Dark Souls - More like Dark Trolls

[Church185]

I dont remember the specific details of my character but I'm at level 122, 40 Dex, 30 Resistance, 30 Endurance and I think 20+ strength.

That stat composition is just awful, especially since you keep talking about using the Black Knight Halberd and heavy armor, but to each his own I guess. I feel like that may be part of the reason you are having such a hard time. >.>

If you need advice or a helping hand on Xbox LIVE, you should totally send me a PM.

I like to think of myself as the local Sunbro Covenant representative.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Dark Souls hates you yes. But hard work brings it's own rewards!

You stay away from my bridge though. You aren't allowed that ember. No nooooope. Shoo.

 

[Windcaler]

Also you could join the blade of the darkmoon covenant which lets you invade only people who invade others and bring them to justice.

Yeah that's a good idea. I would have done it the first time but I decided to go for the Princess guard, which apparently consists of me and about four other horny idiots. I did think about switching but she had promised me protection (which I never got) and I thought she may get annoyed if I left her club. Although apparently she doesn't really care and just repeats the same dialogue "Oh CHOSEN UNDEAD...."

Spoiler

She's not real, the boobs are a LIE!A LIE! OK, not really since the real boobs is alive somewhere out there, but the two in the chamber are in fact a lie

Also you do get to use the two healing miracles that you get in the Dukes Archives if you join the Princess's (She call's herself "Queen of the Sunlight, so don't know what the "Princess" part is all about) Guard, one of then is actually pretty useful if you plan in engaging in jolly co-operation, not very useful, but useful.

The princess part most likely comes from her being the Daughter of Gwyn, the lord of sunlight and lorderan. Hes pretty much the king of the land so his daughter would be the princess.

Gwyndolin being male and raised as a daughter puts some questions surrounding his status in the hierarchy of the gods. So far as I recall he didnt have a title like prince or princess

Also we know absolutely nothing about Gwyn's wife or whoever had his kids. Although with the wide variety in his children I subscribe to the opinion that the Firstborn, Gwynevere, and Gwyndolin all had different mothers. Anyway, since the Mother is never mentioned it makes sense that Gwynevere would inherit the title of Queen of sunlight since shes the chief female diety amongst the gods

 

[Church185]

Dark Souls hates you yes. But hard work brings it's own rewards!

You stay away from my bridge though. You aren't allowed that ember. No nooooope. Shoo.

You were such a pain in the ass for my Demon's Greataxe build, but my buddy Beatrice took care of you for me.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Dark Souls hates you yes. But hard work brings it's own rewards!

You stay away from my bridge though. You aren't allowed that ember. No nooooope. Shoo.

You were such a pain in the ass for my Demon's Greataxe build, but my buddy Beatrice took care of you for me.

Darn that Beatrice and her amazingly snazzy but under powered outfit she plagues my very life *shakes fluffy mandible*

 

[verdant monkai]

Spoiler

She's not real, the boobs are a LIE!A LIE! OK, not really since the real boobs is alive somewhere out there, but the two in the chamber are in fact a lie

Also you do get to use the two healing miracles that you get in the Dukes Archives if you join the Princess's (She call's herself "Queen of the Sunlight, so don't know what the "Princess" part is all about) Guard, one of then is actually pretty useful if you plan in engaging in jolly co-operation, not very useful, but useful.

Spoiler

Dammit! just like an angler fish but with bosoms.

I couldn't even use the magic because my super meathead build, had no intelligence or faith. Just Endurance and strength. Just goes to show in Dark Souls always research before you commit.

 

[NearLifeExperience]

Dodging is for chumps.

And people that are interested in that whole 'staying alive' business, the fools!

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I dont remember the specific details of my character but I'm at level 122, 40 Dex, 30 Resistance, 30 Endurance and I think 20+ strength.

That would be your problem, right there. Resistance is a worthless stat. All it does is upgraded defenses and resistances. The sad part is that every stat in the game also raises defences and resistances, alongside their own increases. Resistance is the worth stat you can dump your points into. If you're using a Black Knight Halberd and heavy armor, your build is much, much less than optimal.

