Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
Come to think of it, you're right. You can just kill the guy and steal the key, but I probably shouldn't...
TBH, I'm kinda trying to put off Anor Londo because it's my least favorite area in the game.
Hmmm...not much else to do right now though
Guess I could kill the Gaping Dragon or Sif, but meh. Anor Londo it is.
Fortunately, you can skip over like half of Anor Londo via a properly-placed jump.
Does that include Ornstein and Smough? Because if not, they're the part that really pisses me off. I just find most of it up until that point kind of boring.
With Solaire, the boss fight isn't so tough. With white phantoms, it's pretty breezy.
How should I upgrade my shield for taking down Gwyn?
Absolutely. Higher shield levels give it more stability, which is the percentage reduction on stamina damage. A shield that starts at 60 stability might end at 75 stability, which means that a 60% reduction went to a 75% reduction. Ultimately, this means more stamina to act with, and can be the difference between your guard being overwhelmed and standing strong in the face of assault.
The best shield path is just the mundane one, by the way. The special paths don't give any stability bonus for upgrades, so it's best to just go down the regular path. The bigger question is of which shield to upgrade. Most medium shields are a solid bet, as are large shields if you have the strength to use them. Just ensure it's a shield with 100% physical damage reduction and you should be set. The kite shields, crest shields (excepting the Grass Crest Shield) and the Black/Silver Knight shields are all good choices.
Oh, okay. I only ever tried it with one of the earlier shields in the game, and stability didn't seem to be increasing all that much, so I just assumed it wasn't as efficient a use of titanite.
Regular shards are obsoleted when your main weapons are at +5 and your main armour is at +4, and they can be easily obtained by feeding green shards to Frampt (which in turn can be derived from coloured chunks you don't need). For most shields, the upgrade is one point of stability per level (shields that require Twinkling Titanite generally get more per level, though), which is probably more useful than the increasing defense on your armour.
Black Knight Shield +5 is pretty much the best choice for Gwyn. It has high stability, can parry, and blocks 95% of fire damage. And conveniently, the Black Knight Shield drops in the Kiln of the First Flame.
But really, any shield with decent stability should work. As Alex said, always upgrade your shield along the normal path, because stability is more important than slightly more elemental protection.
This is a brilliant lore video:
I definitely want to watch that, but I don't think I have time right now
And another one. This one includes developer interview information.
Death #13, AKA the dumbest thing I've ever done in a videogame, ever: Walked off a cliff while trying to play and talk to someone at the same time.
Died to an invader. He was ninja-rolling in partial Havel armor, and had a lightning katana and tower shield. I don't think he had spent points on any stats other than endurance. Interesting.
40 endurance + Havel's ring + ninja shenanigans ring = lol
Or, wait, this is the PC version, right? So he'd have to be under 25% equip load. Which does suggest a post-40 endurance value.
Indeed.
The annoying thing is that he started off by taunting me, and I just missed a backstab by a few degrees. If I'd gotten that, I'd have won.
Deaths 15-16: Archers. I hate those archers.
On the plus side, I'm gaining levels really fast.
Siegfried is progressing episodically through NG+. Thought I'd try the Tomb of the Giants, or at least the early part of it (before the first fog gate) to gain access to advanced miracles early on, plus the large divine ember and a good source of white titanite chunks. Went pretty well; won an invasion, too. The divine bastard sword +10 is holding up better than I expected in general, which might be attributed to the speculation that enemy stats don't change in NG+ apart from HP and damage output.
Of course, given that my main weapon is already divine +10, I'm wondering what I'm going to do with all this white titanite... especially given that I have another divine weapon +9 and an occult weapon +4 already. I'll want to take one weapon to standard +15 for the purposes of buffs, but apart from that, I'm pretty well set. At least if an idea hits me, I have the supplies and the means.
In other news, I now have six uses of Wrath of the Gods, which will be handy punishing PvP griefers and getting through Blighttown the legit way.
OK, next question - which covenant would you say is the best fit for Marius, my walking magical artillery platform?
Doesn't really matter too much. Chaos Servant gets a few pyromancies, Gravelord Servant gets a couple miracles that aren't all that useful, Princess Guard gets a couple healing miracles, Blade of the Darkmoon gets a very good weapon buff, and Warrior of Sunlight gets lightning spear miracles. None of the covenants get you any sorceries, and none of the spells you get from a covenant are all that great (or at least, not really necessary). Just pick whichever one you like more either from a PVP/Co-op perspective or a lore perspective.
The way I see it, it depends on how much you do PVP and Co-Op. If you don't do them much, I'd suggest going Chaos Servant, since it's the least focused on those elements.
Though if you're a sorcerer and don't care about NPCs much, it might not really have much of a benefit
So apparently the Leo Ring actually has some use.
For those that don't know, it refers to a "counter". Initially, most players considered that a different wording of "riposte", and the Leo Ring in that case would give a 40% bonus as compared to the Hornet Ring's 50% bonus. This is a Japanese game, though, and in kendo and kenjutsu, a "counter" is an attack that interrupts an adversary's attack. This misunderstanding was cleared up some time ago, though.
The thing is, a counter is risky in Dark Souls, because if you don't break your adversary's poise, you'll fail to interrupt their attack (but you'll still get the damage bonus). As it turns out, though, there's a few frames before the shield bounce where an enemy's attack animation is still in effect, and you can attack from behind a shield with a thrusting sword or spear. In addition, the Dark Hand and some other low stability shields don't produce any bounce animation when an adversary attacks.
So you can equip the Leo Ring, a thrusting sword/spear and the Dark Hand together and go to town with defensive tactics and basically get a flat 40% increase to your physical damage.
Isn't this normally what "counter" means? Certainly, it's not just a Japanese thing, since that's also how it's used in Olympic fencing and apparently boxing.
In its broadest term, "counter" simply means to overcome an adversary's technique with your own technique. So a riposte is a kind of counter (especially given that it should flow directly from a parry). The distinction is only necessary in forms of fighting that don't work under single-time, or don't use single-time as the dominant form of defense. In medieval combat, single-time was the name of the game because of the length and sturdiness of the weapons involved. So if all actions are happening simultaneously rather than in a give-and-take fashion, the "hard" definition of counter is rendered entirely meaningless, since it's the default state of combat rather than a particular technique or series of techniques.
Mind you, single-time combat is the exception rather than the rule today. Which is strange, given how exceptionally powerful it is when properly grasped.
>Start playing
>Stupid elite Anor Londo archers kill me again
>Stop playing
I fucking hate Anor Londo.
If you have Tarkus' greatshield and enough strength (at least 22, I think), you can two-hand it in your right hand and use its massive stability to resist the arrows. Failing that, or perhaps in addition to it, you often have to actually roll under the arrows until you aggravate the Silver Knight into close combat. In fact, I usually just do that these days.
I can usually block the arrows. What happened this time is that once I got onto the same building as the knight, my shield was just at slightly the wrong angle (because I was angling slightly towards the wall because I don't like falling to my death), and he hit me and knocked me onto the thing you have to climb up there. Turns out, the amount of time it takes to get up is pretty much exactly the amount of time it takes another arrow to hit you.
That's why you should lock on to the knight while you're walking over to him.
Or just run straight at him and roll through the arrows. Either way works.
Can't do those until I'm off the bridge. He hit me the instant I stepped off.
You actually can lock on to him while you're still on the bridge, though since the lock on system is kind of silly, it doesn't always work very well.
And you can roll through arrows regardless of where you are.