DARK SOULS™ II

DARK SOULS™ II

221 ratings
How to "Git Gud"
By Asterok
How to PVP and PVE like a true basement-dwelling MLG pro.
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
I: So, you're tired of asking antisocial people over Steam for help and getting the reply of "Git gud"


We must first ask ourselves "What is 'git gud'"? Well, to sum it up it pretty much means you aren't very knowledgeable and skillful at PVP (and possibly PVE). Let's face it; Dark Souls II was made for try-hard gamers who want to be masochisticly punished for not being as good as they thought they were and for that, it turns people into negative, psychopathic machines of doom, death, and despair.

BUT THAT'S OK BECAUSE YOU CAN BE APART OF THAT GROUP!

If you've done a decent amount of PVP and have made it to certain places within the game, you've found yourself dying a lot and have built up a lot of frustration. What this guide is for is for going in-depth on how people who are "gud" get good and then how to be at that level without copying everything.



II: Stats and what you should be aware of
As a disclaimer, I am NOT trying to tell you how to play your character. I won't go in-depth on "builds" and which one works better than others HOWEVER, some builds are indeed better than others. I will go over stats and what they do and how they are important to both PVE and PVP



Vigor: Raises HP and Petrification Resistance.

-So HP is your overall health, if you run out of HP then you die. If you have been playing Dark Souls II for more than 10 minutes, you will realize that you do indeed die a lot so one of the easiest and probably most all around way to stay alive in any situation, whether PVE or PVP is to increase Vigor.

Hp per level of Vigor: 30 per point (0-20), 20 per point (21-50), 5 HP per point (51-99).

No matter what your build is in PVP, Vigor should be a high-priority stat. In PVE, it's certainly a priority but if you become REALLY good, it's not exactly necessary.

NOTE: Increasing other stats (Endurance, Vitality, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith) will also raise your overall HP very, very slightly however, you receive more HP from increasing Vigor.






Endurance: Increases stamina, physical defense, poise, and agility.

-The most major increase you can receive from Endurance is the increase in stamina, whereas the increases in the other 3 stats are meager. Stamina controls how long you can run, how many times you can attack, dodge, cast spells. How many hits your shield can take and how many parries you can do. It basically governs all functions you input on your controller or mouse + keyboard.

Stamina per level of Endurance: +2 stamina per point (0-20), +1 stamina per point (21-99).

You will die many times, both in PVP and PVE, because you ran out of stamina to dodge. I don't have to post a YouTube vid or text for proof. You probably came to this guide because you were pressing a key or a button faster than lightning to dodge that jerk red phantom wielding a claymore who stunlocked you dead because you were wildly swinging your weapon away and you couldn't roll out. Put a couple points in Endurance.

NOTE: This isn't exactly a high priority stat, read my section on Dodging for more details for information on endurance managing.




Vitality: Raises equipment load, poison resistance, slight HP, and physical defense.

1.5 equip load per point (0-29), 1 equip load per point (30-49), 0.5 equip load per point (50-70), 0.5 equip load per two points (71-99).

Basically, you can wear heavier armor and weapons without getting bogged down. Again, I don't want to go into builds but if you want to wear cool, heavy armor and use big weapons, you're going to want to dump points in this.

THE GOLDEN RULE IS TO KEEP YOUR OVERALL WEIGHT UNDER 70%!!!

If you go over 70%, you will get what I call "Fat Roll" which means you won't dodge as fast and as far and you will have less invincibility frames. See my "Dodging" section for more details.




Attunement: Increases spell slots, casting speed, agility, max stored spells per slot, curse resistance, and agility.

-If you plan on making a Harry Potter build using spells and A LOT of them then this stat is for you. If you want to just go, run in and swing your weapon and bonk a ♥♥♥♥♥ in the head then don't worry too much about Attunement. HOWEVER, for PVP, you might want to think about using magic to buff your weapon to hit harder.

