If you get a decent shield, use a thief ring, and play it safe the first couple of skeletons can be dispatched pretty easily. The hard bit will be the red-eyed skeleton guarding the Falchion. If you're a mage he can be gunned down pretty easily, other classes will want to lure him away and then double back around to grab it.
Yeah, the best way to approach the dual-wielding red eyed skeleton is to throw down some soul remains and run past him to grab the loot while he is distracted.
PFS, Fluted chest, assassin's mask, black gloves, black boots, flame resist ring, crescent falchion.
Also switched off to my Blessed mace so I could hide behind a pillar and get free health. Used 2 healing items.
Raped him savagely.
Hey, good job! It's amazing how a change in strategy can make certain fights so much easier. One of my favorite parts about the game. Now that you've crossed one barrier, your next real tests will come from the 3-2 boss (Maneater) and the whole 5-2 level. They seem to give people a lot of trouble, just like Flamelurker.
A couple of questions regarding Talisman of Beasts.
1) Can I cast Second Chance with a Talisman of God and then switch back to my Catalyst? Or is the only way to keep Second Chance up and use spells a ToB? If so, I may just forget about the ToB for now, since I'll probably focus almost entirely on spells.
2) It looks like if I'm going to plan to use ToB I need to keep my magic and faith stats equal. Do I have that right? I read something saying 40/40 with a ToB build is more effective than 60/20, etc.
1) Can I cast Second Chance with a Talisman of God and then switch back to my Catalyst?
Yes. However, this requires either losing two equipment slots or needless - and sometimes fatal - inventory management every time you want to recast Second Chance.
2) It looks like if I'm going to plan to use ToB I need to keep my magic and faith stats equal. Do I have that right? I read something saying 40/40 with a ToB build is more effective than 60/20, etc.
Right. Due to diminishing returns, the Talisman of Beasts receives more power from an equal investment in magic and faith. With a heavy investment in both magic and faith - around 80 points in both - the Talisman of Beasts will eventually out-damage the Insanity Catalyst, but it's still an excellent choice of catalyst before that point since it makes inventory management easier. And magic is absurdly overpowered even without the Insanity Catalyst's spell-power bonus.
A couple of questions regarding Talisman of Beasts.
1) Can I cast Second Chance with a Talisman of God and then switch back to my Catalyst? Or is the only way to keep Second Chance up and use spells a ToB? If so, I may just forget about the ToB for now, since I'll probably focus almost entirely on spells.
2) It looks like if I'm going to plan to use ToB I need to keep my magic and faith stats equal. Do I have that right? I read something saying 40/40 with a ToB build is more effective than 60/20, etc.
Once you've cast a buff-type spell it stays on for the duration even if you switch away from your talisman/catalyst, so no worried there.
I don't remember the details, but I was under the impression that, once you had the magic slots you wanted, it would make more sense to raise faith - assuming you only wanted to use the Talisman of Beast, and never the Insanity Catalyst/magic based weapons.
Any online resources for new players to make my play through a bit easier? Tips? What's a good newbie class?
The best advice I can give is don't go into this like you might another rpg. Specialists kinda blow, so don't say to yourself, "I want to wear heavy armor and hit things with a giant weapon!" Because you can totally do that, but it won't work for every situation and you will really, REALLY be kicking yourself later for not investing the minimum in magic to get a spell slot or 2, same for faith, or dex to use a good bow, or str to use a good shield, etc. Also, don't put any points in luck. A good newbie class is royal, starting with a fragrant ring and soul arrow is great, and since they have the lowest starting soul level they can be molded into anything. Temple Knight is also really solid.
Alright, so I think I'll try to get Pure Black in World 2 and take down Scirvir tonight for the ToB. Is it true that being online affects World Tendency? That seems like a terrible idea. I don't want to have to play offline constantly to mess around with WT, but it seems like that may be the only way to go.
