They definitely increased the effectiveness of blocking, I don't think there's anything wrong with rolling through the DLC either so long as you have the patience and learn the blindspots and all that. You can be just as aggressive yourself by rolling through Messmer's spearhand and attacking him from behind or rolling through Promised Consort's attacks instead of away. I medium rolled my way through the DLC and had a blast.
I do think the deflecting hardtear is an incredible addition though and I plan to give it a chance one of these days!
How is holding block more active than dodging though? Genuinely interested, never used shields much in this game except for obvious guard counters but don't see how those work in long combo's that kill your stamina. So how does a block build work?
Deflecting Hardtear discourages holding block, since it only activates on a \*perfect\* block, i.e. you block at the moment the attack hits, so it has more in common with a parry.
Also, with a good build that focuses on Endurance, Stamina regen, and Guard Boost, you can actually block through long combos quite easily.
Yeah, I was talking about the latter. The hardtear really seems interesting and will try, but he said a general block build would less passive and i didn't see how the build you described in the end is not passive. So never tried that before. But as they discribed you still want to combine blocking with dodging which seems more interesting to me than just waiting
They're referring to the fact that if you're blocking, you can see the enemy's attacks better, and since you're not constantly repositioning from dodging you can punish them faster and even sneak in an attack in between their own.
Gaius for instance has gaps within his attack chains that you can take advantage of to hit him if you're blocking, and if your weapon is heavy enough even stagger him out of his attack combo.
Deflect tear reduces stamina consumption enough that you will never be depleted by any single combo chain, and heavy shields with good guard boost just naturally don't drain that much stamina. You are able to guard counter almost instantly after blocking, so for instance in the final boss fight I found a combo I was able to dodge the first hits of, guard counter an attack in the middle, immediately resume blocking, do a respositioning dodge that lets me then guard counter an AoE combo finisher from behind and follow up with an impaling thrust. Two guard counters and an ash of war move within the span of a single enemy combo. It was a guaranteed posture break and crit every time he pulled that sequence out. There is no dodge-based build that I have seen that allows for that level of aggression.
Yup agreed on all points, blocking completely changed my game for the better.
Somehow it’s more engaging to me to study the bosses combos while blocking and waiting for the opportunity to strike, than trying to dodge roll every single attack and getting lost in the sauce
“They give you the deflecting hard tear basically immediately…”
Yeah, right. Sure it’s out there in the open as soon as you start the DLC but that fire basket dude was a big roadblock for me for a long time (thank you Torrent, for your help in this matter).
Torrent is key and helped me take him down almost immediately, but yeah he can be intimidating for sure. I never did come around to liking fighting those, I found them easy but very tedious with Torrent to smack a little, double jump over the aoe fire, repeat repeat repeat.
I have to agree, but mainly because it took me a while to figure out how to fully knock him over. It wasn’t very intuitive at first why it would sometimes take a knee, then randomly fall over instead.
The only thing I’ve actually looked up though was the ones with the shielded legs. I saw messages mentioning “throwing” and “crafting”. Tried everything that made sense to me, then I gave up and groaned when I finally looked up the solution.
I was so close (I was throwing the other giant pot types to test them, but figured there was no way that one would work), but I have zero clue how someone would figure that out without other player messages to work with.
I guess I just haven’t come across it yet? I’ve been exploring like crazy though, basically finished almost all of the southern part of the map (unless there is a 4th elevation level?) and the only remembrance I have so far is the lion.
Yeah I had a few goes at the guy when I started, saw I was only doing chip damage, and figured it was like the first Tree Sentinel so I went out and explored.
Use all options available to YOU that work for YOU.
Some people can get by with rolling or Bloodhound Step, some people get by with shields.
And my quirky ass is using perfumes for damage negation.
Do whatever works FOR YOU. But of course, don't just try only one option and then cry it's not working.
Also you don't need to use a shield, deflecting hardtear is amazing for blocking with two handed weapons. If you get the "parry" all damage is negated, even if the thing your blocking with has less than 100 percent damage negation
The thing I've seen about using a shield is that people equate it to turtling, which I can see why it's a lame way to win. But you don't even need to go that far; I used a medium shield my entire run and it was more than enough. Even stuck Carian Retaliation on it so that I can parry. You still have to dodge a majority of attacks, and there are attacks that when blocked, cause you to be blown back even when it's a perfect guard, meaning dodging can be the better choice.
All in all, it's an added option, meant to alleviate pressure on you while giving you options to stay alive longer or even apply pressure of your own.
They definitely increased the effectiveness of blocking, I don't think there's anything wrong with rolling through the DLC either so long as you have the patience and learn the blindspots and all that. You can be just as aggressive yourself by rolling through Messmer's spearhand and attacking him from behind or rolling through Promised Consort's attacks instead of away. I medium rolled my way through the DLC and had a blast. I do think the deflecting hardtear is an incredible addition though and I plan to give it a chance one of these days!
