Fun fact: the Burnt Ivory King is left-handed, making all of his attack patterns different from what you are used to fighting, and just that little bit more difficult. Because obviously this boss needed that.
Just another thing to add to the list that demonstrates the BIK is the Artorias of DS2. Not a complaint though. Both are awesome iterations on the tragic hero.
Crossbows can destroy the pots in Covetous’ room. I think he was still using wooden bolts, which are designed to not break many objects in the game. Like the statues in Undead Crypt.
Not having all the stamina you normally need for an attack leading to it dealing less damage is logical on every weapon type except for crossbows, you cant load it "less" because then the bolt would just instantly shoot out instead of staying in place. But its a mechanic in a video game that lets moldy beef jerky wield a massive sword so its fine.
Actually some crossbows don't need to be pulled all the way back to be set, but pulling it even further back requires more endurance and increases the force behind the shot. Could be wrong though, tried to look it up to jog my memory, but only found minecraft questions ffs.
@@rootzparty3053 That's probably it. Enemies only consist of a few hitboxes each thus aren't affected by a shot's accuracy as long as it hit, so the "loss of accuracy" is reflected as less average damage.
I think the funniest thing about the King of the Giants fight in the memory, is that there's an even easier way to do it than standing up on that ledge. There's a section further back on the walkway where he will only send the shockwaves at you, but due to a broken section of the wall, the shockwave stops before coming close, so with a bow or crossbow, you can just go to town and he legitimately can't do anything about it.
...Lemon this was the only run in wich you could've cheesed the first Pursuer with ballistas and be rightfully smug about it, because rules are not broken.
Watching you finally beat the DLC boss on stream was honestly really fun. Everyone coming together to try and assist just to make it that little bit easier for you. As you said at some point: The community you've curated are amazing people. Also, Luke is 2nd MVP for his captial, the first yourself for managing to pull this off.
DS2 is my absolute favorite, and even to this day i don’t half as much time clocked into any of the other souls games, and i never ONCE tried powerstancing crossbows. Now i gotta go back and try some things
Suprised he didn't pick up or at least mention the Sanctum Crossbow, considering it's the only crossbow with scaling of any type The alt-fire is also pretty good if infused and with the Dark Clutch Ring, though it eats through the durability
@@seifer447 yeah but he could have picked it up just after the rotten, making every non dark-resistant boss trivial. That's what I done while playing only with crossbow and I just blazed through the game
I'm a bit sad that he didn't picked it up and used it but I'm overall happy that he made full use of the other crossbows including the shield one. Also, I call the Sanctum Crossbow a grenade launcher lmao
I did not know you could power stance crossbows. I wonder if that’s still a thing in Elden Ring. Great run! Also, you specifically need Iron Bolts or better to break intractable objects. Regular bolts don’t have the power.
I just checked and it would appear that, regrettably, you cannot power stance crossbows in Elden Ring. Kinda surprising, actually, although I didn't try with two of the same crossbow so perhaps I missed something.
Power stancing in ER is pretty lacking tbh. Ds2 lets you powerstance weapons of different types, ER is only weapons of the same type, and not even every weapon type can be power stanced
It would be cool if we could power stance weapons we see enemies power stancing. Like for example Clearnrot Rapier + Cleanron Scythe/Cleanrot Spear = (With spear doing the running heavy attack gives you the rot stab grab) Bloody Helice + Reduvia = (Pressing L1 lets parry with similar frames to storm parry, but it has low guard boost, meaning if you mistime it, you basically always get guard broken . Holding L1 then pressing light attack throws the reduvia like the sanguine nobles do or it could simply use the reduvia weapon art, either or) Crucible Knight Sword + Crucible Knight Shield = (Holding L1 then pressing strong attack allows you to do that shield uppercut they do.) Dragonfist + Godrick's axe = (Changes the weapon art of both to the flame tornado ash of war, Heavy attack does the jump while light attack shoots the projectiels) Some Honorable mentions! Wearing Godfrey's armor + using Godfrey's axe = The axe is always in the powered up mode and the weapon art lets you take reduced damage Godfrey's ash of war + cestus = gives you a special moveset that is similar to his fight. Using the weapon art instead now does his roar and if you light attack it will do the same weapon art as always but if you heavy attack it will do his tripple ground slam attack that ends with the explosion. Heavy attacks are the grabs for style points Black Knife + Black Knife assassin set. Allow the player to choose between the projectile or if they press heavy attack before they leap into the air, they do alecto's ground stab that causes the maliketh's black blade ash of war effect around you. Godskin Nobles set + Nobles Prescence incantation = Adds a combo to the incantation that jumps you into the air and slams down like the noble Godskin Apositle set + Black flame tornado ash of war = increase range of the ash of war by 20% if using the peeler give it hyper armor
Babe wake up, now backlogs just dropped. Jokes aside though, I only discovered you about a month ago but your dark souls content has quickly made you one of my favourite channels on UA-cam right now. So props to you and hope you keep doing what you’re doing
Hey Mr.Backlogs (or Lemon), I just wanna say I appreciate you putting yourself through these challenges for the sake of entertainment. It always, and I do mean always, brightens my day seeing an upload from you. Don’t wear yourself out.
