Dark Souls

So, with the help of the hint from Endless and er, a quick google because the way back was a bit obtuse, I found myself back in the Undead Asylum!

Oh, and 'Great job, go straight ahead!' my arse. RIP me.

edited 13th May '18 12:58:09 AM by Lavaeolus

Haha! Didn't realize it was possible to reinterpret that last tutorial message as a "go into the house of pain" message. (Not to be confused with the house of fun- that comes later.)

Judging by your reaction, I take it you met the guy in the dungeon?

Ol' lardarse after the tumble, right? Yep, met him. Think I've got a good handle on what, theoretically, to do there: jump away from any initial attack, run round to his back, and then just stay there whilst jumping back and getting occasional hits in. The problem is that you have to get a lot of hits in over time, and if you do get hit it'll probably take you out in one hit, so actually pulling that off throughout a fight is easier said than done.

I suppose I could just leave him. I looted the rest of the place, don't know if he has anything particularly worthwhile on him. I found that ring you mentioned, got a Crest Shield, picked up a weird doll, and put down an old mate. Well, I say 'mate'. We really bonded that time he gave me an Estus flask.

EDIT: Decided to go back and do some more exploring. I ran past the monster near Andre, ended up in Darkroot Whatchamacallit. My most noteworthy finds were: two bonfires, one of which led to the Valley of Drakes (which I currently have left be) and one of which was hidden behind an illusory wall (cheers to whoever left that message) near a locked door(?); some very big knights who are not as asleep as they look; and the Elite Knight armour set, which I guess I might gradually replace what Knight armour I'm using with as I increase my Endurance.

I also found some moss plants, and some Twinkling Titanite. I spoke to Andre so seems a bit of good timing, as it looks like it's required to upgrade the Crest Shield, if I wanted to use that.

edited 13th May '18 4:48:57 PM by Lavaeolus

Lardass gives you some extremely nice loot for killing him, and is also arguably the worst designed boss fight in the game. Have fun!

I'd take the Stray Demon over the Bed of Chaos any day.

Truth. The Stray Demon mostly just takes a while but is an actual boss fight, if a lazy one. Bed of Chaos is just what.

Agreed. But even if Stray Demon is rather boring from a design perspective, Demon Firesage is even worse in that regard; he doesn't even use fire!

When it comes to upgrading your equipment, prioritize your weapon(s). Then your shield to increase stability (reducing the stamina drained from blocking attacks) and armor (to increase defenses).

The Crest shield is great for blocking magic damage (there are others that are good for fire and lightning). And the Elite Knight set is very good for upgrading, but since there's a limited amount of the titanite needed to bring it to max level, don't expect to max it (and honestly you won't need to anyways).

Decided to try out co-op as a phantom. Did the Capra Demon again; it was me and one other phantom, and they looked like they knew more of what they were doing than I did. In the end I don't think I helped that much, but no one died so all's well that ends well. Had to wait a bit but it wasn't too long.

I did remember the earlier advice about revisiting the bonfire from earlier. And anyway, guys: looks like you're talking to an official Warrior of Sunlight over here! New miracle and, most importantly, I can do that weird Praise the Sun gesture I've seen around. As an aside, I tried it out in real life. Very silly looking. Also surprisingly fun to do.

Alright, I'll be fair. I knew in advance what stats I needed to get that Covenant. Was mentioned when I did an initial look at what kind of build I should go for.

edited 13th May '18 11:44:35 PM by Lavaeolus

You can summon a phantom for the Capra Demon? Huh.

From my experience so far, you can summon someone for pretty much everything outside the Asylum. Though from my experience as a host, summoning someone can be a bit awkward if you haven't already transversed most of the area and explored around on your own. Lot of bits suddenly get gated off as you're locked down to a certain area, or at least that's how it was in the Undead Parish.

In my case, I just plopped my summon symbol directly in front of the Capra fog gate. Or at least, where it would be, had I not already killed it in my world.

edited 13th May '18 11:45:47 PM by Lavaeolus

Anywhere you can be invaded, you can summon.

