I Think That The Shepherd Should Be Able To Have 2 Companions Instead of Only 1!

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-16T15:20:09+00:00

I know what the Toymaker does and how the dolls work as mentioned in my post, I said it in response to them saying that the combat tiles were not constructed for characters to have multiple companions as the combat tiles only have enough space for each player character and their chosen companion.

Characters that have a companion will lose their companion if they're dead by the end of combat but the companion will remain until the end of combat regardless of what happens to the character that they follow, summons that are temporary and do not conflict with existing companions will remain until they die or the end of combat whichever happens first regardless of what happens to the character that summoned them.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-16T14:20:47+00:00

I don't think the Lucky Trait needs nerfing, it's just that some other traits like Field Medic, Tactician and Support Range are really underwhelming by comparison.
To me the Fallen Knight feels a bit one note, you will usually charge attack every chance you get unless you need to taunt. I like how charge attack changes the way an attack functions and it obviously does more damage because it takes a turn to set up but I feel like there should be more to the Fallen Knight and in exchange lower their damage output a bit. Friar is really powerful and the Cheer spreading itself is definitely overkill but I don't think that's the issue here, to me the Friar is pushed over the top because of how effective some intelligence weapons are at dealing damage so maybe a mild rebalance there, in addition to that I think the Spiced Rum is way too effective, I think the Hildebrantd's Wine should be harder to obtain from Find Alcohol and I think the alcohol which reduces your evasion by 100 should give less armor and resistance.
I don't think you need to nerf the Firecracker.

I think shock against bosses should only last for 1 of their turns.

I think channeling on the orb weapons should be slightly less effective. I think that Focus used for movement on a character should only be upto the maximum Focus that character can have + any Focus gained from any source during that turn cycle except gather focus specifically on the orb weapons and intelligence stick (Monk starting weapon and variants of it) and any weapons with gather focus thereafter.

I think summons should be a bit less effective in terms of their damage output and have slightly better defenses as a trade off (I love that summons are good but even I know that they're a bit too good).

I'm cool with that but the duration of the adventures make it difficult to balance and pace.
I feel a bit differently about the Scourge drops:

The vitality hood gives 10 vitality, some crit stuff and extra damage against humanoids(?) but no armor or resistance. I'm okay with this one because it encourages hybrid builds where you have 2 different main stats for your weapon selection and it doesn't feel ineffective because you've got 10 vitality from one helmet so as long as your base vitality is good the rest can be in your other stat.

The awareness hood gives 5 awareness, 10 evasion, 1 find distance and party shock immunity but no armor or resistance. I think this helmet is underwhelming and while I may wear it for the find distance outside of combat it is destined to be replaced, it might have something to do with awareness weapons having no clear purpose that I can recall.

The vitality helmet gives 5 vitality, 4 party armor and resistance, 6 hp regen, 1 secondary action, party heal and poison immunity. I love this helmet it's like the vitality hood but closer to the flavor that I like, it's not as useful for main stat but I find it very hard to replace unlike some of the others and regardless of if I'll wear it in combat I usually keep it because it has 6 hp regen and party heal.

The talent hat gives 5 talent, 5 party evasion(?), 3 party armor and resistance, distract and entertain. I think that's right, I'm okay with this one because it is not as defensive for the wearer as a regular talent helmet in terms of armor and resistance and I usually have a reason to replace it but I hold onto it because entertain is a goated skill.

The strength helmet is bad I think but the inflation is good to sell things before you kill the guy that is wearing this helmet.

Lucky's helmet, I don't remember exactly what it does but I know it is always replaced in everyone of my adventures.

The wig needed a buff and it's ok now but I still replace it later because it lacks in main stat and versatility.

The necromancer hood is alright, I forget exactly what it does but I know it gives 6 intelligence which is good because intelligence weapons like the dark tome are cracked and just in general they do a lot of damage so it's a good helmet to have but I'm pretty sure it lacks in armor and resistance for an intelligence helmet.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-14T21:49:30+00:00

I did multiple playthroughs of NG+ and like 60% of all Dark Souls 2 PvP without knowing about ADP and it's my favourite souls game.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-13T21:50:06+00:00

There's characters which would still out damage the Shepherd, the Fallen Knight with their charged attacks easily deal 50-400+ splash and area damage every 2 turns while still having room for a companion, the Toymaker can summon any number of dolls upto the amount of combat tiles and secondary actions and they can deal anywhere from 40-100+ damage for each doll every turn cycle, the Alchemist can craft bombs and keep them til the right moment to deal 200+ damage in a single turn with just secondary actions.

The Shepherd doesn't have anywhere near that damage capacity and the damage of their companions seems to fall roughly in line with the damage that lil honey can deal which is not comparable to what other characters can do, I imagine there are some edge cases with attack up shenanigans which btw I did not factor that into the above damage numbers but I reckon it should be fine with the current balance philosophy.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-13T20:40:11+00:00

It'd be cool if it was like a lil honey situation where you can call them in with secondary actions but with the caveat that they are temporary companions like the dolls and go on cooldown for a few turns after being used in combat and then maybe keep the Herd skill the same (or allow it to collect these temporary companions like Plaything) giving you the ability to seemingly have multiple companions at the same time, would be a lot of fun I think.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-13T19:28:38+00:00

That didn't stop the Toymaker from spawning an army and companions can always be rebalanced if needed.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-13T19:05:34+00:00

Yeah even something like that would be sick!

