My final playthrough till DLC(low lvl challenge)

My rules, no lvling up, no poise, no dwgr, and no elemental weapons. It wont be the hardest playthrough ive done, but it will be a fun farewell till dlc. I am not going to do a sl1 playthrough(i honestly think having pyro makes it easier then some other starting classes,honestly). I'm thinking either warrior or sorcerer, possibly pyro if i change my mind before i start. On top of all that, the only rings im going to allow myself to use are the red+blue tear stone rings. I might end up whimping out and allowing rofap ext, but my goal is to not use anything like that. I dont want to use any items/armor that increase my vit/end. Heres the two set ups im trying to choose between, im not going to bb glitch this is just what my set up will look like once its all upgraded/complete.

http://tinyurl.com/d25yh8j or http://tinyurl.com/cg3t8dg

I was also thinking of not upgrading armor. I will allow myself to use resins to buff my weapons, but only on bosses im having trouble with.

EDIT:AAAH! so hard to choose,now im thinking i might do a hunter. http://tinyurl.com/bpex2tg
Also if anyone maybe wants to co op the game with me, im down. This is for a challenge but also fun. You dont have to follow the exact rules as me obviously, but i would prefer that you dont use elemental weapons or pyro if you have a upgraded glove. Unless maybe we got stuck, but i doubt it. Oh and no master key!, well for me at least.

Or you can take a break from Dark Souls. Play another game like dragon's dogma..

Dragon's Dogma kind of bored me after the first time I beat it. And NG+ is the same as NG, except your level, gear, and money carry over, so you just pwn the hell out of everything. That's pretty boring.

Pfft, co-oping that.
The rest of us have our sanity.

I own dragons dogma, idk i just can not get into it. The combat just gets so repetitive. I got it the day it came out, and was excited for it. I just havent been able t play it for more then an hr without getting bored out of my mind. Also i mentioned this to other people in this forum on a topic dealing with that game, i have tons of bugs that occur that really ruin the experience for me. Others say they do not witness these bugs often or at all, but it plagues my gameplay. Enemies will be invisible a lot of the time, i will just see pawns fighting with air. Enemies will disappear right as im fighting them, its just aggravating. Ive seen in reviews that people complain about pop in, but not this bad. I thought my saves were becoming corrupted, so i started over and still had the same issues. It in all seriousness might be my disc or something, cause its far more extreme then others have reported.

You didn't mention if all other armor and weapons are allowed, or starting gear only. If starting gear only I'd suggest a warrior hands down. Best starting weapon and arguable shield as well. Helmet has poise so you take it as soon as the game starts. In ENB's challenge I took out 4 kings, S&O and other bosses with a +15 longsword w/resin quite handily.



If all gear (besides the vitality limits you set) is wearable, then go with Knight. He has enough str/dex to use a claymore which is hands down the best weapon possible at +15 with those stats. Throw a grass crest on your back and then wear as much of the Bloostained armor from Anastasia as you can manage before losing fast roll. Grab an un-upgraded pyro glove and use your one attunement slot for powerwithin. PW is optional as you can easily rely on RT ring to do basically the same thing, except you must be good at dodging or it will be a painful ride.



If you do loosen up your rules, don't go with rofap. That thing isn't worth wasting a slot on a low level playthrough. DWGR/Havel's is much better. The extra vit from rofap isn't all that great, it's the stamina that is the biggie. You will get much more use out of weight reduction rings, RT ring, Hornet's, etc... When you face the 4 kings and lose a ring slot you will wish you didn't have the rofap on.. Just my 2 cents. I stopped using the rofap one day and have never once missed it since.

Yea i actually did the ENB challenge on my own with a warrior, that was why i said this wouldnt be the hardest playthrough ive done. I picked hunter, and im allowing myself to use whatever weapons i want. Just no elemental weapons. For all the moments i need an extra ring(4kings, ummm the blighttown swamp) i will swap out the blue tear stone. Honestly i think not using the dwgr will increase the difficulty greatly. It is a very powerful ring.

I dont have anything to record my gameplay, but thats not really important to me. I'm going to not rush through, im killing every boss even if its able to be bypassed. I actually made a new psn account so i get the trophies again it actually feels nostalgic getting them lol.

DamageCK wrote:Dragon's Dogma kind of bored me after the first time I beat it. And NG+ is the same as NG, except your level, gear, and money carry over, so you just pwn the hell out of everything. That's pretty boring.

