So this is a quick discussion of how to get to and fight the Executioner's Chariot boss fight.

Start at the 2nd Huntsman's Copse bonfire. Go outside and cross the big bridge. The goal is to go to the ledge overlooking the earlier parts Wof the Copse on the left when you finish crossing that bridge. Two bow-wielding and three sword wielding hollows (I think these in particular are called bandits) will attack you. Now roll off of that ledge. A much much smaller bridge will be to your left. When you cross it two more sword hollows and a whip weilding big hollow will attack you. The whip wielder is the true danger here, and they can do bleed so be careful of them from now on.

Once all 3 of those are dead climb up the path to enter a small canyon? kind of thing. You should be able to pick up the notched whip somewhere in this area, but I am not sure if it's on the main path or not. If you pass the entrance to the canyon on your left, it is possible more bandit hollows will attack you, but they shouldn't aggro unless you miss it ( I think the whip is down that way though on second though). The notched whip does natural bleed damage and can be quite the menace if leveled up with reinforcement.

When you get to the dead tree, wait there. Another bleed guy will attack you. From here on in, there will be bleed guys standing on top of 3 more poles (the 1st was standing on top of the nearest poll and getting to the tree aggros him). Proceed forward very slowly and back off once you've aggrod one. If you aggro them one at a time they will fight you one at a time, but if you aggro 2 at any point then they will all be aggrod (I don't get it but it just works that way).

On second observation I think the bleed guys are carrying some sort of broom or tree branch and not a whip, but they still have amazing range and just.... 4 on 1 is a pain I'll say that (if not a death sentence).

Once you've killed all 4 that is the last of the respawning enemies. Across the bridge is the Undead Purgatory and the boss fog. The first time you come here a red phantom will attack you in front of the boss fog. Like all red phantoms, he has almost infinite stamina so blocking him is a terrible idea and he can just do tons of damage if he gets you once.

There are some minor items all around this area (and maybe some major ones but I haven't checked yet), but most of them involve you getting into a spot where you NEED a homeward bone to get out of there without just jumping off of a cliff, so..... if you want this stuff wait until after beating the boss and getting the boss's bonfire afterwards.


Executioner's Chariot boss fight:

So this fight basically has two phases.

The first phase is the chariot running around the circle while skeletons and necromancers attack you. You have to get to the end to get to phase 2, and ..... it's a huge gauntlet sort of ordeal that just pisses me off honestly. Once you've killed both necromancers, it's possible to let the chariot kill the skeletons but it will take 3-4 hits per skeleton to do so so....... yeah they are annoying. It's common to die here just because skeletons trap you in a safe spot.

After all of this, you get to move to phase 2 where you fight the mutant horse that was pulling the chariot.

And....... I never got that far.

You see, there's an easier way. There is a sorcery known as yearn. Yearn makes some enemies attack it without paying any attention to you at all. It's a 4 cast spell, and basically you just throw out a ball of light that distracts enemies for like 3/4 of a minute or so.

The skeletons in this fight are very susceptible to this. So you can cast Yearn, run and kill the first necromancer, cast it a couple more times on the next two groups, and kill the second necromancer. The first necromancer will be in about the 3rd alcove on the left if you are going around clockwise, while the second necromancer will be close to the end in an alcove on the right. Once you've killed both necromancers, cast yearn the 4th and final time and there is a decent chance the chariot will kill all of the skeletons for you.

It's also possible to dodge under the chariot if you time it perfectly, but I've only done this when desperate and 3/4 of the time I take 2/3 of my health in damage (aka it didn't work).

Once the chariot is the only enemy left, find an alcove where you will have a decent view of it as it goes by. Then stand safely in the alcove and shoot it with arrows or spells as it goes by. The chariot will crash at about 1/4 of its health left. You will know when this happens because it won't show up the next couple times its supposed to. From there on you can go attack it once at range at your leisure to make the boss fall into the pit where it got stuck, ending the fight without ever having to face the actual boss in phase 2.

Once you've done all this, you will be able to join the Brothers of Blood if you have a token of spite (the one you can get from the Gutter actually counts for this) and you will also get to use the Undead Purgatory bonfire for easy access to the covenant. The skeletons and necromancers also should stop respawning.

And that's the optional Executioner's Chariot area and boss fight.

Um.... and that's one of three or four side diversions I have left to do before going off to the next main area (I'm trying to do cleanup). So I will probably post more here when I get to those.


Speaking of, the npc sells some very important items to you once you join (I think you have to join).

First of all, he sells 3 pyromancies including Firestorm. Um..... Firestorm is a pyromancy aoe that you can do as soon as you have a pyromancer's glove. It's very very powerful, especially after you've used all of the really easy fire seeds to upgrade to +4 (3 buyable ones and the one in the Rotten boss room). And well.... it's an aoe attack for melee characters.

You can also pay 20k souls for a ring that makes it easier for people to invade YOU. Which, if you want a challenge, is worthwhile.

And finally...... you can pay 5k souls for the Red Soapstone Sign. This sign makes it so that people who see your special red sign can summon and fight you in their world. It's like the co-op soapstones except they are voluntarily summoning you to fight. It's really more just for ****ing around with your friends, but still.....

This red sign also has two other uses. It lets the looking glass knight summon you for aid during that boss fight. Or pretend the boss has summoned you for some jolly old co-op. Your choice. But you are most likely trolling someone else something fierce if you really do this. So um..... you can ruin other people's boss fight fun.

And it lets you get summoned into the darkdiver areas by ... I don't know but it lets you troll people trying to do that covenant (especially since they need a human effigy per try as payment). Especially trolly if you get summoned during the Darklurker boss fight.

Edit: It's the bloodied whip that the bleed guys used. I finally got one of them to drop their weapon. The first one also seems to have some sort of staff.

Edit2: In case someone wants to go get a bunch, the bandit hollow things in Huntsman's copse seem to have flame butterflies as one of their drops. You NEED these for the darkdiver covenant and they make your life easier while doing some other things, so it's nice to always have some.

Oh and flame butterflies might be your only way to light a torch down where the lost sinner boss is, and since you kind of need a lit torch for that boss fight or it's much harder ... again maybe a good idea to stock up if you haven't gone to fight good ol' lost sinner boss yet.

