League of Legends has a stat known as Gold Gain on some items, masteries, and runes.

At level 30, if you want to dedicate nine rune slots to it, you can get an extra 2.25 gold every 10 seconds. If you want to dedicate all 3 of your quintessence slots to it also (which are your best runes so be wary), you can get an extra 1.5% on top of that for an extra 3.75 gold every 10 seconds. If you want to stack even more, you can pay 3 of your skill points halfway into the 3rd mastery true to get another 1.5 gold every 10 seconds, making this 5.25 gold every 10 seconds.

Now an average game of LOL will last about 40 minutes? And you don't get any gold gained for the first two so let's base our math on 42 minutes.

So, an extra gold every 10 seconds nets you about 240 gold in 42 minutes worth of play. This. This is not worth it.

An extra 5.25 gold every 10 seconds nets you about 1320 in your first 42 minutes of play. That.... that is enough to be significant. It's not great but that's an entire item by late game. So if you are willing to dedicate 12 tier 3 runes and 3 mastery slots, you can have 1 extra item or 1/2 of an extra item by late game. Is that worth it? It literally depends on the game. If the game is getting dragged out and you make it to late game and your character is relevant, then yes it is freaking worth it. But if the game goes for less than average or you end up underleveled or anything else happens, then it's questionable. But it's also questionable what the best alternatives would be worth there so ..... the verdict is that it's up to you whether that is worth it. But I would only say it's worth it if you want to go for the full boost.



There are also 2 more mastery slots you can dedicate to getting an extra 40 starting gold and getting 1 gold every time someone in your lane not you kills an enemy minion while you are close. These...... also may or may not be worth it. Early game, they can be great. The extra 40 gold can and is the difference for some initial starting setups, but it won't matter at all for some other people. The 1 gold per minion you didn't kill....... that's a wash depending on what role you play. What if you are by yourself in your lane? You don't get **** for wasting one of your precious skill points on that. But what if you are support and not killing anything? Then you can get hundreds of gold from it over the course of the game, making it more efficient than any of the other masteries for gold gain. Either way, neither one of these is that relevant late game. The first has been used up by then and 40 gold isn't really THAT much, while you will tend to be killing most of your in lane minions by end game OR sucking.




Now. What's the alternative to all of that? Why you could, feasibly, build a class to kill the dragon as soon as you reach level 6 and are capable of doing so. That gives an assist's worth of gold to your entire team........ Or you could go for bonus over time runes that give you about an extra 100+ health late game. Or .... there are enough viable options that gold gain is not a clear winner.



But let's digress and talk about gold gain items.

These are just universally bad.

Let's start by assuming that a gold gain item is only good if it pays for itself. This is because at the cost of each item there are other items that are better for your character no matter who you are playing IF you do not care about the gold gain. So you are buying a substandard item in hopes of it paying for itself later.


First things first, the largest boost you can get on an item that will pay for itself eventually is 2 gold gain per 10 seconds. That is 480 gold over our average game time assumed. The item costs about 400 gold I think? And you would have to buy it first. So. Would you like to buy a substandard item first thing instead of a starting item to gain 80 gold for 40 minutes of work with lower stats?

I thought not. That's...... that's it. They limit you to one gold gain item per person, and the two items with noticeable stats on their own both cost about 2200 gold making them definitely not pay for themselves at all. Do they pay for a fraction of themselves....... well it depends but not really. Not enough to be worth it.

Which...... means in my opinion gold gain items themselves are worthless in LOL, while gold gain stats might be worth it if you know what to do with that 1000+ extra gold. But be warned. You could have had an extra 4.5% life steal plus whatever you were going to use those other 9 rune slots for instead.

But.. and this is the last real thing to say. Gold Gain has one major advantage over every other thing that is not movement speed. You don't have to be in combat to see a benefit.





Edit: And I've once again forgotten to say one more thing about Demon's Souls. The best thing they ever did in Dark Souls was get rid of the item carry limit.

So after I clear the first two areas, I will go into more depth, but here is an initial thing that is bugging me about this game.

After I kill something 13 times, it does not respawn. It's something designed to both cater to the less skilled AND to make farming a lot harder. But it has some consequences that have been annoying me, and some consequences I am sure I will be annoyed by in the future.

Right now though? The biggest consequence of this system is that they seemed to have used it as an excuse for some blatantly unfair crap. Because well....... if you kill enough of them enough times it will get easier right? The game has started infusing artificial mob difficulty into itself, which is just... it's not as fun or balanced. And this leads to things like me slowly farming through an area ONLY BECAUSE i need to start perma-killing certain enemies to be able to get through some battles. Luring and killing some things one by one so that I can benefit from the souls while getting rid of a severe problem. This...... it's definitely an interesting experience but it's not one I think the game is better off for.

Dark Souls 2 - Heidi's Tower of Flame

When you first enter the area, you start in the area known as "Heidi's Ruin". In front of you are a series of tower and broken walkways, with the sea to your right and water flowing into the area. It's one of the most beautiful entrances to an area I have ever seen in a souls game.

Anyways you go down a series of broken steps to the first circular platform. This platform has two large statues with swords that are just there for decoration, and each one has the head of an eagle. Between them is your first Sentinel. He is the most common type of sentinel you will experience here, being a sword sentinel. It's basically a giant dude with a shield and scimitar that is very dangerous looking. They walk very slow but they have a lot of reach and very quick strikes. Anyways, after you kill him, there are two paths. The one to the right of where you entered leads down to the first bonfire of the area on a cliff-face. Note that you will have to refight the sentinel you just killed or run past him every time you want to leave this bonfire, at least till you kill him 10-12 more times. Across from where you entered this first circle is some stairs leading to another platform. On this platform is a one of a kind (at least in this area) mace-wielding sentinel that is more powerful than any of the others but doesn't respawn. Once you manage to kill him, he drops an item that lets you reinforce your estus flask (or flasks) to +1 at the Majula bonfire.

Moving on, up the steps to another small circular area. Here is another sword sentinel. Once you kill him a switch appears. Using it brings up the middle ring of the boss bonfire. This makes the boss fight slightly easier. Then you have only one way to go. Across the bridge to your first real tower. Be warned, if you have not noticed already everything in this area is a falling hazard when not in a tower, and it's very easy to fall off of things to your watery death when fighting these guys.

This ..... is where the game gets evil. In this tower are 3 sentinels. The first one will fight you 1 on 1 while the others watch, and is a new (at least to you) longsword wielding sentinel that is harder than a regular sword one, but has no shield. Once you kill him, the two sword sentinels will attack you. Once you kill all 3, another switch will appear and you will be able to raise the outer ring of the boss arena.

Once you've defeated all 3 of them, you have the left path or the right path to go to. The right path leads to another longsword sentinel and then the boss fog we intend to go to. The left path leads to a fight with two more sentinels. The sword one will let you fight the longsword one alone if you back up and lure him into the tower. Past these two is a final sword sentinel. Once you've killed him you, a switch appears that lets you lower the drawbridge to a tower. This tower has a chest with a ring that makes your min health 75% as a hollow (yay) and the boss fog to the Old Dragonslayer boss you need to beat (optional) to join the Blue Sentinel covenant. If you recognize him... well that's because he is a dark magic infected Dragonslayer Ornstein. So you really really need to come get this ring asap. It makes the entire game much easier and is almost essential to surviving tons of crap.

Anyways... back to the Dragonslayer boss. Remember I told you where the boss fog we wanted was right? Well it's not that far from the first bonfire. The reason this area is difficult is because of the 7 or 8 giant-@#$ armor dudes that really do get in your way and who you have to beat to make this boss fight somewhat bearable. Specifically the 2-3 at once that lets you raise the outer ring. Evil.....



Well anyways, before I describe the boss let it be known that this is my first boss and I was level 36. I am this level because the sentinels are worth 400 souls a pop and I used the limited respawning to permanantly kill them all. I did this because I found the 3 sentinel fight impossible to do until I could challenge it without the leadup and the middle one there, at which point I was like "why the **** not just finish them all off?" Because it was really good exp and there are so many sentinels screwing up my runs to the boss that it just made sense. And..... frankly being level 36 in this game very much feels like the equivalent of level 18 in Dark Souls. The stats system has kind of .... changed.

Since that happened, let me throw in a bonus. Here are how the sentinels will act.

Longsword Sentinel
- Will always start his attacks with an overhead slice down to the ground from behind his head.
- Will A) end the attack right there, B) move into attack 2, or C) move into attack 2b after that.
- attack 2) is a delayed swing to his right in an arc
- attack 2b) is a second overhead attack followed by attack 2), with no delay between any of his 3 attacks.
- finally....... this guy may try to do a single swing from behind and to his right all the way around to his left when you are circling around him. This .... this gets me more than anything else, but usually i have a shield up and this can be blocked with minor damage leak through a shield at beginning levels of stamina. Let it be noted that this is the only time he does a curved swing this way. This is the only attack where it is not safe to attempt a hit after.

If you manage to start doing it successfully, circling around him clockwise will usually let you avoid his attacks. Only the last one mentioned won't let you avoid his stuff completely.



Sword and Shield Sentinel
- Will try to do a 3 swing attack towards you when close enough. The best way to avoid this is frankly to back up, as you have to be very very good to circle around him enough to avoid the 3rd swing.
- May try to do a riposte immediately after the 3 swing attack. It's just a straight lunge with his sword honestly.
- may also try to do an overhead slam as the 3rd attack
- Will keep his shield up and take reduced damage the rest of the time.
- Let it be known that this guys 3 swing attack covers about 300 out of 360 degrees and he will turn around while doing it, making backing up AND then circling him usually the right call.
- Let it also be known that these guys, unlike other sentinels, also seem capable of running when they have to and can thus close some gaps faster than you would expect.
- If you can dodge their first two strings you can attempt a swing starting at the third one and possibly for a few seconds after the third if you can't during that.


I for one don't know which is harder. The longsword sentinels hit a little harder and it's harder to escape from their combos. And they are pretty much invulnerable during them. But dodging their attacks is easier.

But the sword and shield ones do less damage and although it's harder to dodge their combos it IS possible to get an attack in on the 3rd swing during one if you are in the right spot. They also have a bit more health....

Regardless, a nice thing to know about sentinels is that they can be tricked off of ledges if you trick them into attacking towards a ledge and quickly strafe them. It's hard to do on demand every time but if you are really having trouble you will eventually be able to clear the area this way.

For the mace wielder....... let me just say think big slow dude with a club. I haven't fought him 30+ times (only the once), but I'll just say that he is fast with the mace, the mace hits VERY VERY hard, and you should treat him like a crazier version of a longsword sentinel.

Let me also say that you should make sure to pick up his drop IMMEDIATELY, as it's an important upgrade item and will permanantly disapear if you die.

Speaking of, if you kill the sentinels as much as I have you will also mostly get lots of cracked blue eye orbs and get the old knight set. This set can be worn in full by me if I am only walking around with one weapon. So. It's wearable fairly early with fairly low stats. It has very high defenses with the problem that it has very low magic resist and very low durability (like 20, whereas your starting armor will be at about 50?). So it's a huge tradeoff to be able to absorb a couple more hits in a single battle. Long term.... well this will break on you. And you will move a lot slower. Which will most likely get you killed when you shouldn't have been. So I would say not to wear it.

Anyways, I ended up with enough blue eyed orbs and armor pieces that I highly doubt someone wanting them would have trouble getting them if they can kill sentinels at will. I for one have no idea what to do with 12 cracked blue eyed orbs and would be willing to donate them if the game allowed such things. They will also occasionally drop palestones, which I assume is for upgrading but have not used for anything yet.
Anyways, from these guys I ended up with:
- 14 cracked blue-eye orbs
- 1 old knight helm
- 2 old knight armor
- 2 old knight gauntlets
- 2 old knight leggings
- an indeterminate number of palestones that is less than 5 but I have not been able to actually check yet because this seems to be in another freaking menu you can only use during blacksmithing ; like that titanite slab i got as a starting gift


Another nice thing about this area is that you can see of the enemies from the first circular plaform and/or the first switch. Meaning if you can kill 3 sentinels you will immediately know where every other enemy is. And the game gives you enough warning that you should never end up aggroing someone you don't want to after the first one.

One final thing to note...... the sentinels will chase you for almost ever. Like I have had 2 sentinels in the 3 sentinel tower chase me to the bonfire. There is no safe place once you piss them off.

That being said, the only thing I didn't like about this area and the only thing that severely pissed me off is the 3 sentinel tower. I could not kill two sentinels at once even though I can destroy them easily one on one. There's just too much unpredictability and stab in the back and such going on. This forced me to clear out at least the first, which lets you deal with the other two one by one instead of simultaneously. But I feel like I should not have had to do that to get past this area and access the switch. It's possible to piss two sentinels off at once elsewhere, but not at the same time. You always piss one off first and can fight it one on one.


Anyways....... On to the boss description.

Dragonslayer Boss:

First things first, I was never stupid enough to come here without raising the rings, but I assume it would make a hard fight much harder and would highly recommend against it. They clearly designed this boss fight to force you to actually deal with the enemies in the area at least once. So do it. Not only will you level up a little, but you will get a great ring out of it and it's VERY good practice for the actual boss.

That being said..... well this dude is a much much much meaner version of the sentinels you have been fighting.

This dude has a very very very long axe with a shield and uses all of the attacks from both sentinel species you have fought. Furthermore, he seems to never take a break. And he is very very good at closing distances. The only way I found to beat him was to stick to his *** like glue and strafe counterclockwise while doing one hit after every attack he does. When he runs into a wall, like he tends to.... well then you are screwed and I had to get lucky a couple of times. Eventually, you are able to circle around this guy enough to kill him 1 on 1 if that is your inclination, and if you get lucky enough that he doesn't go to the edge of the arena well then the fight is simpler. Overall....... the boss only took me 3 tries and one of them was spent figuring out what he actually did. When he dies you get his soul and you get 12k souls. And...... no dragons ever showed up.

The exit to his arena leads up the side of the tower to the next level. Here you will find your 2nd bonfire of the level. Here you will also find Licia, a mechant. She sells a cleric's sacred chime, a ring that costs 28000 souls and will increase your faith while worn. And .... well lots and lots of miracles. If you exhaust her talking options, which I recommend, she will move to Majula and basically be your first hub miracle trainer. She will move to the very entrance of the area that you used to get to Heidi's from Majula. And she will move the path for you if you ask her to. For 2000 souls of course.

And that's the first part of Heidi's Tower of Flame.

Did I go into too much detail, and did anyone enjoy reading that?

