I gotta say, I love the game. I've put some stupid amounts of hours into it and it's great but, my experience has been a bit ruined by some crazy obvious flaws that somehow went unchanged. It's even more frustrating when you're alive, only to later get invaded by people abusing a few certain things -______-

Lightning weapons:  Completely defeats the purpose of specing into any stat to boost a weapon's damage. The fact is: lightning ALWAYS wins. The damage is so high that any other weapon that isn't fire-modded is obsolete. I've seen people try to argue and say stuff like that their weapon actually outdamages its lightning counterpart but, it takes an unreasonable amount of specing to do so. Why pump up str/dex into the high 40-50's when you could just leave it at the minimum req for a weapon, still do high damage, and save those points for other things like vitality?

Pyromancers? There is no pyro class. There really isn't. Anyone can be a pyromancer. I got my endurance/vitality/strength all up at 40-50 yet I'm still doing 800 damage with fireballs. This doesn't feel right. That's cause pyromancy damage scales with the pyro hand item, which is upgraded through souls, nothing else. No stats required except the attunement slots to equip the spells. Kinda lame when some guy sees that all his attempts to kill you are failing then starts with the fireball/combustion spam. Fire defense has been massively decreased since Demon's Souls so yes, it'll hurt very much. On a random note, for 1 attunement slot, anyone can use Iron Flesh and easily beat the game.

Between the two, I'd say lightning damage is the bigger problem. Still though, with those both combined, classes in this game hardly feel unique. As someone that's pumped 50 into str, it feels like a waste. I could've put those points into something like Intelligence and had access to a huge variety of high-damage spells while still being to run around with a 780 damage +5 lighting greataxe. For me personally, it's a bit discouraging. Games like this tend to get me hooked with the whole process of character development but, From really dropped the ball on it.

Some of you actually might already know that patch 1.04 is in the works. It'll (hopefully) fix some even more retarded things such as Tranquil Walk of Peace, the Fog Ring, some serious exploits, and there's even mention of "balancing reinforced weapons to scaling". I'll be honest though:  even though FS made an amazing game, can't really say that I have much faith in them to balance out some of the smaller but hugely important things in the game.

Isn't it enough to complain about this same issue on the main thread, you'd have to create an entire different thread for it?

We all know patch 1.04 is on the works addresing the imbalance issues.

Also, I tell you this: If you lose to lightning weapons, TWOP and Ring of Fog users, then it's your whole damn fault. I've been PVP'ing on Kiln at SL 150 with my pure melee/tank build, using only Full Smough and BK Greataxe +5, no TWOP and no Fog and I've been able to get streaks of up to 40 kills. And that's against lightning, TWOPs and Fogs.

My character has 60 strength, and trust me it hasn't been a waste. From 50 to 60 strength, my two-handed attack strength went from 580 to 610 and it shows massively on PVP. Also, skill beats cheapness 95% of the times. I have more trouble against skilled magic wielders or naked two-handed than any of your aformentioned cases.

800 damage per fireball? Have you tried casting a Fireball on PVP against properly geared players? Heck, a Chaos Great Fireball, with a Quelaana's Pyro Flame +5 only does 300 to my character with 340 Fire defense.

You have some reasons in your complaints, but again, skill beats cheapness in-game most of the times.

I would rather they use 1.04 to fix some of the terrible freezing issues. okay freeze the game, but dont lock me out of getting to the XMB and restarting my PS3. the game gets a lot of slowdown in large areas like Blightown. i dont understand why, if its pushing the RAM too far then surely playing offline would prevent memory from being overallocated.

That would create a lot of issues, especially for PC games since most of them get patches even years after their release (Half-Life 2 recently had a High-Res texture patch, which is quite the memory hogger, but puts the textures at an amazing level). 

It's the developers fault for not figuring out the problems affecting a game before it releases, or knowing about them but releasing the game anyway. Also, it's not as if every patch is designed exclusively to create a much better experience in a game, most of them are to fix minor issues or random glitches which doesn't affect the normal gameplay or functioning of a game. 