If you can use the white soapstone, that means you can summon in that area, which sounds redundant to explain but whatever.

Apart from the Asylum, I can't remember if there are any other places where co-op is prohibited.

Well, except slightly spoilery, but; pretty sure you can't have any player interaction in the Archives until your jail break is done.

Hehe, I had fun not too long ago being a summon for Capra. I had a character who'd lucked into a Black Knight Greatsword when I was already planning on giving her a build that would let her have the stats necessary for it, so I'd ended up putting all my stats into STR and DEX to get her to the bare minimum as quickly as possible and blowing 10 twinkling titanite (don't ask where I got it that early in the game- either you already know or you haven't found the area yet) on maxing it out early. Result: nekkid redhead swinging a sword as tall as she is that stuns Capra with each hit and kills it in just three R1 attacks (or four if there's two summons). Fun times.

Also, I notice you've met the Stray Demon! He's basically the most infuriating boss in the game, and one of only two or three that took me more than six tries. That bastard would kill me the instant I dropped into the arena sometimes, and on my first playthrough I made the mistake of trying to fight it without an elemental weapon or decent pyromancy or basically any decent upgrades. I ended up exploiting bleed procs from the Barbed Straight Sword that Kirk has a small chance of dropping, and that took forever and a half- not to mention at least two times I would get one hit away from a kill, only for the demon to fly into the air and instagib my greedy ass with his greedy ass. Blarg.

Those Black Knights are how I learned to parry, by the way. Each one is right next to a bonfire, so I'd just sit next to one and throw myself at one of them until I got the three successive parries I needed to kill one. The first took me as long as the Stray Demon did; I got the second in one go! Parrying is quite the useful skill, by the way- I strongly suggest you start getting the hang of it by the time you make it to the midpoint of the game. You'll know why when you get there.

edited 14th May '18 2:05:30 AM by EndlessSea

For Stray Lardass, you want to roll immidiately after the drop. It's possible to cancel the "oof that was quite a fall" animation by rolling at the moment you land.

And for parries, heres a tip; there is a difference between a medium shield and a small shield; small shields have more parry frames and faster recovery than medium. The Buckler and Target Shield have special animations though with even more parry time, but a slower recovery. The Parrying dagger is similar but not identical in function and parry data as the buckler and target shield.

Also the Heater Shield is a medium shield with the parry animation of a small shield- that is to say, the fastest parry in the game combined with decent stability, relatively light weight, and 100% physical damage reduction and 70% fire damage reduction. It's probably my favorite shield in the game.

Incidentally, we can add another boss to the 'bosses I beat on my first go' list. Moonlight Butterfly. I gave the Lightning Spears a quick test go on the boss outside Andre, because I'll show 'im who tosses electricity at me, and both went down pretty quickly. I can only imagine how it would've been had the Witch phantom not decided to only start reacting more than halfway into the fight. Anyway, now have a Divine Ember, which I've given to Andre. The description indicates I should probably get a Divine weapon before going to the bit with all the skeletons. I had a quick look; general advice seems to be to stick with normal re-enforcement for my main weapon.

Also briefly invaded a Gravelord Servant. Beat me soundly, of course, but I did have a bit of initial luck when we first met — he was distracted by another person so I had free reign to toss a couple of the ol' Lightning Spears at him, which was, admittedly, not particularly sporting. But the other guy he was fighting died, and boy did the tables turn around then.

Well, enough lollygagging. Time to take off our clothes, beat the Stray Demon, then off to Blighty.

edited 14th May '18 4:01:05 PM by Lavaeolus

Why are you fighting the Stray Demon naked? O.o

Because fastrolls.

You don't really need to beat the Stray Demon just yet, by the way- his drop is only useful at, like, the halfway point of the game. At the very least, it can't hurt to wait until after Blighttown.

Ah, but you see, I would really like him to cease being alive. Crumble the floor on me, why don't you.

