Dark Souls Catch-All

mateofalcone wrote:

As with all things in this game, I'm finding the demands placed on my skills to be ever changing.

If you feel like trying parry, remember that you're vulnerable for some time if you fail. Larger shields incur a longer time, and small (e.g. target) shields incur a shorter time. The trade off for these smaller shields is obvious - they block less physical damage and you're less stable than if you had a big one. Regardless, parry/riposte remains a high risk/high reward move that's perfect for moving quickly through an area if you don't want to sprint past everything.

+1 to this. I can totally see the use of parry/riposte on common enemies but not with my current gear. A heavy set like Havel's would enable me to attempt parrying against blows that would normally put my character in a critical state.

Side-bar. I cleared Quelaag and Blighttown last night. I can only hope I never have to go back.

Spoiler:

I got knocked off the most impressive/most-tetanus-y tree-fort several times and kept thinking, 'I can't wait to get back on solid ground.' Then I touched down in poison swamp and almost missed that death-trap. I might have rage-quit the game if I didn't have the rusted iron and snakebite rings. This was the first area where I felt truly frustrated. Between the toxic-darters and boulder-rollers I nearly rage-quit.

I did enjoy some jolly co-op and took out Quelaag a few times. I was surprised that I didn't hear anyone else ring the bell. Is it because I was still in Blighttown and not Quelaag?

I did a little more pre-NG+ prep during the kiddos' naptime today. In this case, item trading. Man, did they have to make that so cumbersome?

Weird happening/bug report: I had a Pyro Flame +15, and wanted to get another red slab. I went and ascended it to +0, but when I traded to trade it, the word "Drop" had a slash through it. Did they remove that option?

Oops.

Parrying is extremely useful for particular builds. I use it with quick relatively low damage builds. With the crit. boosting rings and high crit. weapons you can deal out massive damage. It is definitely worth the risk, because the upside is a one shot kill.

I lose my rhythm when I am a phantom though. The lag messes it up.

Plastefuchs wrote:

Anyone having any trouble with the thought process behind parries or is struggling to get it off right should take a look at Vageta311's parrying video.
He covers the basics and has put a lot of work into making a quite understandable video.
I understood it and was able to parry Havel afterwards.

After watching that, I am determined to master parrying. Holy cow

Anyone having any trouble with the thought process behind parries or is struggling to get it off right should take a look at Vageta311's parrying video.
He covers the basics and has put a lot of work into making a quite understandable video.
I understood it and was able to parry Havel afterwards.

Just encountered the weirdest enemy yet. Being on my xth run through Anor Londo right before those blasted Snipers I encounter this weird fellow:

Spoiler:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...

He spawned right on the way to the archers, where no enemy has ever appeared it stood, casting some sort of homing missiles at me, though not a soulmass spell.

Has anyone encountered them before? O.o

There's a big black homing spell in the DLC called Pursuers. Was that it?

Hat's off for parrying Havel. I would be terrified of attempting such a thing, since he can easily one-shot you.

Plastefuchs wrote:

Just encountered the weirdest enemy yet. Being on my xth run through Anor Londo right before those blasted Snipers I encounter this weird fellow:

Spoiler:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...

He spawned right on the way to the archers, where no enemy has ever appeared it stood, casting some sort of homing missiles at me, though not a soulmass spell.

Has anyone encountered them before? O.o

They are called Vagrants. Very little is known about them but they seem to be part of the online system. I myself have only seen one when I played on the PS3, it was in the church just below the gargoyles.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

There's a big black homing spell in the DLC called Pursuers. Was that it?

Hat's off for parrying Havel. I would be terrified of attempting such a thing, since he can easily one-shot you.

No, I have looked at the homing beads spell and that was not it. Several (5-7) small white/blue-white beans that did not move at me right away, but came at me from several angles. I have looked at the enemy list in the wiki now and nothing stood out to me.
It also dropped one usable humanity.

EDIT:

Gimpy_Butzke wrote:
Plastefuchs wrote:

Just encountered the weirdest enemy yet. Being on my xth run through Anor Londo right before those blasted Snipers I encounter this weird fellow:

Spoiler:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...

He spawned right on the way to the archers, where no enemy has ever appeared it stood, casting some sort of homing missiles at me, though not a soulmass spell.

Has anyone encountered them before? O.o

They are called Vagrants. Very little is known about them but they seem to be part of the online system. I myself have only seen one when I played on the PS3, it was in the church just below the gargoyles.

That was it!

Man this game is weird. And it is great I can say that after putting in over 120 hours into it.

Ah, now that's satisfying. Tonight I finally took down the Black Knight in the Undead Burg (who guards the Blue Tearstone Ring) and Havel. Havel in particular was satisfying.

