Is Red Eye Orb only usable while in Darkwraith covenant?

Question

Is Red Eye Orb only usable while in Darkwraith covenant?

Asked by Marcelo de Assis

Answer

Uh....your answer is in the link you posted:

Note that you can no longer use it if you leave the Darkwraiths

Answered by skovacs1

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Does the Drake Sword in Dark Souls not scale with any stats?

Question

I picked up the Drake Sword near the start of the game. It's been great up until now, made the game nowhere near as hard as it would have been without it, it does like 200 damage and it doesn't weigh much.

I'm now in the depths, I've upgraded the sword to +1, but I realised that leveling up my strength isn't increasing my attack power.

Is this because the Drake Sword doesn't scale with stats?

If so, then should I be thinking about leveling up a normal weapon to +5 that scales with stats and using that instead?

Asked by dormisher

Answer

You are correct that the Drake Sword does not scale with your stats, as many other weapons do.

With the sword upgraded to +1, you'll be doing 220 damage. Upgrading it to +5 will take this up to 300 - but at the cost of 40,000 souls and many dragon scales (9, I believe).

Having a +5 weapon that takes your stats into account, while it might give less "base" damage, would deal more damage overall because of your stats and so it should be considered.

However, you would lose the Fire and Magic resistance bonusses granted by the weapon. These are not likely to be significant, but you may notice firebombs and the like dealing more damage than they had before.

Answered by TZHX

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of being in human form?

Question

In Dark Souls, what are the advantages and disadvantages of being in human form?

In Demon's Souls, being in human form gives you a clear HP advantage, but attacks have lower power and you can be invaded (if playing online).

In Dark Souls, however, the advantages and disadvantages are less clear. What are they?

Asked by YellowMegaMan

Answer

Advantages of human form are that you can kindle camp fires and summon phantoms to aid you. These abilities are not available in Hollow form.

The only disadvantage is you're risking black phantom invasions.

Answered by MdaG

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How do you provide hints in Dark Souls

Question

In Demon Souls you could just press select (I think) and add your selected message. I would like to know how to do it though because I like everyone's help and feel bad at not being able to provide back.

Asked by danRhul

Answer

In order to provide hints you'll need the Orange Guidance Soapstone:

You can buy this from the Undead Merchant in the Undead Burg, near the first bonfire in the area, for 100 souls:

The soapstone behaves like a consumable item with an unlimited number of uses. So in order to use it you need to equip it to one of your item slots, than active it with "square" (on the PS3) to use it. THis will give you the option to either write a message, delete on of your messages, or rate another users message.

Answered by Wipqozn

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Natural progression from Blighttown

Question

I've just been through Blighttown and defeated Quelaag(sp?) and was just wondering where I should be going next as I have a variety of areas open to me now? Cinematics would suggest that I should go through the gate I just opened near the Undead Parish but then I also found the key for New Londo Ruins? There is the area up the ladder after defeating Hydra as well as the Catacombs, the area after defeating Quelaag(Demon Ruins?) and the Great Hollow although this was accessed through the secret tunnel.

Does it even matter? I am soul level 40 (thereabouts), should I be steering clear of places still or shall I just go hack things up?

Asked by danRhul

Answer

The giant gate through the Undead Parish leads to an area called Sen's Fortress. This is the major path to advancing the main storyline. Your level is in the right area for heading this route, so you won't have any more problems than normal.

After Quelaag, the next area is the Demon Ruins and it requires you to fight a boss called the Ceaseless Discharge. Minor tip about this fight:

The boss doesn't permanantly aggro until you take an item at the end of the area. I suggest not taking it until afterwards, so you can retrieve any souls if you lose. You can enrage the boss each time with magic or arrows.

This boss is required to progress in the long run, but it can be put off. The amount of trouble people have with it depends on the person, so I advise only trying it if you don't have many souls to lose.

