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

[m4th_]

well sir, you got a point.
http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Giant+Cat
being sif a wolf i thought they might be at least canine of some sort, but i was wrong!

[Insanecyclone]

https://www.facebook.com/darksouls/app_352678381442367

[Kaisha]

Better be more than an announcement of a PC port at that rate, as everyone 'liking' it has probably already played the damn game.

[Insanecyclone]

I want the game but I keep forgetting about it.

[Rokku]

I'm amazed that 5,000 likes later, and all the wall got was a little scratch in it from when it went up.

[Metah]

It's gonna be revealed anyway lol

[Ollieyk]

cheers! didn't noticed that enchanted and magic were both int based, my bad!
the enchanted ember is the one by the big mushroom bros right? scary place, the first time i went there i shat my pants when the dogs on the other side of the garden jumped at me out of nowhere.

as of rings, im currently wearing the most common combo of favor and protection + the fancy ninja rolls one. do you have any suggestions on another combo that i should try? i wanted to try the stam regen ring with something else, i might play around a bit with it and see if i have enough endurance to keep my armor while having the fast roll without the dark wood ring.

Havels Ring + Dark Wood Gain Ring + Black Iron Armor + Mask of the Child + 40END = The best all round setup I've found so far.

As for that Facebook reveal, I'm hoping for a Vita port or DLC, most likely reveal is PC port though

[Metah]

If you guys haven't tried a Resistance build yet, I recommend it. I was genuinely surprised by its effectiveness, considering how Resistence scales. Get 16 STR and 12 DEX so you can two-hand a Lightning Zweihander +5, put all your next stat points into RES and VIT (maybe 30 and 40 is a good enough place to go, but 40 and 40 is also fine). Wear full giant's armor +5 and a Ring of Favour and Protection. Put a couple extra points into END if you want (enough for 3 Zweihander swings is more than enough for me). Feel free to get FAI to 14 so you can cast Magic Barrier to help your magic defense, which will be your lowest defense. Your extra ring slot can be used for different things as you find need; Cloranthy is always a good choice, but Ring of Steel Protection and Red Tearstone Ring among others are also useful. For your left hand slot equip either a Grass Crest Shield for offhand or an Eagle shield if you really need to block. Prepare to feel invincible. Quelana's Flame +5 barely breaks a sweat against you, physical attacks is child's play and backstabs are like being tickled. I had a DEX 45 INT 40 build try to backstab me with Crystal Weapon, and it took only 1/3 of my life off.

When people can't kill you in a single backstab, man, do they ever get scared. And a scared prey is easy prey. You will be slow, but that is not the problem. Learn how to unlock target and turn around to prevent backstabs (not foolproof but makes it more difficult). Use the zweihander's great reach to limit your opponent's movements and power through their own bullshit. You'll have more than enough poise to handle it. Bring your own Pyromancer's Flame if you wish and use Acid Surge to seriously limit or trap your opponents. Learn to get good at reading attacks so you can switch from one-handed to two-handed at the right times. One handed will give you a better block, but you won't be able to attack unless you're twohanding. That being said, your Ultra Great Swords have the best defense for actual weapons in the game, with a Lightning Zweihander giving you 70% reduction on physical and lightning attacks (and I think 50% fire too) on block.

Another good tactic is to put your back against a wall and unlock so you won't track the opponent. They won't be able to backstab or kill you by any means unless you sit there and let them kill you. Since the Zweihander's swing is about 180 degrees, when they try to attack you anyway even though they can't backstab, just give them a swipe and hit them from the side, then continue the combo for a kill.

Your weakest will be magic attacks, but INT builds actually aren't that effective against RES builds if you actually block. Faith build will likely be most dangerous, but that is why you carry around a Magic Barrier to help prevent their WotG from killing you. I remember once a guy hit me with WotG 6 times (so he was ng+ while I was just ng) they only took off about half of my life. Also regular monsters and bosses don't stand a chance against you at all.

[Ollieyk]

That is one build i have yet to try just for the simple fact that I hate running in slow motion during the standard game. Definately sounds interesting though. Time to start a new character again!

[Metah]

Yeah, you will be slow like the giants themselves whose armor you borrow lol. With Ring of Favour & Protection and Havel's Ring, with a couple extra END or maybe just equipped with the Grass Crest shield you should be able to get under 50% equip weight I think.

