On Armor...

So, I've reached Anor Londo, and I've got some decent choices in armor, and some twilight, and I've finally got some points to start sparing for my Endurance and Vitality (Pure Int build).

However, I'm not too clear on armor choices. Weapons are easy to pick, looking for movesets you like with stat requirements you're willing to meet. Similar with spells, catalysts, etc...

Armor, however, just seems to be there. There are no special effects other than numbers. The only real goal is meeting Poise Breakpoints, and keeping your weight to light or medium (depending on what you're going for). So how to choose armor?

Currently, I'm wearing the Crown of Dusk. Besides increasing my own damage, it frees up a pretty large amount of spare weight. But what about the rest? With one point in Endurance, I can afford to swap out my Sorcerer Shirt for the Crimson Shirt. But that uses the rare / expensive twinkling twilight.

Really, I'm not sure what to base my decision on. Armor choice seems to amount to "Wear the heaviest you can for your weight class, try to meet certain poise values" Is that it? Even if that is the case, are there any armor sets that are particularly noteworthy for their weight to defense ratio? Specifically, I'm looking for mage gear that is neither PvP or PvE focused (with a preference for PvE, I doubt a few points of armor are going to make a difference when being backstabbed for twice my base health )

Style, style is all that matters.

StiffNipples wrote:Style, style is all that matters.

 I know that when style is my chief concern, I dress up like that!

Build, pls. https://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls/

You're probs asking OP, but I'm bored so here goes anyway.

It was a Gargoyle Cosplay, like so: http://mmdks.com/3eea (two hand the Halberd so the Axe hangs like the tail, also swap for Garg Shield sometimes)

That I then turned into a Gwyn Cosplay, like so: http://mmdks.com/3ee8

That I'm now trying to salvage for a tourney this weekend, current build, been doing alright with it, probably my least optimised build ever: http://mmdks.com/3eeb


So if anyone has any ideas to make that more efficient let me know, I kind of want to keep the armour though haha

Am allowed to take it to SL125 max, guessing a bit more into End, throw on a katana and I could use some gloves for more poise and then throw on the DWGR, but meh, I'll make it work  

I stink with halberds so I wouldn't really be much help...

Yeah I'm rubbish with them too, never really used them as I hated the stumble if you miss, forced myself to use the Garg one for the cosplay and didn't mind it.
I've been having a decent amount of success with it, but against someone that knows what they're doing I lose everytime, just too out of practice as I haven't PvP'd with anything but massive Str/Quality weapons for almost 6 months.
Also playing with the HUD off which is great fun, but make sit hard to guage how damaged you or your opponent is, and what spell you've got selected.



Back on topic, Sines I generally choose armour based of a combination of looks and poise, then make sure I have enough endurance to fast/med roll depending on the character. I don't min-max based off defences however many do and you can use mugenmonkey to auto calculate this for you with the armour calculator.

My build as it currently is. Right now, I've just gotten to Anor Londo for the first time (this is the further I've gotten in the game), I'm currently at the first bonfire.

http://mmdks.com/3ees

If 0 poise armor amounts to 'whatever looks good and fits your endurance', then I guess I'll go with that. But if theres more to it than that, I'll be glad to hear some suggestions.

If it matters, I plan to reach 44/45 Int for Logans Catalyst + Crystal Soul Spear, at which point I'll stop. No faith or more dex, though I may get more strength for Moonlight Greatsword, maybe. Otherwise, all other points into Endurance or Vitality as neccesary.

What level are you aiming for? To be honest, with that set-up you won't really need that much Endurance. For example, a little extra DEX opens up the Velka's Rapier as useable option for you.

I guess I don't have too much of a goal, really. It's my first character, so in the end, he'll probably get a playthrough of NG and NG+ then get retired, assuming I continue to play.

With no set goal for soul level, or final endurance level, I guess that makes my apparent options somewhat free-flowing.

Overall, I was asking for more of general guidelines for what armor to pick. It's becoming more and more clear that armor choice is more about "What you can fit with how much endurance you have"
 
However, lets just say I'm going with 18 Endurance, with some more int and vitality, and after that, I enter "Screw it, I'm maxing this character out" territory. We could say about SL 70 or so with a reasonable 'complete' build. After that, I'll just give up on having a 'build' and increase my character based on whim and exploring the different weapons the game has to offer me, in order to make informed decisions for characters who will stick to an actual build.

Also, what is considered the 'standard' SL to beat NG on? NG+? To play in PvP? It might be nice for me to have some artificial constraints to work under going forward.

Honestly, if you're just growing this character organically you should really just do so. Level up/try on different gear as you see fit and worry about the rest for your future toons.

I have to say, for someone who says this is their first run-through of the game you seem to have an excellent grasp at the way the game works.

This game appealed to me for a reason. I really appreciate a game with the kind of depth that rewards understanding it. I really like the attempt to keep the various weapons in the game generally 'balanced', such that a weapon you find early on can last the whole game as you keep it upgraded. It adds a lot of complexity to choices, it's why I find the armor a bit lackluster. For all the decisions in the varied movesets of the weapons, the utility and power of the spells, and the two very strong boosts offered by rings, the armors "Eh, whatever fits" approach to decision making seems a bit more lackluster.

I guess I'll let this character just grow semi-organically and not worry about it too much. It's difficult though.