Finally, the area accessible near the Hydra is connected to the Darkroot Basin and is also ultimately required to progress. This area, like the Demon Ruins can be put off until later. If you have 20,000 souls to spare however, I recommend buying the Crest of Artorias from Andre the blacksmith. This will unlock another entrance to the extended Darkroot Garden. If you do this you can farm about 7000 souls in a very short amount of time, and do this as many times as you like. You'll also be able to pick up the Stone armor and the Eastern armor here.

Ultimately, I would recommend heading to Sen's Fortress next as it is the logical progression of the game. If you consider it from a story standpoint, you wouldn't have reason to head to the Demon Ruins or the Darkroot Garden yet anyways.

Answered by bgalin

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What effect does upgrading a particular skill have on my character?

Question

I've recently started playing Dark Souls again, and I want to create my character with some knowledge of the skills. What effect does each skill have on my character, and in particular which are essential to a tank build?

I want to avoid increasing skills that have no relevance to my intended character build. But I understand some skills necessitate some upgrading to be able to use some equipment.

Asked by danRhul

Answer

Stats

What they do

• Vitality determines your health.
• Attunement determines how many spell slots you have.
• Endurance determines your stamina and equip load.
• Strength/Dexterity determines your attack power with weapons that scale with strength/dexterity, and is also required for wielding certain equipment.
• Resistance increases your defense.
• Intelligence increases the effectiveness of sorceries, and increases the damage of weapons that scale with intelligence. Certain spells and equipment have an intelligence requirement.
• Faith determines the effectiveness of miracles, and increases the damage of weapons that scale with faith. Certain miracles and equipment have a faith requirement.

Stats important for a Tank build

• Vitality: Vitality increases your health and as such is, obviously, very important to any Tank build. However you shouldn't increase this too far beyond 40-points since the amount of health gained per level decreases significantly after it reaches 40 points.

• Endurance: Endurance increases your stamina and equip load. For a tank character, this will have a large impact on how often you can attack and block. It also determines your maximum equip load, which determines how heavy the equipment you wield can be (armour and all).

  As a tank you'll want this to be high enough so you can use the armour and weapons for your build. Similar to vitality endurance becomes less useful after 40 points since stamina will stop increasing, and only your equip load will increase. I would suggest investing no more than 40 points into it because of this, but you will probably be able to get by only investing around 30 points.

• Strength: This will be your offensive stat. No matter how good your defense is, it won't mean anything if you can't deal any damage to your enemies. Furthermore, a high strength is required to wield great shields, which allow you to block almost any tank, whereas normal or small shields can only block some attacks. Therefore great shields are vital to any tank build.

  Strength also will allow you to wield the Drake Sword. Although not as useful late game since it doesn't scale, it is very useful early game. Using the Drake Sword will allow you to invest more points into Vitality and Endurance before you need to invest points into strength to keep your damage up.

  How many points you invest here will depend on what weapon you decide to use, which I'll touch on later, but I wouldn't invest anymore than 30 points in here until you boost your vitality and endurance up to around 30 - 40 points.

A stat I didn't list which you may find unusual is resistance, which increases your defense. The reason for this is that the further into the game you go the increased defense offered by resistance becomes negligible, making any points investing here wasted.

Finally, how many points you invest into dexterity will depend on which weapon your wind up using. You'll want to invest just enough points into dexterity to use your desired weapons. I'll be discussing weapons later.

(reference: http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Stats)

Equipment

Rings:

• Havel's Ring: Havel's Ring increases our maximum equip load by 50%. This is extremely useful for a tank character since it will allow you to not only wield heavier armour, but will allow you get away with investing less points into endurance, thus allowing more points to be investing into Vitality and Strength.

• Ring of Favor and Protection: Another vital ring for any tank build, and is an excellent ring for any build. The ring increases your maximum health, stamina, and equip load by 20%. As you can imagine, this is incredibly useful for a Tank. Not only because it lets you take more damage, but, like Havel's Ring, can allow you get away with not investing as many points into Vitality and Endurance so you can put more points into strength.

  The major downside to this ring is that if you ever remove it, it's destroyed. So never take it off. Due to this you will need to make sure your equip load is high enough to wield your equipment without Havel's Ring, since there are a few points in the game where you are forced to wear a certain ring in order to proceed.

