Forgive the long post. This is part rambling and part therapy.
First some background. I'm a 45 year old, divorced, re-married, part-time dad with a schedule that allows for a good amount of play-time. I'm a gamer at heart, owning an xbox, ps3, gaming pc, and play almost every AAA non-military FPS game released. I also maintain 4 active Eve Online accounts and am in probably the most influential alliance and have been in almost every major spacebattle that hits the gaming news sites. I also have been playing table-top RPGs for 32 years.
But the game I cannot let go is Dark Souls.
My first playthrough was when it came out on the PS3. I beat the game as a pure sorcerer. Used the drake sword. Wore pre-nerfed gold-trimmed armor. Was a chaos servant. A standard noob game TBH. I then traded it in to gamestop. Didn't think nothing of it. I moved on.
Then the prepare to die edition DLC came out and re-bought the game on the xbox (my preferred console of choice).
This time I played as heavy faith (50)/ pyro build using a divine claymore/furysword. I did a huge amount of sun-bro co-op and enjoyed it immensely. This time the DS bug caught me. It started with reading up on the lore. Then I started listening to the Bonefire podcast. I decided with this char to do NG+ and stopped at 120. He wasn't horrible at defeating invaders, mostly because of the cheesy WoG. I maxed out the pharis bow and wore paladin armor.
I bought the game again on the PC. I don't play it, but I felt From Software deserved more of my money.
Then I played the game again as a Giant Dad with max pyro. Didn't finish the play-through but played long enough to get a good feel of the character. Not bad, but the Zei was a bit too slow for me and it wasn't fun putting so many points into endurance.
The DS bug got worse. I started watching tons of youtube videos and listening to the twin humanities podcast.
Next playthrough was a Uni dex/sorcerer with max pyro. Enjoyable but a bit too close to my first character so I decided to start again.
Bought demon souls and beat it.
Back to Dark SOuls Every time I started off as a caster so this time I went with a bandit. By happenstance, the black knight sword dropped in the undead burg. Never made a strength build so i decided to try. I'm loving the black knight sword. I really like the running backswing. And yes, the r2 is sooooooo slow, but when it hits I am giddy with laughter to see the opponents go flying.
I'm level 43 and in blightown with 24 str, 20 vit, 20 end.
So to try and get as much of a different experience as my other play-throughs, these are my thoughts:
- Save Solaire. He's gone insane and i've had to kill him each time.
- Save Onion-brow from dieing when he jumps into the pit and continue his quest line to the bitter end
- Use the great shield of artorias. Always wanted to hide behind a wall. Plus i'm tired of *always* using the crest shield. The downside it tha it's heavy and requires a lot of STR.
- Use the dragon bow instead of pharis
- Rely less on pyromancy
- Stick to the elite knight set because of its looks (although i'm willing to entertain other non-heavy rolling armor)
- See the ash lake hydra jump with my own eyes.
- Potentially Stick with the BKS until it becomes completely obsolete (if ever)
- Follow the Kathe quest-line as I have always done frampt.
Now here's the open issue is around joining the dark wraiths. The problem is that I suck at PVP. I cannot parry/reposte for ****. I also want to keep to the normal leveling progression. Finally, I'm not going to play through NG+ again so any build will stop in the 80s. So really, at best I would only be able to defeat noobs. Plus I'd have to give up my precious orange sunbro summoning color.
Now for the purpose of this email I'm not entirely sure (hey, I warned you in the subject I was rambling). But can anyone think of some other uncommon things to do to make this playthrough fresh? Also, any other "fun" weapons that isnt a claymore/furysword/scythe/halbard/Zei? Finally, given my PVP limitations above, is the darkwraiths even worth it?
First some background. I'm a 45 year old, divorced, re-married, part-time dad with a schedule that allows for a good amount of play-time. I'm a gamer at heart, owning an xbox, ps3, gaming pc, and play almost every AAA non-military FPS game released. I also maintain 4 active Eve Online accounts and am in probably the most influential alliance and have been in almost every major spacebattle that hits the gaming news sites. I also have been playing table-top RPGs for 32 years.
But the game I cannot let go is Dark Souls.
My first playthrough was when it came out on the PS3. I beat the game as a pure sorcerer. Used the drake sword. Wore pre-nerfed gold-trimmed armor. Was a chaos servant. A standard noob game TBH. I then traded it in to gamestop. Didn't think nothing of it. I moved on.
Then the prepare to die edition DLC came out and re-bought the game on the xbox (my preferred console of choice).
This time I played as heavy faith (50)/ pyro build using a divine claymore/furysword. I did a huge amount of sun-bro co-op and enjoyed it immensely. This time the DS bug caught me. It started with reading up on the lore. Then I started listening to the Bonefire podcast. I decided with this char to do NG+ and stopped at 120. He wasn't horrible at defeating invaders, mostly because of the cheesy WoG. I maxed out the pharis bow and wore paladin armor.
I bought the game again on the PC. I don't play it, but I felt From Software deserved more of my money.
Then I played the game again as a Giant Dad with max pyro. Didn't finish the play-through but played long enough to get a good feel of the character. Not bad, but the Zei was a bit too slow for me and it wasn't fun putting so many points into endurance.
The DS bug got worse. I started watching tons of youtube videos and listening to the twin humanities podcast.
Next playthrough was a Uni dex/sorcerer with max pyro. Enjoyable but a bit too close to my first character so I decided to start again.
Bought demon souls and beat it.
Back to Dark SOuls Every time I started off as a caster so this time I went with a bandit. By happenstance, the black knight sword dropped in the undead burg. Never made a strength build so i decided to try. I'm loving the black knight sword. I really like the running backswing. And yes, the r2 is sooooooo slow, but when it hits I am giddy with laughter to see the opponents go flying.
I'm level 43 and in blightown with 24 str, 20 vit, 20 end.
So to try and get as much of a different experience as my other play-throughs, these are my thoughts:
- Save Solaire. He's gone insane and i've had to kill him each time.
- Save Onion-brow from dieing when he jumps into the pit and continue his quest line to the bitter end
- Use the great shield of artorias. Always wanted to hide behind a wall. Plus i'm tired of *always* using the crest shield. The downside it tha it's heavy and requires a lot of STR.
- Use the dragon bow instead of pharis
- Rely less on pyromancy
- Stick to the elite knight set because of its looks (although i'm willing to entertain other non-heavy rolling armor)
- See the ash lake hydra jump with my own eyes.
- Potentially Stick with the BKS until it becomes completely obsolete (if ever)
- Follow the Kathe quest-line as I have always done frampt.
Now here's the open issue is around joining the dark wraiths. The problem is that I suck at PVP. I cannot parry/reposte for ****. I also want to keep to the normal leveling progression. Finally, I'm not going to play through NG+ again so any build will stop in the 80s. So really, at best I would only be able to defeat noobs. Plus I'd have to give up my precious orange sunbro summoning color.
Now for the purpose of this email I'm not entirely sure (hey, I warned you in the subject I was rambling). But can anyone think of some other uncommon things to do to make this playthrough fresh? Also, any other "fun" weapons that isnt a claymore/furysword/scythe/halbard/Zei? Finally, given my PVP limitations above, is the darkwraiths even worth it?
Last edited by ksac42 on Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:37 am; edited 1 time in total