Slots per level:

10 (1), 13(2), 16(3), 20(4), 25(5), 30(6), 40(7), 50(8), 60(9), 75(10)

NOTE: There are rings and armor pieces that can increase attument slots and spell uses so don't burn too many points in ATT.




Strength: Increases physical attack for weapons that scale with STR, lets you wield armor and weapons effectively and properly, lets you use power stance.

If you want to wield a large club and roleplay as Shrek then Strength is for you. One of the more important stats is that it lets you use heavier weapons and equipment and opens your character up for more oppurtunities.

This is how power stance works: your STR and DEX (Dexterity) values must be 1.5x the minimum requirements to one hand the weapon. For example, the Greatsword (28 STR, 10 DEX) will require 1.5 x 28 = 42 STR and 1.5 x 10 = 15 DEX to power stance. Power stance lets you use a new move set and hit WAY harder than usual. Keep in mind that it usually takes more endurance to do so.

Depending on your build, this is either a high priority stat or it's not.




Dexterity: Increases physical attack for weapons that scale with DEX, raises physical defense, increases bleed and poison effects, allows use of power attack.

If you want to wield a katana and roleplay as Batosai the Manslayer then Dexterity is for you. Really, only an important stat if you choose a weapon that requires a high DEX rating to use or if you want to use poison and/or bleed effectively.

This is how power stance works: your STR and DEX (Dexterity) values must be 1.5x the minimum requirements to one hand the weapon. For example, the Greatsword (28 STR, 10 DEX) will require 1.5 x 28 = 42 STR and 1.5 x 10 = 15 DEX to power stance. Power stance lets you use a new move set and hit WAY harder than usual. Keep in mind that it usually takes more endurance to do so.


Depending on your build, this is either a high priority stat or it's not.




Adaptibiltiy: Attribute governing defense and agility. Boosts poison resist and bleed resist. AKA, THE MOST IMPORTANT STAT IN DARK SOULS II UP TO A CERTAIN POINT.

I can't stress this enough, adaptibility is very important to both PVE and PVP. The difference between you getting poked by a halberd and it actually hitting you (even if the weapon does or doesn't pass through your body) can be determined because of agility. Agility gets it's biggest increase per point than any other stat. Watch this video and take note of the small difference of a blow landing on the player and when it doesn't. Yes, although it looks the exact same and ridiculous, it's easily the deciding factor of every single battle of all of Dark Souls II

I won't go in depth here on agility (See my "Dodging" section for more details) but this video shows you the difference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWk-BCA5N2E#t=127




Intelligence: Raises casting speed, lets you cast spells based on INT stat, increases magic, dark, and fire magic and resistance.

If you're playing a Harry Potter build, this is probably a stat you should think about. You'll need a certain amount of INT to cast certain spells and the damage will scale with the stat.

Depending on your build, this is either a high priority stat or a stat you won't use.




Faith: Raises casting speed, lets you cast miracles based on faith stat, increases fire, lightning, dark, and bleed bonus damage and resistance.

If you want to roleplay as a God fearing man who shoots lightning out of his hands then this is probably a stat you should think about. You'll need a certain amount of faith to cast certain spells and the damage will scale with the stat.

Depending on your build, this is either a high priority stat or a stat you won't use.


NOTE: There is another kind of magic in the game besides Magic, Miracles, and Pyromancy called Hexes. Hex is based on the LOWEST stat of Faith or Intellect so it will play off of whichever one of yours is the lowest which means if you'll want to use powerful Hexes then you'll need to level up both stats.





III: How to Git Gud Part One: Endurance Management
This isn't going to be the most guide-like sections. I'll list a whole bunch of tips and explain them in depth.


