Dark Souls

'lisks got zero poise, so just about anything can be used to kill 'em. The fog breath comes out really slow and has a huge windup, so just hit em and it interrupts them.

Their leaping breath is much faster though.

And isolating enemies or using wide attacks always works.

I don't even remember first finding the basilisks for the first time, but I remember it was awhile before I knew what their breath attack even really did. Somehow managed to just not get cursed by them.

Think I've got got by them like once. :|

Me too.

Anyway I'd save Artorias for when you're about to go to the Kiln.

Nah, I want the alternate cutscene with Sif. Fits better with the whole 'descent into darkness' thing I'm going for.

I know you can't actually make the Fair Lady well again by feeding her Humanity, but does it have some cosmetic effect on her? I read her spider limbs are supposed to move with more strength or something, but I reached level 2 in the covenant and can't really see any difference.

As for Basilisks, I vividly remember my first encounter: I fell into one of the pits that drops you into the lower levels of the Depths and stumbled round blindly for a while, when all of a sudden I ran straight into one rounding a corner. Immediately my brain goes JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!! and I just flailed blindly at it before getting cursed almost instantly as I had zero humanity and bugger all curse resistance.

Then when I found out what curse actually does... yeah, that was a bad time. I'm sure most first time players have similar stories. Jesus, am I glad I first started playing after they patched it so curse doesn't stack.

EDIT: Hmmm, upon looking at some ways to mitigate curse buildup I think I'll get the Cursebite Ring from New Londo before trying to head down the hollow. From what I remember the Ghosts aren't that big a deal as long as you proceed very slowly and don't pull more than a couple at once.

edited 25th Nov '16 5:34:48 PM by OmegaKross

Ghosts are always a pain. Just pulling one or two of a type of enemies that can get aggroed and attacks directly through the walls is easier said than done. In particular there's a room where merely walking in makes like five or six of them pop up.

What I'm saying is, get ready to run like a pansy.

I had a lot of practice with the New Londo Ruins on my previous playthrough. It's one of the few things I remember strongly from before. I used to just walk as slowly as possible and aggro the ghosts one at a time wherever possible, so I know it's doable. The problem will be when I reach the first Banshee, as I used to just run the first part up to there as a soul farming route, before I reached Anor Londo and the Painted World. No doubt I'll die a few times, but I've made sure to use up all my Humanity kindling bonfires, and I've bought mostly everything I need. And since I'm level 115 I won't need to level grind until I'm ready to take on Gwyn, so I don't really care about losing souls in the process. That and I'll need the Key to the Seal from Ingward anyway, so I'll have to head there before long.

Well, New Londo was easy. Helps that my HP and Armor are so high that the ghosts were hitting me for scratch damage and my sword one-shots them. I even got mobbed by about 8 of them in the big church building and only lost a quarter of my HP.

And this is why I overlevel. Nothing compensates better for lack of skill than having a life bar 2 thirds the size of the screen.

Now to go kill myself in the Great Hollow. Hopefully the Cursebite Ring and Crimson set will give me enough curse resistance to protect me even if I fuck up and get jumped by loads of Basilisks.

edited 26th Nov '16 3:45:19 PM by OmegaKross

Get HUGE.

I'm tempted to try NG+ and go full Giantdad. Not for Pv P purposes, but just sheer comedy value.

Actually, do you even get more souls from enemies on NG+? I'd think you'd have to considering how expensive Soul Level become.

EDIT: Oh, and I also saved Seigmeyer of Catarina from the pit of Chaos Eaters. You can actually just go there before you even meet him in Izalith and clear out 3 of them before he even gets there. As long as one of them is alive he'll still jump down to fight them. Was underwhelming. Great Lightning Spear + Ring of the Sun's Firstborn x 60 Faith = Chaos Eater dead in two shots. Now I can actually finish his questline. But to do that I need to get to the bonfire in Ash Lake first.

