A Newbies Tale

Yes, Raw sucks. It's an idea badly implemented.
If you can decide over a path, I'd advise to take either Fire or Lightning. They are a crutch, basically, but a useful crutch. Especially for a first playthrough.
If you want to amend the "raw halberd" mistake, you can decrease it to a normal halberd.
Upgrade paths become open when your weapon goes into +5 Normal territory. That's the point where embers come into play.

And it wasn't my intention to put you in a downer!

Just out of curiosity, have you joined a Covenant?

Hi Azran,
I originally was in "Way of the White" probably like every first timer but recently I joined the "Path of the Dragon" really just out of curiosity, and yes I did it the right way -- all the way to the bell tower, left the covenent and then joined via the Stone Dragon. The only other option I've had upto now is "Princess Guard" but i'm not faith build so didn't bother - although I think the miracles may help in the Tomb of the Giants (depends upon faith level requirement).

Here's a question ---- Broken weapons ---- how broke are they? they dont look broke, they still work, and can they be mended?, can they be down graded and re-built i.e. down another path as mentioned by yourself and Fed.

Thanks for all your continued support and help

When you say broken weapons... you mean a weapon that lacks any remaining durability, or one of those already broken weapons? Like the broken hilt, broken sword, etc?

If you mean the first; well, you can repair them. The only disadvantage is the fact that you are going to do way less damage with each attack. You won't lose your weapon if the durability factor goes to 0.

If you mean the second; there is only one use for them, and that includes a certain boss' soul and a blacksmith.

Also, out of curiosity. Did you go down the Great Hollow up to Ash Lake without the Lordvessel?

Mmmmm --- I dont mean broke as in the description, it was broken because of over use... the thing is, even when I repair it, then switch to use it, it still says "weapon is broken"....
I have deposited the Lord Vessel in the Lords chambre (below the Firelink Shrine) -- I did that before I got to Ash Lake and the Great Hollow ---- Am I missing something??

Hm, weird. Are you sure you are repairing it? Try a blacksmith if you are using the repair box, or viceversa.

Nah, you aren't missing anything. I just asked because it's a pain in the backside to go all the way down to Ash Lake without the ability to warp out.

Last night was my Beer, Curry and DS night so made some decent progress..
As advised I reluctantly down graded my +5 Raw Helbert and built it back up to a +14 Helbert and admittedly as suggested my damage rate increased significantly.
I also dusted off my Zweihander and gave that some TLC to a +8, and I have a +5 enchanted Fulchion which is fast and furious - attack mode -> Big hit with Zweihander, switch weapons and a furious attack sequence with the Fulchion, looks impressive.
Running round in Channeler armour set with the Hogs head helm
I LOOK AMAZING !!!!!!!!!!!
and with my Zweihander - a guy not to be messed with
It did take me all night but a job well done.

You'll be much happier with the weapons upgraded down the normal path, I promise.

Also if you're interested in new weapons you could give yourself 10 humanity, to increase item discovery, and go kill all the Dark Knights you may have left alone and hope for a Dark Knight weapon and/or shield.

Just to come back on the Broken Crystal Helbert...
I have tried to repair it with my repair kit with no luck and checked out all the blacksmiths.
Weirdly there is an option of upgrading it though !! to a +3 but I'm wary of wasting titanite on a broken weapon if it doesn't work.
I may just throw it away it only has a durability of 20 so its fragile anyway.
Here's a question I have loads of rubbish inventory, I know I can feed it to Frampt for a few souls -- it that all its good for?

Ah, it's a Crystal Weapon? Welp, Crystal weapons can't be repaired. That's the tradeoff for their power. I'd recommend either an elemental (fire or lightning) weapon, or a normal weapon. You don't need an ember for the lightning one, and the two normal embers are relatively easy to find.

When you say rubbish inventory; you mean the item Rubbish, or just a lot of things you are not using? You could buy a bottomless box and deposit there those items you think you will try out someday. But yes, you should sell to Frampt all that stuff you are sure you won't use again.

