Discoveries you only made recently.

PlasticandRage wrote:wow, that is a little wacky. I wasn't aware he could do that. But then again I usually end up 1HKOing him before he gets near me with spells or what have you

I was actually getting him to drain my health before Seath and he nearly finished me off with that riposte when I decided to finish him. It was quite the sting on NG+4.

I don't doubt it. The Crystal GS has surprised me in PvP a couple of times. It does pretty decent damage and is relatively quick for a GS. For a disposable GS to boot.

I only found out relatively recently that you don't need the Orange Soapstone to rate messages. Dunno if that's common knowledge or whatever, but it certainly made message rating less of a pain.

Rarayn wrote:I only found out relatively recently that you don't need the Orange Soapstone to rate messages. Dunno if that's common knowledge or whatever, but it certainly made message rating less of a pain.

that was patched into the game early on…and thank goodness because it's nice to see all those messages getting some ratings, if only someone would rate my messages.

Nybbles wrote:

Rarayn wrote:I only found out relatively recently that you don't need the Orange Soapstone to rate messages. Dunno if that's common knowledge or whatever, but it certainly made message rating less of a pain.

that was patched into the game early on…and thank goodness because it's nice to see all those messages getting some ratings, if only someone would rate my messages.

I MAY be just imaging this, but I rate messages which seems to stimulate Summons. I think irating a message gives or takes a humanity from message leaver, so when you rate a message or 3 while waiting to be summoned you are actually initiating P2P with each of the message writers. Seems I rate messages, I get summoned faster.

Wow, that seriously needs further testing, as it'll be brilliant if it does turn out to be the case.

Odinbear wrote:

Nybbles wrote:

Rarayn wrote:I only found out relatively recently that you don't need the Orange Soapstone to rate messages. Dunno if that's common knowledge or whatever, but it certainly made message rating less of a pain.

that was patched into the game early on…and thank goodness because it's nice to see all those messages getting some ratings, if only someone would rate my messages.

I MAY be just imaging this, but I rate messages which seems to stimulate Summons. I think irating a message gives or takes a humanity from message leaver, so when you rate a message or 3 while waiting to be summoned you are actually initiating P2P with each of the message writers. Seems I rate messages, I get summoned faster.

That would make sense considering the nature of the P2P system they set up. I know you're least right about humanity being given for people rating your messages positively. I hope it works in reverse, because some trolls absolutely deserve it.

Just learned this today: I was fighting the Centipede Demon with the help of Solaire. I was on the jut of land just inside the fog gate and Solaire was seriously whipping some Centipede Demon butt out in the lava when the message popped up on screen that I received the Charred ring.
At first I was like, WTF!!!! Then when the Centipede turned around to focus on Solarie, I saw that his tail had been sliced off. Never knew you could do that and never knew that the charred ring is in the tail!
I apologize I don't have screen shots, I was too busy trying to stay alive and kill the darned thing that I didn't even think about screen shots until the fight was over.

You get the charred ring after you either kill the boss itself or cut and kill one of his limbs - not only the tail is cuttable, and each severed limb (including the tail ) becomes a separate monster that has to be killed.

@joemann when the game was released you had to cut the tail to get the ring, if you failed before the boss died you got no ring as your playthrough was screwed. Now I think it automatically drops due to damage taken.

CaligoIllioneus wrote:You get the charred ring after you either kill the boss itself or cut and kill one of his limbs - not only the tail is cuttable, and each severed limb (including the tail ) becomes a separate monster that has to be killed.

Cool. I never knew that ('course, I've only been playing since the PC version came out back in August).
Thanks for the info!

PlasticandRage wrote:The Crystal GS has surprised me in PvP a couple of times. It does pretty decent damage and is relatively quick for a GS. For a disposable GS to boot

Maybe so, but the NPC guy gets his NPC guy damage bonus, because he 1-shot me at NG+infinity when I had the RoFaP on, so I was over 2,100 hp.

I'd killed him so many times, then all of sudden, after countless playthroughs, the guy just stood there with his shield up. I thought he was broken, so finally I gave him a quick nudge with my rapier and, "WTF!!! You can parry???" Dead.

^ That's crazy. He does wield the Crystal Great Shield right? I'm remembering that correctly aren't I? If so this makes me wonder if any other NPC's have abilities with equips that supersede what the chosen undead can do with the same ones.

PlasticandRage wrote:^ That's crazy. He does wield the Crystal Great Shield right? I'm remembering that correctly aren't I? If so this makes me wonder if any other NPC's have abilities with equips that supersede what the chosen undead can do with the same ones.

