A Newbies Tale

Like the others, my only suggestion is to let them do a swing combo (stay out of range) and then move in and backstab them. Unless you are powerful enough, any other melee tactic is not recommended

By the way, if you have a bow and arrow you should be able to draw one away from the others. I'd suggest parry and riposting, or as mentioned moving around and backstabbing them. It might not look like it, but you can actually parry all of their attacks.

I will try to explain how I fight them.

As others has said, it's best to attack them from behind with backstabs. The problem is they have a long reach and can attack in a wide angle. This makes it difficult at the narrow bridges.

I use the spidershield, but I use it as little as possible!

- Make sure to only raise the shield when blocking an attack. Lower right away to regain stamina.

- Move in close to the enemy. Block *one* attack then lower the shield and circle around to the back side.

They are weak to lighting - apply gold pine resin (can be farmed from big mushrooms in dark root).

They can also be killed by pyromancy, but it requires upgraded flame and fire orbs to be done quickly.

I think i know where you are and i did not find much trouble with the club guys - I managed to nail down the stab them in the back technique. It was further in where my troubles began. In the end i decided to not go into blightown that way but via the depths.

This leads me onto my next problem that the depths are bit of a nightmare dungeon place and i do not think my basic shortsword is going to cut it out from here on in. Going back to Andre to try get it upgraded a bit today see how i get on.

Apologies for hijacking your newbie tales with mine but i figured since we are in the same boat might as well share a paddle

If they're the ones at the very beginning of Blighttown when you climb down the ladder from the Depths, killing them is easy. You can do it by luring them one at a time along the wooden walkway area. When your're sure it's following you, run back to the small ladder and onto the small platform, then move to the back and to the right. They wont climb up the ladder after you but run to the back of the area underneath you and fall off the edge. It takes time and patience but it's worth it and I think much better than trying to melee them because they're so strong.

SlakeMoth wrote:If they're the ones at the very beginning of Blighttown when you climb down the ladder from the Depths, killing them is easy. You can do it by luring them one at a time along the wooden walkway area. When your're sure it's following you, run back to the small ladder and onto the small platform, then move to the back and to the right. They wont climb up the ladder after you but run to the back of the area underneath you and fall off the edge. It takes time and patience but it's worth it and I think much better than trying to melee them because they're so strong.

Managed to get past these guys this afternoon - It was quite intense as i did fight them on the walkway and ran out of flasks by the time i had got past them - This made for a real heart pounding battle to try and find a bonfire as i got jumped by a few trolls on the way. Manged to get there though that illusive second bell cant be far away now.

Woohooo ---- Thanks Slakemoth.......
Well finially i'm in the middle of Blighttown... Unfortunately i got cursed in the depths but i soldiered on anyway.
Past the club wielding trolls at the beginning and steamrollered through (thank god for the Helberd - spot on for despatching the various other enemies including the flaming dogs).
Past the cave entrance and further down the "well" only to be killed by two cragspiders waiting at the bottom of the ladder.
now the question is - should I go to the New Londo Ruins whilst cursed and have a go at the phantoms and uncurse myself or continue in Blighttown with the half HP i have ???
the other half has work to do tonight so i may have the oppertunity to have a few hours play

undead lee wrote: Woohooo ---- Thanks Slakemoth.......
Well finially i'm in the middle of Blighttown... Unfortunately i got cursed in the depths but i soldiered on anyway.
Past the club wielding trolls at the beginning and steamrollered through (thank god for the Helberd - spot on for despatching the various other enemies including the flaming dogs).
Past the cave entrance and further down the "well" only to be killed by two cragspiders waiting at the bottom of the ladder.
now the question is - should I go to the New Londo Ruins whilst cursed and have a go at the phantoms and uncurse myself or continue in Blighttown with the half HP i have ???
the other half has work to do tonight so i may have the oppertunity to have a few hours play

ive played through this area a few times now ( i suppose im sort of medium knowledge on the game i know a lot of pve stuff but havent the foggiest about pvp) andi really dislike blighttown. but as far as going to new londo it would be a relatively pointless excersise currently as it is definitely a lategame area, im going to try and not spoil anything but i would definitely plug on through blightown although the curse thing is a massive pain! i once got cursed in an area called the great hollow(an optional offshot of blightown) and had huge trouble getting out again, however there is a quick way out of blightown when you are done ringing the second bell! this thread has kept me entertained for a few minutes its great to see a blind playthough being described step by step! keep up the good work and dont give up!

N.B. you can go to the guy undead guy by the first bell with 3000 souls and buy a purging stone to get rid of curse which i would recommend doing but youve made a ot of progess which you would mostly have to do again so its up to you really, personally i would keep going

If you have made it as far as the spiders, you should definitely go on to the bottom of Bligthtown. There is a different path up to the surface from the bottom that is easier than backtracking from your current position. You probably want to cure the curse before taking on the boss of blighttown

Going to New Londo now will likely lead to a dead end, so it might be better to buy a purging stone from the guy in the bell tower as the previous poster mentioned.

