Need advice about Dark Souls

[Rheinmetall]

Hello fellow Escapists.
I'm recording my playthrough of the game for YouTube and I'm at the point right after I defeated fatboy and slim (aka Ornstein & Smough). I have 50.000 souls in hand after defeating the bosses and I stopped at the bonfire right outside the chamber of the "gifted" Lady. So here are my choices:

1. Teleport to Blighttown find Queelana and ascend my flame from +15 to the new powerfull one and perhaps spend the rest of the souls to enhance it further. It makes sense because my style of play is mainly as a sorcerer/pyromancer.

2. Buy the Ornstein's armour which is really cool and fancy. I'd love to capture my videos wearing that outfit. But I don't know if it's the best choice, in the sense that I don't have high Endurance stats to wear heavy armour and I don't want to spend one ring slot with the Havel's Ring. I usually choose the ring that boosts sorcery and in the next slot whatever is appropriate depending on the circumstances.

3. Use the souls to level up a bit (I'm 42 at the moment) and proceed to the Painted World of Ariamis and later in other optional areas that I haven't cleared such as the two underground areas in Blighttown, or to the new areas of the Prepare to Die Edition. (I can't go to the Catacombs since I haven't found the Divine ember yet.)

4. Go to the Giant Blacksmith and create a boss weapon that will make my playthrough easier. Right now I possess the Butterfly soul, the Iron Golem, Queelag and Ornstein.

I have also to think about the next tough battle with Great Grey Wolf Sif. What do I really need for this battle? Higher stats, good weapon, or good armour?

So what do you think?
Thanks!

 

[hazabaza1]

Was it a blind playthrough?
If so- Stop right now, delete all the videos, come back after finishing the game and do it again.

Otherwise...
Go do the Ariamis bit. It's a cool areas.

 

[ManiacDiscord]

Are you nutes haz, blind playthroughs are the best.

On topic though, what your build so far?

 

[Rheinmetall]

Was it a blind playthrough?
If so- Stop right now, delete all the videos, come back after finishing the game and do it again.

Otherwise...
Go do the Ariamis bit. It's a cool areas.

No I wouldn't say it's a blind playthrough because I have completed the game many times before, so roughly I know what to expect, but I don't have a very clear plan from the start either. Basically I play as a Sorcerer/Pyromancer and in the back of my mind I'm thinking of the Four Kings Battle, and little by little I'm preparing myself for that. Meaning, grow strong as a pyromancer and choose the single ring that I will be able to equip in this battle. But there are a lot of other decisions that I must take before reaching that battle...

 

[hazabaza1]

blind playthroughs are the best.

NO

Was it a blind playthrough?
If so- Stop right now, delete all the videos, come back after finishing the game and do it again.

Otherwise...
Go do the Ariamis bit. It's a cool areas.

No I wouldn't say it's a blind playthrough because I have completed the game many times before, so roughly I know what to expect, but I don't have a very clear plan from the start either. Basically I play as a Sorcerer/Pyromancer and in the back of my mind I'm thinking of the Four Kings Battle, and little by little I'm preparing myself for that. Meaning, grow strong as a pyromancer and choose the single ring that I will be able to equip in this battle. But there are a lot of other decisions that I must take before reaching that battle...

So long as it's not blind, whatever, just make sure you're doing good and having fun.

Seriously, fuck anyone who does blind LPs of Dark Souls.

 

[Rheinmetall]

Are you nutes haz, blind playthroughs are the best.

On topic though, what your build so far?

Level 42

Vitality 18
Attunement 16
Endurance 16
Strenght 14
Dexterity 14
Resistance 9
Intelligence 26
Faith 8

Weapons: Magic Partizan +4/Longsword +10, Oolacile Ivory Catalyst, Pyromancy Flame +15, Silver Knight Shield
Armour: Gargoyle Helm +4 and for the other parts of the body it depends on the circumstances, but usually light sets like the Crimson set, or the Gold Hemmed, or even naked in some boss battles.

