From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

Tomb of the Giants is the most unsettling place in the Souls games. Creepy as fuck. Also breathtaking when you see the Demon Ruins and the Ash Lake in the distance.

 

The Nito fight is probably the most knowledge based fight in the entire game. Meaning, when you just go into it, it seems ridiculously difficult, but with some knowledge, it's probably one of the easiest fights in the game.

I was getting raped by the combination of Nito's attacks and his freaking re-spawning minions. I tried some things, like killing the summoners/sorcerers outside his cave, thinking that might stop the skellies from re-spawning, but it didnt help. Also, rolling/dodging/ranged did not help at all, since after a while all his skeletons just wedge you in somewhere and you can't even move.

Finally looked it up online (I am not proud, but I had a long day yesterday, so short fuse). So basically a divine weapon puts them down for good, just like with the necros at the catacombs, and if you stay at the beginning part of the cave where you drop in, only the 3 small skellies aggro, the big ones in the back do not.

So once I put down the minions, it gave me a chance to experiment with the Gaylord himself. His attacks are super slooow and easy to dodge, but the miasma butt blast isn't. So I finally started using the Crest Shield to block it. It has like 80% magic blocking, worked like a charm. After that, 2 tries, and Nito was gone (ran out of estus on the first).

Funny thing happened in between. I had to go Human in between, to kindle the bonfire nearby. So as I was running to his cave in human form, some asshole decided to invade my world. I go oh crap, and realize im equipped with the Crest Shield and the Divine polearm, two things I never actually use for fighting, only equipped them for this specific boss fight. So I open up the inventory, and hurriedly replace them with my normal arms, hoping this dude won't attack me while im helpless like that.

Just managed to do it, he comes running in, BOOM perfect parry, take most of his health on the riposte, followed up by a finisher. Felt pretty good, in between Nito's bullshit.

 

he's actually not that hard even without divine weapon and with aggroed enemies. However, the fact that you take a ton of damage just by falling into arena, and Nito's sword-from-beneath attack makes this fight a bit of bullshit.

He's Ravelord.

That was an NPC invader, Paladin Jenkins.

 

I don't think I ever died to Nito. His health isn't high enough to die and his attacks lack enough punch to put you down quickly.

 

All of the lord bosses are pretty easy if you have a well-developed character. Soft-capped health, decent armor, +15 weapon, maxed estus, you just chew through them fairly quickly while not being too endangered. The difficulty sort of flatlines after Penn & Teller. Not that this is a bad thing. DaS2 and (so far, playing it now) DaS3 still ramp up into what would be NG+ territory for DaS1 where everything, boss or non-boss, 2-hits you regardless of health or armor and maxed enchanted weapons are basically assumed to get through enemy HP bars in decent time. And this is why NG+ is crap.

 

NG+ has always been shit. There's little reason to go through the game again with HP sponge enemies that can 1-2 shot you.

 

Guess I'm in the minority then, but I didn't find the Tomb creepy or unsettling in any way. My top picks for that would be the Tower of Latria from Demon's and the Upper Cathedral Ward from BB.

Agree on this though, it is quite beautiful.

 

New Londo for me, after it's drained. Loudest silence I've ever heard.

 

These PS4-less niggas don't know Upper Cathedral.

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New Londo comes close though

 

What area backs the unsettling atmosphere with greatest difficulty though?

Tower of Latria?
Tomb?
New Londo?
Upper Cathedral?

Consider only the first couple times you got there. Everything is easy when you become a vet.

 

Tomb or Latria, imo

 

I've been farming New Londo today for Titanite Chunks. Fuck those Darkwraith Knights. I will kill like 6-7 straight, then the 8th will get past my parries and kill me. If you fail on the first parry, they start winding up like a tasmanian devil.

Found where the Four Kings are. Figured out the Abyss Ring thing myself with the help of some orange markers. Had one fight against them, and I don't want to go back there.

I think I will go visit the Painted World first, and maybe the expansion stuff, and then come back.

