Dark Souls Catch-All

S0LIDARITY wrote:

Not sure what I should be investing in when I level up.

Stat wise? Enough vitality to take a few hits (16-18 is pretty good early on), enough strength and dexterity to meet the minimum requirements on the weapons you want to use, and then pump your endurance. It is your most important stat for a variety of reasons, and points there are always a good idea until you hit the magic number, 40.

Never put points into resistance.

Finally started making progress in this game. I hadn't done any research and I was hoping to at least find some things on my own. So I explored a graveyard near that huge raven/crow and got killed by a huge skeleton; I went down to the bottom in the dark and the water and got destroyed by some ghostie things; I found the Valley of Drakes and snatched Astora's Straight sword and the Dragon Crest shield from a sleeping dragon, then ran for my life! Levelled up enough to use the sword, and the winged spear. Finally starting to feel like a badass, but I'll have to try that Taurus Demon again tonight. Yay fun!

If you think back to the Asylum Demon fight (first Boss), there was a helpful message about a powerful tactic. It can be used on the Taurus as well.

Helpful phantoms will make the Boss fight trivial, but if you have the Mystery Key they can make a fight with a particular enemy in the area a fair contest. Consider summoning help if you want to tackle that guy.

I think I have the Master Key. I don't think I have the Mystery Key. I don't know how to summon.

Sorry...meant Master Key. There is a Mystery Key as well.

You need to be human to summon.

heavyfeul wrote:

If you think back to the Asylum Demon fight (first Boss), there was a helpful message about a powerful tactic. It can be used on the Taurus as well.

Helpful phantoms will make the Boss fight trivial, but if you have the Mystery Key they can make a fight with a particular enemy in the area a fair contest. Consider summoning help if you want to tackle that guy.

I finally caved and read a guide. I think I'll be fine. Part of the fun of this game is learning things on my own though, which most games I don't care where I learn. Thanks for the clever tip presentation though!

Just to offer a different perspective on the four kings:

Spoiler:

I went in with a two handed +5 lightening weapon, the ring of favour & protection (Lautrec's ring), and as much upgraded armour as I could wear while still being able to fast roll. (elite knight armour head, chest and legs, black leather gloves)

The standard slash attacks are mostly avoidable and certain attacks that they do can be fairly easily punished

The only two attacks that gave me trouble were:

1) The AOE purple ball explosion
2) The mid air slash that homes in on you

For the purple ball, while you've very little time to react it is possible to get out of range of it with 3 fast rolls backward. It requires careful attention though as if you over commit your hits its easy to get caught

For the mid air slash I actually don't know how to avoid it - even if you get in front of it it circles around and still comes after you. Thankfully they don't seem to it that often.

As with all bosses I'm sure there are many things that'll work and I feel fast rolling is viable against them with modest vitality to work with.

I have the gear to go Tank or Ninja against the Four Kings. I might try archery first and go back to my build's roots, but the Kings close in fast and archery works best when you can fire several arrows uninterrupted, since the damage builds for each successive hit if you fire at full speed.

Switch Topic: The Endurance exception...

Endurance is very important, unless you decide to go for a combat skill build. You can keep your Endurance pretty low if you want to focus your build on dodging, rolling, parrying/riposting, and backstabbing. There is little room for mistakes and blocking will never be a viable strategy, but you will be rewarded with massive damage potential. With the right gear and upgrades you will be able to one hit very powerful enemies. Magic (Intelligence/Attunement) and Pyromancy will reduce your limitations and give you access to buffs and ranged attacks when frustration sets in. To make it even harder, though, you can ignore Attunement, Pyromancy, and Intelligence and rely on physical weaponry only.

I started my current Dexterity based Archer that way, but I chickened out at some point and started putting points into Endurance, but maybe one day.

You pretty much need to be past Taurus Demon before the summoning game starts.

Btw despite being a sorceror, casting against 4 Kings never worked for me. I eventually used the strategy from the previous page (Gimpy's, I think).

