So, the weapon durability in DSII seems to go down really quickly. I had a +3 Halberd that I took into the Warf area and about I'd say little over a 1/3rd of the way into the area being careful and clearing out the enemies I got a break warning on the Halberd. So I switched to another pole arm weapon I had and that ended up depleting rather quickly as well. Finally ended up using a club I had to finish the area out. Granted this area is extremely dense with monsters including these weird two armed crazy looking...things (I really don't even have a proper descriptor for them.)

So does it seem fair to invest in multiple weapons in this game because man... I seem to be really going through stuff like I never ever did in Demon's or Dark Souls. I hope they patch it to the the durability erode slightly slower cause really so far this is my only complaint so far with the game.

I've been rolling with two equipped and a couple backups in inventory. I've had a few levels where I ran down both. They both don't have very high durability though. This way I can run a level and check for secrets without respawning the enemies.

@sterling: Yeah, I like how bonfires restore durability but definitely seems for longer areas you really need to pack your knapsack with goodies to get you through. One of the new trade-offs so it seems.

@demoskinos: They retooled the durability system. As long as your item does not break it will get repaired automatically the next time you rest at a bonfire. There is a red bar under the equipped item box to help you track that without going into the menu. It's nice because you don't have to spend time & souls repairing but you also need to keep durability in mind if you are on a long run. It's also another indirect way to reduce the ease of grinding/farming.

Halberds and other sweeping reach weapons go down quick because hammering the weapon against walls and floors stuff counts against durability too.

Edit: I see you know about the bonfire repair, guess I had the page open for a while :p

I had to use a Repair Powder in the Wharf so my fire sword wouldn't break. I'd be up a creek without it.

They seem to have changed it to be a short term problem instead of a long term one. In Dark Souls, outside of Gaping Dragon fights and some weapons like the Washing Pole, it was almost impossible for your equipment to break as long as you repaired it every now and then. Now it repairs automatically at bonfires but deteriorates much more rapidly, making it a legitimate mechanic you have to consider. Repair Powders might even have a use now.

It does suck when your weapon breaks, but I still think this is a good change. They made a completely irrelevant mechanic into something you have to actually pay attention to.

@vashyron: I haven't found a merchant that sells them regular yet. I had already used up my found stash by the time I got there. That was the first place that started making me have more than one weapon equipped, even if it runs up my equip load.

Oh wow... clanking against walls lowers it? Well then. Did not know that.

I do kind of wonder if there's anything in the way of Scraping Spears or Acid Clouds in this one. You could fucking destroy someone's inventory if you could deteriorate weapons even faster.

There are a lot of vases in the world that has acid in it. If you break a vase, and it looks like liquid came out of it, it is safe to bet that it is acid.

Yeah, I really hate that weapon/armor durability even exists in these kind of games, but this game is amplifying that hatred x10! When I first noticed that my weapons seemed to be degrading so fast, I tested it. I rested at a bonfire and got my sword to 60/60. Fought two spear dudes and hit a wall and it was already 55/60. I got the weapon break warning on three weapons between bonfires. Ugh..

Not very far in, but I was using one of the Black Armor edition weapons, and that broke pretty effing fast. I went back to the starter weapon, and it's lasting, but I also die a lot so it could be that I'm never alive long enough for it to wear down

Carry multiple weapons. You have to, they degrade at a much quicker rate in DS2. I'm into the 4th zone so far and I carry 3 weapons, each upgraded to +3/+4 from basic Titanites.

If you're careful with your swings, the only time your weapons break should be from an acid bath.

Being careful has nothing to do with it. You'll easily go through a single weapon during an area. I switch between 3 weapons to stay safe. Killing a single guy can reduce my weapon by 1/6th.

Now that I've played farther in the game and I'm playing better I have to concede this is a slight problem. It's not game breaking, but not being able to clear an area without risking your weapon breaking is kind of annoying, mainly because it feels like it punishes playing well. The longer you last without retreating to a bonfire the more at risk your weapon is. Which would be okay if repair powders weren't also rare and even titanite to upgrade a second weapon.

If it stays as it is then whatever, but if they decided to patch it so weapons degrade just slightly slower I would not complain.

Actually, if I were to recommend a change I think they should make it so weapon durability increases as you upgrade a weapon. This would potentially solve this problem while adding a sense of progression along with your own progression.

There's a ring that slows down the degradation of weapons, I'm using dual katanas with 40 durability and can go through a whole area without even getting to half the durability.

Are we talking late-game then? I'm only just past the first door after the 4 primals, to be honest.

I've killed 5 bosses so far. I'm in the Company of Champions covenant so all the enemies take more hits to take down. I haven't found a vendor that sells unlimited powder.