Pure melee type characters always want to have 40 End. The stamina cap is 160 and 40 End brings you right up to 160 stamina. If you need more, then you can always equip the FaP Ring(Ring of Faith and Protection, obtained from Knight Lautrec's corpse). Now, you say you're using a Black Knight Halberd and heavy armor? Do I even want to know why you've got 40 Dex? BK Halberds have E rank Dex scaling and I've seen no mention of spell casting so you're definitely not going to get the benefits of increased casting speed(45 Dex gives you fastest cast speed). Dex is not a stat you want to pump for the equipment you're using.

I see no mention of Vit so I dunno what you've got, but in heavy armor your dodging capabilities are going to be gimped, at best. 27 Vit is enough to bring you up to 1k HP(1.2k if you've got a FaP Ring equipped) which is enough to get by anything and everything in standard NG. It's also enough to get by in NG+ if you're not reckless. At 50 Vit you've got 1.5k HP(1.8k with a FaP Ring) which is more than enough to get you through any tough situation and gives you plenty of breathing room if things go awry.

If you insist on using a BK Halberd as your main weapon, I would suggest that you ditch Dex entirely. Pump it up to the minimum for the BK Halberd and simply leave it at that. Or if you want to keep that Dex, pump it up to 45(for the maxed increase in casting speed) and get yourself some Pyromancy. Any character type can use it(even Sorcerers and Clerics), there's little to no reason not to have it and Blighttown is the only place in the game where Pyromancy is worthless(funny thing, I killed Demon Firesage using only three Great Fireballs in NG).

 

[JagermanXcell]

All of the deaths you mentioned were your own undoings, game is fair 95% of the time. Invaded? Your fault for turning human. Boss 2-3 hit kieed you? Your fault for being greedy with your hits. Can't beat a boss with your heavy armored tank? Then switch to low weight and fast roll for the invincibility frames and vice versa. ect. ect.
The 5% unfair parts of the game are:
-The Capra Demon (Because NOTHING warns you about him, and the reaction time to avoid him when you realize its a boss is ludicrous)
-The Bed of Chaos (Fun fact: The director Miyazaki apologized for making this boss, he said he wanted to try something new, unfortunately it didn't turn out well. Bed of Chaos is arguably one of the worst Boss fights in the game because its so broken and usually depends on luck)

One more thing, the PVE isn't the true troll of this game, far from it.
The REAL troll is the things the PVP community comes up with... and personally I LOVE IT:

 

[Exius Xavarus]

The 5% unfair parts of the game are:
-The Capra Demon (Because NOTHING warns you about him, and the reaction time to avoid him when you realize its a boss is ludicrous)
-The Bed of Chaos (Fun fact: The director Miyazaki apologized for making this boss, he said he wanted to try something new, unfortunately it didn't turn out well. Bed of Chaos is arguably one of the worst Boss fights in the game because its so broken and usually depends on luck)

The only thing unfair about the Capra Demon is that he's got two Poison Dogs with him that are a pain in the ass to take out whilst avoiding Capra's attacks. I didn't think he was unfair so much as he was clever. Even bosses can pull surprise attacks.

As for Bed of Chaos, at least on the upside you don't have to restart the whole battle if you die. Probably Bed of Chaos' only saving grace. ._.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Invaded? Your fault for turning human.

I can't disagree with the other things, but this? The game rewards you in PvE for turning human. You get to do that "jolly cooperation" thing that DS players and what's-his-gut loved to go on about, including with CPU characters. Being invaded by someone vastly more powerful than you in that instance is not the fault of the player, but the fault of online matchmaking...not that I had much problem, since I was playing "Dark Souls: Failed to Invade edition."

