Dark Souls Catch-All

Winged Spear is in the Firelink cemetery, so it's obtainable very early through careful play or a suicide run.

Well, I now understand why I can't jump attack. I was trying to actually jump then attack. :\
On a brighter note, I beat the Hellkite Drake on my first effort. I think I had a bit of luck. Here's how things went down.

Spoiler:

I waited in the alcove for him to drop down. I sprinted at him and did my thrust attack at the outside of his right ankle followed by 3 slashes. He jumped in the air and I panicked not knowing what he would do here. I thought back to my MH3 days and the Rathalos Dragon and decided to GTFO towards the Sunbros shrine. He got me with some fire but I managed to get to the safe area there. I turned around and it looked like the Drake was looking to see if I was behind him. I decided to try again and got ready for another sprinting thrust straight at him. He turned on me took a deep breath to blow some more fire on me. I got him in the right ankle again and got in 2 more slashes on his right foot. Then he disintegrated and left me 10K souls. I'm not sure how much damage I was doing but apparently he's weak to lightning and maybe bleeding, went down with less than 10 hits from my +5 Iato.

Apologies to Kamakazi, as we did not get to experiment with summoning. I expected the Hellkite to toss me around like a potato chip, as everyone else had said he was a tough nugget.

I promise to try summoning with my next character, even at a low level.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

Well, I now understand why I can't jump attack. I was trying to actually jump then attack. :
On a brighter note, I beat the Hellkite Drake on my first effort. I think I had a bit of luck. Here's how things went down.

Spoiler:

I waited in the alcove for him to drop down. I sprinted at him and did my thrust attack at the outside of his right ankle followed by 3 slashes. He jumped in the air and I panicked not knowing what he would do here. I thought back to my MH3 days and the Rathalos Dragon and decided to GTFO towards the Sunbros shrine. He got me with some fire but I managed to get to the safe area there. I turned around and it looked like the Drake was looking to see if I was behind him. I decided to try again and got ready for another sprinting thrust straight at him. He turned on me took a deep breath to blow some more fire on me. I got him in the right ankle again and got in 2 more slashes on his right foot. Then he disintegrated and left me 10K souls. I'm not sure how much damage I was doing but apparently he's weak to lightning and maybe bleeding, went down with less than 10 hits from my +5 Iato.

Apologies to Kamakazi, as we did not get to experiment with summoning. I expected the Hellkite to toss me around like a potato chip, as everyone else had said he was a tough nugget.

I promise to try summoning with my next character, even at a low level.

According to the wiki it only has 2200 HP, which really once you have stuff uploaded a bit isn't that much. Once you have some upgraded weapons.

If I go back to that area (just got to Anor Lando), I might get it a shot.

Against the balder knights in that area I was doing 299 so if we assume 299 * 6 for my slashes + 350 *2 for dashing attacks that's ~2500. Seems reasonable.

Also this football game is like that mighty ducks movie where the ducks scrimmage the varsity team on the ice late at night and just get crushed. DkS relevance: I'll be getting back to Dark Souls sooner than halftime.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Winged Spear is in the Firelink cemetery, so it's obtainable very early through careful play or a suicide run.

Yeah I put my Dex up to 15 just to use it a little bit early on. Even though I intend for this to be a STR/FAI build.

Then I saw another player I helped beat S&O and he had one of those Silver Knight Spears mentioned and was kicking ass. Not sure how high his DEX was, but I wanted to use one. Considering abandoning my STR and building to use it.

Although I already have Astora's Sword at +3 or so, and it's leveling great with my 30 FAI so far. It's maybe 50 damage behind my Lightning Spear +2 right now. Should pass it before I finish the game if I keep pumping FAI.

Sif is a giant cheap pain in the ass. That is all.

I'm down in The Depths now. Woohoo. Progress.

Wine pairs well with Dark Souls.

Edit: I'm about to head into the Depths, too. I goofed around a bit and upgraded my weapons and shield. That'll be it for me for today. I don't feel like stressing myself out.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Wine pairs well with Dark Souls.

Edit: I'm about to head into the Depths, too. I goofed around a bit and upgraded my weapons and shield. That'll be it for me for today. I don't feel like stressing myself out. ;)

Yeah, that's one of the things I really like about Dark Souls. You hit these points where you know that going somewhere is too risky and not worth losing the souls / humanity. So time to just turn the game off.

DSGamer wrote:

I'm down in The Depths now. Woohoo. Progress.

Hit me up when you're ready for Gaping Dragon! I can bring my melee guy if you want to struggle gallanty, or my Lightning-tossing cleric if you want to blow up the boss in under a minute.

Finished Blighttown and Quelaag tonight. That might have been the most stressful two hours of my life. I hate that place. I hate, hate, hate it. It's gross, it's scary. You're a million miles away from anything resembling anything good. I followed the wiki just so I could GTFO of there. I intentionally skipped a bunch of it. I'll come back later with the rusted ring, and loaded for bear. BLECH.

On a more positive note, I was able to summon a dude with a GIGANTIC scythe. He pretty much held my hand. we killed the NPC black phantom, then I summoned her for the boss fight. The three of us made spider-girl look like a chump.

Sorry to say my wife went promptly to bed tonight. But, she got to see me kill a giant octopus-spider thing from a mile away with arrows:

Wife: That's a boring way to kill something.
Me: But that's how I killed that other guy. You said it was smart.
Wife: That time it was. This time you were kind of being a wuss.

I swear I'm not making this stuff up.

Yeah a shame we didn't get to see some Quelaag commentary.

My wife hasn't seen Quelaag, but she was like "WTF is THAT?!?!" at Quelaag's sister.

