It's like Dark Souls 2 in that once you finish the game it still allows you to go around and do all the optional content. NG+ doesn't activate until you choose to at the Firelink bonfire.

You probably weren't over leveled my biggest issue with that boss is they simply don't have enough health. If you enjoyed that fight you should definitely enjoy some of the late game fights a lot.

You are correct in that the total AR is shown in the stats menu, from your initial comment I got the impression you meant you weren't getting any stat gain whatsoever. My best guess would be A scaling isn't a flat multiplier, some weapons will have better A scaling than other weapons. So it might just be low scaling A.

So, I made my Uchigatana "RAW" early on, and it's been good. But I wanted to use the wolf sword I got for turning in blades of grass and leveled up to 19 str and 25 dex. I don't like the wolf sword that much though, but now I have higher dex and am wondering if removing the RAW nature of my uchi is a good idea... I can't figure it out. Hmmm

Also, Patches tricked me. (That cad) But I actually don't know how I raised that bridge to begin with. Any ideas?

Also also, the Cathedral of the Deep is a weird Cathedral even if you ignore the denizens. Like, it has water and looks like it came out of a WarHammer universe. Not that I'm complaining. I like things to be GRIM as FUCK.

@plasmaduck: Huh that's really disappointing that magic damage is such garbage. I really like the move-set and design of that weapon and would have been happy to use it as my primary if it dealt more damage.

@thorntik: I can't imagine it will stay this terrible, but pretty much every aspect needs a buff. The lock-on range, the damage, the casting speed, the tracking, everything. Magic was so broken in Dark Souls 2 I guess they overcompensated this time around. As a burly warrior you both deal more damage and can take more hits, and both playstyles have to stay close range for the lock-on to work.

Is there no way to relocate your points other than to join Rosaria's Fingers? I miscalculated how much VIT I needed and now I have 19. I hate odd numbers.

Anyway, I just fought Deacons of the Deap. Boring boss but using Farron Greatsword made the fight kind of fun. The music was pretty good though.

@militantfreudian: That is the only way to reallocate. Which is a bummer, because doing so angers another NPC.

@sterling: I just waited until I completed her quest line to respec so I didn't anger her... granted that means you're basically at the end of the game but still.

@captainjudaism: I didn't know who it was when I joined. Then I ended up botching the NPC for that covenants quest. So it was a double botch job on my part. Something to look forward to on NG+.

I feel like I've reached the final area. There's only one lord of cinder left to beat, and this place looks kinda like the final castle area of Demon's Souls. There's another area downstairs that seems pretty messed up, so I guess that's some optional stuff. I beat the Dancer that's been in every trailer, and Aldrich, so that felt good. Can't wait to get her armor. I'm summoning for everything, mind. It's easing the frustration that would otherwise build up faster. I suppose I might play a second file without summoning at some point. Don't really need the bragging rights, but I'm only cheating myself out of learning to be good at it.

Watched Patrick's latest let's play episode of the game where he fought against the maggot undead, when I remembered the interview in the first Dark Souls design works book. What was the quote again, "proud" enemy designs? I'm asking because I'm pretty sure the example used for what they meant was that the undead dragon wouldn't have crawling maggots in it. I'm sort of unclear about who exactly made Dark Souls 3, but something certainly changed. My impression is still that this is mostly Dark Souls 2 guys being plain better at their jobs, but it's kind of a stupid thing to say. I'm sure there's a lot of overlap between the teams.

I've been using that dark axe you find in the mimic chest early on in the game and nothing really seems to be topping the damage output unless later enemies all become super resistent to dark damage. I once again am trying to do a STR build and so far have pumped my STR stat to 30, and yet the meat cleaver with A str rating still isn't even coming close to outpacing that dark axe even when they're both at +3. Now I have a limited amount of large titanite and it's a real dilemma if I should just buff the dark axe to +4 or not. It doesn't scale, but it really does seem to outpace all other STR weapons while still retaining a good moveset with a relatively high attack speed.

I peeked at a wiki to see some of those greatswords coming up and man, a ton of them have pretty high dexterity requirements for ostensibly being str weapons.

