@golguin: I definitely have the correct key, I've got both of those and the gate that used to have Logan behind it just won't open.

Very strange. I guess it's a glitch. In any case you'll want to kill every NPC in the game world before you fight the final boss in the Kiln of the First Flame. You'll pick up an extra two Fire Keeper Souls from The Fair Lady (white spider lady) and the Darkmoon lady at the Anor Londo bonfire.

I have 2 of the 4 endbosses down and half my equipment upgraded, so I'm well on my way to finishing Dark Souls. Just posting to say thanks to everyone that helped me get through those first dozen bumpy hours. Never thought I'd continue this game, but I'm glad I did.

You're more than welcome sir, anything we can do to ease that jump into Dark Souls loveliness.

I'm in a similar situation, feels like I'm about to enter the final third once I take down The Bed of Chaos. Probably would have gotten too frustrated if it wasn't for this thread.

However I feel like i've broken the game a little, i just defeated Nito on my first try using Pyromancy. I'm level 88, which I feel is probably too high. Still a fun game though, and the DLC (especially the bosses) are giving me some trouble if i'm not playing really well.

@gatehouse: @golguin I defeated! I took most of this week off of the game to concentrate on my finals (god that was nerve wracking after being out of school for 15 years) and went back at it this morning. Made it through Lost Izalith and killed the Bed of Chaos. I didn't realize how close to the end of the game I was until I came upon Gwyn. I went into the fight blind...ended up dying a couple of times due to poor rolling on my part and then realized I could just parry him. My ripostes were hitting for 900+ damage each, the fight was trivial once I figured out the timing.

I never did do the DLC, but there's always NG+! Thanks for all the help.

Also...I kind of want to try either a different weapon or maybe even a slightly different build on NG+ if possible, but I'm not sure if it would be wise to start pushing my stats in another direction. I am WAY overleveled, but whatever. I'm currently using the Paladin armor set which is upgraded to around +3 or +4 on each piece, a Caduceus Kite Shield +15, and a Divine Claymore +10. I would like to, at the very least, use a different weapon starting pretty soon. Maybe a halberd.

SL 97

Vit 33

Att 16

End 26

Str 21

Dex 20

Res 11

Int 8

Faith 45

The DLC is some of the best content in the game so you should definitely give it a shot. If you didn't find all of the hidden areas and bosses you should also check them out. NG+ is a good chance to check out anything you missed. If you don't know about the Darkwraith covenant you should think about joining them for the story reveal.

@golguin: I will! I heard about the Darkwraiths but never got around to checking it out, I definitely plan on it this time. I'm looking forward to NG+ though, it's already a ton of fun now that I know my way around for the most part and know what items do, in general. Although I have to say, I've never spent this many hours with a game, beaten it, and still felt like I didn't know what the hell to do! I edited my post while you were replying to it, it looks like.

I believe that you can use the majority of weapons with your current strength and dexterity. You wouldn't need to adjust any of your stats to try out the different strength and dexterity weapons. You'd want to look at weapons with a nice varied moveset.

Praise the Sun I defeated Dark Souls today!

Gwyn wasn't too hard after the DLC stuff, my pyromancy burned him up good.

Kind of want to do a NGP, but chances are I'm done with Dark Souls. Got a huge backlog of other games, but I think I'll be getting Dark Souls II day 1 for PC, (something I rarely do).

What made me realise makes the game so great is the possibilities not just for broadly different play styles (wizard, archer, warrior, etc) but for very nuanced and personal play styles. I was a warrior pyromancer, much like Vinny. However I couldn't play using his strategies or equipment at all.

I ended up playing most of the game with longsword +15, silver knight shield +5, black iron armour set, Havel's ring to keep me mobile & various pyromancies.

@metzo_paino: Congrats! I am only a few days post YOU DEFEATED myself, and like you I have a huge backlog...but I'm doing NG+ anyway. It's a whole different kind of fun this time around!

I just wanted to say that I fell down the Dark Souls hole after about 5 episodes of Load our Last Souls. I spent about two weeks playing it non-stop, and finally beat it (DLC too). I want to share the opinion that, at first, I was hating the game, but reading advice here and watching Vinny's mistakes made it manageable.

I'm a convert! And I can't wait for Dark Souls 2.

