Tank Guidelines

Green__Eagle wrote:Okay, I have a quick question: I was able to buy the Stone Sword, but is it still true the only way to get the Stone Shield is to farm the giants before the Moonlight Butterfly? My current sword hardly damages them. I might as well go for the complete stone outfit since I'm so close.

Unfortunately yes, unless you can buy it from Shiva, which I don't think you can. It is a really good shield though, almost as good as havels but you don't need to go above 40 strength to use it.

Unfortunately, all three of my characters are stalled at the Depths Bonfire, so I don't know much about the world beyond them just yet. O&S and 4Kings are the bosses of what zones? Just want to know what to watch out for.

O&S and 4kings are later areas (Anor Londo and New Londo respectively).  They are popular summons because those are the two hardest boss fights in the game :p.  Both areas can be a disaster on a first playthrough, though very fast if you know how to just run through them.

I'll probably make getting Sunlight Spear a goal before fighting the Depths boss, and then continue this character through the rest of the game as normal, with maybe a few stop-overs to farm souls, titanite or sunlight medals.

As pointed out by Green__Eagle you won't get "sunlight" spear until NG+, and its stat requirements are quite steep for what it does.  There's a reason most faith builds stop at 30 faith.

Depths is very doable with most +5 weapons.  Actually, even blighttown is doable that way though the boss will be a bit difficult with that.  A lot of people skip the depths entirely other than the large ember, although mostly what they're really trying to skip is upper blighttown .

I've got to say that I am enjoying the challenge of a tank build. Blighttown was a nightmare; I actually ran out of estus flasks a couple of times. I also did not buy enough Blooming moss. When you move slow, you're going to get hit a lot.

Tanks want their shields!  In the depths you can drop down behind the butcher, and before plunging the giant rat you can pick up a spider shield.  It doesn't have the best stability out there, though it is 100% physical block.  More importantly, it is an anti-poison shield.  There's a reason you can find it where it is!

Unfortunately, the stone shield must be farmed.  I'd recommend getting the gold serpent ring and using some humanity, as these don't seem to be overly common drops.  You'll have a better weapon by then too (lightning spear).  Stone shield is very underrated as it has excellent magic block.

PRAISE THE SUN!

I'm finding Lightning Spear to be kinda awesome. I'll be moving back to the game as normal, dropping summoning signs outside the bonfire I leave and hope to be summoned. Hopefully, I'll get a few summons without just going AFK and playing some other game while waiting for to be summoned. I want to get that second spell before too long.

Oh, and is there any way to change your characters name or appearences after you make them?

Good summon spots:

1. S&O in Anor Londo. Drop a sign right where you first enter the area (where you fight the Gargoyle) for reliable summons; alternatively, if you drop a sign by the interior bonfire, you'll catch people who've lost a phantom, died on the boss, or whatever. Kill silver knights while you wait for free easy souls.

2. Iron Golem. He's not so much a hard boss, as he is a very unforgiving one; summoners will jump at the chance to let somebody ELSE dance around under the giant golem's feet. Put a sign at the entrance to Sen's Fortress if you're willing to run the whole area (people could certainly use the help -- it's a high-invasion area too); alternatively dropping a sign right in front of the fog gate upstairs will still get you lots of attention. The second bonfire is behind an inconvenient zone boundary, which'll cancel your sign, so stick to these two areas.

3. Four Kings. Friendship is magic when it comes to beating these guys; leave your sign at the entrance to New Londo OR on the circular island thingy while crossing that initial bridge. Both are good areas to get picked up.

4. Capra Demon -- *I* try to summon people for this fight, because with the dogs it's easy to get overwhelmed if you go alone. Most people run to Firelink before this fight, to open the shortcut; so leave your sign right in front of the gate.

5. Guardian. Everybody always needs help against the Guardian. There's no level to run through, but then again there's nothing to do while you wait either, so bring a book.

I have a question about the Havel's shield l2/r2 buff. I meet the 50 strength requirement and, even when I'm naked, the l2/r2 buff reduces the durability of my havel's shield+5 from 500 to 200, but I don't see the crystals on my body.

Even just holding down the l2 button will place the shield in front of me for a couple of seconds, but no visual buff and the durability goes down.

The repair powder only fixes 100 point of durability so three powders are needed for each attempted buff.

Does the buff only work on un-upgraded shields? Or was this buff nerfed or broken during one of the patches?

Reason: When I'm wearing the Wolf Ring, the visual clues are not apparent. Swap the ring and see the scales.

With my current succesful and knowledgeable playthrough of the game (relatively knowlegable, anyway), I think I'm ready to try a new character, a variant on the original tank character.

This one would rely on non-scaling weapons and pyromancy, requiring only the minimum strength and dexterity, with no additional points in Faith or Intelligence. As such, once the minimums are met, the remainder of my soul levels will go into endurance and vitality, with enough attunement to carry around 3 or 4 pyromancies.