One last question on the ToB...am I going to be crippling myself by using it before my Magic and Faith are equal? Should I just continue to use my Catalyst until I get Magic/Faith to the same level? Right now my Faith is considerably lower than my Magic.
Oh, also, I beat 3-1 last night, fun level. Finally got Freke rescued so I've got some decent spells now. Should I get Rage of God or Firestorm for my first time through? I was planning on getting Firestorm, but if I'm going to be keeping Faith and Magic equal anyway...
Alright, so I think I'll try to get Pure Black in World 2 and take down Scirvir tonight for the ToB. Is it true that being online affects World Tendency? That seems like a terrible idea. I don't want to have to play offline constantly to mess around with WT, but it seems like that may be the only way to go.
One last question on the ToB...am I going to be crippling myself by using it before my Magic and Faith are equal? Should I just continue to use my Catalyst until I get Magic/Faith to the same level? Right now my Faith is considerably lower than my Magic.
Oh, also, I beat 3-1 last night, fun level. Finally got Freke rescued so I've got some decent spells now.
Yes, every time you connect to the servers your game's WT moves toward the online world's WT, which is basically neutral. When trying to move your WT to the extremes (PBWT, PWWT) play offline, but once you're done, you can reconnect and log in and off a few times to get it back to normal again. It can work to your advantage.
I'm pretty sure that the ToB stats being equal thing isn't that important until you're dealing with stats in the 30s, so you've probably got a while. My Faith and Magic stats were not close at all, and I never noticed a decrease in magic power when switching from wooden catalyst to ToB.
Regardless, the fact that ToB uses both the magic and faith stats to boost itself up isn't a hindrance, it's a benefit. The ToB has a C boost for both magic and faith, while the wooden catalyst has a C on magic only. The higher a stat goes, the less of a boost you get (upping magic from 15 to 16 may give you a 10% bump in power, while upping magic from 36 to 37 may give you only a 2% bump in power*). If you're using the wooden catalyst, this is inevitable - eventually, levelling up magic does very little for upping your power. However, for the ToB, upping both magic and faith equally means that you get to that diminishing returns area later on, delaying that decrease in power boost.
Of course, if you're using something like a crescent weapon, which doesn't look at faith at all, only magic, it probably does make more sense to weigh magic more than faith anyway. Spending souls on faith will only help your ToB, while putting them in magic will help the crescent weapon and the ToB.
TL;DR: Yes, upping magic and faith equally is the best way to get the most out of the ToB, but don't avoid the ToB just because you aren't planning on distributing the stats like that.
*Totally made up those numbers, don't quote me on that.
I am currently carrying a Crescent Falchion, but thus far I've used it only sparingly. Now that I have a nice selection of spells I imagine I'll use it even less.
A couple of questions regarding Talisman of Beasts.
1) Can I cast Second Chance with a Talisman of God and then switch back to my Catalyst? Or is the only way to keep Second Chance up and use spells a ToB? If so, I may just forget about the ToB for now, since I'll probably focus almost entirely on spells.
2) It looks like if I'm going to plan to use ToB I need to keep my magic and faith stats equal. Do I have that right? I read something saying 40/40 with a ToB build is more effective than 60/20, etc.
Once you've cast a buff-type spell it stays on for the duration even if you switch away from your talisman/catalyst, so no worried there.
I don't remember the details, but I was under the impression that, once you had the magic slots you wanted, it would make more sense to raise faith - assuming you only wanted to use the Talisman of Beast, and never the Insanity Catalyst/magic based weapons.
To add to this, I've seen a lot of builds that use Second Chance and don't even have the 100 mana to cast it.
Just equip your Talisman and the Silver Coronet for the +20% MP before entering the world, cast Second Chance once you enter, then swap back to your normal gear.
Can't decide if I want to finish World 2 next for Firestorm or World 4 for Second Chance and Anti-Magic Field. Thinking about waiting til New Game+ to even bother with ToB. Feel like I'm worrying to much about getting everything just right on my first playthrough.
