god this is such a joy
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Rudie suggested if Iām struggling with the boss to just go ahead and burn a humanity to kindle the bonfire. Which was nice, but got me fake-invaded (easy fight, except one of those mosquito things got in the mix and made it irritating).
Tried several times to beat Queelag with Mildredās help, but it sucked. Mildred kept setting off her AOE attack, which just about killed me unless I was at 100%. After several tries and humanities wasted, I finally got her on my own, Beef Jerky Mode.
āTry attackingā - but thereās nothing here. Thatās foolish. Why wouldā¦noā¦no! Fuck!
How many things have I walked past. Why would they do this. How is anyone supposed to know.
Went further down into Hell and found a message by a gigantic fog door that read āDespair,ā soā¦guess Iāll turn around and heed the cutscene and go visit my boy the blacksmith.
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Oh fuck this. What the hell.
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did you pull the lever after beating quelaag
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I did. Just got introduced to some very, very hard-hitting snake fellas.
Edit: how did they make an area that sucks even more than the last one. Incredible.
Edit 2: decided to explore the garden instead. Itās nice, itās quiet, itāsā¦whatās that huge snake thing oh fuck what are these crystal guys oh shit down here and oh no no no!
But I did find a very good shield before I beefed it. Silver lining to the failed expedition.
Edit 4: trying to get on top of Firelink Shrine (you canāt show me a corpse up there and not have there be a way!) and fell. Had to aggro some skeletons, ran back into the shrine, turned around andā¦what the fuck is this thing. What did I wake up ringing that bell.
Edit 5: what is this voice it has!!
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Thatās Frampt, heās a really nice guy
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Rudie hinted that my fixation with getting onto that roof was gonna help me out, and after falling a dozen times and waking up a bunch of skeletons (who now conveniently throw themselves into Framptās hole), now here I am, back where it began, except thereās a black knight and other assholes here now 
Edit: ah fuck
Edit 2: this dude is much tougher than his little brother. Plus he gets the perk of getting the literal drop on me
Edit 3: cāmon buddy you donāt gotta one shot me with that club when Iām recovering from the landing
Edit 3: how is this the absolute shortest bonfire-to-boss run, and infinitely more irritating
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I really wanna beat this Stray Demon, but Iām doing so little damage that I figure I may just have to come back later.
Anyway, here are some screenshots where I went āoh noā and remembered to take a picture.
And hereās one where the game either bugged, or that elevator in Blighttown is powered entirely by this poor Flaming Hot Cheeto dog.
(Itās hard to see in that lava screen shot, but my fear was to that gang of huge dudes just chilling out in the lava, waiting to kill me, as if the lava wouldnāt do it first)
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Gave up on the Stray Demon for now. Everyone suggested I just look up a guide for what yields what with Snuggly, so I upgraded the Astora straight sword only to find out I donāt have enough faith to effectively use it? Damn.
Still getting fucked up by the serpent guys at Senās Fortress, so I ventured back into the garden. Managed to aggro every single enemy in a frenzied panic to the Moonlight Butterfly, which roasted me pretty quick.
Went back in and decided I was going to be careful, methodical, and fight all the enemies before the butterfly one by one. The grass guys are a pain in the ass (theyāre fast, they hit hard and are good at keeping their distance), but these giant knight guys, damn. I took one down easily enough, but the deadly combo of them having that spell that affects your move speed + being southpawsā¦I dunno. Just threw me off.
Gonna call it a day for now. Feel like I did OK! But also feel like every direction I go Iām getting the, uh, āSideshow Bob next to all the rakesā experience.
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Personally the main thing that had me stuck for ages in Senās fortress is getting knocked down by the swinging blades. Trying to memorize a set timing does not work well at all. I eventually figured out a small trick that helps a lot for that: if you angle the camera diagonally instead of directly behind your character, depth perception becomes much easier, so you can safely pause right before each blade and take a stop-start approach.
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Haha no, the dog is absolutely powering the elevator, itās great.
