Dark Souls 2 (Dark Souls successor (Demon's Souls successor))

[Bjorn]

I'm pretty much in the same spot as you, but now preparing to go kill the last few optional bosses, trying to open up a few locked doors and find a few illusory walls, and...

Making my way through the optional Pilgrim of the Dark covenant questline.

Also, couple things about the memories:

1. Don't eat the giants' souls, Vendrick is weakened substantially by each giant soul you have on you. He's virtually impossible without them, apparently. If he still seems ridiculous with all of the souls from the memories, that's because you can find more elsewhere in the game.

2. Go back to the room where you fought the giant spider, do it! I loved that bit.

 

First spoiler, that was probably my favorite of the optional areas.  Hard to find, mysterious, great NPC, difficult to get through. 

 

On the second spoiler:

 

Once you beat Vendrick, you'll notice he doesn't drop a soul, gear or anything. These things exist! But they are hidden and super easy to miss. After I killed him, I was super confused that nothing dropped, so I double checked a wiki. I never would have found them without looking it up. So yeah, don't go to NG+ without finding them.

 

I spent a chunk of time in the Bellbros last night, but not the way your are supposed to.  I think I have more fun killing Bellbros, both in my world and helping others, than I do being a bro.  It's ridiculously satisfying to take on two guys and beat them both by myself (pulled that off twice last night, beat one out of two a bunch of times).  Bellbros are so used to ganking people with help, they don't seem at all ready for someone who is prepared for them.  My favorite one though was actually a one-one-one archery duel.  She had a greatbow and I had the Dragonrider bow.  We were each down to only being able to take one more shot, and she managed to tag me.  Even losing, that was a ton of fun, as I don't run into bow users very often.

[Sno]

I did a bunch of summons as a bell keeper to farm titanite chunks and can tell you that it's not so fun spawning into a world where somebody is waiting behind your spawn point for a backstab. There definitely seem to be a lot of people who have made it their goal in life to harass the bell keepers. It definitely isn't stacked as heavily in the favor of the covenant players as the Rat King stuff is, the normal healing item restrictions for invading phantoms apply, and since Bell Keepers can be summoned from anywhere, they're often less prepared.

I had a lot of good pvp though. Definitely a lot of infuriatingly durable heavy armor builds, but didn't take long to make the leap that a lot of these guys are probably using relatively fragile rings to help with their encumbrance. Started throwing corrosion pyromancies at people and they just crumpled, just crippled their mobility to the point where they're getting chain backstabbed by me and whoever was summoned with me. (I imagine the gear damage was more upsetting than the loss for these people, rings are freaking expensive to repair.)

Wizards though. Fuck wizards. Stupid shitty wizards. `Specially hexers. (Still wishing i had that dispelling ring.) Offensive miracles are basically harmless, pyromancers and sorcerers are manageable, but i've been getting ohk'd by hexes. Wizards are usually squishy enough that they'll go down in one or two hits from my halbred, but that doesn't really help when i'm getting murdered by hits through my shield's 50-75% magic reductions, and those hexes are surprisingly difficult to dodge. If i was playing a sorceror or a miracle caster, i could rely on some pretty buff magic resistance spells, but i'm a pyromancer.

Also, tons of people using the Avelyn crossbow, and who can blame them? Crossbows are awesome in DS2, but apparently kind of broken with certain infusions, so maybe that'll get nerfed in the future. (Seen lots of stories of people dual-stancing two avelyns with mundane/raw infusions and lightning-element bolts for instant murder.)

Netcode is kind of rough too, still lots of ghost hits and impossibly missed swings, but pvp on the whole seems leagues better than it was in Dark Souls, and I got a good 15 titanite chunks or so out of it. It was enough to get all my gear to +10, after which i immediately bailed out of the Bell Keepers and went to join the Pilgrims of the Dark.

Those bell tower areas though, they are basically built like deathmatch stages, they're weirdly discordant with how every other area in the game is designed. (Still, the bell tower above Iron Keep made for some really good pvp.)

[Bjorn]

Yeah, I don't gank, ever.  I do PvP because I think fighting someone else is fun.  If I just wanted to one-shot things in the back, there's PvE for that.  I was in the Iron Keep tower.  I would wait on the main level to be invaded, and if a second invader popped before I could get the first one dead, then I would book it for the roof of the church once I was sure the second invader was on the main floor.  From the roof, they only way up is by the ladder.  So someone was risking a halberd to the face to come up, and if they didn't come up, I'd snipe from the roof.  Inevitably something would give, and one of them would make a move.  If nothing else, they would move far enough apart that I would be able to go after one and get a few shots in before retreating again.  It also seems like people tend to forget about plunging attacks   If you've got ranged attacks and someone is chasing you up a ladder, you can drop off the ladder, then target them and unload.  I've yet to see anyone who was prepared to deal with that, most of them freeze as soon as you drop past them. 

