Farscry
1561
I did get the hardcover guide, but I’m avoiding using it for my first playthrough.
And no, I’m not using a Drake Sword either. I stumbled across the Astora’s Longsword through legitimate blind exploration, so I don’t feel bad that I acquired it and have been putting it to use. :D From what I’ve heard, the Drake Sword is so brokenly powerful in the early game that I don’t want to use it anyway. Astora’s was a notable improvement over my starter gear, but hasn’t felt overpowered.
Jag
1562
Anything that gives me any advantage in this game is not broken, but rather deserved and earned.
I don’t know how it works after the patch, but the Drake Sword drops off in utility as your enemies start gaining resistance to physical and vulnerability to elemental damage. The game’s still plenty hard with it, and you need something around 16 STR to 1-hand it anyway. Basically, it lets you one-hit most of the basic rats and hollows and it shortens the black knight fights you can get to to maybe three to four successful attacks instead of, you know, infinity. Elite Undead still require either a backstab or multiple successful strikes, and bosses are still a pain.
I like it. It’s a tiny gimme to make you feel just a little bit more powerful right about when you need it in the game. I can’t imagine farming out a full set of Balder Armor from the elites the way I tried to do that one time to get my hands on some armor with higher fire resist stats without it.
Just shoot it like 100 times? Wouldn’t it fall off the cliff into a hole then?
I definitely feel like my +3 Estoc is lacking power in the Depths but so far it’s getting the job done and there isn’t anywhere great to grind for souls yet.
You shoot it like 30 times. And it goes right into your inventory.
Yes. I think the number is more like 50, either way shoot it a whole lot. This is Dark Souls, get used to long slogs.
Wouldn’t it fall off the cliff into a hole then?
The tail does fall but you’ll get a loot pop up on your screen as if you just picked it up anyway.
Weird. How do they expect you to know it isn’t going to fall off into the hole?
Well, I guess the games have never really explained much of anything to the player now that I think about it. Just have to do stuff and find out what happens!
There’s no real reason to expect a drop from it, but shooting a dragon might kill him or make him leave, which is it’s own reward.
SlyFrog
1570
I couldn’t reach the final one to hit it with my sword. I have the Black Knight Sword as well, so it’s not as though I had something that does no damage or has no reach.
(I confirmed that at least a bunch of other people have had the same problem through the internet - I’m going through the game spoiler free, but I don’t mind looking stuff up for a particular monster or boss after I have already figured out the gimmick myself.)
You can get the final head in melee, it just takes some corralling, and patience.
Also, homing soulmass is win for the crest-door farming spot. It can kill the stealth guys with a single casting, and it eliminates the targeting problem.
SlyFrog
1572
That’s odd then. I moved around everywhere I could think of with that final head, probably about five minutes total. Basically, whenever I moved toward where it landed, the next time it would land even further to the left, to the point where going out after it further led me to drown (i.e. it eventually moved far enough left that it was touching down where I had to go over the edge to get to it).
It’s a pain, but I also used a sword.
SlyFrog
1574
I’m now wondering whether it matters which head you kill last. Because I’m telling you, I cannot see any possible way I could have gotten that last head with the sword. It kept plunging into the water (preventing me from moving toward it quickly, as you move slowly in water) way away from me. If moved toward it, it would only plunge in further away the next time.
Maybe I left a bad one for last?
Could you explain this in more detail?
For the Forest Crest Door Soul Farming Project, I just equip Slumbering Dragon Ring to silent my foot steps then cast Hidden Body. (Prep)
I dash through the forest near the cliff until I’m behind the Bandit with the shield who is the furthest back. I backstap him + 1 extra swipe = dead, re-cast hidden body (which runs out here take a 1-3 second delay), backstab Cleric+1, backstab Thief+1, backstab Mage+1…
It doesn’t take that long and it’s 100% non-confrontational/zero aggro but it requires two castings of Hidden Body. One isn’t enough to backstab all of them without alerting one of them. Mostly because the Cleric and Thief are staring at each other and you need to position yourself first behind the bandit.
Oh. Ok. Well, I pretty much run around like an idiot until they follow me back to the cliff and run off it, although sometimes they land next to me and need a shove. I should really free that mage guy and get some magic going.
The Homing Soulmass spells create 5 missiles upon casting that will automatically fire at foes when you get into range. This includes untargetable foes, like you encounter in that farming area. The way I farm it now, is to make myself invisible (and sometimes silent, too) at the bottom of the stairs using Hidden Body. I then sprint towards the sorcerer guy, and cast Homing Crystal Soulmass when I’m close. It hits him and he dies. I then sprint forward, and slightly to my right, and recast HCM - there is an hidden enemy behind a rock - HCM will kill him when I get very close. I then continue forward and to the left a bit to kill the cleric in the same way. Then I sprint at the battle-axe guy and kill him. Hidden Body lasts me through all this, and it helps a lot, because you’ll kill the enemies before they aggro, certainly before they have a chance to make any lateral movements that would cause HCM to miss them.
In NG+ with Dusk Crown and Bellowing Ring equipped, with 50 Int, a single casting of HCM will kill any of those 4 enemies. That’s 21k souls in about 1 minute. I use Homeward to reset the area, but just running back to the bonfire works fine if you don’t have the 18 Faith for Homeward.
As for the Hydra, it doesn’t matter which heads you actually hit, I think you’ll always end up with the same set of heads still there in each stage of the fight. Not certain of that, but about 95% confident. I was a fair way over to the left of area when I hit the last head, I think I was hitting it as it was returning, not while it was down. It’s quite hard (though not nearly as hard as chopping Seath’s tail off) but doable. Next time I will make sure I have some Soul Spears available and manually aim them.
Some more details about the patch are surfacing. Looks like most of the blatantly OP stuff got nerfed.
http://trendygamers.com/2011/11/02/dark-souls-patch-1-04-information/
Some highlights:
Pyro Glove nerfed from 270 to 230.
Homing Soul Mass and other pursuit style spells nerfed.
Magic Shield and Strong Magic Shield duration lowered.
Tranquil Walk of Peace and other Slow duration reduced to ~10 secs. Effect supposedly changed from 100% encumberance to 50%.
Iron Flesh effectiveness nerfed.
Initial weight increased
Humanity Item drop rate increased from 10 to 210
Medium roll recovery faster? (unclear and unconfirmed)
Gold-hemmed nerfed, still un-upgraded
Dust skirt nerfed hard
Silver Knights, Sun, Hollow Soldier’s Shield and other medium shield stability nerfed to ~70 at max upgrades to improve Great Shield viability.
Crystal Ring Shield scaling drastically nerfed. Does around ~200 ±50
Reported some weapon scaling gets improved at higher normal upgrades (+15 uchi dex scaling goes to A)
Some scaling reported as changing from A to S with higher upgrades
Normal upgrade path buffed by ~10%
Lightning path nerfed slightly (~5%)
Lock-on acquisition range increased.
Lock-on changing/switching got easier.
[I] Ring of Fog users can now be locked on.
[/I]Ghosts and Skeletons give souls now.
[I] Twinkling Titanite drop rate improved.
[/I][I][B]Fixed a bug where your inputs come out 1 second later.
[/B][/I]Domnhal of Xena: Sells Arrows / Crossbolts, Master Key
Giant Blacksmith (Fapsmith): Sells Arrows / Crossbolts, Small Titanite Shards, Large Tit Shards, Twinkling (8000 per, inf amount), Green Shards, Repair box, upgrade boxes
I honestly find it faster to just kill them all, given that one chaos or regular fireball usually does the trick, two at most.
