Just about to start Dark Souls, any tips?

[The_Blue_Rider]

have some thing to hit next to you

Always play with my friend Jason sitting with me ;D

 

[Broderick]

So assuming that you're still at the location mentioned in the edit, a few tips:

1) As a pyromancer, you're choice of upgrading vitality, endurance, and strength is good. That said, intelligence isn't exactly useful unless you plan on using sorceries (there are a few weapons as well that scale with intelligence, but those are somewhat late-game) The only other stats I'd think about looking at is dexterity (if you're using strength weapons than just upgrade it for the minimum requirements, but if you're using DEX weapons then definitely upgrade) and attunement (not by much, increases the number of spell slots. I'd recommend maybe 4-6 slots) Also, fun fact, at DEX levels between 30-40, the amount of time necessary to cast pyromancy decreases.

2)If you opened the shortcut from the bridge to the bonfire in the burg, buy a shortbow and about 50 wooden arrows from the undead merchant. Return to the bridge (under it of course) and look for the tail of the giant hellkite. By dual-wielding the bow and pressing L1, you can manually aim the bow. You can fire at the tail of the hellkite, and doing so will eventually cut off the tail and grant you a powerful sword early on.

3) If you're in human form, you can summon two NPCs to help with a boss battle in the Parish. The first can be acquired by speaking to Solaire (the guy looking over the balcony before the bridge) and by speaking to a knight named Lautrec in Firelink Shrine, only after he's saved from the Parish

4) You can upgrade your weapons either at Blacksmiths (one is in a church you can enter near the Parish, another early Blacksmith can be found in New Londo Ruins, before you actually enter the city) or by buying a smithbox from Andrei of Astora, a Blacksmith. Next, you need two things. Proper materials, and souls. For the battle axe, you need titanite shards, which can be bought from Andrei or will drop from some knight enemies near the church.

Thanks for the help, although its a few days too late. Might help somebody else playing for the first time though.

I just got through Blightown into the Valley of Drakes, but I havent killed the boss of Blighttown yet, ill need to go down and do that later.

Also does the starting Pyro armour (Ive upgraded it to +4) make Blighttown easier? Because I didnt find the area as hard as people say it is. And I'd like to think its because of the poison resistance on my armour

When people talk about the difficulty of Blight town, I think they are specifically talking about the trip down to the swamps. The way you took was actually the back entrance, a much, much easier way to get down. Using the main entrance, it can take quite a long time for a new player to figure out where the hell to go,. Trying to kill/avoid the toxic blowdart dudes does not make it any easier heh.

As for the upgraded armor? I dont remember if it adds poison resistance, but the poison damage is very little as is, so I suppose it helps, even if the help is not exactly that needed.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

So assuming that you're still at the location mentioned in the edit, a few tips:

1) As a pyromancer, you're choice of upgrading vitality, endurance, and strength is good. That said, intelligence isn't exactly useful unless you plan on using sorceries (there are a few weapons as well that scale with intelligence, but those are somewhat late-game) The only other stats I'd think about looking at is dexterity (if you're using strength weapons than just upgrade it for the minimum requirements, but if you're using DEX weapons then definitely upgrade) and attunement (not by much, increases the number of spell slots. I'd recommend maybe 4-6 slots) Also, fun fact, at DEX levels between 30-40, the amount of time necessary to cast pyromancy decreases.

2)If you opened the shortcut from the bridge to the bonfire in the burg, buy a shortbow and about 50 wooden arrows from the undead merchant. Return to the bridge (under it of course) and look for the tail of the giant hellkite. By dual-wielding the bow and pressing L1, you can manually aim the bow. You can fire at the tail of the hellkite, and doing so will eventually cut off the tail and grant you a powerful sword early on.

3) If you're in human form, you can summon two NPCs to help with a boss battle in the Parish. The first can be acquired by speaking to Solaire (the guy looking over the balcony before the bridge) and by speaking to a knight named Lautrec in Firelink Shrine, only after he's saved from the Parish

4) You can upgrade your weapons either at Blacksmiths (one is in a church you can enter near the Parish, another early Blacksmith can be found in New Londo Ruins, before you actually enter the city) or by buying a smithbox from Andrei of Astora, a Blacksmith. Next, you need two things. Proper materials, and souls. For the battle axe, you need titanite shards, which can be bought from Andrei or will drop from some knight enemies near the church.

