Not at all. Even average defense will make a noticeable dent in the damage you do to most enemies with split damage weapons. Weapons that only deal one kind of damage are all-stars for this reason, if you have the stats to make them really work for you. The rule of thumb I've used in the past is that 100 split AR is roughly as good as 75 single-type AR, and at 40 dex the Uchigatana +15 is way way above that. Plus, normal weapons can be buffed, which is especially good with a quick weapon like that one.
I think I have noticed something odd. When I got the BK great ax I saw that its base numbers were better than the BKH. So I went about upgrading it since I had my BKH upgraded. I got both of them to +5 thanks to the Royal Wood and Charles. The BKGA numbers are indeed better than BKH, and on top of that the stat scaling is better. So, why then, am I seeing the BKH do more damage? This does not make sense to me. I swear that I tried both on same enemies and saw the BKH out damage the BKGA. I will try to confirm tonight to make sure I wasn't going nuts or hallucinating.
Which attacks are you looking at? I know that the 2hR2 on the BKH has some kind of magic KILL EVERYTHING property that makes it do an insane amount of damage.
Goddamn this is so true. I'm loving the greatshield. Those damn skeleton wheels in the Painted World in the tunnel area? They run at me and we get stuck and they keep going until they gave up. Never before lived long enough to see that. On top of that my stamina is barely budged. And then I kill them dead with one blow. Whee!
Regular 1hR1 for my tests. I was farming the harpies in the painted world for drops and experimented with that 2h2r job. Pretty swank.
The BKGA was extensively nerfed in response to its predominance in PvP. I never liked it even then, but it's definitely not the same weapon it was a patch or two ago.
It seems slower than the BKH, which would be the balance that it needs to make up for the higher damage. I got invaded while I was using the BKH and only hit the other jerk once. I thought he was hacking since I never hit him (it sure looked close), but when I did connect it was for 300 damage. I'd have guessed the BKGA would be more of a liability in PVP.
Y'all convinced me I should try out a large club. An hour of farming later, I've got dung pies coming out my nostrils and no club. Just how rare is this thing?
Do you have the gold serpent ring and 10 humanity? The channelers trident took me quite a while to drop even with both of those going on.
I've never ever seen one. There seems to have been a patch since you posted, I couldn't get any Balder equipment to drop yesterday, today I got a Black Knight Shield.
So my new strength build has me taking another look at greatshields, and I've found something interesting: there are more good ones than I thought. I had assumed that stability made the Greatshield of Artorias the best period, but if 80 is sufficient for most encounters (and I think it is), both Stone and Giant look really good, with better defenses than the GoA. Anyone made much use of either of these? Stone seems a little better but I think I'll carry Giant because I like the looks of it more and it's two pounds lighter. (I also kind of want to use Havel's, but 50 strength is the lowest of priorities.)
You know, GoA has been working so well for me that I have not tried stone or giant shields. What makes GoA different is that it blocks status effect (bleed, poison, etc.) in addition to physical damage. I have used Havel's and the black iron greatshield, but that was for Gwyn specifically (black iron + flash sweat means Gywn's flame won't hurt you, +14 and it's 80+ stability). Havel weighs way too much, but it does have a bit better elemental block (came in handy for Kalameet).
Havel's chest and legs, black iron arms, gargoyle helm, greatshield of Artorias, large club, and a small bow for pulls. Just a bit under 50% at 40end. Any obvious mistakes in there, or am I at a local maximum?
