@mikelemmer: They can do a rather large amount of damage if they catch you unawares, but at least their backstab hitbox is huge. Make sure you explore the area though, there are some rather nice things hidden away in corners.

Finally got to Sen's Fortress. I think I've found my endgame loadout: Crimson Set + Helm of the Wise, Mace + Spider Shield, Heavy Xbow as backup and Pyromancies/Miracles for spells.

How useful is it to upgrade shields?

Should I spend Twinkling Titanite on upgrading my Crimson Set armor?

I think upgrading shields adds to their armor rating and stability. If you've got the cash and materials, it's (usually) a good idea to upgrade your gear. And at a point not far from where you are, you can buy twinkling titanite so knock yourself out upgrading.

If you're using spells heavily, you might look up how to unlock the ridiculously chapeau'd wizard vendor, as he sells some amazing spell-boosting items.

@mikelemmer: That gear is certainly workable with some serious upgrading, but you might want to keep in mind that you'll continue to find weapons and armor throughout the game, so you might find something new that you like even more. To that end, I wouldn't recommend upgrading your armor or shield beyond what you feel comfortable discarding if you find something better later (e.g. don't spend any Titanite Slabs). Upgrading your weapon is far more valuable than upgrading other gear, so feel free to spend your materials more liberally to get the most out of your weapon. If you happen to find another weapon that you like even more, then maybe consider upgrading it along a different upgrade path and keep your mace as a backup.

Personally, I almost never upgrade armor. I save those materials and souls for upgrading my weapons more easily and even upgrading multiple weapons if I want to experiment. Due to the equip load tiers (25%, 50%, etc.), I often shuffle around my armor after I change my equipped weapons in order to get the roll speed I want, so I wear lots of different armor (and sometimes no armor) throughout the game. It's generally prohibitively expensive and wasteful to highly upgrade multiple armor sets. As a compromise, you might consider just upgrading your most commonly worn armor with your cheaper and more common materials like Titanite Shards, which you can always buy cheaply from Andrei.

Upgrading a shield will generally increase two stats: damage and stability. Damage is useless, as it only applies when you do a shield bash, which only heavy shields can do. (The Spider Shield is not a heavy shield, it's a light shield). Stability is good on all shields, as it affects how much of your stamina is drained when you block a blow with that shield. The higher the stability, the less stamina you lose when blocking.

Upgrading shields definitely adds to stability and resistances, I'm not sure about the armor rating itself though. I just have a Caduceus Kite Shield +10 that I've been using for most of the game at this point and my main goal in improving it was increasing the stability, so that's what I was watching when spending the materials.

Am I spread too thin when it comes to Attribute points?

I'm currently level 52 and about to go into Sens Fortress. Main stats are:

Vit - 25

Endurance - 24

Strength - 22

Dexterity - 20

I think my problem is that I never picked a weapon I want to go with, so I didn't know where to go with STR or DEX. I'm afraid I've spread myself too thin now. I was using the Drake sword up until Blighttown, then switched to my Winged Spear + whatever, and eventually moved up to the Demon Spear. But when I faced the first 2 snake soldiers in Sens, I was only doing about 50 damage per light attack. Is that low for someone my level? Especially with a weapon that does 100 physical damage as well as 170 lighting damage?

Am I better off restarting and planning out my character more?

Does anyone have any recommendations for weapons? I don't even know what kind of character I want to use (roll focused or tank).

SOMEONE JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

Yesterday, I got sick of this character and tried to make a melee focused tank. I didn't get the Boar's Helm drop from Undead Perish, but I did get the Black Knight's Shield from the one the same area. Is there a general consensus if one is more valuable than the other? The helm is pretty strong for that early in the game (and looks awesome), but the shield has a pretty high stabability and high Fire and Lightning resist.

@lukeweizer: If you don't find a weapon you like the problem will not be in your stat distribution, it will be in the lack of upgrades on the weapon you use.

As for what weapon you should use. It's all in personal preference, go with whatever looks good, sounds good and feels good, just remember to upgrade your weapon.

