Noonan

The summoning ring. I've read quite a bit about the fog ring.

MoviePage

Without getting spoilery, there are 2 covenants that give you rings that, if equipped, will randomly summon you as an invader into other players' worlds if they meet certain conditions. If you defeat them, you generally rank up in the covenant or get an item that will allow you to do so.

Noonan

Can anyone give some advice on the Anor Londo boss(es)? I've used up my humanity trying to take them out with help and now I'm stuck being hollow. I've had no trouble in this area up until now and I feel like I haven't even gotten close.

Poink

Ah, you must be talking about everyone's favorite dynamic duo.

There really is no catch-all solution for killing them quickly and efficiently, which is what makes the fight such a pain. A "winning" fight will take upwards of 20 minutes, which makes it worse when you spend so much time only to lose later on.

Here's what you need to know:

When one goes down, the other one "inherits" the power of the other, and gets a full bar of health along with it. So, choose your target and focus on only killing one, since any damage done to the survivor won't amount to anything.

Now it's a matter of picking the lesser of two evils:

Big guy goes down first, little guy grows HUGE and has pretty frightening speed and range.

Little guy dies, and the hammer bro. stays the same size, keeps the same speed, has all the exact same moves, but his attacks have lightning elements.

Unless you're absolutely insane, you'll probably want to kill the small one first. The big guy is very easy to keep at bay (when alone) and the only really dangerous thing he'll do at that point is his "butt stomp" which will do a bit of an AOE lightning attack. Although when electrified, any of his attacks (even blocked) will do some damage due to the lightning, unless you have REALLY good resistance to it.

The general strategy is to constantly circle around the room backwards, keeping close to the pillars. The pillars are the key; the big guy will often get 'stuck' against one when he does his charging attack, and the pillars will block the little guys lightning spell. The hardest part is getting in a few hits on the one guy safely without being ravaged by the big dude. Taking refuge behind a pillar also gives you plenty of time to down a flask to heal up.

Eventually, once it's down to a one on one fight, just keep circling around and use the pillars to "block" the big guy's attacks. If you have any good ranged attacks (bow, spells) now is the time to use them. It'll take some time, but you'll get the general feel down eventually. I imagine as a caster the fight is infinitely easier, since you can just pop off Soul Arrows while in constant retreat. Melee is tricky.

What I personally did was this: As soon as I entered the room, I cast Poison Mist (Pyromancy, can be found in the Blightown Swamp area). The little guy will get infected by it immediately since he comes running at you. It's not enough to kill him alone, but it will eat away at his health while you circle around the room. You might be able to get him down to about half health with poison alone.

For the big guy, I just played it safe and fired off arrows while he bumbled around and took swings at the pillars.

This is something I didn't do, but probably will try next time: The Pyromancy spell "Iron Flesh" is awesome. I didn't make use of it until late in the game, but slap some heavy armor on, cast the spell, and you're an absolute GOD for about 45 seconds. A very slow moving one, but a God nonetheless. It's worth a try just casting that as soon as you enter (or even just before entering the fog) and just going two-hand weapon and devastating the small guy. If it works, it'll make the whole fight a hell of a lot easier.

On New Game+ I got to the Capra Demon, died, and said to hell with it, and did the Iron Flesh thing. I killed him and both dogs not two feet into the arena, and it took about 6 seconds.

Noonan

Iron Flesh thing?

Thanks for the advice. With the limited pyro magic I have, I've been able to take out the skinny guy a few times. But, by then, I have no healing left and don't last very long with the fat guy alone. I guess it'll just take more practice.

Poink

Iron Flesh is sold by the first Pyro trainer in Firelink (the one you free in the depths). Costs 1000 souls I believe.

It might not do any good, but I guess it's worth a try to get rid of the first guy asap so you can save your other resources for the rest of the fight.

It's hands down the toughest boss fight in the game, in my opinion.

Some people actually like to kill the big guy first and deal with the giant dragonslayer guy, since you can run through his legs to get behind him for some hits. I found it a lot harder to kill the big guy while avoiding the quicker one, and the giant lancer guy seemed insane to me when I went against him.

Just know that once you get through this, you can tackle anything else the game can possibly throw at you.