 

[Rheinmetall]

Hello fellow Escapists.
I'm recording my playthrough of the game for YouTube and I'm at the point right after I defeated fatboy and slim (aka Ornstein & Smough). I have 50.000 souls in hand after defeating the bosses and I stopped at the bonfire right outside the chamber of the "gifted" Lady. So here are my choices:

1. Teleport to Blighttown find Queelana and ascend my flame from +15 to the new powerfull one and perhaps spend the rest of the souls to enhance it further. It makes sense because my style of play is mainly as a sorcerer/pyromancer.

2. Buy the Ornstein's armour which is really cool and fancy. I'd love to capture my videos wearing that outfit. But I don't know if it's the best choice, in the sense that I don't have high Endurance stats to wear heavy armour and I don't want to spend one ring slot with the Havel's Ring. I usually choose the ring that boosts sorcery and in the next slot whatever is appropriate depending on the circumstances.

3. Use the souls to level up a bit (I'm 42 at the moment) and proceed to the Painted World of Ariamis and later in other optional areas that I haven't cleared such as the two underground areas in Blighttown, or to the new areas of the Prepare to Die Edition. (I can't go to the Catacombs since I haven't found the Divine ember yet.)

4. Go to the Giant Blacksmith and create a boss weapon that will make my playthrough easier. Right now I possess the Butterfly soul, the Iron Golem, Queelag and Ornstein.

I have also to think about the next tough battle with Great Grey Wolf Sif. What do I really need for this battle? Higher stats, good weapon, or good armour?

So what do you think?
Thanks!

If you beat O&S already, Sif should be a cakewalk. If you like to play pyro, i would upgrade the glove as fast as possible and get the queelag sword. Whatver you do dont get the armor, its antithetical to your playstyle. I would wear the wraith armor, then spend the rest on upgrading your endurance and vital

So I'm going to do in this order: 1. Go to Queelana and ascend the flame, 2. Clear one optional area to gather some souls, (I'm thinking of Ariamis) 3. With the souls gained go to the Giant Blacksmith and make the Queelag Sword.
The thing with the Queelag Sword is that it scales with Humanities, at least that I have read in the Dark Souls Wiki, but the problem with me is that I rarely have more than one humanity (except those that I have stored), because I often die and lose my souls and humanities, so is this sword useful for my style of play?

About Sif, the truth is that I am really very bad in close quarters battles, and that's why I fight bosses from a safe distance with spells. Sif is very agile to hit him with spells, so before fighting him I must adjust my build just for this battle and possibly spend some souls on HP and Endurance,and upgrade one good shield.

 

[hazabaza1]

blind playthroughs are the best.

NO

Was it a blind playthrough?
If so- Stop right now, delete all the videos, come back after finishing the game and do it again.

Otherwise...
Go do the Ariamis bit. It's a cool areas.

So long as it's not blind, whatever, just make sure you're doing good and having fun.

Seriously, fuck anyone who does blind LPs of Dark Souls.

What the fuck are you on about? The best part of Dark Souls is the learning experience. I don't want to watch hundreds of identical playhtroughs where everyone already knows where to go.

Just go search for a blind playthrough. Most of them are people not editing anything and overreacting when they die and spending fucking hours trying to beat one god damned boss and sucking dick while doing it.
Playing the game yourself is fantastic, and my first playthrough was one of the best gaming experiences in my life, mainly because I used minimal to no outside help, but I don't want to watch some stupid pricks prancing about doing shit and blaming a game because they're bad.
If you're going to do a blind LP of Dark Souls you should at the very least have played and finished Demon's Souls.

 

[Windcaler]

Hello fellow Escapists.
I'm recording my playthrough of the game for YouTube and I'm at the point right after I defeated fatboy and slim (aka Ornstein & Smough). I have 50.000 souls in hand after defeating the bosses and I stopped at the bonfire right outside the chamber of the "gifted" Lady. So here are my choices:

1. Teleport to Blighttown find Queelana and ascend my flame from +15 to the new powerfull one and perhaps spend the rest of the souls to enhance it further. It makes sense because my style of play is mainly as a sorcerer/pyromancer.

