The Real Dark Souls *spoiler* thread starts here

Ok, some explanation would be appreciated.

I’m roughly level 45. I decided to, for a change, use a humanity to see what happens. (I’ve done it before for kindling purposes, but generally died pretty quickly after that, so I’ve never really played while human).

So I’m at the fire behind the illusory wall outside the Darkroot Garden door that requires the 20,000 soul key to open (Artois’s Key or something like that). I turn human, and I go in.

I’ve been having trouble killing the giant wolf with the sword in his mouth. I see a summon sign, so I hit it to try to get help. Summons fails (of course). I try another sign. Summons fails.

But then I see that the way back out to the fire behind the illusory wall is blocked with a veil of white. I run up to it, but I can’t go through it; it’s just fully blocked (no hitting the button to traverse the light).

Then I get invaded. I kill the first invader. I try another summoning sign, and this guy actually shows up. But about 20 seconds later, another invasion. This time there are two invaders. They immediately kill the guy I summoned, and then double team and kill me.

So:

  1. Why was I blocked out of leaving that sub-area (Artois’s garden or whatever it’s called)?

  2. When I go human, can I pretty much just expected to get invaded every 10 minutes or so without stop?

  3. What exactly is the point of being human? I understand that certain NPCs will react differently, there are certain story plots that only trigger or show up if you are human. But the first time through, that seems pretty paltry benefit compared to having to fight off some griefer every 10 minutes. I know that you can help others with your own summon sign, but whenever I’ve tried that before, no one summons me and I just wait around doing nothing.

  4. I still don’t get weapons in this game. I was lucky enough to find the Black Knight Sword in the beginning off the first black knight. It just slaughters things. Even at only +2 (because I couldn’t find the components to make it go higher), it absolutely outclasses the divine claymore I made, for example. There doesn’t seem to be any comparison; other weapons may be a bit faster, etc., but that seems drastically offset by having to hit three times with them (even for something like the lightning spear) to do the damage of a single hit with the Black Knight Sword. I’m basically concerned, because I think this game has taken forever (I’m 50+ hours in, and I’m just working my way through Sen’s Fortress, and that’s at level 45ish). I have no idea how I ever would have been able to get as far as I had without that weapon.

  5. Likewise, armor and weapon upgrades. I’ve upgraded my shield to +9. That’s by far the best, and I’m basically unable to upgrade anything because I don’t seem to find any of the twinkling titanite, large titanite, etc. that is needed. Is that normal?

  1. You’re blocked from leaving an area while you are being invaded. You must defeat or eject the invaders first.

  2. Actually, invasions aren’t that common… with the exception of the area you were in. The Darkmoon Forest is a special area protected by members of a particular covenant. Players who have joined that covenant gain the power to automatically invade non-covenant players who enter the forest. So regaining your humanity and entering the Darkmoon Forest will usually get you invaded by 2 or 3 people almost immediately. As a result, the wolf boss is one of the few that you almost absolutely must defeat without help, because getting to the door as a human without getting killed is far more difficult than killing the wolf!

  3. There’s also a bonus to item drop rates, so being human increases your ability to farm for items. Also, a quick correction: You need to be human to summon other players for help into your world. You can leave a summon sign and get summoned into other players’ world even if you’re hollow. In general, however, you don’t need to become human to play the game. If you don’t enjoy PvP, then just stay hollow and you don’t have to participate in PvP any more. It’s deliberately designed so that you can stay hollow without missing all that much.

  4. It happens! The Black Knight Sword is slightly difficult to get - since you have to kill the Black Knight who was using it - but it’s a very good weapon.

  5. If you progress in the game, you’ll meet a merchant who sells items needed for upgrades, and some monsters who commonly drop upgrade items. The flipside of getting the Black Knight Sword (or similar advanced weapons) is that they’re hard to upgrade right away.

From my understanding, I thought being human does not have an affect on the drop rate, but having humanity does.

So I was in the archives before Seath and I figured I’d look for help. I see a darker summon sign and I assume it’s a SunBro but the message says “summoning Darkwraith” - the summon failed but what the heck was I summoning???

Someone either used the Red Soapstone (which puts a red summoning sign down), or a Dragon Eye (from the Stone Dragon Covenant, which puts a kind of goldish sign down that looks different from normal signs). Either way, summoning one of these means you’re accepting their challenge to a PvP fight.

I’m sure I have 60 hours into the game. I just did a quick check of the wiki to get a rough idea of how much I have left.

I want to cry. I’m really enjoying this game, but man, I told myself I’d finish it before really trying out other things, and at this rate, I may not play anything else until April. :)

Yay, I won! I know everyone here is in NG+ and such, but it was a long slog for me playing no more than an hour or two a night. Finished up a level 80 with a high vit/end/str build in all black iron armor +5 and a lightning giant club.

