From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Damned Registrations]

Don't use the black knight sword unless you want to kill all challenge in the game. It's insanely overpowered until the very endgame.

 

[StaticSpine]

I just started playing this. Some of you codex bros can help a noobcake out.

Just enjoy the game, bro.

 

[Jasede]

Don't listen to anyone and do what you want. That's how the game is meant to be played. If you do need advice, feel free to ask specific questions. For now, just explore and soak up the mood and die a lot.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

If you level dex, don't tell anybody u fukicng fgt

Spoiler

I love memes

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Started playing DS1 today, it's p. fun

 

[Gozma]

The reason the dark knight sword is too good is that normally to upgrade shit you have to find a specific blacksmith, usually give them special items you found in semi-secret Metroidy places (and often you will find them behind bosses, thus you had to fight the boss without that upgrade) then dump money and titanite into it.

The DKS uses a different resource that all the blacksmiths can fully upgrade with to max from the start that skips all the Metroid stuff. It's basically just a bastard sword aside from that.

 

[Jaedar]

The reason the dark knight sword is too good is that normally to upgrade shit you have to find a specific blacksmith, usually give them special items you found in semi-secret Metroidy places (and often you will find them behind bosses, thus you had to fight the boss without that upgrade) then dump money and titanite into it.

The DKS uses a different resource that all the blacksmiths can fully upgrade with to max from the start that skips all the Metroid stuff. It's basically just a bastard sword aside from that.

It has very good stats, and also does extra damage versus demons, which is relevant for a couple hard/annoying bosses and enemies.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Played and loved Demons' Souls. While I still prefer Dark Souls over it, Demons had greater variety and more replayability because of the freedom they give you to tackle the levels.

If I had to rank the games:

God Tier: Crown of the Old Iron King>Bloodborne
Great Tier: Dark Souls=Demons Souls=Crown Ivory King
Good for what it is tier: Crown of the Sunken King=Dark Souls 2

Oh c'mon, Crown of the Sunken King was the best DLC from the 3. That first area were labyrinths inside a labyrinth. The pyramid and the enemies were also awesome. And Sinh was a very challenging and enjoyable fight. And it made poison builds so fun to play, specially on PvP.



All the DLC's were great but IMHO Crown of the Old Iron King was the worst. The Towers were awesome to explore, and the first encounter was with few enemies so player could memorize their behaviour, but still the dificulty in some areas felt cheap. It seemed that they just threw lot's enemies with no strategic placement just to fuck the player. And Fume Knight was fucking OP.

 

[Decado]

I could really use a non-retarded explanation of weapon upgrades.

I bumped my Claymore to Raw, it reads as +6. Do I just keep on with the large titanite shards until it is +10? And then ascend it?

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

This is much better than any explanation (spoiler warning if you care about blacksmith names or what to do with embers):

Spoiler

RAW is kinda useless... I recommend reverting back to a standard upgrade path if you intend to level STR/DEX. Otherwise you can try elemental upgrades with base weapon requirements.

 

[Decado]

That helps a bit, thanks. Goddamn that is a complex mess.

ETA: So if i'm reading that right, my first concern should be getting my claymore to +10?

 

[praetor]

Edit: Is it true what they say, that it is not worth upgrading armor?

for PvE, not that important. dump materials in it once you find some combo that looks good to you and lets you be below 25% eq load, but it's not all that important (other than, say, curse resist if you're farming the basilisks, or poison resist when you're in blighttown. and poise is always good)

I could really use a non-retarded explanation of weapon upgrades.

I bumped my Claymore to Raw, it reads as +6. Do I just keep on with the large titanite shards until it is +10? And then ascend it?

no! don't go "raw" it's the most stupid upgrade in the game since it only goes to +10 (normal goes to +15. thankfully they fixed that in Dark Souls 2). don't make crystal weapons, don't make them fire/chaos (for now), magic, enchanted, occult. just get one other weapon to divine +5 (you'll need it for the Catacombs and one boss fight), the rest keep normal. tl;dr would be that all elemental upgrades kill the physical scaling bonus you get from str/dex (and some add some scaling from Int or Faith or even Humanity, but ignore those for your first playthrough) so they're best avoided

edit: btw, since you're using a claymore, i'd recommend you level up both Dex and Str (it scales equally well with both, so the first priority would be to get Str to 27 and Dex to 40, since two-handing a weapon multiplies your strength by 1.5). just a suggestion.

oh, and never level Resistance

 

[Decado]

Cool. That makes sense.