2. Buy the Ornstein's armour which is really cool and fancy. I'd love to capture my videos wearing that outfit. But I don't know if it's the best choice, in the sense that I don't have high Endurance stats to wear heavy armour and I don't want to spend one ring slot with the Havel's Ring. I usually choose the ring that boosts sorcery and in the next slot whatever is appropriate depending on the circumstances.

3. Use the souls to level up a bit (I'm 42 at the moment) and proceed to the Painted World of Ariamis and later in other optional areas that I haven't cleared such as the two underground areas in Blighttown, or to the new areas of the Prepare to Die Edition. (I can't go to the Catacombs since I haven't found the Divine ember yet.)

4. Go to the Giant Blacksmith and create a boss weapon that will make my playthrough easier. Right now I possess the Butterfly soul, the Iron Golem, Queelag and Ornstein.

I have also to think about the next tough battle with Great Grey Wolf Sif. What do I really need for this battle? Higher stats, good weapon, or good armour?

So what do you think?
Thanks!

Ill agree that blind playthroughs are a horrible horrible horrible idea. When you do a lets play you want to entertain as well as inform. Blind playthroughs hurt your ability to inform a person about the game and they make the games look worse then they really are

Anyway, first off the Divine ember is found by the moonlight butterfly in Darkroot forest. If you forgot how to get there, go back to the area where you found Andrei of Astora, go down those stairs and straight through the forest till you come to the sealed door that needs the seal of Artorias. There will be a bonfire to the left behind an invisible wall (if you didnt know) and there will be a right path. Go down the right path till you come to an area with stone giants in it that look just like the stone armor set. This is also the area you get the elite knight armor at. If you work your way to the back you'll find a set of stairs that leads up to the bridge you fought the moonlight butterfly on. Just go past that and continue upward till you find the petrified blacksmith holding the divine ember

Now what I would do is go ahead and make your ultimate weapon. Pyromancy/sorcery is good but you will need to rely on your weapon at some point so IMO your end game weapon is the priority over the +5 ascended flame. Afterwards I would go ahead and get your +5 ascended flame even if you have to farm some of it (although dont waste your viewers time, do that farming off screen). When I do sorcery builds my ultimate weapon is nearly always the moonlight greatsword. You can also go with the greatsword of artorias (needs Sif's soul) but I dont think it has as good scaling. You can also just make a magic weapon and the magic ember is in the pool with the giant Myconid's just outside Sif's room. With the boss souls you have you could make the chaos blade, Quellaggs fury sword, dragon bone fist, Iron golem ax, Dragonslayer lance, moonlight butterfly horn, or crystal ring shield. For your build the moonlight butterfly horn has the best scaling but IMO the crystal ring shield is better for that soul because it has 90% magic block. I think a +10 magic longsword/partisan is going to serve you better then any of those boss weapons

EDIT: Having just run the numbers on a character editor I can say for sure that the moonlight butterfly horn will be at least a hundred damage under any +10 magic weapon. However the moonlight greatsword is is greater by about 60 points. On top of that Im actually wrong about the Greatsword of artorias which is around 40 damage greater then the moonlight greatsword (however it also requires a significant investment in stats you wont need as much)

That said Ornstien's armor is technically classed as medium armor and while it does look cool if you dont want to farm all the souls for it there are some other medium armor sets to look into. The first one that comes to mind is the Brass set which you can get after defeating Gwyndolin. The second you could get is the Eastern set which is located beyond the sealed door in the darkroot forest. The Paladin set falls into the upper medium armor range and you get it by going to the Tomb of giants (now that Ive told you where the divine ember is you'll have no issue with the catacombs) and while in human form walk down to Nito's room. You'll be invaded by an NPC phantom who can do a ton of damage. Kill him, then you can either go beat nito and pick up the paladin set or use the Gravelord servant shortcut to get in there and grab it (although Ive never tried the gravelord servant shortcut myself so I cant say first hand it works just that Ive heard it does). Finally theres my personal favorite medium armor set, the thorns set. To get it you have to be invaded by Darkwraith Kirk and NPC phantom in 3 seperate areas while the bosses are still alive. These areas are the depths in the area near the curse frogs (gaping dragon has to live), the demon ruins (Demon firesage has to be alive), and Izalith next to the bed of chaos' boos room (bed of chaos has to be alive). Once you've defeated him in all those areas go back to Quellaggs area and just past the fair lady you'll find the thorns set on a corpse. However, if you missed Kirk's invasion in any of those cases you cant get the thorn set this playthrough

