Sucked In By Dark Souls

For both of my builds I found that high poise was the ticket, so I could stay upright when he (or the Firesage later on) does his AoE attack. For the tank I wore the Havel set. For the Mage I used the wolf ring…

Watch his pattern and try to stay out of his way when he does his slam.
Are you blocking when he does it ? you should, especially if you take too much damage. After that use the interval to chug an estus. Use a pine resin on the sword if you don't do enough damage. I used to stay away on the slam, block or chug an estus and then run towards him and whack him with the Zweihander. Mobility was more a thing for the mage.

But why are you not mobile? What is your Armor and endurance? Got the Havel ring yet ?

P.S the Red stoneplate ring with the fire resistance could also help (didn't really need it for the mage).

How far exactly are you into the game ? Level ? You know you can always leave and come back to get him if you are stumped on a game like this ;)
 
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No, don't have the Havel ring yet. I only just completed the Depths, and was halfway through Blighttown when I doubled back and went to the Asylum to get that Rusted Ring.

I'm wearing the Elite Knight Armour set (minus the helmet, which I replaced by the Gargoyle helmet), which I found when I wandered into the Darkroot Garden. But my encumbrance is a little over 50%, which is why I removed the gauntlets and the helmet to go under 50.
I actually didn't try blocking yet...

My main gripe is that my hits don't seem to do too much damage... It's too slow. :)

I'm still kinda sucky at this game. The Gaping Dragon took me forever to beat. It took me several tries, and those summons were no help at all. :p And that jump to make it back to the raven so I could head to the Asylum? I must have done that at least 15 times...
 
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Well it might be a little early for you to get that Demon.

Like I have said learning to use a controller for the first on a game this demanding might stress anyone's patience I imagine ;)

As you've got the Iron ring and I doubt you need the reward from beating the Demon just yet; I suggest you go back and do something else first. Definitely make a priority to get the Havel Ring imo. Being a mobile heavily armored tank will make your life a lot easier for the rest of the game…

Generally fool around in Darkroot a bit. It might be worth your time… (moss and resin i.e. !)
 
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Mkay. I figured I'd clean this area before I head back, so I don't need to come back again seeing how much effort it took me to get here. ;)

I'll give it a few more tries before I give up. I did manage to beat the two Black Knights (and each dropped a sword which I am unfortunately not able to wield yet). :)
 
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Getting back should not be difficult.

Just get close to the most removed from the lift column and forward roll on it.

Anyways, good luck. Do remember to gather some moss before going down to Blighttown again though if you haven't already...
 
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Ha! I got him! Took me somewhere between 10-15 tries, but I did get him. Take that, freaking Stray Demon. :)

I ended up stripping off all my armor, and just keeping my shield and sword. Mobility is everything in this game, that's for sure.

Now onward to rid Lordran of the rest of its monstrosities. :D
 
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Ha! I got him! Took me somewhere between 10-15 tries, but I did get him. Take that, freaking Stray Demon. :)

Well perseverance is the name of the game. Good job :)

Personally I'd have given up around try #5 and went somewhere else (the most tries I had iirc on a boss was around 8 and I consider that bastard a special case ;) ), but that is the beauty and freedom of open ended games like this one, play as you feel like…

P.S mobility is indeed a big deal if you like playing a quick light character. People do naked runs in this game all the time as I've seen. Personally I can't abide rolling around like crazy all the time ;)
 
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Ok, with all the DS2 talk lately I decided to give DS another try. I've got it all patched up with dsfix, mousefix, flora and hd textures and it actually looks and plays better than I remember on my first couple tries.

My problem now though is getting GFWL to work with win 8.1. I've tried several things I found on google but to no avail, anyone here got it running on 8.1 or have any suggestions?

Or is there a work around for saves?
 
Ok, with all the DS2 talk lately I decided to give DS another try. I've got it all patched up with dsfix, mousefix, flora and hd textures and it actually looks and plays better than I remember on my first couple tries.