Part 2 of Heidi's Tower of Flame

Basically put..... you cross a bridge into another tower. Then you start a descent. You will fight more sentinels as you descend, and a few of these fights will be trickier as they are in circular corridors instead of open areas like the last part. The area is extremely linear with one ascension. When you get to the watery part, continuing aroudn the circle will lead you to a cave with the next bonfire and another person to talk to. While going into the center for a bit will have you fight a sentinel in the actual water, which is..... noticeably harder. When you kill him, which I would say to do after resting at the bofire, you can go into the area he was guarding. Up the stairs and to your right will be a chest with the Knight set... and not much else. It has better defenses than the set you are wearing most likely, and it left me at 71% equip burden, making it also wearable early. Just.... i prefer movability here and went back to my wanderer's set.

At the bonfire you can talk to Lucatiel from Mirrah. She came to Drangleic to get her share of powerful souls. If you talk to her 3 times you will be able to summon her during certain boss fights. This..... this will be very important later. If you continue on you will end up in No Man's Wharf. Designed to be done after you beat Heidi's and the Last Giant, I won't enter here yet because A) even though it is easier than the Dragonslayer (theoretically I don't actually know yet) I have yet to kill the Last Giant and B) I want a certain item before venturing into the Wharf that will make it much...... easier.

BTW, this is considered the first bonfire in the wharf and not actually a heidi bonfire, so heads up for the fast travel menu.

So this is the second style I could do this stuff in. Anyone prefer this?

BTW, good news, there is also an old knight halberd that can be earned.



Now... well before the forest I have to challenge a dragonslayer right?

As a general warning, I am level 38 in area 1 of the game and still expect this boss to kick my @#$.

Boss: Old Dragonslayer

Death 1: Wow. This dude is evil. Okay. First things first, he has very powerful lunging attacks. And he has very wide sweeping spear swipes. And he basically fights like Ornstein from Ornstein and Smough's fight with the addition of a dark magic AOE attack. I mean...... yeah if you made Giant Ornstein smaller you would get this guy in a nutshell.

Lesson Learned - The pillars offer no protection. He can smash through them with enough momentum left over to kill you.

Death 2: Okay. I did not even get a chance to do anything. Dude rushes me at beginning of battle, getting rid of my stamina in one hit, and then does a combo that kills me. Great job Ornstein. You da man.

Lesson Learned - Be glad that you cleared the area before this.

Death 3: ****. Okay. Not a single attack in there either.

Lesson Learned - Wiki it. Okay. Apparently, roll, don't block.

Death 4: Nothing learned. Moving on.

Okay. So here is where I decided maybe summon some help? Worked like a charm. There was no death 5 as my co-op partner was competent and together we just managed to do it. One of us aggrod him while the other healed, and we just barely eaked across the finish line.


So this whole fight takes place in the Cathedral of the Blue. A technically knew area but I call BS on that. Defeating the Old Dragonslayer gives you his soul and the old leo ring (because Ornstein gives you the leo ring and he is totally not ornstein right?).

The chest in the area behind him has I believe a Tower Shield and a Heide Knight Iron Mask. Behind him is a dude who says I would never make a knight of the blue and to begone with me. He's a real nice one ain't he? So apparently according to various wikis I have to help another player with a boss in co-op first. Welp. Time to go camp by the Dragonslayer boss. But first things first. There seems to be a bonfire in the basement and nothing else. Why? I have no idea.

Edit: On second thought, I guess if you haven't killed everyone outside yet this provides easy access to the covenant.

Dragonslayer Boss - Trying to Help Co-op as a level 42 character. What could go wrong?

Well. Apparently you can put down a summoning sign while human. The real question is will I get summoned?

Okay. Well apparently I got summoned immediately. I got 2k souls and a smooth and silky stone. And we destroyed the boss. Nothing went wrong at all. Hmm........ let's try that again.

Okay. Well I died at the very end and didn't get a reward but but the dude won his fight .

Okay let's try that again. Okay it took 2 minutes this time but I'm in. We killed the guy easily again, and this time the guy was a human. 3k souls and another smooth and silky stone? And apparently using estus over there doesn't deplete it in my world.

Ok Jack is going to end this post here and test this some more.

To review:

1st summon - I got a smooth and silky stone for helping two melee people beat up the boss.
2nd summon - I died.
3rd summon - got a smooth and silky stone for helping a mage and their summoned fighter beat up the boss.

Onward:

4th summon - got a smooth and silky stone for..... beating up a longsword sentinel in a duo sentinel fight. I'll take it.
5th summon - got another smooth and silky. Apparently helping someone lower the drawbridge counts as completing your task. Also it seems I know why I am confused. You get 2500 souls for helping.
6th summon - some dude is trolling. Summoned me and then returned me after doing ..... dude was trolling and wasting my time. No reward of course.
7th summon - Person summoned me and then left the area. So I got nothing.
8th summon - Person summoned two of us and then quit out of his game. Again. A troll.
9th summon - Helped with the boss again. Finally.
10th summon - Helped with the boss again.
11th summon - Boss again.
12th summon - Well I died. But..... this is what happens when you don't raise the bosses arena up. You see...... the boss arena, when fully there, is a large enclose circle that is easy to kill the boss on.
The boss arena, when you don't bother to raise the floor, is a teeny tiny circle in which you have to fight the boss and there is literally not room for someone to take a hit and still stand on the tower.

This answers one question. RAISE THE FREAKING ARENA. It makes the boss a heck of a lot easier, and if you can't deal with those sentinels then you probably won't be able to deal with the boss very well. And neither will the people you summon to help you.
13th summon - Got summoned to help with the middle room. Weird. Anyways I murdered the 3 sentinels for the person. They distracted 1 and I well...... i fought two on one. Nice to learn I am capable of beating two of them now.
14th summon - I helped with the boss again. This time, a new kind of trolling. The 2nd phantom didn't help at all. Luckily I've got practice.
15th summon - The summoner died before I could get there.
16th summon - Central Tower again.
17th summon - Central Tower again. Man people really seem to have trouble with this. Again. Sitting 3 fat as **** sentinels in an arena and expecting you to 1 v 1 them seems to be giving people fits.
18th summon - Central tower again.
19th summon - Dude left after summoning both of us.
20th summon - The boss. FINALLY. We murdered his butt and I can end this run on a good note.

So I got..... 13 smooth and silky stones out of that? I will be able to trade that in for some nice loot in a bit here.

How to do the Dragonrider boss coop with 3 melee characters.

Step 1: Hit both switches so falling hazards do not exist.
Step 2: Have 3 melee characters attack the boss from 3 different sides and back off when they need to heal. If someone is ranged, then replace one person beating the crap out of them with that ranged person and just have 2 people on opposite sides of the dude.
Step 3: Profit.
Step 4: Repeat?

It's just that easy. If you are able to take a hit and smart enough not to die, well then this is very easy with 3 people.

So what have we learned so far:

Well
- People have trouble with the central tower. A lot.
- Coop is only good for one really big room I guess.
- Don't leave the floor down in the Dragonrider boss fight.
- People on Dark Souls 2 will troll when summoning you. Even though it's blatantly against the COC of the game.
- Your host is liable to have no idea what they are doing.
- People trying to get summoned into games seem to very much know what they are doing.
- There is a short delay on ps3 between using a sign and the actual summon. If you don't stick around the person you are summoning will have to come find you OR will just get disconnected.

Twas not my intention, but this is kind of what this thread is right now.

So. First things first, a little about the multiplayer experience of Dark Souls 2.

I've played for about 15 hours now. And in that time, I've been summoned for the Blue Sentinels once. Which..... makes sense. The summoning also kind of failed because, and apparently I did not know this, your summoner can die and that will cancel your summons.

I've also only been invaded about once. So....... that explains the sentinel thing. And the one time it happened it was a troll who pissed me off. You see it is against the in-game COC to leave while someone has invaded you. So.... well they made it so you just can't without turning the system off.

I've played co-op many times. Most of it has been on the dragonrider boss. But I've also done it some on the flexile sentry. And I've summoned on all the bosses so far, although right now I have not been able to get humans for every boss. It just... it makes the game easier and I'm not one of the people who feels like taking the hard route for some sort of prestige. I don't care. I'll cheese the boss every time.


So. The areas I've done since last time include No Man's Wharf and of the Last Bastille.

No Man's Wharf is a dock area with a ghost ship floating out at harbor. There are two important things to do to make your life easier here. 1) Use a valuable, irreplaceable pharros lockstone to turn on the lights. You just... you won't regret it. It makes the area 3x easier because it makes the darkprowlers de-aggro and only attack you if you go into the buildings where they are hiding from the torch. Without them there it's just some semi-tough dual wielding guys, some normal hollows, some archers with fire arrows, some guys who through bottles of oil at you (explode if you touch fire while covered in oil), and some dogs. Still a challenge but it's a much much easier time of it.

The actual darkprowlers themselves are huge spidermonkey things that do lots of damage with their long gangly limbs and are almost impossible not to aggro if you don't light the giant torch. Well..... I say just light the ****ing torch and be done with it honestly . Um.... they inflict bleed and come at you in groups of 1-2 if you are smart and 3-5 if you are not? They just..... there is no bonfire in this area after the one at the very beginning and the shortcut is almost pointless so I honestly would just say to light up the freaking torch or you would be in trouble. You can get one in the mansion basement or for 4000 souls from a merchant at either majula or the second fofg bonfire if she hasn't moved to majula yet.

Anyways..... the second way to make real permanant progress ( I don't put much stock in the "shortcut") is to ring the bell that brings the ghost ship to the docks. Then you can run through the small gauntlet, fight the ships 4 man crew, and enter the hold. The hold is..... water-logged? It's got water in it. Just enough to slow you down a little. and it's got the boss fog.

Anyways the dude inside is the Flexile Sentry. It's basically..... another human boss but this time it's two male armored torsos that seem ducktaped back to back, one with clubs and one with swords. So you can't really get behind that guy. There's also water on the ground that rises a little and slows you down if the fight goes on too long. And....... well there's a pole in the middle of the room you can kind of use for cover. Other than that, it's no harder than any of the other human boss dudes.



Um........so the next freaking area is the Lost Bastille. And I either have to deal with the ruin sentinels, which are their own fun kettle of chips, or I have to deal with the Pursuer to get to the area after that. Unfortunately...... well I cannot get any assistance at all for the Pursuer fight. As in summoning signs just won't ever show up and there is no npc for that. I manage to get summoned so much just because people are desperate and Jack is your friendly neighborhood dual wielding crazy guy with swords and hot pink hair in the Souls game. And the Ruin Sentinels...... even with help that's a bother.

So. Pursuer boss kicking my bot. Loads of fun right? Um.... there is no sense blocking this monstrosity so I am literally going in with dual wielding and I actually get 2/3 of the way through his health bar before getting just plain destroyed. Um...... dude has a very large number of lunging and sweeping attacks, he can curse you (reduce your max hp until cured), and he can frankly just destroy me 1 on 1.

While the Ruin Sentinels right now is just me and a single ai person vs 3 bosses simultaneously that are almost as hard.

The co-op has become very bad again.

An update. Yay.


So to recap. You start off in Things Betwixt. It's a tutorial area with a few items you can come back for much much later and the gender-changing coffin. Um..... there's not anything notable there.

Then you go to Majula. Majula has the far bonfire. It's going to be your hub bonfire. Next to it is the Green Herald. She's basically the lady who reinforces your flasks and lets you level up. In the town there is a house with a cat, a house with a merchant, and two locked buildings that are important later. There is also a well we can't go down yet, a covenant that lets you summon help instantly when invaded, and a covenant that lets you make the game as if it were one difficulty higher (i.e. New Game + difficulty on New Game).

From Majula, you can currently access Forest of Fallen Giants and Heidi's Tower of Flame. Forest of Fallen Giants is a large level with several side areas you can wander into (and even an early boss fight) that are designed to kick your low level ***. Anyways, once you figure out where you are supposed to go you only end up fighting hollow enemies all the way to the elevator to the Last Giant. There is one bonfire by the river at the beginning of the level, and there is one bonfire by the ladder by the door that acts as a shortcut to the boss elevator. Anyways....... you fight the Last Giant.

The Last Giant is a boss who is very tall, and you basically auto lock onto either of his feet and attack that. His original attacks are to try to bend over and swipe you, to try to step on you, and to fall over. You should not worry about the swipes as long as you are staying behind him, and if you chose to summoning the npc Pate acts as a good distraction. About halfway in he rips off his other arm and trys to use it as a club in various smash and sweeping attacks. Again, just try to stay behind the guy. And..... that's the first boss.

From here, you can then use the key you get from beating him to go through some doors you've already passed. One of them very close to the boss elevator leads to a linear path to the Pursuer boss, who has not been discussed yet and will be discussed in the next post. (Because I want to go into more detail the first time around). After you beat him, you get to go to what I call The Last Bastille A. An area I have not explored yet. From here you can then access The Last Bastille C and the Ruin Sentinels boss fight OR you can just go straight to Sinner's Rise which is where the next mandatory boss is.

If you instead choose Heidi's Tower of Flame as your first area, you get to fight the sentinels in that place and you have to fight the DragonRider boss. He basically....... the dude has a big axe and a giant shield and likes to rush at you and push you off ledges. He is especially hard if you never raised parts of the boss arena, but he's still probably one of the easiest bosses in the game. On the opposite side of Heidi's (DragonRider has the Right Tower) is the Left Tower and the Harder but completely optional Old Dragonslayer boss. All slaying him does is let you join the Blue Sentinels covenant assuming you have gotten at least one token of fidelity from coop. The old dragonslayer himself is a boss with dark magic slames, all the attacks you would expect from the dragonrider but with a spear, and a very long distance spear charge that does tons of damage. The blue Sentinels covenant is basically where you do a few things.

- If you are human, you can wear a ring they give you and join the games of people wearing the ring from the blue protection covenant in Majula when they are being invaded to track down and kill invaders.
- You can use cracked blue eye orbs to invade the worlds of sinners.
- You can use a token of fidelity at the blue cathedral to duel with other covenant members.

Anyways... there are two bonfires in heidi's. One after beating the DragonRider and one at the beginning. Once you've beaten the DragonRider, you can navigate the insides of the tower to get to No Man's Wharf. This is where you fight dual wielding viking guys, normal hollows with oil and fire arrows, and the shadowprowler guys (maybe darklurker? - some shadowy name) that look like spidermonkeys and do tons of bleed and blunt damage.

Um...... well you basically summon and then board the ghost ship to fight the Flexile Senty boss in its water-logged hull. The dude fights like other human bosses so far except this time it's two male torsos back to back, one with dual wielded clubs and one with dual wielded swords, and..... the guy can do semi-cartwheel overhead attacks to surprise you as well with a surprising amount of reach.

