Load Our Last Save: Load Our Last Souls: Part 07

@anbilow said:

That made me laugh an almost ridiculous amount. Pure Vinny gold.

Vinny won with jump attacks, R2, and no shield. He won. Done. Against all expert DS advice. And there was no luck in that final fight, he put to practice all he had learned about his own strategy. Why are people still whining about what he's doing?

That's the beauty of Dark Souls. Almost all strategies are viable strategies, and most weapons can be used effectively. It's such a balanced game in that way. I always preferred to play a very light and nimble character, while Vinny has been playing the heaviest motherfucker with no mobility. But there's no "right way" to play.

And people need to remember that Vinny more or less started playing in a completely different way in the DLC, and in order to beat this boss. He went from a heavy to a more light character, and that's night and day in this game. A pure strength build like Vinny's is one of the least effective against this boss, but he still beat him by adapting. And that's what the game is about!

I love Dark Souls, and I love the Dark Souls community. But for some reason people fucking flip out if someone doesn't play "the right way", and maybe aren't as good as they are at playing the game (those people have often put 100+ hours into the game, like me). And I'm not a fan of that attitude at all.

@ravelle: Thanks I seen a good number of references so far, but some of the ones in that link (specifically the Demon's Souls ones or I think those were from Demon's Souls) I didn't know about since I have never played Demon's Souls.

Hell I've been mostly using Guts pre - Black swordsmen sword, and I fought Sif at the Dark Souls version of the Hill of Swords.

The one thing I REALLY HATE about Dark Souls though is how most of the enemies have hit-scan melee attacks. It pisses me off every time I watch a guy swivel around right as his weapon comes down thus hitting me even though I was behind him the whole time. Other than that I'm kinda really enjoying the game.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that from what I've read up on Miyazaki has stated that he is a fan and was inspired by it. Still I never would have guessed that those roots were that deep.

That was just the best. To see Vinny make so many mistakes but then recognise and fix them for that final fight.

The absolute silence as he gets closer and closer was glorious, you can imagine everyone just completely motionless until the final blow.

I can't wait for Manus now

Man, that last fight was INTENSE.

Just goes to show that when Vinny focuses, he's unstoppable :D

Dark Souls is such a perfect balance of Math game and OH GOD I NEED TO LEARN TO PLAY game, and I feel like this part of LOLS kinda proved it. The amount of discussion both on stream and in the chat about what gear and weapons to use was amazing, and 90% of the suggestions were totally correct. Vinny could have used dozens of different sets of gear and weapons and rings, even just with his current STR heavy build, and they would all have worked. As long as he learns the action part of the game.

Some parts of DS you can beat with just the math part, some parts with just the action game skills, with Artorias you need both. Hell of a fight.

THAT ENDING

That was rad! Awesome fight (s).

This is the reason I subscribed!

As a PC player I'm so jealous that I don't have the Engrish of the PS3 version. This just isn't experiencing the game the way it was intended.

I should have brought a pencil. #mathgames.

Yeah those were from Demon's Souls but Dark Souls had a bunch as well, I've seen an forum post cross-referencing Dark Souls and the Berserk manga but since it's the internet it's really hard to find that specific article again.

GO VINNY!

I'm really impressed by Vinny. Great job, man.

This is the moment where he turns into a Sith right?

You showed that fucker, Vinny! YEAHHH

Man, that ending...

When Vinny started calling the boss a "fucking asshole" I think Artorias kinda knew it was on. #teamvinny all the way!

as a dex guy, artorias was an endurance battle, but I was always safe as I could do a few attacks without expending much stamina, though it took more hits to kill him or stagger him. and a high stability shield makes this fight a lot easier.

I think they just need to stop constantly discussing strategy and just say fuck it and go for it. Even during what was literally his first encounter with him Vinny had Artorias down pretty well he just got a lil sloppy with his play and paid the price for it. I genuinely think he could've gotten him with two or three more tries if he had just focused on actually executing the moves he needs to. Which I get is a hard thing to do in this format.

Not really. I know what you're saying, and I agree it's meaningless pedantry, but Brad finished his Modern Warfare run with music crescendoing on his literal final try, and I think it was clear Vinny was beat and said that it was his literal final run, and time was running out anyway.

It's intentional.

That last swing was fucking beautiful.

CONGRATURATION VINNY DEFEATED

I have just one question: can he defeated?

ah i get it now...duh lol

That was the best ending that could happen. Love this feature!

That was a rough episode but Vinny stayed strong and determined and pulled it off nicely in the end. Looking forward to the next episode.

VINTAGE CARAVELLA!

Great going Vinny the viking! Really enjoyed that last run.

