Dark Souls & Other Souls-Likes

What level are all of you? Assuming you all have had at least 1 max upgraded weapon.

Here's one of the bosses you missed, Josi. I mean, if you want to spoil it for yourself!

120 for PvP reasons. Four +10 weapons.

Currently 126 on this character, considering staying there for PVP reasons, but then again meh. I have Dark Sword +10, Estoc +10, Sunlight Straight Sword +5, Sunlight Shield +10, Lothric Knight Shield +10, Pie Romancing Flame +10, Sunlight Talisman +10, Wolf Knight's Greatsword +5, and that's it until I get more slabs/want to upgrade more weapons. Just started Journey 2 on this guy as well.

Wow GMS is really obscenely powerful.

What's great is it ups the damage absorption percentages as well, so like, with that Lothric Knight's Shield, you can block Crystal Soul Spear etc. with impunity as well.

So I take it I'm the only one still rocking the grass crest shield for the stamina boost?

Still throw it on my back sometimes, if I'm trying to be all bad *** and 2hand a 2hander onry. At least if the armor I want to wear/the weapon layout I want doesn't put me over 70%.

I'm currently in the winged set with a sword, forget the name, it's the one that is upgraded with Twinkling Titanite and has frost damage.

I was in a good position so I raised my luck a bit, although the mad phantom in the Road of Sacrifices caused me some headaches, kinda works for me though as I'm trying to raise my hollowing on my 2nd playthrough.

I'm imagining a miniature Vordt with a Grass Crest shield. And that sword would be the Irithyll Straight Sword, one of four weapons that can inflict Frostbite.

I leave it off because Fashion Souls.

Got to Irithyll.

Invaded before I could even get across the bridge in. Guy shoots at me with arrows while wearing that cloaking ring.

GREAT MAGIC SHIELD!

So then I was across the bridge, and he obviously had no contingency plan. He was using a spear and an estoc. He tried to charge attack me with the spear(lol), which I easily side stepped. I let him collide with me once, just for shits and grins. Whooped his arse, he ran off to take cover in the enemies.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I seeded the world. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Summoned all 3 NPCs available for Sulyvahn, just to see how high his HP would go.

He had a ***ton of HP, I kind of lost track after the add came out and the number on Sulyvahn went away.

After that(and it felt epic, cause it was like, a Knight that plays by the rules, a regal assassin, an assassin of the sable church, and the ashen one all teamed up like some superhero movie), I got invaded by not 1, not 2, but 3, yes 3, Aldrich Faithful at once.

They came in one at a time of course, and the first guy was some ganky assassin who was hoping to use monsters against me, but I'm too smart for that + I killed all monsters in the immediate area as he loaded in. He was in the rags set with the bag on his head. Hollowed out, using manikin claws and rouge. I had too much reach advantage for him, so he became very wary of me.

The second one that came in was using Yhorm's Machete, and he came at me full of, "HELL YEAHS MY BIG WEAPON GONNA LOLPWN THAT SHIELD!"

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

So I killed him in 3 exchanges, he managed to work around my shield once, but I popped a divine blessing. It was about that time that the 3rd one arrived on scene. I saw her, but she stood off to the side. I saw Dusk Crown protrusions. I knew what was going to happen. I was hoping for the easiest to dodge CSS.

In the meantime, the claw dude had used the first guy's delay as time to switch his weapons and tactics. He switched to a buckler and straight sword, to you know, "TEACH THEM R1 STRAIGHT SWORD SPAMMIN' NOOBS A LESSON WITH RIPOSTES!" So I killed him in our next exchange. He hit me 3 times though, so I was at about half. I finished him with a backstab, and just as I come out of the backstab, what happens? SOUL STREAM! I rolled, but it was too late. It ticked on me twice, and I was toast. I'm going to go back and hopefully get invaded by that person again. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Time for revenge.

Ok fam, time for some videos you might find boring. I find'em hilarious, cause I made'em... >.>; Miner spoilers inside.

Give them a whirl if you've got nothing better to do, or are waiting on something!

Just roll to the right (his left). That worked perfectly for me.

I just like that I got invaded, was standing out in the open on raised ground that's visible from many differnt places, and both of those guys ran past me like twice. Went all the way up to the elevator, used the elevator, and got their *** kicked by the silver knights on the steps, so they came back down lol.

Is it just me, or did they nerf attacking while blocking(with spears/rapiers) compared to the previous games?

At first I though I was just getting flanked a bit, or they were going over the top of my shield since it dips a bit when you attack, but I always seem to take about half damage if I block a hit while attacking...

Well, there was split damage involved, but I don;t think that's why.

The most recent example of this was during the Pontiff boss. Using a greatshield(Wolf Knight's) with magic shield up, a normal hit would take a barely visible sliver of HP off.

But if I took a hit while attacking and blocking, it would take a big chunk outta my HP.

If it were just due to the hybrid damage, then it'd happen whether I was attacking or not.

Try it on anything, It's not just Pointiff that I've seen this on. Just need something that's not going to stagger when you poke them.

Secret area boss lore:

When you attack with the shield up, it locks your movement and block arrangement into a very narrow hit box. You will also lose stamina used for the attack, in addition to stamina as though your shield had half of its normal stability(haven't tested the specifics). This even goes when you have Great Magic Shield up, so you can cause yourself to stagger by attacking from behind the shield.

It halves damage absorptions as well(so Pontiff Sulyvahn's attacks are Magical and Fire, you now only block 34% of his damage), but I refuse to try and attack from behind the shield if I don't have Great Magic Shield up, as the stamina lost even with it up is tremendous, and since you can be riposted/take extra damage for being staggered, it's something I refuse to allow to happen.

Basically, attacking from behind a shield is something you will only want to do during PVP when you let a hyper aggressive player land blows on your shield. it's like a free shot at them, because you can pretty much always block at least one swing and stagger them before the next, if you timed it correctly(and also because Poise doesn't work in DS3). Attacking from behind the shield is something they left in the game, but they want you to not do it, because Miyazaki wants everyone to get away from being shy and relying on shields(hence why all shields in DS3 have dramatically lower stability than in DS1). That said, the option for shield based play still exists in Great Magic Shield(and Great Shields as well), but as I said, attacking from behind it negates GMS's effect.

Josiahfk is an *** man, confirmed.