What with Bonfire Ascetics doing what they do, I'm in a NG+ game with over 350 hours on the character, 4 covenants maxed, rank 2 in Brotherhood of Blood, almost every piece of armor and weapon, 2 blue flames on the map, 20% of my bonfires are at strength 7 or above (Giant Lord bonfire is literally over 35), and I'm lugging around over 5 million souls.

Why would I ever want to go into official NG++ and lose my effective "level select" temporarily. There really isn't any incentive... right?

It's only worth it if you're trying to get all the achivements/trophies. You can buy 2 spells from an NPC that otherwise take a long time to acquire.

@groin: You mean Wellager? Yeah, that's all I can think of. Other merchants that have NG++-exclusive items seem to be affected by Ascetics, but he doesn't (or I don't know which bonfire to use).

Yup, Wellager is the NPC. The spells he sells require a lot of PVP grinding to acquire.

Hmm... Maybe for the sake of a "no death + no bonfire" run ?
But considering the strength of your bonfires, it will be less trouble to start a simple NG to do that. Appart Wellager that sells Covenent's rewards, I don't see the point.

A question though. How do you get the blue fires on your map ?

@myrmicus: You gotta get the corresponding bonfires to a certain strength (I think 7). It's currently unknown what (if anything) having all the blue flames does.

And actually, a no-death + no bonfire run would probably be easier in my current situation. My gear is super powerful. The only real dangers are Flexile Sentry and Throne Guardians (if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna kill every boss and enemy). I guess it's more of a "wipe the map clean" run. Though, it would be way more fun in a fresh NG.