Dark Souls

[J0e Musashi]

Grass Crest Shield isn't worth it IMO. The stamina regen on it's own is poor, unless you stack it with two other items that also have stamina regen. Plus it only has 95% damage reduction.

You only need the Crest Shield and the Dragon Crest Shield on the first game IMO.

[jimtendo]

Grass Crest Shield isn't worth it IMO...

Hence why no one uses it for blocking.
It's decent for for PvE/ PvP. Just wear it on your back and two hand everything.

[Sketcz]

Nailed the gaping dragon and really enjoying it. Have to play offline only because my net connection sucks, but it's been great so far, if a little lonely. Still, no invaders is probably a good thing given how they've cheated with gear.

So, I need some advice.

To take down the dragon needed me to abandon my spear because it just wasn't cutting it, and double handing with a Dark Knight Sword. Requires 20 strength wield one-handed. Gets something like 220 atk against my spears 130. So I started grinding my strength up from 14 to now 18. I'm something like level 25 I think? Maybe 27.

Magic so far has been useless, especially compared to Demon's Souls where I spent pretty much the entire game spamming Soul Arrow. Now it's all about the shield and spear melee.

My dex is pretty high (18) and I don't want to waste anything on the various magic parameters. But am I screwing myself over to build strength up to 20 just to one-hand the BK Sword? Or are there better weapons soon with easier stats?

My endurance is 20 and it still doesn't feel like enough. Rolling and attacking, especially double handed with the DKS, swallows massive amounts of stamina. A lot of the dragon fight was hiding waiting for it to recharge.

So, what should I go for? I like using spears but none have the strength of the DKS, strength is 18, dex is 18, endurance is 20 and vitality I think is 11.

And levelling is starting to get pricey. It's around 4500 souls for my next fix.

['Press Start']

Nailed the gaping dragon and really enjoying it. Have to play offline only because my net connection sucks, but it's been great so far, if a little lonely. Still, no invaders is probably a good thing given how they've cheated with gear.

So, I need some advice.

To take down the dragon needed me to abandon my spear because it just wasn't cutting it, and double handing with a Dark Knight Sword. Requires 20 strength wield one-handed. Gets something like 220 atk against my spears 130. So I started grinding my strength up from 14 to now 18. I'm something like level 25 I think? Maybe 27.

Magic so far has been useless, especially compared to Demon's Souls where I spent pretty much the entire game spamming Soul Arrow. Now it's all about the shield and spear melee.

My dex is pretty high (18) and I don't want to waste anything on the various magic parameters. But am I screwing myself over to build strength up to 20 just to one-hand the BK Sword? Or are there better weapons soon with easier stats?

My endurance is 20 and it still doesn't feel like enough. Rolling and attacking, especially double handed with the DKS, swallows massive amounts of stamina. A lot of the dragon fight was hiding waiting for it to recharge.

So, what should I go for? I like using spears but none have the strength of the DKS, strength is 18, dex is 18, endurance is 20 and vitality I think is 11.

And levelling is starting to get pricey. It's around 4500 souls for my next fix.

Black Knight sword saw me through most of the game. Once I got the strength to one hand it I was off, quick tapping forward attack in the two handed mode then switch quickly back to shield whenever the opportunity was there. Got it to +5 and swear by it!

[SuperBeatBoy]

Yeah Black Knight Sword was my go to weapon as well on my first play through, i couldn't go to anything else even the stuff i forged out of the boss souls.

[J0e Musashi]

4500 souls? LOL, that's chump change. I need over 100k to level up now.

If you want to grind, get the Crest Of Artorias for 30k from Andre of Astora. If you have Homeward or a bunch of Homeward Bone's it's even faster.

I've used katana the entire time I've played. They are not very powerful, but you get so many hits in in rapid succession it doesn't really matter.

[Blade Runner]

Planning on picking this up soon, but still can't decide on which console. My PS3 isn't very stable online (no idea why, I get random disconnections from PSN) and I've heard there is cheating/hackers on the 360...

[Sketcz]

Tah for the BKS recommendations.

Little sad though that it's the best within my range for the rest of the game. Time I got to know better I reckons.

[number9dream]

I would also recommend the Claymore as an alternative to the BKS it has a faster moveset and its upgraded with titanite shards rather than the twinkling titanite you need for the BKS. Also you only need 16 str to 1-hand it. You can upgrade it to lightning/fire/magic/divine etc if you prefer rather than the regular version although the stat scaling changes.

[Sketcz]

I haven't checked, but can the DKS be upgraded magically? According to the guide a magically imbued weapon will take down the skeletons for good in the catacombs. I've only found one ember (for Raw), and am hoping to soon tackle Londo Ruins once I can single-hand the DKS (I'm cursed now), so I'll have another ember.

But how soon can one make magic weapons?

Also, anyone had weird dreams about this? I haven't had a videogame dream since the first Resident Evil. Dreamt I was in the ruins trying to fight off the ghosts but kept losing my strength to wield weapons.

[SuperBeatBoy]

You need a divine weapon to kill the skeleton's permanently. I don't think you can upgrade the DKS past 5 or magically imbue it.

[J0e Musashi]

Leave Londo Ruins until you have done everything else. You wont make it through without great difficulty. The boss should be tackled prior only the the final boss IMO.

[Sketcz]

I've been finding it easy-ish so far. Can one-hit-kill the ghosts no problem, so far. Only troublesome bit is the house with plenty of them. I need to get in there though as Ingward lifts curses. I could buy the de-curse item, but at 6000 that's a lot of soul grinding!

Also, got The Rock's ring, so can now wear heavy armour easily. The damn brute only gave 3k souls, most disappointing.

My mistake regarding the divine weapons, the way the guide was written (poorly) I misread it as meaning "any weapon imbued with magic".

Creating a divine weapon looks like a major pain the ass though. Are there any to be found/taken from enemies?

[rmoxon]

I've been finding it easy-ish so far. Can one-hit-kill the ghosts no problem, so far. Only troublesome bit is the house with plenty of them. I need to get in there though as Ingward lifts curses. I could buy the de-curse item, but at 6000 that's a lot of soul grinding!

Also, got The Rock's ring, so can now wear heavy armour easily. The damn brute only gave 3k souls, most disappointing.

My mistake regarding the divine weapons, the way the guide was written (poorly) I misread it as meaning "any weapon imbued with magic".

Creating a divine weapon looks like a major pain the ass though. Are there any to be found/taken from enemies?

Its not the ghosts that are hard, it's the dark wraiths that will probably be able to kill you in one or two hits if you haven't levelled up a lot yet. Also the boss in New Londo ruins is probably the most difficult in the game so as already mentioned its best to tackle it as late as possible.

Plus you can't even fight the boss unless you have the right ring on you anyway, don't know if you have it or not yet.

[yvrmikiw]

I don't recall finding a divine weapon but there is an occult club that can be downgraded to divine +5 at any blacksmith