Of course not. But when there are attacks which scale because they are based on percentage of health, it means you are going to have issues if your estus flask isn't upgraded enough.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that there is literally no downside to learning how to play with avoiding hits, and it's free, unlike cranking your vit through the roof.
There are very few of these though, bleed is the only one I can think of off the top of my head and I'm not sure I've ever been inflicted by it outside of an invasion situation. I'm not sure if poison/toxic effects are percentages. Curse perhaps but it cuts your total so having more vit still gets you more absolute life when cursed as compared to lower vit.
Right. But they need to learn that getting hit *is* a mistake, unless you are really advanced, which is all I'm advocating here. In most games getting hit is no big deal; here it can mean the difference between success and failure.
Do you really think there are many players that don't realize that getting hit is a mistake? People don't need to keep their life bar incredibly low in order to increase the punishment for what they already know is a mistake. I think we'll all agree that the benefits of vitality become less significant as one becomes better at avoiding being hit. I'm not sure that's really an argument for new players to keep their vitality stat intentionally low in order to force them to learn to avoid being hit. Increasing your vitality to soften the punishment on mistakes is perfectly valid and I'd encourage new players to invest quite heavily in vitality because of this. After they're experienced and know the game they then they can make more informed decisions based on their playstyle and skill as to how valuable vitality is to them.
Holy shitballs man, I never said people should keep it intentionally low, I am simply suggesting that new players shouldn't see it as a necessary crutch. But I would suggest focusing on damage over survivability is the right choice in many cases; an enemy you can kill in one or two hits instead of five or six is one less enemy likely to hit you to begin with. Investing heavily in vitality *is* a mistake, because it takes the focus away from what should really be a balance.
Ugh, Stray Demon is kicking my ass. I get the idea behind the fight I think (stay behind him, take a swing after he does his red wind attack) but with the damage he does, there's just no margin for error. Slightly misjudging the timing gets me killed. Or (in this case) getting myself stuck into a corner such that I couldn't turn away from him. :( It doesn't help that I'm only doing 92 damage to him; perhaps I need to further upgrade my axe. The fight duration looks to be incredibly long based on my damage output; which of course means I'm more likely to misstep and die.
Step One: Crest shield. Step Two: whittle him down patiently. I've found the best time to hit him is after he does his butt slam. You can get a couple hits in. Also, use some lightning damage, it rips shit up. A lightning weapon that does bleed would be even better (is that possible? I'm not sure!). And then just dodge his attacks. You can pretty much roll through all of them if you time it right. Oh, one more thing, his big magic attack has an origin that is in front of him; meaning if you are too close blocking won't help, as you will get hit from behind.
Nope. The Crest shield blocks 80% of magic damage, which means you can soak his big attack just by blocking, and without losing a huge amount of health.
Option B: Come the fuck back later. Stray Demon has the most hit points of any boss in the game. This is one of those 'oh the game is kicking my ass all the time, I should do it later' moments.
No. The Crest shield is dropped by your now Hollow ex-buddy from the start. Stops magic like you wouldn't believe. Dragon Crest stops fire, mainly. And it seems Charles knows that the Stray Demon does Magic damage, not Fire, when it does its staff-slam.
Edit: Didn't see Cheesy's post before I put mine in. Echoing his comments. I banged my head against that fight a bunch of times trying to regain souls, then gave up. Came back about five hours later and it wasn't too bad. You don't get anything particularly special for it, and you can collect everything else in the Asylum without bothering with him. Might be better to just come back later.
I'm not sure there's such thing as a crutch in Dark Souls. I think players learn exceptionally fast that getting hit is a mistake and that (generally) any plan that involves you getting hit is a poor one and that pumping your vitality isn't going to trivialize any part of the game at all. Increasing vitality will simply mean that small mistakes aren't necessarily fatal ones. I think this goes a long way to making learning from those mistakes far less frustrating. Also knowing you can make a mistake or two empowers the player to experiment a little without being too concerned with the consequences if they fail. This strikes me as a much more advanced analysis than is appropriate for a new player. In order to perfectly fight an enemy they need to already know that enemy and new players don't. I agree that vitality isn't often the optimal choice but the game puts a significant burden on the skill and knowledge of the player and new players have neither. All stats and gear exist to make the game easier for the player as, theoretically, the game can be completed by a level 1 character running around naked punching everything with its bare fist.
+1 Really you will want a fully (or nearly) upgraded elemental weapon before you take him down, preferably lightning.
It is, and actually I would say that if you don't yet have an uber-weapon, the plain old unupgraded Bandit's Knife really works wonders there. No need to be wait really, really but of course you might as well since you can and he's such a dick head anyway.
I'd honestly say I put too much into VIT for my current character. I'd be looking at that screen and see that my STR/DEX were fine (I could wield the weapons I wanted), I had enough attunement slots for the time being, resistance is useless, and I wasn't using INT/FAITH for anything. So I'd find myself choosing between VIT and END. I should have poured more into END because it would help me stay under 25% while still using "better" armor. Obviously based on just this one playthrough, I'd trust Charles on it more than me.
Did you get end up to 40? It should almost always get to 40 and never any higher. It doesn't actually help you add that much gear and stay under 25 percent though... four levels equals one pound. :/
I have to agree with this. The first time I did Stray Demon was relatively early and I was using the Iaito, I got sick of Blighttown's swamp and wanted the ring. I wasn't doing much in the way of damage but after I got my first bleed off and a giant chunk of his life fell I realized I could do it. Basically three bleeds and he's dead, doesn't much matter what weapon you use, if it's really weak you might need a fourth is all.
Not sure if you intended this, but the way this is worded it sounds like you're saying you have to beat him to get the ring. You don't (I'm sure you know that, just clarifying).
Yeah it seems like if you want to use the really heavy gear, you need to use the rings that cut encumbrance. Raising END to use one of those 15lb weapons seems like it's just not a sensible investment of souls.
I do use the rings frequently, but sometimes I'd find myself just shy of getting under the line, and a little boost in END would fix it.
The guy that gave you the Estus flask right in the beginning of the game. When you come back he's mad and hollow. You fight, he drops the crest shield.
True but I didn't want to go back if I could avoid it. I think I figured out the bleed thing on my first attempt and it only took me 3 or 4 to kill him.
The bigger reason for endurance is that it lets you swing more, and block better after swinging. If you deplete your bar while attacking and then try and block something, your guard will break and you'll get your ass handed to you.
