Beat Melania with just my Mimic. She's probably my favorite boss in the game. Her first round is classic, Soulsbourne, sword + no magic combat. The second round starts out with some cheese, but once you figure out her moves, she's pretty easy. The weird thing about this game is that a fully upgraded mimic is 100% better than a real, human, co-op partner. The cut in damage from using a human partner makes bosses way harder than they are on your own, and 90% of the time you'll get someone who sucks anyway. I didn't actually start using the mimic until like 80% of the way through the game, and it's a great alternative to having to fuck with humans. I don't know what's wrong, but everytime I'm summoned into someone else's world, or I summon a co-op partner, the connection dies halfway through the fight. It's annoying. The mimic is like a co-op partner for offline play.
Basically done with NG. I've gotten all the achievements save for the 2 headed dragon and the endings. I suspect you can speed run the whole game on NG+ in like 2 hours, so I'm not going to cheese all 3 endings. I'll just do it the old fashioned way. I did all of Ranni's questline this playthrough, which is the most involved, so I'll probably get her ending out of the way first.
I used the Curved Bloodfang Great Sword for 90% of the game, then switched to the Rivers of Blood katana for end game. I kind of want to try dual whips for NG+.
Also, the lore's grown on me. This has probably the most involved side quests of any Souls game, with some very memorable characters. I sped through NG, but I'll try to slow down and actually pay attention for NG+.
