To expand upon this: Because you need blacksmiths to ascend weapons over certain thresholds, (every +5 bonus requires a blacksmith to do a special ascend) I'll often ascend a whole bunch of weapons just over the threshold if I think I might want to eventually ascend them further. So I'll often have a whole bunch of +6 weapons in my bag, for example. (+5 to +6 requires Andre) That way, if I decide to take any of those weapons higher, I can do it at any bonfire. And the cost of ascencion over thresholds is always low (just one shard) so it's not expensive to do.
I have to apologize. I thought that it always worked the way I said, but I guess it's just happened to line up that way with the relatively few weapons I've worked it out by hand for. I've looked into it more and it's (of course) a lot more complicated than that, and can apparently vary fairly widely. So basically, just use the calculator. Digging into the guts of those spreadsheets, it looks like it actually adds a multiplier of the base damage based on your stats, but I'll let you look for yourself at the formulas because they're making my head hurt at this point. Really sorry for the misinformation.
Or you could just equip it and hit something. :) Edit because the smiley means I know it's more complicated than that, but for a lazy person like me it's much easier to just swap out and see how it goes.
In a way, that's the only thing that works anyway and looking at the AR is only useful for planning upgrades in advance. It's not very reliable. For instance on my current strength character my Large Club +15 has nearly 150 higher AR than my Black Knight Halberd +5, but in practice the BKH outdamages the LC on most enemies... sometimes by 25 or 50 points, sometimes by as much as 150. Is the difference between blunt and slashing damage that stark and that stacked against blunt? Is it a special property of the BKH? I don't know. I have no idea. Miracles.
Do you guys have any thoughts on where Quelaana might be? I've got a +10 Pyromancy flame and I've killed Quelaag, but she's MIA!
Sooooooo, Sen's Fortress. I don't think I was even close to a bonfire and I was down to two esters before a treasure chest (of all things) killed me. Might be time to upgrade some stuff!
You rang the bell as well? Lit the bonfire? Did you try retrieving the gold hemmed robes and killing Ceaseless discharge, ideally with the side suto kill (apparently narrated by a fetus...you don't have to run around after picking up the robes, but I do suggest standing still until he does his splash attack and then running. I only mention this because otherwise he's pretty tough and annoying to reset. In any case, my point is that you have an opportunity here to isolate a key variable in spawning the pyro vendor. What if the gold hemmed robes that look like her outfit are the trigger?
Mimics (the treasure chest) can be tricked into vomiting up their item by throwing a Lloyd's Talisman at them. I only mention it because that very chest contains a relatively decent upgrade for many builds that could save you a lot of time for clearing Sen's at least.
Made it to Belfry Gargoyles and quit for the night. I laughed when suddenly I was getting fire breathed on me and realized there was a second one. A Scimitar immediately didn't seem like the right weapon for that fight. I am going to farm some souls and upgrade my morning star, I think. But not tonight. Heh. Seems like one game session will be spent learning how to clear a path to a boss, and another session will be for the boss himself.
DARK SOULS Also, I pretty much just went around farming the mobs around the first bonfire in Undead Burg, each time with a different weapon out of my bag just to see what felt good. Quite liking the gargoyle tail axe out of that grouping (of mostly garbage). Still need to repair my estoc and give that a run, but it didn't really grab me when I was using it pre-Drake Sword, and level dex a little more to give scimitar a whirl.
Thanks for the encouragement, folks. Got asked to assist twice tonight and we got the gargoyles both times. With four humanity and a couple more levels I went and did them myself with the two NPC summons because, why not? Good fun. I then went and killed two spare black knights using a technique I call shield-back-back-back-wait-leapattack! Repeat as required. Getting quite good at leaping on bad guys. One big knight dropped a dark knight sword of some kind. It looks like it smashes more faces than the Drake Sword so I look forward to trying it in the future. Now I don't know where to go next, lol.
sinfony have you noticed any new attacks from the Gargoyle Tail Axe? I'm using a Battle Axe and I'm considering increasing my Dex by 2 just to use the Tail Axe.
