100+ tips, tricks, and tidbits for Dark Souls 2!

The discovery process in Dark Souls is one of its greatest aspects, and often times you might find a cool little thing, but you feel it doesn't warrant having its own topic. Well don't fret, in this thread you can post all the cool little things you discovered in your time in Drangleic. Lets see how many tidbits we can get out of this.

1. You can farm a ton of regular lifegems right outside of the Cardinal Tower in the Forest of Giants. Just walk straight out of the room where the bonfire is and keep walking. Past the wall rubble, if you look down, you will see a wooden platform. If you drop down all the platforms and kill everything along the way, chances are you'll have nabbed at least a couple of lifegems. Then walk back to the bonfire and respawn all the enemies and it again. I was able to get roughly 40 lifegems before the enemies stopped spawning, and a healthy amount of souls.

2. To dual wield you actually have to push triangle to go into dual wield mode. It's never actually told to you in the game.

3. Raising your shield to block is no longer instantaneous like in previous games and I think is effected by the Agility stat raised by adding points to the Adaptation attribute.

4. Merchants who sell a limited supply of an item may suddenly have an unlimited supply after you progress far enough past them. This may be accompanied by them moving to a new location.

5. Fire damage is now modified by intellect, making fire damage melee weapons a great secondary weapon for my fellow sorcerers!

6. There is another shortcut from Cardinal Tower to the other side of the fog door that can only be accessed if you throw Firebombs at the gunpowder barrels. It blows away the wall giving you a new shortcut. Check 6.40 of the video below to see what I mean.

7. the Adaptation attribute controls how fast you move, how fast you use items, how fast you drink and how fast you raise you shield.

That seems rather important.

@aegon: I believe it also influences your poise, which limits how much you get stunned when taking hits.

8. Slow/Fat roll doesn't start until 70% equip. Anything below that is "fast" roll. With just varying levels of how far you roll. The less the % the farther you roll.

9. The knight sitting under the tree in The Forest of Fallen Giants drops a good sword to start out with.

It's actually not that simple. You need the required stats to be able to enter your power stance while dual wielding. I've heard 1.5 times the stat requirement of the weapon is that magic number and it appears to hold true for duel wielding two short swords. I wasn't able to do it until I leveled up my strength a few points. Only then was I able to enter the power stance with the short swords.

The adaptability stat does make all your animations faster. It also adds to poise and agility. I believe I have 18 adaptability and it adds 3.5 points of natural poise without anything on.

The poise increase goes hand in hand with endurance. It is not just tied to Adaptability. Taken from the guide:

Adaptability has an interactive effect with Endurance that can create natural Poise. Raising the two stats at the same rate will give you natural Poise. For example, if you have 10 Adaptability and 10 Endurance, adding 1 point to Endurance will not increase your Poise. On the other hand, if you have 11 points of Adaptability and 10 points of Endurance, adding 1 point to Endurance will increase your Poise. Raising the lower of the two stats will result in a natural Poise increase.

It also increases your Poison Bonus slightly. If you use a Poison-infused weapon, you'll get a small offense boost from your Adaptability. On the defensive side, Adaptability raises all your status resistances.

So all that plus the Agility stuff.

10. Pursuer tip - While fighting The Pursuer, there are two Ballista toward where he spawns. If done correctly, you can shoot him with these and can possibly one-shot him or at least do a ton of damage. Keep in mind that he can destroy these if he hits them.

11. Abandoning a covenant does not give you a sin this time around. And you also do not lose any progress in level progression for that covenant. So you can freely move between them.

12. Wooden chests will break after 3 hits, destroying all the items inside and giving you rubbish. My strategy is to hit chests once to check for mimics (I don't know if they're in the game yet,) then be ready to roll backwards while opening the chest if there's a trap.

It's actually increased by both Int AND Faith. Same with Dark magic...

Which sucks because I killed him and died at the exact same time and then he never dropped anything when I returned there.

@vashyron: Even better! Maybe I will pump some points into Faith for a healing spell after all...

Is rubbish still tradeable to the crows like in DkS?

13. Weapon durability is a stat in the inventory screen. It is also represented by a small red "healthbar" under the item in the main gameplay scree.

