I've been running around with 55 insight for quite some time now. I was already 40+ by the time I reached Amelia and I don't really use it. I'm at the workshop trying to fight my way through the squid guys and I've literally lost 18 insight fighting the squids. They love to shoot their glowy bullshit at range and it doesn't seem possible to dodge in those narrow hallways. Can't run from it. Can't seem to dodge through it. I thought I was about to be done with them, but as I backstabbed what I thought to be the last squid another squid ran up behind me and grabbed me for the final 2 insight lost.

I thought I was just about to rage when I was hit with a glowy ball halfway up the ladder and I landed perfectly on the ground to lose 2 insight to the squid, but that final sneak grab just about broke me. 20 insight does not come by fast. I'm down to 34 insight and I don't know if I should just leave and come back later. My katana would not stun lock the squids so they'd just grab me through my swings. If I miss my gun parry I'm done. If I successfully parry, but they already launched their glowy attack I'll be trapped and they'll get off their knees in 1 second.

I literally can't believe I just let my anger get the best of me as I fed them all my insight. I could have left before my insight dropped below 40, but I didn't and now I'm sad.

Brother I know your pain but listen to me.

You have to let it go. Everyone has a moment like this in their Souls game careers. Everyone. Nobody starts out being those fucking naked speedrunners, everyone gets there through a series of mistakes. Some are small. Some are enormous. But if you let it eat at you, it will drive you insane.

Take some time off. Step away from it, read something, do something not that intensive or stimulating. Come back in a bit, maybe in an hour or two, or maybe even in a week. You'll be in a much better space to handle that area. Heck, don't even go straight back into that area. If you feel the need to, go help other people out with it to get that Insight back. Use the co-op to learn that area by heart and defeat it. And if it is just unmanageable, well, unfortunately that area's completely optional anyway.

I haven't really had a use for Insight. I've bought all the armor that the dudes had and now I literally just waste the insight on Fire Paper and stuff to keep it under 15. Actually I've got 46 madman's knowledge items as well.

Are you trying to save Insight for something in particular?

So, what's the deal with insight? Is it just used for summons, buying stuff, and making the game harder? I've lost 4 insight, and I might have had a total of 13 at some point. So far, I don't see why it's such a big deal.

I was trying to keep my insight high for a while, then I went to the chainhurst boss solo. Immediately dumped it to 12.

If your having trouble with the squid guys using the kantana I suggest getting out the threaded cain. Wip mode r1 stun locks them rather neatly.

I haven't been to that area yet, and I'm not sure if this'll help but I got a tip from a user here (@theblue), and it turns out that those enemies seem to be very weak against thrust damage. It took me several charge attacks with the Axe, and one normal thrust attack with the Kirkhammer's sword. They also might be weak against fire as well, so try molotov cocktails.

It's the coolest shit ever. Enemies have different attacks, and you can buy NPC armor sets. Get 20 insight and go outside the cathedral ward church and you will see what the "big deal" is ;) The whole H.P Lovecraft stuff is so cool. The whole of idea of dark forces being really behind everything on earth. The human race thinking there the most important race, but their really not.

I actively have to try to spend my insight. I was at the insight cap for a long while in my first run through of the game (99) and just use it to restock my bolt/fire paper, or quickly buy twin blood shards to upgrade new weapons I wanna mess around with.

Now a little into NG+ I am back at 60+ without even trying, and kinda wish I could spend it on more stuff. Ritual blood for days for arcane haze I guess

You get way more insight than you will ever need. Just let it go, duder.

You can roll under the spell I think. Just make sure you aren't locked on (so you can roll) and shoot at them if you're in a bad position while they are charging the spell, should interrupt them.

You'll finish the game with max insight and items to gain more should you lose it. Fighting and killing bosses gives you a lot. It also isn't really used for anything beyond the fact I think you need 30+ to trigger something at some point, all of the insight items are fairly unexceptional.

@asilentprotagonist: This happened to me and that section is reeeaaaalllly hard with the respawning enemies and the bells and the cthulu giant bug monsters. like, it's really really difficult.

Don't worry about losing insight. That stuff is easily replenished through chalice dungeons. Also which area are you talking about? You probably mean Upper Cathedral Ward right, and not the workshop, cause there's like 1 squid guy in the workshop.

Also if you're using the katana, you should know that one of the best attacks with the katana is to transform, but in the middle of the transformation, while it's in the sheathe, do a light attack. This will cause you to do the transformation attack witohut needing to do another attack before it.

What this man said.

