oh I got the blue slab already (and the three lizards). last death before I quit for the day to try and wrangle a podcast together somehow was the golden golem.
The 3 lizards are trivial to deal with, as I'm sure you know. There are two golden golems, though, and many people underplay the importance of the "and" in my statement. You don't get to stay sane unless you ignore the second Golem and his stupid chunk. The first Golem, of course, does not meet the sanity-breaking standard because he can be easily lured to the first ledge you start out on for solo easy pickings or frantically double-teamed for a quick DPS kill by partners. But I still recommend arrows and the former.
So I was worried about fighting the gargoyles at a low SL, with no armor. But Zwei +3, + lightning, and I literally finished the fight without getting hurt in four 2h R2 attacks. Three for the first gargoyle and one for the second; but I think Solaire did a smidge of damage in there.
Yeah the animations aren't adjusted it looks like. Which is a shame. What parrying/deflection bullshit are you talking about? Also what's this about the boar's head? That's just such an awesome helm. Both in looks and function.
Cool! So how do I build a sorcerer - crank intelligence and attunement I guess? What gear should I be working towards? Never played a caster in either souls games...
Armor is whatever you can fit, but you want to sprint for the Moonlight Greatsword, which means ringing both bells, zipping through Sen's, getting the lord vessel, and then immediately doing duke's archives. But yeah, don't put a single point in anything other than endurance and int, excepting the bare minimum stats for the Moonlight Greatsword itself.
Some of the descriptions of Catarina gear reference its superiority in parrying or deflecting, which does not translate to any in-game effect. Nothing in particular beyond that I thought you were criticizing Catarina on looks. But for a long time it had a rep as a popular low level griefing helm, but that's pretty much gone by the wayside thanks to the nerfing of the flip ring.
It depends on how rigorous you want to be about optimization. People who are doing it as a later build after knowing the game well favor the kind of optimization Charles describes, but it's not universally true that you are better off skipping fundamentals along the way for a more normally paced evolution. That means dropping a point in end and vit every now and then once you've put two in int, and increasing your attunement proportional to actually having worthwhile things to do with it. A perfectly viable and effective magic caster can cap out in the mid 30s for int so long as you are keeping decent melee in your back pocket and the rings and helms (dusk crown and the much more excellent dark sun crown) are getting swapped in when you need the extra boost. Me, I prefer developing a range of options especially with respect to shields through strength 16 for the excellent eagle shield, as all on its own it significantly reduces the difficulty of most larger enemies when properly upgraded. You can swap that for the surprisingly capable magic warrior round shield or the crest shield for magic-oriented enemies. There is no question, though, that the best melee damage dealer is probably the moonlight sword, and you can also experiment with the absurd range of the butterfly horn if you are so inclined as it definitely has its uses. I have yet to hear any positive endorsements of Enchanted or Magic upgrades, although I'm sure the usual weapons that do fine for every set of upgrades (like the gargoyle halberd) are fine there as well. But afaik it's still far sub-optimal compared to the Moonlight greatsword. Also, it's good to consider pyro on hand as well, as some enemies that are not vulnerable to magic and you will be facing ASAP get pasted by it, and your attunement can be switched easily. I'm thinking of Seathe, of course. When testing spells, pay attention both to casting time and the damage output, as well as the number of casts. Homing spheres are well regarded across the board for their versatility, as are the bottom tier of magic missiley thingies for clearing trash out of a level or picking at a bigger enemy that tries to make some distance between you. The soul spears are more controversial due to their low cast count, but they have huge damage and if you have the slots it might be worth it. The physical damage spells from the DLC are fantastic almost across the board. The crystal spells are a substantial upgrade, though, so keep that as your first big target plot-wise.
The funny thing is, your description of the crystal caves applies to pretty much every section of the game. It's the "getting the hang of it" part that's tough.
I don't understand why you're recommending that shield. The wooden shield, which you pick up for free in a chest, has much better stability, blocks more physical damage, and only weighs .5 pounds more. What's the draw of the magic warrior round shield?
Yeah but seath is trivial to cheese if you go for the right tentacle. You can beat him without getting hit at all, even if you don't have any special gear. edit: To kill him of course. Getting the tail is altogether a different beast, but pyro won't help there either.
