Dark Souls

Exactly so. Try to avoid getting toxic'd, but don't even worry about the poison.

Hmmmm. I am using the spider shield but it seemed like some poison was still building up. Maybe I am crazy.

I don't have a ring of fog yet. I'm wearing light torso armor; they don't aggro from super far away. I'll keep it all in mind.

The ring of fog is fantastic. Definitely trade for it with Snuggly if you get an extra lantern from killing all of the necromancers in the catacombs and the one that Patches "gives you", or do I like I do with every new character (seriously, I can't stop) and join the forest covenant to invade 20-30 people it takes to get 3 wins. It's a really fun and hectic way to invade serially, and you see all kinds of misbehavior along with some pretty great fights, but it's all usually sporting in its own way. IE it begins as a duel, then I get injured and try to pull him back into the npc enemies, he declines, another forest covenanter invades, the guy we are invading finally summons someone successfully, and all of a sudden it's a pitched battle all over the map.
The spider shield is directionally protecting you, as I understand it, in the same way that a dragon crest shield protects you from directional fire but not from standing in it. So it's optimal for blocking poison weapon enemies, not so much for other types of poison sources.

Isn't there something I need to do to get the super ninja ring before I join the forest covenant? I should go read up on that. I don't even know where the forest covenant is.

You get the Dark Wood Grain Ring after joining the Forrest Hunters and it generally involves breaking the covenant so join, get the Fog Ring then get the DWGR. Also the DWGR is considerably less useful post patch.

Yeah seriously don't even sweat the getting of that ring. It's not useless and you should pick it up if you join the Forest Hunters anyway, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it these days.

I've never gotten the DWGR, the Cloranthy ring, Covetous Silver Serpent Ring and only got the wolf ring once (out of 5 games). My STR guy is going to have to get that cloranthy ring.

Speaking of rings, is there any point to the Calamity ring, or is for the SL 1 masochists to up the challenge?

The wolf ring is trivial to get,and considerably more useful post 1.06. The DWGR is sort of a specialty item for PvP, now, more than anything else, as it should have been in the first place. The Cloranthy ring is absolutely invaluable for medium-heavy armor builds, and even makes sense for lighter armor builds using heavy weapons so you can stay in the fight. Covetous Silver is a no-brainer, and everyone should have it so they can swap to it after killing a boss to collect the extra souls, ideally along with the mimic head for 40%+ total.

The distinction there being if you want to avoid alerting people at the bottom who aren't facing it, don't slide.

No known point except to make the game harder.

So it seems my next move is to slip past or kill Chesty's pet and head to Darkroot thataway? Ok then.

Fire or lightning because Zwei +15 is terrible.

I think Fire or Chaos is the better option these days because the new content is relatively lighting resistant. Just do Quelaag first if you haven't already.

Man I hate getting fire weapons. I would pay a DLC fee just to move Vamos the motherfuck out of the Catacombs.

The DLC does this in a way. Well, it doesn't move Vamos, but it moves <smith you want to visit in the early game> to either Undead Parish or NLR for a lot of builds, because the elemental nerf makes magic and divine weapons relevant at less extreme levels of int and faith.

I just beat Manus for the first time, and godDAMN what a great fight! Reminded me a lot of Flamelurker, except with more tricks. I could juuuust block two tantrums in a row, and timing the Silver Pendant whenever he'd cast his spells kept me on my toes the entire time. I died three or four times when he was down to ~10% health, just trying to sneak in one last hit and failing.

Boring relevant character stats if you want an idea of what it was doable (and relatively easy, once the patterns are down) with:

These days I've been going down there to snag the green titanite and leaving again without killing her. Not really quite sure why, but that has become my custom.

It's pretty awful, isn't it? It's like a rapier on the opposite of steroids. So.... a rapier on heroin? Sure, let's go with that.

Really? Even with a STR build? Hm. I only browsed a few UG weapons but they're all C strength rating, so I'm not sure what I should be taking to +15.

