Demon's Souls Coming to America.

[Le0]

After 70 arrows, a bunch of soul arrows and a few bolts, I finally managed to kill the red dragon! Yay me..

Got the winged spear and shield now, ready to get rolled by tower knight. Is it safe for me to upgrade the winged spear to my heart contents? Or should I be switching to another weapon relatively soon, I'm a melee character with just basic magic.

[Kageh]

If you are a melee guy, look the branching pahts up for Quality/Sharp (Sharp needs to be done at +0, Quality is +3) depending on how much STR/DEX you plan to have.

If you aim for moderate magic (and not want to stay at "low"), I think the "Moon" variant is your best bet.

For "pure" melee, check out other weapons too, especially the ones with "arc attacks" (large swords/katanas mainly), because there are fights where target locking is not an option. Plus an AOE option is always a plus.

[Le0]

Having my ass handed back to me against tower knight, trying to fight it in melee but having a hard time dodging the shield, any tips at all or should I not bother and go range?

[Kageh]

Ranged is pretty easy against him, as long as you have minimum magic and can cast soul arrow, you could try shooting at him from the parapets. Just bring a couple spices with you because you most likely will need to refill mana.

Melee isn't that hard once you get the hang of his movement patters. You need to stack close to his ankles and *behind* him. When he starts turning, disengage target lock (if you have it engaged) and sprint around to the back, or sprint between his legs to get on his back side again. Sprinting between the legs is very easy because you don't need to run huge arcs and it is safe, but you have to learn to disengage target lock fast, otherwise you keep circle strafing him and that isn't fast enough. If you manage to stay behind him, you only need to watch his ground stomp, which isn't that much of a problem even if it hits you. Keep biting his ankles and once he falls (usually signaled by the amount of steam venting out of his armor) move a bit to the side so he doesn't catch you underneath him. Lock on his head and smack him for all your stamina. Depending on your level, you will probably need to tackle him 2-3 times to finish him.

He's a very intimidating opponent, but when you figure out how to keep running between his legs so he can't shield bash you, he starts getting pretty easy.

If you don't have a magic weapon yet, you can try getting the crescent falchion at 4-1 (you just need fight your way through a few skeletons and pick it up from the ground), it makes most of the early fights a *lot* easier. It's going to help a lot against the bosses in 2-1 and 2-2, if you haven't killed those yet.

[ghost]

Having my ass handed back to me against tower knight, trying to fight it in melee but having a hard time dodging the shield, any tips at all or should I not bother and go range?

Dive in straight at his feet and try to get behind him as quickly as possible.  Also, if you have turpentine it can add a little extra damage to him to help you out.  If you get hit you can always run up and heal out of sight of his ray.

[JWIV]

For those having issues in the worlds being PBT durring the event, it's apparently due to the online system shifting it back towards PWT.  You can resolve it by logging out and back into your game a few times (took me 3 or 4 tries).

In other news the Miralda fight proved me to just how useless armor was as she was one-shoting my TK.  After trying to fight her naked with him for awhile, I realized that the halberd was just not going to pass muster, so I switched over to my much better geared Royal and proceeded to crush crush crush her.   

[Le0]

finally managed to down the Tower Knight, after what must have been something like 10 trys.
I noticed you can't continue in 1-3 then cause the gate is cosed because I did not kill the archdemon? I proceeded with 2-1.

[Kageh]

Yes, you need to kill one of the "Archdemons" - one of the 2-3, 3-3, 4-3 or 5-3 bosses - to get past the 1-3 gate fog. 2-3 Dragon God is usually the easiest boss at this point.

[Le0]

So I've killed that spider boss in 2-1 and then continued on my journey, noticed that suddently I barely scratch mobs, is that normal? I'm using the winged spear +3, and those lava larva mobs or worm thing that pops out of the ground need quite a beating to die. Also I met a friendly guy that I can barely scratch as well and who throws me huge fireball that hurts plenty.

Shall I proceed with 3-1 or is this level supposed to be that hard? I mean with the number of larva and worms around it'll take me age to go thru there.

[Kageh]

The bearbugs are immune to most physical damage. You need magic based weapons to hit them, at this point this means either "crescent" or "blessed" ones, "moon" or "dragon" variety comes into play later. There's a crescent falchion on the ground at 4-1, and a blessed mace on the ground at 5-1. The falchion is the easiest to reach.

You could just as well ignore the bearbugs really, there's not much they drop (greystone splinters/chunks only I think) that you would need. Run past them and ignore them, and return later when you got a good magic weapon to wreck havoc.