Um.....

So I haven't actually been stupid enough to actively try to do it yet, but there is a covenant known as the Pilgrims of Dark.

You find and talk to a guy known as Darkdiver Grandahl at 3 locations. Each location has a Dark Chasm of Old Dungeon with abyssal phantoms as its guards. In each one is a brazier that you must light with a torch (pyromancy won't work), and you will need a flame butterfly for each of these.

You get to these dungeons by talking to grandahl, joining the covenant, and then giving him a human effigy to open the portal. Your first attempt is, of course, free. If you are in any of these dungeons, you can use a cracked red eye orb or red sign soapstone to invade the world of someone else, giving you a somewhat rare bonfire ascetic if you ruin their day.

And um...... once you light all 3 torches you get to fight the Darklurker boss. Once of the most frustrating bosses in the game imho even though I haven't gotten to do any of this yet. And um...... that's about it.

Oh yeah. You get a hex each time you level up this covenant. Climax is a unique hex Grandahl gives you for beating Darklurker (along with other minor rewards), and not only is it one of the best hexes (if you are willing to spend your own souls on it) but it is needed for the all hexes trophy needed to plat the game.

Darkdiver Grandahl can be found in a semi-hidden location in the Shaded Woods (shaded ruins), Black Gulch, and Drangleic Castle. The Drangleic location is most likely to be your first one since it's the most obvious and that's about the right time to start attempting these.

So right now, here's a little on the Grave of the Saints and the Doors of Pharros. Both areas are very similar.

The Grave area has a large number of very forgettable enemies and a possible ai invasion, while the Doors of Pharros just had a lot of forgettable enemies along with some giant elephant sentries. Both areas also had a bunch of Pharros Contraptions you could waste your lockstones in, although like 2 of them in Doors of Pharros were kind of worth it.

Each area finally has a boss at the end of it. After beating either boss, you can join the Rat Covenant. This means that you are given a ring that lets you pull invaders into your world in those areas from other people's games when they are traveling in those areas.

The Covenant also means that most of the enemies in both areas will not attack you, making the 2nd one you do (assuming you do the covenant) very easy to traverse and effectively just a boss fight. The npc who lets you join it sells some items, but nothing worth discussing. Sweet Shaquoir in Majula sells you boots that reduce falling damage for about 6000 souls once you've beaten both of them.



The boss of the Grave of the Saints is the Royal Rat Vanguard. You start in a room with infinitely respawning rat enemies. They can inflict poison on you ( or is it toxic?) with their attacks, and... they are basically the normal rat enemies you have seen up till now but in a very large group. Once you've killed ten, the boss will show up. The boss looks like every other rat and fights like them too, except he has a lot more health and a mohawk. And um..... once you kill the boss you are done. AOE spells, especially undead appease, are of extremely high use here, and it's a very fast fight if you are capable of getting several off or can keep locked onto the boss once you realize who it is (he doesn't have his own individual health bar when locked on either). And..... that's about it. Boss is relatively simple.


The Royal Rat Authority is the boss of the Doors of Pharros. And yes you still have to fight the 2nd boss if you beat either of them and join the covenant. His room starts with 4 rats you have to aggro. Once you aggro any of them, the boss will jupm down. He fights exactly like Sif from the previous game, albeit a little easier, and the main strategy is to kill off the 4 little guys with aoe before just tyring to stay under the Authority's stomach. He leaps around a lot, but aoe can also hit him multiple times very fast if you have high enough spell power and can land it at the right time. Finally, it's very easy to dodge his attacks with a 100% physical defense shield (like the Drangleic shield) and then roll under him. The only true danger is that he spits an acid puddle that literally make it freaking stupid to be anywhere near him, even under him, when he gets low on health and he starts to use this move quite a bit if you don't finish him off fast. Overall, it's another very easy fight that I did solo (did Vanguard solo too).


You can get toxic mist and acid surge from trading in the souls of these two bosses. In addition, you can get more Pharros Lockstones from the covenant in question. And..... well that's those two bosses and that covenant and frankly those smallish areas in a nutshell.

I do the co-op covenant today, so I have plenty of time to write something I've just been putting off.

A review of every spell I have gotten so far.

So first things first, I am going to assume you have enough attunement for 3 spell slots. If you don't you may have less casts but I don't see why you care about sorcery at that point.

The more attunement you have, the more casts you will have, although a lot of them increase very very slowly.

Sorceries:

Sorceries use staffs as a catalyst and inflict your normal magic damage. They are very versatile and there is a good sorcery for almost any single target use.

Soul Arrow - Requires 10 intelligence and has a base of 31 casts (if at least 3 slots). Frankly put? This is the first spell you get and for early game it is good. But once you get better spells you can almost never justify spots for this.

Great Soul Arrow - Requires 14 intelligence and has a base of 15 casts. For single target use, this is one of the best soul arrow spells. And it's available farely early on too. It's capable of dealing well over 200 or even 300 damage with one hit at mid-range intelligence levels, and the number of spell uses means this is always a good option. Slower to cast than a soul arrow, but not by much. The extra damage IS worth it.

Heavy Soul Arrow - Requires 12 intelligence. Does the exact same amount of damage as a soul arrow but is "heavier". This has a couple of uses but none practical enough to justify that you only get 21 uses out of what at a less "heavy" arrow gets 31 uses. Not really worth it ever. Slower to fire than the Great Soul Arrow.

Great Heavy Soul Arrow - A heavier version of the Great Soul Arrow with only 10 uses and an intelligence requirement of 16. Again, like it's non-great cousin not worth it. In addition, this is slow enough to be a real problem now.

Homing Soul Arrow and Heavy Homing Soul Arrow - Have intelligence requirements of 25 and 35 for 11 and 8 uses respectively. I'm just going to lump these together and say don't use them. The homing aspects are only useful versus enemies who know how to dodge. Do you know what that means? It means it's only really useful versus other players. Who..... know how to dodge this by now. And it does less damage than a soul arrow and heavy soul arrow. Literally just a niche thing that has had its niche disappear. The actual homing also just isn't that good frankly. If it can dodge a soul arrow it can most likely dodge this.

