Lurker > CassandraCain

I didn't know where in the sewers Dungeater was so I inadvertently found a door I missed before that led to... More sewers! Got lost in what seemed like never ending tubes, but found out a good use for rainbow shards. Put them at the front of confirmed dead ends so I'd know not to go back that way.

Yeesh I was in there for a while. Thankfully no real tough enemies to worry about except fucking basilisks are at their absolute worst within closed in spaces.

I had the same issue in Leyndell, felt like I was stuck there forever. Finally dawned on me to look for something out of the ordinary to climb up.

Petrified dragon's wing

If you wanna talk about rough enemies there's a knight later on who dual wields large straight swords, and his combos do not stop. Its crazy ridiculous, not sure how its even possible to beat them without high damaging attacks that stagger.

Yeah these late game areas are true brutality.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

But now I'm in the Lake of Rot and I miss the tranquility of Caelid.

That is too accurate lmao

The gargoyle fight in Nokron? Dang I was putting it off since its a shitty boss and I figured it was a dead end

Lake of Rot ew

I miss the valley of defilement

So those sewers didn't go anywhere, just some catacombs. Sure did take every opportunity to fool me into thinking I was getting somewhere only to find out it looped back to the same area. Three times this happened. Even the catacombs led back. Why.

Gave up on Leyndell and instead went to finish Ranni's quest which led me to the upper half of Ainsel river... uh flying ants are much more terrifying than regular ants. Yikes!

On the flipside mount ants are hilarious

So Leyndell is incredible. Took me a while to find my way around but finally located the underground roadside that I assume will lead me to the rest of the city. Holy fuck this area sucks. A dark sewer with a shit ton of mob and tough enemies.

I truthfully had more fun with the ants.

Honestly these wall/floormasters freak me out the most. Mainly the big ones.

No I think you should level up health. If you were a mage then it'd be different but since you went melee you need more survivability. I recommend sticking with Vigor and Strength, some Endurance too.

Strength weapons are really good, you can usually one shot most regular enemies.

I mean yeah "not getting hit" is a great strategy, but the game is designed for you to obviously take damage so why not make sure you don't get killed in two hits.

I have encountered my next greatest challenge

Platforming up the divine tower of caelid

Fuck this noise

OOOOHH! Gotta love when a boss fight suddenly clicks. Bashed my head against Radahn for about an hour, then finally went in and utterly destroyed him. Barely even got a scratch. The best part was I didn't even finish him off, Blaidd delivered the final blow! It was glorious.

Phew, that was the first boss to give me that classic masochistic souls grind. Feels good.

Poor Alexander. Shouldn't be so down on himself that dude was tough as fuck

banananor posted...

What builds are you all using?

My two highest stats are strength followed by vigor, also increased endurance and dexterity as needed. Main weapon is a heavy greatsword which keeps it easy, kills most things very efficiently.

Except Radahn.

Hmm well it leads to part of the main area with an optional boss. I looked around everywhere trying to reach the rest of it then finally read that wasn't accessible from there... But if you did find the way please tell me how!

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Like the obvious point of comparison here is how movies and public perception continuously nix the supporting cast to make Batman a brooding loner - this is just something that has not been true for decades in the comics. In the comics, Batman is the ultimate dad! He's a wife guy! He's adopted like a dozen troubled teens!

Yeah the family aspect has always been my favorite part of Batman comics. It perpetually disappoints me that they keep going the loner route in movies. Robin brings levity while also fitting in with the dark themes of Gotham.

Although I have long given up all hope of ever seeing a proper live action Cassandra Cain in my lifetime.

Dude I love spiders and those ants still freaked me out. Took me a minute to get my nerve back.

If it makes you feel better thats a totally optional area, you can't even get to the main section of that place from there.

Also it feels damn good to go Guts on those ants and one shot them all with a greatsword

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The two characters...well, just ask yourself which two Bros are the coolest Bros in the game and it's those Bros.

I have Blaiid and Alexander, both I've only met once. Not sure who could possibly be more brotastic than those two!

Ah hello Radahn, my first wall.

You'd think a bunch of npc summons would make it easier, not much!

Robazoid posted...

with the twinblade I managed first try without even needing to heal.

Twinblade quickly became my go to weapon for taking down any npc invader, they can't handle it at all.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

went down a weird ravine, ended up fighting a huge boss and arriving in another giant open world region

I couldn't beat that boss earlier so I decided to leave it for later but... Maybe I just need to focus on upgrading a faster weapon so I can just bash my head on him. I wanna see that area now, especially since my attempts to get into Leyndell have resulted in utter failure.

edit: oh lmao he wasn't that hard actually

edit edit: nvm that wasn't the spot y'all were talking about...

