What should I be aware of for my first playthrough of DS2?

[Minuano]

I literally just finished Dark Souls less than an hour ago. I had been playing it on and off for years, plus several dozen hours on console but, for some reason, I never went all the way through to the end. Thankfully I bought DS2 on the last sale for just this moment. Beyond that, I did finish Demon's Souls way back when it came out and, more recently, have finished Bloodborne and Nioh 4 or 5 times each.

I'm curious as to how DS2 differs in terms of gameplay.

I hear there's a lot more player tracking to discourage circle-strafing.

I'm also curious how builds are like in DS2. In DS1 sword+shield was almost a must, at least in the first playthrough. Is DS2 any different? Or does it discourages shield usage? It's almost hard to imagine playing Dark Souls without a shield frankly. Bloodborne and Nioh are super fun and don't have shields, but they are also way faster. Is DS2 a faster game than DS1? How viable are shield-less builds? I hear magic builds might be more viable in DS2, or even that they're like an easy mode, is that so? How about magic/physical builds? Or are there physical weapons that scale with Int/Fth early game that allows for pure magic builds right from the get-go? How viable are dual-wield builds?

Is there anything else you think I should know for my first playthrough?

[Call Sign: Raven]

Dark Souls without a shield is a must. Try two-handing. Even on your first playthrough.

Level up adaptability, or your dodge will suck.

Dark Souls 2 is a tad faster than 1. Not by much. Perhaps 10%

Shield-less builds are extremely viable in all souls games.

Magic builds got toned way the heck down in DS2. Casting requires stamina, now, but it's still very imbalanced and OP compared to melee weapons.

Dual-wield builds are great, yet require lots of stamina usage. They are very fun for DPS, just watch your stamina.

Early Int/Fth weapons exist, but they aren't a must for a pure-magic user.

For your first playthrough, here's my golden advice:

Don't worry if you mess things up. Go in and muck about and have fun. Don't try to play the game very well when you are new. Mistakes are the best type of learning. Experiment, and if you are unsure about using something that looks like you only get to use it once, just look on the fextralife website.

[Mirage]

For one, you'll be able to reset your stats several times, so messing up your stats isn't really a big deal.

Main thing is that your iframes are really poor at the start, so dodging is pretty rough, think you have like 5 iframes compared to 11 or so you'll usually play with in ds1. You need to put in like a dozen points into ADP to get to DS1 levels over time.
First point in ADP gives you a few iframes so i'd recommend putting in atleast one at first and go upto like 99 or whatever you feel comfortable with eventually, the more you put in the worse the payout.

Beyond that, just kinda experience things for yourself, I feel the weapon type strike/slash etc is more important here so remember that.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Originally posted by Mirage:

For one, you'll be able to reset your stats several times, so messing up your stats isn't really a big deal.

Main thing is that your iframes are really poor at the start, so dodging is pretty rough, think you have like 5 iframes compared to 11 or so you'll usually play with in ds1. You need to put in like a dozen points into ADP to get to DS1 levels over time.
First point in ADP gives you a few iframes so i'd recommend putting in atleast one at first and go upto like 99 or whatever you feel comfortable with eventually, the more you put in the worse the payout.

Beyond that, just kinda experience things for yourself, I feel the weapon type strike/slash etc is more important here so remember that.

The highest you should level ADP is 38. If you go up to 99 you only gain 1 or 2 more points in AGI, which is clearly not worth it.

[Naewyng]

Originally posted by Harrison Ford:

Originally posted by Mirage:

For one, you'll be able to reset your stats several times, so messing up your stats isn't really a big deal.

Main thing is that your iframes are really poor at the start, so dodging is pretty rough, think you have like 5 iframes compared to 11 or so you'll usually play with in ds1. You need to put in like a dozen points into ADP to get to DS1 levels over time.
First point in ADP gives you a few iframes so i'd recommend putting in atleast one at first and go upto like 99 or whatever you feel comfortable with eventually, the more you put in the worse the payout.

Beyond that, just kinda experience things for yourself, I feel the weapon type strike/slash etc is more important here so remember that.

The highest you should level ADP is 38. If you go up to 99 you only gain 1 or 2 more points in AGI, which is clearly not worth it.

I think he meant to say 99 agi xD

IMO I'd say go for 105 agi, I think you have like 13 iframes at that point

[Danté]

The main thing of Dark Souls 2 is that the PvP is the best in the series. The game is GIGANTIC aswell. My first ever playthrough (this was my first DS experience) took 128 hours, and I believe this was without the DLC. There are alot of optional bosses that you might completely run past at first. I don't have experience with DS1 (waiting for the remaster), but I just started a new playthrough after 2 years or so of not playing, and I'm only using the Greatsword and occasionally I pull out my pyromancer weapon. Because of the Soul Memory system, it's best to prioritize retrieving your souls upon death (look the Soul Memory system up). Also Lightning is the most viable element, I believe this is the case in DS1 too.

[Naewyng]

Originally posted by Derunik:

The main thing of Dark Souls 2 is that the PvP is the best in the series. The game is GIGANTIC aswell. My first ever playthrough (this was my first DS experience) took 128 hours, and I believe this was without the DLC. There are alot of optional bosses that you might completely run past at first. I don't have experience with DS1 (waiting for the remaster), but I just started a new playthrough after 2 years or so of not playing, and I'm only using the Greatsword and occasionally I pull out my pyromancer weapon. Because of the Soul Memory system, it's best to prioritize retrieving your souls upon death (look the Soul Memory system up). Also Lightning is the most viable element, I believe this is the case in DS1 too.

