Dexterity is...bleh

Is it just me, or are dexterity weapons really...dry? I feel like for almost every single weapon, its "use this r1 until the enemy goes down" deal.

Curved Swords: running r1s, rolling r1s, r2s, all vastly inferior to the insane destructive power of its r1 spam. Even parrying is difficult here despite how easy it should be.

Katana: roll r1, roll r1, roll r1. Just keep doing this with a green blossom up and you're golden. R2s are useful depending on the weapon. As in: if its not the iato, just keep rolling and r1ing with the occasional r1 spam.

Straight swords: a weapon class I actually like due to its nature as both a dexterity scaling class, and a strength scaling class. Until someone grabs a Balder Side Sword. Then its a pure dexterity weapon with higher ar and less weight than most other straight swords at half the point cost. Combat style is quite fluid and rather subject to change based on what you're facing.

Great/Lifehunt Scythe: I'll admit these are fun as all heck to use, but can be a little on the clunky side.

Spears: r1 roll, r1 roll, r1 roll. its almost comical how much this works on people.

Bows: theres really only two choices in this category: Composite bow, and short bow. Combat consists of fire, and then roll. Hitting anything while more than 5ft away is a total crapshoot and damage is pretty underwhelming most of the time. And with no way to properly create distance or the like, it seems rather useless unless the enemy refuses to use a shield or they somehow forget what walls are.

Daggers: Pretty much useless in anything but backstabs. in which case, they'll do pretty alright damage. But even in their own specialized category, they are heavily outclassed by:

Rapiers: A mix between spears and daggers. Trading some range and regular damage for insane critical damage.

Whips: what about them?

Most dex weapons are fast moving and can have some pretty fluid combat for sure, but the main problem is dex weapons are lightweight, which means only one thing: poise stacking. Unlike a str build, which has ridiculous weapon weights, a dex build is able to stack that delicious poise and completely ignore what would be good other parts of its moveset, except insane poise means you can just have r1 fights with people and usually come out on top. I also feel a little pigeon-holed into using katanas on any dex build due to being allowed to go with less poise and still do something.

Fought a bunch of dex builds lately, and they all seem to have the same 3 weapons: Balder Side Sword, Chaos blade, and Gold Tracer. Makes Dex seem a little...lacking in the variety department compared to str which I've seen pretty much every weapon used at one point or another in a serious capacity.

An interesting read on your perspective on weaponry, Barry.
I have also noticed the same 3 weapons on dex builds. But you forgot to mention the Falchion. I see that nearly all the time. Or are you one of the rare cases that doesn't see it every second duel?

Isn't it the same for strength weapons? Pressing R1 until they opponent goes down I mean?

and that spear tactic was horrible.

If you only use R1s,you are doing something wrong.Most dexterity weapons have very effective R2s,the straight swords and uchigatana have a lunge attack,the scythes have sweep attacks,the Iaito also has a sweep attack.The only weapon type that almost needs R1 spam are curved swords and only noobs use them.

Ahem, Kev..
I use curved swords. I don't think I'm what could be called a noob.
No need to make statements like that.

Renny wrote: Ahem, Kev..
I use curved swords. I don't think I'm what could be called a noob.
No need to make statements like that.

I think we all know I'm referring to those who spam endlessly,usually with a lemon or grape buff.If you do that,I refuse to take the statement back.(I hate those guys more than I hate hackers)

I should have made my joke more clearer.
I wasn't being serious with that, but I can see where you're coming from.
I never buff, I'm always pure melee.
I think I am also the only person on the planet that uses the Falchion's R2's.

[Insert illogical, elitist hate for any play style that's not my own.]

Fair enough if you use it like a normal weapon.I only use dexterity weapons because I can't use the bigger strength ones properly.Basically because I am casul.

KrazykevS10 wrote:Fair enough if you use it like a normal weapon.I only use dexterity weapons because I can't use the bigger strength ones properly.Basically because I am casul.

If it's a greathammer, roll around and spam r1.
It works wonders, to be honest.

Priscilla's dagger definitely breaks the dagger mold. Are attacks are useful and can create some crazy combos.

Gargoyle Tail Ax is a fairly nuanced dex weapon requiring precision from the user or face underwhelming results

And of course I don't feel the Great Scythe is clunky but I might be a bit biased.

this thread has so many counter arguments against the op it makes my head spin.

my biggest gripe
Whips cannot be parried, and can parry in the offhand, great for chip damage and unlocked fighting.

but i do agree that the BSS is seen a bit too often. i often will mistake someone holding this with an Estoc, but. its usually the bss

lol its not just Dex weapons that are like this.