I mostly played with a +15 Uchi, really light armor, and the flippy ring. I beat Gwyn with the Great Scythe, though.

NG+ is really fun. I made it to Sen's in the same time it took me to get through the Undead Burgh the first time. The increased health and damage doesn't really get in your face until the latter half of NG+ but it mixes up the combat when it does because you need to use variations on the tactics that saw you through NG.

If you're still not sick of it after that, NG++ makes you feel like a level 1 newbie since even basic mobs are difficult against your max-level equipment. Praise the sun! \T/

Can someone please tell me that I've just been walking past a bonfire right before Gwyn? Can someone pleasetell me that I don't need to make that fucking hike from the Lordvessel all the way to Gwyn and fight those same 5 knights over and over and over again? Or at the very least can someone tell me why all the"surefire" strategies keep failing over and over and over against this "way too easy joke of a final boss"?

I've got 40 strength, Havel's armor, 42 endurance, that ring that boosts fire defense, a +5 black knight great axe, and my choice of power within, iron flesh, or flash sweat. If I use iron flesh, I'm too slow to avoid his grab that deals a ton of fire damage. If I use flash sweat, that grab move takes only like 30% of my health (rather than maybe 60%), but his physical attacks tear me apart. If I use power within, I still can't do enough damage quickly enough to compensate for the fact that both his physical and fire attacks knock me the fuck out. A lot of the guides say he's supposed to get staggered every few hits of a black knight great axe, but he doesn't. What am I supposed to do?

@bbalpert: Parry his ass and riposte...when you see the grab animation, roll out of the way and use the opportunity to either heal or stab him in his stupid face.

I try, but I can't get the timing consistently enough. I can get 1 riposte in on a good run, maybe 2 if I'm really lucky, but then I just get smoked. The frustrating thing about that is that the bonfire-to-boss walk is just long enough to prevent me from adequately practicing the parries. When I was having trouble with Ornstein and Smough, I was able to get pretty good at parrying the silver knights because both versions were right by the bonfire. Not to mention the fact that there are 5 guys between the bonfire and Gwyn, each with their own set of attacks, so by the time I get back to the boss room I've already lost that short term muscle memory.

I know you're giving me good advice, and I do appreciate it, but right now I'm just frustrated.

Parrying and invincibility on your roll are your best friend. It's literally all it takes to beat that boss. Ditch your Havel's and just roll around like an asshole, because his attack patterns are real easy to chain roll through safely.

If you can't get parrying him down then practice against the Balder Side Sword knights and regular Hollow soldiers at the Parish. Both of those enemies have very similar backswings on the majority of their attacks. Once you know the tells on his attacks, Gwyn is incredibly easy to parry to death but getting to that point without getting frustrated is 99% of the fight. Just go in there as a suicide run to block and watch his attacks. Don't even bother with the parrying portion, just pay attention.

You'd be surprised how effective just knowing what his shit looks like can be for improving parrying.

You might find parrying easier if you focus on their hand rather than the actual weapon.

@bbalpert: I found it quite easy to run past the knights, just give them a wide berth and if they come at you block them and sprint off.

@siroptimusprime: @daze: @metzo_paino:

I'll give those things a try, thanks. I also think that one of the biggest things I needed to do was just stop playing for the day. I'll go back to it after work today and (hopefully) have a clearer head.

And if all else fails, I could go and do some of the side quests and grind for a while. I could probably use a few more points in vitality anyways.

The easiest way to parry Gwyn is to parry his 3 hit combo. Stand next to him block the first hit and parry the second hit, the timing is very easy on the second hit.

Is anyone up to lending me a hand with O&S on NG+ (Xbox)? I've been at it for two days now with not much luck, even with Sunbro helping out. Plenty of people invading on the bridge of course but I haven't seen a single summon sign for the boss fight, sadly.

As much as I appreciate all the help you guys have given me with this Gwyn fight, I think I've figured out on my own the simplest, most effective way to truly defeat that motherfucker once and for all.

I had a ton of fun with the game, but at this point I really don't even care about beating it. I stuck to it and triumphed over the Capra Demon. I was at the end of my rope when I squeaked out a victory over Ornstein and Smough. I beat the Four Kings on my first fucking try (thanks to Vinny's strategy). But this last fight has already burned through too much of the good feelings I have to the game. Somewhere around the Gaping Demon fight, I moved Dark Souls into the "Favorites" category of my Steam library. If I keep banging my head against this, I'm worried I'd have to take it back out. I have 98 titanite chunks and well over a dozen black knight shields in my inventory and I just do not care any more. Praise the sun, duders.

