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Baby steps

 

Two Hydra* and three Cat Bear Things vanquished.

 

Back to some soothing grinding today. I now have a +4 Lightning Uchi, which needs a Slab to finish it...

I also wasted a bunch of souls and materials raising a Zweihander to +5 Raw. It was an upgrade path I didn't recall, so I thought it might be good? It wasn't. Now I have a +5 Divine Zweihander, which is much better. Also the weapon of choice for dealing with the various Crystal enemies of the Dukes Archives. Which I began exploring today. I came upon the scripted "fight" and thought to myself "I'll just die and revive with all my stuff" I vaguely recall that was correct? It wasn't. So I spent the next hour or so running around the place with Curse and the loss of 40K souls. Got out in the end and decided to do the side quest Crystal Golem stuff. First freed Onion Girl from the Gold Golem outside the Archive. Then, now I can warp, I went to Darkroot Basin and killed that Hydra. Alongside the second Gold Golem to free Dusk. Bought the spell 'Cast Light' from her, which means Tomb of the Giants is back on the table. Plus I backtracked to retrieve the Broken Pendant from the first Crystal Golem of the Archive. So I can technically go to the DLC now. I don't fancy my chances quite yet.

 

I have more or less immediate access to Four Kings and Seath now. Nito and BoC, I've still got a bit more exploring to day.

 

*Oh and cleared out Ash Lake, too. Although it is a pretty pointless area now, since I freed Onion Girl, I think I can close out Siegmeyer's quest at Lost Izalith.

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And that's Four Kings dead...

 

So I think that is everything done for New Londo? While I liked the idea of Ghost enemies and changing things up a bit, the hitboxes really make the area a bit of a chore in the end. Also went back to the dungeon of Duke's Archives for Big Hat Logan the Fire Keeper's Soul. I gave Crystal Cave and Tomb of the Giants a go. Neither were very successful.

 

Lastly, I got a Black Knights Sword drop from one of the Anor Londo guys (I think?) and a ton of Twinkling Titanite that I hadn't used since the beginning of the game. Now I have a +5 BK Sword. My new default non-enhanced weapon, that might be the strongest one I have??

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The Piss-poor memory strikes again

 

By this point, I vaguely remembered (from back at initial release) having two things I didn't currently. The Rusted Iron Ring and Silver Serpent Ring. The latter I still don't and can't be arsed to look it up, as I'm level 75 or something by now. I eventually clocked on where the Rusted ring was in the Asylum. Also ran into the second Silver Knight that was in there and got a nice Red Titanite Chunk out of it. Score! Now sporting a +7 Fire Gargoyles Halberd. So with the Rusted ring, I now decided to hunt down the Titanite Demons at Sen's Fortress.

 

I killed the last three on the bottom floor and now I have two left: One in Anor Londo and the Catacombs. The City of The Gods is my next destination. 

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A little house-keeping...

 

I was watching a Mod of Dark Souls on YouTube and it showed me where the unlockable door I missed in the Painted World was. So that is the 'Dark' Ember gained. Also farmed a little Humanity via the Undead Parish Warp glitch. Again,  it's weird they haven't patched this. I expected that they would, so I thought I'd have to rely on farming Humanity from the rats of The Depths. Handed over 30 Humanity to Our Fair Lady and got the ultimate reward for the Daughters of Chaos Covenant - Chaos Storm. As I am strictly offline, I might start culling the NPC's I don't need soon. I've already offed the Undead Merchant, Petrus and the rest of his party, Patches and Laurentius (after clearing out his stock). But I do want to snag the Covenant treasures from Nito before I kill him too. Which means I have to now farm some Eyes of Death from those lizards...

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Plus with The Painted World now completed, I have no need for Anor Londo. So I killed the Fire Keeper, "popped" the illusion and Dark Sun Gwyndolin is now vanquished too. Decided against the Eye of Death farming, so now it is either Seath or Nito next. Neither of the forthcoming areas are very pleasant.

