From broke DkS with 1.08 on the PS3. A lit of the graphics now pop in and out making it horrible to play. I started downloading before I Googled the patch which is annoying. Apparently a fix is being readied.
It's a flickering mess right now. You can't see the drops or signs. It looks OK offline, so I assume it has something to do with the signs from online play. Maybe it's flooding the ground with them to the point that you can't see any of them. I finally built a DEX character for the PS3 version. I realize this is the most popular type of character, but I had made Faith, INT, and STR characters only so far. My main PC character is now a Faith/STR hybrid questing character, although I still take it to Darkroot Forest to kill gankers as a Blade of the Darkmoon invader. I also discovered the secret to Karmic Justice. This miracle scales with the Magic Adjustment of the weapon in your right hand, which is the magic damage the weapon does halved. If you are holding a big weapon that does a lot of magic damage, such as my Divine Large Club+10, Karmic Justice does nearly as much damage as when you are holding the Darkmoon Talisman. It's another great forest ganker countermeasure. There's a hilarious "Lordran Terrorist" video that takes this to the extreme: I have a +10 Uchi for my DEX character, which is very potent right now, but I'm skeptical about the top end of this type of character. Maybe I'll eventually try a Murakumo if I get bored with the Uchigatana, Iaito, and Washing Pole, but that requires quite an investment in STR. I've never used Quelaag's Furysword, so I'm very curious about that one as well. I have every weapon in the PC version for the Achievement except Priscilla's Dagger, which I catastrophically failed to get twice now.
That was the weapon I used on my first play-through in the end, it is good enough but you really need a few humanity at all times to get the best out of it which can be a pain if you die.
Is there any reason to choose the Chaos Blade over Quelaag's Furysword? The Furysword seems to do higher damage, also scales with humanity, and doesn't injure you every time you attack. I'm curious about the Iaito. It's one of the few weapons I could not use because I've never had a character with a DEX rating over 18. Although I can't fairly judge DEX yet because I only have maybe 24 DEX or whatnot, I've found my favorite combination is Faith and STR. A Large Club with Darkmoon Blade or Sunlight Blade is brutal. Or using Karmic Justice with a Divine Large Club can blow multiple people away. I also have Wrath of the Gods to further cut down mobs and Great Magic Barrier to shut down mages. It's my anti-ganking build.
Never used the Chaos Blade so can't say really. Playing through the glitches and have started a faith sunbro build. Charged through the first part if the game with astoras short sword and have the lightning miracle for the gargoyles but going to farm sunlight medals for a while by white phantoming them for a few hours without leveling. Should have loads of souls when I am done too.
I discovered some odd things you might find useful with Faith-scaling weapons considering you've used a DEX character. Some of the damage scaling seems to be significantly different in terms of which weapons do the most damage. For example, with a DEX character, the Uchi typically does more damage but the Washing Pole has better range. With a Faith build, the Washing Pole is superior in both areas unless you just put tons of extra points into DEX. I believe a Faith-scaling Greataxe also actually outdamages the much heavier Faith-scaling Demon's Greataxe, which is just bizarre.
They have released the patch in NA and JP but not EU which is slowing down my sunlight medal farming. 6 in around 30 minutes so far against gargoyles. Praise the sun!
I had quite a bad morning yesterday getting things done, made a lot of mistakes, here are the two big ones. As I was using a Divine Weapon decided to go after Pinwheel so that I could kindle my bonfires early (only killed Gargoyles so far). Going for shortcut I missed, dropped down and died from the fall where all of the bone wheel skeletons are. Went to try to retrieve my souls and 13 humanity that was with it even with Leeroy at a low level got overrun and lost it all so was very unhappy. Took this out on Pinwheel the next turn, 3 x great lightning spear and he dropped. As I was there I decided to get gravelord sword although I will probably never have the strength to use it, at least before NG+ but the miracle is nice enough. Decided it was time to get myself some new divine weapons. Went to blighttown with 6 humanity and farmed the slugs 3 times to end up with 31 green shards (6 drops and 1 pick up). Decided to make a divine Uchi before going after Quelaag, got to the top fine and started to fight the 3 fat guys at the back door. Killed 2, one had a single hit remaining, I rolled back to avoid a swing but didn't realise how far I had drawn them back, dropped and again died.... A bit miffed I started to make my way up but misjudged my roll off of the elevator and fell, lost my 6 humanity and 10,000+ souls. In the space of a single morning I managed to lost 19 precious humanity through very silly mistakes. In the end I did make it to Andre and I have my +5 divine Uchi to slice up Kapra, Gaping and Quelaag with but I left the session feeling more angry than anything else. I actually nearly died on the butterfly too but not because I was playing badly, it was because of the 1.08 bug. Couldn't see any of her magic and it really got me in trouble, luckily Witch Beatrice was with me because for most of the fight I was just guessing where to roll. Hopefully 1.09 hits EU this week.
At least you didn't do something that required an entire playthrough to fix. I've botched cutting off Priscilla's tail twice in a row at this point. How much STR are you planning on putting into this character? I was very pleased with how effective the Large Club is, including the Divine Large Club, which wrecks the enemies of the Catacombs and the Tomb of the Giants. A running 2-hand attack on the giant Murakumo-wielding skeletons sends them flying into a pile of bones. I have a Divine Large Club+10 and a Large Club+15 when I want to use a buff on it. If you plan on using the Gravelord Greatsword, the Large Club only requires a couple more points into STR. It may be the best heavy weapon in the game. The buffs of Faith characters can't be underestimated. I tore through the early bosses of NG+ in around 3 hits using a large weapon and Sunlight Blade. Darkmoon Blade is even more potent.