You can take that 25 vitality to the very end of the game. If you take a lot of hits maybe bump it to 30 vitality. If you're not concerned about leveling up you'll eventually want to reach 40 Endurance by the end of the game and not go any higher.

The final damage output of any given weapon is determined by your stats, how much it's been upgraded, and the armor/resistance of your enemies. Whatever weapon you plan on using should be upgraded as far as you can currently take it.

Don't level up Strength or Dexterity until you are fairly comfortable with whatever weapon you are using. Throwing upgrading materials at weapons to level them up and test our their moveset doesn't cost you anything. You already have enough Dexterity and Strength to use the majority of the weapons in the game.

@lukeweizer: You're stats are mostly fine. I personally wouldn't split DEX and STR unless I was aiming for a specific weapon, but it won't hinder you very much. Try upgrading your weapons. That will make a huge difference, especially with where you are in the game.

Also some weapons off the top of my head that fit in mostly well with your current stats:

Iaito (found in Blighttown)

Washing Pole (no idea if this is good, stat scaling isn't great but it is fucking huge. It would also require grinding to get the key to the forest gate in order to get the weapon)

Murakumo (high str requirement with high scaling with DEX)

Server (High str requirement with pretty good scaling wth DEX, also restores health on hit)

Of course any weapon will work for you and you can pretty much wield most weapons with your current stats... so go wild and try some out. Just don't forget to upgrade the one you end up with.

Pick whatever weapon that has a move-set you like and reinforce it as high as you can (grind for materials if necessary). Upgrade your shield(s) for the increased stability (stability is the most important stat on a shield). Upgrade your armor too. Better armor can make a huge difference. You're stats are fine for your level for a melee focused build.

For the most part, you should avoid split-damage weapons, like the Demon Spear. They are devastating in early PvP, but in PvE they are much less useful due to both damages being reduced by resistances and their usual lack of scaling.

As for your melee/tank build; the shield is much more valuable than the helm (plus you'll get the helm later regardless). The Fang Boar Helm can't be upgraded, so it'll be outclassed by other equipment eventually.

@lukeweizer: A little variety in weapons wouldn't hurt, either. I did 150 damage per swing against the man-serpents with a +5 Divine Mace. The wiki says the manserpents should be weak to lightning damage, but it sounds like they're not weak to your lightning weapons.

And your stats seem fine; I got through Sen's Fortress just fine with a similar spread. (20 Vitality, 20 Endurance, 15 Strength, 10 Dex)

@soldierg654342: Split damage weapons (lighting and chaos) should be used unless you are a high level otherwise the weapon scaling you get is worse than going with an elemental weapon. The Demon's Spear is fairly weak it just has that long reach the lighting spear you get in Zen's fortress is better by quite a bit.

@lukeweizer:The stability of the black knight shield is great and has the ability to parry. If you don't parry that often find the Eagle shield, it has one of the best stability ratings especially for its weight and upgrade it. If you are lucky and get the Gargoyle's Halberd (regular halberd is good to but i personally don't like the move set) to drop upgrade it to either lighting and chaos (slightly higher damage but you need to carry 10 humanity to get the full advantage) and be amazed at the amount of damage you can do for a deceptively fast weapon. The weapons mentioned by SuperWristBands are also good but if you do not like the Iaito moveset there is also the Uchigatana.

I think you should try the Zweihander or the Large/Great Club. You'd need a tiny bit more strength to use them 1-handed, but 2-handing them is the way to go IMO. You will absolutely flatten the Man-Serpents in Sen's fortress, especially if you go down to blighttown and farm some large shards so you can upgrade them to +10.

I just reached the Giant Blacksmith, so now I can start forging weapons from boss souls. Are there any in-game hints about what weapons you need to make a boss weapon? Or is it understandable if you look up that info in the wiki?

@mikelemmer: I'm pretty sure that if you have the boss soul and/or the weapon needed (doesn't need to be +10 even) you can see your options in the giant blacksmiths menu.