 

Four Kings is a matter of speed. Try to kill the first before the next show up, and so on.

Bingo. That's why I consider Darkwraiths so dangerous, specially for the Dex/Luck builds I usually do. You miss a parry or dodge and it's bye-bye. Giants in the tomb are tough as hell but more predictable. Brain suckers in cathedral are like Darkwraiths, though. One wrong move and you're dead.

Coincidence or not, all those enemies are worst than bosses when in numbers. I remember that grave in the tomb with half a dozen giants (that you locate by the shining eyes). Or that Isz chalice with 2 or 3 brainsuckers in the same room. Scary.

Sadly, DS3 made Darkwraiths easy-peasy. I think that's due to the player super speed and dodge.

 

I think the worst enemies for a parry build are ones with varying attack speeds. Like the first Darkwraith attack is usually very slow with a high delay, but the subsequent attacks are super fast. Silver Knights with spears are also that way, a super quick thrust alternating with a super slow twirl. You have to work hard to keep your mind from entering the high-speed or slow-speed mindset.

Whereas something like a Hollow Thief attacks super fast, but pretty much always does, so you can anticipate and parry early to catch him.

 

What are you using as your offhand?

 

Parrying buckler of course. With that and Ricard's Rapier, I feel like nothing can stop me. Until something does. 45 times.

Cleared out the Painted World of Ariamis yesterday. Interesting place. The undead dragon on the long walkway scared the living crap out of me. When he wakes up and starts moving toward you on the walkway really fast, it's spooky.

Pretty easy fight after that though, just hide behind one of the lamposts, and shoot him full of arrows.

Priscilla seemed pretty nice, so I did not attack her. Think I am going to hit the DLC area next.

 

Yes... nice...

 

Fucking dragon crapped out on me in the painted world and I was able to sequence break it. Wonder if they bothered to fix that bug since, as I understand, it wasn't a 100% reproducible issue.

 

you can reliably sequence-break dragonbutt by performing jump attack.

 

What does sequence break even mean, you nerds?

So I got into the expansion/DLC area. To get into it you have to kill the crystal dude in a hidden corner behind the waterfall, then get a drop off adifferent crystal dude in the Duke's Archives, and then come back and interact with a cloud in the secret area. So obviously I learned this on the wiki. How the fuck did people figure this out when the DLC came out? Was it in some manual? Was there massive nerd-rage?

Killed the sanctuary guardian after a zillion tries. That mother has so many different attacks, it's a royal pain. I finally took off my fancy armor, and fought it in the nude, with the rolling ring, that helped a lot.

 

you're breaking the intended sequence of playthrough by skipping stuff that wasn't supposed to be skippable.

 

Oh man, I am sooo gonna rage about Buttwalker Artorias in the DLC.

Just fought him a bunch of times, fuck he is so annoying. He is like cheese mode, where the computer gets the cheese. Retarded range, half his attacks can hit you from half the hall away, and that's not when he is jumping across the whole hall. Super fast attacks, slow undwinding attacks that cover like 360 degrees, a whirlwind attack in case you manage to get close, that spin in the air 3 times shit with cc that you cant get out of, what an annoying prick.

And then he gets his damage upped every few blows. I had to dump my armor, because the only way to fight him without a high end tank character is to roll like crazy, so now im fighting him in a sheet with the spin ring. Got him down to quarter health a couple of times, but then he always catches me with a blow, and its over, cause he is buffed by then.

I tried interrupting him during the buffing but thats just ridiculous, his head bobs up and down, so kinda hard to hit with a bow every time, and to interrupt in melee, you have to stay close to him, which is exactly what I don't want to do, given his meatgrinder set of moves.

I am gonna kill this fuck just for being so annoying.

 

You'll really enjoy Dark Souls 3 if you ever get to it because 80% of the bosses are Artorias clones.

Also the best way to kill Artorias is to do it as quickly as possible. You really don't want to waste time doing things like shooting him with a bow.

 

His buff wears off after a while.

 

you can prevent that. As soon as you hear him buffing himself, run and hack him.