No obvious mistakes, no. I would encourage you to look at combinations that keep the 56 poise from the Havel Arms/legs (which is one of the last major breakpoints for poise after which it becomes increasingly less appealing), for instance, and look at combos that let you use a light armor torso and/or a specialty mask like the child's or the dusk crown or the occasional sunlight maggot. Keeping both the large club and the greatshield probably means 50% is a given, but I encourage messing with light torsos because that piece has the most effect on effect on stamina regen as well as giving you "quiet" walking sounds which means you alert enemies a good deal later. YMMV. The other thing I would encourage any non-dex build to look at, but most especially those that already have a fair bit of strength and endurance, is the different crossbows rather than the bows. Both have their specialty, but when you get the hang of Binocular aiming or even just lock-on shooting, you really get a feel for how the high base damage of the crossbows and their relatively flat trajectory can really be a game changer. For instance, clearing the Painted World is my new favorite thing because I can dust the damned birds from ludicrous ranges with the combo of Hawk Ring, fog ring (so I can see through my character for aiming), and the sniper crossbow, although even the light crossbow was kicking ass in my SL1 playthrough. Which is what I came here to mention. I haven't done extensive comparison testing, but from shooting at the visible enemies from the firelink shrine I think it's safe to say that the Sniper Crossbow paired with sniper arrows is (incredibly) doing circa 165 damage to the opponent on the aqueduct. With the hawk ring, that kicks up to 250+. The light crossbow is doing a very respectable 80 or so with the hawk ring from that range. I've already verified that the light crossbow absolutely demolishes the dinosaur bottoms in Lost Izalith from range, so I'm pretty encouraged by these results. Edit: Also, this is with normal +11 in both, it's not even maxed out.
Black Bow +5, Feather Arrow, Hawk Ring, Dex 30 does 117 damage to the dude up next to the rat on the aqueduct. I'll report back when my Dex is 40 and the bow is +15.
Specialty headgear is almost always better than a helmet. If you use any attack magic at all you should wear the Crown of Dusk, and otherwise a family mask. If you get by without any of those cool, but not using them is basically an aesthetic choice. Also remember you can save weight by only equipping the bow right before you actually use it instead of leaving it on the whole time.
Yes, I think the choice is much easier if you're making a dex character just for the convenience of weight and aiming. I just think that for a long time I was still using bows with non dex characters to my disadvantage.
Oh, I had no intention of dismissing your crossbow love! I'ma getting one for my Str character right away. But please indulge me while I gush for a second about the Hawk Ring. Because earlier I was all "Yeah, longer range - big deal." I warped up to Anor Londo and upgraded my Black Bow to +10. I have two words for the awesomeness of the Hawk Ring along with a good damaging range attack: Holy. Shit. Sen's Fortress? It's just a big shooting gallery. The place where you come in? You can stand right by the first catwalk and kill everyone in da room. Except for the Titanite Demon who's right below you. I ran over to the other side, jumped down to where the three snakeheads stand, turned on Power Within and did 165 damage per shot to the Titanite Demon using Standard Arrows. That's a lot. This is at Dex 30. Black Bow has S scaling up to +15.
I'm just amazed every time one of you guys says that 150-200 damage is a lot. 800 is a lot. 150 is a nice option for an SL1 run but not something I'd really have the patience for on a normal character.
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm projecting 150-200 damage per shot across the entirety of Sen's fortress at level 50 with a far from optimal build. Against the Titanite Demon that has armor and resistance to everything but Lightning up the wazoo. The Firelink Shrine shots? That's "target is just a tiny vague blur" range. Probably three-four times the range of the attack magic with the longest range? It's also not spending ten minutes lobbing shots in at 5 damage a shot but it's just as risk-free.
We're comparing ranged weapons at extreme distance, not maximized strength weapons wielded two handed with the relevant stats. Particularly with the light crossbow, you have the potential for a steady damage dealer that minimizes risk in return for minimal stats. I'm not convinced that the crossbows other than the Avelyn substantially improve on that formula in return for the greater weight and stat requirements, but they are still a bargain for people not looking to invest in dex.
No I get it and it's neat, I just don't know how useful it is for ordinary builds. Sorcery and miracles might not have that extreme range but they are both certainly usable from a safe distance, and they don't require the patience of a brick to actually kill something. It is admittedly very cool though, in a look-what-I-can-do sort of way. I will probably be adding the Sniper Crossbow to my rotation on my strength character just to mess around with it.
Well, what my discovery was all about was that if I equip Black Bow, Hawk Ring and Feather Arrows I am 1. Doing close to max damage to targets who are barely visible. This means I'm one-shotting non-bosses. 2. Hitting said targets perfectly, I hit right in the middle of the crosshairs. What this means is that in any huge open area, if I can see where the target is, I can kill it, often with one shot. Think Blighttown swamp. There's no patience of a brick involved. Now LK's discovery is certainly of greater import than mine, but hey, if you have a Dex build lying around - try it out. It feels pretty awesome.
