Dark Souls 1 Class Challenge

[Tryhard]

So I wanted to do a sort of challenge run of Dark Souls 1 since I haven't played it in a while (this is already a bad idea) and so this is the class challenge run from EpicNameBro. I'm a few years late. Those unfamiliar with the rules, here is an overview:

1. You may not level.
2. With the exception of rings, you may only use your starting equipment.
3. The only Blacksmiths who may Modify your equipment are Andre and Rickert. Normal, Raw, Divine, Occult, Magic, and Enchanted are ok. Fire and Lightning are NOT allowed.
4. You may not use any healing items during a boss battle. Clerics can cast heal with no restrictions.
5. You may not enter new covenants. (If you are a knight / cleric, Way of White is allowed.)
6. You may not upgrade your pyromancy flame.
7. No summons.
8. You MAY buy consumables, including resins, spells and arrows. You MAY remove equipment.

I can freely grind for souls if necessary and there are no restrictions on humanity or kindling bonfies. The only thing restricting me from getting further is my own frustration, as I can die however many times. You guys can vote on the class I'm starting as, though I'll probably weep if it's Sorcerer. I figure that I could use the Shadow Set freely if I'm a Thief and the Black Sorcerer Set if a Sorcerer, as well, on the account of looking cool. I will probably record the boss fights at the very least (and possibly any other parts) and upload them with no commentary. The rest will probably be a playlog. Anyone else willing to attempt it can also do so.

so whoever wants to see me die a lot because I'm bad at this game but I'm stubborn, hey

Edited January 3, 2015 by Tryhard

[Ein]

Red tear stone strats runs are "fun".

[peener weener]

hahaha get fucked

[Tryhard]

everyone loves deprived

you guys just want to see me in a loincloth

[Ein]

Balder leggings though

[peener weener]

everyone loves deprived

you guys just want to see me in a loincloth

what if i do

[Tryhard]

what if i do

;)

also starting gift, pendant op or what?

if i get to have the master key I could go do some stuff immediately like extra souls, go pick up the red tearstone ring (I am not sure if I will be forced to use it later or what) and prob have a +5 weapon to start

any other gift is probably useless tbh save the tiny being's ring for minimal hp gain, but you guys can pick

no armour sure sounds fun can I at least wear the Sack?

Edited January 2, 2015 by Tryhard

[Ein]

Master Key

You're gonna want the RTSR eventually. May as well get it sooner.

[Emeraldfox]

Be a knight like me, only you'd be doing a challenge run.

[Tryhard]

Be a knight like me, only you'd be doing a challenge run.

I like the knight armour, but also to my knowledge it would be one of the easier picks. The thief and sorcerer (barring great soul arrow up to four kings?) would probably be the worst picks consider they have a dagger and a bandit's knife for the entire game. The deprived is somewhere around there too.

Giving the poll until the end of 2day.

Edit: Deprived it is, with Master Key.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST, LIKE NO DEPRIVED EVER WAS

Unclothed enigma. Only armed with club and old plank shield.

The deprived starts out at Soul Level 6 with an 11 in every stat. He also starts out with no armour, meaning his defense is pitiful, and he has no poise. As such, he isn't particularly helpful for new players unless they are unsure of what they want to go into to begin with as they have their balanced stat spread. That said, most of the time it's simply more effective to be another class. The only way I'm going to get defense is through storing humanity, as far as I know.

Equipment:

[spoiler=Club]Club:

A simple wooden club. This simple bladeless strike weapon is effective against most foes, is easily handled, and can break the guard of a shield. However, a single miss makes one wide open, so timing and proximities are crucial.

A weapon of the type hammer, the lighest of the hammers at 3.0 weight. It has 250 durability, and has a required strength of 10.

It has a base damage of 87 and an A scaling in strength. To this degree, it has good damage to begin with, especially when used two handed, but the damage when upgraded isn't so significant when compared to other weapons. It has a damage of 182 at +15, and never goes beyond A strength scaling. Unfortunately, it's pretty much strictly inferior to the reinforced club, which in addition to higher damage also has bleed.

Its moveset is relatively simple but I have some experience with it, using the reinforced club in the past. It has pretty much the same attack for both the one-handed light attack (R1) and the two-handed light attack, they both don't have a combo and are solely one attack. The heavy attacks (R2) are also the same for both... are the same as the jump attack. Still, it seems to be pretty good, it also has very decent poise damage at around 54, meaning enemies generally get staggered by it. A second heavy attack is available after the R2 attacks, which is a rather slow chop that doesn't seem to be very useful at all. A second attack after a jumping attack will be another jumping attack, which is usually not necessary either. The rolling attack finally is a pretty standard swing which may come in useful. Unfortunately, most of these attacks do have a lengthened recovery animation should you miss with them. It's pretty slow in general, too. Not very good, overall.

[spoiler=Plank Shield]Plank Shield:

Makeshift shield built from wood planks. Provides minimal protection, but at a cost of moderate humiliation.

