The Dark Souls Thread

[spacehamster]

i think i did the darkroot basin/garden area later than most of you guys, which may explain why i enjoyed it... but fuck, i loved that area. so much stuff to find, lots of different types of enemies, three bosses (four if you count the demon you have to kill right after the undead parish bonfire), the NPC hidden in the golem (who i still haven't been able to summon?), avina or whoever it is that summons you to defend the forest with the cat covenant ring, the grinding spot... best area of the game so far IMO.

Other areas have enemies that are more fun to fight for my money, but I actually really liked Darkroot too. It's mostly just the look of the place, it's both completely different from anything in Demon's Souls and extremely well done. Just looks fantastic.

I'm about 60 hours in, btw, and I've done 12 of a total 22 bosses (including optional ones). I'm already spending extra time looting and grinding, though, because I'm going to platinum this thing and there are certain areas that I know I basically won't have to spend more than ten minutes at in NG+ if I do everything now. But it's insane, I think my first Demon's Souls playthrough clocked in at 70 hours, and here I'm what, barely past the halfway mark?

[The Schwartz]

Mine was 97 hours I am guessing rileys was a few under that but if you take in everything your first playthrough and are a true king of slaying demons you will at least hit 100 hours

[Spooky Apparition]

it's no doubt i'm a true king, and also a slow ass gamer, so 100 hours looks like it's a given. i gave up on the demon's souls platinum at about 130 hours, so we'll see about this one. platinum king status may not be reached

[fallbacktostone]

went to my friends house today, he played about 155 hours in two weeks and beat the game two nights ago. he then smashed the disc to a million little pieces and made a boat to float it on his pool while it burned. he's a weird dude.

[riley-o]

cool, haven't been there yet, that explains it. i'm 45 hours in and haven't been to a half dozen places everyone's been talking about the last 15 pages. riley, schwartz, whoever else has beaten it... how many hours did you put in on your first playthrough?

i was between 95 and 100 hours when i beat it, i don't remember where exactly because i went directly into an NG+ and played for a while (as everyone here will understand i'm sure, there's really no telling how long that while was) and the next time i started i was at a little over 102 hours.

[doomeddisciple]

Anor Londo's two javelin archers can suck my emu egg sized balls.

I went back and got some poison arrows on advice of a message on the ground.

[riley-o]

it wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for the long and fraught with danger run back there every time

also there's just something so draining to the morale when the arrow sticking out of your chest is larger than you are

[doomeddisciple]

it wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for the long and fraught with danger run back there every time

also there's just something so draining to the morale when the arrow sticking out of your chest is larger than you are

Or making it up there and blocking one with your sheild only to be knocked to your death...

[guardianoftheblind]

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

[spacehamster]

Anor Londo's two javelin archers can suck my emu egg sized balls.

I went back and got some poison arrows on advice of a message on the ground.

Better idea:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

I don't know if you've already tried sniping them with regular arrows, but it really doesn't work very well because they can see you and their arrows stagger you. Maybe with the hide body spell or the ring you get from the forest covenant it works, I haven't tried that. But I think they start shooting at you as soon as the first arrow hits, and it probably takes more than one to poison them.

So what I did is I just ran up to the ledge they're standing on as fast as I could with the Eagle Crest Shield up for minimal knockback, then targeted the one on the right (I'm pretty sure the other one can't hit you when you're on the ledge), walked up to him until he put the bow away (you'll have to roll through one or two arrows), then walked backwards and a few step down that structure I ran up on. He'll try to run straight towards you and fall to his death. Once you figure it out, it's actually really easy, I can do it reliably now. But this was after dying about ten times, then running all the way back to Sen's Fortress to buy arrows from the merchant, coming all the way back and realizing I couldn't snipe the fuckers.

[doomeddisciple]

Actually:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

There are two sniping positions on the first ramp after the two ambush pincers to snipe from.

The first spot is about half way up. The arrows stick into the ramp, you can hit the one on the right up the top with two or three poison arrows start the poisoning. The second spot is found by running to the top from the safe spot so your covered by the column and walking back down until you can just see the one on the right. In the right spot your poison arrows can hit him but his javelins lodge in the stone. You can then poison him too.

[spacehamster]

Cool. I'll have to try that sometime.

Currently in the Catacombs. After the Archives, this is actually fun. Especially because now that I have a Magic Bastard Sword +5 and can cut down these fucking skeletons and the Necromancers in two slices. Suck magic steel, fuckers.

[jakebonz@work]

So I finally found that spell to light up the Tomb of the Giants.

It's been a pain in the ass getting back there each time I die, but I shall conquer it tonight.

Stupid new job getting in the way of Dark Souls...

[spacehamster]

So I finally found that spell to light up the Tomb of the Giants.

It's been a pain in the ass getting back there each time I die, but I shall conquer it tonight.