We'll I accidentally killed the first merchant and now I have this uchigatana seems to scale with dexterity but I feel like a samurai badass. Do I keep this and keep cranking points into dexterity?

@mikelemmer: Nothing wrong with looking it up on a wiki, just depends if your OK with it. My opinion is that its justweapons so who cares

@kyrieee: @daze: @mikelemmer: @soldierg654342: @superwristbands: @golguin: @apsup:

Thanks a lot for all the tips, folks. I think watching Vinny play the game so much has set unrealistic expectation of MY damage output compared to his. I look at his 300-600 damage and see me doing 50 and I think I must be doing something wrong.

Regarding picking a weapon, I suppose it matters how I play. I was using the Claymore on another character, but I'm not sure I like how it takes to wind up, attack and then recover so I can put my shield back up. Thinking of going with something lighter so I can attack quickly and then get back into a defensive stance. But I guess that means I won't be doing as much damage in 1 blow compared to Vinny.

I guess I could just do something and level up an Ultra Great weapon and something light like the Uchigatana and see what I like playing with.

Thanks again for all the tips!

@garris: That's really up to you!

In general, a non-spellcaster build will usually focus mostly on Strength, mostly on Dexterity, or on both about equally (nicknamed a "quality" build). Strength-oriented weapons tend to be heavy, slow, and stagger enemies easily. They are well-suited to a tanky play style where you use heavy armor. Dexterity-oriented weapons tend to be lighter and faster, suiting an agile playstyle that relies on light armor and dodge rolling to stay alive. Quality weapons can work well with either playstyle.

I would recommend getting about 16 Strength and 14 Dex for now, as that will let you try out quite a few different weapons in the early game without investing many levels. Once you've got a sense of how you like to play and what kind of weapons you like, you can level up Strength and/or Dexterity further to specialize.

Yeah, Vinny got a strong weapon early and upgraded it to the max (Black Knight Halberd +5). So he was doing end-game damage a little early.

In general, I'd estimate that if you're killing basic enemies in your area in 1 or 2 hits (regular light attacks), you're strong; 3 or 4 hits, you're average; 5 or more hits, you're weak. Some enemies are extra weak or extra strong, so there are exceptions, but that's a rule of thumb.

By strong, do you mean "what you should be doing in damage for this stage"? Or "you got an endgame weapon early and are wrecking faces with it"? AKA are you supposed to get that strong while working your way through the game normally? Or is it reserved for happy circumstance & lucky drops?

Also, how do you gauge that in areas with a mix of heavy & light enemies? For example, in Anor Lando, the demons only take ~3 hits, while the giant knights take 6-7 hits.

If you are over powered for an area you'll be killing normal enemies (not special enemies like the Anor Londo Royal Sentinels) in 1-2 hits. It should take you 3-5 hits to kill most things as you naturally progress through the game and level up your gear and stats. That's a good rule of thumb for every area in the game.

I checked this out. It showed the potential boss weapons for Catalysts (including Manus from the Expansion) but not anything else. Since Catalysts can't be upgraded, I can only assume it doesn't show you potential boss weapons unless you have the base weapon up to +10.

That's really a pity, makes it very vague to find out & hard to trial-and-error. I guess I'm going to the wiki to look them up.

Anor Lando has been a revelation. I've killed Royal Sentinels 3x taller than me that healed to full if I gave them a moment's respite. I've riposted Knights from full to dead that would normally take me 7 hits to kill. I looted a Demon's Spear and realized I needed more than one weapon in my life. I killed Smough & Ornstein on a "practice run" with only 20% life left. (I ran out of Estus.) I feel like a boss.

God, I love this game, though it hurts me so.

I really want to upgrade my longsword to +15 (it's currently at +10), but I can't figure out how. I'm joint 25 in Strength & Dexterity.

I assume I need the next ember, or some special crafting material? I know the dude to do it is the blacksmith near Sen's Fortress.

