Title update for Dark Souls 2 - version 1.03

Here are the details;

- The Moonlight Greatsword can no longer be buffed or enchanted. Subsequently, the attack animation has been slowed down. Similarly, the Ring of Thorns makes that less damage now, as well as the Ring of the Old Sun.

-The Wrath of Gods has received similar nerfs, with more casting time and lower damage. Subsequently, the female mages in the Shrine of Amana also get lower damage, as well as decreased tracking ability for their spells.

-Twin Blade Weapons have seen a rise in durability, and a decrease in durability degradation.

-Corrosive urns create less damage when they hit, and the throwing animation has also been changed.

-Use of the Souls Spear does not lead to less damage, when they are able to pierce through their enemies.

-The Soul Greatsword receives buffs in casting time, and does not lose as much damage.

-Recovery spells get longer casting speed.

-Pyromancies similar to Fire Storm receives longer casting time and lower damage. This may also be the case for Forbidden Sun.

-Lucatiel, Benhart, and Manscorpion Tark all get higher defense.

-The Fire Lizards in the Forest of the Fallen Giants spit fire more frequently.

The Last Giant deals that less damage to players, as well as to Well-Mannered Pete.

-The Lost Sinner and the Royal Rat Authority have fewer hit points and can deal lower damage.

- Duke’s Dear Freja laser breath also has less damage.

Thoughts and opinions?

Damm, just finished my moonligh gs build! They should stop changing the rules. My first build in DS1 was a BK great Axe wielder, and, when i finished it, the weapon got nerfed... I really love DaS, but theese "rules changes" will make me not buy another souls game, until it get patched... sadly. They could only make the Moonlight Greatsword not get buffed from the spell/resin for the R2 attack... They take a great weapon, and turn it into a useless one...

They shouldnt nerf anything at all, just buff the stats scaling for averyting (STR, DEX, Lightining, ETC), just not for the moonlight sword... and maybe a little nerf on spells overall damage, thats it.

Glad they patched the online item glitch. Had it today and it annoyed me to have to log out and back in.

One thing they could fix is the goddamn Brotherhood ranking requirements. 500 kills is a joke, especially when dying lowers your score, the only objects that enable invasions cost 10k souls EACH, and red soapstone doesn't count towards rank.

It's a joke of a covenant.

- The Moonlight Greatsword can no longer be buffed or enchanted. Subsequently, the attack animation has been slowed down. Similarly, the Ring of Thorns makes that less damage now, as well as the Ring of the Old Sun.

Never used it enough to make a call on this. I do, however, know the physics behind it. FromSoft had it right in DS1 with un-buffable boss weapons, Hope tory do it to all of them, as most have a special that sets them apart already.

-The Wrath of Gods has received similar nerfs, with more casting time and lower damage.

-The Soul Greatsword receives buffs in casting time, and does not lose as much damage.

-Recovery spells get longer casting speed.

-Pyromancies similar to Fire Storm receives longer casting time and lower damage. This may also be the case for Forbidden Sun.

All of these can be blamed on careless PVPers overusing them to have an "unfair advantage." By which I mean that being all ~70% of them use (WoG in DS1…dear god…). My only concern is why forbidden sun? Not very high damage as is (only used a few times for boss killing, not PVP, so what do I know?).

On that note, why is FromSoft making DS2 so slow? First was heal animations, then gradual HP restore, taking 20 years to place a freaking prism stone, now they are slowing healing spells EVEN MORE?! WHY?!

-Twin Blade Weapons have seen a rise in durability, and a decrease in durability degradation.

Yay, we can finally kill more than 5 enemies with them!

-Lucatiel, Benhart, and Manscorpion Tark all get higher defense.

Finally, now they might actually survive their stupidity...

-The Fire Lizards in the Forest of the Fallen Giants spit fire more frequently.

Making a decent weapon that much harder to get…well fine...

The Last Giant deals that less damage to players, as well as to Well-Mannered Pete.

Subsequently, the female mages in the Shrine of Amana also get lower damage, as well as decreased tracking ability for their spells.

Thank god…nuff said.

-The Lost Sinner and the Royal Rat Authority have fewer hit points and can deal lower damage.

Again…thank god…hope it carries to GN+ where you get ganked like crap...

- Duke’s Dear Freja laser breath also has less damage.

Yay! No more insta-kill beam of sheer death and horror!

Stuff they need to actually focus on:

• Blood/Sentinel requirements
• STUN LOCK PHYSICS AND POISE (seriously need this one, that's why all caps :p)
• general PVP/invasion physics
• among other things I don't want to list...

Yeah the main one for me was the moonlight greatsword. Too many people buffing it and overusing it.

Yeah poise and stunlock seem broken and need fixing, this should be a priority in my opinion.

I think one of the problems they should at least consider patching is the Brotherhood and Sentinel invasion mechanics. It absolutely annoys me when I invade a world and there's 3 people there. It's harsh on the Brotherhood members who lose their ranking if they die or Black Crystal out. Death is almost guaranteed if you're fighting 2 or 3 human players.

EDIT: Another thing I've noticed people mentioning is the poise-stunlock imbalance. I just experienced it where a guy with a caestus was able to stun-lock me after one hit, and continue to keep me stunned until I died from a full health bar. I don't like to complain but when I was in medium-heavy armor that was bullshit.

