[CubaLibre]

You just use the brazier. It blocks everything. Maneater is definitely hard but like it's not that hard. I always thought Flamelurker was harder, because he's less predictable and there's nowhere to hide.

I feel pretty good saying this: the bosses in Demon's are harder. The levels in Dark are harder.

EDIT: amendment: some bosses in Demon's are marginally harder, but almost all the levels in Dark are significantly harder. Therefore Dark is overall much harder.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[TXTSWORD]

I always always found flamelurker to be extremely difficult. A lot of people say he's easy I think? But I have no idea how they think that. I just never figured him out, I guess. I mostly found myself running in terror as he tries to rush me down.

[mauve]

Flamelurker is easy peasy, just don't use lock-on. You can actually roll and run forward around most of his attacks easily. Hell, using a shield just makes it more difficult.
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twit

[scratchmonkey]

The only time I've died against Flamelurker is when I've gotten stuck on a piece of his area, usually the dragon skeleton in the corner. I've probably done that fight more than anything else in the game because right outside his room was the easiest place to get summoned as a phantom and once you get used to the rhythm of avoiding his attacks, he's not that bad.

[Youpi]

The only time I've died against Flamelurker is when I tried to improve my no-deaths run :/

Fuck you flamelurker
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Twitter: @youpi

[nuttyevans]

Finally got round to starting this up last night. Seems the servers are still up! My Dark Souls experience got me up until the Tower Knight before my ass was kicked. Very happy to have another Souls game to play over Christmas.

[diplo]

Do you mean the iron golem?

[Felix]

Demon's, dude.

[all monsters]

just started this again, had a thrilling fight with the second uchi-skeleton in 4-1. my crescent falchion broke mid fight and I had no backup equiped, so had to go through the menu to grab a spear while dodging his attacks. I got him!

also found a sweet leather cap

[nuttyevans]

[diplo]

I just understood your original sentence.

[internisus]

I only ever played about 1/3 of this game, so yesterday I started up a new character (The Dark Souls II announcement gave me the fever). I've read a lot on the Wiki so I now have an understanding of the stats I want to focus on, the weapon upgrade system, and what resources are precious and not to be wasted. I made a list of equipment that I'm interested in trying for this character, but I didn't memorize where to find all of it or anything like that; I'm not out to ruin my first full play-through that completely. So I'll have fun blowing through plenty of ore on weapons I don't want to be using eventually; it really held me back last time that I didn't upgrade anything because I figured I'd rather spend those resources on better weapons I find later. Now I understand that most ore can be farmed or bought for a relative pittance down the line.

Unlike the last time I played, I'm currently using a falchion and not a spear, which makes me feel good because the spear's range seemed a little cheap to me before. I beat both the Tower Knight and the Armored Spider melee only, whereas I had resorted to my bow last time. I feel good about my skills, and I'm looking forward to going toe-to-toe with Flamelurker again.

This character is a female wanderer, a dexterity build with some magic. I have little interest in planning expressly for PvP; that's not what I'm playing this game for, but at the same time I don't want to waste points. About what I want to look like at soul level 200, depending upon how much interest I develop in spells and miracles and whether I decide to pump luck up to 20 or maybe even 30:

40 Vitality
18 Intelligence
40 Endurance
22 Strength
99 Dexterity
38 Magic
10 Faith
13 Luck

And then after a few playthroughs, when I've accomplished what I want to accomplish, I would also like to try a slow, heavy-hitting strength and miracle character to experience the opposite play style and all the equipment this character won't be using.

Online is as active as ever. Some asswipe invaded my under-20 character as I was just trying to move through 2-1 and ruined all my equipment with a scraping spear before I realized what it was. Still took him several minutes to manage to kill me even when I had no usable equipment. It was total twinkage, and it really pissed me off. Like, I was stewing for at least half an hour because of what the repairs cost me, because of the loss of my body and the undesired tendency effect, and because of the jackass shrug gesture the guy made as I died.

After I beat the Tower Knight, I discovered that the door on the left in 1-1 was open, which means I was at pure white tendency! I couldn't believe it. I went in and killed Miralda, so I've got her armor set, which is great. I missed the crystal lizard in that area, though. Next time I lose my body I'm going to go back in there and try to get the items that require tricky drops down that chasm.

After I play 2-2, 2-3, and 3-1 I'll be caught up to my last time playing and be in completely unfamiliar territory...

[CubaLibre]

What're you gonna use with all that dex? Katanas? Remember that the pure bladestone (pretty sure that's the dex-scaling stone line) is the hardest to get in the whole game.

Pure white is amazingly easy to get in online mode. Since everyone that plays is pretty good at the game, the "resting" tendency is almost pure white to begin. Usually you can beat one boss and be at pure white in the world. Hang onto that Blinded Cross armor because it's literally the best in the game for female characters. You'll never have a mechanically justified reason for using anything else.

