Dark Souls - I'm Prepared To Die (Again)

[vallorn]

If you want even MORE dark souls for all the times your not playing it, I totally recommend the Super Best Friends lets plays of Dark Souls 2,3, Demons Soul, and bloodborne. They just started Dark Souls 1 not too long ago, so that could also be fun to watch.

It's basically the same set up as those gamefront guys. You have Pat, the know-it-all who knows nothing, guiding Woolie, who's never played the games before, as they explore, fight, and just talk about random shit and reacting to the bosses and cool stuff.

Second that. It was their LP of Dark Souls 2 way back when that got me into the Souls series. Having an expert on hand (in so much as you can call Pat an "expert", but he gets what makes the games good at least) to show a newbie the ropes gives a good insight into all the little lessons you need to learn to enjoy the game.

Except Plague is not only good and informative about the mechanics, he's also actually quite a good artist who understands both visual design and how stories work. Plague is the full, well rounded experience of a Dark Souls LP.


And yes, I know Plague and the SBF crew work together a lot, but, in my opinion, Plague has made the quintessential Dark Souls 1 LP. It digs way, way deeper into the lore and the implications of the lore than any of the so called 'lore' channels like Vaati because it actually takes the time to analyze everything together, and yes, some of it is self contradictory, but it gives a better picture of what's going on than any rendition of just telling the story of NPC X or Event Y in the game. I know this seems somewhat artsy and pretentious but that's the thing, it's spread over 58 hours and mixed with Plague also being his usual, sarcastic Kentucky Gentleman self which is actually kind of hilarious. Deadpan snark works well with Dark Souls.

Anyway, incoherent ramblings over, OP, go kick the daylight out of the DLC. Also, if you can't roll, you are gonna have FUN with the first boss. I suggest 2 handing your Black Knight's Sword or Halberd because the boss type is Demon and Black Knight weapons actually have a small amount of bonus damage against demons.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Also about the first DLC boss, equip the Thunder Stoneplate ring and stay near the entrance on higher ground as much as possible. With a good shield (do you by chance have the Greatshield of Artorias yet?) and poise by ring or other equipment he's not so bad.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Thanks to all for the LP suggestions; I?m going to look into them all since I just finished James? highly entertaining journey. This bit below is from near the end; James, who?d kept trying (unsuccessfully) to equip the Symbol of Avarice at the end of boss fights to exploit the bonus soul gain, made a bet with Mitch that he?d beat Gwyn while wearing it within three tries or he?d shave his mustache. Needless to say? ?MITCH!! I DON?T WANT TO LOSE MY MUSTACHE!!? XD

Spoiler

Sadly, as to my progress, I?m pissed to report that roofers in my apartment complex damaged something and my internet went out Friday, so I wasn?t able to get the DLC. I?m hoping it?s fixed today, but coming off a holiday weekend, I?m not holing out too much hope...

Anyway, incoherent ramblings over, OP, go kick the daylight out of the DLC. Also, if you can't roll, you are gonna have FUN with the first boss. I suggest 2 handing your Black Knight's Sword or Halberd because the boss type is Demon and Black Knight weapons actually have a small amount of bonus damage against demons.

Believe it or not, I actually pulled off some pretty elite MLG rolls against the Kings. And by ?elite MLG,? I mean panicked button-mashing that sent my character flying in random directions, so I?m certain I WILL have fun with a boss that requires expert knowledge of dodge timing and invincibility frames.

Also about the first DLC boss, equip the Thunder Stoneplate ring and stay near the entrance on higher ground as much as possible. With a good shield (do you by chance have the Greatshield of Artorias yet?) and poise by ring or other equipment he's not so bad.

I DO have the Great Shield of Artorias! It?s the one boss soul item I made and actually USE, and I?m also using the Wolf Ring. My lust for high poise has been kind of crippling, though; I?m not confident enough to wear light armor and not having the Stamina for heavy armors while staying under 50% encumbrance, I?ve favored medium armors, so I?ve pretty much shackled myself to Havel?s Ring and the Wolf Ring. Which brings to the light the REAL question which has plagued many an RPG since time immemorial: the average humanoid has 8 fingers and 2 thumbs; why is it I can only wear two rings at a time?!? I?m pretty sure I?d be a beast if they?d let me rock 10 buff rings; hell, I could probably get an 11th on my dong, but noooOOOooo, because of ?reasons.?

