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

If we're talking about the same one, it's got such a PIA path to fight it that I got so bored of even trying. Of course, DS2 is full of PIA paths to bosses, lol.

I'm talking about Midir, who is right down from the bonfire with no enemies in between?

I spent some of my excess souls on the armor I hadn’t been buying and I look fly all of a sudden, too

The Millwood knights are my nemeses. There is a cauldron in the mountains with two basics and a super knight and I’m basically gonna dung pie of couple of them before engaging the super. Later tonight tho. Vacation is over

xpost For Midir, don't you have to run down from a fire, take a long elevator ride, then fall down a long pit each time you want to reach the boss? I can't remember if there is an enemy in between, but even if there isn't, iirc it's a drag to do that again and again.

It's a nice opportunity to breathe and reflect on why you died. :)

(that said apparently Elden Ring will have save points before bosses, which will be pretty nice tbh)

Spoilers if anybody cares:

I had the most thrilling 20 minutes of gaming of my life this evening. I found The Dreg Heap challenging but doable, laughed as I was simultaneously impaled by 76 arrows from 76 phantom archers, dealt with the big summongiant after a couple of tries, made it to a bonfire and started poking my way forward.

I found the Ringed Knights very challenging, but by the tenth time I was murdered by one (no, two? no THREE?) executioners on a wide curving strada, I decided to ember up and summon some strangers for help. I hired one, and then another as we entered Execution Way.

What followed was insane. I didn't realize there were SIX executioners all told. And then we we had to deal with two Ringed Knights at once on a bridge. And then there was another summongiant in the middle of a lake. Piles of talking murder bugs. We approached a fallen church and were beset by THREE Ringed Knights and took them down. I was catching my breath and grabbing some loot and feeling very overwhelmed, and cast around to see where the summons were, and found them fighting an inexplicable giant armoured thing by a cliff. One stranger died and the other guided me up to a gate, and then to a bonfire. I had one heal left and the stranger was making some weird moves in front of a Humanity door that I didn't understand so I sent him home and used the bonfire and smoked two cigarettes.

I cannot imagine how a person could attempt all this solo, but I get it, this is some final challenge end game stuff, but it was so thrilling to cruise through it for the first time, having no idea what lay in store, seeing ordeal after ordeal that would've surely caused me to ragequit over and over, and yet we just handled it all. I am shaken at how good this game is

lol, that's great. I had totally forgotten about that level but looked it up and yeah, did solo it but it was hard.

Ah, memories. Way to do it blind! I did it solo too, but I've played way too much of these games I guess.

Have you looked up what the humanity thing by the bonfire is about? That's one of those secrets that I never would have figured out on my own.

I did! and I've moved on. I forgot to mention but that run I described above net me half a million souls and I levelled up six times in the 90s bracket all at once, ha. I beat the Halflight boss first try and I quick look-ahead on the cheat sheet would indicate that I'm home stretch, just a dragon and a final boss. I think I will win it tonight, spend the next week casually ranking up every covenant, murder all the NPCs, re-spec for a strength build and then do an NG+. I'm jealous of all these people with giant weapons and huge armours and want a taste. Also I enjoyed NG+ on DS1 as a kinda high-speed closing credits recap of the game, taking four hours to accomplish what previously took 40, so I'm looking forward to the same on this game. I used summons on about half my boss fights and I'd like to do some solo attempts on easy mode

Did you get Halflight (npc version), or a player summoned as Halflight? I was reaaally hoping for the latter as it's one of the coolest features of the dlc, but not a lot of people hang around waiting to get summoned as the Spear of the Church these days so it was probably the npc. :(

What weapon are you running?

(also the dragon might take some time, it's pretty summon-resistant but worthwhile imo)

I just played over my lunch break. I did get PvP Halflight but won it first try, I lucked out, I guess. Attempted dragon a few times and failed failed failed. Brought in a couple friends and won it on the fifth try.

I'm playing a very-high dexterity build with a sharp Lothric straight sword. I play two-handed with a Grass Crest on my back and I rely on my Pharis bow maybe too often with certain beasts. I have maxed sharp Sellswords on hand too in case I come up against something very fast.

