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Comments
I don't like the Ring of Favor and Protection much, actually. It made me depend on it a lot.
It gets obsolete once you bump up your Endurance a lot.
And besides, it's not like there are more than 2-3 rings that you'd want other than it.
The Dark Wood Grain Ring is unquestionably (lolexaggeration) the best ring in the game, and it is a drop.
Oh. I've never actually gotten it, so I thought it was a covenant reward.
But yeah, I don't think that unquestionably is an exaggeration. I mean, maybe there's a case to be made for the Silver Serpent Ring, but it's one of the two.
Holy shit, the Black Knight in that large spiral staircase was cake this time. And I have a Black Knight Greatsword now.
EDIT: Strength requirement 32 . . .
Black Knight Greatsword is an Ultra Greatsword, right? Those kinda suck.
Black Knight Greatsword has a hilariously awesome and impractical R2 attack. Otherwise it's not very good. The Halberd and Greataxe are the Black Knight weapons that are worth using (though, mostly the Halberd, I think, unless you're doing PVP).
Oh, yeah, I was considering switching out to a Halberd and building my Strength to do so. But then I got this Winged Spear and I love it.
I once thought the Zweihander was just a better Claymore, but it was all lies.
I prefer the Halberds to the Spears.
Man-Serpent Greatsword is only better if you have high strength. If you have more dex than str (or even if they're equal and both high), the Claymore is stronger. Also it has a better moveset.
Honestly, I prefer moveset over damage output. That's why I considered the Zweihander to be lies.
I try to compromise between the two. That's why I went Man-Serpent.
The thing about the Ultra-Greatswords is that their movesets are all so disastrous that no reasonable damage output could begin to make up for them.
IJBM: there are three weapons in the game with "greatsword" in their name. None of them is a Greatsword.
They can do hilariously large damage on a backstab or a riposte.
Though it's probably not worth carrying one just for that since they all are ridiculously heavy.
My main weapon during my original playthrough was an Enchanted+5 Claymore. After I defeated Seath I started using the Moonlight Greatsword from then on.
I dunno. Maybe situationally? A good backstabbing or riposting weapon will tear Gwyn apart.
Though if I were to actually try and beat Gwyn entirely with ripostes, I'd at least make the effort to do it with my fists.
Are Enchanted weapons actually any good? I'm pretty skeptical about them. They seem to be interchangeable for Faith weapons, but without the huge number of enemies weak to them and perks in the Catacombs.
I don't really know, I went almost full INT after a while and I found the Enchanted Ember way before the Large Magic Ember.
No, not usually, but they would be your best choice if you decided to put all your points into int and just have the minimum str/dex for your weapon.
EDIT: Wait no this actually isn't even true. They'd still be worse than elemental weapons.
Yeah, fair enough. I guess for some builds they're the only real option, which is okay since they're not the main attraction for that build.
Actually (I just edited my post but nobody will ever see that now) I realized that Enchanted is actually almost always going to be worse than Lightning or especially Chaos even if you do have very high Int. The only time when Enchanted would ever be better is if the enemy was immune (or at least very resistant) to the element you chose, but even then you could just use the other element...
So yeah Enchanted and Magic weapons suck.
Enchanted should have made the weapon do 100% magical damage or something. Then it'd actually be usable.
I am starting over and I don't really see what should I do, I wanted to try a faith build to use the lightning spears but I honestly find the magics to be better than the miracles.
Sorcery is far better for playing through the game. Miracles are just better for PVP.
That said, if you've already played the game before there's no real point in choosing based on which one is best, since the game is actually pretty easy after the first time through.
What bothers me about sorcery is that, apart from a few spells that can be imitated with rings, it's mostly about damage-dealing at medium range in a game biased in favour of close combat. So I prefer miracles, because they're usually more about controlling the conditions of a fight. Tranquil Walk of Peace would be so awesome if its casting animation wasn't so lengthy. Wrath of the Gods is far and away the best magical ability in the game, PvE or PvP, due its combination of high damage, high area of effect and massive knockdown.
That said, if you really want to cut down close combat in PvE, then sorcery can help a lot. But I like close combat a lot, so miracles are my magic of choice. If you're good at avoiding attacks (rather than blocking), you can keep a talisman/catalyst/flame in the off hand for speedy access to miracles/sorcery/pyromancy in the heat of combat, too. My suggestion would be to mix magic with dexterity, though, for the faster casting speed. Unless you're going for a 50 vit/40 end/50 fth or int build, in which case you just use the minimum stats for the weapon you like best.
PvP in Dark Souls isn't very fun at the moment, though, at least until you hit level 90ish and/or NG+. You really need good gear to compete, especially since so many invaders at low levels are using the bottomless box glitch to provide themselves with fully upgraded late-game gear. So if you're doing an honest run and you get invaded, chances are you'll get blindsided by someone with Black Knight armour and a lightning spear +5 or something. Demon's Souls is much less exploitable, so the PvP is generally a lot more even.