I am at the point where I need to decide whether I am going faith/dex or faith/str. I usually favour dex builds simply because I hate anything other than fast rolling and str weapons usually come with a weight penatly so I would need to pump a few points into end. Problem is I already have faith up at 30 (next boss is Kapra) so getting the souls to level anything up for a little while is going to be a long process. Think my soul level is already at least 45 thanks to all of the souls I farmed from the gargoyles when collecting sunlight medals. The other problem is I didn't put many soul levels into Vit so I am going to have to use my ninja skills to avoid a lot of boss attacks due to low vit/end with very little armour for the fast roll. I do have Havel's Ring so that helps and I did get the mask of the father from Pinwheel if I need a little more equipment burden that it offers. Probably going to make the effort to get Artorias' Sword and Ornstein's Spear as well seeing as I am going for a faith build to see how they work out. I probably won't go after Gwyndolin for a little while so that I can keep Anor Londo light* and have easy access to the giant blacksmith for boss weapons to start with. Perhaps when I am ready to go after the 4 lord soul bosses I will do that so that I can get Sunlight Blade. Can't really be bothered with levelling the darkmoon covenant this run so that buff is out of the question me thinks. *Forgot to get Darkmoon ring in the catacombs so at the moment the easiest way to open things up is to kill Gwynevere unless I go back.
I just walked through the fog gate at the Darkmoon Tomb. Anor Londo didn't go dark, and I walked away with Sunlight Blade. Sunlight Blade is plenty powerful, especially if you have a decent amount of Faith. I would make sure you get the Darkmoon Talisman, however. It's the best in the game.
I use Havel's Ring most of the time, negating most weight issues. I have preferred heavy gear since Demon's Souls. I had pretty good fortunes when using the Dragon Bone Smasher. I'm using a DEX character on the PS3 version, and I'm getting the impression that DEX builds have a significantly lower top end. They seem great for low to mid level PVP, but I'm not seeing many hard hitting weapons for higher level characters. With 28 STR and 99 DEX, the Murakumo still doesn't break 600 damage according to the character planner. DEX scaling past 40 tends to not be that great. By contrast, the Large Club begins to pass the 600 damage mark at around 38 STR. If you 2-hand it, it's approaching 600 damage at 25 to 26 STR. It seems like DEX builds would have to depend heavily on buffs at the top end, which is something every other type of build can also use. The bleed damage of the DEX weapons is quite handy, but that's still quite a few blows, and many enemies are completely resistant to bleed damage. Requiring numerous strikes is further compounded by the fact that DEX weapons tend to be very fragile. It seems like DEX is not a great option for a high level character used for multiple playthroughs beyond NG. A STR/Faith character seems like the way to go for high level characters.
I prefer the speed if DEX weapons, I can get in 2 or 3 hits for e dry one of the great club so in the end my DPS is pretty good. White phantoming iron giant as we speak for humanity before anor londo for free kindles. Level 55 already. With 100,000+ souls to spend. Charged through Anor Londo and managed to get the soul of Ornstein which made me happy.
PS3 and PC. I've been trying to make a DEX build, but I can't seem to stick to the DEX path. I've already gone the Quality/ Faith route. My STR and Faith biases carried over from using the Dragon Bone Smasher and Blessed Mirdan Hammer in Demon's Souls. I used to be able to win 1 vs 3 invasions with those things, but my PvP skill level has dropped off considerably since then due to a lengthy hiatus. I was pissed Faith scaling was so horrible in Dark Souls, but it's way better since I've returned thanks to patching. The Crescent Axe destroys Tomb of the Giants. 1-hits most things 2-handed on NG. 24 STR, 32 DEX, 32 Faith for my current PS3 character. Around SL 100. This gives me access to the Zweihander, Crescent Axe, Dragonslayer Spear, Server, and Murakumo (2-handed only until I take STR to 28). I'm overleveled now, but it wasn't intentional. I killed a hacking bastard in PvP and received just under 1 million souls just for killing this guy. I killed the host he was trying to protect, and then he hit me and Karmic Justice blew him off a cliff. He had approximately 65,000 hp from what I saw when I spawned in. I had nothing left to buy and didn't want to waste those souls if I happened to die, so I went from around SL 85 to approaching 100. I think I also have a Battlemage DEX/INT character in the SL~60-70 range on PC. My STR/Faith build on PC is in the SL 155 range in NG++ or NG+++, my main PvE character. If I can ever cut that damn tail off of Priscilla, I'll be in a position to get all of the achievements. I finally manged to do this without killing her first on the PS3 version. I used a Spear+0 to pokety-poke her until she became visible and then Crescent Axed the hell out of that lovely, precious tail.
I've always done a jumping attack to take off the tail, since you get the first hit. I haven't messed with most of the achievements too hard. I don't typically dig elemental weapons so I don't have those achievements. I have a pure faith build that is a little silly. 50 faith, 14 Dex 14 Str (for Divine Great Scythe) and then Vitality and End in the 20's/30's. Faith does scale pretty poorly, I'm a sunbro so I throw lightning spears all day, used 20 of them to defeat Kalameet. When it comes down to it WOTA is beast and I'm glad to have it though. My pure STR build uses Great Axe, Demon Great Axe, and BKGA. I'm working on a quality build so I can have the weapon variance but it seems that I always like to go back to what I know, which is Claymore. I've never used the Crescent Axe though, hmm. I mostly just play NG and then do PvP in Oolacile Township. I don't really get the allure of NG+ too much, but I know some people like it.