Invasions like that are only your fault if you're like me and join the Forest Covenant, and learn only after the third time that two severely overleveled jerks are grinding for blue phantoms (at least then, I was the invader). The worst part being I got the impression I was a better fighter than either of them, but with my equipment and level I couldn't do anything to them.

snip

Out of curiosity, what's the max carrying capacity based on the softcapped Endurance? I'm wondering how heavy of armor I could wear while still maintaining the fast roll (absent weapon weight).

The more I read these threads the more I think people start up Dark Souls, die a few times, and decide to just not like anything in the game ever again.

In my defense, I stopped liking it after the thousandth death, and only then because I realized the death mechanic crippled what little immersion the game let me have.

And even then, after some time to think, I realized that I like the combat.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Kupo!

40 + Endurance = Equipment Burden.

So at 40 End(where you cap at 160 stamina) you'd have a base burden of 80.

The FaP Ring adds 20% health, stamina and burden so you'd have 100 with it equipped.

Havel's Ring gives +50% burden so you'd have 120 with it equipped.

Mask of the Father(I think it's Father; too lazy to Google it right now) gives +5% burden so you'd have 84 with it equipped.

Totaling at 144 burden if you use all three items at once. Although I typically don't ever use Mask of the Father as I usually roll with a full set of Elite Knight Armor.

 

[Souplex]

Dodging is for chumps.

And people that are interested in that whole 'staying alive' business, the fools!

That's what blocking is for.
Why would you ever dodge when you can block? Dodging will just tire you out leaving you to get slaughtered due to your poor armor that is required for adequate dodging.

Dark Souls hates you yes. But hard work brings it's own rewards!

You stay away from my bridge though. You aren't allowed that ember. No nooooope. Shoo.

But I love using weapons made from your ember. Faith melee builds are where it's at!

 

[gigastar]

* Kalameets flames are all insta kill if they stun lock you and his AoE can hit you serveral times killing you instantly if you are under him
Also, if you are affected by his de-buff spell, all his moves are insta-kill

Thats sort of to be expected from a bonus boss, and an Everlasting Dragon too.

* One of Manus spells is pretty much instakill unless you use the Silver Amulet.

Wrong. Can be dodged with strict timing.

Granted, it is just easier to just use the amulet.

I could go on and on but my point is very clear - they are serveral bosses as well as enemies that have insta-kill moves.
I am not making this up.

I experienced all these on New Game+ when I'm at level 122 with full heavy armor AND using the ring of steel and protection.

Are you actually blocking enemy attacks then? Not just charging in with the Zweihanders overhead smash?

Oh - regarding the Skeleton Dogs.
On the Dark Souls wiki [http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Tomb+of+Giants] this is listed:

The main danger of these enemies lies in their forward flurry attack that has significant range and seems to ignore all armour other than shield (need confirmation, but regardless the damage is insane). It is sometimes possible to block all the damage from this attack (eating most of your stamina) by facing at the right angle with your shield up, but it seems that the attack can sometimes reach around the shield, dealing very heavy damage.

Even with heavy armor and the ring of Steel Protection their charge flurry move is instant death if it connects.
I have on many occations tried to block their attacks and the result is always the same, the attack is so powerful that it drains my stamina instantly, shield is dropped and I take the one-hit-kill instantly resulting in death. Their bites usually stunlocks me so if the first connects; all of the 4 ones will connect resulting in death.

Did you even bother to upgrade endurance? On my first playthrough my char with 30 endurance and a +5 Eagle Shield stopped them dead in thier tracks.

Also the wikispaces Dark Souls wiki is inferior to the wikidot one.

 

[Pebkio]

I got all the way to NG+ and then had to stop. All of those other things were quite doable... akin to smashing a wall down with head but still doable... however, there was one bit that I couldn't beat. I couldn't even come close. I even defeated Ornstein and Smough with relative ease.

The four kings. They defeated me. I could kill the first one just before the second one appears. But that's using most of my magic. Then I have to rely on dodging to melee, which I got good at, but nowhere near enough to do enough damage before a second spawns and then they swarm me... you can't dodge enough. And even though I don't die in one hit, one hit is all it takes... you know what I'm talking about. I died around 20 times over the course of three days and just stopped. Forever.

