Dark Souls

If I'm reading this right, I need reinforce a spear (e.g.partisan) or rapier (e.g. estoc) to +10 to make the moonlight butterfly horn. So all I need is titanite right? And souls, obviously.

Read my last post for the easier way but otherwise you need titanite shards (purchaseable from Andre), large titanite shards (purchaseable from Giant Blacksmith), any thrusting weapon, and the large ember (found in The Depths), and you would want to upgrade it to at least +6 before doing Sen's Fortress in order to avoid backtracking. The demon titanite I mentioned is for upgrading the Horn once you make it.

I missed that the first time. But you keep bringing up the lightning spear. So I should reinforce a sper to the appropriate level and then modify it and roll with that? I've got like 6 titanite on me right now I think.

Sorry, I will explain: there are three (unless I'm forgetting one) weapons in the game that you can find pre-upgraded to a third tier weapon type. The first and most important of these is the Lightning Spear, which you find in Sen's Fortress. No need to upgrade a spear of your own.

Remember you can also downgrade weapons. This comes in handy later with the lightning spear as extrabags explained.

I See, thanks.

Hung out Blight Town downstairs, cleared up all the dart throwers. Thought about clearing out the rest of the place but it's a real PITA without the Rusted Ring so might return later. Hung out for a while being summoned for Queelag and reminding myself how that fight worked but after a few fights where I wasn't really "getting" it I decided screw it, this place is popular - I'll get a summon too so I don't have to sweat it.

Did so, got a helper within a few minutes and we cleared her out. Of course she got in a last lava puddle blow on me and I died right as the VICTORY sign came up. Fortunately the game did register that as a win. :D

Saw a gravelord sign in the Undead Burgh the other day, but he got killed while I was waffling about going in. Didn't even see a single gravelord monster. My first sign ever, heh; didn't even know that's what they look like.

Next up, returning to the Asylum and Catacombs. I need that Ring so I can clear out blighttown easier. Sen's can wait; maybe I'll turn that Zwei into a Fire Zwei while I'm there.

Noodled around in the forest covenant area, forced most of the phantoms to suicide, and joined! Since I've got like 19k souls on me, I think I'll spend most of them before I consider starting invading. though I've got no humanity on me (I have a bunch of solo and a few twin humanties of course). Not enough to do 20-30 invasions (I am bad at pvp). How exactly does the cat's ring work? I wear it and she says she'll summon me when I am needed. Is this some sort of scripted in game thing?

Yeah. Basically wear the ring and go about your business, and you'll be summoned into the Forest. You don't even actually need to be in the Forest in your own world when you're summoned.

Additionally, when you see the "invading" message flashing, you can quickly change your cat ring to something more useful. You'll still go through with the invasion.

Do I need to be human for all of this as well?

No, human-ness is optional. Being human does mean (if you haven't killed the bosses) that you can be invaded by Darkwraiths etc, so keep that in mind if you do shift over. If you die in an invasion you just respawn at the last bonfire with the area reset but your souls and humanity intact.

Last night I was pleasantly surprised with the summoning in the DLC that was going on with my SL 120 sorcerer. I got two to go fight Artorias and two for Manus. I was summoned a couple of times for Manus, too. Heck, after Artorias I got invaded and saw signs near the bonfire (but that failed and after a spirited fight bit it).

After Manus I tried the dual SGs and, damn they're tough. I cheesed them hiding in the tunnel. Then I discovered they respawn. Yikes.

I'm swimming in humanity now and hate losing that more than souls. I have 99 biscuits and ate a bunch. To get all my pickups from Manus. I think I'm running with 11. I have never been so rich with them. I recall my first play through I was humanity poor an had to farm the depths. Funny how knowing how to play goes with that.

I still have to kill Kalamet. Debating if I should be a monster and murder Gough. I did murder Artorias' mourner for a pair of shoes, though. Got all my new spells except the Snuggy trade. I really want to try them out.

It's not knowing how to play that's a key variable in humanity acquisition, unless you are talking about pure soft humanity obtained in PvP. The amounts dropped by NPCs, found in various locations, and the rates for farming (especially with the DLC humanity creatures) are almost exponentially higher than they were up until relatively recently in the game's life.

Man I am bad at pvp. Did a couple of Covenant summons, didn't perform very well. These are somewhere within my soul level right? I thought I read it was a range but I can't recall what. Still, that's not really the whole story. One guy seemed to be really well outfitted; he practically two shotted me with something that looked claymoreish, and I didn't do much damage when I hit him. And his helmet looked vaguely like Mordred's from the Excalibur movie (only, his was silver or iron).

I've taken to killing any npc that I don't need anymore for the free souls they give me. Recently I fought Laurentius, and because I messed up the initial hits, it turned into an actual fight, rather than a quick, clean assassination.

This leads me to my question: pyromancy seems incredibly easy to fight in a pvp-ish setting. Laurentius' spells were so telegraphed that I had no problem interrupting them. Is it like that in real pvp as well?

Depends on which covenant. Darkmoon, they're within 10 levels+10% of your level and downwards from there. Forest Hunters... well, no. You can literally be summoned for any level intruder into the forest. Which means that a level 1 Forest Hunter can perfectly well be summoned for a level 700+ host.

Like this? That's the Mask of the Father, which increases someone's carry weight limit.

This: is the Mask of the Mother, which increases someone's HP by a little.

This: is the Mask of the Child, which increases someone's stamina regeneration.
Gear is really the deciding factor in a lot, if not most of, PvP fights in Dark Souls, sadly.

I've named my characters after cheese. I have Manchengo, Gouda and Feta. My first play though character from Feb. was not named after a cheese, sadly. I forget their name.

