Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that. Good call, thanks man. So many little details that are easy to forget.
EDIT - Took that advice and atoned to the tune of just under 40,000 souls. Expensive mistake! That's only about one level for me at this point, though. I think I'm SL87?
With the nerfing of the Mask of the Father, my old build doesn't work quite so well. I have no ability to equip particularly good armor, so bosses and larger enemies are now often 2 or 3 hit killers for me despite a good-sized HP pool. The build has turned into a very high risk style of play since the survivability is super low. Currently I'm looking like this:
It's a big-ass link.My chest is +5, legs are +5, gauntlets are +10. Greatsword of Artorias is at +5.
I'm having fun with it despite the fact that it's less survivable than the first time I went through the game and did something similar. I was going to play a bit differently this time, but it just sort of kept creeping back toward this, so I decided to go for it and try to do it earlier, which paid off in spades. The game has gotten harder as it's gone, though, since I can get killed so quickly.
Nito's down, Seath is down, New Londo is opened up ready for Four Kings, Ceaseless Discharge, Firesage Demon, and Centipede Demon all downed this morning, and I opened the shortcut to Izalith and saved Solaire from maggoty doom. Beat Sanctuary Guardian on my first try for the DLC area, then got killed like 8 or 9 times straight by Artorias. I just can't take those hits, and that basically-unblockable rush-stab attack he does is awful. I can't dodge it almost ever (it's just chance, it seems), and even with a shield it'll nearly kill me. So ... yeah. I feel like I should be able to tackle the DLC okay, but with this build it's going to take some extra work. I'll come back to it after I've finished Lost Izalith and the Four Kings. Then hopefully polish off the rest of the DLC and head for Gwyn.
EDIT x2 - Did as I said. Finished up New Londo and the Four Kings, finished off Lost Izalith (well, okay, I didn't really FINISH it ... just shortcutted it and pretty much went straight for the boss after I fucked up and failed to save Siegmeyer, which makes me sad and angry), then went back and got the dark wood grain ring from the Forest Hunters. After all that, I went back to Artorias and beat him on the first try. Which makes it sound like it was easy, and it wasn't. It was fucking tough. Managed to dodge most of those sliding lunge attacks he does, and he did his purple powerup nonsense without me interrupting him toward the end, but I still made it. Just barely. Super cool fight mechanically, visually, and thematically. Did a bunch of the stuff down to unlocking the shortcut to the Chasm of the Abyss, and I'm really impressed with everything the DLC has had to offer. The environments are wonderful. Totally worth the money I had to spend to get it on PS3 since my PC can't handle the game.
Oh, and Gough is awesome. And just the whole thing, really. I love what it is you're getting to walk in on, and the fact that it's something that's already happened that's important to current events. There's something so melancholy and beautiful about the whole thing, which I suppose goes for Dark Souls itself ... but it's very concentrated in the DLC.
Kalameet is up next, then whatever's at the bottom of the chasm. I sort of know but I sort of don't, so we'll see how it goes. After that, it's all Gwyn, all the time. And hopefully he doesn't fuck me up as bad as the first time I played the game.
EDIT x3 - So Dark Souls is done. Managed Kalameet yesterday in a very short play session. He was reasonably tough, but not too bad once you got the attack patterns down. Went straight for Young Sif after that ... another one of those really powerful moments that could be completely lost on someone who doesn't understand who they're saving or why. Got a bit choked up again. I swear, the Sif/Artorias thing is my biggest weak spot.
Manus was tough. My build is effectively zero poise, with little ability to absorb damage. I'm all dodge and damage. Figuring out when it was safe to heal was the biggest problem, then it was all just learning his moves and how best to avoid them. Some I never could figure out great ways around, or at least couldn't pull it off reliably, so I had my work cut out for me even once I knew what I was doing. He could put me down in as little as three hits if he used a really strong attack.
After him I did a little running around, leveled a couple times, got a couple lizards I'd missed, cleaned up whatever loose ends. This wasn't a complete run by any means, so I skipped some optional stuff and probably a fair number of items lying around the game world.
After that, it was time for Gwyn. I got him down to less than a quarter health on my first run, was so ready to just move in for the kill ... when I got signed out of PSN and logged off back to the fog door. SON OF A BITCH. Fucking Charter. God I hate Charter. Anyway, it took me another 5 runs or so to down him. Was a fairly tough fight because he leaves you so little room for healing, and he could basically twoshot me. Since I have zero poise, every hit is the potential for a stunlock, and combined with my inability to absorb damage ... yeah. Thankfully most of his hits aren't so rapid that I couldn't roll away, and once I got his rhythms down again and could figure out exactly when I could roll after getting hit, I managed okay. On both he and Manus I used Power Within as my one pyromancy spell, since it's super helpful for me to be able to dish out more damage. The longer I'm in a fight, the more likely I am to fuck up and die on a mistake. I had to heal a whole hell of a lot in both those fights anyway, so the constantly ticking health was far from a big deal, and that extra damage definitely helped put me over the top.
Feels great to have completed the game again, and the experience only reinforces for me how special this game is. Far and away my game of the generation. I was nearly as obsessed with it on this second playthrough as I was the first time, which is why I managed to do it so quickly. I'm not sure what my final time was ... around 60 hours, I think?
Anyway ... if you were waiting to jump on board the Soul Train (wat) until I got to DkSII, now's your chance! Would be great to have some others to play and discuss with. I'm about to boot it up right now and dig in. Can't wait to see all the new stuff. I'll have about 5 or 6 hours of rehash from the little bit I played before, but we'll see where it takes me.