1. NEVER, EVER, EVER, WASTE ALL OF YOUR STAM BAR SWINGING A WEAPON OR CASTING SPELLS IN PVP!!! You're going to think "I can land this last hit!" or "I can cast one more Soul Spear!" and whether it's because of lag, a good player, or just bad timing, things can and WILL go wrong. That last bit of stamina should be used for you to dodge out of the way of something in case it goes wrong. There is nothing more infuriating than a player who dodge rolls towards you, dodging your spell, attacks instantly and hits you because you didn't have the stam to roll away.

2. Thy dodge > Thy shield: While it's more safe to block an attack, you lose valuable resources such as a ton of stamina, some health (Unless you use one of the few 100% physical reduction shields), and an oppurtunity to get around your opponents side. It also opens you up to getting shield bashed which then opens you up for a devastating counter-attack that you cannot roll out of. When it comes to PVE, some bosses will completely drain your stamina and take a chunk of your HP out as well. Dodging only takes a small portion of your stam and gets rid of the rest of the cons that shield blocking has to deal with. You're going to lose a lot more stam blocking than dodging.

3. Some weapons drain more stam than others: It's really an extension of rule number 1 but do take note that you can poke with an estoc more times than you can swing a Greatsword.

4. Practice in Majula: You won't have to worry about getting invaded or an NPC enemy attacking you. You can monitor your stamina bar and chain together combos and how they each chunk away your stamina. If you picked up a new weapon and you want to try to PVP, don't go into a match immediately and hope for the best. See how many times you can use your weapon with a full bar of stam and see how much it drains your stam per swing.

5: If you completely drain your stamina bar, you cannot run until it refills ALL THE WAY: I hate this feature but it is what it is. One of the more annoying things in PVP is when someone runs away to chug an estus really quick and you couldn't catch them. If you don't have a ranged attack (you should) then you have to chase them. If you burn your stamina before they take off then they get a huge headstart.

IV: How to Git Gud Part Two: Dodging
Any player who has ever killed me uses dodge and uses it very well. I've run into slow tanky people who think they can just hide behind a shield. That might have been the case in Dark Souls I but since the shield break feature pretty much negates that and opens you up to a nasty attack, it's not worth hiding behind it the entire time.

Before I go any further, I'm not saying armor is completely worthless. Armor does soften a blow but would you rather take no damage or mitigated damage and possibly be stunlocked for more hits?

In the stats section, I advocated Adaptibilty as the most important stat (to a certain point) because it gives you "i-frames" (Invincibility frames). Basically, you gain more frames the more agility you have which means when you dodge you are invincible to EVERYTHING longer than someone who has a low agility. Some people call this a "placebo stat" and that it doesn't work however this has been proven to work:



If you look real closely, you can see even though the hammer actually hits the body, it doesn't affect him because he was invincible whereas when his agility was very low, the attacks hit him. THIS APPLIES BOTH TO PVE AND PVP.

There is "softcap" of Agility at 110 so put as many points as needed to try to hit this.

Here are the benefits of Agility:

-Lets you use items faster (Estus, lifegems, other items)
-Gives you more invincibility frames


Is it a lot? Absolutely not but everything it does benefit will keep you alive and last I checked, you can't win a fight if you're dead.





The second most important thing to dodging, is of course, the dodge itself. There are two kinds of rolls: Fast roll and Fat roll. The determing factor of which roll you get and use is how much weight burden is on your character. If you have OVER 70% of your total equip burden then you will get Fat Roll. If you have UNDER (or at) 70% total equip burden then you will fast roll. You get less i-frames from Fat Roll and you will have a longer time on the ground where you cannot act or do anything. Personally, I can only recall one guy who had Fat Roll who was very good and that's because he only attacked once in a while since he spent the entire fight dodging my attacks.