Stupid new job getting in the way of Dark Souls...

I was wondering why you hadn't been posting here... you still planning on platinuming every version of this game?

Incidentially, I'm in the Tomb of the Giants too, and Riley was right - it would be a nightmare without Cast Light. The Skull Lantern is as good as useless - I need a shield to fight these giant skeletons, and I need to see what they're doing.

I actually made it to Gravelord Nito just now, but I got assraped. The good news is, Pinwheel was a total pushover. But that'll have to do for tonight.

[spacehamster]

So where in the Firelink Shrine is Laurentius of the Great Swamp supposed to be after I freed him? I can't find the guy.

Also, fuck Gravelord Nito. Fucking fuck the big fucker. Argh.

[spacehamster]

No, I found him. Five minutes after I posted this. Facepalm.

[ungodlywarlock]

Still very pissed off that I have this new character on this reject secondary profile, but I've shaken off the hate a bit.
I'm now seeing why everyone plays pyromancer to start. At first, I was having some troubles (for example, I one-shot the Capra demon on my first character, but even knowing the strat I still got my ass beat repeatedly on this one with the lack of armor and spells).

But after getting past that point and upgrading my pyro to like +12 or so it's like a cakewalk. Regular enemies that I kinda sorta struggled with are like 1-2 blasts of Combustion takes most things down.

Awesome.

[The Schwartz]

Also, fuck Gravelord Nito. Fucking fuck the big fucker. Argh.

oh hell naw

[spacehamster]

Also, fuck Gravelord Nito. Fucking fuck the big fucker. Argh.

oh hell naw

Are you saying you enjoyed that one? It's driving me insane. I actually went back to make myself a holy weapon because apparently that stops the fucking skeletons from respawning, but I'm still getting slaughtered. One thing I've noticed with this game is that I don't do very well if I have to keep track of too many moving parts in combat. Fighting those skeletons (my initial approach was to get rid of all of them, then attack Nito) that are coming from all sides would be hard enough in itself, but I also have to pay attention to where Nito is, ideally keeping him out of range and listen for the sound that comes before the spikes out of the ground AND then time my dodge roll exactly right so I don't get one of those shoved up my ass. It's just everything I suck at rolled into one nice neat package. I've actually gone back to the Demon Ruins now, and I'm doing a lot better there. Magic Bastard Sword +8 makes short work of those fucking Capra Demons, and it feels good.

[riley-o]

did you upgrade your powerglove to cheat levels ?

here's tips i will spoiler in case you want to beat him yourself:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

tactics:
-as soon as you land in the fight area chug an estus before any skeletors get to you
-stay at the entrance and kill the skeletons with a divine weapon if you want, or what i did was just kill them with a strong weapon because it was fast
-if you get hit by the spike, estus but try to just roll around as much as possible and it should miss you
-if you stay at the entrance neato should only launch one or maybe two spikes before he shows up, and if you keep him on the screen and in reasonable distance i don't think he launches any more spikes ? not confirmed but he didn't with me anyway
-try to keep your fight with neato to the one corridor to the right of where you dropped in so you don't trigger more and bigger skeletons

the actual fight with neato:
-if you didn't kill the skeletons with a divine weapon and they rebirthed, neato will one-hit kill them when he attacks. they don't stay dead now either but they don't get much of an opportunity to attack you with neato attacking
-try to stay just inside the reach of his sword and when he swings it, roll. this sounds like something you're not great at and i apologize but it's pretty easy once you get the timing of it
-after he misses you, chuck your most powerful fire magic at him

repeat a couple of times and then try to run/roll behind him, because he will try to back you up until you trigger the other bigger skeletons. don't be shy about using estuses, his attacks are slow and if you dodge one and need a swig, do it right after you dodge and you should have time to dodge again for his next attack.

[The Schwartz]

or just keep running in circles as the skeletons chase you and stab Nito each time you run by

[riley-o]

haha really ? man they made some of the boss fights a little too in this

[The Schwartz]

yea its pretty awesome, you can't get through it without yakety sax playing

[spacehamster]

did you upgrade your powerglove to cheat levels ?

+8, I think, and it's obviously not high enough yet, Chaos Fireball does maybe 5% damage.

Ah whatever. I went back to the Demon Ruins and keeled the Firesage instead, so now I've got that shortcut taken care of. Also killed all the Taurus Demons (no lame Poison arrow pussy strategy either) and got the Chaos Flame ember. Now I'm at the Centipede Demon. I'll probably do him and then upgrade the Pyromancy Flame some more before I go back down to Nito.

BTW, lots of bossfights in Demon's Souls had lamebot strategies if you knew how too, mostly "stand in corner, shoot arrows."

[The Schwartz]

just muffed up my L1 trigger from shielding for 200 hours