Oh, and despite what Akuma is talking about... the zombie dogs are one of the easiest mobs in the game. The spiked-wheel skeletons are way worse. Havel was actually quite easy once you know how to secure backstabs.

The only thing I really agree with is the bullshit auto-aim projectiles. I mostly learned how to deal and dodge... but those fracking silver knights with Dragon Bows. There's no dodging that, their arrows (and I've watched this) curve through the air like magic bullets to knock me off the tiny tiny ramparts. Blocking does nothing, I take no damage but slide 10 feet back... into NOTHINGNESS. I have to wait, behind the fence at just the last part, for the guy on the right to shoot into the fence, then I have to cook it over to the corner next to him so I can block without being knocked off... AND hope the guy on the left doesn't come around in time for me to knock the guy on the right off.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Dodging is for chumps.

And people that are interested in that whole 'staying alive' business, the fools!

That's what blocking is for.
Why would you ever dodge when you can block? Dodging will just tire you out leaving you to get slaughtered due to your poor armor that is required for adequate dodging.

Dark Souls hates you yes. But hard work brings it's own rewards!

You stay away from my bridge though. You aren't allowed that ember. No nooooope. Shoo.

But I love using weapons made from your ember. Faith melee builds are where it's at!

Sorry dude it's my job. Along with looking fabulous and sparkly.

I like using the lightning spell but no one ever summons me ;_;

 

[Exius Xavarus]

The only thing I really agree with is the bullshit auto-aim projectiles. I mostly learned how to deal and dodge... but those fracking silver knights with Dragon Bows. There's no dodging that, their arrows (and I've watched this) curve through the air like magic bullets to knock me off the tiny tiny ramparts. Blocking does nothing, I take no damage but slide 10 feet back... into NOTHINGNESS. I have to wait, behind the fence at just the last part, for the guy on the right to shoot into the fence, then I have to cook it over to the corner next to him so I can block without being knocked off... AND hope the guy on the left doesn't come around in time for me to knock the guy on the right off.

After slaying the two Batwing Assholes, you can run up to the pillar and sit behind it until both knights quit firing at you. Quickly make your way around the the rampart and once you get onto it, sprint as fast as you can to the top(as long as you don't stop, the knights will never managed to hit you) and immediately move toward the knight on the right side. Get onto the same curve it's standing on and the other knight to the left won't be firing at you anymore, leaving you free to fight 1 on 1.

Of course, how you deal with the knight itself is entirely up to you. If I have a Greatshield I let his attack bounce off my shield(which quite often results in him recoiling just far enough to fall off the ledge). If not, you can always parry/riposte with no danger of you falling off the ledge.

I've always just found that rushing to the knight on the right(right up to him, not hanging back on the wall and letting him come to you because the knight on the left can and will shoot you) to be the safest and most reliable way of getting past that part.

 

[Dango]

The more I read these threads the more I think people start up Dark Souls, die a few times, and decide to just not like anything in the game ever again.

In my defense, I stopped liking it after the thousandth death, and only then because I realized the death mechanic crippled what little immersion the game let me have.

And even then, after some time to think, I realized that I like the combat.

In defense of your defense, I actually first played Dark Souls when it came out and didn't really like it, then I watched some videos on the lore and decided to buy the Steam version when it was on sale around Christmas. Also yeah, I bought and beat Dark Souls for the story.

 

[Diablo2000]

I got all the way to NG+ and then had to stop. All of those other things were quite doable... akin to smashing a wall down with head but still doable... however, there was one bit that I couldn't beat. I couldn't even come close. I even defeated Ornstein and Smough with relative ease.

The four kings. They defeated me. I could kill the first one just before the second one appears. But that's using most of my magic. Then I have to rely on dodging to melee, which I got good at, but nowhere near enough to do enough damage before a second spawns and then they swarm me... you can't dodge enough. And even though I don't die in one hit, one hit is all it takes... you know what I'm talking about. I died around 20 times over the course of three days and just stopped. Forever.

