Dark Souls

[briareos_kerensky]

Actually, what's the deal with the coloured materials you pick up? I've given the only Ember I picked up to the blacksmith outside Sen's, upgraded my Halberd but only had the option to make it Raw. I was expecting Fire Weapons and other such things.

Embers have to be given to a specific Blacksmith. You need Embers to give weapons particular properties (Fire, Lightning, Crystal, Magic, Divine, etc) and you require various kinds of Titanite to do so. Upgrades require to bring a weapon to normal +5 or +10 to be upgraded with special features.

Twinkling Titanites and Dragon Scales are used to upgrade unique (Black Knight Sword) or dragon (Drake Sword) weapons. Boss weapons are upgraded with Demon Titanite. Such weapons cannot acquire special properties

Raw increases the basic damage but lower the stat boosts. Fire and Lightining add the relative elemental damage but remove stat boosts. Magic and Divine increase stat boost from INT or FAI instead of STR/DEX.

The Halberd inflicts more damage because you get an higher stat bonus. Depending on how you level up this might change, if you decide to focus on FAI or INT a divine or magic weapon will do more damage (also because these weapons inflict magic damage and many enemies don't have high magic defense).

[rmoxon]

Thanks.

My Halberd has been upgraded to Raw (whatever that means, think it happened after +5 or something).

Actually, what's the deal with the coloured materials you pick up? I've given the only Ember I picked up to the blacksmith outside Sen's, upgraded my Halberd but only had the option to make it Raw. I was expecting Fire Weapons and other such things.

A raw weapon has a higher base damage than a standard weapon but it doesn't scale as well with your stats. For instance a weapon that has a b rating for how it scales with any given stat will only have a c rating when it's raw, this means by the time they are fully upgraded most raw weapons are not quite as powerful as the standard version, although that's not always the case.

The embers you pick up are indeed to make different types of weapons, you will find loads more as you progress, you can only create certain types of weapons at certain blacksmiths though. You will then use the coloured materials to upgrade certain types of weapons. Red upgrades fire weapons for instance.

[Matt]

Thanks. So is it best not to upgrade to Raw?

I started the game as a Knight as I figured I'd have armour. I've been upgrading some Elite Armour I picked up. My stats are a little all over the show. At a guess I've got Atunement to 16 (I wanted 4 magic slots, a fifth would be useful), Strength somewhere around 25, same for Endurance. Vitality around 22, Intelligence is only 12 I think. Without really knowing what I'm doing, I found Endurance was essential initially and since then I've been adding points almost randomly, depending how I feel

All I do know for sure is I seem to be going through this game very, very slowly but I'm having a great time

[rmoxon]

Upgrading the weapon you have to raw is fine as you will probably find a more powerful one eventually anyway. I still swear by the Demon Spear myself, which deals loads of damage and an equal amount of lightning damage on top, it's a very rare drop though, I was lucky to get one as soon as I did I think.

There is no wrong way to build your character, but I would say focusing on just a few stats is helpful.

If you're melee then Strength, Dexterity, endurance and vitality are all you need to focus on. Resistance would be the other one I would put a few points into as it raises your defense by two for every point spent, though some people would argue you don't need it as your defense raises by one with every point you spend anyway.

[briareos_kerensky]

I went Endurance and Strenght with 20 or so Dexterity, enough to use a bow and the Black Knight Sword, completely ignore Faith, Intelligence, Attunement and Resistance, at least during my first playthrough. By the time I reached Sen's and found the Lighting Spear my sword outdamaged it.
In the long run Raw is not the best choice, but you can't always plan for 20 hours in advance or the next playthrough. Raw works well with large axes and weapons with an already high damage, although a completely upgraded weapon (+15) without special qualities will have higher base damage and higher stat bonuses.

[rmoxon]

The demon spear is not the lightning spear you get from sens. The demon spear is dropped by the demons in Anor Londo and the only sword I have found to be more powerful than it is the black knight sword when fully upgraded, but it's far too heavy and slow for my tastes, though it is good for back stabbing black knights with.

[Matt]

I think I grabbed a Lighting Spear in Sen's the other night actually, but I didn't look at it. I actually got quite far into it (I think), then came to 4 very close pendulum axe swinging things. Decided I needed some speed to get past them (looked like you needed to do it in one roll), so took off all my clothes. Made it through, to find a lizard creature popping out. Managed to dodge him, then had another two on my. No armour, I just died, lol. Another attempt tonight.

What does Dexterity do other than allow you to use other weapons? Does it affect damage inflicted or anything like that?

[rmoxon]

What does Dexterity do other than allow you to use other weapons? Does it affect damage inflicted or anything like that?

Dexterity raises the attack of melee weapons by one and the attack of ranged weapons by 2. It's worth keeping it quite high for some weapons, I think the long sword for instance scales with both str and dex.

