yeah, that's why you got dark souls for the noobs.

Thanks for the tips and the link. First impression from the game i s the unique combat mechanics. I'm not yet at the point where controlling my character is second nature.

Knowing the attacking patterns of each enemy is much more important than knowing how to control your character.

it is an amazing combat system, you'll get used to it. if there's anything else you'd like to know about dark souls drop me a pm or if you're on xbox and want a summon etc.

this.

learning parry timings and enemy/weapon attacks is key in dark souls

Thanks, and yeah I am on Xbox.

I have played more and am really liking the game. Haven't liked a game so much in a long while. I now know what you mean when you say knowing the enemies is key. Each have a different style and corresponding counter strat.

I love parrying but still miss them. I also am not confident in knowing how to parry the enemies larger than player.

At the moment I'm preparing to enter Blighttown. Have been taking full advantage of my Drake Sword. Capra was a pain but satisfying to kill.

Parrying in PvE is not that important, most enemies later in the game cannot be parried anyway, only enemies like the skellies in the burg etc. Dodging and evading is key in PvE. Parrying is important in PvP though if you really want to show whos boss...;-)

Haha yeah, Capra is the first real test in the game and prepares you for what is to come. I still remember my first attempts, especially the first attempts to survive the initial rush with his dogs...

You can only parry human or humanoid enemies. You can do a partial-parry on some other enemies which will reduce the damage you take very slightly, but in those situations you're better off blocking.

the Drake Sword helped me a lot in my earlier playthroughs. You may want to consider a different main weapon for stat-scaling though as you progress (depending on which stats you plan to level up)

I need to read up on the game mechanics / standard builds more. Still haven't completely grasped scaling and incorporating casting into a melee build.

there are no standard builds

the higher the weapon's scaling for a certain stat (the 4 scaling areas are strength, dex, Intelligence-aka magic- and faith) the more damage it will do you as increase your levels in said stat.

Dex/Int builds are somewhat popular, as are Str/Faith builds but you can do whatever you like, there's no wrong way to make a character (just don't put souls into resistance lol- it's practically worthless)

If you want to make a pure melee character that incorporates casting without pouring souls into Intelligence or faith you could always go down the pyromancy route.

Pyromancy upgrades separately from the rest of your stats and doesn't affect your soul level. You need only put a few souls into attunement (so you can have more spell/pyromancy slots) and there are some great spells which do ridiculous damage as you upgrade.

I'm currently making a str/dex melee build that also uses pyromancy and it its tearing **** up!

That sounds sweet. How do you incorporate the necromancy into combat? Also what do you use dex for?

I don't have a bow since I accidentally hit the merchant and killed him because I didn't know how to make him friendly again.

Dex is for dex scaling weapons, it also reduces spell casting times but to be honest, i never noticed any difference, but thats just me.

You can reset all npc alignments at the merchant thats in the tower where you ring the first bell after you kill the gargoyles.

Learned that after ringing bell. Guessing it is too late if he's dead. Wonder if there is another bow in the entire game. It's not been a big deal so far though.

I take it you mean pyromancy? there is no necromancy in dark souls

All weapons have a set of requirements, They will be in the weapon's description. Dex is just another one of those stats.

Fir example, a weapons requirements could look like: 16/14/0/0

They go in order of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Faith.

So a weapon that has the stat requirements of 16/14/0/0 will need you to to be at least level 16 in strength and 14 in dexterity (the others don't matter because they're zero)

To clarify, Dex doesn't actually DO anything... in that sense. Neither does strength, int or faith. They don't have any bearing on stuff like weapon swing speed, or rolling speed. They simply determine if you can use a weapon (or spell) and if so how much damage you do, and how much extra damage you can do if that weapon has scaling.

A weapon's scaling will look similar to it's requirements (i.e. they're divided into Strength, Dex, Int and Faith). if a weapon has a Grade in scaling for Dex then the weapon's damage will increase as you level up your dexterity. Scaling is measured in grades, 'A' being the highest and 'E' being the lowest. the higher the grade, the higher the additional damage you can do by levelling up the stat(s) the weapon scales with.