A small shield, fairly light at 1.5 weight, and it has 120 durability. It requires 7 strength in order to use. Like most small shields it has a light deflection, which means some weak attacks will cause the enemy to stagger when their attack is blocked, but most enemy attacks are unaffected. It also is of the fast parry type also with other small shields, which doesn't improved the parry window at all (6 frames is the normal parry window for anything that isn't the Buckler, Target Shield, or Parrying Dagger, which all have 8 frames), but it does has a reduced recovery window, the normal being 18 frames to recover, in this case the Plank Shield would have 14 frame recovery.

75% Physical Reduction, 40% Magic Reduction, 20% Fire Reduction, 55% Lightning Reduction.

It is tied for the highest stability for small shields among three others at 45. When fully upgraded (+15), the stability should be 56.

The hidden resistance defenses of this shield are: 65% bleed resistance, 80% poison resistance, 80% toxic resistance, 50% curse resistance. The poison and toxic resistances are actually tied for highest in the small shield category with the Effigy Shield. It's overall a pretty bad shield, though it is better than some of the other small shields.

A note first of all is that I'm not going to be stopping for story or to explain from now on, though I will play somewhat slowly. Not a speedrun. Also something to note is that I am unfamiliar now of what items are where so I may take my time in areas picking everything up. I will want to pick up rings and hopefully I won't miss the important ones. I also am programmed to pick up enemy drops even if I likely can't use them. Still, most likely I'm only gonna record bosses or particularly interesting parts anyway to be relevant, so all that mostly won't apply.

I decide to be an idiot and do something I've never done before: punch the Asylum Demon to death the first time you see him. So I did that. For around fifteen minutes. I get hit twice and honestly it's not particularly hard just very tedious, but I figured I would at least do it. I mess up a little because of the length of it, but it's fairly simple: just get behind him and keep punching. I did record it, but I wouldn't suggest watching it all. Pretty much takes slightly above 400 punches in order to take him down. You get the Demon's Great Hammer if you kill him before you get your weapon, so you'll most likely not see it until you play NG+ where you can get it at the start easily or if you choose Black Firebombs as your starting gift which can kill him immediately. Regardless, it's a weapon that isn't the club, so I'm not using it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36FPKrRThj8

I had actually already recorded a video on Taurus, but Vegas is being an asshole to me right now so all you get is PUNCH for now.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

Alright, seems to be fine now.

I get through the Asylum, I practice parrying on the remaining enemies, then I'm on my way to Firelink Shrine. I pillage Firelink for most of its items, then head down to the New Londo Ruins, where I get the Fire Keeper Soul and then get out of there. Remember, I can still heal outside of boss battles so any encounter not inside a fog boss door should be fine for me to heal on, I'll try not to for minibosses. I then take the path to grab the Red Tearstone Ring from the Valley of the Drakes, before using a homeward bone to return to Firelink. Turning human because I don't want to look like a flayed sausage anymore, thinking my online works again now but I'm playing this offline for lack of dickwraiths, I go streaking through the Undead Burg avoiding the enemies to get to the Taurus Demon, who I take out. I then go back to the Burg bonfire in case I die and go to take on the Black Knight and Havel, the latter being pretty much who I practiced parrying on before, so I'm quite familiar with his timings. Though I still get messed up on the running attack at times, but hey, not this time. I use one of the Gold Pine Resins to speed things up here, though I mess up the whole 'two-hand then riposte deal' a couple times at the start so I stop doing that. Getting absolutely spanked by a naked dude must hurt the dignity at least a little bit. I think having Havel's Ring on puts me to one "fast roll tier" higher, essentially having less recovery frames from what I understand? I think the difference it makes is minimal but the Blue Tearstone Ring is pretty much one of the worst rings in the game anyway.

Taurus Demon: 12:48

Black Knight: 14:31

Havel: 15:42

I'll probably just post videos of me killing the bosses (and possibly any interesting parts or minibosses, should I kill Petrus and the Crestfallen Warrior with the unupgraded club?) in future but at least you got to see the sweet meaty ass I have to stare at while traversing areas. Dunno why the thumbnails are so saturated.

Oh yeah, and can I pick up multiple clubs? I figure the Anor Londo Occult Club is fair game to downgrade to Divine, but I dunno if a Magic Club will be more effective then a +10 at lower levels, so I may want to try that out by picking one up from the Undead Merchant. Though I imagine it probably won't be due to split damage. I'm gonna go pick up all the items I missed in the Burg now, probably grab the residence key for Griggs because why not. Gargoyles are next.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Tryhard

[peener weener]

i don't think you should. but then again, beating the game with an unapgraded club will be shitty enough already

[Tryhard]

i don't think you should. but then again, beating the game with an unapgraded club will be shitty enough already

no dude, i'm not that insane, when I said starting equipment only I meant you can upgrade it as long as it isn't chaos, fire or lightning

I'm unsure of anyone who's beat the game with an unupgraded club but someone probably has

Edited January 5, 2015 by Tryhard

[peener weener]

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhh tru. if it's upgradeable i don't see why you should be able to pick up other clubs. you whore cheater.

