Demon's Souls

[keele864]

And wow, the big lava gimmick fight sucks. I know there's a trick, but I'm too busy getting one-shot killed to find it. Joy!

 

[Nodal]

It's

Spoiler: Boss hint

Red Light Green Light.

 

[keele864]

Thanks.

I guess I wasn't quite far enough behind the pillar to hide properly.

 

[keele864]

Had my first ever Blue Phantom experience while bashing my head against 4-2. I'd reached the boss once and gotten within two or three hits of victory before I got sloppy, but the Black Tendency made getting back there tough. Guy I summoned steamrolled pretty much everything, clearly had the level memorized, and did most of the damage on the boss.

Thank you, random online player. And now, since I beat 4-3, I have the most quick and satisfying place to grind.

Now wondering how to get through the damn 3-2 boss: It's not hard to get there, but damn if it's not frustrating. Current plan involves Warding + Fire on my Sharp Uchigatana +3.

Beat 1-3. Apparently I missed lots of stuff in my run through the level, including the stuff I need

Spoiler

to rescue Yuria and Biorr

. The path to get them seems complicated, and while I kinda wish I hadn't read about it, doubt I would have discovered on my own!

I suppose I should get back to 5-2 sometime, but it is such a literal slog.

 

[Issun]

That reminds me: Has anyone tested if the arrow/mist door exploit still works on Maneater?

 

[Fyonn]

I remember hearing that it does not. You have to do that fight "fair" now.

 

[Ludendorkk]

It's a great boss fight, one of my favorites

 

[Paul le Fou]

So I finally tore myself away from Elden Ring long enough to start in on the remaster here. I've cleared the first* three bosses (Phalanx, Tower Knight and Armor Spider) so far. Not sure what build I'm going with... I started as a Temple Knight. Right now I'm rocking a winged spear and just upgraded my heater shield to the steel (great)shield (but might switch to the purple flame shield sitting in my inventory? Or switch as appropriate?) and have had the most natural-feeling success with that combo, though the scimitar took me through the first two bosses. I was originally thinking strength and big swords, but once I was able to wield the bastard sword, I tried it out and it felt sooooooo cumbersome and slow. It felt more like an ultra great sword, even 2-handed. Not about that noise. The halberd I started with was a bit slow but not prohibitively so, but was very often a pain in the ass through a lot of the early areas, bouncing off narrow walls* left and right with its wide swings. Though it benefitted more from actively/strategically switching between 1h+shield and 2h than the spear does... But now that I'm enjoying dex weapons more (but also don't want to give up my greatshields), I might go Quality. So far the quality upgrades I've been able to unlock have been strictly worse than the base, but so have sharp/crushing, so I'm not quite to that point regardless.

Speaking of upgrades, how do the others fare? Comparing to other games in the series, is fire still good early game and bad late game because of dual resistances? Is poison good or garbage? How about bleed?

*I actually appreciate the purposeful design of having narrow hallways and stairs to fight through and weapons that do better or worse in them as a nod to weapon realism, and a strategic decision to have to use your weapon differently or use a different weapon. It can be a pain in the ass, but not insurmountable.

 

[Adrenaline]

I had good luck against bosses with fire spells for pretty much the whole game

 

[Oathbreaker]

Demon's Souls upgrade paths won't start showing their worth till you get a little deeper into them because generally when you're able to go into Sharp/Crushing/Quality you're still a good ways from the cap, and you may be early enough that your stats can't force the scaling to catch up early. The scaling curve is also quite a bit steeper than in Elden Ring because ER stretched the bonuses over 25 total upgrade levels on its non-unique weapons whereas in Demon's Souls you typically get between 0 and 10 total upgrade levels for nearly anything. Also don't upgrade your weapons on their default path once you see the specific upgrade path you want because they're only available at the specific upgrade level they first appear at, no earlier and no later. If you upgrade too high, you gotta use a Meltstone to degrade the weapon back to +0 unless you can find another copy of the weapon (or you can just finish upgrading it to the default +10 max, that's fine too)

You'll find Quality specifically is MUCH stronger here than in Elden Ring though, because for some reason in Elden Ring you need both stats at like 60+ for it to start competing with Heavy or Keen. But if you don't wanna spread your stats out, Crushing and Sharp are generally as effective as you would expect them to be once your build starts rounding out and you've gotten a couple upgrades deeper into them.

Fire yes is still good early and drops off later. The higher the base damage the more you'll get out of it, and of course the advantage of being able to pump all your points into things like Health/Stamina/MP instead of scaling up your weapon's damage. That said, dual resistances weren't really much of a barrier in Demon's Souls, so there's much less dropoff than there was in Dark Souls 1 or 3. Enemies with damage type weaknesses also tend to be MUCH weaker to them here than in Dark Souls/Elden Ring.

