Thanks! I’m very close to 100 hours in Lunacid thanks to all my replaythroughs :p

I just wanted to be red skeletons with my gf forever but of course Golden Lance intervened with their “you can’t treat humans like cattle” and “your dark magic comes from a horrible source” BS! angry grey slime sounds

• If Lemmy has 10 Lunacid posts, I’m one of them.
• If Lemmy has 1 Lunacid post, it’s from me.
• If Lemmy has 0 Lunacid posts, I’m dead!

Btw, have you seen this post of mine that I forgor[1] to crosspost here? The sub it’s posted in isn’t exclusively about Lunacid but, being one of my favorite games, it turns up pretty often.

[1] Actually I forgot completely that crossposting is something you can do here lol

Shame on you I’m a creature of the night

Special episode for pride month!

both!

Because I am the kind of wizard that will find the most efficient mana-per-damage spell in my arsenal and sling that almost exclusively.

I can’t remember many RPGs where this is discouraged. Only the first two Dark Souls games but the first DS doesn’t have enough spells for it to actually change things so DS2 ends up being the only such game.

I also learned today for the first time ever that you can dual wield powerstance a pair of crossbows.

There’s actually one scripted invader in Tseldora who dual wields two avelyns. In a hell of a place too.

a mediocre katana is still head and shoulders above most other weapons.

I’m not a huge fan of katanas because of their annoying diagonal attacks that miss small/moving targets a lot. I much prefer wide horizontal swings combined with either a thrust or a top-down crush as a strong attack.

I believe she upgrades one more time to unlimited chunks after you beat Watcher and Defender. Now that you have the King’s Ring in your pocket I think you can go fight them right now and just get that out of the way.

That will be my next target then!

Aldia’s Keep is behind me now and the Crypt is cleared of its treasures. Souls of Gwyn and Nito are also on me but the other two proved to be a bit harder (Freya mostly thanks to the runback to it; the boss’s easy). I also ascended the Crypt bonfire as I want to get the best royal soldier ring. Almost killed Velstadt and then he one-shotted me with a lucky move. Twin Pursuers is another of my NG+ goals but that will be really hard haha.

Sounds like an option, I will give it a try!

Literally my cat’s behavior

Unfortunately, no one in my circles is interested in TTRPGs and I’m not comfortable with strangers.

Worldbuilding. I love imagining weird worlds and figuring out how stuff works in them. I have no idea how to share my worlds with others in a way that would be interesting to anyone, so the only person who knows about my projects is my girlfriend.

Gaming. I don’t understand the appeal of competitive games, like at all. Even when I was fighting with other players in Dark Souls 2, I was more concerned with having fun than winning. I disabled achievements in Steam and tend to seek ways to remove achievements from other games if at all possible.

Reading. I know people read like hundreds of books per year. I start less than a dozen books a year. Maybe I’ll finish one or two lol. I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, reading Wikipedia and other articles on the internet also counts as reading. And if a book keeps my attention all the way to the end, great!

Update: aaand Velstadt’s done! It was surprisingly easy, not counting quite a few shameful deaths from the blue flame-wielding ghosts. I’m still not fully done with the Crypt since I haven’t lit up the place but the royal ring’s on me.

Adgayne gave me his drip and it’s great. His katana is funny but I’m not a fan of it being nearly invisible at some angles so I threw it into my endless box.

Avelyn… avelyn!!! Such a great crossbow. Switched to it as soon as I could upgrade it. It’s a bit slower but I’m fine high risk, high reward.

The ore seller finally got them chunks! I bought out all 10 and maxed out avelyn and murakumo. I figured washing pole is too unreliable with its low durability, and it’s a bit slow to swing; uchigatana is nice but it’s diagonal attacks miss quite a lot, especially against small opponents; longsword is a bit too short and is kind of a boring choice honestly; and estoc is fairly situational - it’s great against slow armor-clad opponents but isn’t much against mobile enemies who may easily dodge estoc’s narrow attacks. Also, murakumo looks badass with the new Agdayne+thief set of mine!

Speaking of the grave warden’s set, I completely forgor that special equipment can only be upgraded to +5 so I spent most of my twinkling titanite maxing out the robe and kilt haha. It’s not such a big problem as I got an extraordinary amount of twinklies from enemies in the Shrine but it’s quite a silly situation.

Vancian magic

Well, hit points are also very unrealistic in what they’re trying to depict. Game mechanics often require suspension of desbelieve to avoid making games actively painful to play (“oh no I was hit by an enemy now I have a 20% chance to suffer a deadly disease and I can’t heal from it because we’re in a medieval kingdom!”).

For me, the advantage of Vancian magic is the way it encourages the player to use “expensive” spells. Technically, both Vancian magic and mana system have a similar cost - preparing/casting one spell limits your ability to use other spells. But something about preparing spells at a bonfire instead of casting it in the middle of a journey makes it easier to sacrifice efficiency (using the most practical but boring spell like Soul Arrows to solve every encounter) for cooler and more powerful but also more expansive (less uses, more takes slots) spells like Storm pyromancies.

Best of luck to you my friend. Imagine a big “Unemployment Defeated” banner coming up when you’re finished.

Thanks! “Humanity Restored” will follow quickly after.

The way durability works in DS2 is by far my favorite. In DS1 it’s just a chore you must do from time to time, and in Demons Souls it’s actually quite a big tax on your souls, at least in the early game.

And I didn’t know that Bloodborne also use this type! I mean, it kinda makes sense since you can’t sit at a checkpoint but it could just as well be removed from the game entirely tbh. But I never played Bloodborne (no PS4) so what do I know!

