I'd keep the second ring slot free, it would benefit this kind of build more

You could grab the ring of fog (i thought you were mixing up rings but i understand why you mentioned it now lol), you could also go for the leo ring (if you're doing a pure dex melee thief build the extra thrusting weapon counter damage and extra parry damage could be a solid combo)

If you decided to take your thief down more of an INT route you could grab a bellowing dragoncrest ring or some kind of ring to boost number of sorceries too.

Despite getting nerfed, i really think the dark wood grain ring would be a good choice too. The extra dodge frames in the extended roll you get are really useful to ninjas/ thiefs imo

Lol, in on this backstabber playthrough. Probably the only character I never played out til the end.

Only question - why Iaito over Uchigatana?

The swords are so similar that i think some just prefer the heavy attack on the iaito. Also i think the swords swing in different directions? (one horizontally one vertically?) But i could be talking **** about that...

Uchi only does a tiny bit more damage (225 to the iaito's 220) when fully upgraded.

Currently doing a no-melee sorcery/pyro build and it's making the game insanely easy lol

So basically bandit's knife for criticalling enemies, and for bigger guys you switch to iaito/shield (or 2h iaito?)? That basically the gist? vit/end/dex?

How can I get soul arrows to get the drake sword if I already used them all? I really wanna like this game but I suck at it so I need to be OP'd

You don't need the soul arrow spell, just buy a Short bow from the merchant in Undead Burg. Even with really crap stats he shouldn't take more than about 30-40 arrows to the tail. Loads of vids on youtube to show you how it's done if you don't know already.

They could put very little effort into DS2 and I would still throw money at them as long as the core gameplay stays the same. Been gaming for 28 years and there’s just something about the souls games that completely clicks with me, my two personal games of the generation by a loooong way.

Having said that, there’s always room for improvement, so things I’d like to see in the sequel include:

• Much improved accessibility. I’m not talking about making it easier (at all), but a more thorough explanation of the core mechanics would go a long way to not turning off a lot of new players.
  Stuff like shield stability, poise, and damage from stat scaling should not really be left for the player to work out themselves or have to read a wiki to understand properly. Hidden levels, secret items/quests are all great, they force to you to really explore. Not explaining vital aspects of gameplay adds nothing and just leads to frustration.
  
  
• More variety in offensive spells. I tried doing a pure mage build, but got bored with the lack of variety. Soul arrow, Heavy Soul arrow, Great Soul Arrow, Great Heavy Soul Arrow, Fireball, Great Fireball, Fire Orb. That’s seven spells from basically two . Even just changing some of the casting animations would have been nice and distracted from the repetition.
  
  
• Make less enemies susceptible to backstabs and/or have a harsher punishment for missing them. Parrying is great in this regard because if you miss it, you’re in real danger of being ****ed up fast. Much of Dark Souls becomes laughably easy if you can pull one enemy at a time, circle strafe with your shield up and then backstab ftw. Maybe just limit backstabs to smaller weapons too.
  
  
• Make dual wielding more viable. Given how vital a shield is in both games, going without should have more upside. Two handing a weapon gives you the damage boost, but apart from looking badass, dual wielding doesn’t really offer any advantage. Give me some unique moves (like the dual katana skeletons from Demon’s), or faster animations. Fist weapons like the claws or caestus are crying out for better dual wielding options.
  
  
• Love love love the online in these games, but they need more criteria than just soul level for PvP. Being able to invade some poor noobs game with maxed out lightning or fire weapons just leads to a ton of griefing.
  
  
• Make gear requiring uber high stats much better. For instance, Havel’s shield is better than the Eagle shield, but you need a **** ton of strength to hold it and it weighs more than a house. You give up way too much for too little benefit. Same thing when comparing the zweihander to some of the other greatswords/greataxe.
  
  
• No DPS races against bosses, 4 Kings on NG+ and beyond can suck a ****.

Sub 1h speedrun

hey all, just got this game and I absolutely love it and hate it, just have a few questions

1. I used the red soul thing at a bonfire, but it didn't increase my max estus flasks, did I screw this up by being in undead form or doing it at a non kindled bonfire?

2. prolly a dumb question, but do all items on you slow down your run speed, or just the stuff you have equiped?

3. should I auto use all items which turn into souls (followed by leveling up or buying stuff obv) ?

Not sure what you mean by 'red soul thing'. The way to increase the number of flasks you receive is to 'kindle' a bonfire. You'll see this option at every bonfire you rest at. You need to be in human form before you can kindle though, which you do by choosing 'reverse hollowing' at a bonfire.
The number in the top left of your HUD is your active humanity counter. Kindling and reviving to human cost 1 humanity each.

You can also power up your Estus flasks to give you more HP per flask. For this you need to take a Fire Keeper soul to a fire keeper. If you've just started, the only fire keeper you'll have found will be the girl behind the bars directly below Firelink Shrine.

The only thing that affects run speed is your equipped weapons and armour. Arrows, bolts, and any itmes in your quick use slot do not affect it.

When you pull up the equipment screen, press triangle once and the right hand side of the screen will change from your base stats to show (among other things) your equip load. You can then easily see how equipping different gear affects it.

There are 3 movement speeds. Quickest is < 25%, next is between 25% and 50%, and between 50% and 100% is slowest. Most people try to stay to stay below 25% given how useful dodge-rolling is.

Only use your Soul of the Lost Undead/Soul of a nameless Soldier etc etc when you absolutely need them. i.e when at a bonfire wanting to level up, or at a vendor. There's no point in using them as you find them as then you're in danger of losing them should you die and not make it back to your bloodstain.

Do NOT use the special souls you receive from some bosses. They can be used to create unique weapons or access unique spells.


