@random45 said:

No worries. I'm not in any kind of rush. I walk, explore, observe. I tend to ask myself the opposite question when reading completion times for most games, like how in the world did they complete Fallout 4 in 40 hours? It took me 200. Our experiences were obviously very different.

Also, Sunbro-ing. I try to earn at least two Sunlight Medals on each boss, but it's often more. I earned a dozen or so on Pontiff Sulyvahn because it was a fun fight, and fought Old Demon King a whole bunch because the hosts couldn't survive.

@bane: Nameless King is a lot of fun to sunbro, as is the final boss. I get summoned instantly by the bell for NK and so far it has been about 50-50 hosts surviving. LoC it's more like 80%. Out of all the bosses, I'd say these two are my favourite to help with.

If you really want to help people beat it, sorcery wrecks NK. His gap closers have such huge tells that you easily have time to avoid them and he spends half the fight with his back to you in co-op anyway. It makes the first phase even more trivial. As for the LoC fight, the dragonslayer axe for a strength and faith build will end it very very quickly. Since finishing the game I've helped beat these bosses over 50 times, using it as a way to upgrade and try out different weapons.

I agree with you that the ultra greatswords feel useless, I think the culprit is the lack of poise. The wind-up is so slow and you get stunned out of it by any tiny little attack. Mixed with the damage being only a little better than a regular greatsword, it makes it feel like a bad choice for solo play, although they are good for pvp since 2h they can't be parried.

On the plus side, there's some really cool greatswords. The Hollowslayer, Drakeblood, Firelink, Moonlight, Black Knight and Executioner's are all a lot of fun with nice movesets and cool weapon arts. The weapon art on the Black Knight Sword in particular is lethal, since it gives you hyper armour to poise through an attack for a couple of seconds.

@gerrid: I think you're right about the lack of poise. I did a bit of looking around and apparently From turned poise off?! Why would they do that? It makes the heavier armors, the larger, slower weapons, and the points spent in vitality to equip it all pretty pointless!

The damage absorption stuff feels new to me. Or was it just never exposed?

@bane:Yes, you can't tank it through effects without using specific skills like Iron Flesh or the weapon arts. My best guess is that there was some sort of QA bug or balance issue with poise discovered before release and they just turned it off rather than fix it. Some people have suggested it affects some element of your roll, but I haven't seen anything conclusive. Either way, it's worth knowing because it affects how you play if any attack will interrupt your animation.

Heavy armours is still sort-of worthwhile because the damage absorption reduces damage, but at a lesser rate than just having more health. So yeah there's not much benefit from using a level on vitality rather than vigor, until the soft-cap anyways. Of course, avoiding taking damage in the first place is still king and that's probably why being quicker and faster feels more successful? Heavy weapons are still useful v bosses but not so much against regular enemies because you will get interrupted too much.

Well I just finished this last night in order to clear the schedule for Uncharted 4. I think it was a nice solid end to a series with not a whole lot of surprises and maybe a few too many callbacks. The final fight was funny for me because I almost beat him on my first try and then it took me 5-6 subsequent attempts to finally nail down his moveset. Kind of happy that I two handed the boss with no shield as an ode to Bloodborne though. Seeing as I have no reverence, or much love at all, for Dark Souls 1 that final battle did nothing for me emotionally or otherwise. I didn't even recognize the music, but then again Dark Souls 1 is the only game in the Souls franchise that I put down for a month or two and then sort of forced myself to finish up just so I could put it behind me - so I have literally no fond memories or recognizable cues as others do. Anor Londo similarly was neat but it wasn't like "getting chills!" or anything. To be honest I only realized some places were callbacks from reading the wiki.

It's a good game, probably the best in the "Dark" series. Maybe they were a bit too referential for my taste, but from reading comments about how people instantly recognized the piano strings here or how this or that put a huge smile on their face it seems to have been the right move for the more die hard fans out there. It's always good when a developer is able to get on the same page with their fans and deliver exactly what they wanted. Now I'm looking forward to what they come up with next, and if it's going to have a poison swamp area in it.

On my third playthrough I finally beat Soul of Cinder solo. Last ending unlocked. Its over. Under 20 hours, too.

103 or so hours later (most covenants maxed for PVP) and I finally beat Dark Souls 3 with The End of Fire ending. I've more or less avoided all discussion topics about Dark Souls 3 to stay spoiler free and I pretty much did it. Didn't get spoiled about anything and was able to enjoy the game to the fullest and be surprised by everything I saw. There is so much to say about all the lore, weapons, bosses, environments, etc., that I don't even know where to begin.