What a great game. There aren't many where I can spend an hour retrying a boss and not feel frustrated.

Plastefuchs wrote:
Gimpy_Butzke wrote:
Plastefuchs wrote:

Just encountered the weirdest enemy yet. Being on my xth run through Anor Londo right before those blasted Snipers I encounter this weird fellow:

Spoiler:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...

He spawned right on the way to the archers, where no enemy has ever appeared it stood, casting some sort of homing missiles at me, though not a soulmass spell.

Has anyone encountered them before? O.o

They are called Vagrants. Very little is known about them but they seem to be part of the online system. I myself have only seen one when I played on the PS3, it was in the church just below the gargoyles.

That was it!

Man this game is weird. And it is great I can say that after putting in over 120 hours into it. :D

Holy crap. 130+ hours in this game and I had no idea those existed.

Yeah, I was extremely shocked when I got my only glimpse of them too Dyni. I've spent hundreds of hours on this game and I've only seen ONE! It would be great if there was more info on how to encounter these things because they are kind of crazy.

@Fedaykin98, did you still have the flame equipped? Equipped items have a slash through the drop menu option.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

@Fedaykin98, did you still have the flame equipped? Equipped items have a slash through the drop menu option.

Ooh, I might have it as the second option for my off hand! Great thinking!

Spent my first 3.5 hours with this last night, and it's immediately scratching a lot of the itches that PSO left behind. I have access to weapon repair and the bottomless chest at my campfire now, and I've been pumping endurance (at lvl 10 now). How do I spend these weapon upgrade materials I've been collecting? Do I need to just keep making progress before that opens up to me?

psoplayer wrote:

How do I spend these weapon upgrade materials I've been collecting? Do I need to just keep making progress before that opens up to me?

Blacksmiths later on

psoplayer wrote:

Spent my first 3.5 hours with this last night, and it's immediately scratching a lot of the itches that PSO left behind. I have access to weapon repair and the bottomless chest at my campfire now, and I've been pumping endurance (at lvl 10 now). How do I spend these weapon upgrade materials I've been collecting? Do I need to just keep making progress before that opens up to me?

Yes; there is one smith you can reach at the beginning of the game, he is down at the bottom of the tower below firelink shrine bonfire, but the other one is not reached until just before you fight the gargoyle(s).

Alright, cool. Then the corollary question: should bother I spending the materials on my basic weapons now (axe and/or longsword) or is it better spent on armor? Are these weapons going to stay relevant for a while or are there better ones just around the corner that would be more worthy of upgrades?

psoplayer wrote:

Alright, cool. Then the corollary question: should bother I spending the materials on my basic weapons now (axe and/or longsword) or is it better spent on armor? Are these weapons going to stay relevant for a while or are there better ones just around the corner that would be more worthy of upgrades?

I would say go nuts with the upgrades if you want. You can't really waste the valuable upgrade materials until you find the right smith and give him the right embers. The other upgrade materials are easily found or purchased, so they give you a good goal to work on that will help you down the other content to get the embers.

psoplayer wrote:

Alright, cool. Then the corollary question: should bother I spending the materials on my basic weapons now (axe and/or longsword) or is it better spent on armor? Are these weapons going to stay relevant for a while or are there better ones just around the corner that would be more worthy of upgrades?

You'll be able to get the Drake Sword soon, which is quite a bit stronger than any other weapon you can get for several hours. I wouldn't bother upgrading anything before then unless you aren't planning on using it.

As I'm sure you've noticed, souls are an all encompassing currency in this game, so you're constantly choosing between leveling and upgrading. I think most people here seem to lead more toward upgrading gear first, but I've always preferred focusing on leveling for a while. I find the upgrades to vitality and endurance in particular to be more noticeable than the extra bit of mitigation or damage from equipment upgrades.

Endurance is the best stat early on by far. It gives you more stamina, which lets you attack, dodge, sprint, and block more. The extra attacks and blocks in particular are very important. It also raises your equip burden. Most people don't think about it, but extra equip burden is an indirect buff to your armor, as it lets you equip heavier, more powerful armor while staying under the magic 50% encumbrance number.

Plus, I don't have to worry about those souls going to waste later when I discard that equipment for more powerful gear. I know those souls dumped into stat points early on are always going to be useful.

Both approaches are perfectly valid though. That's just my logic.

psoplayer - I'm surprised no one has said this yet, but any weapon or armor you have now could very well be your end-game gear. This is not a loot-oriented game. You will never find a magical sword that obsoletes all others. Rather, you should pick a weapon whose fighting style you like, and buff it.

My endgame-level sorceror is using a longsword that I upgraded, for example. My cleric will eventually use some other vanilla weapon that will have been upgraded to fit his stats.

This is not to say that there aren't some unique or magical weapons out there; there are some, but you may or may not end up using a single one of them.