I haven't had any issues with durability. Only time I've ever had something break on me was from a source of gear-breaking acid stuff. I think maybe once my weapon got low from going through kind of multiple sections without resting at a bonfire.. but that rarely happens as I'm usually desperate to rest at one.

Not sure what people are doing to destroy all their stuff so quickly lol

It wouldn't be so bad if the floor itself didn't damage your weapons.. Or the fact that every damn monster wasn't so damn close to the walls. Its a poorly designed system that needs tweeked badly. The reason why your halberds break so fast is because their hitting the ground so much. Its not you, its just how the weapons atk sequences are designed. They plunge at monsters, and plunge right through them into the floor.

It needs reworked, badly. Bad design is bad design, don't give them any excuses.

Maybe worth picking up the Bracing Knuckle Ring in Lost Bastille, at least for the area you're on.

I don't think its bad design at all. Nor do I think it needs to be "fixed".

You don't think it's bad design? I enjoy any challenge a game is willing to throw at me as long as it's vaguely and plausibly grounded in realism. The way my Dark Souls 2 works at the moment, even with a frame limiter set to 30 fps to avoid the various PC bugs of higher frame rates, I can't get through many if not most areas leading up to a boss without my weapon threatening to break on me. We're talking maybe fifteen or twenty enemies, sometimes less depending on the area.

I can't imagine how huge battles lasting hours, days even, would have unfolded in the past if everyone needed to switch to a new weapon every fifteen minutes. Unless the weapons in Dark Souls 2 are supposed to made of chocolate ice-cream, I don't see any plausible justification for the way the mechanics are currently set up.

This is quite apart from the fact that it has now been who knows how long since FromSoftware were made aware that the PC version doesn't even work properly from frame-rates of 31 and upwards (everything from weapon degradation, parry and riposte windows, guard breaks and jumping attacks, dodging i-frames, etc. is significantly harsher the higher your frame-rate goes above 30 in ways that the developers clearly did not intend) and have done absolutely nothing about. And two months since the patch that now makes Dark Souls 2 crash every time you exit, still no solution.

But it was good to receive that patch that did nothing to fix any of the above and instead nerfed lightning-based spells, as well as accidentally reducing damage for them by 25%, even though the intention had been to increase the damage to offset the diminished number of casts available for Lightning Spear and its derivatives.

Good job, FromSoft.

@alexboisot: uh what? I have a full let's play up on youtube where I am all the way to the Dragon Aerie at this point and I have been using a dura 20 shield almost the whole game. I have only ever felt the need to use a repair powder once. That didn't even happen until Draengleic castle. I never had an actual broken item until I ran into the gear breaking fog mushrooms in shrine of amana. If repairs are that big a problem for you then you are doing one of a few things.

1: You aren't stopping and resting at bonfires for some reason.
2: You are using nothing but incredibly low dura weapons and not using dura protecting rings to offset this.
3: You are not playing carefully enough and are chipping your dura away with unnecessary wall hits, ghost bit attacks, or just sloppy play in general.
4: Probably the most likely... You have weapons that either aren't upgraded well, are terrible for the area you are using them, or you don't have the build to support them.

I love the durability change. I don't think any of my gear ever broke in the first game, at least now I am forced to change weapons occasionally.

@karkarov:

Sorry to say, but you are wrong on all four counts. And note that I have completed this game several times over on PS3 and never once received any kind of warning that my weapon was at risk unless I'd skipped a bonfire for some reason. Now I'm playing on PC in pretty much exactly the same way and I'm making it maybe two-thirds to three-quarters of the way to the boss in No-Man's Wharf before the warning comes up. So you can see why I don't think any of your suggestions account for this.

I don't even mind being forced to play with stricter limits as long as they make sense. I never heard of a sword that breaks completely after killing 15-20 enemies. That's just ridiculous. And not particularly fun, as far as gameplay mechanics go.

The fact that durability is tied to FRAME RATE is the silliest decision they made in DS2. I can understand if you want to tie it to weapon swings, or hits or blocks or something like that, but straight up if you run the game at 60 FPS your weapons degrade 2x as fast as someone playing at 30FPS. That is silly.

I don't know what to tell you dude other than that I am playing on PC and don't have the issue. I am normally running high forty's to mid fifties fps while recording too.

Well in that case we can conclude that at least for some systems (and judging by the descriptions coming from others on different forums, not just my own), setting an FPS limit of 30 does not solve the issue completely. It's a definite improvement on 60 FPS, but still not at all how the game handled for me on PS3. I have gone through the notes for all the patches released since the game came out, and not a single one mentions any kind of 'across-the-board' durability decrease for all weapons of the kind I'm getting . . . anyway, I hope someone figures out a way to sort this out, because it doesn't sound like FromSoft are too concerned.