So...... so far every boss mentioned is negligibly easy with coop except possibly the Pursuer and even then.....

Anyways, beat the Flexile Sentry and you can access the Last Bastille B. There is a bonfire at both the beginning of Last Bastille A and Last Bastille B. To get to A you have to beat the Last Giant and Pursuer boss. To get to B you have to fight the DragonRider and Flexile Sentry bosses. Either way, 2 bosses are mandatory and 2 are technically skippable for all intents and purposes.

Both let you access The Last Bastille C and the Ruin Sentinels boss there. Both also let you access the semi-secret blacksmith bonfire if you so choose to do so. The difference is that A has an important key And lets you skip area C if you so choose to do so (I think as a reward for beating the Pursuer which is the hardest boss up to this point). Area B requires you to go on to area C unless you use a glitch to skip the boss. Anways, this is about where I start discussing new stuff, and where I divide it into two posts.

First things first, what is the Pursuer?

Well...... the Pursuer is a boss you can stumble upon early (and it will count but you probably won't beat it and it murdered Jack the one time he tried). But in its true boss arena, it's ... it's basically the hardest boss you can access before getting to the Last Bastille.

First things first, I think this guy can float inches off the ground. That's freaking cool Um.... Anyways, this guy starts the battle by charging at you. If you roll backwards you can get a hit in before his next attack if you are quick. This is attack opportunity number 1.

The boss can also attack you by doing a 2 or 3 hit combo. You can dodge this by rolling back or rolling sideways at the perfect timing (rolling away is more recommended if possible). There is an opportunity to get in 1 or 2 hits after the 3 hit combo but not the 2 hit combo.

All of his attacks so far can be blocked, but they leak through quite a bit of damage and take away ALOT of stamina. So you either need a really freaking good shield or you are much better off dodging because trying to block will lose you the fight here.

His final attack....... his sword glows blue and he does a lunge where you NEED to roll to the side. This is not really blockable, and it will do both a ton of damage AND curse you. Curse in this game works a little different from the first one. Instead of killing you right away, you can survive it. And it doesn't give you have health until it is cured. It can't even be cured really. It just..... it decreases your max health by like 5%, even if you live through the attack. Which...... this is the only thing in the game that can send your health below 50%, and it can decrease your health all the way down to like 5 or 10% (I used to know which and know one of them is right but forget exactly which one). So it's...... both more and less forgiving then the old curse.

There are balistae in the arena you can technically use to do damage..... but the boss can literally just smash through them and trust me if you don't have 3 people out then it's almost impossible to line up the shot AND not have the boss destroy it before you can fire.

BTW, why am I giving advice for actual single combat here? Well because..... summons are so scarce here for some reason (the community is almost dead) and well... there is no npc to summon. So chances are you are literally going to have to 1 v 1 this guy on at least ps3.

With this in mind, I have a bit of advice. If you can.... dual wield. Lose the shield and dual wield if you are at all a melee character. Learn to actually DODGE his attacks. Because unless you are way too high of a level and the fight is just trivial anyways, you will not be able to block his attacks. He does that much stamina damage and that much piercing that blocking is not a viable strategy. And dualwielding..... it lets you get in that one more attack you need to make the fight faster.

BTW while we are here, here is why Dual Wielding is a thing and what you need to know about it:
- You need 1.5x the strength and dex requirements of both weapons (not combined, just their requirements) you want to use to dual wield them.
- Some weapons, like bows, don't really work with this. Just because..... they don't and it wouldn't make sense for them too. Dual wielding generally uses two weapons where pressing triangle to use both hands works.
- Dual Wielding's Power Stance is done by holding down the button you would normally use to two-hand a weapon instead of just pressing it. It will only work if you are capable of dual wielding with those weapons.
- Dual Wielding lets you alternate your attacks to attack at a higher attack speed than if you were just using one weapon and a shield.
- You can now use your right weapon's R2 to parry if timed right on some weapons.
- You can attack and stagger enemies in a much wider arc in front of you. This games combat has an "off hand" weakness exploited by everyone and everything that most single weapon builds are weak to, and dual wielding gets rid of this weakness while making some rooms easier just because it's a little harder to surround you and a little easier to stagger some enemies.

Anyways, the Lost Bastille now.

There are really two common enemies of the Lost Bastille for large parts of the area. There are the dogs. And there are the huntsman looking dudes that take a lot of damage to kill, have very long weapons that attack in very wide arcs, have a tendency to blow themselves up, and that like to attack you in narrow areas with dogs around. I have not explored A enough to find any other enemies, but I know that these are the only two enemies in what I refer to as the Lost Bastille B.

Thse two areas intersect in what I like to call the Lost Bastille C. I know you can get to the entrance of Sinner's Rise from A in a way that you can't from C, but I've not explored it enough to know how and I refused to use the glitch. So C..... well this area starts by you entering an area where a bunch of knights swarm you. They are very hard 5 at a time. But here's a hint. If you only just enter the doorway and not the actual area, only 2 or 3 of them will attack you. It's much easier to fight this off on the bridge where they can only come at you one at a time... and then you can go kill the other half straight up. You can then open up a shortcut I never bothered to use (it's more dangerous then coming in through B and I never saw the point of pissing off 5 of these guys at once) as well as go into a prison area. So. You can also explore the upper area for some items, but I've not done that yet so I don't know what they are (there is some more knight swarm crap up there). And then.... you go to the prison tunnel, fight off a 6th and 7th knight, and you are sitting at the Ruin Sentinels boss gate. This...... this is where it gets interesting.


So. 1st things first. Summon help. I don't care how good of a player you think you are. If you want to prove me wrong, go ahead and try. Just try it. When you die then I want you to come back and summon help (although heavens forbid you use this as your one and only resource if you actaully bother to use it as a resource). In one of the cells, the one you can actually enter because its door is broken, is the summon sign to an extremely helpful mage npc. So helpful in fact that you should summon him instead of a 2nd human. He's literally that good and that important to beating these guys. He's liable to die like 2/3 of that way in, but you almost always have the fight under control by then.

So. This is the first truly evil boss of this game. And I would recommend helping other people first before trying it. Just to learn what this clusterbomb of evil is all about.

Um...... so there are 3 bosses. Yay? When you enter the mist you fall a little bit and take a slight amount of falling damage. Not much though. You are immediately right next to the first boss. If you stay on this small platform the other two will not attack you until he dies. If you don't..... well then it becomes 3 vs you and your help very fast.

Difficulty wise..... it's like you made the DragonRider faster and gave him tons of reach and more health but he was still somehow easier than the old dragonslayer 1 on 1. And then you get 3 of them that are very good at ganging up on people.

Anyways, if you kill the first one on that platform the other 2 will join the fight. The 2nd will leap up there with you if you stay there, and there will be a short delay before the 3rd does so as well that will let you and your friends wale on the second one before it truly is time to jump into the bigger arena. Then.... it's 2 vs 1-3 and you better hope your friends are still around. 2 on 1 these guys are still just pure evil and.... that's the fight. That's the fight in a nutshell.

After you beat them you gain access to the Pharros Contraption leading to Belfry Luna and to a bonfire. You can also now access Sinner's Rise from this area, although I have not done so yet. You HAVE to beat the Ruin Sentinels to access Belfry Luna.


So what is Belfry Luna. It's a very small but very evil area. That is what it is. It's meant to be a throwback to Dark Souls 1 and the undead parish kind of.... basically they stole the boss arena from that game but made it more evil.

And.... this will be the next post because this one is getting too long.

So you start by crossing a bridge and opening the door. At this door is the first and only friendly bell keeper. He will let you join their covenant if you keep talking to him.

Up the first set of stairs is your first bell keeper enemy. Basically, lots of health with an axe and a bow but not much else.

From here you can drop through a hole in the floor to get an item I believe (if not then from the next floor), and you can ascend some more. Here htere will be two more bell keepers to fight. Anyways, at the top floor of this little area is a ladder and the boss fog. To access the boss fog you have to use the ladder to go up, kill 4-5 bell keepers, and ring the bell. That raises the gate blocking the boss fog but still letting you sse it . Once you go in....... you fight the Belfry Gargoyles boss.

Once you beat the boss you get to exit the other side of the arena onto a bridge with the one and only bonfire of the area (the bonfire after Ruin Sentinels kind of acts like one if you've not beaten the boss yet as it's literally 1 dog and 3 or 4 bellkeepers I believe to this boss fog). You can then climb a small ladder down into a pit with 6 dogs and where an npc invader will invade. Kill the dogs first and then kill the invader. He has..... well infinite stamina it seems so blocking him is a bad idea. But he can easily be cheese by the fact that he won't follow you back up the ladder, meaning you can go up there and heal if you have trouble and are fast enough to escape up there. After killing the phantoms you can get an enchanted falchion and the bastille key off of some bodies.

Keep in mind that this entire area is optional. The Bastille Key lets you access a few areas AND it lets you make the boss fight in Sinner's Rise a tiny bit easier.

So. What is the Bell Keeper's Covenant? Well basicallly, you get to invade the world of anyone in this area from almost anywhere in the game while wearing the Bell Keeper's Seal (it's really a ring). If there is no one in this area but there is someone in Belfry Sol, you get to invade that area instead. I believe the game prioritizes the area where you joined (possibly to prevent spoiling Belfry Sol, a much alter game area, as much as possible). Anyways..... invading and killing someone gives you an extremely valuable Titanite Chunk. Doing this 10 times earns you a Titanite Slab when you talk to the person who let you join. That's......... freaking awesome.

So do you know what really good rewards plus you not having to use an item to invade plus you invading randomly from any other area in the game entails (although the chances go up or down based on your proximity to the Belfries)? It means that this area is a giant clusterbomb of invasions. I got invaded once in 15 hours of play. Then I came here and got invaded 7 times in an hour and a half while trying to summon someone for help with the boss.

While nice..... this also produces a unique problem. This, like the Ruin Sentinels, is one of those few unique bosses where it's almost impossible for anyone not severely highly skilled to do it on their own. There is just..... there's not enough attack opportunities vs how many moves you have to dodge to do this one on 3 - 5 (yes you heard me and yes you are the one). So.... your options are to get lucky with the semi-dead ps3 community, learn to defend against invaders every 5-10 minutes until you've waited long enough for a sign to FINALLY appear, or to learn how to fight multiple gargoyles at once.

The gargoyle boss themselves...


So. It starts off as 1 gargoyle. And 10 seconds later it's 2. And 20-40 seconds later it's 3. And a minute later it's 4. And I've never seen the 5th join in before one of them is dead because I'm not bad at this but it's completely possible for a little bit later for this to turn into a 1 on 5 fight if you attempt it solo. So. Summon help if all of the invasions will let you get through that. The best I could do before FINALLY getting help was to kill 3 of these guys a couple of times before they just wore me down that bad. I finally managed to beat them when I summoned one player, immediately got invaded, and decided waiting for a second was overrated. And...... well let's just say that rushing them one at a time with two people so that it never gets to be worse than 2 on 3 is the only reasonable method I've seen so far to finish this fight. Each gargoyle seems to have an individual like 1300-1700 health, so they are not THAT bad, but still....... it's an interesting fight if you can't run their butts over quickly enough to limit their numbers.

Their attacks alternate between a rushing sweep at you, a flying slam at you, breathing at you, or flying up and raining down fire upon your head. All very easy to dodge if it weren't for the fact that 3 of them are alternating their attacks making it almost impossible to get a smack in edgewise.


So will that all be worth it? Well...... I will go find out I guess.

Oh it was totally worth it. Using co-op I've played both versions of the boss, and let me tell you that the one in the dark is a menace while the one in the well-lit room is a breeze with 2 people, let alone 3.


So. From the bonfire after the Ruined Sentinels you can take the exit. And.... you get to fight some more knights and some exploding mummies. You know the guy that explodes when you try to get to that bonfire. That was to give you a hint so that you know that they do that crap. Anyways, it's mostly linear and you will eventually come to a bridge with fog on it. Now. Assuming no one is attacking you from behind, you have two options here. 1) Take out the **** archers from a distance. Very nice. Very leisurely. Feels good. 2) Run like hell and enter the fog. Either way, cross the bridge and enter the fog. Welp. You get to fight some more knights here. And ..... that's about it. Then you get to an elevator. And you come to a water area. The next 3 enemies will be undead aberrations. There are 3 ways to deal with these. 1) Lure them to dry land and 1 v 1 them with skill and tact. 2) Send the elevator back up and lure them into the pit. 3) Play ring around the rosey with the pit and ranged attacks. 4) Send them up with the elevator and watch as they fall to their death and/or get stuck somewhere. Wait...... That's 4 ways.

Anyways, after you kill all 3, loot the dead body the first was guarding in the water. It has sublime bone dust. AKA magical pixie dust that brings about super fun happy time okay i might have went a little overboard there but it's there good stuff that you burn at the Majula bonfire to reinforce your estus flasks making them heal more.

Okay.

Now there are two paths here. There's the hard way. You can go down the middle, hit the switch, and go down the middle some more. This takes place in the water and I guarantee you you will be surprised at least once by dudes under the water that frankly aren't very nice and will almost kill you if not kill you. This...... tends to be at least 1 death or so from just surprise factor and soooo much damage if you are by yourself, but forewarned is forearmed and if you expect it you will do better.

Or you could do it my way. Climb up onto dry land, kill the one enemy while it's getting up, and unlock the door with your fancy Bastille Key. This lets you go through on more dry land and avoid the trap. Either side works fine. Then....

Well now we have two paths again. Did you get the key from the Belfry Luna?

If so, go to the doors on either side of the boss and use a torch to set the oil on fire. You probably need a flame buttefly for this, but chances are you've picked up one somewhere if you've been getting the obvious loot so far. If not.... well I've heard that pyromancy may work but I can't confirm it one way or the other.

Man it would suck to get down there and not be able to light the things. So make sure if you plan on lighting them that you know you can when you get there.

Okay....... the other path is to just do the boss fight in the dark.

Either way, go through the boss door.

Once you enter the arena, you will see a cutscene. And ... the boss will start attacking.

She uses the same leaping sword attacking moveset on both boss battles. Frankly...... you've seen this before. It's a boss that runs at you to attack, has sweeping combos, and has an overhead jumping attack. If you've made it to this point you know what to do.

SO. What do the lights do for you?

Well...... first of all it makes it so that your target lock stays on the boss. If you get too far away from her or she jumps, your target lock in the dark room will come off and that makes it harder to hit this boss and strafe her.

Second...... she moves slower. I mean noticeably. The boss is much easier to fight with the lights on then in the dark. With the lights on she is easily taken down by 2 players. With them off... well she is strong enough to give 3 noticeable trouble. That's ... well saying something.

