Dark Souls & Other Souls-Likes

Stoneskin 2hand zerging this guy doesnt work. I die faster and I cant block or move.

true? I just started a Hunter to play bow / magic last night, do you mean using sorcery, pyro, or miracles?

ok, so I just did it. And Im a moron which is not unusual in video game situations.

So like I upgraded my equipment and for lulz I went in as a big onion in catarina and paladin amour..yeah like poise and stuff.

and then the big revelation hit me when I decided to move my weapons around. See, for the whole game Ive had my magic in my left hand/shield slot because I only ever used magic for cure having never used any other magic and it takes so long to use that I only did it after battles and I'd usually take up 2 weapon slots switching between my halberd and fury sword.

so my unsmart self was trying to use stoneskin against the final boss without a readily available shield. So I..get this...moved my pyromancy to my weapon hand..because my halberd was sucking in this fight and I was just using fury sword anyway. And that freed up an extra shield so now I can switch between grass crest and eagle shield. For like 15 battles I was all "it'd be good to have my eagle shield so I can actually block for once! but wait! I cant riposte with this which is the only way Im dealing damage!" but now with 2 shields! I COULD SWAP! I anger myself.

so that is what I did..with stoneskin on I riposte'd til I unavoidably got thrown and lost the stoneskin..then I switched to eagle shield and ran behind that big ol rock to cure and recast stoneskin to which I could then switch shields and start riposteing again..for the win.

and also lets take a moment to realize that whatever moment of glory I had died the instant that there was no ending.

I cannot say that this was a favorite game of mine. I will look back fondly and tell people how much I raged constantly.

I am going to go get bojangles now and drown out my sorrows and then tomorrow am going to go by dark siders 2..which will hopefully make me a happy person again.

At least in Dark Siders2, you are apparently dead already so don't have to worry about that...right? :D

Well at least you beat him Daus, when I said you should 2 hand zerg, you should have used a big weapon, like a great axe. I suppose our builds are slightly different and you were able to riposte him.
Now for NG+!

yeah I don't have any large weapons that I really use...I have that big ol dragon sword I got from ash lake but Ive never used it. I am mostly attached to my halberd and fury sword.

I just got owned by the capre demon ~.~...

He beat my *** on the first try cause I had no experience with his moves

Second try was a breeze lol

I'm trying to go in with almost no armor and a rapier :X I keep getting stuck though, and I can't really block his attacks because I haven't leveled up once.

Have you tried running past him? If you stand in the initial fog doorway there's a very good chance you're going to get bogged down by the 2 dogs in the room with him, which gives him plenty of time to smash you with his giant swords.

If you can get past him, or at least kill the dogs then get past him you'll be in much better shape to analyze his attack patterns and look for weaknesses. Enchanting items like that pine resin thing help alot too.

Congrats, but now the real fun starts with NG+! In NG, you can "out-equipment" most of your fights if you upgrade consistently... not the case as much in NG+!

I actually really like the Dark Ending. If you follow the storyline through, I find it satisfying and the only ending I will choose.

I figured out I could avoid the initial dive attack by running up to him then rolling back to the fog door. That gave me a perfect opportunity to just run up the stairs and deal with the dogs then fight him normally. I just always relied on blocking that first hit because I would level stamina, but now that I'm not leveling at all atm that wasn't an option.

Seems the DLC will be released October 26th. I still think it's complete *** consoles have to wait so long. Especially given how bitchy, self entitled and pathetic some of the new PC gamers have been.

Game's already been cracked and up for torrent (no online though) and they have invincibility mods and stuff available already.

The Stray Demon.

What the absolute f***.

What gets me through the fight easily each time is getting rid of the first dog ASAP.

I do that by having normal armors ( Just any normal with good poise that allows for mid roll ) + Wolf Ring. I have enough poise to take 1~2 hits from the Demon/First Dog and finish off the first dog.
Do the same for the second and the rest of the fight is just turtling the demon for a while to memorize his patterns and then finish him off.

Think I'm going to do:

Chaos Black Bow of Pharis +5
Chaos Rapier +5
Hollow Soldier Shield+15
????
Gargoyle Helm +5
Paladin Armor +5
Steel Gauntlets +10
Paladin Leggings +5

This makes it so I have enough poise to withstand anything not huge, and for those cases I can just throw on giants armor to reach the cap.

I brought my dex up to 18, the rest is going into endurance until I can wear all of that with using DWGR + Hornet Ring, and vit.

Think my next character is going to use a Chaos Zweihander. I haven't really done much with Ultra Greatswords at all.