@mikelemmer: Firstly, just look that weapons stuff up on a wiki. I did and I don't think it detracts from the game at all, especially as the 'Greatsword of Artorias' stuff is really confusing. Congrats on downing Smough and Ornstein though, those guys can be a right arse. What boss weapons are tickling your fancy?

@metzo_paino: You could look that up on a wiki, but you probably already know that, so since you're asking here, I'll try to give you some direction in both a minimal spoiler form and a full spoiler form.

You're correct that you need another ember. It's the Very Large Ember. You can find it somewhere in the New Londo Ruins.

Spoilers for getting the Ember:

You'll need to drain the lower part of the New Londo Ruins first to get to where the Very Large Ember is.

To do this, you need the Key to the Seal, which can be gained in two ways: kill Ingward atop the large building full of ghosts in the New Londo Ruins and he'll drop the key (this way can be done any time early in the game), or talk to Ingward after acquiring the Lordvessel and he will hand you the key (this way can obviously only be done after beating Anor Londo, since that's how you get the Lordvessel).

With the key, you can open a locked door at the back of the upper New Londo Ruins, near the composite bow. Use the lever there and the lower ruins will drain. As you explore the lower ruins, you will find a large room with dilapidated wooden shacks. At one end of this room is a spiral staircase leading upward. Follow these stairs up and continue along the linear path until you have climbed up a couple floors where you will come to a dead end with a chest. The Very Large Ember is inside.

You'll also need some Titanite Chunks and one Titanite Slab as materials for the upgrading process.

Spoilers on getting these materials:

You can farm both of these materials off of the darkwraith enemies in the drained part of the New Londo Ruins. To minimize farming time, it's best to equip the Gold Serpent Ring (from Sen's Fortress) and have at least 10 points of humanity on you (but if 10 is too expensive for you, try to have just 1 point, as that will still give a respectable +50% Item Discovery, compared to +110% for 10 humanity).

You have a chance of find both of these materials on Crystal Lizards. A great concentration of lizards are found in The Great Hollow. Like with farming enemies, when you kill Crystal Lizards, having higher Item Discovery will improve your chances of getting high-grade materials, like chucks and slabs.

Additionally, a couple of ways to get a guaranteed Titanite Slab are: return to the Northern Undead Asylum and defeat the Stray Demon boss there, or in the DLC, open a chest near a waterfall in the area where you fight Kalameet.

Ugh man, finally escaped the Painted World. Jesus christ, talk about not being prepared and then learning the way out is by glitching out a dragon's corpse to stand up so you can jump down onto a black knight who's eager to kill you. It took me 6 hours to get out of there, all those toxic enemies just went through all my blooming moss, but turned into good level grinding.

Game is amazing man.

@savage: Thanks a bunch, just what I needed!

I've got the DLC and am currently trying to fill the Lord Vessel. From what I've read it is a good time to jump into the DLC, but I've no idea how to start it?

@crithon: I'm around the same point in my game. I figured out while farming the crow demons for souvenirs of reprisal that I can kill the entire phalanx group with one shot of Wrath of the Gods for 8500 souls a pop. I probably made 20 runs in order to get enough souvenirs and ended up gaining 7 or 8 levels in the process. Great farming location if you have any AOE attacks, and the phalanx is conveniently only seconds away from the Painted World's bonfire.

@metzo_paino: You can do the DLC anytime between getting the Lordvessel and beating the boss at the end of the Kiln of the First Flame. In general, I'd recommend trying the DLC as soon as you can, and if it feels too difficult to you, you can simply warp out and proceed with the rest of the game until you feel you've gotten stronger. Then you can return to the DLC and try to make more progress in it, repeating this process as necessary until you're able to complete it. This approach helps you to avoid the risk of overleveling for the DLC, as it contains some excellent challenging fights that might be somewhat wasted if you're too strong for them.

To start the DLC, you have to follow some obscure steps in order. I'll give you vague directions in case you want to preserve a little of the fun and surprise of figuring it out yourself as well as full spoilers afterwards in case you just want to know exactly what to do.

