Board 8 > Dark Souls Playthrough [first time]

(+) Yeah! (+)

So I was asked to provide updates and I don't want to be a jerk and hijack someone else's topic to do it so I guess I'll make my own.

So I started Dark Souls last night/early today and it's my first time playing. For some background, my only previous Soulsborne experience is Bloodborne. I absolutely loved it (Got the Platinum, played through and beat NG++ including The Old Hunters, etc.) so Dark Souls which had been on the outer edge of my interest for years (always in the way back of my mind, always passed over for more immediate stuff) suddenly became a lot more appealing to me. ...Of course it still took me nearly a year to actually work through enough of my backlog to get to it but I digress.

My early general impressions are that while I prefer the faster, more aggressive combat/playstyle of Bloodborne and dearly miss the awesome trick weapons I'm still cool with this so far and it's early and I'm still learning so it should only get better I think. Hiding behind my shield still feels kinda cowardly but I can't argue with the results. I picked Wanderer as my starting class but if it's like Bloodborne I'm not sure that matters much beyond minmax building. Picked the Pendant as my gift because I remember hearing the Master Key can be "dangerous" for new players by getting you into trouble going to places early. Guess I could have taken that HP Ring but hey the description for the pendant was sentimental what can I say.

Undead Asylum was mostly uneventful. At Firelink Shrine I kept wandering into bad places. "Oh a graveyard, and some items I can see let's go collect-oh my god run away" or "Huh, an elevator, where does this go? Well, this looks like somewhere I probably shouldn't be but hey it let me go here-oh god this is a bad place"

Back on track(?) I worked my way through Undead Burg. Got pushed off the bridge by the first boss there which was a jerk move because I totally had him otherwise. Got him the second time when that didn't happen. Then I met my first nemesis... that damn armored pig. I believe he is #2 on my "causes of death" list so far. Never could quite figure out the dodge timing on him and trying to block was an exercise in futility. I saw that he had a weak point in his armor from behind but I also never quite figured out the backstab distance on him (if it's possible) so I'd do a normal swing that would connect with his armor first for scratch damage. Anyway, like my fourth time challenging him he got himself stuck where I could conveniently just drop down on him and do like 70% damage so that ended that. Felt cheap but "oh well."

A bit later I found my real nemesis - the Bell Gargoyles. This was the first boss to really repeatedly get me. Not like some of the tougher early walls I banged my head against in Bloodborne (I had a lot of trouble with Amelia, at first, for instance. This was more like Cleric Beast.) Fight is obviously super simple until the second one pops in, at which point things would inevitably go south. Mostly because I could never get them to cooperate from that point onwards and oh god all the fire. Totally had them on like my third attempt but blew it on faulty muscle memory and hit the wrong button and subsequently died. Then needed like 7 more tries to get it. Upgraded my Scimitar to +3 and then somehow just rolled in and annihilated them. Didn't even need a heal. That's basically where I stopped for now.

This isn't 100% blind or anything (if only via memes and osmosis) and I don't really care much about spoilers for Souls stuff I think so I leave commenting to your discretion. I'll probably check a guide periodically to see if I missed any big areas/stuff (think like Cainhurst) so yeah, not a huge concern here with me.
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Tag. Dark Souls is of course obscure and I don't want to say much but if you need advice on where to go just ask. You won't miss secret areas until much later, but they're never walled off from access. Just keep going with where the game points you for now.

Do you have the dlcs? You can't access it until super late but it's fantastic

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Probably gonna run through the series again myself sometime soon, so tag.
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Aecioo posted...

Do you have the dlcs? You can't access it until super late but it's fantastic

Yeah, I should. Dark Souls: Remastered comes with it packed in, right?
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Played some more, progressed some more.

I picked up a key somewhere along the way last time that said it opened that door by the bridge with the dragon so off I went. oh god dogs. A couple of ambushes later and I made it to the boss. lmao first time i walked in there i got obliterated. Think I died inside of 5 seconds without even really realizing what happened. What a blitz. Now that I was aware I was about to get rushed, I took care of it on the second try, wasn't bad once the dogs went down, and thankfully they cooperated.

Took my new key to the Depths and this was a pretty relaxing area. The slimes or jellies or whatever are trivial and I could one shot most of the rats if I was two-handing the Scimitar. Accidentally walked into a hole when I turned a corner and got dropped into a sub-level or something but even those new enemies down there weren't bad. I do think I should feel embarrassed that it took like five tries to beat Gaping Dragon that should not have taken more than two tries but I kept finding dumb ways to mess up the fight. It was a simple fight and pretty much all its attacks are easy to dodge so I have no excuses lol.

