Dark Souls 3 - April 2016 : You Died, You Died, You Died

i'm having a great time with DS3, no surprise. i'm most of the way through the undead village portion of the game (the area the demons fly you to after the second giant beast hound boss).

most quintessential dark soulsy moment, so far: sloooooowly taking down the dragon from afar with tons of crappy wooden arrows, only to get torn apart by a mimic as i tried to claim the treasure from the building the dragon was resting on top of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMbzmfx6GYs&t=0s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMbzmfx6GYs

oh that is brilliant

Karl, i envy you your first playthrough; DS3 is the jam

All his videos are ridiculously clever.

Have fun Karl! Tell us your character name so I know if I invade you! ;)

I think I am Valdiev

but i am super stingy on embers so i'm rarely invadeable (iirc)

The other night I was invading at low-ish levels, and got invaded myself. The invader dropped me, like 130 embers. I felt slightly guilty since I don't need them, and when I find solo hosts who seem nice or new I only drop like 5. I've been trying to pay it forward though, so if you want embers and are on PS4, lmk.

for some reason the last day or two i haven't been able to connect to the network anyway, so i've just been in offline mode. it's weird because i can stream tv/movies and other games on my ps4, but i can't connect to the Dark Souls network.

one very underrated feature of dark souls 3 is the atmospheric barfing noises. i've been playing the game on headphones and it is VIVID.

this whole undead village is just wreeeetching

♫♪♩· ♪♩·

don't wanna close my eyes

I think that's a widespread thing, something to do with the PS network (haven't tried to connect though).

hah yes there are some great sounds, lots of ghoulish shrieks, moans of the damned, gargles of the undead, etc. later on there is a dungeon that has some random screams that never cease to scare the shit out of me

good luck on your quest!

that dungeon has one all-time jump scare too iirc

i am trying to figure out whether i should go ahead and do the fight with the giant cursed tree, or try to ascend the tower and take out the crazy watchman who can shoot out giant arrow/bolts/trees/spears, whatever they are. meanwhile, everyone is throwing up

I highly recommend the tower first, but, um, keep an open mind.

The giant cursed tree is always the hardest boss in the game for me for some reason, and the only one I routinely try to summon for. Having a weapon with some vertical action/range can help.

it's remarkable how widely ppl's experience of these games vary. the tree boss was a relative breeze for me each time. my worst boss was the one grimes is fighting there, the guy on the rooftops. if it took me literally 50 tries the first time i would not be surprised. i remember being baffled by my friend who nearly quit demons souls because he couldn't beat tower knight and then (twice) beat maneater on 1st try. also interesting to me how sometimes after eventually beating a very hard boss it's like the code is cracked and i can then beat them easily on subsequent occasions, e.g. ornstein and smough

Yeah, it's so subjective! I've never had a problem with the one you're talking about.

I think I have an easier time with the humanoid ones, and a harder time with the ones that are so big that when you're close to them, there are parts that are off-camera (so you really need to be observant in order to see their tells and not get smushed).

uuuugh, real life and dark souls just collided in the most intensely frustrating way. I went to the tower and resolves the spear thrower situation, then kept going and took out the monster thing circling the fire. I thought about home boning to level up, but decided to keep going a bit further. I got in over my head with the evangelists but managed to whittle them down to the last one, no estus flasks left, no stamina, evangelist down to one last hit, they’re winding up and I’m literally going “aaaaagghhhh!!” IRL and then - the fucking power went out in our building! Everything just shut down (except for the loudest carbon monoxide detector in the entire world, just outside my door, which will now beep every 30 seconds and keep me awake through the night until maintenance comes to fix it 2-3 days from now

Time to walk the dog

But good lord that was intense. Also, very biased because I was on a winning streak there, but this whole undead town and surrounding area is my favorite part of the game so far.

Do keep posting here, with your DS3 thoughts/observations. It's interesting. Tempted to start a new build tbh. Can't work out which the monster... oh wait the woman priest with the hug? She's a fucker, even when you're totally late game overpowered. Excited for some of the stuff you're yet to encounter. Still haven't beaten the final boss in this game (rebuilt my build and fucked up on load carrying and now can't carry on with it).

if i do manage to make it all the way to new game+, i'd like to try some sort of sorcerer or magic-based build. i went with a standard knight STR-based build for this first attempt. i'm trying to test out various weapon styles as i get them, but i reinforced a battle axe with dark damage early on and it's been my go-to during more difficult portions of the game so far. i'm so STR-heavy that it doesn't seem super-slow to swing, either.

i took down the curse-rotted Greatwood last night and also explored the sewers with the key. getting ready to head back in now :D

Melee is more fun imo. I always intend to make these hybrid builds and abandon them for another dex character (I do have a poise + strength one but it's not as fun for me).

Melee is more fun imo

it's a lot more terrifying, too. this game scares the bejeezus out of me, and it's never more frightening than when you're 5 feet away holding up a shield, before you have the enemy's movement patterns memorized.

i'm a couple bonfires into the road of sacrifices. in a game of spooky sound effects, the scream of the magic using dude who emits green fog and fire (don't know most enemy names, sorry) might take the cake so far. luckily they're really easy to kill just by rushing them, but still. i'll be glad to get out of these woods (and i haven't even been into the swamp yet, fuck)

i'm trying to strike a balance between trying to discover everything on this first runthrough vs pushing ahead to new areas. i know there's all sorts of gear i could have collected at this point, but right now i'm at the second bonfire of the road of sacrifice, LVL 32
Vigor: 15
Attunement: 10
Endurance: 14
Vitality: 16
Strength: 25
Dexterity: 16
Intelligence: 9
Faith: 9
Luck: 7

RH: Deep Battle Axe+2 (Physical 116 and Dark 116)
LH: Wargod Wooden Shield (lol at me for having a wooden shield this far in the game but it's better than the knight shield so)
Longbow

Knight Helm, Lothric Knight Armor, Lothric Knight Gauntlets, Northern Trousers

That part is hard! And the swamp can be ridiculous if you get lost/turned around.