Questions on stat scaling and weapon upgrades: - Okay with the stat scaling answer above, why is it good/bad when you do some weapon upgrades that it removes/changes stat scaling? Say upgrading to a lightening weapon removes stat scaling. - I know that both Fire and Lightening have both been mentioned as good upgrade paths to look for, but both the blacksmiths for those are far off at this point for me (just starting to try and get down to Blighttown). Besides Divine for the Catacombs (which I've read here), is there another upgrade tree I should look at or makes good gameplay sense?
Just killed Priscilla. Do I want to put in a few hours to turn her soul into Crazy McBleed Scythe? Current build favors STR, but it's like 36/20, so that's not something I couldn't correct. edit: nah, not going to bother; I'd like to play with this thing, but I'll do a dedicated build for it down the line.
You could always upgrade a weapon into Magic damage, especially if you have a sorcerous build going, since it will then scale with your Int score. Smith for that is readily accessible on the outskirts of New Londo Ruins.
This is probably more true than you think. You go through the level, loot it, learn it, and when you find the boss focus on dealing with that. I cannot think of a single boss offhand right now that has a long trek from a bonfire (i.e. without a shortcut) that requires a lot of fighting.
Lightning and fire weapons allow you to put your levels into areas other than was would be required for a stat leveling weapon and still be able to use a weapon capable of decent damage. I think elemental weapons are good for a poise/VIT/END type build where you mostly ignore STR. It mostly depends on your character and how you want to play. If you find yourself increasing stats that make sense for stat leveling equipment use that smith. Mostly I think magic/enchanted weapons are useless (for various reasons) and that divine/occult are mostly for faith builds (though, obviously, everyone should have 1 divine weapon) while everything else is open for all.
Ok, put in a few more hours over the weekend and moving the discussion to this forum. I've made it as far as the Undead Parish. Don't ask how I got by the final boss in Undead Burg. You don't want to know. Just some general observations: - The game doesn't hold your hand at all. Its reputation for difficulty is well-earned. I probably had to go through Undead Burg thirty times before getting by the boss. Every encounter is a puzzle to be figured out - run here, lure this one out, run back, run over here, take these two on, run over here, pull these back here, use fire to get past this one, etc. Once you figure out the pattern to an area, then it's relatively easy. But until you do, it's a pain. The bosses have their own sequences that need to be figured out. - That difficulty extends to the areas. Just trying to find the next bonfire can be absurdly difficulty. Missing the "kick" on the ladder after the end of the Taurus Demon means you have to run all through that area again. Then from there, you have a lot of mobs to go through to get to the next bonfire, including some elite guys that will one shot you if you take a wrong turn. I can see why people say this game makes them paranoid. - That difficulty extends to the items, weapons, etc. It doesn't tell you what anything is for, when it should be used or why. Who knows what a prism stone, moss clump or gold pine resin is used for? Either you look it up or you experiment. There are no easy equipment choices, either. I still can't tell anything about encumberance, or whether the spear is a better weapon than my axe, or where the elevator in the new area is (I DO want the answer to this last one!). - Between fighting the camera, the controls and the uber-difficulty of the bosses, I don't have the dexterity to play this game very well. For example, the Taurus Demon is insane and I just can't make that fight easy. I know *how* to beat him...run up the tower, jump off, hit him, run away, blast him with fire, get by him, run to the tower, repeat. But between fighting the camera controls (sometimes I can't see *anything* on screen because the boss is so big), and trying to execute the moves, my odds of defeating him are slim and none in any given encounter. - At the same time, I can see why some people think this is a GOTY candidate or a brilliant piece of work. It celebrates it's unforgiving nature without apology. Every encounter is challenging and the player has to be on their toes at all times. Ignorance is punished severely and swiftly - and you're going to be ignorant in every single new area. There's a lot to explore, see and do. Combat is extremely well execute, with a definite tactile feel that's different between weapons. My expereince playing with a spear and an axe were entirely different - something few games achieve. I'm not sure I'm enitrely sold on the game. I can see its brilliance, but I'm not so sure the frustration factor won't win out. My patience for beating my head against a wall has greatly lessened in the years since I was able to knock out Mike Tyson (without ever getting hit, thank you very much!) or repeatedly figured out the best solutions in Commandos 2. This game walks *very* close to the line of "addictive challenge vs. maddening frustration" pretty much all the time. Alright, beyond the aforementioned elevator question, I guess the only thing I want to know is what should my character build look like when you get to Undead Parish? What weapon should I concentrate on? I have about 10k exp to distribute to skills since I killed the Taurus Demon. I've found the blacksmith. So I feel like I'm sitting on a bit of a treasure horde and want to know how to spend it.
