in Dark Souls PvP but in Demon’s Souls it was exceptionally common and effectively made Faith builds tanking builds where almost all fights became wars of attrition which greatly favoured the Faith build. Almost every glass cannon type build had significant reliance on magic damage, either from spells or weapon buffs.

Only once you got a significant number of points in your scaling stat. It was easy to get a fully upgraded Dragon weapon well before any scaling weapon would beat it. And god help you farming for a pure Bladestone.

I sort of think this is how it should be, a scaling weapon requires much more investment than a non-scaling one, there should be a payoff.

1836

Nice find!

They apparently nerfed my Elite Knight Armor set in 1.05 which is fair because I thought it was slightly overpowered (upgraded). It still is a very good armor set I think - if you are ok with the weight.

1837

May or may not be important to you, but the “kick” ability is directly linked to strength difference between the two combatants, and dexterity accelerates faith/sorcery casting speed (through 40, I think). Also, while not really stat-linked, they all seem to contribute to general resistances periodically just as a result of gaining a level.

IMO the dexterity side benefit is considerably weaker than the Str one, although that depends on how much you prioritize bow damage which is heavily Dex reliant if you have normal upgrades. I really appreciate having slightly above-average Str every time a PvP opponent whiffs a kick against my shield and pays for it.

1838

Wow, LK, that is extremely useful and interesting information that I have never heard anywhere else. Thanks for the awesome tip.

1839

Speed is apparently affected until 45 dexterity.

Funny that dexterity affects casting speed but not weapon attack speed.

1840

I didn’t realize Str and Dex affected these things. The Dex one is particularly interesting as it means casters may wish to invest some points there and Dex based builds (possibly one of the weakest builds) will gain a little casting prowess. Does the casting speed increase affect pyromancy and where did you find this information, I haven’t seen it anywhere else.