Went to Blight Town with my new key and made it to the bonfire but I'm pondering if I want to go off and explore some other spots. To my knowledge I have the following options:

1. Continue in Blight Town (I assume this is the critical path based on the Bells)
2. There was some forest-y place behind a Stone Demon near where the Blacksmith was. I beat the Stone Demon but backed out of there in favor of the Bell Gargoyles at the time.
3. There's still that elevator to New Londo Ruins at Firelink. The NPC mentioned it too recently so maybe now it's semi-appropriate to head there?
4. I think I can head back to the Undead Asylum. There was a key for it on a roof at Firelink, and the original NPC there talked as though the crow can transport people.
5. Maybe I can challenge the graveyard near Firelink now, though I don't know if it leads anywhere or was just a deathtrap.

I'm leaning at taking a look at the forest or the asylum but we'll see.
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Those are all routes that you can explore, sure, and one of the wonders of the game is being able to progress through in basically any manner. If one area gives you trouble, just go in a different direction and see what you can do.

The forest is easily one of my favorite areas in the game.
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Yeah, this kind of feels like the Bloodborne equivalent of after you beat Amelia and have a ton of options and freedom on what to do next: Hemwick (okay technically you can do this earlier), Forbidden Woods, Return to the Clinic, Hypogean Gaol, Cainhurst, Nightmare Frontier, etc.

but with hopefully less snakes >_>
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Advice on where to go next.

Forest is really easy and it's worth knocking out since its short and doesn't lead anywhere currently.

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Also

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/685/340/70f.gif

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yeah that's basically how my first "attempt" wound up lol
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xp1337 posted...

Yeah, this kind of feels like the Bloodborne equivalent of after you beat Amelia and have a ton of options and freedom on what to do next: Hemwick (okay technically you can do this earlier), Forbidden Woods, Return to the Clinic, Hypogean Gaol, Cainhurst, Nightmare Frontier, etc.

but with hopefully less snakes >_>

The snakes still terrify me. Everything about them. But wooded areas are my second favorite area archetype after abandoned snowy castles.

I think there's only a few snakes in dark souls. You'll be fine.
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xp1337 posted...

yeah that's basically how my first "attempt" wound up lol

It's my favorite souls gif but I've got a ton more as you progress!

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Did more exploring.

First up I went to the forest, Darkroot Garden. Pretty short area. Nothing too difficult but lol my snake paranoia coming through when I saw one on a tree and preemptive attacked just in case. Said paranoia also showed me a tree that was moving slightly so I killed it too out of fear it would come for me too but instead it just gave me a hidden area to explore. So mad I didn't first try Moonlight Butterfly. I should have but while I was waiting for it to land for the final time it busted out its laser, hit me, and then went immediately for its overhead bomb attack and I panicked and rolled...poorly. Easily won the second go around.

Also went to Darkroot Basin and fought a kraken... that... was not what I expected to find there! lol my first try against him. I charged to get in melee range... only to discover the water had a limit to what you could run on and fell into a bottomless pit. Again, second try went better and I got him, though the last head wouldn't cooperate so I had to pull out a bow to snipe it since I was now afraid of how far into the water I could go.

I also went over 20k souls here (I think from giving the Blacksmith the Divine Ember? I thought I was at like 13 or 14k but then all of a sudden while repairing I saw I had over 20k) so I bought that Crest of Artorias because that door in Darkroot Garden still taunted me. ...Then I just kinda peaced out because I started running into groups of tougher tree things and then ghosts (or else a crazy evasive knight, but I could have sworn he was partially transparent and my sword went through him but who knows) and I was like "i don't have time for this." Later.

Then I went back to the Undead Asylum and lmao how rude, immediately run into a pit trap that sends me to the boss. Despite that the boss was super easy and I won first try because he kept spamming this magic sphere thing that was super easy to not get hit by. Those knights in the hallways were tougher because close quarters combat is real. >_> Picked up a doll in a cell and a ring that would see use later.

Next up was the graveyard, the skeletons presented minimal challenge now and I found some binoculars and other stuff before descending to the Catacombs. In the middle of fighting a skeleton some floating skulls came and nuked him and I was like "uhhh thanks?" then the skeleton rez'd and I was like... "Oh, well that's unfortunate." The blacksmith mentioned Divine Weapons for the catacombs so I guess I'll come back later when I find/forge one or something.