Can't decide if I want to finish World 2 next for Firestorm or World 4 for Second Chance and Anti-Magic Field. Thinking about waiting til New Game+ to even bother with ToB. Feel like I'm worrying to much about getting everything just right on my first playthrough.
I'd finish off World 2 for two reasons:
1) 4-2 is a nasty level. It isn't 5-2, but you have to run back a looong way if you die.
2) 2-3 is the easiest level in the game.
Composite Long Bow or Lava Bow are probably the bows to look at. White Bow has some insane use requirements and from what I've been told the damage doesn't stack up against an upgraded sticky bow.
It's starting to look like I need a decent bow. Any suggestions?
If you don't want to dump a bunch of points into Dex, I would suggest crafting a Lava Bow. It will be more than good enough to get you through all of NG and most of NG+ before it starts to outwear it's usefulness. If you're not a caster, it's the only thing good you'll find use for with the Hard Demon's Soul (Spider Boss from 2-1).
It's starting to look like I need a decent bow. Any suggestions?
If you don't want to dump a bunch of points into Dex, I would suggest crafting a Lava Bow. It will be more than good enough to get you through all of NG and most of NG+ before it starts to outwear it's usefulness. If you're not a caster, it's the only thing good you'll find use for with the Hard Demon's Soul (Spider Boss from 2-1).
Wait... Lava Bow is good against the spider? You're telling me a bow that automatically sets arrows on fire is good against a spider that... spits fire at you?
It's starting to look like I need a decent bow. Any suggestions?
If you don't want to dump a bunch of points into Dex, I would suggest crafting a Lava Bow. It will be more than good enough to get you through all of NG and most of NG+ before it starts to outwear it's usefulness. If you're not a caster, it's the only thing good you'll find use for with the Hard Demon's Soul (Spider Boss from 2-1).
Wait... Lava Bow is good against the spider? You're telling me a bow that automatically sets arrows on fire is good against a spider that... spits fire at you?
No, he's telling you that the only good thing to do with the Soul you get from said spider is to make a Lava Bow.
It's starting to look like I need a decent bow. Any suggestions?
If you don't want to dump a bunch of points into Dex, I would suggest crafting a Lava Bow. It will be more than good enough to get you through all of NG and most of NG+ before it starts to outwear it's usefulness. If you're not a caster, it's the only thing good you'll find use for with the Hard Demon's Soul (Spider Boss from 2-1).
Wait... Lava Bow is good against the spider? You're telling me a bow that automatically sets arrows on fire is good against a spider that... spits fire at you?
No, he's telling you that the only good thing to do with the Soul you get from said spider is to make a Lava Bow.
Ah ok. Yeah that makes a hell of a lot more sense.
The Lava Bow is good against Armour Spider. Granted, all bows are good against Armour Spider.
The most damaging bow is a Compound Long Bow if you take it down the Sticky upgrade path and invest a little in dexterity. In most other cases, the Lava Bow is hard to beat. The Lava Bow also makes enemies flinch when hit. This is a very good thing.
Bows never stop breaking the game if you play in Hyper Mode, even at the point where New Game Plus runs stop increasing in difficulty.
Got sent to the nexus and then proceeded to die against a red faced knight...who was significantly harder than the blue faced knights.
Should I just run away from him? I poked at him for a solid 5 minutes but he just overwhelmed me at one point.
Don't bother trying him right now. He guards an optional boss that's meant to be taken on later in the game. The ghosts of Boletaria have failed you if they haven't put a sign on the ground nearby telling you that "Beginners should try this area later."
Congratulations! You are just like 99.99% of Demon's Souls players!
If you're really good / lucky, you can beat him. But don't expect things to get much easier if you do.
Got sent to the nexus and then proceeded to die against a red faced knight...who was significantly harder than the blue faced knights.
Should I just run away from him? I poked at him for a solid 5 minutes but he just overwhelmed me at one point.
Yeah, you can leave him for later.