Shockwave - Does no damage but can knock enemies off of ledges. Really is just a shockwave in all directions. Has 3 uses and a 13 intelligence requirements. I have not found a single use actually worth running this yet, but I know some people use it to farm certain enemies by pushing single enemies off of ledges (I disagree with that being worth it but whatever). Not really combat viable ever.

Soul Spear Barrage - 3 uses with an intelligence cost of 17. Does a little more damage than great soul arrow (about 1/3 more) if you are at freaking point blank range. Mages don't want to be that close to people. Um...... not a good spell at all.

Soul Shower - The weaker AOE spell that does so little damage as to not even be close to worth it. 5 uses and 22 intelligence cost alone suggests this is underpowered for an aoe spell.

Magic Weapon and Great Magic Weapon - Buff your right hand weapon, making it do a lot more damage. 10 and 18 intelligence requirements with 8 and 3 uses respectively, only Great Magic Weapon gives you enough of a damage boost to make it worth it, and even then only versus a boss. It's too slow to cast in combat, meaning you have to cast these before going in and hope the timer doesn't run out on you at a bad time (like 90 seconds I think?).

Strong Magic Shield - 18 intelligence and 4 casts. Makes your shield absorb more damage but doesn't do crap for the stamina problem, which is the true reason shields have problems.... not worth it.

Yearn - Distracts enemies for about 60 seconds and crucial in the Executioner's Chariot boss fight. It's ... very good for getting past stubborn enemis. With 19 intelligence requirement and 4 uses, it's still kind of accessible and very much worth it IF YOU PLAN TO USE IT.

Fall Control - 15 intelligence requirement and 11 uses. It provides a buff that lets you survive a ton more falling damage. Very worth it in some areas, especiall when combined with the similar ring.

Repair - 15 intelligence requirement and 2 uses. Sounds great right? Um.... does not repair broken stuff so half the use gone right there. Also only repairs the thing in your other hand, not a bunch of stuff, so um...... nowhere near as good as it sounds.

Cast Light - The BEST way to navigate the gutter and black gulch. 14 intelligence requirement and 8 uses and it's just a very very good spell for dark areas.


Miracles:

Miracles have a lot to do with self-healing and such. The ones WITH offensive powers do lightning damage.

Heal - Very slow to cast. 3 uses for 12 faith. But it's like the equivalent of 1.5 estus flasks.

Med Heal - 2 uses for 18 faith. Like 2 estus flasks.

Great Heal Excerpt - 1 use for 14 faith. Like 1.5 estus flasks.

Great Heal - 3 use for 28 faith. Like 4.5 estus flasks.

In addition to being semi-good healing, all 4 of the above have a small aoe effect range that does just as much to allies as it does to the caster.

Replenishment and Resplendent Life - 16 and 25 faith to use. Heals yourself and only yourself a little more than the heal equivalents over time. 2 uses a piece, Resplendent Life requires 2 spell slots for its better use.

Caressing Prayer - 15 faith and 8 uses. Cures you and nearby allies of poison.

Force - 12 faith and 11 uses. Literally the same as shockwave but a miracle.

Emit Force - 20 faith and 4 uses. Actually more useful, this is a "forward - moving shockwave".

Force and Emit Force are the only miracles so far that do not have completely dreadfully long casting times.

Lightning Spear - Does a lot of lightning damage to the target. 3 uses for 22 faith.

Soul Appease - AOE that does MASSIVE damage to undead enemies but leaves all others untouched.

Magic Barrier - Increases your resistance to the 4 kinds of magic damage. 2 uses for 14 faith, it's ... slightly useful but not much?

Homeward - 18 faith and 1 use. What you really must ask yourself is do you want to use a spell slot on a reusable homeward bone? If yes then this great.

Guidance and Unveil - not even worth describing. Don't take either.




Hexes:

Scale with the lowest of your intelligence and faith but scale severely with it. So um...... yay? It's like mundane for spell users. All hexes do dark damage and they are designed to mimic the better sorceries and miracles. The biggest downside of these is that they seem to have less range and some of them cost souls to use.

Dark Orb - As much damage as a great soul arrow with a knockback and dark damage effect to boot, it's one of the best spells in game. 12 intelligence and 10 faith to use, but you get 21 casts!.

Dark Hail - I'm getting tired of typing at this point... don't use this.

Dark Fog - 25 intelligence, 14 faith, 4 uses, inflicts poison build up to anyone who sits in the cloud. Very useful against the ai.

Affinity - 40 intelligence and 24 faith,, 7 uses. It...... it fires multiple homing projectiles and fires more the higher your intelligence is (best at 60 intelligence). It.... frankly it's what homing soul arrow should have been and very good if you have the power to dedicate to such a thing.

Dead Again - 22 intel and 20 faith with 11 uses. Makes a corpse or corpses in the effect area combust violently doing lots of damage.

Dark Weapon - it's a dark version of great magic weapon.

Twisted Barricade - spell shield that completely deflects spells. 21 uses for 38 intelligence and 25 faith.

Scrpas of Life - don't use.

Darkstorm - very good aoe.

Resonant Soul Anything - Don't use any of these. They aren't worth the soul cost and frankly aren't as good as tons of other options.


Pyromancy -

Not governed by any stats, these do fire damage and do more damage the more reinforced your glove is.

Includes several form of fireball, several forms of aoe, poison mist, toxic mist, acid puddles, proximity mines, and multiple kinds of damage reduction. There is so much good stuff here that is so freaking powerful that I will say the only thing that has been a bad choice so far is the freaking Fire Whip.

There's not even...... pyromancy is so good that there's not even something bad to say about more than maybe 3 of them? Like the worst thing to say is that fireball, one of the weakest pyromancies, is only irrelevant because it's the soul arrow of pyromancies. I mean.... they could take the other 3 fireballs out of the game and people would consider using it at that point with high level gloves.

