Dark Souls Catch-All

Okay, made my way back out of Blighttown, missed a TON of loot, but my Drake sword was at <40 durability, and it was still the best weapon I had (40 dmg ftw!) I might try upgrading my longsword quite a bit, that seems to scale well with STR and with +15 it starts base damage the same as the Drake sword.

So I am at Andrei's is it worth it to kill the Titanite demon then try and get some of the stuff from Darkroot? How high level should I be to have a decent chance of getting down there and back without dying? I really like the look of the Elite Knight Armor, I think it looks cool and seems to have good stats, would it be worth doing a probable deathrun through that area to pick that up and anything else that gets in the way?

I'm going to reroll tonight after I finish up some work in the next 15 minutes. I think I was a pyromancer the first time.

EDIT: @DSGamer I also think Monster Hunter is a fair comparison although Monster Hunter is more straightforward. Dragon's Dogma looked kind of similar, I haven't tried that yet though.

I'm going to assume all the talk coming out of Namco/FROM is just them trolling, like they did with the pendant.

Honestly I remain excited and optimistic. But if they f*ck up my favorite game experience ever I will poop on their heads. Yes I am taking a very mature and thoughtful stance on this.

Kamakazi - Imho Darkroot Garden is way easier than Blighttown. I did it first, anyway.

imbiginjapan wrote:

I'm going to assume all the talk coming out of Namco/FROM is just them trolling, like they did with the pendant.

I like this line of thinking!

Blind_Evil wrote:

And yo, Dark Souls co-op is still for nancies.

Yo, if you haven't done a no-leveling run like Gimpy has, you don't qualify to talk smack in this thread.

Well I made the mistake of attacking the guy at the first bonfire after the giant crow grabbed me. He wouldn't stop attacking me. Re-rolling tomorrow.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

Well I made the mistake of attacking the guy at the first bonfire after the giant crow grabbed me. He wouldn't stop attacking me. Re-rolling tomorrow.

Don't attack people who don't attack you, in general.

Also, roll into barrels, don't attack them.

That said, you can eventually reset that guy's aggro, if you just move on in the preferred direction.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Monster Hunter.

And yo, Dark Souls co-op is still for nancies.

I don't necessarily agree with you, but every time you drop a statement to that effect I giggle; I've done both NG and NG+ solo without ever summoning a player. The only boss I didn't solo (used Solaire) was O & S.

I'm considering starting a co-op specific build, though.

Jolly cooperation is the bomb, and a huge part of the Dark Souls experience, imho.

That said, I soloed the vast majority of the bosses.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Jolly cooperation is the bomb, and a huge part of the Dark Souls experience, imho.

That said, I soloed the vast majority of the bosses.

Yea, it's one thing to help others who can't cut the mustard, but I prefer to go in alone when it's my turn. :p

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Jolly cooperation

Nothing about Dark Souls fun is supposed to be jolly. Dark Souls fun is cold and calculating. It doesn't call your sister back after the night she had too many martinis.

If Blind_Evil ever does some sort of charity where we get to pick a game for him to play it should be Dark Souls but he has to co-op the entire game. It would drive him mad.

For those having trouble with Capra, I would be happy to help you out with the fight on PS3 or PC. Both Steam and PSN names are Gimpy_Butzke.

If you want to go it alone I suggest going towards Capra until he starts an attack. When he starts his attack back up to where Capra's attack will miss. The first dog will likely attack you at this point, so if you can dispatch it quick then go or it. If not run up the stairs after Capra misses his attack and get onto the small ledge. Against the dogs your sword will likely bounce off the wall while you're on the ledge, but you should still kill them quickly. When the dogs are dead you can stay on the ledge and Capra should do his jumping two handed overhead attack and land below you. When he is below you drop down and attack and then run back up the stairs. You can repeat this until he is dead, but I would just kill the dogs and then fight it on the low ground. You can back up against all his attacks and he will be left open for an attack or two after each one.

I'm trying to remember how many times I got help in my low lvl run. I think I had someone around for O&S but I also could have just gone in with Solaire. I know that someone tried to help me with 4 Kings but in the end I think I did it solo. I did all the DLC solo, except for the special summon at Manus.

Spoiler on the special Manus summon.

Spoiler:

If you rescue small Sif in the area before reaching Manus you can summon Sif to help you in the fight against Manus.

If you want to drive him mad, make him play The Witcher 2 while listening to podcasts hyping it up.

