Demon's Souls Coming to America.

[Cyrrex]

No.  Haven't even tried 2-2 yet, let alone 2-3.  Guess I'll get on that?

Hmm Flamelurker soul is for weapon upgrading only though. Shouldn't bother Freke.

You freed him in his 3-1 cell, zoned out to Nexus and he is in the Nexus and not helping you? Or still inside his cell?

Do you have Willpower of at least 10? You can't learn magic with less WP than 10.

Try talking to his apprentice. If the apprentice says something about you being a brute and doesn't teach you anything either, then probably one of them aggroed you and you're now SOL for the rest of the game with them EDIT: checked the Wiki, the wiki says that is also due to the Willpower stat being too low, not because of aggro.

Awesome, that's probably it.  Neither of them will talk to me.  I'll just ding up my willpower a bit.

Also, Flamelurker can suck my cock.

[AcidCat]

I'm having more success with Knight. Got enough strength last night to use the purple flame shield, got the winged spear. And I'm glad I picked up soul arrow for the 1-2 Tower Knight boss. I tried to melee him at first and quickly saw how ridiculous that was going to be. (not to mention in my armor rolling actually means just kind of falling down to the side).

Got a ways into 4-1 and was able to invite another player to help me kill that fat mini boss dude. I'm kicking ass on those skeletons, feeling pretty good about myself, haven't died in a while, then I promptly run right off a cliff.

[Yegolev]

Yea, it feels great when you get into the zone, get all cocky and shit, and then dodge right off a staircase.  Not that I did that last night.

[ghost]

Yeah, 5-1 makes me stabby.  I think I've fallen off of stuff in that level more than all the others combined.  Then you get to follow it up with the 5-2 slog through the swamp.  In all honesty, I could have lived without that level. 

[Kageh]

I'm having more success with Knight. Got enough strength last night to use the purple flame shield, got the winged spear. And I'm glad I picked up soul arrow for the 1-2 Tower Knight boss. I tried to melee him at first and quickly saw how ridiculous that was going to be. (not to mention in my armor rolling actually means just kind of falling down to the side).

Tower Knight is a very psychological fight. You usually arrive there at the end of your second level, having beaten Phalanx - which is very meek for DS standards - after a bit of running on the wall and fighting a couple regular *cough*cannon fodder*cough* soldiers, and then all of a sudden face this 30ft giant with a shield the size of an average tennis field. Design-wise, after having been through the game multiple times, I still him to be very intimidating. Right up at the top, along with Dragon God.  

For killing, once you get the hang of it he is actually very predictable, even more than other bosses:

Yeah, 5-1 makes me stabby.  I think I've fallen off of stuff in that level more than all the others combined.  Then you get to follow it up with the 5-2 slog through the swamp.  In all honesty, I could have lived without that level. 

Yes, 5-2 is really my personal nightmare too. And if you play for black WT farming, you have to slog all through it while looking for BP Selen and the primeval demon, all the while dodging BP giant trolls that tend to generally one-shot you. Fun fun fun!

[ghost]

I find that tower knight, if you are trying to kill him melee, is a real bitch if you can't roll pretty easily.  Of course, as with most of the bosses, magic or ranged makes them pretty easy.  Armor management is one of the more difficult things to learn about this game-  armor is really useless, for the most part.  You are much better off if you can dodge and roll around.  If you never get hit you don't have to worry about it.

[Elerion]

Yes, the defense payoff for higher weight is horrible. Heavy armor is noticeably better early on when your native damage reduction is so low, but later in the game it's a minuscule %-increase in reduction for a massive movement penalty.


EDIT: Doing the numbers, you seem to gain 5 times as much damage reduction per weight point at level 10 as you do at level 100. A weight point is a ~4% increase in PhysDef at level 10, and a ~0.75% increase at level 100.

[AcidCat]

Yeah my Knight can't roll worth shit. But, so far I don't really feel like I need to roll around. I like having that big ol shield up and just waiting for my opening.

[ahoythematey]

Anybody know of Atlus removing the gripless/hiltless katana from the end of the tutorial?  I finally cracked that shit open and only the grey soul dropped.

[schild]

I never got a gripless from the tutorial boss or in the dragon area in any version (launch, 1st patch, 2nd patch, 3rd patch [all asian], press reviewable, retail). So I have no clue what you're talking about.

[ahoythematey]

Forum checking seems to indicate it's in all versions except for the US one, but if you've never encountered it...

[schild]

Link?

