Adaptability | Dark Souls 2 Wiki

AGL is bad, not ADP

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Some mechanics are optional, blocking for instance is not strictly required —it's just a low risk low reward alternative to dodging.Dodging however, is not an optional mechanic —as many attacks can't be blocked and couldn't otherwise be avoided (certain boss attacks especially). While gating an optional mechanic behind stats is fine —stronger shields require more strength, gating an essential mechanic behind stats is legitimately brain damaged design. If you want to beat the game you will have to invest in agility and thus adp, so if what they wanted was a sense of character progression why not just tie agility to player level instead of a stat that the player has to go out of their way to spec into?

Since respecs are possible I can at least salvage my character, but if it wasn't for the wikis I and many players probably wouldn't have realized why exactly their dodges suck.

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I know this stat is...controversial. As a melee player (probably with more of a strength focus), how high should I take it? I've beaten DS 1, 3 and ER for reference.

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the easy mode slider

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this stat sucks but you dont really need it anyways

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problem cant roll correctly and never done a no hit run

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NEVER EVER level this sh|te!!!

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Finished the game and the dlcs so many times without knowing about this stat lol and ages later some guy on youtube was crying about playing on 3 adaptabliity and I was confused.

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The MAIN problem with ADP is that the animation for rolling doesn't actually change when you increase ADP, so if your character actually LOOKED like he was rolling like a retard with low ADP, then nobody would have a problem with ADP. The way it appears to work is that... your rolls simply don't work with low ADP, and that's why everybody hates it, and why everybody who hates that it's this way is absolutely justified in hating it for being this way.

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Gotta love the B team.

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i really wasted $9.99 during the psn sale for this game

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Back in my day we didn't have ADP when we rolled our dad's belt still did a ton of damage but look at the millenials in this comment section complaining.

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Truly one of the stats of all time

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The best stat in the game.

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Adp is a logical stat that reflects your character's experience throughout the game, but nobody likes it.

But in ds3, your character is a perfect fighter from the start after spending literal centuries dead in a coffin, wich makes no damn sense specially for sorcerers or deprived. But everyone is ok with that.

Conclusion: logic only matters out of convenience for these ppl. Whenever you read "this doesn't make sense" or "that shouldn't happen" in this wiki, it's only because they don't like things that actually work just because they don't work in the way those players want it to.

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NG+10, still have 3 ADP, no shield. it’s not that bad.

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This is one of the most stupid decisions they ever made in a game

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I could sum up this comment section with "muh rolls". Jeez, crystal generation much.

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Truly the dark souls of stats

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Uh, something about how I am better than you.

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I can't believe after almost 10 years I didn't know you could ****ing raise this stat to dodge better. I always thought this game was just stupid hard to dodge ****

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The information regarding how much each level of adaptability gives in agility is completely wrong. Adaptability 10-20 doesn't give anywhere near that much.

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OP plz nerf

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Unpopular Opinion:
Introduction of a stat to raise i-frames makes perfect sense. You have a choice of different defensive strategies: blocking, parring, dodging, face-tanking and just physically avoid attacks.
Invest in strength/vitality to block. Requires little player skills overall, but better shields come with high stat investments. Very easy to counter PvP, if you manage blocking badly.
Invest a bit in dex for parrying to avoid damage completely (and counter), but not all attacks. Requires high player skills.
Invest in adaptability to dodge and chug estus. Requires player skills according to you stat investment.
Invest in vitality to face tank and trade hits. Very risky and required player skill is very situational.
Invest in git gud to just walk around hitboxes. Very risky and high player skill required.

If you now just get the best i-frames out of the box, you absolutely enforce dodge-meta instead of building your character around different strategies you want to use. The introduction is lackluster, though. Agility should not be raised by ADP exclusively. Great candidates would be dexterity and attunement. It makes perfect sense that spellcasters and assassins rely more on dodging than on shields.

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Reading more than half of the posts here from both sides, does anyone realize that you can criticize aspects of something while still liking it as a whole and being competent in it? Seriously, disagree with each other all you want, but don't turn this into twitter, for the love of ****.

