Tell Me How To Get Started

I was looking at weapons on a wiki and I really want a Great Scythe. It's in the Catacombs, but I'm not sure how far. I think I'll first try to kill Sif and then head there. I was killed in five seconds on my first attempt, so clearly I was doing something wrong with my shield.

BTW, as per our armour discussion earlier, I had the Eagle Shield and the Stone Armour equipped in Darkroot Garden, and the forest hunter knights were hitting me and damage was definitely coming through. I switched back to my Tower Kite Shield for those fights because I don't like taking damage, even a little.

How much END do you have to be equipping the Stone armor? Are are you rocking Havel's Ring?

END doesn't quite work like that. The stat is all about facilitating the gameplay you're after while still using decent armor & weaponry.

To be more specific, I often wear the Stone armor in the Capra Demon fight, and my END then is usually only 15. The armor puts me right below my max carry capacity, I can't move for shit, and my stamina regeneration blows. But that's OK, because the armor gives me so much armor & poise that I'm able to just stand there kill the boss in whatever way I feel like. I can cast spells, swing my sword... whatever. Hell, I can even stand there & drink if he's managed to chip away at my health. But I would want to play like that in most of the game, for obvious reasons.

If, on the other hand, you're asking "how much end do you need to realistically wear the Stone Armor at all times", I would say "don't". There are better high end armors for everyday use. I forget what they are... I think the OP of the original Dark Souls thread has some relevant links if you want to compare. However, I always keep the Stone Armor in my bags for the couple fights where I want stupidly high magic resist & poise. (I'm looking at you, Four Kings)

Yeah, I had Havel's Ring on. My Endurance isn't super high. With Havel's I have 99 lbs of encumrance to work with. So I was able to wear Stone Armour, wield a Claymore and the Eagle shield and still be <50%.

But it was really just to experiment with something I had just found (for example, in addition to the stone armour, I also had on Wolf Ring, so my poise was something stupid like 120). I doubt I'll continue wearing the Stone Armour as I like to move faster.

A 100% damage deflection shield feels really good to me, because then when I take damage from a regular hit I know it's because I screwed up. After using one for so long only to switch to a 95% DR shield, and start seeing damage come through just felt wrong.

So after about 8 tries I managed to get Priscilla's tail, which is a bit crap in its current incarnation, but I still like it. Maybe it'll be better when upgraded.

Priscilla pretty much illustrates Dak Souls as a game in a single fight. First, the boss goes invisible, then you just die to the invisiscythe and she shit talks you and fuck this game. Then you block and that doesn't help much, and if you do manage to block you bleed real bad. So you try heavier armor and still fail. Somewhere in there you notice the footprints in the snow so at least you can aim now, but it's still not helpful enough to let you hit it with your short range weapon. So you equip the biggest fuckoff sweeping weapon you can find and two-hand it because your shield does nothing anyway and flail around like a moron. And you hit her! And then you die. So you try it again, hit her twice, and her invisibility breaks! And you learn that all you have to do to avoid her scythe is dodge directly behind her, so you blow her up because this big scary thing turns out to have 2000hp and dies faster than the tower knight outside. It goes from "how the hell does this work" to not taking any damage and actually trying NOT to kill her so fast in order to do some funky objective.

Which is pretty much Dark Souls in a nutshell. It's a paper tiger. Arguably that illusion is the theme of the game based on the fact that its setting, story, and gameplay all rely heavily on deception and manipulation.

Unfortunately it doesn't. The damage looks good on paper particularly with the S scaling on Dex but it just doesn't pan out. The Painting Guardian sword is better and has the same move set. The bleed on it looks good and it is, if you can trigger it. The reduced build up really hurts the weapon quite a bit. I've read people use another weapon to build up the meter and then switch to Priscilla's for the last hit or two to trigger it and then you get the effect from the dagger but in practice knowing how close you are to triggering it is damn hard to estimate.

Priscilla's seems to have a longer range than Painting Guardian's though. Or is that just my imagination?

What! But if you max it out and have 40 dex, it deals almost as much damage as a Drake Sword +4!

Yeah, sorry to say Priscilla's Dagger is pretty weak tea. It doesn't actually have the same moveset as the PGS (to its detriment, really), but it is pretty much just beat by that/Bandit's Knife/Tracers. You've correctly identified what is probably the only really good use for it, but as you say it is a truly next level setup.

It does. They aren't actually that similar, though. Priscilla's is a dagger and PGS is a curved sword, despite the flip-flopped lengths. Regardless, there are high-end dex weapons in both categories that are better choices.