The Heirs of the Sun Covenant

Remember how Earthen Peak has two entrances, an upper and a lower one? Well when you are in Harvest Valley, right before you enter the upper one, you can make a left after killing the metalworker dude. On this path a dual sickle wielder the likes of those big guys from Huntsman's Copse who frankly feels out of place here.... okay the guy will either try to ambush you or be blocking your path. Another steelworker may or may not try to sneak up behind you as well. Once you've killed all enemies, continue into this cave. This leads you to the altar of the sun where you can kneel and join this particular covenant.

This covenant is very simple. The covenant's ring, the Sun Seal, will add 5% damage to your miracles while worn. While wearing it, your large soapstone signs will now be golden (didn't ever really notice it with the smaller ones and I haven't actually wasted a summon on one yet while trying to use this) and you will be summoned as a golden phantom. When you help someone beat a boss, if using the large soapstone sign you AND the host will both get a sunlight medal. You can offer these at the altar to rank up at 10, 20, and 30 medals rewarding you with the Sunlight Parma (a useless shield mostly), the Sun Sword, and the Sunlight Spear miracle at each respective rank up.

The shield, as stated, is not worth using.

The sword is heavier and has less base damage than the equivalent alternatives when you first get it. THAT BEING SAID, the sun sword has A/A/-/- scaling at sun sword + 10, meaning it will have A scaling with both str and dex. If you have a high level in both, it more than makes up for the poor initial stats and this sword becomes awesome in a quality build.

That being said, infusing it with an element of any kind, according to the wiki, will completely ruin most of the value of the thing by getting rid of a lot of the scaling, so this is one of those weapons where it is highly recommended you never infuse it.



The sunlight spear miracle is the most damaging single target miracle in the game. And frankly it might be the 2nd most damaging spell in the game at the faith levels required. That being said......... it requires a faith of 55 to use. Even if you are willing to dedicate a ring slot whenever you want to use it (there is a ring that gives you +5 faith), 50 faith is still a really freaking high bar that surpasses the diminishing returns point. And there are much better rings for the slot. Honestly though? People who are very dedicated to the faith path don't really have a better option. The spell that does the most damage outright is a single use hex that consumes all your souls while capping its damage at the 5000 soulds consumed mark, making it a very bad option imho. So this miracle honestly probably is the single most damaging GOOD spell in the game at high faith levels.



When you are at a low level, there really isn't an issue getting summoned with the Large Soapstone Sign. But at higher levels, the sign limits you to 250k soul memory higher hosts than the smaller one does. That being said, the Duke's Dear Freya is a really really good boss to get summoned for at any level, and it's very easy to farm all the medals you need by helping people with that relatively easy boss. At low levels, it's recommended you just go help people with the Covetous Demon or the Pursuer bosses.



So. Why do this covenant? Well..... the rank 2 and 3 rewards are actually worth it to begin with if you are willing to invest in using them. Although they conflict a little. But aside from that, the rank 3 miracle is needed for the "all miracles" trophy/achievement and this is one of three spells in the game that cannot be obtained any other way than doing it's covenant (4 of the high level covenant rewards can be bought from one of the merchants in NG++).

As a fun fact, the rank 2 reward for the Bell Keeper's covenant and the rank 3 reward for the Pilgrims of Dark covenant are the other 2 spells in question. Everything else can be found or purchased. The other troublesome items are some spells you need NG+ exclusive souls to trade for and some spells you cannot buy outside of their covenant until NG++ in Drangleic Castle.

First of all, general disclaimer. Jack is most likely stupid for trying to attempt this before beating the main game.

That being said, let's have some fun with dlc.

How to Access Crown of the Sunken King DLC

Step 1: Travel to the 2nd bonfire in Black Gulch. If you have not been to the second bonfire in Black Gulch, I am sorry you have not been following my guide (is this a guide at this point?) OR you have not gotten that far into the game yet.

As a reminder, Majula -> The Pit (what I have learned is the formal name of the well) -> Grave of Saints (optional if you pay 12000 souls for the ladder after beating Iron Keep) -> The Gutter -> Black Gulch.

If you have not gotten to the second bonfire of Black Gulch, frankly just due your best to get to where you fought the Rotten and go to the primal bonfire. Past it is a really freaking obvious monolith just screaming "Examine Me".

If you have not beaten the Rotten, well then congratulations. You have a fun journey ahead of you. Go beat the Rotten and then come back. We can wait.



Step 2: After examining the obelisk statue thing in the Rotten's primal bonfire room, you will be transported to another eerie looking room. Spoiler Alert: The area ahead is well lit.

If you posses the Dragon Talon (an item you get for installing the dlc), you can use the door ahead to access Shulva Sanctum City. Continuing onward a dragon will scare the **** out of you and then you will get to access the first bonfire. And may I just say? Welcome to the first dlc.


Shulva - Sanctum City

Welcome to the first of five areas in this dlc. You have been warned. The enemies hear take about 100-120 damage when I am doing about 200 - 250 to enemies around Drangleic Castle. So that's about how more difficult you can expect this FIRST area to be.

But before we begin, look around. You are in a very large underground cavern with a very large temple and an underground city. Aren't those waterfalls pretty? They are very good at making vista's in this game. Now let's go see if we can get down there.

Down the steps is an old growth balm. Do not go past that, because there's no point. It's obviously a room that will be used for some sort of shortcut later, but for right now it's just going to be a harmless dead end (unless you want to go bottomless pit diving). Instead follow the other path from the bonfire and you will meet your first soldier enemy. If you can beat him without much trouble you are prepared for what comes, at least in this area.


Now. Let three things be known.

1) The sheer number of summoning signs around here while I was human scared the **** out of me somewhat. That's always a bad sign.

2) The enemies can't be stunned (godlike poise), have about 800 health a piece, take 7 hits to down most of the time, INFLICT POISON, and aggro in groups.

3) The initial group of 10 enemies convinced me I would have to literally clear this area to go forward for now, so I left it alone at about this point in time.


How to Access Crown of the Old Iron King DLC and First Impressions

First things first, unlike the first dlc with 5 areas this one only seems to have 3 areas according to wikis.

The other dlc proved too hard for now, but I'm a glutton for punishment, so let's do the same thing. So this time instead of a dragon talon, you get some sort of key. Same thing otherwise. You just go to the Old Iron King's primal bonfire, and past it is another obelisk.



