Reliably Turning on Red Tearstone Ring

[New Creation]

I'm starting to play around with a glass cannon build for tearing down bosses quickly (Red Tearstone Ring, Unleash Magic, Soul Geyser/Crystal Soul Spear with almost 400 casting speed).

One problem I run into with this approach, however, is reliably getting down to the amount of health required to activate the Red Tearstone Ring. Here are the methods I've tried so far:

1) Chaos Blade - Because your health only decreases when you attack enemies, and I don't have the stats (nor desire) to use this as my main weapon, this doesn't really do the trick. It does work with breakable objects, but you lose so little health with each hit that there aren't enough breakable objects in any area to get to the threshold.

2) Hexes and Abyss Seal - This method takes up attunement slots and you only lose a little bit of health with each attack, making it difficult to get down to the threshold. I didn't explore this one very far before I decided it wasn't the way to go.

3) Immolation - This is the most promising of all of the options, because a single cast from when I'm at full health brings me down to the threshold. However, this takes up two spell slots, which means that between this and Unleash Magic I only have 8 left to get through the level and then kill the boss. It could potentially be made up for the Northern Ritual Band + 2 to increase my cast counts, but then Immolation would kill me instead of bringing me to the threshold. I am going to experiment with using this and putting on the ring to compensate, but it still isn't optimal.

Does anyone else have any ideas of methods that have worked for them?

[Mibuwolf]

Just to exhaust all options: Fall damage. :p

you named all the 'reliable' ones. I believe in DkS some people would poison/toxic themselves to get to a certain hp.

[🚂🚃🚃]

blue tearstone ring?

[New Creation]

Syritoo の投稿を引用：

blue tearstone ring?

The Red Tearstone Ring is similar to the Blue Tearstone Ring, except increases your damage output instead of your defenses.

[Mibuwolf]

skiesbleed の投稿を引用：

Syritoo の投稿を引用：

blue tearstone ring?

The Red Tearstone Ring is similar to the Blue Tearstone Ring, except increases your damage output instead of your defenses.

and is totally badass/worth it compared to the blue tearstone ring. good times in DkS with it. good times.

[video games are a waste of time]

Immolation with Southern Ritual Band +1 (or +2 if you really want). Take off the ring once you cast Immolation.

[New Creation]

Mibu, The Wise Wolf の投稿を引用：

Just to exhaust all options: Fall damage. :p

you named all the 'reliable' ones. I believe in DkS some people would poison/toxic themselves to get to a certain hp.

Haha, I'm not sure I would call fall damage reliable, but I see your point.

I was looking for a way to try and poison myself or something similar. I can't find anything that does that. It really does look like Immolation is the best I'm going to get, but then I lose spells. I tested it with Northern Ritual Ring + 2, and while I gain enough spells back to make up for it, I have to give up one of my other rings (Southern Ritual Ring + 2, Clear Bluestone Ring + 2, Covetous Silver Serpent Ring + 2). The last one is the obvious one to give up, but giving up all of those souls doesn't really seem worth it.

[Mibuwolf]

skiesbleed の投稿を引用：

Mibu, The Wise Wolf の投稿を引用：

Just to exhaust all options: Fall damage. :p

you named all the 'reliable' ones. I believe in DkS some people would poison/toxic themselves to get to a certain hp.

Haha, I'm not sure I would call fall damage reliable, but I see your point.

I was looking for a way to try and poison myself or something similar. I can't find anything that does that. It really does look like Immolation is the best I'm going to get, but then I lose spells. I tested it with Northern Ritual Ring + 2, and while I gain enough spells back to make up for it, I have to give up one of my other rings (Southern Ritual Ring + 2, Clear Bluestone Ring + 2, Covetous Silver Serpent Ring + 2). The last one is the obvious one to give up, but giving up all of those souls doesn't really seem worth it.

Well, in DkS I guess I had so many souls and it was easy to use Dung Pies, but I suppose you could do it in DS2 as well. 600 souls /ea. not too bad.

[New Creation]

Pissed off の投稿を引用：

Immolation with Southern Ritual Band +1 (or +2 if you really want). Take off the ring once you cast Immolation.

