Believe it or not Fault did eventually manage to Luck Knight her way through the final boss and I finally got to see what the normal ending of Dark Souls 3 was like (minimalistic but nonetheless touching and nostalgic).
But before we close this project up I just wanted to share a few last thoughts.
Thoughts On The Game
I came into Dark Souls 3 with a lot of baggage from having played both the previous Dark Souls games as well as Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne. This made it very hard to enjoy the game on it’s own merits.
In fact, as I played the game for the first time I found myself feeling disappointed. The plot didn’t quite live up to my expectations and the mechanical changes made to spellcasting meant none of the builds I had planned out in my head worked quite like I expected them to.
Sure, I still beat the game but I wasn’t happy about it. Which was a real tragedy because the game really did have a lot to offer and a lot of things I should have loved.
This is what gave birth to the Luck Knight build. Making a purposefully silly build took my mind off the non-viable builds I had wanted to try and let me enjoy the game for its challenge. Plus knowing ahead of time what to expect from the plot meant I was able to enjoy it for the solid sequel it was instead of being critical of its failure to be as original as, well, the original.
At which point everything clicked and I had fun again.
So final analysis: It’s a fun sequel with challenging and interesting gameplay. The plot was disappointingly straightforward for a FromSoftware adventure game but given this was the second sequel to what was originally meant to be a standalone game I think they really did the best they could.
Thoughts On The Gimmick
Playing with a Luck Knight build focused entirely around the almost useless Luck stat definitely made the game harder than it needed to be, but not nearly as hard as I had worried it would. Admittedly the first two and last two bosses were extremely frustrating but most of the rest of the run was merely pleasantly difficult. I got to see the full move set of every boss (I think) and had to come up with actual strategies for how to dodge and fight. No super tanking or overwhelming bosses so badly they barely had a chance to fight back.
Overall the biggest challenge was the artificially low strength and dexterity I was stuck with due to my silly “no higher than one third of luck” rule. This really crippled Fault’s damage output and severely limited her choice of weapons and shields. She didn’t get a 100% shield until very near the end of the game and she didn’t qualify for any good crowd control weapons until she was far enough in the game she didn’t need them anymore.
Fortunately the existence of luck scaling hollow weapons meant Fault wasn’t completely helpless. But even then I think I was using them wrong. From what I could see Hollow weapons don’t become pure luck scaling weapons, instead they keep their old scaling and then add a small amount of luck on top. So a build with say, 30 dex and 30 luck would probably get a lot more mileage out of a hollow rapier than my 16 dex 50 luck build.
If I were to try and do a serious luck build with no restrictions I probably would have raised my dex to 16 as soon as possible in order to get access to the Uchigatana you can loot from the crazed swordsman outside the main shrine. It’s a decent weapon with bleed damage (which scales with Luck!). I would then raise my strength high enough to use a 100% shield and from there on out I’d raise Dex and Luck evenly. The high dex would boost my damage while the high luck would boost my drops and eventually add even more damage once I got access to hollow imbuing.
I would also probably stay hollow for the extra luck bonus on hollow weapons and maybe even give the Anri questline a go in order to get access to his super luck sword.
But like I said, being a Luck Knight wasn’t about trying to make a good lucky character. It was about playing the game on my own mildly disgruntled terms and winning anyways. Which I did.
So do I regret this run? Not at all.
Would I suggest it to anyone else? Not really.
Are people on the Internet going to try it anyways? Probably.
Thoughts On My Art
After comparing my first few entries to my last few entries I think it’s safe to say I’ve gotten better at drawing. But I think it’s also safe to say that better is not the same as good.
This isn’t particularly surprising. Two months of daily practice doesn’t even add up to a full 100 hours of work.
Still, I did figure out the basics of how my tablet and drawing software work and managed to develop at least a little hand eye coordination. I still have a long way to go but they say every journey begins with a single step and I just took 36 of them.
I guess the next step then is to move beyond casual doodling and start trying to develop some sort of actual consistent cartoon style. Maybe practice a little figure drawing.
Either way Dark Souls 3 is over, so we’re going to need a new source of inspirations. And while it will probably be a week or two before I start posting the next series I guess you do all at least deserve a hint.
Let’s just say that there was a point where the Elder Scrolls were merely middle aged.