I've got about the following stats (from my hazy Monday morning memory) Str: 24 (I increased this all the way up to get the requirement for the Zweihander, not realizing when I wielded it two handed it lowered the requirement. No matter, it means I can use it one handed with a shield if needed! I do like that) End: 26 Vit: still in the teens (my stat to work on since I ignored it to get my STR up) Dex: 14 I think I may have somewhat of the following general idea for my upgrades: - Lightening Zweihander (it's a +10 regular right now) - Fire Baldur Side Sword (it's +5 regular now and a nice fast weapon) - experiment with other weapons for fun along the way I'm not sure if I'm going for any more strength, or some crazy strength build, but am going to work on my END/VIT a bit more and see what happens!
Kill the mimic and you'll likely have a fantastic weapon upgrade and you can upgrade it yourself all the way to it's maximum. Though I wouldn't recommend that as it takes a slab and that is better used on something else. You can upgrade it to max-1 with little impact (perhaps a little more farming later on depending on your luck with drops). Entirely depends on your stats. Elemental weapons (fire and lightning) have no scaling but their base damage is quite high so for many lower level characters they do much more damage. They also do elemental damage which enemies may be weak to or particularly strong against. For most when they first reach the elemental smiths the elemental weapons are stronger than their scaling. Others have mentioned though that their damage stat is a little misleading, use the 3/4 rule mentioned by extarbags (add the physical and elemental listed damages of an elemental weapon together and take 3/4 of it, use it as an approximation for comparison to scaling weapons). Regular upgrades are probably the best right now depending on your build. As yourself and Hammett mentioned there are Divine and Magic upgrade paths available to you but unless you've invested heavily in their corresponding stats (doubt you've invested enough at this point) they're probably not worth it to you.
Basically, non-scaling weapons are good because they let you get by with a minimum of points invested in strength and dex, freeing up those levels for earlier boosts in vit and dex or letting you stay lower level if you want to for multiplayer reasons. They also have the advantage of being immediately powerful, whereas scaling weapons will ramp up in power as you gradually get strength/dex up to the desired levels. They're also better with different weapons. A good candidate for elemental upgrades will have low (or at least lower than usual for weapons of its type) requirements and typically poor scaling to begin with, ideally with high base damage to go with it. Not really. You could look at the boss weapons, but they're kind of finicky as far as what intersections of stats they work well for, and also you're pretty far away from being able to make them and you'll have access to at least lightning at the same time. Enchanted and Occult are only good at very high levels of int and faith, respectively, Magic is pretty much useless and Divine would be too if it weren't for The Catacombs; it does not make for very effective weapons outside of that property. Crystal is too much of a pain to deal with and Raw just sucks. Really the other viable upgrade paths are the unique and to a lesser extent dragon weapons, which use their own upgrade materials, but you don't have access to any of the really good dragon weapons yet and since you're asking about upgrade paths you probably haven't won the early black knight weapon lottery either.
Since no one else answered, it's kind of a long way from the start of the Parish...like, all the way at the end basically. It's in a cathedral, but you'll want to explore the surrounding area before you go in there.