 

I like that bell tower because it has the deathmatch like feel to it.  Duels in places like the Iron Keep bridge or the platform the Pursuer shows up in at FoFG are fun, but the areas are so small that you really need an all out offensive blitz.  Being able to run around and kite someone into a bad decision makes the larger areas more fun for me.  I think when people have backup, it also makes them much more likely to make a bad decision, like chasing me around a blind corner into a Chaos Firestorm or exhausting their stamina completely.

 

I'm glad I haven't run into someone using Corrosive Urns or the corrosive pyromancy.  That would destroy me.  Running around as Donatello is stupid fun, but the weight of that Turtle Armor is crushing.  It's really not that good of armor given the 29.5 weight on it.  I guess I don't know if the backstab immunity has saved me or not.  Possible it has. 

 

I did briefly do Rat Covenant, as it seemed appropriate for my Ninja Turtle to be allied with Splinter the Rat King.  That covenant just isn't very much fun for me though.  I was too high on Soul Memory to pull many people in the Grave.  And in the Doors, the first two people I pulled weren't even capable of getting past the first two enemies.  I just hung back and watched the Mastadon slaughter them.  I was trying to be nice and let them get free of the environmental enemies before dueling them.  I did get sucked into someone else's world in the Grave who had activated ALL of the traps.  I was excited as I had never seen what was on the other side of the bridges.  I managed to walk off the side of the fucking bridge sidestepping a rat.  I still don't know what's on the other side.

[Sno]

Ah yes, my old nemesis: Having a post quoted before i think on it and decide that i need to go back to rewrite and add to it.

Anyways, common trick i saw people use in the iron keep's bell tower arena was to, once a fight had reached the roof top, just fly off the edge out into the larger arena to try and lure their pursuers down off the roof, and once they followed, they'd bolt for the ladder to try and gain that advantage. Even though i had wised up to it, i often had to follow my allied bell keeper down to keep him from getting destroyed in 1v1, and the second i would step off the roof, the opponent would bail on the fight and bolt for the ladder as expected.

[osmosisch]

God damn the

ancient dragon

is unbelievably unfun to fight. I think the only boss I've not enjoyed on some level so far.

[Bjorn]

I deleted my original quoting of you, so as not to be confusing. 
 

Wizards though. Fuck wizards. Stupid shitty wizards. `Specially hexers. (Still wishing i had that dispelling ring.) Offensive miracles are basically harmless, pyromancers and sorcerers are manageable, but i've been getting ohk'd by hexes. Wizards are usually squishy enough that they'll go down in one or two hits from my halbred, but that doesn't really help when i'm getting murdered by hits through my shield's 50-75% magic reductions, and those hexes are surprisingly difficult to dodge. If i was playing a sorceror or a miracle caster, i could rely on some pretty buff magic resistance spells, but i'm a pyromancer.

 

Some options for dealing with casters, use the Rebel Greatshield. It doesn't have 100 percent physical, but it has very high resistences to all magic. Second option is to take a shield with good dark or magic defense, and then infuse it with magic/dark to really jack it up. Lets you eat a lot of magic as you charge into a caster. The lag on magic is brutal. I swear that I dodge something, and then half my health vanishes as I'm finishing the roll.  On my very first character (faith/str build), I spiced the Intel portion of Profound Still down to the minimum and would just cast it at the start of all PvP.  Seeing a caster make the dumb "What the fuck happened" animation and look at their staff as I murdered them was really, really satisfying. 

I'd say you haven't run into a good lightning bolt user yet if you aren't scared of miracles. Sunlight Spear and Greater Lightning bolt are both just murderously good. Lightning is way harder to use than hexes, but hits like truck. You've really got to bait someone into a bad move, or catch them unawares.

 

I love the Avelyn, and hate it.  I'm trying not to use it as much.  But it's so good!  I'm determined to stick with the Dragonrider bow on Donatello.  It doesn't seem out of character for a ninja to carry a badass black bow. 

 

My Donatello build is pretty complete now, I think, barring a few more Petrified Dragon Bones to finish the bow and get the final versions of a couple of rings.  I've ended up burning 4 Bonfire Ascetics to get a bunch of the material I need early to upgrade stuff.  I'm still looking for an appropriate piece of headgear, but there is nothing as subtle as stuff like arm cuffs. 

