I love Dark Souls. I think that’s not going to be a shock to anyone. It’s my favorite series of games by a country mile and Dark Souls III is my favorite game, bar none. By the way, I’m happy that I can play DS III again, which I’ve been doing. I had to take several months off after the non-plat because it was ridiculously grueling* to get the covenant items and the thought of starting up a new game just did not do it for me. About a month ago, I started getting the itch again and I made a new character. Well, I say new, but I mean the exact same character I always play. Pyro starting out with the Hand Axe, switching to the Executioner’s Greatsword when I get it, then my beloved Lorian’s Greatsword near the end of the vanilla game. I use the Great Chaos Fire Orb until I can buy and use the Chaos Bed Vestiges. That plus Hidden Body and Tears of Denial are my spells. Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring, Lingering Dragoncrest Ring, Witch’s Ring, and Saint’s Ring are my base rings.
Stats-wise, I have to have 26 Strength 10 Dex to wield Lorian’s Greatsword. 20 Int and 10 Faith for the CBV. 18 Int and 18 Faith for the Crystal Chime (which I can use for both spells and miracles). I like to have 30 V and 30 End, but that’s not possible until the very end of the game given how many points I have to pump into other stats. I keep my Vit at 15 until the end game when I like to push it to 20. I have to get my Int up to 25 and my Faith at 20 so I can use a spell (Pestilent Mist) and miracle (Dorhy’s Gnawing) that take 30 Int and 25 Faith respectively. There are rings that add +5 to the important stats (individually, not all) so that’s why I need five less than the number stated.
In the past several days, I’ve been playing both Dark Souls Remastered and Dark Souls III every day, though not for very long on either one since I’m still dealing with a gamy thumb. Funny story: I went through DS III not getting any human summons and I shrugged it off, thinking it was just that I was playing at weird times or that people had moved on. I did get invaded, though, so there’s that. It was only after I had fought the Twin Princes several times with the NPC summons that I realized I had the password setting still on from when I was not-platting the game. I cracked doing the farming for vertebrae shackles and begged Ian to let me kill him over and over again while I had that covenant on, which was why we set passwords. I turned it off and voila! Human summons once again.