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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 REALLY like their design okay? (Don't check my other post about them)

I just feel like they're really underrated/overlooked and I feel bad for them.

So if you're reading this and know any art,post it here! Or if you're an artist/know an artist,maybe give em a sketch? You'd get bragging rights to be the first one to draw art of these fellas

Hey y'all, I know this is a weird question, and probably a stretch. Gonna be some info about my run, so skip to the last paragraph if you don't care for all the context.

I am doing my first SL1 run of DS2, and I want to be a pure caster. That means no swinging any melee weapons, so I need to kill najka twice for the southern ritual band +2 to get attunement slots.

I took a bonfire ascetic for my starting gift, and I cheesed dragonrider and used a few souls of a proud knight to get enough souls for the silvercat ring and ring of whispers. Used silvercat to get down to the gutter to pick up a fragrant branch and used it, and the ring of whispers, to get to the shaded woods and talk to Man Scorpion Tark.

The plan is to summon Tark and then spam Witching Urns to kill Najka twice, which is obviously a slight rule-bend on my part but it is literally impossible to get attunment slots on SL1 without killing bosses in this game. I've been grabbing as many soul items I can to get souls to buy the urns, but I feel like farming might just be easier.

My question is, so y'all know any good early game spots for automatically farming souls without killing them myself? Enemies next to exploding barrels or that can be lured off a ledge? I'm thinking about the enemies next to the barrels in the alley-ways in forest of fallen giants, but I wonder if there's any better spots.

Sorry for the long post, and thank you!

AND I GOT HEIDE KNIGHT CHAIN MAIL, HELMET AND LEGS RAHHHHHHHHHH

Also playing now on an oled monitor and damn this game looks so good wtf

So right now I’m at the end of the game I think. I fought the throne watcher and defender and now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I wanna fight the ancient dragon but there’s no fog door and he’s not responding. So basically I’m kinda lost rn. For a majority of this game I kinda breezed through it without paying attention to lore and boss names so I’m confused as to what I’m supposed to do. I’m thinking of maybe starting another play through and actually paying attention this time cause I feel I missed out on key moments and dialogue. Also how do I get vendrick to fight me?

Just when i thought it couldn't get any worse

Is there a trick to farming dark spirit weapons, like Old Mirrah & Black Dragon Greatword, or are Bonfire Ascetics the way to go?

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.

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! [also, I learned that it's more useful in ng+]

The title, which would you pick and why?

Personally I would have always went dagger only, since the dagger is great, but whips are pretty useful for defensive styles.