 

RH: Fire Black Knight Halberd +5 for bosses / PvP, Mastadon Halberd +10 for regular enemies

LH: Magic Dragonrider Bow +4 and Pyromancy Flame (mostly used for putting Flame Weapon on the Halberd)

Helm: None

Chest: Ironclad Armor +10

Arms: Butterfly Cuffs - hard to even notice they are there, kind of look like elbow pads and seem to really mess with people. 

Legs: Invisible Auroros Leggings - A bit more armor, but functionally invisible so doesn't break the Ninja Turtle cosplay

Rings: Ring of Blades +1, Royal Soldiers Ring +1, Second Dragon Ring and Chloranthy Ring +1 or the attunement ring if I need more than one spell for something

 

No shield 90 percent of the time, and if I absolutely must have one (looking at you Undead Purgatory boss), then I just use the Drangleic Kite shield.

[Dewar]

Is there any point to the Bellkeeper's tower that's above the Iron Keep? I had such a slog trying to get through there, and the reward seemed pretty lackluster.

 

In other news, I dropped the Blue Sentinal covenant as I never got summoned, and went the road of the Sun. I like co-opping anyway, so why not I guess. I also got my second lord soul, but I get the feeling that I've been doing it massively out of order. The Giantbomb guys had tons of other places unlocked, but hadn't beaten the Old Iron King yet.

[Dewar]

Some options for dealing with casters, use the Rebel Greatshield. It doesn't have 100 percent physical, but it has very high resistences to all magic. Second option is to take a shield with good dark or magic defense, and then infuse it with magic/dark to really jack it up. Lets you eat a lot of magic as you charge into a caster. The lag on magic is brutal. I swear that I dodge something, and then half my health vanishes as I'm finishing the roll.  On my very first character (faith/str build), I spiced the Intel portion of Profound Still down to the minimum and would just cast it at the start of all PvP.  Seeing a caster make the dumb "What the fuck happened" animation and look at their staff as I murdered them was really, really satisfying. 

I'd say you haven't run into a good lightning bolt user yet if you aren't scared of miracles. Sunlight Spear and Greater Lightning bolt are both just murderously good. Lightning is way harder to use than hexes, but hits like truck. You've really got to bait someone into a bad move, or catch them unawares.

 

Sounds like the opposite of what I see when I'm casting. It looks like the bolt goes right through them but they roll and don't get hit.

[Bjorn]

Is there any point to the Bellkeeper's tower that's above the Iron Keep? I had such a slog trying to get through there, and the reward seemed pretty lackluster.

 

Quite a few reasons, actually.

 

1. It's a really fun arena!

2. It has 3 Simpleton's Spices in it, which are invaluable if you need to spice down a spell/hex. It's the easiest place to farm them, since you can burn as many Ascetics as you need to refresh them and not respawn a boss.

3. The Black Knight Greatsword is in a hidden room on the ledge right before you drop back down into the Iron Keep. Plus some other shield I don't remember.

4. The little dudes drop Flame Swathe...and maybe another pyromancy? Don't remember, but it's the only way to get duplicates of that spell on NG.

5. There is a rare red phantom NPC spawn there IF you are a member of the covenant. He's got unique equipment, and killing him is the only way to get it.

6. The other human NPCs there have a low chance to drop unique gear, I think? I've gotten a unique hat from the witch. And I've seen the Avelyn guy drop something, but got murdered by a bellbro before I could pick it up.

[Dewar]

Hmm, most of that isn't very useful to me, but I never though of using the Bonfire Ascetic to farm. Still PvP happens too fast to make that practical for me due to the aforementioned problems hitting with my miracles.

[Sno]

I've been using an Old Knight Shield +10, which has phenomenal stats for a medium shield, but an unfortunately mid-range dark resistance. Though its main failing is that it has very low durability, but shields degrade pretty slowly to begin with, and corrosion doesn't seem to be applied to anything in the active equipment slots. Also, i didn't even consider trying to infuse it, what affect does that have on shields?

My end-game build is a mace +10, mastadon halbred +10, and a pyromancy flame +10 on the right arm. For the left is that shield and a +10 Avelyn with lightning-element bolts for pvp and simple wooden bolts for everything else. (Like i said, the Avelyn is pretty good. I'd like to do a raw infusion with it, but i don't have enough raw stone to max it out.) I have the Alva set +10, which is juuuuust about as good as the knight/elite knight sets, but significantly lighter. I also had one of the encumbrance rings equipped and the ring of blades +1, which the avelyn especially benefits from, and random other things depending on the situation.