I mean for my last RES character (I made a second), I started off as Knight class and didn't upgrade END at all. With base END and the ring of favour+protection, I had enough equip weight to wear full giant's, the Zweihander itself which is like 10 weight and a grass crest shield or an eagle shield.

[Ollieyk]

Started building by RES build at 4pm last night, 6 hours later I finished NG+ with 50RES, 45VIT, 24STR, 11DEX and 16END. Ring of Favour and Protection coupled with Ring of Steel Protection. Full Giants +5 with Grass Crest Shield and Zweihander+5.

This build is completely broken haha! Am yet to die once through both NG and NG+ playthroughs, been invaded 19 times and destroyed everyone without breaking a sweat. Even in NG+ Smough and Orstein gave me zero trouble at all when 2-handing Zweihander the entire time, their thunder jump move only took off about 1/10th of my health when blocked by the Zweihander.

Thinking of building up my END in NG++ enough to use full giants + Ring of Favour and Protection + Wood Gain Ring, 50END should be enough for this if I replace the giants mask with the Mask of the Child but currently sat at 480DEF with the Ring of Steel Protection and Giants Mask +5 so want to try and hit the 500DEF barrier as rolling actions don't matter in the least with this build.

Good suggestion Metah Having a lot of fun. Atleast I will be until I face up against a WoTG spammer.

[m4th_]

damn you guys, making me interested in trying that res build now!
maybe i'll take a break from my melee/sorcerer character and try the red build you was talking about.

olli, any suggestion on a quick start? like which class to pick (thinking about deprived as i'm pretty decent with dodging), first places to go, stats to build up at start, etc. anything that could help me taking the first part of the game (untill anor londo i guess) quickly.

also a screenshot of your character would be appreciated, i take the "appereance" part of the game very seriously, ahah!
as i stated before, if anyone is playing this on ps3 and wanna add me, my id is: maashuudojo.

[Ollieyk]

I just wrote a massive walkthrough on the getting through the whole first half of the game within around an hour and Chrome locked up so I lost it all! Not going to re-type, but to sum up:

Step 1: Start as Warrior or Knight.
Step 2: Pick Master Key
Step 3: Get STR to 16
Step 4: Suicide run into graveyard and get Zweihander
Step 5: Suicide run into New Londo and get Firekeepers Soul
Step 6: Go through Undead Burg as per normal but avoid Taurus Demon and go through Darkroot Basin (from the door guarded by Havel).
Step 6: Upgrade Zwei to +5 (also make sure you get the Basement Key from outside the church in the Undead Burg)
Step 7: Use Zwei+5 + Gold Pine Resin to destroy Bell Gargoyles
Step 8: Use shortcut in New Londo to get to Blight Town
Step 9: Kill Maneater Mildred and summon her for Quelaag fight (use remaining Gold Pine Resin + Zwei - Makes Quelaag easy)
Step 10: Kill Ceaseless Discharge
Step 11: I don't normally set my HP in Blight Town so I Homeward Bone from Ceaseless
Step 12: Use souls from Ceaseless to get Crest of Artorios and grab the Stone Knight Armor in the Darkroot Forest
Step 12: Head back to Firelink - Run through Undead Burg and kill Taurus Demon
Step 13: Talk to Solaire
Step 14: Go into Lower Undead Burg and kill off Capra Demon (should be easy at this point)
Step 15: Get Large Ember using key dropped by Capra
Step 16: Run to Andrei and give Large Ember - Using any Large Titanite Shards you have so far to upgrade Zwei (Even though +5 Zwei is normally strong enough to kill off enemies in Sens)
Step 17: Get to the top of Sens and buy any needed remaining Large shards from the merchant
Step 18: Get key from room below merchant and unlock shortcut to the start of Sens Fortress
Step 19: Run to Blacksmith and upgrade to +10 Zwei
Step 20: Summon TARKUS!!! to kill off Iron Giant for you
Step 21: Warp to Anor Londo
Step 22: Go through to normal pain of getting into the Anor Londo castle
Step 23: Upgrade Zwei to Lightning
Step 24: Buy all Giant Armor
Step 25: Farm up some Twinkling Titanite or enough souls to buy some from Giant Blacksmith
Step 25: Walk through Orstein and Smough like they were a light rain shower!

Once you have a decent level of RES and VIT (around 30 each) with +4 /+5 Zweihander and +5 Giant Armor the game becomes super easy mode.

I would then go to New Londo to get Titanite Chunks from Darkwraiths and head back to Undead Asylum to get a slab so you can get your Zwei to +5 but this isn't needed for Anor Londo.

