A warning to the curious

I'm in the archives. I see a lever on a platform, so I pull it. Up it goes. Off I get. Hmm this room looks familiar. Oh look there's a passage with crystals growing on the walls, even more familiar. Might as well follow it. Oh look a fog door. Wonder what's behind it? Oh well, let's have a look.....Yikes! It's Seath AGAIN! Hey you're supposed to be in that crystal cave by now. The rest is history and I'm back in the cell again. Yes, I know, I'm a dipstick.

Yup, my Cleric was just caught up in the same cell.

all at the same time thinking, "so this is Seath eh? hes not so big for a dragon i guess ill just-" *KAA-SHINNK!*

lol

It's only after a few playthroughs that I found out you can actually return to Seath's chamber, get killed there again, and that he's still invincible in there... I'm saying this because I was very thorough on my first playthroughs of the game, trying to find out everything I could without looking up guides, and I wonder how I managed to never return to that room and get killed a second time! Seriously it would have been an easy mistake to make--I just don't know how I didn't make it. You shouldn't feel like a dipstick for falling for it again! I mean... you should have known what was through that fog door the second time, but you couldn't really have guessed he'd still be invincible.

I've definitely made this mistake before too. I thought I'd take a detour up there and retrieve the 100,000+ souls I'd lost in the first scripted fight in case I accidentally ate it fighting my way through the Archives. I wasn't very happy.

^Ring of Sacrifice!

I totally had one on me too. Didn't occur to me at all. Never does actually. There have been so many situations that one of those could have saved me such frustration, and I definitely had one on me, and didn't think to use it.

Blaines right, I love those Rings, they've saved me millions xD

The only times I ever to remember to use them are when I'm purposely doing something risky in a place that's not easy to get back to. Like crossing to the Blue Slab in the CC

lol the only time I don't think to equip a ring of sacrifice is when I'm about to do something foolish!

- Need to retrieve a bloodstain? Ring of Sacrifice
- Invincible Seath? Ring of Sacrifice
- Want to test a fall because the prism stone didn't scream, it's clearly right bellow you and there might be something down there? No Ring of Sacrifice... Oh, it was a kill-floor the stone didn't warn you about. DAMN YOU prism stone!

Good to know I'm not the only one. I guess it's because Dark Souls is the kind of game that makes you want to explore every corner, even if you've been there before, which is one of the reasons why it's such a brilliant game. Coincidentally, I had equipped a Ring of Sacrifice just in case for a change, so all was not lost. The problem is they're pretty hard to come by though, which, when you think about it, is probably a good thing because otherwise Boss Fights would lose some of that edgy tense feeling when you go through the fog door.

I did that too. I wanted the magic ember and figured if he killed me once he wont be expecting me again will he? Out of interest has anyone tried sniping the crystal without crossing the line that activates the boss fight? If you can break it there you might be abkle to go back and kill Seath in the archives.

No I haven't but I do remember sniping one of the Maneaters in Demon's Souls before going through the fog door. You had to stand to the right of the archway and arrow it to death. Took a while and quite a lot of arrows but I thought it well worth it. I dunno, the things we get up to, lotsa fun though.

Even better that there's a RoS in the Shrine. I get that one and save it for the Seath fight.

Until my second playthrough I never realised that the room to get to first seath battle and the far left room in the archives after the jail were the same thing, and I didn't find the lever easily either to find naked big hat

I can try sniping soon. I finally placed my Lordvessel once Bee and I murdered the Four Kings a few nights ago. That'd be interesting to see. I was also gonna do red tearstone ring with Dragonslayer Bow on him just to see how much damage I can do to invincible Seath. Just like the false King in Demon's if you don't move after you enter the gate you can shoot him. He eventually figures it out and gets ya unlike the King (white bow, I'm looking at you buddy....we got that jerk in NG+).

The first time I fought Seath I used up a ton of magic hitting him and realized I wasn't doing any damage. Then, I somehow found some sort of spot where he couldn't hit me and stood there for five minutes while I looked up what was going on. I kind of thought my game was broken, then I read that you were supposed to die :|

^No offense, you just haven't been gaming very long! This isn't the first game to face the player with an un-winnable first encounter. You just learn to recognize them for what they are. When the boss regenerates health faster than you can dish it out, it's probably safe to assume you're not supposed to win that one yet.

The funny times are when you're faced against a boss that has such a ridiculous amount of health, and deals so much damage, that you're actually wondering if you're supposed to beat him or not! Often those ones are optional victories, you get some cool bonus if you win it, but the story progresses even if you lose. Sometimes they're mandatory, though...

The trick is to be able to recognize whether it's an un-winnable fight, or just a very difficult one. It sucks to waste all your good items in an un-winnable fight, just as much as it sucks not to when the fight was an optional victory and you miss out on the bonus.

BLA1NE wrote:^No offense, you just haven't been gaming very long! This isn't the first game to face the player with an un-winnable first encounter. You just learn to recognize them for what they are. When the boss regenerates health faster than you can dish it out, it's probably safe to assume you're not supposed to win that one yet.

The funny times are when you're faced against a boss that has such a ridiculous amount of health, and deals so much damage, that you're actually wondering if you're supposed to beat him or not! Often those ones are optional victories, you get some cool bonus if you win it, but the story progresses even if you lose. Sometimes they're mandatory, though...

The trick is to be able to recognize whether it's an un-winnable fight, or just a very difficult one. It sucks to waste all your good items in an un-winnable fight, just as much as it sucks not to when the fight was an optional victory and you miss out on the bonus.

I remember playing FFX where you have to find some uber powerful summon. Th thing is that my friend who had done the game had been telling me about how powerful this summon was so I thought I had to lose. So I think this is an unwinnable fight and let myself get thrashed. SO then 2 of my guys are dead and Im like, screw this Im gonna win this anyway. I revive them both using an iverdrive and proceed to win the battle fairly easily. I was honestly surprised.

^FFX wasn't challenging enough... I didn't have the "International Version" though (I think that's what it was called... was a re-release, with new and tougher enemies). I'd gone to the point of re-arranging large portions of the sphere-grid to maximize all my characters' stats. I actually never got around to maxing all my characters, I lost interest before that because there were no enemies that required me to be that powerful, but my main 3 had 99,999 HP, 255 in all stats, and hit 99,999 every attack. With hastega and quick hit on everyone... Yeah, the game wasn't challenging enough!

No I completely understand, that only like having auto parry riposte and 100 times the current max health in dark souls. I never got past one of the temple places with all the spheres because I went through this long complicated process to carry one sphere to the right place then realised I had the wrong spherre and rage quit. It was the one you go to after fleeing becausse you're pronounced a crim or something.

I've run into unwinnable fights before, in fact there were two of them in the early part of Kingdom Hearts which was one of my favorite games when I was younger. I just figured it wouldn't happen in Dark Souls since when you die you go back to your last bonfire, and this is the one fight that breaks that rule and gives you absolutely no warning...