Just a side note, is the video player broke for anyone else? Even though my connection is fast enough I can just manage the lowest quality for the most part. Also after the video is finished it repeats automatically but with just a grey box where the video should be :/

Really love the way Vinny changed his playstyle to pretty much the complete opposite of before.

Artorias is a fun boss, and I think definitely the most difficult in this DLC.

@ravelle said:

@gtcknight said:

So I haven't watched this yet, but I just want to say that Artorias is my fav Boss in Dark Souls right now. I'm new to the game (this series reignited my desire to find out why everyone loves it so much). I like the game a lot more now than I did before.

Back to the boss. I like him because he doesn't rely on overpowered AoEs in order to win. I've only beaten him once and even I ended up having to call in two other players to help me. Which was both nice and irritating due to him being the only boss that forced me to call in help from the player base. The reason being that I have a kind of tankish style (I like to be able take or block a hit and then follow up with strike/strikes of my own), and of course lost every time due my inability to quickly roll away from him. On the bright side the I called in were pretty cool we just stood around introducing ourselves via emotes then worked together to beat Artorias.

Also as a Berserk fan I REALLY like how Artorias looked, moved, and behaved like Berserker Armor guts.

Love it.

Dark souls has a lot of Berserk in it, here's some more references. http://soulswiki.forumsrpg.com/t10856-berserk-references. Hidetaka Miyazaki is probably a Berserk fan like you.

There's more to be found like weapon designs etc but could not find it so easily.

This pretty much blew my mind. Berserk's great.

Nice to see him face off with Artorias. One of my favourite bosses in the entire game, even though he took me so many tries on my first time through. And the second time he still managed to be a challenge.

I think there's a mod for that.

I was surprised Vinny took so long. He nearly had him in the first couple of tries, but then he suddenly kept making mistakes. One of his biggest he even recognized but kept doing anyway (rolling backwards).

I enjoyed watching it all though. It was fun.

vinny's passionate battle cry at 1:43:10 is amazing

That was amazing. 'smokes cigarette'

The 'I need a whopper' killed me

The Artorias Experience

The Artorias Experience

The animation on Artorias as he swings down from his jump attacks is just so damned badass.

I am at the exact same point as Vinny although I have finished the main game before but never played the DLC. I started the video and played along with him and managed to beat him in just under an hour. If you watch him keenly and are quick enough you can beat him. Absolutely amazing boss fight, my fav in the whole game (so far). Pretty much a perfect example of what makes this game so special for me.

Tense. GJ Vinnie. Cool under fire.

This is the best thing

Congrats Vinny! I'm sure everyone will love the finale of this place if they liked this!

Get that man the biggest Whopper you can find.

This was the Dark Souls of Dark Souls streams. :P

Love it when he starts blaming the controls.

This is subscription material.

Holy shit I'm so glad Vinny is using lighter armor and Power Within. That's how I played and it's way more exciting than trying to be a tank. Those dodges, man. Shit gets intense. The last boss fight... oh my god. It's enough to make a man's asshole pucker.

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

I still don't really get Vinny's boss mindset.

With Nito and what's-his-face the scaleless dragon, he didn't seem to have the patience to learn any of the boss's attack pre-animations so he'd know what was coming, or how to avoid/deal with various AoE effects. He seemed to just commit to "wear Havel's, use Iron Flesh, hope my DPS is higher than his". It's weird that he was so committed to that playstyle even though when we first loaded Vinny's last souls, he was wearing whatever that robe-like light armour is (so clearly the "switch to Havel's, tank everything" was something of a new mindset for him, though he'd used Iron Flesh before). He damage raced Nito, he tried to damage race the dragon and failed and then used a summon sign (and I seriously wonder if he ever would've done it on his own without Ian or Rorie telling him what to do), and to his credit he did actually kinda learn how the giant tree guy's different attacks work.

Then in the DLC he suddenly doesn't want to just see if he can cheese every boss with Havel's and Iron Flesh, and he has been legitimately trying to learn the attacks patterns and how to dodge boss attacks and stuff. It's just a really sudden reversal of approach. I appreciate it, but it's so weird that he decided to change everything up halfway through. I almost wonder if he's looking at it like a showman and he realized it was getting a little boring to keep seeing the same strategy in play.

Also, I wish Vinny had changed armour but not weapons. He doesn't seem to like how the attack animations work on the MSGS, and it still seems like he's always expecting the range of the Black Knight Halberd. The Man Serpent Greatsword technically does a bit more damage, but it's in the same ballpark, and the sheer number of times he constantly misses with the MSGS has probably undone its slight advantage in damage.

@bisonhero: I don't think Vinny has any idea how the Black Knight Halberd works either. He was just button smashing, pretty sure he was still performing Forward Attack with it as well. I just wish the guys actually suggested a 1 hand weapon when Vinny wanted to try something that swing faster.