Dark Souls 3

[Roman Totale]

Oh yeah! When I get time I'll post a rough guide with hints and tips.

So far it's great. This is the first Souls game I've played from launch, and I'm really enjoying playing through it blind - no guide, no build, just nerve wracking terror and anticipation. Get on the Souls train!

\[T]/

[Dog Pants]

Hnnngh. I really wish I could get on with DS2. I'm just so utterly shit at it. Like, can't even run in the direction I want to run in.

[spoodie]

I really enjoy watching people play the Dark Souls (and BloodBorne) games. They look great and there's the a schadenfreude aspect to it. Perhaps I'll try this one at some point as I hear is the most accessible of the series.

[Pnut]

Unfortunately this makes my graphics card shit itself so it is going to have to be shelved until the end of the month. One thing I did notice though in the brief time I got to play it, was that as a sorcerer you now start with 2 spells and have what seems to be a mana pool, compared with the last one where you started with none and had a limit supply of casts.

[Dog Pants]

I really enjoy watching people play the Dark Souls (and BloodBorne) games. They look great and there's the a schadenfreude aspect to it. Perhaps I'll try this one at some point as I hear is the most accessible of the series.

This is a good point. I have enjoyed watching that guy in the gif get wtfsmashed over and over.

[Pnut]

New graphics card is installed so its time to give this a go. I think I am going to go with the dual wielding mercenary for this run and see how it goes.

[Roman Totale]

I'm very close to the end of my first play through (Knight class), but have already started a second one (as an Assassin). I would highly recommend anyone playing for the first time to do so as a melee character. Magic has had a significant change to it which makes it a bit trickier to get the hang of. In Dark Souls 2 you could be devastating very quickly, but it's a much tougher route this time.

For first time, Knight is a good choice - decent starting stats, and a shield that has 100% physical damage reduction (more on that later) from the very start.

A few tips and tricks:

General

* Don't use a walkthrough guide! Honestly I've had so much fun just finding things and places organically.

* Buy a Torch and White Sign Soapstone as soon as possible

* Souls are used to level up and buy things. Gain souls by killing enemies.

* Add items to your belt in the character screen. These can be scrolled through (down button on the d-pad) then be selected quickly by pressing the correct button (Square on PS pad, X on Xbox pad). Always have your Estus Flask (health) as the first thing in the slot - if you hold 'down' on the d-pad it will instantly switch to the first item. Handy to avoid scrolling through loads of things just to heal yourself.

* Bars: Red = health; Blue = Focus Points; Green = Stamina

* Estus now comes in two forms - health and focus points. Health is self explanatory. Focus points are used to perform special weapon moves and to use magic. You can allot your distribution of flasks at the smith in the hub area (e.g. you have 10 flasks in total, so you can have 7 health and 3 focus, or all 10 as health).

* Stamina - running, jumping, attacking and blocking with shield all cost stamina. If you run out, you can't do those things. It does recharge fairly quickly, but a couple of things to note. 1) If you are blocking with a shield and run out of stamina you will be staggered leaving you wide open to attack; 2) keeping your shield up causes stamina to recharge much more slowly.

* Embers. I'm not going into the lore, so I'll try and keep it simple. When you are "embered" you have increased health and are able to summon phantoms (more on this below) to assist you. The slight downside is that you're more likely to get invaded by hostile phantoms, but it's worth it as some of them drop unique weapons. You can tell if you are Embered by the symbol in the top left next to your bars - if it's all fiery then you are Embered. You lose this status upon death, but can easily restore it by using an Ember from your inventory. These are plentiful, so don't worry about hoarding them (I have 100 on my first character). You can also restore it by being summoned, again more on that below

* Summoning. You can only do it if you're Embered. They appear as glowing text on the floor: White = normal phantom; Gold = phantom of a covenant dedicated to helping people in PvE (I always prioritise summoning these dudes); Red = hostile, you are summoning someone to duel you in PvP; Purple = who knows! It's a new covenant and they may decide to help you or harm you. Personally I don't touch them

*Being Summoned. Equip your White Sign Soapstone and draw it on the floor (just press use). You can then be summoned into someone else world to help them. Usually this is done in front of Boss areas, but they can actually be put anywhere. If you help the host defeat the area boss you will have your Ember status restored (if previously lost) and also gain an additional ember. You also get souls for it. When summoned you will have decreased health and fewer Estus flasks, but there is zero penalty for dying. If you know you're at a Boss door (and some are quite obvious from all the messages left) you could drop a summon sign down and help fight the boss before taking it on yourself - you will then know what to expect, and can have your Ember restored. Just remember you've been summoned to help, so don't pansy around.