Also, there's a heck of a shortcut to that fight you can find online that makes it much quicker to get to from a bonfire.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

You pretty much need to be past Taurus Demon before the summoning game starts.

Nah, you can summon before Taurus demon; I've done it twice

You can, but it requires finding someone who has beaten Taurus Demon and then backtracked to before him and dropped their sign.

I saw a summoning sign before TD this week, and it was such a rarity in my experience that I made note of it.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

You can, but it requires finding someone who has beaten Taurus Demon and then backtracked to before him and dropped their sign.

I saw a summoning sign before TD this week, and it was such a rarity in my experience that I made note of it.

I've gone back there and dropped a summon sign once or twice - not really because I needed the souls but because I know if I'm ~lv20 and someone is able to summon me and still before Taurus then they're probably having a hard time beating him.

Are you a SunBro, by chance?

I always feel awesome when summoned rocking my golden phantom, or inviting others to my game.

Yeah being a SunBro is really awesome. When summoning random people I always go for SunBros first.

No doubt. Let me ask you this: When being summoned, do you always assume the person is trying to cut off a tail, or going to indicate which of S&O to kill first, etc.?

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Are you a SunBro, by chance?

I always feel awesome when summoned rocking my golden phantom, or inviting others to my game. :)

I'm not but I'd like to pair high faith with Str or Dex on some build on the future and do plenty of co-op to get my lightning bolt casts that come with being a SunBro - strolling through undead burg blasting hollows with one bolt is pretty satisfying

Fedaykin98 wrote:

No doubt. Let me ask you this: When being summoned, do you always assume the person is trying to cut off a tail, or going to indicate which of S&O to kill first, etc.?

Not really - the only time I've ever been messaged is when someone wants me to wait while they try to summon a friend or apologise for when I died and they didn't heal me (which I was quite surprise by considering I'm on xbox live)

As regards S&O I always go after Ornstein first since I think super Ornstein is much harder than super Smough, though I'd be interested to hear what others think

Fedaykin98 wrote:

No doubt. Let me ask you this: When being summoned, do you always assume the person is trying to cut off a tail, or going to indicate which of S&O to kill first, etc.?

I always go for the tail unless it is obvious that the host isn't interested in it.

As far as O&S goes I just get the attention of the one that the host isn't attacking so they have a one on one fight. If the host refuses to fight the one chasing them I proceed to kill the one chasing me. In the case that Solaire is in the fight I will see how the host is fighting. If the host is passive I kill whatever Solaire fights. If the Host is fighting I try to help the host kill their enemy before Solaire kills his.

I have never thought about going for tails as a phantom, but the people I summoned for help on Kalameet chopped the tail off for me, so now I think I've been breaking the social contract.

It's a hold over from Monster Hunter games. I would always get the tail, except some rare occasions when it wasn't needed and it would take more time to cut it off. You can only gain things from cutting of tails so I see no reason why you shouldn't try.

PlainGreyT wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

You can, but it requires finding someone who has beaten Taurus Demon and then backtracked to before him and dropped their sign.

I saw a summoning sign before TD this week, and it was such a rarity in my experience that I made note of it.

I've gone back there and dropped a summon sign once or twice - not really because I needed the souls but because I know if I'm ~lv20 and someone is able to summon me and still before Taurus then they're probably having a hard time beating him.

I have been playing the PS3 version lately and there has been summoning signs there each time I enter the area for the first time.

Gimpy_Butzke wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

No doubt. Let me ask you this: When being summoned, do you always assume the person is trying to cut off a tail, or going to indicate which of S&O to kill first, etc.?

I always go for the tail unless it is obvious that the host isn't interested in it.

As far as O&S goes I just get the attention of the one that the host isn't attacking so they have a one on one fight. If the host refuses to fight the one chasing them I proceed to kill the one chasing me. In the case that Solaire is in the fight I will see how the host is fighting. If the host is passive I kill whatever Solaire fights. If the Host is fighting I try to help the host kill their enemy before Solaire kills his.

