All strength all the time!

I'm probably going to focus on doing a dex/agility build, so I can dual wield and dodge like there's no tomorrow.

i will do either:

Sorcery with the moonlight greatsword(i hope it is in this game also) or

STR build with heavy armor and a bigass weapon(pref a great axe)

Dual swordsman all the way.

DEX weapons most likely, I'll probably try to pump up AGI just to see how it works at high numbers.

Probably some sort of dexterity build. That shit was deadly in Dark Souls.

Mage ass mage for my first character. I like the glass cannon approach. Here's hopping it's less broken and I don't end up killing bosses in 2 hits this time around though.

Strength faith build after that.

@rand: MLGS is in everything From Software makes, not just the Souls games.

I'm not sure, they haven't even announced all of the classes yet. But the sorceror looks cool with it's more schamanic, pagan priest type aesthetic.

quality build with lots of agility, stamina and no vitality or defence. never get hit and hit back harrrrrd

Glass canon mage, probably.

I played the network test beta thing and I didn't like any of the builds they had there. The Souls games make for terrible demos...

My main character in Dark Souls was a heavy pyromancer with a giant axe/sword and the Eagle Shield. The changes in spells, movement, and stat allocation are likely going to mess with how I actually play this game though.

It's a dumb thing, but the beta somehow made me less excited. It's an unfinished part of an unfinished game, so I know that cognitively, but I didn't like some of the changes that were shown in the interface and stuff. I'm sure the final game will be great but man...took the wind out of my sails for it. It's illogical of me.

I tried dual-wielding greatswords with the knight during the beta test and, as dumb as that was, it was a ton of fun. So I think I'll go all strength and try some sort of dual-wielding with that.

Probably high armor, big shield. That's the way I played the first one and I'd much rather keep playing that way than start doing somersaults all over the place like a lunatic.

The more I can roll and move around quickly the better so DEX/END goooo

Dual swordsman, I'll probably attempt to dual wield katanas if at all possible.

probably what i always do, low armor, high mobility with shield + 1 handed weapon. Though i'd like to try a dual wield ninja build for once...

Long sword knight with some faith as always

I want to try out a Str build and use a greatsword ...but ill probably go with a dex build again to play it safe first time through.

I'm probably going to go for a balanced "Jack-of-all-trades" approach at first and then fall into line with the style i like the most.

My favorite build in Dark Souls was a quality build with a decent chunk of faith for some miracles like heal (which were handy to save estas flasks and for utllity). My favorite weapon BY FAR was the long sword so, yeah. Leaning towards something similar if the game lets me.

Gimme a longsword, a shield, some medium armor and some utility with miracles (MAYBE a bow) and i should be ok.

I will probably end up as always with some light armored, fast moving claymore/bastard sword wielding character. The claymore type sword I tried with the dual swordsman in the demo felt really good (much better than any other weapon in the demo but a large margin) with move set that was largely satisfying.

But I am also really interested in getting a mage this time since magic looks and feel really good this time around with the ability to aim spells, heavy / light charged spell versions...and spells that actually look good, not just silly light bulbs being thrown slowly at your opponent...soul greatsword? YES!

Fuck a build, I'ma beat this game like I should have beat dark souls.. level 10-19 and backstab EVERYTHING! Builds take to long and I am restricted on the time I can just die. I want to die every way possible while platinuming the game as fast as possible. I did I believe within a week of launch last game. Going for 3 days.

@mcshank you platinumed dark souls in a week at launch? really? I find it really hard to believe considering how much freaking time it took me to platinum the game 2 years after launch when all tricks where known and documented, needing all rare weapons on the same character to start with meaning that you need to beat the game at least twice with the same character to get all soul weapons...

Demon's Souls, I played a straight-sword wielding, magic flinging, DEX-INT build. I told myself I'd try something different for Dark Souls and eventually gravitated towards a straight-sword wielding, magic flinging, DEX-INT build. Maybe I'll try something different this time around, but I wouldn't count on it.

I dunno....

V-Bomb will obviously get the job done (at a slow, lumbering [yet still imposing!] pace).

I find it a little hard to swallow as well, but I know there are people out there who are way better at games and who are more dedicated and have more time to spend on them than I do. A Platinum in Dark Souls involves:

• Beating the game twice for both endings
• Acquiring all rare weapons, sorceries, pyromancies, and miracles
• Discovering all covenenats
• Upgrading each class of weapon to maximum

This takes a minimum of 2.5 playthroughs. While theoretically possible, a week after launch seems extremely unlikely. This is especially true because there are quite a few missable trophies and without guides to refer to at launch, they almost certainly would have been missed, or at least it would have been unknown how to find them. Trophies like Prayer of a Maiden and Bond of a Pyromancer are not easy to get unless you know exactly what to look for, and where and when to do it. Plus, the Knight trophy...I have hundreds of hours into Dark Souls and still never got it.

Gonna start as a quality build (balanced str/dex), standard sword/shield combo. aiming for mid roll. The great thing about quality builds is they're real easy to take into different directions later on. Versatility is key, don't want to over specialize till im more familiar with the game.