 

[praetor]

just to further clarify, it's not only that those upgrade paths kill the physical scaling, but they split damage into two parts, essentially halving their effectiveness since now their damage output is reduced by two armour values. but, since quite a few enemies are weak to certain elements, that can be somewhat mitigated if not completely nullified. to contradict my previous post from 5mins ago , if you find a decent weapon that you like (moveset-wise) or complements well your primary weapon, but its scaling isn't playing well with your chosen build (say, you find a nice Dex-scaling weapon that would be a nice backup for your primary Str build), making it lightning or chaos (pure fire is inferior if you keep at least 10 "active" humanity on yourself, and you should) would actually be a good idea

 

[Decado]

I've played most of the game hollow. I fought off a few invasions but sometimes they can be an absolute pain in the ass.

 

[Gozma]

The reason the dark knight sword is too good is that normally to upgrade shit you have to find a specific blacksmith, usually give them special items you found in semi-secret Metroidy places (and often you will find them behind bosses, thus you had to fight the boss without that upgrade) then dump money and titanite into it.

The DKS uses a different resource that all the blacksmiths can fully upgrade with to max from the start that skips all the Metroid stuff. It's basically just a bastard sword aside from that.

It has very good stats, and also does extra damage versus demons, which is relevant for a couple hard/annoying bosses and enemies.

Lots of stuff is about as good if you know the embers, map, and drops very well. The DKS on the other hand you can easily get from the first black knight you see when you haven't learned much and it makes all the knowledge you'll gain from playing not give you better and better options.

Edit - wait its black knight not dark knight. BKS.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's also just straight up better at most points in time, assuming you're spotting a decent number of the lizards. By the time you get to andre, you can have 4 twinkling chunks, giving you the equivalent of a +6~9 weapon before you even have the ember to get there on normal weapons. And it's a bigass twohander, which makes it strong to begin with even if it's not upgraded as well. By comparison, if you have something like a longsword and don't have it fully upgraded for where you are in the game (which an unspoiled player won't, in all likelyhood, there's no quest compass pointing you to the embers) you'll be tickling bosses to death for half an hour.

 

[Decado]

I've actually been lugging the claymore around and using it one handed, but I am starting to see that it is not the best option. I bought a Broadsword from Andre and banged it out to +5 really quick to test it. I don't know if I like it.

 

[Codexlurker]

I've actually been lugging the claymore around and using it one handed, but I am starting to see that it is not the best option. I bought a Broadsword from Andre and banged it out to +5 really quick to test it. I don't know if I like it.

It's a pretty decent weapon and I used it throughout the entire second playthrough of DkS. It's not that slow and it can one shot a silver knight if you parry them.

I bumped my Claymore to Raw, it reads as +6. Do I just keep on with the large titanite shards until it is +10? And then ascend it?

If you're going to lvl a lot, upgrade it normally so it can scale. If you're going to do a low lvl SL playthrough, get an elemental or chaos upgrade.

 

[praetor]

I've actually been lugging the claymore around and using it one handed, but I am starting to see that it is not the best option. I bought a Broadsword from Andre and banged it out to +5 really quick to test it. I don't know if I like it.

try a regular Longsword or, if you have the patience to farm for it, a Balder side sword. or an Estoc. or a Battle axe. or a reinforced club. a spear. halberd. greataxe. try them all (before upgrading)!

 

[Caim]

The Estoc is a great Dex weapon, with nice range and it can be used with a shield. It's less useful against several weaker opponents though.

 

[Codexlurker]

I've actually been lugging the claymore around and using it one handed, but I am starting to see that it is not the best option. I bought a Broadsword from Andre and banged it out to +5 really quick to test it. I don't know if I like it.

try a regular Longsword or, if you have the patience to farm for it, a Balder side sword. or an Estoc. or a Battle axe. or a reinforced club. a spear. halberd. greataxe. try them all (before upgrading)!

Yea, definitely experiment with multiple weapons. I used around 4 for my first and second char in pvp and pve.

 

[Decado]

All this time I've been leveling Str, so I should probably use a weapon that takes advantage of that.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Best way to take advantage of strength (for pve anyways) is to lug around a heavy ass shield and keep it upgraded. Though they can be hard to find early on.

 

[Codexlurker]

Best way to take advantage of strength (for pve anyways) is to lug around a heavy ass shield and keep it upgraded. Though they can be hard to find early on.

http://darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Strength
Shows some str scaling items and their grades. My current playthrough is a str build and I am using the large club at the moment lvl36.