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Dark Souls III |OT+2| Why Can't We Poise the Game?

They give better scaling on their respective stats, and lower scaling on others. So if you're going for a pure DEX build for example, it's usually beneficial to go for a sharp upgrade.

Worthwile doing, but by no means mandatory.

Awesome, good to know. I'm looking for the Greatsword so I'll probably infuse it with Heavy.
 
Anyone have any tips for the last boss of Ashes? I can get to the last phase, but it's only through chugging estus. Ideally I'd like to it do without help even from an NPC summon.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Anyone have any tips for the last boss of Ashes? I can get to the last phase, but it's only through chugging estus. Ideally I'd like to it do without help even from an NPC summon.
A good shield can be really helpful, especially in the first phase. If you aren't comfortable on the timing for dodging, block instead.

He's weak to frost and poison, so if your build allows for those things (e.g. your weapon is buffable with poison resin, or you use an Irithyll rapier etc.), feel free to try and use them, but don't go out of your way to try and frost/poison him as it's probably counter productive.
 
A good shield can be really helpful, especially in the first phase. If you aren't comfortable on the timing for dodging, block instead.

He's weak to frost and poison, so if your build allows for those things (e.g. your weapon is buffable with poison resin, or you use an Irithyll rapier etc.), feel free to try and use them, but don't go out of your way to try and frost/poison him as it's probably counter productive.

I've gond down the pyro route this time since I've never done it before. I guess I'll give blocking a go, I usually just dodge roll, but my timing has been super off this whole run.
 
Anyone have any tips for the last boss of Ashes? I can get to the last phase, but it's only through chugging estus. Ideally I'd like to it do without help even from an NPC summon.

Are you talking about Friede or Champion. For Friede I summoned someone who had some backstab 2h dagger build and basically tore her up by repeatedly backstabbing. :p
 
Are you talking about Friede or Champion. For Friede I summoned someone who had some backstab 2h dagger build and basically tore her up by repeatedly backstabbing. :p

Friede and I can't reliably parry her for the first phase I tried that a couple of times. I gave up trying that way. I'm SL 66 I'll get there it will just take some doing.
 
Friede and I can't reliably parry her for the first phase I tried that a couple of times. I gave up trying that way. I'm SL 66 I'll get there it will just take some doing.
That seems low. Have you finished everything in the main game yet? She's harder than any of those bosses, if for no other reason than the sheer length of the fight like you said.

Some tips:

- Second phase is pretty easy if you keep your distance, so use your pyro in that phase
- In the first phase, the disappearing move was the one that always got me. Here's what ended up working for me: When she does it, run up to her, and when she jumps/dashes away, whip the camera around and look for the cloud of dust indicating where she landed. Rush to that spot to preempt the toss move and get a few free hits.
- For her regular slashes, dodging away seemed to work better for me than dodging toward or to the side.
 

laxu

Member
Just got this on PC. Why does character movement look weirdly stuttery? Same as Dragon's Dogma, rotating your character almost looks as though it's stuck at 30fps while everything else is 60fps.

Because that's how it is. Your character just doesn't rotate that smoothly. I guess they decided that the control system allows turning on a dime so when you move the stick it just points the character in that direction without any animation really.

It sure does make aiming spells without lock on a bit annoying.
 

laxu

Member
So I'm going to give DS3 one last shot, and I really liked playing a Sorcerer in DS1. Is that build viable in this game? Should I start as an Assassin or a Sorcerer?

It is viable but only becomes good late game. You basically have to get INT to 60 as soon as you can and always use all the items that give you buffs to spell damage. Early game is very easy with a Sorcerer, midgame becomes quite hard because of fast bosses like Abyss Watchers and several magic resistant ones. I had to respec to a melee build for one of them.

I feel that it needs too much investment in stats and items compared to most other builds. Pyro and Faith builds are much easier as most enemies in the game are weak to either fire or lightning.
 
Damn, I just can't beat Friede's final phase. I can get through the first 2 phases undamaged, but holy shit her infinite stamina and attack spamming is wrecking me. I have put my sign down, and never get summoned I also have waited 30+ minutes for other signs to show up, and none do other than obviously the NPC guy. I am SL 80 is that just too low for signs to show up often?
 
That seems low. Have you finished everything in the main game yet? She's harder than any of those bosses, if for no other reason than the sheer length of the fight like you said.

