Quick Build Optimization Guide

This is a brief guide of a bunch of build ideas for Dark Souls 3. This information is all over the internet already, but it is definitely not consolidated and it took me a few months of playing to actually find some of this info.

This guide is for PVP BUILDS. PVE is entirely possible to win with anything. PVP means you have a level cap. If you just keep leveling up, that's totally fine and do your thing, but you don't need a guide to put Max points everywhere. The current meta is 120 but going anywhere from 100-130 will net you plenty of players to play with because the summon range is +-10 levels. Most people go 120 but as long as you are within 100-130 you will get plenty of players to fight. Don't listen to anyone who complains about you going above 120. They can't stop you from playing how you like and they have the exact same options you have. So, if you follow the meta, it helps to know where your stats will be giving you the most bang for your buck since you have a limited amount of them. Here's how it breaks down:

Starting Class and Defensive Stats:

Starting class, more or less, does not matter. You can respec 5 times per New Game cycle or if you upload your save and reload it then you can respec infinitely. However, you can only respec down to your classes Base stats so choosing a starting class that doesn't waste stats can be important for some. Knight, Deprived, Mercenary and Pyromancer have the least amount of wasted stats. The rest of the classes have too much luck, in my opinion. Luck is useful, but only really useful on a Bleed/Luck build and I will go into that later. Choose your poison, no matter which class you choose you will have a few wasted points but it's not THAT MANY points.

Vigor, endurance, vitality and attunement are your defensive stats. They will help your survivability and how much you can use certain attacks. In my opinion, you should go at least 27 vigor but above 50 is useless. If you are invading at 120, go AT LEAST 35 but if you are just dueling you can stay embered and your health will be great at 27-34. Endurance can be anywhere from 18-40. I've heard of some casters going to just 15 but that seems a little low to me. Strength builds are going to need to go higher, like 30-40, but low stamina consumption builds can go to 18. Vitality will all depend on what you want to wear and hold. I don't think you want to go higher than 25 but this all depends on fashion and how many weapons you want to hold at once. It raises physical defense higher than other stats but vigor will give you better survivability. Also, don't go above 70% equip load. Fat rolling will get you killed easily. Attunement is going to really depend on build. 120 casters should go 30, melee builds can leave it at 10-11 and bring some  ashen Estus flasks if you need the extra weapon arts. No one seems to care if you chug that in the middle of a duel. It will really depend on your play style and how much you depend on weapon arts and how many points you have left over.

The builds:

Quality build:
The Quality build is equal parts dex/strength. The Jack-of-all-trades melee build. It can use nearly every weapon in the game. A great build for beginners and pros alike. For maximum damage output you will want to go 40 strength and 40 dex. Refined gems are the ideal infusion for your infusable weapons.

Strength build:
Big. Heavy. Weapons. This build has slower weapons but they hit HARD. A lot of strength weapons have hyper armor too, which means you'll take damage but your attacks won't be interrupted. They can be great in duels and they are fantastic against gankers. 50-60 strength will give you really great damage, but if you two-hand a strength weapon at 66 strength you actually get the the same damage as you would at 99 strength. Going 66 strength won't give you very much room for other things so I recommend going minimum dex requirement for whatever weapon you want to use. Heavy gems are what you want to use to infuse your weapons.

Dex Build:
Dexterity builds are for fast and tricky weapons. They are typically lighter so you don't have to pour as much into vitality. These weapons tend to do better in duels than they do in invasions, but they can definitely do some work against gankers 50-60 dex is ideal for optimal damage in pure dex builds. Sharp gems will net you the most damage from your infusions.

Sorcerer:
Now for the casters. Intelligence is the stat you want to focus on for sorcerers and you want to go 50-60 to get the most damage out of them...and they can dish out MASSIVE damage. Seriously, watch out for gank squads with sorcerers in them. These builds are great in duels but not so get against gankers. If you invest stats in the Moonlight Greatsword, you can have a really really powerful weapon too because it scales best off of intelligence. You won't have a lot of points to invest in weapons, but infusing one with Crystal Gems will get you best results. If you want to use the crystal magic weapon buff, you can go raw with your infusion too.

