Reflections on my no block playthrough

Just yesterday I defeated Gwyn for the tenth time this time without blocking at all during the playthrough and these are my thoughts after this. I learned a lot during this playthrough. I learned how to effectively roll. I knew that if I wanted to win my own challenge first I would have to equip light armor. Since the shields I normally picked had high stability in a lot of cases it was more effective to block rather than roll but now I couldn't use a shield since that would tempt me into blocking so I rolled and rolled and rolled. I really hated rolling in my first playthrough because I wasn't very good at it. I usually still got hit or rolled off a cliff and for my next couple of playthroughs I altogether avoided it I preferred to block that roll away. So I had to unlearn that behavior the hard way. For the first time ever I died to the asylum demon and I was pissed off because I never bothered learning his patterns or motion I just blocked them. I eventually did take him down and I felt the same pride I felt when I first beat him. I noticed that as I got better at rolling some bosses became easier and others became harder. for one thing I was able to solo Ornstein and smough without solaire help. I rolled past ornstein and I killed him quickly and smough became a joke I laughed as he tried to swing at him and miss. Good times. One of the bosses that got harder since I stopped blocking was Nito and the stray demon because I would block their AoE attacks but now I had to roll back three time to get out of it's range. So I actually died for the first time fighting Nito. I more or less fell in love with rolling it was amazing looking at my girl (I played female for the first time) do a back flip narrowly dodging Gwyn's mightiest strikes it was beautiful to say the least. My best friend however was parrying. In order to get really good at parrying I parried the same silver knight for hours just parrying not reposting. After mastering the parry all humanoid enemies became easy heck I parried stuff I didn't know could get parried. My favorite weapons for this play through were my parrying dagger, Chaos Bandit's knife +5, and Ricard's rapier+15. My favorite combo was the parrying dagger with the Chaos Bandit's knife w/ the hornet ring. It was sooo satisfying to be shoving this thing down Gwyn's chest. In fact I became so good at parrying that I just did it bare handed didn't need the parrying dagger. I would say that doing this playthrough made me a better darksouls player. On a side note I became better at PVP played gravelord killed 40 players got invaded about 10 times killed all but one of them (the one was a parish troll nothing I could do about it). You guys should try it. It was hard but the payoff is good

Rules

1. No blocking

2. No BBing

3.No Shields (the dark hand also counts)

4. Everything else do as you like

I would change your "no shield" to have the grass shield alowed to be on the back for the stamina, but that's just me.. Nice that you challenge yourself

I accept your challenge.
I have the same issue you just overcame. I made a dex/fth toon and find that even in light armor and quick weapons, I find myself equipping an eagle shield +10. The problem is I dont have the end or poise for this build and find myself frustrated that I didnt roll correctly.
I also find myself dieing when rolling. I believe that this challenge would benefit me greatly juat as it has you.

Interesting... I might try this one.

Another rule you should add is melee only (buffs allowed), just because I rarely use shields for my spell casters since they are mainly range combatants.

How did you handle the archers in Anor Londo?

He bow them.

Why not 2H blocking? It doesn't force reliance and is rather useful in many situations, more of a + than a -.

Sebastrd wrote:How did you handle the archers in Anor Londo?

My character had enough int to use the hidden body spell

Yarxov wrote:Why not 2H blocking? It doesn't force reliance and is rather useful in many situations, more of a + than a -.

I did it without blocking at all I didn't two hand any weapons because I didn't have to. Be cause I would parry most attack and roll out of the rest. However this is just a template for my challenge I did it without blocking period but you can block with two hands if you want to

My new char has a dagger in the offhand and an uchi in the right, I 2H for basic and to block, and 1 H for parry

i'm doing a bow playthrough right now, which more or less means no blocking. it's my first "challenge" run, and it's very...challenging

i keep hitting L1 out of habit and going into free aim mode, at like, the best possible times

some bosses have been cake: Queelag, Capra, Gaping, even O&S (with Solaire's help)
Taurus Demon and the Bell Gargoyles were a damn nightmare! i think 4Kings might be doable, but Nito and Firesage have me worried.

Maybe it's just me, but who really has the time to do a self challenge? There's no trophy or reward for it. If i tried doing this challenge something in my head would go off an hour in and I would feel like I'm wasting my life. Nothing against OP, it just seems like an unnecessary time sink.

Personally I don't do challenges either, but its no different from making NPC based builds or preparing PVP builds. Trophies and achievments shouldn't dictate the fun you have a in a game, instead I see them as suggestions to try new things, they aren't always fun to do.

I guess its just a matter of what you find fun, I never understood why people did speedruns of games, but they paid for the game so I am not going to tell them to play it like the rest of us. In the end all games are just time sinks.

Yukon wrote:Personally I don't do challenges either, but its no different from making NPC based builds or preparing PVP builds. Trophies and achievments shouldn't dictate the fun you have a in a game, instead I see them as suggestions to try new things, they aren't always fun to do.

I guess its just a matter of what you find fun, I never understood why people did speedruns of games, but they paid for the game so I am not going to tell them to play it like the rest of us. In the end all games are just time sinks.

Damn you just dropped mad sense on me. Good point.

mugenis4real wrote:Maybe it's just me, but who really has the time to do a self challenge? There's no trophy or reward for it. If i tried doing this challenge something in my head would go off an hour in and I would feel like I'm wasting my life. Nothing against OP, it just seems like an unnecessary time sink.

You don't have to do it. It is a mere suggestion I did it and enjoyed it but you don't have too and in general Videogames are unnecessary time sinks.

ive done a similar but a bit more harder playthrough like that

only equipped thingy in your hands is a bow, nothing else, just one bow equipped

my build was a hunter at sl30 with 40dex.... no shields, parying seems almost pointless, also gwyn is a fuker to kill >.>

I beat Lord Gwyn with Havels Wolf's ring and a buffed greatsword. It's not extraordinarily hard with poise. No poise Gwyn maybe very difficult though.