First, you'll need to go to clear out Darkroot Basin. (Specifically, defeat the hydra.) Next, reload the area (easiest way is to quit and reload your save file to make the level refresh), then look around for anything that has changed in the area and do something about whatever you find. (Kill the golden crystal golem at the back of the hydra's lake to free an NPC named Dusk.) Next, head from Anor Londo into the Duke's Archives and do something similar there to what you just did at Darkroot Basin to acquire a new unique item. (After the first bonfire in the Duke's Archives and up the first elevator, you'll find a crystal golem who will drop a Broken Pendant when killed.) Now take that item to the person it relates to and look around in that vicinity for a new path. (Go back to the hydra lake in Darkroot Basin. You'll now see a dark portal in the spot where you rescued Dusk from the golden crystal golem.) There you will find the DLC.

@gatehouse: None of the boss weapons are piquing my interest. Their stat requirements are either too high, or they just don't fit my character. The Demon's Spear is much more useful, IMO. It's easy to wield to provide 3 things I was missing: reach, speed, and lightning damage.

I accidently got stuck in the Painted World, too. That was fun, albeit excruciating when I couldn't figure out how to open the final door. I wish there was a covenant involving Priscilla.

@mb: Good to hear you've made it that far in the game. I assume it's sank its teeth deep into you if you made it to the Painted World.

I have a few questions:

1. First of all, what are the best sorcery spells to use early in the game? My current spell load out is soul arrowx2 (gives me 60 charges), Great Soul Arrow (20 charges), and Great Heavy Soul Arrow (8 charges). As is probably evident, I'm playing a sorcerer and I stacked intellect early into the game, and I'm currently sitting at 32. I haven't rung the second bell yet (Since I didn't even know it was in Blight town), so is this load out good? I don't even really rely on weapons that much, since I can usually kill most enemies before they reach me.

2. How difficult is the Hydra boss? I know it's optional, but I do want to kill it, but it's really intimidating since it's so freaking huge.

3. The Ruins of New Londo or whatever they are called are terrible. Usually I'd agree that the enemies in this game are fair, but the ghosts here are cheap as hell. They can go through walls, and they require you to use that curse item in order to kill them. Overall, they are very annoying enemies that made me rage quit. Anyway, my question is, should I even bother with this area right now? I've read a guide that says that I need to drain the water here, but going through the zone is a horrible experience.

Other than that, this game is fantastic. I've been avoiding it due to how much of a bad time I had with Demon Souls, but so far I'm loving this game.

Thanks for the help!

1. Sounds solid to me, though I haven't ever done a magic build. If you're killing stuff easily stick with it. Typically, if you're in an area with really difficult enemies then you are too low-level and should go somewhere else. If INT is like STR or DEX you should have no problem damage-wise for a while at 32 points.

2. The Hydra isn't too tough. You can block his physical attacks with a shield.

3. I would stay out of New Londo until you are able to warp between bonfires, not because you can't hack it, just because you don't need to go there yet and there's not much that's immediately of use (barring a certain item near the entrance which you probably already found).

@mikelemmer: If you have Ornstein’s soul, the Dragonslayer Spear’s pretty cool, as is Quelaag’s Furysword if you’re running a Dex build. I used the latter for quite some time. The Greatshield of Artorias is an amazing shield too.

@gatehouse: I don't have the Dex for either; I need 24 for the Dragonslayer, I only have 12. My Str is too low for the Greatshield, too. The issue is none of the boss weapons seem geared towards a Faith-focused build. The Demon's Spear is usable and practical, and I've used the Mace so much it's become 2nd nature.

Four Kings down on the first shot! I used the VinnCo strategy of running up to them and stabbing away wildly. Divine Claymore was doing a ton of damage, one series of two-handed swings and each king went down.

Nice, if in doubt, turn to VinnCo for the answers. Although the lack of gravity-lifts in Dark Souls really needs addressing. So how many of the 4 big bosses have you left?

