His armor does come in handy in quite many situations, combined with Iron flesh. You have a base poise of 120. Use wolf ring and it's 160. Use iron flesh and basically nothing can stagger you, ever.

Is the Gargoyle axe tail worth an upgrade?

I dunno. Covenants are a good idea, but I don't think even they were implemented very well. The "rewards" from some of them like Way of the White and Princess Guard are just trash, and the Gravelord and Path of the Dragon covenants are completely broken in terms of their rank up items. Dragons never get summoned to fight for scales for the same reason you never see any summon signs to co-op for bosses.

Gravelords have to use Eyes of Death in order to "invade" other worlds in order to gain more Eyes of Death, which are used to rank up. What? A consumable item that is needed to get more of the same item? And the invasion mechanic for it is almost as bad as the Vagrant system.

WTF am I supposed to do against the ghosts in the ruins? They are immune to all my attacks. There's no point me even bothering with that whole area :S I found a lightning spear which does decent damage which is a bonus. I'm trying to work my way through Sen's Fortress but it's really annoying and the Firelink Shrine bonfire doesn't work. I'm not enjoying it at the moment :swear:

It is a good weapon. However, if you are early on I wouldn't bother. You won't be able to upgrade it to anything useful any time soon and by the time it'd be possible, you would have found something else sweet.

Sneakmaster, you are supposed to become cursed to hurt ghosts. It can be done in two ways: Either the regular curse that drains half of your HP, or use a consumable item called "transendent curse" or something similar. They can be found in the beginning on new londo ruins and be bought by merchants. They are, however, limited and if you run out get yourself a real curse.

Yeah , i meant the covenants are good in the conceptual way. Invaders, helpers, defenders, etc.

Like you pointed out, the implementation really failed. What confused me was why would FROM introduce these great concepts but fail so hard when it came to implementation.

There's so many covenant mechanics that feel downright broken. Never been the victim of a gravelord. Invasions barely happen and when they do it is usually trolls invading on the way to the first bell. Darkmoons? Only seen em once.

I feel way of the white isn't bad but sure as hell aint exciting. It makes summoning less broken, but WTF? I have to join a covenant for summoning to be more effective?

I have no idea what the dragon covenants is all about. Challenging other members for scales right?

Sunbros? I actually like em and had a great time as member.

One thing I feel pretty strongly about:

Invasions should have been treated more like in Demon's, unlimited attempts. Would have made many people happy.

Alright, Well, I'm having an incredible amount of fun with the game.

I started out as a Thief. Went in completely blind, and I pretty much took a shot in the dark with the classes. Gotta say though, the back-stabs have proved really useful. Still haven't quite got Parrying and Riposte down; But I'm doing alright for the time being. Still completely clueless as to Spells and Miracles, so I've mostly ignored them.

Drake Sword (Loving it) & Knight Shield are my current load out. Just beat the Capra Demon and am entering the Sewers. That Butcher is a real pain.

Edit: Uh so I just got here, and Im too lazy to read the whole thread(s) to see if anyone answered this but... recommend picking up Dark Souls(Ive never played Demon Souls) to play while waiting for Skyrim? Lol.

Yeah it's a real good game.I did not play DS first either.Even when Skyrim comes out I will go back to this game.Have a gander at Giantbombs quicklook to see what it's like before you decide.

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-dark-souls/17-4966/

Edit - That picture...it's correct.Where did you find that?

Or, we should be able to buy cracked red eye orbs (not only from the darkwraiths leader, but from other merchants) and unlimited of those. The patch could add this feature.. Have two merchants, patches and someone else have infinite red eye orbs. 5K souls each from the one who won't ever go to firelink shrine and 8K from patches.

Dragon covenant members basically introduce infinite dragon scales in fights. What this means is that no-one loses a dragon scale, but the winner gets one for free. I've got 80 dragon scales in Kiln PvP and am now a Path of the Dragon +3 member.

And yeah, I :rofl: 'd at the picture there! So true :thumbsup:
*Although you can cast an immortality spell in dark souls that lasts for 33 seconds if you use a ring..*

I was pretty disappointed with Dark Souls. I played for about 150 hours altogether, so I got a pretty good idea of most of the games strong points and weaknesses. I'd say it hid behind it's difficulty more than anything else. If you took that away, there wasn't much left. The level and creature design were phenomanel, but the gameworld was very small. The verticality made everything feel larger, without actually being larger. Without enemies present, you could run from Ash Lake(the "bottom of the game) to the Queen's chamber in Arno Londo( the "top" of the game) in less then 5 minutes. Not many "open-world" games are that compact, unless they're filled with content. Dark Souls felt pretty empty.

NPC interactions were basically; NPC says something that doesn't make much sense(it's a Japanese game, go figure), gives a weird crazy laugh, then disappears the next time you're in that area. Then they re-appear in a different area as you progress, and give you another crazy laugh. There must have been less then 5 hours of dialogue for the whole game, and that's being generous. There was one point where an NPC tricked me, and I was pissed, but that was the only real time they really interacted with you. There was another time where I stared at massive, heaving briasts for about 5 minutes, marvelling at the amazing animation... but yeah.

The combat felt great. I really enjoyed cleaving enemies skulls with my +15 Normal Bastard Sword. It was very satisfying, and even after 70 hours I'd discover new attacks. There were tons of weapons, and they all have a particular feel and heft to them. Using a spear was vey different from using a whip, and if you had a favourite you could use it for the entire game(with proper uprgrades).