Great swords unlock spam R1

Great hammers Roll R1

so... only greataxes are "full bodied" enough for you? since you're using wine terminology for weapons... cause you can't spam those effectively unless you're using the bkga. and landing those one or two hits to slay a foe is really satisfying... only other weapons i can think of that wouldn't be considered dry spam by the posts in this thread would be... fist weapons and... curved gswords...

save for a few exceptions, all weapons seem "dry" to me (dex or strength). you just happen to see allot more dexterity weapons because strength builds have very few advantages when compared to dexterity builds.

i blame the fact that there are so few weapons that have more than one useful move. which leads to allot of players just doing that one thing that a weapon is good at over and over without allot of variation.

there's just too much vanilla and not enough neapolitan in Dark Souls. which is why i try to make builds that can use a variety of weapons instead of trying to just build around one single weapon.

In my opinion the main reason people spam r1 is that the game only has two dedicated buttons for combat, there are only so many combinations you can do, sum that to weapons that have alternate effects (drakesword for example) and doing anything in combat other than go r1-r1-r2 *is almost impossible.

One thing that I would love to see in DKS II is to see alternate moveset when two handing, instead of blocking with both L1/L2 adding a third attack move with L2 or something.

*"Expoits" like dead angling non-withstanding.

i also find that Dark Souls is missing the same fluidity that Demon's Souls had. most of the weapons in Demon's Souls flowed nicely from one attack to the next and you could move seamlessly in that sweet R2-R1-R2-R1-R2 combo or in an R2-R2 combo if you wanted. most combos in Dark Souls end with your character having to reset his pose between each attack and it looks sloppy, unless you are mashing the R1.

Perhaps my main gripe isn't the lack of useful movesets for the weapons, but for the armors. The way this game works, there is absolutely no reason to skip out on poise, which usually means dex builds are Giants! Giants! GIANTS! (insert dex weapon here) so they can just plain poise through most attacks with full weapon effectiveness. Most builds use the tried and true ring combo of Favor and Protection/Havels. Its just dex has less end reqs on their end to make that work with ridiculous poise. So perhaps I shoulda named this thread: Poise is...bleh

I'll admit I was a lil sleepy when I made this thread and likely didn't think everything through (I left out curved greatswords, one of my favorite weapon classes,)

Both curved swords and katana r1 spam are easy parries. When it comes to the roll r1 for kats, it can be parried every time if you know it's coming. Since curved swords are so short, you can tell when the attacks are coming and it's not terribly hard to parry unless the opponent mixes it up.

we really need more weapons, new weapons and old ones I want about 30 of each(sstr, quality and dex) and about four special ones for each magic. not asking much imo. and would it hurt to have weapons have different movesets instead of the same boring ones? ok im done.

barrywilkins wrote:Perhaps my main gripe isn't the lack of useful movesets for the weapons, but for the armors. The way this game works, there is absolutely no reason to skip out on poise, which usually means dex builds are Giants! Giants! GIANTS! (insert dex weapon here) so they can just plain poise through most attacks with full weapon effectiveness. Most builds use the tried and true ring combo of Favor and Protection/Havels. Its just dex has less end reqs on their end to make that work with ridiculous poise. So perhaps I shoulda named this thread: Poise is...bleh

The problem with that isn't poise itself, its the avalibility of poise compared to the investment necessary to get it. Most any dex build can have 60+ poise at 30 end, meaning just about every sl 100 dex build does.

Str can do it to, but then they're stuck with weapons like the mace, which are situational at best, and extremely difficult to use effectively.

@Barry

To answer your question, no you're not. I know you said you were tired but I've felt that way for a long time, and the op makes a lot of sense to me. It's like forum :pirat: said though, it's the amount of poise dex builds have access to combined with a dex weapon's moveset.

Renny wrote:
I think I am also the only person on the planet that uses the Falchion's R2's.

No you are not. I routinely used the r2 after a combustion stun, and am also rather fond of the "kick" animation.

As far as a lack of combos....try a pure caster it's fun. Kind of a pain in the *** ...But it's fun!

There's certainly a heck of a lot of truth in the OP. I avoided playing dex for a long time because it didn't appeal to me. I learned something when I went pure dex, though... I have pretty good instincts on these things. It's kind of fun, but I like having diverse builds that can do a few things and use a few weapons, like Nybbles.

On the topic of move sets; I think it'd be cool if each weapon class had multiples moves for each type of attack and you could customize your own move set. Maybe you could unlock moves by progressing through the game or leveling up certain stats or ranking up in a covenant (or guild?). But, that's another topic for another day and probably for DkS III, at this point...