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Praise the Sun for all those who picked the Explorer and were worried they were going to regret it

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Bruh. Already over halfway through the game. Guess I know what to level next.

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Either your dodges are frame-perfect ones or you gotta level this up. I strongly recommend to upgrade this whether you like it or not, cuz the game will demolish you otherwise

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I completed the entire game without upgrading this(dlc's included)
Holy fck i didn't know it boosted i-frames

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This Stat is both bad and the Idea behind it interesting.

If they wanted to stick with it, a better way and how it would've made more sense for this is baking it in dexterity instead (strength/tanky Builds relying on armor, heavy shields and big weapons, whereas the faster, quicker thief/bandit/Samurai could evade better, relying more rolls instead of protection. Casters got their range advantage), yet on the other side having the frames normally so low just made the experience unnecessary annoying, when you compare to the other Soulsbornes where your rolls easily saved you in that situation.

Overall these kind of stats are very unnecessary in the Game, be it Resistance or Adaptility. Your points should focus into the things you want your Character to do better instead of making the Game the "normal" Souls experience.

They should have ditched this with SotF or at best made it like above.

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I don't need this stat to beat the game, I just hate being slow as f

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I don't need this stat to beat the game, I just hate being slow as f

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Instead of complaining that you need this for i-frames, you should be thankful it even exists. I-frames are stupid and should not exist. Dodging should be for avoiding a hit, not teleporting through it like a ****ing ghost.

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It has to be the most contrived stat in the game.

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Oh, cool, I just need to blow 17 levels to dodge like DS3 characters can for free.

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I just finished ds2 and i didn't knows Jack shet about ADP...
Thank you dark souls

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It sucks that adaptability exists but if you get it to at least 16 then the game is pretty smooth sailing from there

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First time player:
"Why do I have to put points into a stat so I can play the game"

Average DS2 player:
"Eye frames aren't bad, you're just bad 'copium' "

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Don't forget that Attunement also raises AGL to a lesser extent. So they were aiming for: Melee focused build? Level up ADP: Increases i-frames, item consumption speed, poise, poison bonus and different resistances that are key for close combat; Caster build? Level up ATN: Increases i-frames and item consumption speed but not as much as ADP, spell slots, spell casts and casting speed.

Sounds good on paper in terms of build differentiation (casters can attack from a distance so this compensates the less amount of i-frames and item consumption speed). To me, it makes sense that a melee trained warrior is better at dodging than a mage but in the end, it fell short on execution. It also doesn't help that you gain a lot of levels in DS2, so it is easy to overlevel.

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Guys there’s plenty of stuff to like about Dark Souls 2, I promise you the game is still great even if you don’t trick yourself into thinking you like this stat

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Agility may have it's softcap at 110, but get it to 111 to get max results. Everything past 111 cost too much and isn't worth. Make sure to check the agility page for the table.

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Everyone here is complaining about hitboxes. I mean, I've seen other being grabbed by Aava from a 2 meter distance and it looked awful, but I never encountered problems as much as the other players claim to have. I play Sotfs though, so maybe all the complaints come from the original DSII.

I mean, the timing on e.g. Dragonrider is incredibly strict, but that's not a hitbox problem. And I'd take that 10 times over DSIII Abyss Watchers second phase where there's a second fire hitbox after every hit. Don't get me wrong, I love Abyss Watchers, but the late fire hitboxes aren't exactly fun.

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DS2 fanboys trying to justify bad hitboxes:

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Imagine crying about Dark Souls being hard.

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In all honesty, ADP has got to be the worst decision made in creating Dark Souls 2. No stat should ever be required in every single build, that takes away the build crafting of RPGs. Some people could argue that health and stamina is required, but they aren’t. If you can dodge through attacks you don’t need a lot health and if you don’t spam attacks and roll only when needed you don’t need a lot of stamina. ADP governs so much that it makes it a necessary stat for virtually any logical build in both PvP and PvE.

You could say that the immense amount of souls you get off sets the required ADP levels, but at that point, why even have ADP to begin with?

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Same like the other fellas, I did not know that this was necessary to improve the iframes and the roll, I finished the game with what they give you to start with. But its great vs the Fume Knight.