My problem now though is getting GFWL to work with win 8.1. I've tried several things I found on google but to no avail, anyone here got it running on 8.1 or have any suggestions?

Or is there a work around for saves?

That's really weird since GFWL and Windows 8.1 both come from MS. Figures. Even more strange is how games like Dark Souls is going to function with the impending shut down of GFWL which happens this July.

Sorry I can't be of any help for your original question as I don't have Win8.1 and cannot test for you. I'm glad I'm still running Win7.
 
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Maybe my patience has been tempered by Blackguards adn some of the Batman: AC secrets/trophies... But I think it's time for something less actioney. Like Drakensang 2.
 
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Got it working just reinstalled windows and installed gfwl first before the game.

Maybe my patience has been tempered by Blackguards adn some of the Batman: AC secrets/trophies… But I think it's time for something less actioney. Like Drakensang 2.

Something less actiony than Blackguards?:)

I know I won't be able to play it straight though but sometimes I'm in the mood for some brutal combat and maybe I'll be able to whittle away at it.
 
Well I'm a little late but I'm sucking in dark souls, I mean sucked in by dark souls.:lol:

Took me 25 hours and 3 restarts this time to finally settle on what kind of character I wanted and to see if I'd play with a controller or K&M.

Not surprisingly I went K&M, it's not that bad with the mods but this speaks more to my ineptitude with a controller than K&M actually being better I think.

I settled on a thief focusing on dex/end. Character building, exploration and mood are definitely my draws for this game.

You definitely need to explore and pay attention or you will miss stuff. I like the messages people leave behind it gives you a hint as to what's ahead but always has me wondering if it's true or bs. Keeps me on my toes, actually everything in the game does.

Combat is both easier than I thought and as brutal as I expected. Meaning the regular monsters are pretty easy ( although if you get cocky or don't pay attention they will kill you) and bosses can be brutally hard to impossible depending on when you try to take them on.

At this point the game is a grinder I'm just not good enough to kill bosses I'm so much weaker than. I need the extra stats and equipment to even the odds. Surprisingly this hasn't made me enjoy it any less as there's so much to see and explore. I just need to find my Murphy's ghost of dark souls.:)

I'm still on the fence about wether combat is "fair" or not. It's fair in the sense that the game doesn't cheat or use shady tactics to kill. Every death I had I could point to something I did wrong.

OTH, it's also as fair as me fighting mike Tyson in his prime ( or now for that matter) I "could" beat him if I dodged every punch and connected every time I hit him, but what are the odds of that happening.:biggrin:

In the end though the game is good enough that I don't really care if I die over and over, I'm still having a lot of fun and for the first time in a while can't wait to get home and play. Only time will tell if the dying will finally start to grate on me but through the first 25 hours it hasn't.

Can't for the life of me figure out why I couldn't get in to this game on all my previous tries. It does seem the controls are even better now than last time I tried the mods, maybe that's it. Bah who cares why, better late than never.
 
OTH, it's also as fair as me fighting mike Tyson in his prime ( or now for that matter) I "could" beat him if I dodged every punch and connected every time I hit him, but what are the odds of that happening.:biggrin:

You just need to get over the difficulty curve (for most people is at ringing the first bell or there about) then you'll see that its mostly about being properly prepared and/or picking your fights.

If something seems like it needs a perfect execution to pull off you may want to take a look at how you approach this fight (tactics, or utilizing an edge that the developers may have left for you, or an npc summon etc.) what kind of equipment to use (what does the enemy looks to be using so you can defend against it or what you could use to strike at his weaknesses) or in the end pick the fight you feel comfortable at for your level and progressing player skill (this game being pretty open).