And I want to see if VIT gouging builds are really as cheap as I think they are. :|

I'm going to make a Faith build, and call myself, Dr Zeus. yeahhhhh

the one in he hole you get to fight after revisiting the place you start at?

yeah..he was the hardest boss I did the whole game. Took the most attempts and luck and I had to beat him.

once again, theoretically he's not hard to kill because he really only has 2 moves..but for some reason he feels nigh impossible.

the hardest part for me was the AOE storm he did..because I could get behind the boss to hit him and I could run away to avoid the AOE, but I always had the urge to run in before the smoke cleared..in other video games when the move is used you can run in and not get hurt..in this one you have to wait til the smoke is gone or else you get flung back. It was a hard urge to control. But when I did that I was fine >.> Also like everything else, the first 10seconds tells if you're going to live or not..the drop into the arena really sucks.

It's that drop that makes it dangerous for the most part. The burst attack literally isn't capable of one shotting you from full health. Even as a base level Sorcer(er/ess).

All boss attacks do a set damage based on your soul level and what NG you're on. It's actually the normal enemies that are dangerous on low level play throughs, because their ability to kill you isn't scaled with your soul level.

Turns out the October 26th release is JP only. No date is set for NA. :|

...that's upsetting

Indeed.

It's a slap to the face for console players. "Oh, some of you have been playing the original content since October 4th 2011? Well, we're gonna give new content to these brand new players while you're stuck waiting for an indefinite amount of time."

"By the way NA/AU/EU PS3 players? That Elite Knight Set isn't getting fixed like the JP PS3 or any of the 360 versions did any time soon either~"

Use Fall Control. If not, moment you drop down, roll away and Estus. You then want to get behind him asap. The key to that annoyingly massive long range aoe is that basically anywhere in front of him (and a little bit around) is not safe. You definitely do NOT want to be far away from him and in front for any more than a moment.

The goal is to AI loop him into doing that stab attack into the ground which does a mini explosion; just run in and out, and retreat when he does long range explosion. Whatever you do, do not get too far away.

It's a very annoying fight until you master that.

My new problem is Ornstein and Fatty. (Biggie Smalls, Dumb and Dumber, Beavis and Butthead, etc.)

Holy crap the run back there is probably more angering than the boss fight, even though I do the shortcut jump from the stairs to the second floor.

Dem giant guards :( The boss fight itself seems pretty self explanatory until I turn out to have no chance of attacking either one of them without getting flanked, generally by Ornstein's madgood DRG abilities (dat dragon slayer)

Scratch all that. *** this boss.

So I decided to do the Bottomless Box dupe glitch, made myself a cleric, and plan to use a faith build.
Since I maxed out my weapons on my main, I have maxed out weapons and gear on my alt. /evil grin

So I got invaded a few times, and... yeah lol the invaders got owned. So hard XD

Nothing like having a maxed out Chaos blade or lightning spear to tear into some unsuspecting players.

Beating Ornstein and Smough.

Dat feel.

Which do you want to kill first? You'll have to kill both first for completion's sake (on NG+) but Ornstein is a lot harder to kill second on NG+.

General battle strategy:

Run around outside of the room, getting them caught on the opposite sides of pillars. WATCH ORNSTEIN AT ALL TIMES! If your shield is good, you can tank both of them (even Smough) pretty easily - though not both at once.

Killing Ornstein first? Fairly easy. Just keep running until he overextends to attack you. Hit him a bit (has long recovery times) but don't invest too much Stamina, and repeat!

Killing Smough first? Harder by a good amount. Can either try to make some distance and force Ornstein into doing his lightning bolts (need to be far but not too far from him) and let Smough rush you => punish him, or repeat a hit&run attack.

Phase 2!

Whoever survives will become a lot stronger(and bigger) and have HP restored to full. They will have more or less the same attack patterns as before, except faster/stronger. Both of them gain this slam attack which will do excruciating damage (if Smough) or good damage (if Ornstein) around a large aoe around them, so back off whenever you see them rise up into the air.

Ornstein gains a new stab attack which is difficult to evade and does very high damage (might oneshot depending on build). Telegraphed by his blade glowing all lightningy.

Smough's weapon is now electrified so tanking him will be painful for you.

Regardless of which it is, you can still use pillars to recover and stuff. It may be advisable to save ranged damage until the second phase as that is when attacking safely becomes very hard. Finally, remember Humanity doubles as a healing item (longer use time than Estus - beware).

Good luck! Many people consider O&S the most difficult boss in the game if done solo.