Weapons and Shields:

• Eagle Shield: The Eagle Shield has the lowest strength requirement of all the great shields, and also the lowest weight. It's stats are comparable to other great shields, so I would suggest just sticking with the great shield for most of the game.

• Zweihander: Found fairly early on in the game, the Zwiehander has a fairly high damage output. Although other weapons may surpass it late game, the benefits of the Zwiehander is that it can deal high damage without investing a lot of points into strength. Compared to other ultra greatswords it has fairly low weight and strength requirement, which also makes it fairly attractive for a tank.

• Claymore: Although the damage output of the Claymore is considerable lower than the Zweihander, so are it's strength requirement and weight. It also uses up less stamina per swing than the Zweihander. These things will probably make it more desirable early game, when your strength and equip load aren't as high.

Armour

Before I discuss armour, I should give you some details on what Poise is. In a nutshell, poise determines how many hits you can take before staggering. Higher poise = more hits. Due to this is is very important for a tank build, and this is reflected in my armour suggestions below.

Although all the details of poise are still not known, a user from gamefaqs was nice enough to do some extensive testing on poise and made a thread about it. Although I would suggest reading the thread for more detail, but the key things to take away is that poise behaves like a meter, similiar to stamina. Every time an enemy hits you your poise meter decreases, and certain hits will consume more poise than others. Once this meter hits zero, your character will stagger. This meter does recharge over time, but the exact value is unknown.

• Giant Armor Set: When fully upgraded, The Giant Armor Set has the highest physical defense in the game, and it has fairly high poise as well. However it requires Twinkling Titante to upgrade, which makes upgrading this armour expensive. You also need to buy this armour from a merchant, making it even more expensive.

• Black Iron Set: The defense and poise are both fairly high, which makes it excellent armour for a tank to use. Although it has less defense and poise than the Giant Armor Set, it's resistances are all higher, making it the preferred choice against enemies using a lot of elemental damage. The Black Iron Set also requires Twinkling Titante to upgrade, making upgrading it expensive. However, unlike the Giants Set you don't need to buy it.

• Havel's Set: Although it's defense may be lower than a fully upgraded Black Iron Set, it can't be upgraded, and therefore it will surpass the Black Iron Set in defense until you can afford to fully upgrade the Black Iron Set. The poise of Havel's Set is also considerable higher than the Black Iron Set, so you'll be able to take more hits before becoming staggered. It does weigh more than the Black Iron Set, but assuming you're wearing both the rings I suggested this shouldn't be a problem.

Starting Class

• Knight: The Knight starts with the highest vitality of all the classes, and it's armour also has the best defense. The Knight's starting shield also has 100% physical damage reduction, which makes it very useful until you find a great shield later in the game. It's strength and dexterity are both good as well, coming in at 11 points each. It's endurance is 10 points, which isn't bad, but it isn't great either.

• Warrior: Although not as suited to be a tank as the Knight, it does have higher Strength Dexterity, and Endurance than the knight. It's armour also has less defense than the knight, but it is also lighter, which will allow you to wield heavier equipment until you get your equip load up higher.

• Bandit: Another excellent choice would the Bandit. It has the highest strength and endurance of all the classes, and it's vitality is fairly high as well. However, it's starting armour is inferior to that of both the Knight and the Warrior, and it's dexterity is below average. The low dexterity will limit the weapons you are able to use early game, since you'll be forced to invest some points into it.

You can't go wrong with any of the above classes, although my personal recommendation would go to the Warrior. The Knight may surpass the warrior in early tanking ability, and the Bandit will surpass the warrior in pure damage, the warrior has the most well rounded stats of the three overall.

Answered by Wipqozn

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What's the differences between the catalysts?

Question

I can't seem to figure out what the differences are between the different catalysts or rather how they affects me.

e.g.) When a catalysts scales with int, does that mean that magic does more damage or that melee does more damage?

Asked by MdaG

Answer

You have it exactly right. Catalysts affect magic damage the same way that swords affect melee damage.

