Sully907

Dark Souls(Demon's Souls successor)

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Queelag has an NPC summon (as a lot of the bosses do) that could have helped quite a bit. I didn't have too much of a problem with the summoning on PC myself. Sometimes I'd have to try a couple of times, but it eventually connected.

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Yeah I tried Mildred a couple times, but I didn't want to keep burning the humanity to become human to summon her. I eventually just kindled the bonfire and was voice chatting with people, apparently I was just overthinking it.

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I did it! Six months later, I finally beat Queelag. I love Dark Souls, but I hate bosses, so I have a love/hate relationship.

 

A love/hate relationship is the only kind that can exist with Dark Souls.

 

Gawd, I really want DS2 to come out.  Like right now. 

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A love/hate relationship is the only kind that can exist with Dark Souls.

Nope.  Pure love here.

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Finally got back to my SL1 run after ignoring it for a while. Spent way too much time running around trying to figure out what I'd already done. I'm on Nito right now and the stone armor is not a tremendous help when a couple of his screamy undergroundy sword attacks will still kill me. Did they patch this fight to be harder? I don't recall there being any big skeleton dudes in there.

 

Edit: Just remembered I got invaded at the back end of Tomb of Giants as I was making my way to Nito. On an SL1 character. I've been restoring to human without giving it any thought because I assumed no one would be patient enough to invade at low level anywhere outside of areas like Undead Parish. Guess I was wrong. I wonder if I made that guy's day.

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Nito was pretty hard for me as SL1. The giant skeletons are in the back part of the cavern, if you don't go over there they won't aggro. If you have an active light source (like the sunlight maggot) he will tend to spam his annoying underground sword attack (you can dodge it via the scream though). He doesn't like light. I think the way I beat him was to put on full havel's and just use pyromancy, his AoE attack will kill the small skeletons for a while. You just have to survive long enough for him to walk to you (since if you walk to him the big guys show up). I think the AoE is magic damage, so the crest shield probably helps.

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If you have an active light source he will tend to spam his annoying underground sword attack.

 

Is that why he does that?! That attack was an hour of playtime for me!!! I kept dropping down there, trying to estus, and immediately getting tossed into the air. Damned From! Teaching me to use a skull lantern for an entire level then punishing me for using it at the boss. They're like evil geniuses. 

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Well, against all advice to the contrary I'm soldiering on through the Artorias of the Abyss content with my SL1 character, having never seen this area before. I just beat Artorias, which was probably the tensest fight yet. Seemed downright impossible at first but I just had to be extremely on-form with my dodge rolls and super conservative with my attacks. Haven't felt that massive sense of accomplishment from a boss in this game since my first playthrough, so I'm glad I stuck it out... for now.

Edit: This came up in my youtube related, haven't watched yet but it sounds kind of nuts.

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Well, against all advice to the contrary I'm soldiering on through the Artorias of the Abyss content with my SL1 character, having never seen this area before. I just beat Artorias, which was probably the tensest fight yet. Seemed downright impossible at first but I just had to be extremely on-form with my dodge rolls and super conservative with my attacks. Haven't felt that massive sense of accomplishment from a boss in this game since my first playthrough, so I'm glad I stuck it out... for now.

Edit: This came up in my youtube related, haven't watched yet but it sounds kind of nuts.

 

That attitude will probably see you well through the end of the DLC, though the optional boss might be another matter.

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He's pretty tough, but for me Manus was way harder SL1. So many attacks with similar tells. Anyway, that's damn well done badhat. If you want a tip for the next two fights:

There's an item in the township that deflects dark magic! It's vital.

For Kalameet, consider getting a +15 light crossbow even if you mix in melee attacks. There are extremely few openings for "safe" melee attacks and a crossbow speeds things up considerably. Especially with the Red Tearstone Ring.

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I thought most of Manus's attacks were a lot easier to dodge than the optional boss's, but I imagine that's going to be different for each person.

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Manus was tougher. I needed the assistance of the magnificent Osmosisch to best him. Artorias was no slouch either, but I get the feeling he was easier to learn after a few goes.