Also, is there any point to joining the Princess' Guards? Synergy is borked on PS 3, and the party-heal miracles are worthless to someone who only plays single player. Only reason I joined was for RP reasons.

edited 26th Nov '16 3:50:45 PM by OmegaKross

You could also wear this for even more Curse resistance.

Holy shit, is that the base resistance? Here's me grinding for souls to buy Twinkling Titanites for the Crimson set (yeah, I know Dingy set is better for curse, but Crimson is easier to max out.)

And I don't even need to go to Oolacile to get it either. Should make Basilisks an absolute joke, which would be good since they freak me the fuck out so badly.

Yeah, over 100 curse resist at base. The downside is being in a lacy princess dress. And absolutely no defence.

Hey, it's not the Jeremiah set. That set's supposed to have good Curse resist, innit?

The Xanthous set? Just the Crown I think, but it does have 30 something base curse resist. So I'll Wear it in place of the Crown of Dusk. I'm tempted to stock up on Humanity as well, but knowing my luck I'll overprepare for the Basilisks and then end up falling off the fucking tree to my death and have to pick it back up again, so I'll just stick with the over 400 curse resist I'll get from the armour pieces with the Cursebite Ring.

Also, are the big mushrooms at the bottom of the tree weak to fire? I'm thinking I may need to enchant a Chaos weapon for the big ones. I remember them knocking the crap out of me and having to just run away from them.

EDIT: Yep, weak to fire. Think I'll have the Giant Blacksmith make Quelaag's Furysword. Or just use the Chaos pyromancies. I did spend all those souls maxing out the Ascended Pyromancy Flame after all. They're so short ranged though. Not used to using them at all.

edited 26th Nov '16 7:59:13 PM by OmegaKross

Great Combsution their faces and enjoy some roasted shrooms.

My trick to the Bounding Demons? Black Bow of Pharsis, Hawk Ring, lots and lots and lots of arrows.

I love that thing so much I actually got it up to +15.

And yeah, the Phalanxes are the best. You only have to return to Darkmoon Tomb when you're DONE. Otherwise, just keep using the Painted World's bonfire to respawn 'em. Shorter distance than the forest, more predictable, and much easier to recover your bloodstain in the off chance you die. I recommend using ultra-light armor and the Homeward miracle to shave even more time off your runs.

On NG, with the Mimic hat and the silver ring, along with the Overkill bonus from using something like Firestorm with a fully upgraded flame, you basically get 12,000 souls per run.

I think I was seeing around 12,000 souls a run messing with the Phalanx, actually, but pretty sure I was seeing closer to 21,000 with the Guardians.

Can you respawn the Guardians every 40 seconds or so though? The Phalanx can be flattened in two hits of Wot G. It's just so easy and convenient that no other grinding spot works as well IMO. Sure, the baby skeletons in the Tomb are good for both souls and Humanity, but screw going down there every time I want to gain a level.

The wiki lists the Phalanx as by far the most efficient farming method.

Also i don't see the point of using Homeward for the Phalanx run. The loading time seems to eliminate any advantage it gives. Maybe if I wanted to just run straight at the Phalanx and ignore the three Hollows, but I usually kill those for the extra 1000 odd souls they give.

edited 27th Nov '16 11:20:54 AM by OmegaKross

The Guardians have a bonfire two feet from where you run into them, same as the Phalanx (minus the Hollows), and it doesn't matter what your gear is as long as you can get behind the stairs (okay, the Sorcerer doesn't always play along, but the rest generally do, so you don't have to worry about actually fighting more than one enemy at once).
And minor point, but they don't drop spears that you have to get rid of afterwards.
They also don't have an annoying torch Hollow to sneak up on you.

