Gear Progression for a knight?

[Vhayne]

This is my first Souls game, and I'm absolutely loving it! But I am confused with a few things. First and foremost is the topic of this post, Gear Progression. Let me explain....

So starting out, I had a long sword, and the starter "knights" set. I used this for a while until I swapped out for the Uchigatana, and the Lothric knight set. Then after killing the first boss and the cursed tree, I made the hollowed greatsword and switched to that.

But now I'm a bit stuck. I mean, I've looted all sorts of cool weapons (which I figure ends up being more of a preference than an "upgrade"). And I've looted a ton of armor sets. But nothing I have found so far really has better "knight" stats than the Lothric set that I got at nearly the beginning of the game.

I'm currently at Farron's Keep, and still have to kill the Sage. So I'm sure I'm still in the early stages of the game at this point. But I'm level 45 I think now, and I'm using the same set of armor that I used at level 20. And the upgrade from the Lothric set over the starter gear isn't much anyway.

So I'm a bit confused with the gear progression of this game. I understand it's based on whatever you want to spec/play. But as a full-on knight, what armor should I be trying to go after next? Is there a site with any type of progression chart that could help me?

[Myrallinok]

You actually have it backwards, Weapons are the ones that matter more, and armour is mostly just what you think looks good. Weapons will get you much further than armour, with different movesets and damage.

The differences between armour is really only noticable between something such as Havels Armour (A very heavy armourset) And cloth armour.

The most important thing about armour is just filling up the slots, even one empty slot is horrible

[Krono]

Myrallinok is pretty bang on. There are several more "Knight" sets of armor if you're interested, just keep thoroughly exploring every area and you'll find them

[Artek [General]]

Stats don't really matter as much as you want them too. Someone in FromSoft smoked a lot of weed when balancing the armor and protection stats.
Loosing a couple percent of damage reduction for saved gear weight is actually a lot more useful. Like by a mile.

Lothric Knight set maybe has good stats but its fairly heavy too.
The lesser your weapon, the less use your heavy armor has because damage reductions are freakin' weak and do next to nothing so the only stat that really matters is Poise, but its useless to a character who's using such weapons as katanas, straight swords or curved swords and such.

Its a good idea to just pick things for how they look and if you like them. Keep in mind though that despite the little effects - heavy armor still requires investment into vitality (and even more investment if you'll decide to use heavy weapons).

There's plenty of knight-like sets that you can find later in the game but some of them are pretty criptic to get. There's no "best" armor, because as we mentioned stats matter unfairly little. So, there's very little gear progression, only fashion.

Hell, as far as tryhards concerned - leather armor is the best armor, unless you are using great-weapons.

Weapons, rings and stats are the only things that truly matter.

[ctclonny]

I recommend you to change to cloth armour if you are going to fight the sage. You need magaical damage reduction rather than physical damage reduction.

[theseeker52]

Originally posted by Vhayne:

This is my first Souls game, and I'm absolutely loving it! But I am confused with a few things. First and foremost is the topic of this post, Gear Progression. Let me explain....

So starting out, I had a long sword, and the starter "knights" set. I used this for a while until I swapped out for the Uchigatana, and the Lothric knight set. Then after killing the first boss and the cursed tree, I made the hollowed greatsword and switched to that.

But now I'm a bit stuck. I mean, I've looted all sorts of cool weapons (which I figure ends up being more of a preference than an "upgrade"). And I've looted a ton of armor sets. But nothing I have found so far really has better "knight" stats than the Lothric set that I got at nearly the beginning of the game.

I'm currently at Farron's Keep, and still have to kill the Sage. So I'm sure I'm still in the early stages of the game at this point. But I'm level 45 I think now, and I'm using the same set of armor that I used at level 20. And the upgrade from the Lothric set over the starter gear isn't much anyway.

So I'm a bit confused with the gear progression of this game. I understand it's based on whatever you want to spec/play. But as a full-on knight, what armor should I be trying to go after next? Is there a site with any type of progression chart that could help me?

The above comments failed to mention the importance of shields for most players, they take the place of armor in the sense of the most protection or defense, combined with the many rings and like the rings have different properties.I suggest you keep your eye on your weight for that will determine not only what armor,weapons ,etc.but perhaps more importantly the speed of your character for attack and defense . I still keep my eye on my armor even though it is not as critical as in other games. The one thing you might not be used to in Dark Souls' games is don't get too frustrated about dying, it's part of it,you might say. hahaha So..Have fun !

[Krono]

He didn't mention shields so I figured he was a rolly-polly player

[Foxpass]

If you are wearing the Lothric Knight set, you are probably "fat rolling." What you want to do is get as much armor as you can while remaining under 70% equip load so you can roll effectively. DS3 doesn't have much use for a slow rolling tank build.

[Krono]

Originally posted by theseeker60:

Hey mate...I wasn't sure either , alot of folks think armor is something you wear like clothes and a shield is a shield.:Geralt:

I feel it should be pointed out that small shields are for parrying, medium shields can be used to block as a support to rolling while still allowing for you to parry, and greatshields are the ones you would use to really tank

[Vhayne]

Thanks everyone for the replies! At the moment, I've been investing in Vigor (HP), I think 24 STR, and about 20 DEX. I've been using the Lothric Knight shield mostly, but I just switched out to the round stone shield you get in one of the swamps.

So, the goal is to use what I like the appearance of, and keep my equip load below 70%? Armor stats don't matter (except for the magic resistance for the sage fight)? And stick with my "build" being stat distribution, weapons, shield type (I like the 100% physical - because I suck at parrying lol), and rings for their special properties?

Sounds good. And excellent answers to my questions. A bit disappointing, as I had hoped to get some good armor upgrades to offset the fact that I suck at this game haha.

[Panda]

Originally posted by Vhayne:

Thanks everyone for the replies! At the moment, I've been investing in Vigor (HP), I think 24 STR, and about 20 DEX. I've been using the Lothric Knight shield mostly, but I just switched out to the round stone shield you get in one of the swamps.

So, the goal is to use what I like the appearance of, and keep my equip load below 70%? Armor stats don't matter (except for the magic resistance for the sage fight)? And stick with my "build" being stat distribution, weapons, shield type (I like the 100% physical - because I suck at parrying lol), and rings for their special properties?

Sounds good. And excellent answers to my questions. A bit disappointing, as I had hoped to get some good armor upgrades to offset the fact that I suck at this game haha.

get ur vigor to 27 as its the soft cap, the best defense in this game is dodging, think of it as this "if u cant dodge in time block it, do not think i shud block it when i can, it kills ur stamina and leaves u open" . the biggest thing i learnt about this game is that its about trading hits, dodge and hit dodge and hit , not go all in and hope i can out dmg him. as everyone said armor is just for looks but there is a difference between like knight armors and mage armors, and u want to focus on a upgrading a single weapon first, the damage between a ungraded and upgraded is huge.

[Artek [General]]

Also if you like blocking - i highly recommend to invest into endurance (stamina) since its directly affects how much damage you can block before your guard will be broken.

Btw all stats have a cap of 40, after which they hit diminishing returns that make the investment into them further much less efficient.

Only exceptions would be weapons that require more than 40 strength, have extreme scaling that is good even after hitting the diminishing returns, and heavy armor ofc because there are some so heavy that you'll need more than 40 vitality even with Havel's ring