...are generally aiming at too broad a target audience if you ask me, but not this one.

I have a feeling that after I finally complete Dark Sous I will have a hard time returning to a lot of older games I enjoyed because nothing really keeps you on your toes like Dark Souls does and I love that.

My question of the day: (I really hope these are not getting tedious yet :P) It is primarily to do with covenants, I know a fair bit about them just from reading the wiki but without the wiki I wonder how one gets to understand these systems coz they are very briefly and vaguely explained in game which doesn't bother me, its all living and learning but...

I really wanna get the Great Lightning spear :P and I understand I need to get to 25 faith and then go to the left of the first bonfire in the Parish and there will be an option to join Sunbros, however I am already in the Way of White coz u are kinda thrust into it early on and I didn't rly complain coz Heal turned out to be ultra useful but do I have to visit the guy at the top of the Parish and reset the covenant (paying a TON of souls for it) before praying at the altar to join sunbros? This seems really harsh because I can see myself switching between a few covenants just to obtain a lot of the spells.

Secondly, once that is done I understand I will need a total of 10 medals to get the spell, is "jolly cooperation" ^_^ while successfully defeating the boss of the area with the host really the only way to get one? (apart from the one I already have from Lautrec) Seems like a ton of work, not that I am not keen it also sounds like fun but wow what if someone is playing offline?

Any tips on successfully and hopefully quickly getting ppl to click my summon sign? where would u suggest leaving it? Down at the bonfire or closer to the Parish itself? Also does it matter where I go after I leave my mark? say if I place my mark in the Parish and then wonder off to lower undead burg or far away to farm stuff will my summon sign still remain wherever I leave it for ppl to hopefully summon me to help? Also should I leave it someplace else based on my lvl? From memory my new guy is about lvl 27-28 so I figured a lot of ppl move thru the parish in their early 20s, a lot of newer players anyway.

THANKS SO MUCH!! :D

You don't need 25 faith. Requirement is lowered by 5 for every coop boss kill up to faith 10 I believe. Also the soul cost to remove cov is not as much as it used to be.

As far as how you get to know this info outside of the wiki goes, you don't, at least not 100% of it fully just by yourself. It's a lot of people playing a lot doing test finding shit out and collating their information together. It's info that has accumulated over a long period of time now, back when the game first came out the wiki was a mess, at the same time it was kinda great playing in the moment when almost everyone was still learning things.

Covenants are confusing, to be sure. If I hadn't looked up some of the stuff online I'd probably still be scratching my head about some of them.

As far as getting Great Lightning Spear goes, remember that you're going to need to get past the Hellkite Dragon on the bridge to join up. A serious pain, but once you do and you have enough faith, you get the normal version of Lightning Spear just for signing up. Nice benefits there. You might want to go ahead and pay a visit to Oswald, but I think you're a bit confused on what he charges for. Repenting for sins and betraying covenants takes a metric ton of souls, depending on your level, but to back out of a Covenant is absolutely free, and actually the recommended way to handle it. As I recall, if you hop from one covenant to the other without having Oswald officially exit you from it first will halve all contributions you've made to the first covenant, as well as count as a sin. Not fun. Still, Oswald is in a pretty easy location to reach, and since he sells Purging stones and some useful accessories, it might not be a bad idea to visit him from time to time regardless.

The 10 Sunlight Medals requirement might seem like a bit of a pain, but remember that you can always find them in the game world itself- I think I ended up with five or six of the things without even looking all that hard. On top of that, a certain enemy (The Sunlight Maggots) in the Demon Ruins happens to have a chance of dropping Sunlight Medals, for all your farming needs. The same goes for all the items you need to rank up in Covenants- the Basilisk Lizards in the Depths provide you with Eyes of Death for the Gravelords, the Crow-Women in the Painted World drop Souvenirs of Reprisal for the Darkmoon Blades, and plenty of things drop that much-sought-after humanity you need for the Daughter of Chaos and Darkwraiths. Drakes, predictably enough, drop the Dragon Scales you'll need if you want that sweet Dragon-Body stone from the Everlasting Dragon in Ash Lake. All of these might be a bit slower or less entertaining than playing online, but never say they didn't give you a single-player workaround! ...Except for the Forest Hunters. You gotta go online and stab some fools if you want to make Alvina proud of you.

As far as getting people to summon you, just being in the Sunlight Covenant will give you an advantage there. Everybody loves a Sunbro.

@Make_Me_Mad said:

As far as getting people to summon you, just being in the Sunlight Covenant will give you an advantage there. Everybody loves a Sunbro.

Lol this ^_^ that whole Sunbro Jolly cooperation meme is so adorable, I love how the community made that up.

Praise the sun!

