brinstar's dark souls idiot journey

[brinstar]

gonna post stuff here since it didn't feel right to keep dragging along the DS2 thread with my tales of ineptitude

btw thanks for the link toss, this hi-def pack really makes the game shine on my bigscreen

anyway after getting pwned by the minotaur demon, i then learned the hard way that weapons break down. problem is i'd already jacked the vendor guy in the undead burg so i didn't know what to do. got tired of swinging a morningstar around so i thought hmm wonder if there's another vendor down in blighttown since i hadn't been that way yet

went down there and found some banshee ladies with hook hands that i couldn't hit, they killed me instantly. nice. then i tried going a different way and LO! a blacksmith. got all my stuff fixed and used some rocks to give my broadsword +3 and my armor +1

haven't fought giant knight or mino demon since the fixup (been busy all weekend) but my parrying is getting better so i got a good feeling one of them is going down


future question - i'm a knight, so i should be all END-STR right?

[Zanchief]

END is good in all builds. STR and DEX is dependent on your weapon of choice. Fast weapons like Katanas (you should have a good one if you killed the guy in the undead burg) use DEX. Slow weapons and two handed weapons use STR. The build you start with is kind of irrelevant, so don't get too married too it. Vitality is also useful for almost all builds. For a melee type I'd do equal parts STR/DEX(which ever you chose) and STAM and keep your vitality at about 50% to 75% of those stats.

New Londo Ruins (with the banshees) should be avoided until later. There's a way to fight the banshees but that zone is very difficult.

Re-mino (Taurus Demon), he can be killed easily with simple melee strategies. They may not be obvious right away, but once you come closer to mastering combat you will be able to kill him without dying fairly easily (and will have to as he will become a regular enemy in future levels). I can give you tips if you'd like but you probably want to discover these on your own.

Re-parry. It's useful but I finished the game twice without ever doing it. It's a bit unreliable until you get very good at it. I prefer backstabs. You don't get hurt if you miss-time an attack on someones back. You just do less dmg.

[brinstar]

yeah i get a warning about stats being too low when i try to equip that uchigatana i got from killing him, and my toon swings it like a drunk ;\

i had the hallway knight down to about 15% but i was out of juice bottles and the motherfucker ran me through. i'll kill that MFer yet

what's the deal with the random pools of blood with the ghosts that keep showing up? is that some creepy thing where i get to see how some other player died??? also i saw some other dude sitting at my campfire, then he vanished. i assumed i was playing offline, does this mean i was wrong? lol


EDIT: does that hallway knight respawn like the others? ugh

[Zanchief]

Hallway Knight (black Knight): No they don't respawn. A few rare enemies like that stay dead. There's another near there if you took the thiefs key (down the long tower). He will have rare loot and will not respawn but is very difficult at your level.

Blood pools: Those are blood stains other players left when they died. You can look at them to warn you of upcoming danger, or to just laugh at them.

Ghosts at the campfires: Those are just other players near you in lvl. The game does that just for flavor. It means nothing (well it does prove your online). They don't stay for long. It's just for show, you can't interact with them.

Weapon recs: Don't use anything you don't have the recs for. Something you can use a one handed weapon two handed if your rec are close. Still not really worth it. That weapon is considered by most (and me) to be the best dex scaling weapon though. Weapons don't really get that much better later. They get better mostly by upgrades.

[brinstar]

Blood pools: Those are blood stains other players left when they died. You can look at them to warn you of upcoming danger, or to just laugh at them.

shit's cool. most of them i see are just people running around and then falling off ledges lol

[brinstar]

took only 2 more tries (thanks to new upgrades) before i ganked hallway knight. scored a Black Knight Sword which has more than double the attack power of my current sword - but i need another 8-10 levels before i can use it (20str 18dex recs)

went after taurus demon next, had him at 40% then fell off the damn wall. went back up there and whacked him only using 1 juice bottle. met the sun knight guy, avoided getting fried by a dragon, then got mashed by a giant armored pig lol

respawned and fought all the way back up and found a new bonfire, except it wasn't a new bonfire. jumped down to use it before realizing it was the exact same bonfire. fought back up, kicked down ladder, then OH LOOK ANOTHER BLACK KNIGHT and this one has a much bigger sword

reclaimed soul pile, leveled up, then had a nap. good game so far.