Technically Priscilla's is a dagger, in that the game calls it that but it lacks the dagger defining characteristic, the critical bonus. It could be classified as a curved sword or even straight sword.

*shrug*

If you like; since it's a dragon weapon it doesn't really matter I guess. For whatever its worth I think it has the standard dagger R1s but I couldn't say for sure. Whatever category you think it belongs in though, that category will have better options for a dex character. ;)

Agreed. Categories are pretty much meaningless in this game anyway.

Well they do give you at least a little bit of an idea of what the moveset will be like, but there's still a lot of variance and I couldn't honestly tell you what the precise difference between the dagger and straight sword movesets are offhand anyway. The only thing it it really does matter for is making boss weapons, but like I said Priscilla's is a dragon weapon so what weapon type it is doesn't even matter in that very limited application.

Painting Guardian sword is probably one of the more exceptional weapons for Dex/ (faith or magic enchantment) builds. You respect it pretty quickly in PvP, where other weapons like it (for instance the scimitar) have an excellent moveset but nowhere near as efficient an output.

So my alt is basically my main lately. She's rocking the Black Iron set, along with a +4 Demon's Spear and a +4 Black Knight Shield. And man she just takes a licking and keeps on ticking! I've been farming leeches while also doing jolly co-op and it's a blast. Currently she's basically at the same point in the game as my main, which is why she might as well be my de-facto main.

The Demon's Spear is fun. It hits hard and fast, and with my immense stamina pool I can just pokepokepokepokepoke most stuff to death.

Frustrating time against Sif tonight. Probably the first time while playing this game that I've felt like I am making no progress. Tried a lot of things -- heavy armour, light armour, fast weapons, slow weapons, dodging, blocking, different shields. Tried following the guides which recommend staying between his legs. He always seems able to leap away and hit me with a single swipe that drains my entire stamina bar or staggers me. Meanwhile I'm chipping away at his health at a rate that I'll never be able to survive through. The most I've done is probably 5%. I think either I or my gear just must not be high enough level. I really thought I'd at least see some progress like I have with other bosses, to make me feel like I'd get there eventually, especially given that I've been able to take out all of those tough humans in his zone with ease.

I guess I'll leave and come back when I'm levelled up. Grrrr.

Of the Catacombs, Sen's Fortress or New Londo ruins, is there an obvious next step in terms of difficulty?

Well, variety is one thing, but what stability are we talking here? Generally, this is where I find that a maxed silver shield-eagle shield is ample, but I've also found it manageable with a +3 dragon crest shield. And then the second question is what your primary damage dealer is, exactly. Typically, having a +10 or better pyro glove with a dusk crown and/or a bellowing ring will carry you through tough bosses with no magic because it does great damage, takes no stamina to use, and can get you through so much of the boss health bar (if not all, depending on what + and whether you have great + regular combustion). Other than that, it's a question of raw damage and keeping your stamina up.

I ventured into the Depths a bit and found the Slime corridor that everyone talks about farming for some Green and Large Titanite Shards. I also found the Greataxe and decided to play around with it. I took it up to +5 and then raised my STR to 32 so I could one hand it. I farmed until I got 9 Large and 11 Green.

I then traveled back to Andre and raised my Battleaxe to +10. That is very nice now, doing around 700 points of damage when I parry-riposte the Undead Knight guys.

I decided I wanted to try making the Greataxe into a Divine weapon so that I could finally take my revenge on the skeletons in the Graveyard. I managed to find my way down to Moonlight Butterfly (thanks wiki!) and took it out in two tries (Crest Shield to block its attacks, 2h Battleaxe +10 when it lands). I very nearly took it out in one landing - it had a little sliver of life when it took off again. So I'm now the proud owner of a Divine Greataxe +5.

I took my new toy to the Graveyard and proceeded to demolish skeletons with one regular hit. The large skeletons are a little tougher and still take two hits to kill, but the first hit knocks them down/apart so the follow-up hit is very easy to deliver.

Now I need to figure out what I want to do next. I think I may go back to the Depths and try out Gaping Dragon and head on to Blightown.

My shield is a Tower Kite +7 which has stability of 66. I have my pyro glove at +7 also, but it really wasn't doing much (I only have the basic fireball spell). I tried both a +8 Claymore and a +5 Broadsword on him. My DEX is at like 18.

Sounds like I need to upgrade my gear a little. I definitely get the sense that my damage output isn't high enough for him. I watched one youtube video where the guy was dealing thousands of damage per hit, and the fight was over in seconds.