Darkwraiths can do the humanity drain attack in the left hand.

Black Knights can shield bash.

--- --- ---

It's impossible to do a plunging attack against those giant plant things in Lost Izalith.

I did that to them once, and I just kept spinning in that part where the teeth are located. I got killed after a few seconds. I didn't even damaged it.

WandererReece wrote:

PlasticandRage wrote:^ That's crazy. He does wield the Crystal Great Shield right? I'm remembering that correctly aren't I? If so this makes me wonder if any other NPC's have abilities with equips that supersede what the chosen undead can do with the same ones.

Darkwraiths can do the humanity drain attack in the left hand.

Black Knights can shield bash.

Most enemies have their own movesets, even with weapons you can attain. For example the plain old hollows that use sword hilts have that quick slashing combo you can't do. While I know most enemies are technically NPC's, when I said it I meant more the enemies that take the same essential form as the Chosen Undead. Enemies that you could make exact replicas of in character creation, like the knight who drops Ricard's Rapier in Sens, or any of the scripted invasion NPC's, or really any of the friendly NPC's when you make them hostile. In my experience with them they are generally limited to the same movesets as the chosen undead. I don't really consider BK's to fall into the same category because they're so much larger than the 'normal' character model. You can do the DW's soul steal too, just in the other hand, but you can't parry with a GS no matter what. Know what I mean?

WandererReece wrote:

PlasticandRage wrote:^ That's crazy. He does wield the Crystal Great Shield right? I'm remembering that correctly aren't I? If so this makes me wonder if any other NPC's have abilities with equips that supersede what the chosen undead can do with the same ones.

Darkwraiths can do the humanity drain attack in the left hand.

Black Knights can shield bash.

--- --- ---

It's impossible to do a plunging attack against those giant plant things in Lost Izalith.

I did that to them once, and I just kept spinning in that part where the teeth are. I got killed after a few seconds. I didn't even damaged it.

Lautrec can do heavy attacks with his oddhand.
All NPC's can block (really well) with a parrying knife.
That gal who Petrus wants to kill can block with her fist.

I have recently found a few little area's I never knew about, One even had a soul of proud knight.

Rynn wrote:
That gal who Petrus wants to kill can block with her fist.

That's awesome. Haven't seen that one yet.

Not sure why someone would try jumping down on an enemy which has a mouth for its entire top half, but hey what do I know (so many teeth, seems dangerous, maybe I'll just shoot them all).

For some reason some enemies seem to get increased aggro range in later playthroughs. I am currently in NG++ and the bat wing demon that hides to the side of the stairs by the giant blacksmith is getting up and coming at me at seemingly random times, when in NG he would only notice me when I was halfway down the stairs. Though I might just be crazy or doing something differently.

Also discovered (the hard way) that the worst possible weapon type for ornstein and smough is a spear. This is because the extra reach puts you right at the hammer end of smough's swings and still plenty close enough to ornstein to take a beating. Though I did not realise my mistake until AFTER I had soloed them in NG with the moonlight butterfly horn. The best strategies I have found for them actually involve Queelag's furysword and pyromancy being used as the main source of damage, with the pyromancy saved for the super one since it can be tricky to get hits in then.

The healthbar only goes up to about 1900 99 Vit (+RoFaP) is 2280. I thought it was really curious that the Symbol of Avarice wasn't taking my life away for a little while after leaving a bonfire. Then I looked at my characters stats and saw that there was life points depleting beyond the bar.

Aznul wrote:The best strategies I have found for them actually involve Queelag's furysword and pyromancy being used as the main source of damage, with the pyromancy saved for the super one since it can be tricky to get hits in then.

Try a strike weapon like the mace two handed. IIRC you can stagger them after 3 strikes which stops them from pulling off too many moves. Just watch out for the lighting slam as it's the only thing that can really mess you up.

Bonus tip:

Gwyn can be staggered after two hits like this which makes it almost as game breaking as parrying him.

Lol for Gwyn I just summon solaire, strafe, and chuck pyromancy. Works every time. On NG++ and never lost to him, even though I couldn't parry to save my life .

Manus is "Hand" in Latin.

Slarg232 wrote:Manus is "Hand" in Latin.

Makes sense, he does have a huge hand! I've got another name meaning for you:

Artorius (spelling is different from Artorias, but I still think it's similar enough) was the family name of a Roman gens (the gens Artoria) of obscure and contested etymology. Also, Artorius is one suggested source of the name Arthur.

What exactly do you mean by gens?

Also how in the world do you get on top of the swinging blades in sen's fortress?