Pyromancer:
Pyromancers are the quality build of the casters. You want to go 40 faith and 40 intelligence on this build. Pyro spells are some of the best in the game. They can hit really hard. They are also the easiest to free aim and that can be really rewarding. They can do really well in all PVP situations because of their damage output and the ability to free aim. If you want a weapon, you should go Chaos infusion. Again, you can go raw with the weapon if you want to use Carthus flame arc.

Cleric/Miracle:
The cleric or miracle build is a curious build. It's one of the most satisfying builds I've made because the spells do very little damage until a really high level. You want to go 50-60 faith to do most damage, but you can make some of the best hybrid builds with an investment of 30-40. Honestly, I might make an entirely separate guide for the miracle build. It's still fairly unexplored right now. In my experience, some of the talismans have amazing hyper armor so a significant investment in vigor helps to tank hits. You can usually win the trade. Lightning gems will net you the best damage when infusing if you want to use a weapon. Lightning weapon, darkmoon blade, blessed weapon, and dark blade are all great weapon buffs to put on a raw weapon too.

Dark Magic:
If you want to go dark magic, it can be tricky. It's almost necessary to go 130 on this build, because ideally you want to go 45 faith 45 intelligence. Last I checked, this does pretty good damage but it's not incredible. I haven't made this build yet, but I'm interested. It can be the most versatile but it's also the trickiest because you need very specific catalysts, talismans, and the pyromancy flame in order to utilize all your tools. If you want to infuse weapons then you should go with the Dark Gem, or Dark blade and raw infusion. I might make the build just to report on my experiments, but I don't like to respec much so it'll take me a good 15-20 hours.

Luck/Hollow/Bleed Build:
This is another tricky build but can net you some really amazing damage. Luck is not useful for damage, until you infuse a weapon with hollow. Then, it can do a TON of damage. The current thought process is to go Quality 40/40 str and dex and 30-35 luck. If you have a weapon at +10 Hollow infused, you actually get a +5 to your Luck stat. So, if you have a +10 hollow weapon or shield in both hands, you get +10 to your Luck stat. This will next you the highest damage for many weapons. Plus, the luck stat will help cause bleed pretty damn fast with certain weapons. The only weapon that I know of that scales off of Luck naturally is Anri's Straight Sword, which is one of the best straight swords even after a recent nerf. I really like the Luck build, but I've only gone to 100 with the build so I need to do some testing at 60 luck. There is very little testing done on it yet that I've seen.

And there you have it! These are not rules, just a brief guide on the best math in the game. Hybrid builds can be completely viable too, where you have a spell or buff that supplements melee and quality builds and pyro builds definitely don't HAVE to be 40/40. Seriously, watch Praise the Sun's YouTube channel. He consistently has non-optimal stats and dominates. Have fun. Experiment. Dominate.

Best Dex Scaling Weapons in Dark Souls 3

It's been a very long time since I've posted anything. Lately, I've been spending a lot more time playing dark souls 3 than I have fighting games. I still play fighting games but I just don't have as much time to dig in deep like I did a few years ago. However, I still love these games and I'm going to try to analyze and present some good information to players who are looking for help or are just looking for the same answers to questions that I have had.

First off: this list is geared towards pure Dex builds, which I have just started building. Fun fact I didn't realize about Dec builds is that the second softcap is at 60 Dex. Hybrid builds and quality builds can shoot for 40 dex but pure Dex should shoot for around 50-60 for optimal damage. Non-optimal stats are TOTALLY viable for duels (just watch Praise the Sun, he almost never bothers with optimal stat.s), but optimal stats are almost required for taking on gankers in invasions.

Second: This list is just for best scaling. This is not a weapon tier list. Every weapon can be viable in PVP duels and every weapon is viable in PVE. These are just weapons that will scale to dex better than other weapons. Keep an open mind for some other weapons not on this list because base damage is important too. Play with what you like, this is just a list. Also note, all weapons are +5 or +10.