 

[vallorn]

Thanks to all for the LP suggestions; I?m going to look into them all since I just finished James? highly entertaining journey. This bit below is from near the end; James, who?d kept trying (unsuccessfully) to equip the Symbol of Avarice at the end of boss fights to exploit the bonus soul gain, made a bet with Mitch that he?d beat Gwyn while wearing it within three tries or he?d shave his mustache. Needless to say? ?MITCH!! I DON?T WANT TO LOSE MY MUSTACHE!!? XD

Spoiler

Sadly, as to my progress, I?m pissed to report that roofers in my apartment complex damaged something and my internet went out Friday, so I wasn?t able to get the DLC. I?m hoping it?s fixed today, but coming off a holiday weekend, I?m not holing out too much hope...

Anyway, incoherent ramblings over, OP, go kick the daylight out of the DLC. Also, if you can't roll, you are gonna have FUN with the first boss. I suggest 2 handing your Black Knight's Sword or Halberd because the boss type is Demon and Black Knight weapons actually have a small amount of bonus damage against demons.

Believe it or not, I actually pulled off some pretty elite MLG rolls against the Kings. And by ?elite MLG,? I mean panicked button-mashing that sent my character flying in random directions, so I?m certain I WILL have fun with a boss that requires expert knowledge of dodge timing and invincibility frames.

Also about the first DLC boss, equip the Thunder Stoneplate ring and stay near the entrance on higher ground as much as possible. With a good shield (do you by chance have the Greatshield of Artorias yet?) and poise by ring or other equipment he's not so bad.

I DO have the Great Shield of Artorias! It?s the one boss soul item I made and actually USE, and I?m also using the Wolf Ring. My lust for high poise has been kind of crippling, though; I?m not confident enough to wear light armor and not having the Stamina for heavy armors while staying under 50% encumbrance, I?ve favored medium armors, so I?ve pretty much shackled myself to Havel?s Ring and the Wolf Ring. Which brings to the light the REAL question which has plagued many an RPG since time immemorial: the average humanoid has 8 fingers and 2 thumbs; why is it I can only wear two rings at a time?!? I?m pretty sure I?d be a beast if they?d let me rock 10 buff rings; hell, I could probably get an 11th on my dong, but noooOOOooo, because of ?reasons.?

I think you could probably wear a maximum of 22 rings on the human body, I'll let you figure out how that works. Needless to say though, it's a balance thing. I'd really suggest replacing the Wolf ring with Ring of Favour And Protection, the buffs to HP and Endurance are amazing and the extra equip load it gives on top of the extra you get from Havel's would allow you to wear armour that gives you somewhat better poise and still let you Medium Roll. Or you could minmax poise-weight ratios and fastroll your way to victory (Note, the Hollow Soldier Waistcloth has the single highest poise-weight in the entire game at 4.6, Havel's Gauntlets are another good one with 2.4, though, they provide a lot more overall poise).

One of the things about poise is that different weapons cause different amounts of "poise damage", that is, how much damage they do to your poise, if they deplete it to 0 then you stagger (Stunlock). However, poise regenerates FAST so taking one hit and rolling away should prevent you from having issues with it. Now, different weapon types do different poise damage and this is constant accross weapon types, every ultra greatsword does the same PD, and every halberd will do the same PD for example, if you want to look at the numbers, take a glance at this:

http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Poise

It's got a full table of the poise needed to resist certain moves, though, it's tailored to PVP where poise is a significant issue due to stunlock which the GiantDad build is designed to take advantage of:


Welcome to Meme Souls btw.

 

[Fox12]

Meme souls is best souls

 

[vallorn]

Meme souls is best souls

Oh indeed.


And something to remind OP of the other fun part of Anor Londo

Plus, a little teaser for the DLC.

Spoiler: Go human after 'The Colosseum Fight' and stay human, NPC invasion fun ahead!

 

[Xprimentyl]

And something to remind OP of the other fun part of Anor Londo

This literally made me laugh out loud! XD Then cringe. X{ Those archers caused me more anguish than any part or any boss thus far.

 

[Fox12]

 

[vallorn]

And something to remind OP of the other fun part of Anor Londo

This literally made me laugh out loud! XD Then cringe. X{ Those archers caused me more anguish than any part or any boss thus far.

Yeah, that part of the game is always the part that makes people rage, it's just grotesquely unfair in a lot of ways, it requires you to get up that narrow walkway without being hit and then perfectly time your rolls or blocks so that the archer you try and fight doesn't hit you AND the archer you left behind you doesn't shoot you in the back.