[Drem]

Damn, this makes me want to play again

[brinstar]

Damn, this makes me want to play again

yeah i won't lie, i had a feeling ya'll would enjoy hearing about a noob's journey

[Zanchief]

Getting a black knight sword will be very powerful this early. Recs are a kick in the ass though.

I remember the first time I fought the Taurus Demon I fell off the wall too.

[brinstar]

still plugging away at those Black Knight Sword recs, need about another six levels yet. killed pig demon thing; he fried himself in the fire for most of his bar and then i finally got the right angle and sworded his anus lol

ganked by big huge guy in the church, then went after him again and won. yay flask upgrade!

can't seem to fight through the pack of caped skellies at the other end of the church with that magic asshole shooting me with bolts of bullshit. where do i find a bow? beardy blacksmith in the tower has a shitload of arrows and bolts, but no (cross)bows for sale. argh

found some big huge demon that can't even walk. hung in for a little bit, but only got him down to 85% before dying. some caped skelly fried me on the way back and i lost a pile of souls. got mad and quit ;\

[Drem]

Unfortunately, starting bows are from the merchant youkilled. Some are available later on tho. Go upstairs and kill mage dude first. Watch out if he buffs all the little zombies tho

[Zanchief]

There's a crossbow in the undead burg near the black knight. There's a tower, go to the top and there's a crossbow skele. I believe he drops one at a high rate.

Also there's a bonfire between the caped skeles and the demon right above the smith. You should have started there. There's also a shortcut from the church to go back to the very first shrine.

[brinstar]

There's a crossbow in the undead burg near the black knight. There's a tower, go to the top and there's a crossbow skele. I believe he drops one at a high rate.

Also there's a bonfire between the caped skeles and the demon right above the smith. You should have started there. There's also a shortcut from the church to go back to the very first shrine.

i have killed that crossbow skelly probably 30 times and never got more than a firebomb or two. i will grind out another 30 and see what i get (need the stats anyway)

i found that bonfire but only after dying to the cripple demon. found the shortcut back to firelink too, that was cool as shit.

edit: do you think that lift actually physically lines up with firelink? like, is the entire burg structure consistent in three dimensions? or is there some sort of zoning that happens while it's descending/ascending? normally it wouldn't occur to me but sometimes i can look down from one of those really high towers and see "oh look that's where i fell off the ledge, and that's where i killed the first black knight, etc"

[Tossica]

I think it all lines up. A 3d map of the world would be dope!

[Tossica]

There's a crossbow very early in the game. I forget exactly how to get there but it's before the 2nd bonfire. It's in one of those "a ha!" places after climbing up a ladder or jumping across a rooftop or something.

[Drem]

Yeah, you keep going past the merchant in burg, kill the four weak dudes, climb ladder, jump from roof across to broken walkway, then explore a little. It's on a body that would be directly above the aqueduct/tunnel from firelink to burg

Or like z said, the guys that shoot crossbows have a slim chance of dropping them. But you cant aim crossbows. I never liked them

Also yes, the world lines up. You have to hop off that elevator to land on another ledge that lets you get back to the undead asylum. Shortcuts between areas constantly open up after boss fights. Love it. After you get the lordvessel you'll be able to teleport between most bonfires, too

I have a big hardback book about this game. Even with that, so much was still unexplained. Game's deep as the ocean. Would highly recommend using a wiki or something like that as you play thru the first time. Almost nothing is explained in-game, and even less is intuitive or easily stumbled upon

[brinstar]

Yeah, you keep going past the merchant in burg, kill the four weak dudes, climb ladder, jump from roof across to broken walkway, then explore a little. It's on a body that would be directly above the aqueduct/tunnel from firelink to burg

okay i know that sounds really specific but i can't figure out exactly where you mean