Honestly though I think you would do better with light armor. So I would highly suggest you grab the painting guardian set while in the painted world. Its IMO one of the best light armor sets and it looks awesome

Now Sif is IMO one of the easier bosses. If you stay close to him he cant hit you with any of his attacks so I recommend nothing specific except a shield with high stability like the silver knight shield.All you need to do is stay close and keep hitting him, he will go down pretty fast. However I really think you should do the new content BEFORE taking out Sif. Trust me here, without giving spoilers all I can say is it gets a lot more interesting if you meet Sif in the new content and then take him on

 

[Rheinmetall]

Ill agree that blind playthroughs are a horrible horrible horrible idea. When you do a lets play you want to entertain as well as inform. Blind playthroughs hurt your ability to inform a person about the game and they make the games look worse then they really are

Anyway, first off the Divine ember is found by the moonlight butterfly in Darkroot forest. If you forgot how to get there, go back to the area where you found Andrei of Astora, go down those stairs and straight through the forest till you come to the sealed door that needs the seal of Artorias. There will be a bonfire to the left behind an invisible wall (if you didnt know) and there will be a right path. Go down the right path till you come to an area with stone giants in it that look just like the stone armor set. This is also the area you get the elite knight armor at. If you work your way to the back you'll find a set of stairs that leads up to the bridge you fought the moonlight butterfly on. Just go past that and continue upward till you find the petrified blacksmith holding the divine ember

Now what I would do is go ahead and make your ultimate weapon. Pyromancy/sorcery is good but you will need to rely on your weapon at some point so IMO your end game weapon is the priority over the +5 ascended flame. Afterwards I would go ahead and get your +5 ascended flame even if you have to farm some of it (although dont waste your viewers time, do that farming off screen). When I do sorcery builds my ultimate weapon is nearly always the moonlight greatsword. You can also go with the greatsword of artorias (needs Sif's soul) but I dont think it has as good scaling. You can also just make a magic weapon and the magic ember is in the pool with the giant Myconid's just outside Sif's room. With the boss souls you have you could make the chaos blade, Quellaggs fury sword, dragon bone fist, Iron golem ax, Dragonslayer lance, moonlight butterfly horn, or crystal ring shield. For your build the moonlight butterfly horn has the best scaling but IMO the crystal ring shield is better for that soul because it has 90% magic block. I think a +10 magic longsword/partisan is going to serve you better then any of those boss weapons

EDIT: Having just run the numbers on a character editor I can say for sure that the moonlight butterfly horn will be at least a hundred damage under any +10 magic weapon. However the moonlight greatsword is is greater by about 60 points. On top of that Im actually wrong about the Greatsword of artorias which is around 40 damage greater then the moonlight greatsword (however it also requires a significant investment in stats you wont need as much)