Just reached Blighttown and now the game is practically unplayable. I'm on Xbox and the framerate has dropped to an abysmally awful state. Has anyone else had this issue, should I just suck it up and get through it? I might just stop playing and wait for a Steam sale :/

mr_n00b wrote:

Just reached Blighttown and now the game is practically unplayable. I'm on Xbox and the framerate has dropped to an abysmally awful state. Has anyone else had this issue, should I just suck it up and get through it? I might just stop playing and wait for a Steam sale :/

Unfortunately standard. It's worth sucking it up and getting through though.

SixteenBlue wrote:
mr_n00b wrote:

Just reached Blighttown and now the game is practically unplayable. I'm on Xbox and the framerate has dropped to an abysmally awful state. Has anyone else had this issue, should I just suck it up and get through it? I might just stop playing and wait for a Steam sale :/

Unfortunately standard. It's worth sucking it up and getting through though.

This.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Jolly cooperation

Nothing about Dark Souls fun is supposed to be jolly. Dark Souls fun is cold and calculating. It doesn't call your sister back after the night she had too many martinis.

Solaire >>>>>>>> u

Fedaykin98 wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:
mr_n00b wrote:

Just reached Blighttown and now the game is practically unplayable. I'm on Xbox and the framerate has dropped to an abysmally awful state. Has anyone else had this issue, should I just suck it up and get through it? I might just stop playing and wait for a Steam sale :/

Unfortunately standard. It's worth sucking it up and getting through though.

This.

You know, I never had much issues on my 360 with the framerate there, or anywhere for that matter. Small hiccups here and there, yes, but nothing terrible that would detract from the experience as such.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:

Okay, made my way back out of Blighttown, missed a TON of loot, but my Drake sword was at <40 durability, and it was still the best weapon I had (40 dmg ftw!) I might try upgrading my longsword quite a bit, that seems to scale well with STR and with +15 it starts base damage the same as the Drake sword.

So I am at Andrei's is it worth it to kill the Titanite demon then try and get some of the stuff from Darkroot? How high level should I be to have a decent chance of getting down there and back without dying? I really like the look of the Elite Knight Armor, I think it looks cool and seems to have good stats, would it be worth doing a probable deathrun through that area to pick that up and anything else that gets in the way?

The Tantanite Demons drop Demon Tantanite (they do not respawn), which you use to upgrade Boss weapons, which you will not be able to craft till you get inside Anor Londo (Giant Blacksmith). It is good to stock up and save them. Save your Boss souls too. But, you can run past that Tantanite Demon in the Parish if you want and get into the Darkroot Garden/Basin.

The Elite Knight armor is very good. There will be better heavy armor available later on, but it is the best you can do right now, unless you can get to the Stone Set (near Alvina), but it requires a lot of Stamina to stay below a 50% equipment burden. There are cheap and easy ways to get both from the bonfire in the Darkroot Garden, if you want to know. The Wolf Ring is an easy get with a homeward bone too.

Light armor becomes an issue when you take on Sen's. It is easier for tank builds since there is no room to strafe and dodge. Heavy armor, a stable shield, and high Poise (e.g. Wolf Ring + Elite Knight Set) are very helpful. Tanks work well for the Anor Londo interior and later areas as well, unless you can parry, riposte, backstab, and dodge like a badass ninja.

The trick with heavy armor is to try and stay below a 50% equipment burden so your movement speed is not gimped. Havel's Ring (Upper Undead Burg) and the Ring of Favor and Protection (Knight Lautrec) can be very helpful. Also, the Grass Crest Sheild (Darkroot Basin) will help reduce the Stamina regeneration penalty you have while wearing heavy armor.

SixteenBlue wrote:

If you want to drive him mad, make him play The Witcher 2 while listening to podcasts hyping it up.

In light of the realization that I have made too many pet peeves public, I am retiring from the public view, Jesse Jackson style.

heavyfeul wrote:
Kamakazi010654 wrote:

Okay, made my way back out of Blighttown, missed a TON of loot, but my Drake sword was at <40 durability, and it was still the best weapon I had (40 dmg ftw!) I might try upgrading my longsword quite a bit, that seems to scale well with STR and with +15 it starts base damage the same as the Drake sword.

So I am at Andrei's is it worth it to kill the Titanite demon then try and get some of the stuff from Darkroot? How high level should I be to have a decent chance of getting down there and back without dying? I really like the look of the Elite Knight Armor, I think it looks cool and seems to have good stats, would it be worth doing a probable deathrun through that area to pick that up and anything else that gets in the way?

The Tantanite Demons drop Demon Tantanite (they do not respawn), which you use to upgrade Boss weapons, which you will not be able to craft till you get inside Anor Londo (Giant Blacksmith). It is good to stock up and save them. Save your Boss souls too. But, you can run past that Tantanite Demon in the Parish if you want and get into the Darkroot Garden/Basin.

