On the RKG Discord, someone wrote the words that are guaranteed to enflame me (even as a Pyro!): DS 2 doesn’t have an easy mode. It was said presumably to me and another person discussing the fact that you cannot start as a Pyro in DS II. I can tell you my immediate impulse was to cuss out the guy because it’s so fucking tedious to have guys (and it’s usually guys) whining about easy mode in FromSoft games, but I bit my lip hard and just wrote that being a Pyro in the original Dark Souls was not easy mode.
I have written countless words about this, but it continues to linger as a mindset in the community. And it sucks. It’s so not welcoming and it’s gatekeeping at its worst.
He wrote back to say that using pyro melts all bosses except Seath (which is funny because he is susceptible to fire), especially if you use PW (Power Within, a pyro that increases your damage output as it steadily depletes your health).
I said that you could say the same about any playstyle you maximized, which most people don’t do on their first playthrough. I pointed out that a Zwei+15 did the same, which I can say with authority because I’ve done that playthrough, too. He said that was fair, and I left it at that.
I’m still ticked, though. It’s such a stupid knee-jerk thing to say, and it makes the community so much less welcoming. There is already the belief that you have to beat the bosses solo in order to be a ‘real’ Fromsoft fan or you’re cheating. Cheating whom, I can’t tell you as it doesn’t affect me in the least when someone else plays the game differently.
There is cheesing in the game, such as using poison arrows to kill Gwyndolin without him ever disappearing for one. It takes forever, but it does get the job done. I don’t have a problem with it, though, because who cares? During my plat run, I had fun cheesing various bosses because I got bored doing it the conventional way. I tried the bomb cheese for the Bed of Chaos, but was only able to get one orb that way. I used the arrow cheese on the other orb, and then got the Bed herself in the old-fashioned way.