I've just been using the One-eyed Shield cannon meme build the entire time. I was wondering why everyone said they were struggling
How is holding block more active than dodging though? Genuinely interested, never used shields much in this game except for obvious guard counters but don't see how those work in long combo's that kill your stamina. So how does a block build work?
Deflecting Hardtear discourages holding block, since it only activates on a \*perfect\* block, i.e. you block at the moment the attack hits, so it has more in common with a parry. Also, with a good build that focuses on Endurance, Stamina regen, and Guard Boost, you can actually block through long combos quite easily.
Yeah, I was talking about the latter. The hardtear really seems interesting and will try, but he said a general block build would less passive and i didn't see how the build you described in the end is not passive. So never tried that before. But as they discribed you still want to combine blocking with dodging which seems more interesting to me than just waiting
They're referring to the fact that if you're blocking, you can see the enemy's attacks better, and since you're not constantly repositioning from dodging you can punish them faster and even sneak in an attack in between their own. Gaius for instance has gaps within his attack chains that you can take advantage of to hit him if you're blocking, and if your weapon is heavy enough even stagger him out of his attack combo.
Have you played Sekiro? The new crystal tear kinda changes the block to be something similar to Sekiro's
More similar to Lies of P. It’s a perfect block not a parry.
Yes I know about that but was wondering about regular shield blocking.
Deflect tear reduces stamina consumption enough that you will never be depleted by any single combo chain, and heavy shields with good guard boost just naturally don't drain that much stamina. You are able to guard counter almost instantly after blocking, so for instance in the final boss fight I found a combo I was able to dodge the first hits of, guard counter an attack in the middle, immediately resume blocking, do a respositioning dodge that lets me then guard counter an AoE combo finisher from behind and follow up with an impaling thrust. Two guard counters and an ash of war move within the span of a single enemy combo. It was a guaranteed posture break and crit every time he pulled that sequence out. There is no dodge-based build that I have seen that allows for that level of aggression.
Yup agreed on all points, blocking completely changed my game for the better. Somehow it’s more engaging to me to study the bosses combos while blocking and waiting for the opportunity to strike, than trying to dodge roll every single attack and getting lost in the sauce
“They give you the deflecting hard tear basically immediately…” Yeah, right. Sure it’s out there in the open as soon as you start the DLC but that fire basket dude was a big roadblock for me for a long time (thank you Torrent, for your help in this matter).
Torrent is key and helped me take him down almost immediately, but yeah he can be intimidating for sure. I never did come around to liking fighting those, I found them easy but very tedious with Torrent to smack a little, double jump over the aoe fire, repeat repeat repeat.
I have to agree, but mainly because it took me a while to figure out how to fully knock him over. It wasn’t very intuitive at first why it would sometimes take a knee, then randomly fall over instead. The only thing I’ve actually looked up though was the ones with the shielded legs. I saw messages mentioning “throwing” and “crafting”. Tried everything that made sense to me, then I gave up and groaned when I finally looked up the solution. I was so close (I was throwing the other giant pot types to test them, but figured there was no way that one would work), but I have zero clue how someone would figure that out without other player messages to work with.
I found a note somewhere that basically tells you what item to craft and use, don't remember where though.
I guess I just haven’t come across it yet? I’ve been exploring like crazy though, basically finished almost all of the southern part of the map (unless there is a 4th elevation level?) and the only remembrance I have so far is the lion.
It's to the right of shadow keep where the broken golems and perfumers are
Yeah I had a few goes at the guy when I started, saw I was only doing chip damage, and figured it was like the first Tree Sentinel so I went out and explored.
Smithscript shield is the shit for me rn and has decent enough block potential
Use all options available to YOU that work for YOU. Some people can get by with rolling or Bloodhound Step, some people get by with shields. And my quirky ass is using perfumes for damage negation. Do whatever works FOR YOU. But of course, don't just try only one option and then cry it's not working.
Also you don't need to use a shield, deflecting hardtear is amazing for blocking with two handed weapons. If you get the "parry" all damage is negated, even if the thing your blocking with has less than 100 percent damage negation
Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity
I beat Gaius quite easily with this method. I love it
Tbf they build a whole as block ripose system into the game noone fucking uses. Can you blame them for trying to draw people towards it lol
The thing I've seen about using a shield is that people equate it to turtling, which I can see why it's a lame way to win. But you don't even need to go that far; I used a medium shield my entire run and it was more than enough. Even stuck Carian Retaliation on it so that I can parry. You still have to dodge a majority of attacks, and there are attacks that when blocked, cause you to be blown back even when it's a perfect guard, meaning dodging can be the better choice. All in all, it's an added option, meant to alleviate pressure on you while giving you options to stay alive longer or even apply pressure of your own.
Fromsoft telling us to fingerprint cheese doesn’t make the dlc less unfun