You'll no doubt have more questions as you play on, I'd recommend the Dark Souls wikidot site as an invaluable source of information. Only look at it when you feel properly stuck though, much of the enjoyment comes from discovering things for yourself.

Thats exactly how I think. In fact they could just do a DS2 with a new world to explore, new bosses and weapons and I would beg for this game to come out. Beside Ambermoon/Amberstar (Amiga) the Souls games have been the best gaming experience Ive had in my gaming life.

This backstab build is kinda fun I guess... but I keep thinking to myself why go through all this effort when I can kill from 5 feet further with the uchi-dash strike?

I'd like heavier armours to be a little more viable in DS2. The greater damage reduction and poise from wearing heavy armour isn't worth the cost of slower movement, worse maneuverability and slower stamina regen imo. One idea that may help - heavy armour should increase stability; in other words you should suffer less stamina drain when blocking.

The above may be less true for PvP where poise is more important than PvE - I don't know as I'm uninterested in PvP.

I gotta tell you, real life Silf cracks me up.

I was only going to go with Iaito because a number of people claim it's the best Dex weapon. An equivalent number say the Uchi's heavy attack is better. I'll try both and decide. I've used a lightning Uchi before but never Iaito. Figure I'll murder the Undead Merchant to get the Uchi easily.

Yea, I by "red soul thing" I meant Fire Keeper Soul. Unfortunately I used the one I had (at a bonfire but I don't think that made a difference). No clue what it did, but it's kind of annoying that an auto save game like this lets you waste items like this. I actually thought the Fire Keeper Soul raised the max amount of flasks you can hold, but I just read about multiple kindles doing that.

Like you said, I'm trying not to read any guides for this game especially, but they do help save a lot of time on the mindless farming. I have killed the Gargoyle and Butterfly (Darkroot Garden) bosses, but for the past ~5 hours of play have been getting raped by the boss at the end of the basement, the boss when you return to the the asylum and fall through the hole, and the Valley of the Drakes. Lots of fun.

I think Sorcerers are one of the best classes to start with, but getting owned in one hit later on really sucks.

I get that you'd want to avoid walkthroughs but you will miss a load of stuff and make many sub-optimal choices if you don't refer to a wiki or use a character build calculator (check out the mugen monkey site I linked to a few pages ago). As baintz said, the game is unnecessarily abstruse, so the wikis and calcs are vital if you want to make a good character. For example, the sorcerer is one of the worst starting classes. If you want to go down the sorcery route, you're much better off starting as a Wanderer.

I'd be willing to bet the majority of people who enjoy this game do not just shelve it when they finish it the first time, so don't worry about finding all the secrets or optimizing your build on your first playthrough, leave that for NG+ or a fresh character.

I don't think using a character build calculator is necessary at all, unless you plan on doing a ton of PvP. Simply getting better at the combat is way more important than eking out a few more points of attack damage by optimizing your build. Who cares if you finish the game ten levels above what you could have done? You're supposed to be having fun, not winning some efficiency award.

Artdogg, if you don't fully understand how weapon upgrading works, then I would suggest you definitely check the wiki for that. Upgrading weapons/armor is WAY more beneficial than upgrading your stats, and has less consequences should you make a choice you're not happy with.

Oh, and don't put any points into Resistance. It's worthless.

I don't see the point of bothering with an 'optimal' build. It's a skill based game that can be beaten without leveling a single time and with a practically naked character. It's not like Diablo 2 or something where a few bad build decisions can make it literally impossible for your character to make progress in the higher difficulties.

I loved discovering how to improve my character on my own, but I guess to each their own! Though I do agree, given hindsight, with looking up information on weapon upgrading. It's very time/resource consuming to completely upgrade a single weapon and the results aren't especially predictable. And that's for just a single weapon of the dozens (hundreds?) available.

Thing is that finding secret stuff can make the game more bearable and therefore fun. My first playthrough was pretty rough going to begin with. There's no way that I'd have discovered the drake sword, queelag's furysword or the darkroot garden farming spot without reference to the internet, and those are all things that considerably alleviated frustration. Admittedly leveling was much slower when I was first playing so the game was tougher then.

Personally, I find playing with character calcs kinda fun. Plus it would be irritating to invest a lot of time and souls into upgrading only to discover that there was a better option available. The calcs are easy to use so there's no downside to them. And because dark souls is such a hard game, I do feel an incentive to make a good character. In other RPGs which aren't so hard, I don't bother much with optimisation. In DS, I feel I have to develop a strong character just to cope.

thanks all, will definitely check out the wiki for equipment, I'm completely clueless on what is optimal now and later and don't want to waste 100 years

pretty much agree with everyone else with re: guides, they are usually better for the 2nd playthrough, but with this game I think most would want to use one during their first playthrough to avoid getting aggravated, the game will be hard regardless

btw, I am a sorcerer as a result of getting owned in the beginning as a knight

I love this game, beat the new dlc and the game several times. Its one of the only games in recent years that I've been able to play over and over. Cant wait for the sequel!

Attempting a soul level 1 pyromancer playthrough

The rules are; I can only use NPC summons when available, (not that i would be able to summon many players at SL1 anyway...), i also have to be able to fast-roll (be under 25% equip burden), obviously i cannot level up, i may also use rings to boost attunement slots for more pyromancies but no havels ring and no ring of favor and protection (same goes for mask of the father etc). Lastly, the only weapon i will use besides my pyromancy is the hand axe (starting weapon for pyromancer) which i aim to +15 at some point.

So far i've just beaten ceaseless discharge and i'm about to do Sen's (probs just gonna speed run it). I may use red tearstone ring for some bosses.