Challenge idea. Beat Ds2 using whatever weapon you pick up. You have to kill every enemy in your way(so you have to have a chance to get a new weapon from drops) and you have to grab every item you see(so you cant avoid a certain weapon) whenever you pick up a new weapon you must use it until you get a new one. After every boss you must switch weapons. (Use a random method for this. Doesn't matter what just has to be random) Shields staffs and talismans count as weapons. You also have to beat every boss in the game. (Boss soul weapons are allowed, my thought is you can use them as a get out of jail free card.) Goodluck! If you want you can also do this with Demon souls Ds1 Ds3 Bloodborne and Elden ring. Loved the video btw! Keep up the good work. :D
A certain weapon eh? You say that, but all you'd have to do is either go to Heide's, pick up the broken thief sword, then go to FoFG to get the flame longsword and then use it to kill dragonrider or you could just farm for an Old Knight weapon from the first guy by himself/a Heide Knight weapon from those dudes by themselves since you have to kill all you see using the Covenant of Champions. Then as you go forward its just a matter of planning your movements as far as seeing certain items go, then finally, the moment you get to the point you can buy infinite titanite its all over. It'd just be really annoying to farm the souls needed to upgrade every weapon you happen to be forced to use.
@@dutchvanderlinde248 That's a good point. Maybe Elden Ring is best for this idea, being open world and all. Either way I still think it would be fun. You could put a limit to titanite purchases to solve the problem of infinite titinite.
I did a bow/crossbow run, what really helped was Flynn’s ring, those bugs that helps with damage and defense, and using a mundane build. Also grabbing the sanctum crossbows helped a lot.
hmp. how far back did you do that run? around the time i attempted this, Flynns didn't change the outgoing damage on bows or crossbows at all, and the tooltips lied outright about it. Mundane also was scaled back so hard it wasn't worth even considering.
Thank you Lemon for the upload, I've been having a crap few days cause my sinuses are clogged. I may be suffering but at least I got some good content to watch now.
I respect the effort that must have been needed to obtain that covetous serpent ring +2 fron ng+ gargoyles with a crossbow, glorious effort as always Lemon.
26:49 Because the run-ups were designed for coop. Blue smelter, gank squad, cat duo and Sir Alonne all have long run-ups filled with enemies, but you're able to summon players into these areas who don't own the DLC (doesn't matter in SotFS, but it does in the original version where the DLCs weren't included) and the enemies can even drop some DLC-exclusive weapons for the summoned phantoms. That's probably also the reason why you get 2-3 strong phantoms for each area, in case you aren't online. Even the frigid outskirts become an almost enjoyable experience when you have some backup against the frozen reindeer.
I found it to be the worst of the three, don't get me wrong it's still a great game, however the way that they handled I-frames, bad enemy placement (Scholar, I know), lackluster boss quality just sunk the game to the bottom. However the exploration was fun as was magic and Poison. The game is very flawed, but at the same time it does a lot of things right, the build variety is no exception.
Fun fact: did you know, that equip load only effects the distance you role. As well as stamina recovery.Not the I-frames. Still, more distance is needed in a game like ds2. And stamina.
Double edged sword. The extra distance can sometimes put you where you don’t want to be. Like too far away from the boss to immediately punish. Or off a cliff. My sweet spot is 40-50%, though I don’t have trouble with 69% (nice).
i am a little sad you didn't went for the sanctum crossbows, they both have unique dark attacks whit the L2 when two handing. The repeating one L2 damage is amazing, heck, it's even closer to be what dark bead in DS1 is than dark hail itself in therms of damage.
so I am fairly new to your channel but I wanted to say that I love your videos. it's nice to see someone try and do ds2 challenge runs since they are so rare, due to it's boss count. I am one of those who love this game so I appreciate all the work you put into your videos. I'll definitely be here for the next one. congrats on the run!
