Ha, well I decided instead to go back to Undead Asylum, as I was passing by, and try and find that demon in the cells. Of course, I found it immediately. I cannot believe I missed doing that before! I must have kept going around the edge of the room. Anyway, he killed me a few times until I remembered to use my shield, and now I have - tadaa - a Titanite Slab! It must be destiny. Now I can test out the power of this fully operational lightning halberd!
Right, where is this DLC content…
Really?
For this, I will devote myself to acquiring Kalameet’s sword so I can taunt you with a screenshot of myself waving it.
Effing 2 tries…
Knight Artorius is quite a challenge, isn’t he? It’s going to be a case of learning to read the moves so I know whether to dodge, roll, block or whatever. Actually blocking seems highly ineffectual, so rolling either behind him or away from him might be workable. I might try toasting him as well, that worked pretty well against the Sanctuary Guardian.
So far I can get him down to about 3/5 of his health, but still only about four tries so far. I can’t seem to stop him from turning into Artorias hulk though, when he powers up. Do you have to inflict a certain amount of damage or something? If that’s the case, I may need to rethink this!
There’s one move that he does, the 720 degree swing, where he can hit you twice, that I found to be very hard to dodge unless I got a little lucky on my initial placement. If I was just the right amount of distance away from him when he starts that move, then dodge away is effective, because he misses both hits. But if I’m within that range, then dodging away misses the first hit but the second hit connects. Compare that with blocking, which is 100% effective against both hits. Sometimes I dodged, sometimes I blocked, but when I was feeling super-patient and conservative, I always blocked that one, because it’s more reliable. All his other moves are better dodged than blocked though.
As for his dark nova, where he powers up, you can indeed stop that from happening if you go in immediately and hit him enough times. But it’s very risky. If you don’t hit him enough, he does the dark nova, damages you AND comes after you stronger. That one I just played by ear. It’s awfully tempting to go in every time and try to prevent him from doing it though.
I’m finding the Kalameet fight to be mostly about effective camera management. The reason I did so well against him yesterday morning was because I was still going after him the same way I had been going after his tail: without locking onto him (because if you lock on, you can’t go after the tail). But if you do lock on, certain moves are much easier to dodge. Like his little head swipe. That one is trivial to dodge if you have a lock. But I’ve still never been able to dodge that one when I don’t have a lock. But there’s other things he does, like when he goes up and sprays fire directly downward, if you have a lock on, you’ll always get hit; but if you don’t have a lock that one is really easy to run away from.
So this combination of when to lock and when not to lock and always trying to use my right thumb on the B button to run, while also trying to switch it to rotate the camera around when I’m not locked; this is the real challenge this time. It’s something I somehow did really well yesterday, but I can no longer do.
I decided to shelve Artorias for now, had a look at Kalameet but got immediately instakilled from max health by his initial flying breath attack. Okayyy.
So, I went farming, paid Quelaag’s sister the 30 humanity to open the shortcut to Lost Izalith (which I know nothing about whatsoever, but it seemed like a good idea!), and took on the Demon Ruins. The Ceaseless Discharge was about as challenging as making a cup of tea, the Demon fat-arse (whatever you call it) was the Stray Demon all over again, and… uh oh. Now I’m at the Centipede Demon. It turns out that I burn really nicely when I hit lava, who knew? Time to don the fire-retardant underpants.
I like the way that the Demon Ruins presents you with two former bosses as essentially trash mobs now. This is how far you’ve come, it says, very effectively.
Since you haven’t finished tomb of the giants yet, there is an item in lost Izalith which can be very helpful there.
What’s this all about? Not that it matters. I didn’t possess many humanity to give to her when I went through Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. I only became awash in humanity after doing the Chasm of the Abyss.
The Ceaseless Discharge was about as challenging as making a cup of tea, the Demon fat-arse (whatever you call it) was the Stray Demon all over again, and… uh oh. Now I’m at the Centipede Demon. It turns out that I burn really nicely when I hit lava, who knew? Time to don the fire-retardant underpants.
I like the way that the Demon Ruins presents you with two former bosses as essentially trash mobs now. This is how far you’ve come, it says, very effectively.
Yeah, I loved that too. I suspect that maybe these versions are not as strong as the original bosses, but I’ll never know for sure. What matters is that Dark Souls wants me to feel powerful by doing it this way. Mission Accomplished Dark Souls! Am I right?
I did finish Tomb of the Giants, I just didn’t mention it because Gravelord Nito was a bit of a walkover. And I have now found that Lost Izalith item, pity I didn’t know about it earlier!
It’s an option if you join the Chaos Servant covenant; you offer your humanity to Quelaag’s sister to improve your standing, gets you a really nice pyro spell (flaming pillars of death!) and opens up the short-cut.
I’ve now got all the Lord souls, so I could indeed go and fill up the Lordvessel and go after Gwyn. But I won’t be defeated by the DLC! I’m coming for you next Artorias, but first I’m crafting myself a decent physical weapon, because he seems to be highly resistant to my lightning, magic and fire weapons.
By the way, that Bed of Chaos boss was a royal PITA. I think I died about 15 times to it, most of them trying to dash into the hole in the floor to land on the root leading to her heart. I either got swiped off by a random hand swing, or I missed the root entirely. I had to switch it to 30 fps mode to make the jump.