Haha - I actually realized that as a royal, I can shoot my soul arrow at him, then run away, and when he has his back turned to me, repeat! I got a ton of souls for killing him.
Just beat phalanx...not a terribly tough fight, but it took me a while to take him down and I was literally paranoid every minute of it because in this game it feels like you can die at any moment. I never feel as comfortable as I do when playing other games.
Any good builds for Royals? I thought I heard someone say here that it's smart to branch out and be good at a bunch of things rather than one. Also - any world skipping for items?
Any good builds for Royals? I thought I heard someone say here that it's smart to branch out and be good at a bunch of things rather than one. Also - any world skipping for items?
A generalist build is probably better for single player- specialists shine in PVP, where base damage is much more important.
The requirements for equipment you want to use should help guide some stat growth- just remember that your strength increases when using something 2-handed.
Vitality and Endurance are important for any melee character.
Fpr a spellcaster, you need both Intelligence and Magic- one to increase your mana and spell slots, the other bo boost your damage.
If you do decide to specialise, the most popular builds are:
high Faith (using weapons that work off that stat, such as Blessed ones or the Large Sword of Moonlight), high Strength (fairly obvious),
high Dexterity (Sharp Uchitanas, Spears or Scythes and/or Sticky Bows),
pure Spellcaster (again, obvious)
or Blueblood Sword (requires most stats at 18 and high Luck).
Xagarath on
0
TrynantManiac BrawlerRank 20.100 and full WildRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
A bump for this awesome game and the cool things that have happened since I started a New Game +.
1. Armor Spider boss goes down, and I get a feel for how frackin' long it takes to kill that boss when it has so much HP.
2. Tower Knight kills me, and I feel like everything I've learned about the game slipped away during that fight.
3. Black Phantom with Scraping Spear gets dead by my Quality Longsword +5.
4. Tower Knight dies thanks to a great Blue Phantom who realizes how awesome Homing Soul Arrow is.
5. Flamelurker gets absolutely DESTROYED by the same Blue Phantom who decimated Tower Knight, and I have it on video:
I'm actually really tempted to do a Let's Play of Demon's Souls, but I'm not too sure about how much free time I have right now so I really don't want to jump in only to find RL gets more demanding....
Any opinions on classes? I'm thinking either Magician(I always love magic users) and Royalty, because they look like a nice mix of melee and sorcery.
Royalty, of the two.
Remember though, classes mean nothing. You start from a base (and the Royal is a damn good base for most characters) and can build your character to be whatever the hell you want.
Glancing at the wiki, the magician and the royal look similar, with the glaring difference being that the magician does not have a way to regenerate magic like the royal does.
If you play through the tutorial and it seems like you're running out of magic a lot, consider the royal.
Yeah, you should know that the fragrant ring doesn't give a BONUS to regeneration, it gives you any regeneration at all. Magic doesn't recover without that or scarce potions.
Posts
Yeah, the best way to approach the dual-wielding red eyed skeleton is to throw down some soul remains and run past him to grab the loot while he is distracted.
NintendoID: Nailbunny 3DS: 3909-8796-4685
Hey, good job! It's amazing how a change in strategy can make certain fights so much easier. One of my favorite parts about the game. Now that you've crossed one barrier, your next real tests will come from the 3-2 boss (Maneater) and the whole 5-2 level. They seem to give people a lot of trouble, just like Flamelurker.
1) Can I cast Second Chance with a Talisman of God and then switch back to my Catalyst? Or is the only way to keep Second Chance up and use spells a ToB? If so, I may just forget about the ToB for now, since I'll probably focus almost entirely on spells.
2) It looks like if I'm going to plan to use ToB I need to keep my magic and faith stats equal. Do I have that right? I read something saying 40/40 with a ToB build is more effective than 60/20, etc.
Any online resources for new players to make my play through a bit easier? Tips? What's a good newbie class?