I wonder why he never used the sanctum crossbow or the sanctum repeating crossbow. They only take 10 int and faith and they have really good weapon arts, could have been good for burst damage but again it’s not my run, good run overall though 😊
As someone who recently finished 100% of DSII I feel a bit of PTSD from watching videos of it, but I also feel relieved that I don’t have to play it at all unless I actually feel like it
Correct me if Im wrong but you can scale crossbows at least with the mundane infusion right? I know itd be a grind fest to get to a high enough lvl for that to be worth it but that works right?
Unfortunately, no. At least, not after patches and SotFS. Mundane was nerfed to hell and back, and is now useless for almost every weapon. The exception is joke weapons like the Ladle, and even then, it doesn’t make the damage “good”.
@@arellajardin8188 Yeah, this is one of the many reasons SOTFS is not as good as normal DS2. Mundane scaling on normal weapons aren't too bad but for some reason they made bows and crossbows have only around 20% of its original AR when infused with mundane. It would only be good once you get to lvl 200+ but at that point you would be better off just bumping health and stamina or for a bow max out scaling. Though if you get that high enough lvl you could in theory skip the entire first half because the door requires you have 1 million souls or kill the 4 main bosses
Lemon you bring a sense of stability and comfort into my life. And I don't have that in a lot of places right now so thanks man. I really needed this today and I don't know why but I did, so thank you for being you. You're wonderful.
Thank you for saying Agility instead of Adaptability! It's such a pet peeve of mine because so many people seem to not know that Attunement also increases your Agility so casters often don't even need Adaptability.
@@XSniper74184 technically they do need it still, agility benefits from attunement less than adp but nonetheless it saves a few levels which is always nice. For reference, 5-25 jump in adp nets 15 extra agility, while 5-40 jump in att nets only 8.
I love watching your challenge runs. I dont always have time to watch streams but this short form commentary of the runs scratches the itch of wanting to watch stuff
"if you made it this far in the video" Dude every souls video you make I've watched from start to finish. I don't even play salt n sanctuary but you made it entertaining enough to watch. To me your videos are very entertaining, keep up the great work.
One small detail about the heavy crossbow in DS2 that I like is that the bow actually bends back in this game. Every other game it doesn't so it looks super weird when the string is pulled.
I always feel that showing the skelton lords there should be a army of darkness clip with the skeltons running away but hey i can just play it my head.
Yo Back, did you ever considering rushing the first DLC and farming the Sanctum Crossbow? It's special attack plus some repair powder to keep the durability up lets you smoke through pretty much everything. It scales incredibly well, especially when infused properly.
@@raphicoco even so, i just recall when it was brought up that it was not something willing to be done. then again consideration for it may have happened around Elana.
Had this video on in the background and hearing Lemon say “overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer” has me snapping to the video like a sleeper agent
A terrible suggestion for a challenge run. Can you beat DS2 with only the Vanquisher’s Seal? Why is it a terrible idea? You need 50 Awestones to start it. Which means grinding either a phantom down in rat hell with a Bonfire Astetic, or the greatsword old knight directly after the Dragonrider boss fight. Both options suck. Bare fisted Vanquisher’s seal is interesting. It does more damage than Dual Caestus, but has a slower startup and cannot be buffed with spells or items. Stone Ring will make staggering easy, though.
Glad to see this was one of the challenge runs you were doing! The crossbow was a great friend for me on my playthrough, even though I was doing a faith/str build. Just having an 'unlimited' ranged option for pulling mobs or doing damage once I ran out of spells was very nice.
After watching the Immolation run, this one feels... comforting. Lemon's good (or at least passable) state of mental health is a resource for the rest of us, after all.
7:44 Alright Lemon. I see you there with the Nice Number, not leveling up anymore despite being able to level up 3 more times. Well played, well played.
Before elden ring came out I ran through the three dark souls games crossbow only. And by far it has been my favorite way to play. Ds2 is the hardest of the three. Alana giving me months of trouble before switching to the same shield you did. But I ended just sticking with that crossbow for the rest of the run.
Love these videos, and you have my respect for your patience in doing Dark Souls II challenge runs. It holds a special place in my heart but it is looooong.
Fun fact: the Burnt Ivory King is left-handed, making all of his attack patterns different from what you are used to fighting, and just that little bit more difficult. Because obviously this boss needed that.
Never noticed that! Explains alot!