Boning out from a boss fight that seems too hard is a viable tactic if you don't care about losing your souls… I was lucky enough to not have to do it too much on my two play-throughs (actually only once on #2 iirc and that jumping ape still whooped my ass 7-8 times in a row when I returned with a much more powerful build ;) ) but that was probably due to the weird path I took in run #1 and the very focused build I did…

Getting it down to player skill is a legit way to play this I guess for those that enjoy it, but personally this is far from what I get out of the game (i.e. pretty much the points you summed up) so I am more interested in creating a character that works and discovering a tactic that will match my skill level and be reasonably easy to pull off. This is a pretty satisfying to me aspect of the gameplay as I have often mentioned…
 
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You just need to get over the difficulty curve (for most people is at ringing the first bell or there about) then you'll see that its mostly about being properly prepared and/or picking your fights.

I agree with that as you play you get an idea of how the system works and how to approach things, but really when you are low level and new to the world of dark souls it's like a mike Tyson uppercut to the chin.:lol:

If something seems like it needs a perfect execution to pull off you may want to take a look at how you approach this fight (tactics, or utilizing an edge that the developers may have left for you, or an npc summon etc.) what kind of equipment to use (what does the enemy looks to be using so you can defend against it or what you could use to strike at his weaknesses) or in the end pick the fight you feel comfortable at for your level and progressing player skill (this game being pretty open).

Yep equipment is crucial. I had to start over because I missed the Bandit knife for my thief. So all I had to fight with was a sword hilt. It was taking about 10-15 hits just to take down a skeleton, so you can only imagine what happen when I meet up with the Asylum demon. After an hour of futility I was about to quit but went online and saw I missed the Knife. ON the plus side I was very good at fighting the demon when I meet it with a proper weapon and had no problem with it.

Lesson 1-- PAY ATTENTION IDIOT.:lol:

I've changed my fighting tactics as well. When I first started I tried to just keep my distance and dodge but after much trial and error I found (at least for me) It was much better closing in and blocking, parrying and circle strafing.

Boning out from a boss fight that seems too hard is a viable tactic if you don't care about losing your souls… I was lucky enough to not have to do it too much on my two play-throughs (actually only once on #2 iirc and that jumping ape still whooped my ass 7-8 times in a row when I returned with a much more powerful build ;) ) but that was probably due to the weird path I took in run #1 and the very focused build I did…

I don't mind dying, but I absolutely hate losing souls because then I died for nothing( in my mind anyway) So I often go back to the bonfire before going through the white mist crap and if I do run into something that I feel I can't beat I will lure it back as close to a bonfire as I can so I can easily recover the souls.

Getting it down to player skill is a legit way to play this I guess for those that enjoy it, but personally this is far from what I get out of the game (i.e. pretty much the points you summed up) so I am more interested in creating a character that works and discovering a tactic that will match my skill level and be reasonably easy to pull off. This is a pretty satisfying to me aspect of the gameplay as I have often mentioned…

I agree, I think they do a disservice to the game when they talk about how difficult it is. Many people I've talked to think the game is only about difficult combat (even people that have put 100's of hours in to it.) to me though, it seems to be much more.

The exploration is top notch, I'm always wondering whats around the next corner and the game usually doesn't disappoint. There are tons of secrets, cool loot and unique monsters.

Character progression is solid and you can really feel the difference a few levels make.

The world is cleverly laid out (at least so far) to feel bigger than it is but at the same time there seems to be short cut's to most place to eliminate endless back and forth.

I also love that they just through you in the word and say, hey you figure it out.

It amazes me that every weapon I try plays differently based on type and weight. I haven't played a game yet that does this as well as this game does.

Well this is getting longer than I planned. All I can say is I'm really enjoying this game and was wrong about it. It's really a gem.
 
Well this is getting longer than I planned. All I can say is I'm really enjoying this game and was wrong about it. It's really a gem.

Practically my short of turn around ;) (well more extreme for me as it turned from meh, to adoration :D ) I short of envy you twice! Both for going through the game fresh for the first time and for having practically zero waiting time for #2 after you finish up with #1 :)
 
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It amazes me that every weapon I try plays differently based on type and weight. I haven't played a game yet that does this as well as this game does.

Yeah, this is probably my favourite point. In other games you find a new weapon and you just look at the damage number to tell if its an upgrade or not. Then nothing else will change but your damage and maybe attack speed, but you'll keep doing the same attack animation you always did. You'll probably find that the skill system has narrowed which weapons you can use too as you decided early on to specialise in Swords.

