[Traveller]

Yeah that was pretty funny, I saw that as I went past with 4 or 5 spirits following me. I hit as many as I could and went back up the stairs, then took out the mortal ones. It took me a while to find the bonfire switch hidden round the corner, so I had to kill everything first.

Best area so far. Especially after clearing it, going down the staircase and looking down over the railing at all the other levels dropping down so far.

I'm now at a bonfire up a cliff after an elevator ride.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 27 July 2014 - 06:56 AM

[Traveller]

Ugh this boss is a pain. I get her down to half and she summons Velstadt or whatever his name is. And while I'm fighting him, and the 5 skeletons she also summons, she has free reign to chuck bombs and dark missiles at me from across the room.

[Wolfdrop]

Yep, real pain in the ass. I had a Dark Transgressors Shield and Fire Phoenix Parma equipped for 100% reduction against dark and fire.

There's 2 phantoms available, one by the fog gate and Benhart is at the back of the room.

I had to use Benhart to even the odds for when she summons Velstadt

[tiam]

Been making some good inraods in my normal playthrough. Is the DLC worth it yet in your guys opinion? Im enjoying this but have a bit of a back pile of games so do you think its worth jumping straight into the DLC or leave and come back to it?

In any case my soul memory was over 1 000 000 whatever that means so I could just go to Drangleic castle from the get go. However I got battered by the knights there and went back to get the other 2 lords souls. Shelob and the blob of corpses were pretty straightforward actually as was any other boss ive come across since then. Just killed the giant singing frog and got to the undead crypts and can finally buy more soul spears.

Ive upgraded my gear and use my +10 poison rapier alot more to save on spells/backstab and its good.

About to go to the first fog gate in the undead crypt. Might be the king not sure yet.

[Traveller]

Wolfdrop, on 29 July 2014 - 10:07 AM, said:

Yep, real pain in the ass. I had a Dark Transgressors Shield and Fire Phoenix Parma equipped for 100% reduction against dark and fire.

There's 2 phantoms available, one by the fog gate and Benhart is at the back of the room.

I had to use Benhart to even the odds for when she summons Velstadt

My problem is exacerbated by two earlier mistakes - one was using up Human Effigys to help out with Bosses (after completing first game) and the next was walking in to Agdaynes room with a flame earlier on. I didn't hear what he said when i went in, so he attacked me and I think I killed him, I can't remember.

And as far as I know, he's the guy that sells nice shields, Ring of Thorns, and Human Effigies.

You can get a pardon from Cromwell, but it will cost 1k per level... 135000 souls then. And I'm not even sure if that brings back Agdayne if he's dead.

So no help for me against Elana, unless I go to Newgame+, but then I'm going to have to go through again to get to the dlc.. I'm not sure I can be bothered! I guess that's the price for not checking any guides or anything while playing.

I can get her down to half, but end up getting pasted by the combo of velstsadt, skeletons and dark bombs.

[Wolfdrop]

tiam: Would recommend getting it though if you've got a backlog to play there's no real hurry. The enemies in the DLC have high HP and hit like trucks so I'd advise a relatively high SL. There's a new DLC coming each month for the next 2 month so still plenty to do.

I like the poison rapier too. Do you use the normal one or Ricard's Rapier? Ricards Rapier was my main weapon for DS1 on a DEX/INT build. The RT attack combined with crystal magic weapon weapon was a real boss wrecker. It seems better suited for poisoning though in this game

Traveller: Are you on X360 and what SL, maybe we could coop it?

Also if you killed him, wait a while then a tombstone will appear that you can pay some souls to summon his ghost. This applies for all NPC's. Far cheaper than Cromwell. I wasn't impressed with Agdayne's items tbh.

This post has been edited by Wolfdrop: 30 July 2014 - 05:47 PM

[Traveller]

So if he comes back, do I still need the pardon in addition to the souls used to raise him?

This post has been edited by Traveller: 30 July 2014 - 08:03 PM

[Wolfdrop]

Just the souls, don't need the pardon

[Traveller]

Thanks, I'll check that out. I can't bear to leave anything undefeated, so I'm going to head back to try and collect some more useful items. Before getting my ass handed to me again, most likely.

