Dark Souls Catch-All

S0LIDARITY wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

The only answer you need to the Bonewheel Skeletons - Black Knight Shield. 100% Phys Block for the all time win.

I don't follow. Lots of shields have 100% Physical block. I've been using the heater shield for it's low weight.

Yeah I'm not sure why that one is any better than any others with similar poise?

Depending on Stamina I've been able to block 1-2 bonewheels but not more. They keep pushing into your shield hitting over and over. If your guard breaks then you get stunned by their roll and die.

They are very much a pain in the ass, and generally not to be taken more than 1 at a time if you can avoid it.

Silver Knight shield has higher poise with 1 less weight, so that's been my standard shield as I build up strength towards Artorias.

S0LIDARITY wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

The only answer you need to the Bonewheel Skeletons - Black Knight Shield. 100% Phys Block for the all time win.

I don't follow. Lots of shields have 100% Physical block. I've been using the heater shield for it's low weight.

It's the 100% Phys Block plus the fact that the Black Knight Shield has the 3rd highest Stability of any Normal Shield (beaten only by the Baldur Shield and the Silver Knight Shield, both of which have worse magic/fire/lightning block). Black Knight Shield +5 can block all of the hits from a Bonewheel Skeleton and leave you with 80% of your stamina bar remaining due to its 74 Stability. The Heater Shield caps at 68 Stability for reference.

This doesn't matter much for NG, any 100% Phys Block shield will be your best friend. NG+ is a different matter, where not having high stability can mean the difference between blocking a Bonewheel Skeleton, and getting killed by it.

EDIT: Silver Knight Shield is slightly higher stability, 76 at +5, so both are worth upgrading if you get the drop. I prefer Black Knight Shield because it has better non-physical resistances than the Silver Knight Shield.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

@Heavyfeul, the whips? the Dragonbone Greatfist?

If you are hyper focused in your build choices, any weapon can become powerful. The game is full of expert players running goal oriented builds. I have seen players use those weapons very effectively.

Too true, especially if you look at PvP builds. You see some pretty crazy stuff there.

ahrezmendi wrote:

Black Knight Shield +5 can block all of the hits from a Bonewheel Skeleton and leave you with 80% of your stamina bar remaining due to its 74 Stability.

...

EDIT: Silver Knight Shield is slightly higher stability, 76 at +5, so both are worth upgrading if you get the drop. I prefer Black Knight Shield because it has better non-physical resistances than the Silver Knight Shield.

+5, that makes more sense. Just saying Black Knight Shield doesn't cover it. But saying +5 adds like 15 stability to it.

And Black has 95 fire vs Silver's 75. Silver has 40 magic vs Black's 25. So it depends on what you're fighting, and if the 1 weight makes a difference in your equip weight tier.

I also used the Crest Shield a lot recently for the 80 magic resist and because it's only 3 weight.

There are a whole lot of options until you get your strength to 34 for Artorias.

If 1 lb breaks your equip burden, you need more END, especially if you're wanting to eventually use Artorias' Greatshield.

Also in my 4 times through the game, I've managed to get 3 Black Knight Shields, and 0 Silver Knight Shields, so luck of the draw is a factor too. I know plenty of people who are in the opposite boat too.

I haven't found a situation where the Crest Shield helped me. I guess it could have helped against Jeremiah, but his spells are so easy to dodge anyway I just do that.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I haven't found a situation where the Crest Shield helped me.

!!! I've probably only seen half the content in this game (if that much) and I already find that statement rather incredible. I don't know that I would have been able to defeat the Stray Demon without it, and it completely trivialized the Moonlight Butterfly fight for my character's complete lack of ranged damage.

Crest shield has 80% magic block, Jeremiah does fire-damage?
On my first play-through I was constantly switching between the crest and dragon-crest shield depending on the environment. I also pulled out the eagle shield from time to time.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I haven't found a situation where the Crest Shield helped me. I guess it could have helped against Jeremiah, but his spells are so easy to dodge anyway I just do that.

The Crest Shield has been my shield of choice for my low Vit/Str/End spell-flinger. Since I usually blast from a distance, ranged spells often pose the biggest threat to me (sometimes ranged fire as well, which is when I switch to the Dragon Crest shield). I still often get taken down by physical attacks, but that's usually because of me being sloppy.

Interesting. Stray Demon has easily dodged patterns, as does Butterfly. I haven't fought Butterfly in my current game yet, I'll give the Crest Shield a try and see how I like it.