All of bad stuff mentioned above, I could forgive. They're actually small gripes. What I can't forgive, however, is the utterly broken multiplayer. I was playing on Xbox 360. Apparently the PS3 is a bit better. Over the course of my journey I accumulated about 24 orbs which could allow you to invade another player's game. Out of the 24, 1 worked. I tired used them at the beginning of the game, the middle and the end. So I joined multiple Covenants which allow you to, unsuccessfully, raid others worlds. Nothing worked. I laid down summoning signs everywhere I went, so other players could bring me into their worlds for help. Out of countless signs, maybe 10 were successful. I tried to summon every player's sign I saw, only about 5 were successful. Eventually it got to a point where I couldn't even find signs to summon anymore. Summon Failed. Invasion Failed. Dragon Searches Failed. Darkmoon Invasions Failed.

I couldn't recommend anyone to buy this game, simply because one of it's core features does not work. I really wanted to love Dark Souls.... but hell no. They sold people half a product. And it's sad.

As much as I like Dark Souls, I have to agree with Tim.

Broken multiplayer, poor design, unbalance, glitches, lag. From those, 3 could have easily been fixed as they are all pretty much part of design. Glitches from DeS, such as spell-switching, should have been fixed.. but no. Lag is something all multiplayer games have, so that's really the only thing I can forgive FROM for without a debate on what they could have done to change things.

Just beat Seeth today, and have to say getting these lord souls are pretty easy, I beat Nito on my second try after getting a divine weapon and I plan to beat the game in the next couple of days here, just in time to take a break from games till Skyrim!

Getting to those bosses feels like the hard part. i remember when I was on Tomb of Giants and Crystal Caves at the same time during my first playthrough. Those levels are a pain 1st time through.

Humanity Farming F.Y.I:

Those mind flayer / man-squids in Dukes Archeives are good for farming humanity if you have an AOE spelll ( I used WoG). They seem to have a decent drop rate and there's about 10 in a small space. Pop off an AOE a few times, then cast homeward, rinse and repeat. Farmed about 10 humanity in 20 min. Gives you about 3000-4000 souls per run too. Not too shabby.

Now I'm off to waste it all in some pvp matches.

I think it's a bit sad that you can use humanity while in multiplayer. "phantoms can't heal" is total garbage because of this. Sure, it adds balance between the host and the invader.. But then again I wouldn't have allowed players to carry around 20 estus flasks to begin with

The first time I kindled a bonfire to 20 I thought it was a glitch.

I don't mind people using humanity to heal. If you wanna farm it then go right on ahead. I find it a paint in the butt. I only use humanity to heal if some guy is really being a [censored]. I prefer not to waste it in combat I rather use it for co-op.

Finally joined the darkmoons. I guess blue phantoms are the new black phantoms.

Maybe I was being too hard on the MP in Dark. Blue orb is unlimited and I get invasions semi consistently.

I think foggers and TWOP spammers tend to hang in the forest much more than anywhere else.

Paint in the but, sounds nasty.

I jsut use it to kindle fires. Kindled fires are always there, much more useful then imo.

TWOP ? Whats that ? From my experience they dont hang in the forests, they just go around anywhere with the rings. Like anor londo.

TWOP-Tranquill Walk of Peace. Completely Paint in the butt I tell ya. Had it used against be after about 150 duels of no-twop/fog/magic shield. I just couldn't do anything about it, even my jump R2 attack didn't reach him and he just bombed me with different AoE attacks at the same time. I did survive it thanks to him being a chicken and not going for an easy backstab and eventually managed to kill him, when his miracle ended. Proof that TWoP users will never get good at PvP and they use it to even stand a chance.

Is that the slow down miracle ?

I would use that in combination with a heavy armoured, slow character. Slow the enemy, then move in with the hevy hitter, no escape.

Even better tactic. Use it with fast movement but high poise and circle around the enemy for a backstab. They can't do anything. Even if they attack you, it won't stun you and you get a free backstab. If they don't attack you, you get a free backstab. You can't lose.

Or spam spells on the enemy. They can't stop you and they will go down. Uh, so sad miralce. It's an anti-miracle, created by lucifer without a doubt.

Depends on what weapon they have. One guy 1 hit killed me before with something, not sure what it was. I would use the hornet ring and darkwood grain ring. No idea if thieves get better backstab bonuses (they should) or if daggers get better ones. But add in a flly leveled up gravelord sword and have fun.

It's not fun to be overpowered! :vaultboy:

It's not the thief class that gets the bonus, it's the dagger he is carrying. The best thing would be as big a weapon you can find, fully upgraded into ridiculous AR's and backstab with the hornet ring.. Anyone with less than 2000 HP will die instantly. A dagger with extremely low AR would do less damage in comparison, but it does do a lot more compare to what a regular hit from each of them does in comparison to their backstab. IfyouknowwhatI'msaying.

I would most likely use pricilas dagger, maybe ornsteins spear. Or if I had the strength, dragon greatsword. Strongest weapon I have found.

lol :facepalm:

my freaking computer has some kind of lag typing thing going on, sorry.

So these eyes of death for the gravelords, anyone have any success? How exactly do you use them? I already wasted two.

The eyes of death nearly never work. The thing is, the victim is actually supposed to find your gravelord sign and invade you. He has no penalty for not invading you and thus, 99% of victims don't invade. It's a broken covenant, leave it as soon as possible. It's better to get eyes of death by looting them as treasure for each ng, ng+ you go to so you have 10 of them to give nito at some point for the miracle.

I'll start a new thread.