Brave Soul, Who Fears Not Death

[Rico]

I can now answer the eternal question regarding this game. Yes, there is a triple boss

There sure is! So... I did a short-sighted thing. I sold a bunch of crap to Gavlan. After that, I made an executive decision that I didn't have enough Soul Levels for my hybrid build; I wasn't doing enough damage or being quite tanky enough, so I figured since I was just rolling through everything instead of shielding I may as well go full glass cannon. I use my Soul Vessel, respec, and realize during the boss that I don't have any shield light enough to use, and they are occasionally handy. I unhollow and notice there's an NPC summon sign, so whatever. Try the fight three times with the Phantom who just will not stay on the damn starting platform for the first bit. Just always rolls off and aggros the other two Sentinels.

I take a minute to calm down, drink a WoW-raiding-sized glass of whiskey, and just go into a cold rage and start slaughtering completely solo... and trade hits and die on the very last hit.

I got it pretty quickly the next day. I love this game.

[Rico]

Also apparently there's a relatively relaxing little coast after that. That makes me nervous for the next spike.

[Bal]

In the Lost Bastille? It has a ton of exploration you can do after the ruin sentinels are dead, but all roads lead to the Lost Sinner, who is quite the thing. If you're not already beaten that boss it's time for

Bal's Spoiler Warning'd Tip of the Day: This is a fight changing trick, and it's not anything like as necessary as the one in the Earthen Peak, but if you're having trouble with the Lost Sinner, try the following. If you find Belfry Luna, fight the gargoyles, and progress past them you can find the Bastille Key, which opens all those iron gates in the Lost Bastille and Sinner's Rise. Use this key to open the gates up the stairs on either side from of the Lost Sinner's fog gate opening rooms with strange channels full of oil in them. Get your torch out however you like, and set fire to both of those channels. This will light the boss room, slowing the Lost Sinner down slightly, and increasing your lock on range massively

[Rico]

Huh, I didn't do any of that and Lost Sinner only hit me once. Huntsman's Copse had great atmosphere but both bosses were kinda jokes. Earthen Peak was mostly just obnoxious to navigate. Maybe Ruin Sentinel just made me actually get good.

[Bal]

It's much more useful in NG+

[Rico]

Black Gulch can suck the biggest bag of dicks humanity has ever assembled.

[patito]

I was full of lifegems so black gulch didn't feel that bad, especially after going through "I can't see shit land" I spent a couple of hours falling through holes in that goddamn place.

[Cthulhu-chan]

Bring a torch! There's sconces everywhere in the gulch, and it's not like you really need them anywhere else, although they can be handy in the shrine. Stupid murky water, dumb sniper priestesses...


*meant Gutter, not gulch. I'm so tired...

[patito]

Mutants aggro on the torch in the shrine, so you probably don't wanna use torches there until you've dealt with all the priests. But yeah, I didn't use a torch for the entire 2 hours I was trapped in blighttown mk II., it was a horrible experience.

[Bal]

The Gutter is probably the easiest zone in the game by the time you get there. Nothing there is a threat at all except maybe those flesh dog things. The Black Gulch is annoying, but honestly I find the trip to The Rotten to be disappointing compared to the progression through Depths>Blight Town>Great Swamp. I like the boss himself, the rest is mostly just busywork. It must be said though that one of the most important secrets in the game is down there

[Smiler]

The Gutter is probably the easiest zone in the game by the time you get there.

Unless you go through there first. On my faith character the gutter was the first path I took so I could get Great Lightning Spear. Of course after that every zone is the easiest zone in the game, especially if you take the time to get sunlight spear after that.

[Rico]

Gutter I didn't mind, actually. I like the decision-making that dark, torch-heavy areas give you, though it was much less interesting than No-man's Wharf. There were just way too many statue clusters in Gulch, and even if I weren't a death monster by the time I got there the enemies—while pretty rad looking—are so spaced out they're not really a threat. So all you're really doing is crawling along with a junk weapon because of the durability system. The place looks awesome, it's just incredibly boring and tedious.

[malikial]

Finally beat this, got almost every item, beat every boss and I was discussing soul levels with friends on dark souls message boards and stuff and I was wondering, what soul level were you guys at end of New Game? I was 87 but I invested heavily on weapon/armor/shield/spell upgrades and whatnot over soul levels into myself. Some key points were, I Ruins Sentinels at 32, smelter at 51, and Ancient Dragon at 84 . I dunno... I didn't do any bonfire ascetic farming in memories. I'm saving that for new game+ which I plan on skyrocketing my soul level to 300s.

[Bal]

Did you beat Darklurker? The only boss I never bothered with was Ancient Dragon because the walk back to him is such a pain. Anyway, both times I've beaten NG, it was around the Sl120 mark. I just never lost my soul pile more than once or twice, and never a significant number, so even making sure everything was +5 or +10, and investing in spells and whatever, there were still more than enough souls to get up there.

[malikial]

Yeah. I did for the chime. I have 4 +10 weapons. 3 +5 twinkling weapons. 3 +5 dragonbone weapons. I started newgame+ with 380k souls in my pocket too. I guess I could pump levels but I was waiting. I also bought everything off the vendors that was useful and 1 made sure I had 1 of every weapon I could get.

[Bal]

There's really no reason not to spend your souls on soul levels thanks to the soul memory stat governing matchmaking. I bought everything I could get my hands on as well, though I didn't bother farming up every weapon I did hunt down those that are guaranteed. If you're spending those souls you just are going to end up around 120.

[Bal]

Make sure to full screen and max out the resolution for the best effect. Unfortunately YouTube can't show off the frame rate, but is apparently 60fps. It doesn't magically turn it in to the trade show demo, but anyone who thought that was happening is delusional.

[Smiler]

I've already seen people declare that if it doesn't have the prelaunch graphics it will be a garbage port. People are insane when it comes to the dark souls PC ports.

[Rico]

People were kind of insane about the whole graphics thing altogether. Page after page of people saying, "I know literally every company does this and Penny Arcade even coined a term for it but I NEVER THOUGHT FROM SOFTWARE WOULD BETRAY ME!!!" And that's not even counting the bit where it's still pretty honest because they were going to do the whole game like that until the console hardware exploded in bigger/more complicated areas.

[Smiler]

I bought this again on PC so now it's time for my third playthrough.