Update: I may have been a little hasty, but I may go back to the game to finish off other sections. I still haven't gone back to the Asylum and I still haven't gone to the Painted World, so I'll probably reinstall to see that stuff. I do stand by a lot of what I said about the last boss area being game ruiningly aggravating if you can't pull off one specific technique that isn't otherwise required (and if you can parry consistently, the fight is apparently disappointingly easy).

But who knows, maybe the Asylum and Painted World sections are cool.

!!!!

I did it! I defeated! It turns out that what finally got me over that hump was the realization that I was being too quick with the ripostes. Throughout the entire game, I'd been parrying and riposting as almost one super fast motion (acting under the assumption that it worked like a fighting game where I'd only have like a 5 frame window). When the parry was successful, the riposte worked great. But if the timing on the parry was off, I'd already hit the attack button, so my character would start to swing as soon as his parry animation finished. Normally that wasn't much of a problem, because I could kill stuff quickly enough that I could survive if I just followed the first accidental swing with a few more attacks. But with Gwyn, what would happen is I would fuck up parrying his first attack of his 4 hit combo. By the time he started his second attack, my character was already committed to a lengthy greatsword/ultra greatsword/great axe attack animation that left me completely defenseless against Gwyn's second hit. And his third. And his fourth. And then I'd probably be staggered (or at least panicking) from taking all 4 hits head on, leaving me unable to get out of the way of his grab.

Moral of the story: Wait until you know the parry has worked before hitting the attack button. It's better to be too slow and land a normal hit instead of a riposte than it is to be too fast and commit to a reckless attack.

Although I have to say, I guess I wasn't paying enough attention to the story for the ending to make any sense at all. But whatever. Praise the sun.

So I beat the Gargoyles and rang the bell at the top. Now I'm making my way into the catacombs fighting a bunch of skeletons and stuff. It kinda feels like they're a little tougher than they should be, it's hard to tell in this game though. For all I know I'm not even in the right place. I'd just like a little advice on my build, so I can make sure I'm not doing anything dumb and that I'm going down a viable path, and if not how I can fix it.

I'm level 28, I started off as a cleric, my vitality is 15, attunement is 12, endurance is 17, strength is 25, dexterity is 8, resistance is 11, intelligence is 8, and faith is 14. I'm using a plus 5 battleaxe, Heater Shield, plus 1 chain helm, plus 3 chain armor, balder gauntlets, and plus 1 chain leggings. Basically I just want to play a survivable melee dude who hits hard but doesn't feel like a sloth.

Any advice for where to put my stats in the future, and should I start looking into a different kind of armor or weapon? Or should I just stop being a baby and play better maybe?

@hunter5024: Your stats and gear look just fine. For your future stats, there is no one 'correct' way to spend them, so I'll just give some general ideas and then you can work out the specific allocation to suit yourself.

To be "survivable", you'll be looking at gaining Vitality and Endurance. Vitality simply lengthens your health bar--always a good thing. Endurance will allow you to equip heavier weapons and armor without being slowed to a crawl like a "sloth" by raising your Equip Load. Endurance also lets you run, attack, roll, and block more frequently since you'll have more Stamina to work with.

To "hit hard", you'll be looking at Strength and/or Dexterity. Weapons that scale well with Strength tend to be slow, heavy, and hit like a truck, more easily staggering or knocking down enemies. Dexterity-based weapons are often capable of just as much damage output as Strength weapons (if sufficiently upgraded) and tend to be fast and lightweight, but will rarely stagger enemies, so you'll have to better know your timing of when to attack rather than defend. Some weapons take advantage of both Strength and Dexterity, and they often have a combination of each stat's trademark characteristics.

Lastly, it's also possible to upgrade many weapons into elemental forms so that they deal fire, lightning, or magic damage. Elemental weapons depend much less on your Strength or Dexterity, so although they can be harder to acquire, they can be useful for attaining good damage output without having very high Strength or Dexterity.