A catalyst with 150 magic damage will more than a catalyst with 100 magic damage (before scaling), and a catalyst with A magic scaling will do more damage than a catalyst with C magic scaling (assuming they have the same magic damage)

Answered by Wipqozn

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How does the game determine if I can wield a weapon with two-hands?

Question

I know that wielding a weapon with two-hands allows you to wield weapons you normally don't meet the strength requirement for, but I'm uncertain exactly how the game calculates this.

How does the game determine if I can wield a weapon with two hands?

Answer

Wielding two-handed increases your effective strength by 50%. So, if a weapon requires 24 strength, you can two-hand it with just 16.

This same rule does not apply to dexterity though! You can't increase your effective dexterity by dual-wielding. If a weapon has a dex requirement, you need to meet that requirement fully to be able to wield it effectively.

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What does the rating in a message mean?

Question

In Dark Souls, there are messages all over the floor that can be read. Every message has a Rating in number form along with it. Many are 0, the highest I've seen so far is 5. What do these ratings mean? Some of them appear to maybe be related to enemies ahead, but some of the messages are cryptic and don't appear that they have to do anything with an enemy but have a rating other than 0.

Answer

By using the Orange Guidance Soapstone users can write and rate messages (both upvote and downvote). The score you see is the net score of all votes on that message. Up voting a users answer awards them 1 Humanity.

Normally users up vote messages if they find them useful, and down vote them if they don't think they are useful (or are downright false). Some users will leave messages such as "Good Luck!" for support, and users will normally up vote them as a show of thanks or as a way of showing the same support without placing their own message.

I believe that messages with a negative score are not displayed.

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Where can I farm Titanite Chunk?

Question

Titanite Chunk being the item required to upgrade Normal weapons from +10 to +14, and some armours from +6 - +9. No merchant seems to sell it, and I really would like some.

Where can I farm for Titanite Chunk?

Answer

Where you would farm it depends on where you are in the game.

The absolute best place is just before the last area:

In the Kiln of the First Flame, there are a series of five Black Knights just before you fight the final boss. The first and third ones have a 100% drop rate for Titianite Chunks, and respawn when you rest at a fire. This is the best place in the entire game to farm Chunks, but unfortunately the only thing after it is the final boss and a NG+

The next best place to farm Titianite Chunks is in Anor Londo (you'll get there after ringing both bells and clearing Sen's Fortress). Just before the boss fight in that area, there are two special kinds of Sentinel (big giant stone-looking dudes, their weaker cousins inhabit the Darkroot Garden) known as Royal Sentinels. Here's a video of someone fighting them; it's kinda boring because he tries to lure them up the stairs but you should be able to get an idea of what they look like.

This is the only place in the game where that particular style of Sentinel spawns, and they're the only kind that drop Titianite Chunks; they have a 1/4 chance of dropping that particular phat lewt, so there's a 50% chance of getting one every time you kill the pair. The closest bonfire is, unfortunately, on the other side of the mist wall so you're probably only going to start grinding the Royal Sentinels after you've made it through.

The third-best place to farm Chunks is in the New Londo Ruins, after you've done something about the water; in the normal course of the game, you'll do this at some point after Anor Londo. In the newly-exposed area, Darkwraiths will spawn.

These guys are pretty vicious and don't drop Titianite Chunks very often, but some people prefer them over the Royal Sentinels simply because it's more fun to fight them than it is to fight the Sentinels; more of them spawn per run, and they're a much more interesting opponent. Here's a video of someone going through the process of farming the Darkwraiths. Although he scores two Chunks out of a total of about five Darkwraiths killed, keep in mind that he came pretty close to dying several times - and if you're not careful enough in that area, the Darkwraiths will gang up on you which is not fun times.

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All areas necessary in Dark Souls?

Question

When I first started the game, I followed the same path as many other beginners and went to the first bell and then to the Depths, Blight Town and to Queelags Domain to ring the second bell.

