Dark Souls: Siegfried stops writing a journal like some bitchy teenager, the game is discussed.

vandro

Outrunning? Bah. Cowardice!

MadassAlex

Yeah, I just lured them into a glitch corner that sent them through the map, eventually killing them with a fall. 

Tactics.

vandro

I killed them with a couple swings and hits from my Lighting Lucerne.

Nova

Restarting Demon's Souls. Playing as a Wanderer; hopefully I'll do better than as a Soldier.

Nova

There's a glowing yellow dude killing things with me...?

ClockworkUniverse

Random online phantomy stuff happens sometimes.



How far did you get the first time?

Nova

I'm playing it offline though :V

The last time, I got up to killing Phalanx, but I died any time I tried to do more.

I actually only died twice on this playthrough, though, both times before I could even fight the Blue-Eyed Demon. And I got the Cling Ring and the Raggedy Old Clothes, neither of which I could manage before. And I got two new weapons (The Bastard Sword and the Scimitar.)

I'm much better as a Wanderer, huh.

(It was helped by me figuring out the strategy of attacking a couple of times > rolling backwards > taunting them into coming forwards > avoiding attack > rinse and repeat).

Nova

(I killed the Phalanx this time through as well, in case that wasn't clear.)

ClockworkUniverse

Huh. A tutorialish thing or some scripted event maybe?



Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes with an enemy you can't kill quickly. Rolling is really important.

Nova

I think it is a scripted event, yeah, but it didn't happen my last playthrough.

Where is a good soul-farming spot? :V

Also:

-fighting a zombie thing-

-zombie lunges-

-I roll backwards-

-falls off a cliff-

MadassAlex

A good farming spot is world 4, with the silver skeletons. Don't go there just yet, though. You'll want to head into world 2, the mines, and do a bit of that for the sake of gaining souls, levelling up and gaining upgrade ores. The latter, especially, is very easy in the mines (as you'd expect). What's your main offensive stat going to be? Vitality and endurance are two important stats for every character, and most others only focus on one or two other stats. Which stat forms the basis of your offense will determine how you want to upgrade your weapons, and which ones you want to upgrade. If it's dexterity, then the likes of the scimitar will do you well. Additionally, bows will be very powerful in your hands and you'll be able to solve a fair few problems from a safe distance. 

Nova

I believe my main stat is Dexterity.

Also, I killed the Tower Knight on my second try. Now, unfortunately, I have next to no healing items

MadassAlex

You skipped straight on to the Tower Knight? 

That was ill-advised, or it would be if you didn't pull it off. The whole bridge section and boss battle is pretty nasty, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone until they had done some of worlds 2 and 4. But that's the nature of an open-ended experience like this, I suppose. Took me ages to feel as though I could do that section (which is probably why I completed world 4 in pretty much one fell swoop, I guess).

Basically, you pretty much just completed the most difficult part of the early game. If you level wisely and keep your gear in order, you should have smooth sailing until the late game. A few deaths on the way, no doubt, but the midgame is the most forgiving bit -- you'll be experienced and well-informed enough to deal with it, but the game won't have ramped up the difficulty to an absurd degree. 

Just watch out for worlds 3 and 5. They are horrible in a kind of awesome, atmospheric way, but probably the most unforgiving as well. 

Nova

Giving up for today.

No way am I frustrating myself like that again :V

Over two dozen deaths in three different worlds, fuck that.

Nova

Basically, you pretty much just completed the most difficult part of the early game.

Wait what?

But it was easy. I just hung back until the dragon swooped over, then immediately sprinted. I made it to the end of each easily.

The Tower Knight was a bit more challenging, but I made sure to run up and kill all the crossbowmen first. Then I went down and ran through his legs to behind him. I would dart in, whack his feet two or three times, then roll well back. If I heard a hiss, I got the hell out of the way. Only his jump-backwards attack ever hurt me.

I find the Blue-Eyed Knights to be more of a challenge then him, ffs.

Nova

And I did go through the top and bottom of each tower, too. You can skip over the dragon sections if you want after you complete it once, by going underground. It's a bit tough when the dogs come after you, but other than that, you're home free. Personally, I just let the dragon swoop over, because it's a lot safer if you figure out where to stand. The only particularly challenging bit is at the end of the first run- you have to get behind a wagon or three crossbowmen will pepper you with bullets, but if you hang back and shield the dragon will get you- but if you move in further to get more room, a Blue-Eyed Knight comes after you.

