So what's your guys favorite melee builds? I started a new guy, and was thinking of doing dex/faith. Faith because I have never used any of the advanced miracles (or really any miracles). Dex because I have nightmares of getting backstabbed by dex guys in pvp, and balder side sword/furysword/washing pole all sound like great endgame weapons. I want to completely avoid int because my last guy was all int, so the alternatives would probably be str/fai or str/dex.

Just finished off the Capra Demon, took me about 30 tries I'd say. I only got had to face him 1 on 1 twice, as the other 28 times I died while his dogs were still alive. Once you get rid of them he's a fairly easy boss. Those first few seconds though....Some of the toughest gaming I've ever done.

I was farming a bit after that and randomly got 10K souls for a kill. I have no idea why, but I used it to my advantage and got a couple more K, used some undead souls, and got the crest to open the forest. Fun times ahead.

Congrats on beating the Capra. Agree that it's those damned dogs that suck.

Check and see if the dragon in the beginning (Undead Berg/Parish area) is gone/dead. I have triggered this glitch in a few of my games and have no clue what causes it.

ZOMG Sen's Fortress. The GD boulder. I must have run up the damn path to the chamber where the boulders fall in, and you can direct which way they go minimum of 15 times, and never ONCE did I do it without getting creamed at the last second by a fresh boulder. I'm not convinced it's possible to get up there without getting hit. I timed it as close as possible, sprinted all the way up, tried to jump/roll the last bit, and every single time *squish*.

Oh, and the fact that when I discovered Big Hat Logan in his cage, he looked like an enemy, and because I was walking around with my shield up (because it's Dark Souls) I never got the "Talk" prompt. So when I decided to poke him with my spear to see if he was enemy or just decoration, all of a sudden he's hurling spells at me over a simple misunderstanding, and I have to pay a boatload of souls to Oswald up in the tower to apologize

So yeah, F Sen's Fortress

For weapons, I've been mainly using a +5 Demon's Spear since buying it at the bottom of Blightown. Other favorite is the +5 Uchanga (or one of the Katanas, maybe it starts with an I - Iato?). Can't decide how I want to upgrade that one, but kind of leaning on taking it Raw so I can still use the Great Enchant Weapon, which is really powerful on some boss fights. I'm still mad it killed Priscella so easily, didn't even get a chance to cut off the tail before she died.

BTW, what level are you/others still playing at? I'm at 69 and am at O&S in Andor Londo. I'm worried this may be high, as I think I saw somewhere you don't want to level up too much before starting NG+. Then again, I still often finding myself wishing I had more HP, Stanima and Dex, so I can't be too high I hope. Maybe I'm spreading myself too thin, as I did bump up to 5 Attunement slots, and dumped a few points into INT and Resistance before realizing they weren't useful at all for a Pyro/Dex build (or useful at all in Resistance's case).

I'll go check and let you know. In the mean time, I just went up like 20 levels in less than an hour with that Farming spot. I know it's not the most noble of ways to farm but I'm not a purest as far as gaming and this is going to make the game a heck of a lot easier....except I just realized drake sword doesn't scale with anything, so I'm still doing the same lousy damage. Time to find a real weapon. Any suggestions?

I'm level 75ish and getting smoked by Seeth. Tho i don't know who Priscella is. I was maybe level 50 or so when i was in Anor Londo. Most of my points are in faith, vit, and end

It's entirely possible to get through Sen's without getting hit by the boulder. The second dash to get to the lever mechanism is tight, but you can make it if you're under 25% equip and get the timing right.

Do NOT go the Raw route. Raw is only good for low levels, and is quickly outclassed by just going the normal route. If you've unlocked Sen's, you should have found the Large Ember in the Depths, give it to Andrei and take your katana to +10 instead (and later up to +15 should you choose).

How to get to priscilla.

I would probably pay $100 to MiB style flash erase Dark Souls from my memory banks so I could play through it again with no knowledge of what's coming next.

But then all said and done, you still would've only experienced it once, as far as your memories are concerned.

So these jokers are claiming Dark Souls II will be out on April 12th. I wish I could believe that.

http://www.zavvi.com/games/platforms.../10659395.html

Demons souls Feb 2009
2 years 7 months
Dark souls Sep 2011 Prepare to die Aug 2012
1 year 7 months
Dark souls 2 Apr 2013?

Would seem like a much shorter dev time so hopefully it isnt released that early.

Not reading that :-)

I'm doing play #1 as guide and spoiler free as i can.

Its just some locations and no real spoilers but i can see where you are going with the i wanna find it all myself because exploring and finding stuff out for yourself is one of the best things about Dark souls.

Know exactly what you mean, the closest I can get is watching streams of people playing their first playthrough. $100 would be no-brainer though, you could probably squeeze me for $1000 if this were a legitmite option.

funny thing, since I played through as a caster originally (for both Dark Souls and Demons for multiple playthroughs, did do some melee but almost none on bosses), I never really learned too many of the boss moves, as the goal was always to keep distance and fire spells, so it is kind of a different experience playing through as a pure melee, as most of you know and expect

I couldn't get into either Skyrim or Dragon's Dogma right away(a game some compared to Dark Souls), so the choice was to play Dark Souls again under a different build. It will probably take a badass action game or jrpg to break me from this game.

Not a spoiler at all and there's no way you'd find it without a guide imo. You're basically missing the best farming spot for souls in the game also. Also after a certain point you can't even access it anyways. I'm stuck on NG+ at Smough & Ornstein and I feel like I have no shot. I'm like SL120~ or so. It's probably cause I sucked at making my character lol.

Edit- But I certainly understand your reluctance to reading spoilers.

New Bioshock drops March 26th. I'd say that would be good enough to break someone from this. Not so much super crazy action game, but more great story/dialogue. Def some good action but not like zomg super over the top this is insane status. /mildderails

Thx for the tip re: raw! +6 just seemed so boring but will heed your advice.

Yeah that dragon was dead, and it opened up a completely useless bonfire

So I went to the depths, and accidently aggro'ed the pyro guy there (I'm a pyromancer). Did I totally screw myself there?

Did you just aggro him or did you kill him?

If you just aggroed him, I think you can buy forgiveness from the guy in the church near the first bell and he'll de-aggro.
If you killed him, there's still another pyromancy vendor, but you're a little screwed.

Arent there 2 more? Egg guy and Quelana?

quick question about the dark wood grain ring: I assume, after you attack the ninja, Shiva will not be available as a merchant for the rest of the playthrough? and is the ninja supposed to be somewhere close to Shiva in Blighttown?

You'd have to check the wiki, but I'm pretty sure that Shiva will be unavailable, yes. Not a problem though if you you just buy all you need before offing him.

His bodyguard is directly behind him in Blighttown, under the wooden ramp that leads up to the waterwheel.