>>FYI - Threaded Cane is basically "hard mode" compared to
>the
>>other starting weapons.
>
>really? it seems like a very good weapon. i started as a
>...professional? the class with high skill and endurance.
>(i'm going for a "dex" build). damage seemed to be fine but i
>suppose i didn't have anything to compare it with. i just got
>the saw spear and it doesn't seem much better than the
>threaded cane
>

Well, it's more that the Cane is explicitly a "finesse" weapon that demands a lot of spatial awareness in terms of how you string together attacks. And in the early game the Saw-weapons make things a bit easier because they all do bonus damage to beast-type enemies (which most early bosses are).

>>Also, the various guns have different parry windows and some
>>can counter what others can't, so it definitely helps to
>check
>>out the various options to see if you have a better feel for
>>some.
>
>i'll keep that in mind when i get the option for using
>different guns. placing a theoretical limit on the number of
>parries you can have in any given run is... idk how i feel
>about it just yet. i like it from a strategic perspective but
>it's also kind of BS

I'm not sure what you mean by "placing a limit on the number of parries", but I guess I look at it as not being much different from how weapons in Souls games have various poise-break values. And I think DS2 experimented (for better or worse) a lot with how various things could parry (like Parrying Dagger vs. Target Shield vs. Monastery Scimitar were all really different).