I bought Scholar mainly to play the DLC, but I am not happy with the difficulty level, specifically Shulva Sanctum (I haven't done the other 2 DLC's yet). Enemies not only hit like freight trains, they also can poison you with arrows or just by being near them, and when you go down into the temple (?) it's wall to wall battles inside a very confining space. I don't see any summon signs for assistance either.

There's a balance struck by pairing frustration and enjoyment, and FROM really erred on the side of frustration with this one.

@dudeglove said:

The graverobber trio is the worst fight in the entire game. I just came in with 70 or 80 dungpies and just threw those and kited them around. Not a very satisfying way to win.

I actually enjoyed most of the region, but two of the three boss fights are garbage. The trio should just be skipped, and the first primary boss fight...well...you'll see(Velstadt!). The final one is pretty fun, but I don't think it makes up for the other two. As for some of the enemies, make sure you've got a few miracles on hand for extra healing. Use some skeptic's spice at Magerold in Iron Keep to get things like Great Heal Excerpt or Great Heal itself down to a more manageable level if Faith isn't a high stat on your character. I was leaving my sign in that area all the time to help people get past some of those areas, but the few times I got summoned, people would keep banishing me. I would try to lead them to a hidden bonfire, or help them deal with the ghosts in the spiked floor section, and I guess they thought I was trying to screw them over or something.

The other two DLC areas are far better. The Ivory King is pretty good, and the Iron King is my favorite part of the whole game. The region, the bosses. Admittedly, one of the bosses is just a variant on a boss from the main game, but the other two are tremendous.

Stick it out. Skip the trio.

Just slow down and be aware of the environment. Don't aggro entire rooms and use some long range attacks to draw enemies towards you. Use healing items. Block, dodge, or parry to avoid damage. Explore and don't miss bonfires. If you are getting poisoned then get some herbs to cure it.

You don't need summon signs to get through the area.

I really enjoyed my first playthrough of it on NG but I hear ya. The best part of it for me was the level layout. The enemy encounters were pretty unforgiving and while I personally appreciated the challenge, I totally can understand someone taking issue with it. A lot of the DLC feels difficult in a mean spirited way, especially the three side areas (cave of the dead, iron passage, and frigid outskirts are among my least favorite areas in any souls game ever). By that, I mean they very purposefully throw a lot of shitty things at you at once with no breathers.

However, I think it's important to keep in mind what they're expecting of your character with the DLCs. A lot of people tackle it after the main game when they have more abilities and levels, and by then its much more manageable. I think they intend for it to be a gauntlet of sorts, for the PvE people who really want a challenge even after they've built up this crazy powerful character. It's a way of extending the game's life.

I played through them overleveled the first time through and found them harder than the main game but manageable. Hate to be the bearer of bad news but Crown of the Sunken King is the easiest of the 3. I've actually been trying to work my way through them again in SOTFS with my agape ring PvP character (SL 55), and it's a slog.

Anything nice I said about this game in that last post: I take it all back. I've spent the past hour fighting and dying to the Pursuer. He's complete bullshit. I finally got half good at parrying him and now the only fucking move he does anymore is his curse move. You're supposed to hit him with a ballista or something? Well, my character gets behind the ballista after stunning him and takes their good fucking time pulling that lever and BOOM I'm dead because he's back at me before I've even gotten the fucking thing loaded. Garbage. Utter fucking steaming hot garbage.

Nothing spawns between the bonfire and him anymore. I tried vainly to finagle my bloodstain close enough to the fog door so I could take my precious 12k souls and run. I don't know what to fucking do anymore. My life is permanently at half. I die in two hits. I just beat Dark Souls 1 for the umpteenth time and died maybe 4 or 5 times. I can't beat this guy to save my life.

I felt like I learned something with every death in DS1. This game I just feel like all I do when I die is lose more max life and hope.

Edit: And after almost two hours I beat him in almost the stupidest way imaginable. I parried once, ran around him and landed two lucky ballista shots and he just died. The fight was over in 3 seconds. I don't even feel good about beating him...

Edit edit: this isn't the Dark Souls 2 thread I thought it was. I meant to post in that other recent DS2 thread. Oh well. my frustration might be more on topic here than there.

So I think that boss/area specifically is supposed to be a Dark Souls "Raid", because they put that room with all the summon signs/gravestones at the start and then just vomit enemies all over the place with no regard to balance or fun. It's a good thing that part is optional.

@sinusoidal: He's completely optional.

@teddie: Really? I take it the eagle nest thing past his room that I took to the Lost Bastille isn't the only way forward? This bloody game! Speaking of the stupid Lost Bastille. I'm fighting level geometry more than enemies. I made a tricky jump in lieu of there being no other apparent path forward, it was the wrong place, I died. My bloodstain was irrecoverable. Shit like that never happened in 1. I really want to like this game! It's Souls!! But everything about it so far is just cheap. Maybe I should have played the vanilla version instead of SotFS. I really hope they make 3 better than this. Get rid of the lowering max hp. Yeah, it was kind of cool in a frustrating way in Demon's Souls. Git gud or die trying. But I never felt like the enemies there were anywhere near as cheap as the enemies in DS2 where I'm consistently mobbed by groups that inevitably stun lock me unto death.

@sinusoidal: The nest is just a secret way into a closed off section of the Lost Bastille. If you're playing SotFS, that means you got the Ember, so that's good. Forget about the Lost Bastille for now. Go back to Majula and go down the path by the cat's house to reach Heide's Tower of Flame.

The humanity system is awful. As the game progresses, you'll start getting quite a few more Human Effigy's, so it won't matter as much. I had something like 60 on me when I went to kill the boss of the game; I think I had spent 20-25 getting to that point. Also, enemies respawning only a certain number of times is stupid, but there is a way to get them to respawn again(Bonfire Ascetic!).

I would also recommend not trying to parry a boss in this game. The number of times you'll probably die attempting to get the timing right isn't worth it.

I would recommend you stick with it. Some of my favorite Dark Souls bosses and regions are in this game. My least favorite as well, but I think it's worth it.

Shulva was my favorite DLC area. It's has some brutally hard sections, but I found it really interesting and both of the required boss fights are great. On the other hand, the Gank Squad is pretty much the worst fight in the entire series and the people behind it should be strung up. All three DLC areas are pretty hard, but the majority of the content is so much better than the main game.

Sorry to revive an old thread, but holy shit I completely agree. I'm currently playing through Dark Souls 2 on the PS4, figuring I'd tackle the DLC I never got around to playing on the PC (the final 'crown' DLC, and the whole Scholar of the First Sin bits I never played), but jesus fucking christ, playing through this first DLC area suddenly made me remember why I quit playing the DLC in the first place. None of it is difficult because the encounters are hard, it's because of how many freaking enemies there are everywhere! You NEVER fight an enemy one on one, even when you use your bow and shoot one enemy, you're LUCKY if it only aggros one of them. The best part of the DLC is the environment, and the only boss worth fighting is the final boss. Outside of that, fucking hell, this is a train wreck. Just play the Bloodborne DLC to see how to do it right - tough enemies you fight one on one, densely packed groups of enemies don't have a ridiculously inflated health pool, and the bosses are actually FUN TO FIGHT (Not to mention the game just controls significantly better, but I won't hold that against Dark Souls 2 since it's an older game).

The fucking gank squad pisses me off. What a horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE boss.