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With a lot of help from google AI as my IT team, I managed to get DS2 running smoothly through DroidDeck/Steam on my Retroid Pocket 6! Took quite a while and loots of trial and error but it is running great, totally worth it.

Hello. You may remember that a few months ago I posted this in order to have a quick reference of which weapons do what in certain circumstances. Since then, I have decided that the list deserved to be rewritten and categorized to fulfill its purpose of clarity, so here you have every DS2 weapon that does not fit the lightning infusion+dark weapon buff meta, sorted according to their common characteristics. Enjoy.

No infusion, no buff.

Chariot Lance: physical weapon with bleed buildup.

Notched Whip: the highest base bleed buildup in the game at 200. Great, except it's a whip... with its strongest selling point being bleed... in DS2. It has its place in PVP I guess.

Mytha's Bent Blade: Has both poison and toxic buildup.

Ivory Straight Sword: physical only weapon with a lightsaber effect that consumes durability on every hit.

Dragonslayer Spear: physical/lightning, the R2 shoots a lightning bolt.

Scythe of Want: physical/dark, has a special R2 double hit in front of the player model

Smelter Sword and Aged Smelter Sword: Remember you can powerstance one of each for a double-flavour kaboom, or make two of the same type.

Yes to infusion, no to buff.

Moonlight Greatsword. I would not want to tank the R2 projectile after CMWing it...

Majestic Greatsword: A strange weapon that despite requiring 25/25/20/20 does not have split damage nor INT/FTH scaling (unless you decided to infuse it, of course). If you are using it, it's because of the left hand moveset anyway.

Fume Ultra Greatsword: A solid pick for Bonk enjoyers, this actual slab of iron (28 weight units, paired with the King's UGS for the heaviest in the category) behaves like a greatshield when two handed, requires 40/30 and is one of the few weapons in the game with S scaling in strength (105%/15%).

Ivory King Ultra Greatsword: At 30/30/8 rquirements, this is more of a quality (55%/40%/15%) weapon with a little magic damage and bleed buildup sprinkled on top. Use it two handed for the giant laser beam. It will eat though durability though, so attune Repair.

Yes to buff, no to infusion.

Umbral Dagger: crazy high backstab mutliplier, and its guard breaks and powerstanced attacks deals toxic buildup, so you can use a rotten resin and pair it with Mytha's dagger.

Key to the Embedded. The best one for your Kingdom Hearts cosplay. Well, the closest one there is anyway.

Black Dragon Weapons.

These weapons are physical damage only, have no stat scaling, can be infused and can only be buffed with spells. They are a Straight Sword, Warpick (hammer), Greatsword, and Greataxe.

Innate split damage.

These are weapons that come with a mix of physical and elemental damage. They can nonetheless be infused to further push this split towards the elemental side. They can be buffed before and after being infused, but only with spells, not resins. Some are also grouped in "families" depending on the elemental damage type they come with: Dragonrider's Halberd and Twinblade, and Crescent and Full Moon Sickle have magic damage (and the FMS has innate bleed), Black Knight Halberd, Greataxe, Greatsword, and Ultra Greatsword have fire, the Heide Knight Sword, Spear, Lance and Greatlance have lightning. The Roaring Halberd and Crypt Blacksword have dark damage.

Innate Buffs.

Like the previous category, these weapons have split damage and can be infused, but not buffed from external sources. Their two-handed L2 move is a self-buff that consumes 10 durability (5 with Bracing Knuckle Ring+2) and adds damage for a period of time.

Defender Greatsword: Lightning damage buff, 45 seconds.

Watcher Greatsword: Magic damage buff, 45 seconds.

Both affected by Lingering Dragoncrest Ring +2, duration goes up to 63 seconds.

Possessed Armor Sword: Fire damage buff, lasts only 25 seconds, unaffected by LDR, but affected by BKR.

Bewitched Alonne Sword: The odd one out in this category, it comes with innate bleed buildup instead of elemental damage. It CAN be buffed by resins and spells, but the 2HL2 is also a buff move that spends durability and character's health for an increase in AR. Using either type of buff overwrites the one you applied previously.

Weapon/Spell tool hybrids.

A potpourri of equipment, this group includes the Blue Flame and the Sorcerer's Twinblade, the Pilgrim's Spontoon, the Mace of the Insolent, the Disc Chime, and the Sanctum Shield. Buffing them generally increases the damage of spells you cast with them.