I always play high mobility characters, so I tend to just rely on dodging and completely avoiding damage rather than trying to block much of it.

EDIT:
Re - Jeremiah: I thought he also tossed out a non-fire spell or two. I honestly don't remember, he dies so fast in my games that he rarely gets off a single spell.

Wow, I totally screwed up the Nito fight, but I still won. I went in without a Divine weapon, and made the fight needlessly more difficult as a result. I won with no estus remaining, and about 100 hp. 1 hit from anything would have killed me, but I got off the last two attacks I needed.

And with that, I am now a true badass running around in Paladin armor with Artorias' Greatshield. I always forget how freaking awesome that shield is, then I get back to using it and remember why it's the best shield in the game.

Yeah Stray Demon and the other one... all their "fire" attacks are actually magic damage. There were a couple other enemies where Crest shield came in handy too.

ahrezmendi wrote:

Wow, I totally screwed up the Nito fight, but I still won. I went in without a Divine weapon, and made the fight needlessly more difficult as a result. I won with no estus remaining, and about 100 hp. 1 hit from anything would have killed me, but I got off the last two attacks I needed.

And with that, I am now a true badass running around in Paladin armor with Artorias' Greatshield. I always forget how freaking awesome that shield is, then I get back to using it and remember why it's the best shield in the game.

I have not used this shield yet, though I built one for my caster, and it languishes in my bottomless box due to the ridiculous strength requirement (for this build). I also have yet to understand what the fuss is about, I would think the giant shield would be the best in the game. What am I missing?

EDIT: Stability... I see.

The Stability rocks, but it also blocks all build up of poison, toxic, and bleed when you block an attack. Run this with the Cursebite Ring and you are nearly immune to every status effect in the game.

I beat O & S last night. It took me tries to get past the archers. I should have gotten past them on my first shot but I missed 3 parries in a row. I almost took down the upper section of Anor Londo on one shot, but I got invaded. I was really mad at the invader.

I was taking on both Royal Sentinels and he started shooting his bow at me, I dodged it pretty well and took the long way to get to the archer out and try and approach the situation piece by piece. I take out the archer and he rushes me immediately. Finished me off in like 2 hits because I was low on health and then had the guile to bow as I died. If he cared about the honor of it, he would have bowed to me before the fight and let me heal first. I was tempted to call him out via XBL message, but I took the high road and moved on.

I avenged the firekeeper on my first shot too. I felt pretty good about that, but I feel like I cheesed the fight a little bit. I went up the stairs, aggro'd the sorcerer with an arrow and cast homing soulmass. HS took out like 70% of his health when he came up the stairs and I finished him off with a spear jab or two. Repeated the process for the spear-guy as the miscreant accidentally rolled off the stairs. Repeated the process again for the miscreant, but I had a little trouble avoiding the shotel attacks. I really hadn't seen them until that fight. My previous efforts involved casting the great chaos fireball and staying out of range.

Last play-through I didn't darken anor londo, so I think I'll give that a shot.

Dropped the Bed of Chaos yesterday, and Just took out Nito.

Watch your ass, Seath.

I made Quelaag's Fury Sword for the Tomb of Giants, but my Longsword +15 was still much more effective. Kind of feels like waste, but I'm almost done, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Lex Cayman wrote:

Dropped the Bed of Chaos yesterday, and Just took out Nito.

Watch your ass, Seath.

I made Quelaag's Fury Sword for the Tomb of Giants, but my Longsword +15 was still much more effective. Kind of feels like waste, but I'm almost done, so I'm not going to worry about it.

What are your stats? That Longsword +15 has base 200 damage with C/C/-/- growth, which if you're high in STR will definitely out-perform a non-upgraded Furysword.

Yeah, my str and Dex are both around 35. I told you it would be unstoppable. I upgraded the fury sword to +4, but it's still not great.

Oh well. No biggie.

The sunlight maggot is great.

You might get better numbers out of the Furysword with some Humanity as well, since it's a Chaos weapon. E/B/-/- will always lose out to C/C/-/- though, so given your STR and DEX are equal the Longsword +15 will definitely be the better weapon, especially that late in the game.

I need to get myself a proper STR weapon I can enchant, now that I've switched to mostly STR. Black Knight Sword beats out my Furysword, but I can't enchant the BKS, and I'd like to be able to use Gold Pine Resin and some of the weapon enhancing miracles. Time to hit up the wiki.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I need to get myself a proper STR weapon I can enchant, now that I've switched to mostly STR. Black Knight Sword beats out my Furysword, but I can't enchant the BKS, and I'd like to be able to use Gold Pine Resin and some of the weapon enhancing miracles. Time to hit up the wiki.

