Eltosian Kadath

Maria did decide to put her life in extra danger by joining Marth's army as a combatant, entirely due to a crush on Marth... I am guessing that kind of boy crazy probably gets her into trouble at other times as well.

Funny you mention Echoes Ironmans, as I finally returned to the Echoes Ironman I started so long ago. I started it back when Mangs was marathoning ironman runs, and I figured I would do a Echoes ironman alongside his own, and I only got a bit of a ways into part three before he had lost twice and moved onto the next game, and I did the same shortly thereafter. I am tempted to jokingly describe it as Celica's gentle deathless jaunt into mordor alongside Alm desperate and bloody crawl. Fortunately I have some comments about what happened before to rely on And returning to it, things go poorly almost immediately. Although after writing this all out, it is rather long, so I think I will pop it into a spoiler box.

Fair enough. Another random question, but did you get the rusted iron ring from the return trip to the undead asylum? I know I didn't figure out how to get back there until later in the game, and some of the battles in the lowest levels of the fortress were a pain on my first run because of that...

Well done (and I kinda agree, the Iron Golem is just so ponderous that he is an easy fight). Just out of curiosity, did you free Big Hat Logan from his cell in Sen's Fortress? Its a little hidden to find him as you need to point the ball launcher in a way to break down a wall to get to him.

No, or at least not until you have the Lord Vessel, as talking to Frampt with it in your possession will make him bring you to where you place it (although you can use a homeward bone to leave before you decide to do so), but placing it is seen as a betrayal by his counter part. Unfortunately you have to get the Lord Vessel and talk to Ingward (or kill Ingward to go get the key off his corpse anytime I guess) to reach his counterpart, and Frampt likewise sees it as a betrayal if you place the Lord Vessel with his counterpart's help (and again you can homeward bone to help make an informed decision here...).

While you are passing by, you might want to peek in at the Fire Link shrine to meet someone...or perhaps something interesting.

Oof, that is rough. Hopefully you have a purge stone on hand. If not I think Oswald the Confessor sells them, but the do cost a fair bit...

If you picked the old witch ring at the start of the game (or got one elsewhere...) you could wear it to find out what she says, and I found it kinda sad, as she thinks you are her sister Quaalog when talking to her...

Congrats If you end up with a +10 Pyromancy Flame, then keep an eye out in the Blight town swamps for a new NPC... Lol, that is such a hilariously horrible way to describe that 🤣 Oof...hopefully you get back in that groove you were in with the winning run.

Another one and done, nice! Just make sure to find the bonfire hidden behind the breakable wall...and be careful not to kill the NPC like I did... So awaken the Primordial Serpents, and the Path to Anor Londo emerges... You must mean Ceaseless Discharge, and seeing as the armor you got was once from one of his sisters, you can see why he might be angry...Although you probably wont meet what she has become unless you are going for Pyromancy stuff. Despite all of the talk about how hard DS is, at its core its a game about learning from your mistakes, trying again, and doing better the next time. Its made for you to learn the game by playing, not really through coaching, hence the old get gud jokes. The important point, is that the game wants you to dust yourself off and try again, and that ends up getting lost in the memes.

Probably Scholar of the First Sin version, its better optimized for modern computers and has all of DS2's DLCs more naturally integrated into the game. They did change up item and enemy locations so its not as clear cut, I have heard SotFS is a little harder than DS2, but SotFS is the only one I have personal experience with.

Hard to say, there are places reminiscent of areas you like and hate in it, but there are some stark difference in DS2 that make it a polarizing game in the series. Kinda depends on what entrance you are using for them. There is a bonfire right near where you enter Blighttown from the Depths, and the New Londo Ruins have an entrance right next to the Fire Link shri- OH...oh wait, the fire keeper there might be dead if you released the prisoner from the bell tower. You can revive her after taking down the one that killed her, but that is a bit latter in the game...hmm... ..oops...eh, not the biggest deal in the world, and I remember accidentally killing one of the NPCs myself in DS1 (...ok and DS 3...) for very similar reasons on my first run(s). She sells items to

...Do you have a cursed weapon, or are you cursed? The ghosts down there can't be hit or blocked without one of those three options. Edit: you can buy some transient curses from the female undead merchant in the sewer section of the lower undead burg, the one that sells the moss, although they are kinda expensive at 4k a pop...

Poor Doggo... Although it sounds like you got the Covenant of Artorias early enough to reach an...interesting character after ringing the two bells. After meeting with the kingseeker, I can point you in the direction of his counterpart, but do be warned you will have to side with one of them...