Since I didn't feel like fighting more ghosts in New Londo Ruins I went back to Blight Town and slowly fought my way down to the swamp. Argh, this is giving me flashbacks to the Nightmare Frontier swamp aka my most disliked place. That Rusted Iron Ring helps a bit I guess but poison is no fun. Found a lift that led back to New Londo Ruins (and right next to the Firelink Elevator so there too) and also the Valley of Drakes. Okay, now I knew I was gambling with taking the items next to that giant dragon ominously chilling on the cliff but lol at immediately getting one-shot. After heading a bit further in there I found more, thankfully smaller dragons. I can beat them 1v1 provided we're not on the most narrow ledge imaginable but nevertheless I decided this was probably not the best time to try to explore there.

At the bottom of Blight Town was Quelaag's Domain but I only walked in far enough to see it was a new area before backing out to resume my Blight Town exploration but I suppose that's next up on the list. Unfortunately it looks like it'll be Spider Town. =(

While I did fight two bosses they were both pushovers so this was mostly an exploration session so not the most enjoyable reading material!
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Tag. Doing the same thing in a little bit, farthest I got in the past was exploring Blighttown
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*re-reads post*

...did i say kraken, i meant hydra. mixing up my mythological sea creatures there >_>

I do have a question though, now that I think of it. Can you sell items anywhere? I've picked up like 3-4 extra copies of like "Hollow Warrior Armor" and broken swords and stuff and I see that I can just drop them, but if I can get some souls out of them that'd be nice.
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You can later, i think? Also there's one merchant in the burg and one in the depths, i think one of them sells an item that will help you with inventory management
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there is an NPC who appears in the ruined temple looking area right at your main bonfire in firelink shrine. you can give him items and he will give you souls in exchange. there's no efficient way to "sell" items like in bloodborne, but this is your best option.

you might hear him snoring if you go there now, I'm not sure if he will actually appear yet. can't remember if you have to ring both bells or not.
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Ah, yes, I had heard his snoring before. I also have that Bottomless Box.

Didn't accomplish too much since last time. Defeated Quelaag though. Not too bad. I swapped to some better fire resist gear and though it still took like two tries too many for my liking, second bell rung. I followed the path down to the Demon Ruins and then promptly turned the hell away when I realized I'd be fighting more... parasites? Whatever those things are that burst out of the egg dudes. had enough of them back in bloodborne, i can do this later.

Stopped by Firelink and met that NPC. ...huh. Guess he's my new guide. lmao you feed him the items its almost cute. The first NPC at the shrine left though =( Well, I talked to him first and he seemed to not like the new guy and then he was gone the next time. ALSO the Firekeeper died and the bonfire went out that's not nice. =(

also why can't i relight it those other bonfires didn't have a firekeeper tbqhhh

Oh well, I guess my new temp base of operations will be the Undead Parish with the Blacksmith! Headed out to Sen's Fortress to take a look around. man lizafols got stronger. Loaded up on arrows because trying to deal with some of these lightning dudes on thin platforms is not fun, sniping is better. Toughest section of the day went to the bottom of the room with the 4 Stone Demon guys. In particular the one where the 2 of them basically fight together. Tried a bunch to see if I could DPS one down before the other caught up but that didn't go... well. Eventually embraced the role of coward and would retreat back a bit to sorta reset their positions and whittled the first one down that way. 1v1 they're trivial, but with two it was just too much.

Will probably continue in Sen's Fortress for real next time.
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I freely admit I bounced off this series after getting to Blood Starved Beast in Bloodborne, using all my items up, getting my head eaten in a OHKO when he barely had health left, and there was no real advice I could find other than "You suck, git gud"

I did not have the patience to regrind everything just to make another attempt
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BSB would sometimes destroy me even when it really shouldn't have. Sometimes I'd be good with parry timings... and other times I wouldn't and things would become a disaster quickly.
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Sens Fortress is great, and you're coming up on the best area in the game.

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Didn't help either that it seemed such an unnecessary pain in the ass to grind bullets. Like, if each parry was going to cost a bullet and that was the biggest "Don't die" mechanic in the game, why make it so only specific and out of the way enemies drop the stupid things? That's not fun, that's just irritating
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DeathChicken posted...