However, I really found Blight Town much earlier since I went from the first bell to the Darkroot Gardens and to the "exit" of Blight Town running past the drakes in Drake Valley and as far as I can see, there really isn't any need to go all the way through the depths and most of Blight Town at all?

Heck, if I have the Master Key I don't even need to go through the Darkroot Gardens. I can just go to New Londo and straight to the second bell skipping also the gardens.

My question:

Is it necessary to visit all areas to progress through the game or are some just there to provide loot, NPC:s (with their story elements) and heaps of practice and souls?

As you can tell I just rang the second bell and haven't progressed much further than this.

I did kill the Moonlight Butterfly and really couldn't see any need to do this either as it didn't bring me any closer to finishing the main game.

Please advice! :-)

PS: I AM actually going to play through every single square inch of this wonderful game but it intrigues me that some areas and bosses just feel totally unnecessary... :DS

Answer

With clever use of the Master Key, you can skip directly to the Bell Gargoyles & Quelaag without fighting any other bosses. You could skip Taurus Demon, Most of the Undead Parish, Moonlight Butterfly, Lower Undead Burg, Capra Demon, the Depths, Gaping Dragon, and Most of Blightown.

From Blighttown you can get to the Great Hollow and from there to Ash Lake, but it's rather easy to miss, I didn't even realize they existed until a friend told me after I had finished my first playthrough.

In one of the final areas of the game is another shortcut that can be opened through leveling of a covenant relationship that allows you to bypass most of the area as well as two bosses.

So it definitely isn't necessary to hit all of the area or even all of the bosses to complete the game. By my count, you can get through the game fighting only 13 of the 21 bosses.

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Why improving shields boosts their attack and stability values only?

Question

When upgrading shields, only their attack and stability values appear to increase. As I understand the need for the latter, why does attack increase and not defense attributes? Who uses shields for attack?! This has prevented me from upgrading my fave shields, when I would really like them retain them and make them more powerful.

Answer

Stability is infact a defense attribute, and a very important one. A high stability enables the player to block a strike using less stamina than if a shield with a lower stability were used.

Since stamina management is an important part of Dark Souls' combat system, it's well worth upgrading your favourite shield just to increase this one attribute.

As for attacking with your shield... I don't really do this myself either, but a number of the enemies do.

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I'm bored of the Drake Sword, when will I find a decent replacement?

Question

I'm a lvl 50 wanderer and have been using Drake Sword since level 20 or so. I have completed most Darkroot Forest (Killed Wolf), Basin (Killed Hydra), The Depths (killed Gaping Dragon) and Blighttown (not gone into Quellaqq's something yet).

I'm bored of the Drake Sword, when will I find any decent replacement? Ideally a powerful Schimitar-type weapon. I've got 2 Dragon Scales, which I haven't used for this sword, as I read it's not recommended.

Answer

The Drake Sword is not recommended in the long run because its damage does not scale with any stats; this means that while it does an awesome 200 damage in the early game, that's not much compared to the damage you can do with high stats and a weapon with good stat scaling.

I personally moved on to Astora's Straight Sword, as recommended by the Wiki; you can find it in The Valley of Drakes, guarded by an undead dragon hanging off the edge of a cliff. If you can pick up two pieces of Twinkling Titianite and upgrade the sword to level 2, it'll already be doing more damage than the Drake Sword* . It's also very forgiving in terms of stats; it scales equally with all of Faith, Dexterity and Strength, so you can make some missteps in your stat distribution without suffering too much for it.

However, as the name implies, it's a straight sword, not a curved sword like you wanted. If that's what you're set on using, the easiest one to get at this point is carried by the merchant Shiva of the East, who is unlocked by joining the Forest Hunter Covenant. He carries the Shotel, which has the nice side-effect of ignoring shields, and a couple of katanas you might want to try out (though they're not curved swords, strictly speaking).

Otherwise, the skeletons in the Catacombs (and not the Firelink Shrine graveyard, unfortunately) sometimes drop Falchions and Scimitars; you'll probably go to the Catacombs soon after Quelaag's Domain, though if you want to you could sneak in there right now.