The fireball guy is probably Black Phantom Scirvir, easiest tactic against him is to equip a purple flame shield and keep sidestepping his magic, he runs out of mana eventually and then he is an easy kill.

If you're having a hard time in 2-2, I'd say 3-1 is a tad more dangerous because you'll meet really nasty spellcasting/ranged stuff. 4-1 is probably easier for a melee fighter than 3-1 for leveling and grinding, because the enemies there are mostly melee.

[Le0]

Okay, so I wanted to try to get that magic falchion, I get to 4-1 and apparently right at the entrance there is a black phantom which takes ages to kill and heal himself to full mid fight. It's not an hard fight but very long. Apparently its because im Pure black tendancy cause of the halloween event? weird, anyway I'm not sure I can get past this guy without a magic weapon.

[ffc]

Yes, the Halloween event can make that black phantom appear at the beginning of 4-1.  If world tendency's haven't been reset then grab the mace in 5-1 Kageh mentioned.  I used that for a long time.

[Le0]

is the mace easy to find? I started 5-1 already died a few times and was just wondering ;)

[Kageh]

The guy at the start of 4-1 is Satsuki in black phantom form, I forgot about the pure black WTs now at Halloween. Aren't they shifting back to neutral again?

5-1 mace is somewhere on those endless scaffoldings, this is the best I can offer for a map:

http://www.geocities.jp/kouryakubo/ds/chart/chart025.html

The mace is at point 11 (yeah, I'm not kidding, this is how 5-1 looks).

[ffc]

That map brings back painful memories.  I think I figured out the mace path based on the map. 

[Morfiend]

One thing to note. I believe the Crescent Falchion is guarded by a Black Uchigatana Skeleton. That could be pretty rough for a new player.

[Kageh]

One thing to note. I believe the Crescent Falchion is guarded by a Black Uchigatana Skeleton. That could be pretty rough for a new player.

True, but you don't need to kill it, just pick the Falchion up and run away or die would do. The problem is that on PBWT there's at least Satsuki and a BP golden  skeleton on the stairs to fight through, and the BP skel is almost as much a pain as Satsuki.

Easiest route is probably to wait until the worlds drift back to white WT. Not sure how/when that will start. I checked over the weekend for online play, but my worlds were only reset to neutral, not PB. Do I need to do something specific?

[ffc]

I remember putting down a sniper's perch note on the spot where the archer skeleton stands on the first set of stairs in 4-1, and I think I did that because I sniped at the skeleton guarding the Falchion.  I could be mistaken.  My brain is still reeling from the deaths I suffered in 4-2.

[JWIV]

One thing to note. I believe the Crescent Falchion is guarded by a Black Uchigatana Skeleton. That could be pretty rough for a new player.

True, but you don't need to kill it, just pick the Falchion up and run away or die would do. The problem is that on PBWT there's at least Satsuki and a BP golden  skeleton on the stairs to fight through, and the BP skel is almost as much a pain as Satsuki.

Easiest route is probably to wait until the worlds drift back to white WT. Not sure how/when that will start. I checked over the weekend for online play, but my worlds were only reset to neutral, not PB. Do I need to do something specific?

You have to log in and out of the server a few times to kick it fully over to PBWT.  It apparently has something to do with the online drift towards white as people kill the demons and such.

[Le0]

Thanks guys, I'll get that damned mace I swear. I met my first giant goblin in 5-1 and he handed my ass back to me, but I'll get it sometimes.

Also I was wondering, for a melee char, what weapon do you focus on upgrading?

[Kageh]

For a regular str/dex melee guy, probably Quality Knight Sword and a good shield. If you have high magic, Moon Winged Spear or the Moon Broadsword. High wisdom, anything Blessed.

I usually pick either Crescent Falchion or Blessed Mace and stick with them.

Things that I tried and which were also nice: Upgraded "Gripless"/"Hiltless", Meat Cleaver - although so slow it is a real PITA to use, Moon Kilij - awesome animations and attack speed, the flame rapier from 3-1 (forgot the name). Not to forget a good bow is half the win if you know how to snipe!

Things that I was disappointed with: most uniques, the extra large swords - too slow the arc of attack is too large for narrow corridors, rapiers in general - hit box too narrow and target lock is almost always needed, crossbows - no stat scaling.