[Matt]

Thank you. Seems like a game you may be best pre-planning your Build with. I think I'll take the advice here and concentrate on melee

Can someone elaborate on the weapon stat screens. They show a physical damage score, then a Thrust adjustment or something but some weapons seem to be minus for that? Is that simply how it looks or is there more to it than that? And further down the page, it lists a couple of lines of 4 stats (I think) that sometimes have letters next to them. Is there a guide to what they mean?

I miss big manuals in games explaining all this ****

Edit - and can you use two swords at once? I've not tried.

[rmoxon]

Thank you. Seems like a game you may be best pre-planning your Build with. I think I'll take the advice here and concentrate on melee

Can someone elaborate on the weapon stat screens. They show a physical damage score, then a Thrust adjustment or something but some weapons seem to be minus for that? Is that simply how it looks or is there more to it than that? And further down the page, it lists a couple of lines of 4 stats (I think) that sometimes have letters next to them. Is there a guide to what they mean?

I miss big manuals in games explaining all this ****

Edit - and can you use two swords at once? I've not tried.

The minus numbers mean that's how much damage you are losing as you don't have the right stats to use the weapon properly. The word thrust isn't anything to do with that, Thrust is the type of weapon it is.

The letters next to the stats are the scaling for the weapon, basically the better the letter the higher the bonus for the stat. So if your character has loads of str and dex and your weapon has an A for both of those stats, then you will basically be a badass with it.

And yeah, you can hold two swords at once.

[Matt]

Brilliant thank you. I think I'm good to go now

[briareos_kerensky]

Dexterity raises the attack of melee weapons by one and the attack of ranged weapons by 2. It's worth keeping it quite high for some weapons, I think the long sword for instance scales with both str and dex.

That actually depends on the stat bonuses. If a weapon doesn't have a DEX bonus you won't gain any damage. Same goes for STR, FAI and INT.

Edit - and can you use two swords at once? I've not tried.

Yes, you can; equip the second sword on the left hand slot instead of your shield/bow/catalyst/whatever and you can hack away with two swords. Of course within equip limits.

Can someone elaborate on the weapon stat screens. They show a physical damage score, then a Thrust adjustment or something but some weapons seem to be minus for that?

All weapons have minimum stats to be wielded. Weapons that only do physical damage (plus Fire and Lightning weapons) have a DEX and/or STR requirement. Weapons that only do magical damage have a FAI and/or STR requirement. Weapons that can do both types of damage have a mix of the above. For example the Greatsword of Artorias requires high values in STR, DEX, INT and FAI, receives boosts from all four stats and allocates both physical and magical damage.
Fire and Lightning weapons have physical and elemental damage.

If you fail to meet the requirements you incour in a damage penality; STR and DEX decrease the physical damage; FAI and INT the magical damage; Fire and Lighting weapons do not scale with any stat (with few exceptions: the Demon Spear does, as well as other boss weapons; Chaos weapons are unique and their scale with humanity).
If you don't have enough STR the attack animation will be much sloppier and will require much more time to complete, leaving you wide open (this is valid for shields too), plus the damage penality.
Wielding a weapon two handed decreases the minimum STR requirement and if you meet or pass the requirement the weapon will get a damage bonus.

Physical attacks are further subdivided into normal, slash, thrust and blunt damage (show in the detailed stats page). All enemies and armours have different resistance values against these sub-types but in game terms it's not extremely important. Magic, Fire and Lighting damages don't have sub-types.

[Matt]

Phew! Thanks. Lots of depth to this game.

I'm still trying to get my head around humanity, only finding out by pure accident you have to be in human form (at least a bit) to summon help before fighting bosses. It's nice discovering things as I'm going along, but I could really of done with some help on that bloody Capra Demon (3 days to get passed that bugger).

[briareos_kerensky]

There's a good number of posts about the Capra. With a knight use your most stable shield (either a Knight's or a Hollow, upgrade as much as you want) and kill the dogs first, then concentrate on the demon. Running past the Capra on the left side to get on the stairs will let you pick the dogs easily, you can then sprint to the end of the staircase and wait for the Capra Demon to follow, drop down and start fighting the Demon. If you are fast enough you can lure the Demon right below you and do a plunge attack to dish a good amount of damage.
If you want to fight it hand to hand, never stay too far from it or he'll jump at you wielding both swords, which will most probably deplete all your stamina, knock you down and deliver huge damage. Wait for its combos to finish (three or four swings), attack him two or three times and retreat; stamina is your highest concern here, you want to keep it up to block blows if you can't dodge (and a knight in Elite Armour surely can't perform a good roll).

[Matt]

Once I'd worked out a strategy the Capra was pretty easy. I was still getting used to blocking attacks at that stage, lol. Not had any real issues with bosses since

And you're right that my character isn't great at rolling. Maybe I should go for lighter armour.