14. To regain humanity (and thus restore your HP bar's potential) you need to USE the Human Effigy Item, not BURN it. As I understand it, BURNING it prevents invasions for a time. However, popping it will NOT refill your health like Humanity did in DaS1.

Rubbish is not tradable, only smooth and silky stones for random items.

14. Talk to everyone AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. exhaust every talk dialog both before their menu comes up AND use the 'talk' option in the menu as much as possible for vendors, talk to them again at later points in the game!

15. Some enemies are afraid of light. If you're fighting something tough that seems to only be found in dark places, bringing a torch can really even the odds.

@quid_pro_bono: That is EXACTLY what I've been doing it and don't regret it one bit.

16. In regards to #14, Vender's will give you items after you spend X amount of souls with them. Pro tip, the Old Hag vendor gives you a pretty good ring after spending 10,000 souls with her. Just always use the Talk option with venders that you spend souls with and they will eventually give you an item when you pass their threshold. Do this with all of them! I've gotten some okay stuff, but also some great stuff from a few.

17. Your weapon's durability will replenish when you rest at a bonfire. Weapons only break when the red bar underneath them gets depleted completely.

18. To properly duel wield, you need to meet 1.5 times the stat requirement if each weapon in each hand. Then, hold down Triangle (or Y for you xbox folks) and you'll see your character hold the weapons different. This is called power stance. Once in power stance, your left bumper and left trigger become your duel wield strikes. Your right bumper and right trigger remain the same.

20. Burning a human effigy is allowed once you've beaten the first boss. The effect is that it makes it impossible for you to be invaded for a few hours it seems.

21. Joining the covenant that the cat tells you about will prevent you from being able to summon help for as long as you are a part of the covenant! This means no summon signs! Nor can you place your own! The game will also be increased in difficulty. I'm not sure of the details but i think it's the usual enemies deal more damage and take more hits. I don't know if any special attacks or moves are given to bosses if you have this covenant active. You can still be invaded however, so you are not safe!

22. Wooden doors can be broken.

23) Basilisks no longer cure you, instead their gas will petrify you.

24) Curse is no longer an instakill. When cursed you lose 10% of you maximum health as if you died.

25. You now have to hold circle to slide down a ladder, if you don't and just press circle, you will fall (likely to your death).

26. You can hold circle while climbing up a ladder to shimmy.

I don't play Dark Souls but I'm wondering, how would you use that torch when you fight someone who is afraid of the dark, if the sword is in your right hand and the shield is in your left? Torch helmet?!

27. Using a rapier in your right hand will allow you to parry even when dual wielding.

28. You can pre-eat a gem when preparing to open a potentially trapped chest.

@singingmenstrual: you use the torch in the left hand, and a weapon in the right.

Fighting an enemy or moving an inch in Dark Souls without holding on to your shield? Madness.

I am in fact one of the biggest Dark Souls failures and noobs on the planet so I held on to that shield like there's no tomorrow, but that sounds like futile suicide!

There are a couple good reasons to do this. First, when you have a torch active, you can run around lighting other torches around the area. These stay lit forever, and as a bonus, can also be used to light a fresh torch. In most of the early areas, this isn't a huge deal, but in a couple, it's very useful. In the case of light-adverse monsters, the ones I've fought will run away and eventually just cower as you beat them to death and not fight back. It's also worth noting that most of these monsters are extremely deadly and love to attack you in numbers. A good example are the horrible green things in No-Mans Cove. Even with an Old Knight's Shield, a combo from them would nearly inflict bleed on me, and 2+ at once could be a real problem. Turning the tide and chasing them around with a torch was really gratifying!

29. To go along with 6 - there are other areas that you can blow open a hole in the wall using a gunpowder barrel. There's another in Lost Bastille. Keep an eye out for places you could possibly do it.

30. Equip load doesn't just affect rolling, and it's not just fast/fat roll like in the previous games. Roll quality and roll length, speed, stamina recovery, and possibly more are affected by equip load, even if you still technically have the same roll animation. Keep that equip load % low! Faster movement and stamina recovery may be more important than a little extra defense for some bosses.

31. Don't worry too much about loosing souls/depleting enemy spawns. You now get souls for helping people defeating bosses, so you do have an endless supply.