Games these days are better designed than they ever were. I appreciate the fact that Dark Souls doesn't explain anything but that's because the lack of information and difficulty are integral to that experience. Accessibility is a good thing. Look at Skyrim, probably the most streamlined and accessible Elder Scrolls games and it's the best one in the series as a result.

Anyway on this topic I totally kept away from covenants, I'm afraid of commitment to things that might come back to bite me after I've forgotten about them. The Dark Souls wiki should have most of the details on each covenant by now though.

@adam1808 said:

Games these days are better designed than they ever were. I appreciate the fact that Dark Souls doesn't explain anything but that's because the lack of information and difficulty are integral to that experience. Accessibility is a good thing. Look at Skyrim, probably the most streamlined and accessible Elder Scrolls games and it's the best one in the series as a result.

Anyway on this topic I totally kept away from covenants, I'm afraid of commitment to things that might come back to bite me after I've forgotten about them. The Dark Souls wiki should have most of the details on each covenant by now though.

Yeah fair enough, however its the only way to obtain a ton of nice things including spells that are not accessible in any other way.

But most of all I wanted to say that Skyrim being the best Elder Scrolls game is an Opinion, an opinion which I do not share at all. Sure technology allows it to have the smoothest combat and appearance of all of them, but that is only due to the things they can do with Games these days like you said, as far as depth in character development it is the weakest Elder Scrolls game in a long long time and as a result of this I found it had next to no replayability and I would not rate it as the best Elder Scrolls game not even close xD

@Bassario: I get where you're coming from. But Skyrim was the only Elder Scrolls game I really enjoyed. All the systems in place and the character building system were perfect for helping me to appreciate what Bethesda does well with that series.

Abandoning one covenant for another counts as a sin, however the Way of White is the sole exception to this and you don't need to visit Oswald to remove it before overwriting it with another covenant.

Also while a lot of people say that you don't need to have 25 Faith to join the Sunbros that's...technically correct if you just want the golden colour when you're summoned, but the requirements to use the miracles themselves are high enough that you need 20 Faith just to use the regular Lightning Spear, and 30 points in it to use the "Great" version. Keep this in mind.

There's a chest somewhere in the game, I think in Anor Londo, that contain 3 Sunlight Medals, some other places also have them laying around. You can also get Sunlight Medals when summoning Solaire for bossfights, if he lives to the end of them.

With the soul level that you are at you will find the most people summoning you in the Depths, the place where most people put their summoning sign is the bonfire. If you like you can farm some Large Titanite/Green Titanite shards and Humanity while you're waiting.

Thanks everyone some nice information here :)

I had a wonderful time and was glad I turned online back on, as bad as the twink losers are they are not as common in lower Burg and Depths, we even killed some of them in coop teams, they seem to drop bucket-loads of exp. I found that sticking my summon sign just outside the Capra Demon's door was a super fast way to score coop kills, I got 3 very quickly, went and became a SunBro and have been spamming "Praise the Sun" gesture since and then seriously enjoyed some ultra Jolly Cooperation in the depths and already have 5 medals! Looks like I will have the 10 medals much sooner then I can save up 30 faith for the great spear anyway...

Trouble is all this jolly cooperation earns me absolutely insane amounts of souls, I am now lvl 42 and am thinking about stockpiling the exp coz I am not sure how many ppl will be available to see my sign in Blighttown once I am much higher than that...

P.S. The sunspear is simply THE COOLEST spell animation I have seen in a game in a long time, possibly my favorite (Zeus thunderbolt much?) ^_^ I am probably going to spam all my points into faith till 30 and leave it at that to give me a chance to catch up on all the other stats, kinda feels like I need more of all of them :( the ultimate spear that requires 50 faith... is that something really that worth getting? I dont rly see it possible until about lvl 100 unless I let all my other stats fall behind which will make me very flimsy, Also if anyone knows the location of a good faith based weapon I would rly appreciate it, I got the one from the valley of drakes that requires 14 faith a long time ago and for a faith based character it has been by FAR the most powerful thing to use but I am getting rather bored of it...

@Bassario said:

THANKS SO MUCH!! :D

You're welcome.

@Bassario: To ensure that you don't get overleveled you should put some of the souls that you're earning into upgrading your equipment, I hope you've been doing that. You could also spend them on stuff like the Crest of Artorias (a type of key, bought at the Parish blacksmith), Repair and Weapon/Armor Upgrade kits that help you out at bonfires and on upgrading your Pyromancy Glove, if you have one.

You can actually make any normal weapon into a faith scaling weapon by upgrading it to +5 and then Ascend it to a Holy weapon at the Undead Parish blacksmith. To Ascend it you need to first find the Holy Ember, a certain boss in Darkroot garden protects it. You then need Green Titanite shards, slimes in the Depths drop these but you can also buy them later in the game. You need about 9 shards to fully upgrade it to Holy+5.