Also make sure you kill off the Firekeeper in Anor Londo once you have the Lordvessel and head back to Blight Town to get the other Firekeepers Soul. +4 Estus Flask should restore 70%~ of your health at 40VIT so should tide you over until NG+

Just noticed you wanted stat progress:

My first upgraded stat was STR to 16 - I started as Warrior so was able to get STR to 16 as soon as i arrived in Firelink.

The 10k souls i got from Bell Gargoyles got my VIT to around 20 and my RES to 15~

The 20k from Queelag and 8k from Maneater got my VIT to around 27 I think?

I saved the 20k from Ceaseless for the Crest of Artorios.

After beating the Iron Giant, my VIT was around 32 and my RES was around 28~ I think.

By the end of NG my VIT was 40 and my RES was 40.

I slowed down on the levelling in NG+ to stop from going too far over level 100 for PvP purposes so I am currently sat with 500k+ souls in my bank!

[m4th_]

mother of walkthrough.

thanks a bounch ollieyk, that should greatly help for the first steps ahahah.
just a point tho: low endurance + insane heavy armor = very slow speed, am i right? if i remeber correctly if you go over a certain % of your load you basically end up walking... is this gonna be the case?
also, where is the shortcut to blight town from new londo? never seen (or i may just not remember it).

regarding the weapon, i'd like to try the zweihander, slower and deadlier than her little sister claymore, i just don't like the lightning enchant, is there any viable alternatives? is chaos enchant that bad?

edit_ i just noticed the edit and thanks again! also... bank? is there a way to storage unused souls/humanity? jeez turns out i'm much more newbie to this game than i thought.

[Ollieyk]

You will be running slow but that's kinda the point of a RES build, you are a tank with lots of poise so the purpose is to not avoid attacks, the purpose is to take the hits and negate as much damage as possible doing so. Makes things pretty funny in PvP when people are spamming their attacks and you just keep slowly running towards them! If you go above 50% equip load you will run slowly, between 25% and 50% is medium and 0%-25% is speedy unless you use the Wood Gain Ring.

The shortcut to Blight town is right next to the entrance of New Londo. If you come up the stairs from the Blacksmith in New Londo it will be opposite the top of the stairs in a little turret. You climb some stairs and that will take you to a gate that can be unlocked with the Master Key. Saves so much pain in Blighttown!

Fire Zweihander +10 or Chaos+5 with 10+ Humanity would come pretty close I imagine, but to make the most of making it fire enchanted it would probably be best to run through the Catacombs before taking on Sens Fortress so would take up a chunk of extra time Depends how you want to go, +5 Fire enchanted Zwei would make Sens a hell of alot easier than base +5 - +10 but there are more enemies in the game that are resistant to Fire than there are resistant to Lightning, including other players.

EDIT: If you did the Catacombs it would also give you access to 20 Estus Flasks earlier in the game which, i imagine, would also be a pretty big help.

Also - If you are worried about speed, it might be an idea to use the Havels Ring and the Ring of Favour and Protection for a medium roll, or the Havels Ring + the Wood Gain Ring for fast movement, but with full Giants you would need around 30(?)~ END + Havels Ring + Wood Gain Ring for this to work, which is pretty obtainable. You just lose the bonuses of the Ring of Favour and Protection and the Ring of Steel Protection (50DEF bonus).

[m4th_]

ah true about the fire resistance... well i might try this lightning enchant out then!
oh, i see which shortcut you mean, the one that passes tru valley of drakes, with the 3/4 fat guys guarding it, right? i used that entrance with my first character as well as i thought it was the only entrance, then i figured out it wasn't, as i used the master key... damn blight town, reminded me of the swamp place in demon's souls, gotta hate those 2 places.

well thanks for all the advices, i will roll a res based character soon and try it out. being able to sustain a little punching might helps to practice with parrying as well, as it won't be as much deadly as it was with my sorcerer if missed.

[Ollieyk]

Regarding the shortcut - That's the one. I missed it completely on my first playthrough due to no Master Key so Blighttown made me never want to go the long way round ever again. I tend to get in and out of Blighttown as quickly as possible lol.

There isn't much need for a shield using the RES build so just get the Grass Crest Shield. Full Giants without some sort of stamina recovery is painful!

[Metah]

I see I missed a lot while I was sleeping! Haha. I'm glad you enjoyed my RES build Ollieyk. I told you it is crazy as hell lol, I still love when people get scared because they can't kill you in a single hit lol. I remember times where I just stood there with my back against a wall chugging sunny delight while the opponent is trying to hit me, and they can't break my poise lol.

