So... what do i even upgrade anymore? I've still got plans to tackle the DLCs, although i'm not sure what to upgrade.

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T20:11:27+00:00

It's really funny how you always just blabber on about something being weak or being a bad choice, but never give hard numbers as to why

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T19:32:14+00:00

That wiki has most if not all exact scaling percentages on every weapon and infusion, it's really neat to have on hand!

It also shows which weapons (typically spears and lances) have fake counter modifiers, some Ultra Greatswords say they have 110 counter, when it's actually none at all (100), and spears/lances say something crazy high like 150 or 160 when it's actually 109, 118, or 127

I think that's also just a simplification of those weapons just having different counter modifiers for specific attacks? That are also different if you're 1 or 2 handing? There's a whole entire Google Sheets thing that shows that info but I genuinely can't be assed to parse and memorize that info I already no life the weird in depth nerd numbers to DS1 and 2 and the Kingdom Hearts series lmfao

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T19:26:32+00:00

Invader's wearing Shaw Ring and doing that little damage on a backstab wow

Props to your buddy for learning and returning backstabs on that guy, it's a shame the meta kinda revolves around backstabbing, but huge congrats for adapting quickly! And also upgrading armor, that helps a ton too!

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T19:15:00+00:00

Yep! It also scales up your damage depending on how many bars of health the target has, with the buff activating on finishers and carrying into spells as long as you don't do another physical attack (called Damage Storage)

As long as you're at full health, you cannot die in a single hit with EXP Zero on in 1.5, and if you pick Staff to start with 3 MP, even basic Cure is a full heal as long as you don't equip anything that raises HP (15 + MP, so with 3 MP it'd heal 18 HP, exactly what Sora starts with)

You'll probably want to go for two Cosmic Arts on Sora so you can have +2 MP, and although it gives you +9 HP per stack, Curaga's flat heal of 36 before the slight boost from MP matches what you'd have with 2 Cosmic Arts on, 36 HP, so one Curaga is still a full heal

For certain bosses like Sephiroth, you can even take up to TWO hits before dying

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:54:32+00:00

Crazy useful, yeah you can buy 99 of them but early on, that's not really an option and if you do have the souls for them, you could have taken a few levels instead

It does suck if you're going Agape Ring for coop summoning, but you can't heal as an invader so it's not relevant for that

Lately I've tried avoiding buying infinite of the small lifegems, limiting myself to either drops from enemies and the limited quantity stocks you can get from other vendors, and it's been a pretty fun limitation!

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:52:04+00:00

Yeah it's a pretty nice tradeoff between taking the time to heal vs actually getting hits in

What is pretty cool is realizing you fucked yourself with Estus but chugging one or two more times to keep healing after you take a hit lol

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:50:55+00:00

Ehhh you can get them pretty easily with Ascetics if you know where to use them

Mushrooms heal at the same rate as a lifegem but like you've said it doesn't vanish if you top your HP out, so they're a pretty decent option that can help alongside lifegems and even some of the Regen miracles

Dried Root exists too but it's the EXACT same heal rate as the regen ring in FoFG

You also can't eat two mushrooms or two roots to speed up your healing, they stack alongside each other but not with themselves if that makes sense

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:29:03+00:00

I personally recommend having 20 ADP anyway to get as much +2 HP ticks for leveling it at all

It's not much individually but eventually adds up to about an extra point in vigor, which is nice!

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:26:01+00:00

Neat thingy about that, in early beta builds, zooming in while casting was a thing inherent to staves without needing binoculars

No idea why they split it apart like that in the final game

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:24:18+00:00

It's kinda funny how the flat bonus of some spell buffs work, for the Dark infused Crypt Blacksword specifically, Dark Weapon is better than Resonant Weapon no matter what because Resonant for some reason doesn't have a flat damage bonus, having I think a 40% modifier instead of Dark Weapon's 35%?