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I thought most of Manus's attacks were a lot easier to dodge than the optional boss's, but I imagine that's going to be different for each person.

Dark Souls is weird that way. I was stuck on the Gargoyles for hours but beat Capra and Quelaag on my first try, whereas for some people it's the complete opposite.

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Well, I started playing this yesterday on a whim. It's just one of those games that's hard to ignore, as much as I wanted to, because of the perpetual zeitgeist surrounding it. I played maybe an hour of Demon's Souls and didn't dig it due to it's lack of instruction and difficulty.

 

So, after about an hour and a half of Dark Souls, I'm totally hooked in. I don't really know what the difference was between this and Demon's, other than the more appealing aesthetics of the opening sections of Dark and the fact that I'm playing this one on PC. Nonetheless, I started as a warrior and burned through the Undead Asylum in about a half hour, taking out the Asylum Demon in one attempt. I've leveled up five times, I think, focusing on vitality, strength, and endurance. I'm still trying to get a grasp on what each of the attributes means, but I figure being a melee dude means that those three attributes are probably important to me. Also, increasing DEF as much as possible seems like a good idea.

 

I've lost a fair amount of souls being overly confident, but it seems like the difficulty curve is just slightly more gracious than in Demon's Souls. The level design seems to give me a lot more room to strategize, whether that means taking on one dude at a time or deciding to haul ass in the other direction. I still don't have a hang of the controls, entirely, so I find myself dying mostly because I can't figure out how to reliably dodge and kick. I did manage to pull of a very minor jumping puzzle, though.

 

The only thing that I feel really debilitated by not understanding is the economy of the game. I found my first merchant, and I bought the bottomless box. I figured that inventory management was going to be important especially since encumbrance is in play, so that seemed an obvious investment. Beyond that, I don't really know what to prioritize, leveling or buying items. Do I need to buy a "residence key" for Undead Burg? Is chain mail armor something worth buying? Do I need to change my weapon? Is my heater shield worth hanging onto because it does 100% melee damage resistance, any why should I consider any wooden shield with less than 100% resistance?

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The key is worth buying considering how inexpensive it is but you're a while away from finding the locked door so you don't need to get it just yet. My approach to gear on my first playthrough was to hang off buying anything until I hit a wall and needed every little advantage, you'll pick up plenty along the way and nothing you can buy at this point is enough of an improvement to be worth it. Upgrading is more important than buying new gear, you'll get to that point soon, and my first playthrough was completed using a weapon I picked up in the second area and just continually upgraded over the 60 hours or so. Encumbrance is only in play in terms of equipped gear incidentally, so your inventory can be as full of as much shit as you want and the heater shield is badass and you're lucky to start with it.

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Pick your weapon based on what you like the feel of - strong and slow of quick and weak. I like the longsword or the axe sometimes. I like the heater shield for the 100% melee resistance too.

Don't level up too much, the enemies scale. You should get as much str and dex as you need for your weapon and get endurance after that as needed.

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Agree totally with Yasawas. I played through about three quarters of the game with my starting weapon, which I had been upgrading periodically. The only reason why I swapped it out, incidentally, is because I just fancied a change and not because it wasn't doing the business anymore.

 

I started as a warrior too! I think they're a great class for beginners because sword-and-board is a very reliable way to play. It won't work in every situation, but then nothing really does.

 

Edit: don't focus on four stats, that's spreading yourself too thinly. 3, or even better, 2.

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I don't think any enemeies scale, do they? Pretty sure everything has a set HP except for bosses when you summon people which does raise it a bit.

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Enemies scale in every successive NG. I don't think they scale mid-game.

 

According to the Dark Souls' creator, the starting class he prefers to choose is the Wanderer with the Pendant. XD

 

And the best stat to level up is Resistance.

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The only thing that I feel really debilitated by not understanding is the economy of the game. I found my first merchant, and I bought the bottomless box. I figured that inventory management was going to be important especially since encumbrance is in play, so that seemed an obvious investment. Beyond that, I don't really know what to prioritize, leveling or buying items. Do I need to buy a "residence key" for Undead Burg? Is chain mail armor something worth buying? Do I need to change my weapon? Is my heater shield worth hanging onto because it does 100% melee damage resistance, any why should I consider any wooden shield with less than 100% resistance?