The Elite Knight armor is very good. There will be better heavy armor available later on, but it is the best you can do right now, unless you can get to the Stone Set (near Alvina), but it requires a lot of Stamina to stay below a 50% equipment burden. There are cheap and easy ways to get both from the bonfire in the Darkroot Garden, if you want to know. The Wolf Ring is an easy get with a homeward bone too.

Light armor becomes an issue when you take on Sen's. It is easier for tank builds since there is no room to strafe and dodge. Heavy armor, a stable shield, and high Poise (e.g. Wolf Ring + Elite Knight Set) are very helpful. Tanks work well for the Anor Londo interior and later areas as well, unless you can parry, riposte, backstab, and dodge like a badass ninja.

The trick with heavy armor is to try and stay below a 50% equipment burden so your movement speed is not gimped. Havel's Ring (Upper Undead Burg) and the Ring of Favor and Protection (Knight Lautrec) can be very helpful. Also, the Grass Crest Sheild (Darkroot Basin) will help reduce the Stamina regeneration penalty you have while wearing heavy armor.

Wow, Darkroot Garden didn't seem too hard to get the armor, granted I pretty much just walked up to it slowly then ran away like a girl as soon as the giant things woke up.

With all the Titanite I had gathered up to this point I got the entire set to +2 and then got a Longsword up to +7 so that it currently matches the damage I was doing with the Drake Sword, but it will scale with my primary attribute, STR. I feel much safer progressing now that I have a repair box and two solid sword that do reasonable damage.

I'm also hoping that the big buff from the Elite Knight Armor helps just like you say it does (awesome response by the way).

I might now to travel back into Blighttown before heading forward, since I know I missed a ton of stuff as I sprint as fast as I could out of there.

Fed, I have a copy of this for 360 as well as PS3. Not sure when we'd have time to get together and play it, but I figured I'd ask. I'm thinking about loaning it out or selling it, but if other GWJers are playing it enough to warrant keeping it I'd just keep it.

I've got a new character getting close to the two gargoyles, but it's no big deal. With the holidays, I won't be playing that much.

Still, if you decide to keep it and want to try and co-op, let me know!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I've got a new character getting close to the two gargoyles, but it's no big deal. With the holidays, I won't be playing that much.

Still, if you decide to keep it and want to try and co-op, let me know!

Okay. Sounds good.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:

I might now to travel back into Blighttown before heading forward, since I know I missed a ton of stuff as I sprint as fast as I could out of there.

Beware. The Elite Knight Armor has very low poison resistance.

You will need Purple Moss and Blooming Purple Moss (for Toxin). It can be farmed from the Tree Ents in the Darkroot Garden. Another option is to find the Remedy Spell (Blighttown), but it requires a 14 or 16 Intelligence level. The Poisonbite Ring from Oswald (Parish Bell Tower/15,000 souls) will help a lot too. Take the Spider Shield if you have it (Depths). It is very useful against the Toxic Blowdart Snipers. The Gargoyle Tail Axe boosts poison resistance even more, but it needs to be upgraded to get a decent DPS (Tantanite).

The gear you have available to you should work well up till Anor Londo, where you will have the chance to get brand new gear (drops, crafted, loot) that will take you to the next level of protection and damage. An upgraded Pyromancy Flame will come in handy too before moving toward Sen's/Anor Londo.

heavyfeul wrote:
Kamakazi010654 wrote:

I might now to travel back into Blighttown before heading forward, since I know I missed a ton of stuff as I sprint as fast as I could out of there.

Beware. The Elite Knight Armor has very low poison resistance.

You will need Purple Moss and Blooming Purple Moss (for Toxin). It can be farmed from the Tree Ents in the Darkroot Garden. Another option is to find the Remedy Spell (Blighttown), but it requires a 14 or 16 Intelligence level. The Poisonbite Ring from Oswald (Parish Bell Tower/15,000 souls) will help a lot too. Take the Spider Shield if you have it (Depths). It is very useful against the Toxic Blowdart Snipers. The Gargoyle Tail Axe boosts poison resistance even more, but it needs to be upgraded to get a decent DPS (Tantanite).

The gear you have available to you should work well up till Anor Londo, where you will have the chance to get brand new gear (drops, crafted, loot) that will take you to the next level of protection and damage. An upgraded Pyromancy Flame will come in handy too before moving toward Sen's/Anor Londo.