Right. Due to diminishing returns, the Talisman of Beasts receives more power from an equal investment in magic and faith. With a heavy investment in both magic and faith - around 80 points in both - the Talisman of Beasts will eventually out-damage the Insanity Catalyst, but it's still an excellent choice of catalyst before that point since it makes inventory management easier. And magic is absurdly overpowered even without the Insanity Catalyst's spell-power bonus.
Once you've cast a buff-type spell it stays on for the duration even if you switch away from your talisman/catalyst, so no worried there.
I don't remember the details, but I was under the impression that, once you had the magic slots you wanted, it would make more sense to raise faith - assuming you only wanted to use the Talisman of Beast, and never the Insanity Catalyst/magic based weapons.
The best advice I can give is don't go into this like you might another rpg. Specialists kinda blow, so don't say to yourself, "I want to wear heavy armor and hit things with a giant weapon!" Because you can totally do that, but it won't work for every situation and you will really, REALLY be kicking yourself later for not investing the minimum in magic to get a spell slot or 2, same for faith, or dex to use a good bow, or str to use a good shield, etc. Also, don't put any points in luck. A good newbie class is royal, starting with a fragrant ring and soul arrow is great, and since they have the lowest starting soul level they can be molded into anything. Temple Knight is also really solid.
LoL: failboattootoot
demonssouls.wikidot.com
One last question on the ToB...am I going to be crippling myself by using it before my Magic and Faith are equal? Should I just continue to use my Catalyst until I get Magic/Faith to the same level? Right now my Faith is considerably lower than my Magic.
Oh, also, I beat 3-1 last night, fun level. Finally got Freke rescued so I've got some decent spells now. Should I get Rage of God or Firestorm for my first time through? I was planning on getting Firestorm, but if I'm going to be keeping Faith and Magic equal anyway...
Yes, every time you connect to the servers your game's WT moves toward the online world's WT, which is basically neutral. When trying to move your WT to the extremes (PBWT, PWWT) play offline, but once you're done, you can reconnect and log in and off a few times to get it back to normal again. It can work to your advantage.
I'm pretty sure that the ToB stats being equal thing isn't that important until you're dealing with stats in the 30s, so you've probably got a while. My Faith and Magic stats were not close at all, and I never noticed a decrease in magic power when switching from wooden catalyst to ToB.
Regardless, the fact that ToB uses both the magic and faith stats to boost itself up isn't a hindrance, it's a benefit. The ToB has a C boost for both magic and faith, while the wooden catalyst has a C on magic only. The higher a stat goes, the less of a boost you get (upping magic from 15 to 16 may give you a 10% bump in power, while upping magic from 36 to 37 may give you only a 2% bump in power*). If you're using the wooden catalyst, this is inevitable - eventually, levelling up magic does very little for upping your power. However, for the ToB, upping both magic and faith equally means that you get to that diminishing returns area later on, delaying that decrease in power boost.
Of course, if you're using something like a crescent weapon, which doesn't look at faith at all, only magic, it probably does make more sense to weigh magic more than faith anyway. Spending souls on faith will only help your ToB, while putting them in magic will help the crescent weapon and the ToB.
TL;DR: Yes, upping magic and faith equally is the best way to get the most out of the ToB, but don't avoid the ToB just because you aren't planning on distributing the stats like that.
*Totally made up those numbers, don't quote me on that.
To add to this, I've seen a lot of builds that use Second Chance and don't even have the 100 mana to cast it.
Just equip your Talisman and the Silver Coronet for the +20% MP before entering the world, cast Second Chance once you enter, then swap back to your normal gear.
I'd finish off World 2 for two reasons:
1) 4-2 is a nasty level. It isn't 5-2, but you have to run back a looong way if you die.
2) 2-3 is the easiest level in the game.
If you don't want to dump a bunch of points into Dex, I would suggest crafting a Lava Bow. It will be more than good enough to get you through all of NG and most of NG+ before it starts to outwear it's usefulness. If you're not a caster, it's the only thing good you'll find use for with the Hard Demon's Soul (Spider Boss from 2-1).