That said Ornstien's armor is technically classed as medium armor and while it does look cool if you dont want to farm all the souls for it there are some other medium armor sets to look into. The first one that comes to mind is the Brass set which you can get after defeating Gwyndolin. The second you could get is the Eastern set which is located beyond the sealed door in the darkroot forest. The Paladin set falls into the upper medium armor range and you get it by going to the Tomb of giants (now that Ive told you where the divine ember is you'll have no issue with the catacombs) and while in human form walk down to Nito's room. You'll be invaded by an NPC phantom who can do a ton of damage. Kill him, then you can either go beat nito and pick up the paladin set or use the Gravelord servant shortcut to get in there and grab it (although Ive never tried the gravelord servant shortcut myself so I cant say first hand it works just that Ive heard it does). Finally theres my personal favorite medium armor set, the thorns set. To get it you have to be invaded by Darkwraith Kirk and NPC phantom in 3 seperate areas while the bosses are still alive. These areas are the depths in the area near the curse frogs (gaping dragon has to live), the demon ruins (Demon firesage has to be alive), and Izalith next to the bed of chaos' boos room (bed of chaos has to be alive). Once you've defeated him in all those areas go back to Quellaggs area and just past the fair lady you'll find the thorns set on a corpse. However, if you missed Kirk's invasion in any of those cases you cant get the thorn set this playthrough

Honestly though I think you would do better with light armor. So I would highly suggest you grab the painting guardian set while in the painted world. Its IMO one of the best light armor sets and it looks awesome

Now Sif is IMO one of the easier bosses. If you stay close to him he cant hit you with any of his attacks so I recommend nothing specific except a shield with high stability like the silver knight shield.All you need to do is stay close and keep hitting him, he will go down pretty fast. However I really think you should do the new content BEFORE taking out Sif. Trust me here, without giving spoilers all I can say is it gets a lot more interesting if you meet Sif in the new content and then take him on

Hey, a big thanks for this long and detailed comment, much appreciated.
I'm not doing a blind playthrough, I often enjoy watching them, but I never do them myself; I always try to give my best performance after long practice and having learnt by heart the game's mechanics. Though in Dark Souls due to autosaving/overwritting system it cannot be done so easily. Whatever you do, whatever clumsiness you make, even the silliest death is recorded, and you can't undo that. That's the biggest difficulty I'm facing, and that's why I need your help, because I can't experiment with my ideas and then decide what is best, I have to take a decision and stick with it. For example what I thought in my enthusiasm after beating O&S about spending my 50.000 souls right away to get Ornstein's armour was a bad idea, and it would look rather silly to switch fighting style in the middle of the game, without even having the Endurance to equip this armour.

Dark souls is so huge game, that even after five playthroughs since October 2011, there are still areas and enemies and aspects of the game that I'm not very familiar with. I admit that it was only recently that I even managed to succesfully execute a parry/ riposte move without dying firstly. Actually I think that I would need to make one more playthrough again, refresh my memory, study well the hard parts and after a month of preparation then start recording the real thing. But I can't do that, I don't have the time, and I have put all my energy in trying to make this playthrough looking at least decent, so I really can't start from the beginnng. I hope at the ends it turns out a passable playthrough. I would pretty much consider it a big success if I even finish the game with all the restrictions and rules that a video playthrough demands.

1. So you are suggesting not to ascend the flame right now, but instead make my final weapon. And what would be the most suitable weapon for a sorcerer's build? In my previous playthroughs I used Magic+10 swords, or spears and I was pretty happy with their performance. The only boss weapon that I ever created was the Crystal Ring Shield, but after the patch it's useless. I'm between Queelag's Fury Sword, Moonlight Butterfly Horn, and the standard +10 Magic/Enchanted sword, or spear. (that I usually choose) Queelag's Fury Sword seems as the choice of most players and YouTubers, which is something to be honest that I don't really like seeing so much. All people do this if you know what I mean. And besides that in the videos that I have watched Queelag's sword doesn't seem to deal more damage, than the +4 Magic Partizan that I currently use. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get why it is so popular.

2. How silly of me, I must already have the divine ember, since I remember getting the loot after the Moonlight Butterfly boss, but I don't remember which Blacksmith can make use of it. I'll check the Dark Souls Wiki later. In that case I think I will do the Catacombs next which is fairly easy, except for the pinwheel skeletons of course.

3. Sif owns me. I don't know what's happening during the battle but I kind of feel awe and panic when fighting with him and I die quickly. In my previous playthroughs I left him as last before descending to New Londo Ruins and leveled up as much as i could, but that cannot be done this time in a video playthrough. I'll try to play as you suggested to me and see if I can fight him more effectively.

