Once in a while it'll come in close for you to use melee, but overall it's a ranged fight. Equip magic or a bow to take it down.

Ranged attacks make it easier, but it's still very doable melee only. You just have to wait out her attacks until she gives you the opportunity to get up in her face.

Armour and a shield with high magic defense helps, as she does purely magical damage. All of her attacks are dodgeable too, fast roll ftw.

I'd argue the opposite. Magic and bow may make it faster, but overall it's a melee fight. Attacks are stupid easy to dodge, and you can kill it in 1-2 rounds of melee.

It'll land on the bridge after a while so you can melee it.

If you're in human form there's an NPC (Witch Beatrice) you can summon. The summon sign is on the ground floor under the stairs, partly hidden by a bush. She's a caster and can pretty much solo it if you can avoid the attacks.

kinda random, but what does everyone think the most annoying/toughest enemies are for melees/casters?

probably the crawling ****ers in tomb of the giants for melees? and maybe the drakes for casters since it would take so many spells to kill one?

Have any of you done S&O at level 1? They're kicking my butt and I could use some pointers.

heh, I was gonna do a lvl 1 playthrough soon, and I was already thinking about still being able to use the lightning spear (which is obv an awesome weapon for O&S), but then I remembered Baintz post and the fact that I won't have the strength to use that spear

Fire >>> Lightning for this fight. Goes without saying, but max your shield as much as you can, as you may have to try and absorb a hit from Smough and you'll need high stability for it. Balder shield is best, but I think I used the Tower Kite or Caduceus Shield.

I used Great Fireball and Fire Orb with a decently upgraded pyro glove, and that should drop Ornstein pretty quickly. Just be patient in waiting for an opening as one hit from either will probably kill you.

Super-Smough should be easy, just remember to use the pillars.

I didn't know fire was better than lightning for that fight. I'll try getting a fire weapon. I've been using a +2 or +3 lightning reinforced club.

I have a +14 glove, so that's as it should be. I like combustion better than fireballs though.

And I'll get a Balder shield. I think I have one already, but I've been favoring the grass crest shield. Is the 50% lightning resist on the Balder shield enough? On my other playthroughs I've been using the Eagle shield for this fight, but I don't have the strength for it this time.

Thanks for the pointers. I'll let you know how it goes.

Well Ornstein has decent lightning resist, but is weak to fire. Pyro + a fire weapon drops him quickly.

I recommended the Balder Shield for its stability. That is way more important than lightning defense (you should be dodging Orns lightning attacks anyway).
Grass Crest is nice for the stamina regen, but there's no way it can withstand a hit from Smough. Just use green blossom instead.

You may as well start upgrading your Balder Shield, you're really gonna need it against Manus and Kalameet.

I did it on my first try after getting some gear. Balder shield +10, a flame reinforced club +5 and the thunder stoneplate ring.

I took Onstein down pretty slowly, using only the club. When he died, I burned down Smough as fast as I could with combustions.

I also used Havels ring and armor that let me fast roll.

Thanks for the help.

This game on pc is tilting the F*** out of me. First I couldn't figure out how to finish customizing the character. Then I didn't know how to change the mouse sensitivity. After that I couldn't figure out why I can't access the menu and now I can't even pillage the damned corpse at the start of the game. OMG.

just wondering, did you guys skip the depths/upper blighttown on your lvl 1 playthroughs initially? other than freeing Laurentius?

Felt silly with how easy the butterfly was once I knew to just roll and wait. But now I have no idea wtf to do. The knight at the bottom of the watchtower ****s me up in one shot, can't even come close. The hydra kicks my ass. I try the Valley of Drakes and they mess me up. Am I missing something? Am I too weak? I gave the Divine Ember to Andre to get a divine weapon, but need a special titranite.

KDebo, if you have the basement key from the church, check the door right before the fire dragon bridge

let me know if you want extra spoilers

Kdebo, you are indeed too weak for those areas. Not sure how much more I should spoil for you but maybe you have gotten a key somewhere that you haven used yet

I don't really want spoilers, just want to vent frustration haha.

