It’s never too late, but as you already know, your soul cost from level-to-level grows, so new stat points are just going to come slower and slower.
Also worth noting that there are some diminishing returns on stat effectiveness. For strength and dexterity, you start getting slightly less benefit from each additional point after 30 points and considerably less after 50 points.
All this talk has me wanting to pick this up for the Switch. I’ve been hemming and hawing about it for a while now.
These are just the tips I’ve been looking for, thanks so much.
Weirdly the Remastered version wouldn’t run on my new PC, freezing over and over again at the first boss fight on the castle walls.
You will want to replace the drake sword eventually anyway as it is far from the best weapon. I had the first black knight you run into drop a Black Knight Sword in one playthru and I think I did end up using it the whole game. The other option is to kill the merchant early in the game and he drops a utchigatani.
After this you should really give DS3 a try. It is faster and the dodge role style fits even better.
The weapons that scale equally with strength and dexterity were called “quality” weapons. I don’t know if that’s a community or game term. Anyway, that’s the best approach if you already raised strength a decent amount.
There are good reasonably-fast weapons there like the absurdly popular Claymore. You could Google that term for more.
hm, I’ve never upgraded any armor, is it worth it? Maybe Gwyn would have been easier, but then I was hiding behind a rock column where he could not get to me;)
I have this crazy idea to play all the souls games in order. Then Bloodbourne. Then Sekiro. I have no idea how long this will take me as DS1 seems infinite. But yeah, I’m in it for the long haul.
Thanks @TimJames for mentioning “quality” weapons. Seems like I inadvertently stumbled onto a “quality” build. My strength is around 26 atm. Farmed a bit in Darkroot (those high value forest NPCs) to start raising up my dex.
I somehow missed the Claymore, as I never completed the drake-bridge-fire run. Gonna have to backtrack a bit. I did pick up the massive braveheart like sword from the graveyard, but that sucker is waaay too slow for me.
I’ve been going back over the thread (starting at the posts from 2016) and thank you to whoever mentioned the Epic Name Bro’s videos. The lore is amazing.
All my buddies wanted to dive into Division2 last night…and all I wanted to do was farm souls. Game has me by the throat.
I upgrade whatever the game will let me. At the moment I don’t remember if armor upgrading it that big a deal. In DS2 it is, in DS3 you can’t upgrade armor IIRC. Same with shields, in some DS games you can upgrade them and I think in some you can’t. I know it took me awhile to realize that stability for me was the biggest stat with a shield, then you want 100% damage protection.
a wise man once said, if you upgrade your armor, you expect to get hit. If you upgrade your weapons, you expect to hit harder. So I spent all my materials into weapons. I upgraded the grass shield, but don’t ask me why, I think it gave a bit more damage protection…
Oh yea, weapons first. It is always better to hit harder because you can always heal.
I think grass shield has a HP Regen effect.
Grass Crest Shield is stamina regen.
Backtracked to pick up the Bastard sword and the Claymore (holy shit the claymore!). Upgraded both and now the days of the Drake Sword are behind me.
Moonlit Butterfly down. Gaping Dragon down.
Messed around in New Londo Ruins a bit, and now I’m deciding whether I should push on through into Blighttown, or follow M’lady’s (clearly doomed) expedition into the Catacombs.
What if you don’t expect to get hit but (s)hit happens? The longer you survive the longer you can dispense damage, no?
Anyway, I played this and DS2 and even after many hours didn’t get even halfway through the game, and I was going more for defense - but thinking of starting a new DS2 game so I can finish it and move on to 3, so I will take this approach of weapons first to see if it helps.
Defense is not really a thing in DS games. Sure, you can go strength build and eventually wear Havels armor and shield, but the road to get there is a messy one. The old DS adage that rolling is better is true. I spec so that I can handle one hit, then I roll for everything.
In fact starting games I usually put more points into stamina than anything else, even health. Health is like third, behind stamina and dexterity.
I always save that for last. You need an item, which you may already have based on the direction you went in an earlier post.
Second Bell Rung!
Blightown made my palms sweat, but I really enjoyed that entire area. Such a nice mix of enemies: the morlocks, the fire doggies, the spiders, ogres/giants, mosquitos. But fuck that blowdart dude. And when I first saw that nasty tentacle monster blocking the giant tunnel I nearly turned back for the safety of New Londo and its ghosts.
Fighting ogres on a narrow platform is quite the ballet.
I stocked up on purple moss, put on the shadow armor set I found, equipped my spider shield, and took my time exploring the poison filled swamps, picking off golden leaches with my bow, and collecting all the loot. It was a nice change of pace from the platforms above. Almost calming.
Then I found the spider’s den. I guess I shoulda seen it coming, what with the firespitting spiders all around. But I didn’t. And I surely didn’t foresee the larva infested hollows. FFS. Made it through most of blightown with only a few deaths. Navigated the swamps and the rock giants no problem. But after busting open that swollen hollow, little maggot monsters killed me? Good one dark souls.
What’s there to say about Quelaag? That slow pan up her body was something else. Spider. Spider. Flame. Spider. Human torso??? YES. Reminded me of The Stalk from Saga. Having done pretty well in the area, and dreading having to plod my way back through the swamps and giants, I summoned the butcher lady that tried to invade me earlier, and we made short work of the spider queen. Which…I kinda regret. It was a pretty easy fight with the butcher face tanking. It went by too quickly to really appreciate the cool spider moves. Oh well.
Victory. Bell rung. Mysterious gate opened. But what’s that I see out there through the archways? Just when you think you’ve seen it all, Dark Souls reveals the hellscape that is the Demon Ruins. I sat down at the bonfire surrounded by hideously moaning invested hollows, looked out over the creeping lava, saw some indescribable horror off in the distance, and logged off for the night.
This. Fucking. Game.
@Scott_Dobros you might be not finished with Blighttown yet … there is still some mystery to it… Do you play online? Some messages might acutally help ;)
Def online. When did the remaster come out? There are still TONS of people playing this game. Get invaded all the time. Plenty of sigils outside of boss encounters. Tips for days.
Gonna explore this terrifying new land of demons, then I’m going to head back to blighttown. I think there was some weird elevator contraption or some such thing I neglected in favor of treasure and the spider’s den.
Is that the mystery you speak of?
that too
Oh boy, thought I was done with BT. Guess not!