Last night I felt like I didn't really know where I wanted to go. I have this broad objective of wanting to ring the second bell, but was no where near Blighttown. So I started to wander.
I began in a cave next to the black knight with a halberd looking thing. At the end of that cave was an elevator I thought was going to lead to the catacombs. I was wrong. Instead it led to the valley of the drakes (?) where I was easily able to dispatch one drake from a distance by shooting him with ~40 arrows. Unfortunately I didn't have any more arrows so I had to try to fight next drake by hand. Their lightning attacks gave me fits so that didn't work that well and I had to leave.
Next, when I exited the cave, the Black Knight had returned. He was pretty easy to kill this time by ducking in and out of the cave and stabbing him with my winged spear. So that is one more of those fuckers down. I wandered up a hill and around a chasm to find some sort of crystal monsters (which were easy to kill) and a hydra(?) in a lake that tore me up. It was launching some sort of water attack at me that seemed to do splash damage and track me. So I managed to get the fuck out of there just before dying and went up a hill to a door. I opened the door and immediately had to fight what I hope was another Black Knight. He was wielding a massive club and if he hit me I died. This happened a few times, but I was able to go get my souls back pretty easy. I tried to fight him with my spear, backing up when he went for the big swing (which was pretty easy to dodge), but I was doing very little damage. So I went with another tactic (this is the third time I tried) where I hugged his body and rotated around him. His club strike had great tracking, but I was able to completely miss some of the strikes and then get in some back stabs. Eventually I killed him and then I went up some stairs and ended up in the Undead Burg. So I guess that is a short-cut.
I wandered around the burg for a bit killing some things that felt useless. I kind of don't get out of bed for 80 souls any more. I tried to find a way down to the bottom walkways of the Undead Burg, but had no luck. Eventually I decided to head over to the catacombs and see what happened.
First of all, fuck those skeletons. I'm fine at killing the skeletons in the graveyard (although I don't like having to fight more than one because my character has very little crowd control), but in the catacombs when those fuckers don't die I ran into real problems. I was thinking that if I killed one and then ran past it I might lose it before it woke up. That didn't work, and there were more of them as I went. So eventually I was fighting 5 skeletons at the same time. Remember that I am bad at crowd fights, so this was terrible. I almost just left, hoping that there would be another way into the catacombs. But I decided to try one more time and through maybe if I just kept running it would work. So I ran . . . right into some guy holding a lamp throwing fire at me. Then the skeletons caught up and I died. I tried one more time and killed the person, hoping that the skeletons would fall apart after he died. Still no luck. I'll try going in again and maybe if I kill the lamp-holder those skeletons will at least die when I kill them. I'm beginning to think that I am not properly spec'ed to have an easy time in the catacombs. Sigh.
I haven't ventured past the entryway of the Valley of Drakes; that lightning attack looks nasty from your report. After he crushed me the first couple times, I've avoided the guy in the bottom of the watchtower, too, once I figured out he wouldn't follow me into the Darkroot Basin. It's been a while, though; maybe I should give him another go. I assume he's a one-time foe like the black knights.
ReplyDeleteLast night, I found a back way into the Basin from the area with the Forest Protectors. There's a cliff with a large soul on it, if I remember correctly, and the other way leads to a rickety bridge that overlooks the hydra. That's thing's insane and I will continue avoiding it.
So, if you don't have a divine weapon, the skeletons in the Catacombs will continue reassembling until you kill the necromancers. After that, they become like the skeletons in the cemetery that go down eventually. There's a bonfire near that first necromancer, so if you can take care of him you'll be able to make a foothold in that area. Also, I wouldn't say that a divine weapon was essential, as the necromancers don't return after resting, however having one did make the initial exploration easier.
Are you unable to access the lower part of the Undead Burg? Have you freed the sorcerer Griggs?
I have not made it to the lower part of the Undead Burg, nor have I freed a sorcerer. I freed a knight in the town of the Undead Parish, but I don't think that is what you are talking about. How do I get to the lower part of the Undead Burg?
ReplyDeleteOK, cool. I see that my previous instructions to the Depths were premature.
ReplyDeleteYou should have the Basement Key, which was found in the Undead Parish. At the opposite end of the bridge from the red drake, near where Solaire hangs out admiring gross incandescence, is a locked door. (It's directly across from where you first stepped onto the bridge coming from the fight with the Taurus Demon.) The Basement Key opens that door and you'll take a long ladder down to the lower level.
If I remember correctly, the ladder will terminate on a landing with stairs going up and down. If you take the stairs up, you'll reconnect to near the first Undead Burg bonfire. If you take the stairs down, you'll you'll start exploring the lower Burg. Watch out for wild dogs on the stairs, and ambushes by the hollow thieves.
At the far end of the lower Burg you'll connect back to the aqueduct and find the other undead merchant.