Quick question to the peanut gallery; how is this game for someone not interesting in being challenged but is rather more in it for the story?
The perfect name
Not great. This is much more of an exploration game with a detailed combat model, an amazing world, and some twisted and weird lore. For me, who hates story in games, it’s perfect. It feels much more about mood than story.
Scuzz
3130
I am using that great sword and the flail. The great sword is my main weapon but there are enemies for whom the flail Is much better. Plus you can set them up to benefit from strength.
To be honest I haven’t really played with the Ash options.
Scuzz
3131
Dark Souls games have lots of lore but I wouldn’t say any of them are story based. This is very open world, lots of interesting exploring with some easy to very challenging combat.
My favorite weapon for horseback is the Nightrider Flail (though I assume the regular Flail works the same). Just holding down the RT means you just spin the Flail steadily for a bit until you release to swing (or a maximum time is reached, but it’s like 6 or more seconds). The thing is all of those spins hit, so you can get good by winding up while charging the enemy, and just whack them a bunch of times riding past- no real timing necessary. Great for taking down groups of humans, animals (when farming for arrow bones), trolls, dragons, etc.
robc04
3133
Wow playing this game as an astrologer is so much different than melee. At least to start it’s much easier - took down the tree sentinel right away and the troll without dying. I had to wait until I got the horse for the tree sentinel as melee and I died several times with my first troll. It’s pretty fun and breathes some fresh air into a game I already played over 100 hours.
Either you are just showing off, or you are way better than me (or both… ;-) ). My astrologer tried to beat the tree sentinel (that golden knight, right?) yesterday, with a summon and about 24 lvls, and failed. How you even begin to beat it with starting FP, starting spells and on foot, is beyond me…
Bateau
3135
What’s your /played? I finished my first run at around 120h, though 20 of those were probably spent afk, if not more. I started NG+ but I’m feeling a bit of a burnout to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, the game is absolutely spectacular and completely surpassed my expectations (and then some!) and is one of the best games I’ve ever played, but the sheer amount of hours and focus I put into it recently is just too much.
Wow, 12m already… I think Dark Souls 3 lifetime sales were around that!
JeffL
3138
FWIW, from someone who is a huge open world fan and not a Souls player, and only really in the starting stages of the game: This is a great open world for creating your own role playing story in your mind. A LOT going on around you, i.e. not an empty world. And if you take the time to pay attention and talk to whoever you can talk to, you can get pieces of a story (IMO.) But for me, I’m playing an Astrologer who has been plunked down into this huge, bizarre, dangerous world with no idea of why I was put here, and I am trying to survive and become powerful enough to explore this world. I create mini stories in my mind, and the game accomodates that.
JeffL
3139
Question: still low level Astrologer (not a lot of time for games these days.) I’ve got the Meteorite Staff and the Morning Star mace. I broke my rules of no walkthrough guides etc and looked up how to get the Meteorite Staff just because it looked like it was a “must have” for an Astrologer and got out of that part of the map as fast as I could, riding my horse frantically looking for a point of grace where I could fast travel out while dodging weird things trying to kill me. Morning Star I found just exploring.
Morning Star is better than my Toys R Us short sword I started with, but I’m not sure it’s idea for my pretty weak Astrologer. So the question is: what’s the best melee weapon for the Astrologer? Especially one who sucks at melee anyway. Hopefully one that doesn’t require me to kill bosses or high level bad guys to obtain. Thanks!
Morning star is pretty good. Strike damage for armored enemies and a good move set. You don’t need to worry about scaling. Just upgrade it.
Jeff,
I put a video together for my cousin last week going over how to block, how to use ashes of war, some other stuff that he was not sure about (he didn’t know how to use a shield). I’m sure you are much further along than he is (you’re at least using your wonderous potion thing!) but there may be something in here worth your time, so I’ll link it (and for any new player that might want some help). I don’t think there are any spoilers or anything - I stayed in the opening area of the game - but I do show a few weapon skills and spells.
As for levels not meaning much, that’s really true - it’s a combination of your stats and the weapons you use that make a difference. Having a +3 weapon vs. an unupgraded weapon makes a big difference as it expands your base damage and makes the bonus from stats higher (which in turn makes gaining levels more powerful as said stats get more points). In the video, though, you can see that tough spear guy just about kicks my ass while I’m level 130+ just because I wasn’t paying attention very well, just because of how the mechanics/numbers work I suppose. You’ll still feel incredibly powerful later in the game returning to the earlier areas, and you’ll find bosses you missed down the road and come back to can be taken down in just seconds, so you will get much more powerful than you are now, but you can never really let your guard down nor should you underestimate even lower end enemies.
Kolbex
3142
That’s true for all the weapons! Well, I haven’t really tried it with polearms, but swords still do damage during the “scraping it against the ground” phase of their windup, too.
The best way to describe this game is that it’s an NES game built on 2022 technology. It’s very similar to Breath of the Wild that way, with just as large a world (probably larger) and a similar exploration focus. Yeah, there’s some “story” here and there, but less than BotW and it’s definitely flavor for the locations you visit as well as the overall task you’re put there to accomplish.
I finally found the Warmaster Shack, but I’m level 82 and there was no one there except a boss. I guess I can’t get the No Parry ash on this character!
Go there again during the day.
I did! Still empty. Oh well!
Try and prioritize weapons or ash that have a bleed or a frost on them, as it’s a huge damage addition. In a boss fight, the flail will end up doing a lot more damage due to the bleed.
There is a katana you can get pretty early on that has bleed, which is a really good weapon to upgrade. I like carrying and upgrading both a slash/pierce and a blunt weapon, as different enemies have different resists. There are some enemies that are really resistant to slashing, but very weak to blunt etc.
My go to for the start of the game for a melee build is the katana with bleed, and either the flail or the mace you can get early with bleed. If you can find an ash that adds frost or other damage, that’s pretty clutch as well. If you’re avoiding spoilers that may not be something you run into for a long time though. Bleed is something you can use right now with a weapon you already have.
