Now I can announce that I'm a Happy owner of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition. This game is hellaaaaa hard and I hate the auto-saving system, but can't help loving it.

Someone who's cleared the Undead Parish btw?

It's great fun! What about the Undead Parish? Are you running into a lot of trouble with something in particular?

Yeah, when I defeat the Taurus demon, I run into at least 5 knights/Dragon/etc with only 2 Estus flasks in store lol. I die hard (pun intended).

jokes aside... if you have killed the Taurus demon, which is the safest way to go?

Uh.. Hellkite is hanging onto a wall in front of a fort of some kind, right? There is a wide open area, like a large bridge or something, right?

If memory serves, you're supposed to go straight ahead, crossing the area width-wise instead of turning left and going toward Hellkite. Maybe you had to go a bit towards him first and then cut across or something like that. There are stairs leading downwards, basically leading you under the bridge that the drake is torching.

Any other routes at this point involve sequence breaking using the thiefs key starting reward or being mad (or pro) and going down to the catacombs.

Shit, I should play Dark Souls again. My memory is a bit too hazy.

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follow the path and run under the dragon (minimal weight and finish with a dodge roll while staying left) to enable the shortcut and bonfire, after that, follow the only possible direction until you finally get to the smith and bonfire. from here on out upgrade your weapon, enable shortcut to firelink shrine and kill the boss on top of the same building. when you did everything in the area you have two "safe" choices. the first would be to take the path down from the smith and clear the (probably) easiest area and boss in the game (butterfly) but I would advise against that and just use the key you found in the last area and backtrack to the dragon bridge to enter the lower undead burg and kill the capra demon, gaining access to the sewers (easy area, easy boss, lots of souls and humanity due to rats, and shards due to slime thingies).
at this point or earlier ( if you are either very methodical and don't make mistakes or have a weapon that attacks fast and induces bleeding) you can use the firelink elevator (stepping from it while it moves) and make your way to the crows nest while picking up a key on the rooftops to revisit your starting area and get some items (especially a ring that you want in the swamp after blight town)
the obvious choice then would be to follow the route further down and get horribly frustrated by blight town and the swamp.
from now on it's obvious where to go and what to do if you watch the cut-scenes.

that is probably the safest route but if you have the master key, you can also use the elevator below firelink to ignore blight town and gain direct access to the swamp (but you shouldn't because this area will be what makes your souls experience, constantly begging for some bonfire while having limited sight and almost only enemies that poison you)

edit: baalz explains another option, going under the bridge, but missing out on the bonfire. as a new player who will probably die a few times you should not skip this one, because the mini-boss right after will kill you... just try to run slightly slanted, to evade the bolts fired at you. it is possible to get through that without taking damage, if you are good with micro, hit the dragon with a knife or something and then run to avoid getting roasted (he'll fly off then slam down, giving you time to run past him), but you have to watch out for the other guys on the bridge.


btw, learn to parry, there are a few black knights scattered around, learn their patterns to block them, because these and silver knights have the same attack patterns and you will see quite a few of both. parry+counter is the most efficient way of dealing with them. (a trick, if you get hit and don't die, counter normally and start drinking as soon as you succeeded, the drinking animation and the getting up animation are timed in a way that you can parry and counter the next attack in time, this doesn't work with guys who attack faster)

Last edited by Lorska at 3:14 pm, Feb 18 2015

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just wanted to say dark souls FTW and bloodborne cant come too soon

If you're still at this point, the safest route is to go down the stairs halfway along the bridge. There's a ladder directly below that which can connect you to your old bonfire, letting you start from that point from then on.

It is possible to run past the dragon and get to the other end of the bridge, but it can be tricky and you'll likely die first time attempting it, so find the ladder to the bonfire below first. Alternatively, once you've gone downstairs you can bypass the dragon using the route underneath the bridge.

One last thing: make sure you say hi to Solaire, who is in the opposite direction to the bridge when you come down from where you killed the demon. Praise the Sun!

Thank you for all your tips! Helped me a lot, especially with the whole Undead Parish thing.

Right now I'm fighting those gargoyles at the bell tower, pretty difficult if you ask me with two of them spitting fire everywhere...

More tips are always welcome, this game needs at least two people working through it....or a bad ass pro lol!

Have you summoned any help? If you find it too difficult right now, get help. If you are in human form and talked to Solaire as suggested by Bafflement, his summon sign should be available near the entrance to the Gargoyle boss area. I seem to remember having the sign to summon Knight Lautrec as well, but I don't remember the condition to summon him.

