Dark Souls II

jaxdasher

Quick question. I'm still on my first play through. When and where should I use these bonfire ascetics? Right now I'm just heading into the mines.

J_E

jaxdasher wrote: »

Quick question. I'm still on my first play through. When and where should I use these bonfire ascetics? Right now I'm just heading into the mines.

You don't have to use them necessarily unless you want to refresh the drops on the map or fight a boss on your own again - all the bonfires +1 in NG+ anyway.

F1ngers

jaxdasher wrote: »

Quick question. I'm still on my first play through. When and where should I use these bonfire ascetics? Right now I'm just heading into the mines.

If a specific area has a particular weapon/armour you want and you do not get it having killed every enemy 10 times, then use the ascetic.

It will respawn the enemies in that area(with NG+ strengths etc) allowing you to continue farming for what it is you are after.

Cravez

jaxdasher wrote: »

Quick question. I'm still on my first play through. When and where should I use these bonfire ascetics? Right now I'm just heading into the mines.

Best use for bonfire ascetics:
- Use one to refight the Lost Sinner to get an Old Witch's Soul. Trade it with Straid for a fire weapon buff pyromancy.
- Use one to refight the Dukes Dear Freja to get an Old Paledrake's Soul. Either trade it with Straid for the Crystal Soul Spear sorcery or with Ornifex for the Moonlight Greatsword
- Use one to refight The Rotten to get an Old One's Soul. Trade it with Ornifex for the Crypt Blacksword.
- Use one to refight The Old Iron King to get an Old King's Soul. Either trade it with Straid for the Blinding Bolt Miracle or with Ornifex for the Dragonslayer Greatbow.
- Use it in Forest of the Fallen Giants to farm the Catarina Set
- Use it in No Man's Wharf to farm the Aurous armor set. Fighting the shadow enemies in the Flexile Sentry drop the Shadow set which can be also farmed.
- Use it in Lost Bastille, Forest of the Fallen Giants or Shrine of Winter to farm the Heide Knight's Set (Lost Bastille is better location)
- Use it on the bonfire in Majula and spending 16,000 souls with Maughlin will unlock the Butterfly armor set.
- If you're low on Effigies, best place to get some easily is using an ascetic on the first Brightstone Cove bonfire, it will re-trigger the loot spawn in the hidden wooden chest nearby that contains 5 effigies.

J_E

There are some very rare armour sets that only have a drop chance once per ascetic - I'm on ascetic 9 for one of the bonfires and everything is ferociously powerful now without OP magic.

I do want this though...

Mickeroo

Cravez wrote: »

Best use for bonfire ascetics:
- Use one to refight the Lost Sinner to get an Old Witch's Soul. Trade it with Straid for a fire weapon buff pyromancy.
- Use one to refight the Dukes Dear Freja to get an Old Paledrake's Soul. Either trade it with Straid for the Crystal Soul Spear sorcery or with Ornifex for the Moonlight Greatsword
- Use one to refight The Rotten to get an Old One's Soul. Trade it with Ornifex for the Crypt Blacksword.
- Use one to refight The Old Iron King to get an Old King's Soul. Either trade it with Straid for the Blinding Bolt Miracle or with Ornifex for the Dragonslayer Greatbow.
- Use it in Forest of the Fallen Giants to farm the Catarina Set
- Use it in No Man's Wharf to farm the Aurous armor set. Fighting the shadow enemies in the Flexile Sentry drop the Shadow set which can be also farmed.
- Use it in Lost Bastille, Forest of the Fallen Giants or Shrine of Winter to farm the Heide Knight's Set (Lost Bastille is better location)
- Use it on the bonfire in Majula and spending 16,000 souls with Maughlin will unlock the Butterfly armor set.
- If you're low on Effigies, best place to get some easily is using an ascetic on the first Brightstone Cove bonfire, it will re-trigger the loot spawn in the hidden wooden chest nearby that contains 5 effigies.