I was thinking along these lines, although it is difficult giving up three attunement slots after having 13 for so long. I can compromise by wearing the Northern Ritual Ring + 2 when I rest, then Immolation, using Estus when I get right to the bottom of my health pool to get into the threshold by the end of the Immolation, then swap this for the Red Tearstone Ring. That seems pretty sound, and the net result is that I have a few less Soul Spears, but more Crystal Soul Spears and Soul Geysers. I'm willing to make that trade.

The downside to this approach is that I either need to have a ring that I'm not really using for the duration of the level until I reach the boss, or I have to go through the whole level with everything able to kill me in a single hit. I suppose I'll have to see how it goes.

[New Creation]

Mibu, The Wise Wolf の投稿を引用：

skiesbleed の投稿を引用：

Haha, I'm not sure I would call fall damage reliable, but I see your point.

I was looking for a way to try and poison myself or something similar. I can't find anything that does that. It really does look like Immolation is the best I'm going to get, but then I lose spells. I tested it with Northern Ritual Ring + 2, and while I gain enough spells back to make up for it, I have to give up one of my other rings (Southern Ritual Ring + 2, Clear Bluestone Ring + 2, Covetous Silver Serpent Ring + 2). The last one is the obvious one to give up, but giving up all of those souls doesn't really seem worth it.

Well, in DkS I guess I had so many souls and it was easy to use Dung Pies, but I suppose you could do it in DS2 as well. 600 souls /ea. not too bad.

Interesting, I didn't realize that Dung Pie affects the user. I'll explore this option, thanks!

[Illumina]

Push your face into the spiked bars in Iron Keep or Doors of Pharros.
Lava
Falling

[Maechen]

Use a shield with low physical damage block and just keep blocking till you get into RTSR range. That's what I do anyway.

[fe]

Flash Sweat will cancel immolation, as will chameleon. So Silver Talismans will probably have the same effect too.

I wanted to do something similar, mostly for fun because I'm sure it wouldn't be practical, but basically this:

Fully hollow myself
Equip a Dark Pyromancy Flame +10 (300 fire damage when fully hollowed)
Equip Penal Handcuffs (+7%ish fire damage)
Use Unleash Magic
Go down to 20% health with immolation.
Shoot a forbidden sun, flame swathe at 56 int/faith
Potentially kill a boss with just forbidden sun and flame swathe.

Normally Flame Swathe is strong enough to do 700 damage, I imagine what the extra 50 fire damage from dark pyromancy flame and the added 50% extra damage from penal handcuffs, unleash magic and red tearstone ring would do.

I imagine something like 1k damage, potentially more, for Flame Swathe. I guess it still isn't as powerful as fully powered Climax but at least you get a lot more casts from it. With 50 attunement, or if you're low on atn Black Witch Hat+Southern Ritual Band, you'll have more than enough slots for immolation (2), flash sweat (1), flame swathe (1), forbidden sun (3).

No idea how how much damage Forbidden Sun can do because I pulled a lever in Aldia's Keep and the game saw fit to lock me out of Forbidden Sun and Unleash Magic for the entire playthrough.

I bet it's a viable alternative for some bosses. Rotten, Royal Rat Authority if you use lingering flame, Covetous Demon, Mytha, whatever boss's big, slow and isn't strong to fire. It's likely very good on other smaller faster bosses too, if you're good at rolling.

Flame Swathe should give 4k damage at least under these conditions, I assume Forbidden Sun could contribute at least 1500 damage. If you bring Hexer Hood and Nothern Ritual Band+2 (at this point no need to care about the diminished health from the ring), you should have enough casts to quicly dispatch of most bosses.

I'd really love to try that out, don't think I ever will now that I lose Unleash Magic and Forbidden Sun.

[Tirigon]

Wait, how would that even work? I thought Red Tearstone Ring only works for physical damage, not magical?

[Azrahan]

curse jars or anything that applies the curse status, and high sin. If memory serves, the health reduction from being hollowed/cursed does activate the ring.

[New Creation]

Tirigon の投稿を引用：

Wait, how would that even work? I thought Red Tearstone Ring only works for physical damage, not magical?

Red Tearstone Ring boosts all damage types. The item description is incorrect.