Anyway, I feel like I cheated the game somewhat. I wanted to show that punk ass knight who's boss (who I know now is Havel) and went to fight him multiple times. I don't know if its a glitch in the game, a glitch in my game, or what, but when I tried to lure him out of the tower, he doesn't come out. He swings that giant ass sword and walks back in, giving me a chance to strike. I'd lure him out, let him swing with me plenty of distance away, and 2H jump attack him. It took some time but I was able to beat him.

Awesome how it was the door on the first floor of the tower to get to the tower demon at the undead burg.The whole world is going to be fully connected with little pathways, isn't it?

I'm not sure which door you are talking about. Is it on the bridge? Whenever I try to step out on the bridge, the dragon breathes his fire and kills everyone. Should I walk through the tower again where I had to kill the demon before?

Also, the one spoiler I do want: When I get to the undead parish, theres a gate that is shut and I can see a bonfire behind it (think of how when you leave that little area with the rats, instead of going right towards the metal rhino, you go left) How do you open that? Or am I not suppose to yet? (if I'm not, just say that, don't let me know when!)

it's before the bridge, it's straight across from the open door you took to get to the bridge (from where you fought the Demon), so between where you first saw Solaire and the bridge

to get to that bonfire, you have to run past the fire dragon, that area is beneath where he stays, once you get there he leaves and you can open that gate (the shortcut)

just got to O&S with my lvl 1, has been fairly easy up to this point, but I wish I got Great Fireball from Quelana, my glove is only +10

Loving dark souls so far. It really does seem a little more creepy than usual. At the first part where the dying knight starts telling you a story and he says leave before I turn into a hollow, so I killed him and I felt like a bad person.

Once meeting the knight guy after being dropped by the giant bird, I realised he was a condescending a-hole so I killed him (after dying many times). Fun stuff!

Any recommendations on best gear/armor for a sorcerer build int/dex mostly? Decided to boot this up again with all the talk in the thread. My previous runthroughs have been with a melee and a pyro.

Well I did an all-boss run (if you're doing a challenge run like this, may as well go the whole hog) so no skipping anything, and Upper Blightown is a must to get

Crown of Dusk is the only piece of armor I can think of that has specific benefits to a caster (raises Magic Power, lowers Magic Defense). I just went with aesthetics on my Dex/Int build, while keeping fast roll - Crown of Dusk, Maiden Robe, Silver Knight Gloves and Painting Guardian Waistcloth, and I think she looks great. Also wearing Bellowing Dragoncrest ring most of the time.

Weapon wise you've got a lot of choice. Great Scythe, Uchi/Iaito, Silver Knight Sword, Balder Side Sword and Ricard's Rapier are great when maxed and buffed with Crystal Magic Weapon.

For non buffable weapons, you've got the Lifehunt Scythe, Gold Tracer and one of my personal favourites, Velka's Rapier.
Having high dex also gives you the option of having a really powerful bow too.

I stopped leveling INT at (44 is needed for Crystal Soul Spear spell), and at that level, a weapon maxed on the Enchanted route will also be pretty beastly.

Standard catalyst is best until a certain level of INT (you'd have to check Wiki), at which point Logan's catalyst becomes stronger.

Crown of the dark sun also boosts spell power, but less than crown of dusk. No magic defence hit though.

I initially skipped Blighttown on my SL1 playthrough, but I went back to get the thing Baintz mentioned.

I'm on four kings now. Usually my approach has been to slap on a ton of armor and just take their hits like a man. But this time I want to do it the 'elegant' way and avoid their attacks. That is so hard to do. I can't avoid the projectile and I can't avoid the grab. And I get hit by the odd random attack when I miss a roll. It's still fun, but it's effing hard.

I've seen videos of people doing it with the Red Tearstone ring. That would obviously help but it leaves no room for mistakes and I don't have that level of skill.