The Ballad of the Newbie

Hi Beefy - i've been reading this thread and it mirrors my expliots, trails and tribulations... I'm alittle behind your progress as i'm still takling the club fatties at the beginning of Blighttown, i haven't killed the butterfly thing yet but alot of your questions and issues i too have posted as a newbie.
I'm a level 36, strength and dex with intelligence thrown in for a bit of scorcery each at around the 18-20'ish mark - and i'm on xbox as well.
Just thought i'd say hi as its good to follow that someone is at the same'ish progress and is asking the same questions and finding the same problem areas.

Hey Undead Lee, good to see someone battling through alongside me The club fatties really are very simple to take down, if you can block or even better, evade their strike, you can then pivot around behind them and backstab them, taking a sizeable chunk of their health off. If you are lucky you might even then kick it over the ledge which is a bonus.

I'm level 38, high vitality followed by strength and dex.

Equip whatever poison resistant gear you may have, it'll benefit you in this experience, also if you have a shield to use with fire resistance at certain times, that'd be good for you too, there are fire hounds and massive spiders that both breath fire.

If you are melee heavy killing the butterfly isn't really beneficial, it's soul can be used to create two intelligence/faith based weapons, so I have no use for it.

One more peace of advice before I go out, as you progress in Blighttown you will come across a small enclosed room with 3-4 guys with blowdarts and when you go down the ladder in that room it will be filled with 4 fire hounds, if you look around down there for a bit you'll find a Fire Keeper Soul which powers up your Estus flask, this is the second I've found so far.

Good luck and happy hunting!

Actually after the butterfly is the Divine Ember which allows you to make weapons that scale with Faith, this seems to not be useful to one who is going strictly str/dex, however the skeletons in the catacombs will not die unless you use a divine weapon to defeat them, so you can have an upwards of ten skeletons chasing you through the whole place possibly knocking you off ledges and gang **** you.

Hmm I thought of this already - I have an ember and I gave it to Andre? the blacksmith so I can enchant one of my weapons with divine as soon as I find a green titanite shard

Hey guys how are you all?

How you getting on Lee?

After struggling trying to get through the New Londo ruins from the bottom of Blighttown for the last 3 hours I realised something. I'm not supposed to be trying to go there yet :|

I'm meant to kill that Quelaag *****

So after much deliberation trying to do that I'm now going to have to go on a hunt (when I've calmed down a bit) for her lair and hopefully ring that damn bell and jump back to Firelink Shrine :3

Near here lairs are many roots of trees that curve upwards, but cannot be walked upon. If you found a long root that you can walk up turn around, that is the great hollow, a hell hole.

There will be fat bog giants just like those with clubs near her domain, except they will throw boulders.

Thanks, so it's around all the poison water with the leeches then?

I'm at the bonfire near there, it's right beside a big wheel that operates a lift.

Near the leeches is the great hollow, near the big boulder throwing dudes is Q's domain. If you are at the bonfire and look out into the swamp, to your right is her domain. You will have to cross through the poison water.

I think I ventured into the Great Hollow, I saw there was items, I remember getting a wedged sword or something? I just remember it was a sword like I'd never seen before.

Wedged sword? I've never heard of such an item. The great hollow is a huge inside of a tree full of branches that you have to climb down like a maze.

i don't remember any weapons in the hollow... there are mushroom men and curse frogs as well as a stamina regeneration ring and a lot of titanite but i've heard of no weapons... course i haven't reached all the items there, any more info on this sword? it sounds cool. maybe you're the first person to find this thing?

Wait, you mean the Server. Okay, that was near the Great Hollow. The other way is Q's domain.

Yeah that must be it, I never got as far as the Mushroom Men or Frogs, thank god to be fair, the frogs are horrible to take on, my anti-curse gear is next to non-existent

Thanks for the info Tolvo, you've been very helpful throughout this thread

No problem, I always love to help people out.

darn i though we had a new weapon discovery... oh well, the servers an interesting weapon, its a curved great sword so it hits faster than regular greatswords but scales with dexterity, the server also darins a small amount of hp from enemies to heal you (only 7 hp...) but you can upgrade it along any path!

Got bored of dying all the time on Quelaag so made a new character, a sorcerer, in about half an hour I've went from the very beginning to taking down the Taurus Demon in one go

Sorcery is so powerful at the start it's unreal

Does it continue to be so powerful/effective later on in the game with +intelligence?

it becomes even more powerful, there are rings and a helmet you'll want that boost sorcery too, so keep an eye out for trainers etc.

In PvP at least, you can one shot people with CSS. As well a tip, being a sorcerer does not mean you need to throw out your physical weapons and stats. You will still need to be able to to melee, it is just that you can nuke and do support abilities with your spells.

I've already put stats into intelligence, vitality and strength, not sure if I need dex so much but I think I'm going to basically be a "Battle-mage" if you will. Plate armour with melee weapon and shield for the main part then in an intense fight use my magic since it is limited anyway.

Just not too sure about how evenly I need to spread the stats yet :3

Well it kind of works like this.

Str, Slow but strong hits.

Dex, Fast but light hits.

So put stats into there as you see fit, typically you pick one weapon you really like and stick with that. You upgrade it along the normal path, and around 40-50 you should be capped at an offense stat. 30-40 for Endurance and Vitality. As for Magic I think the Int cap before diminishing returns is like, 46. As well with high int you can use a buff that stacks with your Str/Dex stat on a normal upgrade weapon, meaning you basically get the max damage possible.

On my main character he is 41 and only has 22 vitality is that a problem? His highest stat is Strength>Vitality>Dex>Endurance. He is a melee only character, heavy, slow attacks

That isn't bad, again 30-40 vitality is pretty much end game, so you should be pretty good for a while on that. I'd focus on some other stats as him, endurance for heavy armor if you are still going that route.

I'll tell you my stats when I get back on I have a quick question - NG+, does that increase the difficulty of the game on the character you completed it on or does it make it harder for any other character as well?

Just the character you completed it on.

I've got 22 Vitality, 19 Endurance, 22 Strength and 16 Dex :3

Anyone on the 360 want to gab about Dark Souls or if feeling generous wanna gimme a hand with Quelaag? I've ran out of poison reducing items :/