To sum up:

-Read the section on endurance managing and manage your endurance
-Increase Adaptibility and until you are safely dodging attacks
-Keep your equip burden under 70%


NOTE: When in PVP, there will be times when you could swear left and right that you dodged an attack. This is because of the lag between your opponents actions and yours. Just try to do your best. As a secondary note, if you encounter someone using a claymore or a sword of or around that length, they for whatever reason have a larger hit radius than it looks (In my opinion).
V: How to Git Gud Part III: Useful tips when stylizing your build (For PVP)
As a disclaimer: I'm NOT going to post builds, builds I use, or other builds that are successful, I'm just going to tell you many tips that are successful in builds I've seen or used.



-Do NOT underestimate the power of Magic: If you're playing a character centered around being a manly man in armor with two Greatswords in power-stance that doesn't use namby-pamby magic, you will get slapped in PVP at some point because of the following:

-You didn't buff your weapons
-You didn't buff your resistances
-You neglected to equip some form of range attack
-The other guy buffed his weapons and killed you in one hit

Once you get in the higher levels, EVERYONE is putting some type of buff on their weapon, even if all they plan to do is hit you with a club.

You don't have to be Hermione Granger about your spells but one or two won't kill you.







Do not underestimate the simple weapons:

Most people think ERMEHGERD, THIS WEAPON HAS A COOL NAME AND APPEARANCE, IT MUST BE AWESOME. And the weird thing is that's usually not true. The great thing about the simple weapons that don't have a cool name or have some special feature is that they are easier to upgrade and usually require less stats to use effectively and are easily available at the beginning of the game.





Use a secondary weapon that takes the disadvantages of the first and makes it it's advantages:

For example: I invaded a sinner in a certain part of the game with a lot of waist high water and NPCs who shoot soul arrows. Their strategy was to bring me into the water where I couldn't move fast and keep close to them (I was using an Estoc). However, when they got slightly out of range thinking they were safe, I switched to my Halberd and dropped it straight on their head.

Each weapon has some disadvantages:

Estoc: Short reach, Doesn't stun a heavily armored opponent, small area of strike


And each weapon has advantages:

Halberd: Long reach, Can stun heavily armored opponent, 360 degree strike zone possibilty







-In melee, Reach > anything:

Your opponent dodge rolls to you, you swing again, you land a hit, you land another hit, he dodges back, YOU CAN LAND THE NEXT HI- nope, he is OUT...OF..REACH. This will happen a lot and it will make you even more mad because of the lag when you see your weapon is obviously touching his body. Having a weapon with a long reach can nick the enemy for that last hit or stop him from running. Most importantly, it means you can hit the enemy before he can get in range and swing at you.




-BRING LLOYDS TALISMANS!!!!

It's not really something to help "stylize" your build but it will keep your opponents from running away and taking a swig of estus. If you're doing the invading as a dark or arbiter spirit, you will fight some battles where both you an your opponent will get low and health and the second he gets a chance, he will run away and swig once or twice. Now, you're almost dead and he is at full health and unfortunately, you can't use items like that (except for Dragon covenant people). You can buy the talismans from the cat in Majula. My advice to you is to wait for your opponent to bow and throw it at them. While some of you may see this as "dishonorable", it doesn't do any damage or put any status effects on your opponent, it's jut to reassure that your opponent can't get an advantage over you without actually affecting his playing ability.




-Try to gauge your opponents moves by walking up to him with a shield:

This might sound retarded since I'm advocating using your shield way less than anything else but you can easily tell what kind of your opponent your facing with the shield. Some will try to attack you instantly when you get close, some will raise their shield and try to circle around, some will stay in their weapon range until you make a swing. You need to make a strategy based around your arsenal for these kind of opponents. The guy who swings will ALWAYS.....SWING....when you get close, the guy who tries to circle around you will ALWAYS try to get behind you before swinging. You'll pick up other traits from each of these personalities the more you play.

NOTE: If you see someone doing the shield-break then DODGE OUT OF THE WAY OR DROP YOUR SHIELD.




-You can dodge out of gestures:

You'll run into that douchebag who waits for you to gesture and then attack, just dodge out of it and keep your distance.