Anytime I think anything I'm doing in Dark Souls is cheap, I try to remember that it's Dark Souls, and it will smack you down with no remorse if you start to think you're above succeeding in any way you can.

I took out the mini-boss in Darkroot basin today. I had never given him a shot before. +5 Lightning Iato made it easy. I also got the enchanted ember and ended up buying the Artorias Crest from Andre, I got nervous wandering part of darkroot from the ladder and not having any idea where the next firepit was. The panthers were not a fun fight. I think I used like 6 estus gulps there, I couldn't successfully dodge well enough when the group of two came at me.

There's a clump of trees where they can't hit you; I lured them one at a time and they'd lunge at me and get a longsword kiss. But that's if you're coming from the direction of the Crest door, not the ladder from the basin. Coming up from the basin is hard as hell. And the closest bonfire is

Spoiler:

the hidden one right next to the Crest door.

I used the same tactic against the Great Felines. I tried the Mano y Mano method, but they are brutal. A bow and a crap load of arrows always comes in handy.

Today begins Demon's Souls being a downloadable title on PSN, and a Pure White World Tendency for six days!

Uh oh, now I need your help with the Gaping Dragon, Fed. I traversed the white wall with 3 humanity and over 13,000 souls and died fighting him with a random co-op person. We almost beat him, but now my souls are trapped behind that wall. I immediately quit out of the game so I had a chance of retrieving them. But I need a skilled Dark Souls companion to save those souls with me.

You get like 25k for beating Gaping Dragon. :p

And why would you not spend them at the bonfire before going in? It's so close, just up the one stairway.

Stele wrote:

You get like 25k for beating Gaping Dragon. :p

And why would you not spend them at the bonfire before going in? It's so close, just up the one stairway.

Hubris. I had a good co-op partner with me and we'd made a lot of progress there. I didn't want to abandon that person in order to use the bonfire (I tried using it, but it can't be done, I don't think, when in co-op).

DSGamer wrote:

(I tried using it, but it can't be done, I don't think, when in co-op).

Oh yeah that part is true.

I downed the Sanctuary Guardian tonight and crafted Artorias' Greatsword. Unfortunately I lack half the prerequisites to wield it effectively which means I have to come up with another weapon for the Catacombs. Hrmph.

Dyni wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Dyni wrote:

The kick is nice, but pretty situational. The move you should really get good at is the jump attack, especially if you're using a heavy weapon.

I've almost never jump attacked on purpose.

Something to work on It's really good with big weapons.

Jump attacks with big 2-handed weapons are great! Does a lot of damage and extends your range even further. The backstep then r1 attack is really good, too.

Lex Cayman wrote:

Finished Blighttown and Quelaag tonight. That might have been the most stressful two hours of my life. I hate that place. I hate, hate, hate it. It's gross, it's scary. You're a million miles away from anything resembling anything good. I followed the wiki just so I could GTFO of there. I intentionally skipped a bunch of it. I'll come back later with the rusted ring, and loaded for bear. BLECH.

Yeah, Blighttown is pretty horrific. On this playthrough I decided to just to in the back door which thankfully allows you to skip a fair chunk of it it.

Had a somewhat odd experience with Sen's last night: hit a bit of a roadblock there on my first character and it took me ages to get through, last night I sauntered through there only dying once to an unwise attempt on a titanite demon and once to a case of being stupid with a trap. Felt almost anticlimatic after the trouble I had the first time around. :s Guess that was an object lesson in how much this game is about learning skills rather than building powerful characters.

Tried playing around with some other big strength weapons - the giant club was kind of fun but a bit slow for my liking, and the butchers knife seemed to lack reach, particularly with its 2h strong attack.

Downed Moonlight Butterfly last night. Was that it? I feel like something must have gone very wrong, because it was a surprisingly easy 'fight', and nothing in this game is easy. (Maybe that's why Sif is causing me such trouble; payback.)

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Downed Moonlight Butterfly last night. Was that it? I feel like something must have gone very wrong, because it was a surprisingly easy 'fight', and nothing in this game is easy. (Maybe that's why Sif is causing me such trouble; payback.)

Moonlight Butterfly is actually pretty quick assuming you can dodge the magic attacks. If you have range it becomes even easier.

What is an Iato? I can't seem to locate it on any wikis

EDIT: Of course... Iaito works.

Dakuna wrote:

What is an Iato? I can't seem to locate it on any wikis

EDIT: Of course... Iaito works.

heheh...Yeah, I always have a hard time remembering how that sword is spelled.

That's a pretty damn good sword for a speedy DEX build. The bleed effect can be super effective on a lot of bosses, and can stagger certain enemies. Only drawback is that you need to be quick enough to get in 3-4 consecutive hits and then be able to dodge the incoming attack. It's basically been my only weapon since I've got it.

silentsod wrote:

I downed the Sanctuary Guardian tonight and crafted Artorias' Greatsword.

My son, I am disappoint.

Dyni wrote:
silentsod wrote:

I downed the Sanctuary Guardian tonight and crafted Artorias' Greatsword.

My son, I am disappoint.

...I'm guess the Greatshield is the way to go with that, huh? Damn, knew I made the wrong choice there.

CptDomano wrote:
Dyni wrote:
silentsod wrote:

I downed the Sanctuary Guardian tonight and crafted Artorias' Greatsword.

My son, I am disappoint.

...I'm guess the Greatshield is the way to go with that, huh? Damn, knew I made the wrong choice there.

The sword is actually a very good weapon, but its really difficult to use because the stat spread is very wide. You need 20+ in all 4 stats.

Plus, there are dozens of great weapons, but only one Greatshield of Artorias, the best shield in the world. It was the best shield in the wooooooorld.