The female undead merchant (in the aqueduct leading to the undead burg) also has a few for sale, if that would be easier for you to get to.

Well i got a bit of time on DS last night --- and now i can easily get to the bottom from the bonfire.
Cragspiders and those bloody mozzies are easy enough but no matter what i do i seem to be getting poisoned. is it the water? or am i getting hit by something? those leaches are a pain too.
I've tried different armour combo's to reduce the effects but i am fast running out of purple moss and fire bombs (great for killing mozzies) --- i need to get out quick or i'm destined for a hard slog.
I've had a few runs (although hard in the water) and got a few souls but as yet i dont know where to go.
There's no chance of any DS tonight but Thursday is MY night - everyone out - a curry, a beer and DS all night - well until i drag myself to bed as i do have work the next morning.
Thanks guys for all your continues help and support.

I'm afraid to tell you, the water is poisonous. You can try and reduce the damage by letting the poison go down between small gaps, but if you are going for the boss you are going to get poisoned without high res poison gear, the ring, and the iron ring.

Indeed, there is a significant way to reduce the poison, but unfortunately it is equipment based, and you need to leave the swamp to get it

You could also just deal with it and unpoison your self when you get to quelaag. that is what I did and it worked fairly well and I killed her on my first try.

I had a busy weekend so didn't have much DS time... But taking the advice of you guys I've managed to battle myself back out of Blighttown, maxed out my firebombs and stocked up on purple moss, visted the guy in the bell tower and "un-cursed" myself. One thing i did notice is the "reduce poison" ring that this guy had for 15000 souls. It's alot of souls for me to collect but if i intend going back down to blighttown then i think this is a must buy....
I've had a few explorations of the new londo ruins whilst i was cursed and found nothing but souls at the moment. I still have the moon butterfly thing to defeat, so i dont know whats past her, so i have a few outstanding tasks to keep me occupied.
Some of the posts have suggested i should tackle Bighttown with my poison resistance boosted by everything i have (which isn't alot) so i'll buy the ring, check out the moon butterfly and maybe give Blighttown another crack.........
wish me luck.......

Sounds like a good plan, that ring will help you a lot You will likely be quite capable of beating the woods at the point you are at, just make sure you keep an eye out for special paths

Hey guys,

Haven't been reading the forums for a while (But I kept playing the game like a maniac), but it's good to see you are making a lot of progress on your first play through, UndeadLee.

Since my first post, I finally finished my playthrough. I felt sad that the game was over at first, but then I reallised how much I had missed in my first play through and I now feel like the game is more fun than ever. Maybe my tips will be a little more usefull to you now.

Blighttown: Oh, my most hated place of all, Blighttown! I see you made it to the bottom, congrats on that, to me that was the hardest part (damn toxin). From the lower bonfire I wouldn't worry with poison so much. Yes it sucks your life little by little, but it takes an awfull lot of time to kill you and you can still recover with an Etsus flask.

Instead of putting 15000 souls in the poison ring, I would kindle the lower bonfire so you start out with 10 Etsus flasks instead of 5. I am sure you know how to kindle at this point, but if not, when you spend humanity to regain your humanity, you can spend another to kindle the bonfire. Like I said you will now have 10 Etsus flask when resting at that specific bonfire. This will help a lot more than poison resist, because you will be poisoned at one time or another no matter how much poison resist your equipment has. Try to keep the moss until you make it to Queelag's domain. That way, you can heal yourself before making an attemp on Queelag.

I know it isn't easy, but blighttown is probably the best place for you right now. Once you kill Queelag other paths will open to you (Sens fortress for exemple) which will be a lot easier than anything that is open to you right now.

I'll be sure to come back more often to follow the progress ofyour first playthrough.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Marc

Ahh at least you managed to find the bonfire at the bottom - I manged to get to the bottom once yesterday but ended up getting killed - Them could not get back down without making an arse of it.