In the case of Dark Souls, it's just a PVP complain which doesn't affect the main game at all. Also, the more seasoned players have grown beyond these current problems, since it's more of an issue in lower levels PVP when these situations are more commonly felt. PVE and normal gameplay aren't affected because the builds that the OP is complaining about aren't effective nor do they work at all.

Also, I forgot to add this in reply to the OP:

If you think Lightning weapons are the highest damage output in the game, you're dead wrong. Even without considering the fact that Lightning damage can be mitigated a lot (a 720 Lightning Zweihander +5 only does 220 damage to my character, with the two-handed R2 attack), nothing beats the shear damage that a Great Club +15 with 60 STR (337 base + 240 scale) + Crystal Magic weapon does = 820 attack.

Pure physical, not that split damage crap that Lightning weapons have. I've hitten people with it at SL 150 for 700 damage a piece. Backstabs of 1200.

Go on, try to tell me Lightning weapons are the most OP out there, I dare you

lestatdark said: Also, I forgot to add this in reply to the OP: If you think Lightning weapons are the highest damage output in the game, you're dead wrong. Even without considering the fact that Lightning damage can be mitigated a lot (a 720 Lightning Zweihander +5 only does 220 damage to my character, with the two-handed R2 attack), nothing beats the shear damage that a Great Club +15 with 60 STR (337 base + 240 scale) + Crystal Magic weapon does = 820 attack. Pure physical, not that split damage crap that Lightning weapons have. I've hitten people with it at SL 150 for 700 damage a piece. Backstabs of 1200. Go on, try to tell me Lightning weapons are the most OP out there, I dare you

One of the points I was getting at is how much spec is required to outdo lightning. It takes alot.  Honestly I don't wanna see lightning weapons turn into what dragons weps were like in Demons Souls - useless after a short period of time. If anything, I'd rather see the really hard-hitting weapons have their requirements upped so there isn't mages running around with 600-700 damage weapons.

It might be easy to say lightning is fine when you're SL150 but tbh, I haven't even got upto that point yet and not sure if I plan to since SL 115-125 was the unofficial pvp range in Demons Souls.

As for TWoP/Fog Ring peeps, can't say that I've had much success at beating them. I've tried high armor sets but really, TWoP just seems way too damn powerful in combination with other things. If it doesn't take that much of a hit in the next patch, I could definitely picture myself using it. No flask-usage for invaders seemed really awesome at first but it hardly matters, they just use humanity. My first pvp encounters while trying to get through the game were fine, but eventually people just started playing downright dirty - even when I do manage to get a TWoP guy really low, they just run their asses off with me unable to chase. They run far off into npc's and use humanity to heal at full then come back and repeat. If they see whatever spell spam they're doing isn't working out, they just wail away with lightning weps while I'm unable to roll because of TWoP.

It'd be really hard to convince me that TWoP isn't a broken skill. I'm sitting at SL109 right now and it's likely that if it doesn't take that much of a hit from the next patch, I'll probably be (ab)using it.

@ A203D,

Unfortunately, framerate isn't really something that can be fixed. It's here to stay. I will say though that I wouldn't hate blight town anywhere as much as I do now if it didn't slow the game down to a snail's pace.