And third....... I don't know for sure but I think she has a slightly smaller health bar if you light up both sides of the room.

All of this assumes you lit up both sides. I have yet to see someone ******* ******* *** *** ***** stupid enough to light up one side and not the other, and that really should not be a concern.


Okay..... so the boss is dead. I killed her on my first try without going in co-op first. You get a great soul for the kill. And.... well you get to move forward. So. A bit of fun can be had here, although getting back here is a pain. As far as I am aware the boss gives 8 or 10 k souls if you help beat her in co-op. That's a pretty penny. Um..... so the chest after her contains a Fragrant Branch of Yore that you can use to unpetrify the lady in Majula that leads to both a pyromancy trainer, a way to get 3 fire seeds for 8k souls a piece, and the entrance to the Shaded Woods.



And...... now there are three options. Pay the cat 14k souls to get a ring that lets you go down the Majula Well and an area I am going to do last. Pay the con-artist "pirest" lady 2000 souls to rotate the contraption to let you into Huntsman's Copse, an area I am doing first. And........ you can be like Jack and unpetrify the lady, talk to some nice gentleman, and then learn why you don't really want to **** with the Shaded Woods this early into the game.

Um...... that's it for now. Just a small description of some fun stuff. The whole trip was worth 50k souls total, even with a death in there.

Well. I exceeded expectations once again I guess?


So I've ventured into three areas more and finished two of them.....


The Shaded Woods is an area you access by unpetrifying a woman in a .... cave? building?... near Majula. There are two important things to know about her.

1) She sells 3 fire seeds (pyromancy glove reinforcement) and what is likely to be most of your first pyromancies.
2) She moves to Majula after you give her equipment to wear. While wearing whatever equipment you gave her to wear. While it's not THAT long of a trek, you want to do this for a trophy/achievement and to get her out of the way for a fight that is going to ensue. So... give her your spare something you were going to sell anyways? There is almost no way that you don't have a duplicate of something after going all the way to the lost sinner. It just.... it's possible but it's unlikely. No one needs 2 old knight's gauntlets.

Anyways, you can now access the switch she was holding. And...... it lets the dudes out of their cells if you have not killed them already AND it drops 4 more out of the ceiling in an enclosed space. Plus it lets the basilisk near the next bonfire into the room. And everyone but the basilisk does poison damage. SO. The 3rd time around I managed to kill the guys in their cells, press the button, kill two of the guys using dual wielding before they got moving, and then play ring around the rosy so you don't get poisoned in small circular room until I could pick off the other two guys and the basilisk.

Anyways, you can go into the next area. And there are stairs. To the right of them is a cell with an estus flask shard. To the left of them is a bonfire. Be warned. Until your next death or you warp away, that door is still open. So. If you rest at the bonfire use the travel option at least once. It will save you a death in a room where Jack lost 10k souls because I hate that ambush. Um....

Well then once you've done that you have to deal with a single basilisk every time you leave this bonfire. Not that bad. When you proceed into the actual Shaded Woods, the path will be mostly linear until you come to the forked ruins bonfire. The only notable loot is a pharros lockstone you should see shining from the main path that is easily accessed, and well....... that's about it. But be warned here. You know those poison guys who ambushed you? There are a crapton of them around here. You will kill more than a dozen before reaching the next bonfire, and some of them will even get pleasant ranged attacks.

Anyways, once you get to the forked ruins bonfire you will know why it's called that. Forward brings you to a ring you will want to pick up immediately and not much else.

Left leads you to an area you can only access if your soul memory is 1 million + (at least on new game that is the bar) or you have gotten two great souls (you most likely only have the lost sinner's soul if you are doing this before huntsman's copse and the Majula well). If you can open that door... well then you get to go to the Shrine of Winter. Other notable things on that path include minor loot, some more poison guys, and a Flexile Sentry. Yeah that's right the boss gets a common enemy here. Um.... he only takes about 10-15 hits depending on your damage output, so he IS easier, and I personally could take him, but he's just as damaging as he was in No Man's Wharf and I would say just to be a little forewarned here. The dude is nowhere near as smart as the boss was but he's still a pain and since there really isn't a reason to come down here at all unless you are able to open the shrine's door.... just don't go left yet.

And right is the foggy part of Shaded Woods that I won't go into until after Iron Keep is done. I know what's in there and it's considered to be harder than Earthen Peak, which is the area 2 areas after Huntsman's Copse and right before Iron Keep. Um..... the main reason I would say come down here before Copse is to get an easy Estus Flask Shard, easy access to a Pharros Lockstone, the ring in question, and just getting to this important bonfire now so that you don't have to go through the pain of getting there later.

Since I DO know what is in there, I can at least say that the Foggy woods is basically kind of a maze but not really. But it's got some decently hard enemies in there, it's hard enough to see where you are going that people have trouble giving directions to items in there for walkthroughs, and you are going to need more branches of yore to unpetrify some people. The entire area all culminates in a boss battle against a scorpion lady with extremely high attack and magic damage that ...... I didn't choose to deal with that yet.

You access Huntsman's Copse by paying 2000 souls to the cleric lady in the contraption that led to Heidi's after you get her to move there from Heidis. If you never beat the Dragonrider in Heidi's, because technically you didn't have to until now, then you need to take a slight detour.

Huntsman's Copse starts off looking like a Haunted Forest area. Which is really freaking cool. I mean it's one of the coolest Halloween vistas in the game staring down at the forest from the first bonfire. And...... they never utilize any of that that much and it made me sad. I mean.... you go into a wooded area. But all you really do is fight hollows and one big hollow enemy if you are on the right path. If you are not on the right path you will see a 3rd kind of enemy I was not high enough level to deal with and an area that starts to look more haunted ruiny (because enough areas in the game look like that right?). And..... it's more of a poison mist rains down upon that one small part of the woods every so often. None of the scary looking atmospheric theme was used to do squat and it's just .... they dropped the ball on that one. Anyways, traipsing through the woods you eventually come to a bonfire locked behind a door that I am told the key to is deeper into the level. I don't know exactly where but all I can say is that the left path branches into two paths and it's not on the left path's left path. Anyways, you kind of leave the woods here for more stony mountainous terrain that ends with a big waterfall and the ruins behind it.

The actual enemies of this area are slightly tougher hollows but...... not really. I just destroyed them in two hits, or one from an old whip. They just... die to it. The bigger enemy carries two scythes and has much more health but...... the dude is extremely easy to bait and dodge and only attacks you in open enough areas that he's not a threat either. I mean...... this enemy is almost harmless. I mean if he hits you you take some nice damage but if you've beaten anything required to get to the Last Bastille then you should have the skills needed to make these effectively harmless.

I know I mentioned it in passing but beware of the poison mist that occassionally spritzes down from on high in this wooded area. It won't fully poison you unless you are standing in the middle of the cloud, but it will almost do it and 2 hits will definitely do it. And....... poison is a much bigger problem in this game than any game before. It just..... it acts like freaking toxic from the older games. Like......... before poison was a thing where you could just shrug it off and wait it out. Now it does damage like toxic but wears off after about a minute (which is much faster than toxic was). So...... getting poisoned in the middle of a fight can be very bad.

Here, at this boss door, once again, I got pissed at the game's co-op system a little but I dealt with it. Um.... so I managed to get someone to summon ME into a game. And I helped them kill the boss.

If I've forgotten to mention it killing a boss in co-op using the Large White Soapstone restores all of your spell uses, restores all of your estus flask uses, restores the durability on all of your stuff, and it makes you human again. Quite the bonus for helping someone beat a boss. If you can. Since people keep trying to summon help but no one ever actually seems to be there to help, I use this before every boss door to help at least one person before I challenge the boss in my game. This time...... I was very low on resources and had to burn some items I would rather not have burned.

Um..... and then after waiting like 30 minutes with no help I went in and beat the boss solo.

So, this is the Skeleton Lords boss.

It is by far the coolest, most atmospheric boss arena so far, and it kind of but not really makes up for them dropping the ball on the entire haunted woods thing (because foggy woods in what appears to be a well lit area is not the same as good old fashioned dark and scary).

The fight starts with 3 lords sitting on their thrones. They glow red and then get down and then proceed to try to kick your @#$. So. The actual lords themselves aren't that bad. They are about as bad as.... well I beat them on my first try solo. They each have like 1000 - 1500 health and they aren't very good at ganging up on you. The one in the middle is always a pyromancer. One of the two on the sides is always a scythe wielder. And the 3rd..... well they change between pyromancer and scythe wielder.

The BEST strategy is to strafe and attack the scythe wielding ones first with your best ranged attack. Barring that, you still want to try to kill the scythe wielders first. The fireballs don't deal THAT much damage and the attack frequency is relatively meh, while the scythe wielder(s) can kill you much faster and WILL get in your face.

When you kill any of these bosses, more minions get summoned that share the boss life bar. The best strategy here, for your own sanity and because it's just a good strategy, is to kill one of the bosses, then kill all of the little minions that swarm you, and then to kill another boss and repeat. The two bosses on the sides both spawn skeleton soldiers. One spawns a couple more but they are a little easier, while the other spawns a few harder ones. Both of these are king of easy to beat by this point in the game though as long as you know how to kite small mobs of semi-slow enemies. I mean..... you've been kiting the bosses and not just absorbing hits right?

Anyways, here's why its sometimes easier to have 2 scythe wielders and only the guy in the middle being a pyromancer. When you kill the guy in the middle it summons 4 Bonewheel skeletons. This....... was the only part of the fight where Jack almost died while doing it solo. If you don't know what a Bonewheel Skeleton is then I'll just tell you that it's the second hardest common enemy from Dark Souls and leave it at that um... it's a skeleton on a wheel that rolls at you and nukes your stamina and/or your health. And in a group of 4 they can surround you. Ideally you want to take out the guy that spawns these last, because fighting these AND a boss is a pain, but if you can't you can't. Just do your best to stay away from the boss while killing the spinny dudes.

Let it be noted that all skeletons in this battle are weak to fire attacks, of which I had none but if you are a pyromancer or somehow have flame weapons by this point, then it's a good idea to use them.


And...... it sounds completely awful but it was actually one of the easier bosses. After that you get to go through a side door to Harvest Valley. You can then talk to another merchant who again when you exhaust all their options will move to Majula (if you've been doing this to every person you meet AND you've beaten the Sinner's Rise boss, then she will be the 2nd to last that does this). She sells a sorcery and a hex that just nukes undead enemies but is harmless to all others. And she sells some titanite shards (up to 10). And a few other miscellania. Not really a specialized shop here right now, but apparently she sells large amounts of new titanites upon clearing iron keep, upon clearing drangleic castle, upon getting the king's ring, and upon beating the final boss.

Oh. Before I forget. On the actual path to Huntsman's Copse right before the first bonfire is the first hex trainer. Hexes are a more formalized version of dark magic from the last game that scale with whatever is higher of your intelligence or faith, and you need 8 of both to talk to him. He does not move, but he is literally right by the copse bonfire so it's no big deal.

Also, it seems there is a side area in Huntsman's Copse that I have yet to challenge. You get to it by going right at the locked bonfire. Which..... means the key is probably down the left path's right path. Um...... this leads to another boss and a covenant if you've beaten the boss and have a token of spite (found loot much later or gotten by successfully invading someone with a red - eye orb).


Anyways, you can go right through a pool of poison (run but for the love of pete do not roll through it) to the first bonfire of Harvest Valley. Looking down from where the merchant was.... there's poison everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It just looks vicious and looks like our new favorite pal the poison swamp makes a comeback. Um.... and this is where I stopped so I can't describe that much more.

Um..... so wow. I've done 3 more areas, and there are now 4 areas I can progress into. I've done Harvest Valley, Earthen Peak, and Iron Keep since last here.

My next options are the Executioner's Chariot Arena, the Belfry Sol, the area at the bottom of Majula Well, the Shrine of Winter, or Shady Woods.... tough choice.


So first things first I was wrong. It's not a poisonous swamp. It's a poisonous gas cloud that never dissipates with poisonous puddles in a few areas. That's much much nicer. Right.....

So there is "technically" no boss of this area. What that really means is that after the second bonfire there are no bonfires until you beat the first boss in the next area.

To get to the first bonfire, you basically have to get past some smaller, well annoying but not that troublesome enemies and a few dark fireball throwing giant things with about 1300 health that throw dark fireballs that..... do a lot of damage. You eventually open up a door using a switch after killing 2 giants and some small guys in an arena. Oh. And there was a single skeleton in there somewhere. Um... then you get to enter the mines. The short passage to the right has the bonfire, while straight ahead is an open area where the exit leads to the entrance to earthen peak.

Um.... guarding the entrance to Earthen Peak are these things that are basically mini- executioner smoughs. They are called something something steelworker but **** it it's a mini, executioner smough with as much damage but like a 3rd of the health. Um...... so this is where they kicked my butt a few times and eventually I managed to use the upper path to get to the boss fog. There is an estus flask shard somewhere down in the lower parts of earthen peak, but you can't get to the bosses from there and you can't progess and I decided to come back for it later so I never found out where it was. Anyways, the first boss here out of 4 done is the Covetous Demon.

Um....... he's a giant slug. If he eats you all of your items are unequipped. You still have them...... they are just unequipped. Does that make the fight harder? I would say possibly. Possibly. There are some caskets above the boss that you can shoot down to temporarily distract him. Because he will eat the guys inside. And..... well he has a few attacks. He starts each attack cycle by slithering like a snake back and forth to prevent you from strafing around him. Smart ******. Well anyways then he will either try to jump and belly flop, swipe at you, or just plain eat you. Your best bet for most of the fight is to hug one side or the other doing as much damage as possible until he telegraphs his rollover attack. When he does that..... back off. Because the boss will roll over. Twice. And then do the snake moving thing again. And... overall he is one of the easier bosses if you don't get eaten.

After him you get to go to the first Earthen Peak bonfire. YAY. From there it's a short trip across a bridge and up a ladder and fighting against some poison guys, some arrow guys, and a magical heals himself lightning spear dude to get to the next fog door. And behind that fog door? Why it's the most evil thing they could ever put behind a fog door. It was a ....



Bonfire. They put a fog door there and a bonfire there to troll us. You know what you will probably be willing to take it. That last part was surprisingly annoying. Okay. Now light a torch at the bonfire. Then walk to the windmiill across from it. Walk onto the ledge. And try to get it to give you a prompt to torch the thing. Then burn it to the ground. This will cause several poison pools in Harvest Valley AND Earthen Peak to dry up completely. Including the pool right before the boss and the pool in the boss room itself. This lets you summon an ai phantom whose sign was hidden by the pool of poison, it prevents you from having to get poisoned while fighting two guards, it makes the boss actually beatable (because with every player getting poisoned constantly it's not that beatable of a fight), and.... well it just makes your life easier.