Oh and enough faith to get a heal miracle. That shit is useful.

EDIT- wow i forgot i replied to this thread over a month ago and said pretty much the same thing.

Since Demon's Souls I've done my first runthrough as a magician/sorcerer. Vicious bosses, here comes another glass cannon!

It's gonna be great/bullshit.

Since I never got deep into magic on any of my Dark Souls builds I'm probably gonna try out magic in DS2. I really enjoy running around with huge weapons though, so it might end up being a weird build..

Dex & Hex, baby

I'm going to do what seems cool relative to whatever equipment drops. Go with the flow baby. In Dark Souls I focused on a heavy knight that can do a little pyromancy and some healing miracles between fights. My favourite armor was the Black Iron Set because I find strong black Knights really impressive (and I'm not so into the horns of the actual Black Knight Set). So maybe I'll do the same thing.

Though when I played Dark Souls I tried out almost everything to some degree. I finished at Soul level 120-ish but at any given moment half of those stats would be wasted on the build I was currently playing as not using them. So I'll probably end up doing that. Basically, I like playing around with different ideas and being able to be versatile over min/maxing.

Two swords. Always be dual wielding and what not. I kind of was sold as soon as they mentioned that it was going to be a viable tactic.

I wanna keep throwing fireballs if that's still a thing.

Strength and Poise

Probably some sort of warrior guy. That's what I play in almost every RPG because I'm the most boring person on earth.

that said it's super tempting to go all intelligence ever since I watched some LPer play through the game like that and he was eventually just fucking 2 shotting all the bosses. Magic combat in games is almost always super boring, though.

Strength cheesemeister

No idea. Maybe a quality build so I can meet most str and dex requirements just to try most weapons out? Once I get a feel for the game I'll probably go dex/faith or dex/int though.

Undecided between a dex build with either a rapier (ricard's rapier ftw!), or a katana, with a bow on the side (see how many mobs you can cheese kill by sniping!), or with a str greatsword build.

Either way I want to be encased in a full suit of armour. Love the black iron set from dark souls.

I want to try a Dex/Agi dual-wield/bow ranger-build, just to see how well they improved those for the sequel. And because I'm a masochist.

Quality, heavy on the Dexterity probably.

Not sure how it will work out yet, but I'm just gonna play blind on the first run, then use a guide to pick up any trophies I missed. Actually, for my first build I intend to over-level as much as possible, I'll even glitch levels if I can after I get to NG+, to play around with as many systems as I can. I'll start by aiming for a basic quality build, but it won't be until my second build that I'll actually care about carefully planning my stats to a solid Quality-Dex.

That first character is always an experimenting thing. Got nine other slots for tailored builds.

I'm going with a fast dex build so I'm hoping Dark Soul 2 offers a nice variety of dex weapons.

I preferred the speed and moveset of the Uchigatana over all other weapon in Dark Souls, but I did dabble with several other weapons in PVP. The Great Scythe is fun to use against someone who doesn't know how to deal with it's speed and range, but it's too easy to punish against someone that knows how it works. The Great Lord Greatsword is as heavy as I got in PVP and it's surprising to see how many people would fall into it's stun lock, but it isn't very good against faster builds. I recently gave Ricard's Rapier a shot because I wanted to try its Double RT Blademoon Nuke and it's super effective against weapons with a slow speed (you can dish out the whole combo between any heavy swing), but it's terrible in 1v2 and 1v3 situations.

I'm going to find the biggest sword I can, the biggest shield I can, the heaviest armor I can, and fat-roll my way to victory.

I know some people dislike the heavy tank/hulk smash approach but it is extremely satisfying to make enemies go *crunch* and *splat*. I want to swing a giant slab of iron so that I may rip and tear through my enemies.

I like dodging and katanas, so dex build.

The cheapest one possible.

Went DEX in DS1, so this time I'm going for the biggest baddest sword I can find and two handing it. Also, I've never cast a single spell or use a single pyromancie in either of the Souls games. So there.

Light armor with a bow, sword and shield.

i did Demon's with a dex build, did Dark with a strength, this time i have to go with a caster, even though i'm relatively inexperienced with spells, save for a sorceror i brought through The Tower of Latria in Demon's and that was like four years ago.

would it even make sense to level up both INT and FAITH? is that a waste of time?

I loved the Knight's Greatsword in he network test so I think I'll go either two handed with that and lots of agility or perhaps see how viable bows are.

It was nice to have something ranged with Pyromancy in Dark Souls so if you can pump agility and dex/str to do big damage with a bow that would have a similar effect probably.

Either way I think Agility will be the main thing I go after off the bat.

@hh: We don't know for sure if that would be a waste yet. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's not optimal for min/maxing though. Only reason I can think off the top of my head is if there are some good low faith requirement spells you could sidetrack into getting. Utility isn't bad no matter what build you are going if it's low investment.

I want a fast sword and a pointy halberd so whatever stats allow me to use those - dump everything else into Endurance.