I skipped two optional bosses in Dark Souls II because there was no way I could beat them and I didn't feel like spending my time running in to a wall with no change in results. It bothered me quite a bit because I hate to leave things unchecked.

And yes, take a breather to collect your self and reflect. You can't think straight when you're all hot and bothered and it will only get worse the more you die. Relax a bit and go at it again with fresh eyes.

When I get really frustrated I either take a break from the game or at least go do something totally different within the game. Re-explore an old area where you can easily kill everything, or summon into other people's games and help them out. After a while when you're frustration had faded, you can make some more runs at whatever is frustrating you.

I feel like I'm totally alone here, but I didn't think that stuff was that amazing. Not to say it wasn't cool. It was definitely an 'Wait... oh fuck, I guess this is how the world really is' sort of moment, but I wasn't blown away or anything.

Also, Insight at 15 will start changing enemy movesets and Insight at 45 may start making enemies do slightly more damage, though this has not been confirmed. It is entirely possible this is in people's heads. I certainly haven't found proof of this so far myself. Between 15 and 45 you may start to see additional mobs in some places.

It's a cool idea as it is basically an adjustable difficulty slider that also adjusts based on your deaths and victories. It doesn't seem to impact the game tremendously though from my experience. I've been fighting the last couple of bosses with over 60 Insight and I honestly don't really see a difficulty increase. In fact, I'm not even sure I saw any different moves, though it is hard to tell.

Insight is nearly useless and I'm surprised you'd get upset about it.

It wouldn't really be that great to me either if i wasn't such a big fan of H.P Lovecraftian lore. Lovecraft would be soo proud. This is also the game that took 3-4 years to make, and all they could think of was 15 weapons. I mean wtf were they thinking? ahhahhahahhah. Clearly a purposeful design choice by them, but definitely not the right choice.

There's only some info on Insight, but for the most part it's basically useless since you can buy all of the sets with the amount that you get normally. With more Insight you have, there are some secrets that are revealed with it, but it also makes enemies and bosses start doing new moves that hit pretty hard. Higher Insight also lowers Beasthood (which we still dont know much about...)

I think its perfect in the sense that you should not feel too bad when you lose insight and they do cool things that can make the game harder if need be.

@whitestripes09: Beasthood increases damage, while lowering defense, but only while there is an amount of Beast status being inflicted on you. Higher Insight lowers the damage of beasthood. The amount of blood covering your character increases the damage. One weapon gives you constant beasthood.

I seriously doubt that Insight is as insignificant as you make it out to be in terms of difficulty/more enemies/new enemy movesets. I can't speak for what happens at 1 Insight vs 60+ Insight, but I was never able to shrug off attacks as most things one shot me. That may be due to my low vitality, but time will tell as people experiment with different Insight to see things that are more nuanced then additional enemies (which I have seen change with more Insight) and new moves/weapons on enemies.

Redacted

At least you didn't lose 40,000 blood echoes because a non-existent enemy wall apparently picked up your blood stain and is unkillable, at least your first 25 hour character didn't get glitched permanently inside of a boss fight you had never been to before.

You get 10 insight from the bosses in that one area alone. It's not a big deal. You probably have double that amount in consumable items anyway; I've got like 50 at the endgame and I've never used a single one.

I am fairly certain damage doesn't increase at least. If it does, it is a very minor, unnoticable increase. I've fought all bosses twice now, once at 'normal' Insight (the amount you get simply by playing the game) and once while doing lots of co-op and popping all Madman's Knowledge. I honestly didn't see a difference for any of them, although some ambient changes do occur. Like the Amelia fight, she starts talking as she dies, where she doesn't at low Insight.

By the way, fun little fact: the time I fought Amelia with 45+ Insight, she didn't heal once. I honestly think distance plays a part in this, because I stuck on her ass the entire fight, though I of course cannot be certain. Also, to rectify: it seems she staggers from limb damage as opposed to total damage as I said before. I suspect she takes more limb damage from charge attacks. I noticed this in my most recent fight with her. I was only able to stagger her once, then I noticed her leg was all bloody. I tried the other side, and sure enough, she staggered again. So that's a thing.

After a certain part in the game the things that are different with Insight stay that way. It's possible to change things without reaching that part but you'd have to know about it in advance, boost insight, or be on NG+ which would already have you well aware of things.

Redacted

I've finally uploaded the video and I looked back on why I was so angry. In retrospect it was total bullshit and I should have been angry with those Brainsuckers taking my Insight.

I break at 18:55 and literally throw the controller at my bed once the thing happens.

Don't know what to tell you other that "Git Gud" it gets much worse before the end.