But all of that pales if you want to bother with getting pure white character tendency, because you can then use Demonbrandt which you get from Old King Doran in 1-1, after you reach Ostrava at 1-4 (it sounds complicated but once you meet Ostrava at 1-4 you'll know what I mean). I think at about 60% white character tendency, which you can get for killing 3 named NPC BPs, Demonbrandt outdamages pretty much everything in that level range. And once you finish the game and can fuse Demonbrandt and Soulbrandt to form North Regalia, it gets even better.

[Morfiend]

Thanks guys, I'll get that damned mace I swear. I met my first giant goblin in 5-1 and he handed my ass back to me, but I'll get it sometimes.

Also I was wondering, for a melee char, what weapon do you focus on upgrading?

I went with the Uchigatana as my main weapon. They are really nasty if you plan on going with a decent amount of Dex.

My character concept was sort of a ninja I guess. I used the Uchigatana and the Lava bow with only a small amount of magic, namely for Light Wepaons and anti magic field for PVP. I also use the Dark Silver Shield, as being anti magic, thats what hurt me a lot.

In the Asian game a lot of the PKs where magic users. It was really funny to have one invade come running up and not be able to cast and just stand there as I rip them apart. A +5 Tearing Uchigatana with Light Weapon enchant can kill another player around level 200 with one backstab.

[ffc]

In general I like my halberd because of the different types of attacks it has.  The one-hand attack has good range and sweep while switching to two-hands lets me slash downward and out which is great in tight spaces or for geckos.  The strong attack on each is like an aoe. 

The most disappointing has been the Hand of God.  Cool name, cool description, cool strength and faith combo.  But the damage just isn't there and there is no range or downward attack.  However the left hand parry and headbutt knockdowns are cool.

[ghost]

I found the Uchigatana required a lot of repairs.  Personally, I prefer the good old Quality Winged Spear for a weapon.  Seems to do the trick in most instances and you get the added benefit of being able to attack while your shield is up.

My path through the worlds is typically as follows:  1-1, 1-2, 2-1, 3-1, 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, 2-2, 2-3, 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 3-2, 3-3, 1-4
I found this to be easiest for a lot of reasons, including the fact that it allows you to power up for maneater and flamelurker, two of the harder bosses, IMO.  I also recommend doing level 3-3 offline the first time, as you never really know what you're going to go up against with the online version of the fight.

[Kageh]

I wanted to play a bit on line yesterday, and decided to help people with Flamelurker. So, I put my blue stone at 2-2 entrance, get summoned a few times, here's the rundown:

1.) First guy goes straight right and starts aggroing every miner with his flaming longsword of crap, doing about 20 damage on each hit. We get swarmed by the miners, I die. I get a rating of "D"
2.) Second guy summons me, takes a right, runs through, falls down the pit in the wrong place. I get a "D" rating, again.
3.) Third guy is in full brushwood (I assume at level 30-odd), but we make it to Flamelurker. He tanks - manages not to die - we kill him, I get an "A" - yay me.
4.) This is guy no. 1.) again - takes a right, aggroes every miner. We kill them, he takes a plunge in the pit, dies. I get a "D" again!

So right now, if you summon me, I suck!

[stray]

Thanks guys, I'll get that damned mace I swear. I met my first giant goblin in 5-1 and he handed my ass back to me, but I'll get it sometimes.

Also I was wondering, for a melee char, what weapon do you focus on upgrading?

I went with the Uchigatana as my main weapon. They are really nasty if you plan on going with a decent amount of Dex.

My character concept was sort of a ninja I guess. I used the Uchigatana and the Lava bow with only a small amount of magic, namely for Light Wepaons and anti magic field for PVP. I also use the Dark Silver Shield, as being anti magic, thats what hurt me a lot.

In the Asian game a lot of the PKs where magic users. It was really funny to have one invade come running up and not be able to cast and just stand there as I rip them apart. A +5 Tearing Uchigatana with Light Weapon enchant can kill another player around level 200 with one backstab.

I think I'm a magic user technically, but curious if I could get taken out easily with a katana like that. I haven't dealt with PK's yet. Maybe soon though now that the game has been out (haven't logged in lately).

But anyhow, I'm still magic, but I've got Vinland's shield and wear half plate/half cloth. Need a little more END, but atm, I'd rather half-ass the armor so I can dodge and roll better. I'd turn on the total protection spell to make up for it.

Speaking of weapons, the Crescent Falchion is a godsend for a hybrid character like mine. It hits hard and fast. I get a lot of use out of it even as a mage, but in PvP, I'm sure my first choice would be plague or firestorm.