@gatehouse: All of them I think? I'm not really sure how much of the game I have left, or what the bosses even are for the most part. Exploring Duke's Archives right now, and a few seconds ago I just got spiked by Seath. Wasn't ready for that one.

@mb: Then you still have to fight Seath then for real. The 4 bosses I mean are the Bed of Chaos, Gravelord Nito, Seath and The Four Kings, the ones that Frampt talks about when he's upside down and terrifying. I would highly recommend you get the DLC as well, it’s got some great fights in it.

@gatehouse: At what point do you suggest I get the DLC and start going through it?

@mb: Any time from now I think you'll be good. As long as your over level 70, you'll probably be able to tackle the bosses in it.

@gatehouse: Oh yeah, way over 70. Maybe I'll do it after the Archives. I am exploring the place blind right now, just found two new miracles and not even sure what they are but I'm sure they are some kind of heal, Bountiful & Soothing Sunlight.

Level 70 is around 20 levels more than what's needed for the DLC. Every area after Anor Londo is technically set for the same level (including the DLC) since you can do them in whatever order you like. You'll naturally level up as you take on the 4 bosses so whatever area you go to first is probably going to end up being the hardest unless you do crazy damage. If you were able to take down each King with a single set of swings from 1 full stamina bar then you already have the hitting power to kill every boss fairly quickly.

If you are going into each area blind I would suggest looking up the way to enter the DLC as you'd only know the path if you were familiar with the game's lore.

@golguin: Ok, sounds good.

Managed to stumble through most of the Archives tonight, then I found my way outside and down to Seath and killed him after one try. Curse resist on the Paladin set I have is awesome, it wasn't an issue at all (especially since all pieces are at +4 now). Even when standing straight in the curse stuff I could tell there was no way the bar was going to fill up.

I know I missed quite a bit back in the Archives though, so the next time I play I'm going to finish that up and then see where I stand.

@mb: Seath's a fight that looks really imposing but is actually ridiculously easy. You really are full role-playing a paladin aren't you?

@gatehouse: Well, it just sort of worked out that way. The Paladin set is pretty nice. Medium weight, good resists all around, and has a little bit of poise.

I think I'm missing something or there may be a bug. I even checked a couple of guides and things seem out of sequence.

I'm in the Duke's Archives, and have already killed Seath. I went back to the Archives to explore and make sure I didn't miss anything, but I found Big Hat Logan in the library even though I never opened his cell door with the Giant Cell key. I'm able to talk to him and buy his sorceries and what not. So, I went back to his cell, it's still locked and there is a Fire Keeper soul back there, but I can't open the door. It just says "Locked" - the guides I consulted indicate I have the correct key, though. I wonder if this is just bugged?

Later edit: I gave up trying to get the Fire Keeper soul and headed to the Demon Ruins. Ran around and killed everything, including Ceaseless Discharge, Demon Firesage and the Centipede Demon. I think I'm either a bit overleveled or my gear is upgraded too much for this zone, or maybe both, because these fights were all trivial. I was able to just stand there and tank most attacks using the patended ViinnCo method.

I found my way into Lost Izalith then called it a night when I couldn't really figure out which way to go. Man, the framerate is so bad in that zone.

You can double check to see if you do have the "Archive Tower Giant Cell Key" and not just the "Archive Tower Cell Key" by checking the chest that should contain the key to open the cell door. If you do have both keys, and there is nothing in the chest, and the cell door wont open then I guess it is a glitch. Never heard of that happening.

It's very possible that you are past the point of being overleveled for a normal game and could be approaching the power to beat the game on a NG+.

People used to beat the game around level 50-60 with partially upgraded gear. On NG+ you would expect people to have their confirmed builds with equipment at max or near max (slabs max out equipment and only a couple exist during each playthrough) with a soul level range of 70-90. People enter NG++ to complete the final achievements. Soul level and equipment would have been taken care of in NG+. Any increase in level would be done to meet the PVP level range of 125. The DLC set new PVP level increments of 50, 100, 200 and max level.