Lol I wouldn't call it 'selling' to Frampt, by the time you have Frampt available the amount of souls he gives for items is nothing. If you have things you don't want just drop em on the ground and forget about them. Though I would suggest not getting rid of equipment, you may wanna try something else one day and its good to have stuff laying around. So just put things in your bottomless box and drop any duplicates or feed them to Frampt if you feel its worth your time.

If you have non equipment items that you can't find a use for, keep em because you'll find something useful to do with them later.

Some stuff IS worth selling, like the coins.

Well yeah that's why i told him not to dump the non equipment items he can't find a use for, guess I could of been more specific

Serious_Much wrote:Welcome to the world of Dark Souls

my advice is do not take advice. Avoid using this site at all costs and do a completely blind playthrough, the whole experience is far better for it

but if you are driven to near insanity by this game then give us a call and we'll happily assist you

Good post friend this would be my advise if I was to give any.

To reply to the last post - I always refain from using spoilers, cheats, glitches etc in a game as it spoils the whole experience.
One prime example of this was COD4 - I used to love playing that game, the sniping used to drive me insane (glitch), then some bright spark found a way of increasing the game speed to an insane sprint then mega jumps when you could take out helicopters - totally ruined the game.
Now your probably thinking - "Well why am I on this site" --- This is a totally different set of circumstances - there is no way I could of got anyway near as far and had so much enjoyment out of the game without this website. I would have dumped it on the self as soon as I started getting narked off with the gargoyles in the bell tower. BUT the support of the guys on here drove me on with hints and idea's of how to defeat them -- and that was not the only isolated incident.
I have / I am enjoying the WHOLE experience. Even with the sites information resource and the forum the game is still as hard as hell, but its an enjoyable "hard as hell" a rewarding "hard as hell" - The difference is -- I PROGRESS and thats what makes me get home at night and to relax I put on Dark Souls and there isn't one night were I think to myself "What a waste of time".
Hats of to those who can play this game blind... but to be honest if your reading this then your not really running though blind.....
Just thought I'd share my thoughts on this subject

Yeah I played Demon's Souls blind and I quit just a short ways into the game. FROM doesn't do much to explain the game to new players, so its easy to misunderstand the way the game works and get destroyed by it. I went through most of DkS blind but in the beginning I read some of the Wiki to give myself a better understanding of game mechanics and it made all the difference.

Over the weekend I made some good progress - Managed to complete the link between New Londo Ruins, Valley of the Drakes and Blightown (I didn't know the Blightown link existed!). Numberous attempts at Seath the Scaleless (I now know the secret - so roll on tonight - he's dead meat )
The Four Kings are abit too hard at the moment - I can get down there no probs, but Mmmmm I need to have a good look at my amour and weapons. :roll:
Tried to defeat Laurec a number of times - He'll get whats comming to him soon.....
Other options are Tomb of the Giants, Painted world, and the Demon Ruins fog gate ---- so plenty to go at.
Immediately though it's Seath.... Tonight I WILL be victorious

For The Four Kings I highly recommend grabbing your highest damaging weapon, putting on Havel's or Stone Knight, and wailing on them until they die. If you summoned Witch Beatrice for the Moonlight Butterfly fight, she'll have a summon sign there as well. It's around the large pillar to the right of the fog gate (before you drop down it has some green titanite on a corpse on it), and she deals some major damage. They're also weak to fire.

If you have the Master Key on new characters, you can go down to New Londo, then Valley of Drakes, then Blighttown and skip Capra and the Depths.

Demon Ruins is great, there's a shortcut it opens and if you fastroll or flip you'll have no trouble avoiding the boss' attacks.

