Just about to start Dark Souls, any tips?
- Thread starter The_Blue_Rider
- Start date
The funny thing is, I played Demon's souls after Dark souls and I find Demon's souls being easier.Quicksilver_Phoenix said:
Learn to love the grind
Learn to love to die
Its a game you really have to learn before you can make significant progress. And more often than not, trial and error is going to be a mainstay
The story, aside form the starting cutscene, is pretty vauge as well, so if your looking for an RPG with narrative flair your not going to get it here, its all about the stats and skill
Learn to love to die
Its a game you really have to learn before you can make significant progress. And more often than not, trial and error is going to be a mainstay
The story, aside form the starting cutscene, is pretty vauge as well, so if your looking for an RPG with narrative flair your not going to get it here, its all about the stats and skill
Good to know. If you need more help just let us know, the Dark souls community is legionchozo_hybrid said:I got the game, played for a dozen hours and then got stuck, but I've been wanting to start a new and I think you've just helped meWindcaler said:
Nice try Renegade Shepard, but I've already beaten all the Mass Effects multiple time, and I know what your franchise leads to.Renegade Shepard said:
Didn't really see this touched on, so I'll add it in:
You'll remember this from Demon's Souls if you played that, but weapon scaling is incredibly important in addition to weapon equip requirements. This is the "A,B,C..." rating for each offensive stat on a weapon's info page. Weapons that scale heavily can become more powerful than ones with great raw attack power if you increase the appropriate stat enough. As others have said, you should be skimming through a weapons list and/or looking at recommendations for what the best weapons are beforehand, but you should also consider skimping on -all- offensive stats that you don't otherwise need (IE, you might take a little faith if you were going to need it to cast heal anyway) until you figure out not just what you'll need to equip a weapon you want to run with, but also what that weapon scales off. Generally the big divide is between Strength and Dexterity-scaling weapons, so (with some exceptions) you'll generally want to be thinking about whether you want to play as a strength or dexterity melee fighter. Consider what other items each stat lets you equip (shields, bows, etc...) and not just your likely primary weapon, as well.
Oh, and on the subject of scaling: when it comes time to upgrade, and especially ASCEND your weapon, be VERY careful to look at what will happen to the scaling "grades," because sometimes you might end up trading a better scaling rate for a higher base power, or switching the scaling stats to different ones entirely which may hurt you in the long run if you're not careful, but can also, with careful planning, open up weapons to you that may have not been all that effective with your stats otherwise.
You'll remember this from Demon's Souls if you played that, but weapon scaling is incredibly important in addition to weapon equip requirements. This is the "A,B,C..." rating for each offensive stat on a weapon's info page. Weapons that scale heavily can become more powerful than ones with great raw attack power if you increase the appropriate stat enough. As others have said, you should be skimming through a weapons list and/or looking at recommendations for what the best weapons are beforehand, but you should also consider skimping on -all- offensive stats that you don't otherwise need (IE, you might take a little faith if you were going to need it to cast heal anyway) until you figure out not just what you'll need to equip a weapon you want to run with, but also what that weapon scales off. Generally the big divide is between Strength and Dexterity-scaling weapons, so (with some exceptions) you'll generally want to be thinking about whether you want to play as a strength or dexterity melee fighter. Consider what other items each stat lets you equip (shields, bows, etc...) and not just your likely primary weapon, as well.
Oh, and on the subject of scaling: when it comes time to upgrade, and especially ASCEND your weapon, be VERY careful to look at what will happen to the scaling "grades," because sometimes you might end up trading a better scaling rate for a higher base power, or switching the scaling stats to different ones entirely which may hurt you in the long run if you're not careful, but can also, with careful planning, open up weapons to you that may have not been all that effective with your stats otherwise.
Being human (as opposed to hollowed) allows you to kindle fires, as you pointed out, but also allows you to summon other players and npc's into your world if you have the white soapstone (talk to the warrior in undead burgh wearing a sun tabard 2 or 3 times). Certain NPCs will also react differently to you if you're human. For example, there's an NPC at Firelink who will teach you miracles, but only if you're human.The_Blue_Rider said:
Furthermore, the more active humanity you have (top left corner # next to health), the better the drop rate of items. Humanity will also increase the power of certain weapon upgrades (specifically choas, but those will come later).