@humanity: It will eventually even out and get outpaced (I think of it as the drakesword of this game). Scaling will also get better results when you're at softcap (40) and the weapon is getting more upgrades (+6, +9, etc) it adds up, plus enemies will get higher resistances in general, meaning 2 sources of dmg will get their dmg reduced more then one. Finally you can also buff non magic weapons for that layer of extra dmg (fire or magic is easy) too, but not the dark axe if i recall.

One thing to note is that DS3 heavily segments it's titanite tiers, so for a time you will be very limited on one of them (like large), but once you get to certain areas, titanite will flow, I was at a point swimming in large titanite just from drops without farming, getting to the 99 inventory limit and beyond and that's with upgrading several weapons. Plus shops start to stock them.

In lieu of the above, I'd say it's not a bad idea to upgrade that dark axe early on, when it is the most usefull. And later you will have plenty of raw materials to switch to a scaling weapon if so desired.

@tennmuerti: Ok thanks a lot that is exactly the sort of info I was looking for! Right now I'm only at the beginning of the Catacombs, or right after extinguishing the 3 fires in the poison swamp area. So I'm super stingy when it comes to spending any of these materials and I keep hearing the Meat Cleaver is the best STR weapon in the game etc but at the max that I can currently upgrade either weapon the cleaver is trailing behind at least 100dmg.

So it's great to know that yah later on you start to swim in the stuff because it's been just like titanite here, titanite there, but not a whole lot of it to go around and experiment.

Man, just beat Pontiff last night in an exhausting fight after what had to almost be double digit losses to him, and immediately get invaded. I am exhausted and irritated at being invaded, and just want to end it. I somehow managed to beat the dude, and immediately he spams my messages accusing me of spamming the light attack button and lamenting the loss of all of the "decent" players.

Why is the Dark Souls community so awful?

So buffing weapon with magic . How do you do that without staff ? Is it even possible without it?

@edgaras1103: Pine resins apply various temporary buffs to your weapons. Pale Pine Resin is the one you want, if you specifically want magic damage. Otherwise yeah, you need a staff or some sort of other weapon that can act as a sorcery catalyst (there are a few), in order to cast Great Magic Weapon or Crystal Magic Weapon.

I stopped playing most of the way through the High Wall of Lothric because I ordered a GTX 960 4gb so I could have more frames. Unfortunately, I bought Rogue Legacy to tide me over until my card showed up. Unfortunately because now I can't stop playing that even though I got my card two days ago. Goddam that game is unadulterated fun. I did at least boot DS3 back up and confirm that I've pretty much doubled the frame rate I was getting with my 750Ti. I was once hovering in the 20-30 range. Now it's more like 50-60. Vast improvement. I imagine it might even get better if I work up the balls to update to the 364.72 driver that apparently bricked some people's cards (yet other people are claiming works absolutely perfectly. Curse you Internet rumor mill!)

@humanity: Much of the reason the Butcher Knife is popular is because of the move-set, not the damage. It does decent damage, but it's far from the strongest weapon.

@sethmode: however you had beat that guy, they would have complained. Beat them with a backstab? backstab fisher scrub. Beat them with parries? Lag parry exploiter. Beat them with magic, traps, superior dodging, counter hitting - any and all of those are "cheap". Do all of them in one fight and they'll say it's because you're using an OP weapon like a scrub. Beat them with all of those moves and an unupgraded longsword and they'd call you a scummy lag hacker.

Some people are just salty and can never admit a clean defeat, because it would bruise their own self image too much. You get them everywhere but Dark Souls gives people the chance to complain directly to you about it like a baby. It is also an unashamedly non-balanced PVP, giving people lots of ammunition for self-preservation of their own ego.

I don't have time to read through all these to see if this has already been mentioned, but I urge you to try the auto hud option. It takes away all the hud elements on the screen until you enter combat or hit any button other than roll. The game looks great, why not see more of it when you aen't fighting bad guys?

I think DS2 had auto-HUD on by default. I dig it.

Just beat it. Yes it's a good game and definitely the most refined "Souls" game to date, but I find it disappointing when compared to bloodborne. I know that's an unpopular opinion, but I think Bloodborne is the pinnacle of what this type of game can be. Everything about it feels sleek and dileberate, where the Souls games sometimes come off as clunky in execution.