Just another thing to add to the list that demonstrates the BIK is the Artorias of DS2. Not a complaint though. Both are awesome iterations on the tragic hero.
Oh BRUTAL…. No wonder he is such a nightmare.
How does that make him harder?
@@JaneDoe-mp4dh cause you’re used to dodging attacks from the right and seeing the attacks come from the right
Crossbows can destroy the pots in Covetous’ room. I think he was still using wooden bolts, which are designed to not break many objects in the game. Like the statues in Undead Crypt.
Don't you need to destroy chains wielding pots?
@@АлександрСергеев-е5т nah, just need metal bolts
Bows can also destroy the pots. You just need iron arrows to do it. (magical type arrows might work too, I can't remember)
@@28Pluto elemental ones are iffy, last I can remember a fire arrow had the fire explosion effect but did absolutely nothing to the pot, not sure
Need Fire to burn pot…
You could’ve used the ballista in the Pursuer fight, ballistas are after all, really big crossbows
Beat me to it.
Also he didnt get he sanctuary crossbow
@@adamglover6948 And you beat me to saying he beat me to it
@@poisonrain87 you beat me to saying he beat me saying he beat me to it
@@adversarry he did, but he didnt mention it in the video. On stream he said it required to much statwise
Not having all the stamina you normally need for an attack leading to it dealing less damage is logical on every weapon type except for crossbows, you cant load it "less" because then the bolt would just instantly shoot out instead of staying in place. But its a mechanic in a video game that lets moldy beef jerky wield a massive sword so its fine.
Lmao “mouldy beef jerky” more like a mummified corpse with 2000 years worth of muscle decay
Actually some crossbows don't need to be pulled all the way back to be set, but pulling it even further back requires more endurance and increases the force behind the shot. Could be wrong though, tried to look it up to jog my memory, but only found minecraft questions ffs.
My assumption is that low stamina means your aim is wobbly, so you hit a glancing blow instead of dead on
@@rootzparty3053 That's probably it.
Enemies only consist of a few hitboxes each thus aren't affected by a shot's accuracy as long as it hit, so the "loss of accuracy" is reflected as less average damage.
It's just a holdover mechanic from the bow class that the devs didn't think through when applying to crossbows. I wouldn't try to rationalize it.
Luke is the real MVP of this run. I think it would've been hard to beat the DLCs without his tips.
Yeah, him and the power of capitalism.
Power of capitalism!
Power of capitalism
But was is it Luke 1, 2, 3 or the Skywalker
Pay to win much?
I think the funniest thing about the King of the Giants fight in the memory, is that there's an even easier way to do it than standing up on that ledge. There's a section further back on the walkway where he will only send the shockwaves at you, but due to a broken section of the wall, the shockwave stops before coming close, so with a bow or crossbow, you can just go to town and he legitimately can't do anything about it.
...Lemon this was the only run in wich you could've cheesed the first Pursuer with ballistas and be rightfully smug about it, because rules are not broken.
Technically it was a big crossbow lol
Luke, Luke, and Luke were all exceptionally helpful this run.
Whoever clutched with that shield crossbow suggestion, give them a medal!
...a sunlight medal?
@@SteamPaladin Boooooooo-
This is jolly cooperation
Watching you finally beat the DLC boss on stream was honestly really fun. Everyone coming together to try and assist just to make it that little bit easier for you.
As you said at some point: The community you've curated are amazing people.
Also, Luke is 2nd MVP for his captial, the first yourself for managing to pull this off.
DS2 is my absolute favorite, and even to this day i don’t half as much time clocked into any of the other souls games, and i never ONCE tried powerstancing crossbows. Now i gotta go back and try some things
Suprised he didn't pick up or at least mention the Sanctum Crossbow, considering it's the only crossbow with scaling of any type
The alt-fire is also pretty good if infused and with the Dark Clutch Ring, though it eats through the durability
It came up in the stream, but the boss he was stuck on resisted dark.
@@seifer447 yeah but he could have picked it up just after the rotten, making every non dark-resistant boss trivial. That's what I done while playing only with crossbow and I just blazed through the game
@@giulioceresini1435 Thats pointless as every boss later in the game has some dark resist, only ones that dont is Alonne and the cats.
I'm a bit sad that he didn't picked it up and used it but I'm overall happy that he made full use of the other crossbows including the shield one. Also, I call the Sanctum Crossbow a grenade launcher lmao
@@RenaissanceSloth strange is, if you load it with lighting bolts and alt fire the dark attack, its still 100% dark or not?
