Really busy day for me, spending almost all of my Sunday playing the game (first time playing it). After I beat O+S two weeks ago I took a short break, only returning to the Asylum to kill the Stray Demon and pick up the doll for the painted world. Digging back in today, I first headed to New Londo. I was about level 71 at the start today, wearing Black Iron chest and hands and Havel's helm and boots, wielding a Black Knight Sword +5 and a Silver Knight Shield. I've been focusing on Endurance, adding Havel armor when I could switch out a black iron one while maintaining a mid roll.
I had found the shortcut through Valley from Blighttown earlier, but man this place was atmospheric and depressing. I was worried the ghosts and running out of Transient Curses, but turns out my Black Knight Sword +5 one-hit kills the ghosts, so I made my way carefully through, only really having trouble with the giant blob thing that used skull grenades. With Four Kings dead, I was off to the Dukes Archive. The armored pig wrecked me, so I went to upgrade my Claymore to lightning +4 and turned the tides. Damage-wise it did similar to my BKS+5, so I've kept it with me as a backup. The Archives were awesome, I loved the visual design of it, the corrupted library and weird monsters. The channelers were annoying, but overall an awesome segment. In the Crystal Cave, I spent way too long on the crystal dude on the second ledge (where one side is auto-death being too steep) before backtracking and finding the real path. I finally experienced Curse when fighting Seath, but I paid him back in kind because that shit sucked. I also had my first invasion when I was around the 3rd bonfire in Dukes after I kindled it, I lost but it was really cool. The game AI is derpy at times, so fighting a human was something else.
Next was the the Demon Ruins, which was pretty simple until near the end. Ceaseless Discharge was easy once I started dodging his things, killing all the Taurus Demons was dumb since just had to aggro one, kill it, repeat while they all stood there watching. Same with the Capras a bit later, so I wasn't really liking the area. The random Taurus running at me out of nowhere (right before Demon Firesage) was awesome though, scared the hell out of me when i was casually killing the little derpy things on the stairs. Demon Firesage being another Stray Demon expy is unfortunate, but the Centipede Demon was really cool. I really like the hellish aesthetic of the Demon Ruins, even if it's not as fun to explore.
So 5 bosses killed today, a few areas cleared, and ended at about level 78/79 wearing full Havel armor with mid-roll, a BKS+5, and a Silver Knight Shield +4. Really glad I could spent a long day playing, it was awesome. I've noticed that I tend to not kindle bonfires though, and I've got a few Twin Humanities and nearly 30 solid Humanity in my inventory (because of the old rpg habit of saving items), typically using them only on bonfires which I'll be getting to bosses from, I really need to start using some of these. Loving the game overall, shame I have to go to work tomorrow and not play it.
That's really awesome. The thought crossed my mind when I was fighting Seath earlier, so I'm glad that's how it is.