In DS3 it’s so lenient that it might as well may not exist. I don’t think I ever depleted even half the durability bar on my weapon. I generally have issue with how DS3 devs tried to streamline everything and seriously overdid it (removed poise, return to mana, covenants as items, etc).

How’s the Crypt been treating you?

I haven’t played since the Amana session. Job hunting drains my time and energy, and summer’s heat is already here so it’s hard to just comfortably sit down at my PC and game for awhile. I do want to play though!

Durability

I have no idea why did they get rid of the mechanic in their next games. It’s pretty good IMHO. Sure, it doesn’t influence every hour of play but I like how it incentivizes me to pick up and upgrade more than one weapon, just in caze. Honestly, it could be even more aggressive. And that’s me talking with the Champion’s covenant!

Shield crossbow I think is just bad, unfortunately, lol.

Well, I had the feeling it isn’t anything good.

Shrine of Amana

I respect this area. It’s arguably the hardest mandatory location in the main game, particularly the run between the second and third bonfires. Mages, clerics, ogres, those sneaky bastards, treasure luring into deep water… it’s just a very cruel place in general. I remember being particularly terrified of the archdragon clerics in my first playthrough.

Update on my DS2 playthrough:

I went through all the shops that could offer some weapons and bought out everything that looked interesting. Checked all the bought stuff, upgraded some all the way to +6 and then checked out around Drangleic. Some thoughts:

I bought rapier and estoc to check them out. I liked estoc a bit more because it has higher poise damage (it’s actually the same as of the longsword!) and better stat scaling for my build so now it’s my fastest weapon in the arsenal. It helped a lot clearing through Drangleic’s “surprising d6” with ruin sentinels.

I added uchigatana to the lonely washing pole and checked both of them out. Holy damn!! Washing pole is crazy, feels like I’m a boss, with my attacks reaching for half the arena lol. I knew it was quite large but not this much! Uchigatana is a nice fast weapon, it might replace my longsword in the long run. I really appreciate that both of them have thrust as their strong attack.

I got the regular twinblade back in the Castle so I checked it out - and was disappointed as in one hand its’ attacks are pretty basic. Only at the end of the session, when I got to the entrance of the Crypt, had I found the red twinblade - and this one does have a unique moveset even when held with one hand! I’ll check it out later.

I also bought red rust sword and shield crossbow with no real plan on what to do with them (if anything). The rust sword is pretty interesting as it seems to have the moveset of axes while shield crossbow will likely just be in my collection of crossbows as it doesn’t look as cool as the light crossbow.

Now, all this departure felt really good because the next place I needed to go to was the dreaded Shrine of Amana. The way to the third bonfire was nerve-wracking. Fighting the ogre knowing that it will murder me in two successive hits is fucking scary. Not to mention the precarious paths for the estus shard, with all the deep water around…

In the end, I managed to get through the Shrine without dying at all. I believe it might first time doing it deathless. And I got everything I could except for the crown. Pyromancers killed me plenty though :D Why do they have poise???

The Crypt is next and I’m excited as I quite like it!

Have you been to them before? You kind of give the impression that you haven’t.

I definitely completed them all in one save but I have trouble remembering how many times had this happened:

• There must be the first time, completely spoiler-less - it wasn’t my first playthrough though since for some reason I didn’t get to the DLC for quite some time after beating the main game;
• There’s my PyroSorcerer PvP build that had to get all kinds of spells from the DLCs - but it was so minmaxxed (just enough strength/dexterity to wield a handaxe) that I probably just couldn’t qualify for most gear found there;
• Finally, there was one save when I went for all Steam achievements but it ended up being so grindy and miserable that I don’t remember anything but the covenant grind and rushing NG+ and NG+2 for the arena covenant rewards.

Then, of course, there were a few other saves when I went for one DLC but not the others. E.g., my Dragon Slayer went to Shulva to beat Sinh’s ass but the other two have no dragons so I skipped them. I also had a challenge run: I rushed the frozen DLC and went through the entire Eleum Loyce using Warmth spell as my only way to heal. I’d managed to beat Aava without healing but the Ivory King proved too much for me.

But in the end, the game is so long that most of my playthroughs ended somewhere around Drangleic Castle as my focus wanders off to something else. I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun in the DLCs thanks to my relative unfamiliarity!

Yeah that fire sword is the sword I use on probably every single character I’ve ever played at least through the end of Heide’s Tower, lol. It’s boring, but very effective.

That reminded me that I had a specific plan for the very early game in DS2: specific way to get through the Giants Forest and then I always went to the Tower with McDuff’s hammer. This was primarily due to the limitations of the Deprived, mind you, but it was still quite tedious.

Have you considered a rapier?

My problem with rapiers is that they have low poise damage and their narrow attacks are poor against groups of enemies. Since I don’t need to save on strength and dexterity (unlike casters) I can afford stronger options for my weapon.

I think you can technically defeat Nashandra and then just walk out without taking the Throne

I believe you won’t be allowed to leave (either it will teleport you to the same spot or won’t work at all) once you’ve beaten her. But maybe I’m thinking about DS1.

Throne Watcher/Defender gear is great, their swords and shields are peak.

Hm, I’ve never considered their stuff. By the time I’m fighting them by build is so well developed that I turn ignorant to the new options.

Crystal Soul Spear (excellent, off-build)

CSS (huh) is so fun in PvP actually! Most players will easily dodge it if you just straight-up shoot it at them but if you add to this Soul Shover or especially the mist spells… panic and blocked vision turn Spear into Dark Souls’ save-or-suck spell!

Flame Weapon (also excellent, might be considered)

That’s a good option if I end up with spell slots.

Crypt Blacksword is damn good

It’s interesting how it uses the greataxe movement despite being an ultra greatsword. I need to take a look at it!

No worries, I’m already in the Champion’s covenant and don’t plan on quitting!