So um...... WOW. They make you go through fog but I'm not sure why to enter this area. And...... that is a knock out gorgeous view. And..... I did not expect this area. I kind of expected the other area from context of sunken and underground and such. But the lava lake and crap didn't prepare me for this.

So um....... frost covered castle in an arctic looking mountain range. If you thought the Iron Keep made no geographical sense in relation to Earthen Peak? You were completely right. If you think this makes even less geographic sense? You are also right. If you believe none of us truly cares about that? Third times the charm you are right again.

You climb up a small tower and get a smelter wedge from a literally frozen corpse. Well actually 6 of them. These will be extremely important. Then you get to climb a large iron chain to the top part of the snow-covered keep. There you will find a bonfire. WELCOME my friends, to Brume Tower.

As you walk forward, a volcano like demon will come out of the ground. This is an ashen idol. And fire will erupt, scaring the everliving **** out of jack. And you can walk up to it between eruptions to shove a smelter wedge into it. You will then get a fragment of the soul of the bride of ash. And....... there are 12 in total of these fragments. 1 from a boss, 11 from idols. There are 11 smelter wedges from 3 locations. You do the math. And make sure to save 3 smelter wedges or the boss fight in question will be almost impossible according to the wiki.

If you down the stairs behind where the idol was, you can get the Dexterity Ring. So far this dlc isn't that bad. And you guessed it. It raises your dexterity by 5, making it the equivalent of the Rings of Knowledge and Prayer for this stat.

It is at this point in time that you are going to take a hint and put on any Flame Quartz Ring you might have in at least 1 of your slots.

Going down from the first idol leads you on a linear path. Go down to the center and get the old growth balm from the corpse.

Then jump down to the ledge you can actually survive the fall to.

And when you go outside, you will ehar some evil whispering. This is the point, where as I type this, I am worried about an ashen idol ambush. Let's see shall we?

Oh. It's just a dude dual wielding halberds with 1500 health susceptible to taking 150 damage from my Great Soul Spear at 40 intelligence. Not the easiest thing in the world, but not that bad. Loot the corpse for a twilight herb.

As I went down the snowy path, 3 of those guys bum-rushed me and this is where I decided to save this dlc for a little later.

And that right there is the first impressions of both dlc out so far. Moral of the story? Level up before going for a visit.

So I know people are enjoying reading this, but has anyone actually used it for something more than that? I'll keep doing it either way I guess but I'm just curious.

While we are here, here is every ring I've had so far and what I think of them. Every ring should theoretically have a +1 and even possibly a +2 variant that does it's job better. That being said, you can't equip two rings from the same series at the same time, so once you get the +1 the lower variants aren't useful any more.

Since I want to be accurate, some of the stats will come from fextralife.com's dark souls 2 wiki, and I want to give them all due credit.


Ring Reviews So Far

Ring of Steel Protection - Increases Physical Defense. One of my staples, good in almost every area under the sun and I never take the +1 of this off. According to the wiki at fextralife.com, the variants add 50, 75, and 100 points to your defense. My physical defense is 85 before putting on the one that adds 75 to it, meaning this ring can almost double your physical defense. Very very good.

The Quartz Rings - These are special somewhat. Because each one has a +3 variant in some form in the dlc areas. Each variant adds 50, 80, 100, and 150 defense onto the area in question, and there are magic, flame, lightning, and dark variants. Again, my defenses for magic, fire, lightning, and dark are 160, 156, 155, and 152 WITH tons of stat upgrades in the areas that cause these to get upgraded, so these are very very good even for high magic builds.

Bite Rings - Only go to +1, these rings add 150 and 300 resistance onto whatever category you choose respectively for different variants. These rings exist for poison, bleed, and curse.

Ash Knuckle Ring - Adds more petrification resistance. I don't know how much because none of the wikis seem to say. But I assume it would be around the same as a bite ring. Only the base ring exists.

All 4 of these rings are very very good for the areas where you expect to see these status conditons, and again they are staples.

Ring of Faith, Ring of Prayer, Ring of Dexterity - Adds 5 points onto the respective stat. These..... aren't that good. That being said, the one major use I ever got out of any of them is that they effectively reduce all requirements by 5 for whatever category the ring you are using is in. So for example the sunlight spear with the ring of faith can be used at 50 faith instead of 55.

Ring of Blades - The variants give you 20, 35, and 50 bonus physical attack. Not really worth it ever.

Red and Blue Tearstone Rings - Increase your physical attack and defense respectively when your health is very low. These are glass cannon rings in which I want to ask you why you are employing glass cannon crap in Dark Souls 2? You will die.

Ring of Giants - Increases Poise. None of the variants do it enough to ever make it worth wearing. If you already have large amounts of poise, this isn't needed. If you don't, this won't help at all.

Old Leo Ring - Counter attacks with thrusting weapons do more damage? It's such a niche thing that again it's not that useful. I mean.. you have to be able to parry reliably and/or backstab reliably to make this work. When it says counter attacks it really means critical hits for the most part.


Ring of Life Protection - Breaks when you die. BUT you don't lose your human status or any of your souls. And they can be repaired for 3000 souls a pop. If you are deep in the depths of mordor and afraid of losing all your souls since you have like 50k of them for some stupid reason, then this thing is a lifesaver (and yes Jack has been there). You even get two of them very easily.

Lingering DragonCrest Ring - "Extends Spell Effect". 15%, 25%, and 40% increase according to the wiki. So um..... these are useful for two things. Magic Weapon and all it's other elemental and crystal and whatnot variants. And AOE attacks. If you want to use either of those, this might be a good choice. If not, don't pick these.

Clear BlueStone Ring - Shortens casting times. Did not do enough for me to ever get me to use it. Frankly? Staple rings are almost always just better.

Southern Ritual Band - Variants let you attune an extra 1, 2, or 3 spells. Um..... the latter two variants are worth the slot but the first isn't. If you really NEED that 1 slot then you aren't focusing on spells anyways. 2 and 3 are actually useful for people focusing on spells. That's the difference.

Ring of the Evil Eye - "Absorb HP from each defeated foe". Never does enough to be used instead of just a damage reduction ring. I mean.. nope. Never gets used at all.

