Dark Souls - More like Dark Trolls

[NeutralDrow]

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.

Hmm...okay, so if I pump endurance, I can expect 80 without equipment, and I probably would use Havel's Ring. Cool, now I can start looking up specific armors for my character concept.

Then, I will be able to tell just how heavy <color=red>DIRK DICKPUNCH AND HIS <color=gray>FISTS OF STEEL can roll. Cesti aren't that heavy, so they shouldn't be a problem, and it'd probably fit character concept more if he used throwing knives instead of a ranged weapon. And a pyromancer fist would do nicely as a last resort mumble mumble...

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.

Ah, those guys. I actually managed to beat them on my third try, possibly through sheer luck...and the fact that I had 40 Dex and Queelag's Furysword. Once my ranged combat stopped working (I've barely broken into magic builds, yet, but I spent the middle third of the game shooting everything with a bow), I suddenly learned that I could turn myself into an effective glass cannon. It worked astonishingly well later against Nito, too.

Odd, though. I don't remember the kings ever swarming me. I'm not sure if I just managed to kill them fast enough (I know I was facing at least three at a time), or if the others just used ranged attacks on me.

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.

I think he was talking about the quadripedal skeletons in the catacombs, actually. I didn't realize those were giant dogs, but they did make life a little worse for me (less than normal, since their eyes glow in the dark, and I was a very good shot).

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.

The Steam version is what I had, and the story was actually my problem. To my way of thinking, Dark Souls doesn't have a story. That lore is essentially all it has, so it's backstory, if you will. I saw parts of those videos, saw people here and on TV Tropes talk about other aspects, and I read a lot of the item descriptions myself.

The problem was, I didn't care. I couldn't care. I can get that sort of story by reading tabletop RPG sourcebooks (which I do, it's a quirk of mine), but in a game I expect to actually be vested in the plot. My character has essentially no motivation for doing anything besides "why the hell not?" for the first half of the game and "because a giant snake said so" for the second half, and since she also has no personality and no opportunity for me to invest my own ala a Bethesda RPG, I couldn't really get immersed through her. None of my actions are really of consequence until the late game, since except for the last four bosses I'm just killing things because they're in my way (the best that can happen is that I know why they're in one particular spot). And the only NPCs I could interact with often enough and in such a way as to care about were Andre and Siegmeyer, so I couldn't get a sense of life from them overall.

The backstory of Dark Souls is great for showing why everything has gone to crap and stagnated there, but it felt like none of it had anything to do with me, the player. I was trying to be an adventurer, but the story called for a librarian or an anthropologist. As a world on its own, it's fascinating, but I wasn't a part of it. Combined with the occasional difficulty spike, death due to camera position, having no clue where to go, and (I still insist) pointlessly frustrating death mechanic, and I just couldn't get immersed in Dark Souls. It's why I'm really hoping Dark Souls II's story will be more...overt, let's say. There's nothing keeping a game from being clear and having extensive lore that can be pieced together (Soulbringer managed to do that).

But the combat is good. Also, none of the above complaints apply to the ending (at least, the one I got, which I loved[footnote]

Spoiler

LET TRUE DARK BE CAST UPON THE WORLD!

[/footnote]) or to the DLC (which I never found).

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Hmm...okay, so if I pump endurance, I can expect 80 without equipment, and I probably would use Havel's Ring. Cool, now I can start looking up specific armors for my character concept.

Then, I will be able to tell just how heavy <color=red>DIRK DICKPUNCH AND HIS <color=gray>FISTS OF STEEL can roll. Cesti aren't that heavy, so they shouldn't be a problem, and it'd probably fit character concept more if he used throwing knives instead of a ranged weapon. And a pyromancer fist would do nicely as a last resort mumble mumble...

With 120 burden, you can do the fastest roll until you exceed 30. I don't pretend to know what your whole character concept is, but Elite Knight is a pretty solid armor choice. The full set weighs 26.8 pounds. And if you're going to use Pyromancy, you can even knock off 4.1 pounds by replacing the Elite Knight Helmet with the Crown of Dusk, which offers +20% spell damage(works with sorceries, pyromancies and miracles). And even without the helmet, you'd have 38 poise which would be helpful.