Wait... Lava Bow is good against the spider? You're telling me a bow that automatically sets arrows on fire is good against a spider that... spits fire at you?
No, he's telling you that the only good thing to do with the Soul you get from said spider is to make a Lava Bow.
Ah ok. Yeah that makes a hell of a lot more sense.
The most damaging bow is a Compound Long Bow if you take it down the Sticky upgrade path and invest a little in dexterity. In most other cases, the Lava Bow is hard to beat. The Lava Bow also makes enemies flinch when hit. This is a very good thing.
Bows never stop breaking the game if you play in Hyper Mode, even at the point where New Game Plus runs stop increasing in difficulty.
Got sent to the nexus and then proceeded to die against a red faced knight...who was significantly harder than the blue faced knights.
Should I just run away from him? I poked at him for a solid 5 minutes but he just overwhelmed me at one point.
Don't bother trying him right now. He guards an optional boss that's meant to be taken on later in the game. The ghosts of Boletaria have failed you if they haven't put a sign on the ground nearby telling you that "Beginners should try this area later."
Congratulations! You are just like 99.99% of Demon's Souls players!
If you're really good / lucky, you can beat him. But don't expect things to get much easier if you do.
Yeah, you can leave him for later.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Haha - I actually realized that as a royal, I can shoot my soul arrow at him, then run away, and when he has his back turned to me, repeat! I got a ton of souls for killing him.
Just beat phalanx...not a terribly tough fight, but it took me a while to take him down and I was literally paranoid every minute of it because in this game it feels like you can die at any moment. I never feel as comfortable as I do when playing other games.
Any good builds for Royals? I thought I heard someone say here that it's smart to branch out and be good at a bunch of things rather than one. Also - any world skipping for items?
Son of a bitch.
A generalist build is probably better for single player- specialists shine in PVP, where base damage is much more important.
The requirements for equipment you want to use should help guide some stat growth- just remember that your strength increases when using something 2-handed.
Vitality and Endurance are important for any melee character.
Fpr a spellcaster, you need both Intelligence and Magic- one to increase your mana and spell slots, the other bo boost your damage.
If you do decide to specialise, the most popular builds are:
high Faith (using weapons that work off that stat, such as Blessed ones or the Large Sword of Moonlight), high Strength (fairly obvious),
high Dexterity (Sharp Uchitanas, Spears or Scythes and/or Sticky Bows),
pure Spellcaster (again, obvious)
or Blueblood Sword (requires most stats at 18 and high Luck).
1. Armor Spider boss goes down, and I get a feel for how frackin' long it takes to kill that boss when it has so much HP.
2. Tower Knight kills me, and I feel like everything I've learned about the game slipped away during that fight.
3. Black Phantom with Scraping Spear gets dead by my Quality Longsword +5.
4. Tower Knight dies thanks to a great Blue Phantom who realizes how awesome Homing Soul Arrow is.
5. Flamelurker gets absolutely DESTROYED by the same Blue Phantom who decimated Tower Knight, and I have it on video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ep2YRAjEK8
6. I got the Blueblood Sword and it's awesome!
I'm actually really tempted to do a Let's Play of Demon's Souls, but I'm not too sure about how much free time I have right now so I really don't want to jump in only to find RL gets more demanding....
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
I'm ready to die horribly.
Any opinions on classes? I'm thinking either Magician(I always love magic users) and Royalty, because they look like a nice mix of melee and sorcery.
Royalty, of the two.
Remember though, classes mean nothing. You start from a base (and the Royal is a damn good base for most characters) and can build your character to be whatever the hell you want.
Why do all the male characters look like Big McLargeHuge? :?
Pretty much, yeah.
Don't worry, you'll look small as hell once you come up against some of the bosses.
If you play through the tutorial and it seems like you're running out of magic a lot, consider the royal.
Also, I need to get back to this soon. Took a break after getting my ass handed to me repeatedly by a few tough levels.