The Dark Souls Thread

[spacehamster]

Weird. I've never had to quit and restart, but I guess try that.

Also, you're not going to get through the DLC in a few hours unless you're so overpowered that you can just tank-cheese everything. But check it out anyway, you should be able to kill the first boss and at least explore the first area a bit. The second bossfight's a bitch, but the area that follows that is the best part of the DLC, so try it at least.

I can tell you an easy strategy for Gwyn that always works for me if you need to finish the game quickly, but try it blind first.

[The Bill]

you can undo any weapon upgrade. Andre should be able to do it for you.

Raw is the worst...

I'm excited again.

Doubt I'll play today, but tomorrow will be Sen's Fortress.

Fuck you SENS!!

[spacehamster]

I'm excited again.

Reading the menus at the blacksmiths helps.

I mean, I'm just sayin'.

[The Bill]

I'm excited again.

Reading the menus at the blacksmiths helps.

I mean, I'm just sayin'.

Not drinking three bottles of wine on a Sunday afternoon does as well.

[spacehamster]

Not drinking three bottles of wine on a Sunday afternoon does as well.

Given that I actually demanded that you play the entire game drunk, I'm going to have to applaud this.

Anyway, if you click sideways through the blacksmith menus, you'll see the upgrade paths, and the option to revert a weapon back to normal shows up there as well. I just wanted to be a dick because making the upgrade system... uh, not cryptic to the point of being completely unintelligible, was one of the big changes from DeS to DkS. In Demon's Souls you basically either looked it up on the Wiki or did your own trial and error for about 50 hours.

[spacehamster]

So I'm hanging around the first bonfire in O-Town, hitting the dried finger, waiting for invaders. Everybody around there's pretty much just looking to duel, so people generally fight clean and there's lots of bowing, waiting for each other to cast buffs, and nobody pulls any chickenshit healing maneuvers. It's nice.

So this guy with a scythe invades, immediately runs past me and down to the first sorcerer to stand in front of him and wait for me. Obviously I'm having none of that shit. He comes up and gets on the elevator. Because I'm going to follow him so he can jump me and stunlock me with that scythe. Because I'm a retard. Nope. This guy's a scrub, and I'm going to make him face me like a man.

He messages me. "This is taking forever." I tell him I'm waiting for him. "I'm the one who's waiting," he says. More like hiding behind PVE enemies, says I. "Exactleh."

Right. This is going to be my last fight for the night, I know this guy's going to get impatient and come fight me eventually, so I keep waiting. He does show up. He lasts maybe 20 seconds.

"Nice ", he says.

After de knockout, he hespec me. Now he's my friend.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

[a world of no]

Love duels like that. O-town is good for that shit for sure. If you really want to test your skills though go to the gank forest... getting double/triple teamed by forestbros and redwraiths is exhilarating. Killing a couple gankers will give you a rock hard dick that'll last for a bit as well.

Also, to address the worries about DS PvP dying off after next week... It may, but I think it will be temporary. The mechanics, for all of their flaws, work great, and that's including the exploits. There's no way you spend hundreds of hours in an online game and not want to revisit occasionally. After GFWL goes out next month though, if they replace it with something actually good, then things may become really excellent and jumping. I"m worried about DS2 PvP being too balanced, but taht's probably bullshit. Too much variety for that to be a real worry.

[FVBTVS]

killing smough first in ng+ might just be my skill cap right there. i havent been playing really as much last couple days but.. fuck this shit..

[Wang Mandu]

Favorite PVP moment was using my glass cannon mage in Duke's Archives. I cast chameleon as soon as I got invaded and slowly followed the invader around for 10 minutes or so. He kept tossing the Hawkeye Gough carving "HELLLLOOOOOOO" and I kept giggling like a retard. Eventually he got wise and I revealed myself only for.him to one shot me with some super cannon crossbow. I wasn't even mad.

[spacehamster]

killing smough first in ng+ might just be my skill cap right there. i havent been playing really as much last couple days but.. fuck this shit..

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

You can get Ornstein caught on the pillars. If you're not too far away from him, he'll walk in your direction, so just get a pillar between you and him (works if they've been smashed too) and keep him targeted. He'll try to walk in your direction and launch attacks, which will clip through the pillar, so dodge or keep your shield up, but it's really easy and nothing like fighting him out in the open. Just wait for openings and attack. From my experience, you will need ranged pyromancies because the knockback from the attacks puts you at too much of a distance to get a melee strike in before he's recovered, but he's vulnerable to fire, so pyromancy is the best way to go anyway. Worked for me in NG+.

I expect the PVP to pick up again after a while too, but immediately after the release of DkS2... shit's gonna be a ghost town. But yeah, hopefully the two'll be different enough so people will want to play both.

[spacehamster]

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I know it will get harder-- but I'm just wondering if the DLC is balanced more for the +NG stuff since it came out after a lot of people had already beat the game.

What SL are you?

The scarecrows aren't that hard to fight unless they gang up on you, but the guardians can be pretty difficult because their whole moveset seems to be designed specifically to neutralize tactics that work on everything else in the game. When I do the Royal Forest, I'm typically at a level where I can take out a scarecrow with two hits as well, but the guardians definitely take more than that.