But the combat is good. Also, none of the above complaints apply to the ending (at least, the one I got, which I loved) or to the DLC (which I never found).

The whole Artorias of the Abyss bit is the DLC. The whole thing where Manus pulls you through time. It's a natural part of the PC version of Dark Souls, but it's not originally a part of the console version of the game and was thus sold to us for $15 as DLC. ._.

 

[loa]

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.

Try getting the fog ring by trading with snuggly or the hidden body spell and run straight to the right one.
They will probably not even shoot at you once.
If you have enough int, you can soul spear him to death without risk (or just use pyromancy) since you can lock on to him just outside of his sight radius.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Hmm...okay, so if I pump endurance, I can expect 80 without equipment, and I probably would use Havel's Ring. Cool, now I can start looking up specific armors for my character concept.

Then, I will be able to tell just how heavy <color=red>DIRK DICKPUNCH AND HIS <color=gray>FISTS OF STEEL can roll. Cesti aren't that heavy, so they shouldn't be a problem, and it'd probably fit character concept more if he used throwing knives instead of a ranged weapon. And a pyromancer fist would do nicely as a last resort mumble mumble...

With 120 burden, you can do the fastest roll until you exceed 30. I don't pretend to know what your whole character concept is, but Elite Knight is a pretty solid armor choice. The full set weighs 26.8 pounds. And if you're going to use Pyromancy, you can even knock off 4.1 pounds by replacing the Elite Knight Helmet with the Crown of Dusk, which offers +20% spell damage(works with sorceries, pyromancies and miracles). And even without the helmet, you'd have 38 poise which would be helpful.

For the character in question, pyromancy would just be side thing (I actually do have a pyromancer character, though not advanced very far), just an excuse to have more than two weapon slots filled. I'm mostly going for the two-fisted brawling. Actually...with that amount of poise, I know I could even get away with not using a shield most of the time, so thanks for the recommendation.

But the combat is good. Also, none of the above complaints apply to the ending (at least, the one I got, which I loved) or to the DLC (which I never found).

The whole Artorias of the Abyss bit is the DLC. The whole thing where Manus pulls you through time. It's a natural part of the PC version of Dark Souls, but it's not originally a part of the console version of the game and was thus sold to us for $15 as DLC. ._.

It's not a natural part of the PC progression, though, unless I managed to sequence break somewhere without realizing it. The only place I know I sequence broke was killing Sif before getting the lordvessel (actually, even before reaching Sen's Fortress), but I don't see how that could have done it.

From what I understand, though (based on other peoples' hints, since the wiki is bizarrely vague on the DLC), I needed to:

1) Kill the hydra (check).
2) Return the hydra area and kill the golden golem (check).
3) Kill a crystal golem in the Duke's Archives (check).
4) Return to the hydra area a third time (why in the hell would I have done this?).
5) ???
6) Profit?

Since I kind of assumed it would come up naturally (the DLC being part of the reason I didn't just eat the $40 I spent on Steam and just buy the 360 version for better gameplay), I didn't think about the DLC after a certain point, until someone told me (three hours too late) to head back to Darkroot Basin. I got unwittingly lost around step 3, since I didn't play the console version, so I had no idea there was something odd about the crystal golem or its drop.

 

[syaoran728]

It's not a natural part of the PC progression, though, unless I managed to sequence break somewhere without realizing it. The only place I know I sequence broke was killing Sif before getting the lordvessel (actually, even before reaching Sen's Fortress), but I don't see how that could have done it.

From what I understand, though (based on other peoples' hints, since the wiki is bizarrely vague on the DLC), I needed to:

1) Kill the hydra (check).
2) Return the hydra area and kill the golden golem (check).
3) Kill a crystal golem in the Duke's Archives (check).
4) Return to the hydra area a third time (why in the hell would I have done this?).
5) ???
6) Profit?

Since I kind of assumed it would come up naturally (the DLC being part of the reason I didn't just eat the $40 I spent on Steam and just buy the 360 version for better gameplay), I didn't think about the DLC after a certain point, until someone told me (three hours too late) to head back to Darkroot Basin. I got unwittingly lost around step 3, since I didn't play the console version, so I had no idea there was something odd about the crystal golem or its drop.