Scuzz
2710
I never had much trouble with the last requirement, I always had trouble getting the second of the side objects. The first was easy, the second was a pain in the ass.
See? You weren’t that far behind me. It just seemed like it because of the quantity of areas and bosses that were relatively easy for us to handle because we’d been leveling up in other areas. Now the only area where I’m ahead is Knight Artorias, and then Manus. And then we can both be stuck on Kalameet. I haven’t had too much play time to try to tackle Kalameet yet. But if you do get to the same point as me, I hope you’re open to some cooperation so that we can work together to chop off Kalameet’s tail. I’ve got several Dragon Scales burning holes in my character’s pockets.
There’s a right first side object, and a wrong first side object :) On my first play through it took me quite a few tries to get the 2nd side object
the right first
because I started from the left, but
on my 2nd play through I started from the correct side and got it all done on one go.
Scuzz
2713
Well then based on your idea I went at it the wrong way first. :)
Yes, each area has become progressively simpler as the game has progressed, as usually happens with these games as they front-load all the effort into the early levels (and what amazing early levels). But for sure, if we can jolly cooperate with Kalameet - if that’s even possible - then I’m in. I’ll even let you get the tail. ;)
Me too! What are the chances? ;)
Incidentally, I was a bit disappointed with the story developments for my two favourite NPC characters. First Siegmeyer. Poor Siegmeyer. There he was in Lost Izalith, staring down into a pit of whateverthefuck those octopus things are, so I go up to him to chat with him. No doubt he’s stuck, yet again, and wants my help right? Nooo! Instead he suicides by jumping into the freakin’ pit! AAARGH! I leap in after him, kill all the freakypuses in short order, but he doesn’t survive and now his watch is over. Nooo! Not sure why he acted completely out of character, but had I been better prepared I might have been able to save his onion-headed ass.
And what’s going on with Solaire? I find him in the Lost Izalith passage about to slash his wrists, and nothing I can do will change his mind. Did I do something wrong? Hard to tell with this game!
Strange. Here’s what happened in my game: Siegmeyer when I saw him next to the pit with those things with their mouths open like that, I talked to him and he was asleep, so I took my bow out and shot the things and killed them all, then I spoke to him again, and he woke and asked me if I was the one that saved him again. I said yes, and he gave me a ring.
Then later near the Crystal caves, I rescued a lady that said she was his daughter. Then later I saw her at Firelink Shrine where I assured her that I saw her father somewhere, so she’ll continue to look for him.
With Solaire, he was sitting down near the entrance to Lost Izalith when I entered through the Demon Ruins, not willing to talk to me. And then later I found him next to the little bugs and he attacked me and killed me. But I’m immortal, so I came back and killed him and got his stuff. But I was pretty sad about that, because he’s been my one partner in arms throughout the game. They didn’t really explain why he attacked me either.
Scuzz
2716
That is not really the end of Siegmeyer’s story. I forget where but Siegmeyer has a daughter out in the world who is trying to find him.
Siegmeyer’s daughter
I think she has been turned into a blue golem back in the open area between the Archives and the Crystal Cavern.
As for Solaire, he is going crazy looking for a certain object. The object is …
Solaire Quest
a sun maggot that is behind a locked wall in Lost Izalith. You can also reach it by crossing the bridge with the bad ass titanite demon on it. You need an object to open the door from the locked side but I don’t remember what it was. If you kill the sunlight maggot and give it to him I think he seems to return to normal and will show up to help you fight his father.
Scuzz
2717
Also…there is a pyromancer who attacks you in Lost Izalith. He uses some pretty heavy duty, if basically ineffective, pyromancy. So when you kill him why does he drop a wand and not a glove?
Well I rescued his daughter first, and indeed told her I’d seen her father when she asked (as I had, several times!). He was also asleep in Lost Izalith, but as with many of these NPCs I hit Talk a second time to progress the dialogue, and that’s the point at which he said he was going to attack these creatures. I couldn’t even yell “Wait, let me handle them for you!” and he was in there. You do get a ring when he dies, but I’m not sure what his daughter is going to say now. Assuming I can find her again.
Hmmm, well I had that object on me before I spoke to him. I used the Chaos Servant short-cut from Demon Ruins, killed the maggots, open the door to Lost Izalith, saw the Titanite Demon and turned back (too many souls to lose!), then found him sitting there on the ground looking like someone had killed his puppy. He simply cried about his “poor sun” when I talked to him, with no other option.
Hmm, I never saw Siegmeyer at all after Anor Londo. I also got attacked by Solaire and got his nice hat…
Anyway, as promised, here I am waving my shining new obsidian sword:
And here are some friends admiring it:
The annoying thing was that I got him within a sliver of his health, got impatient and promptly squashed. By that time I got so used to running between his legs without striking, that I thought It’d be easy to kill him. I suppose I got tired because I failed a few times. I’ll get him tomorrow. Maybe I’ll upgrade the sword and kill him with it for good measure :)
Scuzz
2720
mmm, did you pick up the item 'Sunlight Maggot"? I thought once that was done he returns to normal. You are pretty much describing exactly what I did, although I did talk to him first before opening the locked door.