So far I think the thread has covered most of them. Heroes is without any debate. Awakening is very clearly geared towards growth units, with Fredrick being the only prepromote anyone would even think about, and the Robin family snowballing that game takes center stage. Three houses is in a very similar boat, there are notable prepromotes like Catherine, but growing up the students takes center stage. Shadow Dragon is less clear than the others so far, with Wendell, Jagen, and Minerva as solid early game prepromotes (note Wolf and Sedgar are clearly growth units despite being "prepromoted"), but there are a lot of big names in that game which are growth units. Time to suggest a few that are on the fence for me, but if Shadwo Dragon makes the cut then they might as well. First Binding Blade, a lot of the biggest names of that game are growth units (I mean if Ceade is carrying Shadow Dragon into this sphere, why can't Rutger carry Binding Blade into it), and the early prepromotes fall off early, although whenever one falls off they give you a new one that can take their place. Things are also muddied by the quality of units being spread out, with plenty of good and terrible growth and prepromote units spread amongst the cast. New Mystery has an entire tier dedicated to barely usable prepromotes that come with some free silver weapons. Again the big names of that game are a bit of a mix between prepromotes and growth units, making which takes prominence unclear.

You need like 5 more to use it two handed, needs 50 for one-handing... Oof...yeah that is bad. You could spend some resources upgrading another weapon to be your divine one, one less focused on its scaling perhaps... That could work, plus blunt weapons deal good damage against skeletons, which help if you are using a club strength build.

The Dragon King Greataxe. It has no scaling, and very high strength requirement, but it has an interesting special attack, and raises fire and magic defense while equipped. ...I want to comment, but I will avoid spoilers for now. Nope, just divine weapons, or killing the necromancers that revive the ones in that area. There are other ways to deal divine damage. If you get the divine ember from the back of the Darkroot Garden (past the Moonlight Butterfly boss) it will let Andre upgrade a +5 weapon into a divine weapon. It will shift some of the weapon's damage into divine damage, and reduce its normal scaling a bit to add faith scaling for the divine damage. It takes resources that might be difficult to find, but is another option...

NICE! I get the funny feeling you aren't summoning, but one interesting thing about that fight is that this fight has the sun bro Solaire as an NPC summon to help. EDIT: Did you cutoff its tail? Fair enough. The Rite of Kindling you get from killing Pinwheel is nice on paper, but being able to kindle a bonfire to give you more than 10 estus is kinda overkill.

I will add that Atlas also leaves if you head north... I generally prefer him as an archer. Good luck pulling off the loop (and getting him into the class you want), its a lot of levels to get through with 1 range infantry. I've never pulled off a loop (and getting to a class I want) before postgame, but I usually don't focus on that either. They also get the first turn, making high move enemies very dangerous... I am kinda surprised you didn't promote them at the dungeon you are about to start.

Sure this is all speculation (and I even have some counter speculation in the spoiler block below), but Alm doesn't try to avoid this fate, even while feeling conflicted on the battle's eve. There are multiple times where Alm ponders mysteries key to this conflict, and instead of seeking out the answers to them, he presses on, despite how important even he sees they are to this conflict. Beating Desaix's double is less about grinding, and more about taking advantage of that 1 damage minimum... It makes a fair bit of sense to me, Mae was talking about the transitory thoughts she had in the moment, but by now it has passed. It shows a contrast between Boey and Mae, Mae is focused on the moment, while Boey on the long term. Smart move, as those reinforcements are real dangerous if they get the chance to attack you instead of the other way around. Another alternative answer is the banditry problem that has been left to fester in Zofia, although I find the peasantry answer most likely given Fernand's hangups with them.

Such heinous slander against the best knight...I should probably get back to my own Berwick ironman... ...Wow, you didn't even get a chapter out of Niles...rip all the capturable units 😞

The talk Celica has with Imra about how Lady Liprica was and Lima IV sounds like some clear malicious tyranny from Lima IV, and not just Desaix abusing the power Lima IV gave him. Would Rudolf hold to those convictions if Alm had the knowledge to truly challenge them? If Alm leveraged his status as prince to sway the Rigelian army away from Rudolf's suicidal plans, how would Rudolf prevent Alm from simply bypassing him? Even if Alm has to use force, he could turn his efforts towards disarming, and capturing Rudolf, rather than killing him. Its not that outlandish to transition from why he fights to that time as kids that knights tried to take her away, which probably plays a part in his attitude towards fighting. Or just ask more questions in general, he asks like two, and one of them clearly rhetorical

This looks fascinating...are you and @Saint Rubenio going to try and make an LP of this beautiful madness.... or at least update us in the thread?

I may be misinterpreting your statement, but I wanted to note that there have been steps made towards peace before. The Camp David Accords was one step, and the Oslo Accords certainly marked another. Both had their flaws, but have helped move the region towards peace. There is this misconception people have that peace in the middle east is impossible, and has been that way since time immemorial, but seeing these steps emphasize that this problem isn't set in stone, and peace is closer than people think.