Thanks again for all this information!

 

[Souplex]

Make yourself a spear out of Ornstein's soul, go to the forest, fight the great wolf and make yourself the shield out of its soul.
You have now won the game.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Sif was a damn joke for my sorcerer. Just keep rollin and shootin you'll be fine.

 

[Denamic]

You don't need a divine weapon in the catacombs.
It's useful as it does extra damage to undead and it prevents the skeletons from resurrecting, but it's by no means necessary. As long as you're equipped to beat them, you're good to go, as the skeletons stop resurrecting when you beat the nearby necromancer dudes anyway. In fact, it might be smarter to not spend souls and materials on upgrading a divine weapon, and instead use those souls on upgrading your main gear.

The only things you really need in the catacombs is a source of light, caution, and a lot of patience. More patience than any other part of the game requires. That place is a fucking hellhole.

 

[Windcaler]

Ill agree that blind playthroughs are a horrible horrible horrible idea. When you do a lets play you want to entertain as well as inform. Blind playthroughs hurt your ability to inform a person about the game and they make the games look worse then they really are

Anyway, first off the Divine ember is found by the moonlight butterfly in Darkroot forest. If you forgot how to get there, go back to the area where you found Andrei of Astora, go down those stairs and straight through the forest till you come to the sealed door that needs the seal of Artorias. There will be a bonfire to the left behind an invisible wall (if you didnt know) and there will be a right path. Go down the right path till you come to an area with stone giants in it that look just like the stone armor set. This is also the area you get the elite knight armor at. If you work your way to the back you'll find a set of stairs that leads up to the bridge you fought the moonlight butterfly on. Just go past that and continue upward till you find the petrified blacksmith holding the divine ember

Now what I would do is go ahead and make your ultimate weapon. Pyromancy/sorcery is good but you will need to rely on your weapon at some point so IMO your end game weapon is the priority over the +5 ascended flame. Afterwards I would go ahead and get your +5 ascended flame even if you have to farm some of it (although dont waste your viewers time, do that farming off screen). When I do sorcery builds my ultimate weapon is nearly always the moonlight greatsword. You can also go with the greatsword of artorias (needs Sif's soul) but I dont think it has as good scaling. You can also just make a magic weapon and the magic ember is in the pool with the giant Myconid's just outside Sif's room. With the boss souls you have you could make the chaos blade, Quellaggs fury sword, dragon bone fist, Iron golem ax, Dragonslayer lance, moonlight butterfly horn, or crystal ring shield. For your build the moonlight butterfly horn has the best scaling but IMO the crystal ring shield is better for that soul because it has 90% magic block. I think a +10 magic longsword/partisan is going to serve you better then any of those boss weapons

EDIT: Having just run the numbers on a character editor I can say for sure that the moonlight butterfly horn will be at least a hundred damage under any +10 magic weapon. However the moonlight greatsword is is greater by about 60 points. On top of that Im actually wrong about the Greatsword of artorias which is around 40 damage greater then the moonlight greatsword (however it also requires a significant investment in stats you wont need as much)

That said Ornstien's armor is technically classed as medium armor and while it does look cool if you dont want to farm all the souls for it there are some other medium armor sets to look into. The first one that comes to mind is the Brass set which you can get after defeating Gwyndolin. The second you could get is the Eastern set which is located beyond the sealed door in the darkroot forest. The Paladin set falls into the upper medium armor range and you get it by going to the Tomb of giants (now that Ive told you where the divine ember is you'll have no issue with the catacombs) and while in human form walk down to Nito's room. You'll be invaded by an NPC phantom who can do a ton of damage. Kill him, then you can either go beat nito and pick up the paladin set or use the Gravelord servant shortcut to get in there and grab it (although Ive never tried the gravelord servant shortcut myself so I cant say first hand it works just that Ive heard it does). Finally theres my personal favorite medium armor set, the thorns set. To get it you have to be invaded by Darkwraith Kirk and NPC phantom in 3 seperate areas while the bosses are still alive. These areas are the depths in the area near the curse frogs (gaping dragon has to live), the demon ruins (Demon firesage has to be alive), and Izalith next to the bed of chaos' boos room (bed of chaos has to be alive). Once you've defeated him in all those areas go back to Quellaggs area and just past the fair lady you'll find the thorns set on a corpse. However, if you missed Kirk's invasion in any of those cases you cant get the thorn set this playthrough