That said, if you want to play Dark Souls online, you will almost certainly get invaded, so everyone who plays online should probably build their character in a way that allows them to compete to some degree. Here are a few template builds, all for SL 125:
Quality (Mixed Str/Dex)
This build extracts lots of damage from weapons that scale with both strength and dexterity, especially C/C scaling weapons like straight swords. Without magic, you're also free when it comes to your hand equipment slots. I'd suggest a good shield in the first left hand slot, a bow in the second, and two weapons you like in the right hand slots. You can sacrifice some vitality and perhaps a little strength or dexterity if you want to add magic to this build. There are a few spells across the different disciplines that can contribute well to a build like this. Not just buffs, mind, but spells like Homing Soulmass and Tranquil Walk of Peace; the sort that help modify the conditions of a battle.
Unless you're going to use some magic with this build, use Warrior or Bandit as your starting class.
The Only Real Faith Build
The strength and dexterity values for this build are whatever the minimum for your favourite weapon is. This build is more or less about resilience meeting strong abilities and good combat power. A faith character will seldom be dealing the damage of a strength or quality character unbuffed, but they can deal decent damage all the same (and buttfuck awesomesauce damage while buffed) while calling on some of the best abilities the game has to offer. Just make sure to actually use those abilities; if you don't, then you would have been better off with the quality build above.
Cleric is the most efficient class for this build. Knight is also good. In the long run, which one you choose doesn't matter very much (if at all).
Stupid Sexy Pyro Dex Build
High dexterity increases the speed of magic casting, so this pyro build aims to take advantage of it. Basically, you start as a pyromancer and turn it into a dexterity character while keeping up with your pyromancies (since they require no stats apart from attunement). With the cast speed on pyromancies at dexterity 40, it's viable (and even awesome) to not use a shield, but your pyromancy flame in the off hand, dodging around and taking whatever opportunities present themselves to blow shit up. This build, being a dexterity build, is probably best used with the uchigatana, Ricard's rapier or the Balder side sword. You'll need a couple more points in strength for the uchigatana, but that weapon's pretty awesome so it's totally worth it.
I don't like this build so much because of how common and abused it is (given that everyone and their grandmother uses pyromancy unless they're a faith or intelligence build), but there's no question concerning its effectiveness. Dexterity weapons are generally pretty fun to use in any case, so you can have a good time with this build in both PvE and PvP.
The bottomless box glitch has absolutely nothing to do with that, except that it saves them some time. It's easy to get any equipment you want at SL1 without using the bottomless box glitch.
SL 120 is the real unofficial PVP level. 125 is just the level people go to because they've seen other people do it and they want to add 5 points of Vit. But 120 is the real level you should be aiming for.
Obviously, it doesn't really matter (120 and 125 can do PVP with each other anyway), but yeah.
I've heard differing opinions on the matter. In any case, SL 125 was the standard for Demon's Souls, and it's so close to SL 120 that it's probably best to aim for SL 125 anyway.
As for equipment at SL1, I'd say the bottomless box glitch has a lot to do with it. Some people would get awesome gear at SL1 no matter what, but it's too common for how difficult Dark Souls is without level ups. When every griefer in the Undead Burg has post-Anor Londo gear, it says a lot about how easily and efficiently they're getting said gear, and I doubt very many of them are going to the trouble of finishing (or almost finishing) the game.
What they're probably doing is recycling the gear from old characters that turned out to have non-viable builds. While I think it's good to have a speedy way to try out new builds, the ultimate result of this is destroying low-mid level PvP for the convenience of high level PvP. Which is a damned shame, because low-mid level PvP can be really interesting given all the compromises you have to make.
And now I know the reason I got help from guys with mixed post anor londo gears the other days, I was at the gargoyles at that moment.
Just had a pretty gnarly multiplayer session or two. Or three.
Anor Londo, after raising the bridge.
First, I get invaded. Okay, fine. Everyone seems to be rocking fully upgraded gear, so I don't feel bad about retreating to the Painting Guardian walkways. This Black Phantom knows what I'm doing though, and heads me off in the opposite direction. So there we are, standing at opposite sides of the walkway above the painting room. He begins shooting arrows at me, all of which I avoid, easily. I think we had about ten minutes of him periodically pelting me with arrows before he came at me with his sword drawn. No biggie; I use Force to throw him off the walkway.
Right, that means I can get down to business. Before I go, I summon a White Phantom to help get me to the bonfire. We clear that goddamn Silver Knight sniping spot with ease, probably thanks to end-game gear. The dude doesn't get the message after we reach the bonfire, though, so I decide to press on. We're doing well until an invasion hits. Long story short, either me or the invader lagged out, and we both died simultaneously, and without opening the way into the main cathedral to boot.
Shit was getting desperate, so I used a humanity to reverse my hollowing. This time, I summoned two helpers. Again, we got through everything and I managed to reclaim my souls, plus open up all the shortcuts. Huzzah! Now death doesn't even really matter. I had to enter the boss room to end the session, though, so there was no way to gather myself and spend my souls. On to Ornstein and Smough it was. One of my helpers went down in the fight, courtesy of Electric Smough's ass smash electric field attack, and the usually brazen, heavily-armoured member of my party was being remarkably conservative. Small difference; the remaining two of us won the fight and I had just over 120,000 souls to spend.