[Roman Totale]

One thing I forgot to add to the above - always keep your equipped load below 70%. This can be found in the top right corner of your character equip screen. Higher than this and you won't be able to roll or run very well.

Stats

* Vigour - Health

* Endurance - Stamina

* Vitality - Equipment load and resistances

* Attunement - number of spells you can equip, increases Focus Points

* Strength - obvious

* Dexterity - obvious

*Intelligence - for sorcery and pyromancy

* Faith - for miracles

* Luck - item discovery from dudes you've killed

Weapons and Armour

* All weapons have minimum stats that must be met in order to use them efficiently. You can still use them if you don't meet the requirements, but they'll be massively ineffective and will cost more stamina to use. That said, if you're just using a bow and arrow to kite an enemy then it's still useful

* When you view a weapon it will show which stats are required to use it. If you don't meet that stat it will show in red

* Certain weapons are better for certain stats e.g. a club is great for strength builds, but a rapier is better for dexterity

* The grades (from best to worst) are: S, A, B, C, D, E

* Some weapons will have their stat grade increased when the weapon is reinforced (so might go from D in strength to C, improving its effectiveness for strength builds)

* Press Triangle or Y to wield a weapon in both hands (for improved damage)

* Shields have a variety of resistances. The most useful one is for physical damage reduction. If you have a shield with 100% in this, then any vanilla attacks you block (assuming you have enough stamina) won't do any damage. I don't have any screenshots, but I'm sure you can work it out

* Armour is similar in that different set have different attributes. The most important of these is the "Fashion" attribute, and can be determined by seeing which piece of armour looks the most stylish (seriously, don't worry about wearing the armour with "the best stats" as it's mostly irrelevant). Armour can't be upgraded this time around.


Combat

* Learn to roll and dodge

* If you try to turtle (attempting to block everything with your shield) you will be punished hard by the game

* Backstab does incredible damage - get behind an enemy and press the normal attack button once. Should start an animation that deals huge damage and drops the enemy to the floor (you won't be able to hit them for a couple of seconds before they get up)

* Parry and riposte. Some shields (and even some weapons) have the ability to parry an attack which leaves the opponent vulnerable for a follow up riposte which deals massive damage. I rarely get the timing of these right.

* Different weapons have different movesets - try them out in the hub area before heading into battle

* There are different types of weapon damage: Thrust = pokey; Slash = bladed weapons; Strike = blunt/smashing; Standard = not a clue to be honest. Some enemies are weaker to certain types of damage (e.g. skeletons are weak to strike damage, and so are ineffective against junior doctors).



And one other thing I forgot to mention. When you die (and you will) you will drop all the souls you were carrying. If you make it back to the spot you died you will see your blood stain and a green glowing thing. If you pick this up you will retrieve all the souls you were carrying. If you die before you pick them up again, they will be lost forever.


Overall I think this is the best Souls game yet (including Bloodbourne). It's slightly more forgiving on you when you die (no massive penalties like previous games), but it never feels easy or cheap. Still a very challenging but satisfying game.

[shot2bits]

ive not finished DS1 yet but ive been playing it through recently and there's a few things that might be worth adding onto these if they are done the same, please correct me if they are irrelevant now though.

One thing I forgot to add to the above - always keep your equipped load below 70%. This can be found in the top right corner of your character equip screen. Higher than this and you won't be able to roll or run very well.

yeah the heavier your equipment is the slower you are, it makes it harder to outmaneuver enemies and some bosses can become insanely hard if you go in full plate as you just wont be able to get out of the way of attacks fast enough, you'll be able to soak 1 hit and then your out of stamina and unable to take the next hit which you cant dodge. A couple of bosses i found it was easiest to just strip down naked and go 2 handed on my weapon for extra damage as you can easily run out of the way of big attacks and nip in a couple of hits, not targeting some helped too.

* Learn to roll and dodge

seriously, i went with the naked dude for my first roll and got my ass handed to me for an hour before id even got to a proper boss but id learned how to dodge and roll properly and to use my environment to help me as much as possible, the first boss was much less frustrating than if id played through as the knight where you can fairly easily muddle through without actually doing that (and with the weight stuff mentioned above is actually harder to learn with) until you get to the boss and suddenly youll just be dying every few seconds to a couple of hits without being able to do much.