The majority of my builds use neither sorcery nor miracles. You don't need the patience of a brick to kill something with ranged weapons. It's not a gimmick, it's just putting two bolts in them while they run at you versus fighting them. I guess if you're arguing that no "ordinary build" needs ranged weapons, that's your deal, but now that I've gotten used to it I find it invaluable for clearing levels with good range of vision and wearing down bosses at lower levels. I would still say the Light Crossbow is the best of them for what you get for 3 lbs, or Avelyn obviously. The biggest problem the Sniper Crossbow has is its weight, followed shortly by its slightly longer reload.I haven't had a chance to use the heavy crossbow but it's a tough proposition to beat the Light.
I have to apologize, re-reading my posts from last night I came off as much more of a pill than I meant to. This sniper stuff does sound cool and I'm going to be trying it as soon as I get home.
No need to apologize! To really flog my dead horse I shall now commence to post ... a ... screenshot! Here's the range. The orange thingy up on the edge to the right is the Bonfire Flame, which I'm standing behind. My character has a Dex of 30. 1. Black Bow has longer range than any other bow. This means that the damage starts to drop at longer ranges and that the arrow goes straight longer than with the longbow. I assume same thing goes for Sniper Crossbow. 2. Hawk Ring increases this range by a lot. I e, instead of doing 9 damage to a target far away you might do 50. 3. Feather Arrows increase the range even more. I assume Sniper Arrows do the same thing. If I fire a Standard Arrow here I'll do 72 damage with a body shot. If I fire a Feather Arrow the damage will jump up to over 191. With a Feather Arrow I can be pretty sure of a headshot even at this range. The damage then would be around 250 I believe? Which of course doesn't matter for this particular target.
That's awesome @hammet. I really can't wait to try this now (although it'll be with the Sniper Crossbow for me).
Also. Sniping is the one and only area where a mouse and keyboard works better than a controller ;-) Edited to add: Sniper xbow requires Str 20 and Dex 16.
This is actually what caught my eye just slightly even before LK's expose on how cool it is; that's a pretty spiffy use of the slightly awkward dex requirement on the BK weapons.
Not sure what weapon to upgrade on my faith character. I want something I haven't used much/at all in the past. I might try the Partizan, has anyone used it?
It's OK I think, especially the sweeping attack proves handy when you're up against multiple thrash mobs. But I thought everyone HAD to use the Gargoyle Halberd!!!?!
I never use the Gargoyle's Halberd. Not that it isn't great, which it is, I just use the Black Knight Halberd so often that when I'm not using that I want a little variety.
On my STR character I took to using a divine great ax since my ploy was that it would have enough residual physical damage to overcome my meager faith. It worked great, catacombs were not an issue, plus I could knock down skeletons. If you have the stats to wield it, I wonder how well it would work with an honest faith character.
I don't (and won't) meet the requirements for it, so I can't help you there. Also, using a Divine Partizan +5 now and holy crap I definitely can't put up with this little damage. I might end up using the GH after all... we'll see if I get the drop. Edit: actually it looks like the GH is, oddly enough, the worst of the halberds for the Occult path. So it's the Halberd/Scythe/Lucerne for me, looks like.
I have a dumb bow question. Say I wanted to try for that Drake Sword. Clearly, I can hide under the bridge there and plunk at his tail, but I can't seem to aim very well. I've never seen a crosshair or anything. (I'm playing on the 360, by the way.) Do I need a special bow or something with crosshairs? Also, can I use a crossbow, or does it have to be a bow? In other news, I'm on alt #3. Going for a tank build, using shields, and switching back and forth between a battle axe and the Zweihander. Surprisingly fun so far!
The bow has a sniping mode that displays the crosshair and allows you to zoom in. Sadly I don't recall the button presses offhand. Equip in left hand, then L1 to make it active, and then I want to say R2 or some such to go into sniper mode. The crossbow does not have sniper mode and I don't feel it would be feasible to shoot the tail.