32. Helping other people has even more benefits. It fills up your Estus flasks and repairs your entire equipment.

33. healing during The Pursuer

Even though your opponent has a long reach and can easily close a distance, the boss has a slow rotation. Knowing this, try to dodge diagonally and into the attacks to get to the rear. This bought me enough time to heal with an Estus flask. You can also put a ballista between the both of you to buy some time.

Yo, #10. (Pursuer Tip), I haven't seen it much but there is a ranged attack, so watch out for that.

Edit: Or just keep your distance. You want to keep the largest possible gap between both of you. Attacks are fairly easy to dodge and you can just wait for a long attack animation (like the poking blue/cursed sword attack)

i guess if we are doing pursuer tips

34. try parrying it stuns him for a significant mount of time

THANK YOU Jesus Christ I could not find the answer to this question anywhere.

35. Vitality is among the more powerful stats in the game, as dumping only a few points will allow you to wear armour that'll more than halve the damage you're taking.

36. Armour actually matters this time around.

37. The trick to just about every boss fight is to circle him/her/it in the opposite direction of his ready stance. (If a boss holds a sword in his right hand, you circle to his left, your right, etc. Also applies for them that use larger weapons, as they still keep their weapons ready at one side.)

38. Joining some of the PvP Covenants require you to already have participated in the kind of PvP said Covenant subscribes to. You can tell whether you're eligible by checking your inventory for the corresponding items. (To join the Brotherhood of Blood, you must have invaded people and killed them, which nets you "Token of Spite".)

39. Throwing knives are THE BOMB, at least in early game. My sword hit the Heide knight for about 80; knives did 110.

40. The dogs that cause bleed can drop effigies. Use the explorer hat and rusted coin to increase drop rates.

41. You can get a second Soul Vessal (respec item) from the depressed guy by the monument in Majula. Not sure what the threshold is exactly, but I got it by talking to him after lighting the 2nd primal bonfire.

42. Secret doors are not always opened by hitting them. There are many that you have to hit A (xbox) or X (PS3) on.

Reminds me of Doom. Running around a level humping the wall mashing a button to see if it opens. I've also sent many of psn messages to people who summon me when I try to show them something. I'll run up to the wall to show them. And then they just sit and attack it for like 2 minutes. I don't even know if this is stated anywhere in the game either. I only found it myself because someone left a message that there was a door there. And I attacked thought they were lyinging. Then looked it up in the guide and it said interact with the wall. So I started hitting buttons to see what would happen.

43. In the Earthen Peak, when you get there. Tip about the boss. There is a bonfire next to a large gear. Light your torch and then burn the gear. This stops all the machines and removes a poison soup from the floor in the boss room. Its super hard with the poison all over the floor. Not only does it hurt you, but it heals the boss.

44. This may be a carry over, but I think it's good info. You can gain humanity for being summoned to another world, and also, I haven't lost my humanity from dying while helping someone else. I also don't think you lose your souls when you die when summoned. So get out your soapstones, duders. You can become human and earn souls (seemingly a good chunk, as after two wipes and one successful run on the Lost Bastille boss, I gained 13k) with no seeming risk!

Jolly co-operation!

Man, really? Now I have to think about the multiple times I saw messages that were rated once or twice about illusionary walls where I attacked and rolled to no avail... That's good info, though. Thanks duder.

@animathias: Ya, I thought all these messages were just people trying to be funny. Turns out they were serious (well most of them anyways, I am sure some were just to mess with people).

Indeed. There will always be the misleading messages, but at least I know something new now. I left a message "Illusion ahead, try control" which will hopefully steer people to try hitting a button. I wish there was a "activate" or "button" command, but oh well.

What an obtuse game. I have this feeling we'll be finding stuff like this out for a while to come. Crazy.

That is brilliant, I was really on the fence about which Covenant to join.
On one hand, Blue Bro Super Defense Force, on the other hand, Rats.

Yup. Never used them in the first game, but damn they do some damage here.

45. Joining the bell tower covenant can net you tons of titanite slabs and souls. It is a PVP covenant and you just have to kill the player trying to run up the tower. It is pretty easy to stop people and if you wait long enough, you usually have an ally helping you to defeat the world master. You get a slab after every kill and you get special items from the covenant master after so many victories.

Also make sure you war cry over your opponents dead body.