1621

I haven’t played the game, yet, either, so I’ll add ya to my friends list ASAP.

1622

First game I’ve been playing with my PS3, defintely enjoying it, my PSN name is byceJ.
I have 3 questions that have been bugging me about the game.

  1. Does raising your magic stat have any affect on buff spells like warding or light weapon?

  2. What determines how much endurance you lose if you are blocking with a shield?

  3. Sort of a follow up to part 2, even with a shield that had 100 damage absorb I was still getting clobbered by the big guys in 5-1 and 5-2, is there some other stat I’m missing that will let me take their hits while blocking?

1623

The absorbing properties of the shield are all based on the “HitRes” property. It affects both how much stamina it takes, and a consequence how much damage you’ll take if it overflows your current stamina.

No idea on #1, I was wondering the same thing.

In other Demon’s souls news, Flamelurker is a bitch who took all of my healing items to beat.

1624

I have a pretty high strength and endurance build (both stats in the 30’s for the first play through) and while using a Purple Flame Shield those guys just smacked it away. Maybe a Tower Shield or something might work, but I think it is best to use an alternate strategy on them.

I always found it funny that I was able to go toe to toe with Flamelurker no problem, but these guys smacked me around.

Anyway anyone is welcome to add me on PSN (merrypankster)

1625

That could have been my problem my first build was a knife wielding magic user with a shield used for close combat. I had very high magic and faith stats but my endurance was around 14 or 15. One noob tip I learned the hard way, if you are going to do a magic build don’t try and focus on both faith and magic at the same time. You’ll end up with a build that can’t really deal with pvp or new game + enemies well.

Only complaint that I have with this which has probably been said already is wanting the ability to respec, even if it is on a level by level basis.

1626

Your magic stat does effect Light Weapon, but not Enchanted or Cursed Weapon. At 50 Magic Light weapon adds about 100 magic damage. Warding blocks 3/4s of normal damage, but not flame or magic damage and is not affected by your Magic attribute. For the most part you should think of your Magic attribute as an offensive spell power indicator.

A +6 or +7 Purple Flame shield or Knight shield should be able to block an attack from a troll if your Stamina is high enough but unless you plan on killing it with magic you will be starved of stamina to cut it down.

1627

This game has the best sense of place in years; for me, maybe since the Thief series. The layout of the levels, the textures, the audio (and lack of music in the levels) all work together to create a very thick and sinewy mood, a palpable feeling of despair and dread.

What an amazing, amazing game and easily one of the best I’ve ever played.

1628

Spoiler warning :

Has anyone found an easy way to beat the black phantom in 5-2? I tried following the strategy guide’s suggestion of sniping her with arrows but she ran out of range and used that full heal spell. I’m thinking a melee build with warding may have a shot but the anti magic field runs out after my warding is done.

1629

If you are referring to Selen, it is doable with arrows. I did it from the area right before the first goblin ambush on that bridge, and that worked well. Perhaps they’ve made her smarter with the latest patches. Remember she will run out of MP eventually (right? At least the others did).

1630

I still don’t even know what you guys are talking about with white and black phantoms and such. I guess I need to play more or something. In fact, I only tried the MP for the first time yesterday, and had some guy summon me to help him. We died trying to fight some demon spider that I had only seen once. But is this how I can get myself ressurected? Do I have to win that fight or something? Is there some other way to rez?

1631

There 4 ways to get your body back:

  1. Use the stone eye things.

  2. Kill a boss demon.

  3. Help someone kill a boss demon.

  4. Kill a player as a black phantom.

When you are learning the game or just trying to farm it’s better to stay in soul form as you can only be invaded while in body form.

1632

Yeah, I did warding and melee. Tried arrows but she’d always heal at ~a quarter life. So I think I shot arrows until she was at about half life, jumped down, threw on warding, and beat her up. When she tries to heal, you either gotta throw on anti-magic field or just stick to her and keep hitting her. If you can make it onto the island to fight, do that, because she does magic damage that most shields won’t block.

1633

Get your purple flame shield up to +8 or so and you should be able to take blows from those guys. You’ll still take a big stamina hit but you won’t go down. Then the problem becomes dealing with multiple Giant Goblins in the swamp but at least you’re in pretty good shape for smaller groups.

Make sure you farm lots of hardstone in 2-1, 2-2 as the upgrades for the PFS can be very, very useful.