I ended up defeating Nashandra wearing a loincloth, go figure.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 01 August 2014 - 06:42 AM

[Traveller]

Wolfdrop, on 30 July 2014 - 05:41 PM, said:

tiam: Would recommend getting it though if you've got a backlog to play there's no real hurry. The enemies in the DLC have high HP and hit like trucks so I'd advise a relatively high SL. There's a new DLC coming each month for the next 2 month so still plenty to do.

I like the poison rapier too. Do you use the normal one or Ricard's Rapier? Ricards Rapier was my main weapon for DS1 on a DEX/INT build. The RT attack combined with crystal magic weapon weapon was a real boss wrecker. It seems better suited for poisoning though in this game

Traveller: Are you on X360 and what SL, maybe we could coop it?

Also if you killed him, wait a while then a tombstone will appear that you can pay some souls to summon his ghost. This applies for all NPC's. Far cheaper than Cromwell. I wasn't impressed with Agdayne's items tbh.

Agdayne, as far as I know, is the only merchant that sells Human Effigies that I haven't bought and used.

Also, how did you equip the two shields and a weapon? Surely you only get the effects of a shield on hand/on back?

[Wolfdrop]

Quote

Also, how did you equip the two shields and a weapon? Surely you only get the effects of a shield on hand/on back?

I had both equipped on my left arm, kept the Dark Transgressors up mostly then switched to Fire Phoenix Parma for fire attacks. I did the same to the Darklurker as it uses a combination of dark and fire based spells too. A Magic Magic Shield (not a typo the base shield is called magic shield) will give you 100% magic block, it's lightweight so good to have equipped in addition to your shield for PvP or Dark Transgressors to shut down hexers.

Also since you're looking for effigies, do you know about the shrine that makes you human?

[Traveller]

I'll say not, since I don't know which bit you're talking about... where is that?

[tiam]

Wolfdrop, on 31 July 2014 - 07:38 PM, said:

Quote

Also, how did you equip the two shields and a weapon? Surely you only get the effects of a shield on hand/on back?

I had both equipped on my left arm, kept the Dark Transgressors up mostly then switched to Fire Phoenix Parma for fire attacks. I did the same to the Darklurker as it uses a combination of dark and fire based spells too. A Magic Magic Shield (not a typo the base shield is called magic shield) will give you 100% magic block, it's lightweight so good to have equipped in addition to your shield for PvP or Dark Transgressors to shut down hexers.

Also since you're looking for effigies, do you know about the shrine that makes you human?

Yeh something to do with the Shrine of Amarna singing sisters turning you human I think?

Yeh my SL is probably high enough I think im around 130+ if thats high enough. Seems to be alot lower youd need alot more on DS1 to level up at that point.

Standard poison rapier +10 got Ricards rapier but havnt got the 20 dex id need. 50 int and 50 attunment have been my main focus with a bit on strength and dex the rest of hp. Im still using an upgraded Sorcerers catalyst from the beginning of the game so I do little damage really. Just found a staff with A int scaling but requires 20 faith which might be worth it I suppose.

Think ill leave the DLC for now. Still in the undead crypt and havnt even found that king yet plus the 'sign of the king' doors throughout the game aswell probably lead somewhere.

Also judging by you guys I put no effort into my gear and have barely upgraded my armour the entire game. DS1 I had a decent catalyst that didnt need upgrading because it didnt effect spell usage and the fire robes that couldnt be upgraded. IS that were im falling down neglecting my gear?

This post has been edited by tiam: 31 July 2014 - 07:54 PM

[Wolfdrop]

Yeah, the Shrine in shrine of Amana, to the right before the Demon of Song i think, go through a door that you need to be human to open then there's a shrine that will make you human if you have 0 effigies, otherwise it does nothing. There's also a pretty neat katana kicking about nearby it.

tiam: The spellcasters in Shrine of Amana actually drop a very good staff, I use it on my mage. It needs 35 INT, has an S scaling and gets a bonus if you're human while using it. It also looks cool so that's the main reason obviously. Didn't take too long to get with some increase item drop gear and rusted coins and served me the rest of the game. It'll save you sinking unnecessary points in faith if you're not going the hexer route.

