Dark Souls II | Dark Souls | Demon's Souls

Groggy from having to stay up way, way too late last night playing the Dark Souls 2 beta while it was available. So worth it though.
I did get a couple of glitches and one crash, but otherwise it was pretty great. They're still fine tuning the difficulty, and it does certainly need it. The gap between weak enemies and stronger ones is too wide. Might take next to no damage from little guys, but big ones can 1-2 shot you even while playing the warrior.
The bosses were fun enough, but not enough challenge.
Summoning/Invading worked amazingly. Almost too good, in fact. I would go to summon a phantom and he would already have been summoned by someone else. However, when I went to invade it was a nearly instant connection. Loading took a little long, but I ended up having some of the most satisfying PvP ever. Lag was practically nonexistent even though I'm pretty sure I was often connecting with people from way over in Japan, normally the worst lag in my PvP experience.

Very excited.
Awesome looking enemies that I can't wait to fight.

Couple of things in there that really stood out to me. Near the end there's a voice in the background saying "We need the Abyss." Thought it was "Beneath the Abyss" at first, as did many others, but having heard it and listened quite closely several times now, it's definitely "We need the Abyss." Interesting story possibilities there.

Another thing is the two red phantoms fighting. It was already possible for some invaders to fight one another, I seem to recall. Darkwraiths and Darkmoons could tangle. And of course there was the arena in the DLC. Hoping there's something more this time.

This video has some info you may not have heard.



Properly aiming spells in first person.
Armor with stat requirements to combat ganking, ftw.

Were you trying to say "new" or "known" there?

That is like the most confusing typo possible in that situation. lol


Personally, I'm glad it's on PS3 as I won't get getting a PS4 for quite some time.
My big problem with the game is when it comes out. It's mere days from the Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster. Going to be really tough to decide what to play as I've been looking forward to both for so long.

Dark Souls' plat will require a minimum of 2 1/2 playthroughs on a single character. This is because of the three items it's possible to obtain with Sif's Soul. There's the Greatshield of Artorias, and TWO VERSIONS of the GreastSWORD of Artorias. Both are labeled the same in game, so you can only tell them apart by their stats. The key here is what you make them out of. You'll have to look it up as I don't recall the specifics, but you definitely don't want to mix them up. If you've made one already, then look up its stats on the wiki to see which it is. One is referred to as the Cursed Greatsword of Artorias, and should have its own entry.

Make sure to cut off every Boss tail that can be. If a boss is getting low on health and their tale hasn't dropped, then let yourself get killed, or homeward bone/miracle out. Remember, once a boss is down, they're down for good. You said you have a list of which weapons and items you need, so I'm assuming it tells you all the bosses that drop tails. Just don't forget.
Best to fight them solo too. Don't want a helpful phantom killing them and causing the need for more playthroughs.

Alternatively, be sure to summon NPC Phantoms like Witch Beatrice. You have to summon her to the Moonlight Butterfly fight to get her to show for 4 Kings, and you have to summon her there to then get her gear in the Valley of the Drakes.



For Demon's Souls, there's only one roadblock you'll have to deal with, and that's Pure Bladestone. I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again. Even doing everything you can to increase your drop rate, the chances of getting one of these are obscenely low. If you try and just can't get one, tell me and I'll let you have the weapon that requires it. Just holding it is enough to trigger the trophy for having a fully upgraded Sharp weapon.

I believe Demon's Souls will also require multiple playthroughs to get everything. Look up World Tendency and Character Tendency because they can determine which items are available to you. For example, some levels require a Pure White World Tendency, which is difficult to maintain if you don't take certain steps (which should all be in the wiki), like suiciding in the Nexus if you're Human so that you don't lower a world's tendency by dying in there in Human form.
Even then, each demon soul you get requires a choice. Most can be turned into a Miracle, Spell, or Weapon, meaning 2 or 3 playthroughs minimum.