Not to be that guy, but I would say the knight shield is better, it blocks 100% of physical damage and the wooden one does not. The starting knight gear is solid for the whole game. Also you're doing great but I would try to get some more vigor as soon as you can.

swamps poison so tiresome. boss battle at end is all time tho.

and yes dex or str builds 4ever.

kinda wished i wouldn't have just blown 20,000 on the tower key...:-/ (i don't think i care about hollowing and don't really want the free levels)

although i guess i am enjoying this conversation about pickle-pee and pump-a-rum. very thought provoking!

i found a boss in the swamp (not sure if there's more than one) on accident but i'm leaving it alone for now.

tower key may seem like a waste but is worth it! there is a very valuable secret near the Pickle-Pee Pump-A-Rum

Yeah I would try to get in the rafters and poke around.

Have you tried giving the crows any presents?

chucking random stuff into the nest is u&k imo

Thoughts and observations: this was my first Souls game and I got near the end (The Nameless King), quit, and can't continue because the controls/mechanics are too difficult to remember.

ayo karl
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/dark-souls-3-all-crows-nest-trade-items-pickle-pee-pump-a-rum-crow

it's not cheating if you have no idea what the game mechanics are. also the covetous serpent ring is IMPORTANT, don't miss that

dang. i never made it far enough to find a crow's nest in DS2, so i had no idea.

Heh I've never used that. Although, I was making this lvl 40-ish invader character, and killed an over-leveled, password-summoned phantom in the forest. Voila, I had enough souls to level up to 44. I was like, ok, I guess my build is done all of a sudden?

(been having fun with this one btw, they have an offhand scythe to mess around with spacing/timing, and I can invade in the catacombs and cathedral)

xp

I think the crow's nest is in the tutorial area in DS2? ;) It's been awhile though. Probably easy to miss.

heh yeah i cannot remember for the life of me the crow in DS2. honestly i thought they skipped it.

the Deep Battle Axe is a great weapon. its a nice reward for fighting the mimic and can probably last you the entire game if you want. it does great base damage and the dark bonus makes it hit twice as hard. i think pretty much everything in the game is vulnerable to dark.

the Tower Key area becomes important later on once you visit the Cathedral of the Deep (a good contender for the best level in the game). if you revisit the area later on there is a story event related to the Onion Knight.

you can also climb up the tree and jump onto the roof to get up there are the very start of the game. it's a pain though, you have to run up the tree just right.

I put some of my recent invasions on Youtube because I apparently did not have anything better to do with my mid-30s

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDz6pkTVAF3WWgYGLstA-UbokJwJpKA7i

just downloading this now... trying not to read the thread for spoilers

spoiler: it's good!

i'm wrapped up in a project right now but i hope to You Died many more times once mid-May hits

It IS good isn't it? it has reminded me how bad I am at the souls games though... or no, actually how bad I am at the *bosses* in souls games

Fine, you happy, sticklers?

I did more exploration of Spookytown Settlement. It kind of spoils you with two bonfires more or less right at the start, so I'm wary of going too deep into town, but I'm doing OK looking around and killing creepy things.The most awkward thing this game does is make you feel like you are cheesing when that's often what the enemies do - hide in ambush, shoot/attack from a distance, etc. Like I said, I keep coming across places that seem designed for you to stick around and pick enemies off at range. Or, for example, aggro enemies chased me to the arena where the ice dog was, but they didn't follow me in. I felt kind of silly attacking the blue knight with glowing eyes from in there (where he cornered me), so I eventually just went out and finished him myself.

A couple of questions. It appears leveling up weapons here is different than in the first game. I've got my claymore up to +3, but I think to get it further I need ... titanite slabs? Is that right? And then the gem infusions, is that like enhancements in the first game? I like the claymore, but I'm considering at least one alternative with a faster moveset, at the least as a backup.

Also, rolling (as usual) seems a pretty important component of battle; even early on there have been several enemies (like those lothric knights) that seem to resist the standard circle-and-slash method of battle. As a knight I am relatively heavy and (I think) kind of fat rolling. Should I start focusing a few more stats on ... vitality? To bring my weight down? I don't really know what levels mean in this game, but I'm hovering around 27 right now. Been putting souls into vigor, endurance and strength, mainly, but was thinking of dumping points into dexterity, too, not necessarily for the fabled "quality" build, but just to give me a couple of other weapon options, like the lothric sword or the uchikatana.

You definitely want to keep your equip load under 70% in this game, so either unequip some things or raise your vitality to just enough.

Weapon upgrades:

http://darksouls3.wikidot.com/reinforcement

I'm not sure what I really have equipped besides my sword, shield and armor, nothing heavy at least...

The claymore is a lot heavier than your starting sword, that probably tipped it. Also if you have multiple weapons equipped etc.

Does upping vitality one or two points make much of a difference for weight capacity?

Okay, leveled up my dexterity a couple of points so that I could use the lothric knight sword. what it has in more speed and lighter weight it lacks in sledgehammer power, like the claymore. think I will switch back to the claymore for now and maybe just work on upping endurance and vitality. not sure I really need to level strength or dexterity any higher than they are now, which I think is 18.