I found that section to be a lot easier than World 2, which I died in.

MadassAlex

Most sections of the game are actually reasonable easy if you act with patience and caution. But the dragon bridge is a pretty "twitchy" sort of section; there's no way to know the dragon's timing without observation, and no way to know for sure without testing. 

Nova

Except that spider boss. Fuck it and fuck my lack of ranged weapons.

MadassAlex

Yeah, the spider boss is hellish. You can get a good ranged weapon in 4-1, but it has high stat requirements (22 strength, 18 dexterity, or perhaps the reverse). 

ClockworkUniverse

Didn't I give you a good walkthrough of4-1 in mother thread? Lemme see if I can find it.

ClockworkUniverse

Found it:

My advice on what to do after beating Phalanx and getting the cling ring: go to world 4-1. This world...isn't easy, but it's exploitable and the payoff (access to the game's biggest grinding spot) is worth it.

The first set of enemies consists of skeletons who roll at you and attack. At this stage, they can probably one or two-shot you, but if you learn the timing for them, they won't have a chance. Dual-wield your weapon, and right before they get to you, power attack, then do a few normal attacks. That should handle them.

Later, there'll be two of them at once; It should be possible to aggro one at a time.

Anyway, you're heading to this big wall, through which you can see the Vanguard. Don't fight him. Instead, head to the left (hold up your shield while walking down this hall; there's an arrow trap) and up the stairs and across the wall. On the other side, the guardrail thing is a bit crumbled, and if you unequip your gear, you can roll onto it with practice. Dropping from there takes you right near the end of the level. Go from there.

Right before the boss, there's a red knight. This is the one really difficult bit. It took me something like fifteen tries to get past him, and I don't remember how I did that.

The boss is the Adjudicator. It's apparently possible to shoot him from the top level out of range of his long tongue, but that's never actually worked for me. You'll want to hug the wall and get to the ground as fast as possible if you're going to melee him. Then, notice the meat cleaver embedded on one of his sides. That's the first of his two weak spots. If you stay right against him to the right (your right) of that, his main attack should go over your head. His other attack might still hit you, but it's pretty telegraphed -- be careful.

He can probably one-shot you, so dual-wield. Attack the meat cleaver, and after a bit, he should fall over, revealing the bird nesting on his head. That's the real weak spot. Attack it as much as you can before he gets up.

Anyway, once you get to 4-2, a very short way into the level, before you have to fight any other enemies, is a tomb containing Death and his transparent minions. If you kill him with a bow, they all die too, and you get an absurd number of souls (also, Death's reaction to being killed is hilarious). If you're grinding, you can do that, roll off the cliff at the level entrance, get your bloodstain, do it again, and repeat as many times as needed. This spot will help you out of a lot of jams, and is probably the reason why Dark Souls doesn't really have any good grinding spots.

I don't get how 2-1 is hard. It's one of four levels of the game I've actually completed. It's really short and the boss is stupidly exploitable.

Personally, I found the spider comparatively easy as well. If you have decent melee, it goes down in just a few hits.

That said, I do still recommend 4-1 for your next level, since once you do that, you can pretty much grind as much as you want with minimal risk.

Schitzo

Alex, can you give me a nice "do this then that then that" checklist for Demon's Souls?

ClockworkUniverse

I could get the first bits done, since Idunno if he's on now. How specific do you want?

MadassAlex

Huh, let's see what I can remember:

• World 1-1, obviously, is your first stop. You'll want the Cling Ring more than anything else here. The ring is located as part of a shortcut. On the first battlement with the blue-eyed knight, there are two towers. The left one leads to a red-eyed knight; ignore it. The right one leads to stairs winding downwards. Take these down, defeating enemies on the way, and the ring will be behind a narrow gate opened by a lever (which also functions as a shortcut). If you have a mind for it, there's also a Bastard Sword that can be a good choice for high-strength characters.


• Your next stop should be 2-1. This is good for just getting souls in general as well as lots of upgrade ores. At this stage, you should look at getting your weapons upgraded, but don't go above +3 unless you want to continue down the mundane upgrade path -- to upgrade into Blessed, Enchanted, Raw or whatever else, you must come from a +3 weapon.


• World 5-1 is tough, but if you look around carefully you should find a Blessed Mace. This gives you minor health regeneration and scales with faith.