Status upgrade paths, Mercury and Tearing, are terrible. Poison is as weak as it usually is but severely lowers the scaling potential of your weapon as an upgrade path, and Tearing is similar though lets you scale on Dex better (but still not nearly as well as Sharp). Bleed in Demon's Souls is just Poison by another name and as a result it's nowhere near as strong as in the Dark Souls games or Elden Ring.

 

[Ludendorkk]

The magic upgrade paths, Moon, Crescent, and Blessed are bonkers. You can pump the relevent scaling stat and wreck everything. Crescent and Blessed add passive MP and health regen respectively. Also the level "curve" in this game is lower than later ones (your character starts feeling "complete" around level 70-80 as opposed to 100+ in later games). The differing types of physical damage (strike, slash, pierce) make a much larger difference in this game as well when accounting for weaknesses.

 

[estragon]

The magic upgrade paths, Moon, Crescent, and Blessed are bonkers. You can pump the relevent scaling stat and wreck everything. Crescent and Blessed add passive MP and health regen respectively. Also the level "curve" in this game is lower than later ones (your character starts feeling "complete" around level 70-80 as opposed to 100+ in later games). The differing types of physical damage (strike, slash, pierce) make a much larger difference in this game as well when accounting for weaknesses.

Yeah, if you started as Temple Knight you've got some points in Faith and might want to seriously consider Blessed if you're not too far along in your build. It sounds like you needed most of those stats to hit minimums anyway, so maybe it would be fine? Magic Damage is very strong in this game and the Health Regen is just a bonus on top of that. However, the barrier is that you have to get upgrade materials from Swamp Land, so you'd want to prioritize completing what many consider to be the most frustrating part of the game relatively early on. On the other hand, coming from other Souls you're very prepared to deal with it, although it's still very likely to kill you with a few surprises as you learn the area.

There's a Blessed Mace in 5-1, if you want to try it out without any major investment. (You might even end up just enjoying the mace! I think it feels better here than in any Souls game or Elden Ring.)

Demon's Souls upgrade paths won't start showing their worth till you get a little deeper into them because generally when you're able to go into Sharp/Heavy/Quality you're still a good ways from the cap, and you may be early enough that your stats can't force the scaling to catch up early. The scaling curve is also quite a bit steeper than in Elden Ring because ER stretched the bonuses over 25 total upgrade levels on its non-unique weapons whereas in Demon's Souls you typically get between 0 and 10 total upgrade levels for nearly anything. Also don't upgrade your weapons on their default path once you see the specific upgrade path you want because they're only available at the specific upgrade level they first appear at, no earlier and no later. If you upgrade too high, you gotta use a Meltstone to degrade the weapon back to +0 unless you can find another copy of the weapon (or you can just finish upgrading it to the default +10 max, that's fine too)

I'd also add that upgrade materials are a lot more sparse here. As someone who doesn't actively farm the Crystal Lizards, I'm pretty sure I've literally never fully upgraded a weapon in Demon's Souls.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I've been finding a ton of materials in the Smithing station and my first forays into the tunnel city (gotta go back to get all those lizards from the pit, I only managed to catch one!), but am fully expecting them to drop off. At least regular and large sharp/hard are purchasable there, so I imagine later in the game I can grind out some weapons. Plus I have one pure sharpstone, so I can at the very least get a normal sharpstone weapon to +10!

I found the fire longsword+1 in 2-2 and managed to upgrade it to +2, and it seems to be my strongest option right now, having overtaken my winged spear. (Which, I know I can use that to make a special spear with the Phalanx's soul later, but it does durability damage, so... is it worth it at all...?)

Thanks for the tip on the blessed mace, I rather think I shall try that out! I was actually thinking about grabbing a mace anyway since I don't have strike damage represented in my weapons right now, so that works wonderfully. I was looking at the miracles and they seemed overall kinda unimpressive, but is it worth going into them after all/did I overlook something? I did see a health regen spell that could be pretty good. But it seems like levels are pretty hard to come by at this point, relatively, so having to also start putting points in Mind even if I shift all my str/dex over to Faith seems like I'd continue to get stretched pretty thin.

If I do end up replaying this it'll definitely be as a sorcerer. I have that Kris Sword sitting in my inventory too (also, why does it have an orange exclamation point on it...?) and two catalysts.

I don't think I've done anything at all with tendencies yet, wondering what I'm missing out on. I think Boletaria is trending white but everything else, including my personal one, still seems dead-center neutral.

 

[estragon]

There's a miracle that revives you on the spot with half health and the buff lasts until you die. You get it in exchange for the 4-2 boss soul. It costs 100 MP, so you'd need 15 INT to cast it. That might be hard to get to in a melee focused build in Demon's Souls where you also have a heavy shield, but if you find yourself with some leeway at the end of the game it's a nice insurance policy if you end up going Blessed and have Miracle slots to spare anyway.