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Decent Progress!

 

Finally managed to navigate Crystal Cave and vanquish Seath. Mind you, I had no idea what he was actually doing during the fight. Throughout the entire thing I was fixated on getting that tail cut. Eventually managed it, turned to face him and with a single hit he was done. The Moonlight Greatsword is mine and the realisation that it is effectively useless to me with my stats.? Dragon Weapons really aren't worth the effort on New Game?

 

Then I remembered the most important part of the Daughter of Chaos Covenant - The shortcut that opens to Lost Izalith. It dawned on me, that immediately before the Fire Sage fog gate, there is a right hand turning. Most people normally ignore it, as the door doesn't open unless you are Level 2 in the covenant (Or kill all five witches, by which time the shortcut is redundant). From there I looted Lost Izalith. Saved Onion Bro as I intended and managed to retrieve a few Red Titanite Chunks and even a Red Slab. So now I have a +10 Fire Gargoyles Halberd!

Even snagged the Sunlight Maggot. So next I'm off to the Tomb of the Giants.

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Plus, completed Siegmeyer's questline at Ash Lake. Which rewards you with... A Titanite Slab! So now I have another completed weapon in the +5 Lightning Uchi. Also did a kamikaze run of Tomb of Giants to retrieve the Very Large Divine Ember and the first White Titanite Chunk I need. Which now means a +6 Divine Zweihander. I believe all the additional chunks and even the White Titanite Slab is down here, somewhere? I did forget how much of a punch the enemies down here pack though. 

 

Now I do have two options for post-Nito. I could use the Izalith shortcut, skipping Fire Sage & Centipede Demon, and just make a run straight for BoC? Or not use it and fight two of the harder bosses in the game?

I'm suddenly feeling a bit 'end game' at this point though. So I might end it with Gwyn and pass on the Artorias DLC, for now. 

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Option Two it is..

Hellkite Dragon, Demon Firesage, Centipede Demon and Bed of Chaos [eventually].. Vanquished!

 

Today I field tested my new weapons. I think I misremembered the difficulty of Firesage. He clearly telegraphs his AoE Fire spells and other than that, he's actually just the same as the other Asylum Demons. The perfect adversary for the Divine Zweihander. Centipede Demon all boils down to fighting the camera, so you can actually see what's going on. I know there is an alternate battleground to the right of the initial fog gate... Well I knew that, post-fight. I recall there is a tail/arm cut possible for this boss, but oddly enough Dragon-type enemies kind of melt with Lightning Weapons. Likewise my battle against the Hellkite. It actually died in four hits. These hits were spread out across a five minute battle, wherein the thing spammed cheap fire attacks every time I either hit it or got in it's line of sight. Ultimately only 10K souls? It's as if you're supposed to be able to kill this thing moments after Taurus Demon. I remain sceptical on that one.

 

Finally there's Bed of Chaos. Which is just as big a broken mess of a fight as I remember. Only four attempts though and the thing was dead. I think it is quite telling that From clearly knew this fight was bad, as the two side targets remain dead even if you re-enter the battle after death.

 

Only Nito remains now...

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Ok, now I've killed Nito. Ultimately I was a couple White Chunks shy by the time I ran into him. So I'll have to live with +8 Divine Zweihander, alongside my other three complete weapons. ?‍♂️

I'm on the verge of completing the game now, something I lost interest in doing before. I decided not to tonight. I am aware of what awaits if I go for the DLC and honestly, I'm not too fussed. I can't say, upon watching the DLC on YouTube from various people, any of the four bosses seem like an essential experience.

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An exercise in futility...