Parasitic said: lestatdark said: Also, I forgot to add this in reply to the OP: If you think Lightning weapons are the highest damage output in the game, you're dead wrong. Even without considering the fact that Lightning damage can be mitigated a lot (a 720 Lightning Zweihander +5 only does 220 damage to my character, with the two-handed R2 attack), nothing beats the shear damage that a Great Club +15 with 60 STR (337 base + 240 scale) + Crystal Magic weapon does = 820 attack. Pure physical, not that split damage crap that Lightning weapons have. I've hitten people with it at SL 150 for 700 damage a piece. Backstabs of 1200. Go on, try to tell me Lightning weapons are the most OP out there, I dare you One of the points I was getting at is how much spec is required to outdo lightning. It takes alot.  Honestly I don't wanna see lightning weapons turn into what dragons weps were like in Demons Souls - useless after a short period of time. If anything, I'd rather see the really hard-hitting weapons have their requirements upped so there isn't mages running around with 600-700 damage weapons. It might be easy to say lightning is fine when you're SL150 but tbh, I haven't even got upto that point yet and not sure if I plan to since SL 115-125 was the unofficial pvp range in Demons Souls.   As for TWoP/Fog Ring peeps, can't say that I've had much success at beating them. I've tried high armor sets but really, TWoP just seems way too damn powerful in combination with other things. If it doesn't take that much of a hit in the next patch, I could definitely picture myself using it. No flask-usage for invaders seemed really awesome at first but it hardly matters, they just use humanity. My first pvp encounters while trying to get through the game were fine, but eventually people just started playing downright dirty - even when I do manage to get a TWoP guy really low, they just run their asses off with me unable to chase. They run far off into npc's and use humanity to heal at full then come back and repeat. If they see whatever spell spam they're doing isn't working out, they just wail away with lightning weps while I'm unable to roll because of TWoP. It'd be really hard to convince me that TWoP isn't a broken skill. I'm sitting at SL109 right now and it's likely that if it doesn't take that much of a hit from the next patch, I'll probably be (ab)using it. @ A203D, Unfortunately, framerate isn't really something that can be fixed. It's here to stay. I will say though that I wouldn't hate blight town anywhere as much as I do now if it didn't slow the game down to a snail's pace.

Meh, had a TWOP with Fog spamming Chaos Great Fireball and another one spamming Crystal Ring Shield. Took both of them down quite easily, especially since most of them don't know how well a Havel's Shield blocks. I just tank the whole spam and then still have enough health to take them on, given the insane amount of Poise that Havel has, I can cure at any time without interrumptions.

Again, the only real trouble for me is the Sorceror spammers, and even then most of the times I can just tank until they run out of spells. If you see any PVP player using humanity to heal, it's really easy to counter unless you're in the TWOP field. At that time I just let them heal, they'll run out of humanity eventually. 

Tankers are some of the best PVP classes out there, there's little that can outmatch them. If anything fails in my strategy, I usually go for my Avelyn +14 with Crystal Magic Weapon which is always a move that catch people of guard (that or using Gravelord GreatSword which is an amazing PVP spell). 

TWOP is a IMBA spell, I trully believe it should be nerfed to a trigger only effect, not Aura AOE, just like a Force spell. Or downgrade the cast number to 1, max 2. Fog users are no concern since you can easily see them due to their blue-ish/red-ish shade, it's a dead give away, and with horizontal wide swings from my Axe, they never get a chance for backstabs. 

I agree with you completely when you say that Lightning needs to be nerfed (as I had agreed with you on the official thread), but given a certain range (and trust me, the arranged SL for PVP is 140 - 150, just go to preparetodie.com or gamefaqs and you'll see tons of people referring to those levels, heck, I got 6 souvenir of reprisal and 15 dragon stones in less than hour and a half at SL 145 on Kiln), Lightning starts to become a non-issue, either because of high Lightning resistances or because you have much stronger weapons. 

I'm still looking for combos to increase my weapons power (without resorting to the utterly lame Magic Weapon glitch). Best I've had so far is 810, but I think I can get a better one. 

Also, I just noticed something from your OP.

Iron Flesh =/ Anyone can finish the game. Go on, I dare you to use Iron Flesh on bosses like Taurus, Quelaag, Ceaseless and Seath (or pretty much any boss that either has a knockback attack or magic/fire/lightning attack.

Iron Flesh only increases your overall defense, not your resistances, so you'll still be hit for a lot of damage from those attacks or can be knocked over from ledges, especially since you cannot dodge or barely move.

I don't see why that's a problem though. It seems you just want to remove everything from the game, every spell, every pyro, every miracle, and just be a hack and slash fest. Sorry to burst your bubble, that's what strategies are for.

Most people who have played Demon's Souls and Dark Souls have said that the classes that you choose in the beginning are for nothing more than just starting stats and equipment. The fact that any class can have the same equipment/stats at any point in their career means the classes are moot.