Some tips:

- Second phase is pretty easy if you keep your distance, so use your pyro in that phase
- In the first phase, the disappearing move was the one that always got me. Here's what ended up working for me: When she does it, run up to her, and when she jumps/dashes away, whip the camera around and look for the cloud of dust indicating where she landed. Rush to that spot to preempt the toss move and get a few free hits.
- For her regular slashes, dodging away seemed to work better for me than dodging toward or to the side.

Coming back to just say the rolling away is what worked here. My instinct has always been to roll into or to the right, but it just wasn't working. So rolling away and depending on how easy she staggers was what did it. Onwards to Ringed City!

Damn, I just can't beat Friede's final phase. I can get through the first 2 phases undamaged, but holy shit her infinite stamina and attack spamming is wrecking me. I have put my sign down, and never get summoned I also have waited 30+ minutes for other signs to show up, and none do other than obviously the NPC guy. I am SL 80 is that just too low for signs to show up often?

If you're on PC around 10:30 pm EST I can help. I don't think I saw a summon sign even once at SL 60-70



As an aside pyro with Obsidian Blade online is a ton of fun. Baiting a run with black serpent and then nailing them with a free aim chaos vestige is never not great.
 

Zabojnik

Member
So it looks like I lost my DS3 save files. Apparently the game doesn't support Steam Cloud? Which ... I'm not even surprised.

Anyway, I bought the Season Pass and want to get started on the DLC. What would be the most painless & elegant way of getting my chara up to where he was? I think I finished the game at LVL 110 or close enough. Importing save files?

EDIT: Yep, that worked through a couple of hoops.
 
Damn, I just can't beat Friede's final phase. I can get through the first 2 phases undamaged, but holy shit her infinite stamina and attack spamming is wrecking me. I have put my sign down, and never get summoned I also have waited 30+ minutes for other signs to show up, and none do other than obviously the NPC guy. I am SL 80 is that just too low for signs to show up often?

Friede is the hardest boss in the entire DS3 + 2x DLC game. Nameless King is a baby's first Souls boss compared to her. Don't sweat it if you cannot beat her easily - keep on trying and try to level up in the meantime? Every 31 HP/ 12 more damage per attack counts... do you have Second Chance? It helps a lot in the 3rd phase.

Her 3rd phase is pure bullshit but with a bit of luck and TONS of rolling you can make it. I killed her with FUGS so even heaviest weapons are valid for killing her 3rd phase. Attack ONLY if you are 100% sure it will connect and she will not retaliate. One misattack of yours can mean she comboes you to death from full health... :|
 
Friede is the hardest boss in the entire DS3 + 2x DLC game. Nameless King is a baby's first Souls boss compared to her. Don't sweat it if you cannot beat her easily - keep on trying and try to level up in the meantime? Every 31 HP/ 12 more damage per attack counts... do you have Second Chance? It helps a lot in the 3rd phase.

Her 3rd phase is pure bullshit but with a bit of luck and TONS of rolling you can make it. I killed her with FUGS so even heaviest weapons are valid for killing her 3rd phase. Attack ONLY if you are 100% sure it will connect and she will not retaliate. One misattack of yours can mean she comboes you to death from full health... :|

Thanks I went ahead, and started going through the Ringed City so I will go back to her when I finish this. I assume when you say second chance you are talking about tears of denial? I do have that so I will try it. You aren't kidding about her being the hardest boss at least for me I agree. First two bosses in Ringed City were nothing so far.

If you're on PC around 10:30 pm EST I can help. I don't think I saw a summon sign even once at SL 60-70

I am on PS4, but thank you!
 
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i'm sorry
 

Miletius

Member
Is there some sort of GAF community (on PC?) I finally started playing this as a reward for finishing the semester, and I'd rather run in to GAF folks than randoms. But I also don't want to play an underpopulated game. So, I'm just wondering if it's worth pass-wording for GAF players (and if so, what is the password).
 
Happens to me sometimes after hours of playing. Seems the game hates overclocked GPUs or something.
I didnt overclocked my GPU, everything is default.
1. Are you using Dropbox to auto-backup saves?
2. Is it the Dreg Heap area of the DLC that's crashing?

Those were both culprits for me.

Not dropbacks but I do backup my save files to my USB driver. And no it was
Sister Friede and Blackflame Friede
boss fight/chapel area.

Assuming Dreg Heap is the start of the next DLC?
 
Is there some sort of GAF community (on PC?) I finally started playing this as a reward for finishing the semester, and I'd rather run in to GAF folks than randoms. But I also don't want to play an underpopulated game. So, I'm just wondering if it's worth pass-wording for GAF players (and if so, what is the password).

