[lolipalooza]

[Pijaibros]

[mauve]

Parrying is active from the instant you tap the button, so basically don't watch your animation and just hit it right before you would get hit and you'll always get it. (This makes it really unreliable in lag but hey!)

Unless I actually need to in order to one shot something I'll just no-lock run around to their backside and stab, though.
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twit

[Glam Grimfire]

Oh hey I didn't know parrying worked that way!
I'm making my way through the depths last night. This is actually the farthest i've ever made it in Dark Souls, because every other time something happened to my save/copy of the game.
So far i've:

-Killed the Darkwraith in Undead Burg
-Killed the Taurus Demon
-Killed the Darkwraith ontop of the tower in Undead Parish
-Killed the Titanite Demon
-Killed the Gargoyles/Rang the first Bell
-Saved Lautrec
-Killed the Garden Darkwraith by the bonfire
-Killed moonlit butterfly (with help of Da Witch)
-Killed Capra Demon

i'm a little ambivalent about taking on the Wyvern still by the bridge, and a few other things. Still rocking my +5 scimitar and a kind of combination of the wanderer/elite knight armor sets. Have a bow and a shitton of arrows and fire arrows, no miracles or spells.
Slowly making my way through the depths because i'm afraid of being cursed
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##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim

[misadventurous]

[Glam Grimfire]

i've actually got it reverse. i think the elite night armor looks the dopest with the wanderer hood
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##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim

[Broco]

[Glam Grimfire]

chiming in to say lautrec i the dopest
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##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim

[Broco]

Yeah Lautrec is pretty metal.

(Keh heh heh heh...)

[Swimmy]

Quick note on Quelaag's Fury Sword: The moveset is great for PVE, but never use it for PVP. Every one of its moves telegraphs majorly, and you will get parried to oblivion. Use it, but maybe keep a spare you're comfortable with in case you're invaded.
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[Toups]

I'm still nowhere near having the inclination to think about pvp or ng+

just kinda wanna keep tooling around with the single player and getting better at it

having a hell of a time with anor londo this time around, even though it seems like my character is more powerful I'm having a much harder time with it. maybe me not putting any points into vitality has something to do with it :\
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[Broco]

I find building towards a particular PvP build is a nice motivator to run a bunch of PvE with a new character. Like you make a Faith build, see how that works out in PvE and then try the miracles in PvP when you reach a certain level.

But you aren't wrong to avoid those things, the PvP waiting around for matchmaking is tiresome and the boss health curve is whacked in NG+ (early game bosses die in 3 hits and late game ones are damage sponges). The meat of Dark Souls is NG PvE and that's what I mostly have played.

[mauve]

yeah NG+ balance is pretty whack. four kings becomes the hardest fight in the game by a fair margin. hope you have a weapon that actually does damage!

i've been experimenting with builds last few times i've played dark souls. generally make a build, clear most of NG, hate it, scrap it, start over.

dex+pyro is lots of fun still and easily the build i find most worth playing. vit/end focused builds are interesting due to lower general damage output.

no idea how anyone actually likes sorcery in this game. big numbers are nice but they have bad tracking, lousy range, and stat investment doesn't cross over into much else. without high dex it's really slow too. crystal weapon is probably the star for me, if just from having a bunch of castings, but at that point i might as well dump the points into something else and get more out of it. say what you want about the one casting each of faith enchants, they kill things dead.

moonlight greatsword _is_ kinda cool though. something satisfying about landing that ranged nuke.

need to try just going all-out slow-walk heavy armor and seeing what i can get away with sometime.

i kinda wish the char creation screen made your char look like they do in the actual game...
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twit

[Toptube]

Yeah, I figured out pretty quick that I should make everything the way I want it, then make it all three shades lighter, to compensate for the actual in-game lighting.

Also, light eye sockets, unless you want black hole zombie eyes with no lid detail. and go easy with the skin tone slider. As your hollowed color can get pretty extreme, pretty quick.

[Kinto]

Started another new game, wound up at Sens with an unformed blob of a character that I don't know what to do with. Only put stats into dex and str to weild a halberd and pumped endurance ever since. Wearing Elite Knight cause it's the heaviest armor I have and I'm having my shit rocked by the lizardmen. I seriously don't remember them being this hard, nor the halberd's damage being this puny (+9 for God's sake!). I also have a solid pyro hand so maybe I'll go dex pyro? Iron flesh and counterpoke to death with halberd, or something?
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[misadventurous]

you could get the lightning spear from the basement to deal with the lizardmen for now, and then ascend your halberd to lightning when you get to anor londo (i'd say take it to fire now but it's well past +5 and would be a waste). that way you can keep your str and dex low and focus on your pyromancies. lightning halberd is a pretty boss weapon if you can make proper use of it.

don't forget you can lure those assholes into the traps a lot of the time, or just straight run past and keep going if you know the layout well enough.