But, for your next run, there is a trick, Greatshields have an effect where they cause a small amount of knockback against the person who hits them, if you pull up to the archer on the right of the walkway and force him to hit your greatshield with his sword, you have a decent chance of him knocking himself backwards off the ledge. Once you deal with that one you can pull round the corner and rest or take care of the other one, but the item he's guarding is just a Soul Of A Hero if memory serves, some hard souls are always handy though.

Oh, btw. There's Hard Souls, Soft Souls, Hard Humanity and Soft Humanity. Those are community terms but essentially, Hard is the items in your inventory, "Soul of a Proud Knight", "Twin Humanities", etc, Soft is the stuff you have equipped, the humanity in the top left of your UI, the souls you have equipped, etc. Hard is usually better because it stays there after death but Soft Humanity des have bonuses, the more Soft Humanity you have increases your resistance to Curse, increases the damage of Chaos weapons, and does other things like increasing your chance to find items (maxes out at 10 Humanity) and increasing your resistance to Physical and Elemental (Fire, Lightning, Magic, etc) damage (Does not affect Bleed or Poison though). The main issue with keeping all your Humanity and Souls in Soft is that you can lose them easily if you aren't careful.

That should help you in your next run, also, for your next run, if you want to farm Soft Humanity then, before you kill an area's boss, you can farm 10 Soft Humanity per area of the game just by killing enemies, the actual algorithm behind this is kind of complicated because there's a set "Humanity Worth" value for each farmable soft humanity which is constant over each area (100, 105, 110, 120, 140, 160, 190, 220, 255, 300) but different enemies give different "Humanity Worth" for each kill, for example, the Undead Burg has Hollow Warriors and Hollow Soldiers, the former gives 3 Humanity Worth and the latter gives6. Whenever you reach one of the milestones that Humanity Worth is consumed and you will see a dark cloud in place of the usual pale cloud that shows when you get Soft Souls, you've probably seen it already once or twice if you had to rerun an area enough times. This is a good way to get some soft humanity early on in the game, but remember, you can't do it after you beat an area's boss, if you beat the Taurus Demon you can't get Soft Humanity from the Undead Burg, if you beat the Bell Gargoyles, you can't get more Soft Humanity from the Parish, etc, etc.

Good luck!

 

[Xprimentyl]

I know the pain, Ben; I know the pain...

That should help you in your next run, also, for your next run, if you want to farm Soft Humanity then, before you kill an area's boss, you can farm 10 Soft Humanity per area of the game just by killing enemies, the actual algorithm behind this is kind of complicated because there's a set "Humanity Worth" value for each farmable soft humanity which is constant over each area (100, 105, 110, 120, 140, 160, 190, 220, 255, 300) but different enemies give different "Humanity Worth" for each kill, for example, the Undead Burg has Hollow Warriors and Hollow Soldiers, the former gives 3 Humanity Worth and the latter gives6. Whenever you reach one of the milestones that Humanity Worth is consumed and you will see a dark cloud in place of the usual pale cloud that shows when you get Soft Souls, you've probably seen it already once or twice if you had to rerun an area enough times. This is a good way to get some soft humanity early on in the game, but remember, you can't do it after you beat an area's boss, if you beat the Taurus Demon you can't get Soft Humanity from the Undead Burg, if you beat the Bell Gargoyles, you can't get more Soft Humanity from the Parish, etc, etc.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips; I know only too well the loss of soft Souls and Humanity, but I'm curious where you found these details for farming Humanity from areas with living bosses? I've wondered how in the past I've suddenly gotten Soft Humanity without pooping a Hard one (bow-chicka-bow-wow.) To farm in the past, in the Undead Parish near the Sunlight Alter (right behind the Hellkite Dragon,) there are three rats in the sewers about a ten second commute from the bonfire; I pop whatever Hard Humanities I have and put on the Covetous Gold Serpent ring and just kill them over and over. It takes a while, but I pop whatever Humanities they give me until I'm up to 10 Soft, then farm until I save 15-20 Hard ones; crude, but effective and doesn't involve any complex algorithms. I'm curious, do those milestones you mention reset if you die or rest at a bonfire? They seem really close together, you could potentially rack up 10 Humanity really quickly if the counter just keeps adding up, unless you're saying you can ONLY get 10 total, as in you can't repeat the process as many times as you want per area?

 

[vallorn]

I know the pain, Ben; I know the pain...