Awwwwwwww yiss



Had a pretty solid run today. Started out by popping over to the Asylum and cleaning the place out. Stray Demon was a giant fucking pain, but I followed internet advice and got him with the Bandit's Knife. Handy, that. Came back over and headed down to the Valley of Drakes via Darkroot Basin. Killed a couple of drakes, then grabbed Undead Dragon's loot and made a gamely effort to destroy him but ultimately lost out. Decided to abandon those souls and went back down to the Valley via Firelink to get the easy way (i.e. no goddamn interfering Undead Dragon) into Blighttown. That section wasn't so difficult—Spider Shield kept me from getting toxined while I cleaned out a bunch of blowdart assholes, and then I found Dat Skirt and all was joy. Then I got lost, fell to my death, and decided to call it a night. No idea where to go from where I was, so I think I'll swing into Blighttown from the Depths next time and see what all the fuss is about up there.

Well after saying that, I decided to just try killing the Giant Rat mini-boss and then I was going to call it a night. Unfortunately I flubbed up my positioning against the Rat and he knocked me down the waterfall. I managed to kill all the basilisks down in the bottom part while I was trying to find my way back up. The Battleaxe+10 came in very handy since I was able to kill them in one hit. I didn't even get cursed!

After I had put in all the effort to clear out the bottom part, I made it back up and cleared the upper part including the Giant Rat and the Caster. Since I had gone to the effort of clearing everything out and I still had 6 estus flasks, I decided to try the Gaping Dragon. I killed him in my first try! The hardest part was getting into a position so that I could actually hit his tail (which I did manage to do netting me the Dragon Greataxe or whatever it's called). I really only hit him about 7-8 times before I killed him. I celebrated by running back up to the bonfire, reversing hollow, and kindling it in preparation for delving into Blightown (I had gotten about 6 soft humanity when I was farming the slimes earlier, so it was a "free" kindling).

Not sure what all the fuss was about around Blighttown. I suppose it would have been more annoying without the fog ring, but as it was that kept me from getting hit by the blowdart guys until I was up in their faces. Also, ninjasuit! Who says Dark Souls isn't a role-playing game?

Got down to the swamps and started farming leeches. Also bought a bunch of weapons from Shiva that make me with I had a 40 str. Then I got ganked by a PvP'er because I forgot to turn off my 'net connection after kindling the bonfire. On to Queelag or whatever.

The two main problems are:
1) Blowdarts from nowhere.
2) The descent can be tricky the first time, when you don't know where the ladders are / what ambushes to expect / etc.

My second time through B'town was pretty trivial.

I will say that it was difficult to navigate. I'd need two hands to count the number of times I decided that there was no way to proceed except by rolling off a ledge, after doing which I'd land at the base of a ladder I just didn't see from above.

The biggest hint someone mentioned way earlier in this thread for those scaffolds in Blight Town are the torches. They indicate where the ladders are. Very helpful there!

Finally escaped the Painted World. Not a fan. It's not that it's overly difficult, but those Hollows hit hard there. Still ended up leaving with a giant pile of souls so I could get back to Anor Londo and figure out what's next!

Vent time.

People. Seriously. I can't help you take on the Law Firm if you're going to summon me before you've even started through anything, slooooooooooooooowly work your way through, spend five minutes at the goddamn giant blacksmith, take on extra enemies unnecessarily, then aggro everyone in the big hallway (which causes you to use up all your Estus Flasks).

Dude made it most of the way through, too. I was aggroing fatty to keep him off their asses (he summoned another dude right before the fog door), then after the first kill he ran headlong into a lightning slam.

I feel bad abandoning people, but when I drop my sign there I kind of hope I can just run through the spear knight room, up the stairs, and into the great hall. Take out what's there, then right through the door for a nice big payday. Greedy, I know.

On the bright side, I finally got a Silver Knight shield drop. I've been screwing around for a couple days now to get one to drop, but was only picking up swords and spears. I think I had five of each by the time I was done. Then one run I get two shields. Weird.

Sometimes when people have a sufficiently disastrous run, I message them and suggest that I escort them back to the fire, black crystal, and charge up their estus before summoning me again (once the connection is established it's usually trivial. Then it's just the two knights on the way and looping around to the archer before clearing out the guardians, if you're playing it safe.

But I prefer exploration over direct boss runs, anyway, as it gives me the opportunity to practice support without taking over their run.

I don't mind helping people do that whole section, and I've summoned people before opening the shortcut, but it's gotta be fast. If I summon someone before I'm ready to head straight to the boss, it's because I'm prepared to romp and stomp right through the level, taking no prisoners and using extremely few estus flasks, of which I will always always always start with twenty just to be safe. When someone operates that way and summons me, it's more fun than just doing the boss.