I think the PC fix patch thing breaks Blighttown swamp. I'm pretty sure there should be a haze over the whole thing, and there isn't; I can see almost clear to the other side. It rather detracts from that place's atmosphere, but it's a bit tough to say that I mind. :P

HAH! Sounds about right. I think I did 10 or so on my other character and gave up. Everyone is just so much better than me (or cheating).

Like whaaaaaaaat? I'd be happy to Fire this thing but I'm a bit away from that right now.

You would know this if you have been reading my posts. Jerk.

Man, XBL just shit the brick in a Manus fight where I was a summon. Poor bastard. Now I can't play Dark Souls (not gonna play offline).

Funny story. I was farming humanity in the chasm while waiting to be summoned. Got all the way to the bottom and was killing the humanity down there when the summoning message flashed. Not wanting to return in the middle of a mess of humanity I backed up to get to a safe place ... and fell off the edge to my death. Thankfully I had put my sign down by the bonfire so I could put it right back and was re-summoned right quick. Then I thought, 'were all those summoning failed due to terrible players dying?' Could be.

The Mail Breaker is, like, the worst of the dex weapons. If you want something pokey with crazy range, get a Demon's Spear from the batwing demons in Anor Londo(or buy one from Shiva when he's in Blighttown). If you want something pokey that has loads of small attacks that can potentially stagger an enemy, get Ricard's Rapier.

I'm not sure what to go for with weapons now. I have a +5 lightning Gargoyle Halberd, and a +14 Balder Side Sword. (26 Dex) No fire, and a +5 Divine Halberd from doing the catacombs the first time. Been upgrading the Pharis bow and the crimson robes as well here and there.

Get to the DLC when you can, and try out the two tracer weapons. The Silver Tracer with the Hornet Ring and 40 dex is amazing in parries and backstabs (note only the R2 has toxins), and the gold tracer is a wonderful daily driver, especially for enemies that bleed. It's the speed of a dagger with the range of a falchion and at 1 lb apiece you can equip both and swap in as needed. The combo makes NG+ trivial.

Looking at 40 strength/18 dex, the Zweihander has an AR of 557 despite being slow as balls, because its base damage is not actually that high and its scaling is garbage. The other options are either much higher damage (Demon Great Machete, Great Club), much faster (Man-Serpent Greatsword, Black Knight Halberd), or both (Large Club, Black Knight Greataxe). The Zweihander is great for its intended audience: builds that want a big, slow weapon without a large stat investment. Its purpose is as specific as the Drake Sword's purpose. It is not well-suited to a high strength build.

I killed the moonlight butterfly, summoning Beatrice (with my sorcerer; um lol). I've already unlocked the forest gate with the crest and I'm at 25 int. I've probed through the gate but gotten myself killed a few times.

I have no earthly idea how far I am from the moonlight greatsword. Everything in Dark Souls that is not immediate always feels "really far away". Is there something I can or should consider making in the mean time, or should I stick with the drake sword?

The Moonlight Greatsword is pretty far away. I think the Drake Sword is fine for now. One neat thing about leveling a sorcerer is that the game provides you with a very smooth weapon curve from Drake Sword to Lightning Spear to Moonlight Butterfly Horn, so you don't need to really even worry about it for like half the game.

If you do, you'll still respawn at FLS even though it isn't lit.

Doesn't make you not a jerk. Jerk.

Yea, what extar said. The sword is far away and the next good weapon you'll get is the lightning spear. That said while you're near Andre, try to see what you need to make the Moonlight Butterfly Horn and get that weapon ready so once you can make that you can and not have to run around getting stuff.

No need, for the game provides even this much: use the lightning spear until you get to the Giant Blacksmith (which happens to be right before the boss fight in which lightning weapons suck), descend it to Spear +10 and make the Horn out of that.

Edit: I guess the one preparation I'd recommend is stocking up on whatever demon titanite is available, but if that's too frustrating it's not that big a deal... I think the low-hanging DT fruit is still enough to get it to +3 or so which is enough to get you in range of the other two weapons.

So this worked. Capra demon is not hard at all with decent armor and a decent shield. It's still a weirdly designed boss fight, IMO -- I really ended up struggling most with the camera and interface. On to the depths!