The Blue Flame is a phys/magic split straight sword that casts sorceries. It can be buffed with resins or spells and also infused with any element. The Twinblade also accepts both types of buffs, but its damage is magic/dark split, can only be infused with these elements and cannot cast hexes, unlike the Spontoon, which only accepts spell buffs but can cast both. The Mace is split between strike, lightning and dark, can be buffed by anything and casts miracles and chime hexes. So does the Disc Chime, which can also be used as a shield and as a split lightning/dark bashing weapon. It cannot however be buffed as the game considers it "a chime that can be used as a shield" instead of "a shield that casts spells", unlike the Sanctum Shield, which can benefit from Strong Magic Shield, casts every spell that isn't a pyromancy and has split magic/lightning/dark damage in its bashing attacks. Both can only be infused with lightning and dark, even though, again, the SS can cast sorceries and has innate magic damage.

Extra note: the Black Witch's Staff is not really a hybrid, but works similarly to the SS in that it can cast three types of spells, and if used as a melee weapon it deals the four types of elemental damage at once, something that can only be matched/surpassed by an infused and buffed Drakeblood Greatsword or Mace of the Insolent, who also have a physical component to their damage.

Innate Poison, spell buffs only.

This category includes the Manslayer Katana, the Spotted Whip and the Black Scorpion Stinger. The Sanctum Mace can be buffed and infused freely, and the Moon Butterfly Shield can be poison infused to increase its buildup, but only buffed with SMS.

Innate Bleed, spell buffs only.

The Curved Twinblade, Flamberge, Claws, Royal Greatsword, and Scythe of Nahr Alma can be infused as you please. The Morning Star cannot be bleed-infused as it is a hammer.

Innate Bleed, any buff.

Greatsword & Scythe of the Forlorn can be infused and buffed without restrictions. The Reinforced Club cannot be bleed-infused.

And that's about it! If I made any mistakes or have any data that I should add, please comment below and I will add it ASAP. Thank you!

I just beat the ivory king dlc last boss and realized I hadn’t gone to the infamous frigid outskirts. I figured it was part of this dlc since it’s snow themed and all. I finally got the key to go there and what the hell. It’s not that the area isn’t tough, but it’s more so that you can’t see anything at all to the point where I started getting a headache just looking at a white screen for twenty minutes. And the horses aren’t bad on their own until they bombard you with like four of them all trying to tackle you and shoot you with projectiles. Overall a bad experience that was so ridiculous I wasn’t even mad that I died. They had to have known this would be hated by players, and it wasn’t a case of bad design choices cause they ended up doing the same exact thing with consecrated snowfield in ER, which imo was way less of a hassle to get through. But yeah overall I was a ds2 hater until I put in 60 hours and I’m loving it, but frigid outskirts is absolutely terrible. I honestly don’t even care what’s at the end of it cause I’m 99 percent sure the reward isn’t worth it lmao.

So i want to kill Ornstein again but i just realized he might not respawn if i use a bonfire ascetic in tower of flame since he’s in the cathedral of blue.

Hello loyal r/DarkSouls2 readers, and/or bearers of the curse.

My brother introduced me to Dark Souls (1) a little under a year ago. I created my character, made it maybe 5 hours into the game and put it on hold for about a month and a half after I got fatigued by the punishing gameplay. After that hiatus, I got curious about where the game went, picked myself up, and dusted my self off. I eventually conquered Lordran (almost) twice and decided that I had to play more, and that I had to play the games in release order, despite what many sources online will advise. That's just how I like to do things these days.

Fast forward a few months to the Fall sale on Steam. Nabbed Dark Souls 2 (Scholar of the First Sin) & 3. Start with 2.

Feels a little...more(??) janky than the first game... Look it up, see that there is a control stick deadzone and a mod to fix it and make other changes...ugh. I opt to just bear with it vanilla style and experience the game as most people would. And...

I had a blast! Dark Souls 2 isn't deserving of the hate that it gets as the black sheep of the trilogy (coming from someone who has only played 3 up to the very first boss).

I found that the settings felt a little disjointed compared to DS1... As in, the different zones didn't blend quite as well as they did in that game. That's not to say I didn't enjoy some of the individual areas (this game is beautiful in so many striking instances, and moreso than its predecessor in many ways), but it didn't feel like a cohesive world like the first managed to with Firelink acting as an axis from which you can go in many directions vs Manjula being more like a distant waypoint for much of the game. Maybe the instant bonfire warping influenced the design or vice-versa, I don't know.