After killing the Golden Golem by the lake you unlock a useful magic shop that foreshadows the DLC.

 

[NeutralDrow]

After killing the Golden Golem by the lake you unlock a useful magic shop that foreshadows the DLC.

Where might this magic shop be?

 

[Diablo2000]

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.

Try getting the fog ring by trading with snuggly or the hidden body spell and run straight to the right one.
They will probably not even shoot at you once.
If you have enough int, you can soul spear him to death without risk (or just use pyromancy) since you can lock on to him just outside of his sight radius.

That's actually a good idea... Pretty good one in fact. I wish I had thought of that.
I will try that on my character, he has a couple Lanterns to spare...

After killing the Golden Golem by the lake you unlock a useful magic shop that foreshadows the DLC.

Where might this magic shop be?

After you kill the Hydra, you quit and reload, go the left in the water, you see the Golden Golem in a bit. He's tougher than regular Golems so be on your guard, the Rusted Iron Rings you be a huge help to you in this fight. You will find Dusk's summon sign near the lake by a rock, she sells a couple of good spells and others shitty ones, and very useless Catalyst.
You need to came back here in order to acess the DLC after you get the Broken Pendant from the Blue Golem into the beggining of Duke's Archives.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Kupo!

Actually, short of getting into Sen's Fortress before ringing the bells or getting into the gold fog areas before placing Lordvessel, there's no such thing as sequence breaking. You can kill Sif before even ringing the first bell(or fighting the Hydra if you farm the souls you need for the crest). Hell, if you're good enough, you can kill Four Kings and get his Lord Soul Fragment before you ever set foot into Undead Burg.

The DLC is entirely optional and you don't have to do it at all and can complete the game without bothering. What I meant was that it's naturally part of the game for the PC version, as in there is no PC version of the game that lacks the DLC. Whereas it's grafted into the console version via DLC.

Also also if you don't have any specific rings in mind, I would also recommend the Wolf Ring, as well. The Wolf Ring gives you straight up 40 poise. That's the whole effect. Equip it for 40 poise. Actually, now that I think on it, it would actually be a pretty good combo. 38 poise from the Elite Knight(46 poise if you wear the whole set) +40 from the Wolf Ring would give you 78 poise(86 if you wear the full Elite Knight). 78 poise is enough to weather one shot from an Ultra Greatsword without being staggered.

After killing the Golden Golem by the lake you unlock a useful magic shop that foreshadows the DLC.

Where might this magic shop be?

Dusk of Oolacile, herself. She sells to you sorceries developed in Oolacile, after you rescue her.

 

[NeutralDrow]

After killing the Golden Golem by the lake you unlock a useful magic shop that foreshadows the DLC.

Where might this magic shop be?

After you kill the Hydra, you quit and reload, go the left in the water, you see the Golden Golem in a bit. He's tougher than regular Golems so be on your guard, the Rusted Iron Rings you be a huge help to you in this fight. You will find Dusk's summon sign near the lake by a rock, she sells a couple of good spells and others shitty ones, and very useless Catalyst.
You need to came back here in order to acess the DLC after you get the Broken Pendant from the Blue Golem into the beggining of Duke's Archives.

Yeah, I did all that just normally (the Golden Golem wasn't that hard, even in the water; I still had a fast roll, a long-range baldr sidesword, and an enemy that telegraphed everything), except for the whole "going back to the hydra area a third time." I don't remember if I tried buying things from Dusk, but if I did, none of it was stuff I was interested in, so I only spoke with her once.

Actually, short of getting into Sen's Fortress before ringing the bells or getting into the gold fog areas before placing Lordvessel, there's no such thing as sequence breaking. You can kill Sif before even ringing the first bell(or fighting the Hydra if you farm the souls you need for the crest). Hell, if you're good enough, you can kill Four Kings and get his Lord Soul Fragment before you ever set foot into Undead Burg.

Ah, I see. I assumed that was a sequence break when people started asking me why I wasn't sad over killing Sif. Apparently someone in-game would have told me what she's doing there and why she attacked when I got near that giant sword, and I would presumably have felt like crap. As it was, I just wandered there out of curiosity, got jumped by a giant wolf out of nowhere, and eventually killed it in celebration of finally getting my framerate to stabilize (it was a completely impossible fight without that).