 

[Issun]

Just a heads up that spells in this game are more OP than they've been in any game since. You can absolutely wreck the early game with them. Also it's worth doing the first part of Shrine of Storms early because there's a ton of good equipment there and the skeletons are great for soul farming once you figure them out.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Ugh I hate those fuckin skeletons though, rolling-ass motherfuckers, uggggh

 

[Issun]

Ugh I hate those fuckin skeletons though, rolling-ass motherfuckers, uggggh

If you don't have a blunt weapon just punch them. For reals. They are the only time in all of Souls where fisticuffs is a viable option.

 

[estragon]

If you don't have a blunt weapon just punch them. For reals. They are the only time in all of Souls where fisticuffs is a viable option.

Yeah, as ridiculous as this sounds, Ludendorkk's the comment above that this game cares a lot about blunt/piercing/slashing is serious. Especially if your weapons are not super upgraded, fists can be better for dealing with skeletons than a poking or slashing weapons, just because your fist is a blunt object. (They're also really aggressive and you have to learn to dodge them, but it's easier to deal with their aggression if they die quickly.)

 

[Issun]

Although there is also a mace in 5-1 that you can make a run for that makes farming the skelymans easier. For that, you have to deal with Depraved though, which is its own battle.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Oh, importantly, I'm aware of a guy who goes around killing merchants or something? I want that to Not Happen. How do I do Not That?

Although there is also a mace in 5-1 that you can make a run for that makes farming the skelymans easier. For that, you have to deal with Depraved though, which is its own battle.

Yeah, estragon mentioned the blessed mace +1 above. I went and grabbed it. At the moment it's distinctly weaker than my dragon longsword +2, though it's about equal in damage on those skeletons, who I have indeed gotten the hang of and have gotten some very good farming in on the opening loop. I only have one of the stones I need to upgrade the mace even to +2 though, and I'm not really sure where to get more. My faith is still lagging behind, and I'm not entirely sure I want to go that direction, but having health regen from my weapon and a miracle (possibly shield?) does sound very nice, especially after running low on grasses and spending some time at Inner Ward archstone to farm up some more. Also, how do I find/learn more miracles?

Speaking of running low on grasses... After spending some time in 3-1 and 4-1 last night, I think I've come to a realization. The From games have a reputation for being brutally difficult, right? And they're hard, don't get me wrong, I'd never debate that. But I've always argued that they're tough but fair, like a strict coach who throws everything at you because they know you can learn and improve and overcome, and that the games won't ever just be fuck-you-ha-ha hard for hard's sake. (Except DS2 which has too much of the wrong kinds of difficulty.)

And then I played Demon's Souls and I think I get what they mean now, because a lot of these areas are just kinda not fun with all the shit they throw at you. The flying manta ray things in 4-1 that shoot crystal darts at you are a perfect example of this - you have to navigate difficult terrain with powerful enemies that punish mistakes quickly and brutally, but also, you're getting spears shot at you from above. Yesterday one of those red-eye skeletons chain-stunlocked me from full health to 0 through my blocking and dodging, ran out my stamina, and then slashed me to death without even a chance to roll away by just spamming attacks without pause. I can beat them pretty regularly, except I guess when they break their pattern and decide that you're just going to die and you can't do anything about it. Those mindflayers in 3-1 hit you with a stun that has seemingly no wind-up time and no escape; their projectiles streak across long ranges and hit for half your health so fast you don't have time to do anything but dodge and run away; they don't feel like "Ah, here's the trick," they feel like "ambush them and burn them down asap or you die."

I dunno, my apologia is partially saying "that's the trick," or "you handled that one skeleton wrong," but overall the difficulty feels a lot more frustrating. Except when I got to leechmonger and stood on the ledge and killed him with a bow without getting hit once. That one felt good. But overall, it reminds me more of DS2 difficulty-wise, which is not a good thing.

I wonder how many of these games I've made this exact post about on my first playthrough.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Oh, two other things I am none too fond of: Carrying weight limit and equipment durability. And the durability is so goddamn expensive to fix! And I'm not even sure what's eating up all of my damn inventory carrying capacity but it's Quite Bothersome!

 

[ASandoval]

Oh, two other things I am none too fond of: Carrying weight limit and equipment durability. And the durability is so goddamn expensive to fix! And I'm not even sure what's eating up all of my damn inventory carrying capacity but it's Quite Bothersome!

Might be your upgrade materials. I unload them into storage every return trip to the nexus and only bring them out when I need them. I also only carry the gear I have equipped on every trip unless I know I'll need to switch damage types at some point. It's annoying maintenance, but that's Demon Souls!