MoviePage

Also know that if you want to go for Platinum/100%, you'll have to do it both ways eventually, on the same character. Whichever of the two you save for last drops his soul, and you need both souls to get two unique weapons. Fun times!

In my first playthrough, I killed Fatty first and Slim second by myself, then did it the opposite way on my second playthrough. There's absolutely no way I could've done it the second time around without the help of two summoned phantoms, and even then it took us about 5 tries.

MoviePage

Speaking of 100%...just finished it. Easily one of my favorite games of all time.

Noonan

I ended up running back to farm some items for the fight. I now have plenty of firebombs, fire arrows and a juiced up pyro "hand". Tonight I get to make the trek all the way back from the church blacksmith. I really didn't want to do all this after knowing what I get once the fight is done.

MoviePage

Did you open up the shortcut in Sen's Fortress? Makes going through there significantly easier.

Noonan

No, I don't know where the key to the cage elevator is. Any idea?

Poink

The key to the cage is near the top; when you first get up on the narrow walkways. The part that's broken where you can jump across to get to that merchant. There are some stairs in that room that lead down to one "Lightning Snake" and the key.

dsa_shea

You guys make me feel like a big loser as I'm still in the Undead Burg and just beat the Taurus demon and trying to figure out how to avoid the Hellkite's fire on the bridge. I also made a mistake and pissed off Captain Sunny Pants out there on the balcony opposite the Dragon's bridge and now he is after me every time that he sees me. Damn it!

lopper

Run along the right side of the bridge. there is a little cut out that is a safe zone from the fire, and it also contains a stairway you need to go down to move forward. Think you can also open up a short cut to a bonfire right after that, too.

As for Sunny Pants, can't help you. Sorry.

MoviePage

You'll be able to buy absolution a bit further on, and Solaire (sun dude) should forgive you. He can come in pretty handy later.

Noonan

You pissed off Sunbro! That is not grossly incandescent! lol

Lopper is right about the dragon. Make sure you're light enough to run, time his flame, and run along the right side to the staircase down. Be sure to kick down the ladder to shortcut back to the bonfire.

slop101

This game encroached into my dreams (nightmares?) last night.

Basically, I was trying to kill a handful of enemies, hitting them, running away, rinse-repeat, when a tiny enemy that I wasn't worried about got in a lucky hit and killed me instantly. This fucking game...

dsa_shea

I made it past the dragon and have actually made my way underneath him. I have been able to get the Drake sword, kill the black knight on that tower, kill that metal boar, kill the heavy knight, make it to the blacksmith and finally get my ass kicked more than once by the prowling demon. Now, if I can figure out why my guy is moving much slower despite not changing any of my equipment except switching shields. I also am well under my weight limit.

mewmartigan

You will walk slower if you have more than 50% of your weight total. If you can carry 50, you will walk slow at 25.

dsa_shea

This guy was able to beat in just a few minutes what has taken me hours to play.

NSFLLP:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/x9ymysN3qQ8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Poink

Well, it IS a lot easier when you know exactly where to go, where the key items are, and what enemies you'll be up against.

You'll be surprised once you finish and do a second run with a new character just how quick the game goes by. I spent 70-80 hours on my first run, and with my Sorcerer I'm about halfway through the game after putting in maybe 7 or 8 hours.

It's almost like a puzzle game in a sense, that once you know the "solution" (or strategy) it's about 5,000,000,000,000 times easier. With the exception of one or two bosses, and a few "archers" that made me want to pull out Battletoads for some less stressful entertainment.

slop101

Seeing people finish a speed run in less than 90 minutes makes me think that they made this game crazy hard just to hide it's short length.

MoviePage

There's plenty to do outside the essentials, just like with most adventure games and RPGs. You could probably do a speedrun of Fallout 3 or Oblivion in a few short hours if you blasted through the main story and nothing else.

mewmartigan

Apparently Bethesda has speed competitions when a game is released. They have a guy on their staff who won the contests for Fallout 3 and Skyrim.

Apparently he beat Fallout 3 in about 1.5 hours and Skyrim in 2.5ish.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/13/sk...ure-a-develop/

dsa_shea

I just don't see how you blaze through those games without leveling up and collecting some bad ass weapons. Whatever weapon these guys are using on these Dark Souls videos is it sure deals a lot of damage.