From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Dexter]

Finally uncursed myself and killed gaping dragon. Took a few attempts, even though I killed everything else in my first go, gaping dragon messed me up. I think what was happening was I was attacking his side, and then he'd trigger a forward charge and one foot brushing me was enough for instant death. Eventually got his pattern down pat and slowly whittled him down. He also had way more HP than anything else I'd fought and took a HELL of a lot more hits to take down. Shield also seemed completely useless so I went two-handed.

Got a zweihander from the graveyard as per Praetor's suggestion, and that seems neat. Gonna take me a while to get the 24 STR or whatever it needs, but if I two-hand it it's kinda cool. Tempted to make a run to a blacksmith so I can upgrade it. Haven't upgraded anything but the black knight shield yet, got a bunch of normal titanite. Probably could do all my knight armor or something.

Did you cut off its tail? xD Gaping Dragon drops a rather amazing Greataxe if you do that

Dexter : yeah I know he's simple in theory, very simple even. but somehow he proved to be one of the most frustrating bosses for me, and i'm not sure why. i've beaten him way back but in my game he was harder than a lot of the supposedly harder bosses. maybe it's something to do with my build? i went pure meele + heavy endurance but shields don't work against him (afair) and he's one huge hp sponge

I'm similar and imo the shield is the most effective weapon for him xD You know that stamina regens a lot faster when the shield is down though, so only block when an attack is imminent and not every time, if you don't have enough stam it goes to HP.
I just ran up the stairs several time and dropped down on him with a leap attack from above and then wore him down pretty soon, couldn't really break through my defense a lot.

Gaping Dragon was a funny fight. I had him at 10% on my first try, then he suddenly grabbed me and ated me. XD
Took another dozen attempts after that to get him down. Again a fight where you're struggling with the camera more than the boss, desperately trying to look behind you as you run away from him.
Then on the final try the necromancer above shot me dead me the very instant I got the killing blow on the dragon. Luckily the souls from t he kill were in the pool when I returned.

If monsters do that, press attack buttons and other buttons quickly and they'll release you a lot earlier, you'll die if you do nothing

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

upgrade weapons over armour if you haven't got much stuff... IMO.

Probably should, but I was advised not to upgrade Astora's sword, and I haven't settled on something else to dump my upgrades on. Most stuff seems to be a combination of STR and DEX, and I've been going all STR/VIT/END.

Did you cut off its tail? xD Gaping Dragon drops a rather amazing Greataxe if you do that

Nope, didn't get his tail. Was keeping well away from both business ends of him during the fight. Did get a gargoyle tail a while back though.

Also think I'm gonna buy this for cash money dollars now. Didn't remove from an inventory since I was dubious about the PC port, but with that resolution mod it's pretty decent and the game itself is quite neat. Combat was a bummer at first but I'm starting to get a better feel for the game and I'm enjoying it a little more.

 

[Haba]

hitting his head deals extra damage?

yeah I know he's simple in theory, very simple even. but somehow he proved to be one of the most frustrating bosses for me, and i'm not sure why. i've beaten him way back but in my game he was harder than a lot of the supposedly harder bosses. maybe it's something to do with my build? i went pure meele + heavy endurance but shields don't work against him (afair) and he's one huge hp sponge

I killed him on my first playthrough, simply by shooting the tail to get the sword and then by chopping at the legs/swinging at the head. You cant block any of the attacks so it is all about timing and positioning. Could probably get the sword without the bow as well, by removing all armor and chopping at the tail instead.

 

[Tommers]

Probably should, but I was advised not to upgrade Astora's sword, and I haven't settled on something else to dump my upgrades on. Most stuff seems to be a combination of STR and DEX, and I've been going all STR/VIT/END.

Doesn't really matter does it? Upgrade whichever weapon you use the most. You can buy the basic upgrade material for souls. Souls are infinite. Experiment a bit.

Twinkling titanite is a bit more precious

 

[praetor]

upgrade weapons over armour if you haven't got much stuff... IMO.

Probably should, but I was advised not to upgrade Astora's sword, and I haven't settled on something else to dump my upgrades on. Most stuff seems to be a combination of STR and DEX, and I've been going all STR/VIT/END.

there's a Greataxe in the Depths that scales very well with Str and is decently fast for a big weapon. my advice would be to try that out and if it suits you, upgrade it to +5, get back to andre and ascend it to +6 asap so that you can get it to +10 by either farming the slimes near the depths bonfire (not fun, they have high phys defence), or the slugs at the bottom of blighttown (better drop rates, although it "requires" the rusted iron ring from the asylum)

Twinkling titanite is a bit more precious

hence my suggestion not to upgrade astora's sword

 

[Average Manatee]

Upgraded equipment is so much more important than upgraded stats that it isn't even funny. +1 stat point around level 20 might cost 5k souls, for +1-2 damage. That's enough to buy you like 3 weapon upgrades from +0 to +3 (assuming you flat out buy the titanite from the smith rather than find it), each of which might add +10-20 damage. This is also where high humanity's drop rate bonus helps out a lot; without farming I had a materials to make a +7 zweihander while in blight town for >350 damage attacks. Having less than a +4 or +5 weapon by then is just hamstringing yourself.