Ring of Restoration - Gradually Restores Hp according to the game. THIS IS VERY VERY SLOW. So slow that it's not for use in combat. BUT. It means that a very very very patient person, much more patient than Jack, can save a lot of estus flasks going through an area at the expense of their time and sanity.

Ring of Binding - One of the best rings in the game. And you never even need to dedicated a slot to it. While equipped, your health never goes below 75% due to hollowing (I think it stops curse too once you hit 75% but not sure). Furthermore, if you quickly equip, exit the menu, then unequip it, your max health rises to 75% and you can use an estus flask to make up the difference.

Silvercat Ring - Severely reduces falling damage and is a lifesaver.

Redeye Ring - Easier for enemies to detect you, it can let you aggro them from a little farther out and it lets you piss off the boss during jolly old coop to make it easier on your friends.

Name - Engraved Ring - A very complicated Ring that in short makes it much easier to connect with people you know irl in the game.

White Ring - Look like a white phantom. Um..... cool aesthetic but a waste of a slot.

Ring of Whispers - A little easier to detect foes and you can get help from Manscorpion Tark. Very niche but essential for that one boss fight.


Covenant Rings - For the most part, these just all let you do your covenant activities at will. That being said, you can wear them even when not in the covenant and some of them have a small bonus on top of that.

Rat - Increases poison buildup inflicted a little.
Sun - Miracles do a little more damage.
Bell Keepers - nothing
Blue sentinels - nothing
Blue Seal - get an extra 3% hp on top of the summoning help when invaded by red phantoms thing
Blood Covenant - related to no covenant activities at all and instead adds 50 bleed damage to all bleed weapons

None of them except the rat and blood ones are even worth considering outside of their covenant uses, and for their covenant uses you know exactly what you are doing with that anyways.


And that's all the rings I can review so far.

So Boss Soul Spells are awesome and Boss Soul Weapons almost universally suck until completely upgraded, which requires 15 of a rare item.

But here's how you start trading in Boss Souls

There are two npc's that will let you trade in Boss Souls.

The first is Straid. He is the petrified npc in front of the 4th bonfire in the Lost Bastille. Do you remember that bridge you had to cross to get to Sinner's Rise while people fired arrows at you? Well the building on the other side of the bridge from Sinner's Rise has said bonfire on its second floor. The first thing to do when you use the bonfire is to kill all of the exploding mummies in the room 12 more times so you will never have to deal with them again.

Straid does two things. He trades you weapons and/or spells for about 1200 to 5k souls and a boss soul for each of the lesser boss souls. You can get some really neat weapons this way, and the spells are awesome as stated, but a lot of the weapons will require intensive upgrading to be good and that's very time consuming. They will also most likely be above your current stat levels requirement wise.

Second, he sells most of the really good spells in the game that aren't sold down in the Undead Crypt. Clear him out of his inventory as soon as possible to get a very good start on your spell collection.



The second NPC is Ornifex. Across from the Shaded Ruins bonfire in Shaded Woods, on the other side of the tree bridge you use to get back to the bonfire, is a petrified lion clan warrior. If you unpetrify and then kill him (he does not seem to respawn), you will get the Fang Key. Now. Go to the trapdoor spot on the way to the boss and actually fall down into the trap. Kill the 5 basilisks that attack you BEFORE opening the door so they can't kill this important npc. Then open the door to talk to Ornifex and Receive an Estus Flask Shard for your troubles. Ornifex can then be talked and traded with down in her cave next to the QuickSand pit near the 3rd bonfire down in tseldora.

She is more expensive, but she trades you the late game boss soul weapons and spells.

There is also a flame buttefly and pharros lockstone in her room if you haven't been there yet, and she will give you her first trade for free unlike Straid who is nowhere near as grateful.

Finally, she sells a homing soulmass spell you haven't seen before, as well as infinite flame butteflies for 600 a pop, and infinite fire arrows and fire bolts if you can afford them. She's basically a blacksmith I guess too?

The souls I had the ability to trade to her (I could not afford to do all of them) right now were the Lost Sinner's Soul, the Freya Soul, the Iron King Soul, the Old Dragonslayer soul, and the Rotten's Soul. Everything else so far gets traded to Straid.

And that is what you do with your gathered boss souls in Dark Souls 2. My final advice? Always go for the spell if there is a choice between one and a weapon. You can get the weapon on your next playthrough.

Drangleic Castle

Since the dlc has had adequate time to scare the **** out of me, it's time for this to scare the **** out of me.

Start at the forked ruins bonfire in the shaded woods and go left this time. If you haven't killed him before there is a non-respawning flexile sentry on this path. There are also like a dozen poison dudes. Once you finally get to the door to the Shrine of Winter, there are some items scattered around the relatively safe entrance area including a relatively hidden Repair Spell on the other side of the collapse. You will also notice something that looks like the dlc sconces and now I would be willing to bet that is the entrance to the 3rd dlc.

Anyways, heading forward you will start to ascend some steps. 3 royal swordsmen will attack you at range in this cave and then switch to melee. That's the massive IT of all the enemies in the Shrine of Winter that I remember. Past this, you will find a storm shrouded castle (very epic) up a long set of stairs. This is Drangleic Castle. Two giant elephant guard things will attack you on these stairs. Before going up to face them, talk to the emerald herald for words of encouragement? Then try not to die against the two very tough but easily kiteable enemies. To the right of the castle entrance is a pyromancy chest. To the left are infinitely respawning enemies in addition to the normal ones. The idea of this area is to trick the souls into going into the containers in front of the castle.

Um..... the front doors just opened for me the second time around so I have no idea how to actually do this.


Anyways, up the main stairs will be a ghostly merchant who sells some really good miscellania and in NG++ he will sell some covenant reward spells. Past him is the throne room with nothing important yet.

Behind the stairs will be some tough enemies with shields and some more of the semi-tough cannon fodder enemies from outside. The door at the end of the hallway on the left is a dead end. The ones in the middle don't open, at least not yet. The one to the right has some enemies behind it (the non shield dudes can be stunned btw) and a ladder down. Go through both sets of double blue doors one after the other to access your first bonfire in forever and one of the most welcome ones I have ever seen.