Didn't help either that it seemed such an unnecessary pain in the ass to grind bullets. Like, if each parry was going to cost a bullet and that was the biggest "Don't die" mechanic in the game, why make it so only specific and out of the way enemies drop the stupid things? That's not fun, that's just irritating

Beginning of bloodborne is tough because you're bad and enemies don't drop stuff reliably. Once you get a little farther it takes 5 minutes to farm up 20 bullets once you get to some areas

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there is no need to "grind" in bloodborne, ever.

anyone who thinks that is legitimately bad at the game.

it's one of the most pervasive pieces of misinformation about bloodborne. reason being that so many people who are bad at the game continually spout off information without realizing that their advice sucks.

you don't grind for bullets or vials. you literally just buy them with the massive amount of excess blood echoes that you get, rather than spending them on dumb shit you don't need. especially levels early on, one of the hugest bottomless pits.

what is better?

A. increase your damage by three points, from 170 to 173, making absolutely no god damn difference in your combat ability. also increases the cost to gain levels as you continue to invest down this path.

B. buy like 35 blood vials with the same amount of echoes you would have spent on three levels. by the way, each blood vial is worth 5 quicksilver bullets, making them the absolute lowest value and cheapest item in the game.

obviously DC is not claiming to be an expert, so I don't hold this against him. but yeah, anyone who thinks that they need to "grind" for quicksilver bullets of all things has no idea what the hell they are doing, and should be given much better advice than "git gud" or "yeah, grinding sucks man."
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I reliably stock 80 vials and 80+ quicksilver bullets just with the echoes I get from clearing the first area in the game, and I do that without dying. now imagine if a new player was doing the same thing. they might use more vials than I do, sure, but because they are dying a bunch they'd also be gaining more echoes. because they would need to fight the same enemies over and over again.
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Continuing on and had a blast.

The rest of Sen's Fortress was fairly straightforward, nothing challenging on the level of my Stone Demon Challenge from the beginning. It was fun exploring the different areas and navigating the traps. Although it was super rude when I died because a giant ogre threw a bunch of burning oil on me. >_>

Make it to the Iron Golem and the first time he got me because his grab attack has some crazy range. Second time I was more conscious of it... only it didn't matter because he freaked out (maybe I stunned him from repeated hits or maybe it was an attack cooldown i dunno) and fell off the side. That was nice of him!

So with that taken care of it was off to Anor Londo. man do i get airlifted to every place? So this is a nice looking place and while I was a bit uncertain of it at first, by the end I really liked it. I also like how all the enemies drop a bunch of souls. Okay, I only fought them one at a time, but it was cathartic as hell to fight more gargoyles here and just stomp them into the ground after the Bell Gargoyle ordeal. Those bow dudes (before I got close enough to confirm it was indeed a bow I thought these guys were like... firing lances at me or something) are way too accurate. They're fine when solo, but that one section where two of them could mostly cover each other was "fun."

I feel like I'm forgetting a ton of stuff along the way, but I eventually found a new blacksmith. "Everyone's gone?" excuse me who am i fighting then. One of my items reacted towards the end and let me invade that traitor who killed the Firelink Firekeeper. Got owned the first time. Thought I was good the second time but wtf his attacks bypass my shield that's not cool! Third time was the charm but this was a fairly tough fight, had to be super patient and wait for him to roll and present an opening and sometimes he just didn't want to.

Finally made it over to the bosses. Ornstein and Smough. yeah i've heard of you two. First two-ish times I got beat up pretty bad, but on the third attempt I was able to successfully rush down Smough and take him down ... only to watch Ornstein get buff as hell. Tried to play some keepaway with him and got wrecked. A few more attempts to get back to that point and I adjusted strategy to stay closer with him and was doing well, but I came into that phase in pretty bad shape and since I got killed so quickly the first time I was still learning how to react to him on the fly and eventually got lighting spear'd when he was at about 50%. A few more attempts (it was probably like 8-10 total overall from the first attempt to success, that first phase could go really well or... really poorly depending mostly on the attacks they chose to use) and on the third time I got to Phase 2 Ornstein I just stayed glued to him, rolled towards him to dodge, etc. and that was the solution, completely annihilated him that way.

Fun fact, that was going to be my last attempt of the session, not because I was frustrated or anything (I enjoyed the fight and learning it!) but just I had been playing a while and figured it was time for a break. So upon my victory, I retreated back to the bonfire to save and quit.

Fun fight, Phase 1 is pretty frantic with Ornstein rushing in occasionally or throwing semi-homing spears at you all while Smough plods around (or if I was unlucky, charge in like a battering ram) looking for an opportunity to get in some quick hits before backing off and doing that dance all over again. Once I figured Phase 2 out it was a breeze, but learning it was quite fun.
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Good job doing it the hard way! It's much easier to beat Ornstein first, but real men do it your way.