I am off on holiday for a few days now though so going to give it another shot tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice LittleMac, i read it this morning so abit too late because i farmed souls from the depths and the Berg to enable me to purchase the ring.
I have also checked out my Poison resistance gear which (for me) the best i have is the wanderers set (Ninja looking). So i got changed at the Bonfire near the Wyvern bridge and set off, sods law i soon got killed by the thieves on the way to Blighttown - lol - the thing abot this game, when you think your hard enough and you get complacent the "simplest" enemies take you out and put you straight back in your place.
Anyway, i've learned my lesson. Armour up until i'm at the bottom of Blighttown then change into poison resistant gear.
I've also obtained a ghost jagged sword, upped it to a +3 and at the moment its my weapon of choice because of its speed and critical kill animation. I've also made my spider shield magic.
Q. Is there any point in making stuff magic ? what actually does it do to benefit me...
Doubt if i'll get on DS tonight but as always, Thursday tomorrow, my night!! Beer, Curry and DS all night

Go back to the Undead Asylum and get the rusted iron ring before you go back to Quelaag's Domain i.e. the swamps, to fight her. This makes it a lot easier to run through the water there. Only problem is, if I remember rightly, you have to get past a Black Knight to get to it.

By the way, you don't have to go by those thieves with daggers. Near the entrance to the depths is a stair case, if you go up it there is the undead female merchant. Follow that path and there is a shortcut that leads to right near the Firelink shrine, so you never have to go through all of the basement again if you don't want to.

There are two sides to elemental upgrades, Shields and Weapons.

Weapons, it lowers the scaling of stats with it, but adds int scaling. With that your weapon will also deal magic damage.

Each elemental path works differently.

Fire/Lightning/Raw/Crystal take away stat scaling, but increase base damage or add an effect.

Magic/Enchanted Lower stat scaling, but add int scaling. Enchanted lowers stats the most but adds the most int scaling.

Div/Occult lower stat scaling, but add faith scaling. Occult is like enchanted, but faith. Occult/Div do magic damage, but Divine causes skeletons in the catacombs to stay dead.

For shields, they increase resistance to elements.

Magic-More Magic Blocked.
Fire-More Fire Blocked
Lightning-More Lightning Blocked.

You can check out the upgrade path page on the wiki for more information.

There is an actual ninja set in Btown, but it is a bit hard to describe how to find it. Just know, in that upper Btown platform area there are a lot of useful items to find, though it is dangerous and a bit tricky to search for them. I hope this helps.

Cheers Tolvo..... It is the Ninja set i have (now you've mentioned it), i'll need to check if the wanderers set or Ninja set is the best for poison - I'm not sure.
I've heard of the way back to the undead asylum by the lift from the shrine to the upper berg but as yet not been able to time my jump / roll to get onto the ledge. I've also heard of the nest where i could trade items although i haven't tried that yet either.
The whole scaling thing is abit confusing, so i think i'll spend some time reading the wiki to try and get my head around it.

Thanks for your help - all of you

The Ninja set is better for poison resist I seem to remember.

Good luck with Bightown i managed to get through it yesterday- The boss fight is not too difficult - Does not get any easier though i am finding Sens Fortress tough going - I have tried running around going elsewhere but getting beat down pretty hard no matter where i try.

Good luck with the bell ringing

The ring will help you a lot while looking for items in lower Blightown, but no matter how much poison resist gear you have, and even if you do get the Rusted Iron Ring from the Undead Asylum, you will get poisoned on your trip from the bonfire to Queelag's Domain, no way around it.

Weapon Scaling: To explain weapon scaling simply, without removing anything from Tolvo's great explanation, you have to look at the letter attributed to each weapon. Let’s take the weapon you are using right now, the +3 Jagged Ghost Blade. I guess that means you went for a trip in New Londo Ruins, how did you like it?

http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Jagged+Ghost+Blade

If you look at the table, at +3, your weapon does 201 damage. This should be the same thing if you look at the stats of your weapon in game. If you do, you will notice the +XX number next to the 201 damage. That is the scaling on your weapon. Since this specific weapon has “E” Scaling under strength, (which is bad scaling, you want a C,B or A in your main stats) then for every point of Strength you have, the +XX number will go up. So really, more damage.

Certain weapon’s scaling letter will get better as you level it up. For example, let’s look at my weapon of choice the Scythe. Not the best but I love the range of the attacks.

http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Scythe

Look at the letter under “Parameter Bonuses”. As you can see, somewhere around the +10 and +14 Scythe upgrade, the letter changes from C to B. That means that for every point of Dex I have, I will get a lot more bonus damage.

Like Tolvo was saying, if you upgrade my Scythe to +10 (sometimes +5), you could choose to go +11 or +1 Lightning, +1 Fire, +1 Crystal. Some of these paths will change the Scaling letters to different stats, or remove them completely in exchange for lightning damage for example.

In other words, if you remove the scaling letters, the weapon damage no longer relies on your stats to do damage, only the requirement to hold the weapon effectively still applies.

My favorite Part of Dark Souls is that you can pretty much use any weapon you want, (ok not every weapon, but a lot) and experience with them. The most important part is that you chose a weapon that you like the move set (trust, slash, regular, ect).

Anyway, I am sure you figured all that out with the wiki. I just like to rant a lot. It takes time away from working… =D

Good Luck with Blightown!

MAC