Dark Souls Confessions (Spoilers Naturally)

Yeah, talk to the guy parrying through Taurus' attacks without budging about enemy size and reaction consistency. :P

Right and if he had knocked me back a ways I would have gotten that. Lots of things do that. I think what happened was he did his eye pickup thing on me so I wasn't quite 100% (although certainly 80%+) and when I fell down I popped up with my shield up and was probably just facing not quite the right way or something. So between that and the double damage (from the eye thing) that is why I went down so quickly.

FWIW, I was pretty irritated after all those tries so wasn't thinking 100% clearly. He was relatively easy when I beat him this morning.

Here is what I can recall my setup being for that fight:


So my physical resists were pretty good.

I found Havel's a touch better. Not sure if Kalameet's damage counts as magic, fire or (more likely) a combo of the two. Maybe some physical, too.

I thought he was physical/fire, with magic on the grab move maybe. The way you guys are talking though it sounds like you all know it's magic for sure, so I'm wondering why I didn't intuit that.

I could fully stop any of his attacks other than that one the one time. If I have my shield up and am aiming in the right direction I could absorb it. I might get knocked back a bit but I wouldn't take any damage.

Yeah, the eye thing would do unpredictable but awful things to your damage resistance for sure, especially on a potential one hit attack. I think that was the main variable.

Like I said, though, all I focused on was the steel ring, stamina ring/bellowing ring, and then balanced armor that gets me <25% at higher levels. At SL1 I might have to see what <50% gets me to with Havel's ring because if it can let me soak a straight hit then it's probably worth it. Either way, I would say the eye thing is worse than Artorias charge in terms of "avoid at all costs". I'll see if the crown results in exceptional vulnerability.

So I am at the point where I have all 4 souls to go take on Gwyn and I have hit most areas in the game including the DLC (beat all the bosses there) but have not hit some of the optional areas like the Painted World or that tree thing down at the bottom of Btown. Any reason to hit those (or anywhere else) before I wrap up my first run?

Ash Lake has a slab if you've done all of the Siegmeyer stuff, and it has five dragon scales that you might kick yourself for not getting later if you don't. Painted world has a lot of treasure; probably the most notable thing if you haven't found yourself wanting anything there so far is an item that you can trade for a second Ring of Favor and Protection, which comes in handy if you want to use that in NG+ but also want to swap it out occasionally for a different ring configuration. Both areas are worth visiting just in general though, Painted World because it's a cool different environment and a fun level overall and Ash Lake because it's the most stunningly gorgeous area in the game.

If you do painted world right you get DIS SKIRT.

I completely missed almost every side quest thing with npcs but I may go check that area out.

I ran Ash Lake and grabbed the dragon scales, killed the hydra, and grabbed the sword from the dragon tail. I was under the impression you could farm dragon scales from the drakes in the valley of the drakes so not sure getting the extra dragon scales is really going to benefit me in the end. Going back to the hollow to grab the cloranthy ring next. Then maybe hit up the painted world.

Make sure you get all the lizards in there, also going up is way crappier than going down.

Did you already do the crystal lizards in the great hollow? By all means, farm the wyverns; I find them a huge pain in the ass relative to other farming fodder, where the trip to the lake is simply a quick detour once tied into the Great Hollow lizards and Siegmayer so it's never proved burdensome. Also, Great Magic Barrier for faith builds.

Yeah, there are like, six of those crystal lizards in there, and most of them close to the top. I did many fairly hilarious suicide runs (< 25% running flat out) to get them all - it was really weird, every time I'd swear I got the last one that I saw earlier, I'd get another one in that side hallway.

Faith builds. When I hear 'magic' I think sorcery, but it's a miracle that requires 24 faith.

There are ten, and one tunnel has five of them that you can reload until you get them all. You don't need to be ridiculously fast so much as know where they are, quit/reload, and kill.

Confession - I couldn't figure out why I couldn't backstab those Darkwraiths in New Londo Ruins last night after I managed to finally drain the ruins. Kept getting behind them, and R1 R1 R1. Slashing swing after slashing swing. Where's my backstab?!!?? Didn't dawn on me until this morning that I'd been holding up my shield the entire time. Oh. Right. You can't backstab when blocking.

