by strangejoy Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:52 pm
The knight shield is quite possibly the worst shield in the game. It's objectively worse than the kite shields that you buy for a nominal fee from Andre. It has less resistance, lower stability, and substantially greater weight than the kite shields. Hell, it even has lower durability. Switch it out for a kite shield.
You're also overburdened. At 18 endurance, I can tell by your equipment that you're fat rolling. This is a major problem, because the combination of your awful shield and your inability to roll means that you can neither dodge nor block effectively. My guess is that the snake serpents are quickly wearing your stamina down as you try to block, and your character isn't fast enough to run behind them for the backstab.
You can solve these problems by (1) replacing your shield with either a heater shield or a kite shield; (2) using only one melee weapon (choose between the drake sword and the halberd), (3) removing the bow from your L2 slot and equiping it from the start menu when you need a ranged attack, and (4) acquiring havel's ring and/or the dark grain wood ring. Regarding #4, do you have the master key? If so, use it on the door in the tower leading to the Taurus demon. You should be able to kill havel by repeatedly backstabbing him. If you don't feel like you have the skills to backstab him, then use dung on him. Three or four dung hits will poision him. After he's poisoned, you can leave his room and let him die. If you don't have the master key, you will have to kill the moonlight butterfly before obtaining the appropriate key.
Edit: typos corrected.
Last edited by strangejoy on Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:14 pm; edited 1 time in total