I ate my lunch while waiting for Church summons. A thrilling time fighting somebody who had brought along two friends. I couldn't Estus, which I didn't understand, but I figured was the result of a spell or a Lloyd or something. I murdered the two friends, danced around the main opponent waiting for my Estus to reset, it didn't, so waited until a Painting accomplice rushed her and then went in for the kill. Beat three people in one round with no Estus, very satisfying!

sharp Lothric straight sword

Ah, a person of taste. As much as I try I keep this on every build I make, it's just too good -- the sweeping range that nearly hits behind you, the thrust, the two-handed moveset, the guard break. My main pvp character is sl44 with this in the right hand and a Great Scythe in the off-hand for range (secondary weapons are caestus for parries + perseverance with the straight sword, and a fire dagger for quick step in swampy areas).

Nice! Yeah as a boss you don't get any estus, but you do get Dark Souls 1 level poise. A lot of people bring blessed regen items and healing miracles as the church boss.

After I got handily dispatched in PvP by one, I switched over to a sharp spiked mace and I'm so happy with it. Finished NG. I don't think I can recall a better series of final bosses than there are in this game... Midir and Gael especially feel like some kind of high-water marks

One of my favourite moments in DS1 was the first time I won NG and plowed through the first half of the game in NG+ in a couple of hours. I started doing the same in DS3 and it's just amazing how small the world is compared to how it felt the first play through... how I had to carefully strategize every section, remember every enemy's location. It doesn't feel as if the ease with which I play is a product of "higher stats, better gear" so much as it is "Man Of Pus doesn't scare me any more"

Consistently the most overpowered enemy on the second play through is the evangelist. It feels like they levelled-up their spiked mace to match my own

I read up and understand now what they mean by "meta level" and I am halting my character's development at SL 128 to hopefully enjoy some PvP. I intend to keep running my high-DEX setup but will likely switch to mage-mage if my patience permits me a NG++ run

Congrats!

I actually opted out of meta-level pvp a long time ago, the damage is so high that you can die in three hits, and everyone's got everything on their builds (hornet ring, tears of denial, chaos bed vestiges, etc).

I've got a sl44±4 character that I use in the Cathedral through central irithyll, a sl66+6 for Pontiff, and a sl77+7 for Grand Archives. I've found a lot more groups actually trying to get through the levels that way, and for me it's more fun to fight a group of players who maybe aren't pvp experts than dueling one person who is (although they can be fun too). But groups at meta level who are just trying to crush invaders, I burnt out on that.

Also lower-level pvp is fun because the damage to health ratio is more forgiving. You can take a bunch of hits, make mistakes and learn from them, and also need to apply pressure instead of playing passively and waiting for that one big parry or whatever.

I def. feel like I missed out not playing online, but I don't feel like I missed too much. It almost sounds like a different game.

It kinda is! Certainly a completely different set of skills. You don't have to worry about pressuring or roll-catching the AI, or playing parry mind games.

Yeah, I was reading something about the mirror knight in DS2, where it can summon another player, and a lot of people pointed out that it summoning an NPC is not too bad, but if it succeeds in summoning a player the player could be a lot more trouble than the boss.

Same for the spear of the church in DS3, and the Old Monk in Demon's. I guess they just skipped the 'player as boss' in DS1 and BB.

I really lucked out I guess with my Halflight PvP moment. I went in solo and beat the guy solo. Since then I've "been the boss" about twenty times, each time there were 1-2 accomplices, and I've only managed to hold my ground against them.. 25% of the time?

Also you're not kidding about "meta PvP". I'm getting destroyed. Nosomuch because I can't go toe-to-toe with an invader, and more because there are clearly some tactics involved. I've had invaders suddenly backed up by one or two identically dressed helpers. Invaders making a bee-line for the most dangerous part of the area and letting a mob of enemies do the job. I've been playing Darkmoon as my covenant and I get summoned most often to late-stage DLC areas (Dregs, Ringed City) and my SL 130 character, weakened by the summon, is definitely struggling with Ringed and Haldar Knights that I would otherwise not have issues with. One Dark Spirit cleverly led us into the death from above area of Ariendel and I didn't even have time to roll away between the thunderbolts from the tower.

One particularly nasty summon found me and the Dark Spirit in the entry zone of Ringed City with the 100 phantom archers. I was able to murder the dude in a Saint Sebastian fever dream