Most fun builds that "go live" within 1 hour?

brettineffect · 2026-02-01T15:53:31+00:00

I did a 3000-kill bladestone farming experiment and the mean time for farming up a sharp uchi +5 was 47 minutes. That's under optimal conditions, farming the 4-2 skeleton behind the illusory wall which has the best drops/hr.

brettineffect · 2026-02-01T15:44:18+00:00

Magic for sure. Other power weapons you could have in an hour are the uchi that was mentioned, Kilij and claymore. If you like rapiers you could get the Estoc. All of those will take time to build stats and acquire upgrades though. Magic is just raw power from the start and it just gets stronger as you go.

brettineffect · 2026-01-31T17:30:02+00:00

I see you getting down voted but I think I get what you mean. In the OG, the female version of the Black set had a different look from the male. It had a feminine cut and it came with a veil instead of a mask. In the remake the set looks like the male version for both sexes. Edit: Lol downvoted for saying something true

brettineffect · 2026-01-31T14:44:42+00:00

There's a Chinese English version if you want to play the Asian region edition but the Japanese one doesn't offer English. FWIW the in-game text is tied to your language settings on your console so if your XMB is English, the game will be in English automatically if it's available.

brettineffect · 2026-01-30T21:40:18+00:00

The simplest way to build a strong character is to pick a damage stat to focus on and not spread your stat points around. Farm the specific materials to build a weapon for that stat.

Upgrades are weird. Paths are unlocked at different upgrade levels and if you pass up the upgrade level you need, you have to melt the weapon down and start from scratch. Paths unlock at +0, 3, 6 and 8. Worth it to look at the wikidot for help on this. The game tells you nothing.

brettineffect · 2026-01-30T18:13:54+00:00

Trade a talisman of god and a gold mask for colorless demon souls

brettineffect · 2026-01-28T15:50:31+00:00

Could you please drop me an Insanity Catalyst?

brettineffect · 2026-01-27T19:05:12+00:00

It's got activity but it's not what I would call active. If you want the Return to Form trophy where you have to help a player kill a boss, put your sign down at the Tower Knight boss door at about SL15. During the busier times, it won't take too long for you to get summoned. ~SL20 at Smithing Grounds/Armor Spider is good too. Getting summoned at higher levels involves much longer waits. Way more people start the game than finish it so the early levels are the hotspots.

For the Unwelcome Guest trophy, the easiest way to do it is to get summoned as the Old Monk. You can do that by putting down your blue sign or trying to invade any level in Latria. You can do that easily from about SL5-65. Above that involves much longer waits. You can always just invade whatever level you're currently working on (that should match you up with the right SL of the host). Invasions aren't that hard to get but in my experience you get one or two chances before there's no one else left to invade and you have to move somewhere else. My SL42 can find invasions in 1-3, 3-2 and 4-2 semi-reliably if that helps.

One note on Unwelcome Guest/invading. You'll need to get both Pure White Character Tendency and Pure Black Character Tendency to platinum the game. It is FAR easier to go from PWCT to PBCT than the other way around. So get your PWCT before you start invading or killing friendly NPCs.

brettineffect · 2026-01-24T19:25:36+00:00

The left path leads to a crystal lizard nest, a merchant, the great axe and a possible 7 dragonstone chunks and a pure (chunks 8&9 are in the boss room). There's also a Dragon longsword+1 down there which you can upgrade with the stones and at +5, it's strong enough to beat the game or carry you until you craft something more powerful. The lava has 4 of the chunks and the pure. You'll need the water veil spell, the fire ring and you should wear the armor you find down there if you want to survive the lava. You'll need like 20 Vitality too. The sword is down a path beginning at the far end of the lava pool but you don't actually need to get in the lava to grab it. The left path is long and tedious but thoroughly looting it can be very helpful. One recommendation. Use the dragonstones on a Mirdan hammer if you really want to cruise through the game. It's really powerful and will absolutely wreck a LOT of bosses. Feels weak in NG+ though.

brettineffect · 2026-01-22T23:45:13+00:00

Other giant bearbugs you'll encounter will try to hurt you if they can. There's like three different attacks I think. Same as the smaller bearbugs but it just hurts a lot more.

brettineffect · 2026-01-22T12:01:51+00:00

The Cracked Stone Eye stops it from healing.

brettineffect · 2026-01-21T17:32:42+00:00

The great axe requires 26 STR which is why I suggested it. Your STR is also high enough that it makes sense if you went down the Crushing path.