I did want to mention something about a Fire or Chaos Zweihander. The reason I picked Lightning Zweihander +5 is because lightning defense tends to be more uniform; that is, no stat levels it, and most armors have lightning defenses that are in tune with its weight. The only exception is Ornstein's armor, which has lower weight but huge lightning defense. Havel's, Giant's, Black Iron and Stone armor sets also have high lightning defense, but their weights are much much higher so naturally they will have more defense.

Fire defense is only boosted to higher levels with the RES stat, which most people put not even a single point in. It is true that after RES 15, the stat suffers diminshed returns on its poison resist, and after RES 20, the defense stat starts getting some scaling too. So most people find it useless, but it isn't right ;P. There are a lot more armors with Fire defense, like Quelana's, but these lack the physical defenses to deal with your Zweihander too. I think all in all, either is a fine choice, and maybe a Chaos Zweihander +5 with a buttload of humanity (maybe like 20) will really start to outdamage at Lightning Zweihander +5. And like Ollieyk said, more enemies are resistant or even immune to fire damage. So against players, I think either will be okay, but against enemies definitely a Lightning version is better for any weapon than Fire.

I must reiterate though, I think after SL 120, the RES build starts to lose its effectiveness. If you can show me otherwise though, that'd be great, I'd like to keep my RES characters going up in levels.

Also for my Bow only build, yesterday I took on Gwyndolin and Four Kings and Demon Firesage and Ceaseless Discharge. A couple of things about these bosses I found out: Gwyndolin can be killed using poison arrows without activating him; if you don't move when the boss fight starts, and equip a Hawk Ring and Black Bow of Pharis, you can manuever your poison arrows to hit him. They won't do any damage, but they activate the poison which will kill him. I killed him while watching TV lol. You can do the same thing with the Bell Gargoyles in Anor Londo I discovered. For Ceaseless Discharge, he totally doesn't like being shot with arrows and will activate immediately upon doing so, even without taking the armor. This boss was a piece of shit because he used that almost impossible to damage fire attack every single time, so I took the hit, healed up (luckily I was wearing mostly Painting Guardian armor for the fire/magic/lightning defenses) and just kept shooting. It was getting close, he was almost dead and I was on my last estus, but I managed to finish him off with large arrows.

As for Four Kings, I had to take a page out of the book of my Resistance build. Originally I tried using my standard dodge techniques I learned from my H2H only run, but trying to attack these guys with a bow leaves you way too open after a dodge, and you can't kill them before the next one spawns. So I decided to do something else; I equipped full Havel's and a Crest shield to deal with their magic attacks. This put me way over my equip weight so I could only walk, but as everyone knows the Four Kings come to you so this isn't much of a problem. I got as close to them as possible while blocking (since I have low END too I would usually get stunned), then just arrow them from point blank. The beauty is that you can get headshots with autotarget in this position, which does more damage but doesn't seem to stun. Also, for some reason, when you're point blank the Four kings simply do less damage; I guess getting hit with the hilt of their sword is less harmful than the blade . I needed 20 estus for the fight, but I was able to kill each King before the next spawned.

Now I've finally put 16 faith to use a Darkmoon Bow, and with 40 DEX and 16 faith you do more damage with the Darkmoon bow than you do with a +15 Short bow and 32 STR 40 DEX. I was gonna take my STR higher, but I noticed that compound bow was getting very minor boosts per STR level despite having C rank (then again, my compound is only +10). I guess I'll be leveling faith from here on in and buying hella Dragonslayer Arrows for my greatbow and Moonlight arrows for this one. Dragonslayer is always fun lol

[Souj]

demon's souls, but w/e!

[Ollieyk]

also a screenshot of your character would be appreciated, i take the "appereance" part of the game very seriously, ahah!
as i stated before, if anyone is playing this on ps3 and wanna add me, my id is: maashuudojo.

Sorry they are a bit small and blurry...







Also ignore the Estus +5 Not played since last week and have neglected most Estus' on my run throughs so far!

EDIT: For reference, i regret going the END route on this build. It's nice to have movement speed, but i would have preffered to pump VIT to 60 and stopped at level 120~. PvP was much easier and this build far more effective at 120. I also miss my Ring of Steel Protection . It also begins to lose its effectivenesss in normal game at NG++, i've had to add a Balder Shield +15 to remain as strong.