From there you can find another ember in the Tomb of Giants that lets you upgrade it to Holy+10, or you can seek out the Dark Ember in the painted world to turn it into an Occult Weapon. Occult weapons scale better with Faith but have lower physical damage, if I recall.

The Sunlight Spear can only be gained in NG+ and I'd say that no, it isn't really worth it. It is only slightly more powerful than the Great Lightning Spear and only has 5 charges. There are a few other cool Miracles you should aim to get though. Offensively Emit Force is pretty great, make sure you find the NPC Siegmeyer where he appears enough times for him to give it to you. Also, traveling a bit into the Tomb of Giants to find the NPC that will let you buy Wrath of the Gods will feel well worth it. Homeward and Healing are also useful in their own right.

@Bassario said:

Any tips on successfully and hopefully quickly getting ppl to click my summon sign? where would u suggest leaving it? Down at the bonfire or closer to the Parish itself? Also does it matter where I go after I leave my mark? say if I place my mark in the Parish and then wonder off to lower undead burg or far away to farm stuff will my summon sign still remain wherever I leave it for ppl to hopefully summon me to help? Also should I leave it someplace else based on my lvl? From memory my new guy is about lvl 27-28 so I figured a lot of ppl move thru the parish in their early 20s, a lot of newer players anyway.

One thing to understand when looking for co-op times: Only a handful of people are looking for help with just the boss. More people are looking for help with the level. If you put your sign near a bonfire or close to one, you're more likely to get summoned than if you put it right in front of a boss door, because the other player probably has two co-op buddies already or is dead. Some areas have a higher chance of being summoned because of difficulty too. You can probably grind out Ornstien and Smough co-op for weeks with the number of people who want help with that fight.

As for what levels to look for places for co-op:

There isn't a "set" level you should be for the DLC areas, but so far most people are saying anywhere between SL 60-80 is a good level range for regular new game, with SL 100-120 for NG+

Thank you RockmanBionics and Morbid_Coffee for some great tips!

I did realize this just before logging off last night ^_^ that I need to stop lvling right now and put a lot more effort into my gear, most of it is somewhere between +1 to +3 mostly due to a serious lack of twinking titanite, anyone know if there is anywhere I can grind this? But I can think of tons of ways to spend the souls so now that I have my absolutely awesome sun spear I will sit at lvl 42 untill I get to Anor Londo.

Fortunately there are still quite a few players out there who love to fluff around and travel and explore every nook and cranny of the world as far as one can go ^_^ that is why I am so damn over leveled, but the tip to make some standard holy weapons is amazing! that is a great idea I will endeavor to make a few of those and that will surely keep me happy and occupied, a holy Zweihandler or Claymore would be a lot of fun :D

I know what u mean about most ppl wanting help with the level, and in the Depths I felt a lot of gratification on the rare occasion when someone basically gestured for me to lead the way coz they seemed horribly lost in the depths and I have a good nose for sense of direction so I would lead them to the boss, however sometimes leaving the summon near the door can be effective if u get lucky because going from the fireplace there is a good chance of random deaths happening and especially when douchebag twinks invade run in and one shot the host...

Right! So my first course of action is to locate this Holy Ember, or hopefully multiple of them, I already have a few green titanites. Is Darkroot Garden the forest place past the blacksmith in the Parish? coz OMG I tottaly forgot to backtrack and go there, looking forward to exploring that area so much now, hope now that gargoyles are defeated I have no complications opening that gate :D

@Bassario said:

I know what u mean about most ppl wanting help with the level, and in the Depths I felt a lot of gratification on the rare occasion when someone basically gestured for me to lead the way coz they seemed horribly lost in the depths and I have a good nose for sense of direction so I would lead them to the boss, however sometimes leaving the summon near the door can be effective if u get lucky because going from the fireplace there is a good chance of random deaths happening and especially when douchebag twinks invade run in and one shot the host...

Thats why it's your job as a phantom to make sure they don't get the host. Sure you'll lose out on getting souls/sun medals/ect from beating the level, but you have nothing else to lose.

@Morbid_Coffee:

Yeah I agree and that can be a lot of fun, we defeated a couple of average players, but when the twinkers arrive you will know it coz theres no trying or anything, they 1 shot everyone with their end game weapons and when u hit them it does 4 damage. I guess its just sad ppl that cant grow some balls and handle the pvp at 80, instead they patiently do all the pve early staying at lvl 20 and then go back to areas like the depths and harass ppl who cant fight back pointlessly -_-

@Bassario: About Twinkling Titanite, as you probably know it drops from Crystal Lizards that run away when they see you and don't respawn once you kill them, but there are a few other ways to get it.