[Tryhard]

s-shut up

the divine club is the only one I would consider for nito's skeletons but that's pretty much it

[Tryhard]

Went out and took out Gargoyles when I made it to the Parish after upgrading my Club to +5 using those souls, as well as the Repairbox and Weapon Smithbox. Also made the Plank Shield +5 if I'll ever need it, since I have very little use for souls outside of consumables. Speaking of which, I did pick up throwing knifes as ranged pulling weapons. Made Gargoyles pretty absurdly easy with Gold Pine Resin. Grabbed the Wolf Ring shortly after, and put that on instead of Havel's Ring. Kicked Lautrec off the cliff in Firelink because I can't be bothered with his stupid fucking invasion bullshit and I can't wear the armour anyway. I don't equip the Ring of Favor and Protection because I don't think it'll be that useful, the HP and Stamina gain are minimal and the equip load gain is useless.

After that, I went down to Lower Undead Burg where I fought Capra. Picked up Charcoal Pine Resin from the Undead Female Merchant which I'll probably be using a decent amount of. Actually died a couple times on the way because of the dogs and thiefs bleeding me out in two hits. When I actually got to Capra, I did surprisingly well. Usually I fuck up at least once, and the dogs hit me a couple times but it wasn't too bad. I disabled the HUD for this and the Gaping Dragon fight since I remembered you could do that. I grabbed the Large Ember from the depths, and went and grabbed the Large Titanite Shard from there, along with the two in Blighttown before I grinded on the leeches/slugs for more of them. Before I went down to Blighttown I made sure to grab the Rusted Iron Ring from the Northern Asylum because I hate walking through the swamp without it, got the doll while I was there but I'm not fighting the Stray Demon yet. It took a while, but I got enough shards from the leeches to get the Club to +10 this way (at the rather unremarkable value of 160 base damage, granted an A strength scaling), which I immediately used on Gaping Dragon. Since he's incredibly slow (and bad), I used the Red Tearstone Ring on the dragon and it was pretty embarassing (accidental kick ftw).

Gargoyles: 0:00

Capra Demon: 0:48

Gaping Dragon: 2:24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d98QykoKaXk

Edited January 6, 2015 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

Went and Red Tearstone Ring'd the butterfly, it only took one attack opportunity but I had to block the attacks in order to get that low in HP. He's a pansy. After that it was time to go to Blighttown and I grabbed the Firekeeper Soul on the way from the back entrance, killed Maneater Mildred for her souls and humanity while I was there, then took on Quelaag. Died on the first attempt as you can see as she combo'd me (I was almost done too, bitch) but the second time I played a very safe and somewhat lengthy and boring fight for the rest. (most of the fights against Quelaag are like that admittedly) After that, I went back to the Stray Demon and Red Tearstone'd him as well, getting damaged from the fall and then just staying behind him. I also managed to poison him via throwing knives, but it seems very underwhelming in terms of damage over time. After that, I ran up to Sen's and grabbed the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring if I need to farm, and the Steel Protection Ring which I'm getting on over the Red Tearstone Ring not against bosses, along with the Stoneplate rings I bought off the Merchant (or in a chest for the Fire one) because why not. I died a couple of times in Sen's from being an idiot. Iron Golem is hilarious. It took more time for the stone thrower at the top of Sen's Fortress. I had enough Large Titanite Shards so I go back and upgrade the Plank Shield to +10 (even though I rarely use it anyway), grab Green Blossoms from the Crestfallen Merchant, poison throwing knives, dung pies (doubt I'll use them), charcoal pine resin and whatever else because I have a bunch of souls I don't need to spend on anything else. Upgraded to the +3 Flask which I think is pretty much my entire hit points now without the Favor and Protection ring. I also saved Logan and I think the required thing to get Siegmeyer to spawn in Anor Londo. Oh yeah, and I bought the Crest of Artorias, though I'm not gonna be using it yet.

Moonlight Butterfly: 0:00

Maneater Mildred: 1:52

Quelaag: 2:45

Stray Demon: 8:15

Iron Golem: 11:09

time for the anal rodeo

Edited January 10, 2015 by Tryhard

[peener weener]

lmao @ rolling back into lava

also wow you are a lot better at this game than i am.

[Tryhard]

lmao @ rolling back into lava

also wow you are a lot better at this game than i am.

sometimes I never learn

I die in stupid ways on Quelaag quite a lot, whiffage on club not included

but we'll see when I fight ornstein and smough

Edited January 10, 2015 by Tryhard

[fengaridotdll]

It's safe to say during the AD fight, the AD was really BUTTHURT!

Edited January 11, 2015 by Mastergabe2000

[Nobody]

damn you're good at this

I really want to see the battle against the anor londo bosses.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Nobody

[fengaridotdll]

Gwyn vs naked guy with wooden club and shield in a fire area will be epic

[Tryhard]

Yeah, I'm on Ornstein & Smough now. Initial attempts, not so far. But I expected that.

at least I can actually use that shield to parry Gwyn

Edited January 11, 2015 by Tryhard

[fengaridotdll]

Yeah, I'm on Ornstein & Smough now. Initial attempts, not so far.

at least I can actually use that shield to parry Gwyn

I'm surprised the club and shield would not burn away instantly

Especially the club with it being lit on fire for fighting the Capra Demon