Bjorn

Browsing reddit, I just learned that equipping the Hand Lantern by ~20 percent. I used it a bunch early on, but have spaced off using it later. So if you've been using it, you might think about switching it off for harder fights. Also, since we're talking about Crow lady this gif is amazing: Also, also, the loading time patch is closer to being done, hopefully by the end of the month.

Also, Mass Effect's attempt ultimately didn't actually work very well. Every significant choice that had multiple major outcomes just ended up as minor flavor text in the next game(s). The cost of scripting those choices very deeply was just too high for the number of permutations.

As far as I know, she will always show up in her next location, even if you missed her previously. So if you've opened the big gates in the Cathedral Ward, check outside that front door. If she's not there, then head for the Gascogne fight. You can tell when she's moved to the Gascogne arena by the lamp as well, it gets turned off and you can't fast travel there. Hemwich is a good direction to head as well, there are some Twin Shards there that will let you upgrade to +4 or +5.

The Bone Ash is just soooooo....gothy? Grim Reapery? It's a bit to heavy for me. The Crowfeather armor is where it's at though. The physics of the feather cape are super neat. And yes, for finishing her quest, you get a badge giving you the ability to buy all her stuff. Oh yeah, I also did a bunch of PvP last night, since I kept getting invaded going up the tower. I think I fought 6 people, won 3 and lost 3. I don't find it to be as interesting as PvP in the Souls games. It was fun, but it doesn't feel like something I'm going to build a character for. I like the slower paced PvP in the older games.

The crow lady is a recurring NPC, she shows up at least 4 times.

I enjoyed going through the dungeons once, but needing to repeat them (for mats or to get and get certain items) isn't as much fun. I kind of wish they hadn't have been designed to be repeatedly played, but had just been another optional area to explore. I think I am also at the very end, it certainly feels that way. I'm close to the top of the tower in the Nightmare of Mensis. I decided to back off and go finish the few other things I hadn't done, like exploring the Upper Cathedral Ward and killing the crow lady's final target. Which I finally got done after he murdered me a bunch last week! I upgraded my cannon to +8 and shot him four times with ash powered shots. Eat cannon ball, fucker. The Upper Cathedral Ward was infuriating.

I remember liking all those episodes as well. And I'd vote for Time's Arrow (5x26, 5x27), because it has Data and Guinan hanging out with Mark Twain, and that is pretty badass.

That's amazing.

I have a lot of love for the midwest, even though it frustrates me to no end at times. I've had the opportunity to move multiple times in the last twenty years, but ultimately have always stuck around here as I've never really gelled with the cultures of other areas where I've spent time.

Making fun of Missouri is pretty high on my list of favorite things to do.

To be fair, we have a very generous definition of "hill" in Kansas. It doesn't take much. We even have our own mountain! (Mount Sunflower). Also, Kansas does have a pretty significant slope to it, running west to east. It means all of our shit pours into Missouri, which explains a lot *zing*!

I actually find the flatness very comfortable and familiar (naturally, having grown up in it). It's normal for me to think I should be able to see a single lone tree emerging from the horizon that's 3+ miles away. There's also something very stark and awe inspiring about the incredible apparent emptiness of it, though once you know the place, there are all sorts of fascinating things to find. Bonus picture of our old horse trailer tipped on its side from the same storm. I was trying to get these to show up, but they aren't visible in this picture, my phone camera just isn't good enough, but to the right of the trailer and low on the horizon are giant wind turbines, these nearly 40 story behemoths that loom over the landscape now. They're probably 5-7 miles from the farm, and easily visible to the naked eye from there. They create a lot of surreal images of towering marvels of technology with the decaying remains of last century in their shadow. That might sound overly poetic, but it's quite literally true in a lot of places. It feels very sci-fi out there whenever I get near those things. This link isn't my picture, but I've taken a similar shot of the same windmill. In person, that old windmill looks like it's made of toothpicks compared to the turbines that surround it.

Yep, it's called the Tonitrus (I couldn't remember the name earlier), and I think it is the most powerful backup weapon in the game for Strength or Arcane builds. It's an interesting weapon. In regular form, it's just okay, scales strong from Str, weak from Arcane and has about a 70/30 damage split between Physical/Lightning. But "transformed", all of its damage changes to Lightning for ~3 seconds and it gains a significant bonus, the bonus is about equal to the extra damage from an R2 charge attack for many weapon. Strength scaling continues to affect its transformed state, which is why it stays powerful even on a pure Strength build. It's got terrible durability though, and depending on it through a whole area will degrade it to the point where it starts losing damage. Off the top of my head all the enemies I can think of that are really strong vs physical damage are ones that you wouldn't have encountered yet. But even against regular enemies, the Tonitrus will outdamage the axe per hit when its charged (assuming they are both about the same level). Oh, and I'd save your Twin Shards for it, or another melee weapon, at least until you have a bunch. Pistol damage is low enough for your build that there isn't a lot of value burning limited resources on it at this point, and leveling it doesn't seem to help staggering at all. Eventually Twin Shards flow like water though, at which point you might as well level it. I played some last night (couldn't play the rest of the weekend) and just wanted to veg out without trying to hard, so I went back to my original Skill build to mess around in areas I'm already familiar with. This time when the crow lady had her first fight...