There's two things to keep in mind when switching, though: these swords scale best with Dexterity, so if you haven't been pumping that stat you might want to start doing so now; also, none of them will do as much damage as your your Drake Sword - although they scale with stats, they start at 82 base damage, compared to the Drake Sword's 200. You probably won't want to switch to one of the curved swords for new areas until you've put some upgrades and practice into it.

If you decide to stick with curved swords throughout the game, I recommend picking a particular one and upgrading it to +10; after that, you can transform it into Quelaag's Furysword, which is one of the best swords in the game.

_{*The wiki says level 3, but that's the point at which it does more base damage; the scaled damage will eclipse the Drake Sword earlier, though of course this depends on your stats}

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What is that shadow in Blight Town?

Question

Looking down at the sewer like area (in front of the spinning wheel), close to where you find the second fire keeper soul guarded by those "fire dogs", you can see a lurking shadow with a moving tail. If you move to the platform the shadow is nowhere to be seen. It is only visible if you look down on this area.

What is this shadow, a graphic glitch?

edit

Answer

That's just a shadow of one of those ugly bug things that is above you, up the stairs.

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What makes Dark Souls difficult, and is it really as hard as other people say?

Question

I've seen a lot of reviews and most of which say that dark souls is pretty much the hardest game out there at the moment. I'm not usually a fan of very hard games but do like a challenge, I'm interested in Dark Souls mostly because of the RPG elements.

My question is how hard is Dark Souls, really? Are other people exaggerating about its difficulty? What makes the game difficult?

Answer

Dark soul's really isn't as hard as people make it up to be. It can be quite unforgiving if you venture too far unprepared but after a few hours when you're used to it each segment in the game compares to a puzzlegame, where you try the same thing over and over until you get it right.

You also lose your souls if you die (which essentially is both your currency and xp) but you can mostly easily pick it up before you die again (if you die again its permanentely lost).

Also there are a few reaaally easy way to grind souls, and even a soul glitch that gives you infinite souls so you can run through the story without much trouble.

It is an awesome game however and yes it is challenging. It's just that there's so many ways around the difficult parts if you really want to dumb it down, I can't exactly call it "hard".

Newgame+ (after you completed it the first time) can be much harder though because then the monsters will level with you, so you can't grind your way to faceroll-mode.

Personally I think what most people considers hard in dark souls, is that when you get completely facerolled by a new enemy type, a hard area or a hard boss; it sometimes feels utterly impossible, that nobody can make it, and so people give up. Just keep trying and you'll cross that barrier, until you reach another area that feels even harder until you figure it out :)

Edit: I think the atmosphere in the game has a lot to do with that feeling of being hopeless sometimes. They did it really well in that regard ;) After a 10 hour playsession you can feel quite mentaly unstable lol.

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How hard is dark souls compared to other games?

Question

I've seen a lot of reviews and most of which say that dark souls is pretty much the hardest game out there at the moment. I'm not usually a fan of very hard games but do like a challenge, I'm interested in Dark Souls mostly because of the RPG elements.

My question is how hard is dark souls really, and what games can I compare it to? It reminds me a bit of Monster Hunter on the PS2 which was quite hard on offline singleplayer, but very much enjoyed that.

Answer

Dark soul's really isn't as hard as people make it up to be. It can be quite unforgiving if you venture too far unprepared but after a few hours when you're used to it each segment in the game compares to a puzzlegame, where you try the same thing over and over until you get it right.

You also lose your souls if you die (which essentially is both your currency and xp) but you can mostly easily pick it up before you die again (if you die again its permanentely lost).

Also there are a few reaaally easy way to grind souls, and even a soul glitch that gives you infinite souls so you can run through the story without much trouble.

It is an awesome game however and yes it is challenging. It's just that there's so many ways around the difficult parts if you really want to dumb it down, I can't exactly call it "hard".

Newgame+ (after you completed it the first time) can be much harder though because then the monsters will level with you, so you can't grind your way to faceroll-mode.