First off I want to make sure you know about Item Discovery, it's the stat that determines the droprate of items and it starts at 100. It increases for every Humanity you have in your Humanity gauge and you can also equip a ring hidden in Sen's Fortress to increase it a LOT (I think by 200). The maximum Item Discovery you can have is 410. When farming anything and you've made it up to Sen's Fortress make sure to wear the ring that boosts Item Discovery, it will save you a lot of time.

Now, here are the ways that you can get Twinkling Titanite aside from finding them in the environment and the Crystal Lizards:

• Farm them from the Giant Clams. Giant Clams appear in front of a boss door late in the game, but there are also 3 of them in the hidden area Ash Lake, you should be able to reach Ash Lake via The Great Hollow right now, the entrance is hidden somewhere at the bottom of BlightTown.
• Trade with Snuggly. Trading with Snuggly the Crow is a weird process, but you should be able to look it up. She will give you 1 Twinkling Titanite for a Bloodred Moss Clump, 1 for a Purple Moss Clump and 2 Twinkling Titanite for a Blooming Purple Moss Clump. She will only trade each of these items with you once.
• Farm them from the Sanctuary Stone Giants that appear in the additional content. Not recommended, but possible.
• Buy them from the Anor Londo Blacksmith. They cost 8000 souls each though.

If only I could be so grossly incandessant 

Yea, covenants as well as everything else in the game are set up OLD SCHOOL. No hand holding, vague, ambiguous, or out right hidden. The devs were prob old school 80s gamers. Dark Souls actually has a lot of traits from the original Zelda. Think it was the Tomb of Giants when I really noticed it. Zelda had a number of areas that let you stumble around in the dark where the only thing you could see were enemies eyes.

See, as much as Dark Souls is super ambiguous and maybe not as clear about some of its mechanics as it should be, everything else about the game suggests that a lot of care went into its design, especially as far as the levels go, with paths that fold back on themselves and tons of hidden shortcuts.

As far as I can tell with covenants, some do not require forgiveness if you leave and rejoin. Maybe it's limited to how "deep" your relationship is with them, though. I left the forest guardians to join the chaos servants, and then left the chaos servants to join darkwraiths and then left darkwraiths to join gravelord servants and then switched back to darkwraiths. Pretty sure I can still rejoin chaos without any issue. Didn't need forgiveness to rejoin darkwraiths (though maybe Kaathe presumes that betrayal is par for the course for any of his members.) Killed Nito already, so I don't think I can rejoin the gravelord servants. I do know that you need to pay for forgiveness to rejoin the forest guardians, though.

And, yeah, I killed Sunbro early in my game, before I realized I could have just paid for forgiveness. Christ, looking at my covenant trajectory, I'm kind of a shithead. No wonder everyone's an asshole to me.

@RockmanBionics said:

@Bassario: About Twinkling Titanite, as you probably know it drops from Crystal Lizards that run away when they see you and don't respawn once you kill them, but there are a few other ways to get it.

First off I want to make sure you know about Item Discovery, it's the stat that determines the droprate of items and it starts at 100. It increases for every Humanity you have in your Humanity gauge and you can also equip a ring hidden in Sen's Fortress to increase it a LOT (I think by 200). The maximum Item Discovery you can have is 410. When farming anything and you've made it up to Sen's Fortress make sure to wear the ring that boosts Item Discovery, it will save you a lot of time.

Now, here are the ways that you can get Twinkling Titanite aside from finding them in the environment and the Crystal Lizards:

• Farm them from the Giant Clams. Giant Clams appear in front of a boss door late in the game, but there are also 3 of them in the hidden area Ash Lake, you should be able to reach Ash Lake via The Great Hollow right now, the entrance is hidden somewhere at the bottom of BlightTown.
• Trade with Snuggly. Trading with Snuggly the Crow is a weird process, but you should be able to look it up. She will give you 1 Twinkling Titanite for a Bloodred Moss Clump, 1 for a Purple Moss Clump and 2 Twinkling Titanite for a Blooming Purple Moss Clump. She will only trade each of these items with you once.
• Farm them from the Sanctuary Stone Giants that appear in the additional content. Not recommended, but possible.
• Buy them from the Anor Londo Blacksmith. They cost 8000 souls each though.

Yeah thanks for that! I heard about Snuggly, but how do I go back to the Asylum?

@Bassario: There is a big birdsnest in Firelink Shrine, you need to reach it and curl up in a ball (there's a prompt to do this) and stay there for a while until the bird picks you up. To reach it you need to jump off the elevator that goes up to Undead Parish as it goes up (or down works too). You can then reach the upper parts of the tower through some exploring and reach the birds nest.

There's a key in the tower that opens up another door in the asylum, make sure you get that too.

OH MAH GAWD! Rock on!!! Thanks!

I actually noticed that there was an extra level there going up and down that lift, however I spent like 20 min trying to figure out how to do anythiung with it up there :P but my roll jumps were not getting me anywhere this is brilliant!