There's some good staves in the Crypt, the ghosts drop a sword that RT function as staff. There's another staff too somewhere but I can't remember where I picked it up. It's from somewhere in there Crypt I think.

As for upgrading I don't upgrade armour much, but always max out weapons. It makes a huge difference, also infusing it with magic for sorcerer, dark for hexer, lighting for faith etc will give you some nice scaling bonuses.

This post has been edited by Wolfdrop: 31 July 2014 - 08:13 PM

[Traveller]

Beat Elana at last. Typical of Souls to make it look almost impossible.

Went back to find the shrine, just because I missed it before, then Agdayne for the other stuff I'd missed out on.

Ended up getting her on second attempt, using the npc summon as bait, the Dark Transgressors Shield, and a slightly upgraded Smeltor Demon Sword - which has a fairly stamina friendly wide horizontal swing and is relatively fast for a greatsword.

I've switched to wearing the Drakeblood armor from the dlc just because it looks good and is slightly lighter my Drangleic, although not as strong yet. Easy to upgrade too.

Will have a go at the dragon later.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 01 August 2014 - 07:27 PM

[Wolfdrop]

Drakeblood set is great for pure fashion souls. Love the cape, very Crimson Guard-ish. I upgraded the chest to +9, but the stat increases seemed pretty minimal compared to my other upgraded armours. I'm still rocking Syan's set, sometimes with Mastodon body instead

[Traveller]

Yeah I like the Drakeblood body; also got a upgraded Drangleic which I use with the Old Knight Helm.

I noticed the small stat increases with the Drakeblood - probably as it only uses regular titanite, not a rare sort.

[Wolfdrop]

Just found out there's an alternate way to beat the chariot boss by using ranging attacks instead of the lever. Apparently once his health is low the horses will fail to make the jump and he can be OHKO'd. Has anyone tried this?

[Traveller]

No, I read about it after I'd defeated it.
Is it just me that thinks the enemy AI has improved in the dlc? That Jester Thomas was almost acting like a human invader, flipping between long and short attacks depending on what I tried, and healing himself in between.
And the Knights in the Sanctum were actually really difficult to hit with arrows, as they didn't follow a set pattern once their guard was up - they were weaving and hiding in a suitably difficult-to-hit way.

I've been having a bit of fun going back looking for items I missed first time through.

Has anyone used a Soul Vessel yet? Some of the good Rings require high Faith or other stat... are there any risks or penalties to reallocating Souls to collect them, then changing back? I've got a good supply of Soul Vessels now, I'm tempted to mess with them a bit.

Nice dragon at the end of DLC by the way, well worth paying a bit extra for. Looks like they were intending to do this from the very start.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 02 August 2014 - 05:36 PM

[Wolfdrop]

I've used the Soul Vessels load of times, there's no penalty. I started as a deprived so I'd always be free to respec into something else without any preference to casting/melee etc. What do you mean by reallocating souls to collect them though?

Sinh was good..ish, I'm still trying to solo him now that I've used an ascetic. I liked Kalameet much better though. Some of Sinh's moves just seem cheap and unfair to me. Kalameet had a huge arena, suitable for a dragon of his size whereas Sinh's area is small to the extent that his aerial fire breath and divebombs are almost unavoidable unless you start sprinting at him immediately. If you run to the sides you just end up running into a pillar and getting stuck since you need to pan the camera so high to even see him. Even then, half the time you still can't see him. Maybe I'm just being a little bitch or he's meant for coop or something, still preferred Kalameet.

I saw this guy's video, I first I thought "fuck off, I love dark souls 2" but he's obviously a huge souls fan aswell and what he says makes a lot of sense:



Dark Souls 2 is much nicer to play in terms of controls, engine, menu interface etc and online play leagues ahead of the original. But the level design before CoTK is nowhere near the original. That's one of the main points he makes in the video that I agreed with, that DS2 was very segregated and was basically individual levels whereas DS1 was all interconnected, it was awesome finding a new shortcut, then getting Lord Vessel just at the right time, before you got sick of running everywhere.

A remastered version of the original with DS2 controls, online and a graphics update would just about be the best thing ever.


That said, I think I've played more DS2 than the original

This post has been edited by Wolfdrop: 02 August 2014 - 06:46 PM