Dark SoulsFollow

I had him almost dead when he got a hit in on me. I need to upgrade my armor for serious.

Not having played a caster, I can't imagine you'll need waste your spells on many of the trash mobs. The key is patience for the trash, and save the spells for archers/bombardiers and bosses.

You can purchase multiple copies of the spells. If you have enough slots then you just equip it twice and you get double the charges.

A brief excerpt from the travels of Croaker the Wanderer:

SpoilerHmm, that last note said there was a boss up here, but I'm just up on a roof. Unless that dragon flies in, I think that d-bag was messing with me. Oh, cutscene.

...

Ack, stone gargoyle! Damn, that axe has some range. Dodge, roll, evade!

...

Okay, I've hot his attacks down. Just dodge and evade and keep darting in and out. Half-way there, just need to... wait a second, why does he have a second health bar? If I have to start all over aga... AHH FIRE HOT!!!! IT BURNS US, PRECIOUS!!!

*You Died*

Hmm...I'll have to try that. I've only been getting the backstab like, 20% of the time.

SpoilerJust got the Zweihander today. It's comically oversized, and WAY too heavy for my character to use right now. But I still ran around with it just for the lulz.

Edited, Oct 8th 2011 1:13am by Eske

So what covenants are people going for?

I'm probably going to stick with the lawful good one for my first playthrough. Being able to reduce my chances of an invasion, and increase the chances for stronger miracles/help on bosses sounds rather nice when you are just getting accustomed.

If I were to do it again, I'd pick a non-thief class and probably grab the master key as a gift. I wouldn't say that the key is super necessary, though. It's gotten me a couple of nice finds, but it hasn't turned up anything uber yet.

Pyromancer looks like a solid starter class to me, and from everything I've heard, it starts out better than most.

I joined the Way of White (lawfully good) covenant, mostly on accident. Haven't really done anything with it yet, though the benefits sound solid.

SpoilerHydra just owned me before I could even get within striking distance...bah...

I just encountered a weird glitch.

SpoilerI shot the red dragon from the top of the tower in the undead parish where the black knight is and he just disapeared. Seconds after I got 10000 souls. I went back to the bridge and he's gone. Looks like I killed him with 1 arrow lol.

There's also an area that contains 4 npcs right near a campfire. These npcs will, when aggroed, refuse to follow you onto a ledge. Instead, they'll "chase you" onto the ledge above it and try and jump down onto your ledge. Except they'll bounce of your head and plunge to their deaths, giving you 7k souls. Then just head to the campfire to reset them.

It does take 20k souls to open the area though.

It's worth picking up if you want basically more of the same experience on the cheap. It's definitely not necessary, though. There isn't any plot continuity between the two.

I'm enjoying Dark Souls a bit more than its predecessor. It's a little more even about divvying out rewards. More weapons, more spells, more items etc. etc.

Edited, Oct 8th 2011 8:41pm by Eske

SpoilerThere's one you can easily pull with a bow from the entrance that gives 2000 souls, rince and repeat. If you get too deep in that area you can get aggro from a bunch of ghost. Pulling from the entrance is really safe and you're next to the bonfire. You still need to kill the guy good old fashion way but it's an easy fight.




You don't need to story wise. The two games are not connected but Demon's souls is an awesome game and you'll get used to the games mechanic. If you can get it cheap, I'd say go for it but you can get straight into Dark souls if you prefer without problem.

Oh, Pyromancy has been shown to not scale with INT or FAT, so it's an ideal choice for melee characters who want to cast magic. It scales with its weapon.

I'm going really slowly through the game. I think you're all past me at this point.

Also, re: covenants, you can join them all. When you join a new covenant, it reduces your standing in all other covenants, but doesn't drop them. You can join them all before starting to progress in them individually, if you want to get achieves using only one character.

So, boss weapons. I think I'm going to go for Quelaag's Fury Sword.

Yeah, the weapon doesn't scale enough to make it worth stacking INT for; it's perfect for a melee class.

Well, all classes, really.

Edited, Oct 9th 2011 10:49am by Spoonless

When fully upgraded, it has an S rating. But it seems like int STILL doesn't affect your spell damage. The act of upgrading the weapon is what does it. This could be a glitch though.

Dark Souls upgrade system makes my head spin.

WAY better than the Demons Souls one...

The fact that you can make weapons that scale with Int or Faith is really nice though...

This is how I went through all of demons souls. I'm planning on not going through dark souls the same way. :p

I usually Shield+Spear when there are ranged attackers as well as melee, or when I'm ganged up on by 3 or more melee. Otherwise, I'm using a Scimitar.

I kind of hope they patch it.

Don't even know how to do it (saw a video, with the giant tornado head, but it was in japanese and I had no f*cking clue what was going on).

If I know how to do it, I'll be tempted to do it...

As it stands, it's almost guaranteed that I will be taking advantage of the forest-ledge technique. I'm not skilled enough to deal with this game without some help.

I'm also debating starting over (again). First I made a Pyromancer, but was irritated by the long cast times and limited charges of the spells. Then I made a thief, so that I could get the Master Key and Pendant. But I've yet to find a location that made me feel the key was worth it. I've also discovered plenty of situations (as a thief) where I seriously wish I had access to fire spells...

I also deleted the first pyromancer, because scrolling down to play my thief was annoying... *cough*.

In any case, this is my new plan:
Make Pyromancer with Pendant
Spend first two levels in vitality, then focus on stats I'll need to use the drake sword.
Get another magic slot.
Focus on defenses while I take the time to figure out what kind of weapons I'll want later on, and spend stats accordingly.

What sucks is that a fast character appeals to me aesthetically. Parrying/riposting/dodging/backstabs.

But for the life of me, I can't time backstabs--I just have no clue how to get behind the enemies... The fact that I need to be practically naked to be fast enough to reliably get behind them isn't helping.

So I think I'm going to go for a character with high endurance who hides behind a shield all the time, focusing on getting in a few, strong blows rather than combos.

Just start a bandit. You'll need only 1 point in STR to use the drake sword (but you'll need 3 point in DEX to use the bow) and 2 point for a magic slot. If you free the pyromancer (can't remember where he is) you'll get acces to pyromancy spell without investing a single point in INT. You'll have good END and VIT from the beginning. Total of 6 points to get a hard hitting caster with good HP and stamina. You'll need to invest 7 points just in STR to use the drake sword not counting the investment in DEX, VIT and END.

You can only summon/invade someone who is .9x < x < 1.1x, where x is your Soul Level. At higher levels, it widens the brackets, but a level 70 player will only be matched with/against someone 63-77.