The DLC is entirely optional and you don't have to do it at all and can complete the game without bothering. What I meant was that it's naturally part of the game for the PC version, as in there is no PC version of the game that lacks the DLC. Whereas it's grafted into the console version via DLC.

Ah, my mistake. I thought you were implying I had run into it and just didn't recognize it.

Also also if you don't have any specific rings in mind, I would also recommend the Wolf Ring, as well. The Wolf Ring gives you straight up 40 poise. That's the whole effect. Equip it for 40 poise. Actually, now that I think on it, it would actually be a pretty good combo. 38 poise from the Elite Knight(46 poise if you wear the whole set) +40 from the Wolf Ring would give you 78 poise(86 if you wear the full Elite Knight). 78 poise is enough to weather one shot from an Ultra Greatsword without being staggered.

Hmm, I don't think I found that one on my first run. Might have been nice then, since I stuck with the poiseless Wanderer armor the whole game, though I was pretty happy with the stealth, defense, and riposte-boosting rings.

For someone wearing heavier armor, though, that sounds fantastic. I'll keep it in mind.

After killing the Golden Golem by the lake you unlock a useful magic shop that foreshadows the DLC.

Where might this magic shop be?

Dusk of Oolacile, herself. She sells to you sorceries developed in Oolacile, after you rescue her.

Ah, no wonder I missed any foreshadowing. I wasn't in the market for sorceries, so I took her at her word when she implied she was leaving, and didn't think to return.

 

[Racecarlock]

Well I see the hardcore gamers are already out to prove their ballsiness.

"You have to use the nisful of nulfane found in the dungeon of skurgifor to narful the garthok!"

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I'm kupo for Kupo Nuts(I think normal snips are boring, if you couldn't already tell)!

You get a different scene before you fight Sif, if you saved him in the DLC(Sif is male, btw). You get a more personal scene and that's where the deal about being sad over killing Sif comes from.

And the only real forshadowing of the DLC is that Dusk tells you she's from Oolacile, that's about it. It's understandable for someone not to see "HEY! THIS IS WHERE THE DLC'S ENTRANCE IS AT!" because it's not particularly obvious how you'd go about accessing it.

As for the Wolf Ring, it's pretty easy to miss. When you pass the small grove containing three Bushmen and a consumable soul on the ground, you should enter the area just before the tower leading to the Moonlight Butterfly boss fight. Hang a sharp right the moment you enter and you'll see a big tree that you can kill(on rare occasions, it won't be there) and there's a passage behind it. Go down there and just follow the path, basically. It's a pretty sexy ring if you can afford the ring slot.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

You get a different scene before you fight Sif, if you saved him in the DLC(Sif is male, btw).

I always fund it weird he had a girls name, so I always called he a she and will continue to do so

 

[NeutralDrow]

Well I see the hardcore gamers are already out to prove their ballsiness.

"You have to use the nisful of nulfane found in the dungeon of skurgifor to narful the garthok!"

Don't forget to read the item description of the nisful and the related tchotchkes if you want to find out that the garthok was possibly the servant of the murdered god Simoslax who invented a sorcery that could purify the land and create breath mints out of thin air!

I'm kupo for Kupo Nuts(I think normal snips are boring, if you couldn't already tell)!

You get a different scene before you fight Sif, if you saved him in the DLC(Sif is male, btw). You get a more personal scene and that's where the deal about being sad over killing Sif comes from.

Male? Weird, I always assumed it was female, because it's named after Thor's wife.

Okay, further evidence that the DLC might actually have the player investment I couldn't get from the main game.

As for the Wolf Ring, it's pretty easy to miss. When you pass the small grove containing three Bushmen and a consumable soul on the ground, you should enter the area just before the tower leading to the Moonlight Butterfly boss fight. Hang a sharp right the moment you enter and you'll see a big tree that you can kill(on rare occasions, it won't be there) and there's a passage behind it. Go down there and just follow the path, basically. It's a pretty sexy ring if you can afford the ring slot.