• World 4-1 (before Vanguard) contains the Composite Longbow, which requires some pretty high strength and dexterity to use, but it an absolute godsend and killer. The Blessed Mace from 5-1 is beastly against the silver skeletons, too.

After that, just continue through World 4. While many of the enemies are tough, they tend to come in low numbers. Many of your fights will be one-on-one. INUH mentioned an awesome grinding spot before, but there's also another. The final boss arena of World 4 fills with high-soul-yield enemies after defeating the boss, and for reasons you're better off finding out first-hand, can be killed easily as long as you're not careless. 

Follow the steps above and wring World 4 dry of souls. Only the mid-latter stages of World 5 should give you considerable trouble then. World 3 can also be troublesome, but it's a lot more forgiving in terms of environment and the offline version of the final boss there is stupidly easy. Just keep an ear out for ringing bells. 

ClockworkUniverse

Killed Pinwheel. Dealt with the skeleton wheels by taking the route from the blacksmith, which I only just found out about. They're so much easier when you don't just drop straight into the middle of them.

Then I kindled the Firelink bonfire to 20 Estus, as well as the one in the Depths. Then I opened the way to the Gaping Dragon, and after that I just did some grinding on the blobs to get humanity and large titanite. I figure I'll get enough of those to get my Claymore to +10 before moving on.

Anyway, I'm now faced with a dilemma. I could fight the gaping dragon after that, but I'm human and carrying a good deal of humanity, and while I'd appreciate the souls I'd get, I'm not sure the ability to do the entirety of Blighttown, rather than skipping to the end, is worth the risk...

ClockworkUniverse

Wound up leaving the depths and upgrading my Pyromancy Flame and Claymore. From there, I took the back way into Blighttown, and went to the bonfire in the swamp. Explored the swamp, got items, leveled. Then I climbed up to go after the Fire Keeper's soul, and it was going really well -- I hadn't been poisoned or toxiced or anything -- when I fell off the walkway.

I'm just going to take a little break now...-_-

Nova

Personally, I found the spider comparatively easy as well. If you have decent melee, it goes down in just a few hits.

It shoots rockets at me. They wipe out half my health in a single shot.

It shoots spiderwebs at me. This acts as if I'd gone over my encumbrance limit; I can only walk, I can't run.

I'm lucky if I can dodge out of the way of a single one of the spiderwebs. The very first attack the spider launched at me was three rockets. I moved down, got hit by a spiderweb. Ate a Last Moon grass thingie, went down. He tried to fire a rocket at me. I tried to roll out of the way; it didn't work, as if I was stunned. The rocket hit me. I ate a herb, and had to continue doing that; advancing, healing, tanking, until the spiderweb finally disappeared. I rolled past all the rockets, then; I got into melee range. Got two hits in, and he bisected me. I died.

This is with a Falchion+4.

The first set of enemies consists of skeletons who roll at you and attack. At this stage, they can probably one or two-shot you, but if you learn the timing for them, they won't have a chance.

The only way I have found to successfully kill them, so far, is to raise my shield before they get there. They hit me, dealing a small amount of my health in damage. I then have to parry their next attack, riposte, roll backwards, and raise my shield.

I have not managed to kill more than two of these a try, in over a dozen tries. I have tried many things; power attacking, positioning myself, trying to regularly attack them before they get to me. None of it works. Whether this is because I have no sense of timing, because my interrupts suck, or because I just suck at the game, I don't know. All I know is, fuck World 4-1.

Maybe it would be easier with a Bludgeoning weapon.

ClockworkUniverse

Okay, I might have gotten lucky with the Spider. Its attacks kept missing me; I assumed they were just inaccurate. As for this:

The only way I have found to successfully kill them, so far, is to raise my shield before they get there. They hit me, dealing a small amount of my health in damage. I then have to parry their next attack, riposte, roll backwards, and raise my shield.

Trust me, if you learn the timing to interrupt their roll right as they get up to you (and that took me forever to do, but was totally worth it) and then roll away and repeat, they won't be able to hurt you.

Maybe it would be easier with a Bludgeoning weapon.

I've never used a weapon that wasn't a sword in Demon's Souls, and I've never used a weapon that wasn't bladed in either game. So that's not why I managed it.

Nova

Alright, let's go try then. I'll give it two dozen shots. If I don't have it down by then, fuck it.

Nova

Still can't kill more than four skeletons.

Going to upgrade the Heater Shield to +6 and the Falchion to +7, and see if Parry + Riposte works better.