[Morfiend]

I believe you can get a normal Uchigatana from the Tutorial boss, not a gripless.

[schild]

I believe you can get a normal Uchigatana from the Tutorial boss, not a gripless.

Never seen this either.

[ahoythematey]

Link?

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/demonssoul/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-51739928&pid=954345
Granted, it is a forum post...

[schild]

Oh, an alcove. I have to start over tonight. I'll let him wreck the room to burst open all the walls and I'll find out and report back.

[Kageh]

I believe you can get a normal Uchigatana from the Tutorial boss, not a gripless.

The Wiki confirms this with Uchigatana, and I kind of doubt it would be Gripless because it would be 1.) too early for a unique and 2.) break the pattern that uniques usually only spawn in one place as treasure. That guy probably just mistook it.

And I have to admit, I still haven't beaten tutorial Vanguard yet.

[stray]

Kinda got the hang of this game now. Probably won't sell it. :P Lvl 25-ish now. Haven't beat many bosses, but I keep hopping around collecting gear. 4-1 is my favorite so far, design wise. Up until the boss, I mowed through that shit with the fireball skill from Freke (Spider Demon soul), including Vanguard. I don't see how anyone plays this melee.

[Teleku]

Well, I finally got my copy of this game and just dove into it.  First impressions, Stray is right.  Does magic suck later on or something?  Because melee consist of me running in and hacking up each enemy bit by bit by bit, while magic consists of me one shot'ing everybody from across the screen....

[Kageh]

I think that the best char is an adept mix of both, you just have to decide on the distribution. I'm a melee player myself, and while the learning curve was steep, I find melee rewarding and very varied. I played through the first difficulty level as melee only, and it was hard but very manageable, on later difficulties I learned stuff like Total Protection and Slow Recovery, and they make life a lot easier.

If you are an exclusive "magic" type of guy, there actually are some very nice melee weapons available for mages too (Sword of Moonlight, for example)

I'm currently working on my first "caster" type char, am about 80% done with NG, and being used to melee I find magic to be awkward to use. I guess it's all a matter of character concept and experience.

I also read that maxed out melee outdamages maxed out magic, but never leveled that far myself. My highest character is somewhere around lvl 120 currently, and the mage is 48.

[Cyrrex]

I fight pretty much pure melee...the only magic I use is Total Protection against really tough mobs and bosses, and I'll admit I used a bit of Soul Light and melee combo on Flamelurker (who is an asshole).  Other than that, I don't use any magic and I think I'm doing fairly well.

Question on 1-4:

[Kageh]

I fight pretty much pure melee...the only magic I use is Total Protection against really tough mobs and bosses, and I'll admit I used a bit of Soul Light and melee combo on Flamelurker (who is an asshole).  Other than that, I don't use any magic and I think I'm doing fairly well.

Question on 1-4:

[stray]

I'm currently working on my first "caster" type char, am about 80% done with NG, and being used to melee I find magic to be awkward to use.

It's a cinch. R3 targets, of course, and then you just zap away. More than a cinch actually.. Probaly an injustice. I can one or two shot just about every normal mob in a room, from a distance, just sitting at the entrance. I feel like I'm playing Kotor sometimes. While melee feels tougher than Ninja Gaiden.

Exception so far being 4-1 where skeletal mobs require me to dodge and kite a lot. But that's pretty damn fun with the fireball skill I mentioned (you can shoot fast while moving... looks like there's a magic version later on as well??).

I do eventually want to focus on melee though. I'm pumping points into str so I can equip the purple flameshield, but the curved blades are sweet too.. So I might pump more dex as well. My magic is only 20 btw. So I'm already am a hybrid character, I guess.

On a sidenote, I'm not impressed with the katanas.. Too soft, and not that much more damaging than curved. Besides, I wanted a dao/wushu thing going on, and the falchion animations are sweet. More Asian like than Euro.

[Kageh]

My main gripe with magic vs. melee is that, with a sword, I can slash in a horiztonal arc, in a vertical arc, I can overhead thrust, I can stab, I can dodge roll, I can sneak and backstab, all that stuff. With magic, I lock on and wave my magic wand, cast, and that is it. And the casting has the awful "wave your wand" delay (even worse for miracles, where my guy claps both hands above his head and freezes while the effect takes off). With a weapon, I feel much more in control.

I use bows for clearing those few dangerous places where ranged is a huge advantage (or blue&red dragons in 1-x), and I've gotten pretty good with the sniper mode, which also allows for shooting at very high ranges.