The list:

S Weapons:

Chaos Blade
Dagger (sharp)
Scimitar (Sharp)
Painting Guardian Curved Sword (sharp)

A weapons:
Farron Greatsword
Bloodlust
Shotel (sharp)
Rapier (sharp)
Ricard's Rapier (sharp)
Murakumo (sharp)
Harpe (sharp)
Claw (sharp)
Manikin Claws (sharp)
Great Scythe (sharp)
Corvian Great Scythe (sharp)
Winged Spear (sharp)
Carthus Curved Sword (sharp)
Rotted Ghru Spear (sharp)
Rotted Ghru Dagger (sharp)
Sellsword Twin blades (sharp)
All clubs sharp (untested by me, this is fextralife info. The clubs seem really strange to get A scaling)

B scaling:
Storm Curved Sword
Exile Greatsword

Most other infusable weapons receive B scaling when sharp except Halberds, and Axes. Those receive C. Some of these weapons still might be pretty good for your build depending on base damage. The other few that do not receive B are terrible with scaling period or scale better with odd infusions.

Bad dex scaling:
Bandit's knife
Mail breaker
Corvian greatknife
Astora straight sword
Drakeblood Greatsword

If I remember correctly those are all C or D, which still might be viable for your build but will not be optimal. So there you have it, plan your dex build around some of the weapons and enjoy! Duel on and happy hunting!

Fireballs, Beams, Projectiles in Fighting Games - Part 1

 It's been a while since I've posted anything on here. I've been thinking a lot about this subject, though, and I think this information can help a lot of new and intermediate level players.

Fireballs, Beams, and Projectiles are some of the most important aspects of 2D fighting games. They can be used for a variety of purposes. The most obvious reason projectiles are used is to zone and do damage from far away. However, there is much more to projectiles than one may initially think.

In Street Fighter, for example, the characters that have fireballs are far-and-away the most played characters in this game. For most new players, fireballs allow the opportunity to gain a few wins without actually learning any combos. Fireballs and projectiles are also awesome and dominate your friends who don't understand what QCF-Punch means (If you don't, it means quarter circle forward punch.) As you advance in your fighting game playing, projectiles and fireballs begin to mean zoning, space control, damage, chip-damage, set-ups, pressure, traps, and much more.

I'll start out with the most basic idea of projectiles and fireballs: zoning. Zoning is keeping the opponent at a distance and controlling the space in between your characters in order to minimize close combat. Some characters excel at zoning and it is actually the optimal way to play the characters. Some people may see this as cheap, but projectiles are a problem for even the top players and if you are going to play the game you need to know how to properly deal with them. It may be frustrating for your rush down character or grappler character to get in on a zoner, but it is incredibly possible in most games to get past fireballs and punish them.

Going a little bit deeper into the mental game the fighting genre we can see that projectiles act as a constant threat. This might seem obvious to some, but not everyone thinks of the deeper aspects of fighting games this way. If a player knows their opponent can use a projectile or has thrown one out, it forces them into making a decision. By default, it limits their decision making process. They may have had a battle plan from the get-go, but you are now forcing their hand. This goes for every attack you throw out, but projectiles are generally much more safe than other attacks. Projectiles often reach full screen, too. This means that no matter where the opponent is, a character with projectiles can still hit them. There is no safe zone where you can rest on your laurels against these projectiles. This need for constant mental awareness of the projectiles is why the threat aspect is so powerful and why projectiles are so effective and strong.

I'm going to leave part 1 here and I will discuss more fireball tactics and such in part 2.

Guilty Gear XXAC is Awesome

This isn't a tutorial today, I just wanted to write a little something.

Guilty Gear is awesome. I don't think its better than Street Fighter or Marvel necessarily, but it has a lot of things that those games don't have.

The first, is a really fast pace. Marvel has this of course, but Street Fighter does not. Don't get me wrong, SF is awesome and can definitely be fast paced. GGXXAC is waaayy faster though. In SF, you sometimes get to move back and forth and play footsies. Unless your opponent is playing totally reckless, you usually have a few seconds to figure out what you or your opponent is going to try. If your opponent jumps randomly, you can Anti-Air them and punish them. In GGXXAC, you don't really have that time. In fact, you're punished for not being aggressive by the system. If you run away for too long  (and it really isn't that long-like a few seconds) then you start losing meter because of Negative Penalty. Jumps are much safer in GGXXAC too because you can block in the air and change momentum with a double jump or air dash. There is footsies in all fighting games, but they are really fast in GGXXAC.