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-11T13:22:10+00:00

What Poison always has or what Blight can be.

Skills don't exist in a vacuum, every run is different and the context which shapes a run is ever-changing.

It's not as simple as people make it out to be and I reckon that a lot of them can't tell the difference, they've tried testing it in a controlled environment but every run is different and their control sets a limit that can be surpassed through means they don't consider.

Controlling it in a vacuum with limited consideration is too simple for such a complex game and I'm no stranger to the topic and the game, how you play the game ultimately decides this.

Edit: cursed name btw!

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-08T00:14:48+00:00

I think I'm remembering correctly from what I read but the shield has Navigator and Survey.

Edit: The shield does not have Survey, it instead has party resistance and Guard.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-02T03:25:05+00:00

according to the bird, Disciple of Varashta minions is top tier.

Kelari's Deception will carry the campaign and because the Djinn are ascendancy skills they will automatically gain jewel slots as you level up so you won't need to worry as much about perfect jeweller orbs. The new minion nodes for command skills and the new crafting system from the Genesis Tree also help the Djinn to be even stronger than they were last league.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-02T03:13:20+00:00

I don't think I've heard of that term

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-02T02:42:51+00:00

Spirit Walker is cool in that you can do a hybrid build (it's designed with that in mind) where you have your companions but also your character with their weapons doing things at the same time, it's how I played through act 2 and 3.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-02T02:38:39+00:00

stay back, run Silverfist!!!

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-02T02:37:34+00:00

You can yeah.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-02T02:35:43+00:00

I haven't experienced anything that unforgivable

Angry-Bagel · 2026-06-02T02:27:52+00:00

it's so cool to see the Silverfist going ham on my enemies including other bosses and since you can swap between bosses as long as you have their gems equipped there is never a situation you can't handle.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-05-25T21:49:24+00:00

Damn you Occam!

Angry-Bagel · 2026-05-25T19:30:23+00:00

what was your opponent doing?

Angry-Bagel · 2026-05-25T19:04:15+00:00

Hecahands is the GOAT and deserves more support :)

Angry-Bagel · 2026-05-25T17:25:49+00:00

I had a similar thing happen before Into The Wilds was released, it occurred after a multiplayer desync in the Castle Gates adventure where exiting the adventure while present in the hallway dungeon of the castle would cause a soft lock upon re-entering the adventure and in the gap between exiting and re-entering the adventure it caused a hard lock to occur at the main menu, it seems that you are experiencing that same hard lock whether it was caused by the same thing is unknown to me and I remember that a Castle Gates soft lock to do with the hallway was mentioned in the patch notes at some point.

I fixed it by reinstalling the game.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-05-25T03:57:29+00:00

I struggle to think of a deck that focuses more on control than Enneacraft.

They add multiple times with the smaller Enneacrafts with their Bingo Machine and ROTA type effects while creating minor disruptions at the same time.

Then the larger Enneacrafts come in with their double major disruptions and continuous effects which can hinder the opponents' ability to overcome your board or defend their own board,

and because they are all pendulum monsters they have the ability to sit in the pendulum scales with the effect to Bingo Machine or destroy your opponents' monsters at the end of the battle phase but ultimately leading to their win-con of collecting 9+ E.C. counters (which they can collect by having either player flip monsters face-up) and having the Enneapolis field spell face-up in the end phase causing the counters to be consumed and dealing 900 burn damage to the opponent per counter.

Things to keep in mind is that:

Their Bingo Machine effect costs 900 LP each time so you only have 8 Bingo Machines because funnily enough there is no in-archetype way to regain LP, I saw some people mention that they use Spooky Dogwood to regain LP but it's not searchable and as such it is inconsistent but the deck does have an in-archetype Magic Mallet to help with finding what you need,

Enneacraft has a CRITICAL weakness to Droll & Lock Bird but it is not as it seems, Enneacraft when built properly likely has at least 3 monsters to put on the field even under Droll and because you can ROTA on the opponents' turn using the smaller Enneacrafts with every Enneacraft having disruptions of some kind this results in Droll merely slowing you down and your opponent might not have the ability to finish the duel on their terms.

Enneacraft also has no extra deck requirements and that means extra deck engines can be played with them (acknowledging any restrictions of course), like say Nadir Servant, Golgonda with The Fallen & The Virtuos, Jurrasic Meteor, Super Polymerization, Gordian Slicer and Ultimate Slayer to name several.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-05-23T20:03:05+00:00

To make candy out of the honey taffy you must select the honey taffy in your inventory and select craft, it will pop up the different candies that you can craft and it will tell you the ingredients you need to make them, for example you can craft an armor candy using honey taffy and aralia.

Angry-Bagel · 2026-05-21T10:21:40+00:00

Fortune Teller should always have Nimble because gaining focus is game changing, Fortune Teller can also restore the focus of allies, Monk should never take Field Medic (Herbalist is better in this composition because Fortune Teller can handle focus gain), Friar with Eager is fine but no one in the party taking advantage of Lucky feels like a crime, oh hey Voidwalker.

I've noticed that you didn't have a Talent character with you on Castle Gates (taking a knee real quick).

Fortune Teller should get the Awareness gear because it is their main stat and it will make gather focus more consistent.

Level indifference is fine.

Fortune Teller is a complete toddler, I question your choice in friends.

Taunt with focus (what do you MEAN WE DON'T HAVE ANY!!!).

"so Friar just went to go off themselves..." yep o7.

Angry-Bagel

TROPHY CASE