Honestly though I think you would do better with light armor. So I would highly suggest you grab the painting guardian set while in the painted world. Its IMO one of the best light armor sets and it looks awesome

Now Sif is IMO one of the easier bosses. If you stay close to him he cant hit you with any of his attacks so I recommend nothing specific except a shield with high stability like the silver knight shield.All you need to do is stay close and keep hitting him, he will go down pretty fast. However I really think you should do the new content BEFORE taking out Sif. Trust me here, without giving spoilers all I can say is it gets a lot more interesting if you meet Sif in the new content and then take him on

Hey, a big thanks for this long and detailed comment, much appreciated.
I'm not doing a blind playthrough, I often enjoy watching them, but I never do them myself; I always try to give my best performance after long practice and having learnt by heart the game's mechanics. Though in Dark Souls due to autosaving/overwritting system it cannot be done so easily. Whatever you do, whatever clumsiness you make, even the silliest death is recorded, and you can't undo that. That's the biggest difficulty I'm facing, and that's why I need your help, because I can't experiment with my ideas and then decide what is best, I have to take a decision and stick with it. For example what I thought in my enthusiasm after beating O&S about spending my 50.000 souls right away to get Ornstein's armour was a bad idea, and it would look rather silly to switch fighting style in the middle of the game, without even having the Endurance to equip this armour.

Dark souls is so huge game, that even after five playthroughs since October 2011, there are still areas and enemies and aspects of the game that I'm not very familiar with. I admit that it was only recently that I even managed to succesfully execute a parry/ riposte move without dying firstly. Actually I think that I would need to make one more playthrough again, refresh my memory, study well the hard parts and after a month of preparation then start recording the real thing. But I can't do that, I don't have the time, and I have put all my energy in trying to make this playthrough looking at least decent, so I really can't start from the beginnng. I hope at the ends it turns out a passable playthrough. I would pretty much consider it a big success if I even finish the game with all the restrictions and rules that a video playthrough demands.

1. So you are suggesting not to ascend the flame right now, but instead make my final weapon. And what would be the most suitable weapon for a sorcerer's build? In my previous playthroughs I used Magic+10 swords, or spears and I was pretty happy with their performance. The only boss weapon that I ever created was the Crystal Ring Shield, but after the patch it's useless. I'm between Queelag's Fury Sword, Moonlight Butterfly Horn, and the standard +10 Magic/Enchanted sword, or spear. (that I usually choose) Queelag's Fury Sword seems as the choice of most players and YouTubers, which is something to be honest that I don't really like seeing so much. All people do this if you know what I mean. And besides that in the videos that I have watched Queelag's sword doesn't seem to deal more damage, than the +4 Magic Partizan that I currently use. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get why it is so popular.

2. How silly of me, I must already have the divine ember, since I remember getting the loot after the Moonlight Butterfly boss, but I don't remember which Blacksmith can make use of it. I'll check the Dark Souls Wiki later. In that case I think I will do the Catacombs next which is fairly easy, except for the pinwheel skeletons of course.

3. Sif owns me. I don't know what's happening during the battle but I kind of feel awe and panic when fighting with him and I die quickly. In my previous playthroughs I left him as last before descending to New Londo Ruins and leveled up as much as i could, but that cannot be done this time in a video playthrough. I'll try to play as you suggested to me and see if I can fight him more effectively.

Thanks again for all this information!