Anyways, past here you get to fight the Flame Sorceress's and more lightning spear minions. Then you get to the boss door and.... I would summon help for this one. Just because the poison pool has a safe spot in the middle doesn't mean Medusa is a pushover.

Which.......... this is basically Medusa if her headless body was slithering around while carrying her own severed head. There's a more proper name for this boss but I forget it all the time so just be aware it's really just freaking Medusa. I have been told she has some petrification attacks.... but I've not actually seen any of them. All I know is that she's extremely fast, a melee range boss, and that she is tough for even 3 people to beat.

After you beat Medusa you finally get to enter Iron Keep. Several goodies in this area include the Dull Ember and some pyromancy spells, but this was such a high stress area that I just went and killed both bosses and I need to do a search later. It's also notable for both being the entrance to Belfry Sol and the only area with extremely high probability that you will have to come back later to get nothing but a couple of chests (aka the ones on the lava paths).

Um..... you basically run into the keep, fight some katana guards which are much easier than the lightning guys from last area, dodge some arrows, lower a bridge, dodge some arrows on the bridge, then fight the smelter demon boss. After that you get to dodge some fiery traps, fight some more katana guys, fight some blackiron golem dudes with massive maces reminiscent of those guys that might have smacked you for entering an area in Forest of Fallen Giants too early, and ..... you basically get to go fight the boss after that. But before doing so, there will be a guillotine. After that will be a room with some flame traps and a ladder that blends in extremely well. At the top of a series of ladders is a bonfire (which means the run to the boss will only have one iron golem dude and no one else to contend with), and a switch to turn off all of the fire traps in the fortress. Turning off the fire traps won't make the boss easier at all, but it will make getting some loot much easier. BTW, if you intend to get said loot, don't use the bonfire just yet. Light it, but don't rest at it. You don't want the enemies respawning.

Anyways, if you out the door opposite the way you came into the cage room, you get to see the boss fog. And this one is a great soul like the last sinner. And if you turn around..... well there is a giant statue of a bull. Yes those holes up there were actually eyes. And well....... it just looks cool. It's a giant iron bull. Anyways, on the lake of lava is the boss fog. And you get to see a cutscene. And you get to fight the easiest version of this boss.

The 1st time around he spawns a little bit away from you and you can get some free ranged hits in. And he stays on that one side of the platform. Every time after that well... he spawns in the direct middle instead. Anyways, the old iron king is actually a very easy boss once you memorize his attacks. So. A few things before starting:

1) Lose the shield. It's useless. And trying to use it is likely to get you killed.
2) Don't fall in the lava. This literally ended every single one of Jack's failed attempts. The actual boss never did the final blow. His knockback attacks into the lava killed me twice and sheer idiocy in not paying attention to the footing ended me another 4 times. I won on the 7th .
3) The back right part of this platform can be used as a hiding spot from some of his flame attacks, but it doesn't protect from his laser. Assuming he isn't just standing right on top of it of course. But it is at least a safe spot from all but his laser attack.
4) He WILL reposition himself if all you do is try to cheese him at range.
5) If you can't avoid the fire, roll through it and try to use the i-frames to prevent damage.


All that being said, he has a few notable attacks. He swipes with his fists, and the one using his left is best dodged by rolling towards him actually. He also has overhead attacks, usually doing one fist at a time or both. He will also breathe fire, and when he starts he will always AT LEAST hit the spot where you were standing (same with the laser). And he will do some very powerful aoe attacks if all you do is sit on his *** (after the first time though they are well telegraphed).

There are two really viable strategies to fight this boss. Both involve dual wielding.

You can either dual wield swords and hit his fists when they are stationary on the platform (which is a lot when you try to stick close to him; his aoe's are actually pretty rare and as said pretty well telegraphed; in fact all his close range moves are). Or you can wield a sword and a staff or bow and do the same thing you would with melee but trade some damage there to do some ranged damage when that is applicable. Either way, he goes down quickly as long as all players involved keep their cool and don't **** up at a bad moment, usually by falling into the lava.

A few other things. Some of his attacks can hit you twice. As in you will get up and they will hit you again. This is how he tends to knock people into the lava.

Also........ this boss is easier solo than in a group. Solo his patterns are EXTREMELY predictable. As in with a little practice he won't even be able to hit you when you don't miss time a roll through his fire (which in itself is not lethal). This also makes it really easy to heal midfight.

With 3 people....... it's a little too much chaos. The boss takes damage faster, of course, but he becomes completely unpredictable. And do you know what else he starts to do? He starts to favor his aoe attacks A LOT more. I did this solo 7 times and I saw the aoe attack maybe two or three times a run? In a group that goes to like 6 or 7 and then the host dies by falling into the freaking lava. The same with the fire. He tends to spam the fire more often with more people whacking at him. And I mean....... wouldn't you? If you were a giant fire demon, would you try to smack people shooting at you one by one or just cover the entire platform with waves of fire to see what doesn't burn? It just..... it's much easier with one person. Add on that in coop the bosses get a little more health and a little more defense and...... yeah try to solo him. Once you beat him you get to enter a room with a chest with sublime bone dust (+1 to estus flasks). In the next room is the primal bonfire. And in the room after that is the entrance to the 2nd dlc if you are so inclined to do an end game area early and have paid for it.



BTW, I seem to have not described the Smelter Demon have I. So. This..... is an optional boss. It's usually where people go, but you can technically just go around. And this is literally an Ornstein and Smough level boss for this game. If people are talking about hardest boss, it always ends up being this, the ancient dragon, or something from the dlcs. And um...... the dude is a bad-ass. You know the cover of Diablo Games. It looks like that kind of demon. It's a giant iron goat man thing that sets itself on fire a little bit of the way into the fight. Just so that anyone at melee range will take damage over time because that's totally fun for a boss to do. He also is kind of enough to stab himself in the chest with a sword, because who wouldn't? He takes no damage from that and then his sword is on fire too. And um...... all this fire buffing is done at fixed times into the fight, meaning he could technically do it at full health so chop chop. Knock as much as that health off if you are melee character before the boss is on fire. Um...... and right there meleeing him solo is a huge problem because he does not let the person who he is attacking have a rest. There is barely even room for an opening. It....... between his swiping attacks and his leaping attacks and everything else you have come to expect from a dark souls boss but faster, and with a nice bit of aoe attack at the end of his jump to discourage opportunism, this dude just........ it's one of those few fights where it's comparable to Ornstein and Smough with not much else to say. So I would say to bring help or forget the midlevel bonfire and GO AROUND. Um..... so I've been having trouble summoning help. I just don't see signs anywhere. And you know what? I saw more signs in front of this boss then I've seen in front of the last 7 before it combined. It just...... it's certainly a hard boss. When you fight him 3 on 1, he has a little more defense and he can still hold his own so well that it took 3 attempts with 3 people to beat him once I learned I couldn't beat him 1 on 1 at that point in time. On top of all this..... you fight him in a very small room. There really isn't room to run at all because of this. I mean...... it's the size of the DragonRider's room in Heidi. That's kind of small.

So. What do you get as a reward for beating our fiery optional friend? Well...... you get a midlevel bonfire as a checkpoint. That's nice. You also get to take the shortest path to the next boss. Also nice. And you get a shield that looks like a pig's head. It doesn't seem to have any special properties. It's just the porcine shield and it looks like a pig's head. The flavor text says it might make people run scared but I don't think so. And that's pretty much it.

Well that's not all technically. If you go back to where you fight the smelter demon (because Jack wanted to do some coop), the Pursuer now spawns in that area until you kill him (Jack never got to do some coop). Um........ blatantly put that isn't that fun. It's not like the flexile sentry i mentioned a little earlier today where it's taken a little bit of a debuff in the transition. No. It's the one I fought with Dual Wielded Swords back in Forest of Fallen Giants because I could'nt get a co-op partner and thus I died a lot of times to it Pursuer. That's quite the deterrent to trying to do some co-op.

And..... well that is how Jack got a second lord soul. Again, some really cool areas but too much poison for my taste ( I know I will regret saying that later).


My main complaint was HOW THE **** WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW TO TORCH THE WINDMILL BEFORE GOOGLING IT.

Um.... for right now, just some miscellania I've been meaning to say but never got the chance to about the game. Also, this is going to be my first impressions of the game now that I've been playing it a lot more.


Before I get into what is going to be a semi-review, I want to mention the Sweet Shalqoir NPC. She's a cat and merchant in Majula in one of the houses you can access from the beginning. She does a few nice things and is becoming important enough to warrant a mention by herself.

1) She lets you abandon any covenant and is the only way to abandon the difficulty covenant without joining another one.
2) She keeps track of your rank in ALL covenants you have come across and joined at least once. Even if the rank is 0.
3) She is a shopkeeper. Now this is the truly important part.

So, let us look at her inventory:

She sells (unlimited later but only 10 a piece at the beginning of the game) homeward bones, prism stones, alluring skulls, and lloyd's talismans. All useful items not really sold elsewhere, especially the bones. At 600 a piece that is literally the cheapest way to cut your losses if you want to protect a huge amount of souls.

But her rings are what makes this cat/merchant really shine. She sells 5 rings:

- Ring of the Evil Eye: Each defeated foe gives you some health. 4500 souls. The only meh ring she sells.
- Silvercat Ring: Falling does less damage to you. This is one of three ways of getting down the Majula well and frankly it's the best value imho for a non-magic user. 13400 souls.
- Redeye Ring:It's easier to be detected by enemies. You know what this does? It makes it so that if you play co-op you can attract all of the bosses aggro (or enemies for that matter). It's one of the best PvE rings in the game if you want to be the phantom. 6700 souls.
- Name-Engraved Ring: 5500 Souls. Makes it easier to connect to other players who choose the same god. So. You pick a god when putting it on. And instead of being 2-3 down and 1 up, you get to go about 5 or 6 soul memory levels down and 4 or 5 souls memory levels up. Furthermore, you are matched only with people wearing the ring and who have chosen the same god. Do you know what that means? This ring is basically your ride to playing co-op and pvp with PEOPLE YOU KNOW. Well worth it.
- Ring of Whispers: 5800 souls. It lets you talk to an NPC. Not only do they eventually give you a fragrant branch of yore, they also are then willing to help you in one of the hardest boss fights so far in the game. It also gives you even more advance warning when enemies are near. The actual description is "can hear the voices of foes", which means they make a growling noise that makes it easier to detect ambushes. Worth it alone for the boss fight, this can make ambushes a lot easier to deal with too.


I know I've done this before but I want to discuss the Multiplayer next.

So, I've been invaded once outside of Belfry Luna. And I've finally realized why. I have two great lords souls and am working on a 3rd, but I still literally only have 3 cracked red eye orbs. I haven't used any of them at all either. That means that while playing the game for more than 30 hours, I have seen only 3 of the item needed to invade someone. I feel like both this and the first covenant (the one that summons two players to your world if you are invaded) are designed to balance out the fact that people could get invaded at any time. But so far it seems like it's just killed it at ... less than 635k soul memory? I have that much soul memory and I was invaded once. I did some research and it sounds like once you get to end game tiers it happens more. But still.... I'm level 96. I can be invaded at any time. And it's happened a massive once.

Continuing with this theme, invasions seem to be completely localized to the Belfry areas. Do you know why? Well A) the reward is worth it, B) you don't need a consumable to invade there, C) there is not really a place for the invadee to hide from you, D) it is highly likely that TWO people will invade the same person due to this covenant, and E) reaching a high rank in this covenant is required for getting one of the trophies/achievements. This means the area is a literal clusterbomb of a combination of people who want to invade other people just to do it and people just trying to get their items. I mean..... it rewards you with a titanite chunk for every kill. Do you know how many chunks you need for 1 items upgrade path? 6. Do you know how many you can get from merchants before beating the final boss? 10. Do you know how many you find just lying around in the wild? 5. And do you know how you farm them? By murdering other players in the Belfries. It's just that simple. Ignoring of course that your first 10 kills gets you an ultra rare titanite slab.

Now, this would not be much of a problem, even with how frequent the invasions are (and it really is ridiculous), except for the fact that in the Belfry Luna specifically a boss exists. And that boss is a 3-5 on one boss fight where if you can't summon help you WILL be greatly outnumbered fighting fire-breathing aerial enemies that take quite a bit of damage each to defeat. It's ..... it's not that fun to do solo. So it makes sense to do co-op right? Well........ if you can keep from being invaded long enough to stay human AND summon someone then yes, it's great for co-op. And do you know what the best way to put a summoning sign down is? It's to already have beaten the boss. Because they can't invade you in the boss arena and that's a safe place to put down your sign. Well....... excluding the fact that walking the mere 3 feet to put down your sign and leave literally can and WILL lead to you getting invaded yourself, sometimes even double invaded, trapping you in that area and making your sign disapear....... It's just not that good. It makes that boss near impossible unless you have much later area items that will just demolish them before they can gang up on you. It's worse than the ruin sentinels because at least you can reliably summon help for THAT boss, even if that boss is harder, becasue that boss will only at worst ever be 2 on 1 unless you severely screw up.

And at the end of the day, the reward for beating the boss is actually freaking worth all that trouble. It's just bad.


Speaking of, I can get summoned very easily to help with boss fights. But summoning someone else? That's a real rarity. Seeing someone summoned beside me? That's like a 1 in 4 shot as well. The co-op seems dead outside of a few bosses like the Smelter Demon that are disproportionately hard but offer a reward big enough to the phantoms to make it worth the effort.

Speaking of, I've spent a cumulative 8 or so hours wearing the Blue Sentinels Ring while human. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The one time it even tried to activate, which surprised the crap out of me, the person died before I could get there.

BTW, that's a huge problem with all the multiplayer. It takes like a full 30 seconds to minute and a half for a summon to actually go through once you've been summoned for any reason. Is THAT fun? No way. Does that cause problems? Almost certainly.


As for what you get for helping someone beat a boss?

Well it's almost certainly worth it. You get all your estus back and get all your item durability back, and if you used the big one you get to be human again. Do you know why people aren't using this to make their own attempts easier? Because the game tells you none of it. You have to figure it out on your own.

Which, since this is supposed to be a review I will say is once again a huge issue. There is once again nothing to warn me that an area might be a bad idea until I die and irretrievably lose whatever souls I was carrying. There's nothing to explain the stats system, which got way more complicated. There's nothing to even point you to the green herald in Majula, which believe it or not a decent number of people actually miss. You know the lady who lets you level up and gives you access to Estus? Yeah it's no longer required to learn how to do those things to progress in the game, and she's standing in an area where she blends in a little, so some people really do miss her entirely.