@Lyrebon With the mechanics in dark souls 2 2v1's /3v1's are very tough. Near impossible. I find this is due to the overpowered spells and the broken poise/stunlock.

Very annoying when i could comfortably win a 2v1 in dark souls 1.

Ive heard alot of people mentioning the dark brotherhood kill requirements and it does seem a little harsh. I could understand if it were like it is simply to give people more of a goal to aim for. But when pvp just feels broken sometimes it doesnt seem fair.

Im sure the patches will gradually fix some things. Its either that or i just need to sdjust to the new way of PvP'ing.

I'd be fine with keeping the 500 kills requirement for rank 3, as long as they got rid of that stupid -1 penalty if you die or get disconnected. Honestly, I tried the Brotherhood out and ended up with 70% of my invasions including one or two summoned players. It's a guaranteed loss for me as a Dex build because I use melee weapons and pyromancy. And you can bet that one of the players is a goddamn Faith build that spams Lighting Spears.

Found the entire list of all patches, but the core things are listed above:

Click me!

New patch sucks as they nerfed Soul Geyser, MoonlightGreatsword,Wrath of Gods. Game becomes very difficult on NG + onwards as those spells were lifesaver. They didn't even nerfed Ancient Dragon. Only good thing i see is bit of help of help on Lost Sinner and Flexile Sentry phantoms, and some NPC's getting better defense.

^ Jeez, are you complaining about this again? Yes they nerfed some spells and one overpowered sword and yet it hasn't changed a damn thing. I'm in NG++ and I've solo'd most of the bosses with Lucatiel's Greatsword and some pyromancy (have Great Chaos and Great Fireballs, and Chaos Storm).

The new patch applied some much needed updates, especially since Wrath of Gods could one-shot you in PvP. The nerf was to remove that unfairness (WoG is extremely hard to dodge or defend against).

What this game requires is not over-powered PvP spells, but patience. I'm still SL155 with 45 points in Dex, so I've seen diminishing returns on damage per NG and yet I'm still able to defeat powerful enemies, which just proves that the patch isn't the problem when I'm still able to overcome the limitations of higher difficulties, WITHOUT the need for top-tier magic.

Heh , Things kinda got tough for me on on NG +++ onwards on single player , i was relying on Soul Geyser and Moonlight Sword most lol.I appreciate all the things FROM did to balance online , but in this process Single player kinda got Hard =P

@indzman: things are gonna get hard in ng++++ lol. Thats just the way it goes. Moonlight greatsword was way too OP and so was WoG.

Looking forward to some more nerfs aswell tbh. Hitboxes need sorting out. Thrusting weapons have ridiculous phantom range. And they need to sort out stunlocks which are ridiculous right now.

All in all though i really am enjoyin pvp at the moment.

I sincerely wish they nerf Ancient Dragon, that freaking beast 1 shotted me tons even on NG, didn't even dared him on NG + lol. I guess i'll start with a new char to enjoy online more now as things got balanced online after the new update :)

Ancient Dragon is an optional boss. That he's difficult just adds an extra challenge for people willing to tackle him. No need to nerf an enemy that's in the game purely as an additional challenge.

Soul Geyser is now completly useless, it does less than half the damage, it drains the stamina bar to zero and it takes about 3 secs to cast ( incl. 2 secs of just standing there after the spell is fired )

no boss in the game lets you stand in the same place for 3 secs.

what should be the ultimate spell for magicians is now utterly useless.

why change what should be the ultimate spell, it can't be because of pvp, the spell moves so slow that anyone can just walk away from it, Soul Geyser was only usable in boss fights, now its pointless.

@Hellcanwait: PVP was probably not the point. people would, by the time you have access to the spell, burn the somewhere upwards of 10 bonfire ascetics to get a ton of the spell, as that area is not too terribly hard. They would then go onwards with the game with 5-7+ geysers. Since they take 1 slot, makes the player insanely unfair to the bosses.

What SHOULD have been done was increase the slot count, while keeping the damage. Opposite with forbidden sun, 2 slots, 1 cast, little damage and easily dodged? no, their priorities are out of order.

If they focused on PVP spells, the certain pyromancy that would be nerfed beyond recognition *remaining unnamed to keep it secure for as long as possible* would have been on the hit list.

I was highly disappointed with Forbidden Sun, since I'm partially pyromantic myself. Although I do find that the Great Chaos Fireball is excellent. The only pryomancy I can think of that's somewhat OP is Chaos Storm, but that's easily dodged and puts the caster in a very vulnerable position. Flame Swathe got nerfed too so pyromancy as a whole is more balanced now. And Great Chaos Fireball, though is does a lot of damage, has only 2 uses and is incredibly hard to get. Either you have to be in late-game NG++ or kill 500 people as a Brotherhood member, so multiple copies will be ultra-rare, since you can't just bonfire ascetic and pick up another, rather you have to go through the whole game again.

I've been wanting to ask how Climax is? Great Resonant Soul is pretty monstrous, so Climax must be devastating. In any case, sorcerers still have Crystal Soul Spear and Homing Soul Mass to deal out some brutal damage. Couple them with attunement slots and the Southern Band ring +2 or the Northern Band ring and you can stock up on some pretty powerful magic in abundance.