The other big thing is the diversity of characters. SF has a much bigger roster than GGXXAC, but GGXXAC has a really, really diverse roster none-the-less. SSFIV AE has 8 Shotos. 8 characters that really similar move sets. That is nearly 1/4th of the cast that play really similarly. They each have their own unique qualities, but if you've learned one you can pick up the others fairly easily. Charge characters all work really similarly too. It's not like the similar characters are carbon copies of each other, but they are definitely really similar. In GGXXAC, each character is entirely different from each other. You have to spend a lot of time with each character to figure them out. Some elements are universal for buttons, but each character has an extremely unique strategy that can't be transferred to other characters typically. I think that is probably my favorite part about this game.

More on Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Combos- Beginners

Just a quick tip on this one, and this may seem very obvious to a lot of skilled players....but this article isn't for you. It's for beginners.

When you are trying to get better at this game and either trying to come up with your own combos or use some combos that you found online, the buttons you press and the timing can be pretty important. I learned this Frank West Combo earlier today:

cr.M st.H cr.HS > sj > j.MMH xx 236H > land > cr.HS > sj. > j.MMH xx 236L, j.MS > land > 236S xx 214M+H

If you try this combo out, you'll notice that in the first part of the combo leading to the launcher, you can simply press cr.LMHS and the opponent will still launch, obviously. However, the combo is really easy to get screwed up after you are in the air if you do this. One thing that was happening to me a lot was my character was crossing up the opponent on the ground after the 236H. When I got to the ground, My cr.HS would go back the other way and my opponent would end up in the complete opposite corner. I could still wavedash twice to get to the opponent and finish the combo, but it is a lot easier to press the right buttons to begin the combo. Other parts of the combo can chang pretty easily, but you'll notice that the combo drops at later parts.

These oddities in the combo can happen because of the spacing and hit-stun deterioation. Spacing affects the combo because once the opponent is launched, the distance they were in relation to you affects the distance they are from you in the air. In this particular Frank combo, if you are too close you can end up above the opponent by the time you get to the j.236H. This will cause you to cross them up when you slam them down with the ground bounce attack, making the entire combo more difficult than it needs to be. Also, when you land you can sometimes hit cr.MHS instead of just cr.HS. This will often result in dropping the combo because you had one too many hit to keep the opponent in a comboable state. This is a result of the hit-stun detoriation.

I hope this helps people understand the game a little bit better and helps you understand why combos have attacks that don't look necessary. Combos are pretty easy to create in this game, so if you find another input that works a little easier for you, you can probably figure out a combo to fit it.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core for Beginners part 1

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core is probably my favorite fighting game ever. I never got that great at it, but it is the game that got me into playing the really competitive fighting games. However, I do understand the game well enough to explain it to beginners and intermediate players. Much of this information I'm presenting here stems from Dustloop forums. Dustloop is the best source of information for Guilty Gear and Blazblue. It's also really good for Vampire Savior and Skullgirls. On forums like Dustloop, SmashBoards, Dream Cancel, and Mortal Kombat United you always have to dig to get a lot of the beginner information. I'm trying to clean up a little bit of that.

Guilty Gear is a pretty crazy game. It's super fast and there can be a TON of stuff that you have to notice on screen at one time. It can seem like a Really difficult game to play if you don't know what you are doing. However, this is kinda the point. It has a somewhat steep learning curve, but after you figure out a game plan you should be able to hold your own. Just like playing Halo, Gears of War, Street Fighter, or any other game, it takes a few hours for you to start being able to understand what is going on. This game is FAST PACED, but not unreasonably so. After you play it for a while, you'll know that it is fast paced, but it really won't seem as fast to you. Advanced tactics can be really tricky to pull off, like Dizzy's FRC and Impossible Dusts, but you don't really need these things to play the game. Those are only for the people who are trying to win tournaments or just need a challenge. The basic combos are super easy and can get you off to a solid start.