Bit surprised if the Guardians average out to taking as long as that page says, but I maintain that that method has fewer ingredients and a much better return time. And's also just kind of hilarious; doesn't feel like as much of a slog as going to Ariamis and knowing that when you eventually kill enough gumballs, you have a twenty-minute commute back to the rest of the game. Just take a five-minute walk through some shrubbery, go and bait a few guys and watch them jump off a cliff a few times, then 'port back.

edited 27th Nov '16 1:26:31 PM by Knowlessman

It really doesn't take twenty minutes to reach the Darkmoon Tomb from the Painted World bonfire. The biggest obstacle is the heavy knight on the bridge, but you should have some way of taking him down quickly. Like I said, my preferred method is to chuck Great Lightning Spear at him before he gets near me, which practically kills him in one hit. Then you can just sprint past everything else. The Hollows aren't a threat, and the Painting Guardians can just be sprinted past (to make it easier to get by without aggro'ing them all you could equip the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring, but I only bother with that if I feel like backstabbing them all for laughs.) And you don't actually need to pick up anything the Phalanx drops, all they ever give is spears and large leather shields. Just leave them.

Also, having been down to the Darkroot Basin to get the Antiquated Set and deciding to take a stroll through the forest, I now remember which Forest Guardians you're talking about. Yeah, exploit or no, there is no way grinding those is less work than the Phalanx. And definitely no way that it's quicker either. So long as you have an Ao E attack that can kill the whole group in a couple of hits, or a big two-hander that can just chop them down 5 at a time, wiping them out shouldn't take longer than 15 seconds at the very most. Then just run another 15 seconds to the bonfire and repeat until your eyes start going weird from staring at the screen.

edited 27th Nov '16 2:11:22 PM by OmegaKross

Goin' on about Lightning Spears, meanwhile I haven't played a Faith build yet that got anywhere. :| Ain't that good at it; just been greatswording it.

The cast time is a pain. Apparently leveling Dex reduces cast time of offensive sorceries and miracles, but I've sunk too many levels into Vit, End, and Faith to even consider building it up. I just leveled Str and Dex enough to one-hand the Claymore and spent everything else on Faith.

You can move about before actually releasing the bolt though, which helps back up a bit and bait jumping swings from enemies. The lock on range is pretty good too, so mostly you'll be able to get a shot off against a melee enemy before they reach you.

Only other thing I can suggest to get rid of the knight quick is Great Combustion with a highly leveled Pyromancy Flame. Tried it out on the Silver Kights in Anor Londo and it does more damage against them than my sword does (about 300 odd with +5 Ascended flame). You don't need Int or Faith for pyromancy, just enough souls to upgrade the flame, so any build can use it effectively. Though that's assuming Laurentius is still knocking about at Firelink. If he leaves for Blighttown before you level the flame +10, you're screwed, as Quelaana won't spawn, meaning no Ascended flame.

So I ordered Dark Souls 3 off of Amazon. As someone who wasn't super big on Dark Souls 1 but adores Bloodborne to death, anything I should keep in mind? I sort of want to try a sorcery build this time as I've yet to do one in either game, but I'll probably just do big tanky swordsman again.

I think Dark Souls 3 probably has its own thread; this one is mainly for the first game.

Personally, I'm trying to avoid spoilers so that someday when I have a One (or computer I'm comfortable trying to play it on), I can play it at least mostly blind.
I've heard that the multiplayer works more like in 1 than like in Bloodborne, so running around Enkindled or whatever it's called now will get you invaded even if you're alone. Also, it doesn't seem to have the atmosphere of Bloodborne (not that that's not obvious), and also has blocking and parrying instead of guns and that whole "hit em hard enough fast enough and get your health back" mechanic.

edited 27th Nov '16 3:46:37 PM by Knowlessman

Yeah, Bloodborne is pretty different from Dark Souls from what I've seen and heard. It's more action-oriented, whereas Dark Souls will kill you dead if you try being a Leeroy Jenkins. Still haven't played DS 2 yet so I don't know if they changed anything for that one, but I'd imagine DS 3 will be in keeping with the rest of the series.