 

[Peklo]

I think it's more so that Demon's expresses its play difficulty in distinct ways from the series it would beget. The aforementioned damage type emphasis steers the design towards a tool-for-the-occasion kind of mentality, where the expectation and demand isn't necessarily in finding one weapon that you want to stick with and pour upgrades into, but carrying a relatively diverse arsenal on hand while being mindful of the carry limit--an approach that's supported by the rarity and opacity of upgrading weapons to begin with, which is frustrating if that's what you want to pursue, but which also inadvertently or deliberately makes "raw" discoveries more meaningful without the burden of investment in making a pick-up viable. The stage select set-up encourages lightly scouting out multiple areas in parallel in further building up a repertoire to survive the others, eventually. There's a lightly puzzle-oriented spontaneity to the game that I miss from the later ones, before they became so invested in frame-perfect arena fighting and the systems that prop up that experience. The uncomfortable friction of its play systems is a part of that sensibility, but there's a real divide in design philosophy that exists between it and the successors too.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Might be your upgrade materials. I unload them into storage every return trip to the nexus and only bring them out when I need them. I also only carry the gear I have equipped on every trip unless I know I'll need to switch damage types at some point. It's annoying maintenance, but that's Demon Souls!

It's not those, I diligently put them into my storage box. Also, I dunno if this is only in the remake but I can craft upgrades with materials straight from storage! I don't need to pull them out each time!

I'm in the habit of carrying 3 weapons (fire longsword, winged spear, and now blessed hammer) to cover damage types, plus my shield and sword.

I'm in the heaviest armor I've seen so far, the starting Mirdan set, but even that is like, just over 30 and I usually can't get below 80-90 at the lightest. I even offloaded some of my better grasses, but goddamn!

I keep debating with myself internally between lightening my armor to get to medium-roll and keeping the survivability because the armor reduction seems quite high here, especially compared to the other options in my chest right now.

 

[Ludendorkk]

Oh, importantly, I'm aware of a guy who goes around killing merchants or something? I want that to Not Happen. How do I do Not That?

It's the guy in the evil looking armor who Spoiler looks like Lautrec

More Direct Spolier: He's Yurt. He'll start killing NPCs in the Nexus every time you kill a boss once you free him. Kill him.

As for armor I don't think it's that important in Demon's, especially since there is no poise.

 

[Issun]

I'm looking forward to your first trek into Tower of Latria. I know from watching some videos that the atmosphere there in the remake doesn't hit quite as hard, but it's still really cool and it's my favorite area in the entire series.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I had already made my first trek into the Tower of Latria, as I mentioned above when I said Mind Flayers can eat my entire ass. Allow me now to amend that: They can eat my shit and hair, too. Other than them, though, Latria is a wicked cool area. I do love the design there.

I haven't made many posts because I've made fairly quick and relatively easy progress through the game.

Flamelurker was one of the easier bosses I fought; maybe just the combination of my heavy armor, greatshield, and I think fire protection ring (I'm not sure if I remembered to put it on) kept him from doing much to me. The Maneaters were very annoying, but by sticking around the brazier and using the thief ring and a bow, I was able to deaggro and get a hit or two before they came back.

My bow has been the MVP of like half of the game's boss fights. The blind Old Hero, the Adjudicator, Leechmonger, Astraea, all done by plinking away with bows from range. It of course put in a lot of work clearing adds during the Storm King.

Other than that, I managed to get my dragon longsword to +5 relatively early, and eventually got my blessed mace past +2 after delving further into the swamp and farming some shamans and crystal lizards. (Swamp was not that bad - I stacked Gloom Armor and a poison ring, and between that, my mace and ring's regen and the regeneration spell, not to mention lotuses, I never gave a hoot about the poison).

Anyway, I'm on Old King Allant and the difficulty spike is real and it's large. After what mostly felt like precursors to the modern concept of a Souls boss, OKA felt like it coming together in a way that's familiar to the later games. Unfortunately that also makes it hard. He chips pretty mightily through my greatshield, he's relentless, he hits from long range and closes distance quickly... oof. First boss of the game I've actually struggled with.

 

[Issun]

Hint for Allant: You can stagger him out of his massive AOE attack.

 

[estragon]

Old King Allant having Level Drain feels like one of the cruelest things in any Souls game. It's actually not as punishing as it sounds, because there's a good chance you're hitting diminishing returns by that point in your most important anyway. So it probably won't make that big of a difference unless you have to retry a lot. But it's very demoralizing, because I want Number to Go Up!

 

[Paul le Fou]

Wait, he's only hit me with that once so far, but you're saying that's permanent?! Jesus Christ!!

I was going to ask anyway, but does anyone with the PS5 remake want to come co-op and help me beat him?