What kind of build are you gonna go for?

Probably gonna go with a dex + some kind of magic build again. I like to evade and not tank, and it's potentially good for PvP.

I'm going to dive head first into the new dual-wielding mechanics. See where that takes me.

I will most likely play it safe for my first play through, standard soldier with just a sword and shield.

@development: that's where I am right now in DS. Even though I am working on a dex/pyro build, I am liking the black knight sword+3 so far.

Strength build for my first playthrough, as I like the idea of a big ole warrior smashing puppy. My second character will likely be a dex build, or a potentially an int build.

I'm gonna stick with the play style that I used for Dark Souls: medium armor and probably a curved sword since they're faster than normal swords. Nothing too fancy, but it allows me to roll around enemies at a decent speed and counter with some quick strikes.

Am I the only person who is going to try out the new archery system?

Anyone knows about the new stats requirements for armor and animation speed systems? I heard speed is now dependent on an agility stat and not equip load. To balance that out you can't wear heavy armor without the stats. Although I don't know if you need endurance or strength or both or something else.

That kind of stuff will definitively inform how I make my int build as well as my faith strength build.

My favorite builds in any fantasy game are light armor / bow/ short swords (Dex build) and big weapon / heavy armor (Str build). I'm still uncertain which one I will do first, but I will do both!

Biggest, slowest, heaviest weapon I can find.

Everything else is up in the air. I tend to do heavy weapon with light armor so I'm mobile, but I might do heavy armor because I haven't done that yet.

I usually like to do a mix of magic and strength.

Since sneaking up behind and exploiting the backstab technique is no longer an option, I'll probably go for a tank build with lots of stamina and equip load and find STR weapons to do massive damage. So basically what I did in Dark Souls but now with less backstabbing.

I do want to try a magic build as well too but probably not on my first playthrough.

Giant weapons, heavy armour, no shields.

@you_died:

I might try archery; if nothing else, if I go dex or a quality build I'll probably have a bow on hand. However, from what I've seen of beta gameplay vids it looks to me that while bows are better, mostly things seem to consist of walking backwards shooting arrows (basically kite kite kite).

My first build will always be a strength heavy knight/tank. Its what I use to run through the game to learn it and explore. Then I move on to a magic build, then a dex and so on.

I was originally going to branch out a bit compared to previous games, but seeing the awesome Temple Knight class's starting gear made me decide otherwise.

Therefore: Spear. Shield. As heavy armor as I can get and still have a medium roll.

Been running this build since Demon's Souls. Will continue to run it in DS2.

I might give magic/faith a shot again, as I dabbled some in Dark Souls.

Even though she is now gone from my real life, I still feel like continuing with my Sophia, a traveler from a Far Eastern land. After all, thatSophia didn't leave me...lol! And what I found w/ Sophia is that she loved re-inforced Paladin like armor, and the three Halberds (plus a spear for a while). And what does that mean? That meant the heresy of dex. piled on top of str. with vit. and end. to boot. In fact I am thinking of leading off with dex., we will see by the stats.

But if I (not Sophia of course) had any huevos, we might consider another build even. It's just that is what worked for me(or us) in DS so very well....Sophia crushed everything, and she did just fine without that ring of favor and protection. Better combos out there with rings and shields, thank you very much.

Strength first and then magic :)

Hmm, I already said I want to keep throwing fire, but now I also want my Scythe to be back in 2. I love my Scythe. All the backstabs.

Dex based Magic & Poison user.

Naked dual wielder. Faith only though. And dual wielding whips. Faith whips.

Most likely it will be some kind of agile DW build.

I already did magic in Demon's, and did the heavy/tanky build in Dark, so it's mostly about trying something different and relying on a new set of skills to do well.

@futurstock said:

That outfit would be cute if the leg piece didn't come with a ball sack. I obsess over things like that.

@ezekiel: the outfits in demon souls were probably the best.
hopefully ds2 has some cool stuff, at the very least some sick wizard hats

Big sword medium armor. I recently watched a magic playthrough of Dark Souls and it looks boring as shit. I like the variety of spells, but I want nothing to do with the playstyle it encourages.

Playing Dark Souls and Demon Souls I always went with a pretty heavy character. I won't go as far to call it a tank build though. In Dark Souls I wielded a Zweihander in all playthroughs and used Havels Armour for the majority of the game. As time went on I then used the Black Knight set with the Zweihander. I usually used The heavy armours with large bosses where you need a lot of poise then used lighter armour for faster bosses like the Gaping Dragon and Artorias. I also invested highly in Vitality, Strength, and Endurance. So simply put I use Very heavy stuff early on until I am leveled up enough to be able to effectively use lighter armour and not get as badly injured. By doing that I sacrifice a little defense but in return I get to run and roll better.