That should help you in your next run, also, for your next run, if you want to farm Soft Humanity then, before you kill an area's boss, you can farm 10 Soft Humanity per area of the game just by killing enemies, the actual algorithm behind this is kind of complicated because there's a set "Humanity Worth" value for each farmable soft humanity which is constant over each area (100, 105, 110, 120, 140, 160, 190, 220, 255, 300) but different enemies give different "Humanity Worth" for each kill, for example, the Undead Burg has Hollow Warriors and Hollow Soldiers, the former gives 3 Humanity Worth and the latter gives6. Whenever you reach one of the milestones that Humanity Worth is consumed and you will see a dark cloud in place of the usual pale cloud that shows when you get Soft Souls, you've probably seen it already once or twice if you had to rerun an area enough times. This is a good way to get some soft humanity early on in the game, but remember, you can't do it after you beat an area's boss, if you beat the Taurus Demon you can't get Soft Humanity from the Undead Burg, if you beat the Bell Gargoyles, you can't get more Soft Humanity from the Parish, etc, etc.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips; I know only too well the loss of soft Souls and Humanity, but I'm curious where you found these details for farming Humanity from areas with living bosses? I've wondered how in the past I've suddenly gotten Soft Humanity without pooping a Hard one (bow-chicka-bow-wow.) To farm in the past, in the Undead Parish near the Sunlight Alter (right behind the Hellkite Dragon,) there are three rats in the sewers about a ten second commute from the bonfire; I pop whatever Hard Humanities I have and put on the Covetous Gold Serpent ring and just kill them over and over. It takes a while, but I pop whatever Humanities they give me until I'm up to 10 Soft, then farm until I save 15-20 Hard ones; crude, but effective and doesn't involve any complex algorithms. I'm curious, do those milestones you mention reset if you die or rest at a bonfire? They seem really close together, you could potentially rack up 10 Humanity really quickly if the counter just keeps adding up, unless you're saying you can ONLY get 10 total, as in you can't repeat the process as many times as you want per area?

Not quite, they don't stack up, when the counter resets I mean, The first one costs 100 HW, the second one means you have to build 105 from the beginning again, etc. Each one requires more work than the last one.
http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Humanity+Farming#Soft%20Humanity

 

[Xprimentyl]

Not quite, they don't stack up, when the counter resets I mean, The first one costs 100 HW, the second one means you have to build 105 from the beginning again, etc. Each one requires more work than the last one.
http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Humanity+Farming#Soft%20Humanity

Oh, duh; that makes a lot more sense; don't know why I didn't think that might have been the case.

 

[vallorn]

Not quite, they don't stack up, when the counter resets I mean, The first one costs 100 HW, the second one means you have to build 105 from the beginning again, etc. Each one requires more work than the last one.
http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Humanity+Farming#Soft%20Humanity

Oh, duh; that makes a lot more sense; don't know why I didn't think that might have been the case.

Oh and rat farming? There are 5-6 rats close to The Depths bonfire, it's a good early game spot. Skeleton Babies outside of Nito's room are one of the best spots in the game, put on something to let you regen health like Ring of The Evil Eye and go to town because those guys respawn over and over there and they can drop Hard Humanity. You can farm them without a bonfire trip between them because of the way they respawn so it saves a lot of time.

The best Humanity farming spot is near the end of the DLC though, I won't spoil it but you should know it when you see it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

UPDATE!!

They finally got my Internets back up JUST today, and the first thing I did was download the DLC. THIS is going to be an adventure; unlike Vanilla Souls, I know basically nothing about the DLC. I have seen a few of the boss fights a couple of times, but not enough to know what to expect other than teeth-gnashing frustration. Either way, I'm looking forward to some more Souls! Spending the last few days with only Gwyn left to fight, I was going stir crazy trying to find things to do! I have a +10 Fire Zweihander now and working on a max Magic weapon for that achievement since I know where the Blue Slab is, I just have to get it. Maybe I can wipe out all the max weapon achievements prior to NG+? Kind of brings 100% completion near the realm of the same area code as the distant outskirts of remotest iota of feasibility, but not going to get my hopes up; having to fight O&S TWICE more in NG+ and NG+2 (since this genius right here didn't make a weapon with Smough's soul in NG) sounds about as appealing as flossing my ass crack with rusty barbed wire, so depending on how my attempt in NG+ goes, I might give up on that pipe dream.

EDIT: Just read up on the achievement list, and it likely ain't about to happen in my lifetime. None of it seems undoable, but I'm all but guaranteed to screw myself out of some of the "Acquire all..." achievements; I know I will. I'll lose track of one of the HUNDREDS of implicit cause-effect relationships and cause some vendor to go nuts and refuse to sell me miracles or something... Makes me sad.

 

[vallorn]

UPDATE!!