Peace___Frog posted...

Was there a reason you smashed the skelly bones after they died?

They respawn if you don't

Never cared about twinblades in previous games but now the improved combos basically make you a medieval darth maul, its rad.

Tried fighting an npc invader with my greatsword but needed something faster. Twinblade didn't even give him a chance to attack, the roll catching is phenomenal.

On another note, that invader dropped this games version of the whirligig saw!!

Whoaaa Rennala of the full moon

Thought she was just another easy mob style boss at first, then naturally a second phase starts and WOW! New favorite boss arena.

Oh no, madness is basically a lower damaging frenzy however it stuns you in place for like 20 minutes. It struck me randomly while killing some rats. A while later I discovered the cause, the eye of sauron!

If only that had been the end of it. Apparently you can utilize madness yourself, just got killed by an npc invader who two shot me. Once madness hit he had all the time in the world to prepare a killing blow.

Just switched to the greatsword, who needs to dodge when you can just stunlock your foes into oblivion. It's only +1 so some things die in three hits but the new combo looks sick.

Need to find some more smithing stones so I can upgrade this baby and make things die in one hit.

ninkendo posted...

I don't know why this guy started with half HP

The half hp was weird yeah, figured I'd have to wait for a Vaati video to explain the lore

I have yet to find a single secret door, playing offline so no messages to clue me in. Does rolling still work to dispel them? I don't enjoy breaking my arm on every wall. There's a lot of stuff I can see but can't figure out how to get to in stormveil castle and my only guess is I'm missing a hidden path.

That same thing happened to me in roundtable, I'm still confused about it. If it makes you feel better I have lost 3000+ souls several times now, including to that same invader. It's not a gigantic amount so it never bothered me.

Also there seems to be a terrific greatsword in the beginning area, agheel lake south near the bridge of sacrifice through an evergaol portal. Still not sure what triggers it though...

On my first try with the npc summon and spirit wolves I managed to get Margit down to 1/4 health with a non upgraded claymore. At no point did I feel like I had control of the fight. Went back out to explore a ton more, leveled up strength (it is historically the best stat), upgraded claymore to +4 or 5, then went back with npc summon and spirit jellyfish this time. Beat Margit no problem. Jellyfish is clutch.

So yeah I feel like a chump for not beating him solo but it would have taken a ton more tries and that challenge is better saved for a replay. The point is there are ways of making the game easier, youtube has a ton of videos dedicated to teaching you how. There's no shame in it.

I would think the other option is Rockstar games. At least they still have their own style regardless of how outdated it is. Ubisoft on the other hand made an actual BotW clone.

masterplum posted...

I hate open world games and I love this game and BotW because of the identical feeling of nobody is telling me where to go. I hate side quests for instance

I'm with you on that, this is the first game I've been able to blink away 12 hours since... botw

Is it possible to be an open world game today without being compared to BotW?

Do you see stars above? That's how you know you're in the underground

I've just been going straight melee so far, thinking about increasing int since spells in this game look gorgeous... but yeah that sorcery village is traumatizing.

Grand Kirby posted...

Did you find the hidden wolf dude in Mistwood Forest?

I don't think so, went back to explore a little more before realizing I need a break. Can't stop dying in stupid ways... probably bc i played for 12 hours straight >_>

That was almost my reaction to those strange rock worms but then I saw the middle symbol glowing as well, which led to a relatively simple boss. Not sure what triggers it though.

And hey riding Torrent through the swamp protects you from its nasty effect.

That red sky is creepy as hell I love it

Its so refreshing to play a new souls game. The open world was a little overwhelming at first but once I got through some dungeons it started to click. Now exploring stormveil castle and blown away by how intricate it is.

Guard countering is amazing. You can take out several mooks rapidly in a row by just using it and riposte over and over.

andylt posted...

Thanks for this explanation! 'Shit-filled darkness' is probably a pretty accurate description of how I assumed the series would be lol so I'm glad that's not the case.

If you wanna see proof of FromSofts ability to design beautiful environments, take a glance at fountainhead palace from Sekiro. Probably my favorite area in all of video games.

I wanna choose Pidgeot but not sure which between 3 or 4 star. The one where it feasts on a magikarp

Cool topic!

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