A Dark Souls Thread ft. Bloodborne and, begrudgingly, Sekiro (2020 4 phase boss fight mix ft. McGarnagle stomping Bloodborne in his sleep)

[Scagden]

Oops! Hopefully anyone who makes it this far through the thread will already know, I tried to edit but I’m too late

[Twinkletoes]

Always funny to me that you can knock a gargoyle off an edge to its death. Fly, you moron!

[Twinkletoes]

Just took down O&S after maybe 10 attempts. Chugged down all 4 of my humanities in the end when I ran out of estus Close call…

[Scagden]

Urrghhhh they’re my next challenge once I’ve defeated all these knights for the onion dude and opened up the short cuts. I struggled so much with them on my last run and my reflexes are five years older now… What build, weapons etc you rocking for this fight?

[Twinkletoes]

Dex build with shield and medium mobility. Quelaag’s Fury Sword (from my scimitar). No. Pants.

[Calien]

Been pretty quiet in here for a while. Everybody must’ve gone hollow.

I’m still pootling around with no clothes on. Decided to do everything possible before retirieving the Lordvessel. Battled my way up to each of the yellow fog gates at Dukes, Tomb of the Giants and Demon Ruins, just for the sake of it. A bonus is that when I place the Lordvessel, i’ll have maximum warp locations.

My 5 year old son has been watching me play and is pretty obsessed by it. Swords and Dragons and Magic and Armour. His eyes are lit up whilst we explore new areas. (I do make sure to put some clothes on the character first, or there might be some explaining to do). He absolutely loves castles and ancient ruins, and he loves looking at and drawing maps. I bought the official guide (a thing of beauty) and he helps me figure out the way through the levels, looking for ladders and bridges and pathways, and tracing the route with his fingertip. I managed to convince the missus that it’s educational. Translating 2-dimensional movement into a 3D space etc. Not sure she bought it. It’s astonishing how much of it he takes in. I was talking to my mum on Skype a few days ago and he butted in gave her a full 10 minute run down of what we’d been up to. Hearing him explain to my 60 year old mother what it’s like down in New Londo Ruins was sensational, as was his description of how we were only going to travel down the “giant maze tree branches” to Ash Lake after we beat the “big gold bad guys” to meet the princess and get the Lordvessel so we can “magic travel anywhere”. Was I fuck going down to Ash Lake without the ability to warp back out. No chance.

I told him how difficult Ornstein and Smough were, and that it would likely take a few attempts, and he said we should do it with a BIG GIANT AXE. I spent a few hours farming when he’d gone to bed and upgraded the Great Axe to +10. The look on his face when he saw it the next day was decent Managed to solo them for the first time in my career too. Defeated Smough first with Great Lightening Spears from miles away, and then nipped around Super Ornstein, smashing his knees with the axe. “I TOLD YOU IT WOULD WORK DADDY!!!” Proper proud moment that. We fist bumped

In other news, managed to get Onion-bro back to Firelink as part of his quest line, so showed him my toasty buttocks, naturally:

[Twinkletoes]

Had a couple of weeks of no video gaming due to life getting in the way, but got in a few hours at the weekend and a couple more last night.

Ornstein and Smough went down exactly as they did on my first run, with me literally chugging through all my spare humanities at the end because I’d managed to kill Ornstein but had gone through all my estus

Did what I needed to trigger the dark ending and now heading down into the Catacombs. Had some fun last night with co-op. Left my summon sign to help out with O&S, but got pulled into a world of someone who was taking down evil phantoms who were (presumably) trying to ruin the fun of folks trying to co-op that boss.

[colossalhorse]

This is lovely, really made me smile. And as a rule I do not smile before 11am. Your boy sounds amazing.

[Calien]

Awww, cheers! He’s a pretty top kid, though I would say that.

When I got the game on pre-order, it came gifted with a copy of the cover art printed on a piece of aluminium/tin.

With a lack of anything better to do with it, I’ve stuck a loop of cardboard onto the back of it and it is now his “special Dark Souls shield”. He runs around the house with it “bashing all the big snake bad guys” in “The Sen Fortress with the swinging axes” using the “Foam Sword of Artorias”

I have told him in no uncertain terms that if he swings any of this stuff even REMOTELY CLOSE to a real person in real life, i’ll be throwing them straight into the Abyss and extinguishing his bonfire. Seems to have worked so far!

[Calien]

I’ve had real difficulty getting summoned on my last few sessions (I.e not once), and started to question whether my internet connection was playing up, even though I could still see orange soapstone messages and bloodstains everywhere.

Figured out eventually it’s because i’ve been dicking around so much in the world and not actually progressing the story, that I am probs massively overlevelled. Think i’m at about soul level 79 and i’ve only just finished Anor Londo. No wonder I solo’d O&S!

[Twinkletoes]

Yeah that feels like a pretty high level for that stage of the game.

That fight is incredible, innit. Only played Souls games as melee to date. Might do a magic build next which it sounds like changes the complexion of that particular fight substantially.

[Calien]

Sorcery absolutely trivialises most fights in this game. With enough points in INT, Homing Soulmass (and later Crystal Homing Soulmass) will remove ridiculous amounts of boss health with a single cast. I solo’d O&S on the 360 using my sorcery build, but i’d never really counted it as a solo victory as it was so easy.

…just had the horrible realisation that my current Great Axe victory which i’m celebrating as my first proper “solo” attempt probably shouldn’t count either, as I Great Lightning Spear’d Ornstein before I even got my Axe out. Been internally celebrating for days without realising that

Still haven’t solo’d them with 100% melee. Bullshit.

[Twinkletoes]

The melee solo is such a delicate balancing act for me. Trying to keep a pillar between you and Smough at all times while tempting Ornstein in for attacks to slowly whittle him down. It’s like a weird three-person dance.

[Calien]

I know I’d be capable of doing it, but it’s just the thought that between entering the fog and claiming victory, around 10 to 15 minutes could pass in which you have very little margin for error. The level of sustained precision and patience is daunting.

I generally get to about the 5 minute mark in such circumstances and then overthink how well it’s going and start to wobble.

I need to find that Zen spot where it just happens.

[Twinkletoes]

It’s the run-up that kills me for that one. Waiting for that elevator which is timed to go down just before you reach it from the bonfire… Took me like 3 hours of solid attempts on my first run but was much smoother this time!

[colossalhorse]

Do you not use the bonfire in that little room inside the big cathedral thing? Much quicker. I spent days putting my summon sign down in there on my first run through. Great times.

[Twinkletoes]

Wait wut? I’ve always (n=2) used the firekeeper bonfire.

[colossalhorse]

This room?

It’s up the stairs and off to the right of the big main hall. Great place to put your sign down and roll into some furniture until someone requests your help.

[anon3515918]

Also just nice to spend some quality time with our friend Solaire

[anon3515918]

Uh oh…