They finally got my Internets back up JUST today, and the first thing I did was download the DLC. THIS is going to be an adventure; unlike Vanilla Souls, I know basically nothing about the DLC. I have seen a few of the boss fights a couple of times, but not enough to know what to expect other than teeth-gnashing frustration. Either way, I'm looking forward to some more Souls! Spending the last few days with only Gwyn left to fight, I was going stir crazy trying to find things to do! I have a +10 Fire Zweihander now and working on a max Magic weapon for that achievement since I know where the Blue Slab is, I just have to get it. Maybe I can wipe out all the max weapon achievements prior to NG+? Kind of brings 100% completion near the realm of the same area code as the distant outskirts of remotest iota of feasibility, but not going to get my hopes up; having to fight O&S TWICE more in NG+ and NG+2 (since this genius right here didn't make a weapon with Smough's soul in NG) sounds about as appealing as flossing my ass crack with rusty barbed wire, so depending on how my attempt in NG+ goes, I might give up on that pipe dream.

EDIT: Just read up on the achievement list, and it likely ain't about to happen in my lifetime. None of it seems undoable, but I'm all but guaranteed to screw myself out of some of the "Acquire all..." achievements; I know I will. I'll lose track of one of the HUNDREDS of implicit cause-effect relationships and cause some vendor to go nuts and refuse to sell me miracles or something... Makes me sad.

For things like that it's best to do one per playthrough. It's always handy to take a Divine weapon for each playthrough too even if you aren't a Miracle user because the skeletons in the catacombs don't respawn if you kill them with a Divine weapon. My first playthrough I decided to go Katana so my Uchi was my main, but I grabbed the silly quickdraw one in Upper Blighttown and made it divine JUST for the catacombs.

But yeah, pick one path and work on that if you want to optimize, being a Jack of All Trades Master Of None build can screw you up.

Ornstien and Smough are annoying and such, and the Archers are a nightmare for any speedrun or anyone who doesn't want to do that same run... But for me, the part I hate is Bonewheeel Skeletons, those guys are the WORST.

You can tell that Priscilla doesn't get out much...

 

[Fox12]

There's a wall with a dev message in front of it. Equip your sunlight maggot helm when you get there. You'll find a unique item that will help you during the final boss.

The boss's in this game are an absolute blast to fight, by the way.

 

[vallorn]

There's a wall with a dev message in front of it. Equip your sunlight maggot helm when you get there. You'll find a unique item that will help you during the final boss.

The boss's in this game are an absolute blast to fight, by the way.

I'd say one of the DLC bosses is my favourite one in the game... The entire DLC is really high quality, especially compared to the late game areas of the main game like the Catacombs or Izalith which are noticeably rushed compared to the early - mid parts of the game.

 

[Fox12]

There's a wall with a dev message in front of it. Equip your sunlight maggot helm when you get there. You'll find a unique item that will help you during the final boss.

The boss's in this game are an absolute blast to fight, by the way.

I'd say one of the DLC bosses is my favourite one in the game... The entire DLC is really high quality, especially compared to the late game areas of the main game like the Catacombs or Izalith which are noticeably rushed compared to the early - mid parts of the game.

I think DS1 set the gold standard for DLC content. I remember playing the DS1 DLC while I was also playing Demon Soul's (I was a little obsessed with the series at the time). After struggling with Artorias for a while, I was later able to beat King Allant in a single try. I was in the middle of the fight, and I realized I was just fighting Artorias again.

The final boss is probably my favorite in the whole series. I was playing as a two handed, no shield build. He was crazy hard, but by the end of the game I had memorized his moveset so well that I could do a no hit run. There's nothing more exhilarating then a fast paced boss battle where you're able to repeatedly dodge all of their moves.

 

[mysecondlife]

Just wanted to drop in and say good on you for keeping everyone updated on this thread.
It really made me want to get a similar thread related to Bloodborne (a game I bought but never started), but don't feel confident that I can keep this kind of thread going on consistent basis due to my lack of time.

 

[Xprimentyl]

For things like that it's best to do one per playthrough. It's always handy to take a Divine weapon for each playthrough too even if you aren't a Miracle user because the skeletons in the catacombs don't respawn if you kill them with a Divine weapon. My first playthrough I decided to go Katana so my Uchi was my main, but I grabbed the silly quickdraw one in Upper Blighttown and made it divine JUST for the catacombs.

But yeah, pick one path and work on that if you want to optimize, being a Jack of All Trades Master Of None build can screw you up.

Yeah, I'm not looking to actually use all of the max weapons; I'm just an achievement whore looking to make them for the arbitrary increase to my Gamerscore. I'm committed to my +5 BK Halberd and +15 Uchigatana for functionality.