 

[felipepepe]

Honestly, stats are only that important to allow you to meet weapon/magic requirements... after that it becomes a bit monotunous, you don't really feel the befits of spending 80k souls for +1 INT...

 

[praetor]

let's not forget that "stats" also include Vit, Att and End, not only Str/Dex/Fth/Int for dealing damage, yes: upgrades>stats, more often than not (especially at the lower levels) but there are other things to consider (like the faster cast time with higher dex, for example)

 

[felipepepe]

True, even though raising VIT is lame, I doesn't give you any advantage besides punishing you less for lowering your guard... probably only good for two-handing berzerks, END always seemed more atractive to me.

Anyway, anyone managed to beat the DLC demon boss or the black dragon? They are giving me a hell of a trouble, I think I'm going to kill the 4 Lords and then come back just before the end boss...

 

[Jaedar]

So...

Can anyone give me any tips on how to cut off seaths tail? Note that I am a sorcerer and as such, doing it with a melee weapon is basically impossible. It must either be cheesed or with manual spell aiming(which requires that his tail remain perfectly still for 3 seconds).

 

[Multidirectional]

Btw. people are working on improving the graphics even further, this is at 2560x1440 with 4xMSAA and SSAO activated for shadow/depth effects through NVIDIA Inspector

You do have to forego downsampling though, because SSAO and AA flags work only when rendering resolution is the same as your display resolution. So this stuff is only possible at 2560x1440 if you have a top end monitor that allows that resolution. SSAO completely destroyed my performance, tried both flags, so it's a no-go. But I am using 8x MSAA now, because it looks way better with it and lower rendering resolution than it ever looked with downsampling. Nvidia Inspector is a really nice tool to have. More info for those interested.

 

[Average Manatee]

let's not forget that "stats" also include Vit, Att and End, not only Str/Dex/Fth/Int for dealing damage, yes: upgrades>stats, more often than not (especially at the lower levels) but there are other things to consider (like the faster cast time with higher dex, for example)

Att and End are pretty much breakpoint-based stats, which is what matters. Once you hit breakpoints the extra points are almost meaningless. End you want for pretty much everything because it's both the weight of equip you can carry and the amount of stamina you have, and Att has you pick a breakpoint and stop straight there (usually pretty early). Vit is the only stat that is really non-breakpoint based. Though End has a high enough breakpoint that you might not hit until the end of the game, so it's not too bad.

 

[Morgoth]

Capra Demon is dead. Wasn't so hard, once you just follow two simple rules: a) Put on light weight armor and b) always run up the stairs, jump down, and when he follows jumping down, strike fast. Repeat.

 

[praetor]

So...

Can anyone give me any tips on how to cut off seaths tail? Note that I am a sorcerer and as such, doing it with a melee weapon is basically impossible. It must either be cheesed or with manual spell aiming(which requires that his tail remain perfectly still for 3 seconds).

beware, it can take a while, although it's a 100% safe and foolproof method (even james from gamefront did it eventually )

0. prepare yourself: curse-resisting armour and the biggest, meanest elemental weapon you can handle 2handed (a chaos greataxe/zwei/claymore +5 would be very very nice)

1. go to the crystal and wait right in front of it. as soon as you see him start his roaring animation, run for the tail and hit it as many times as you can (usually 2-3, depending on the speed of your run and your weapon. by the time you'll reach the tail he'll be stunned briefly because he broke the crystal)

2. position yourself near the tip of his left small tail and be there constantly and watch his head

3. when you see him start roaring, check the big middle tail and if it isn't clipping inside a wall go for a whack or two (don't be greedy or he'll bitch-slap you)

alternative: get a buddy. if you're in your 60-70ies, i can come and help. it's very, very easy with 2-3 people

 

[Average Manatee]

Capra Demon is dead. Wasn't so hard, once you just follow two simple rules: a) Put on light weight armor and b) always run up the stairs, jump down, and when he follows jumping down, strike fast. Repeat.

I like how you handwave the dogs, which are by far the hardest part of the boss fight. Once those are dead Capra is pathetically easy. But those dogs are fast, flank you, and either drain your stamina fast or stun you so that Capra gets an easy kill. If you are out in the open nothing in the world can save you if their AI decides to make an attack from your flank, and you can't hole up near a corner without a really huge shield since you can't dodge effectively.

 

[Jaedar]

So...

