I have finally gotten to the point in my Let's Play where I am about to start one of two paths to progress through Shulva the Sanctum City and the Dragon's Sanctum to an unknown final area where I will likely wind up fighting a dragon. I know one path is supposed to be harder than the other, I have found both at this point.

So here is the skinny.

I am doing this offline, solo, and blind. I want no spoilers period and I do want to film the hardest route. Or at least try it, if I find it too hard solo and blind I can always chicken out and go the other path. I just don't want this to turn into some heinous long thing where I try to explore both and go "well I guess this is harder let's go this way..."

So this is the question. Which route is harder? The Sanctum Key Route (the higher up one), or the Dragon Crest Route (the lower one)? I tried looking it up myself but barely dodged spoilers and found no clear answer that didn't require reading one of said spoiler filled articles. I don't even care why it is harder, I just want to know which it is.

Pretty sure the high route is optional. If not it's definitely the hardest.

The Dragon Crest route I found to be the hardest. I took the are on solo on my first run as well and the bosses down there proved to be some of the hardest (and some of the coolest) in all of Dark Souls 2.

So far so good... two completely contradictory answers. It is a start though. Thanks @pyrodactyl and @c_rakestraw. If the answers go on like this I am just going to have to assume that one route is not clearly harder than the others despite pre dlc release hype.

Don't know which route you're talking about exactly. If you're referring to going down the pyramid or up the pyramid, the up the pyramid is clearly the hardest as it's meant as a coop area and there's some nasty buisiness in there. Don't know if it's a path to the end or a dead end but I finished the DLC without going that way.

So the Eternal Sanctum Key route where you go into a cave wall at the top of the pyramid is meant to be a co op area? Okay, sounds like a winner. Thanks again.

Yeah, if we're talking about the same place you should see a bunch of tombs along the wall where summon signs are suppose to go. If you don't cheese that area it's real hard stuff.

I don't think it's meant to be co-oped. It just has a boss that is much easier to handle with two other people in tow.

Okay question is answered and they are starting to dip into spoilers. I really only want to know which path is harder, not why, not what to expect, not even what it will look like. At this point could a mod lock it down? Thanks for the answers again guys.

It really depends, the upper path is infuriating but I've managed at the first try in NG+++, I KNEW what was coming anyway, and started to play dirty.

I'd say the path down is the easiest, but it really depends on how confortable you feel about diferent styles of encounters, and the NG cycle.