Archers are great. In its heyday that was a great invade spot. People using humanity to summon people to help them beat the archers, and then you invade and stand on the bridge. Staring. MENACINGLY.

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ah, it's too bad you didn't keep going forward. something BIG was waiting just ahead.
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Oh. There was a bonfire literally right ahead of me lol. Also, huzzah I have (limited) warp ability now. This was something I sorely missed from Bloodborne even if it worked a bit differently there. Since I could now teleport around it felt like a good time to take a look at anything I may have passed over and it looks like Blighttown had some secrets~

Returned to Blighttown and made my way to that tree and entered The Great Hollow. Only semi-challenging thing here was platforming to get a few of the items here. However, I need to take some time here to ask wtf is up with those mushroom guys. why do the little ones make like... a whale noise when they die? why do the big ones hit like trucks. i have so many questions. Next up on this path was The Ash Lake where my corrupt a wish came true. I had occasionally wondered if I'd like some area music to be around and more prevalent. but not like this argh. Fought another hydra who was a bit more challenging than the last one but otherwise this was just a long trek where I eventually met a dragon who was pretty chill I guess. Seemed like a dead end so we left and returned to Anor Londo to enter the Painted World of Ariamis.

This was a rollercoaster of emotions. At first I really liked this place, cool snowy ruined castle and all even if the crow guys are a little annoying. First time I encountered those swarm of spear guys I played it way too cautious lol. However, however I then entered ~The Bottom of the Well~ and then hell began. Argh wtf those spinning wheel dudes. If they're lucky/I'm not they can chew through my entire stamina bar and break my guard and do some damage. If I DON'T have my shield up I die. They have incredible tracking most of the time. I died quite a few times down here trying to deal with these guys in the narrow, dark, cramped hallways. ...And I may have spent the rest of the session very tilted. Eventually succeeded when I swapped to the heaviest armor I had (because who needs maneuverability when there's nowhere to maneuver) for a little extra survivability. These guys are much more manageable when you can work your way to the open room because you can actually dodge the attacks reliably. Grabbed an Annex Key and explored that as well as turned a device I stumbled down in the basement to open a new area.

I stopped about there because I am not lying about how tilted the well made me. Honestly I was about due for a break anyway, but my play became like super sloppy after the repeated well deaths as I kept throwing myself at it so it was probably for the best anyway. >_>
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lmao
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Alright, continued on and got quite a bit done.

Starting where I left off in the Painted World. Okay, yeah, this was pretty much at the end. "The inhabitants of this world are peaceful." liar. you can't be trusted. Oh she can turn invisible. Neat trick... but thwarted by your footprints. Super easy fight, just a matter of not getting too greedy and backing off before she can counterattack.

At this point I was basically back to my wheel of options and I decided to head back to The Catacombs, this time with a divine weapon in hand. Another pretty simple place where the primary challenge was mostly platforming for items. Except I followed a message to treasure but what I found was death. Whoops, that whole thing escalated quickly. Went much better when I took it slower and knew what to expect. Also aaaaaaaaa more spinning wheel guys. They were "weaker" in that this variety I could one-shot with my normal weapon (so I guess this place is "meant" to be done before the Painted World) but they're still just as deadly attacking-wise. Boss here was simple, lol I think I won in 5 hits, although I pulled off a repeat of my Bloodborne Ebrietas experience where it ended in a mutual kill because he must have respawned his decoys as I landed the final hit and I got slammed by a magic barrage from behind right as I killed him. Looked at the Tomb of the Giants beyond here and augh too dark. Yeah, I have a lantern but this can be slotted in after some of my other options. Oh, right, I also hopped into a coffin (because that's what you do I guess) and got teleported to a place where I could join a Covenant.

At this point I went to New Londo Ruins but an NPC there basically told me (indirectly) that I needed to go back to Darkroot Garden to find Artorias. So that's what I did. I was able to crush this place now, made friends with a cat demon. Got attacked by other cat demons who had a very scary Spin Dash and found more mushroom bros. Eventually we made it to the ominous door and... oh no i dont want to fight the puppy why are they making me. =(

This was another simple fight that I won on the first attempt though I had to heal a few times because he had this spinning move that would break my guard and hit me for enough damage that I wanted to heal in case he did it again. Picked up a ring that seemed to fit what the New Londo guy told me so back there we went. Ghosts are annoying though, their hit range seems nuts and not what it should be and being able to go through walls - or worse, camp in walls and attack me from inside them is not cool. Picked up an Ember that let me upgrade my weapon to +15 though and based on the trophy I guess that's the max on that path at least. Dropped into The Abyss and got rushed by the Four Kings. One-shot these guys too (4/4 this day incredible) though it was close at a few points. They did minimal damage up close but they had these magic attacks that could hurt. I was basically trying to rush them down, especially when I saw they were spawning in. Never had to deal with more than two at once though.