I think it's called a crossbow, because constantly reloading a weak bow like that will make you cross
Well Lemon does like sour experiences.
Uh, that Comment should be illegal because it physically hurt me.
Yo love your content press
@@CrimsonModify Glad I was able to make you cross :)
crossbows are actually stupidly stronk, miyazaki just hates them
The shield crossbow isn't what got him through the fight, it was CAPITALISM
Ahh, the power of capitalism
If this game was pay-to-win, the logic would definitely apply. Thank goodness though Dark Souls isn't that kind of game.
The good old power of money
Did he do a elden ring run
@Ibrahim Ahmed He doesn't like Elden Ring.
Gotta thank Luke for being there when he was stuck. He sure was the man.
I did not know you could power stance crossbows. I wonder if that’s still a thing in Elden Ring. Great run!
Also, you specifically need Iron Bolts or better to break intractable objects. Regular bolts don’t have the power.
I just checked and it would appear that, regrettably, you cannot power stance crossbows in Elden Ring. Kinda surprising, actually, although I didn't try with two of the same crossbow so perhaps I missed something.
@@HPetch the current score is Dark Souls 2: 1
Elden Ring: 0
Guess we all know what the best From game is. Pack it up boys.
Power stancing in ER is pretty lacking tbh. Ds2 lets you powerstance weapons of different types, ER is only weapons of the same type, and not even every weapon type can be power stanced
You have no idea how sad I was when I crafted both of Goddrick's weapons and found out there wasn't a unique power stance for Dragonfist + Axe
It would be cool if we could power stance weapons we see enemies power stancing. Like for example
Clearnrot Rapier + Cleanron Scythe/Cleanrot Spear = (With spear doing the running heavy attack gives you the rot stab grab)
Bloody Helice + Reduvia = (Pressing L1 lets parry with similar frames to storm parry, but it has low guard boost, meaning if you mistime it, you basically always get guard broken . Holding L1 then pressing light attack throws the reduvia like the sanguine nobles do or it could simply use the reduvia weapon art, either or)
Crucible Knight Sword + Crucible Knight Shield = (Holding L1 then pressing strong attack allows you to do that shield uppercut they do.)
Dragonfist + Godrick's axe = (Changes the weapon art of both to the flame tornado ash of war, Heavy attack does the jump while light attack shoots the projectiels)
Some Honorable mentions!
Wearing Godfrey's armor + using Godfrey's axe = The axe is always in the powered up mode and the weapon art lets you take reduced damage
Godfrey's ash of war + cestus = gives you a special moveset that is similar to his fight. Using the weapon art instead now does his roar and if you light attack it will do the same weapon art as always but if you heavy attack it will do his tripple ground slam attack that ends with the explosion. Heavy attacks are the grabs for style points
Black Knife + Black Knife assassin set. Allow the player to choose between the projectile or if they press heavy attack before they leap into the air, they do alecto's ground stab that causes the maliketh's black blade ash of war effect around you.
Godskin Nobles set + Nobles Prescence incantation = Adds a combo to the incantation that jumps you into the air and slams down like the noble
Godskin Apositle set + Black flame tornado ash of war = increase range of the ash of war by 20% if using the peeler give it hyper armor
Babe wake up, now backlogs just dropped.
Jokes aside though, I only discovered you about a month ago but your dark souls content has quickly made you one of my favourite channels on UA-cam right now. So props to you and hope you keep doing what you’re doing
I just love the happy souls references. Any reference to one of the best videos on the internet makes me happy.
Luke and the power of Capitalism he graced us with are the real mvps of this run
“Over confidence is a slow and insidious killer.” I like the darkest dungeon reference
Every single day I look at my feed hoping to see a video of yours. Thanks so much for the awesome runs!
Hey Mr.Backlogs (or Lemon), I just wanna say I appreciate you putting yourself through these challenges for the sake of entertainment.
It always, and I do mean always, brightens my day seeing an upload from you. Don’t wear yourself out.