Mage because the staves look cool.

After all I've read about the redone stats system, I honestly don't have an idea what sort of character I'd like to go for. I was at first dead-set at starting off as a Paladin-style class like I said in my first post, though given that you can now redo your stats mid-game (for a hefty price, I'm sure), I may be open to experimenting a lot more during my first playthrough.

All of them.

Definitely a more dex focused build as far as what I wield, and it depends on what weapons and gear I come across and begin to fancy. I think stat wise I'm gonna really try out what the Agility stat has to offer.

Just finished my first ever Dark Souls playthrough with a pure Dex built, so would like to roll some kind of spellsword character for the next game. Magic and 1h if that's feasible. Though a melee tank sounds like fun, too.

I played through Dark Souls with a strength build and Demon's Souls with a magic build.

Maybe I'll try Dex or Faith this time.

Strength/ Faith was the first build I really liked in Dark Souls. Probably do that for my first time in Dark Souls 2. Hoping Lightning Spear makes a return.

For the first time through, I'll go for a strenght build since pretty much all of my characters for the first game were glass cannon builds. I want to try something that will feel different than what I've played of the first game. After that I will try going light and fast, Dex and Int., the usual.

@sterling: Occult whips or Divine Whips? Or Astora's Whip of Divine Occultitude and Hexing?

@fredchuckdave: One Divine and one Occult. Whip 'em. Whip 'em good!

@sterling: Did you ever get around to making an Artorias build? Guess it takes forever to develop but it could be interesting; might not have the time to make one at this point.

Same as last time. Equal parts STR and DEX. Long bow and long sword. Light to medium armor.

@fredchuckdave: Never really built around the sword, but I've made it a bunch of times. And with my faith build I tried to go for the Grant build. But I ended up giving up right after I was able to use it. It was a huge waste. But I was rocking all of Leroy's armor, weapon and shield.

first playthrough is gona be a sorc

the second one will be a str build with heavy armor and the bigest baddass axe i can find

For Demon's and Dark Souls I went with a Knight class and focused on Vit, Str, and End for my stats. I'm most likely going to mix it up and rock it out as a mage to mix things up.

Pure DEX served me well for my first playthroughs of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.

• Find the katana
• Find a good bow
• Find the heater shield

And we're set.

Well I have always like playing the less commonly played classes in game ie: sorc, Hunter and pyro. But I'm also a huge pvp fan, which made things very hard for me in DS. But now that they have made changes to sorcery and bow and arrow seems to be much better than it was, I may just roll those 2 as my first character all the while still being able to pvp in a viable manner.

@sterling: Turns out my shitty first character is sort of close to a good starting build for using the sword, and also playing with a mediocre character is probably better for prepping for Dark Souls 2 than using one of my various onslaught builds. Of course the best way to farm souls is white phantoming Ornstein and Smough which is relatively interesting in NG+; so I've had a decent refresher on how to play with a weak character.

@fredchuckdave: The last few days I have been doing a depraved. That I am not leveling up. And I am not using a shield. Trying to make it as hard as possible to get used getting crushed. I was not having any trouble until I ran into the stupid Capra demon. That guy and his dogs don't like that I am not wearing any clothes much.

@sterling: I turned a Depraved into a 99 str/11 vit/11 endurance character which one of the patches kind of broke, never just played with a low level depraved though. 11 stats is like enough to use a lot of things but not quite enough to use the actually good, early things. Funny thing with SL 1 runs is that other starting classes are harder to play with (same was true in Demon's Souls). Getting the Red Tearstone with a starting character (with no intention of actually using it) is pretty exhilarating, though I imagine you're not using the Master Key.

The difference between the stats of all the classes is negligible if you do not level up. Every class can two-hand a reinforced club or battle axe. The elemental upgrade paths of these weapons provides more than enough damage to tackle all of the bosses. All these classes can also use the pyro glove since it does not scale with stats.

@groin: The difference between 8 vitality and 10 is quite large, same with 8 endurance to 11 endurance; trust me I've played both kinds of characters. But yes upgrading elemental weapons and the pyromancy flame totally negates the challenge of SL 1.

8 vitality yields 530 hp. 10 vitality yields 572 hp. A whopping 42 hp difference. Several bosses will 1 shot any character with that amount of hp. Low level characters should not be taking hits anyway. The difference in endurance is also negligible.