Guilty Gear notation is a special way of writing out combos and attacks that is used most often with Guilty Gear and BlazBlue. It works like the number pad on a computer keyboard. This is the diagram:

                            

                                 7 8 9
                                 4 5 6
                                 1 2 3

Where 5 is neutral, 4 is backwards, 6 is forwards, 8 is up and 2 is down. 7,9,1, and 3 are the corresponding diagonals. The attack buttons are abreviated also:

K-Kick
P-Punch
S-Slash
HS-Hard Slash
D- Dust

Therefore, 6P is forward and Punch. 236HS is down, down-forward, forward+Hard Slash.
A few more abreviations are:
 j.X - An attack while jumping where X would be the attack button.
[X] - Hold the attack button
]X[ - release button
jc, sjc, djc. - jump cancel, super jump cancel, double jump cancel.
IAD- instant air dash, performed by pressing 9 5 6. It's really easy to do.
TK - Tiger Knee. When you input an attack that has to be done in the air by inputting all of the commands on the ground and then press an up direction+attack. For example: 2147K is how to do Dizzy's TK Bubble (I think it's K.)
sj - Superjump.
dj -double jump
f.X and cl.X - Far and Close attacks. Pretty much only applies to the Slash button in GGXXAC
RC, FRC - Roman Cancel, False Roman Cancel. Weird name, but it is a way to to spend meter to end an animation quicker. Doing these are not that difficult, but their uses are kind of advanced.

 Basics:

 Movement-  Dashing is done by pressing forward twice or backwards twice. A forward dash can be held for as long as the screen but backdashes are short and go a set distance. Most characters can double jump and air dash once. Dizzy and Millia can airdash twice. All characters can super jump by pressing down and then quickly pressing up. This typically eats up your ability to double jump.

The Tension Gauge at the bottom of the screen is your meter. It allows you to do Overdrive attacks, Force Break attacks, RCs and FRCs, and Faultless Defense. It fills up as you attack and block attacks. 

Blocking - done by holding back on the controller. Low attacks must be blocked while crouching, high attacks must be blocked while standing. You can also block in the air. All ground attacks have to be blocked on the ground. Faultless defense is a more powerful block that uses some of your meter (Tension Gauge.) Faultless Defense is done by holding 4+ any two attack buttons except S+HS because pressing back+S+HS is another special command called Slashback.
Slashback is parrying an attack. You have to tap 4S+HS right before the attack hits for Slashback to parry.

Bursts are pretty crazy and are usually used for a defensive tactic. Pressing D+any other attack button results in a Burst. You can use a Burst to start a combo, or you can use it to break a combo from your opponent. You can also use a Burst offensively and pop your opponent in the air for a combo. You have to have the Burst Meter underneath your name filled to be able to do a Burst. The Burst gauge fills over time and it fills faster as you have less health.

Things are fairly straightforward as far as the attack buttons go. You have 5 attack buttons, Punch Kick, Slash, Hard Slash, and Dust. Dust launches your opponent into the air for a free combo. Different attacks have different properties and as you are starting out, you should go into training mode and press every button crouching, standing and jumping. Punch always has a 6P command, Slash always has two versions for close and far attacks, and 2D (crouching Dust) is always a sweep. 

There is a lot more to this game but this is meant to be a beginners primer so I will get right into attacking. These ideas apply to other fighting games too, but I will put them here because I have a friend who is trying to learn the game. For the much better information and more in depth information on characters and system mechanics go to http://www.dustloop.com/wiki/index.php?title=Guilty_Gear:_Accent_Core

 Combos are super easy in this game. The game has something called a Gatling System where normals cancel into other normals according to each characters Gatling Series. You can figure this out simply by experimenting and coming up with your own combos, or you can visit the link I posted and go to each characters combo section. Combos usually end in a special move or overdrive in order to maximize damage.