But in Dark Souls you really cant tell if you like a weapon until you try it. Just higher damage alone doesn't mean much. A lot of the weapons will be 80ish damage and just handle differently. Also, while some weapons certainly need a particular stat like STR to use, the enchanting system can be used to change the damage scaling to corrospond to your highest stat. Like, Longsword is just as good for STR as DEX user, but you could upgrade it from Magic to Enchanted and have it end up scaling up its damage with your INT.

So, anyway... You said it was becoming a grind cos you're stuck at a boss and cant do enough damage? Which boss? If you're grinding zombies to get prepared you're probably doing it wrong. Also, Thief starts with 12 int so be sure to pick up Magic Weapon and Heavy Soul Arrow from Griggs!
 
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I'm trying to kill Havel, the problem is I don't really have the weapons for it but I'm on a mission and just keep trying. The grinding is just the monsters I'm killing on the way to him. I know I'm taking him on too early and am ill equipped for the task.

I have a long sword and the bandit knife. The long sword is only doing about 20 damage and the knife only about 14, 69 for backstab.

I probably should have given up by now and went somewhere else for better weapons but I've come so close I feel I can beat him with what I have if I'm careful. It's tough though because he 1 hits you so 1 mistake in a 10-15 min fight is all it takes to die.

I'm sure there are much easier ways to take him down but I've made it in to a personal challenge to kill him now.


I feel like today's my lucky day though.:lol:
 
Haha, I also took that fight early on... I had just enough health to survive one hit though... made it a looot easier :D
 
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Finally killed Havel, the ring will come in handy. Now darkroot basin or Taurus demon.

I think my first priority should be some better equipment but I want to stay true to my class( thief) and role play it.

My brother just keeps telling me to pump points into str/end/vitality and get heavy armor and drake sword and the game will be much easier, which I have no doubt is true but I don't want to game the game. ( at least not totally)

With the Havel ring I should be able to get some better leather ( still have the starting stuff) and a better weapon without getting too encumbered.

I've only put 1 point in to str., so I could use the long sword but found I preferred the bandit knife anyway, so I'll need a dex based weapon.

Would the drake sword be thief friendly or is it a giant sword? Even better how do I upgrade the bandit dagger?
 
Would the drake sword be thief friendly or is it a giant sword? Even better how do I upgrade the bandit dagger?

Well the drake sword is mostly there to give an early game edge to people who are either struggling or want to breeze through the early bits. I can not really tell you how much it messes with game balance as I haven't really used it. By the time I bothered getting it, it was already redundant as it doesn't scale that well iirc. Besides, I usually just pick a weapon that fits my concept and that its move set suits me (as SirJames said this is a pretty important bit).

Choosing a less exotic weapon and upgrading it to your preference is indeed very viable and how a lot of us play (I used longsword and Zweihander on run #1). Haven't you met Andre the smith in the Parish? its either that or buy the smith box from him. Then you only need titanite shards (that you find or enemies drop). You start with the normal upgrade path (+1, +2 etc) and then you discover the necessary materials (embers) and get them to the smith that can use them.

If you don't have titanite shards yet you can fool around a bit around the parish. I usually give that advice because this is how I did it on my first go. Half an hour of resting on the parish bonfire then moving out, killing the Hollows (Soldiers and Balder Knights) around the parish should provide some polish to your M+K performance and at least one titanite shard per round that you can use to upgrade you knife to +5. That and a bit of moss gathering on the Darkroot before hitting Blighttown is all the early game farming you really need to do imho… (for run #1, on your second run you realize that not even this is necessary ;) )

You can ofcourse also get the Drakesword and try to see if it fits you or at the very least keep it as a back up. Have you found Gold Pine resin yet ? It is a great backup for a pesky Boss fight. Keep in mind that you can only use it on normal path weapons though (so your knife +5 but not your Drake sword i.e.)
 
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