But if you're slow... dude, just don't be slow, ok? I had a slowpoke the other day summon me for O&S. He even had the shortcut open already and still took forever. He'd kill an enemy and then run back to the bonfire to look for more summon signs, he was at >50% weight so it took him forever to get around, and he was inexplicably hesitant about going down staircases for whatever reason. He made it clear from his movements that he intended to kill the enemies in the antechamber, so I thought ok let's be safe at least and poisoned one royal guard and the silver knight, and when I got the second royal guard in my sights I saw that the host had engaged them in melee and was being slaughtered. So I saved him from the one, gestured for him to wait while the other one died of poison, and he stood there for like a minute and then ran over and got killed. That's ten minutes gone. Then he summoned me again and we fared a little better (because I ran around the safe melee route to kill the silver knight and then meleed the guard with him since I knew he would be doing that), but it still took probably five or six minutes to get to the boss and he let me get killed while I was soloing Ornstein because I don't think he knew he could heal me.

It is weird. I don't think they actually have much different drop rates, because I've definitely gone through some characters who have five shields and one sword, but there's definitely a lot of variance in what you actually get (and if you want one of the three items badly, that is naturally the rarest one).

One summon last night I went with the summoner and the other summoned guy just ran off through the level to kill everything. Seemed weird to me, but maybe he was just trying to move things along.

Are you messaging them via Live, or is there some mechanic in the game that works to that end?

Oh, and fuck the Fog Ring. I'm just going to have to accept that I'm never going to kill anyone in that forest.

Oh, so question on O&S summoning, since I want to make sure I'm not committing some horrendous breach of decorum. If the summoner heads for one or the other and starts wailing on him, I kind of feel like they know that's who they want to kill first (because they want a certain drop). I generally take it as my job to aggro the other and lure him away to keep everything one-on-one. Is that pretty typical behavior?

Trade the Skull Lantern. Seriously guys, just do it.

Generally, the first one they attack is the one they want to kill first, and you want to have two people attacking that one and one person tanking the other one. I usually let the other summon/Solaire decide which role I end up playing.

Well, there are basic game mechanics that elude some players, yes, and that's a problem. But this is where I think a little refinement in how covenants work would have been great. For instance, the Sun Brotherhood could get bonuses for total enemies slain rather than just the boss (excluding infinitely spawning enemies), thus providing an incentive for patience and a clear marker for someone who is looking for a summon who won't be in a hurry. As of the DLC I no longer do anything but stockpile humanity for healing, and I try to encourage summoners (if I have a chance) to only use estus when they need it or they see that I am mixed up in enemy contact and could use a hand because I understand that many won't have the 20 flasks or that many +s on them anyway. As a side note, the upgraded +15 light crossbow absolutely murders the humanity ghosts at SL1, 1, 2, 3 shot depending on size of enemy, which means you can focus on being light and quick and your rings for drops and stealth. By killing the one enemy and/or the caster on the way, you're not incurring a soul deficit en route from those 30 soul bolts! I like it much more than the crapshoot of AoE pyro, especially since I'm clearing the whole level of ghosts in hopes of being summoned.

Me, I get stressed out when people are in a mad rush to get to the boss, especially with ones that have a tricky end section like Seathe or the 4 kings. If you just add 1-2 minutes odds are good we can do it flawlessly, but instead I'm reliant on whatever aggro radius they have from their choices in torso armor and routes and suddenly it's every man for himself.

The fog ring helps tremendously in that area, especially topside. Glad it went well. It's extremely unlikely that was an actual PvPer; if she was called Mildred and looked like a crazy woman with a meat cleaver, you should turn human again and kill her because she is a handy ally against Queelag.

Agreed. Rushing headlong into things and getting yourself (or both of us) killed is stupid and annoying, and a waste of everyone's time.

I'm a fan of that for STR builds. In NG+ with a measly 8 faith it takes my divine greataxe+10 2 1h hits to kill a skeleton, or 1 2h. Great weapon for that stuff.

What LK said, also, don't do that.

Truth. I never gotten a fog ring from the forest covenant.

8 characters on PC,6 with forest covenant fog rings, all obtained <SL50 and most <SL35ish. DO NOT THROW STONES AT [internet disconnecters] FROM WITHIN YOUR HOUSE MADE OF GLASS AND WEAKNESS.

Hrm. I thought I'd need it for lighting up the Tomb of Giants. Fuck me for reading item descriptions, I guess.