 

Because I am chiefly an RPG guy, I can't just leave things half done. So I decided to explore the other half of Blighttown. Oddly enough I only had one more blow dart guy left to kill. I also remember a guaranteed drop of something from the Eldrich horror you kill from behind in the storm drain. But no, just 1K souls and Power Within (which I don't like to use anyway). Then I moved back to farming. Grabbing the Iaito, I decided to get myself a Chaos Weapon. Which means farming Red Titanite Chunks again. Back down I go to Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. It is the kind of tedious grinding that I enjoy. Currently two chunks away from a +4. Which is the best I can do, short of another Red Slab. But then the other thing kept gnawing at me. The +8 Divine Zweihander. I'd have to go back to the Tomb of Giants and farm them [White Titanite Chunks] from Skeletons. Which, being my worst area in the game, I really didn't want to.

 

Then I looked online. Then I remembered Snuggly the Crow. Turns out those useless Sunlight Medals I have, just became the most useful item in my inventory. +10 Divine Zweihander, here I come! Also, The Black Knights in the Last Kiln... They drop Red Titanite and respawn. ? Hence the title...

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A change of heart..

 

Sanctuary Guardian and Knight Artorias.. Vanquished!

 

So I asked myself, no doubt as anyone reading also might have pondered, what is the point in maxing out all those weapons if you literally only have one [final] boss left? There isn't. So I decided to give the DLC a go after all. I thought as I'm not interested in NG+, why not get the most out of my experience now? So off I went and ventured into the clearly dying land of Oolacile. First thing I noted, I'm quite strong for this area. My weapons pretty much one shot most enemies here. The stone ones taking three. I also learned my +5 Lightning Uchi is useless here and my +10 Divine Zweihander is far too slow. Which left me with two choices: +10 Fire Gargoyle's Halberd (the MVP of the entire game) and the +5 Black Knights Halberd I picked up in the Last Kiln, while farming for chunks. Getting to +5 wasn't hard, as by this point I had about 20 previously unused Twinkling Titanite.

 

Sanctuary Guardian was a lot easier than I was led to believe from watching him on YouTube. I thought this would be a miserable slog for a few rounds until I got it's patterns down. Turns out, I killed it first try. The BK Halberd took 400hp per hit and it barely took a segment on my life bar. Artorias was a bit more of a bastard. As it took a while to realise you should always roll towards him and actually being aggressive helps quite a lot. Only 3 tries with him.

 

One thing that struck me was how short this DLC is. Three bonfires and I'm at the last boss? I did give Manus a little go (that ended in three hits) and triggered the Gough/Kalameet cutscene. The latter is my next stop. Other than Gaping, I generally find Dragon fights in Souls games pretty poorly designed. So I'm not looking forward to that. But I am almost done it seems?

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Victory!

 

Kalameet, Manus and Gwyn... Vanquished!

 

Kalameet was actually a fun Dragon fight. Pretty rare really for the Souls series. He was prone to the same weaknesses though - Bait out fire, charge the side of his head. Meanwhile bob and weave between his legs.

Manus, was a challenge. Probably about 6 attempts in the end. Even summoned Sif on the second one, to see what he did. Very Little it turns out and Manus typically ignores him altogether. Our battle ended with a double KO. Luckily for me, his death prompt came on the screen just before mine. Definitely the most fun boss in the entire game.

Gwyn.. isn't. Basically just an aggressive Black Knight with a command grab. It is kind of sad that you can parry the final boss. False King Allant is still a lot better as a final adversary.

 

zark.jpg

zark stats.jpg

So ends the adventures of Zark! I can finally tick Dark Souls 1 off the list as completed. It was fun. The tone of the DLC did elevate it a bit for me, as the pacing dips quite heavily after the bells are rung. I didn't enjoy it as much as Demon's, but it is definitely better than Dark 2. 8/10

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Slight Addendum

 

Although I am finished with Dark Souls, I didn't entirely leave a some day potential NG+ with nothing. As much as I did use every boss soul (as I don't really rate Boss Weapons in NG) I did keep the Soul of Gwyn and Manus in my inventory, just in case. As per my preferred/chosen ending? The AoF had to go...

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