Things that don't matter in Dark Souls; how you defeat a boss. Seriously it doesn't matter particularly the first time or two that you face them, there is no shameful way to kill them. You do have to learn the game and every encounter, this doesn't mean it's hard though as if you go through on NG+ or with a second character later you'll breeze through it in comparison. Yep, the game is quite unforgiving but it doesn't force you into areas or enemies you're not prepared for, even though you may feel the opposite. That's just opacity, not difficulty and many of those items have in game descriptions about what they do, you're either not reading them or are missing them. You carry weight values (current and maximum) are listed on character page. I have no idea what "new area" you're in or what elevator you're looking for, most areas don't have elevators. I'm guessing you're referring to the undead parish, if so the elevator back to the firelink shrine is in the church on your left when entering by the front and directly across from the exit of the church leading to the bonfire by the smith. The controls are good (though might take a little getting used to) and the game as whole isn't very execution heavy with respect to the controls (no fancy combos and such). The camera does leave quite a bit to be desired, you do have to get accustomed to fighting with and without the lock on feature and toggling it frequently can help. I'm going to advocate that you use a wiki. If you don't find enjoyment in discovering the mechanics of the game (the game is incredibly opaque in ways most games aren't) then just go and get yourself informed about them. The wikis are quite good about keeping information separate so you don't spoil things you may want to discover while giving you information you may want without being forced to experiment. Reading up on items, weapons and armour isn't going to ruin much for you. Also there are maps if you find yourself struggling to find things (bonfires, shortcuts, etc.) if you find you're getting particularly frustrated due to your ignorance of these sorts of specifics don't keep banging your head just look it up. For me I find the game more enjoyable occasionally referencing the wikis when I'm having difficulty with things. This is entirely open ended, it's up to you. Endurance and Vitality are probably your best friends for stats at this point though do up Strength or Dexterity if there are particular weapons you want to use. Almost everything is viable in the game so experiment with weapons and find what you like.
Yeah, there is. Let's just leave it at that. :) Oh, I realize that. I've started 3 different pyros just to make it to where I am. Force? No. But it's *very* easy to turn a corner and find an enemy that can one-shot you standing there. The good thing is that there's another path. The bad thing was that you didn't take it. :) The difference between DS and other games of its ilk? The other game would have some sort of subtle (or not-so-subtle) warning that death was around that corner. DS simply doesn't do that. You can go left or right...and you have no idea whether your choice will result in your progress or a quick death. Don't think that I'm complaining about this - it's just an observation. Dark Souls is just a very, very different game than I've played in many years because it is so unforgiving. In the main forum thread, people kept talking about an elevator in Firelink. I still haven't found it after running 3 different characters through that area. My guess is that I just don't recognize what it's supposed to look like. As for the other stuff, the descriptions are non-existent or unhelpful (I have started using the wiki). As I said before, I'm not saying it's a flaw in the game - in fact, it's very consistent with the rest of the world. It's the same thing with a lack of in-game maps - it's consistent with the game world. So are the open-ended choices and the general lack of really any direction. That's actually the appeal of the game - it's open-ended. Experiment. Try stuff. Die. Try again. I get that. It's entirely unapologetic in its severity and opaqueness...and that's probably a good thing for the overall feel of the game. I don't see it as being the "best game ever", but I can see the enormous appeal. I'm not so sure that it's going to ultimately appeal to me or if I'll eventually ragequit and uninstall the thing...but I'm playing and enjoying it for now (and putting up with a bit of nausea due to the camera issues).
If you're looking for it from the Firelink, that's the problem and an understandable source of confusion. It's just an elevator shaft, right now (just up the stairs from where Petrus (the priest looking guy) is. Once you get up to the gargoyle church in the Undead Parish, you'll see the two elevators (one goes up while the other goes down) side by side next to the stairs. Be sure and activate them even if you don't intend to use them. Then that shortcut is open for the rest of the game. Unrelated: the DS subreddit had a nice video going over skills and what parameters they affect that might be a good thing to point brand new players to.