On another note, I think they should drop the dark and dingy locales for their next game; It's gotten old after 5 of these things. As much as I love bloodborne, I hope they do something completely new for their next release; something that keeps the core sensibilities of the Souls games, but with its own identity.

@ares42: It does appear to have really great reach although I'm not a huge fan of the R2 or the weapon art.

I arrived at The Cathedral of the Deep and maaaaaan, did they stop designing enemy AI and thoughtful encounters and just decided to dump as many aggressors on you as possible? Every couple of meters you're being jumped upon or ambushed or shoot from afar. It's such a long run from the COTD Bonfire all the way to the shortcut up the cathedral.

I didn't care for that area at all. Don't worry, it gets better, in my opinion. The item you get for completing the Cathedrial gets you to a really tough, sometimes frustrating, but in the end fun part of the game.

Whew, I just beat the boss of the last optional area Nameless King, took several tries, man what a FIGHT, 10/10 would date again. I got an adrenaline rush and everything in the last moments. Thank you Form Soft!

Now if only the rest of the games bosses were closer to that, instead of being 1-2 shotable.

@ravelle: I just started working through the area as well. Maybe not all that thoughtful, but I believe it's meant to be an area that challenges the standard way of playing up until that point. If you've been sword and board running in on everything it's going to suck. I ran a longbow through most of the run up to the elevator and had a much easier time than when I just ran in with my sword and aggro'd everything. You have to assume every encounter in that area has twice as many enemies than what you can see. Almost every fight has enemies climbing up or down onto you.

There's always an area with terrible ambushes in souls games. CotD just seems like more of that. Players just have to pick the ambushes apart piece by piece.

I took an entirely different tactic of rushing even faster and more foolishly and then just hitting the entire clump of little guys that fall down behind. It works surprisingly well for being kind of a terrible idea.

Had slightly more trouble with the graveyard portion because the Xbox One framerate of an area with endlessly spawning zombies is really good.

I just beat the Dancer of Boreal Valley. How close am I to the end?

@supermonkey122: Fairly close. Not counting the optional areas you have 3 bosses left.

Close to done, now. Considering the post above, I only have two bosses left. I think it's been a really good ride.

Also: Holy shit, that secret area that's all dark scared the crap out of me. I followed through on what I found, and I'm not sure how great I feel about it. I wish these games took the time to establish at some point what the exact effect of Dark is. I can never tell if it's the true, accurate nature of humans in this world or if it's this all-destroying slime. i haven't looked up the details of what exactly happens in each ending, but for me to be satisfied it has to be something more than Go Dark or Go Light, because clearly those just repeat forever in this boring canon they established with 2. I need some permanent changes, dammit! I'd prefer putting the undead curse away for good. Now that's some closure at the end of a series.

Well i just played through dark souls 1 and 2 each in prep for this game, and i have to say that DS3 is kind of a let down. It looks ok, but modded out DS2 makes the game look like shit as far as lighting and shadows(walk around firelink and see if you cast a shadow lol). Sure there is a lot more detailed geometry but my god the lighting is a step back(maybe better than vanilla ds2 but even with reshade so far it just feels like a downgrade). All that is forgivable but what in the fuck is up with the input lag and the input buffering? The enemies are bloodborne fast but i end up doing 2 dive rolls because i always feel like the first input didn't go through then i end up rolling around a second time like a full second after not hitting a button lol. And man the animations feel like they are missing frames, DS2 felt so smooth playing as an agility/dex character this i feel like my guy is animating at 30fps when he game is running at 60(especially the awkward DS1 looking dive roll). Also they made my favorite weapon so bad now, sure i go the uchigatana after like 30 minutes of game play but it's nerfed to shit, the slow wind up and input lag make for quick deaths lol.

Otherwise it's still a souls game even if it's not the best one (maybe the worst? I'll have to play more) I almost want to just start a New game + in DS2. I'll give it time though, but first impressions are bad so far.

That's.. odd. Can't say I really noticed any input lag?