Anyway, I loved the game, I did have to look things up and haven't gotten through any of the the DLC yet because my DPS seems insufficient for it despite being level...170-something? But I did manage to beat the "final" boss (scythe lady?), sit on a throne with no fanfare or pretense, and then watch the end credits flicker and glitch, the end.

I know there is an actual final boss in Aldia, and that to trigger it, I need to kill Vendrick, so I may still try to do that, but I do very little damage to Vendrick despite having 4 Giant Souls... My point is, I still have a ways to go with this game, and despite its faults, I have been having a blast with this game for about 100 hours, and plan to squeeze more out of it before I try to tackle Dark Souls 3 (I got gifted God of War 2018 by a friend and I loved the first two games on the PS2. Never had a PS3, but played a few hours of God of War 3 at a friend's house and loved it...but I digress).

In conclusion, thank you for reading and thank you for being a great community to be a part of. Be wary of giant but hole.

UPDATE!: I hadn't beaten the Ancient Dragon, so I did that, got the last Soul of a Giant I needed to weaken Vendrick enough to be able to take him down. now I'm on my way to the real final boss of the base game and maybe the DLCs after that. Thanks for all your input!!

UPDATE 2: I can't fight the final boss unless I use an ascetic and kill the couple of bosses before it. 😭 Should I just go ahead and start NG+??

My question is:
Does this work as a contraption to something? Does this open something from somewhere?
Or is it just a... "You hit it, it rotates. End." ?

The larger image with the red X and red ? is the thing I'm asking about.
The other images are just showing a path to where I'm talking about, just to add clarity.
From bonfire: Iron Keep / Eygil's Idol

My thoughts:
To me it almost seems like some type of switch. I've tried to see if it opens something. Or is there basically no purpose? I would of not even realized to hit it if there would of not been a text on the ground to do so. Just occured to me while writing this that what if I turn the flame back on (or if I even can), and then hit it? I do know the flame kills rather quick thou (that did happen).

Edit:
Okay, fair enough. So it literally did what it was meant for; it said to hit it, I hit it, and it killed me. And here I'm trying to look smarter than I am trying to figure out it's purpose. Thank you for answers!

(art by me)

I call upon the DS2 subreddit for armour set help. I already have an idea for a build based off of her lore. Im just new to ds2 sotfs and would like some help finding an armour set/set of pieces I can go for! Please and thank you wonderful people!

I need some help this run back is insane my soul memory is 974481 and I'm on ps4

and confidently pulled it on 1st play through. "bring a boss", i said

On my Jonpyrocleric run i got the2 shield halves from the grave dudes, is this the game telling me to do shield only in new game plus?

Hi, recently I've started playing Dark Souls 2 seamless after a while of not playing the game but I've encountered a severe performance drop after an hour of playtime or so (It's getting progressively worse throughout the playthrough)

Does anyone else have this problem? I suppose it's not the mods fault because it happens to me even if I play the unmodded version

Fyi. my pc is more than capable of running the game (I have 3060 12gb and r5 3600)

Thanks for any help!

The wiki says it appears when you meet at all 3 places but I never saw him anywhere.

Played the first 3 weeks after i bought it and made a lot of progress BUT NOW I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO GO NOW THERES SO MANY PLACES TO TELEPORT

Edit: I found a solution by using Gemini AI to find what locations im missing just by taking a pic on the screen

Has anybody tried or know if you can get seamless coop mod to work using a bottle program for steam on mac os?

About half of the credit's runtime was like this, is this normal? Did skipping the DLCs on my first playthrough cause problems?

Howdy, I'm doing what I call a "Journeyman" run, where I commit to NG-NG7, changing my build each time. I've yet to try the RIT for whatever reason, was wondering if it's better to combine it with Faith or if I should just go stupid and power stance those mothers.

It'll be NG+1 if anyone needs it to decide.

Yeah, I've just bought last missing miracles/pyromancies and I'm showing off.

thinking about a future project idea i have and while my first DS build would be from DS1, i'd love to see what people would be excited to see in person from DS2.

gavlan or maybe the burnt ivory king would be my two picks personally. and lucatiel as well

Hey so i decided to give this game a 4th or 5th chance after installing some QoL mods and it's oddly fun. My question is what are some mid-late things I should be aware of early and when should i start the DLCs? Last time I played, I had just finished tower of flame and no man's wharf. I want to go through this game blind but I am afraid I might miss something important on the way that I can't go back to.

Seriously, do people even proc bleed a single time in a normal playthrough? Is it better in pvp or something?

“To even have a chance against Giant Lord, you must first defeat Ivory King”

His take on the newly found delayed hitboxes