I was actually really surprised on my second character, who didn’t have an upgraded PFS, when those guys were soooooo much harder. I had just gone right after them in my first play through and with a Dark Silver shield it required a lot more caution.

1634

Start by wearing the Graverobbers ring. With it you need to be very close for a Black Phantom to see you, practically on top of them. Loop around her by dropping down into the water before her island at a walk. Use as your melee weapon a long fairly fast high damage weapon in a two handed stance, with the idea being that if she engages you, you will beat her with the reach of your weapon. Keep a bow to switch. Auto-lock, then backstab her, and harry her as she gets up. At this point she will likely disengage to cast a spell. If she does, switch to your bow and keep your range close enough that you can keep auto-lock on her. Your goal is to let her cast Anti-magic but not Heal, the difference being Heal takes about 3 seconds of casting time and Anti-magic only one second. After Anti-magic is cast mop her up however you like.

1635

Maybe I’ll try that in my current playthrough, but I find it easier to use a thief ring and just snipe them with a bow.

1636

Continued from the Zeropunctuation thread:

My experiences: I’ve read this thread, the wiki and the deluxe strategy guide and I’ve finished Demon’s Souls once and am now most of the way through New Game+. My character is a Magic/Sticky Bow sniper. I don’t fence. I did all of the white and black world tendency events on my first run and also the white character tendency (black I didn’t want to do, not yet, anyway). I know my way around the game and I have formed some ideas about how the game design operates.

I’m interested in your (or anyone else’s) analysis of the feedback loop in the game. Not in an antagonistic way, just to discuss it.

1637

Further to the good advice from earlier in the thread, I found arrow sniping a viable (if booooooooring) tactic. I was getting marmalised up close because the swamp was hampering my mobility and her equipment takes blocking out of the equation. I’d always end up accidentally pressing circle to roll away and just do the little stagger thing. Chop chop chop.

My arrow sniping method felt cheap as all get out and possibly even slightly glitched, but I’ll relay it here anyway. I stood on the raised wooden decking just before the first bloodfly attack. She’s barely in draw distance there. I stood there, fired an arrow, hit her. She would then go crazy and roll away somewhere, before slowly walking back to her start position or stopping after one roll and casting a spell. I’d track her, and if she rolled again, end up losing her in the darkness and just wait for her to walk back. If she started casting, I’d loose an arrow and it would interrupt her - she got a heal off first time, but once I recognised this pattern, that never happened and I just wore her down.

I don’t think I had the Morion Blade/Clever Rat Ring thing going on, but that would likely have expedited the process and saved my ammo - I was using a Viscous Longbow +5 with 30 dex and it still took about 120-150 arrows.

In other news, I’ve actually not gone back and polished off False King and got to New Game+. Millions of other releases interrupted me. I must go back and do him in, actually - now I’ve had a break I imagine I’ll waltz up and hose him down no bother. Always the way.

1638

Using a 2 handed spear did the job against 5-2. I’m trying to muster up the energy to play through a new game + but I’m not getting the same satisfaction of finding new stuff like I did with Diablo 2 or other ARPGS. My first game run I got a lot accomplished, only things I missed were : Demon soul upgrade weapons, world 5 white tendency event, killing old king.

Invading someone’s world was a hoot though, is acid cloud worth it at all to use either against regular enemies or PVP, or is plague cloud preferred?

One other question do you guys like the Purple Flame Shield or the Dark Purple Flame Shield?

1639

I’ve seen them used to some effect defensively by the “good guys” against a phantom, by setting a trap for him that he must go through to get to the human player. But it all depends on how cagey your opponent is…usually the guys you really need to worry about will see it before they step in it. On the bright side, it might give you a window to get to the boss and run away from the encounter.

One other question do you guys like the Purple Flame Shield or the Dark Purple Flame Shield?

There’s no comparison for me. The price/performance ration of the PFS is better than any other shield for regular impacts and fire. I prefer to switch to a 100% magic blocking shield or just dodge, whereas I spend a lot of my time soaking impacts from melee and arrows that I don’t want to take damage from. Spells just aren’t as big a threat to me in-game, or at least not in a way that 60% block against magic is going to be a big enough improvement.

1640

Starting today and ending December 28, Demon’s Souls (US Version) online world tendency is shifting to Pure White. Similar to the Halloween event that shifted all worlds to Pure Black.

Shame I’ll be out of town or working for most of it.