I went back to my hometown this weekend, and it was really bittersweet. No, it was mostly just bitter, it was not a pleasant trip because of some family interactions, and on Sunday I visited the old farm place because my dad had told me the old barn finally collapsed during a vicious storm on Good Friday (100+ mph straight winds). This was a barn my brother and I grew up playing in, with all sorts of tools and equipment, some of which was a hundred years old. There was a manual grinding/sharpening wheel (like a stationary bike one person pedaled while another used the big grinding wheel on it). Some old wooden sewing equipment. Tons of old horse tack. And lots of loose nails lying around. All sorts of shit to climb on (and fall off of) It was like the world's most awesomely dangerous playground. And now its a pile of broken sticks on the ground. I got surprisingly emotional about this. The farm feels like an empty shell now. There used to be so much there, a house, the barn, the quonset, animal sheds, dozens of pieces of big equipment. And now just the quonset and some equipment is left. Thirty years ago this panoramic shot would have been full of buildings, and people, and stuff and life.

Jon, that's pretty much my Str build, and I like it a bunch. Parrying those axe guys took me a whole bunch of practice. But they are cake once you finally get it down. If you want to practice on one that does less damage, there's one not very far from the Central Yarhnam lamp in a dead end alley that you should be able to take several hits from at this point while trying to get the timing right on the stagger. Do you know how to backstab? That makes so many areas more manageable, and isn't something the game teaches you to do (not sure when you started reading this thread). Charge attack an enemy's rear, then R1. Abuse the Axe's 2HR2 Spin-to-Win move. Lots of bigger enemies (like that big Axe guys) and bosses have pretty sizeable open windows on them and that move is fantastic. There is one tool that would help you a bunch through. There are enemies that are strong against the damage type of the Axe, and having something to deal with them is invaluable. A great option is in a side/option area called the Hypogean Gaol. At your level, you might be able to fight your way to the body with the weapon on it, but the safer option is a suicide sprint to get the weapon and then just continue down whatever path your were on before. For more detailed instructions: The thing that's not obvious with that weapon is that its R1 changes ALL of its damage to lightning (it's not just a boost like it appears), making it fabulous to use against anything that's strong against physical damage.

Somehow I missed this a couple of years ago, fucking bril. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72RqpItxd8M

I have problems summoning help, but never have any problems getting summoned. Usually just takes a minute or two. I actually ended up calling my ISP and having them make some changes to my modem to get it from a Nat type 3 to a type 2, which has seemed to help. Usually you can do port forwarding off your home router, but I run on a fixed point wireless broadband and that's a bit different. I haven't had any problems getting mats from dungeons, ive Ade it through depth 3 pthumera. I have scoured every inch for hidden doors though, without that I might not get enough. @twig, you should expire the hypogean gaol before byrgenworth.

Thanks! I suspect I just need to be more patient (like all the fights I find hard), and probably switch over to a faster weapon like the Kirk sword, as you suggested. The Axe is just a bit too easy to Visceral with how fast he shoots.

Poise ruled DS1 PvP. With a high enough poise, it was next to impossible to interrupt someone's attack animation, so you could just swing through their attack and beat the crap out of them if they didn't have enough poise. After that, backstabs. Then fast weapons. DS2 radically changed poise so that it isn't nearly as useful. In my experience, no one weapon class or tactic ruled PvP in DS2 as much. At times there were certainly stupid OP stuff (dual Helix Halberds were like an iWin button). If you're going to use a slower weapon in PvP in Bloodborne, I think stocking up on Lead Elixir is going to be a requirement. Similar to Poise in DS1, the Lead Elixir prevents you from being staggered (at the cost of some speed). So I got past Byrgenwerth last night, and that whole thing is pretty neat! Not the boss so much, but afterwards. And I found Eileen the Crow's final location (because I looked it up, I never would have found that on my own). So any tips for that duel? That guy demolished me three times, and I decided to go continue exploring instead of messing with him more right now. I got really close once, and got Visceraled by him

That was very much my reaction to it, the thing alternates between looking like a big budget summer blockbuster and a terrible fan project.

It's about time someone did something like that. I've had a few F2P games that I actually did enjoy and would have been willing to pay some flat amount for just to unlock everything. DoubleFine's Middle Manager of Justice is the closest thing I can think of, where there are two purchases you can make for a total of $4 that are all you ever really need to buy. The paid menu in the in-game shop also disappeared on me at some point (I don't know when that happened), and I assumed that it was either a glitch or was to prevent people from making unnecessary purchases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OjeX5drV9ms

That Planet Money piece is great, and the interview with the female co-creator of Temple Run is really interesting.

Oooops, I messed up the spoiler in my last post, fixed now. I don't actually know, beyond that it changes which item drops.

I'm guessing this isn't what he meant, but... Yeah, 15 Vit is really low, you'll start getting one or two shotted by some stuff pretty soon. With the Trick weapon diversity, I tend to find myself spending the vast majority of my time in just one form, except for Ludwig's sword. With my Arcane build I do find myself swapping back and forth a lot with it.