You can also summon an npc on the steps. Having a distraction in the fight helps. I didn’t think of it the first time, but on another character I did and it let me figure out what was going on a little better since I could hang back and observe a bit.
I also farmed the dark wraiths there for a full set of armor and their sword for my warrior. It’s so deliciously creepy looking and the sword is great. I hit up the black knight with my knight character and have almost all his stuff, except the shield and helm. I didn’t tend to do much of that in prior Souls games, but I’m just digging all the cool gear.
Yuria sells the shield (Dark Hand) if you want to finish your cosplay set. I’m rocking the same sword of on my latest character, it’s pretty hard to beat when it comes to speed/damage ratio. And that range, my god!
In other news, it’s always nice to see invaders with some sense of sportsmanship. I was minding my own business in Anor Londo when I got invaded by one of the covenant members - all good, guy shows up in full sunbro outfit so I knew he’d be cool - indeed, bows are exchanged and a duel starts - no healing or anything. And then a second covenant member invades and interrupts our nice duel and the sunbro backs off - I start working on the other guy and he burns through all his estus pretty fast - at this point he backs off (what a gentleman), letting me continue the duel with the sunbro. I beat the sunbro with a sliver of health left and the other bozo who was aiming at me with the bow misses (lol). I estus up and beat him like a redheaded stepchild.
I have not met a Yuria as yet, but if she has the spooky red ghost shield that’s cool. I’ve been enjoying playing clueless so it’s entirely possible that I missed something.
And beat them on my third try! I was fully expecting to be stuck on them for a while, and thought I might even need to summon. I suppose being as over-leveled as I was probably helped some.
So far, I’ve had success with my buffed Uchigatana and Crest Shield, but after playing around with the Farron Greatsword, I’m kinda tempted to switch over to that for a while.
Yeah, I liked it in DS 2 when people had gentlemanly duels. When I was defending the bell tower, if there was another phantom on my side I’d back off until that fight was done. I hate it when I’d get double teamed and they’d still jump me from behind. That said, it was fun being evil the one time I invaded in DS 3 with the cracked red orb.
Switching from my sword/shield style to ultragreat sword/parry after nearly 30 hours is a rough transition, but a fun one. If nothing else, it’s given me a good excuse to revisit some of the earlier territories to practice.
This is my 2nd trip to the Archdragon Peak and I still think someone forgot to adjust the values on the mobs here, feels like an ng+ area in an ng game.
I’ve got a question on weapon scaling. My Farron Greatsword has D STR and C DEX ratings, and I currently have 19 STR and 31 DEX… would I get more benefit from continuing to pump points into DEX, or should I try and even it out a bit?
Stick with DEX, though at C you won’t notice a major improvement. You can see the relative change on the level up screen (look for R1, R2, etc) before you commit the points.
in Smoldering Lake, and this is the first boss I’ve really had trouble with. I gave in and summoned after about twenty or so solo attempts, and even with two other people helping it took multiple tries.
Also, good god, the view at the start of Irithyll is fantastic. I needed that after Farron Keep and the Catacombs,.
I spent a good portion of my day fighting giant crabs. I love those things. Now I’m in the swamp getting leap on by some goat thing, and my head twisted off.
Deacons of the Deep and that Stray Demon in the top of Farron Wolf Tower or something are gone. Both interesting fights for entirely different reasons.
Nice work. I didn’t find the Deacons very difficult, but it was interesting to figure them out. I think it was a great example of how a fight can be tense and tricky, without just resorting to buffing enemy HP/Damage.
I beat the game last night, 42 hours and level 109. The last few bosses were pretty easy when I summoned help and could nuke from orbit, that’s for sure, but they were very cool bosses all the same. I started over on New Game+ and so far while the enemies have more health and hit (much) harder, I only found a few differences (souls are named something else and worth more, like Soul of a Proud Paladin or something) and early on I found a +1 ring that boosts elemental defenses just a bit more than the non-plus one version does) so I’m not sure how much I’ll keep going, given I’m playing through again in co-op with ShivaX and don’t really feel like a THIRD play through, even on New Game+ mode. We’ll see. I still have the itch to play each time I sit at my desk, so you never know.
I’m on my second character working through a guide for all the side quests. It actually kind of kills the pacing. These early zones are already way too slow and sprawled out for me.
Maybe after I do it once it will be faster for other playthroughs.
I don’t know why, but it always takes me quite a number of hours in these games before I realize that I can progress much more quickly if I just run ahead past enemies to scout out and find bonfires rather than meticulously clearing my path forward and returning to the previous bonfire when I’m low on health and out of flasks. Especially since once I get about halfway to having enough souls for a new level, I get even more conservative and just farm the rest of what’s needed–which is how I ended up at 35 hours in and level 70, yet not even at the boss for Irithyll.