The first bonfire in Aldia's keep also has 2 petrified dragon bones easily accessible from it, very handy if you're trying to get your boss soul weapons upgraded.

Cravez

Mickeroo wrote: »

The first bonfire in Aldia's keep also has 2 petrified dragon bones easily accessible from it, very handy if you're trying to get your boss soul weapons upgraded.

Yep and if you want Petrified Dragon bones early in the game, Shaded Ruins is best to get as the wooden chest nearby contains one and the giant Basilisk drops one when killed.

Cydoniac wrote: »

I do want this though...

I actually got the full set just yesterday :P

Gonna be roleplaying around as Siegmeyer. Half tempted to turn on voice chat and just keep going " Hmmmm.... Hmmmm.....Hmmmm... "

CiDeRmAn

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I went back to DS2 fire the first time in 2 months.
Still in No Mans Wharf and getting my ass kicked.
The boss is a louser!
There is so little space down there.
And your summonable help is terrible, despite having the big pharros torch lit she still picked fights and lost health on the way to the ship.
Good game though.

Finished him off with the NPC summons and some tactical backpedalling!

Then to The Lost Bastille with the Knight rush and those three feckers!

jaxdasher

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Finished him off with the NPC summons and some tactical backpedalling!

Then to The Lost Bastille with the Knight rush and those three feckers!

It usually just comes down to one guy kiting the boss and the rest attacking from behind and alternating.

Interested Observer

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I went back to DS2 fire the first time in 2 months.
Still in No Mans Wharf and getting my ass kicked.
The boss is a louser!
There is so little space down there.
And your summonable help is terrible, despite having the big pharros torch lit she still picked fights and lost health on the way to the ship.
Good game though.

Killed that boss first time, you could block his attacks and just try to get attacks in at the side when he's distracted by the NPC. And it's not that far from the NPC summon sign to the ship so clear some of the enemies along the path?

CiDeRmAn

Interested Observer wrote: »

Killed that boss first time, you could block his attacks and just try to get attacks in at the side when he's distracted by the NPC. And it's not that far from the NPC summon sign to the ship so clear some of the enemies along the path?

I get kinda... anxious approaching these guys, and I find it tough, but the ring is keeping my humanity and souls intact which makes it easier, just have to have 3000 souls handy to fix it each time!

Interested Observer

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I get kinda... anxious approaching these guys, and I find it tough, but the ring is keeping my humanity and souls intact which makes it easier, just have to have 3000 souls handy to fix it each time!

You have to let go of that really. I lost 32k souls yesterday, it happens, you move on. In fact having no souls to lose when facing bosses is quite liberating, you can just go for it.

CiDeRmAn

Interested Observer wrote: »

You have to let go of that really. I lost 32k souls yesterday, it happens, you move on. In fact having no souls to lose when facing bosses is quite liberating, you can just go for it.

Problem is, and a very first world problem it is, DS2 is probably the only game I'm able to invest any serious time into.
Everything else I'm just dipping in and out of.
And I have a lot of stuff doing that.
I really need to commit properly to DS2, otherwise the skills lose their edge and I wind up wasting an hour of gameplay getting it back again.
I'm not sure if this makes any sense!

Grayditch

After going back to this, I finally made it to the Shrine Of Amana last night. I'm always so slow at finishing these games. While this is a great game, its definitely the weakest one of the Souls series and it just feel a like its missing something.

Weirdly it feels like there's no thought gone into enemy placement on the map, and that the willynillyness of it makes each section more awkward than hard.

I hope to have it done and dusted by the weekend, to start a new carachter to see if it feels better to go the melee route and so few of the boss souls seem to make for good magic spells.

penev10

Grayditch wrote: »

I hope to have it done and dusted by the weekend, to start a new carachter to see if it feels better to go the melee route and so few of the boss souls seem to make for good magic spells.

