Dark Souls: Prepare to Die (PS3/360/PC)

[Chun Liroy]

Metah, question for you since you probably have played it the most, lol.

How would a ninja build do utilizing the Leo and Hornet (I think this one increases critical hit damage) along with parrying dagger in offhand and Bandit/priscillas in main? Does Bandit's dagger count as piercing for Leo's ring? Would bandit +15 and magic weapon do well or would it be better with a lightning/fire (or chaos?) bandit dagger?

[Ramor]

If you are going to block you have to rotate yourself slightly so that your back is actually facing the wall. That way, when his arrows hit you you get pushed into the wall as opposed to just backwards and slightly off the edge, eventually pushing you to your death. If you're going to roll you just gotta time it. Basically, keep blocking that way until you advance close enough for him to switch to sword, pull back until you reach the bridge area you used to get there in the first place and they usually just walk off to their deaths.

ahh, i suppose i didn't think about how it would push me with shield block just assumed it would always be the same direction.

[Chun Liroy]

So, beat Smoughstein on my character (killed ornstein first once to get the ring)... I have no idea how this ring works. Just messing with the skeletons near andre and it had no noticeable effect. I tried bandit's dagger, I tried backstabs I tried parries. I tried Rapiers, no go, then I tried a partizan, still didn't affect damage. hornet's ring worked nicely though, backstabs went from like 171 to 235~

As far as Leo's ring though.... I honestly have no idea.

[Metah]

Okay so there's a lot of things you're asking me about here, I'll try and answer them unless I miss something:

Fire Weapons seem to have only very slightly more damage than lightning weapons in general, but not always.
I heard in the Japanese patch that Chaos weapons do have higher damage once you get high humanity over other upgrade paths. However, as it stands in the current NA 1.03 patch, this is not the case. Compare my weapons for my H2H character:

Fire Claw +10: Weapon damage 364. Damage dealt against hollow enemy by Firelink Shrine in NG+: 227
Chaos Claw +5 with 18 humanity: Weapon damage 368. Damage dealt to same enemy: 233
Chaos Claw +5 with 0 humanity: Weapon damage 304. Damage dealt to same enemy: 161
Lightning Claw +5: Weapon damage 360. Damage dealt to same enemy: 221
Dragon Bone Fist +5: Weapon damage 185. Damage dealt to same enemy: 116
Dragon Bone Fist +5 + Magic Weapon with Catalyst: Weapon damage 274. Damage dealt to same enemy: 142

As you can see, fire and lightning weapons are almost the same. In general, more things including players are weaker to lightning than fire, although this is not always the case. If you can use both, switching between them is best for low attack stats characters (STR/DEX/INT/FTH). That being said, Priscilla's is a tough motherfucker. It has both the strongest bleeding property of all weapons, which I've gained a newfound appreciation for, and a high dark damage modifier, which although I still don't fully understand seems to be effective against humanoid enemies. It also has a high DEX modifier. If you put 50 points into DEX to really get the max damage you can out of it and used magic weapon for another 80ish so weapon damage, you could really bust out some high damage. I think I would personally go with the Priscilla's +5 IF you want to put in the stats for it. If not, use an electric bandit's in most situations and a fire bandit's in places where electricity does not do as well as fire (in the final battle for instance).

Hornet Ring flat out increases Riposte/Backstab damage. The animation actually changes against humanoid enemies quite radically, and can change against other enemies sometimes too. Against humans, for example, the Claw's (slash-damage, but part of the Club family in terms of backstab/riposte) backstab changes to be the same as a non-katana sword (simply stabs through the opponent). The riposte changes to the kidney/crotch punch, followed by a takedown and a face-crush for 3 hits. Really cool actually.

The Leo Ring works like the Master's Ring in Demon's Souls. It does not improve Riposte or Backstab damage. A counter is when you attack an enemy just before they attack you. You will see a quick flash of a spark indicating you've gotten a counter.

Here is the damage I got for a counter using Ricard's Rapier with the Leo Ring equipped on the same enemy as before: 44
Now Ricard's Rapier with the Leo Ring unequipped: 31

[Chun Liroy]

Thanks for the post, I really appreciate it. If I decided to go with a Dex build (while using priscilla's) with the anticipation that the damage will scale properly in 1.05, think it would be better to use bandit +15? Also, can I build bleed with bandit's then switch to priscilla's to get the 50% bleed damage from the last swipe?