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First off, know that weapons can be "upgraded" in two ways; ascension and reinforcement. Reinforcement upgrades regular weapons up to 5 levels. You can do this at a blacksmith (there's one at the end of undead parish) if you trade him titanite shards.
Ascension can be done to normal +5 weapons, and makes the weapon either a +6 normal, or gives it a magical property (fire, enchantment, divine etc.), depending on the titanite variety you use to ascend it. To unlock ascensions, you will need to give your smith certain "embers" that can be found around Lordran. Generally speaking, weapons with magical properties as opposed to normal ones have useful attributes, like dealing fire damage, purging undead or causing damage to scale off int, but scale with stats a LOT less in general with normal weapons, making normals the weapons of choice for extremely high level characters. Some magical weapons don't scale with stats at all, despite having high base damage.
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One final tip; do NOT EVER consume a firekeeper soul. Ever. Bad idea. I made the mistake of consuming the first one I found. What you SHOULD use them for, is upgrading your estus flask to permanently deal more healing, which is far more useful than 5 humanity you get from consuming a firekeeper. To upgrade the flask, bring a firekeeper soul to a lady underneath firelink shrine, down a set of curved stairs. She's in a cave behind some bars.
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One FINAL final tip; in the depths, when you meet creatures that appear to be lizards with ballsacks for a face (you'll know them when you see them), don't breath in the ************'s gray gas clouds. Stay calm and step out of them at all costs.
You probably got plenty of answers already, but let me add a couple that I think most people overlook:Quicksilver_Phoenix said:
1. You can now do plunging attacks. When falling on an enemy immediately hit R1 to do a plunging attack that can do MASSIVE damage, sometimes it even hits twice, which will instakill many normal enemies in the game. They teach you about the plunging attack in the tutorial boss but I wouldn't be surprised if many new players forget about it after that point, as there aren't that many opportunities to use it.
2. Movement now has two forms when under 50% equip load. If you're 25% or under, you run and roll at maximum speed, which is the ideal form for veteran players. If you're over 25% but still under or exactly at 50%, you run somewhat slower and do a slower roll. It isn't THAT sluggish, but depending on your need to be nimble or your personality, this might actually seem quite slow. Be aware that the running speed in DarkS Souls is slightly lower than in Demon's Souls, so if you feel as if you are slower than in Demon's Souls even at lower equip load then you are right.
3. The angle window for backstabs and the window to succesfully parry are much bigger now than in Demon's Souls. So as a new player backstabs may be your friend, and if you can start getting good at parrying already, even better.
4. Equipment degradation is MUCH slower than in Demon's Souls. Although it won't hurt to check your stuff's durability every now and then, you won't have to worry much about your equipment breaking. Be aware though that this is balanced by the fact that there are now more instances in which your equipment can be instantly degraded to near broken by certain enemies and their attacks (Larvae leeches in Blighttown and the Gaping Dragon boss, for two examples).
5. Almost every boss now has a corresponding NPC that you can summon to help you out in the boss fight. So if you are truly stuck on a boss you might want to consider looking up where said NPC's summon sign is and bring him/her to the boss fight.
6. Probably one of the most essential differences: The difference between being Human or Hollow in Dark Souls as compared to being Human Form or in Soul Form in Demon's Souls is negligible. Being Hollow in DarkS only locks you out of being able to summon help, get invaded, finding NPC summon signs, or encountering Black Phantom NPCs that may or may not drop unique loot. So if you are hollow for most of your playthrough don't fret. If you are interested in acquiring all the unique weapons and armor dropped by Black Phantom NPC's you can just look up who and where they are and when they appear, then just turn Human before reaching that point.
Well, that was long! Hope all this info is helpful!
Very useful, thank you!SantoUno said:
Glad to hear about slower item degrading. Sounds like there'll be more enemies like those man centipede things in the Tower of Latria that have the acid attack.
