Dark Souls group therapy session

[Lambonius]

I gotta say, I am liking this thread.  I'm without internet connection at home at the moment, so no coop for me.  But this kind of helps replace that lost sense of camaraderie.  Lol

[drunkenmonkey]

Somebody thought to invade my world just now. So I whipped their ass and sent them packing. They were nice enough to leave me a parting gift though, some humanity and their best weapon. I think that if you stay a hollow you are safe.

[Lambonius]

Went back and got the Drake Sword.  Wow.  Gotta say, it really almost feels like cheating...it makes all the enemies in the Undead Parish ridiculously easy.  At least I should be set for a while...

[Cez]

Defeated the Taurus Demon!

A bunch of spoilers ahead so read at your discretion.

Taurus and the big sword.

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

I made my way through the skeletons in the graveyard and ran quickly to get a big ass sword. That's what I used to defeat the Taurus Demon. Lamb, I tried to jump him when he was down but I kept missing him lol. But even at that, with the sword I was able to defeat him even when missing him.

The sword is just too huge and it made me slow. I try to keep half of my carry limit to keep mobility, and I've been putting some points towards that stat (endurance, I think) to be able to carry better armor.

Blacksmith

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

Now I have an axe, and I found a blacksmith, so I made my axe a +2. Blacksmith is down in some ruins, You can get to it from the main hub. There were some ghosts that raped me there so I stopped pursuing that path.

Also, I found some fire soul thing and took it to the lady behind some bars in the main hub. This makes my potions stronger.

Going back to the tutorial level.

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

I also found a secret path to go back to the tutorial section. Once you activate the elevator, you can jump off at one section. From there, you roll to a piece of land that you see far ahead. You climb up and you find a nest. Curl up like an egg and the bird comes and gets you and takes you back. However, there were some guys with torches there that raped me, so again, I'll wait until I'm stronger.

Taking it from both ends.

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

Now I'm at the church. I was doing well with the gargoyle, and then suddenly a second fucker came out of nowhere spitting fire at me, and I died in 2 seconds. Reminds me of the ManEater boss from Demon's Souls.... *shivers* I could only defeat that guy by cheating and taking one of the guys with arrows before I entered it. I have no idea how I'm going to handle these two guys, but I'll keep going.

Has any of you tried kindle on a pit? I have one humanity point that I haven't used, but I'm not sure exactly how that system works.

[Lambonius]

To kindle, you have to be human (which takes one humanity--sit at the fire and select "remove hollowing"), then use another humanity to select "kindle" from the menu.  I'd definitely recommend kindling every fire you can--the extra potions it gives you are invaluable.

About the fire eater soul--DAMNIT.  I got the one from the Undead Parish but tried to use it, thinking it was some kind of powerup (since it said it increased the effectiveness of the potions.)  Of course, it vanished from my inventory and didn't do anything.  That's one thing that kind of irks me--the translations in this game (it's all originally Japanese) are sometimes either VERY unclear (maybe it's purposeful, I don't know) or downright inaccurate--like the Tiny Being's Ring gift, which says that it slowly increases your health over time, even though it actually only gives you a small one-time 5% HP boost.

[wilco64256]

Here's how my late night hour of Dark Souls went last night:

Me - "This long wall with no enemies is making me nervous.  Oh, a giant bull thing.  Oh it killed me."

Me - "Back to the giant bull thing.  Oh it's called a Taurus Demon.  And it killed me again."

Me - "Back to the Taurus Demon.  Maybe if I let it chase me back to the tower and then shoot at it.  Oh it can jump up here and kill me."

Me - "Back to the Taurus Demon.  Maybe if I climb the tower and then jump down and plunge strike it, then hack at it.   Oops, helps to not fall off the wall in the process."

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

Me - "Back to the Taurus Demon.  Climb the tower, plunge strike, several heavy hits, and Taurus is down.  Sweet!  Hopefully there's another bonfire very soon.  Oh look a loony worshipping the sun.  That's weird.  Holy @#^@*#(*& a DRAGON.  And I'm dead."

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

Me - "OK hide from the dragon.  OK hide from the giant warthog-thing I can't kill either.  Holy @#%*@#$)( there's a black knight thing at the top of this tower, run!  Hide from the giant pig some more.  And now I'm lost and dead and have no idea how to even get back to where I died to recover.  Up some stairs then some other stairs and some more stairs and then a skeleton with a red cloak kicked me in the face.  Awesome.  At least I lowered the ladder to the earlier bonfire for a shortcut.  And what the freak is this key for?"

So if I play today:

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

My main goal will just be to carefully explore more of that area around the giant pig to see if I can figure out anything interesting to do up there.

[Cez]

Defeated the Gargoyles in my lunch break. Then BBQ them and had them for lunch.

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

You can slice off the tail of the gargoyle and get an axe! I also got a Halberd at the end

How comes I haven't gotten my first "boss" trophy?? This is all a warm up, isn't it??

Where should I go next...?

[drunkenmonkey]

Anybody know where I can get more transient curse. I need to explore the ghost area some more, but I feel I've done all I can do there for now, picked up some souls and items from dead bodies.

Also if you go to Darkroot and join the wolf covenant be sure not to start a fight with any of those guys till you are ready. The only tactic is run away and divide and conquer, these guys are more difficult than some bosses. I guess I'll never know what the wolf summoning ring is for, this time. Hey, it's not my fault if a guy has his back to me the natural instinct is to pull out my big sword and skewer him from behind (no connotation intended). How was I to know he was on my team(again no reference intended).

