Having trouble getting to grips with the combat. I suspect I am playing it too much like DS1.

With War I could block/counter and he had a long reach, scythe for crowd control, etc. so by the end I wasn't taking a single hit from regular enemies.

With Death unable to block I find I am taking a hit or two from even the weakest enemies before I can combo them or juggle them up in the air.

Dodging out of the way just seems to send the camera all over the place and the enemies and their neon colour palette (first realm) often occlude the vision. Dodge too much and the frame rate goes to shit

I suspect I should be using target lock more often - but other than for bosses that just seems to get me blind sided by other mobs.

Any ideas?

Yea you should always use target lock so you can dodge around the enemies.

Death can't take as many hits as War so its just a matter of getting used to Death. You need to be moving around quite a lot.

While fighting a group of mobs do not use the lock on. I've seen/heard people having issues with the camera but it wasn't a problem for me since I only locked on during boss encounters. You gain combo's by buying them from a trainer at the Forge, the first one he will give you for free is a ranged attack and is extremely useful. Enemies have very distinct attack animations usually signaled by a flash before they strike so keep dodging, try to get a couple enemies grouped up while attacking and make sure to buy combos so you have more moves at your disposal.

the game play is mostly set up for guerrilla style attacks and quick movements , death still has crowd control moves ex the hammers axes and maces , but he also has scyths combos (1 in particular that lets him hit a wide area of enemies at once , if you find yourself getting hit multiple times you should do his three dodge away to regroup , when you do they usually clump together to let you hit them all at once , there are also certain elemental that affect enemies (best two being ive and lightning , ice letting you freeze them in place for about 3-5 seconds and lightning usuaally causes enemies to knock back multiple times till it wears off after a goof 5 seconds )

I rarely target lock... Just dive around and attack. The move where you dive and then throw ur scythe spinning at an enemy is very useful.

My main thing is basically using the gun to get Wrath and then sending my birds out which knocks the enemies around and it makes crowd control easy.

@Heltom92 said:

Yea you should always use target lock so you can dodge around the enemies.

Death can't take as many hits as War so its just a matter of getting used to Death. You need to be moving around quite a lot.

Yup, this. For me Death works best when you're dodging an awful lot, like barely ever staying still (which is kinda like how I played as War to be quite honest), following with that scythe attack where Death throws his sycthe forward like it's a glaive. I personally never locked on targets, though. Having the additional peripheral vision helps a lot in keeping a keener eye on groups and such. Also juggles never came into play for me much, lest I'm playing around with an enemy and just want to mix up my tactics. But I'm also a pure Necromancer build so my ghouls would often carry aggro while I dish out damage.

Also what version are you playing? Because besides the odd occasion when there's like 50 million things happening at once (like when attacking a horde of skeletons and I've summoned my explosive ghouls), the frame-rate was pretty steady throughout on the ps3 version.

Mhm spam the right shoulder button, only way to play D2.

@Yummylee said

Also what version are you playing? Because besides the odd occasion when there's like 50 million things happening at once (like when attacking a horde of skeletons after I've summoned by explosive ghouls), the frame-rate was pretty steady throughout on the ps3 version.

same with the xbox version and also never uses the lock on ability unless i want to see an enemies health such as king argol , man i hated king argol

Learn to time your dodges well, it's a counter-attack. Also, go to Thane and buy the dodge attack for the scythes. It's quick, strong and can affect multiple enemies.

Target lock is the way to go in my opinion, especially in the early levels - it's easier to get used to it when the mobs are weaker and have less potential to fuck up your combos. The ability to circle dodge will help you considerably, since many of the enemies have such transparent attack signals that you'll be able to dodge their attacks while focused on a different goon. It's a matter of getting a hang of it.

I wasn't using the target lock at all, I was just hitting the roll button a lot. All the enemies in that game phone all of their attacks in about a week in advance.

@Ghostiet said:

Learn to time your dodges well, it's a counter-attack. Also, go to Thane and buy the dodge attack for the scythes. It's quick, strong and can affect multiple enemies.