3 things:

1. Insight matters very little, unless you co-up through out the game, you'll get much more than you need. Just do a chalice dungeon and you'll get at least 12.

2. Be methodical. Personally I would never just run through an area unless I was going to the boss, killing enemies gives you experience, blood and drops all of with will ultimately make the game easier. Just running also opens you up to deaths you can't really do anything about.

3. You can dodge the stun move everywere expect the very narrow hallways. It seems like you get in your head that it's a super hard dodge, it really isn't, just wait for tentacle head to make her move. Also that area is filled with statues and other things you can use for cover. Lastly a lot of them walk around, if you hide in doorways and behind statues, you can get some easy backstabs.

@golguin: I'm not going to lie, these video's don't make you look great. I'm having a hard time understanding your thoughts when playing these games. You take everything so hard. Very cliché, but it's just a game? I get that you can get annoyed by things, but you almost seem to take it personally. If you're not having fun overall, you really should stop playing. It's like you're playing to prove something.

Insight doesn't matter, like at all. If anything low insight makes the game easier because it causes frenzy to build slightly slower and if you have less than 20 frenzy a ton of things happen to make the game easier. Dudes with the lamps lose their lamp spam moves, a bunch of enemies in hemwick never spawn in the first place, etc etc. The cutoff is basically 40 anyway, at 40 you can see the amygdala's inside the church and outside the chapel. Past that there is no "in game" effect from insight. I have run around at as low as 15 insight at end game and as high as 99. It actually didn't change anything other than the fact that I had to be more johnny on the spot with sedatives at 99.

Please replace the battery in your smoke alarm. Insight is meaningless. I got angry at that same point when I realized I was losing insight and it never mattered. I have 99 now without ever thinking about it.

@corporalgregg: I spent most of mine on dumb stuff like twin blood stones because I couldn't be bothered to farm them for other weapons. They should let you buy blood rocks and slabs with insight as well. Hell make one blood slab cost 99 insight, just let me actually buy it. I know I can get more from chalice dungeons but I honestly can't stand them. Some switch flips inside me and the moment I enter a chalice dungeon I instantly want to quit playing.

Insight doesn't matter. It really doesn't change the game very much at all.

To be clear this was recorded quite a long time ago (I've already beaten the game and I'm making my way through the depth 4 and 5 Chalice Dungeons), but I hadn't had a chance to upload this when it initially happened about a month ago.

Take it personally? No. I was hitting this area for a while and lost what I believed to be a precious resource that I had gathered over quite some time with all the boss killing help I had given. More insight meant more things would happen and the game would get harder. It also allowed me to buy cool things. That's all I knew at the time because I wasn't going on forums looking for information on what Insight did.

A souls game for me isn't fun unless I'm constantly getting pushed back. I played Dark Soul 2 in the Company of Champions for my very first playthrough because I wanted a challenge. It was a very satisfying experience doing that and essentially playing blind. Gaining higher amounts of Insight and keeping my level low seemed to be a way to make the game more interesting. Losing Insight meant the game would get easier, which is not what I wanted.

You might find it fun to simply progress through the game and beat it, but if I'm strolling through areas and killing bosses in one shot I'm not having a good time.

Except almost nothing boss related is effected by insight. In fact only thing I can think of is Ebreitas because she/it has a frenzy causing move.

@golguin: Well... yeah... but, don't take this the wrong way; it doesn't sound like this is what you wanted either? I mean, it didn't sound like you were having fun playing like this. I guess I can understand your position, but maybe you should've googled what Insight actually did before committing to gaining as much as possible (and consequently being bummed when you lose some). Because if you had known up front it didn't do anything to increase boss difficulty or increase damage etc., you may have had less of an awful time in situations such as these. Especially if you knew the caps at which stuff happened. Seems like 40 is the cut off to have some additional mobs appear, but only in very, very, very select area's such as Hemwick. 15 is the cut off for a couple of additional moves on enemies and higher than 40 only seems to affect frenzy and boss ambiance and whatnot.

If insight was actually useful I'd get your frustration. You'll be fine man.

@zevvion: My personal favorite is the rumor that bosses talk with 99 insight.

Oh, look at you! You've nearly gone hollow!

Just to add to this I also lost a ton of insight at that section. I was in the 70s and finished that section with 58. You know how much I had during the final boss fight? 94. That doesn't include all the madman's knowledge and later wise man's knowledge that I have. If you want insight the game gives it to you in spades

Lol yeah, the bosses do talk. Of course they will still talk at 0 insight too :P.