Though you might just want to keep at it, learning the cues to dodge and block and just.. win. They do have elemental weakness for lightning, so if you have any gold pine resin, you can apply that to your weapon to put some real hurt on them.

As a general hint, try to cut off the tails of all of the bosses you fight, if they happen to have a tail. You can get some cool stuff that way.

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I found nearly everything in DS/DS2 without a guide but i also finish 50-100 games a year so i may need a life. Demon´s Soul´s though had me stuck here and there and Boy was the ballance bad!
The tails tip is good as the strongest weapon (mine) in DS 1 is a Dragon´s tail too. You get it from the god dragon of a hidden faction (about 25+ hours).
Just cut his tail off after talking to him as he will not attack but that comes way later and it will only fit a very heavy build. It is so powerful (especially if you upgrade it with dragon scales) that it broke the game and the second half was pretty easy for me as I killed Smough und Ornstein on my first try. The sword can shoot a few too strong projectiles before being unusable without repair so i did the math every boss fight and started these attacks after bringing the health down to a point where a succession of those would kill them so i only needed to try for the first part of the battle. Eg. the easier part. Or you can play as a fire mage which is just cheating.
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/dragon-greatsword
Edit: Farm humanity by killing rats. Can only help. 100% shield´s are a must. Hydra fight anyone?
This is how you farm souls the best: Darkroot Garden Forest Protectors (Shield Only)
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/soul-farming Just watch tv or listen to podcasts and your build will be gloriuose within 4-6 hours who can kill EVERYTHING and invading souls.
There is a good (for that point) 100% shield + armor hidden in that area below some stairs or so and you can wear it and then some after grinding. I don´t know of a better method to beat the game without player help but a Berserker´s battle must be a lonely one.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 7:33 am, Feb 23 2015

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if you struggle with them:
you can get a 100% reduction shield until that point, I'd even advise you to farm the balder knights to get their shield because it is one of the strongest medium shields (only topped by silver knight that you can only get way later). gargoyle attacks are very predictable (if you cut of their tail) so you just need to raise the shield right before they hit you and release it soon after so that you keep your stamina up, back off if you are low on stamina.

if you gave up just go there in human form after talking to solaire and freeing lautrec from the top floor and talking to him at firelink shrine. those two can handle the gargoyles even without you interfering.

tip: upgrade your weapon as high as possible and keep it upgraded as much as possible, you can dodge/parry/block most things anyway, so killing efficiently is a priority and it is a better investment than upgrading your stats. the only shields you should ever upgrade are the following: spider shield (due to its poison immunity effect you will use it in certain areas), balder/silver knight shield (obviously the best medium shields), artoria's greatshield (duh best shield, so of course you should do that when you can wield it). armor is highly situational, I consider upgrading it a waste, because there are very good armor pieces that cannot be upgraded and are already quite strong and you will constantly change pieces due to weight and accessibility...

I think any other tips depend on your circumstances and the area you are in, happy slaughter

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I'm going to be a little vague about this, but I can go into more detail if you want. Once you've unlocked the shortcut from the chapel where the gargoyles are back to the shrine, you should thoroughly explore the area around the shrine. This can lead to you acquiring an item that will make upcoming areas far less painful.

Thank you for all the tips again!! I finally defeated the gargoyles with the help of uncle Solarie lol. Didn't explore the area around the shrine though, I'm probably gonna go back and do that.

The question now is, after ringing the first bell of awakening, where do I go? Darkroot Garden?

If by shrine you mean firelink shrine, don't go beyond the graveyard area unless you want to be murdered by undying skeletons. They only stay down if killed with a "holy" weapon of some kind.

Going by the "standard" Dark Souls route, your next stop should be the lower undead burg and the sewers. Darkroot garden might be a tad too hardcore for now, beside going for one easy boss and leaving the rest for later. Lorska mentioned the basics for your next possible steps in that feb 19 post of his.



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You can do the Garden, and there is one boss you can likely handle at this stage, but after that the area gets tougher.

The most common route is to do the Lower Undead Burg and then into the sewers. The entrance to the Lower Undead Burg is back at the dragon bridge, exactly where you were asking for directions the first time. There's a locked door that you should now have the key for. Once you get into the Lower Undead Burg, there are other shortcuts into it you can unlock from there.

The item I mentioned in my previous post comes in handy once you reach the sewers, and just serves to make some aspects of the area less frustrating.