Around 40 strength, around 30 vigor and endurance, around 25 vitality, dex at its bare necessary minimum, 20 adap, and crappy faith/int. (Pyromancy scales a tiny bit with faith/int because of a fire damage bonus stat, but otherwise still scales purely on the flame, despite its misleading item stats that indicate a huge intelligence scaling bonus. That scaling and the reported value actually seem to only apply to the actual physical heavy attack that you can make with the flame, in which case i'm not really sure how you're supposed to read stats for catalysts and talismans. The clearly defined magic adjust stat from DS1 seems to be gone.)

With 20 attunement, I normally keep chaos storm, great fireball, flame swathe, and toxic mist equipped for pve purposes. (Chaos storm obliterates bosses, holy shit. Those big hitboxes giving the spell lots of room for every fire pillar to hit?)

 

I was around 2-2.5 million soul memory the last i checked, i think i'm probably hugely over-leveled for NG, but i'm still running into lots of pvp.

 

Is there any point to the Bellkeeper's tower that's above the Iron Keep? I had such a slog trying to get through there, and the reward seemed pretty lackluster.

 

In other news, I dropped the Blue Sentinal covenant as I never got summoned, and went the road of the Sun. I like co-opping anyway, so why not I guess. I also got my second lord soul, but I get the feeling that I've been doing it massively out of order. The Giantbomb guys had tons of other places unlocked, but hadn't beaten the Old Iron King yet.

There's an illusory wall hiding some good stuff on that platform you exit out onto, the one that is just above the bonfire for the bell tower. That's pretty much it though, there isn't a boss for that bell tower. (Bjorn already mentioned that, i see.)

[osmosisch]

I was around 2-2.5 million soul memory the last i checked, i think i'm probably hugely over-leveled for NG, but i'm still running into lots of pvp.

I'm at 4.7M for what it's worth, and still not done. I've been wearing all the soul/droprate boosting things I could find though, on general principle.

[Sno]

Well that makes me feel way better about my soul memory then, heh.

[osmosisch]

I'd estimate a full 2M come from me beating my head against the particular optional boss I was complaining about earlier, and from gettnig summoned for the same boss to practise it.

[Bjorn]

...I never though of using the Bonfire Ascetic to farm.

 

The best use of them is to get early access to some of the gear that is locked to NG+.  But there are a few places where using them to farm spices or upgrade materials is invaluable.  On my first character on the PS3, I farmed the crap out of Belfry Sol for spices, plus offline there is an NPC Bellbro invader who drops an Awestone if you're in the Company of Champions.  So I was killing two birds with one Ascetic.   In my current run, I was able to get 5 Twinkling Titanite and 3 Dragon bone early by upgrading a couple of fires.  Unless you really need Twinkling or Dragon bone early though, it makes a lot more sense to wait until the endgame, when there is a much, much better farming spot.

 

 

Also, i didn't even consider trying to infuse it, what affect does that have on shields?

 

It slightly lowers all other defenses, but raises the infused defense, as well as adding that elemental damage to the shield.  It's really just useful on a few shields that already have high elemental defense to get it at or close to 100 percent.   Which, by the way, great shields do brutal fucking damage fully upgraded.  Sure they are slow, but if your weapon breaks, or is about to break, it's good to remember that you can smack something with your shield to finish it off. 

 

Have you not infused anything yet?  You don't need multiple stones.  It only takes one stone to infuse a weapon, and you can do it at any level.  So if you infuse your +10 Avelyn to raw, it will be come a Raw Avelyn +10.  And you can change it to any other element you want without having to revert it (though there is a stone that reverts to normal as well).

 

I'm at 4.7M for what it's worth, and still not done. I've been wearing all the soul/droprate boosting things I could find though, on general principle.

 

I've had more problems being underleveled than I have overleveled. I've been trying to keep my SM as low as possible on my current run, and it's pretty often that I get to an area and see only small signs, or no signs at all.

[Sno]

Have you not infused anything yet?  You don't need multiple stones.  It only takes one stone to infuse a weapon, and you can do it at any level.  So if you infuse your +10 Avelyn to raw, it will be come a Raw Avelyn +10.  And you can change it to any other element you want without having to revert it (though there is a stone that reverts to normal as well).

Oh jeez, really? I should go do that then. I hadn't really seen any reason to infuse anything other than my avelyn, so i just hadn't done it yet, and so i assumed it was still like it was in Dark Souls 1. I didn't want to knock my Avelyn down to a +1 or something if i didn't have the ore to carry it through the full progression.