Glad to see another convert :D

Item progression in Dark Souls is a bit strange. You won't find better weapons as you go, you'll just find different ones. Any starting weapon is good enough to beat the game with as long as you upgrade it. The main reason to use one weapon over another is because of the moveset, how fast it swings, what the range is and what the animations are. For example, long weapons without thrusting attacks can be tricky to use in tight corridors because they keep hitting the walls. Experiment with different weapons and see what you like, a lot of them feel very differently from one another.

Shields though, you will find better ones. Generally you want one with 100% physical damage reduction yes, but there are a few notable ones with less that are still worth using. If it's 95% it doesn't make a huge difference to be honest. There are a few shields that have extra long parry windows, some that reduce status effect buildup when blocking etc. The most important stat for shields though is stability, it's governs how much stamina it takes to block.

 

Armor doesn't matter quite as much. The damage reduction you get from the defence stats help, but unless you're going back to old areas where enemies to puny damage it's only going to negate a fraction of the incoming damage. Bleed / poison / toxic / curse resist matters more in practice but it's more situational. The most important stat is poise, which determines how easily you're staggered. It's like a hidden stamina bar that regenerates very quickly, so consecutive hits build up. Light armor never has any poise, but it weighs less so you can roll faster. Equip burden isn't affected by what's in your inventory, it's only what you have equiped. The breakpoints are 25%, 50% and 100% (can't roll). You get movement and stamina regeneration penalties the heavier you are (weapon weight matters too, even in secondary slots!).

 

Finally, upgrading equipment is more important than leveling up. Or I should say, upgrading weapon > upgrading shield > leveling up > upgrading armor. You won't have access to a blacksmith right away though, so just level initially. Weapon damage scales with your stats, it's the letter grades you see under "ParamBonus". S>A>B etc. Elemental upgrade paths remove stat scaling, which is good if you don't want to put points into strength/dex, but it's less potential max damage. The first damage column btw is raw weapon damage and the second column the damage bonus from stats. So if you're putting points into strength, get some nice weapons that scale with it :) there are a ton of cool strength based weapons in the game.

 

Though I would say, focus on endurance > vit > strength/dex. Endurance is life and stamina regenerates faster if you lower your shield.

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That was a very enlightening overview of how items/economy works! Interesting that burden is only based on what's equipped, so the box loses some perceived utility but I'm still a sucker for inventory management in RPGs so I imagine I'll get my soul's worth there.

 

So, taking what you've all said into account, weapons and armor should be highly deprioritized at merchants. Is there anything I should be looking out for in particular at a merchant? I'll probably go back and grab that Burg Residence key after doing a bit more exploring. Otherwise, I'll dump into endurance until I get to the blacksmith. I've watched enough Dark Souls LPs that I know it shouldn't be too long until I find him, but at least I have a plan until then.

 

I think I missed the parry tutorial box, what's that all about?

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You'll have a great time manually managing your inventory in Dark Souls, then. I loved Dark Souls to bits, but the inventory management was awful. 

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Right at the point an attack will hit you press whatever your equivalent of the DualShock's L2 would be - your character swings your shield out and if you time it right you get a sweet noise and can riposte with R1 (basic attack) button. I find it's actually harder to do on a lot of the early enemies as their movement and patterns are so erratic and I never bothered getting good at it despite doing about eight playthroughs of the game so it's not vital. It doesn't work on all attacks and can only really be used on humanoid enemies.

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To a certain extent, I'd say just play and have fun and don't worry about it too much. I think Dark Souls is at its best when you're exploring with no clue what's around the next corner, which of these pieces of equipment is the "best," and what secrets you're missing. If you're going Melee, the only real choice you need to make and stick to is whether you're going to be using str weapons or dex weapons, which you can seperate by looking at the letter grade a weapon shows under each stat picture on the advanced info screen.

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