Scraping spear trolling is so played. 3-2 Stormruler trolling is the hotness.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[mauve]

Dex scaling falls off sharply after 40. Not really much point in going higher, whereas magic scales linearly forever.
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twit

[Iacus]

[Felix]

[internisus]

[Iacus]

Once you've played through the game normally and just want to experiment with character builds or whatever, remember there's an unpatched item dupe glitch in the game. Soul levels are not a problem.
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Guayaba 2600

[internisus]

How dare you impugn my honour, sir? I am no glitcher!

[Iacus]

Nor am I, but in the interest of using my finite time on this earth for interesting stuff rather than mindless grinding, I take the quick route sometimes.

Of course I reiterate that you should play the game normally at first, in any case.
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Guayaba 2600

[CubaLibre]

guardian it sounds like you've already read too much about the game :(
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Let's Play, starring me.

[internisus]

Nah, I dunno where to find any of this stuff nor anything about levels I haven't seen yet, and I'm going to try any equipment I come across to see what feels good.

[diplo]

[klj5j6li]

[luckystrike]

[internisus]

Guys, in the last couple days I have seen lots of players' white phantoms running around, lots of bloodstains, lots of messages, and at least three summon signs that I recall. Some funny messages, too; someone wrote one directly behind that guy in the Nexus who keeps moaning about abandoning (I think) Urbain and wondering if he still prays in the darkness: "Kick." Someone got up on Blacksmith Ed's bed and wrote "Sticky white stuff" (of course). I like when people walk out onto precarious ledges just to write "Hi!" There's plenty of that all around as well as helpful messages, and I've received up-ratings on my own, too (I especially like to write warnings that crystal lizards lie ahead). I have less than 10 hours on this character, but things seem very active to me.

[Toptube]

As much as I hate to say it---I would actually recommend NOT connecting to the servers during your first playthrough. To preserve the game's intended difficulty. If you are connected, you don't have to deal with the consequence of dying in human form. Also, you won't benefit as much from doing well/staying alive. Also, the game will likely hangout close to pure white, which makes it noticeably easier in difficulty, but also makes farming more difficult.

[klj5j6li]

I'd recommend not reading about/gaming all of the game's mechanics

[analogos]

[analogos]

also: i'm not sure about this whole trying to talk about demon's vs. dark's difficulty in some universal capacity irrespective of individual players' builds, consulting of outside help, time spent online vs. offline and/or in co-op/against invaders, play styles, patch version, etc., thing. there are too many variables to consider to boil the issue down to whether or not a boss is "a joke" or if one room has three enemies against the other game's two.

if i pick an int-focused royal with a crescent falchion+3000 and stand around waiting for my mp to refill every four steps and co-op maneaters the first time i even encounter them then i'm probably going to get a game about as easy as any hypothetical dark souls playthrough.

not that i don't find those more general differences interesting or worth talking about, i'm just surprised it's been limited to that and also think we probably shouldn't try to draw too many conclusions from them.

[internisus]

[all monsters]

alright, took down adjudicator and leechmonger tonight. the few moments of panic when I stepped into the darkness of adjudicator's lair and had to size up its layout were excellent.

I'm feeling tough with my new setup; leather cap, wizard shoes, adjudicator shield, uchigatana and enough endurance to quick roll. still... I'm too nervous to approach the shadowmen of 4-2. the atmosphere in this is so much heavier than dark souls, the start of each new area is really intimidating.

[jjsimpso]

I'm close to finishing my offline run. I've mostly worked each world up to pure white tendency; the only one I've missed is world five. Still debating whether to bother with that and how much time to spend bringing worlds to pure black. I'll probably finish the game off soon and start playing online with this character in NG+.

Garl Vinland was a total pushover with a buckler, fatal rapier +1, and a master's ring to parry and riposte with. Is parrying a viable pvp strategy?
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PSN: TaipeiGamer

[CubaLibre]

Not really. Parry windows in Demon's Souls are way, way tighter than in Dark, as is that buffer where you miss the parry but it still counts as a block or partial block. (Actually I think that might not even exist.) Parries are much easier to miss, and missing them almost always means eating full damage.

Pure black is easy. If you explored thoroughly you ought to have enough stones of ephemeral eyes to just suicide and resurrect yourself in each world.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Rud31]

hahahahahahahaaha

easily took me 20 hours hours to get my second bladestone good luck with that bro.

Or....
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My Hawt Blog Vita Games

THERE ARE DEFINITELY WORSE VIDEO GAME PODCASTS

[Felix]

4-2 is pretty horrific until you've figured out what parts you should just be skipping on repeat attempts

[Ronnoc]

I just started a new character because a friend mentioned he had never finished the game and I wanted to co-op with him. I forgot how much I love this game, it really is fantastic.

I also forgot that I didn't beat it until I got a new TV. On my old TV (aka, currently my only TV), it's so dark I keep getting hit by guys jumping out of the blackness. Guess I'll buy a HDMI-VGA cable or something.

[Toptube]

[jjsimpso]

[Ronnoc]

I started a new character and killed the red dragon in 1-2 so I could hit pure white super fast and get the binded cross armor. Feelin' pretty pro

[a pair of gators]