Challenge idea. Beat Ds2 using whatever weapon you pick up. You have to kill every enemy in your way(so you have to have a chance to get a new weapon from drops) and you have to grab every item you see(so you cant avoid a certain weapon) whenever you pick up a new weapon you must use it until you get a new one. After every boss you must switch weapons. (Use a random method for this. Doesn't matter what just has to be random) Shields staffs and talismans count as weapons. You also have to beat every boss in the game. (Boss soul weapons are allowed, my thought is you can use them as a get out of jail free card.) Goodluck! If you want you can also do this with Demon souls Ds1 Ds3 Bloodborne and Elden ring. Loved the video btw! Keep up the good work. :D
A certain weapon eh? You say that, but all you'd have to do is either go to Heide's, pick up the broken thief sword, then go to FoFG to get the flame longsword and then use it to kill dragonrider or you could just farm for an Old Knight weapon from the first guy by himself/a Heide Knight weapon from those dudes by themselves since you have to kill all you see using the Covenant of Champions. Then as you go forward its just a matter of planning your movements as far as seeing certain items go, then finally, the moment you get to the point you can buy infinite titanite its all over. It'd just be really annoying to farm the souls needed to upgrade every weapon you happen to be forced to use.
@@dutchvanderlinde248 That's a good point. Maybe Elden Ring is best for this idea, being open world and all. Either way I still think it would be fun. You could put a limit to titanite purchases to solve the problem of infinite titinite.
Fun Fact, the blue smelter demon isn't just a reskin! It's a reskin with worse hit boxes!
It was said in the livestream, but we really need a sequel to Happy Souls.
Yes
The shield crossbow covered Elana like the three Lukes covered the mortgage.
"Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer"
WOAH, a Darkest Dungeon reference!
I would love to see you do some challenge runs in that game!
"Just down the road!"
Haha, love a good Happy Souls refrence!
27:53 I’m so glad this amazing concept made it into elden ring in the consecrated snowfield.
But better due to torrent, and no reindeer
I love how every time he says "im feeling confident, this bossfight should be easy" and gets hit with the first attack
Luke coming in clutch!
I have like 2000 hours on dark souls 2, never knew you could power stance crossbows. You learn something new everyday
Luke sure was there! What a man!
Luke’s*
I did a bow/crossbow run, what really helped was Flynn’s ring, those bugs that helps with damage and defense, and using a mundane build. Also grabbing the sanctum crossbows helped a lot.
hmp. how far back did you do that run? around the time i attempted this, Flynns didn't change the outgoing damage on bows or crossbows at all, and the tooltips lied outright about it. Mundane also was scaled back so hard it wasn't worth even considering.
Children of the Omnissiah always sends shivers down my spine. Such a great track
I know I’m a year late to this one, but the use of the Coffee Talk soundtrack was incredible!
Thank you Lemon for the upload, I've been having a crap few days cause my sinuses are clogged. I may be suffering but at least I got some good content to watch now.
the halo 2 music as the background theme of this video brings me joy
I respect the effort that must have been needed to obtain that covetous serpent ring +2 fron ng+ gargoyles with a crossbow, glorious effort as always Lemon.
Honestly, Backlogs videos are comforting to me. just got into a wreck last night and These videos are already helping me feel better. Thanks Lemon.
Luke came in clutch
That last spiteful BONK from Muddy Velstadt had me laughing in the most triumphant moment of the stream. Love that it got its due credit in the video.
I love the vid! You make my days when a new vid is posted, i just watched DS1 Crossbow run last night and this was posted perfectly in time!
26:49 Because the run-ups were designed for coop. Blue smelter, gank squad, cat duo and Sir Alonne all have long run-ups filled with enemies, but you're able to summon players into these areas who don't own the DLC (doesn't matter in SotFS, but it does in the original version where the DLCs weren't included) and the enemies can even drop some DLC-exclusive weapons for the summoned phantoms.
That's probably also the reason why you get 2-3 strong phantoms for each area, in case you aren't online. Even the frigid outskirts become an almost enjoyable experience when you have some backup against the frozen reindeer.
Sanctum Crossbow would've been your best friend for this one.
I love these challenge runs. Honestly I'm amazed how well you're doing at them, being a citrus fruit and all.
I often say that DS2 is the best Souls game for making every build viable, and crossbows are no exception
I found it to be the worst of the three, don't get me wrong it's still a great game, however the way that they handled I-frames, bad enemy placement (Scholar, I know), lackluster boss quality just sunk the game to the bottom. However the exploration was fun as was magic and Poison.
The game is very flawed, but at the same time it does a lot of things right, the build variety is no exception.
Luke really did amazing job during this run. I would love to be so helpful.
Fun fact: did you know, that equip load only effects the distance you role. As well as stamina recovery.Not the I-frames. Still, more distance is needed in a game like ds2. And stamina.
