Dark Souls & Other Souls-Likes

I don't think it's on UK PSN until 26th :( HATE

I want to make a faith ranger build, using 1 sweeping weapon, a good dagger/rapier for backstabs/parries, and a bow of course.

Any ideas?

Occult vs Divine? idc about the catacombs XP

also how many spells would you recommend, I'm thinking 3? 4? Just not sure what to do for a hybrid build

Would depend on the reach you're looking for. Iirc the Gargoyle Halberd has a sweep and a narrow moveset, and low stat reqs. Broadsword also has a sweeping attack with the one handed/two handed strong attack. The spear you get in the forest by the tree with the two headed snake also has a sweeping moveset.

As far as Occult vs. Divine, it would depend on how much you level your faith since Occult gains greater stat scaling off of your faith level.

Black Bow of Pharis is a really solid bow, and so is the Composite Bow (though it has really short range). Also, the Darkmoon Bow from Gwyndolin's soul is pretty nice for a faith build.

Dagger/Rapier: The Dagger Lord Blade Ciaran has is really good and has the highest critical modifier in the game. Bandit's knife has good crit mod, and so does the Mail Breaker. Any Rapier is fine as well as far as I'm concerned.

Four Spells shouldn't be too bad to have.

Lol wow, this guy in giant's gear+mother mask spamming walk of peace and Wrath of the gods in the arena, In the end I just refused to fight and facepalmed him over and over.

Some people would do anything for a meaningless streak I guess.

Damn Housewives!!

I got invaded in the Tomb Of The Giants the other day while chillin at the first bonfire snackin away like a fatkid, guy just TWOPS and Proceeds to Wrath of Gods me off the edge. He invaded again, i poisoned him and just watched him die as I rolled through Wrath of Gods and using the roll attack. Lol

I'm looking to have a general bruiser build. Hard to kill, can dish out damage, but not glass cannon by any stretch. Any suggestions?

Wanting a melee orientated build? I'd say do a typical STR/END/VIT build and use a weapon with high STR scaling of your choice, could use resins to buff or could try squeeze in 30 Faith and get either sunlight blade or darkmoon blade for a strong weapon buff.

For even more tankability try out a greatshield like the greatshield of artorias, I wish more of my builds could make use of it because it makes blocking most physical attacks a joke with 88 stability as well as having pretty good magic/fire/lightning resist, status effect blocking and decent weight for a greatshield (16.0)

So what changes did the patch have on the game besides the DLC?

Anyone got a link that lists it all?

Something like this maybe?

The Uchigatana is interchangeable with the Iato. Only difference is a bit of damage and the R2 attacks.

You could also use the Chaos Blade but it makes you a little easier to kill, as it damages you every time you hit an enemy, shield included. You'd also have to change out the Balder Shield for a lighter, less durable one. Any of the three crest shields for example. If you tweak the stats a bit, the Claymore is also a viable weapon. With the same shield restriction as the Chaos Blade.

The high dexterity increases the casting speed of offensive magic, including Pyromancy.

Well, as a ranger, you'll be investing in Dex correct? The DLC has two weapons you can get from Ciaran, the Gold Tracer that has the scimitar/falchion sweeping R1 move set and the Dark Silver Tracer a dagger with an insanely high crit modifier and the R2 attack causes toxic build up.

As for Occult vs Divine, the difference between them is negligible. There's an, as far as I know, unconfirmed rumor that Occult does more damage to hosts and white/gold phantom while divine do more to red/blue phantoms.

There are a few useful miracles. Wrath of the Gods, Heal, Great Heal, Replenishment, Tranquil Walk of Peace, Homeward and Emit Force would be relevant ones for anything you'd want to do.

