Some questions about my build

Let me start out by saying this game is awesome and intense. I stumbled across this game because of the reviews on gamespot and ign promising a challenge of epic preportions . They werent wrong and I am very pleased to say the least. so...

Ive been working my way thru the game so far without thinking about my build too much other than upgrading str,dex,end and vitality mainly with just enough int and faith to use some of the early spells (soul arrows mainly). Want to upgrade my faith some more to use the sword of astora because I hear its pretty good when upgraded. I figure Im gonna stick with more of a mellee type build and im trying to sort out what weapons, armor and shields im going to upgrade to use and this is where im confused and would like some help.

Im working thru blighttown and acquired the shadow set and the laito. I like using the shadow set because of the nimble movement and I hear the laito is nice upgraded. Ive only really used the Drake sword primarily but have tried plenty of other swords and axes including the claymore and didnt like the way they performed. I just dont like the slow, wide open swings of greatswords and axes much.

Anyway sorry for the long first post thats what im working with any advice on what i should do or plan on doing would be great. Thx.

Sword of Astora is a good weapon until you get farther into the game.

Lancelot wrote:Sword of Astora is a good weapon until you get farther into the game.

Ive been reluctant to grind for the faith needed but i feel that it will be nice to have the faith for a few miracles i would like to use.So i am planning on giving that sword a go.

The faith becomes useful later on, trust me.

Lancelot wrote:The faith becomes useful later on, trust me.

Yep I figure even a primarily melee based build can benefit from some magic. First thing i do when i get to firelink is head to nlr to get soul arrows and upgrade int accordingly.

My first playthrough, I disregarded Faith and Intellegence intirely, and I regretted it. Using Magic and Miracles is almost essential.

Almost.

If you like the Iatio and wanna do a faith build, upgrade to +5 divine or occult cause it will scale with faith. I love my occult Iatio. With 50 faith it pwns., and its fast AND it has bleed.

xXDaemonarchXx wrote:If you like the Iatio and wanna do a faith build, upgrade to +5 divine or occult cause it will scale with faith. I love my occult Iatio. With 50 faith it pwns., and its fast AND it has bleed.

I certainly dont want to do a faith build but i understand that any of the katanas are great upgraded on just about any path depending on play style of course. I started as a knight but have quickly found that I prefer nimble movement and fast weapons and have started to adjust my build to accommodate.

I like using some "magic" but im not going to focus my build on intelligence or faith. So im trying to figure the sword, shield and armor combo to focus my attention and souls on.

If this is your first playthrough, don't worry so much about messing up! Do whatever you like, but more importantly experiment with everything. Trust me you will want to do multiple playthroughs, and having experimented will give you ideas what to do differently next time. Also, having one character that's a jack of all trades comes in handy when you want to make an actual build, since you can test loadouts on him before committing to the new character.

The Iaito is a great weapon. Using this weapon will make the game considerably easier than it can be with other weapons! So not bad for a first playthrough. I would recommend you upgrade it on an elemental path first (Fire, Chaos, or Lightning), as that will get you the highest damage per stats.

If you eventually decide to specialize in Int or Fth, along with Dex, you can de-upgrade it and upgrade it along the Regular path, then use a buffing spell on it (Crystal Magic Weapon, Sunlight Blade, or Darkmoon Blade).

That's a lot of info to throw at you right now though! Basically: don't worry about messing up your stats, the Iaito is a great weapon, and you should consider an elemental upgrade path on it as soon as possible.

yea its going to be a bit before I can do elemental upgrades but that is the plan.

Can any one tell me if the shadow set is worth upgrading? It takes twinkling so it would be a large waste of time to get enough twinkling if its not good in the long run.

You can always farm souls and buy twinkling at the Giant Blacksmith (80K for 10 twinkling = +5). What I usually do is co-op O+S and upgrade all unique items to +5 that way.

When fully upgraded, the difference between one set and another is really quite marginal. Also, each set has its own pros and cons, and they're quite well balanced. When a set has a pro that others don't have, it'll also have cons to balance it out. And if this pro isn't something very useful to you, then rather than put up with its cons you should find another set.

The thing about the shadow set is that it has increased poison and bleed resistance. To balance out these advantages, it gets docked in defense. Resistances to those status effects don't come handy very often, so it's not worth putting up with lowered defense for. Also, as a light set, it has no poise. That's a lot of negatives for few positives, in my opinion, so I'd recommend you consider another set.

You'll get the gold hemmed set and the stone armor set very soon, neither of which can be upgraded, but both of which have very good stats, and they mix and match very well according to needs. In my first playthrough I wore the hemmed hood and chest and stone gauntlets and leggings for a good portion of the game--basically until I got Havel's to replace the stone parts! The gold hemmed and stone sets aren't the best in the game, but they'll take you as far as you want them to, and you won't have to upgrade them, so that'll be one less thing to worry about for now.

I appreciate all the help. I've been spending some time upgrading the Iaito and sword of astora. I think I will hold off on worrying about upgrading armor until I get some more options and things to try.

Lancelot wrote:Sword of Astora is a good weapon until you get farther into the game.

i'm on my first Faith build now, what makes this worse later game? Better options?

Well seeing as this is your first build; try for Great Sword of Artorias. 24str 18 dex 20 int and faith. It'll allow you to use most spells from both and pyro too if you felt keen. You can boost End after that to get to a comfortable armour level, I was running around in full Elite/Knight combo at the game end with my own guy.

As with armors I know you can go with looks pretty much all the way, if you want to stay light I ran around with this: Thief mask, Elite greaves, Regular Knights Gauntlets, and Hard Leather chest. Its a light set and looks good, not the perfect set but you can mix and match with other sets like say hard leather for wanderer coat.

Rings I used were Ring of faith and prot, and I swapped the other around as needed, but it usually ended up Flip ring. Though wolf ring, hawk ring, hornet ring, and stone plate ring were good combo's too.

At 87(NG+)
Wanderer
vit 23
att 14
End 33
str 24
dex 20
res 12
int 20
fai 20

Was good to test stuff on, and did very well as a PvE. Used Composite bow and Dragon slayer bow quite well. Mostly using Silver knights or Black knights shields. Though keep a tranquil walk of peace on, and most pvp is easy :p