But I guess that is to be expected in these games. Exploring is part of the fun right?

Except they went back to the horrible Demon's Souls system where your health keeps going down as hollow. This..... there's like no good reason for it. It was done solely to encourage people to try to be human, but as I will state later there are a large number of problems with that too. And..... well it doesn't do anything but punish people for playing the game. It's very bad to actively get between people and the game like this. It doesn't matter if you are trying to get the player to do something specific. Getting between them and the game in a way that makes it harder and harder to play the worse they do is not a good thing. And..... well the only reason this is bearable is because this game's Cling Ring equivalent shows up in Heidi's tower and I have kept it on ever since.

Anyways, back to forced invading. I honestly don't know how I feel about it. I mean...... right now if you aren't in the Belfry it seems alright. But I don't just take into my considerations when I review a game. I look around the web and at least learn about what other people think. So. While I have not personally experienced any of this becuase I am not high enough level to........ there are basically a very very large amount of horror stories about how when you cross a certain threshhold you get invaded a lot more. It sounds like you are liable to get invaded at least once an hour if not more often, and in some areas it is A LOT MORE OFTEN, actively preventing people from doing things they need to. And you know what? This also apparently adds to the ever decreasing health BS if you get invaded frequently. I know for A FACT that this was so in Belfry Luna.

Basically put, btw, this is a common theme. The people who made the game wanted to stop two things. 1) They wanted to stop you from continously farming the ai. 2) They wanted to stop people from trolling other people, especially around the level TWO area. This led to a few interesting design decisions.

So, they don't want you to farm:
- Enemies now only respawn 11-14 times before disappearing for good. This leads to you very well might get just plain old stuck in one area do to not being able to get souls for something. And it just..... it makes it harder to do a lot of things. Furthermore, it seems to have influenced the boss design.
- They tried to use co-op as a way to mitigate this. Do you know what that does? If you are a low enough soul memory and you are capable of getting to the boss's area with enough equipment in good shape and enough healing items to actually be of help to someone, you have a chance to get some more souls out of it.
- Limited respawns also just plainly and clearly limit your access to certain items. I mean...... yeah. There is no good way to farm certain items now, and you almost never have as much as you might want.
- The only way to mitigate this all is itself a limited and semi-rare item, the bonfire ascetic, that also just happens to raise the difficulty of the area. Just like with human effigies, it's very easy to run out of these little godsends too.

They also wanted to encourage people to be human more often:
- The items used to do this, human effigies, are very rare. Again making co-op one of the only viable routes. Do I sense a trying to force people to play multiplayer, possibly even if they don't want to, pattern?
- Forced invasions pretty much does the exact opposite. Or does it? I mean... having all your health versus an invader is better than only half right? Again, forced multiplayer rears its ugly head.
- They made advantages to being human in a world designed to kill you. I mean... and there are bad design choices trying to make you want to be human. It boggles the mind.


^^ Surrounding these themes, there's one thing that seems to stick out and be counterintuitive here. They seem to be worried about people playing too much co-op. I mean.... they do everything to encourage you doing it, and then they make it hard as heck to do it if your host dies a couple times. It just...... again it's not that great.



So so far, I would just consider all of this me making relatively major issues out of just minor things. Nothing's been that bad. And the game is fun. It looks great. I love playing it. The worlds are massive. They are fun. And even though they are deadly the combat works perfectly and once you get used to it you can't stop playing. None of the things I have mentioned here are that big of a deal and I would definitely recommend to still get the game if you've been reading this and it sounds at all interesting to you from what is in this thread.

But I do have one complaint I would consider major. Not minor but major. And that is that all of these design changes have seemed to lead up to one big problem.

You see..... this game has two kinds of bosses. The kind the average player can handle on their own with practice........ and the kind the average player will never be able to handle without summoning another human.

So far, bosses I could easily beat on my own are the last giant, the dragonrider, the flexile sentry (new game only; I actually got summoned into a new game plus one once and NO WAY, he gets some help in NG+ and beyond), the skeleton lords, the covetous demon, and the old iron king.

Bosses I could handle on my own with a lot of practice include the Pursuer (what actually happened), the flexile sentry (NG+), the lost sinner, and Medusa.

And bosses I would not be able to handle on my own, no matter how much I practiced, unless I got completely insane at the game.... well they include the Ruin Sentinels, the Belfry Gargoyles, Scorpioness Najka, and the Smelter Demon.

So let's examine what each of these "unbeatable", at least for me, bosses entails.

The Gargoyles, as elaborated above, is a one vs many fight if you try it all by yourself. It's just not.... it's just not fair. The gargoyles attack in ways that most of their weaknesses are completely covered for the vast majority of the fight if they only have one player to focus on. Between the very frequent aggro attacks from multiple sources and the very damaging fire. Oh teh fire. If you are lucky it's just a 120 degree sweep. If you are unlucky one of them goes freaking airborne and you are just plain screwed. Furthermore, there is no npc phantom to summon for this fight. You heard that right? Some fights, unlike past games, don't have npc phantoms that could help you. And some of these are the freaking hardest.

Next on the list, let's just cover the Ruin Sentinels. Do you remember why Ornstein and Smough was hard to do? Well that's the second part of this fight if you are lucky. You get to fight the first one on a small platform. And it's not AS bad as the pursuer but it's decently bad in these close of quarters. Then, if you are lucky the second one will jump up there without the third and you will get to kill it halfway before being forced to jump down. And then you are forced to fight two people who cover each other's weaknesses very well and once again it's very hard to get a hit in edgewise. You know what though? That's the best case scenario. THAT is the BEST CASE SCENARIO. Worst case? You get knocked off the small area by the boss because you couldn't dodge that attack and the alternative is it cornering you. And they do let you have an npc this time. He even has some good attack power. But..... he can't take THAT many hits. And he's a ranged fighter. Vs bosses that just want to get in your face and pummel you. And.... he isn't that good at strafing. At all.

You know what both of those bosses had in common? It was multiple bosses vs just you, and getting a hit in edgwise is very very hard. You need multiple people there just to separate the bosses from aggroing each other. The gargoyles gives you nothing, while the Ruin Sentinels....... well there is ONE npc phantom at least there. He does quite a bit of damage too. But... he's a magic user that dies mid fight almost ALL of the time.

But let's head into this elseways. They have more than one kind of tough boss you know? You know how Manus used to be tough? You know because of all the dark magic crap? Well if you didn't, let me explain Manus to you, the only boss I never beat in Dark Souls 1 before starting a NG+ playthrough.

He had tons of very high attack very damaging combos. He had some of the best reach in the game. And he started using magic about half way in that was almost impossible for a lot of people to dodge. It was the boss fight where you never messed up or you DIED. That was that.

Well come back later and we have Scorpioness Najka. Not as bad as that at all. But still pretty bad. The boss is extremely dangerous up close. Because from anywhere 360 degrees she can just smack you with attacks that are nowhere near well telegraphed enough. Good. K. But if you try to stay away......... well then here magic comes out. If you know what Homing Soulmass is... well it kind of looks like that. But with a twist. Instead of soul arrows it fires freaking soul spears. Two hits from this attack and you are dead. And.... avoiding it takes a ton of skill. And here again the npc phantom is basically just a distraction until he dies. He does some decent damage, and this boss fight is about halfway between impossible solo and doable after a lot of practice....... but the dude just tends to die halfway in and then what?

Oh but wait. There's more. The grandaddy of them all. The smelter demon. Basically......... this is one of those bosses where if it wasn't optional it would be the ornstein and smough equivalent of this game. Times 2. Just..... it's one of the fastest bosses in the game, it's one of the deadliest bosses in the game, and it tends to cast freaking immolation on itself in addition to having almost no "safe" spots to attack or heal 1 v 1. In fact, 3 v 1 there aren't really enough "safe" spots either. It's just a really freaking brutal boss fight altogether.


But wait. There's more. You know the problem with stuff being unexplained? Well the DragonRider, Medusa, and Lost Sinner battles are much harder than they have to be just because nowhere, and I mean exactly nowhere in the game does it say how to make them easier. That's it. If you don't burn down the windmill, and how people even know to do that without googling it I have no idea, the Medusa boss is almost impossible due to high levels of poison and other status effects in a poisonous water arena that might as well say you have decreased movement speed the boss now moves 2-3x as fast as you do. Um...... almost impossible 1 on 1 and difficult for 3 people, trying to do co-op with people for this boss has basically taught everyone interested to hide their sign under the poison muck.

DragonRider...... if you don't raise any of his platforms you fight him on something that's like 10 feet in diameter. As in, half of the other people (I at least try to help but it's a losing cause) summoned to help THIS just suicide and leave. The first one makes everything a falling hazard but it's doable. And.... again none of that was explained. And the Lost Sinner.... how are people supposed to know that you can light up the arena at all, let alone the HUGE advantage it brings and the fact that the key is behind another boss?



So while I really like the world and the enemies and such, and I think it's a good single player game, I don't like some of the boss designs, I don't like how things end up poorly explained in several places, I REALLY don't like how some of the multiplayer parts were interested, and I don't like how on the one hand they are trying to force multiplayer and on the other they are just making things like staying human unnecessarily difficult.

Back to a less serious note, I've done a few more notable things since last time.

First things first, I've been doing so much co-op with the Old Iron King boss that I think it's time for a short guide to the actual boss.

Here are the boss's moves:

- A swipe from his left to his right followed by a ground pound with his right hand. The hand will stay there for about 10 seconds for melee fighters who rolled out of the way to smack it.
- A swipe from his right to his left followed by a swipe from his left to his right. There is no easy damage here.
- A ground pound with his right hand followed by a swipe from his left to his right. Again, when he ends on a swipe there is no easy damage.
- Just a single swipe from his left to his right. No good damage here.
- A ground pound with his right hand followed by a ground pound with his left hand. This second ground pount is again one of those times where the hand will stay there for melee fighters.
- A ground pound with both hands at once. This stuns people close to it but eveyrone should still be able to get some more damage in here.
- A single ground pound with his right hand. Wonderful damage opportunity here.
- A dual ground pound that makes fire erupt (you will see the fire on his hands when this is about to happen), if you can evade it this is another chance for melee fighters to pound on the boss, since his arms will be exposed (it's a directed attack). This one can also be evaded just as well by rolling to the side as any of his other swipe or pound attacks. Just..... roll twice instead of once and try not to roll into it by mistake.
- Breathing fire on the arena in a small semicircle around him. Not a good damage opportunity. Perfect timing will let you roll through it, but it's better to just back off here.
- Finally, he has an aoe mist attack that does quite the bit of damage. He starts to bring his arms closer and his wings, so it's well telegraphed once you see it once.... back off from this. Don't even try for it.

All of these attacks mentioned so far are just things he does when you are really close to him. Since most of it is easily dodged, it's actually a really good tactic to stay close to this boss (relatively) when he's not doing the fire breath thing. That way there's plenty of opportunity for melee fighters to smack him around and do some good damage.

The boss is truly a threat when using his ranged attacks. Unfortunately, his close range fire sweep is usually what causes this to start 1v1. He has 3 ranged attacks.

- He might use his laser. This can penetrate walls (there is a hiding spot for the other two attacks in the back right of the arena depending on where the boss is) and thus must actually be avoided. He also tracks you. Normally, the way to avoid it is to figure out who it is tracking (1v1 there is no mystery) and to have that person strafe around the boss until he fires. Usually, if done right or even rolling at the last minute (given room), the boss should miss. The only time this should really hit is if you end up stuck on the right side of the arena (or left but never seen that happen) and in which case a roll is your best bet. This attack is liable to hit you twice if it hits you once.
- He might do super fire breath on your ***. This only happens in one direction like the laser but it does more damage, is also liable to hit you twice, and it just has a wider area.
- Finally he might cover the arena in flames that will literally circle out to cover the arena. The hiding spot or rolling is the only way to avoid this.

^^ All of this is for 1v1 melee fighters of course.

All of the advice still holds for 2 or 3 v 1 melee fighters on how to actually handle his attacks, but he loses all predictability. This makes the fight a little bit harder, but if EVERYONE knows what they are doing you will still be fine.

There are enough pauses between his attacks that healing is really easy during this fight. Just heal instead of attacking. And ranged/magic users? They can attack him at any time that he is not trying to smack them specifically with impunity. (I like a mix of heavy melee damage in the right hand and a staff in the left hand for this fight. Going Gandalf on his fiery balrog ***). Um..... and that's mostly it.

This boss will also submerge and reposition himself if you try to hide too much in the hiding spot. He also starts at a different, slightly easier position for attempts 2+ compared to the first attempt, but the first attempt lets you get some free ranged hits in at the beginning.

The last thing to note is that a) most of his attacks have knockback that can potentially hit you into the lava, especially dangerous on his attacks like the laser that can double hit, b) there is a lava patch in the middle of the platform, don't walk into it, c) make sure not to walk off the edge of the platform, and d) your host will most likely die on their first attempt.




In addition to play a heck of a lot of co-op, I also cleared the rest of shaded woods. So we left off at the forked ruin bonfire. To the right into the fog is where you have to go next. My only advice is, HUG THE LEFT WALL. You get to meet a nice severed-head of a merchant who will sell you some really nice things. And you will eventually find the exit right next to the bonfire. And when I did this not a single enemy in the fog attacked me (although still keep your shield up). While if the enemies in the fog attack you.... you are probably better off picking up your pace than trying to find and destroy them. They like sneak attacks and are extremely hard to see in this area. Anyways, you exit the fog really close to the shaded ruins bonfire.

The rest of this area has a few notable hazards. There are the curse jar traps. If you don't break them but stay close to one, your curse meter will slowly build. Multiple jars do not increase the intensity but do increase the radius of the effect. You can tell if a jar is a cursed jar because it will be laughing and it will be emitting black smoke. Good new though. Rolling or one hit from your weapon will smash them.

There are also Lion Clan Warriors. They have an axe. And they have a shield. And their axe not only does tons of damage and stamina damage (3 direct hits and you are probably dead), it also deals decent curse buildup even through your shield. And and and.... they are heavily resistant to all forms of magic damage. These are some of the most hated enemies in the game . Good news though. They are extremely susceptible to backstabs, with about 2/3 of the way around on their right side being the best spot it seems. And they seem to take a little more physical damage then normal. so if you are really really good at strafing, that's a strategy to use. The spell Yearn also works really well on them unlike every other spell, allowing for very easy backstabs.