[Dewar]

 

The best use of them is to get early access to some of the gear that is locked to NG+.  But there are a few places where using them to farm spices or upgrade materials is invaluable.  On my first character on the PS3, I farmed the crap out of Belfry Sol for spices, plus offline there is an NPC Bellbro invader who drops an Awestone if you're in the Company of Champions.  So I was killing two birds with one Ascetic.   In my current run, I was able to get 5 Twinkling Titanite and 3 Dragon bone early by upgrading a couple of fires.  Unless you really need Twinkling or Dragon bone early though, it makes a lot more sense to wait until the endgame, when there is a much, much better farming spot.

 

 

I could really use some dragon bone actually. Could you clue me in where would be a good spot to farm those? I don't even remember where I got mine.

[Bjorn]

I could really use some dragon bone actually. Could you clue me in where would be a good spot to farm those? I don't even remember where I got mine.

 

You said you had 2 lord souls?  If you don't use an Ascetic, I think there are only 7 or 8 Petrified Dragon Bones plus any you get from the crows until you are approaching the end game.  I wanted my bow at +4, which takes 10 total Bones, so doing 2 bonfires let me get there.  Before you get all four lord souls, there is only a single area I know of that has more than one Dragon Bone.

 

One thing about using Ascetics, if an area has a boss, you have to beat the boss to use an Ascetic, and it will refresh the boss (meaning you have to beat the boss again on NG+ difficulty to use another Ascetic). If an area is part of the direct path to a Lord, you have to beat the Lord before you can use an Ascetic, even if the bonfire isn't the bonfire that refreshes the Lord.  If an area does not have a boss associated with it, and the Lord associated with it is dead, then you can just use Ascetics over and over. 

 

The Shaded Ruins area has two Bones, it's the one with the lion men and the scorpion boss. There's a chest with dragon bone, and the giant Basilisk drops one. Double bonus for a caster, the scorpion lady on NG+ drops a ring that would be very good for you. And on NG+, there's a corpse that has 3 Twinkling Titanite down in the cave area (which you can actually jump into with a well timed jump from near the bonfire).  Those lion dudes get really hard on NG+. But it's the best option early on.

I also refreshed the Cathedral bonfire a little further down that path, hoping that it might regenerate a Bonfire Ascetic that is right before the bonfire, allowing for no-cost farming, but it didn't regenerate the Ascetic. Right after the cathedral mini-boss, there is a cliff edge, there is a crystal lizard on the next ledge down that drops a Petrified Dragon Bone (or at least it has every time I've killed it, not sure if lizards are static drops or random). Plus there are a couple of Twinkling Titanite in the area.

[Dewar]

Ah, I got stuck in the woods before that before I got that far and turned back. I was under the impression that I had explored everything and there wasn't anything left to do.

[Bjorn]

Ah, that's a great place for you to explore then.  Lots of good stuff down that road.  The foggy woods are tough, but mostly just intimidating (and somewhat frustrating until you find a good solution to the enemies).  AoE attacks are your friend.

[dartmonkey]

Is there any reason not to swallow all the boss souls before NG+ if I'm not bothered about boss soul weapons? I'm on the cusp of downing them, levelling up and then hitting the button but I don't really know what will happen.

[Bjorn]

If you're sure you don't want the corresponding items/spell, munch away.  As was just said within the last page or so though, don't munch on the ones specifically named Giant Souls.  Save those.

[dartmonkey]

The third smith ain't appearing. I summon her from her tombstone, she says thanks and that I should visit her in her new home but she's not moving.

When you go to NG+, what do you retain? I've already

killed Vendrick

so do the giant souls serve any further purpose in NG+?

[Bjorn]

Nope, that's the Giant Souls only purpose I know of and you'll get more in NG+.  Though it might be worth saving a couple so you don't have to hunt them all down in NG+.  Actually, it might be worth saving all of them.  That would let you

 

kill Vendrick right when you find him, which would give you access to his boss soul right away. His soul makes multiple things, and they all look pretty neat. I've only made one so far (the Ultra Greatsword), but that shield looks fantastic for a non-strength build.

 

I think the only things you lose are keys and Fragrant Branches of Yore.  So if there are any statues you didn't de-petrify, go knock those out. 

[Sno]

So i'm at this point where i've started closely paying attention to my weapon's durability to try and figure out what exactly is causing my halbred to degrade so quickly, and i've noticed that sometimes striking an enemy will just randomly eat up massive chunks of my weapon's durability. (Like ten times as much as normal, huge durability damage, way more than should be possible even if we're assuming durability damage for each discreet object in the environment struck.)

I think breaking somebody's poise to stagger them out of an attack comes with a large weapon durability cost in this game, and this would explain why a weapon with high poise damage like my halbred degrades so quickly.

Also, i'm curious to hear where everybody is at with soul memory versus character level. Personally, my character just hit level 155 and i just crossed 3 million soul memory.