I guess the castle reminded me of the first game where that is the path to the king, and I had only defeated two bosses and I realized this was the last guy and I shouldn't be here yet. So after the drake I didn't go further that way, but if you go up from darkroot there's another way to the church.

I can't believe I gave the good item to the crap blacksmith. There are so many ways you can make the wrong decision in this game. You could have upgraded the estus flask with the fire bearers soul, that's the best use for it. Enough crying from me for one night, back to the misery that is Dark Souls.

[Lambonius]

@ wilco RE: giant warthog thing:

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

Firebomb the crap out of him from the walkway above.   If you've been diligently collecting souls from the corpses and gotten a few decent pickups in human form, you probably have enough to entirely finish him off that way.  I killed him with firebombs to spare.  He counts as a miniboss, so once he's dead, he doesn't respawn.

[drunkenmonkey]

Hide near the stairs and make it charge into the fire if you can. Spear it in the ass when it turns to go back to its territory.(What is wrong with me today )

[wilco64256]

Ah it's also doable using some of that pine resin stuff on the sword.  I hit it with a few firebombs (only had 4 on me at the time) and then finished it off with my sword.  Yay that it doesn't come back.  Ran up that tower and tried to kill that black knight fellow real quick while my sword was charged and then the stuff wore off my sword right when I hit him the first time so I ran back down and was waiting at the bottom for him to come out and fight me in the open and he actually jumped off the top of the whole tower, landed behind me, and killed me.  Just awesome.

[Lambonius]

Ah it's also doable using some of that pine resin stuff on the sword.  I hit it with a few firebombs (only had 4 on me at the time) and then finished it off with my sword.  Yay that it doesn't come back.  Ran up that tower and tried to kill that black knight fellow real quick while my sword was charged and then the stuff wore off my sword right when I hit him the first time so I ran back down and was waiting at the bottom for him to come out and fight me in the open and he actually jumped off the top of the whole tower, landed behind me, and killed me.  Just awesome.

I think that tower knight is a red herring--there's not actually anything up there.  You do get a fair amount of souls for killing him though.  The main strategy with those knights is to

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

lure them into an open area so you can maneuver, and then block block block their attacks.  Strike right after they hit your shield--the strong attack can be useful here, since you only get in one or two good hits at a time anyway, so best to make them count.  The tricky part about him is that he jumps away from your strikes sometimes (and has a tendency to quickly counter attack whenever you miss him), and his strikes, while totally blockable with a metal shield, will drop your stamina right quick.  Just make sure you back away or roll away periodically and recharge your stamina by dropping your shield (this is why you need maneuvering room.)  If you follow this strategy, you should be able to eventually bring them down without too much trouble.

[wilco64256]

Heh yeah I was able to take care of him just fine the second time he jumped off the tower, he just caught me by surprise with that stunt the first time because I could hear him running around and then suddenly it was quiet so I thought for a second he had just gone back to the top and left me alone, but suddenly there he was right behind me swinging away.

Also, poison sucks.

[Cez]

He has a nice stone, too.

Ok, so here's the report for the day. I cleared he forest area, and got rid of two bossess there (a formal boss and a semi boss)

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

It's a flying butterfly thing, the boss, and the semi boss is a freaking hard 7 headed Hydra

The knights in the forest area can be particularly hard to defeat. There's a firepit near the knights area, make sure not to miss it! comes in handy.

Then I headed down the sewers. If you go there, watch for the toads and their "curse" It's the most annoying thing ever since it halves your HP and it's really hard to get the stuff you need to get it off. ugh.

I defeated the boss for the area

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

The Gaping Dragon or something. Really cool boss. He gave me 25000 souls!

I'm level 31 now. This game is huge.

[Lambonius]

I was planning to play a couple hours of this game last night, but I crapped out early before ever starting it.  Couldn't keep my eyes open.  Damn full time job.

[wilco64256]

I'm going to work on some more boss stuff tonight if I can.  I've found several (the one in the church-ish building that has like fifty friends with him finally convinced me to rage quit last night).

[Cez]

Lure them out so that you don't have to deal with the magic guy and them at the same time.

[Lambonius]

I'm going to work on some more boss stuff tonight if I can.  I've found several (the one in the church-ish building that has like fifty friends with him finally convinced me to rage quit last night).

I lucked out on him.  He saw me through the windows and came down the narrow approach hallway before his minions ever noticed me.  At that point, it was a simple matter of striking and then waiting around the corner for him to miss me with his magic.  Rinse and repeat.  Then take the minions a few at a time.  Easy.

[Tolin]

This one is slow-going for me... it's a lot of fun, but... well, you guys know.

Currently I'm in the Parish, shortly before the Gargoyles.

If you PS3 owners out there want to add me, feel free.  Please identify yourself.
PSN ID:  Tolin42

[Lambonius]

Finally got a chance to get back to the game.  Rang the first bell.

Now to head downward...

Where's the best place to get

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

transient curses to deal with the ghosts?  Are there any other useful methods of dealing with them?  The ghosts don't seem particularly powerful, but they ganged up on me and raped me twice.  I only had two transient curses to begin with, and now I'm out.  Now what?

Around level 25 now.  Think I'm calling it a night.

Pro tip:  Grabbing items right from under the nose of a sleeping dragon does, in fact, have consequences.  Who knew?