[Eggroll]

Priscilla's dagger is still pretty bad post patch iirc. I'm running a dex build right now and I'm planning on on using a silver knight sword since apparently it can be enchant post patch, as much as I like daggers and thief setups they're just too bad for pvp.

[Chun Liroy]

Are black knight weapons enchant-able at all post patch? What happened to priscilla's post patch, decrease in damage or scaling?

The idea was to be more of a bleed/riposte type focusing on that high damage (but apparently Leo ring doesn't work that way )

[Chun Liroy]

Dragon butts suck. That is all.

[Heavencloud]

Was the patch released in the US?

[Souj]

no.

[Souj]

Slab farming is starting to eat at my nerves.
Need 1 White, 1 Blue, 1 Regular.
I killed a bunch of Darkwraiths but gave up after awhile and moved to tomb of giants to farm the pinwheels, but they're being ass too.
6mask of father, 7 mother, 4 white chunks. Wiki lists slab and child mask as drops as well, though now I'm starting to doubt as I havent seen a Child Mask drop from them either.

[AoE]

Slab farming is starting to eat at my nerves.
Need 1 White, 1 Blue, 1 Regular.
I killed a bunch of Darkwraiths but gave up after awhile and moved to tomb of giants to farm the pinwheels, but they're being ass too.
6mask of father, 7 mother, 4 white chunks. Wiki lists slab and child mask as drops as well, though now I'm starting to doubt as I havent seen a Child Mask drop from them either.

Really? I have so many Child masks for no good reason. Would love the father mask. Also think I might stop playing til they patch the game.

[Metah]

Are black knight weapons enchant-able at all post patch? What happened to priscilla's post patch, decrease in damage or scaling?

The idea was to be more of a bleed/riposte type focusing on that high damage (but apparently Leo ring doesn't work that way )

For PvE: anything can work really.
For PvP: Priscilla's damage is obviously low compared to other weapons, but once you get that bleeding in once they're going to be finished; the damage is massive. However, I would not recommend trying a riposte against other players, because with the lag that exists, getting a parry is 100% luck. At least for me, but I live in Canada and it seems most people that I get paired with are in every country but Canada. Backstabs are much more effective in PvP, to the point where I'd say its almost too god damn cheap, since if you get scared and start backstepping away from the opponent, you're already finished, if they know how to backstab, no roll, no run, no attack and no random turning will save you since the game is super lenient for backstabbers online.

[Souj]

7father, 8 mother, 4 child, 15 chunks. no slab. starting to think it might be faster to just do a new game, going back through Anor, finding the Embers I need, go through Tomb of Giants again and getting the white slab then.
I need to get kill Gwyndolin for his soul again anyways...

[Chun Liroy]

Greatshield of atoreis is do fucking boss btw. almost no stamina drain. Good stats. I love it.

[-Zer0-]

You can buy all three masks somewhere. I forget from who. I think Patches.

[Souj]

You can buy all three masks somewhere. I forget from who. I think Patches.

Why would I want to buy masks when I have like 8 of each D:

[Tonko]

Why would you farm colored slabs instead of just picking them up in NG+?
Titanite slabs for armor is the only acceptable slab to farm.

[Souj]

Why would you farm colored slabs instead of just picking them up in NG+?
Titanite slabs for armor is the only acceptable slab to farm.

I'm on NG+ At the very end. All I need is the Sunlight covenant miracles, Gwyndolin's 2nd weapon and Sif's 3rd weapon, then regular slab, blue and white to upgrade for platinum.
Was hoping to get platinum right after reaching Anor, but it's probably just going to be faster to get the slabs on NG++ and also get the embers needed for the blacksmiths to upgrade them.

[Metah]

Character spoiler question:

Spoiler: show

I was told you could save Seigmeyer at the end of his and Seiglinde's quest chain, but no matter what I do or how I approach it, I always vary it and no matter what Seigmeyer dies. Is there a real way to save him or does he just go hollow at the end every time?