okay this game is HARD

how the fuck do you beat the gaping dragon, I looked it up and people are suggesting using things you can't even get until after you beat it, or some kind of extremely upgraded weapons and like how do you get that, titanite is in short supply and the weapon I'm using needs sparkling titanite anyway and I only found two of that

@Felthry just curious as to what weapon you're using if it's using twinkling titanite? There's some weapons in DS1 that are, unfortunately, pretty garbo

@SCP1471 Astora's Straight Sword

@Felthry Ah that's a pretty alright one. Do you have the Faith stat to back it up? It's a weird weapon in that half of its actual damage is magic which most dragons are fairly resistant to (which is probably some of why gaping dragon is giving you this much trouble)

@SCP1471 I mean it has a minimum faith requirement of 14 so I leveled faith to that but other than that not any further

@Felthry yeah its possible you might just not have a great weapon for this fight. Gaping is tough.

Have you been killing the Black Knights that you've found so far? if you get ANY of their weapons your life is gonna get so much easier

@SCP1471 I tried to fight one and got completely destroyed

are the weapons guaranteed drops?

@Felthry Nah its entirely random, unfortunately, and they don't respawn. Those guys are tough too but if you're lucky enough to get a weapon from them it's way worth it.

@SCP1471 okay but are there ways to improve drop rate? I read something about humanity boosting that but that's so hard to get any significant amount of. the loading screens mention a golden serpent ring but I don't know where to find that

@Felthry Yeah, having "liquid" humanity (the number next to your health/stamina bars) can boost drop rate up to a maximum of 10 humanity. The gold serpent ring is unfortunately only found in Sen's Fortress (which is post-gaping dragon if you don't have the master key)

The best bet is to just go back to kill all the dark knights you've encountered so far and hope for the best

@SCP1471 is there any way to farm humanity by any chance

I occasionally just. get some for no apparent reason, or rarely find one in item form on a corpse, but it costs two humanity to kindle a fire and that's a lot

@Felthry Since you're down there in the Depths, the enemies with the best chance to drop humanity items are the rats. Just kill em, rest, repeat, until you got enough humanity to spare

Getting random liquid humanity is weird cuz it's a random chance from any enemy in an area where you haven't killed the boss yet, up to 5 humanity per area.

@SCP1471 what about the random times when I get humanity immediately after reviving from a death, though?

@Felthry from recovering your bloodstain? or just entirely randomly?

Oh also i forgot co-op: putting down a white summon sign and successfully helping the host kill a boss will net you a liquid humanity (and a portion of the souls the boss usually drops)

@SCP1471 like the _moment_ I revive in front of the fire, there's the soul drain animation playing and I suddenly have a humanity

also we don't do online play as a rule, our xbox isn't even connected to the internet

@Felthry that's... weird. It could just be an enemy dying out of nowhere and you getting lucky enough to snag a liquid humanity. Otherwise i have no idea

Also fair. online would make you susceptible to invasion too which blows

@SCP1471 @yaodema @ShugoWah@snouts.online okay well uh. I beat the gaping dragon with advice from all of you nice people and now I have 26390 souls and no idea what to do with it

the most I've ever had at one time previously is 5000ish

@SCP1471 @yaodema @ShugoWah@snouts.online should i buy the crystal straight sword this guy is offering? should I get a couple miracles from that priest guy at firelink shrine? should I level up? should I level up items?

@Felthry Crystal stuff is bad unless you know what you're doing. They have good stats but can't be repaired at all. once they break they're gone for good

@SCP1471 oh, that's... odd

what about this armor he has, helm of the wise/armor of the glorious/gauntlets of the vanquisher/boots of the explorer

is that any good?

@Felthry Eh, not really. What armor are you currently wearing?

@SCP1471 balder helm, hard leather armor +2, hard leather gauntlets, black leather boots +1

@SCP1471 my first attempt at the game was playing as a knight and the inability to dodge is what ultimately made me give up on that one so I'm keeping this character less encumbered as much as possible

@Felthry if you wanna stay light a full set of hard leather is good. i forget exactly *where* you get it but it's good to stick with a set and upgrade the heck out of it.

Otherwise, if you don't mind upgrading your endurance, there's an Elite Knight set in Darkroot Garden that's basically the best balanced set in the game and is p good defense for its weight

@SCP1471 so, I got that ring you were talking about--am I anywhere near being able to get this elite knight armor or should I spend my souls upgrading the armor I already have?

@SCP1471 ah never mind, I explored the darkroot garden a bit (had to look up where it was though, didn't realize you could get _past_ that lightning demon) and found it... and then even managed to get out with my souls by using homeward

@Felthry it's a good set! if you have the weight capacity with Havel's ring to wear it without fatrolling, you should have an easier time with most of the game.

@SCP1471 yeah! I just now got a balder side sword while grinding souls so I'm kind of wondering if I should try to shift focus to dexterity, since it has a higher scaling with dex than the otherwise-identical longsword

I went ahead and levelled it to +6 to almost match my +7 longsword (need another titanite) and I'm doing only slightly less damage, which makes sense as my strength is better than dex right now but only by two points

@SCP1471 also I got flash sweat from the pyromancy guy (I like the pyromancy guy, he's the only actually friendly person at firelink) which might help with the quelaag fight when i'm ready to try it again?

I also saw something about using magic weapon (the sorcery spell) against her but I need at least 10 sorcery to be able to buy it and is it worth the level to put one more point into sorcery? I have a really good catalyst, or at least I think it is, the tin banishment catalyst that I forget where I found it

@Felthry eh, honestly stick with the flash sweat skill imo. It'll help a lot more than a low-intelligence Magic Weapon.

Also i just remembered, the Balder Side Sword is famous for being good as hell. go for that and a focus on dex versus str

@SCP1471 I mean I could do both, I have two attunement slots. One for magic weapon and one for flash sweat. But I could also put homeward in the other one and have a possibility of escape in a bad situation, or something