Double edged sword. The extra distance can sometimes put you where you don’t want to be. Like too far away from the boss to immediately punish. Or off a cliff. My sweet spot is 40-50%, though I don’t have trouble with 69% (nice).
@@arellajardin8188 yeah. But personally never had this problem. I always was around 60-65% equip load.
Light rolling is great for ranged/support builds. I run a cleric with a dagger across all games and light rolling has saved me so much in pvp and pve
I really enjoy these challenges, it’s super cool to see weapons and items that are overlooked be put to whatever use they might have
THANK YOU LUKE, YOU ARE THE LEGEND!!!
I really liked it when you added clips from the stream into the video with your live reactions.
I hope you do more of that in the future ❤️
idea for a run: can you beat dark souls with only tail weapons? (the weapons you get for cutting off boss's tails)
Thats pretty much just the DS1 weapon arts only run.
@@lordskyline9766 only easier i imagine, because you can now do light or heavy attacks in addition to the weapon art.
He kinda did already sorry
I mean, that would just be a normal run
@@bongosmcdongos4190 that and DS1 is the only game in the series (both Souls and Myazaki Collection) that does that..
I'm so glad to see another DS2 challenge run, these are my favorite videos to watch
DS2 is honestly so great to do challenge runs in.
Thanks for putting the songs in the description! I recognized one and you saved me from hours of losing my mind trying to sort it out.
Nice job you put a lot of effort into these edit:what is your favorite cookie type
Chewy chocolate chip, or those strange vanilla frosted cookies you see for every holiday at Walmart.
@@TheBacklogs you mean the cookies that are like play-doh?
Big props to my man Luke. Glad he was there.
i am a little sad you didn't went for the sanctum crossbows, they both have unique dark attacks whit the L2 when two handing.
The repeating one L2 damage is amazing, heck, it's even closer to be what dark bead in DS1 is than dark hail itself in therms of damage.
so I am fairly new to your channel but I wanted to say that I love your videos. it's nice to see someone try and do ds2 challenge runs since they are so rare, due to it's boss count. I am one of those who love this game so I appreciate all the work you put into your videos. I'll definitely be here for the next one. congrats on the run!
Guys, please, tell me that I'm not only one person who got scared when Lemon started swearing
HE DID WHAT?
@@vid6233 my exact reaction lol
I cried and shit my pants it was so scary 😦
Yeah I appreciate that it's his show and he can do as he likes but, IMO, it's funnier if he makes up words instead of swearing.
To be honest: I laughed
Hearing Children of the Omnissiah always makes me grin. Great run Lemon, always glad to see someone playing my personal favorite of the Souls trilogy.
I wonder why he never used the sanctum crossbow or the sanctum repeating crossbow. They only take 10 int and faith and they have really good weapon arts, could have been good for burst damage but again it’s not my run, good run overall though 😊
As someone who recently finished 100% of DSII I feel a bit of PTSD from watching videos of it, but I also feel relieved that I don’t have to play it at all unless I actually feel like it
Correct me if Im wrong but you can scale crossbows at least with the mundane infusion right? I know itd be a grind fest to get to a high enough lvl for that to be worth it but that works right?
Unfortunately, no. At least, not after patches and SotFS. Mundane was nerfed to hell and back, and is now useless for almost every weapon. The exception is joke weapons like the Ladle, and even then, it doesn’t make the damage “good”.
Sorry, I meant: Yes, you get scaling. No, it is never worth it.
@@arellajardin8188 That's really unfortunate. Mundane used to turn crossbows into beastly backup weapons at higher levels. Really fun stuff.
Enchanted gives it D-scaling from Intelligence as well and works with other unscaling weapons that can be infused.
@@arellajardin8188 Yeah, this is one of the many reasons SOTFS is not as good as normal DS2. Mundane scaling on normal weapons aren't too bad but for some reason they made bows and crossbows have only around 20% of its original AR when infused with mundane. It would only be good once you get to lvl 200+ but at that point you would be better off just bumping health and stamina or for a bow max out scaling. Though if you get that high enough lvl you could in theory skip the entire first half because the door requires you have 1 million souls or kill the 4 main bosses
Lemon you bring a sense of stability and comfort into my life. And I don't have that in a lot of places right now so thanks man. I really needed this today and I don't know why but I did, so thank you for being you. You're wonderful.
18:30 DS2 works differently so that your equip load determines roll distance instead of i-frames, which is all handled by Agility.
Thank you for saying Agility instead of Adaptability! It's such a pet peeve of mine because so many people seem to not know that Attunement also increases your Agility so casters often don't even need Adaptability.
