In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how I had made no progress in two days. I was dispirited, and I felt as if my time with the game was coming to an end. One of the biggest problems with the game is that for someone as bad as I am at it, I’m not going to make it to the final boss every run. In fact, I’ve seen the second boss four or five times. Maybe six. And the best I’d done was a quarter health left.
Today, I had three or four really bad runs. Bad runs are mostly when my teammates decide to take on a difficult field boss on the first day (you should usually wait until the second day), then stubbornly continue to try after dying time and time again. One person either got disconnected or left the game, and there was one run in which a Duchess single-handedly killed the second night boss on her own when both the other teammate and I were downed. The boss had roughly a quarter of their health left. The Duchess had revived our other teammate and me more than once, and–by the way, this is such a terrible mechanic in the game.
The revival system, I mean. My god. I really liked the idea of it hitting your teammates in order to revive them. However, in practice, it’s awful. I’ve explained it before, but quickly, it’s a circle made of three segments. When you die once, the first segment fills with purple. As your teammates hit you, the purple goes down and once it’s all gone, you can get up again.
Oh, and about that. If you’re anywhere near the enemy/boss who downed you, they can hit you again before you can stagger away. And kill you again. So that’s cool, too. I have screamed to my teammates to leave me before because I knew it was futile to try to revive me. And, I’ve sometimes ignored a downed teammate if I and my other teammate were close to downing the boss. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s better than futilely hitting my teammate and watching the bar fill back up.
People have said that if one of the bars is depleted, it should stay that way for that round of revival. I agree. I know that From likes to make things hard, but this is ridiculous. Especially since the hitbox for hitting a teammate is bullshit. It’s so hard to actually hit them, and it’s fucking frustrating. Let me reiterate that I like the concept of the revive, but it was horribly implemented.
Back to that one run–the Duchess manaaged to down the Ancient Dragon on her own. I was feeling pretty good as we went to meet the Nightlord. Could this be the run? In short, no. We got barely halfway before we wiped. I was the last person standing, which, as I’ve said before, is never a good thing. And it was so dispiriting.
There was another run (or maybe that one) in which my teammates got it in their head to take on a Draconic Tree Sentinel on the first day over and over and over again. And over again. By the time we were done (and we did NOT kill him), I was down to Level 3. Which as a Recluse, means anything could kill me in one hit.
Welp. I was going to maunder more about why I was quitting this game and how I would never beat the second boss, but, ah…..
Yes, you guessed it, I beat the second boss. Finally! And now I’m able to buy clothing for my Nightfarers. Right now, it’s just Dawn and Darkness outfits for each. Of course I went immediately to the Darkness outfit for the Recluse and bought it. Why? Because it’s black and it has a big hat. My avatar online is my Dark Souls III character wearing a dark purple dress and a big black hat. I’ve become known online for my big hatness, so I’m pleased to be able to have it once again.
It really makes a difference what teammates you have. I knew from the beginning of the winning run that I had good teammates. we had an Ironeye (archer), a Wylder (solid all-arounder). I love having an Ironeye because having another ranged person is really good synergy. And an archer is better than another Recluse (which I also had today) because we have different skills that complement each other.
They worked as a unit (maybe they were friends running with a rando third), and they made it easy for me to follow them. Not only did they ping things on the map, but they didn’t try to do the frustrating thing of fightiing enemies as the circle closed in and then sprinting out after grabbing the prize. They prioritized churches, and we had six or seven flasks by the time we reached the Nightlord. I usually had four. If I was lucky. They stuck together the whole time (which, again, I think meant they were friends IRL), and they weren’t overly ambitious.
They did everything with clocklike precision, and they were really good. Plus, Ironeye had fire on his arrows so I got a lot of fire combos going. I didn’t feel like anything was too hard, not even the night bosses. It’s astonishing what being Level 12 will do for you. I was able to take three hits from a boss. THREE!
We went into the third night, and I felt…well, I can’t lie. I was nervous, but I also thought I could get carried by my teammates. I will say that I held my own and did not have to be revived two or three times like I normally do. Again, having Level 12 health really made a difference! By that point, this boss had become my bugaboo. It had really gotten in my head, especially since I had done so many runs where I hadn’t even gotten a sniff of it.
A few people in the Discord said that this was their least favorite boss of the five or six bosses they’d faced. There are eight in total. It’s just relentless as it races across the map, plus it has an AOE attack that seems to cover half the screen (much like the final boss of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC before they nerfed that boss). And, it’s hard for me to gauge distances because the arena is so vast. I have no depth percetion AND I have spatial issues, so bosses running thruogh an empty, wide-open arena are the worst.
Except. I could take a hit or two and not have to worry about dying. This boss even chomped me (its grab attack), but I survived it. I died once, and I realized I had six flasks left. I quickly quaffed two as I got up–we had roughly a quarter left to go. I tended to hoard them because I usually had four for the fight, but no need in this one!
One tihng I need to do in any run was to pick up a melee weapon. It’s really hard to revive a teammate with spells, and most melee weapons did the trick much more easily. I also tried to pick up three staves/seals for a variety of sorceries/incantations. I want to be able to do the triple combo, but it’s not easy. Also, I puzzle at some of the pairings when it comes to spells/incantations. Eevry staff/seal has two. Some make sense. Like two glintstone sorceries together. On the other hand, one certain kind of seal seems to have Rejection (pushes enemies back) as one of the attacks every time. Which is frustrating because it’s not a n incantation I really use.
I have to say I find the two spells/incantations per staff/seal to be very clunky. I don’t know how to make it better in a game like this, though.
I have more to say, mainly that I do not have much time to revel in my win because there are more Nightlords to kill. If I keep playing.