-If you opponent is wearing that light, raggidy ass armor set and wielding one or two staffs then he is undoubedtly a Hermione Granger:

What that means is you will be bombarded with every spell in the known universe. These guys are excellent tests for your stam management and dodging. They will always run away if you get close and if you slightly knick them, then they will bombard you with spells while they chug an estus.






-Assume weapons have a slightly longer reach than what appears:

You have to keep in mind there is always a slight lag between actions. If you imagine the length of their weapon is a little greater than what you see, you should get hit less often.







-If your opponent named his character "Shrek" and he is using the Greatclub and a Lion Greataxe then you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

And I'm not saying that because that's my Shrek (it's some other dudes), it's because I have never felt true terror in a sparring match like when I faced Shrek.




VI: How to Git Gud Part IV: Useful tips when stylizing your build (for PVE)
As I said in Part V, I'm not going to post builds or tell you what a good build is. I'm just going to give you helpful tips so that you can take them into consideration when you make a build.



Fighting Bosses:


1. Don't go in instantly swinging: Please....this is the fastest way to die. The best thing you can do is keep moving and hold your shield up and try to dodge attacks. Get a feel for his move set and try to time your dodges correctly.


2. When a boss stops attacking and looks like he is trying to pray or summon something, or just flat out looks like he is constipated, that's most of the time a good sign to RUN....AWAY


3. When you summon a phantom to help you, this action boosts the bosses health up and if you summon another phantom, it will boost his health up even more: Fighting some bosses can be a huge pain and take forever whereas if you just went in solo, you could have killed him in a few hits.

4. If you're not prepared to fight a boss, then help someone who is! This way you don't lose your progression, you get to experience the boss without loss and you can gain items, souls, and all of your estus and spells back if you succeed.






Fighting enemies:

1. You'll encounter the same enemies in the same zones and if you die a lot, you will encounter them again. The best way to learn about them is to keep fighting them and you can learn when to dodge or attack or even parry if your feeling ballsy.


2. You'll find yourself in zones where a ranged attack would be VERY helpful. Go get a short bow and upgrade it a slight bit and you can take down simple enemies from afar. You'll know the place I'm talking about once you die about 25 times because you couldn't run and hit them with a melee weapon.


3. There are many instances where you can be swarmed by enemies. Using a weapon with a wide arc attack (Like the Zweihander or bastard sword) can hit and stun multiple enemies.


4. If you have a spell slot, put some points into Faith and put Heal as your spell. That way you wont waste Estus or lifegems if you win a fight with very little health.
VII: Epilogue
Credit goes to:


Dark Souls II Wiki

YouTube user AdamBarker89

All of the hundreds of players who I've killed to compile my own information and the fewer who killed me in return.




-ast3rok
78 Comments
Loren 9 Feb, 2017 @ 7:58am 
Good guide. Applies to DS1 too. Thanks for writing.
Spider__Venom 2 Feb, 2017 @ 7:01am 
It's a good tutorial, just wish it'd go into lagstabs and how to deal with enemies who do it
Gjergj 11 Apr, 2016 @ 11:08pm 
I legit laughed for like a minute straight at that shrek part
DeadLegion 17 Oct, 2015 @ 5:46am 
Gared 29 Apr, 2015 @ 8:29pm 
I gott gud.
Legend never dies

Thanks, m8
tundador 21 Mar, 2015 @ 4:14am 
git gud or get rekt
RifqyDgamer 31 Jan, 2015 @ 12:03am 
i got gud
gr8 guide
Buddah 10 Jan, 2015 @ 7:47am 
SON?
laugh_track_ 23 Dec, 2014 @ 7:44pm 
Well, im only 23 hours in (i picked it up a bit ago before NB announced scholar) and i know nothing about pvp or all the power weapons prp anything but this does help, thank you.
SunbroStang 27 Aug, 2014 @ 4:12pm 
i didnt see it in the video, thats all. I definitely know what it looks like, been playing since launch.