Can anyone give me any tips on how to cut off seaths tail? Note that I am a sorcerer and as such, doing it with a melee weapon is basically impossible. It must either be cheesed or with manual spell aiming(which requires that his tail remain perfectly still for 3 seconds).

beware, it can take a while, although it's a 100% safe and foolproof method (even james from gamefront did it eventually )
-snip-
alternative: get a buddy. if you're in your 60-70ies, i can come and help. it's very, very easy with 2-3 people

Eh, melee wasn't really an option because I had like 12 strength. I did it with manually aimed spells.


Also, the bed of chaos. What fucking horrible design.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah the capra demon is a pretty shitty fight since it'll largely boil down to what attacks the fucker ends up using. In quarters that small you can't possibly avoid all the shit and observe him, and some of the moves he has will completely fucking wreck you.

I dno, seemed pretty straight forward to me after the first time he bumrushed me, block as soon as you enter and run up the stairs as soon as you can, kill the 2 dogs and alone he's easy as shit.

Some of his attacks are unblockable (a lot of his attacks if you're using a light shield) and you won't know which ones on your initial encounter. Normally in a fight you have room to back up and dodge away from pretty much everything, so you can see which attacks are really easy to dodge, and those are generally the ones you shouldn't try to block. But this fucker starts hitting you right away, theres nowhere to back up to, and when he winds up you'll have no idea whether or not you can block his shit or if you need to dodge.

After the initial attack and killing the dogs it's not so bad, but at the start you're just rolling dice hoping your shield works.

So...

Can anyone give me any tips on how to cut off seaths tail? Note that I am a sorcerer and as such, doing it with a melee weapon is basically impossible. It must either be cheesed or with manual spell aiming(which requires that his tail remain perfectly still for 3 seconds).

About seaths tail as a sorceror, three tips:

1: Don't kill the thing at the back of the room yourself. Let him do it while you run behind him, gives you a window to get shit done.
2:If your spells aren't doing the trick, get a fast weapon like a bandit knife or something (damage is irrelevant) and use a powerful weapon enchant on it, whether cast yourself or via pine resin. Whatever does the most damage.
3: Supposedly the slumbering dragoncrest ring or hush spells will let you go unnoticed by him, but this doesn't seem to work in my experience, he just thrashes his tails around more often.

 

[praetor]

Eh, melee wasn't really an option because I had like 12 strength. I did it with manually aimed spells.

with 12 strength you can 2-hand plenty of hard hitting elemental weapons that can take seath's tail in a handful of hits very easily

Also, the bed of chaos. What fucking horrible design.

yup.. easily the most universally hated boss in the game. really shitty design

 

[deuxhero]

^ Elemental weapons are no longer hard hitting

 

[Jaedar]

Yeah, I tried a fire long sword against the crystal golems, did basically the same damage as my raw dagger.

Also, found the DLC area by accident. Killed chimera on my first try, but now Artorias is kicking my ass. I got him down to 1/3rd on my first attempt where I had only one estus flask and reduced spells, but can't even get him to half now.

 

[Morgoth]

The Depths are quite fun, as long as you take heed of those frogs, and don't fall down those goddamn holes. I would have hoped the slime creatures don't respawn, but well here we go.

 

[Fat Dragon]

Yeah, I enjoyed the Depths for the most, the first area where you learn the importance of dealing with status effects and poorly lit areas. From Software deserves some kind of award for actually making a fun sewer level.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

From Software deserves some kind of award for actually making a fun sewer level.

Definitely. Had unique terrain and layout which fit the location. Poor lighting, some really narrow passages, some twisty passages but not twisty to the point of being annoying. And those pits of course.

Could be my grumping about the combat initially was just me being a newbie, because the more I play the more I enjoy the game. This may end up being my favorite game of 2012, even if promising games like Dishonored live up to the hopes I have for them I'm not sure they'll be able to beat Dark Souls in my mind. Really goddamn impressed.

 

[Jasede]

At least this time they can't worm their way out of the next "Best RPG 2012" list on grounds of "It's not on PC!".

 

[praetor]

From Software deserves some kind of award for actually making a fun sewer level.

Definitely. Had unique terrain and layout which fit the location. Poor lighting, some really narrow passages, some twisty passages but not twisty to the point of being annoying. And those pits of course.

Could be my grumping about the combat initially was just me being a newbie, because the more I play the more I enjoy the game. This may end up being my favorite game of 2012, even if promising games like Dishonored live up to the hopes I have for them I'm not sure they'll be able to beat Dark Souls in my mind. Really goddamn impressed.

wait until you get to the indiana jones-y Sen's fortress, or the ever annoying Blighttown (one of my fave areas ), or Anor Londo with it's awesome boss(es), or the incredibly atmospheric New Londo Ruins or the very fun and frustrating Duke's Archives+Crystal Caves... your adventure has just begun