You can find arguably the best bow in Dark Souls in New London Ruins (the Composite Bow) but it's a royal pain in the ass to get to so i'd leave it for now.

However, you can find a spare Longbow in Darkroot Basin on a ledge along with the starting armor set for the Hunter class.

Killing that merchant isn't really a big deal to be honest. Nothing he sells is essential to beating the game and by killing him, you don't have to buy some of the items he drops.

But I would avoid killing most NPCs in general though as most of them are kinda important in one way or another. Except a certain mother****er called Lautrec who wears a set of gold armor. If you haven't met him or killed him yet, i urge you to take him out because he will make things a little tricky for you...

Yeah pyromancy

Thanks a lot for that mechanics explanation. Concise and easy to follow.

I saw a YouTuber kick the golden-suited guy near Firelink Shrine off a ledge. Now I have an idea why. I'm tempted to let him live to experience firsthand what happens, but I'll probably kill him.

This is an interesting article about the game. The author has other good ones, too: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...-replay-value/

I've let him live on other playthroughs, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone's first time playing the game. Tbh it's more of an annoyance rather than something that will ruin your game lol... Anyway, here's what happens when you let him live:



And yes the easiest way is to kick him off the ledge, forgot to mention that

edit: He also drops 5 humanity and a very useful ring.

That sounds very annoying. Thanks for heads up.

So I bought fire orb spell from pyro guy, and it says it has six uses and I can only buy one from him. Surely you're not limited to six casts of the spell?

No you'll have the spell indefinitely, but your limited to six casts before you have to rest at a bonfire to get another six. Works exactly like Estus.

About stat scaling on weapons - you may find that it's better to go with an elemental weapon (fire or lightning) instead of pouring loads of points into a stat to increase the weapon's damage. Elemental weapons don't scale with stats but will outdamage normal, divine and occult weapons throughout most of your first playthrough. It's only after allocating about 40 points into a stat (and you'll probably be close to finishing the game by then), that stat scaling weapons overtake elemental.

If you're playing a near-pure sorcery build, the above is less true. That's because a sorcerer will be heavily pumping intelligence. Getting a magic and then enchanted weapon that has A intelligence scaling works very well.

This isn't strictly true...

This is 100% not the case

You can only go down the lightning path after reaching anor londo (1/3 to half way through the game if you take a linear path?)

Also, you have to go to Lost Izalith to farm red titanite chunks effectively... Which cannot take place until you complete Anor Londo and get the lordvessel (unless you take the chaos shortcut).

I imagine the average soul-level for completing Anor Londo is like ~50

By that time you could probably have a lot of souls poured into a level for scaling anyway. So yeah, that's not a critique over elemental weapons or anything but i definitely disagree that they're more effective than scaling weapons early on and if anything it could more cumbersome for a new player to try and make an elemental weapon (namely fire).

If you include buffs, yes. Otherwise, you do have to pump in a load of points.

Lightning weapons just need standard titanite chunks. You'll have got several by the time you get to Anor Lando and can farm the Royal Sentinels for a few more. And recall that you can get the lightning spear in Sen's Fortress. Titanite chunks can also be farmed at a good drop rate from the Darkwraiths in New Londo Ruins.

elemental weapons were somewhat nerfed in the new patch

This too. Used to be a lot stronger.

Yeah lightning isn't so awkward to upgrade but if you're gonna use chunks you may aswel bump some souls into your stats and use them to upgrade on the normal path. But it all depends what build you're going for tbh

Can anyone give me tips on dodging and backstabbing? Do you remain locked on to your opponent when you roll away, or do you not lock and try to roll right by them? Also, the timing on backstabs seems really ****ed up to me. I'm often in a position to execute a backstab, but will just attack normally.

I'm playing a new game after losing my previous save at about level 30. In that save, I really just played the block/attack game. I would actually just block with my shield and attack with my estoc I had upgraded with fire. I'd like to do more than that, but I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out backstabbing.

http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Combat

Been trying to beat Quelaag for nearly three hours....