.

[TooB]

black knight shield is what i have been using - i do not have the required strength to wield greatshields

and i refuse to upgrade it because twinkling titanite is valuable and i'd probably rather use it on something else, so its stability is as good as it's going to get until i find a better shield that's not too heavy lol

the shield im using now is one with a spike on it
Its great. Its also a weapon. You can thrust with it

[Kalahari Inkantation]

Ive been using a pyromancer base build, but dont really focus on that.
I focus on str, dex, and a little vit.

i chose pyromancer as my base as well, hoping (praying) that having an all-purpose ranged attack would cushion my descent into the world of dark souls much like the royal class' soul arrow does in demon's

i quickly realized that unfortunately fireball really isn't nearly as powerful an introductory spell as soul arrow was, because its range and usage count are quite limited and it's only ever truly useful in a handful of very particular contexts

as a result of that, coupled with the fact that you don't even have the privilege to purchase any of the soul arrow spells until much later in the game, i am much more directly confrontational this time around and rely solely on melee attacks for 900‰+ of encounters (i might only ever whip out my bow in cases where i want to draw one single enemy towards me as opposed to alerting an entire small army to my presence)

so ideally i build dex/strength, though lately i've been focusing more on vitality because i was a little low for my level lol

[The Hand That Fisted Everyone]

i chose pyromancer as my base as well, hoping (praying) that having an all-purpose ranged attack would cushion my descent into the world of dark souls much like the royal class' soul arrow does in demon's

i quickly realized that unfortunately fireball really isn't nearly as powerful an introductory spell as soul arrow was, because its range and usage count are quite limited and it's only ever truly useful in a handful of very particular contexts

as a result of that, coupled with the fact that you don't even have the privilege to purchase any of the soul arrow spells until much later in the game, i am much more directly confrontational this time around and rely solely on melee attacks for 900‰+ of encounters (i might only ever whip out my bow in cases where i want to draw one single enemy towards me as opposed to alerting an entire small army to my presence)

so ideally i build dex/strength, though lately i've been focusing more on vitality because i was a little low for my level lol

you get more powerful pyromancies through an npc and if you advance in queelag's covenant or whatever it is

[Samus Aran]

yea i did that covenant and got both spells from it just last night by feeding the fair lady thirty tasty humanities

also i think it opens a shortcut and that's the only way to rescue solaire near the end of the game? i haven't really looked much into this but i will when i get further cause i do want to save him

[Samus Aran]

you get more powerful pyromancies through an npc and if you advance in queelag's covenant or whatever it is

they're like all related. the witch of izalith tried to recreate the first flame and it fucked up and created all the demons and all of izalith turned to demons except for those who escaped and even two of the witch's daughters, quelaag and her similar-looking sister the fair lady, were turned partially demon. but then the npc that appears in blighttown (and i'm not sure how to make her appear but i'll look it up later) who sells pyromancies is also one of the witch's daughters and thus sister to quelaag as well, but she escaped turning demon at all.

but yea i actually haven't really messed with pyromancy much at all but i do wanna try the chaos ones i got from chaos servant covenant. and i do like poison mist just like in demon's souls. pretty useful spell.

i use magic in general more in this than i did in demon's souls, actually. the soul arrows are better, and there's more spells for various buffs that are actually useful. magic shield is complete ass though, found that out pretty quick.

[TooB]

Is there an enemy that drops humanity

[Samus Aran]

rats seem to drop them the most often from what i've seen, but i think most enemies technically can? the item version of humanity, at least

the only way to "absorb" humanity from an enemy (you kill an enemy and there's a sort of dark aura and your humanity number suddenly goes up by one) is if you haven't killed that area's boss yet and that's just as rare as finding item humanities

considering the high number of rats, the depths might be a good farming place for humanity

wear a ring that boosts your item discovery

[Kalahari Inkantation]

the covenants

now there's a mechanic of this game i've been ignoring since day one

i'm not even quite sure how they work

at this point, i'm much more interested in pursuing decent melee weapons over magic, but i'm certainly not opposed to having more items and options for my offensive/defensive capabilities, so i guess i'll look into how those work tonight lol

[Kalahari Inkantation]

Is there an enemy that drops humanity

the rats in the depths have a moderate humanity drop rate, which can be greatly augmented if you have items like the covetous gold serpent ring or the symbol of avarice equipped

drop rate also scales with your humanity stat, maxing out at 10

speaking of which, how much humanity do you guys tend to have on you at any given moment lol

[Thyme]

0 lol

[Samus Aran]

the covenants

now there's a mechanic of this game i've been ignoring since day one

i'm not even quite sure how they work

at this point, i'm much more interested in pursuing decent melee weapons over magic, but i'm certainly not opposed to having more items and options for my offensive/defensive capabilities, so i guess i'll look into how those work tonight lol

it's only really manageable to do one or two covenants on your first playthrough because of the requirements of getting into some plus the penalties for leaving one too early

unless you've been helping people beat bosses as a phantom, for example, the faith requirement for being a sunlight warrior is really high

way of light or whatever is right at firelink shrine and open to anyone with no requirements and no penalties for leaving

chaos servant is behind quelaag's domain behind an illusory wall and is also open with no requirements, but just make sure you finish giving that covenant thirty humanities before leaving it, otherwise your humanity offering count is reduced by half and that's obviously very annoying

i haven't looked into the other ones really but chaos servant is def worth it for a story reason and for the pyromancies you get

im also pretty interested in trying the darkmoon one at some point, and the forest one too. don't really know about the others but i'll do them all eventually through various ng+ runs

[Samus Aran]

the rats in the depths have a moderate humanity drop rate, which can be greatly augmented if you have items like the covetous gold serpent ring or the symbol of avarice equipped

drop rate also scales with your humanity stat, maxing out at 10

speaking of which, how much humanity do you guys tend to have on you at any given moment lol

lately it's been 0 because i've been either giving it to the fair lady or kindling or, in the case of fighting ornstein and smough, losing it lol

but while i'm going through a new area i usually end up with 1 or 2 before eventually using it

[TooB]

the covenants

now there's a mechanic of this game i've been ignoring since day one

i'm not even quite sure how they work

at this point, i'm much more interested in pursuing decent melee weapons over magic, but i'm certainly not opposed to having more items and options for my offensive/defensive capabilities, so i guess i'll look into how those work tonight lol

i just join every covenant and get free stuff.

[Samus Aran]

well yeah you could do that to get the starting gifts for each covenant plus the trophy for each lol. although i think the stuff you get from joining princess guard is disabled unless you're still in said covenant. not that those spells matter if you're not playing online co-op.

and i think at least one is only accessible upon a certain "evil" decision on the player's part

and those without online (john) won't be able to actually progress in any of the pvp-focused ones

[Samus Aran]

actually i just remembered that you can get a couple souvenirs of reprisal through offline play so i guess you can technically get a good amount of those through a couple playthroughs and thus complete the darkmoon covenant without even actually doing it online like you're supposed to lol