Wait wtf 128 hours? O_O

I think my first run was like 40-50 hrs, and I was still complete crap at that point xD

[Danté]

Originally posted by Lhakryma:

Originally posted by Derunik:

The main thing of Dark Souls 2 is that the PvP is the best in the series. The game is GIGANTIC aswell. My first ever playthrough (this was my first DS experience) took 128 hours, and I believe this was without the DLC. There are alot of optional bosses that you might completely run past at first. I don't have experience with DS1 (waiting for the remaster), but I just started a new playthrough after 2 years or so of not playing, and I'm only using the Greatsword and occasionally I pull out my pyromancer weapon. Because of the Soul Memory system, it's best to prioritize retrieving your souls upon death (look the Soul Memory system up). Also Lightning is the most viable element, I believe this is the case in DS1 too.

Wait wtf 128 hours? O_O

I think my first run was like 40-50 hrs, and I was still complete crap at that point xD

Yeah I dunno, might have been with DLC in, I was so bad most zones were void of enemies when I killed the boss. I think I died more than 30 times in Heides Tower of Flame alone. I think I also nearly 100%'d at that time, so to get to the end it might have taken a little less long. I also played with a bad weapon which made the bosses seem EXTREMELY hard. Like I really remember dying multiple times to the Covetous Demon and the Magus & Congregation. When I first played DS2 I played the normal version, and I took it upon myself to try to kill the Heide Knight that was sitting in the middle of an arena at the start of the Forest of the Fallen Giants. It took me way more tries to kill that thing than I'd like to admit.

EDIT: I also waited for summons, but I barely used the available NPC summons so that took time aswell.

[Papa Shekels]

Magic is definitely really powerful in this game, but not necessarily easy mode. Some bosses are so aggressive that you will end up playing magic like melee (dodge an attack, blast them point blank, repeat). A couple spells like dark hail are even meant for melee range combat. However, having spells like weapon buffs, elemental resistances, denial, sacred oath, etc are definitely an advantage over melee builds. Still, everything is viable here and since almost anything can be infused/buffed you get a massive variety of choice. The game is more linear than you are probably used to, but you still get some choice as to what order you progress in and some parts/bosses can be skipped altogether. Shield play is a hit or miss. Parries are drastically changed here from ds1 so it will take a while to get used to. Shields are great against creatures, but lots of humanoid creatures are very aggressive with kicks/shield bashes if you play like a turtle

[Danté]

Originally posted by Papa Shekels:

The game is more linear than you are probably used to, but you still get some choice as to what order you progress in and some parts/bosses can be skipped altogether.

I haven't played DS1 but could you please elaborate on how linear this game is as you can right off the bat start in like 3-4 diffrent zones?

[Papa Shekels]

Originally posted by Derunik:

I haven't played DS1 but could you please elaborate on how linear this game is as you can right off the bat start in like 3-4 diffrent zones?

I mean that in comparison to DS1, where everything is interconnected and there are only a few barricades; if you start out with the master key, then you have the ability to go to blighttown, the forest, undead burg, londo ruins, or catacombs right from the start. Here your choices are pretty much forest or heide's tower, which then allows you to bypass the other choice if you don't want to go there. The gutter is a bit hard to get to from the start (you need a combination of high hp, an expensive ring, and/or help from a NPC you meet later on to be able to get down there) and shaded woods requires a not-too-common item to even be able to get there; you can pretty much choose which of the two remaining lord souls you want to go for first though. If you reach the requirements, you can bypass any remaining ones and head on further towards the game. However, from then on the game becomes fairly linear in the choices you have. DS1 continues to give you a choice of where you want to go once you get the lord vessel

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by Derunik:

Originally posted by Papa Shekels:

The game is more linear than you are probably used to, but you still get some choice as to what order you progress in and some parts/bosses can be skipped altogether.

I haven't played DS1 but could you please elaborate on how linear this game is as you can right off the bat start in like 3-4 diffrent zones?

But that's it, the levels themselves are fairly linear and not very interconnected. The world as a whole isn't interconnected either, infact a lot of transitions don't make sense. You have the choice of a couple of paths early on, but then the paths themselves are linear aswell. And later on after finishing said branches you don't really have any more choices either.

[Yal]

Having played both DS1 and DS2, I'd say DS2 plays like DS1 (I played the games in reverse and felt right at home in DS1).

Magic is especially powerful if you go for both faith and intelligence (so you can use hexes), Dark Orb and Dark Mist are the first hexes you can find and they're good enough to get you through the whole game. Having both INT and FTH also lets you use sorceries, miracles and pyromancies for variety, as well.

There's not a lot of purely magical weapons early on, but the first area has a fire-infused Longsword that is pretty good (even for physical characters) hidden in a treasure room that's pretty easy to find if you explore everywhere.

Dual-wield builds has a special thing called Powerstance that lets you do special attacks if you have 50% more stats than both weapons need (try it out with Broken Straight Swords, you find two in the first area and they have incredibly low stat requirements: hold the twohand button until your pose changes). They lower your stamina-per-damage ratio but every hit does more damage.