I just can't help but approach games from that perspective. I think it started with Final Fantasy Tactics and the first time I heard of the self-imposed challenge in the Single Class Challenge, where you play through the whole game with a party of only one class. FFT is a great game in it's own right, but with the right limitations, you get to really see the depth of choices and strategies available. Since then, I've loved games that really let you enjoy a deep game like that. I even did a Solo Single Class Challenge in FFT (and posted that playthrough on Youtube ), which I thought to be impossible when I was younger, but can be done with proper knowledge of the game and tactics.

I think I'll be able to get myself to just screw around by noting that there is no limit, and that there is no choice I can make that can't be corrected through collecting more souls or playing through the game more times.

If you could link me to anything on 'generally useful build tips', I'd appreciate that. Popular weapons, armor that (for whatever reason) hits a sweet spot, suggested values for stats given a goal, etc, I'd appreciate it.

The game is pretty big, and having a general understanding would help a lot, even after a playthrough. Especially in the case of armor, having some standard of "X defense for Y weight" to compare to would be nice, since thats a bit of a harder call than looking at a video of a weapons attack animations.

This thread https://soulswiki.forumotion.com/t14267-resource-threads-to-check-out-for-rookies-and-vets-20 has helped people in the past. Maybe it can help you.

This might help: https://sites.google.com/site/darksoulstats/dark-souls-calculators/armorcalc_download

Sines wrote:Also, what is considered the 'standard' SL to beat NG on? NG+? To play in PvP? It might be nice for me to have some artificial constraints to work under going forward.

There isn't really an average for the level at which players are when they finish their first playthrough. It all depends on how many of the game's areas they have cleared before reaching Gwyn, whether they have spent time farming souls or invading and many other factors.

If it helps, I was around level 85 when I finished with my first ever character (pyromancer). My second character was a mage and I was in the 90s when I finished with him. I did a quicker playthrough (not a speedrun since it took 4 hours) with a warrior class and finished at level 65.

I'm impressed that you're getting by with no poise on your first character, that's a great way to develop your dodging skills. You'll have no problem by the time you get to the end of the game!

"Not a speedrun"

"Took 4 hours"

The heck? I mean, I've noticed that I've gone through the game MUCH faster when I replay an area, but getting through the whole game in four hours definitely sounds like you were moving pretty fast. Is that just the normal time you take when rushing a PvP character through the game?

4 hours is a pretty normal number to clear the game, provided you don't do much side stuff and just mainly focus on getting to Gwyn.

Speed runs are around an hour.  A 4 hour playthrough leaves plenty of time to pick up desired spells, a few slabs, and maybe 15-30 minutes of chunk farming with enough left over for some mistakes.

BTW twinkling titanite is the only upgrade path that you can get full upgrades by using souls alone.  It is the FASTEST upgrade path to max, and unless you want to do a bunch of playthroughs and bother with ash lake etc just to get multiple slabs/playthrough, its far easier to max twinkling titanite armor than it is standard.

Fast armor sets to max:

Heavy:

- Havel's (it starts as high as you can get it, and is pretty good if you don't mind midrolling)
- Giant's (twinkling titanite, highest def in game, solid poise)
- Black Iron (similar to Giant's but a little weaker, but also lighter)

Medium:

- Silver Knight (if you want lightning resist, its defenses aren't awful overall)
- Black Knight (fire resist)
- Paladin

Light:

- Xanthous
- Crimson
- Antiquated (very light)
- I think something like the shadow set uses it too

Hate farming for chunks?  Try this :

http://mmdks.com/3em4

Really if you get into NG+ souls are easy to get.  Very easy.  The bottleneck is upgrade materials, so try to pick out 2-4 things you can blow regular slabs on, 2 fire elemental things, and the rest is twinkling titanite.

Edit:  If you REALLY hate farming, then this is probably the fastest way to get a decent build :

http://mmdks.com/3emc

2 playthroughs (not even a full 2nd one either), 0 chunks, 0 slabs.  For this you can poise-trade anything but UGS type weapons being 2 handed, spam out 32 attacks with some variant of combustion, do the simply GFB --> combustion combo, and tempest gankers near ledges/ladders, killing many builds instantly if you land it.

Sines wrote:"Not a speedrun"

"Took 4 hours"

The heck? I mean, I've noticed that I've gone through the game MUCH faster when I replay an area, but getting through the whole game in four hours definitely sounds like you were moving pretty fast. Is that just the normal time you take when rushing a PvP character through the game?

This character is not for PvP so much, I just wanted to see how quickly I could finish the game whilst still creating a character that uses quality weapons. I only really grabbed the gear that I needed and didn't bother with much else, so now I'm on NG+ I'm playing methodically and obtaining and upgrading loads of weapons and armour, and also getting items that I missed first time around.

Soul farming is a breeze on NG+ and I'm up to level 147. I'll probably just keep playing through with this character now and see how high I can go.

Are there any crafting materials that are limited in supply per playthrough?

Slabs are the only limited ore per playthrough. Think long and hard before upgrading using a slab.

 With the exception that slabs are a very rare drop from some enemies.

Only used to cap off items, though, so it's not like I need many of them. Is there a big difference between a +14 and +15 weapon? Or +9 and +10 armor?

"DEAR SWEET GOD! WHY DID YOU EAT ME! I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOU TO EAT ME!"

Me, upon bringing the Lordvessel to Kingseeker Frampt.
 
This game is weird.

I would say it's more important to use slabs for upgrading weapons than armour. Armour sets at +9 will be just fine, but you will want your main weapon to be at its maximum level.

There are 3 guaranteed ways to get a titanite slab per playthrough. I'm not sure if you've progressed to these points yet so I don't want to spoil it for you, with the progress you're making you will most likely get at least 1 slab!