I look forward to ramming up against this shortly as well. I'm hoping that a good falling attack will crush at least one of the dudes and then spend a lot of time running and attempting to split them up.
If you're foregoing range & spells, a useful tactic for that fight is to use the Ring of Fog (or Hidden Body, if you're allowing yourself utility spells) to get behind them by hugging the left wall. You can then approach pretty close to them by keeping the pillar between you & their line of sight. Then rush out & whack Lautrec. If you have heavy enough armor, and hit hard enough, Lautrec dies in 2 or 3 hits, which (in theory) is quick enough that his companions won't kill you first. I've also read that a single parry/riposte on Lautrec in that same situation will also kill him, but I'll be damned if I can get a parry to work on those damn weapons of his.
When I've invaded Lautrec and for some reason not been able or willing to use poison arrows(I usually just cheese it from the spot you spawn at), I've concentrated on taking his friends out first. Get 'em up on the staircase so they're in single file, preferably with pike guy in front(because he can poke you even through his friends; that thing has ludicrous range) and pick 'em off one by one. Just be careful when you get Lautrec down to low health -- his Red Tearstone Ring will kick in and he can quite literally twoshot you through your shield. Shotel R2 attack is nasty.
Is this new? I don't recall finding any titanite in the catacombs and neither of the wikis mention it.
These seem like a common stumbling block but I've honestly never had difficulty with them. I just run straight up the stairs to the one on the right and kill it, the one on the left can shoot you when you're there. Then walk over to the other and kill it.
It's a single green titanite shard, but there has always been a pickup there. Did they change it? I don't know. Doesn't seem likely though.
I have literally never killed the arrow knight on the left. There doesn't seem much point. Once you deal with the guy on the right, just save yourself the pain, walk around the corner, and wash your hands of it.
I'm attacking head-on like an idiot. The main problem I'm having with Lauterc and friends is the damnable mage. I can't concentrate on the melee guys with that guy lobbing those spells out of sight. I first try and take him out but he always alludes me all the while Lauteric and spear guy pincer me in.
The map here doesn't indicate any titanite at all. Perhaps one of the souls at the top of the spiral is different from what's on the map?
So looking at the catacombs stuff I read something that seemed to imply that once the Necromancers are dead you don't need a divine weapon to kill the skeletons anymore, is that true? I've always used a divine weapon for pretty much the entire area.
One of the virtues I've heard people attribute to Dark Souls is that "It doesn't ever cheat. It plays fair." What does that mean? Not just "souls" Soul of a Hero. 10,000. It is *so* worth it to poison the left archer at the same time that you poison the right one. Hero souls are the best kind of souls.
It's on a ledge that's only accessible by dropping. And the only way to get off the ledge is to drop some more. It would be pretty hard to indicate its location on a map. Each necromancer "controls" a certain segment of skeletons. Once that necromancer is killed, all the skeletons in his segment becoming killable using any weapon or spell. It's surprisingly easy to do the Catacombs without a divine weapon at all. You need to run past all the skeletons to the first necromancer (which is fairly easy to do) and kill him, then turn around & kill any (now mortal) skeletons that followed you. The next segment is controlled by a necromancer that can be (and should be) killed by arrows as soon as you enter the big cavern. He patrols the area across the chasm. That makes all the skeletons in the next indoor area mortal. From there you can do the drop down trick to get straight to Pinwheel. By the way, the next necromancer is also killable before you meet the skeletons of his segment. He's standing on the other side of the spiky bridge, and is practically begging to be shot by arrows. If you want to explore the rest of the catacombs, it becomes much harder to progress without a divine weapon. As far as I know, there aren't any easy tricks to killing the remaining 3 necromancers; you just have to wade through their skeletons & find them.
Hmmmm, the bonfire inside of [wherever, past the archers; turns out they're easy when you're trying to kill the one on the right except he just backs off the ledge) is supposed to have solaire at it, only it doesn't. So I assume that's because I've missed something. No big deal. Anyway, I had a really stupid death and lost enough souls to level up. I was going to level up after kindling that bonfire, but then it became unusable. I assumed an indaver was coming and there were a number of summoning signs in there, so I summoned everyone I could. One dude made it in but then the invader never did. Except then I had a stupid death to a mimic (for reasons not known to me he just ran off). Anyway, no great loss. I've cleared out everywhere inside up to the roof with the 3 guys, and helped the Siegmeyer. Killed the titanite and everything. I returned to the bonfire to level up and refill estii before heading onward.
I love that LK started this thread with "Well, we've probably talked this one to death..." Apparently not!