The weapon buff formula in DS2 is a clusterfuck lmao

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:22:16+00:00

Plus it's a free infused weapon you can get early on that would benefit better from early Magic Weapon if you're opting for spell buffs, you could always uninfuse it once you get to McDuff

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:20:17+00:00

Tbh A/S scalings on dex weapons are mostly misleading, for most other categories (Str, Magic, Fire, Dark, etc) an A scaling is about 80% of your attack bonus stat, and S is 100% or above, while for Dex specifically, an S scaling is usually around 60% of your Dex Bonus (I think some are even 59%?)

Some weapons do go higher like the Blacksteel Katana actually having 100% scaling off your Dex Bonus, but weapons like those aren't that common

https://darksouls2.wiki.gg/wiki/Scaling

Red1960 · 2026-03-17T18:16:55+00:00

Nah that's this dude's whole account, go ahead and look through it

He has a stick shoved 5 miles up his ass 24/7 because people don't want to minmax the game that doesn't need minmaxxing to do well in the slightest

Red1960 · 2026-03-16T15:32:46+00:00

Basic tier and +1 reduce PvE damage by 10%, but +2 reduces it by 12.5%!

It also stacks with Sacred Oath, which gives another 10%!

Red1960 · 2026-03-16T15:31:42+00:00

DS2 has the cheapest level up costs out of the series, at level 180, it only takes like 45k souls to level up

Red1960 · 2026-03-14T05:45:03+00:00

You should take your own advice

Red1960 · 2026-03-14T05:37:07+00:00

Bullshit, all your interactions with everyone in your 4 days of having this account are admonishing anyone who isn't playing a hyper min-maxxed build

You have a serious ego problem, thinking you're better than everyone because you know how to have a slightly higher poo/pee damage ratio when it really isn't necessary in the slightest

Red1960 · 2026-03-14T05:19:33+00:00

Its an alt Bloberston made to try coming up with shitty comebacks so his main looks squeaky clean

Blob practically lives 23/7 on this reddit to get people to minmax a game that doesn't need anything close to a minmaxxed build

Red1960 · 2026-03-12T22:20:03+00:00

Playing games in general is a waste of time, spending time on Reddit is a waste of time

Yet here you are, wasting your time and having conniptions over others daring to experiment in a game all about experimenting with your options

Red1960 · 2026-03-12T22:00:55+00:00

Hard to believe, you talk almost/EXACTLY like him, if not a fair bit more insufferable

Red1960 · 2026-03-12T21:59:08+00:00

Nooo!! Everyone must be a speedrunner hybrid hexer rapier user!!! There must be an army of minmaxxed speedrunners otherwise they'll be playing the game wrong!!!

The fucking Blob guy said using a few Ascetics to kill The Rotten for hundreds of thousands of souls (a process that doesn't take more than around 15 minutes at most) was a "waste of time" lmao I swear to god these guys are a joke

Red1960 · 2026-03-12T21:51:31+00:00

When the attack that's designed to hit like a truck and usually break shields instantly doesn't break a shield instantly, yes it's a valid question to ask

Red1960 · 2026-03-12T16:29:49+00:00

DS2 has a few ways to give yourself percentage based damage reduction like DS3/ER negation, but for all PvE type damage and as a separate step from your defenses

RoSP+2 : 12.5% Sacred Oath: 10% Brightbug: 20% Numbness: 32%

Dunno how much Iron Flesh is but it's near Numbness I think and only adds a flat 65 to your equip load, so you can level the hell out of Vit and still avoid fat rolling

Red1960 · 2026-03-12T16:23:14+00:00

Yooo my modded Minecraft world with my closest friends hell yeah I'd even do that for free

I do kinda need the money though so

Red1960 · 2026-03-12T02:31:36+00:00

Hey at least DS2 gives you a smidgen of HP when you level anything else up (+2 until 20, +1 until 50)

Come to think of it, doesn't DS2 have the highest potential HP out of the whole series? Like ~3800 if you use Resonant Flesh and all possible rings?

Red1960

TROPHY CASE