Once they went down I made a new snake friend at the new bonfire that popped up here and oh my god he ate me. That sent me... somewhere... and I finally placed the Lordvessel down (oh right technically that's what we went to Anor Londo for!) Unfortunately old snake pal is no longer my pal, and just left me at Firelink. Man it's so lonely there now, it's just the revived Firekeeper and the guy who sold Heal spells there now. Placing the Lordvessel also showed some barriers dispelling. I recognize one as one from near the start of Anor Londo so I guess that's my next destination.
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A lot of people consider the lord vessel to mark the halfway point.

You're also getting close to the dlc segment
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I've still been playing, just nothing too notable has happened! That's still generally the case, but I'll give an update anyway to show I'm not dead. >_>

Headed to the Duke's Archives. Damn, those armored pigs are still my nemesis. Thankfully they still don't respawn. I really liked this area for the most part even if was generally pretty simple since backstabs could one-shot all the crystal dudes. Got blown up by Saeth though later NPC dialogue would suggested this was scripted and a pretext to throw me in jail a la Hypogean Gaol. I hope so at least because I didn't even connect on him and got pasted by a spike move that covered the whole arena long enough to wipe me out. Found one of my sorcery vendors locked up here and freed him and he was the one who essentially went "yeah dude is invincible. you gotta break a crystal first." Eventually worked my way to the Crystal Cave and invisible paths and golems fights on super narrow platforms over insta-death pits? yeah i'm out. lol i keep doing this don't i.

However, I will dedicate a bit to the true boss of the Duke's Archives. That treasure chest sitting on top of the bookshelf. Talk about an ordeal. I spent a bit futilely wondering if I could somehow get myself on the 3F with the stairs reversed so I could do a simple drop down to the shelf as I expected I'd be able to do when I first walked into the area and noticed there was a chest there. That proved futile so I concluded I'd have to drop off the stairs while they were rotating which was... less than ideal, but okay, sure, no prob-wtf are these drop mechanics? There's like a delay or something and you end up way off from where you appear you would be. Is this some preservation of rotational direction going on argh. And why the hell is this a fatal drop! It doesn't look like it should be! It'll hurt, yeah! But instant death? The worst. Then I hoped the chest was actually a mimic and tried to snipe it to "activate" it but nope, we have to do this the hard way. It'd be a lot less annoying if I didn't have to clear out a bunch of guys to make it safe. A few tries later and I finally got it but jeez.

At this point I think my options were Tomb of the Giants (too dark), Crystal Cave (too invisible), and Demon Ruins (too parasite worms) and I really should just suck it up and deal with one of them, probably Demon Ruins since it's been sitting there since Blighttown but since the DLC was mentioned I decided to look it up to see how you access it since I hadn't noticed anything about it and Bloodborne's was kinda counter-intuitive and... huh... okay yeah I never would have found that out on my own. I assumed the Darkroot Basin lake was a death trap beyond that point and never tried going along the edge to head back there. Saved the girl there then went back to the Duke's Archives (I thought that conspicuous Crystal Golem was suspicious before!) and then back to Darkroot to get pulled into the past.

oh a boss from the start huh. lol first try was a wreck almost on par with Capra Demon but once you figure him out, Sanctuary Guardian is actually pretty simple. Simple enough that I felt bad for losing a few times. ...oh god the giant mushroom is my vendor and mission control now. Fought through the Royal Wood and I don't know if it was me being tired, just playing subpar, my controller, or what but I swear those giant stone guys gave me way too much trouble. I was getting hit far too often. It was probably just me playing bad but I swear some dodges weren't working right or something. Saw a fog gate but as usual I ignored it for the moment to explore and got rewarded by getting killed by a dragon just rudely swooping in to burn the entire lake. He does this repeatedly so I guess I'm not going that way for now lol. I guess I'll go to the fog gate next.
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You can do the DLC (it's really fantastic) but you might want to come back to it. It's pretty tough compared to where you're at in the game

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Huh, I actually thought I was pretty close to the end of the main game with basically those places I mentioned left (unless there's a bunch of stuff behind the Demon Ruins since I have avoided it like the plague)

I think I'll play around in the DLC a bit longer but if it gets too frustrating I'll bail out. It's a bit hard to tell right now because there's literally only been 3 enemy types so far. Sanctuary Guardian (who while he roughed me up a bit, as I noted is actually a very simple boss once you recognize his patterns), the... plant dudes who are very easy, and then those stone dudes who shouldn't be that hard but I kept being bad and they're very punishing if you do mess up. (oh right and now that i think about it a few dogs in the lower section before the dragon.) I mean, based on the Royal Wood I'd say I seem to be okay for this place so far, but we'll see if/how it escalates.
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The DLC is really good. Not as good as Bloodborne's DLC but nothing is.
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xp1337 posted...