* Backstab does incredible damage - get behind an enemy and press the normal attack button once. Should start an animation that deals huge damage and drops the enemy to the floor (you won't be able to hit them for a couple of seconds before they get up)

This wont work if you have are blocking with a shield while strafing behind the enemies, you will just do a normal attack, i didn't figure this out until i got to blight town some many hours in, all those black knights and such could've been much easier had i known

[Pnut]

Roman, did you fight that big crystal monster thing in the starting area?

[Roman Totale]

Ooh, don't think so. Was that down a pathway with a message saying "turn back now"? If so I just assumed it was a dead end/drop into deadly deep water so didn't go any further. Might have to go back now.


Another thing I forgot to mention! Rate and leave messages! Whenever you rate a message someone has left, if they are playing at that moment it gives them some of their health back - that has saved me a ridiculous number of times now.

[Pnut]

Yeah that's the one. I thought I'd check it out as it was early on and was promptly chased of by some big crystal dog thingy. I may have to go back and have a go at fighting it.

[Roman Totale]

"Finished" my first playthrough with about 60 hours on the clock this morning. Brilliant game. Already started a couple of other classes (pure magic class seriously sucks in comparison to previous game). Just to reiterate on a couple of points:

* Don't use a walkthrough guide - much more fun to explore organically
* Farm bosses through co-op - get souls, embers, and helps other people
* Upgrade your weapons - resources are fairly plentiful (except for max reinforcement)

[Roman Totale]

(pure magic class seriously sucks in comparison to previous game)

I'm going to amend my stance on my previous statement. Early game for a pure caster is incredibly difficult - definitely not recommended for a new starter to the game. However, once you get some levels/stats and some keys spells under your belt it almost becomes a bit of a cake walk. I have blasted through levels in 10 minutes that previously took me numerous attempts and bonfire rests. I think I prefer it this you - after the difficult start you really feel like you've earned the power.

Some tips for a sorcerer (written on the assumption you've already done one playthrough and are familiar with the game):

* Get Intelligence to 20 as soon as you can, but put a couple of levels into Endurance and Vigour. Get Strength to 8 so you can use the Pontiff Knight Shield (available from Greirat after you send him to pillage Undead Settlement)

* Upgrade Sorcerer Staff to +4 as and when you can

* Eventually replace that staff with Court Sorcerer staff and upgrade to +10

* Get the Scholar's Candlestick from Greirat when you can (there are requirements for getting it, read up on it here) and wield in off hand

* Get the spell Hidden Body as soon as you possibly can - this is one of the game changer spells that will start to make life easy. Makes you invisible for a short amount of time so you can get an early hit on tough enemies, and if you stand still (and you will mostly as you're a caster) they often don't see you even after the first hit. Don't bother using it in boss fights.

* Some early bosses are really tough, most notably the Curse Rotted Greatwood. If you're having difficulty with it just come back later - it's an optional boss anyway, and although you need to beat it to convert boss souls, you won't have any use for that function for some time.

* Likewise, Aldrych can be really difficult due to his high magic resistance (and he isn't optional). He is weak to fire though. Before you get to him make sure your Faith is high enough to cast some decent pyromancies. I didn't level my Faith quickly enough and had real trouble beating him. Got it to 10, used Chaos Bed Vestiges, fucking owned him.

* Eventually get Faith to 15 so you can use Tears of Denial - very useful in boss fights

* Start off weak, get good, wreck dudes

[Dog Pants]

* Eventually get Faith to 15 so you can use Tears of Denial - very useful in boss fights

Use the tears!

[Roman Totale]

DLC coming 25th October

Ashes of Ariandel

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu1NCPMC7D0[/youtube]


Also the main game currently on offer at £26.79 on Steam (or £45.58 inc season pass). I'm tempted to get it again on PC just for ultra graphic prettiness.

[Roman Totale]

Just finished playthrough number four, this time as a pyromancer. More on that later, but I wanted to share my discovery (known to most players for ages, but oh well) of the best cheesing for casuals weapon ever - The Storyteller's Staff

So it's a staff, obviously, and I never used it on my Sorcerer build as the stats weren't very good. However, its weapon art is beautiful - it's basically a poison mist that doesn't wear off, and does damage based on the enemy's max health. So for example if you find a chest that is a mimic, cast the mist and it starts to take something like 12 damage a second (and doesn't even aggro it). So if you're a fragile caster type and suck a bit (like me!), then cast Hidden Body, stroll up to a big, heavy enemy, poison them then walk away.

Now it does take time to drop some of these enemies, but if you're low on health and estus it's pretty good tactic. Works on some bosses too.

[Roman Totale]

DLC PVP BBQ

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg5ZCqsh66E[/youtube]