I think it's best to start with that final fight since it's so fresh in my mind. I went in there and didn't even notice that it's the dude from the game box because I didn't pay attention to the box once I got the game. I felt pretty cocky and was already calling the boss a disappointment up until he started changing weapons. I kinda lost my shit when he started using the "Ninja Flip Ring" from DS1. It didn't take me long to conclude that this guy was basically every player character from DS1 and that had me super hyped. I was so excited that I completely forgot that the boss would have a second phase.

It's at this point that I have to stress how important it is to care about the Dark Souls lore and the past games. I could not imagine what it must feel like to not care about the games and play Dark Souls 3. There are so many moments that are enhanced by the past games that I feel bad for people that couldn't feel what I felt when that first note played from Gwyn's Theme during phase 2. I didn't even care that Soul of Cinder had me in a juggle combo that killed me. I was once again listening to parts of Gwyn's Theme and I was instantly back in my DS1 memories.

NG+ is weak and From dropped the ball, big time. Other than fusing the two prince's swords together, there really isn't any reason to continue with multiple times through on one character. It seems to be more appealing to create new characters. Even then, though, you're kind of limited in play styles since magic is badly gimped. I've since then gone back to DS1 and 2.

I didn't know exactly where to put this, so I'm posting it here because I don't feel this bit of PvP trolling I've been perpetrating deserves its own thread. I found a way to get onto a roof after the Pontiff Sulyvahn bonfire that I don't think anyone knows is possible, it's not an inaccessible area, just a little crenellation in the scenery that I found by accident when I got stuck there as I was jumping down from a catwalk above.

I'm now using this to help out my Blade of the Darkmoon PvP peeps get the really difficult to farm Proof of a Concord Kept items that are needed to level in the Darkmoon covenant. I've turned myself into a statue on top of this tiny overhang/roof, equipped the Way of the Blue covenant item and am letting the game idle while I'm embered. I've had countless invasions for over three hours and still no one has found me.

So come one, come all, this Saturday to the Host of Embers 'of the Opera's* world on the PS4 for the greatest game of Dark Souls 3 hide and seek you've ever played and maybe earn covenant rewards while you're at it. I've included a crappy iPad photo of my screen as a hint to my hiding place.

*(My character's name is "of the Opera" and I always leave the the untrue white ring equipped, so to everyone else I appear as Phantom of the Opera.)

This is probably common knowledge at this point but I haven't seen it mentioned, halfway through playing the game hawkwood (I think that's his name, the defeatist guy sitting at firelink) left and I just assumed that was the end of it but now about a dozen hours after completing the game I randomly went to the abyss watchers fight to coop and there he was. Seeing as it's not a place you tend to go after beating the game maybe some people haven't seen it yet.

I believe the trigger is arriving at Archdragon Peak or summoning Hawkwood there. In either case you talk to Andre and he gives you the grass that tells you to go to boss fight area in Farron Keep. That's how I found him.

I believe him showing back up has to do with the Twinkling Dragon Torso Stone; once you get that, he'll request a duel via Andre.

Oh wow I got that thing from Andre and he mentioned Hawkwood but I must have completely zoned out because I don't remember him mentioning any duel. I need to watch some lore videos I don't really understand his connection to the abyss watchers other than his constant mention of them.

@hach: I believe the actual duel request is in the description for Hawkwood's Swordgrass that Andre gives you: "Blood-stained swordgrass of Hawkwood, deserter of the Undead Legion. Traditionally, the Undead Legion of Farron sends the gravest of messages using swordgrass. "Come to the mausoleum in Farron. Only one can take the path of ancient dragons."

I'm not fully clued up on DS3 lore, but I'm pretty sure Hawkwood was part of Farron's Undead Legion and later deserted it to take The Path of the Dragon, or some variation on that. Like everything in Dark Souls, you can get a pretty good picture of the backstory based on what you read and what the NPCs say, but it's never crystal clear.

ah man I always forget to read the item descriptions, that's cool though I thought the whole undead legion were big guys like the abyss watchers and Artorias although I guess Artorias was with a different group with that lady and Gough in the ds1 DLC, man seems like it could make for an amazing story if the writers for the souls game decided to write a full book or something.