Probably because katanas were OP in DS2, especially the Chaos Blade...
Western Gamers: We want a Chaos Blade nerf, it's too powerful...
From Software: Oh, you want nippon steel buff? OK!
Western Gamers: We said nerf, not buff! *grumble at inevitable Japanese favouritism for katanas*
I'm loving the Uchi, got that thing at +4 and sharp and it's doing me fine in the early game. The swing speed also feels much faster than in DS2, where it was slow as hell. Looking forward to Onikiri and Ubadachi in Grand Archives, gonna need to aim for a Quality (Refined?) build for that point.
I think I know another reason it feels so nerfed. The Dark Sword.
I had heard so much about it and since I was playing a refined build I just had to get it to +10.
The Dark Sword has a couple good attacks, the best being one handed r1's. It out damages my Chaos Blade and Refined Greatlance and swings much faster. It's good in both PvE and PvP. The Dark Sword a monster.
Damn, I'm really looking forward to all these late game bosses!
Sounds like Pontiff, Nameless King, Dragonslayer Armour, and various others can be quite the challenge... But I'm way too busy doing my low level PVP! Thinking of maxing out Watchdogs and the police while I can, since people say they struggle with these at higher levels. May even try to pick up my remaining vertebra shackles and pale tongues just to say I've done it, and strike while the noobs are still fresh!
I'm such a dirty invader...
I was thinking it was feeling a bit linear, it just seems to be following one straight path with maybe one or two offshoot areas... Though DS2 was also a tad linear, it was always just kill each Lord Soul and that had you going down the same four paths... Ultimately it was only DS1 that really had the non-linearity.
Beat Pontiff second try. Damn, what a good fight! He's so like Fume Knight, it's awesome.
Died the first time after only getting him down by like 25%, then he kicked my ass in some crazy combo. Was sort of expecting an "I am not left handed" move, but was not expecting him to split on that second form! That was a wicked idea, nice that his shade has its own health bar. They synergise so well too! They play a bit more defensive and the shade will copy Pontiff and guard his back.
Irithyll seemed like a massive difficulty spike too, I found basically every boss and area before it to be rather easy. Hopefully this keeps up.
That's harsh man... I luckily knew how to prevent his death, had Siegbro hanging out in the kitchen above, Greirat comes back saying how he was saved by the Onion.
Also, Patches can save him too if he has the Onion set still on him - another cool little thing, though I believe Siegward's questline fails if you leave him in the well that long.
Now if I could get Greirat to survive Lothric Castle... Then that would be awesome. Nobody's found a way to do that, as far as I know, though there is some speculation (I just don't have the time to test, which sucks).