Thanks for the help, although its a few days too late. Might help somebody else playing for the first time though.

I just got through Blightown into the Valley of Drakes, but I havent killed the boss of Blighttown yet, ill need to go down and do that later.

Also does the starting Pyro armour (Ive upgraded it to +4) make Blighttown easier? Because I didnt find the area as hard as people say it is. And I'd like to think its because of the poison resistance on my armour

When people talk about the difficulty of Blight town, I think they are specifically talking about the trip down to the swamps. The way you took was actually the back entrance, a much, much easier way to get down. Using the main entrance, it can take quite a long time for a new player to figure out where the hell to go,. Trying to kill/avoid the toxic blowdart dudes does not make it any easier heh.

As for the upgraded armor? I dont remember if it adds poison resistance, but the poison damage is very little as is, so I suppose it helps, even if the help is not exactly that needed.

Oh what I meant was, I had entered Blighttown from the Depths, and worked my way through until I exited through the Valley of Drakes, I didnt find the boss area whilst I was down in the swamps. It probably took me about 2 hours but I navigated my way through Blighttown without too much difficulty.

There were a few player messages down in the swamps that helped though, ie it let me know where the safe areas were if there was writing, and some kind soul even left a path to the bonfire

 

[Broderick]

So assuming that you're still at the location mentioned in the edit, a few tips:

1) As a pyromancer, you're choice of upgrading vitality, endurance, and strength is good. That said, intelligence isn't exactly useful unless you plan on using sorceries (there are a few weapons as well that scale with intelligence, but those are somewhat late-game) The only other stats I'd think about looking at is dexterity (if you're using strength weapons than just upgrade it for the minimum requirements, but if you're using DEX weapons then definitely upgrade) and attunement (not by much, increases the number of spell slots. I'd recommend maybe 4-6 slots) Also, fun fact, at DEX levels between 30-40, the amount of time necessary to cast pyromancy decreases.

2)If you opened the shortcut from the bridge to the bonfire in the burg, buy a shortbow and about 50 wooden arrows from the undead merchant. Return to the bridge (under it of course) and look for the tail of the giant hellkite. By dual-wielding the bow and pressing L1, you can manually aim the bow. You can fire at the tail of the hellkite, and doing so will eventually cut off the tail and grant you a powerful sword early on.

3) If you're in human form, you can summon two NPCs to help with a boss battle in the Parish. The first can be acquired by speaking to Solaire (the guy looking over the balcony before the bridge) and by speaking to a knight named Lautrec in Firelink Shrine, only after he's saved from the Parish

4) You can upgrade your weapons either at Blacksmiths (one is in a church you can enter near the Parish, another early Blacksmith can be found in New Londo Ruins, before you actually enter the city) or by buying a smithbox from Andrei of Astora, a Blacksmith. Next, you need two things. Proper materials, and souls. For the battle axe, you need titanite shards, which can be bought from Andrei or will drop from some knight enemies near the church.

Thanks for the help, although its a few days too late. Might help somebody else playing for the first time though.

I just got through Blightown into the Valley of Drakes, but I havent killed the boss of Blighttown yet, ill need to go down and do that later.

Also does the starting Pyro armour (Ive upgraded it to +4) make Blighttown easier? Because I didnt find the area as hard as people say it is. And I'd like to think its because of the poison resistance on my armour

When people talk about the difficulty of Blight town, I think they are specifically talking about the trip down to the swamps. The way you took was actually the back entrance, a much, much easier way to get down. Using the main entrance, it can take quite a long time for a new player to figure out where the hell to go,. Trying to kill/avoid the toxic blowdart dudes does not make it any easier heh.

As for the upgraded armor? I dont remember if it adds poison resistance, but the poison damage is very little as is, so I suppose it helps, even if the help is not exactly that needed.