Demon's Greataxe +15 was my go-to enchantable STR weapon later in the game. I loved that thing. S scaling on STR.

Oh, is that one enchantable? The wiki doesn't list it as such, but I was hoping that was just an error since it has all the usual upgrade paths.

Nice, I'll toss some shards into one and give it a try.

Dyni wrote:

Demon's Greataxe +15 was my go-to enchantable STR weapon later in the game. I loved that thing. S scaling on STR.

Yup, that was my weapon of choice for my Str character, too. At +15, it's beastly even without using any enchantments on it (but it was always nice to know that it could be coated or enchanted, if desired).

ahrezmendi wrote:

Oh, is that one enchantable? The wiki doesn't list it as such, but I was hoping that was just an error since it has all the usual upgrade paths.

Nice, I'll toss some shards into one and give it a try.

It's been a while, but I'm fairly certain it is. Try to enchant it before you upgrade it just in case.

Hellkite Wyrm down, solo'd him with my sorc character. I just put on Havel's Ring, Havel's set, and my Silver Knight shield with Enchanted Claymore +5. I cast Crystal Homing Soulmas before the fight, then just whaled on his foot when he landed. Finished him off before he had a chance to breathe any fire. I did die about 4 times getting my technique down though. I'm soul level 61

ahrezmendi wrote:

Artorias' Greatshield + Black Knight Sword+5 = EZ mode 2nd DLC boss. Seriously EZ mode, I didn't take any damage that wasn't a direct result of my failure to block. All his attacks barely chunked my stamina, and the BKS is light enough that I could bum-rush him when he did his charge-up move to knock him out of it. In the end I used 4 estus, and if I'd been a bit less careless about my attacks I probably could have won using none.

Now the question is, push further into the DLC, or go back and finish Lost Izalith? I think Lost Izalith to get some Demon Titanite and because I want to get Bed of Chaos out of the way.

So far, the only boss in the late game (after getting the lordvessel) that's given me any real trouble has been the four kings. I just finished off the tomb of giants and took care of Nito on my first try.

I say just go for Bed of Chaos. That one was just annoying more than any sort of challenge. I died a bunch of stupid ways like getting swatted off ledges. I say just get Lost Izalith out of the way.

So I leveled my Zwei into divine +5 for some of the stuff I just finished. I still prefer my claymore (+14). It attacked faster, uses less stamina, and currently hits much harder. That's probably because I have no points added to faith.

So, I've dumped 79 hrs into this game, and I'm actually thinking I need convincing to go after the DLC instead of just finishing the game. Anyone care to convince me to go after the extra stuff? Is the story more prominent? Are any sections really enjoyable?

Artorias' Greatshield + Black Knight Sword+5 = EZ mode 2nd DLC boss. Seriously EZ mode, I didn't take any damage that wasn't a direct result of my failure to block. All his attacks barely chunked my stamina, and the BKS is light enough that I could bum-rush him when he did his charge-up move to knock him out of it. In the end I used 4 estus, and if I'd been a bit less careless about my attacks I probably could have won using none.

Now the question is, push further into the DLC, or go back and finish Lost Izalith? I think Lost Izalith to get some Demon Titanite and because I want to get Bed of Chaos out of the way.

EDIT: Sweet, all invading phantoms down too.

Dyni, I confirmed that you can indeed enchant the Demon's Great Axe. I need a bunch more STR to be able to wield it with 1h, but I'm going to give it a try against the Moonlight Butterfly next time I play and see how it does with some Gold Pine Resin.

The DLC bosses were four of my favorite fights in the game. The story and lore is good provided you read item descriptions, though it's just as sparse as anywhere else in the game.

The DLC story is very prominent, and it ties in with the main game if you play things in the right order. There's also a lot of great equipment in the DLC, and I really like the new zones. I'm in the Oolacile Township, right after the 2nd boss, and there's a lot to explore so it's fun. Definitely go through it before finishing the game.

The DLC is some of the best content in the game. Do it!

I somehow lost my white summon soapstone. I have no idea what happened to it, but about the time between which I last saw it and I lost it, I got hit by a darkwraith hit me twice with the soul drain attack and lost my bits of humanity and died while I was trying to do stupid things and had a summon sign out. Anyone know anything about this? And is there a way to get another co-op summoning method (I have put no points in faith) late in the game?