The NPC help thing sounds a lot like Biorr helping with the Penetrator and Blue Dragon.
The difference between human and hollow is a little disappointing though.
Ah well, just some thoughts. Thanks again, i'll try to bear those in mind when i'm able to play
You can usually find some Black Firebombs nearby, even regular firebombs from the merchant can whittle him out, as long as you can keep your distance.Newtonyd said:
Once you start running, hitting the run button again will do a jump. This'll let you find some stuff early on, including the crossbow.
For riposting, stand back and watch the enemy swing a bit, and wait for them to do a downward swing coming at your left side, then step in with the parry. Its a one-shot kill on most things.
Join the White Covenant (first priest you meet, and you have to join it for him to sell you miracles, though he doesn't seem to care if you leave later) or the Solar Knight one (an altar you find a bit in, but takes a decent Faith score) to improve the number of summon signs you see, and get matched up with co-op more often (and inherently, get less PvP, I think). Most of the other Covenants are expressly for PvP, so I'd say stay away from them until you get a pretty good hold on things.
Damn, I'm late to the party here! I have plenty of advice to offer for this game and hopefully I can still offer some. Firstly, you started without the Master Key. Best of luck, as I feel the game is significantly harder without the paths the key opens up to you at the beginning. There was one area that I couldn't get past no matter how hard I tried, but the Master Key opened up an alternate route that helped immensely. If I'm not mistaken, though, you can buy it from a vendor shortly before that section.The_Blue_Rider said:
I would also recommend these two wikis, which contain all the information you could ever need to know about the game. Be warned that there are plenty of spoilers. Reading up on a new area before playing it greatly increases your chances of survival, though it also diminishes the sensation and surprises of exploring a new part of the world, so use them wisely. I would definitely use them to determine which weapons to upgrade, as they offer in-depth stats on each weapon's upgrade paths and stats. link=http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/]http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/[/link]
darksouls.wikidot.com
Also, a general rule: early in the game at least, "yes" is almost always the correct dialogue choice to keep options open. The one exception is one character who will ask you where you found such great pyromancy?if you agree to tell him where, he will go off in search and meet his end, so say "no" unless you've bought everything he sells that's worth buying.
To upgrade your weapons, you need the weapon, the upgrade material, some amount of Souls, and the means of upgrading. Blacksmiths can upgrade your weapons, as can a Weapon Smithbox once you buy one. Weapons upgraded with Twinkling Titanite, Demon Titanite, or Dragon Scales (which you should avoid using for weapon upgrades) can only be upgraded to a +5 level. Weapons upgraded with other forms of Titanite can go to +15. At +5 and +10, you'll have to Ascend your weapon at a blacksmith; a smithbox can't do this. You can only Ascend once you have the proper ember, and only certain blacksmiths can work with each ember. Ascension lets you change your weapon to different forms that often require different kinds of Titanite. For instance, to get a Fire weapon, you upgrade a weapon as normal to +5 with Titanite Shards, Ascend it to a Fire weapon, upgrade to Fire +5 with Green Titanite, then Ascend either to Fire +6 or Chaos, after which you use Red Titanite to reach Fire +10 or Chaos +5. This sounds confusing, but it's easy to get a hold of. Just be aware that Titanite Slabs of any color are EXTREMELY rare, so think long and hard before using one. You'll only ever have to use one to reach the very final upgrade level for a weapon. Armor can be upgraded with an Armor Smithbox, though I think only to +5 or +10.
A couple more early-game tips. You've already passed the dragon on the bridge. If you stand on the level below him on the bridge, you can safely shoot his tail off with a bow (takes less than 20 arrows), which grants you a sword which is probably a fair bit stronger than anything else you have at the moment. You can kill him or make a suicide run along the top of the bridge to retrieve the Claymore (if you need tips on killing him, look up the Hellkite Dragon on Youtube or the wikis). Upgrade this using the standard upgrade path (no Raw, no Crystal, no Lightning or whatever; it should just read Claymore +15) and you'll have a very strong sword that can be made phenomenally powerful with buff spells. (The stats that aid your Pyromancy, namely Intelligence and Attunement, also improve your ability with sorcery.)