There's a lot of stuff like that, although some of it more out of the way. Spider shield before blighttown, transient curses before New Londo, etc. It's still nothing compared to the sheer jaw-dropping moments of amazement as unlocked doors or concealed ladders open to reveal amazing shortcuts. The hellkite bridge one was one of those gaming moments that just made me exclaim out loud. Over a ladder!
Well then you're THAT GUY for the purposes of that encounter. :P Turns out there's a corpse with souls on it there. I was waiting for one of the knights to poison out and figured Why not? and shot the other one, then went to check. Presents!
When I got to that ladder for the first time I did not even realize where I was and I was too afraid to kick the ladder so I died without opening the shortcut. DARK SOULS.
Also don't listen to me! I am an idiot. Pursuers did about 1/4 damage to NG+ Gwyn when they hit. The challenge with him, like in my NG was getting the time to cast and not get chopped in half. That is to say it took me enough to get something like 8 Black Knight swords. In NG++ one pursuer cast and one crystal soul arrow killed the asylum demon when it dropped in before it could turn and do any damage. Pursuers are great! One cast did 1/2 of a gargoyle health bar in NG++. Can't wait to see what they do to Quelaag.
Is it advised that I should devolve my lightning spear to ascend it with the moonlight butterfly soul? Or should I upgrade another spear to do it?
Done, and I had enough titanite to take the Moonlight spear to +3. I'm now officially out of inventory souls. Yay and such. Cleared out the surrounding are and went back to save at the bonfire by the large statue wearing the spooky crown. Ready for boss. Moonlight spear's top part looks vaguely like DNA strand, so wielding the moonlight spear means I'm destroying things with science.
Oh yeah I've been rocking that and the Praise The Sun gesture on-summon. WORTH IT. Of course, I only got it now so I have yet to survive an experience since it's all Law Firm all the time.
Two weapons left for my last* Dark Souls achievement. I got Sif's soul, so I have to make it to the giant smith to get him to forge my last boss weapon. The other is a tail chop from the gaping dragon. Do you think it's worth it to summon Solaire and Lautrec to tank? I figure they may help make that easier. *well, the last two will pop together anyway
Yeah, I'm sure they'll get right on that... (To clarify, Solaire and Lautrec are extremely bad at killing the Gaping Dragon. Mostly because they seem utterly unable to avoid any of its many, many devastating AoE attacks.)
To further add to that, the best person to kill the gaping dragon is ... yourself. Alone. I've tried multiple iterations of this and it is simply such a single-focus boss that adding any other targets into the mix just makes YOU more confused as to what he's going to do. That includes other actual people - I've had the best and easiest time just taking this thing out by myself.
Yea. It's NG++ so I don't know what to make of the Gaping demon. Everything so far has been a pushover (Asylum Demon, Taurus Demon, Gargoyles, Sif, the Garden spirits, Mildred Maneater) with Pursuers, but here I gotta get up close and smashy with the moonlight sword. So far my takeaway from NG++ is that things die as fast as but hit harder. Like I got eaten by a tree in the garden, and the channeler in the Parish smoked me while I was minding the guys down below, yet one crystal soul spear smoked the tower guard by the firekeeper soul. Funny story time! I needed that godforsaken Channelers tried and I started farming last night. Must have did 10, 15 runs and quit. Started again today and did a few when I said, screw this, I am going to get some homeward bones so I don't have to run back and rest. Go to the sewer merchant and get 50. Run back, no drop, bone and do it again. Then it drops. Dark Souls.
You people are pulling a me! I don't want to kill it, at least not right away. I want to cut its tail and I want someone to divert its attention while I slap away at it.
Seriously, you'd still be better off doing it alone. Bait its torso-maw slam thing, get it to charge into a wall, then whack at its tail while it's recovering. With more than one person attacking it, you'll often see a whole bossfight without it doing the slam purely because it keeps switching targets.
In case you are wondering, NG++ Quelaag takes 3 pursuers, 5 CSS, 1 HCSC and a fat lot good for nothing Mildred. Naturally I'm running back to the firelink and I'm so use to the taking the lift down that I forgot I came in from the Valley since I don't have the master key and fall to my death. Dark Souls.
Bingo. The switching targets thing is what totally effs you up on that fight. Well, I decided I didn't really want to butt heads against the Law Firm and since the summons were coming fast and furious I just got them out of the way with 2 helpers, Ornstein first. One day I'll do it the other way around but it just kinda happens that O is in the right place to get smacked around first. Ah well. The Law Firm is my #1 Cause To Quit Playing Dark Souls Forever (Until Next Time) so I figured I'd better just get past it. :D
Finally beat Lauterc but we both dealt fatal blows to each other at the same time. The game gives you the loot when you respawn back at the bonfire.