@@XSniper74184 technically they do need it still, agility benefits from attunement less than adp but nonetheless it saves a few levels which is always nice.
For reference, 5-25 jump in adp nets 15 extra agility, while 5-40 jump in att nets only 8.
I love watching your challenge runs. I dont always have time to watch streams but this short form commentary of the runs scratches the itch of wanting to watch stuff
Still think you should have smuggled the ballista in the boss room. Shield crossbow was good though. So ds3 crossbow only?
"if you made it this far in the video"
Dude every souls video you make I've watched from start to finish.
I don't even play salt n sanctuary but you made it entertaining enough to watch.
To me your videos are very entertaining, keep up the great work.
The ballista is a giant crossbow...
The happy sounds references brought back more nostalgia than I thought it could
Now Dark Souls 3.
This is not a question.
One small detail about the heavy crossbow in DS2 that I like is that the bow actually bends back in this game. Every other game it doesn't so it looks super weird when the string is pulled.
And to think, if it weren't for Luke we wouldn't have been able to do this.
I always feel that showing the skelton lords there should be a army of darkness clip with the skeltons running away but hey i can just play it my head.
They call him lemon, a crossbow made flesh
Finally, some more quality Dark Souls 2 content
Yo Back, did you ever considering rushing the first DLC and farming the Sanctum Crossbow? It's special attack plus some repair powder to keep the durability up lets you smoke through pretty much everything. It scales incredibly well, especially when infused properly.
You don’t even need to farm it. You can find one beside the first hidden bonfire in the palace for free
I don't think he was willing to stat for it.
@@DarkCT he had a lot of levels and souls too spares
@@raphicoco even so, i just recall when it was brought up that it was not something willing to be done. then again consideration for it may have happened around Elana.
Hell yeah!
Love the agent metal version of abyss watchers.
The ballista is basically a crossbow
Had this video on in the background and hearing Lemon say “overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer” has me snapping to the video like a sleeper agent
A terrible suggestion for a challenge run. Can you beat DS2 with only the Vanquisher’s Seal? Why is it a terrible idea? You need 50 Awestones to start it. Which means grinding either a phantom down in rat hell with a Bonfire Astetic, or the greatsword old knight directly after the Dragonrider boss fight. Both options suck.
Bare fisted Vanquisher’s seal is interesting. It does more damage than Dual Caestus, but has a slower startup and cannot be buffed with spells or items. Stone Ring will make staggering easy, though.
Fun strat for Najka. you can bait the tail slam attack and run up it onto her back and she is almost totally unable to attack you!
I really wonder if he can i hope he has fun this run👍
Yeah let us see
You’re like Ymfah and LukeTheNotable had a chill baby. Congratulations and thank you.
Anyone else wanna see a “Can I beat dark souls (1,2,3) normally” just to see how he normally does it?
I'm guessing he'd pull a baron's castle and play "normally"
Glad to see this was one of the challenge runs you were doing! The crossbow was a great friend for me on my playthrough, even though I was doing a faith/str build. Just having an 'unlimited' ranged option for pulling mobs or doing damage once I ran out of spells was very nice.
I got lucky and got the Avelyn first time I killed the bowman. Honestly thought it was a scripted drop until now.
After watching the Immolation run, this one feels... comforting. Lemon's good (or at least passable) state of mental health is a resource for the rest of us, after all.
The power of capitalism really got him through this
I had over 4k hours in dark souls 2 back in the day, but I have NEVER seen that executioner animation. Thanks for that!
The power of capitalism.
Love your use of Geoff plays guitar abyss watcher remix over the gameplay of the elana fight
Love your videos, Lemon! I have been absolutely OBSESSED with Dark Souls lately, and your videos are JUST what the doctor ordered! Keep 'em coming!
7:44 Alright Lemon. I see you there with the Nice Number, not leveling up anymore despite being able to level up 3 more times. Well played, well played.
Before elden ring came out I ran through the three dark souls games crossbow only. And by far it has been my favorite way to play. Ds2 is the hardest of the three. Alana giving me months of trouble before switching to the same shield you did. But I ended just sticking with that crossbow for the rest of the run.
Love these videos, and you have my respect for your patience in doing Dark Souls II challenge runs. It holds a special place in my heart but it is looooong.
I love his dedication to finishing a challenge run
That was a nice run.
All the more impressive by not excising the weird interactions of Raw infusion and Rob, Flyn, and sacred oath.