Curse is a status condition that turns you hollow and subtracts 10% of your health. Basically it treats you as if you had died but without killing you, and then proceeds to just build up again. Pretty freaking nasty actually....... it can reduce you below 50% max.

In this area, you should be able to find ManScorpion Tark. He's guarded by a golden lion clan warrior you don't ever really have to challlenge from this side (tougher than the normal ones). If you have the Ring of Whispers from Sweet Shaquoir, you can talk to him and exhausting his dialogue will let you summon him for the boss. He will also give you a de petrification branch (fragrant branch of yore?) after you beat the boss if you exhaust his dialogue again.

A word of warning. One of the lion clan warriors, the one between the ruins and the two towers, will try to lead you onto a trap. The floor collapses and drops you with him into the basilisk tunnels. Um....... they inflict petrify. It's instant death + double curse on top of the death health decrease. So..... beware. In these tunnels, if you have the fang key, you can also release a blacksmith who you will be able to meet again in brightstone cave (although free her after killing all enemies to prevent her death and/or petrification). You can get this key from depetrifying and defeating one of the enemies around here, but I don't remember which and have not done this yet so can't help there. Between the two towers after the floor trap is the path leading up to the boss fog.

BTW, I forgot to mention, a HUGE word of warning. Take out all things around the giant basilisk before pissing it off. It doesn't respawn but has tons of health and is a pain to deal with at the same time as anything else at all. And this is one of those things where I'm going to leave it's location as a surprise because you literally won't be able to miss it.


The actual boss here is the Scorpioness Najka. I complained about her in the review but here's a recap. If you stay at range, she casts homing soul mass duct taped to soul spears, which is basically 5 soul spears that home in on you. In addition to just the spears themselves . If you get close.... well there's not anywhere around her that she can't hit you, meaning you have to be really good at baiting attacks and taking advantage of opportunities here. And healing is a pain in the *** to attempt here at all. My advice honestly? Just summon. This fight is hard and the help really does help.

Also, you know that item on top of the tree in the boss arena? That can only be gotten by making the boss knock it down for you. And you know what else? It's junk you don't really need or care that much about, so don't go out of your way to get it knocked down.


After beating the Scorpioness you can go back to tark to get your branch as a reward, and you can also go forward to the Doors of Pharros area. You will immediately come under fire by a very big gyrm and a couple smaller ones. The chest in this first cavern is a mimic. Behind it in the alcove to the right is the first bonfire. Up the stairs and to the left is a gyrm guarding a chest with some just okay loot in it. And if you've talked to him twice already Gavlan will be willing to wheel and deal in his new permanant spot right above your head across from the chest with just okay loot. That room has a spiral staircase that tkaes you to brighstone cave tseldora, which is the area we are trying to reach for the next great soul. Past the actual bonfire is the actual Doors of Pharros area I haven't really bothered to explore yet because that is where I stopped. It has a large number of pharros contraptions (more than you will ever find keystones for), and the vast majority of them are completely, utterly, useless. If you can beat the boss of the area, which I don't know much about yet, you will get the option to join the rat covenant.

And that's all for now.

Um..... an amendment to the review in hindsight. Um...... they basically took the valley of defilement, blighttown, and the tomb of the giants and took a little bit of each to make The Gutter. This just ain't right.

Brightstone Cave Tseldora

When you enter this area, you are...... actually outside? Um..... yeah. So you start in a camp under the night stars. And there is a bonfire in one of those camps. There is also a place to summon Bernhardt if you've talked to him enough. And well.... there are some slightly annoying but not that annoying hollows walking around. There are also some very angry pigs here.

One you go the only way to go honestly, on past the cliff, watch out for falling boulders. The first one you can't really kill the guy and just have to bait it, but he usually suicides himself before knocking it down. The second guy, well...... there's a handy ladder there before the dangerous zone, so you can just go kill him.

After that, it's honestly just some more semi-okay hollow enemies until you get to the first boss fog here. This is the boss fog for the prowling magus.

Honestly put? If you are a mage, and you know aoe, spam it at the beginning of this fight. Or Firestorm. Any variant of that kind of crap. You see, this is another one of those lords fights where the actual boss only has 1000 health and is the highest health enemy in the room. And um...... aoe wipes out most of the threats depending on how much damage you do?

Barring that, there is a boss that casts hexes, 2 clerics that throw lightning spears over and over, and a bunch of weak melee minions that form the magus's congregation. And um....... just go smack everything till it stops moving while dodging lightning bolts and black fireballs? That's basically the boss fight in a nutshell. More people obviously makes this even easier, but this is widely considered to be a joke for this deep into the game (a lot of people do Freja 4th instead of 3rd, but I really don't want to deal with the Rotten ). And um.... continue. From the exit, you can turn around the side of the building to see a ladder that leads you to the pardoner npc. This time around he just de-aggros people, not actually getting rid of your sins, but he sells a lot of really important miracles and some good hexes, as well as all the "Bite" rings that give you resistance to all 3 kinds of major status effects (poison, bleed, and curse) for 5-8k souls a piece.

And um..... around the corner is a conspicuous bonfire.

Anywho.... down the slope from this bonfire you will come to a room where lots of people in white robes are launchgin homing orbs at you nonstop. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use the ziplines to get to the one sharing a platform with the spider and to enter the building. Without dying or getting knocked off of a zipline to your death. The whole, you have to ride the zipline down while these guys are out of lock on range means you need a bow, OR you need to be really lucky here. It's .... without a bow its like the anor londo archers all over again unfortunately. And um..... yeah once you enter that building you can take a ladder down to the next bonfire and never have to do that part of that room again if you don't want to.

Beware though, 2 spiders will respawn in this room with the bonfire the next 12-13 times you use it.

And um... well from here, exit to the bottom of the area you were just in. Run around the sandtrap to a room with 1 spider and one mage, and kill both. Now get used to doing that and ignoring the basilisk who won't follow you in here. The first time you try to come here a red crystal lizard will be sitting in front of it. Thankfully, after the first homing shot none of them will follow you in here, and you just have to worry about the one mage in the room. From there, it's time to descend. Take the exit through the door, and 2 poisoned hollows (have spiders on their backs) will attack you. Very dangerous at melee range, take them out at range if at all possible. 1 more poison hollow, 2 basilisks, and 2 spiders will attack you as you clear this room. And well...... then you get to go forward. Go into the cave with spikes on the floor, and a non-respawning npc invader will invade you. This one is not pleasant to deal with, but once you deal with him that is the only time you will have to. As with most npc invaders, this one seems to have infinite stamina so blocking is a bad idea.

And um.... continue. Ahead of you is a building. Notice the 2 poisonous hollows on the balcony. Now is a good time to kill them one at a time with range before approaching. If not... well then just get ready for them to drop down and deal with them then.

As you enter this room, look up. You will see about 5 spiders waiting to ambush you. Look up and to your right. There's a 6th. Ranged, once again, be your friend here. The door you want to exit through is the left, but be wary as you open it as a poisoned hollow will come out.

After you use the ladder behind that door to exit, you will officially be in the domain known as Freja's Lair. The only enemies here are spiders. The first web you have to go down will have one on it, there will be one on the solid platform after that waiting for you on the ceiling, and 3 will ambush you on the web right before you try to hit the ground. A bunch of them will then try to ambush you on the ground, and there is even one trying to ambush you right before the boss fog.

Spiders only have 200 health, so you should be able to otk them at this point in time. If you can't.... you are in for some fun . And um..... then there's the boss fog.

So a bit of back story. The duke ruled Tseldora. He ended up with a pet named Freja. Freja was a giant spider with two heads. Freja started to destroy his realm. He let it. After you beat the boss you get to kill him and then the body of Vestardt ( the head only merchant from the foggy area in Shaded Woods) and THEN get to use the primal bonfire.

Also be wary. You need to examine the glowing red orb after beating the boss or no great soul for you. This is all done because these bosses are all throwbacks to the "great souls" from Dark Souls 1. In this case, this is supposed to suggest the dragon hanging from the webs in Freja's lair is the true great soul (aka Seathe). The old iron king, the last sinner, and the rotten are supposed to be Gwyn, the Chaos Witch who created the Bed of Chaos, and Nito respectively I guess. And apparently in New Game Plus you literally get their souls in addition to the boss souls as a reward.

Anyways, the boss. Um..... there are lots of little spiders, just like the ones you have been fighting, that respawn constantly. There is also one really fricking big giant two headed spider you have to worry about.

So first things first, kill all the little spiders as fast as possible. This will deliberately contradict what you will be given as advice elsewhere. But they take like 90 seconds to respawn and 1v1ing the boss is a ton of easier than being forced to only travel in one direction becasue that swarm you are trying to ignore is blocking the other one. People like to circle around the boss and attack the inactive head (only one can really attack at a time), especially during the laser attack (the boss can fire a giant freaking laser beam from either mouth that leaves it very vulnerable on the other head). This is a good idea as long as you don't let the legs step on you. But at some points in time you will want to change direction and for good reason. And this is where those little spiders people will tell you to ignore will kill you. So 1v1 just deal with them first even though it makes the fight much longer, and 2 or 3 v 1 just put someone on occassional bugzapper duty. You won't be sorry.

Ok. Next. Use the strafing tactic. The boss can spit acid or try to attack you with a swipe or use a freaking unblockable undodgeable (almost) laser to attack. But only one head at a time. And the strafing thing pretty much ruins all of its attack patterns as long as you don't **** up. Especially with multiple people and the boss easily getting distracted.

And um..... that's basically all the strategy that matters. Don't let the little dudes gang up on you and gang up on the boss and you'll do fine after a little bit of practice (you have been using your own soapstones to practice right?). And um...... then you get to go kill the duke because of his poor taste in pets (he's a normal hollow that will fight back...... but he's a hollow and that's it) and an actually decently tough headless but still walking corpse that lamost killed me because I was low on healing and man that thing can move. Um....... and that's it for now.

I hope to be able to dicuss the Gutter + Black Gulch and Freja co-op next time.



Oh. Some basic co-op tips for being a good host and/or phantom:

Phantom:
- Learn how to fight the boss before going into co-op. Usually from challenging it solo.

The worst thing that could possibly happen to the host who is RELYING on you is for you to die at the beginning of the fight because you suck at this fight. Not knowing what you are doing not only ruins the game for you, it completely nukes the host's chances of beating the boss since bosses are buffed for each person fighting them. Time and again, people have joined my game and/or other people's games only to die at the beginning. While I can beat the super buffed old iron king 1 v 1 while the host hides in the corner, I don't really want to. And yet that keeps happening. Sometimes, I can beat it. And sometimes the dude just smacks me into the lava midway through and the host is really screwed.

- Bring the proper gear to deal with the boss.

Time and again, I see really bad design choices being used. Um........ for starters wear freaking armor. I mean..... some sort of armor. Don't walk around without a helmet on (or frankly missing half your armor) because you think it looks cool or makes you look "skilled". It does neither and usually means you are going to end up violating the 1st tip as well as this one. There is no excuse for anyone to not at least be wearing at least cloth armor, even if it's only gone to +3. The same with weapons. Don't bring pyromancy or fire weapons to fight the freaking smelter demon. It's a waste of your time, and you are making the fight harder for other people. Also, if the best thing you can possibly do to a boss is to shoot poison clouds at it...... don't even put down your sign. No one wants to summon the phantom who does nothing but cast "poison mist".

- Don't Queue up if you can't damage the boss enough to make it worth your presence.

Bosses get buffs the more people that are in there right? Well..... some people join lobbies when they won't be able to deal non-negligible damage to the buffed boss. It's semi-okay to summon phantoms to help YOU with a boss you can't damage, but hosts again don't want to summon someone who won't be of help.

- Finally and most important...... your teammates cannot move through you. So watch where you are standing.

It seems simple. It even seems negligible and like it will never be relevant. But it really is, and about 1/5th of my failed runs are because someone decided to stand somewhere where their teammate needed to get past them but couldn't. They were in the way. And they were too focused on the boss to realize they just go their teammate killed.

A really good example of this is safe spots. Every boss has certain safe spots sometimes. You know what tends to happen though. Someone will reach the safe spot, turn around, and start lobbing projectiles. And you know what the problem with that is? They block the freaking entrance to the safe spot so other people who can't get in will get hit. This is especailly problematic in the Old Iron King boss fight and the Medusa boss fights, as people frequently end up in the lava and/or poison because someone is standing in the way of safety and doesn't really care.


Being a good Host:
- Follow all the tips of being a good phantom plus a couple extra things below.
- If you are about to die, back off and heal. Don't keep going. If a phantom dies, yeah that sucks and the boss just go harder but at least Helm's Deep has not fallen yet. If the host dies, it's all over. Phantoms use spell uses and estus flasks and item durability every time they help someone out. And every failed boss attempt can seriously eat into their resources. And since most bosses are in isolated areas hard to get back to, the host dying can just force them to stop co-oping for quite a bit of time. It's just...... not fun. If you are a phantom, it's okay to be a little more aggressive. You are risking no one's neck but your own. If you are a host, then you risk everyone's neck and supplies when you risk your own.

This is also why it's most important for the host to know what they are doing. If the host can't at least dodge the boss's attacks some of the time when they have the boss's attention, the entire enterprise is doomed from the start.
- If you summon someone using a small sign, they only have 15 minutes to help you. DO NOT wait around for 12 minutes and then enter the boss fog. You would think this wouldn't be a problem. BUT IT IS. People will sit around trying to get a second sign that will never come. And then you will get desummoned. It's a rare occurence, but it happens.

So. I ... I ... I just played the game. For 3 hours. And um.. well. If you had not noticed until now, I tend to put a lot of pauses when I'm typing these things. It's because I actually say these things out loud and ...... to be blunt then I just type them that way. I'm not sure but I think it at least tries to add a little bit more of a human touch to this..... enterprise.

I am.... not very sure I can do that this time. It might.... get a little out of hand.

So. So um... I went down and I killed the Rotten. I killed the Rotten on my first try. It took all of 5 minutes. It was a really cool boss fight. And I finished it in 5 minutes. The actual walk down there takes about 25 minutes, if you don't die. Big if. BIG IF. And...... the other 2 hours and 30 minutes were the worst dark souls experience across 3 games that I have ever had. The ... the two areas you go through to get there are known as THE GUTTER and BLACK GULCH. And I will probably describe the boss. The boss was fun. The boss was great. The boss was even a little epic for what it was. They put a freaking bonfire right in front of a shortcut to the boss that lets you skip all enemies. So I will probably even engage in some co-op against this boss. But. But .... as far as I am concerned, these dungeons should not exist. And um.... the sheer **** **** on the way down the .... and that is why as a .... as of the end of the post I refuse to admit that these two areas exist. It's just a really long climb down a well with a bonfire at the bottom. And the boss fog. And that is how I am going to relax and continue to play the game while knowing that something like that was before the halfway point. By denying it.