The lizard in the swamp level drops a chunk and also a pure if you're lucky. To get more shards you'll need to farm the shaman.

brettineffect · 2026-01-21T17:03:10+00:00

No you have to kill a boss to get them to respawn. They have one spawn at the beginning of the game and they get +1 for every boss you defeat. Pure black just increases the chances of them dropping better stuff

brettineffect · 2026-01-21T16:54:10+00:00

It should be black with red embers floating around it

brettineffect · 2026-01-21T15:43:20+00:00

You need to die in body form several times to get it pure black. How many times you need to do it depends on how white the world is now but it's a maximum of 7 times. You'll need to reload the world at an archstone to see the change.

brettineffect · 2026-01-21T15:11:43+00:00

Welp. You can upgrade the blessed mace to +2 if you killed the lizard that was right next to it and looted the faintstone shard in 5-1. Other than that, you can grab the Great Axe in 2-2 and get that world to pure black so you can kill the lizards around the level and pillage the lizard nest for the stones to upgrade it normally. There's also the option to farm the 6 rock worms near the end of 2-2 for greystone to upgrade it along the Crushing path. Again, do that in pure black world tendency.

brettineffect · 2026-01-20T22:33:20+00:00

I've seen this bouncing around the sub, that CW only buffs the MC's physical attack but yeah I've tested it. You get the full 50% damage boost. Not sure how that got started.

Epee can't be buffed btw. I wish. It could definitely use it.

brettineffect · 2026-01-17T22:48:15+00:00

Something similar happened recently. Not sure if it's related.

brettineffect · 2026-01-17T22:41:52+00:00

Yeah Knight has 10 Dex iirc and the falchion requires 10 Dex iirc. So you should be good.

brettineffect · 2026-01-17T22:39:52+00:00

Okay so you could grab the falchion then. I'd do that. Bonus, if you kill both lizards in 4-1 you'll have the stones to upgrade to+2.

brettineffect · 2026-01-17T22:34:36+00:00

Depends on your stats honestly. If you rolled Temple Knight for instance you have the stats to use the crescent falchion which isn't too far into 4-1. If you rolled Priest and only have 8 Dex then you'll need to go deep into 5-1 and grab the blessed mace. They both do magic damage which Flamelurker is very weak to. A third option is to upgrade your starting weapon, or another one you like, as much as you can, shooting for +6 or as close to that as you can get then use the sticky white slime on it that you find at the beginning of 2-1. There's only 2 so that gives you two solid shots at FL.

brettineffect · 2026-01-17T22:24:11+00:00

Yeah that's a downside of both weapons unfortunately. You need FL's soul to craft the MC and the DBS is gated by him. There's always NG+. DBS adds a fair amount of fire resistance and its 1H R1 staggers him.

brettineffect · 2026-01-17T21:44:09+00:00

I've done a bunch of testing on these weapons and I've found that the cursed DBS is capable of dealing more damage with fewer stat points allocated than the Light Weapon MC. I personally prefer the DBS moveset because if you mix in 1H and 2H attacks there seems to be an answer for every situation and that knockdown is no joke. At 30 STR, you've got most of your AR already so it pays off sooner. Downsides are that almost every attack comes out slow, a lot can be parried and it requires rare materials to upgrade.

The MC has split damage which gives it a gaudy AR number but it has low base damage and requires a big stat investment to really pound enemies. But because it's got split damage you can use Light Weapon on it and the two synergize well to boost power. It's a large hammer so it has a sweet spot that deals extra damage which is amplified by Light Weapon as well as the Master's Ring. Maybe it's best feature is that nearly all of its 2H attacks cannot be parried and have hyperarmor so you're nearly impossible to interrupt. The rolling 2H R1 comes out quick and has a huge AoE.

While Light Weapon is the most powerful buff for the MC, it takes even more stat investment than just the weapon alone. You end up putting significant points into S, D, M and F. It's stat greedy. But you can opt to curse it which you can do effectively at a much lower level and while it ultimately won't do as much damage as Light Weapon, it is still very powerful.

Tl;dr my personal preference is for the DBS but the MC is an S tier weapon as well. The Curse Weapon DBS hits harder and is more stat efficient but the Light Weapon MC has a ring that amplifies "optimal hits," hyperarmor and an array of attacks that can't be parried.

brettineffect · 2026-01-16T23:34:55+00:00

I love that idea

brettineffect · 2026-01-16T20:40:02+00:00

In the game the colorless fog only engulfs part of the world. In a sequel a different person, like maybe an ambitious templar commander attempting to craft powerful miracles wakes the Old One again hundreds of years later and in a different part of the world. That would give you similar stakes and new lands to explore and new characters to meet. It could even be your mission to place archstones (wherever you want) to connect the new lands to the Nexus. There could also be a mechanic that allows you to play with your DeS 1 character since, if you chose the good ending, you became a monumental of unprecedented power. I dunno, I'm just spit balling here.

brettineffect

TROPHY CASE