Kinda spinning my wheels, need advice

Hi,

This is my first playthrough of Dark Souls and I chose deprived. I'm SL 95 and have been running around doing things before killing the final boss for NG. To be honest, I have no idea what to do at this point. There are all of these things that you "should" do before killing the final boss and I've done some of them such as +15 base weapon, +10 Fire weapon, +4 Lightning, Q's Fury sword +5, P's dagger +5, a few sets of armor maxed, farmed this and that, killed a couple of the suggested NPC's, plus other stuff. If I go through the list of things, I'll probably quit from boredom. The "pvp" seems way one-sided, I think I've killed one invader but usually die instantly to whoever invades which has pretty much forced me to stay hollow as much as possible. I can't make heads or tails out of the covenants, right now I'm part of the Princess covenant but that seems pretty pointless until I raise faith a ton. Should I just kill the final boss and go NG+ or is there a "must do" out there?

There's no must do.

Do what is fun; you learn more from being underpowered than overpowered.

Good call with the Deprived class! Ballsy.

Just know that when you go to NG+, it's harder, and you won't have access to merchants or embers or anything. So whatever you have after you kill the final boss, is what you're going to have for a good, long while. If you're comfortable with that, then go ahead. If not, then you can do the following:

Also, be aware that being summoned to help boss fights to earn souls isn't going to be a good option at your SL.

Kindle bonfires. Some say up to 20, but you don't need it at all; depends on your build.

I would get armour upgraded somewhat; if you're barely scraping by, NG+ will be tougher. If you're doing just fine, then go ahead and kill the end boss.

One thing you might want to do is kill the guy that makes fire weapon as he drops an epic helmet for a viking.

PvP isn't one sided; you need good gear and practice.

Covenants; it's all on the wiki, but quickly here's what they do (lots of specifics surrounding it, but this is what they do in a general sense):

PvP ones:
Dark Wraith: invade anyone equal or higher level than you.
Dark Moonblade: invade anyone that has sinned.
Forest Hunter: invade anyone in the forest.
Gravelord Servant: let people invade you and fight them off.

PvE ones:
Way of White: get invaded less, get more interaction with other way of whites.
Princess guard: get access to 2 faith based spells, kind of crappy. Heals other people.
Warrior of sunlight: get access to faith based spells, really great if you're faith based and fighting bosses. Meant to help people in PvE (get summoned by them).
Chaos Servant: get access to some pyromancy spells.
Path of the Dragon: get abiltiy to grow a dragon head and breath fire, do a dragon roar, and other stuff. Popular, but I think it looks silly.

You may want to kill NPCs to get their humanity/weapons/items. If you think you'll ever want Andrei's hammer it's best to take it from him in NG as he is one supremely badass sumbitch in later rounds.

So you can't invade someone unless they're at least your own level? That doesn't seem right to me. I was getting 1-shot by people wearing/using things I had never even seen before and I'm talking Undead Burg. Anyway, thanks guys, I will definately look at the NPC's to kill.

There's a few reasons for that, but the main one is a Bottomless box glitch where you can transfer your stuff from one character to another.

Another reason is that they can do it legit; I have a Level 1 guy I'm trying to beat the game with. At Sens Fortress; it's a hard challenge, but lots of people have done it. I could go back to undead burg and invade with top weapons, and it wouldn't be glitching/cheating (it would be a jerk move to someone that is new to the game/doesn't have any gear).

But the main reason is a bottomless box glitch. If you don't want to be invaded, try Way of White covenant. It'll lessen your chances.

Forest Hunters can invade any level; a lvl 30 Forest hunter can invade a level 120, or a level 200 forest hunter can invade a level 80. No level restrictions, but I think they try to match you up with someone thats close in level.

Same with Dark Moon Blades, but you have to have sinned to be invaded. What is a sin you can look up on the wiki if you want.

I think anyone can invade a Gravelord; not sure. I read it before but don't remember.

Darkwraiths can invade anyone that is -10% of their level or higher. So I think a level 50 dark wraith can invade anyone from level 45-700.

Some of my numbers might be off, but the general idea is right.

Embracing PvP also opens up all sorts of new facets to the game. I was truly awful at it for a long time and played through mostly hollow a few times, but it really is a heck of a lot of fun to try all the different covenants and try to get better at it. What helped me were youtube videos on things like countering backstabs or the basics of parrying, plus watching funny videos of all kinds of invasions and PvP content just to see common tactics and funny events (you also learn that everyone dies all the time, it is not a big deal). The idea at first isn't to learn it right away, but just to build your knowledge base to the point where you can actually learn from all your defeats and start to get better instead of having no idea what just happened to you. Then you can dive into PvP and get real practice. I went from hating and avoiding PvP to having different characters in a bunch of different PvP covenants and different soul levels that I can just switch to as the mood strikes. Vanilla playthroughs can get boring, but in PvP you are deal with the endless creativity of other people and it's really hard to get bored by that.

befowler wrote:playthroughs can get boring, but in PvP you are deal with the endless creativity of other people and it's really hard to get bored by that.

I'm finding the opposite to be true. Endless playthroughs and I'm still trying new things and loving it, whereas after only 30 or so hours of PVP I'm finding it extraordinarily repetitive. The invader may wear different armor, use a different weapon, and have a different skill level, but the majority fight basically the same way. After a few fights I start getting bored.

Yeah, but are YOU using a different weapon? Try a 2Handed spear. Or try pure magic. Or try a fat roll.

I'll answer that in the thread I started in the PVP section, Mark, so I don't derail wolfee's thread any more.

Let us know what you decide to do, wolfee. I think you'll enjoy the challenge of NG+, and don't worry about playing hollow. I was hollow through about NG+20! No joke. Dark Souls (the game) is beyond awesome, and you can start PVPing when and if you're ready.

Well I ran around and took out some NPC's and then headed for Gwyn. After about 10 tries I managed to beat him solo, hollow. Very hard fight. How would a person know what to do once you finish that fight? All you see is the bonfire. I went ahead and lit it, then ended up back at the start. Thanks for the advice/tips, much appreciated.

How's NG+ going wolfee?