I popped into DS: Remastered this morning during an all-hands and despite being all the way at the Depths entrance to Blightown, I looked in my inventory and realized I had all of one normal Purple Moss clump. Thatās not enough for Blightown the hard way, so I ran all the way back up to Darkroot and started moss farming, which then turned into realizing that Iād never killed the butterfly, so did that, then started to collect the stuff to make my usual Poise Monster build.
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king shit
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Update: on the second all-product-team meeting (we put all of our big team meetings on Thursday mornings) and Iāve gotten all of one Blooming moss clump. This is bullshit.
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Killed that poor butterfly, third try. Well, second, technically - I already mentioned the failed first attempt, and then grossly underestimating those stone knights on my way for attempt #2.
Turns out you can just sneak past 99% of the enemies in that area, run past one of the knights, andā¦thatās it! Then you chuck fireballs at that poor bug til it beefs it.
I dunno, maybe thereās an eight hour lore video on YouTube about how it murdered kids, or what turned that blacksmith in the tower to stone. Doesnāt make it feel right!
Since that was easy, I wanted to Test Myself, so I went back to the Undead Burg and provoked the black knight in the tunnel. I was all set, 9 flasks on hand, a bunch of firebombs, andā¦didnāt need any of them. Backed up, poke, backed up, poke, maybe ate a blocked hit or two (which was good, it took a ton of my stamina, donāt wanna think how much health it would have taken).
One black knight down and all I got for my effort was some titanite. Dang. Ah well, may as well go mess with the other 3 that I know of when I play later.
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i remember the black knight on the tower near the parish being a wild lil fight. i donāt think i ever got any of the drops from them but you can get some that are almost as good later on
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Hereās where I come crawling into the thread, hat in hand, begginā yāall to assess whether or not I totally boned up my run by pumping my stats incorrectly.
In my defense - I like to tank shield hits and roll away. Maybe too much.
Oh hereās my gear. Doesnāt help without the descriptions but maybe some of yāall know this stuff enough to recognize it on sight.
Iām doing shit damage to these snake guys at Senās Fortress, and I feel like maybe I screwed myself over.
Burned a few soul items (not the boss ones! I know not to do that!) to pump up my strength a little bit so that I can use the Drake Sword one-handed now. Iā¦donāt like it. I miss my long sword. But I gotta do damage!
Anyway, killed the black knights at the Undead Parish and in the Darkroot Basin. Turns out I had nothing to fear from the crystal golems guys (very slow!), but could not figure out what to do at all with the hydra, so I left it there. Opened the door to the tower and saw Havelās big club sword bonk down, so I left him there, too.
As for Senās Fortress so far - ate shit trying to cross the top-most beam in the first room, where the serpent that shoots lightning at you constantly does, uh, just that.
I did drop down on another run and kill the titanite demons lurking down there. And then I climbed the tower from there and murdered that poor sobbing giant.
So now I guess I just, uh, grind these serpent guys til I get enough souls to maybe fix my stats. Or figure out how to take on the Hydra, or go back to the asylum and try my hand at that demon. Or restart! Heck I dunno
4 Likes
Drake sword sucks use a normal weapon and upgrade it to +10
your stats look good
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Gotta find me some large titanite 
They drop from slimes in the depths at a 2% rate, from the leeches in blighttown at a 5% rate, balder knights in senās fortress at 2%, and a very high drop rate from the tower shield knight in senās fortress. there are also a handful of them as pickups in senās fortress
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since you have both strength and dex, if you want to stick to swords, I recommend the zweihander, which is in the graveyard right next to firelink, or the claymore which is behind the drake on the bridge (youāll have to wait in the safe spot until it climbs down, then run past its legs).
youāll have to two-hand the zweihander, but you have the strength for the claymore, which is slightly harder to obtain (not that hard you just have to be a little patient). they have roughly the same stats but the claymore is like the best version of this weapon and outclasses the longsword.
upgrading a weapon not only increases its base damage, but it also increases the stat scaling grade. you should be prioritizing that before soul levelling. no stat scaling = no damage bonus. drake sword is a noob trap
4 Likes