1. What I am suggesting is you concentrate on making your final weapon first. No matter how many attunement slots you get you will never have enough to solely rely on pyromancy and sorcery. If you need your +5 ascended flame then farm those souls but I would make the weapon the priority

According to the character planner Im using and without adding to your current stats your weapons will look like this

Moonlight butterfly horn - 276
+10 magic partizan - 372
+10 magic longsword - 379
Moonlight Greatsword - 385 (Requires 16 str and 28 int. This calculation is done with minimum requirements)
Greatsword of Artorias - 488 (Requires 24 str 18 Dex 20 int and 20 faith. This calculation is done with minimum requirements in all stats except int which I kept at 26)

To use the moonlight greatsword you need just four levels. 2 in strength and 2 in intelligence. To use the Greatsword of Artorias you need 26 levels. 10 in strength, 4 in dexterity, and 12 in faith

I still think the crystal ring shield is the best use of the moonlight butterfly soul but if you disagree thats fine. Its your playthrough

Now the Quellaggs Fury sword. It scales mostly off of dexterity which a lot of youtubers build into. You arent doing that so its less useful. With current stats itll be doing 362. However keep in mind that Quelaggs also scales with Humanity so if you want to use a lot it'll do much more damage. Assuming you had 10 humanity with current stats it jumps up to 438.

Later on if you continue to bump int and avoid dex the weapons look like this at 50 intelligence (the max int you need to cast every sorcery in the game)

Moonlight butterfly horn - 337
+10 magic partizan - 431
+10 magic longsword - 444
Moonlight Greatsword - 480
Greatsword of Artorias - 525

This information should give you enough info to make an informed decision on what is best now and what is best later

2. Andrei of Astora is the one who makes divine weapons. You'll need a green titinite shard to make it and improve it. If you want to go past +5 youll have to get the big divine ember out of tomb of giants which is surrounded by several giant skeletons. I usually suicinde run it, I just dont think its worth it to fight the 5 or 6 of them in that small arena

3. Weapons that strike high or in wide swaths are best against Sif. I find spears miss him all the time if Im relying on lock ons but weapons such as the Katana's or ultragreatswords nearly always hit as long as you're under him. I always two hand when I get under him but when he jumps away pull your shield back out and keep it at the ready to block his attacks till you get back into range.

 

[King of Asgaard]

Level 42

Vitality 18
Attunement 16
Endurance 16
Strenght 14
Dexterity 14
Resistance 9
Intelligence 26
Faith 8

Weapons: Magic Partizan +4/Longsword +10, Oolacile Ivory Catalyst, Pyromancy Flame +15, Silver Knight Shield
Armour: Gargoyle Helm +4 and for the other parts of the body it depends on the circumstances, but usually light sets like the Crimson set, or the Gold Hemmed, or even naked in some boss battles.

Based on these stats, I'd say you shouldn't burn the 50000 souls on ascending your flame, because you can only do so twice, so the increase in power will be minimal.

Also, don't bother with the Quelaag's Furysword; it's only decent, and scaling with humanity won't really increase its output by much. If I recall, with 10 humanity, it's damage ranges in the early 400s, which is not bad, but there are far better weapons.

Here's the problem I see with your stats: you don't have enough of Strength or Dexterity to wield some of the better weapons, such as the Dragonslayer Spear (though you shouldn't get that because it scales with Faith). I'd recommend either holding off for the Moonlight Greatsword (amazing for sorcerers) or making the Moonlight Spear, for the same reason as the sword. The catch with these weapons is that they only do magic damage, meaning that they only require one resistance check when calculating damage dealt.

Stick to light armour if possible, as your Vitality is still low enough to be OHKO in some later areas, so dodging's the way to go. But do replace the Gargoyle helm for the Dusk Crown, as it increases all magic damage (sorcery, pyromancy and miracles) by 20%. The downside being it lowers your magic resistance by a similar amount, but your damage output will be spectacular, especially if combo'd with the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring.

 

[Spartan X1]

Havil's armor, shield, and dragontooth are all in chests behind a hiddin wall in fat boy and slim's castle get that stuff it helps, great cool armor and weapon for free.