Huh, I thought I went over that area with a bloodstained, fine-toothed comb. Maybe I did find it on my first character, and didn't understand the implications...oh well, I know I don't have it on my two-fisted brawler, so that'll be one of my first orders of business.

Assuming I can take on or avoid the treants and iron golems.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Kweh!

I always assumed Sif was male because that how I'd always seen him referred to.

The Wolf Ring can be missed, sometimes easily. The ledge at the end where you jump back into the previous area of Darkroot is where the ring's located.

 

[CyberAkuma]

I really dislike the drop rates of the enemies in the game.
It is borderline similar to the drop-rates of Diablo III.
Tatinite Slabs for instance - the material you need to upgrade your gear is pretty much impossible to find.

Even with humanity popped up to 10 using the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring AND Symbol of Avarice the Darkwraiths in New Londo Ruins *NEVER* drop the slabs I need.
They drop chunks fairly often which is good but the slabs? No way in hell I'm getting that apprently.

 

[Church185]

Well I see the hardcore gamers are already out to prove their ballsiness.

"You have to use the nisful of nulfane found in the dungeon of skurgifor to narful the garthok!"

The vast majority of the people you are calling "hardcore" are just trying to offer advice and be helpful.

 

[Church185]

I really dislike the drop rates of the enemies in the game.
It is borderline similar to the drop-rates of Diablo III.
Tatinite Slabs for instance - the material you need to upgrade your gear is pretty much impossible to find.

Even with humanity popped up to 10 using the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring AND Symbol of Avarice the Darkwraiths in New Londo Ruins *NEVER* drop the slabs I need.
They drop chunks fairly often which is good but the slabs? No way in hell I'm getting that apprently.

I'll give you that one. Farming slabs is a huge pain, but I have managed to skirt this a little bit by connecting with the community and trading online. Each playthrough there is a place where you can get a slab of each color as an item pick up instead of farming for a drop, and I don't usually need all of the different colors, so I trade for a the colors I do need.

Sadly I don't have a solution for people who play offline though. Farming Darkwraiths, Crystal Butterflys, Pinwheel Servants or Chaos Eaters isn't fun at all.

 

[Racecarlock]

Well I see the hardcore gamers are already out to prove their ballsiness.

"You have to use the nisful of nulfane found in the dungeon of skurgifor to narful the garthok!"

The vast majority of the people you are calling "hardcore" are just trying to offer advice and be helpful.

Most of the people I've seen are just in the thread to tell him he sucks. Sure, some of them offer advice while they're doing so.

But mainly I wanted to make a joke out of the fact that I had no idea about any of the items, locations, or enemies they're talking about, and what this looks like to an outsider.

 

[Church185]

Most of the people I've seen are just in the thread to tell him he sucks. Sure, some of them offer advice while they're doing so.

But mainly I wanted to make a joke out of the fact that I had no idea about any of the items, locations, or enemies they're talking about, and what this looks like to an outsider.

I see just as many posters in these threads here to bash the "hardcore" Dark Souls fans, check the very first response to this thread as an example. I'm sick of the stereotype, and it is making me want to stop helping people who have trouble, like the OP.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

I've been playing DS on NG+ recently, was surprised at how easy it all seemed to be honest, only bosses that caused me trouble was Manus, for some reason I am unable to act properly even though I know how to avoid his shit, he messes with my head.

I guess what I'm trying to say is Manus is my nemesis...
The biggest troll moment for me is without a doubt how dying on Dark Sun Gwyndolin works. Regardless of where you rested you get ported to Anor Londo bonfire where the firekeeper is now hostile, and you had to move the walkway so you have to go the long way around...

I will agree the auto aim of the enemies isn't perfect, but this usually only goes wrong when I've accidentally gotten a little too close and do some evasive stuff and they pull some strange spinning on their own axis trick and end up landing their attack in the opposite direction of where I end up yet still hitting me, but I use a tanky str build so it will almost never oneshot me.

In regards to Havel you will notice if you use the Dragon Tooth or another Great Hammer that your attacks work the same way, with auto aim enabled you will readjust your swing to wards your target after the pre-swing or what you might call it.

I always respawned at the Darkmoon bonfire right front of Gwyndolin... maybe you should have waited until you killed him before killing Gwynevere.