[Felix]

yeah, the lightning spear you get there is meant to bail you out if you haven't known what you're doing up to then

unless you've been really STR or INT focused it's probably gonna be stronger than whatever you have up to that point anyway, even though the moveset is only particularly good for hallways

then half the enemies in anor londo are lightning resistant because they don't want to be too generous, but the giant blacksmith can probably get you whatever you like

[Toups]

man ornstein and smough are DESTROYING me this time around for some reason. are there any protips I should consider? it seems like it's equally difficult to pick one or the other off first.

here's my current build FYI:




(that's an iaito +10 and I think my shield's at +8, eastern armor +3 or something, everything else is at base stats)

(and I'm pretty sure the endurance bonus doesn't stack between mask of the child and grass crest shield but the mask of the child looks so dang cool. I use the stone guardian helm when I need extra defense)
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[misadventurous]

you are just gonna have to kite them around pillars and hit and fastroll away as much as you can. bring like 20 estus flasks lol

ornstein and smough is such a piece of shit fight solo

[Toups]

yeah that's what I've been doing with moderate success. I actually find it easier if I play aggressively and just wail on smough as much as I can. once you kill either of them, they both have those brutal AOE lightning attacks in their second form that destroys me every time. is there any equipment with high lightning resist I should seek out?
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[Felix]

Lightning smough is pretty easy to dodge

[Toups]

well I've had a tough time of it for some reason.

maybe I should try playing sober

(the true drunk souls starts here)
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[Felix]

also your dex is so high you should really go join chaos servant just to get great chaos fireball because you'll be able to actually cast fast enough to hit ornstein and he should go down in 3-4 hits

granted you can't teleport down there until you've beaten this fight and it's a schlep

lightning smough is honestly very learnable. one of the easier bosses to beat without getting hit if you can fastroll.

my "main" DkS character (the only I played on both PS3 and PC before trying other builds, and the only one I've made any headway into NG+ with) uses the furysword, mask of the child, the dingy robe, and havel's boots/gloves. makes him look like this crazed demon midget.

[mauve]

Target dex in Dark Souls is 45, because it makes your pyromancy stupid fast. Try it out!
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twit

[Toptube]

Toups, are you sure your Iaito is +10? Because weapon calculators currently say you should have a 410 attack rating, with 40 dex and a +10 Iaito.

Based on your screenshot up there, you have two big problems. O&S work solo players harder than most of the other bosses. Because there's two of them and they both move fairly fast and attack pretty frequently.

You need to be hitting harder than 300 attack rating. If you are good on your feet and can keep O&S from hitting you for awhile, a 400 attack rating would do you well.

Additionally, your vitality is very low. You don't have enough health to be less than perfect on this fight, with a low attack rating like that. With Vitality that low, Super Saiyan Ornstein or Smough could probably one shot you with a couple of their attacks.

[mauve]

410 is absolutely for a +15 Iaito, not +10.

tbh I find smough harder than ornstein these days. stupid rushing attack leaves so little room for error...
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twit

[Toups]

well, maybe it's worth putting on the ring of favor and protection, at least for this fight. do y'all generally find it's worth keeping on despite the commitment? honestly both the vitality and endurance bonuses would be very useful in this fight.

I might go down and join chaos servant too. I don't mind the trek and it might get me another level or two. so I should spend a few more points on vitality?

my iaito is definitely +10

are you using a different calculator? the only one I could find (here) doesn't show damage output :\

edit: nm found it. it says "410" but it doesn't let me set the upgrade level of the sword. maybe it means that for +15?

or maybe it's just an error:



double edit, yeah, what mauve said!
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[Kinto]

Hung out in Sen's for a while looking for invaders. Got one guy who invaded, I legged it and wound up at the top of the ladder from the tar pit waiting for him to come get me so I could repeatedly kick him off the ladder. 5 minutes later he didn't come, so I message him telling him to come find me. Wound up arguing about who should find who and who could wait the longest before I gave up and went to go summon a bunch of dudes at the entrance. Several failed summons, one deserter and a suicidal idiot later and I wound up having to face the guy on my own anyway.

Turns out my "counterpoke tank" idea, with Catarina armour, iron flesh, eagle shield and raw halberd, doesn't work so well in pvp! Guy washing poled me to death :(

Lightning spear it is, then. I dunno how halberding is even supposed to work in pvp to be honest.
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[Felix]

300 damage is fine toups, your main issue is not having enough vitality. what you have is dex and you should take advantage of it with casting speed.

also, having RFP prior to this fight means you missed out on the dingy robe! the dingy robe is the best! oh well. definitely wear the darn thing.

[OffalAl]

kill smough quick and then just kite super ornstein around a broken pillar, he'll barely touch you. slip around and hit him a few times when there's an opening. as long as you keep a pillar between you and him he's cake.

halberd moveset is useless in DkS :(
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[Toups]

I have the dingy robe! I did the lautrec quest...

the gargoyle halberd is pretty good, I used it my entire first playthrough without any problems.
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[Felix]

Isn't the Lautrec quest right after O&S?

oh well, good.

[Broco]

I usually just always wear Ring of Favor and Protection and Havel's Ring. Boring, but none of the other ring powers seem better than the pure stat buffs from those.

[OffalAl]

dark wood grain though
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[Toups]

well, maybe I'll max out the dingy robe and level up a little and give it another go
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[diplo]

[OffalAl]

if lightning resistance is what you want, the vendor in sens sells a ring for that. probably better off getting the substantial stat boost from the ring of favor and protection though.
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[Felix]

Yeah, RFP plus either Havel's, DWGR, or bellowing, while boring, is hard to argue

[Toptube]

my bad. I forgot that the normal upgrade path goes to 15

[Toups]

[Felix]

Havel's ring is usually a better option than wolf ring once you find his gear

wolf would he next on that list though so if you've done the math more power to you