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This feels like such an unnecessary stat point but people want to mask this as something that makes DS2 a “deeper RPG”. Estus drinking speed should be a universal mechanic and iFrames should be tied to your equip load. This and the running delay after depleting stamina are my only peeves of this game so far.

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I've beaten the game several times without even leveling up this stat. If you have to rely so much on this stat to survive you should play Dark Souls 3. Otherwise, actually get good.

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sanity saver in ds 2, yet some hitboxes are so stupid you still get damage (but at least not full)

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i didnt even read all the comments but all i see is i-frames this and i-frames that.... i guess u guys dont heal, right? I just picked up this game, started a mage, built 20 intelligence, 3 spell slots (found a great soul arrow somewhere) and 1100 hp, SL 37, ADAPTABILITY 4!!! old dragonslayer takes some hits, starts pounding me, when i try to heal i die, it takes 3 seconds to drink the flask, he gets to me in 2, or even 3 (the heal is gradative so i get killed anyway).... bosses on lost bastille are doing exatly the same .... gonna try the grave of saints boss right now but i think the result will be the same.
After many tries on those 2 i finally remembered there was a stat called adaptability, described as agility by the in game interface (with no further explanation) and i had to check the wiki cause it isnt possible that the game wont let me heal on the bosses cause the heal is too slow.... ok ill build it up....
.... but next complain is about no spells (or staves) coming up to scale with the enemies power.... mages suck so hard at the start

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All the people complaining about adaptability being tied to iframes are the ones that went into the game dumping everything into strength and expecting to just roll through attacks like they would in Ds1.
Instead of complaining, learn from your mistakes... I.e.. adapt.

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If you want to roll with the same iframes as ds1, level this up to 30. If you don't want to level this extremely important stat, use a shield.

Btw of all stats in dark souls 1, 2 and 3, i think this one has the most sense to upgrade as you progress. Starting classes like warrior, mercenary, assasin, etc. Habe solid reasons to be experienced in combat, but outside of that it doesn't make sense that your starting character can dodge enemies perfectly from the get-go, without experience against monsters or giant enemies. Adaptability and it's effects when leveled up shows that your character's experience in battle also matters, not only the player with the controller's experience.

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**** you who ever thought it was a good idea to add assadaptability

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this and soul memory are the biggest cons of dark souls 2

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They could at least have told me that I needed to level a stat to get i-frames! I played the game blind so I had no idea why roll timing was so precise

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The way I see it, Adaptability essentially replaced Resistance, which was a near-useless dump stat in DS1. Having I-frames linked to stats is an interesting idea...one that I don't necessarily hate. Still, I wish low Adaptability characters would at least have a decent roll so this wouldn't be a "must have" stat.

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This would've been a very cool idea, if it was blended with say VIT or END.

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See this stat is like a microcosm of DS2. It is a really cool idea to have a stat that governs stuff that doesn’t directly relate to taking/dealing damage but instead to critically important stuff like frame data and animations, so even those things don’t have to be at the whim of the developers and can be player controlled: it’s another place where you can make stat investment if you care about it, or save those points for something else. It goes with the whole part of DS where you’re sort of designing a beat em up/fighting game character, and instead of just health, stamina, and damage, you can decide some of their frames too. It’s just... not that fun or satisfying to level from a certain perspective, and basically required for PVP. This whole game has such a mix of cool ideas and execution with just weirdness and unsatisfying stuff.

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holy***** I didn't know this is a thing

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Oh, I had no idea ADP increased I-frames. I've just been doing all my dodging with 5 ADP and somehow surviving. This would probably make farming the rotten a lot easier though.

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What is the recommended amount of Adaptability to get the most out of it?

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My first play through I never even leveled this stat and I did just fine haha

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This stat is so stupid, I shouldn't need to be forced to level a stat because it's completely necessary to my success.

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Thank goodness for this info, I’ve been doing a rapier dex build and I didn’t know what this stat did and raged about how broken rolling was was confused why I seemed to perfectly dodge and still get hit and now I understand why I was, only having 5 ADP.

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Those iframes are helping a lot, definitely not the most useless stat.

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Most useless stat in this game.

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Does this decrease bow draw time?

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