Lastly, before too long you'll run into an enemy that has a low chance of dropping the Titanite Catch Pole. If it drops for you, you have a very powerful weapon with low stat requirements and which deals immense damage when fully upgraded. Put every Twinkling Titanite you find into it and you'll be smashing almost anything you find.
So assuming that you're still at the location mentioned in the edit, a few tips:
1) As a pyromancer, you're choice of upgrading vitality, endurance, and strength is good. That said, intelligence isn't exactly useful unless you plan on using sorceries (there are a few weapons as well that scale with intelligence, but those are somewhat late-game) The only other stats I'd think about looking at is dexterity (if you're using strength weapons than just upgrade it for the minimum requirements, but if you're using DEX weapons then definitely upgrade) and attunement (not by much, increases the number of spell slots. I'd recommend maybe 4-6 slots) Also, fun fact, at DEX levels between 30-40, the amount of time necessary to cast pyromancy decreases.
2)If you opened the shortcut from the bridge to the bonfire in the burg, buy a shortbow and about 50 wooden arrows from the undead merchant. Return to the bridge (under it of course) and look for the tail of the giant hellkite. By dual-wielding the bow and pressing L1, you can manually aim the bow. You can fire at the tail of the hellkite, and doing so will eventually cut off the tail and grant you a powerful sword early on.
3) If you're in human form, you can summon two NPCs to help with a boss battle in the Parish. The first can be acquired by speaking to Solaire (the guy looking over the balcony before the bridge) and by speaking to a knight named Lautrec in Firelink Shrine, only after he's saved from the Parish
4) You can upgrade your weapons either at Blacksmiths (one is in a church you can enter near the Parish, another early Blacksmith can be found in New Londo Ruins, before you actually enter the city) or by buying a smithbox from Andrei of Astora, a Blacksmith. Next, you need two things. Proper materials, and souls. For the battle axe, you need titanite shards, which can be bought from Andrei or will drop from some knight enemies near the church.
1) As a pyromancer, you're choice of upgrading vitality, endurance, and strength is good. That said, intelligence isn't exactly useful unless you plan on using sorceries (there are a few weapons as well that scale with intelligence, but those are somewhat late-game) The only other stats I'd think about looking at is dexterity (if you're using strength weapons than just upgrade it for the minimum requirements, but if you're using DEX weapons then definitely upgrade) and attunement (not by much, increases the number of spell slots. I'd recommend maybe 4-6 slots) Also, fun fact, at DEX levels between 30-40, the amount of time necessary to cast pyromancy decreases.
2)If you opened the shortcut from the bridge to the bonfire in the burg, buy a shortbow and about 50 wooden arrows from the undead merchant. Return to the bridge (under it of course) and look for the tail of the giant hellkite. By dual-wielding the bow and pressing L1, you can manually aim the bow. You can fire at the tail of the hellkite, and doing so will eventually cut off the tail and grant you a powerful sword early on.
3) If you're in human form, you can summon two NPCs to help with a boss battle in the Parish. The first can be acquired by speaking to Solaire (the guy looking over the balcony before the bridge) and by speaking to a knight named Lautrec in Firelink Shrine, only after he's saved from the Parish
4) You can upgrade your weapons either at Blacksmiths (one is in a church you can enter near the Parish, another early Blacksmith can be found in New Londo Ruins, before you actually enter the city) or by buying a smithbox from Andrei of Astora, a Blacksmith. Next, you need two things. Proper materials, and souls. For the battle axe, you need titanite shards, which can be bought from Andrei or will drop from some knight enemies near the church.
Thanks for the help, although its a few days too late. Might help somebody else playing for the first time though.Eternal_Lament said:
I just got through Blightown into the Valley of Drakes, but I havent killed the boss of Blighttown yet, ill need to go down and do that later.
Also does the starting Pyro armour (Ive upgraded it to +4) make Blighttown easier? Because I didnt find the area as hard as people say it is. And I'd like to think its because of the poison resistance on my armour