I have a big hardback book about this game. Even with that, so much was still unexplained. Game's deep as the ocean. Would highly recommend using a wiki or something like that as you play thru the first time. Almost nothing is explained in-game, and even less is intuitive or easily stumbled upon

that sounds like it would blunt some of the challenge

go play the s.t.a.l.k.e.r. games while i slog through this bitch

[Drem]

It doesnt blunt the challenge because that's in the combat mechanics. It's more like a guide to how underlying stat systems work and various secrets that a guy like me would never figure out. It's also nice to have a general gameplan, because you could theoretically tackle this game in many different ways after you hit anor lando

Then i spent hours and hours watching epicnamebro's youtubes about the lore because he breaks it down smarter than anyone else imo

Go back to where you killed that merchant and keep going past his spot. A dude breaks out from behind a shelf, then you kill four weak dudes and climb a ladder. You can drop bak down to the burg entrance or jump over to the walkway

Wikis might seem weak, but i had written this game off (like lyion did) until i understood what was going on. I didnt have people telling me what to do, like you and zan and lyion. so i used the book

[brinstar]

wooo played a bunch tonight, let's see

opened up a bunch more shortcuts. fought up to the top of the church and whacked the gargoyles on the first try (i was out of juice and had to burn a couple of humanities for HP). got a sweet gargoyle hat and rang the bell. boom!

farted around new burg areas, didn't really find anything super cool yet. backtracked and found the crossbow you told me about, and then within 20 minutes i had random crossbow skellies drop not one but TWO free crossbows, lol

went after the bridge drake for a while, but crossbows can't aim for shit so i decided i was wasting my time trying to hit his stupid tail. cheesed his flame breath a few times and gathered souls from him killing hollows on the bridge, then finally squeaked out the recs for my Black Knight Sword. holy shit this thing is slow, but it hits like a truck. took another stab at the drake, then got mad and ran under him instead in hopes of becoming a warrior of the sun. the altar didn't give me the option to pray though, apparently i need something crazy like 25 faith? seems like bullshit to me

drake was gone after that, but just in case he decides to come back i looked up where to find an actual bow - darkroot. ran back to the church, plunked away at the cripple demon with my shitty crossbow, and then sniffed around darkroot a bit. just about shat myself when i found a black knight (halberd) on a narrow ledge. MFer almost got me but i ganked him first try. found a stamina regen shield and an elevator way down to a place with a bunch of wyverns. said fuck that noise and rode back up. gonna buy some arrows and see if that drake comes back, then poke around a bit more in thief+dog land.

[Zanchief]

I remember when I died to the Halbert black knight. He's a tough one because of the space. I used that shield on my main build for the whole game. That and the Uchigatana.

[Drem]

You don't need faith, you need sunlight medals from killing bosses with a summoned player that has a gold summon sign and appears as a gold phantom rather than a white one. Also every time you summon solaire and defeat a boss and he lives through the fight you'll get one. You need 10 medals to get in and receive the first spell. I didnt manage to run through the drake. Got there much later after i went back and killed it and was able to enter the covenant first try. There's a chest with 3 medals near the bonfire in anor lando

tl;dr: it'll be a while before you can join

[Zanchief]

Brin is half right. You need 25 faith but the requirement is lowered by 5 for every boss you kill in COOP. You can farm coins much later in the game though, since you'll need them if you want the benefits of the covenant. Or you can just do what the covenant requires you to do. I found coop inconsistent. Often there would be no one playing so I eventually farmed my coins.

[Drem]

Ahh right. God damn it this game is awesome

[brinstar]

yea agreed. the atmosphere is crazy awesome, it reminds me of castlevania SOTN in how much the different areas vary. like okay here's skellytown, then there's dogthiefland, then there's watery times with banshees that i can't hit, then there's hella big church, and now creepy enormous pit with glowing plants and treemonsters? legit.

surprised the hell out of me when i one-shot the halberd knight considering i still can't even touch the greatsword guy on top of the tower by drakebridge

[Zanchief]

Did you ripost him? Greatsword guy. They aren't hard if you circle around them. If your stam is high enough keep your shield up but just roll before his attacks and backstab him. All black knights can be killed by BS them.