I'm finding the magic route to be dull myself. I normally play as a mage first but went with pure STR for my first playthrough and it was far more entertaining than this one. The lack of variety with the spells makes everything so samey. The Soul Greatsword spell is the only properly new one and it is limited in its usefulness.

Grayditch

Yeah, every soul seems to make some sort of Dragon Greathammer, or something. I thought Demon's Souls had great options for boss souls, for magic or melee, but I'm not getting much kick out of the magic playthrough on this.

Battered by invaders a lot too, but I'm less concerned by that

jaxdasher

Beat the ancient dragon! **** yeah! I'm with the Blue Sentinels, their PvP are so much fun. The arenas are well made and most players don't spam magic attacks.
Unfortunately I can't seem to get enough fidelity. Blue cracked orb only worked twice.

J_E

I do quite enjoy the arenas, yeah. Particularly the large round arena with the wooden 'frame' in the middle.

Cravez

jaxdasher wrote: »

Beat the ancient dragon! **** yeah! I'm with the Blue Sentinels, their PvP are so much fun. The arenas are well made and most players don't spam magic attacks.
Unfortunately I can't seem to get enough fidelity. Blue cracked orb only worked twice.

Are you in NG or NG+?

Most seem to have said that the covenant only really works in NG+, as in you should be able to invade alot easier using orbs etc

jaxdasher

Cravez wrote: »

Are you in NG or NG+?

Most seem to have said that the covenant only really works in NG+, as in you should be able to invade alot easier using orbs etc

I'm still on NG. Thanks for the tip. Something to look forward to in NG+.

leesherwin

this game has ruined my life

tok9

After finally playing through the Artorias of the abyss dlc for Dark Souls I'm tempted to get back into Dark Souls 2 again.

Still a small bit disappointed with the bosses especially considering how good they were in that dlc too.

J. Marston

Dark Souls 2 definitely leans towards quantity over quality in terms of bosses. They're are some real stinkers.

Prowling Magus, Dragonrider, Royal Rat Authority and Vanguard, Skeleton Lords. All crap, in my opinion.

penev10

J. Marston wrote: »

Dark Souls 2 definitely leans towards quantity over quality in terms of bosses. They're are some real stinkers.

Prowling Magus, Dragonrider, Royal Rat Authority and Vanguard, Skeleton Lords. All crap, in my opinion.

I thought all of those bar Dragonrider were quite good, at least different. Dragonrider is ok as an early boss, the floor thing was novel. The worst imo being the Covetous Demon. Other disappointments were the Throne Guardian and Watcher, the Looking Glass Knight, The Old Iron King....

noodler

penev10 wrote: »

I thought all of those bar Dragonrider were quite good, at least different. Dragonrider is ok as an early boss, the floor thing was novel. The worst imo being the Covetous Demon. Other disappointments were the Throne Guardian and Watcher, the Looking Glass Knight, The Old Iron King....

Ah the Looking Glass Knights was one of the few really good ones imo!

penev10

noodler wrote: »

Ah the Looking Glass Knights was one of the few really good ones imo!

Aesthetically yes, but I found him very predictable. Not a bad boss just a disappointment.

J_E

Hate Demon of Song myself, just a tedious boss in all aspects.

XVII

Old Iron Kind - hello from diablo.
And has anyone noticed that special move by Smelter Demon, when he puts the sword into the floor with AoE effect? Pure Nightmare from soul calibur.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QKcVddK93c&feature=player_detailpage#t=198

tok9

Well started NG+ after beating the game a good bit ago.

Tempted to just change all my stats and go for a completely different playthrough like magic since I pretty much ignored it for both Dark Souls 1 and 2.

jaxdasher

tok9 wrote: »

Well started NG+ after beating the game a good bit ago.

Tempted to just change all my stats and go for a completely different playthrough like magic since I pretty much ignored it for both Dark Souls 1 and 2.

I'm just on early ng+ too. If you need a hand let me know. I'm a Str/fth build right now. Thinking of changing build at some point too.