[spacehamster]

Well, yeah. I can't remember what my stats were in the first playthrough, but I'm rocking a Dex/Uchigatana build at the moment as well, and I played the parts you're in now in NG+ with 40 Dex and a +15 Uchi, so your damage output should be pretty comfortable.

I'm also pretty sure the DLC is easier with Dex builds. Playing it with my original magic build was an absolute bitch - nothing's particularly vulnerable to magic, and according to the wiki, ALL of the bosses are resistant to it. The second time around with the Dex build, it was far, far easier. But there's also about 3 full playthroughs of the vanilla game between those two attempts, so maybe I just got better at it.

As for how it's balanced, I think in terms of how difficult it is compared to the rest of the game, there's no big difference between NG and NG+, and don't forget the PC version came out post-DLC and already included it. So I don't know if they expected most people to be playing it in NG+, it doesn't seem that way to me.

[spacehamster]

Ha. It's been a pretty rare weapon in both games, though - in Demon's Souls there's exactly one that you can pick up in the entire game unless you get it as a random item drop from enemies, and in Dark Souls there's two ways to get it, but one involves murdering an NPC, and one joining a covenant, and then talking to a character who only shows up if you're in that covenant, and in an area that has nothing to do with the covenant and where he's hidden around a corner that's very easy to miss. And that's because it IS a great weapon that shouldn't be too easy to come by. It was extremely popular in DeS, as well.

[The Bill]

I have that sword. I killed the Merchant last time I played because I was sick of him mocking me & I had bought enough garbage off him that I didn't want. As of now Drake +3 is still more powerful so I'm sticking with it. Of course, I didn't have anything that can upgrade past +5 right now. Tonight I go into Sen's.

Hypothetically, I want to grind souls so the Pyro in Blighttown can level my fire some more but I'm so damn scared I'll keep falling again and lose all the grind souls like I did the first visit there.

[spacehamster]

I didn't realize the katana was so popular-- I thought it was just a niche I fell into. When I've been invaded or summoned, I feel like so many people have much heavier weapons. I don't think I'd be able to play this game as a heavy-- my entire style is based on shield, roll and quick successive slashes. I'd like to play DS again from the beginning as a different style of player, but I know for a fact I'll be going into DS2 with a character that as closely mimics my current build as I can get. Pantsless dex and I will spend as much time as I can trying to find a damn katana.

I wouldn't be surprised at all, though, if Dex builds are the next thing they've nerfed for DkS2. I played DeS with a strength/magic build - bastard sword, medium armor, lots of ranged spells - and it was extremely powerful. Tried the same thing in DkS, and got my butt kicked. From knows what you've been doing, and they're going to take your toys away.

[Wang Mandu]

Ha. It's been a pretty rare weapon in both games, though - in Demon's Souls there's exactly one that you can pick up in the entire game unless you get it as a random item drop from enemies, and in Dark Souls there's two ways to get it, but one involves murdering an NPC, and one joining a covenant, and then talking to a character who only shows up if you're in that covenant, and in an area that has nothing to do with the covenant and where he's hidden around a corner that's very easy to miss. And that's because it IS a great weapon that shouldn't be too easy to come by. It was extremely popular in DeS, as well.

There's also the one on top of the shack in the first part of Blighttown. You have to jump to get it. The Iaito.

[spacehamster]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Iaito. Incidentially, I'm headed to Blighttown with my new build next.

[a world of no]

I like the Iatio R2 horizontal slash more than the katana thrust. I had a pvp build with both katana and iaito fixed, and after R2ing with katana i would switch the to iaito to dead angle the fucker thinking he could easily roll to the side and miss my attack. it was fun, but not really an awesome successful strategy.

[FVBTVS]

what is this 'dead angling' thing you pvp scamps always speak of

[a world of no]

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wk7-Iy7-8A<

[FVBTVS]

[FVBTVS]

oh shit ok i kinda knew this but i didn't know how it applied in dark souls.

[a world of no]

I've gotten hatemail deadangling with the great scythe in the burg before. One guy in particular seemed furious, accusing me of hacking, because "I blocked all that shit!!!".

[Dead Angle, Dead Angle, Parry/Riposte, Backstab, Well... What is it??, "**** sent you a message"]

[a world of no]

It's insanely easy to pull off though, especially with the great scythe. I just unlock and jump/run to the side of the opponent and R2. That particular fight was a pretty lucky one, and the parry was easy because he was freaking out R1 spamming. I was laughing like a retard the entire time.

[spacehamster]

I learned that the hard way - circling around a guy with a greatsword as he's about to launch into a round swing? Not a good idea. Guys must've laffed their asses off at me giving them freebies.

Anyway, the forward stab attack is exactly the reason why I prefer the Uchigatana, but that applies more to PvE, obviously. Wide swings suck in narrow corridors, plus with a weapon that can stab and slash, you don't need spears or rapiers for enemies that are particularly vulnerable to stab damage like the crystal golems.