Most important of all is to experiment with many different weapons and see what movesets and characteristics suit you. Nearly every single weapon in the whole game is viable throughout the game if you upgrade it enough and have good stats for it, so don't worry so much about picking a 'bad' weapon--go with what you like and you can make it work!

@savage: Awesome thanks!

You're not in the 'right' place. You can go where ever you want in Dark Souls, but some area's are more suited to your level than others. If you want to keep going then do that. If you want to just clear out the next area you're 'supposed' to then read this sentence > after you've rung the bell guarded by the Gargoyles, the next step should be entering the Depths below Undead Burg. You get there by picking up the Depths key from a corpse behind the giant door that the Iron Bore guarded, then getting back to the bridge with the Red Dragon. If you're looking straight at the dragon, face to face, from across the bridge, take the door on your right. If you do not want to go to the Depths (it's an optional area), you'd have to go to Blighttown to ring the second bell. Blighttown is reached either via the Depths or via the Valley of Drakes (which in turn is reached via Darkroot Garden).

You need to know what you want to do if you want to know how to level properly. Are you going to use great weapons (like great axes, swords and so forth) that do a lot of damage but are slow? Are you going to use fast weapons (like katana's, rapiers and so forth)? Are you going to use sorceries? Miracles? Pyromancies? What is your combat style? Do you prefer to get in, do damage and get out? Or just stand toe to toe, block attacks and return?

All that depends on how you want to level. All that also depends on what weapons you'd want to acquire. Why don't you figure out what your playstyle is, then good advice can be given. You can still finish the game with a poorly leveled character, but it is easier (and definitely more fun) to play the way you want to play. Just look at Patrick. He had a perfectly leveled character for his playstyle and he blasted through the game.

@zevvion: Yeah once I killed the boss and got to the Tomb of The Giants I figured there had to be somewhere easier for my level than that. So I ended up exploring until I was on a more appropriate path and I've made my way to Anor Londo since then. I'm level 60 now and my character is mostly the same except strength is in the high 30s, and my endurance and vitality are in the mid twenties. My battleaxe is a +10, I have a +5 dragon shield, my chainmail is +6, I'm rocking a +3 Gargoyle Helmet, and I'm using the ring that boosts physical defense and the wolf ring. I'm thinking of trading out my weapon for a two handed weapon of some kind since my shield has been basically useless for the last area or two, any suggestions for one that wouldn't be much slower? Those stats look alright?

Just got dark souls! I understand the basics of the game, but Id like some recommendations for some more complicated stuff. Like, I like being agile in games. Whats a good path to take for building an agile character?

Using the dodge roll to avoid enemy attacks will keep you more agile than using a shield to try to block everything.

Investing points into Endurance will let you more easily keep your Equip Load at 25% or less, which is crucial to be able to move and roll with maximum speed. (If your Equip Load is between 25% and 50%, you'll move at medium speed, and if you're over 50%, you'll move at slow speed.)

Don't skimp on Vitality, since, as an agile character, you likely won't have very strong armor to reduce damage for you. Dodge rolling is a more high-risk, high-reward playstyle than defending with a shield, so having high Vitality is great for keeping you alive when you mistime a dodge and take a big hit.

You'll also probably want to avoid Strength-oriented weapons, since they tend to be very slow and heavy. Dexterity weapons are fast and light-weight, as are some weapons that use both Strength and Dexterity equally, so you should keep an eye out for them and experiment when you find them.

If you want to mix in some ranged attacks, you could try out bows (which generally take advantage of Dexterity), or crossbows (which only require a modest amount of Strength or Dexterity to equip and have no stat scaling). If you use ranged weapons, remember to upgrade them as appropriate, just as you would with melee weapons.

Finally beat the final boss this morning. Now I want to start a new game with 2 different characters & increase my Covenant Rank in NG+. Have I finished it, or is it just beginning for me?

Im like 13 hours in and Ive decided Im going to buy the DLC. Is it true that you can get locked out of accessing it, and if so how do I prevent that from happening?

It's true. To avoid locking yourself out, just do these:

• Don't kill Dusk. (You're supposed to rescue her before accessing the DLC.)
• When she asks if you want assistance, say Yes. (If you say No, she'll disappear until you're next playthrough & you're screwed.)

I am at Gwyn, really glad for all the help from everyone, this game is AMAZING!!!!