So you pay 12k souls to go to the bottom of Majula Well. And about halfway down is this beautiful entrance to an area I did not go into (it's optional) known as the Tomb of the Saints. Wonderful. It's only optional if you don't pay for the 12k soul ladder. Anyways, it seems that the climb takes a full 2 hours and 55 minutes. I mean... they really tried to be realistic. You do nothing but climb down a ladder in a well (how did he even build this thing?) for 2 hours and 55 minutes because the boss fog is that deep. And and. Well they were at least nice enough to put a bonfire at the bottom AND the boss fog. No mean areas or anything. I still say it's just a big troll and they took it too far but whatever.

Anyways, the Rotten boss fight takes place in an arena with fire pits in several areas. And...... I am not 100% sure the boss is immune to these pits, I mean, I didn't get to test it, but I'm pretty sure he has the reach to smack you even if you try to use them to strafe the boss. So um...... don't use the fire pits as any sort of escape mechanism. Bad idea.

The actual boss is well.... really **** freaky. The boss is a mass of undead people jammed together into a .... and they obviously aren't happy about it but it's just one big mass of writhing flesh shaped into the form of a giant human. I mean.... this is a thing out of nightmares. And it has a big butcher knife. And it can emit a 360 degree aoe attack. And it moves really fast. And it also has a breath attack. And it can turn around faster than you can strafe. Luckily, his attack patterns seem to be identical to that of the old iron king (well not completely, I mean the dude fits in the room and you can actually walk around him) in that a lot of his attacks are just dodged in the same way. Except....... he's much much faster, so the timing is much much more strict. And ..... long story short I beat him 1 on 1 with exactly 50 health and no healing items left. It was a very tense fight. And well....... that's the Rotten.



After doing the Duke's Dear Freja fight in co-op a couple dozen times, I realized a few things here.

1) The boss is literally two spiders joined together where their abdomens would have been. And it's supposed to make you think of both the Armored Spider and Seathe the Scaleless boss fights (I mean you pretty much fought Seathe by circling around him too). The boss can only take damage at its two heads. And you know what? After so many hits in a short amount of time a head can come off. And if the second head comes off and the boss is not dead , well........... you have a problem.

2) Sort of related but the few times I've seen a head come off it seems 'i am the only one smart enough to realize that the boss can't be damaged there anymore. Basically put..... no red eyes = no weakpoint any more. That's the visual cue you want to look for in case you miss the actual rolling ball scaring away the tiny spiders (the head actually scares away the tiny spiders and can be kicked around, meaning really creative players can.....).

3) The boss has an attack other than the acid breath and the large laser beam and meleeing you with its face pincers and the belly flop thing. It can step on you. I mean literally while flailing around while someone is damaging it it can accidentally step on you even if it's not aware of you.

4) People are not smart enough to summon the npc phantom instead of going up against the boss 2 on 1 and a bunch of tiny spiders. I mean..... that just annoyed me to no end. It's not like you aren't used to summoning these guys. And it's not like the sign is that well hidden (it's beyond a pillar you should have gone behind while checking for this kind of thing). It's just people go in without summoning him with only two people. And that makes Jack's life harder.

5) The bosses patterns are literally no more complicated than that. If you learn what she's going to do before each attack, you can literally just circle around and attack the other head (assuming it stays on). The actual boss should have an extremely hard time hitting you.


All of which leads to a new rule for being a good host in co-op. IF you are not going to summon a 2nd player, THEN summon the co-op ai phantom if one is available.

Against my better judgment I have reconsidered my position and am now going to describe The Gutter and Black Gulch.

But first, a shopping list. If you want to enter these areas, get all of the following:

- the 12000 soul ladder all well and truly paid for (give the souls to the guy next to the hole; he shows up there after you beat the old iron king boss)
- a flame quartz ring (purchaseable for 2000 souls from the lady you unpetrify to reach Shaded Woods; reduces fire damage) or anything else that will reduce fire damage
- the silvercat ring (purchaseable from sweet shaquoir; reduces falling damage) OR Fall Control (purchaseable for 4800 souls from the merchant at the beginning of the iron keep; again reduces falling damage)
- poison cures, poison resistance items, and/or the poisonbite ring (bought from the guy above the church in brigthstone cave tseldora near the second bonfire; increases poison resistance by 300): You need all the things you can get to deal with poison for kind of The Gutter but especially Black Gulch.
- a light source; either Cast Light (purchaseable from Straid; he is the petrified dude in front of the bonfire you probably saw in the Last Bastille) or enough torches to last your through both areas basically

Once you have all that, you are ready to attempt these areas.

So, the 12000 soul ladder brings you about halfway down the well. The rest of the way you are going to have to make some intelligent but tricky falls. You will still take minor falling damage with fall damage reduction up. Without it...... you will need 2 estus flasks most likely, assuming you have the health to survive the biggest fall (took 2/3 of mine).

I'm going to say right now, that the Gutter has a lot of descent parts where fall damage reduction is kind of useful.

Once you get to the very last platform at the bottom of the well, do not jump into the bottomless pit. You will die. Um..... do to all the spam messages here that actually needs to be said. Chances are someone will try to trick you into thinking there is some sort of treasure down there.

So. In the next room is a bridge. You can leap to that treasure chest if you get a running start and no it's not trapped. It was .... just okay loot. Better than the stuff enemies drop but not important enough that I used it at all.

Either way, you need to jump into the sewer like room below. Then, about 5 fire mummies (remember the exploding guys from Last Bastille? Well they are back) will attack you 1 by 1. This time, their explosions kill them too. But....... it does a ton of damage. Also, the drop down does some falling damage so.... yeah. And no, it's not avoidable. So if you are wearing both the silvercat ring and the flame quartz ring, you should be able to survive about 3 explosions out of the 5, leaving you room for error here. Again though.... just roll when they are about to explode and away from them. And of course the water in the middle of the room will slow you down. It's not poisonous or anything dangerous (yet), but it's a movement speed debuff.

And well........ one entrance to this room has another piece of just okay loot and and the exit from the tomb of the saints. It's unscalable, and designed to be that way, so you can't go down there from here. The opposite area brings you to some platforms. And right here, the area starts to look a little like Blighttown. You are going to use a series of ladders and calculated drops (again fall damage reduction life saver) to scale these rickety platforms and descend into the area. At the bottom some hollows will attack you and their weapons have some sort of buff that makes them do a lot more damage than I expected. After this, you will enter an area as Dark as the Tomb of the Giants. This is what I meant by you needed a light source. And the bonfire should be on top of the first or second building, so make sure not to miss it.

Welcome to The Gutter. This dark area is supposed to be a combination of Upper Blighttown and the Tomb of the Giants. Upper Blighttown was inspired by level 1 of the valley of desolation, and this area looks eerily similar to parts of that too. So...... first things first beware the statues that still have faces and an O for a mouth. They are liable to shoot poison at you. 2 shots, even with the poisonbite ring, may be enough to poison you here, so.... yeah. Poison does damage over time and will do exactly 100% of your health worth of damage over time. That means you need to heal at least 1 hp worth of health if you contract it at full health. At less than full health... quite a bit more. And it's very fast acting in this game so be prepared to use estus flasks or poison cures. And I mean keep that crap on your wheel, not just in your inventory.

This area will be you scaling buildings and bridges. Blatant warning here, some parts WILL collapse and lead you to your death, so be prepared for that. It won't be nice and you won't be happy when it happens and Jack done cussed like a sailor the 4th time it happened to him. Um..... other hazards include those oddly damaging hollows you've already met. Not only are they just dangerous on their own, they try their best to knock you off of lots of ledges here. In fact, let me just get this out of the way...... the whole descent thing here is just a falling death mecca. There are also Large Mutant Dogs wandering around on some of the bridges and platforms. These things can't really be stunned long enough to combo them. They do get stunned if you do a ton of damage, but it's like long enough to stop one attack before they bite your face anyways, not long enough to finish them. And they do a ton of damage as well as interrupt your attacks really freaking well. And they move fast. And .... well rolling here is dangerous for obvious reasons, especailly on the bridges where they like to hang out. And .... I don't like them. If you end up in an area where Jack never went, you might meet Giant Ants. They are listed as being in this area, but I never had the good fortune to stumble upon any. And well..... let's continue. You also need to look out for Corrosive Jars. There are jars here that when you break them they let lose a liquid that corrodes your equipment by a lot. But the most dangerous enemy here? Look out for exploding hollows. Again, falling death mecca be it's name. 2 or 3 casts of Cast Light should be able to take you to the 2nd bonfire of the area, which you can access by attacking one of the wooden walls blocking it. This bonfire, by the way, is one of the few reasons I did not say screw this area, I'll just skip both of them and screw the dlc. I mean.... I had the soul memory necessary to skip both areas. But this bonfire after so many deaths just gave me the little boost to keep going that I needed. And .... beware a lot of the poison statues around this bonfire.

Eventually, you will descend some more. And eventually, a few corrosive jars will be blocking a drop down to a cliff-face that will lead you to the Black Gulch. Good news. There is no boss here in the Gutter, so any fog you see is just there to troll you and get you to go that way the first time.

So like 20 some falling deaths later (I hate the Gutter and am probably bad at it) we've reached the Black Gulch. At the very beginning you can turn left and find the first bonfire. Again, this too is a bonfire just in the right spot to make me not quit here. If they had put it even a little further into the level, it would have been severely evil. So. They've now made all the poison statues glow eery alien green with some sort of ooze on them. This lights up the area a little, and you can navigate by it, but I would still say to use a light source if you still have one left. Not as dark as The Gutter, this area is still much easier to survive with a torch.

So first things first, attack and destroy every statue you can. Then rest at the bonfire. Then repeat. If you rest at the bonfire, they don't respawn. But if you die, all the statues come back. And there are so many of them that will poison you so many times that it really is best to just clear the area slowly.

There are two major enemies on the way to the boss. There will be some parasitic worms. These come out of some of the pools on the ground, and they initially look like a giant hand trying to grab you and drag you in. These pools are corrosive, although not as bad as the jars. And.... they can actually be lit on fire for an easy kill. Um.... if one of these things grabs you, you will lose about 3/4 of your max health best case to its attack. That's it. Don't engage them at melee range unless you have no other options. And speaking of which...... if you are poisoned and one of these grabs you, then you will probably just die.

There is an alcove before the first set of acid pools with a chest with some more average loot in it. And past that is about 5 pools, 3 or 4 of which have parasitic wurms. Once you've gotten rid of all the statues, a viable option is to kill off these wurms over and over just to make your life easier. Past these wurms are more statues. I'm going to stop saying that now because there are never not more statues every single place you go in this area. They are a problem. And past these statues some giant wurms will come out of the wall. They mostly attack straight ahead, but they do have a side to side attack. You will need to kill both before passing, just because that's how the area was designed. And although it might be tedious and these guys have a ****load of health AND respawn, its still worth it to engage them at range which is perfectly safe if you've got the ammo and don't get poisoned. You might want to farm these guys off along with the 3 or 4 parasitic wurms at the same time. Past them are a lot more acid pools. If you stick to the right side, only one or two parasitic wurms will attack you. The path on the very edge of the cliff will lead you to the second bonfire of the area (only 11 deaths later for me; stupid poison for like a total of 5 minutes of work it's too much). And um...... you can see jars at this bonfire. If you break them you can drop down and go to the right. If you hurry while using this shortcut all you will have to deal with is 3 poison statues and maybe one parasitic wurm. And then the boss fog is right there less than a minute from the bonfire. And it only took some 30 some deaths to get down here . Um... and then the Rotten is super easy compared to both areas. I will describe him in more detail later, but he is kind of described in the previous post. And well..... I will describe him more after some co-op runs.

Reguardless, once you've killed the Rotten look around his room. Across one of the fire pits that you can kind of leap across and avoid most of the damage (it's only lethal if you are on severely low health) is a corpse with a fire seed for updating your pyromancy glove. And then there is also an alcove leading to the next primal bonfire. And past the primal bonfire is the entrance to the first dlc campaign. And that's these two areas in a nutshell. Oh. And right before the room with the bonfire is a chest with 1 x sublime bone dust (reinforce estus to +4 if this is your 4th area most likely).

Speaking of, as a recap, I've found sublime bone dust on:

- the non-respawning mace knight that is one of a kind in Heidi's Tower of Flame and who is completely unmissable as he is the second enemy on the mandatory route
- the body being guarded by one of the undead aberrations in Sinner's Rise in the water; again unmissable
- the chest after the old iron king boss fight
- the chest after the rotten boss fight

The lost sinner gives you a fragrant branch of yore in here chest to make sure it's easy (assuming you don't waste it) to access Shaded Woods as you literally only HAVE To have 1 of these to beat the game (although if you use it up you get to go on a scavenger hunt for more that I can't help with off the top of my head).

And the duke after Duke's Dear Freja gives you a key that opens a door in the 6 spider room on the way down to Freja. Once you go through both doors, you will see a chest with some good items AND the Black Knight Ultra Greatsword. After opening the first door, one spider will attack you. After opening the second, 6 will spawn in the main room and attack you as another trap.

Just some things I wanted to summarize and or forgot to mention.

So um.....

So what happens is in The Gutter it is an extremely long trek down to the first bonfire, it's a long trek to the second bonfire, and it's a long trek from there to the Black Gulch. And all 3 of these legs have tons of just cheap **** on them, with the middle one being the hardest and the 3rd being the second hardest. So it took me a good 2 hours to navigate The Gutter just because of what the area is and how large it is and .... it's not fun. And it's complicated enough that I could not give directions. Furthermore, I refused to explore the area so I don't know what other goodies are down there.

The Black Gulch is... much much worse. You no longer have to worry about falling deaths here. But..... the statues may make you cry. And this one area is very very short. But it's so freaking intense trying to get to the second bonfire that it ate up another 50 minutes of my time. On an area with only 7 or 8 enemies that I had to kill. That's ... intense as ****.

And it's possible, since the bonfire and its shortcut are semi-hidden, that you can miss it. And... heaven help you if you do.

And that in a nutshell is how this all took me 3 hours when the boss only took one attempt.

As it turns out I may have taken the long way around .

Um...... well this will give you some idea of what the area is but this dude makes it look way to easy. THE ONE TIME I don't look up the path and just wing it....

Anyways, this is a cool video so watch it. Be aware that torches do a ton to light up the area, and it really is tomb of the giants level without one.

Also be aware he is starting at the 1st bonfire already in the gutter.