bushpusherr

Nameless King for me, from just about every perspective. I immediately loved the visuals, from the storm to how badass that dude looked riding a dragon and throwing lightening bolts at me. I also really like the lore, how he is almost certainly the firstborn son of Gwyn. And while the camera might be a littler finicky in the first phase, I feel like they did everything they could to make it manageable and still even have a boss of that size and maneuverability. It's a huge arena with very few obstacles. The second phase combat was really challenging and rewarding as well.

The Dancer actually ended up being really memorable for me too. Not only did I love her fluid animation and how the chapel around the fight progressively became lit on fire with her blade strokes, but it was even more tense for me specifically because I triggered the fight *immediately* after defeating Yhorm. I only had half my flasks to start and wasn't wearing my ideal gear. I ended up beating her my first try with no Estus left and only about 10% of my health remaining. It felt awesome.

While it certainly wouldn't make my top 5 overall of anything, I would also like to throw an honorable mention to the Ancient Wyvern. I think that was without a doubt the best "puzzle" boss that this series has had. It wasn't all that difficult but it looked awesome.

I really loved the bosses as a whole in this game and I'm really excited for more in the DLC.

For me, I think the best way to think about the super heavy armor is to consider it not tanking damage, but tanking stamina. It isn't so much the damage reduction/absorption that I primarily focus on as much as the *poise*. When using a shield with a high stability stat, along with a healthy chunk of poise, your shield blocks aren't going to chip away at your stamina nearly as much, leaving you a bit more freedom to still attack while you are circle strafing close up on the enemy while blocking their attacks.

Personally I still try to fit as snugly as possible under the 70% mark because I do still like to roll, but there were certainly a few bosses where the poise/heavy armor strat was more suited.

I think each of them do different things the best, and each of them have unique flaws. I choose all of them :)

Demon's Souls was my first, but definitely isn't my favorite. There are elements of all of these games that I think each does better than any other in the series, but as a whole I think Dark Souls is probably still my favorite, but not by a large margin (I think Dark Souls 2 plays quite a bit better). I've beaten all of them multiple times and gone back to each after having completed newer ones. While I really love the world and atmosphere that Demon's Souls sets up, it is just far too tedious to be considered my favorite. World tendency and character tendency management, item burden, 1-chance crystal lizards, insane variety of upgrade materials, and while it might have a couple really challenging boss fights, almost all of them are complete pushovers.

Hmm, not to minimize anyone else's problems at all but I haven't run into any crashes or problems yet after playing about 7-8 hours. I did, however, encounter this hilariously bizarre glitch in the Sunken Keep which might have saved my life, taken from a Let's Play that I'm doing:

Yeah I went in against Smiles playing as a knight and beat it my first try with barely taking any damage. The starting knight shield blocks everything. I had expected that as I wittled her down in health that she would start using new attacks that pierced through it or something, but nah, tanked all of it.

@jjbsterling: So, I definitely find that the green line in your image is the typical line of fire for snipers on this map. However, it's so prevalent and obvious that it is rarely viable in my opinion. It is way too easy to get flanked or have spawns flip and get surrounded, not to mention just how exposed you are in those windows. You can be shot from so many places (my favorites being the jumps I use to deal with the mansion window from that video haha). It's practically bait.

However, I find that most maps have better positions on offer with more visibility and better cover. Here is where I typically gravitate towards on Hunted TDM games:

With the red circles denoting the most common spawn locations for when teammates push the enemy out of the current spawns, and the star denoting my general area of play near that cliff, the green lines represent potential lines of sight to check while I gauge my team's distribution on the minimap to anticipate where they'll be coming from next. The large rocks there provide solid cover from flanks, with the added benefit of having your back against the edge of the map. Likewise, the porch on the opposite side of the bridge provides similar characteristics:

These are generally where I find it safest to snipe. However, it is important to mention that I run an overkill class with a Razorback sub machine gun along with the Locus, so I just switch out when people get too close. With some diligent use of the minimap and always using the Awareness perk I generally have a good idea of when I'm vulnerable to people flanking me.

I find that most maps (in Black Ops 3 at least) generally have some lesser used positions like this where I can get some solid cover and a lot of visibility (at least for TDM, which is all I play).

The Locus is far and away my most used (and highest performing) weapon, but it definitely took a pretty significant change in approach. I run it as a secondary weapon on an overkill class, with a Razorback as my primary weapon. I switch back and forth constantly depending on the situation, and it's made it possible to snipe comfortably on pretty much any map now (especially jump sniping to catch people off guard)! :)

Like @jjbsterling briefly mentioned, Treyarch at least is now kind of known for pushing a "3 Lanes" style for each of their levels, consisting generally of three parallel tracks with various connecting pathways bringing them together. They try to diversify the layout of each lane to offer a different dynamic, some certainly better suited for close quarters weapons, and generally I find at least one lane is hospitable for sniping. Most of the clips in that jumpshot video are of me basically circumventing that lane format by getting up over top of the borders and firing across lanes where people never expect it.

I actually quite like all but a couple of the maps in Black Ops 3 and feel they are pretty well suited however you want to play. However, the real challenge to overcome for snipers isn't necessary finding a long enough sight line, it's maintaining it. The three lanes generally give people a lot of options for flanking, and because of how fast the player speed is spawns can flip really abruptly and you'll find yourself quickly surrounded. Understanding the spawning dynamics and positioning yourself in such a way as to predict and defend against it is pretty crucial (at least for TDM).

@spaceinsomniac I played through the campaign of Destiny and once I hit credits I never picked it up again haha. I think I played exactly 1 game of the PVP and just marveled at how many times I got one-shotted by a fusion rifle or a character ability or whatever it ended up being while I was just trying to get used to the map and the dynamics of everything. Never felt a pull to go back :/

This is exactly what I did. Considering the empty spaces had to be attached to the border of the of the grid, there were only so many permutations where two empty spaces could be. I never put much more thought into it than that, but now that I see how they are actually laid out it's pretty funny considering how daunting this one looks at first.

Nope, as far as I've seen those have been completely a bonus thus far. I have yet to complete any of the obelisks as wholes, and I would be surprised if nothing happened when you got them all, however, they weren't required at all to see the credits or to get to the underground.