So, advice on this character would be appreciated. What're some good weapon choices to enchant here? Preferably lightning to have some variety in my elemental attacks.

Minimum strength and dex should be relatively low. 16 Strength seems to be the stopping point for 'normally' one-handed weapons (and allows for the Drake Sword early on), with 12 dexterity allowing the use of the short and composite bows, and is a common pre-req for some melee weapons. 14 Dex opens up a few more options, but those may or may not be wanted. Weapons that can cause bleeding are a nice option, as they add additional damage that scales based on target health.

Would start off as Pyromancer due to having the minimum amount of wasted stat points, and for the early pyromancy.

PvE or PvP or both?

If you want high damage output on a weapon that can be buffed, I would recommend the Zweihander+15. Overhand, wide sweeping attacks, and a thrust after a roll. 24 Strength, though.

Still not that into PvP. I wouldn't want to take a course that completely sacrifices PvP potential, so consider me in for both.

Checking the list of weapons out, 14/14 seems to be a good choice. The Great Scythe and Uchigatana are both available early on and use this stat set. The both inflict bleeding, which is damage that doesn't scale with strength or dexterity. They also both have some nice range on them.

Only possible downside is that neither of them are particularly single target focused, trading some attack speed for more reach. Another weapon choice more well suited to slicing up single targets would be nice. The Shotel and Bandits Knife seem like good options. The Shotel doesn't bleed, but can ignore shields, and the bandit knife is great for backstabs. Both fit in the 14/14 build.

Anyway, I still enjoy my current character, so no rush here. Comments on alternative options for more or less strength or dexterity will be appreciated. The only guideline here is no intelligence or faith, and minimum strength or dexterity. The only question is what is a good option for minimum requirements for weapons. I do find it unlikely that I'll want to go below 12 strength (enough for most medium shields, and pyro starting strength anyway) or above 14 dex (most weapons requiring more dex are good due to dexterity scaling), but I'm willing to be convinced.

EDIT: Oh, and in regard to the early Uchigatana, is there any particularly compelling reason to not kill the undead merchant once you've completed your business with him? He's the only seller of repair powder, which is nice, but hardly necessary if not using super-power weapons.

EDIT2: What about Crossbows? Since this is a build that's going to ignore scaling, they might be worth it. I've heard the Heavy Crossbow has a lot of staggering potential. Sure, you can't snipe with them, but that's not always what they're there for. A ranged attack enchanted with lightning adds some variety to the build.

Also, what are opinions on the non-scaling elemental enchantments? Lightning, Fire and Chaos. Chaos has scaling based on humanity, which isn't that hard to maintain. Lightning, however, provides damage of a kind not produced by Pyromancy, and which is probably the least resisted element, generally speaking. On a non-scaling build, taking advantages of elemental weaknesses is going to be worth the trouble.

Also, several of the weapons I have considered in this build are once per playthrough, so it's not like I can make one of those weapons in both Lightning and Chaos forms. Some info to make an educated decision once the weapon hits Standard +5 would be appreciated.

Well, managed to grab the Scythe with a fresh character. I'd never been to the catacombs before, so I had to make my way all on my own just guessing. Very exciting. I'm particularly impressed with my ability to escape the catacombs, with 1100 souls from the enemies that fell off of cliffs!

Anyway, that I did that does not mean I've committed to using the Scythe and a 14/14 build. Still feel free to make suggestions. I just wanted to list it because this was my first attempt at a 'get a good starting weapon run' (I'm not counting Astoras Straight Sword, as there's no real challenge to that, and I even had a video telling me where to go, I had only the most vague hint from the wiki here), and that I was able to do it, AND escape is something I'm proud of, so I'm feeling the need to engage in a bit of newbie bragging

EDIT -

Don't want to triple post, so I'll add this here. I've decided to go with a 16/14 build. Attunement to be determined later, but probably 3 or 4 slots (4 slots allows Power Within, Iron Flesh, and two attack spells, and is right before diminishing returns on SL). I went with 16/14 because it's not really that big of an investment, and represents the most I would put into the build (MAYBE more on a dex build for spears). If I find myself never making use of the 16 strength, and it really bothers me, I can just reroll. On the other hand, it'll let me try out a variety of 16 strength options, and at least find out how I think of them (Currently, my other characters strength is staying at 12, which severely limits options).

There are a few good options, such as some of the two-handed swords, the Chaos Blade and Server. It also allows me to use the Drake Sword one-handed, which is very nice for a non-scaling weapon before I can start fire and lightning enchanting weapons.

Currently, I'm loving the Scythe. It has a great combination of range and attack speed. My only complaint is that it's just barely leaving alive some of the basic hollow soldiers in the burg, making me think they're dead when they still have a sliver of health left. Hardly an issue though. Still, it's enough that I'll want to use it over the drake sword except in single target damage.