The name of the game in any fighting game is mixups and mind games. The most basic mix up is the High-Low mix up. You do a series of attacks that alternating between attacks that need to be blocked high or low in order to confuse your opponent and guess wrong, thus blocking the wrong way and getting opened up for a combo. Crossups are another important mixup in which you jump over the opponent to hit them while they are blocking the opposite direction. Guilty Gear is a game where you are going to want to maximize damage off of random hits. The game moves at a pace where you can't be 100% prepared for which hit will connect, so you kind of have to learn what damage you can get off of each hit that you throw out.

A note on performing special moves:

Guilty Gear uses the basic down-down-forward-forward+attack button and the forward-down-down forward+attack button that Street fighter uses. However, a slightly more complicated movement (but just as easy) is very common for Overdrives. The motion is forward-down forward-down-down backward-backward-forward+attack button. Or 632146Attack. This may look complex, but really just input the motions as is. It is really that simple. You'll have to get used to it through muscle memory but it really isn't a difficult movement. You can also input it relatively slowly. It doesn't have to be a superhumanly fast input. Just make sure you hit all the directions, don't jump, and with the final motion hit the attack button.

That is all the info I have for right now. In the next week or so I will write more on this awesome game.

Tier Lists for Beginners

Tier lists are a construct in fighting games that rank each character in their ability to win against other characters. They rank the strength of each character in comparison to every other character in the game. Tier lists have been around since basically the beginning of competitive fighting games but they can be misunderstood by beginners.

The most important thing to understand with Tier Lists is that in no way does playing a high tier character guarantee winning. What tier lists actually say is that if two high level players of the same skill are playing and one player is using a character of a higher tier than the other, that player is more likely to win. The "high level player" part is pretty important. In many fighting games, the high tier characters require a lot more work to be proficient with to use them at their high tier potential.

Tier lists are also not set in stone. New fighting game strategies and tech are developed all the time and tier lists change. You can see examples of this if you search tier lists from older games because people often post outdated tier lists along with the updated tier lists for reference. Many times these lists change dramatically.

This being said, in games that are 10 years old or more, the tier lists are much more solid. Players have played for years at these games at high level play and while it is possible that someone could come up with some crazy new broken tech, it is very unlikely. People have usually maxed out all of the options in these games so the tier lists are much more accurate.

Tier lists, especially in newer games, don't say all that much either. They are much more flexible because the creators of the games take balance into consideration when creating and updating the games and you have much more flexibility when it comes to choosing characters that can win tournaments and such. There are two games where tier lists play an incredibly important role and those games are Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Super Smash Bros. Melee (and Brawl but fuck Brawl.) In these two games, character selection is incredibly important for your chances are winning. I have much more experience in Melee so I will use it as an example:

In Melee, there are 30-some characters but only about 16 are tournament viable and the same 4-6 characters are pretty much always the winners of tournaments. This is mostly because the players of Melee use mechanics in the game that the creator didn't necessarily intend to exist. The creator also did not consider balance to be an important factor when making decisions about the game. It was intended to be a fun party game, not a competitive game. Low tier characters in Melee just were not built to handle high tiers. They simply never have the same options the high tiers have. Low tiers can beat high tiers, but it usually requires a big skill gap, a little luck, or a shit ton more work than the high tiers need.

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I also wonder if, in some games, Tier Lists form because more players play certain characters more often than others. In Super Street Fighter 4 AE, the top 10 characters (Top Tier) are generally considered to be Rufus, Akuma, Cammy, Seth, Yun, Sagat, Fei Long, Ibuki, Adon, and C Viper. Adon and Yun are usually interchangeable with some other characters but this is top 10 list is fairly universal. A bunch of these characters are popular because they are awesome. Akuma, Seth, Sagat, Cammy, and Fei Long would be awesome characters in any game really and the other characters have a strong following too (Ibuki is my main.)

These characters obviously have really good options and can utilize really tricky set-ups, but I wonder if they are "Top Tier" because tons of people play them. Also, generally, the best players decide these characters are better than the other characters fairly early on in the game. As more players are playing these characters, they can collectively discover more tech than the few that play the "Stupid" characters like Dan and Hakan. This is all just speculation, but I think that it should be discussed.