And it's free!

Probably not. The combat in DS2 is awfully balanced. They throw too many enemies at you, which was fine in DS1, but the problem is that Death is very weak and not as mobile in a fight as War. There's almost no hitstun in your attacks and you can't interrupt enemies, if you see an enemy winding up for an attack just get away, while enemies even the smallest ones will easily interrupt you and break you attack strings.

The weak combat is probably a by product of the loot system and it devolves to exploiting that system, if you know what you're doing you can build the ultimate weapon that has something like 50% crit chance, health on crit, health on hit, and then mash to win. If you don't have health regenerating weapons then just hit and run, get a couple of hits in then dodge away and only use the lock on on single foes since the camera gets in too close and you can't see around you.

@Fire_Of_The_Wind said:

Probably not. The combat in DS2 is awfully balanced. They throw too many enemies at you, which was fine in DS1, but the problem is that Death is very weak and not as mobile in a fight as War. There's almost no hitstun in your attacks and you can't interrupt enemies, if you see an enemy winding up for an attack just get away, while enemies even the smallest ones will easily interrupt you and break you attack strings.

The weak combat is probably a by product of the loot system and it devolves to exploiting that system, if you know what you're doing you can build the ultimate weapon that has something like 50% crit chance, health on crit, health on hit, and then mash to win. If you don't have health regenerating weapons then just hit and run, get a couple of hits in then dodge away and only use the lock on on single foes since the camera gets in too close and you can't see around you.

its not awfully balanced at all , every battle you fight in it there is a general solution on how to beat it and you have a great many ways of defeating an enemy , furthermore if u do find yourself overwhelmed you have reaper mode as an almost always instant win button

Depends what style Death you are playing mage or melee one is better staying more in range and dodging out letting ghouls etc help, while melee Death can just go apeshit on all enemies.

I have personally almost never used target lock in combat, in two playthroughs. Just time your dodges now and again and that's it. Some enemies have weaknesses like angels and grip for example, bugs gun. There are 2 very very powerful and useful quick scythe moves for Death, dash and strike makes you both avoid attacks and also do a ton of damage with a scythe spin; then there is the ultimate move back from the original Darksiders namely the air spin, simply dodge into an enemy then jump (or if wearing fast melee weapon like gauntlets strike with them they can also take you into the air) for a launcher and do the air spin move, it does tons tons of damage very fast. Then there are plenty of other generally good moves like the basic X then Y's with a heavy weapon for fast AoE.

Lock on during dodge is only required if you want to counter, but personally i did not find the counter that useful, simply dodging away and then striking back with a spin does the job better imo.

Learn the enemy attack timings a lot of them will strike you back before you can complete a full combo with stagger on them, so it becomes a matter of taking them out faster or dodging out before they counter.

If your trouble is with groups use all the tools at your disposal, like the above mentioned X then Y combo for a quick aoe in a pinch, or skill tree abilities like ghouls for taking agro from you or harbinger tree has a full on instant aoe clearer

hit and dogde man, hit and dodge.

Enemies have really obvious tells when they're about to attack. As long as I'm not mashing, I never take a hit. Just don't get greedy and know when you only have enough time to get two hits in before a dodge. Personally I never use lock-on unless I'm fighting a boss or a singular, large enemy. I dodge towards/through enemies which makes it easy to keep track of their position.

The combat is pretty easy. Basically rinse and repeat 2 combos combined with dodging while using a primary and secondary weapon (axe or hammer) that have ice damage (has a chance to freeze enemies on hit) on them. Never use target lock, it's pretty awful with the camera. Just a matter of recognizing patterns and mobs that don't get interrupted by damaged and dodging at the right time.

Enemies are constantly getting frozen and knocked back.

Find a weapon with health steal and proceed to curse the game for being too easy. If you wanna get fancy you can get a possessed fast weapon and put life steal on that with other stats of you choice.

That's exactly how I beat the game.

Use the Necromancer skill set and upgrade your guouls to where they attract enemies. Then move around a lot and kill distracted enemies. It's great!