While the game won't always give you a warning about an ambush, often other players do. It pays to read the orange soapstone signs, especially in areas you aren't familiar with. I'm glad you're enjoying it more than you did at first -- there's definitely a steep learning curve. The camera can also be pretty annoying, though you will probably eventually get used to it. I still find the camera frustrating in certain areas and in fights against certain bosses, but you will learn to overcome that (though if you are like me, you will still be occasionally aggravated by it). Just in terms of equipment weight and encumbrance: those values are displayed on your equipment screen, but you will have to press a button (I think "Y" on a 360 controller) to cycle through the different pages of stats.
The first time I 'beat' Taurus Demon I fell off the bridge and while the game was doing its "You Died" animation thing it jumped off after me and died, too. I got credit for it. Did you do something 'worse' than that?
The thing about the learning curve is that everybody goes through it differently, and it's never really a "solved" thing so much as one that you experience in progressively more adaptable ways as you know more about the game's mechanics and tricks. For many Demon's Souls veterans, we mostly coasted through the early parts of the game missing key elements of tactics and setting because we had a few fundamentals down, and the hard parts came later when we realized how many gaps we had in our arsenal. It sounds like Blackadar front-loaded a lot of it by not having some crucial information (how to block, for instance), and then went through a lot of frustration before he even posted the first time. Which is admirable, in its own way, and it probably means that he knows more than he thinks he does as he starts to broaden his base of fundamentals. I expect things will feel a lot smoother as he gets up to the ability to start upgrading in earnest and he can cut the amount of hits to kill things dramatically as well as take more pain.
No, there really isn't, cheesing bosses is a time honoured tradition in the Souls games. Shooting Maneater through the fog before you even engage him in Demon's Souls is perfectly viable and many people freely admit to doing it. There's likely no need to having done this. Short of dumping all your stat points into resistance or something there's no way you could have screwed up your character to the point of restarting before even completing the Burg. It's actually REALLY REALLY hard to screw up a character, honestly. I can only guess you mean the Black Knight in the Burg, you see him long before you engage him, also you can just run away from the them, pretty much anything that can one hit you you can run from and they'll leash back to their starting point. The only other thing I can think of is the Hellkite Dragon on the bridge, which yeah, he'll kill you without much notice. Again there are only a handful of places where you're given no notice, the Hellkite is one and there's a bonfire RIGHT THERE, the other is basically a gameplay required death (you can get around it but it's tricky). There's more than one in the area, though you need to activate them from their other side (or in one case have the master key) before you can access them. The items you used as examples all have in-game descriptions of what they do. prism stone: Warm pebble emitting a beautiful phasing aura of seven colors, with a very rare eight. The rainbow stone does nothing special, but can serve as a path marker, and can be dropped off a cliff to judge height by the sound of descent. If a loud noise is heard upon its landing, then a fall off the ledge is surely lethal. moss clump (there are several different types, here's Blood moss): Medicinal red moss clump. Reduces bleeding build-up. Bleeding builds up when attacked by sharp blades or spikes, and once triggered causes severe damage. Use this moss clump before it reaches this point. gold pine resin: Rare pine which emits golden sparks. Applies lightning to right-hand weapon. Affected weapon inflicts rare lightning damage, making it effective against targets which are resilient to both magic and fire. Very effective against dragon family foes.
Aw, please? I'm really curious now, come on, spill. Nobody will judge. They're probably talking about the one that goes between there and Undead Parish. It just doesn't work until you trigger it from the other side. That's how most of the shortcuts work in this game.
This is very true, and even in the brief amount of time I've been playing it I can already see that one of the things which keeps many people from enjoying Dark Souls is the inability to make a simple mindset shift from "Dying = Losing" to "Dying = Learning". Because I listened to people on this forum talk about this mindset, I was prepared for it. As Charles said once, when you die, you don't really lose that much. But you gain a lot. To be honest, accepting that mindset was probably only possible for me because there are people on here who have assured me that the game will reward me if I give it my time and my trust. There are many games out there vying for my attention, and I have limited time now that my kids are getting older. I'm really grateful for the Dark Souls early adopters who are there to assure me that this isn't just Bit Trip Runner.