I'm playing quite a bit right now on PC, so if you just want a coop buddy I'm down for it. My steam ID is
steamcommunity.com/id/MTspaces. Just add me and we can figure some times to play.
 
Is there some sort of GAF community (on PC?) I finally started playing this as a reward for finishing the semester, and I'd rather run in to GAF folks than randoms. But I also don't want to play an underpopulated game. So, I'm just wondering if it's worth pass-wording for GAF players (and if so, what is the password).

Sorry man, you're probably out of luck. Even when the game was newer there were barely any GAF members playing on PC. Most of them seem to play on PS4.

Edit: ^ Yay, looks like there's at least 1 Gaffer who can play with you.

I'll let you know if I start playing again.
 
I'm playing quite a bit right now on PC, so if you just want a coop buddy I'm down for it. My steam ID is
steamcommunity.com/id/MTspaces. Just add me and we can figure some times to play.

Is there some sort of GAF community (on PC?) I finally started playing this as a reward for finishing the semester, and I'd rather run in to GAF folks than randoms. But I also don't want to play an underpopulated game. So, I'm just wondering if it's worth pass-wording for GAF players (and if so, what is the password).

Feel free to add me. Steam ID is the same as my gaf name. I normally have free time to play on the weekends.
 

Meccs

Member
Finally had the time to start the DLC's. Just went through Ashes and thought while it was pretty good, it was very short. I started the DLC at level 65 which was a pretty good challenge. The first DLC was still 10 times better than the whole "The Surge" game. lol

Also fuck Sister Friede!
 

Thorgal

Member
honestly Friede is really not that hard once you "get" her.

She is very easily staggered and is Weak to lightning and bleed .

so for phase 1 you get a fast swinging weapon , slap Carthus rouge on it and go .
Bait her "drag scythe across the floor " attack as she leaves herself wide open afterwards
during all 3 phases she is also easily back stabbed ( even easier if you bring a phantom along )

For phase 2 just ignore Friede altogether and go to town on big dad .

for phase 3 she is still Easily staggered and then just back off and look for an opening .

to illustrate the above :
https://youtu.be/JrdWEZxL3uU?t=2030
 

Meccs

Member
It's just the tedium that is phase 1 and especially phase 2 you have to get through to learn phase 3. Also this boss would fit better in Bloodborne.
 
One thing I've noticed people do for Freide when I've gotten summoned is the keeping going after her during the second phase. That seems like a huge mistake. Ariandel and Freide aren't like a lot of paired bosses where they stay close to each other. They can get unlinked really easily and when they do with how big Ariandel's attack are he's the easier target of the two. I have no suggestion s for phases 3 because I cheesed it hurling chaos vestiges from a distance. I need to give that fight a go on physical build.


The one boss I don't get the struggle for is Midir. He's by far the easiest of the dlc dragon bosses.
 
Stage two I always go after papa since he is just a damage sponge - reminds of Amelia or Celestial Emissary, if you're doing it right he literally goes down in seconds. Stage three I just panic and hope for the best/cry/rage/sigh of relief it's over (delete as appropriate!)
 

Diancecht

Member
Holy shit people.

I recently finished Bloodborne and fell in love with the lore, world building and background stories. So I thought, mmm, why not and started playing Dark Souls III.

I'm about 10 hours into this and suck at this game but oh my god... THE FUCKING LORE, characters, everything about this game OOZES atmosphere! This shit is mind boggling. I probably spent another 10 hours just watching lore videos on YouTube. I maybe, grasped like 1 percent of the whole story but everything I am hearing is just fantastic. Like, everyting feels and sound extremely cool! The Lords of Cinder, unfit to be even cinder (I don't know what this means but it sounds cool!), the Firekeeper Lady, the dialog with sad dude in the Firelink... I don't know if I'll be able to finish this badboi anytime soon but I'll be reading everything about it!
 
Holy shit people.

I recently finished Bloodborne and fell in love with the lore, world building and background stories. So I thought, mmm, why not and started playing Dark Souls III.

I'm about 10 hours into this and suck at this game but oh my god... THE FUCKING LORE, characters, everything about this game OOZES atmosphere! This shit is mind boggling. I probably spent another 10 hours just watching lore videos on YouTube. I maybe, grasped like 1 percent of the whole story but everything I am hearing is just fantastic. Like, everyting feels and sound extremely cool! The Lords of Cinder, unfit to be even cinder (I don't know what this means but it sounds cool!), the Firekeeper Lady, the dialog with sad dude in the Firelink... I don't know if I'll be able to finish this badboi anytime soon but I'll be reading everything about it!