With S&O I attack the one the Host is after, but switch if the other phantom is clearly having trouble. I have been playing as an archer, so I stay out off the fray and get a good sense of who needs my arrows most. Also, since I am doing continuous damage, the Boss will usually come after me when someone gets staggered and/or knocked down, giving them time to recover or escape. When I am the Host I use the same strategy. The wide view of the battlefield I have lets me know when I need to drink Estus to heal a teammate.

Yeah, being the host and a ranged attacker is kind of overpowered because you can safely stop attacking to heal your boys, and it's easy to see what their health is.

Double post! Crap!

Beat the Taurus Demon tonight. Shot off the Dragon's tail for the drake sword. I'm a bit lost now. Seems like I hit a wall of difficulty in any direction that's not back-tracking to the Firelight Shrine.

Use ranged weapons there if you can. I was lucky to be a wielder of "Soul Arrows" at that point.

Continue under the Drake bridge and up into the Parish. It is not easy, but it is the easiest path available.

If you met Solaire you can drop a summon sign just outside the Undead Burg bonfire and gather souls and level till you feel more powerful.

I am assuming you found the shortcut between the Burg's bonfire and the Drake bridge.

Dyni wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:
Dyni wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

What's the other "worst" part, btw?

Archers

Yeah the combination of the archers + S&O. More so in NG+ than in a first play through.

I forgot to comment on this. I don't think S&O is comparable to Capra Demon or the Anor Londo archers. S&O is very difficult, but nothing about that fight is ever cheap or unfair. There was always something I could have done better to make my failed attempt go more smoothly. Every attack is avoidable in some way, even when both of them are alive and you are solo. It's just challenging.

On some of the Capra Demon and archers attempts, the only thing I could think to improve in my approach was "get a little luckier". Those 2 encounters seem so out of place compared to the rest of the game.

I feel a bit different about those three points in the game.

All three get tremendously easier if you have a high damage weapon (like a Black Knight Halberd - killing Capra in three swings is fun! ).
Not having that, both the archer (talking about the one in your way, since you can ignore the other if you do not get pushed back too far) and S&O punish you a lot harder for every misstep, since the way to both is not the shortest. I also have not killed S&O without summons. Even Solaire got his ass handed to him when I went in without one additional helper summon (I nearly got Uber-Smough before that, he just jumped onto my head at the worst moment possible).

You can avoid and dodge all attacks of the three, but S&O take the most hits combined. The longer you fight, the higher the chance you make the wrong move and get impaled in a 10 feet lightning spear ...

A few things have been weird in the last week with the multiplayer for me. Or rather with the people.
I get invaded by a blue phantom right before S&O(this time I was sure I did not abandon any covenant nor killed any NPC, I even went to Oswald the check).
I was still in a fight with one of the giants before the wall, he was waiting for me to finish it to clear some room. He then just dropped 10 humanity and left again, without trading blows or any other motion.

Then getting Invaded at the bonfire and after getting killed having the invader message me and give suggestions for my weapon.

Friendly Invaders feel weird

I did find the shortcut back to the Burg bonfire. I do have a bow with a lot of arrows, but it does very little damage to the enemies in the Parish. I tried sniping the archers but they can out range me easily. I was intimidated by the giant armored animal and didn't want to take on that group all at once. I got wrecked by the giant knight on top of the tower after coming up from under the bridge. I defeated one of those guys last night, but I cheesed a win out of that by climbing a ladder and fire-bombing/arrowing him into slow and steady submission.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

I did find the shortcut back to the Burg bonfire. I do have a bow with a lot of arrows, but it does very little damage to the enemies in the Parish. I tried sniping the archers but they can out range me easily. I was intimidated by the giant armored animal and didn't want to take on that group all at once. I got wrecked by the giant knight on top of the tower after coming up from under the bridge. I defeated one of those guys last night, but I cheesed a win out of that by climbing a ladder and fire-bombing/arrowing him into slow and steady submission.

Just so you know, you do not have to fight the one in the tower, he is optional.

@Kamakazi010654 That's what I assumed. The tower seemed pretty empty aside from him. I didn't get a great look though, as I was looking to retreat immediately.