Dark Souls

Blocking and dodging are much easier than parrying. that's what i was getting at.

Backstabbing has a little niche as well, where with some enemies you can get behind them after a backstab, as they're getting up, and at just the right time, you can backstab them again ad-infinitum. Hard to do, though.

Managed to make my way to the belltower where Bell Gargoyles promptly smashed me into fine paste. Rather than die in some easy-to-reach spot I've decided to run into a dead end like an idiot, that 3 humanities are now gone.

...I'm having way more fun than this sentence would imply though. But yeah, dropping guard right after the hit really helps a lot.

It's not that much easier, if at all. It's all still pushing a button with the right timing.

Did I mention that you should always Kindle Bonfires? And if you're lacking Humanity, just drop down a summon sign to an easy to notice spot (near a bonfire usually works), engage in JOLLY CO-OPERATION and be rewarded with an extra Humanity.

If you're around the same level as most players in an area, Humanity farming is easy. Especially if a Bonfire is relatively close to a boss.

Oh, and dying as a phantom loses you nothing. So no risk and every death can be taken as a learning expirience.

So basically:

• Use the thingy Solaire gave me
• Wait and see?

Do I have to be not-Hollow for this? Also, are there any other ways to farm humanity? I've noticed my counter going up, but I'm not sure how did that happen, since I've picked the item earlier.

You can be hollowed and still be summoned. you only need to be human to summon others.

And yeah, just use it somewhere super obvious and within minutes you should get summoned.

... Atleast that's my expirience on XBL. I hear GFW is a mess. You said you were playing on a PC?

Oh, and enemies can drop humanity at random once you re-killed them so many times. And of course, killing rats drop "pocket" humanities.

You know, ones that sit in your inventory, not the ones that go straight to your counter and are at a risk of being lost upon death.

Most people call them "soft humanity" and "hard humanity." But I call the hard ones pocket humanity.

edited 24th Dec '14 3:31:40 AM by Alabaster

you dont have to use GFWL anymore fyi.

steamworks is available too =I

you can even transfer save files between gfwl and steamworks, though that will be impossible starting from some time in january.

Yup, stuff can be now transferred to Steam with so much as a couple of minutes. :)

So basically I will just get humanity every now and then once I down an enemy while killing rats can net me "usable" humanity(How does that even work)?

Just to clarify, once I put down a sign of summoning, it can be seen by other players in the area once they happen to stumble upon it, right?

Also, a question I had in mind: how/where can I see what is required for me to wield the weapon effectively? Apparently I need Strength and Dexterity for most weapons, but just where can I check it? ._.

You have the "Humanity Counter" next to your HP bar. That is the Humanity "inside you" and is lost upon a death. (But can be recovered, with your souls as well.)

Then you have the consumable items "Humanity" and "Twin Humanity" which, when consumed, heal a ton of HP and grant you a humanity in your counter. Oh and co-op phantoms and invaders, who normally cannot heal because Estus use is blocked for non-host players, can use them to heal. You can also drop them on the ground to give/trade to other people.

And yes, when you leave a sign down, other players may see it.^note But if you lay down a sign, you cannot see other peoples signs. This is to prevent players from being summoned to another world while they try to summon others, which would probably just make all three parties lose connection from each other, wasting everyones time and putting unecessary strain on the servers, I think.

As for the weapon question... When selecting what weapon to equip in the equpment screen, press the "toggle display" button/key to show detailed info on any equipment, including stat requirements. These are represented as little icons, which should be self explanatory. Except for Faith, which is a star.

And the little letters near the requirements? It gives a vague idea of how well a this weapon "scales" with a stat. B is decent, A is good and S is the best. C, D and E aren't much. This scaling often improves when you upgrade the weapon a few times. Some weapons though have no scaling at all, but they usually come with ridicilous base damage.

Protip: Holding a weapon with two hands? Gives you a 50% Strenght boost when it comes to requirements. Got only 10 strenght? You can two hand 15 strenght weapons without issues!

edited 24th Dec '14 6:01:06 AM by Alabaster

Everything, other than hitting things with your weapons and not getting hit by those things' weapons, is largely unnecessary in Dark Souls.

Parrying is just the most cost-effective way to do that, because it allows you to do both in a single action and it has enormous upsides such as stopping your opponent right in its tracks for a second, not needing any extra space to work, turning you invulnerable for the whole animation, being almost universal, completely nullifying all damage regardless of shield...

The tradeoff is that it's harder to learn than blocking or dodging.

It's still the best response to almost anything once you learn.

edited 24th Dec '14 9:29:57 AM by 2Zak

god i hate the fucking capra demon.

doing half its health in one drop-down attack is pretty sweet, but man, fuck that fight and the room and the camera and the dogs.

Some tips for capra:

He will open with a double overhanded attack, dodge it.