There's also an elevator below Firelink Shrine. You have to go down some stairs near the starting bonfire and pull a lever to get it to come up. Which brings up an important point for anyone who recommends you read the orange messages. Don't trust any of them that say to do something that sounds like it will kill you. "Try jumping" is the most common in this genre.
One of the things that goes on in this game is that souls, since they are used to level up at a bonfire, represent XP that we all know and love in other games. To 'lose' that XP when you die (and the die again) can be aggravating. The thing is, though, is that souls are not XP. It's just a resource that comes and goes and there will always be more of it. You, the gamer that is, earn real honest to god experience by playing the game and learning. That's why when people restart with alts it takes such a short time to get back to a certain section. And it's not rote memorization either, but an understanding of the games mechanics and how to play it.
Also: I watched the first eight minutes of a Dark Souls speed run (total time to complete the game: 32 minutes), where the guy literally ran from the starting zone to where I am now, and in seconds slew the boss that I couldn't defeat last night. I didn't watch more because I didn't want spoilers, but it was stunning.
I'm not so sure I believe that you don't lose anything. You have XP/souls whatever you want to call it and when you die, that gets reset to a big, fat zero. Given that the bonfires are spaced a bit apart, it's relatively easy to build up a bunch of souls, die and not be able to get back to them before you die again. If so, that's all lost. Case in point - the area between Taurus Demon and Undead Parish. You have to kill the little mini-boss (the hog or whatever it is), along with 20-25 mobs before you get to the first bonfire in UP. If you die after killing that hog and don't make it back there, that XP is lost forever. The only way to get it back would be to farm the mobs on the bridge (where the dragon burns everything). Or how about the dragon itself? You kill Taurus, then you end up on the bridge. Take one step and WHOOSH, everything is aflame. Now you're dead and you have to go through Undead Burg all over again. Yeah, you don't have to fight the demon, but if you don't get back there...well, your Taurus XP is gone. IDK, that seems kind of important to me...but maybe it's not?
And what's fairly awesome is that after the first time you complete the game, odds are good you'll be able to make that run (maybe not kill that boss, but at least make that run) too. There's a great Dark Souls Quick Start video (can't search right now, internets not cooperating) that nets you some excellent items in about 10-15 minutes by running all over the place that I was simply amazed at and ... on my second character, I found myself doing it without too much trouble.
Souls are essentially an infinite resource, unlike the items that you get to keep. That first loss may feel like a lot and it's quite possibly intentional to get you used to it, but it's really not. After you go through the next section (without even reaching a next boss), you'll most likely have made up that XP without even noticing*. *okay, it might take a few more times until the sting lessens :P
What he's saying is that those souls aren't that valuable, despite how things seem at first. I think someone said once that that of the things you gain when you play Dark Souls, 90% of the value is your own experience and skill, 9% is items, and 1% is souls. That last one percent is the only part you lose (and even then only the unspent portion, and only if you die twice consecutively), and it comes back easy because the 99% that you keep means you get more and more powerful anyway. It's not a big loss, and I'm saying that as someone who has lost in excess of one hundred thousand souls at once multiple times. And that's nothing; I've seen videos of people losing millions, and they shrug and move on too. It happens. It only feels like a big loss because you've been conditioned by other RPGs to think of experience points as super-important and precious.
Just fyi, if it's 32 minutes, then that would be a glitched run which skips a lot of the content. An unglitched speed-run of this game clocks in just under an hour.
Ok, good to know. I'm sitting on 10k myself and thinking that's a treasure trove. If 90% of the value is my skill, I'm totally fucked. :)
Well, also spend them. Level up, or buy the useful items, or once you get to the smith stock up on crafting materials. It's not a tragedy if you lose them but you don't have to give them away either. Nah, I'm with LK: you got as far as you did without blocking, and that probably means you're some kind of chosen one who will doom the world or save us all.