[Morfiend]

But anyhow, I'm still magic, but I've got Vinland's shield and wear half plate/half cloth. Need a little more END, but atm, I'd rather half-ass the armor so I can dodge and roll better. I'd turn on the total protection spell to make up for it.

Just FYI, if you mean the Dark Silver Shield, that works like the ring of magical dullness. So while it has fantastic magic protection, it also reduces the damage you do with magic. Might want to look at the Purple Flame Shield.

[Ard]

So right now, if you summon me, I suck!

Put your stone down outside Flamelurker's room instead of the entrance then.  That way at least only the tards who can actually make it down there can summon you.

[JWIV]

Atlus just posted this up:

Dearest Customers,

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve received reports from owners of the Deluxe Edition of Demon’s Souls that some copies of the Official Strategy Guide were experiencing unusual cover ink wear/fading.

While it seems that not every copy of the guide is affected, and the specific cause of the issue remains unclear, Atlus always strives for nothing less than the full satisfaction of our customers. Therefore, we will soon launch a program to replace defective strategy guides.

Stay tuned for details on when the program will begin and specific steps on how to submit your replacement request. We can say at this time that we will ask customers to mail in their cover and the first page of their guide as proof of purchase, leaving them with a usable book while we process their replacement claim. Full instructions will be posted next week.

Thank you for supporting us and making Demon’s Souls such a big hit. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue has caused, but fear not: we’ve got you covered (pun intended).

This message is also posted in the Atlus forums http://atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5072

[stray]

But anyhow, I'm still magic, but I've got Vinland's shield and wear half plate/half cloth. Need a little more END, but atm, I'd rather half-ass the armor so I can dodge and roll better. I'd turn on the total protection spell to make up for it.

Just FYI, if you mean the Dark Silver Shield, that works like the ring of magical dullness. So while it has fantastic magic protection, it also reduces the damage you do with magic. Might want to look at the Purple Flame Shield.

I have the purple flame shield too. Actually that was my main shield. Thanks for the heads up though.

[Le0]

I'll reroll my melee guy because I made a few mistakes and now that I'm more confident I'd like to restart.
I'm planning on full melee and only get Evacuate because its a nice spell.

I'm going to get the purple flame shield(Would there be an alternative to the purple flame shield?) with the winged spear, upgrade it to quality eventually. As for magic weapon either the falchion or the blessed mace, the mace seems to be better for full melee type since it has a moderate bonus from str/dex. I'll be using the Black Leather armor for freedom of movement and of course the Compound long bow for ranged fighting.


Thing I'm not too sure about is stat distribution, I'd like to not waste too many points in stuff that's not really usefull. Also I want to put some point in luck since 7 is quite low for my taste. Shall I focus on str/dex, or mainly str and a bit of end/vit or any other combination? What is a good value for luck? I'd like some advice on this please!

[Elerion]

A good value for luck is the minimum value.

Almost every drop that matters is unaffected by luck. You could make a case for stones I suppose, but you'd need a serious amount of stone drops to make up for all those wasted stats. Resists are better handled with gear.


If I was making a pure melee character I'd probably just pump either str or dex to 99, adding in vitality as needed to avoid oneshots.

[Le0]

Well since I'm planning to go for at least a few trophies I'll need to farm quite a few stones, so luck will come into play. I don't plan to put too many points in it tho. Also I found myself often out of herbs cause I had a serious case of suckage and apparently luck helps with herbs drops so it can't hurt either, it's souls not spent stupidly on healing item.

One more question since I'm thinking about getting the meat cleaver, I noticed it can be made from several weapons. For example if I make it from a club can it be 1hand? On wiki it is listed as 2h-Blunt.

[Kageh]

The only stone that you really need luck to farm for, and even then is an unbelievable PITA, is the perfect Bladestone, which only drops from the dual katana skeletons/BP dual katana versions AFAIK. Other stones you'll have plenty of after a playthrough.

I've read horror stories from people with luck in the 30s using Sword of Searching and in PBWT, needing hundreds of tries for a perfect bladestone, so I'm not sure how luck comes into play really. 7 is usually enough for most things.

[ffc]

One more question since I'm thinking about getting the meat cleaver, I noticed it can be made from several weapons. For example if I make it from a club can it be 1hand? On wiki it is listed as 2h-Blunt.

Starting item doesn't affect final item.  Use the item with the cheapest upgrade path unless you are using a particular item you like as you upgrade.