I don't have an amusing naming system for my toons, but my most recent strength character is named RalphWiggum, because I started him off as a hunter since I knew I wanted 14 dex anyways. And for a hunter specializing in large clubs, Ralph seemed appropriate.

Every time I smashed something over the head, I heard Ralph's voice proudly declare "My cat's breath smells like cat food!"

That's nice, Ralph. Well done.

It was the Mask of the child for sho. His armor was medium or heavy AFAICT. Well, it looked it.

Rage quit. Kalameet has proven to be difficult even with summons in NG+. I went from normal < 25% gear, to gold hemmed gear to black iron armor. The last time we got it to 50% when it got me. Wanted to upgrade the dragon crest shield to +5 so I went to snuggy and messed up some trading. Then I wanted to go to the giant blacksmith and died. Twice. On stupid shit. That's when I rage quit.

Did the armour look anything like this?


Giant Armour, probably the best defenses in the game.

No. It looked vaguely medievalish.

Could be either of the Knight sets. I'm wearing the Elite Knight Set on my heavy/heavy, because so far it's got the best mix of <50% and protection. And poise.

Ran around Blighttown swamp even without the ring; I'll be back for farming later, but just picking stuff up was straightforward enough to not need it. Sluggish, but straightforward. Dropped into the Great Hollow to pick up Cloranthy, then bugged out; too much of a PITA to get out of there pre-warping. Then it was Asylum and Stray Demon time - as always, a challenging but fun fight, where I typically know what to do but he'll still sometimes do a quick 180 and flatten me. Good times. Practiced parrying a bit with the black knights there. I think I'm getting better. I realized a big part of my problem previously was the Zwei - it's just so damn long I probably wasn't even in parrying range half the time. Now I got right in their face and got oh, probaby 60% success rate. Maybe more.

Now down to Catacombs just with Astora's +2. Yeah it takes a few more hits than the Divine Claymore I used on my other character, but it's a nice and fast move set for mowing them down, and it's not like they're that tough (anymore). I've reached the second bonfire and am poised to wrap up. The Zwei needs fire, and I need another 4 STR for the Great Club (taking that one to +15 normal). I'm also messing around with the Butcher Knife (fast!) since I snagged that down in Blight.

Oh, and avoiding Frampt this time. Seems like they really want to funnel you that direction - I don't see how anyone would do 4 Kings before Queelag other than very intentionally and aware.

Tried sif a couple of times solo, trying to stay back and blast. That has not gone super well; in both cases I appeared to either misjudge his hop back distance or start healing a little slow and he finished me off. Might have to try to summon help.

In grand Demons tradition, I put down a summon sign (close to the giant glowey door) to see if I could help anyone else but saw no traffic.

The key to Sif is to block block block with the highest stability shield you have, be patient and pick your opportunities to attack (or cast, in your case). It's not really a hard fight once you get the hang of when it's safe to cast your spells, because he actually does give you a lot of time in between some attacks.

Had him under 20%, but then he did one of his huge hop backs. As he charged I paused and then tried to re-target, and of course I got turned around instead.

What spells are you using? Homing Crystal Soulmass is probably your best bet in that fight because you can just cast it whenever you have time instead of trying to get the lock-on, and it still works if he jumps out of lock-on range.

I generally avoid Sif until after Anor Londo. Much easier that way. With the DLC it pays to save Sif until you're done with that.

I don't have any such spells. I'm using the arrows still; though I did beat him (it was close a couple of times, as a second blocked attack when I'm under 80% or so stamina breaks through my defenses; I don't really have any particularly good shields). And I got int to 32. I had previously upgraded one of my shields (can't recall which) to +3. Thinking maybe I should try to upgrade it a few more times so I have a decent stability fallback. Anyway, Greater Soul Arrow and A couple of Soul Arrows finished him off (he has the obnoxious tendency to occasionally leap to the side of, or do his pounce and dodge, the greaters but I probably hit him on 17/20).

I'm of the understanding that eventually griggs will have soul spear and iirc homing soulmass for sale, but this is triggered by some sort of in-game event that's "far away" (honestly Ididn't read into it too closely, but I thought I cought "sen's fortress"). IS there somewhere else for me to look for spells?

Zomg I killed a black knight (with fire. Or rather, sorcerer energy, which I like to think of as "bright and shiny fire that I make into convient shapes"), I've never done that before. Squee. Can I go kill the other 2-3 I've seen now? How exciting.

I cruised through the Depths last night with no problems whatsoever, then got to Blighttown. I hate that level. I died about 15 times trying to grab the Iaito before giving up. Platforming in this game is atrocious, although I kind of see why they wanted to add it. It would be interesting if they'd made it so that weight affected jumping distance. Oh well.

It does. The only way I can make it to the Crestfallen Merchant is to go <25% and jump.

Yeah, I shredded my Elite Knight Armor in order to make that jump to the Iaito. It's the difference between falling short and dying and landing squarely on the platform with plenty of space on all sides.

Yep. Ditto the Iaito jump in Blight Town, although I may have mistimed the jutting spar in the darkness while at 50%. Dropped to <25% and it was effortless.

Yep, make sure to search that place for someone that seems like a spellcasting type ...

No access to it yet, unfortunately. If I understand things correctly, what I need to do is Queelag. But she's a ways off - I haven't been through blighttown. I could kill the hydra. I think I'll go kill the black knights in the undead places first. I did return and pick up the rusted iron ring.

Do I have access to a nice selection of shields now. I'll switch back to spider for blight town I suppose.

If you kill the hydra you can then free Dusk ('sup Thoro) and get access to her utility spells. Hidden body was my favorite, the rest are meh. But I got them all for completeness sake.