Outside of the bonfire chamber, down and to the left, is another large door you can't open yet (you need the king's ring).

Um...... the room to the right is very dangerous. The back left door has the area going to Dark Diver Grandahl The bottom right door has the way forward. The other 4 have a ruin sentinel (that RESPAWNS !!!!!) and only 3 of them have a treasure. And frankly? Only the treasures on the right side are even remotely worth pissing these guys off? And even then? Not really.


Um....... a couple of things for the next few areas.

1 - Don't play in acid swamps.
2 - The masks shoot poison darts.
3 - The knights will gang up on you.
4 - The shield guys do have a lightning attack.
5 - The large painting of a woman has a curse effect that builds VERY QUICKLY at close range but is almost useless at anything but. Don't go near it.
6 - An invader npc will invade you. Very susceptible to magic stun. Don't block once again.

Oh and there's a ladder going down in the outside area. On the ledge it leads you to one of the inner walls is secret leading to a bonfire.

REST AT THIS BONFIRE to skip some hard areas from now on.

Forward, along the main path, you can talk to the queen and then you get to fight the Twin Dragonriders.

So. The one on the ledge has 1400 health while the one on the ground has 3800 health. They are identical except once one of them takes a lot of damage he will leap down and join the fight.

So. I don't care what you have to do. Kill the guy on the ledge first. With him gone, this is literally the DragonRider boss from Heidi's.


After that on the main path you will come to another bonfire. Congratulations. You are halfway through Drangleic Castle .

The rest of Drangleic Castle

So a few things:

1) Due to it being very linear and me taking too long to try to write this, I can't right much about the 2nd half of Drangleic Castle except for saying that it's just really more of the same. You come to this room where you have to get one of the soul giant thigns to lift up another bowl, and this causes an elevator to appear. Blah blah blah, you ride the elevator up to get some good loot including a fire seed and the key to the boss door. The elevator room is negligibly close to the bonfire so you don't even have to worry about dying after doing the bowl thing which is really really close to the room. Um... most of the rest of the 2nd half of the castle is you just trying to get all the random treasure chests lying around before you die, along with you trying to get to a bonfire. Any bonfire. The big door in the elevator room opens with the key you got in the enemy-less room above, and you get to enter the Passage of Kings.

A bunch of statues will come to life and attack you randomly, but they aren't that much worse here than other enemies in the castle. And..... then there's the boss fog. And you get to fight the looking glass knight.

He fights like most other human - shaped bosses in the game. Like...... literally. There are two major things you have to worry about. First, he can summon a giant lightning spear and then swing or throw it. Second, he can use red sign soapstone signs to summon invaders into your world to help him. Assuming they are available.

After he is defeated, which is another mostly negligible fight 3 on 1 or even not that bad 1 on 1, you get to move on to the Shrine of Amana. And then Jack leaves to do jolly coop because the Shrine of Amana is known as the hardest area period.

2) Buying the dlc **** up your bonfire teleportation screen so that you can now see every single bonfire you haven't accessed yet as a big question mark you still can't access. Semi - Useful, but I don't think as planned.

Oh. And I have a new co-op rule for hosts. It's rude to summon people if you have no healing items left and can't survive against the boss for at least 5 minutes in that state. Just because the people you summoned can kill the boss singlehandedly does not mean they are miracle workers. If you can't stay out of the lava. IF you have a penchant for acid. If you cannot dodge the laser beam. If you cannot back off if you are about to die in order to ...... not die while people finish off the boss without you. If any of that is a problem, do not call for help. It just..... it's an extension of don't call for help if you have no idea what you are doing. You are wasting the time of other people.

When chatting about DLC or Expansions you should include the name of the original game as well for those not in the know.

I mean, theres always Google, but people are lazy...

Dont call for help if you dont know what you're doing?

I want you to read that as many times as it takes until you realise how dumb it is.

The whole point of co-op summons in Dark Souls is to give you the edge you're lacking. Whether it be class based, knowledge based or skill based is irrelevant. Co-op exists to ask for help when you need it.

Your attitude here is a huge part of the issue within the Dark Souls community and their 'get gud' mindset, and why new players find it such an alienating experience.

The whole point of the post in question was to say "Don't summon help if help isn't going to actually help you."

If you cannot survive against the boss no matter how hard you try with 2 other people distracting it, you need to practice before summoning people. And there is nothing wrong with saying that. There is no "get gud" mentality about it. You are wasting other people's time and resources in a situation where you know your chances of success are very poor. Every time you summon someone and fail to kill the boss, you are eating up 10-30 minutes of their time that could have been a successful run.

Now I am not saying don't summon people if you need help. I am not saying don't summon people if you can't survive against the boss by yourself. I am saying that if you cannot survive a long period of time with 2 other players serving as a distraction, then it's better for everyone involved if you practice before summoning anyone. Because you are never going to have a successful attempt at that skill level. No matter how good they are, co-op phantoms cannot play the game for you and they cannot force you to not take damage no matter how much they would like to.

An extremely good example is the Duke's Dear Freja fight. The host is always through the boss fog about 10 seconds before their phantoms. They are going to walk into close range of 6 spiders with 200 health a piece. The boss about 10 seconds in is likely to fire a laser. If they cannot survive that long enough for other people to get through the boss door, they should practice before summoning people. Because co-op can't help you there.

The same if you don't know how to dodge the major fire attacks of the Old Iron King. If you don't know the safe spots in the arena, at least generally, you WILL get knocked into the lava when he spams 3 or 4 of them in a row if you don't die from outright damage. No one can help you there.

And so on. It's okay to get help. But you should make sure the help will actually be capable of helping you.

And yes. If you are completely out of healing items, and you only have about a quarter of your health left, and you know this means YOU WILL DIE, then co-op won't help you there.

Now I have seen runs where someone who knows how to dodge 90% of the boss's attacks went in with no healing items and succeeded. It is totally possible for you to not have a single estus flask between the 3 of you and still walk away without a single one of you being vanquished. I HAVE SEEN IT. But it involves fights where you get hit maybe 3 times total between the 3 of you. Not fights where the host takes 3 hits within the first 30 seconds and then it's just over.