Yeah I have done some farming of the regular Purple Moss, do the ents also drop Blooming? About all I saw in Blighttown that Toxics you is the Blowdart Snipers, which don't respawn, so I guess the Blooming is quite as important.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:
Kamakazi010654 wrote:

I might now to travel back into Blighttown before heading forward, since I know I missed a ton of stuff as I sprint as fast as I could out of there.

Beware. The Elite Knight Armor has very low poison resistance.

You will need Purple Moss and Blooming Purple Moss (for Toxin). It can be farmed from the Tree Ents in the Darkroot Garden. Another option is to find the Remedy Spell (Blighttown), but it requires a 14 or 16 Intelligence level. The Poisonbite Ring from Oswald (Parish Bell Tower/15,000 souls) will help a lot too. Take the Spider Shield if you have it (Depths). It is very useful against the Toxic Blowdart Snipers. The Gargoyle Tail Axe boosts poison resistance even more, but it needs to be upgraded to get a decent DPS (Tantanite).

The gear you have available to you should work well up till Anor Londo, where you will have the chance to get brand new gear (drops, crafted, loot) that will take you to the next level of protection and damage. An upgraded Pyromancy Flame will come in handy too before moving toward Sen's/Anor Londo.

Yeah I have done some farming of the regular Purple Moss, do the ents also drop Blooming? About all I saw in Blighttown that Toxics you is the Blowdart Snipers, which don't respawn, so I guess the Blooming is quite as important.

If you're concerned about poison before continuing your Blighttown exploration, plow through to the boss of the area first. Beat that boss and continue to the one immediately beyond in the Demon Ruins. That boss guards the armor set with the highest poison resist in the game, iirc. You can either try to beat this boss, as he is ridiculously easy to beat if you know exactly what to do, or just make a mad suicide dash for the armor set and abandon the souls you lose from dying there.

I took on the Four Kings tonight and got worked, even with Beatrice's help. Getting there was tense but I only died once and was able to recover, but the Boss fight was quick and deadly. I might abandon my souls and humanity and try the Demon Ruins. I have hit a wall in every other area.

heavyfeul wrote:

I took on the Four Kings tonight and got worked, even with Beatrice's help. Getting there was tense but I only died once and was able to recover, but the Boss fight was quick and deadly. I might abandon my souls and humanity and try the Demon Ruins. I have hit a wall in every other area.

I've only seen slight variations of the same strategy for 4 Kings.

Strategy in spoilers.

Spoiler:

I put on the highest defense armor I have. The key is high poise and high defense. The Stone set and the Guardian set are amazing for the fight. Being under %50 weight isn't too important because you don't even need to dodge. Get out your highest damaging weapon and just hammer away two handed. On your first play through if you have a fully upgraded weapon you can probably beat each one before the next pops out. Lastly, make sure you have plenty of Estus, I regularly go into the fight at 18-20 +3-5 Estus.

The only other strategy I've seen work is using a Black Knight Halberd +5 with Power Within or low health and the Red Tearstone Ring. It's all about damage output just like the defense strategy but this time you need to dodge every single attack. Power Within will only last for maybe two Kings and it seems likely that you'll end up fighting more than one towards the end of the fight. The Wood Grain Ring, the one that allows you to do flips instead of roll, is good for dodging their attacks because they do very long sweeping attacks that can still hit after a roll if your positioning wasn't perfect.

Using the Grass Crest Shield is probably a good idea in both strategies. I know I've used it before but more often then not I just use a high magic defense shield for the long distance magic attacks the Kings can do.

I've heard that using a summon on that fight makes the Kings do more damage, but I don't know if it's true.

Lastly, if you are a magic user I've never tried to beat the fight with pure magic so I don't know how it would work. I just know you'll need some really strong offensive spells.

I played about 90 minutes last night. I feel a lot more comfortable this time playing as the Wanderer this time. I kept heading upwards from the Firelight Shrine and got nervous when I had like 5000 souls and saw a bunch of orange messages warning me about a boss. I think this is where I got overwhelmed and quit last time. I remember fighting a large demon on a bridge and somehow getting him to fall off the bridge last time.

I bought a short-bow and some arrows, found it handy to draw out enemies one at a time. Not sure what I should be investing in when I level up.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

I bought a short-bow and some arrows, found it handy to draw out enemies one at a time. Not sure what I should be investing in when I level up.

Yep, bow and arrows can be super useful in a lot of places both for drawing enemies out and at times for chunking down some larger enemies who clip out on geometry.

I was a bit paralyzed for choice on where to put levels so I just stuck with endurance and vitality for the first 20 levels or so, can't go wro g with more health and stamina