Oh, and despite what Akuma is talking about... the zombie dogs are one of the easiest mobs in the game. The spiked-wheel skeletons are way worse. Havel was actually quite easy once you know how to secure backstabs.

The only thing I really agree with is the bullshit auto-aim projectiles. I mostly learned how to deal and dodge... but those fracking silver knights with Dragon Bows. There's no dodging that, their arrows (and I've watched this) curve through the air like magic bullets to knock me off the tiny tiny ramparts. Blocking does nothing, I take no damage but slide 10 feet back... into NOTHINGNESS. I have to wait, behind the fence at just the last part, for the guy on the right to shoot into the fence, then I have to cook it over to the corner next to him so I can block without being knocked off... AND hope the guy on the left doesn't come around in time for me to knock the guy on the right off.

I was having a lot of trouble with the Four Kings in NG+, and I was facing them way earlier than I normally would to get the Darkwraiths Covenent archievement. I equiped my most powerful spells, using the Tin Crystal Catalyst and the Bellowing Dragon Ring, I managed to deal 1000 with the Crystal Soul arrows and about 800 with the Crystal Homing Soulmass, so I kept my distance and spawn all magic at then... Still needed to take the last one with melee. What it most sucks about the Four Kings fight is that it takes a ring slot that could be used to boost my stamina or poise, or the Crown Dusk Ring which you made my day much easier, but no... You gotta use the stupid Artorias ring.
I was using the Beatrice set all +5 (Because Beatrice got style and a fucking cape) and the Crest Shield also +5 using the Moonlight Greatsword +5. Had around 28 End, 20 Vit, 18 Srt and 60 Int. I died many, many times, the only reason I beat then was because they were felling sorry for me and deciced not to use their annoying AOE attack to even things out.

The best way I find to deal with the Anor Londor snipers is run at then, dodge their arrows, two hand your weapon and pray for the best. Tried to knock then with Force before but it didn't work... Maybe Wrath of the Gods will, but I don't think you can get it at that point in the game, also there's the Poison Arrow method of dealing with them, but either that would require a very good bow or the Hawk Ring, at that point in the game I have neither so I never tried myself.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I agree with all of that except O&S, which is a glorious challenging boss battle that doesn't so much troll as it does outright own by virtue of there being two bosses. I first noticed the self-correcting arrows in Duke's Archive because you only have a narrow corridor to strafe along and the bastards can correct to probably 60% of the corridor's width by the time they get to you. Ceaseless Discharge is the one boss I seem to have a load more trouble with than anyone else - I use the secret technique every time now, it's not worth fighting him. And the skeleton hounds have dead angled me on more than one occasion, and the stamina used to block their hits is monstrous.

While generally the game will try to ensure bosses don't insta-kill you, there are plenty of times their attack will consist of two motions - Ornstein for example - and will kill you anyway because there's no window to escape in between. Not to mention Ceaseless which will just flat out kill you, unfairness be damned. And Bed of Chaos, which may go unelaborated. Oh and Artorias has one attack I do classify as troll, the jumping spinning repeated smash. If he opts to do it three times and he caught you on the first...bad luck.

Personally I think Titanite Demons are trolls. Their jump and spear attack has a massive hitbox and tracks in midair, and when they swing half the time their tail is just as dangerous as their catchpole. The gang of Titanite Demons in the tar pit of Sen's Fortress adds 3 fucking flamberge serpents to the mix and takes a ring slot for Rusted Iron Ring. There's also the one in the Catacombs that you can't lock on to until you've...'aggro'd' it.

The Centipede Demon has a troll lock-on. It's sporadic at the distance you start at without being able to cross lava, and up close you cannot see what you are doing. I've been eaten by it before purely due to my camera having an aneurysm. Some weapons (thrusting generally) also natively have trouble hitting when locked onto a large humanoid with a space between its legs. These sorts of mechanical difficulties are not supposed to be a factor you have to contend with.

There is a difference, for future reference, between what we are talking about in this thread and difficulty/challenge.