So I just started today, I've played for about three hours and I've reached the bonfire inside the Undead parish. I've freed Lautrec and taken a couple attempts to kill him with no luck (thanks Brad).

I'm a level 18 pyromacer and I'm trying to decide on a weapon to start upgrading. So far I've been using a morning star that's worked out pretty well. Are there any early game weapons that you guys recommend to upgrade? Does it really matter outside of animation preference?

Also, any tips on improving framerate? I've installed dsfix but I still get pretty regular framerate drops.

If you dont want to go for the Drake Sword, the Uchigatana is a great weapon that can be found early on, but you have to kill the male undead merchant in undead berg to get it early. Its fast and does bleeding damage. I'm using it now on my first playthrough and its doing me well so far. Not sure how Ill upgrade it though. Also, make sure you buy everything worth buying from the merchant if you decide to kill him.

Any tips for a good uchigatana upgrade path would be appreciated. Im focusing on Vit, End, Str, and Dex. Probably will stop leveling strength earlier than the other three. Right now its at +8.

@naru_joe93: Yeah I've heard of that, though I use that merchant every now and again to buy firebombs. Maybe if I can find an alternate supply I'll go kill him and get the sword.

@naru_joe93: Uchigatana is my favorite weapon. If you're going to be taking Dex up to 40, then the standard +15 upgrade is your best bet.

@shookems: the Merchant has the "Uchigatana." an excellent weapon, fast, and levels with your dexterity, but breaks very easily if your not repairing it yourself on each bonfire stop. You can buy a repair kit from the blacksmith beside the church.

Well I finished Gwyn, and beaten the game in about 100 hours. WONDERFUL GAME!!! Really misleading and really rewarding. I really felt the best moment was Sen Fortress, figuring all that out without a FAQ, beating the boss and then on top of that the demon creatures ride into Anor Londo just that big revelation over how big this game was. And, then the game gets stuck in the back of my head. I just keep thinking about the tails, the fire, and start buying into the whole mythology and lore. Like I often fall asleep with the dialog, or the interface is easy to get lost, but it's not till it click till it all works. Such a misleading experience.

Go full DEX for the Uchigatana. Don't put points into STR if you intend to use fast weapons. STR is for heavy slow weapons. Focus on VIT, END, and DEX.

I dont use firebombs much, so I just killed him. He is actually the only place you can buy regular firebombs in the game though, so no alternate source (besides drops). Im not a dark souls expert or anything, but I think the uchigatana is better than having a reliable source of firebombs. I guess it does depend on what build you're going for though. The uchigatana is really good for dexterity builds, which is what Im doing.

So the DLC is behind the Hyrda on darkroot forest? Man I missed that, is it worth it? And is Ash Lake worth it? saw a bit of ash lake, saw the mushroom men and homeward bone out of there.

@crithon: Ash Lake is kind've a pointless area, unless you want to join the Dragon Covenant. I think it may also have a slab down there. The DLC however, is very worth it. It has one of my favorite boss fights in it! You need to get to Duke's Archive and get the Broken Pendent to be able to access the DLC though.

So for some reason strength isn't increasing my damage anymore and I don't know why. I'm using a +14 battleaxe and my strength is 45ish. Since the base damage of the Black Knight Greataxe isn't much weaker than my upgraded battleaxe I was thinking of switching to that, but Id need like 8 levels in dexterity and thats super pricey at my level. Especially since I had to grind for intelligence to use cast light in the Tomb of Giants. What are my options for dealing more damage at this point?

@hunter5024: I'm guessing that you're doing a little under 400 base damage with your +14 battleaxe at 45 STR. The most immediate way to get more damage would be to apply a temporary weapon buff. You could use Charcoal Pine Resin to apply a small fire buff or Gold Pine Resin for a moderate lightning buff. You could also try casting Magic Weapon (requires 10 INT) or Great Magic Weapon (requires 15 INT) for magic damage buffs. If you can cast Light, then you must already have at least 14 INT and some Attunement. To get the most out of your low INT, you'd be best served using the Oolacile Ivory Catalyst, which you can buy from Dusk.