It's light, it's cheap, and it blocks a lot of magic. If you have something more productive to do with the magic upgrade path, that's fine, but I never do. I like to pair it up with a heater shield in order to build a parry/dodge/just in time block intensive character, myself. For someone who isn't comfortable with giving up turtling altogether, then I also included the crest shield as a magic option. I suppose you could throw in the dark hand if you really want to get crazy but I don't do light or medium shields without parry. The wooden shield you get for free from a corpse in a balcony in the burg if you have the undead burg key or the master key. It's fine, but in long-term recommendations I don't see how it even enters the running unless you are trying to challenge yourself.
That's fine, but it's not a "but". Pyro solves a lot of problems, especially in the first half of the game where magic is comparatively under-powered. Seath is one example of an enemy who is magic immune but vulnerable to fire, just as Queelag is the opposite, and especially if he follow your approach and sticks to low end vit str dex they are not likely to have a lot of exceptional damage output options at that point. It's not like getting basic pyro spells and a +10 or better glove is resource intensive. Pyro requires no stats, the glove weighs nothing, and it's good to have a fire option in your back pocket for fire vulnerable enemies. Once you know the bosses and the boss patterns you can choose to fight them with a broken sword hilt +15 if that's your preference, but I'm just trying to draw what I think are straight lines between points.
Good god I love this game. I remember my first time through Sen's Fortress; not knowing where to go, being in constant terror of the boulders and swinging blades. But last night with my new strength character, I ran through it without a death. I'm also doing co-op for the first time really, which is so much fun. I've helped clear the Iron Golem for others about 7 times now, and have more humanity than I have ever had at 13. I don't want to go to Anor Londo and lose it to the asshole knights shooting Dragonslayer arrows at you, so I'm thinking of co-oping in Sen's until I have the 30 humanity to open the Lost Izalith shortcut. I've also been thinking about going to the Catacombs and getting a nice fire weapon and the Rite of Kindling instead. Decisions, decisions...
I recommend first pushing your stats to the 16 strength needed for the Drake Sword (which is actually advisable for a sorcery build as it will last you a long time with zero effort), then raising vit, end, and int more or less equally until vit and end are both at 20, adding attunement slots and dex as you go. After that, raise nothing but int until it's at 36, then start raising int, vit, and end together again with some more attunement sprinkled in as needed. Your target maximum stats are: Str: 16 Dex: 16 Vit: 40 End: 40 Int: 50 You can of course level more aggressively in int if you want to max out your damage faster (the Charles approach), but for a less experienced player this leveling strategy should get you there while keeping you safe. Weapon-wise, you can literally use the Drake Sword with no problems until you find the Lightning Spear in Sen's Fortress, which segues very neatly into the Moonlight Butterfly Horn once you get to Anor Londo. You'll want to make that, get Velka's Rapier from the Painted World, and cut off Seath's tail for the Moonlight Greatsword; these are your three main weapon options, the fourth being of course whatever weapon you like upgraded to Enchanted +5. It's not a terrible idea to keep some fire/lightning/normal weapons around too but it's by no means required. Other gear you want to be wearing pretty much at all times: Crown of Dusk (only take this off for The Duke's Archives) and Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring. Use the Sorcerer's Catalyst until you're at 33 int (iirc) and then switch to Logan's. Make sure you buy or otherwise obtain every spell you can, but especially get all of Logan's stuff including the second copies of his original line that open up via Griggs, because those are going to be your main sources of damage.
Not quite, actually. The crystal ring shield (boss shield made from the Moonlight Butterfly's soul) has a higher magic defense. You don't need to spend any demon titanite upgrading the crystal ring shield, either; it has its max magic defense when you first create it. (upgrades only increase the stability) Oooh. It's a suggestion about what to do with all those excess blue chunks, since magic/enchanted upgrades blow. Gotcha. I generally just feed them to Frampt for lower level, more useful upgrade mats. But I see where you're coming from.
See, but there you run into the problem that I wouldn't advocate that someone doing a magic run choose the ring shield over the horn, so it's not going to be an option for me. But you're technically correct with respect to Charles' point, of course.