It could be a PC thing, i've tried doing some settings in nvidia only thing i haven't tried is turning vsync off completely. If i ran a sword and shield build i probably wouldn't notice it as much, but I know the input buffer thing is universal as my friend on xbox is experiencing the same thing. I'm going to give it another go tomorrow

I've definitely felt some inputs being chewed up whilst at full stamina.

I've been playing quite a lot in the past couple of days. I found a second Lord of Cinder, and my character just got "married." Still enjoying it, although I have to say, exploring the Demon Ruins part of the Smouldering Lake is more tedious than going through a Chalice Dungeon. I liked the Pontiff Sulyvahn fight quite a bit, especially in its second phase. He reminds of Martyr Logarius somehow, except I like this fight better. As far as gimmicky bosses go, I enjoyed fighting Yhrom the Giant. I loved how the fight started.

I want to say I'm at least halfway through the game, and I've been reading practically every item description. I wish they've gotten a little more inventive with the descriptions of items that appeared in previous games. I don't want to read stuff I already know. Also, considering the game takes place many ages after the first Dark Souls, it's very odd to see items that appeared in the first game be in rather pristine condition.

@militantfreudian: Depends, item to item. The description for the chloranthy ring, for example, is pretty much "shit is old, dawg".

Well i think it's definitely vsync, but turning it off causes some of the worst screen tearing i've ever seen. Even just the intro logo tears lol. No borderless windowed mode but even so it seems like windowed mode drops the fps down 15frames :-(

I could try 1080p i guess but man it looks jaggy as fuck on my monitor, most games upscale relatively well this one doesn't.

I cant tell what happened to me in this encounter.

@bezerker285: Looks like you got parried while still hitting the other guy. I'm pretty sure I can see him start the buckler parry animation. That has happened to me quite a lot in this game, where I get hit by a fast attack but I still get the parry off.

@dudeglove: No, there is none of that in this one.

Gah, the last couple of bosses have been real roadblocks for me. Is anyone else playing without a shield at all?

It's how I played DksII and I like the challenge but some of these bosses seem like one would be really helpful.

@paulmako: I know it's not quite the same. But on bosses you are having trouble with. Drop a summon sign in front of them so you can get some no risk, no delay, back to back practice on them. It really helps to learn a boss and you get a butload of souls out of it. I was an adamant shield user in both DS1/2 and demons souls and I've barely used it at all this run because rolling somehow seems significantly easier. It just feels like they added more i-frames on either the front or back of the roll.

I'm not far but i played DS2 like that as well but i'm finding the dodge roll to be real bad in this one so far, and i have no desire to go back as a tank again. I would have thought after bloodborne they would make movement better, but DS2 is leaps and bounds better as far agility IMO.

I like DS2 a whole bunch but I'll never praise the rolling. It is hot garbage unless you've thrown every other point you earn into Agility, which is no fun at all.

Man, after getting my ass handed to me over and over again on Aldritch, and finally summoning a sun bro to beat it, I went an destroyed Dancer first go.

Has anybody tried a borderless windowed program on pc and got the ban message? It's the only thing I haven't tried that could work besides turning vsync off and dealing with terrible screen tearing.

That's invincibility frames though, not input lag and input delay. I did a direct comparison on pc and DS2 has none of these issues for me. And you only need 100 agility which means you only have to get adaptabilty up to a certain point, so it's just a sacrifice for another stat like any other thing.

Dark souls has almost as many Iframes in the dodge roll as a 100agility build in 2, it works but it feels imprecise and terrible. Honestly i'm wondering why this game is getting such a big pass on this, must be because so many people haven't played a souls game in a while or play as a tank or with a shield. The reasons people can't pull off simple counters and why the online pvp has so many lag issues is a direct result of this terrible input detection they put in this game. Game is feeling like such a step backwards and a huge let down, I haven't gone past the first area after the bonfire yet just trying to get a grip on this input buffer and input lag stuff.

@oursin_360: I beat the game yesterday at about 31 hours and have been using the Borderless Gaming program since maybe hour 4 or so. No ban message or anything.

@neocalypso said:@oursin_360: I beat the game yesterday at about 31 hours and have been using the Borderless Gaming program since maybe hour 4 or so. No ban message or anything.

thank you, i will give this a try ASAP!

Worked but dropped my game 15fps right away lol. :-(