Aside from weapon buffs, your next best option would be to find a different weapon, one that better takes advantage of your very high STR. With 45 STR, you can try some big heavy weapons that have higher base damage and higher STR scaling than the battleaxe. For instance, if you were using a Great Axe +14 or Great Club +14 (neither of which requires more than your 10 DEX), you'd be doing around 600 base damage. You could also apply the same kinds of weapon buffs mentioned above for even more damage.

@hunter5024: @savage pretty much said everything I would. Ultimately, buffing your weapon is the easiest of the choices, as you're familiar with your weapon, specifically how its move set works for you. The overall reason you're not seeing more damage per stat is because your strength is past the stat soft cap of 40 (85% of all the bonus damage you'd receive from this stat). At 50, there's even more of a decline in returns, but if you were hoping to use Havel's shield you'll need 50 STR (50 STR may apply to some dragon weapons too, I just can't remember).

Changing weapons is also a good option, it's just a matter of finding a weapon that works for you. I'd look up strength weapons and make a decision on whether or not you want to go ahead with this particular choice. I ended up going through a similar stage (I was using the claymore which is awesome!) but decided on the demon great axe. It worked out well for me, as I basically stomped on normal game, an most of NG+ (Currently at Artorias though didn't actually try him as of yet).

My copy just arrived. All this goddamn Dark Souls talk got me. I'd rather play Dark Souls before Dark Souls 2 comes out so I'll get stuck in soon. See how it goes.

Need some weapon advice. My character is a knight with endurance and dexterity in high 20s and strength mid 30s. Right now I find myself using +5 Silver knight swords or spears. I need a weapon that can do some good damage and works with my build a bit better. I've been grinding by getting summoned in Andor Londo to fight Ornstein and Smough but all the materials I'm buying from the giant blacksmith aren't helping anymore since I need slabs and not smaller pieces. Where can I go to grind for the materials I need to build some kickass one handed weapon? Is Izalith the way to go next? I'm not finding much in the Archives.

@blamblam: If you just want to grind titanite chunks New Londo is a good place to farm them from the Dark Wraith guys (I think that's what they're called- dark wraiths). They look like Skeletor. Cant miss em. If you do it in human form, with 10 humanity and the covetous snake ring you have the highest possible drop rate and can get (usually) 3 or so a run. The only pain is the bonfire closest to them is in the cave tunnel that leads to Dark Root Basin (where you take the elevator down to the Valley of Drakes or whatever it's called) so you have to kill 4 or so drakes every time.

Although if you haven't opened the door in New Londo yet (you'll know which one) then none of that matters. You won't really need chunks yet if you haven't (in my opinion) but if you do need chunks that's a good place to farm them.

The Silver Knights straight sword at +5 is probably the best damage for a one handed sword in the game. Some may argue you could use elemental damages (like Lightning or Fire) but keep in mind those don't scale with your stats and were nerfed after a certain patch so lightning +5, for example, tends to net you the same damage as regular titanite at +15 base (without the stat scaling which is evened out by the fact that most things don't have lightning defenses- Edit: forgot to add that it also adds regular damage so it basically doubles making damage at lightning +5 ~410). Fire is actually even less (I never understood why Fire damage is so low in Dark Souls but it always has been and there are more things with defense to fire). If you want to play with a lot of humanity Chaos isn't bad as it raises your damage for every humanity you have and there is no defense against chaos.

A +15 broadsword (just regular titanite upgrade path) would be somewhere around 500 damage with 40 Dex and Strength (it scales with both). The silver knights sword is 419 at 99 Str and Dex and scales faster with Dex. So in the end a broadsword would be higher damage quicker if I recall and am doing my math right (I cant remember the exact damage it does and stats stop scaling worthwhile at 40 I believe it is) as both Str and Dex are C on a broadsword so since your strength is higher if you got a broadsword to +14 it'd be doing around 350-400 damage or something like that. More when you get Dex to 30 as well. Even more when you get both to 40 (I recommend if you go that route to get Dex to 30 first then go to 40).

The crazy thing about Dark Souls is most regular one handed weapons don't have very high scaling- ever. The broadsword and straight sword are both always C scaling on both Str and Dex and only 2 handed weapons start scaling up past C with upgrades so just using a one handed sword is technically more complicated as you need both Str and Dex (if I recall that's how it balances out).

I have never primarily used a one handed weapon but if I recall that's how it is anyway. Take that for what you will. You can check out weapon stats (including with upgrades) from the dark souls wiki here.