For the curved swords, you can pick up a Kilij on the ground at 4-1 in the courtyard where Vanguard hangs out, that is pretty much the best curved one IMO. Best base damage and it has a bleeding attack too, even though it is weaker than the Katana bleeding strength. I too am disappointed with Katanas, I've never found them to be too good. They are fast for the mid-combo animations and have a nice horizontal arc, but start too slow (not to mention the power attack is so slow it is nearly useless) and have so little durability they constantly break. I've seen some players that did some impressive Katana fighting though, it just is not my case.

[stray]

I have a kilij, but I'm using crescent falchion atm for it's magic bonuses.

[Morfiend]

I have a kilij, but I'm using crescent falchion atm for it's magic bonuses.

As a magic based character the Crescent Falchion is a fantastic weapon. If you have the shards, you can upgrade most "curved" swords to a Crescent modifier. Not sure about the uchigatana though. I think the only weapon that might be better than a crescent based one is the Large Sword of Moonlight, but thinking about it, I think that takes its damage modified from Faith not Magic.

[Kageh]

Crescent is probably the easiest upgrade after hardstone/sharpstone too, you can just keep farming the 4-2 reaper for splinters and chunks, and with a bit of luck one of the geckos will drop a pure one.

I'm currently working on +5 Blessed and I can tell it's a nightmare compared to Crescent.

[Nerf]

The crescent rapier is pretty sweet, and being able to hide behind your shield while you attack is very nice.  You can add crescent to the curved rapier as well, getting a bleed effect+magic bonus+regen.  The one thing I've noticed on magic vs. melee is how bows outclass magic by so much.  Being able to fire out of autotarget range itself is a huge bonus, I really wish they would add in precision aiming for magic.  The animations are better too, you can dodge mid-draw if you need to, which is very useful if your timing is a bit off and your opponent starts casting or swinging.  

On farming the darkmoonstone chunks, if you get to black character tendancy, the BP down by makato will keep respawning and dropping 2-3 chunks every time you load the level.

[stray]

I don't really like rapiers as fighting weapons because they require more precision. Otoh, like spears it's nice to be able to hide behind shields.

Right now, I'm just using a little melee to augment magic, but I plan on flipping that around later and using magic to augment melee.. buffing myself and toss some bolts here and there. I keep the falchion in the left hand and don't do shit with it. That, or I switch it out and shield up. The wand is in the right hand getting the most use. I think it might be cool though to put the wand in the left hand instead, and keep a sword in the right. I don't think it's possible to wield a sword with two hands unless it's in the right handed slot, right? This way I can run and blast, then switch to two handed wielding and slice things quickly.


As for blasts being disrupted.. Well, I just tend to hit things pretty hard with Soul Arrow - I'm the one disrupting them. The problem for me is that it's just not very mana efficient for most enemies. That's why that Fire Spray skill has worked out greatly. Barely uses shit for mana. Secondly, it's so fast that it almost paralyzes things - constantly disrupting them. Third, you can run and gun with it. Fourth, the damage starts off small, but since it keeps stacking, it starts hitting harder than Soul Arrow can. I don't think I was supposed to mow down 4-1 so easily, but I could simply because of that skill. Surely someone here has used it? It's a skill Freke opens up if you have the 2-1 Spider Boss soul.

[Morfiend]

I used Fire Spray on my mage character. I found it worked pretty good, but since that was my 3rd or 4th character, I found it a bit boring and overly simple.

One thing to note on bows vs magic. Bows are basically totally useless in PVP, their draw length is to long to ever hit a moving target, where as some magics are very very good for PVP, like Fire Storm, Fire Ball and Rage of God. Rage of God is very good as its a huge radius and it does knockdown, and goes through walls.

[AcidCat]

The Spider boss just rocked my world. Is there any counter to those webs that cover you and slow you down?

[Morfiend]

The Spider boss just rocked my world. Is there any counter to those webs that cover you and slow you down?

[stray]

Sweet.. I actually just "farmed".   Wanted to get to 22 Str for purple flame shield though.

On a sidenote, the Tower Guard area (if you beat him) is a decent enough place for noob farming. There's two blue knights there to pick off. Just port back and forth. Make about 1000 souls each time.

[Kageh]

The Spider boss just rocked my world. Is there any counter to those webs that cover you and slow you down?

Depending on whether you are ranged (magic) or melee:

[stray]

Fuck, it's pretty demoralizing when you lose a shit ton of souls on a corpse run. Fuck.