All I can think of at the moment. Best of luck. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Ok, had one annoying death, killed stray demon and two black knights at undead asylum, traveled back to firelink shrine and fell off from the nest, dying from the fall, respawned at the asylum only to get ganked by the fire wielding enemies at the entrance, my health bar was gone in a flash and lost over 25000 souls, that pissed me off to no end.

However, despite this I am still going pretty good. I am building another dexterity class, farmed large titanite shards in the depths to get my uchigitana to +10 again, once I am done with blightown I am intending to get a divine weapon and go for the great scythe in the catacombs, I heard that it is an epic weapon for dexterity builds.

EDIT: Ok, I already have a question, how should I go about getting the warrior of sunlight weapons if my build doesn't require even a moderate level of faith ?, should I just get it to 25 anyway ?

Yea, that advice about the covenants will definitely come in handy. I just went to New Londo to pick up the large ember, got my Great Scythe to +15, does 420 damage and I am about to go through anor londo, will definitely chuck my summon sign down near the boss(es). I'm probably a bit overpowered for the area but that's fine with me. Have been really thorough with my looting, making sure I get every drop and item in each area.

Actually, may do a bit of farming now that I have that serpant ring, going to try get a bunch of stuff upgraded, got over half the weapon trophies still to do .

Ok well I am doing painted world now so will see how I go with getting that dagger. Anor Londo was a piece of cake, and killed smough first in the boss fight because I would rather face an enhanced smough in NG+ (to get both souls so I can craft their boss weapons). I am only SL 56 or 57 so will probably take that SL advice onboard now, try get myself summoned to put that faith requirement down !

Well, I am doing great on my platinum character, got all pyromancies and sorceries, just need two more miracles and the boss weapons. I'm aiming to get the last few smithing trophies tonight and then focus on getting through NG+ and beyond.

Finished the DLC too, unfortunately no one to summon for Kamaleet so I am leaving him for now but the other bosses were great, beat sanctuary guardian first try and Artorias seemed tough at first but really wasn't too hard of an opponent once I stuck to dodging as opposed to blocking. Artorias was actually a very fun fight. Manus was one heck of a boss, crap load of hp and aggressive as hell. I was getting owned so I summoned Sif and swapped out my gold rimmed clothes for Havel's armour and his ring to keep my roll decent, beat him that next fight, higher poise does wonders with him.

I'm outside Kiln of the first flame now, going to farm the black night weapons and titanite chunks and then face off against Gwyn to polish off the first playthrough.

EDIT: Ok, I'm on to NG+ now, calling it a night. I farmed titanite chunks for half an hour then ran to grab a white titanite slab I missed in tomb of giants, also ascended my flame at Blighttown and traded it for a second red titanite slab with snuggly the crow. Thus I was able to get all weapon/smithing related trophies on my first playhrough, now its just boss weapons and two miracles to go. I also found out that there is another titanite slab in the kamaleet boss arena so I said screw it and went down there. Yet another crazy and aggressive boss, didn't have good armour at all and nearly died multiple times but I killed him solo on my first attempt, what a battle. Gwyn still gives me trouble unfortunately, this time my stamina regen was desperately slow for some reason, so I couldn't absorb much damage at all and his combos got through my defense so easily since my recovery time was at snail pace. I decided to use one of my "increase stamina regen" plants and it worked wonders, I destroyed him that attempt.

Yea I figured that slow stamina regen was because of my heavy armor (full set of havel's for that fight) . I already had all covenant trophies, farmed sunlight medals so I can rank up in that and get the final miracle pretty quickly into my second plathrough, then I just have the miracle you get from joining and getting to +1 in the darkmoon covenant and that will be another silver trophy down.

I may need some help on how to go about NG+ with a dexterity build ?, 42 dexterity, 32 endurance, 32 vitality, 16 faith and 16 intelligence . I know the difficulty is going to catch up with me at some point and even though my +15 great scythe was destroying enemies and bosses last playthrough it won't be the same in NG+, also , what is a good armor to wear/upgrade ?, I think I may value mobility and fast stamina regen over one of the heavier sets.