Personally I think what most people considers hard in dark souls, is that when you get completely facerolled by a new enemy type, a hard area or a hard boss; it sometimes feels utterly impossible, that nobody can make it, and so people give up. Just keep trying and you'll cross that barrier, until you reach another area that feels even harder until you figure it out :)

Edit: I think the atmosphere in the game has a lot to do with that feeling of being hopeless sometimes. They did it really well in that regard ;) After a 10 hour playsession you can feel quite mentaly unstable lol.

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What areas offer serious soul farming?

Question

I'm already aware of:

• The sealed area of Darkroot Garden.

This is normally a fantastic area to grind, but I'm currently in the Forest Hunter covenant and need to stay in it so I can purchase items from Shiva of the East.

• In the Undead Burg, shooting the dragon causing him to kill the undead soldiers on the bridge.

This is fine for lower levels, but at SL50, 300 souls per go doesn't really cut it anymore.

Are there any other good areas for soul farming?

Answer

There's two more places I can think of. In order of progression:

Painted World of Ariamis

This is the place where I did my farming after Dark Root Garden wasn't cutting it anymore. First, you will need to:

• Find the Peculiar Doll in the Undead Asylum on your second visit. For instructions on how to return to Undead Asylum, check this video. The doll can be found in the same cell where you started the game.

• Reach Anor Londo and locate the big room where the Painted Guards are. You will find a huge painting on the wall. Descend to the floor level and touch the painting to be transported into the Painted World of Ariamis.

• Progress through the level until you reach a sort of town square, where you will find a slew of Phalanx mobs. These are the creatures you will be farming.

• Across this courtyard, you will find a door that opens up and leads you to the starting bonfire.

You will need an AOE damage spell for this method. Poison Mist is a good choice for low levels, since Phalanx are weak to poison. They move slowly, so you can run up to them and cast Poison Mist one or two times while moving in circles around them. Just wait for a few seconds and they will die. With the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring equipped, this method will net you around 9000 souls in a few seconds. Just run back to the bonfire and repeat.

If you are a caster class, you will be able to speed up the farming by using strong AOE spells. For instance, I play a faith build character. My Wrath of the Gods spell managed to kill all Phalanx with a single cast, netting me 9000 souls every 20 - 30 seconds. I spent more time running up to the town square than killing them. The Homeward miracle will speed up this process considerably.

Now this method requires you to side track from the main story progress. Another method you can try, which doesn't require you to do any side-quest is farming Dark Anor Londo.

Dark Anor Londo:

After beating the Ornstein and Smough encounter, you will meet Gwyneavere. If you hurt her she will disappear and Anor Londo will become Dark. Warning: Making Gwyneavere disappear means you won't be able to join the Princess' Guard covenant for the rest of your current play-through.

In Dark Anor Londo, only Painted Guards and Silver Knights will remain, the rest will be gone, including the giants and archer right outside Ornstein and Smough's fog wall. Instead, you will find two NPCs here. You can kill them for around 6000 souls with the Covetous Silver Serpent ring equipped. The trick is, they will only respawn if you leave Anor Londo and return. However, you can use Homeward Miracle to return to the previous bonfire where you rested at. The NPCs will also reappear.

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Why is the bell tolling when I'm playing online?

Question

Every now and then I hear a bell tolling in Dark Souls. Is this other people ringing the awakening bell? Do I gain any buffs from this event (like I do when someone kindles a bonfire)?

Answer

Yes, according to other players of the game, you'll hear the bell ringing if you're playing online and someone else online rings the bell.

It doesn't appear to have any effect on your game, although the interactions between games in Dark Souls is a bit mysterious and I don't have any authoritative sources confirming this.

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What are the specifics of the Covenants?

Question

In Dark Souls, each of the Covenants seems to allow you to access certain parts/areas or items in the game.

Can anyone tell me exactly what each Covenant allows you to do and any items, areas, or other features that are only available to members of that Covenant?