I’d say the only boss fight I thought was garbage was the bed of chaos, otherwise I absolute adore this game.

Why would you say bed or chaos is garbage? About to do that one tomorrow.

Bed of Chaos is ABSOLUTELY garbage. Such a bullshit fight. Forces you into certain set patterns of running, with absolutely no way to avoid attacks that WILL stagger you no matter how good your poise is(I’ve seen people in full Havel’s get knocked around like ragdolls), leaving you open for the followup attack, which will either kill you outright or knock you down into a bottomless pit. It’s total bullshit.

Beat my head against Four Kimgs a bit tonight, before giving up for now and wandering off to the Archives instead. The moral of the story, I fear, may be that I want more than 11 vitality.

You should get an achievement for even getting that far with 11 vitality, I think.

That’s where I’m at now, except I already did the archives, catacombs/giants tomb. Vitality is 10…you think raising that will help against the 4 kings? To me, that battle is more about damage output than an endurance fight…course, I haven’t beaten them yet, so maybe I’m doing it wrong?

The standard advice for that fight seems to be to equip the heaviest armor you can and settle in for a battle of attrition, but the Kings can knock off over half my health with a single good hit. I’m not certain if I’m doing it wrong or what.

At the moment, I’ve got most of my points in int (~45), and a chunk more (~25) in end. Everything else is low–just enough str/dex for the Drake Sword, and 12 faith for basic miracles.

Weapons are as much about finding ones that fit your play style as they are about finding the best one. There is no “best” one (except maybe the Drake Sword when you’re just starting). But there are lots of strong ones and each plays differently. For example, I too was lucky enough to get the Black Knight’s Greatsword in an early encounter. I built my character’s strength up just to be able to wield it. But I quickly found it to be too cumbersome to use as a regular weapon, though I still used it for a couple of boss fights (Iron Golem and the twosome in Anor Londo). I have a Golem Axe +5 that does great damage and is a little faster than something like the Black Knight’s sword. And my lightning halberd +5 is much faster than both, at the expense of having no vertical range. This doesn’t work so good fighting an Iron Golem. But the speed is great for the fight against the Gaping Dragon. Your divine claymore will be better than your black knight sword in the Catacombs.

It’s all a matter of finding what fits the fight and finding what fits your style. I’d also suggest that it’s simply fun to switch weapons once in awhile.

I was able to get him on my 3rd try…without being hit, once I understood what I was supposed to do. You can run near the walls to avoid being hit, assuming you’re under 25% load so you can run fast enough. Havel armor will obviously prevent this. I had more trouble with Quelaag than the Bed of Chaos (which is to say, I had a lot of trouble with Quelaag).

What was your trouble with queelag? Run behind her, poke, poke, clear out before she explodes, repeat.

Not sure why, but I could never get behind her. I think I died 20 times before killing her. I’m in NG+ now, in Blighttown, so we will have a rematch soon…hopefully with better results. Capra Demon, Quelaag, Stray Demon, Four Kings and Lord Gwyn were my toughest bosses.

Quelaag gave me trouble, until I realized that I now had enough sorcery to do some serious damage to a boss. I needed to whack her a couple times with my sword at the end, but she’s a lot easier when you can mostly keep your distance.

The same strategy eventually led to me burning Sif down on my first try, almost without any effort.

I think having the ability to good ranged damage and good melee damage is a big help in this game. People often say they had so much trouble with a certain boss, while others had no trouble at all. I have killed Quelaag twice from two attempts, myself. Keep distance and blast away with sorcery.

This is another reason I like the Int build. With the right gear, you do similar melee damage to a Str build, but you have powerful Sorcery to fall back on. You won’t have as much end/vit as a pyromancy/lightning weapon cheat-build, but you have better range, and ultimately much better damage. Also, I think having low vit trains you to be a better player in the long-run. I didn’t go above vit until after I got the Lord Vessel, and it really teaches you how to play the game properly.

Quelaag was tough, until I realized that if you press right up against her, her slashing attacks don’t actually hit you. (I could literally stand right in front of her, making sure to press up against her).

At that point, it got really easy, as I just chopped her apart with my Black Knight Sword. (Of course you have to be smart enough to move when she periodically launches lava.)

Quelaag was tough, until I realized that if you press right up against her, her slashing attacks don’t actually hit you. (I could literally stand right in front of her, making sure to press up against her).

At that point, it got really easy, as I just chopped her apart with my Black Knight Sword. (Of course you have to be smart enough to move when she periodically launches lava.)