Did you say what kind of character you are building?

On Dyni's recommendation I started with a Pyromancer. I've already familiarized myself with the attack animations of the battle axe & longsword. (and just enough of the short sword to know I wasn't into it)

Is there a particular weapon or attack that I should be using to hit small/low enemies? I can sometimes land a hit with my jumping attack, but it's easier to just resort to spending a fireball.

I may finally jump on this for PC since Amazon has the Steam version for $18, ($13 with the coupon I have).

Cheaper than adding the DLC to my PS3, and I could re-earn all the achievements.

So, was there some PC mod that improved the graphics or something?

EDIT: I guess it was DSFix? Anything else at the Dark Souls Mod Nexus worth checking out?

psoplayer wrote:

Is there a particular weapon or attack that I should be using to hit small/low enemies? I can sometimes land a hit with my jumping attack, but it's easier to just resort to spending a fireball.

Eventually you'll get more pyromancies and it won't feel wasteful to spend a fireball. I haven't had a problem trying to hit small/short enemies but I mostly use a upgraded scimitar and a katana. Are you locking on to enemies? I also recommend picking up a bow and a lot of arrows. It helped me a lot to use the bow to aggro individual enemies and draw them from their mobs.

@Stele, I don't play on PC but the question comes up every week. I think the consensus is use DSFix but leave the FPS at 30. Maybe someone can convince Garrion333 to put something about it in the OP.

pso - What enemies are you talking about? I don't think I ever had a problem hitting any ground-based enemies in Dark Souls.

In Demon's Souls, I've learned that some overhead, downward attacks can hit probe enemies that horizontal slashes cannot, but I never had to think about that in Dark Souls.

Pyromancer is a good choice. Be aware that once you level your flame up to +15, there are still six more ranks after that, which call for ascending it to +0 (the Magic Adjust stat will tell you that you are indeed improving it), and then up to +5. I just learned that this week, but my character is only a part-time Pyromancer anyway.

Stele wrote:

EDIT: I guess it was DSFix? Anything else at the Dark Souls Mod Nexus worth checking out?

Yes! That stuff is totally worth it. See my post here. Click on the picture to embiggen and see how clear and crisp the UI looks.

Get the text and button mods that look good to you. Organize the UI mods by number of downloads and get the ones you want. It's very easy to do. Be sure to change the size and opacity of the UI in DSfix.ini so that it's smaller and less in your face.

Pyromancy is good class, but spells and miracles are more useful in the long run. My level 70 Cleric is sort of a jack-of-all-trades caster. I have five Attunement slots (6 with a Seance Ring), an Intelligence of 18, and I am using the Ivory Catalyst. Plus, I have the Dragoncrest rings. So, even though my character is boosted for Miracles (level 30 Faith), I can do almost as much damage with Great Heavy Soul Arrow as I can with Great Lightning Spear. I have a lot of great pyromancies, as well, but I use them far less than my spells.

My number one goal with this build, which I am hoping to take to the end game, is to collect nearly all the available rings so I can switch them out as needed, depending on the situation and what is needed. I favor the Wolf and Cloranthy Rings for their importance to melee combat, but if I need a boost in a certain attribute for a certain area or enemy, I have a whole treasure trove of rings to choose from.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

Are you locking on to enemies? I also recommend picking up a bow and a lot of arrows. It helped me a lot to use the bow to aggro individual enemies and draw them from their mobs.

Yes I'm locking on enemies. I don't see how the game could be played without it. And I definitely need to try out a bow, just haven't gotten around to it yet. The melee combat is plenty of fun on its own.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

What enemies are you talking about? I don't think I ever had a problem hitting any ground-based enemies in Dark Souls.

It may simply be difficulty in hitting them due to my inexperience with the game. Early on I wandered down the elevator to the area just before what I assume would have been the Cathedral? There were a bunch of guys laying around on the ground ignoring me that were hard to hit with my axe but did give up souls once I managed to do so.

Later on, in the Burgs, I came across a little crystal lizard guy behind some boxes that I chased around for a bit before I just burned him. (He dropped some upgrade mats.)

BTW, this game is a real monster. Not for the hardcore nature or difficulty for which it is known, but for the way it has been all I could think about today. Totally loving how it had practically no tutorials. Never mind that I don't understand the majority of systems at play (lol whats attunement? my flame lvls up?), I was more empowered in the gameplay I tasted in the first several hours last night than I would expect from the endgame of a 100hr+ rpg. Modern games have conditioned me to expect double-digit hours of light tutorialization (if not the whole game) before granting the kind of agency I already have in the first 30 minutes. It's rather intoxicating. Power to the players!

Hint: Notice that when you go to level up or equip something, that some of the numbers change color.