If you want to buff a +14/15 weapon, there's Sunlight Blade and Darkmoon Blade.

i dont know whats going on but i found some weird aligator cat thing and ever since i keep invading other people like every 5 seconds, if it helps im all blue and stuff instead o red. not sure whats going on ; ; please help, my weak cleric self is getting destroyed by the other people

you can run passed it
blue = forest covenant, this activates everytime you have the cat covenant ring equipped or are inside the darkroot garden
red = darkwraith
you can leave the covenant by speaking to the NPC in the belltower passed the gargoyles boss

ah ok thank you!
i guess i shouldnt have talked to that cat though, i ended up seeing a duel between high level characters and ended up getting a ton of souls somehow

yeah the problem with that covenant is that there's no level cap >_< but it can be pretty fun sometimes

yeah just sucks that i cant make a dent barely, though i did force push one guy off a ledge, that was rather funny. some golden phantom did some weird move on me where it looked like she was giving me some strange kiss. not sure how to describe it besides it looked like that one thing the dementors do in harry potter i guess =x

What are people's impressions of the DLC? I haven't got to it yet since it seems you need to be near the end of the game to access it and my main character was at the start of NG+.

Just ran through start of NG+ => getting Lordvessel in one sitting (went 1/1 on all NG+ bosses including O&S which I was VERY pleased with) but I fear my *** is going to be kicked by the Four Kings and the DLC is an unknown factor at this point.

So, bottomless box was patched? Was kinda hoping to transfer my ***from my old character to my new one.

Four Kings can be annoying on NG+(ETC)now cause of magic shield nerf ;(

as for dlc, aside the pvp, it's been disappointing, although the Artorias fight is pretty epic. My biggest problem with this game is only way to fight bosses again (solo) is to continue to NG+ each time..starts to become a drag

Challenging. Very Challenging. The random enemies have pretty wonky move sets and bosses have fairly large move sets and some of the start ups are very similar to others, especially in the Artorias fight. Bosses are also VERY aggressive and barely give you any breathing room.

What Raenil said. Everything is Gwyn Status (you know, if you don't Iron Flesh him, or Parry spam him) super aggressive, and fun. I've only played some of it, but I know a good bit about it.

Concerning Four Kings NG+ and beyond, my only words are that they take the place as the hardest fight in the game from then on. Well, excluding DLC.

For people attempting to go at DLC for their first time on NG+ and further, be careful. Not sure if this is 100% true, but I will say this

yep BB was patched, thought i'd post some other patch notes here for 1.06, two more you'd find helpful -

-Mask of the Mother only provides 10% HP increase, down from 15
-Dark Wood Grain Ring only enables unique rolling animation when under 25% equip burden. Increased movement speed at 25%-50% encumberance also removed.

You only have to fight one Sanctuary Guardian the first time you enter the DLC area. I think he's sort of difficult, some people don't. He goes down in 4 Great Chaos Fireballs.

Oh man, I'm going to die so much I think haha.

Just need to do Four Kings first now (since you need Lordvessel placed to enter Duke's Archives, and I want to rejoin Darkwraith) and then I'm off to die a ton.

With the shield of Artorias the DLC isn't too bad, just takes abit to whittle 'em down. Artorias and the final boss (the final boss, especially) are pretty relentles. Artorias is capable of dispatching you very quickly, and can even one-shot when he puts his darkness aura up. Seems to start using it around 70%, gives him an extreme attack boost, I was flat-out one-shotted by his ground slam thing @SL457

If you can't bring around a greatshield of artorias, the iron round shield and balder shield are both great. You need a lot of killing potential to fight some of the DLC "Fodder" mobs. The guardians are a pain, especially with the gardeners around them.

Varying between Black Knight +5 and Grass Crest +15 at the moment for various functions :( I don't have enough STR to use the Greatshield of Artorias!

Black Knight +5 is perfect, and Grass Crest is not too shabby either. The biggest thing is to have high stability on the shield, though the Iron Round Shield doesn't have the best, it's the only Mid Sized Shield that deflects heavy attacks similar to a Great Shield.

Haha, I usually have to heal when I fight the Spear/Haberd Black/Silver Knights. I like to attempt to parry them, and.. well. I fail at it, spears and the like are odd for me to parry for some reason.


SIDENOTE: I love getting super-ganked in the forest when I invade. Please continue it, you're all bad people lol.