Stop what you are doing, head down to the forest, acquire wolf ring, get elite knight armor set, laugh at pitiful dogs.

On the subject of steamworks: It is slightly bugged at the moment. One of my characters, for example, seems to be permanently in offline mode... But the rest can connect fine.

I don't think individual characters can be banned. And it'd be odd for them to get banned when I've used the Debug Mode on all my characters to dick around by now.

There's nothing quite like turning all the bonewheels against each other and watching the carnage.

as long as you don't give yourself hacked HP/stacks of divine blessings, hack all you want

also for all the newbies: when you get to a boss called the Bed Of Chaos, you can all PM vent your frustrations to me

B.C Anonymous

Okay, I have no idea how to approach Bell Gargoyles at all. The very moment the second one joins the fray might as well be curtains, what's with that stupid fire breath. If I had to deal with them one at a time it would be far more manageable, but I ain't killing it that fast with my stupid Broadsword +2.

Should I perhaps use a big weapon? It doesn't seem like I can stagger them with what I have at the moment, but, say, would a War Axe nabbed from Axe Hollows be enough? It does seem to stagger normal enemies far more than the sword at the obvious cost of speed.

I recommend engaging in some Jolly Cooperation with Solaire.

The dude is a total badass.

edited 24th Dec '14 5:20:42 PM by LeGarcon

I think this is a bit of an oversimplification but whatever. Bottom line is you can't or don't want to get parrying down don't worry too much about it, you have other options.

The Gargoyles are basically a DPS fight. you have to do enough damage to kill one before the second one has a chance to stay around too long and make you miserable. either that or you have to be lucky/ just be opportune enough to get one of them down afterwards, but that's difficult.

Weapons with larger poise break (in other words, more staggering power) are helpful too. I also want to point out that you can upgrade any weapon to +5 at the moment. if you take it all the way up there it'll make a big difference, though +4 should be enough. the halberd you should have picked up by now and the reinforced club you can buy from the vendor in the undead parish are great weapons in general with more poise break than straightswords, so you can give them a try, just make sure to upgrade them to at least +3 before you try to take on the gargoyles for an easier time. overall don't feel the need to stick to one weapon the entire time.

alternatively if you turn human you can summon lautrec and/or solaire, or potentially another player to help you.

edited 24th Dec '14 5:26:54 PM by wehrmacht

...Not really. It's waiting for the right moment and hitting a button. And as previously mentioned, yeah, there are other options. It just so happens that parrying is a really, really good one. No one ever said you "needed" to learn to parry. We just said it was a good thing to learn.

Maybe I should illustrate what I mean.

Let's say you block a bit pre-emptively. What penalty do you suffer? Not much, really, assuming you weren't so low on stamina that it ends up biting you in the ass. otherwise, you're safe.

if you parry at the wrong time, you'll likely take massive damage. the timing is much more unforgiving, and the penalties are generally much higher if you mess it up. simply blocking attacks is comparatively easier and provides less risk. in that sense parrying is a more advanced, high-risk, high-reward gameplay mechanic.

admittedly though, rolling at the wrong time can actually be worse than parrying because IIRC you take more damage during certain frames of your rolls. it's been some time since I played DS 1 so I'm not sure anymore.

I agree that it's a good skill to learn, I just disagree that it's just as easy as blocking. Personally I have an easier time getting invincibility frames on rolls consistently than parrying consistently but I probably just need to practice.

edited 24th Dec '14 5:51:07 PM by wehrmacht

Decided to go an extra mile and grab a Drake Sword. Unfortunately I can't wield it one-handed just yet, so I'll probably stick to the now-+3-club.

Probably will want to stick to Broadsword for ordinary fights otherwise though. It's simply faster and not keeping up with Rapier Balders - and from what I saw in my brief visit in Lower Undead Burg, Hollow Thieves - is equal to death.

I'll go ahead and warn you that the Drake Sword won't last you too long. It doesn't scale with any of your stats, it requires rare and valuable upgrade materials, and even when upgraded, it's still subpar. feel free to use it while it's still good, but don't get too attached to it.

edited 24th Dec '14 7:39:21 PM by wehrmacht

You can take a lot of damage if you screw up parrying. You can also take a lot of damage if you screw up blocking, rolling, attacking, spellcasting, using estus, or just about anything else.

This is Dark Souls. Damage is an occupational hazard, and death is a slap on the wrist if you're not hoarding souls for some reason.

It's a lot easier to roll away from an attack than it is to parry it.

Debatable. The ease of a roll compared to a parry varies based on camera angles, terrain, encumbrance, shield or weapon used, and the attack.

On open ground with no obstructions or ledges? Hell yeah.

In Sen's fortress with a shit-ton of pitfalls, narrow corridors, and traps and shit? Fuck no.

edited 24th Dec '14 9:53:23 PM by dragon573