Meh, I thought the Tomb was a bigger fuck you. I'd say attunement is best spent at the lower levels because it's easy to come by levels (since they're cheap) and you need a few level to earn a slot. I have 8 (IIRC) attunement slots on my sorcerer and that's a good amount. Another thing is, is that as you attune your magic they stack, so if you have two souls spears slotted they take up 1 position in the UI. 8 slots may sound unwieldily, but it's not as you'll attune multiple copies along with a utility or two. Of course, for tough bosses you'll slot specific one and not worry about using all your slots.
Funny enough my first time it was a major fuck you, but every subsequent one has been nothing (hidden body or fog ring).
I was using a magic claymore at that point that chewed Queelag up like nothing. Anyway I'm not suggesting ignoring vit and end altogether, at least not end, anyway. But if you are blitzing int, a magic weapon works quite well until you get the magic claymore. And your magic power ramps up so quickly that it's very rare to find anything that isn't a crystal golem that causes problems.
Seath is definitely not immune to magic damage (unless it was patched in with the DLC). I don't think anything in the game is. He's resistant to it, but the high-end sorceries are just so high damage that they eat right through things that are hypothetically very resistant to it. Sorcery > all.
I tried this very thing just yesterday, actually. Crystal soulmass, crystal soul spear, Crown of Dusk, Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring, 44 Int... nothing. No damage whatsoever. To top it off, I was using Velka's Rapier, which deals the bulk of its damage from... yep, Magic. Made for an awkward spectacle, running around and trying to keep my co-op partner alive while doing absolutely no appreciable damage or even managing to distract Seath.
It's odd; I don't remember a winged spear in the graveyard so I must have missed it originally (I remember the souls, the zweihander, and the shield). I have it now. Started a sorcerer (I have never messed with magic much in either game); soul arrow really makes a lot of early stuff trivial (though I don't have problems fighting things). Killed Taurus, got Dragon Sword, but had to run from doing the boar as I got heavily poisoned by the rats. I've got the stats to use the dragon sword and winged spear, and 18 end now. I never tried looting the stuff from the poison dragon before so I did that too.
Weird. I guess either they decided that one fight in the game shouldn't be trivial for a sorcery build or I'm insane and it was always like that. But I could swear that I've taken huge chunks off of him with Soul Spears and also that I was able to deal more damage to his tail with Velka's than I did with my Fire Estoc +10 despite the very similar AR.
Boy I love hacker encounters. Invaded in anor londo by a dude wearing no clothes, using no shield, and when I hit him, it did about a pixel of damage to his health.
I just started playing this and am still working through Undead Burg. I know I'm quite a ways from the DLC content, but is there anything in the DLC patch that would make me want to go ahead and buy the DLC?
I summoned two sunbros just now to fight Ornstein & Smough, and holy crap it was simple. Between this and a piss-easy Quelaag fight earlier, I think this is a sign that I need to do co-op more often!
Yes. I've done the fight numerous times before, I just kinda derped when it came to loadout before heading to the caves and didn't realise until I was in the actual bossfight. Laurel & Hardy seem to be a popular fight for co-op. I know I like it a lot, and there's some satisfaction both in keeping the aggro of whoever the host wants killed last and keeping him away from the others while they nuke the other one, and in being able to unload some serious damage on those feckers who so thoroughly wrecked my shit the first few times I tried 'em. What's it kitted out in? Certain combinations of gear seem to ensure less or almost no summons from fashion-conscious hosts.
The DLC content is awesome, and all of the changes in the patch are for the better. However, I think you actually get the patch even if you don't buy the DLC.
Oh, OK. I'll hold off on the DLC then. Should I wait until I beat the core content, or pick it up once I'm at the point I can start it?
To be honest, I don't like either of those shields to defend against magic. They're both crappy physical shields, and most encounters that have magic also have some sort of physical attack that you have to defend against too. The Crest Shield is a slightly worse magic defense shield, but it's a very good physical defense shield as well. I think pretty much all characters, regardless of their end or strength, should just get that one for magic defense. *shrug* Whatever floats people's boats, I guess.
Seath is immune to *crystal* magic, not magic in general. My sorceror killed him just fine using Greater Heavy Soul Arrows.
Once you beat the core content (as in finish your first playthrough), you won't have access to the DLC content anymore. It gets added on to what is essentially the last third of the game, which is wide open. I would say buy it right after you beat Ornstein and Smough, because that's when you can first access the new content.