This ^

My first gameplay of dragon's dogma was awesome, but really... in ng+ it becomes just too easy

Hey vage, i know you're really into these low lvl challenges also so if you read this i want your opinion. I'm not going to allow it until i open sens gate(really soon), but i was thinking of maybe allowing +5 fire weapons, but in exchange for allowing that i will only allow myself to upgrade normal weapons to +10. I honestly dont think it would effect anything much, might even make certain things more difficult. I'm also rethinking my ring rule, cause honestly part of what im trying to do with this playthrough is experience the real dark souls again. So i dont want to be so limited in what i can use, just want it to be a challenge. I might even allow myself to wear armor like the eastern leggings or gauntlets or other really light weight armor that has like 2-6 poise. I dont know, like i said this is for challenge and fun. I am having more fun with this game then i have had in a long time though. No matter what though, the main rules: No Dwgr, No Lightning/Chaos weapons, No Heavy Armor.

It's a difficult thing to balance between fun and difficulty. My first challenge was a standard SL 1 run with no limits and I found it far too easy. Then I went the other direction and decided to do a SL 5 Knight naked, no shield, no elemental weapon, no master key run. I wanted to prove the game could be beaten without any of these things, and I did, however it was extremely boring to play. Then I did my SL 3 sorcerer run and found it to be just right as I really enjoyed the playthrough but it was difficult at the same time.


There are a few things I've found that make the game too easy in general:


- Heavy armor in combination with weight increasing items.
- DWGR.
- Havel's ring, but only in conjunction with the DWGR.
- Pyromancy, specifically an ascended glove at low levels
- Elemental weapons in general.
- Leveling up in general.


There are more but these are the big offenders. So my recommendation is to go down the list and if you can't completeley disregard one for an entire playthough, at least limit it. For instance with my Sorcerer I balanced it. I only allowed myself to use the standard dagger as a melee weapon, but in return I allowed it to be upgraded to anything I wanted. It's an elemental weapon, but it's a dagger. I didn't allow any vit/end/wt reduction rings as I wanted to finish the game at the lowest possible vit/end. Since I used magic a lot and didn't rely on my dagger I wasn't worried about the stamina, though if I had went melee I'd likely have allowed some different items to compensate.


I think it's more fun to allow yourself a few things you like, but put limits so that you can't go overboard. Havel's ring is a solid ring as it raises your wt limit, but you still have to abide by the fast roll rules so alone it's harder to abuse. You have to think carefully about what you will use and if it's worth it to squeeze one piece of heavy armor in at the expense of the other pieces, or just go all out with the highest defense medium/light armor you can find. Elemental weapons are strong in general, but if you stick to a weaker known weapon then it balances it out. Personally I think a +15 Claymore with gold pine resin is far stronger than a +10 fire dagger, bandit dagger, whip, etc.. It will have high AR regardless and can stun enemies much easier. Hell the +15 longsword alone was able to completely obliterate S&o and 4 Kings during the ENB challenge. Had it been lightning or fire it'd have been pure overkill. Perhaps if you insist on using an elemental weapon for the sake of not worrying about resin, then don't allow yourself to improve it. Make a lightning weapon but never raise it to +1. Make a fire but only go to +5, etc..


Mastery of a game is difficult to work around, the only option is to limit yourself. However instead of limiting yourself to nothing I found it best to either focus on offense or defense. Use weaker armor but allow some good offensive options, or allow yourself good defenses but limit your offense. Either way the game won't be easy, but also not impossible.

Yea i think we are on the same page, i have actually watched "most" of your sl3 sorcerer playthrough a while ago. I didn't watch it all, i just remember you posting about it and i wanted to see how you ended up dealing with certain parts of the game. Actually one of the more fun playthroughs i did, that ended up being more challenging then i expected. Was a smough cosplay playthrough, i started as bandit and lvled up str to 39 so i could 2h the smough hammer. I wore havels and fofap, and could mid roll. I bb glitched, so i plowed through the start of the game. Once i hit anor londo having low hp and very bad dodging abilities started to get me killed like crazy. That armor really made the difference though cause its amazing defense, it was a challenging and fun playthrough surprisingly.

I'm being pretty lose with the rules, i have been sticking to the red+blue ring pair though. I upgraded a short bow,rapier,balder side sword,and halberd to +5. That and fire resin got me easily to sens. I actually just thought of a great roleplay playthrough. Playing as "oscar" the knight who frees you, play the whole game mid roll with warrior starting stats and only the gear he uses. Elite Knight set,Crest shield,longsword. It would be the mid roll that makes it difficult,obviously. Do what he could not,