Huh, I actually thought I was pretty close to the end of the main game with basically those places I mentioned left (unless there's a bunch of stuff behind the Demon Ruins since I have avoided it like the plague)

I think I'll play around in the DLC a bit longer but if it gets too frustrating I'll bail out. It's a bit hard to tell right now because there's literally only been 3 enemy types so far. Sanctuary Guardian (who while he roughed me up a bit, as I noted is actually a very simple boss once you recognize his patterns), the... plant dudes who are very easy, and then those stone dudes who shouldn't be that hard but I kept being bad and they're very punishing if you do mess up. (oh right and now that i think about it a few dogs in the lower section before the dragon.) I mean, based on the Royal Wood I'd say I seem to be okay for this place so far, but we'll see if/how it escalates.

Each of the gates is a full area. As someone said, lord vessel is kind of the middle point not counting dlc.

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Currently fighting Knight Artorias. Probably the biggest challenge for me so far. I think I've mostly got it figured out, it's just a pretty technical fight where if you screw up it's extremely punishing, if not a OHKO. I had him at 10% on my last attempt, but took a hit and was in a bad position and just couldn't recover from it. A bit frustrated he didn't use one of his moves like the airborne dive where I could just reset things but so it goes.

Should have this soon, I hope. Fun fight though the walkback is getting a bit annoying, wish there was a bonfire near that merchant/shortcut hub.
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Got him. Really fun fight to learn and play.

Landed the killing blow with a sliver of health too. I had taken to playing conservatively and basically only going for one hit when he left and opening but with like 2% HP (on me) and his buff up (maybe even stacked, he casted it twice towards the end don't know if that would reset the duration on the first cast) I decided to go for two hits to end it instead of risking a panic-induced mistake.
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Artorias is such a good fight
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Artorias is in the running for the best boss in the series, and that's saying a lot considering how good some of the bosses can get.

xp1337 posted...

I decided to go for two hits to end it instead of risking a panic-induced mistake.

The feeling when this backfires is the worst.

Artorias' buff stacks. You can actually knock him out of the animation and prevent the buff if you hit him with a really heavy attack or an arrow to the face, but the timing is really strict.
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KamikazePotato posted...

The feeling when this backfires is the worst.

Indeed, but I felt it was worth the risk and thankfully it worked out!

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Continued on after Artorias, Oolacile Township was simple enough though those mages hit quite hard. My bow got a lot of use here sniping to either pull guys or neutralize mages I couldn't easily get into melee range for. lmao did the merchant just invade me. lmao he's salty about it when I talk to him at his shop area. I'm surprised he's still there honestly! That dude with the ball and chain at the end of the area was quite the spike in difficulty for a simple area though! I'm kinda surprised he respawns honestly! Picked up a key too and made a new friend who shot down that dragon for me but I still had to fight him.

Argh annoying fight. Honestly, my biggest issue in this fight was my own impatience. Once I calmed down and made sure I waited for him to use the attacks that allowed me to get 1-3 hits in it was fairly straightforward, but I kept getting annoyed when he wouldn't and would try to push my luck and try to dodge attacks that I didn't really have the best grip on. Camera/lock-on control was a big factor too, feel like I had to switch between lock-on and off more in this fight than most. The attack where he flies up and blasts fire in a circle straight down is an obvious one where I absolutely had to drop lock-on to be able to run away fast enough but even beyond that there was a lot of toggling.

Went to the Chasm of the Abyss and poked around a bit, but stopped at a big fog gate after an ~ominous~ bridge for next time. Looks like a good place to farm humanity if I want to kindle more bonfires though.
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I had a different experience with Kalameet than most. There's a part in the area you fight him off to the side where the walls get closer together. If you go there it prevents Kalameet from ever flying because he doesn't have enough room too. The tradeoff is that you have significantly less room to maneuver/dodge...and you're right next to the edge of a cliff. Was really tense in a good way and ended up being one of my three favorite fights in the game, up there with Artorias and O&S.
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Haha, his flying moves were usually the easier ones to work with for me! They were generally pretty slow or telegraphed so they were good opportunities to pop an Estus use if needed or if it was the flying charge, rush in for a hit or two after dodging while he recovered. Those and the flame breath attacks were the ones I could really hurt him on.