But alright, I think it's time to just get on. Letting him live for the moment. Not that much progress, but I've gone back into the Depths, tried a bit more out as co-op. Died as a Warrior of Sunlight, but the host seemed to be doing alright so I hope I didn't screw 'em over too much. Hope they even continued to a triumphant victory. The boss gets more health the more phantoms are there, right? Either the host or the other phantom whacked off the Gaping Dragon's tail, at least.

Also got summoned to help against an invader. I don't know if I was actually much use, per se, but the host won and I think I distracted the invader enough by just rolling around that it gave the host some space to work with. Don't know if I got in the way. In any case, a victory of sorts, though we didn't continue to the boss. I did get the final hit on the invader, one of like two times I actually hit him. The host had him done at that point, I think, though he did end up pretty low on health himself doing it.

I think sometimes the hosts use Estus Flasks to heal me if I get hit. I've got the Heal miracle, so I especially hope they're not doing it if they actually need it. As far as my things go, the co-op seems relatively profitable. It doesn't seem to have any real lasting negative impact, so it's fairly risk-free on your side. What effects do the frog's curses, etc. have on phantoms?

Seen at least two different types of Blighttown enemies in my first attempts at getting through. The big ones pack a punch, but a shield stops them well enough, stamina cost aside, and they're not overly hard to dodge, narrow walkway aside. Experimenting more with backstabs on them.

edited 15th May '18 3:48:49 PM by Lavaeolus

I've always been wary as hell with huge drops, so the big ones always worried me a lot (although they are indeed good backstab practice). Enemy pathing in Blighttown is pretty dodgy, though, so with some smart playing you can trick them into jumping off the scaffolding to their deaths. Little ones are worse, though- they take way more hits than they ought to and like to attack in groups.

I dunno if basilisks can curse phantoms, but I wouldn't be surprised. Still, if you've been co-oping a lot, you probably have a decent amount of curse resistance from the soft humanity you've been getting from killing bosses.

And like that, the flame is rekindled.

Purchased the Remaster today and had so much fun just running around at 60fps. Felt like coming home after a long day away.

I decided to go with a Dex/Int build because I just came from Bloodborne off a Strength build. I wanted to cast old fashioned spells and make them go faster WHILE having melee options to fall back on. To that end I got the Uchigatana as soon as I had bought the Bottomless Box and the Dried Fingers. Speaking of, what a curveball to have THAT item this early in the game, though given its new function of allowing 3 white phantoms I can see why. It was also fun to see all the gravelord soapsigns littering the place, but I couldn't invade one Gravelord player. Did several invasions and coop plays though.

Here's hoping you don't get Malcolm'd.

Had no clue who you were talking about so I looked it up. Wow, so some guy is trying to get other people banned from the online gameplay already? That's messed up.

Reminding anyone playing the remaster; buy an Indictment and then use them when prompted. Yes, a literal prompt will come on the screen when it's time to use one, so don't worry about opening your inventory. Though seeing how the prompt appears, you couldn't anymore anyway at that point...

The Blades of the Darkmoon will thank you for giving them something to do and Darkwraiths will thank you for getting them more action. And most hopefully the guy who killed you might get someone much tougher than them stomp their ass.

If the remaster didn't change how they work, buy a few extra and pass them around to other players, since it's sadly a mostly ignored item as most of the player base seemingly lack the ability to deduce the link between Indictements, the Book of the Guilty and The Blades of The Darkmoon.

I would love to join in on the reamster fun on PS 4, but I really would prefer having the Switch version and not buying the game twice.

Yeah I tried to use an Indictment earlier but I wasn't able to. I figured you needed one on your person after you died to an invader.

So I've spent most of Memorial Day Sun Broing against the Capra Demon and Gaping Dragon. Those fights are quite hectic with other players, especially Capra and his small arena. I was once with the player host and 2 other phantoms, so we had a fun time just trying to find room to move while we wailed on Capra.