Seath the Scaleless is dust walked away with 73,000 souls (including clam souls) so upped my endurance and vitality. The only downside of the crystal cave is its a dead end - now the only reason to go down there again would be to farm twinkling or get the one remaining crystal lizard that eludes me in the cave.
I then went to Vamos and made my Zweihander a Fire Zweihander and thought I'd revisit the Tomb of the Giants - Mmmmm still getting my *** kicked, although I did make some errors in kit / spell selection so I'll give that bad boy another try shortly.
My next aim is to farm some green titanite from the swamp to reinforce my Fire Zweihander, then maybe the Four Kings. Quarik mentioned their weakness to fire, so armed with my +15 Pyromancy, Fire Orb and Fireball plus my sword, I may be in with a chance....... "I'm probably dreaming" but worth a try.
Any suggestions on my chosen path would be gratefully received....

If you are going to fight the Tomb of Giants boss, I reccomend Great Combustion and Iron Flesh. Works wonders when you just want to steamroll him.

You should look towards upgrading your flame glove to a +5; there is a pyromancy trainer in Blighttown that will do that for you. It's expensive, but once you got it, a Great Fireball one-shots the skeleton dogs.

I've been reading this thread for the last few nights and I love it! This is why Dark Souls was made...to get people to keep playing DESPITE the difficulty. Some quick advice if you are going to Blighttown looking to upgrade your flame, near the Demon Ruins entrance after the Queelag fight there is a wall you can hit to open a secret path to a bonfire and the Chaos Servent covenant. For a pyromancer it is one of the best covenants to enter as you get Chaos Fireball when you enter and can buy some other pyro spells from the egg-guy there. Also if you upgrade the covenant to level 2 (offer 10 humanity for level 1, then 20 to level 2) you can receivce Chaos Firestorm. These 2 pyro spells are like the original ones (Firestorm and Great Fireball) but they also add pools of lava to damage enemies with each cast. They may help when you try to fight 4 Kings next time, I know they did help me! Keep up the progress! Good Luck!

I don't like that we're feeding him all of this information. Half of the fun for me was figuring it out myself.

Well you've got to understand he can't play the game as much, so he doesn't have the time to spare spending hours in one area just learning one enemy. As well we mostly don't try to spoil things for him, just tell him directions, or give him advice on gear/etc that would help him tackle his current objective.

I've tried not to blow story and game elements but when he said he was using a Raw Halbred I couldn't not tell him why that's an awful idea

In a sense, lack of gameplay aspect explanation is bad game design.

There, I said it.

I'm okay with not spoiling important bits; but mechanics should be explained. Who wants to feed a Slab to Frampt, after all?

Thanks for the concern 3nvy but Tolvo is correct in his reply. I play DkS as a relaxing hobby, I'm not a student, a kid or an unfortunate (or maybe not) unemployed person who can spend hours on each location and without the help / guidance of this site and forum I would not have ranked up over 200hrs of gameplay and still look forward to the next session.
I've moved forward with quite abit of pace since my last post. I've defeated the four kings in the Abys, visited the Painted World of Ariamis (PwA) and made significant progress in the Tomb of the Giants (ToG) all the way to Nito.
Given my journey, I have a few questions - -
I have just read the wiki regarding the PwA - I played through hollow, as I have done most of the game so I've missed Jeremiah, his armour and I did not kill Crossbeed Princilla. Apart from the armour is there a downside to leaving in peace?
ToG - the "git" that kicked me off the cliff, I went back and let him live (I'm a big softy at heart) but it seems that this mindset throughout the game has come back and bit my backside as they all seem to eventually want to kill me! anyway been pyromancer has been a HUGE advantage in the ToG but when I got to Nito I'd stashed away my divine weapons and they wasn't upto the task, so I had to warp out and at the moment I'm upgrading my weapons to fight another day.
I've just read the tip about joining the "pyromancy" covenet so thats a definate got to do, and I'm also on the lookout for red titanite chunks, I'll take a look at the wiki in a minute.
As always, I'm thankful for all the posters on this thread thats kept me engaged and stopped me throwing my hands (and controller) up in the air.
Cheers.