Answer

This is a pretty complicated subject, and the various wikis have a lot more detailed information about them. In general, you are ranked from +0 to +3 in your current covenant; some covenants give items or other benefits for attaining ranks, and joining some covenants will let you use covenant-specific items and miracles. They're pretty complicated (no two are alike, really, beyond the fact that you can only ever be in one at a given time), but here's a summary of the stuff you can get:

• Way of White: No items or ranks, but it does seem to make co-op easier (you see more White Soapstone signs as a human)
• Warrior of Sunlight: gain the use of the Lightning Spear miracle for joining, Greater Lightning Spear miracle at rank 2, seekrit spoiler miracle in NG+. Makes co-op easier, and gives you a golden White Soapstone sign (like Solaire of Astora). Rank up by delivering Sunlight Medals to the Sunlight Altar; you can gain the medals by defeating bosses in co-op (you don't have to be in the covenant to get them). Oh and you also get a gesture for joining (Praise the Sun!)
• Princess's Guard: No ranks, but you get the Ring of the Sun Princess and the Soothing and Bountiful Sunlight miracles. Makes co-op easier, too. Note that unlike most covenant miracles, you don't actually need to be in the Princess's Guard to use those two, and you can get them from other places.
• Path of the Dragon: Gain the Everlasting Dragon Eye and Dragon Head Stone for joining, along with an upgraded Estus flask - you always get at least 10 charges, even if you're resting at a bonfire that has not been kindled. The Dragon Head Stone gives you a dragon's head when you use it, and lets you use a fire breath attack. Every rank in the covenant upgrades the fire breath attack. You also gain the Dragon Stone Torso at rank 2. This covenant is mostly for dueling, as the Everlasting Dragon Eye lets you challenge other members of the covenant to a fight; the winner (or both, if a tie) receives a Dragon Scale.
• Gravelord Servant: Gain the Gravelord's Sword item and the Gravelord's Sword Dance miracle for joining, as well as the ability to use Eyes of Death (and generate more of them, if you use them properly). Gain the Gravelord's Greatsword Dance at rank 2.
• Forest Hunter: Gain the Cat Covenant Ring and access to a merchant for joining; the NPCs in the forest behind the Crest-Locked door won't attack you any more (you can't talk to them, and attacking them breaks the covenant). Gain a (single, consumable) Divine Blessing at rank 2, and the Ring of Fog at rank 3. Wearing the Cat Covenant Ring will cause you to occasionally be summoned to the forest, in order to defend it against players. Defeating these players will improve your rank in the covenant. Note that breaking this covenant is pretty much the only way to gain the Dark Wood Grain Ring (which lets you do flippin' sweet backflips), as the only one in the game is carried by the merchant's bodyguard.
• Blade of the Darkmoon: Gain the Blue Eye Orb and the Darkmoon Covenant Ring for joining. The Blue Eye Orb lets you invade and attack players who have "sinned", and wearing the Darkmoon Covenant Ring will occasionally summon you to attack players who have done a bad thing, much like the Cat Covenant Ring. Successfully killing the target of either of these will grant you a Souvenir of Reprisal, which you use to rank up in the covenant. At rank 1 you gain the Darkmoon Talisman and the Darkmoon Blade.
• Darkwraith: Gain the Dark Hand for joining, which lets you steal humanity from other players and NPCs. Gain the Red Eye Orb at rank 1 (an unlimited use version of the Cracked Red Eye Orb), and the Dark Sword + Dark Armor set at rank 2.
• Chaos Servant: Gain the Great Chaos Fireball pyromancy for joining, and the Chaos Storm pyromancy + a shortcut to Lost Izalith at rank 2 (note that this shortcut is the only covenant-specific area).

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Can a NG player be summoned by a NG+ player (and vice versa)?

Question

Can a NG player be summoned by a NG+ player (and vice versa) ?

I'm curious as I'm going to start my NG+ with my lvl 61 sorceror. Maybe lvl 61 is too low for NG+, from what I've read people seem to be lvl 150 by the time they beat Gwyn.

Answer

Only the levels matter for summoning (I think it's +/- 10%). You can interact with players in co op/invasion that are not in the same play through as you. You can be in NG and they in NG+, or vise versa with no problem.

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