GRcade

Tragic Magic wrote:

more heat than light wrote:Which bonfire are you heading to? After you get past the bridge with the turtle knocking it down there's one if you head through the door to your left, it's actually in Belfry Sol but works as a stopgap to the other one. On my second two playthroughs I just bypassed it and headed straight for the main boss one, but I found it handy on my first go.

God damn, I must've missed that bonfire. I walked straight past that door. I died in the tight corridor with a turtle and guillotine. There were messages on the floor indicating a nearby bonfire. Then I died trying to run past everything getting back there.

Yeah the main boss bonfire isn't far past that bit, but if you're struggling to get there then definitely go for the other one first, it makes things a little less painful.

Ended up playing this a lot longer than planned tonight. Spent a chunk of time in the DLC area that leads off of the Iron Keep cut I got to a point in some caves where it just seemed to tough with too many ranged enemies in one area. Will come back to it later after I've explored other places. Very nearly killed the smelter demon but couldn't get close after that attempt.

The Iron Passage? Yeah, don't go there.

All the DLC is scaled for endgame, I certainly wouldn't recommend going there until you're ready for the final boss. Surprised you've already got the key for that area, isn't it in that fiery cave with those big salamander enemies?

That Iron Passage was the worst area in any Souls game. It was mean to be done in co-op but when I was playing it the game was pretty dead so I was stuck with the dumb AI summons.

I struggled playing solo through Iron Passage too, but it's still nowhere near as awful as Black Gulch. Seriously whoever designed that area needs stringing up by their bollocks.

Both gooseberry fool areas. The Black Gulch more so. I did the same with The Iron Keep, killed those armoured dudes so much they never respawned.

The area before Black Gulch, The Gutter, was great though. Probably not a commonly held opinion, but I loved it. Definitely digged the need of lighting those torches.

What's wrong with Black Gulch? You can basically just stroll through there to the other bonfire before the boss.

Made loads of progress​ this morning. Killed the smelter, scorpion lady, rat king dog thing and giant spider. Ended it at the gutter bonfire but not sure if I'll carry on tonight or play Yooka Laylee instead.

Yeah I also hated the Black Gulch, those freakin' poison statues

Poisoned and then trying to dodge those pool hands

Mafro wrote:What's wrong with Black Gulch? You can basically just stroll through there to the other bonfire before the boss.

Completely missed this bonfire when first playing the game.

Mafro wrote:What's wrong with Black Gulch?

Jazzem wrote:those freakin' poison statues

That. There's no way you can 'just stroll through' without getting poisoned to death a hundred times. Smashing those statues takes frigging ages, and they all get reset if you die.

Just run past them and heal at the bonfire right after That's what I always do.

Those two big worm things stop you running straight through! And by that point you have at least three of the weird black hand things after you.

Which boss would you fellas say is best for farming souls? I've used two ascetics on The Rotten but not sure if I could beat him with a third. I might give it a go. I've used an ascetic in the Iron Keep which is great for farming the standard enemies but I just have lost 150k from slip ups so that place is just not worth the time and effort.

I'm level 159 but the DLC bosses are kicking my ass so I'm trying to level up some more. Almost beat that trio in the sunken king DLC but made a hasty mistake when I was trying to kill the archer before the club dude caught up with me.

Why are you grinding so much?

Tragic, have you maxed out upgrades on the items you're using? That's more important than levelling.

I'll echo those sentiments. Higher levels aren't always a good thing in Soulsbourne games since they are based more in skill and gear choices than raw power like a typical JRPG where if your numbers are higher than their numbers you invariably win.

Once you have decent health and stamina plus stats high enough to wield weapons that you like you should concentrate on improving your chosen gear.

Levelling up too much can it harder to summon, as I understand it the summon system in DS2 is based on soul memory (the overall number of souls you have collected) so if you have too many you'll find it harder to find co-op buddies.

Karl wrote:Tragic, have you maxed out upgrades on the items you're using? That's more important than levelling.

Yup I have.

I think I could easily finish the game now if I wanted to but I'd like to finish the DLC if I can. It's just really frigging hard, much more so than anything I've seen in the base game.

Thanks for the insight guys.

IAmTheSaladMan wrote:Levelling up too much can it harder to summon, as I understand it the summon system in DS2 is based on soul memory (the overall number of souls you have collected) so if you have too many you'll find it harder to find co-op buddies.

In my experience that doesn't really make any difference anymore because there's no-one playing it. But yeah, grinding isn't the answer either. I'd recommend having a few practise runs and then using a couple of items (resin, brightbug, burr) on your 'proper' run. Are there any in particular you're struggling with Tragic?