You should play Dark Souls 1 if this world interests you at all. Its a much slower game compared to DS3 and Bloodborne, but a lot of the stuff you see in DS3 is way more meaningful if you've played DS 1.
 

Miletius

Member
I'm playing quite a bit right now on PC, so if you just want a coop buddy I'm down for it. My steam ID is
steamcommunity.com/id/MTspaces. Just add me and we can figure some times to play.


Feel free to add me. Steam ID is the same as my gaf name. I normally have free time to play on the weekends.

Thanks. I added both of ya'll. Name is same as my GAF name. Word to the wise, I'm pretty terrible at the game, especially since I haven't played a Dark Souls like recently. I mostly am in it for fighting and exploration. I welcome the help!
 

Meccs

Member
Holy shit people.

I recently finished Bloodborne and fell in love with the lore, world building and background stories. So I thought, mmm, why not and started playing Dark Souls III.

I'm about 10 hours into this and suck at this game but oh my god... THE FUCKING LORE, characters, everything about this game OOZES atmosphere! This shit is mind boggling. I probably spent another 10 hours just watching lore videos on YouTube. I maybe, grasped like 1 percent of the whole story but everything I am hearing is just fantastic. Like, everyting feels and sound extremely cool! The Lords of Cinder, unfit to be even cinder (I don't know what this means but it sounds cool!), the Firekeeper Lady, the dialog with sad dude in the Firelink... I don't know if I'll be able to finish this badboi anytime soon but I'll be reading everything about it!
As "Empty Space" already said, make sure you play the other ones too. Especially "Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin" edition. Lore wise it is even stronger than DS3 imho.
 
I went back to the playthrough I abandoned about a year ago at Aldrich and I somehow still cannot beat him/it.

I hesitate to call anything cheap, but I just don't get Aldrich's phase 2 and feel like it I can't get around well...calling it cheap. I've beaten every Souls game (except II out of disinterest) 100%, including Ludwig obviously and so on, but this boss just totally eludes me in phase 2.

He's pretty simple and I easily get him down to 50% during phase 1, no worries, then phase 2 hits and shit gets so absurdly aggressive, it almost seems like a joke. Last attempt, he literally spammed the arrow death rain endless duration move three times in a row during which he was tossing the ultra-fast magic missile at me twice in a row each. There seems to be nowhere to hide from the arrows and well, I do not have infinite stamina so basically I absolutely can't evade this flurry of bullshit. If he's not doing that, there is no opening because he fires off about, what, 15 homing projectiles during his regular melee combat AND floor fire damage at once.

I simply do not get this boss. Made me quit out of pure frustration last year and I just threw the game down again because of it. Again, I don't call things cheap at random but this boss feels borderline joke cheap to me in its second phase. I just can't see a proper opening for the game's speed, it kind of feels like I should be playing this boss in Bloodborne. I'm certainly not underleveled, already checked that, and I've watched several YouTube videos on him. The cherry on top is that I can't ever summon anyone in that area so in short, go fuck yourself for the second time Dark Souls III.
 
I went back to the playthrough I abandoned about a year ago at Aldrich and I somehow still cannot beat him/it.

I hesitate to call anything cheap, but I just don't get Aldrich's phase 2 and feel like it I can't get around well...calling it cheap. I've beaten every Souls game (except II out of disinterest) 100%, including Ludwig obviously and so on, but this boss just totally eludes me in phase 2.

He's pretty simple and I easily get him down to 50% during phase 1, no worries, then phase 2 hits and shit gets so absurdly aggressive, it almost seems like a joke. Last attempt, he literally spammed the arrow death rain endless duration move three times in a row during which he was tossing the ultra-fast magic missile at me twice in a row each. There seems to be nowhere to hide from the arrows and well, I do not have infinite stamina so basically I absolutely can't evade this flurry of bullshit. If he's not doing that, there is no opening because he fires off about, what, 15 homing projectiles during his regular melee combat AND floor fire damage at once.

I simply do not get this boss. Made me quit out of pure frustration last year and I just threw the game down again because of it. Again, I don't call things cheap at random but this boss feels borderline joke cheap to me in its second phase. I just can't see a proper opening for the game's speed, it kind of feels like I should be playing this boss in Bloodborne. I'm certainly not underleveled, already checked that, and I've watched several YouTube videos on him. The cherry on top is that I can't ever summon anyone in that area so in short, go fuck yourself for the second time Dark Souls III.