Furthermore? It's just plain good advice for the host. Human Effigies are so rare that you cannot afford to waste them on this stuff. You want to talk about offputting to new players? The game gives you maybe 20 human effigies before Drangleic Castle? What happens if you start wasting them on completely meaningless boss attempts where you have 0% chance of success? The game just gets harder and harder. It is EXTREMELY common for people, even veterans, to waste all of their human effigies trying to do one boss fight over and over and over and never succeeding because they haven't learned to dodge its moves yet. I pm people a lot in this game. And my advice is always going to be to make sure you at least have a chance of winning with 3 people before using an effigy.

And on the flip side of the coin, many many players use summoning someone else or being summoned to learn that fight. Because there are times when being the only focal point of the enemies wrath leaves you so reactionary that you arent taking anything in. You arent noticing that little flair just before they swing, that blind spot behind you where you'd be perfectly safe has gone unnoticed because you cant afford to take your eyes off the boss. The little trick you dont know because you havent read a walkthrough just isnt leaping out to you.

But with a phantom? Oh look, now Im not the target, Ive had a chance to see how the tell for each attack works, and am better prepared. And ah, this player has led me straight to the blind spot, where I can have a moments respite. And neato, I didnt know if you did that, it did something special, this will make the fight much easier in any re-attempts.

Telling players not to bother using the co-op functionality until they can do it all anyway stinks of one thing, and one thing alone - 'Dont ruin MY gaming experience'.
Its great that you're at a level where you see anything other than success as a waste of your time, but dont try parrot in your guides that the phantom system isnt a great way to LEARN how to play the game. Half the point of Dark Souls is that every failure is a learning experience. You advocating that no one should engage a player in a situation where they'll likely fail is just ****.

Honestly I stay quiet about a lot of errors in your guide which are bias or misunderstanding on your part, because they're still detailed enough that even without being accurate every step of the way they engage people and encourage them to explore the game for themselves. But This stance on co-op is not one I will stay quiet about.

Reread this. Then read it again. Then read it a 3rd time. Then read what you wrote. Then read this one more time.

You are trying to put words in my mouth and/or misunderstanding me here.

No-one at all has said you need to be perfect before going to get help. No-one has said you have to be able to defeat the boss on your own.

What has been said, multiple times, is that if summoning 2 other people does not help you at all, if you can't survive AT ALL even with the other two people there, then you should not be wasting YOUR human effigies and their time on co-op until you can at least at a minimum survive reasonably okay versus the boss at least to the point where you won't die right away when people are trying to help you out.

That is completely reasonable. A boss attempt as hollow COSTS YOU NOTHING. And it's a great way to learn the minimal basics of the fight before diving into the deep end. If you are going to die anyways, do it for free a couple times and at least see if you learn anything before spending your own effigies. There aren't enough effigies in the game for you to attempt every boss twice anyways unless you start grinding them out. And even then...... there will never be enough if you use 3 or 4 on every boss. YOU WILL RUN OUT. And then it just makes the game harder and harder.


Speaking of, I have not said anything about joining other people's games but let's actually discuss that.

When someone summons you it normally means that THEY NEED HELP. SOMEONE WHO NEEDS HELP with the fight is summoning you, and spending one of their precious items to do so. Seriously think about that for a second. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you want to summon help for a boss fight, using an item you cannot easily replace, so that they can be of absolutely no help to you AND make the boss fight even harder?

The worst thing that happens to someone you summon is you are bad at the game and it costs them 30 minutes and up to 50,000 souls. The worst thing that happens if someone summons you is you are bad at the game and they lost their last human effigy because of it and they are no longer able to summon help at all.

Gotta back Elijin here Mjack33, you're proffering the very embodiment of the 'get gud' mentality. Hell, I should know, I'm an elitist prick when it comes to a lot of things especially video games.

I speak in WoW terms for a moment cause its the first example that comes to mind and even though I dont play it will be easy to retell stories:

When joining random groups for heroics or for the LFR raids and that sort of thing you'd bump into a plethora of people that by most peoples opinions didnt belong in there. They were simply looking to be carried through the content, or worse didn't know how bad they truly were and the fight was absolutely impossible with someone who didn't understand it. But even if there were a few that were utter crap and would never learn or who knew they were undergeared and didnt know the fights and just wanted to be carried there was a far wider margin who simply needed to see the content with a group that new what was going on or to have someone actually explain the content to them rather than expecting that they already know it.

Even as good at my 'job' in wow as I was there were times when studying a youtube video over and over and over didnt make it click, but going into a fight with people that new it and watching how it functioned taught me what I needed to be doing, where I needed to be standing, and when I needed to be doing what. There were times that I simply couldnt tank a certain boss right, or somehow couldnt keep everyone alive while healing and then I'd ask for help from people either guildies or randoms to get in there and see the content. And when I'm in the back as an elemental shaman I can now actually watch what the boss is doing, where it's moving, and what is hurting everyone...whereas while trying to heal everyone was dying so fast that I was tunnelvisioning on green life bars and not seeing whythey were dying. Just having the focus be on someone else for a bit does wonders.


But on that note, if you dont know what the hell you're doing ...50 dkp minus.

The difference being that a WOW raid is a forced co-op experience. You NEED to play co-op to do it at all. It is not a choice. Dark Souls 2 does have that choice. And you have the option to practice before you start.

I don't even care if the host never damages the boss and just stays on the outskirts of the arena. If the host does literally nothing but run away for the whole fight, I am 100% fine with that. I can handle the host contributing absolutely nothing to the fight at all ever period.

I am against people playing co-op if they might as well not have been there at all because they die THAT FAST and the game is over 30 seconds after you started. And you know what? If you can't avoid the boss enough when you are not trying to damage it that you die so fast that you learn nothing from the fight and it is a waste of your human effigies to even try, you do need to go in as hollow a few times and "get gud". Because if your help is unable to get through the freaking boss fog before it's all over, there's no point to the enterprise. You might as well have summoned someone and then immediately used the Black Separation Crystal.

It's not an exact metaphor, but I'm mostly talking about your attitude.


So then start mentoring, or stop co-oping.