I have now legitimately been cursed in Dark Souls.

I'd so far managed to avoid it, with one exception that I don't count. That time I was doing the first Seeth encounter, where you have to die, and after I had run out of life and was in the throes of the death animation my curse bar kept going up, so I actually got cursed after I was already dead. Really irritating, but lesson learned I guess.

Yesterday I started a new character. A cleric, because I wanted something that would push me out of my melee-focused comfort zone. So I'm tooling around in the depths, clearing the basilisk area, waiting to get summoned for co-op (which, outside of my attempts with extarbags to kill SL1 Kalameet, is a new experience for me). It was late, I was pretty tired, I'd had a few beers, but really I just got sloppy. I had convinced myself I was immune to being cursed. So I waded into three basilisks simultaneously, killed the first two, was in a curse cloud, but hey, my curse bar was less than half full. And then it shot up to full out of nowhere (I guess maybe the clouds stack). And then I Alt-F4d.

Last night was my first cursing as well...in the Depths...from the extended frogs or whatever.

Cost 6000 souls to undo from the Moss Merchant.

The guy up by the first bell tower after you defeated the Gargoyles has curse cure for 4000 souls if that helps. (I stock up at times)

Also in the spirit of this confessions thread, I'm on my way up to that guy right now to buy some curse cures because I ran out. I hate those frog things. I also hate the Great Hollow.

I also hate the Great Hollow, but not for the basilisks. I only ever got 1 crystal lizard out of that place. And my first time there died a dozen and a half times to the level, not even enemies.

Though, basilisks aren't that bad. Pull and take one at a time.

You can also turn something cheap (dung pile?) into a cure at the Asylum.

My standard approach to the basilisks is to stay the fuck away from them. If I have to engage, do it at range. Ideally with a bow - snipe the little bastards.

It's the Cracked Red Eye Orb, which is not that convenient to buy really but which you find a number of, and you get two Purging Stones in exchange for it.

Gwyn down first try.

For a guy with a giant flaming sword he sure is vulnerable to fire.

I actually didn't research him at all before fighting him and ended up fighting him with my gold serpent ring on because I just went through the fog on a whim. Biggest issue was finding time/places to drink in between pyroing him to death (fully ascended pyro glove).

I dicked around in NG+ for a while and was getting really cocky killing everything so easily then the Taurus Demon knocked me off the bridge when I was on the wrong side of an attack. DARK SOULS.

Also, started up a sorcerer to try out the magic and it is so odd being so underpowered and being afraid of things again.

As I posted earlier, I'm occasionally playing this game again after a rather long hiatus. I just killed the Capra Demon after dying to him 2 times, because apparently I suck again. One positive thing I noticed though is that my control of the camera now is worlds better than it was when I started playing. I didn't have any camera difficulties during that fight at all. In fact, I'm kinda confused why I had problems with it in the first place.

Successfully making my guy run up the ramp, on the hand, is a different matter.

I killed Lord's Blade Cirian because I liked her outfit. I felt bad about it afterward, but I knew she was just going to emo herself to death anyway so I let her go out like a warrior.

I invaded a guy in the Depths yesterday (died, good fight) and then summoned him to help me with Capra demon (didn't need to, it's not a fight I get hung up on - but I was curious if it would work). So that was a little silly.

Hornet Ring helped me get by without a weapon buff, otherwise same setup. How many tries?

I always put down my summon sign after invading and killing someone, on the off chance they want a hand. The connection is already established, might as well make it work for you.

Do you mean Hornet ring?

Wups, yes.

You weren't by chance invading people in Oolicile Sanctuary last night were you? With a bucket head helmet?

If so, fuck you for using cheap tactics, and thanks for the help with Artorias.

Sorry, I can't take credit for that.

I got a vagrant in my game today. I was super excited!



So excited, in fact, that in my frenzy of screenshot taking I proceeded to back directly off of a ledge.



Oops.