Oh what I meant was, I had entered Blighttown from the Depths, and worked my way through until I exited through the Valley of Drakes, I didnt find the boss area whilst I was down in the swamps. It probably took me about 2 hours but I navigated my way through Blighttown without too much difficulty.

There were a few player messages down in the swamps that helped though, ie it let me know where the safe areas were if there was writing, and some kind soul even left a path to the bonfire

Ah, in that case well done. I did not find the area too hard myself, it was just the blow darters and finding where the hell to go. A lot of console players did not like the area either because it had HUGE lag apparently, and would slow down almost constantly there. That is pretty much the only difficulty to blight town though, other than trying not to fall off.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

snip

The lag was annoying, but there were never hordes of enemies that would make the area impossible. The Blowdarters were horrible but at least they didnt respawn. The most annoying thing for me (Even though I guess it isnt Blighttowns fault was how

Spoiler: Lautrec spoilers

How when you pick up the FireKeepers soul or beat the boss, Knight Marshall Douchebag Lautrec kills the Firekeeper

 

[Broderick]

snip

The lag was annoying, but there were never hordes of enemies that would make the area impossible. The Blowdarters were horrible but at least they didnt respawn. The most annoying thing for me (Even though I guess it isnt Blighttowns fault was how

Spoiler: Lautrec spoilers

How when you pick up the FireKeepers soul or beat the boss, Knight Marshall Douchebag Lautrec kills the Firekeeper

Yeah, although because of that, you can get a nifty set of armor later. You can actually prevent

Spoiler

the death of the fire keeper by killing Lautrec

before ringing both the bells. I usually just let him do it though. I am unsure how far you are in the game at this moment, but later on you can

Spoiler

get the fire keepers soul back and return it to her

. Just be sure when you do get it back to not use it. The game never really throws tons of enemies at you; the few times it does, they are usually very weak or can be bypassed.

 

[Windcaler]

snip

The lag was annoying, but there were never hordes of enemies that would make the area impossible. The Blowdarters were horrible but at least they didnt respawn. The most annoying thing for me (Even though I guess it isnt Blighttowns fault was how

Spoiler: Lautrec spoilers

How when you pick up the FireKeepers soul or beat the boss, Knight Marshall Douchebag Lautrec kills the Firekeeper

That is a pain for a bit, luckily by that point Sen's fortress is open. Luckily you can get the dingy set (a cloth set with nice curse resistance) and the Favored set (a light-medium set that looks cool) by the time you finish it

 

[Eternal_Lament]

Thanks for the help, although its a few days too late. Might help somebody else playing for the first time though.

I just got through Blightown into the Valley of Drakes, but I havent killed the boss of Blighttown yet, ill need to go down and do that later.

Also does the starting Pyro armour (Ive upgraded it to +4) make Blighttown easier? Because I didnt find the area as hard as people say it is. And I'd like to think its because of the poison resistance on my armour

As was mentioned, going through the back-entrance makes Blighttown easier. But the normal way, as you probably saw, is indeed possible. The upgraded Pyro set is useful in that it resists a ton of poison, so that helps (except for those asshole blow-dart men) Speaking of which, this may be irrelevant, but fun fact. There's a consumable item called a Dung Pie, that when used increases your enemy's toxic gauge, but targets you as well. If you do this, you will become toxic, but the rate of health-drain is lower than other forms of inflicting toxic that you essentially immunize yourself against the blow-dart men, since your already toxic and their super-special strain can't target you. Probably not useful at this point, but fun none the less.

If you haven't killed the boss yet, I suggest you do this: from the bonfire in the swamp area, turn human and wait near the entrance to that tunnel for a bit (leading out to the swamp) You'll be invaded by an NPC Black Phantom (not to troublesome, but their attacks are heavy hitting) If you kill the Black Phantom, then a White Phantom summon will be available right outside the boss' door.

Finally, after you beat the boss, when you ring the bell of awakening, there are some stairs that you can go down that lead to an area with only a tunnel to a high-level area. However, there is a wall surrounded by eggs that, if rolled through, will disappear. It leads you to a covenant that, while not very involved in online play, does grant you two powerful pyromancies, one from just joining and another from offering 30 Humanity. Each one though does take up 2 attunement slots, so be wary of that.