EpicNameBro's Dark Souls commentary is the best I've seen yet. I highly recommend checking his channel out for Dark Souls commentary, tips & tricks.

http://www.youtube.com/user/EpicNameBro

Bump, this game does not belong on page 2...

Combat with no lock-on is sort of a bitch. Any tips other leveling up?

Any tips/links on weapon & armor upgrade paths? Im totally undecided and already collected lots of stuff for upgrading, im the using drake sword almost exclusively, should I use the moonlight soul on it or wait for a better weapon? Also the golden ember you get...Andrei asks if he can BORROW it, do you get it back? Is he the only one you can give it to?

Theres a non-ghost caster type enemy at the entrance which you can easily pull with a an arrow. Get him up to near the bonfire because by fighting him down at the staircase you might aggro the other ghost enemy which is very near. Once you got him up position him with his back to the chasm so you can push him off. Easy 2k souls and while in the 30s quite nice xp. Im doing that right now...

Don't worry about the blacksmith, they all ask to see new embers when you get them. If they can't use them, they'll give it back. The four (?) blackmsiths can all get your weapons/armor to +5, but not all will offer the same special upgrade paths.

In fact, you'll only need the blacksmiths to ascend each item once, the rest you can do yourself. e.g You need the Catacomb blacksmith to ascend an Estoc+5 to a Fire Estoc, and then just use bonfires to go Fire Estoc+1, Fire Estoc+2....


As to what to use, I say just go with what you like. Any weapon can be made pretty lethal through upgrading so it's really just personal/playstyle preference.

For which upgrade path to follow, I think this depends on if you plan on playing NG+ or further, as some upgrade paths remove all stat scaling so once you've maxed that weapon out it can't get any more powerful.
For example I have a Lightning Iaito+5 and an Uchigatana+15. Both are maxed out. The Iaito is more powerful now, but the Uchi will continue to get more powerful as I pump more points into Dex.

Drake sword is ridiculously overpowered for such an early weapon, it drastically changes the early stages of the game imo, in pretty much the same way as the Royalty class did for the first few levels of Demon's Souls. I tried not to use it when working through the levels, but it was usually being wielded in two hands and swung like a madman by try 3 of most of the early bosses

Black Knight Sword is what I've been using for a long time it seems. I've just now got some weapons that come close but they're still worse. The Gargoyle-tail Axe seems pretty cool tho.

Do other items get better when upgraded or is it basically whichever items base stats are best will be best at max lv.

Thx lot, so youll always get the embers back and they just use to upgrade the weapons?

Absolutely, it makes the game a bit imbalanced imo as basically anything up to valley of drakes becomes a joke as far I can judge. Surprising for such a game.

And btw wtf is this ****? In PvP, can any player invade any other players world regardless of the player levels? I have just been invaded in darkroot garden by I dont know...he smoked me... Before I was just fighting and wanted to pull the ghost up to the bonfire when I saw that the entrance was closed by the fog and realized quickly that this has to do with someone invading me becaue i was human (first time for me obv., I play on XBox, I heard theres much more pvp on PS3 due to a lot more asian players). It reopened and than closed again a few times and then he stood before me in his shining blue armor, unfortunately my humanity level was zero

PS: The pathing in this game hilarious btw., enemies get stuck so often between trees and close entrances etc...

No, you don't get them back, but you don't need them again. You hand it over and now have another upgrade path available to you with that blacksmith. Then it's just a matter of getting the required titanite shards.

If I go back to that sun knight will he give me another soap summon stone? Got fed up with bell bastards, used humanity, summoned him, and managed to get shoved off the roof in about 30 seconds. Went back up there after using another humanity, summon spot wasn't there and tilt quit forgot to check my inventory if the stone was gone or not but assume so.

Gorgeous game, glad it's finally here, jesus it can be frustrating though.

Has anyone figured out how many souls per life you have to earn to get another humanity point?

What is the deal with earning humanity? I though it was tied to staying alive as long as you could, but after dying once, the next enemy I killed earned me one.

According to wiki:

What "large amount" means who knows but...


Just caught a slight but not really enemy spoiler looking at that page:

Area specific. NEVER would have thought of that.

I used the Drake sword for a bit, but swapped to the claymore pretty quickly since the Drake sword felt a bit overpowered. The claymore is a really nice sword that also works in tight corridors since the heavy attack is a forward thrust.

Mine is upgraded to +10 now and hits like a truck.

you guys talking about the drake sword. You all got it by the shooting arrows at the tail method?

Does that Dragon disappear after some time? I avoided shooting it's tail cuz I figured it'd be OP and I could do that another playthrough. Would like to try and slay him tho if that's possible now.

Yes shoot the tail repeatedly to get the Drake Sword. If you're qualified to use the short bow, it takes about 20-30ish standard arrows.

To kill the dragon with ease:

Ok, so I've rang both bells, now what:

Thought I was all badass for one attempt beating butterfly then Capra, then whatever that snakehead thing is in Darkroot Basin brought me back to humility, several times over.

Just got this game tonight (was a choice between this or the new Batman game). Figured this would be a nice change of pace.. and am definitely enjoying it so far.

The menu's are a bit awkward because there seem to be quite a bit of stat heavy detail to whats going on behind the scenes, and the control scheme will take a while getting used to, but the game is definitely very fun and rewarding. The mechanic of dying/going back to where you last were is certainly punishing and ruthless, but it lets you feel kinda awesome once you get to the next area.

I'm still in undead burg, at a section where I get decently far then have gotten killed a few times by running into the wrong mob or hitting a trap, but as the reviews and things have suggested you never feel like you can't get further.

I built a standard warrior guy, just going for the basic strength/endurance/vitality stuff at this point.. mostly using a sword and shield or sword and spear. I really like how the different enemies all have a few different attacks and some strengths/weaknesses.

Most of the 'items' which are used by the down dpad/x buttons I have minimal idea what they do, other then the firebombs and bottles that heal you. The undead spirit things should I use those or save them?

Also, Some of the mechanics haven't been explained yet (wtf is hallowing at the bonfire???!) but I look forward to getting further into the game.

ALWAYS save the "Soul of Super Awesome Hero" or whatever you happen to get. Those are used to give you souls but since they're items, you don't lose them when you die. Keep them until you have something specific to buy/use those souls for, then cash them in.

Hallowing is turning in 1 humanity to revert back to Human form. Human's can summon other players/NPCs to help them, while Hallows can be summoned.

Ok, this game is starting to piss me off for reasons that aren't the "Dying is fun and makes for a good challenge" type.

Thanks for the tips, thats kinda what I assumed about the soul items, granted I haven't found any use for the souls except leveling but I'm guessing there are Seller NPCs and so on.

Also, I think the humanity thing makes sense too.. I was playing in 'single player mode before' but I read the manual and understand a bit more about it.

Got two questions regarding item stats. What does the second column right of the weapon stats mean? It sometimes has negative stats.

Also is it not possible to upgrade the defensive abilities of a shield? The only stats that increase when making a +1, +2 etc. shield is the damage right? Got a few shields now for different purposes like fire, magic etc attacks but they are missing defensive abilities...

Oh and btw. weapons damage depends on the slot you carry it in? Is that true? For example theres a huge difference for the drake sword between right hand 1st and 2nd slot, but I actually see no difference using it in either slot...

PS: Is the bandits knife really the best dex scaling weapon up to new londo?