It was the melee ones that would generally give me trouble. At best I could block one of his melee hits, but generally only the ones that he would chain into combos and if the second hit would land it would punch through and hurt me decently. So I eschewed blocking altogether and went pure 2H and dodge for max damage and I couldn't reliably figure out the right way to dodge some of his attacks. Sometimes it would work, but other times (usually his tail whip/step back thing) my timing would be late and I'd get whacked. Or my roll would either be too early or poorly placed (couldn't quite tell which, maybe both?) and I'd still get hit - and sometimes worse, then hit by the second one.

When I say my impatience was my worst enemy it's because I'd start trying to experiment with dodging those to get more opportunities to attack and... it would end up poorly eventually. >_>
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Fought and defeated Manus.

Interesting fight, but probably my least favorite of the trio (I am discounting Sanctuary Guardian here arbitrarily because it almost feels like a mini-boss fight in comparison to Artorias/Kalameet/Manus.) Unlike the others I don't really felt like I learned this fight properly. I identified very early the effectiveness of staying close, rolling forward towards him and to the side on his melee attacks, and then being able to usually land some punishing hits on him while he recovered. That said it still took a bit because I never truly figured out the optimal timing or tells for many of his different moves. Some of it was the arena being very dark, some was just me not figuring it out. His magic attacks could range from "not too bad" to "oh god instant death."

The strategy I eventually settled on (beyond the general outline I had up there) was to go full glass cannon. 2H weapon, the stamina regen shield "there", Great Magic Weapon enchant, and The Power Within both being cast right before the fog door. I could land some pretty devastating combos on him with all that, over 1000 damage per "counterattack" phase (not the individual attacks lol but the hits added up) if I was lucky. I did notice before I decided on that that I could block some of his blows, so it's possible I could have gone with a block strategy like I tackle most of the game with as my first response/default behavior but my objective was to try and end things before he could whip out some devastating magic or combo on me so yeah.
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Back to the main story and lol after the trial by fire that were the DLC bosses, I basically stomped everything.

First up, since I picked up Cast Light in the DLC the dark was less of a concern so I went to the Tomb of the Giants. Not the biggest fan of this area, too cramped, and those dog skeleton guys were arguably the biggest threat of anything else in this post, bosses included. Got the most obvious betrayal and kicked into a pit but hey. At the end was Gravelord Nito or "that dude who let me join a covenant before" i guess i wasn't the only one betrayed here. After Artorias and Manus this was kinda laughable. He's so slow lol.

Next up was the Crystal Cave and... huh... I actually was basically at the end before because this area is actually tiny. I had actually gotten right up to the final bridge on my initial exploration so all that was new was crossing it and fighting some clam guys before the boss. He was simple too, just kept running and making an effort to stay behind him/to his side, getting in hits where I could and down he went.

Which left the Demon Ruins. ...goddammit those two parasite guys who scared me away were the ONLY hostile ones and there were no more beyond them? That makes my avoidance of this place extra silly! Died a few times in the lava trying to pick up items. Would later go "lol" when I got the lava ring. Uh, bunch of bosses here, but no real challenges. Ceaseless Discharge more like... okay I don't have one here, but I just let him slam his arm down, and then unloaded on him and he went down in like 3.5 rounds of that. Demon Firesage is just the Asylum/Stray Demon fight with ~fire~ so that wasn't difficult either. During the exploration I did nearly die when 4 giant worms ambushed me and had me completely surrounded! that was fun. Finally I fought the Centipede Demon and I almost thought he glitched out on me. It looked like he did some jump thing but then... he wouldn't come back. I could vaguely hear him and rubble would come down every now and then... but it was just me in that room for like 30-40 seconds. I started walking around to see if maybe the arena was huge and he somehow dropped behind me (it really seemed like he was behind the fog door entrance at one point!) when finally he came back, it looked weird though, like was walking with half his body below the ceiling and part above, but he dropped back down somehow and I was able to finish him off. And then laugh that the lava ring meant all my item related deaths earlier were pointless.

Next up is Lost Izalith I guess but I stopped here.
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Yeah you're gonna cruise to the end now

And then on to Dark Souls 2!

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Also for some reason the last gated area was so tough to me to find even though its literally connected to firelink shrine

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