If you're on PC/Steam you could ask people for a summon/help.

You can sorta manipulate Aldrich's spawning location as he will spawn in the most opposite location of the room to you, if you consider there to be 3 spawns on either side of the room and 1 near the altar. In the first phase his Arrow Rain doesn't track much so start running in medium sized squares and once you get away from it you can start wailing on the black slug-thing itself.

In the 2nd Phase, Arrow Rain obviously does track a bit but can be avoided in much the same way as if you see Gwyndolin pulling the bow out, run away from him and start running in a wide-ish circle around several of the pillars and you should be able to dodge most of it. The tricky part is if he starts using his version of Soul Spear (or w/e) during the 2nd Phase as you can get hit hard. I feel like his Arrow Rain isn't cheap, but the combination of Soul Spear can make it cheap because sometimes - occasionally down to the player's positioning, occasionally to bad luck - you can just get stuck between a rock and a hard place.
 
If you can use it the lingering dragon ring and vow of silence is incredibly helpful in this fight. Vow of silence stops casting for everyone in the area and lingering dragon ring extends it's effect.

I'm always happy to help on PC.
 
If you can use it the lingering dragon ring and vow of silence is incredibly helpful in this fight. Vow of silence stops casting for everyone in the area and lingering dragon ring extends it's effect.

I'm always happy to help on PC.

Have to check if I have those when I get home, I'm on PS4 to you and previous poster. Thanks guys. Might start a whole new playthrough actually, I don't remember anything by now ha.
 
Have to check if I have those when I get home, I'm on PS4 to you and previous poster. Thanks guys. Might start a whole new playthrough actually, I don't remember anything by now ha.

Ah, good luck then. Aldrich is one of those weird bosses in Dark Souls where his attack pattern can be kinda RNG-ish (I've fought him once or twice where he never used Arrow Rain at all) so someone can have that "Lol i found him ez" while someone else has an experience more in line with yours.
 
Ah, good luck then. Aldrich is one of those weird bosses in Dark Souls where his attack pattern can be kinda RNG-ish (I've fought him once or twice where he never used Arrow Rain at all) so someone can have that "Lol i found him ez" while someone else has an experience more in line with yours.

The last few bouts against him were literally him dropping the arrow rain combined with two rounds of soul arrow (two shots each) on me during three spawns/emerges in a row. Basically it turned into a sprint & roll fest until my stamina ran out and I was able to get slammed with either the tail-end of the arrow or couldn't roll through the second soul arrow. I didn't make it past about 40% of his health bar any of those times and I just said fuck it.
 
The last few bouts against him were literally him dropping the arrow rain combined with two rounds of soul arrow (two shots each) on me during three spawns/emerges in a row. Basically it turned into a sprint & roll fest until my stamina ran out and I was able to get slammed with either the tail-end of the arrow or couldn't roll through the second soul arrow. I didn't make it past about 40% of his health bar any of those times and I just said fuck it.

Make sure you're making space when Aldrich pulls back his bow in the second phase. Don't sprint though just roll to make space and when the arrows do fall don't go in a straight line make a wide sweeping run. The arrows track far worse when turning. He's weak to lightning for the whole fight and fire for the first phase maybe that will help.
 
Make sure you're making space when Aldrich pulls back his bow in the second phase. Don't sprint though just roll to make space and when the arrows do fall don't go in a straight line make a wide sweeping run. The arrows track far worse when turning. He's weak to lightning for the whole fight and fire for the first phase maybe that will help.

Thanks (Sun)bros, I'll be trying some of these tips and tricks later on today when I'm nice and mellow and won't throw the PS4 out of the window.
 
So I tried again, about 10 f'ing times total, with everyone's tips here in mind and finally beat that bastard.

However, it didn't feel particularly exciting or satisfying because the second phase was pure luck on my part. He happened to NOT spam the arrows+soul spear combo every single time he emerged and I was actually able to get near him. Ended up beating him with about 1/5th of my health bar and zero Estus chugs left B) ....the only cool part about it.

So I was teleported, don't remember shit about the story since it's been a year so bla bla to my ears, take about five steps forward...boss fight. Died immediately of course so I'll give it another shot at some other point but right now I'm kind of in the same boat as when I dropped it last time. I'm not particularly excited to see what happens next and the thought of another excruciating boss is exhausting.

The fatigue must be fucking real, I love these games but just can't make it through DS3 somehow.
 
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