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Dark Souls 3 - Expert Tips for Surviving Lothric
Dark Souls is a challenge of a series, so we asked one of the world's best players for expert help!
Dark Souls 3 is being universally praised
© [unknown]
Dark Souls 3 is finally out, and while we’re all tired of the lazy “ha ha, isn’t it hard?” headlines, this third instalment does play some nasty meta-tricks on those who thought they knew the worlds of From Software. So we’ve put together a list of 10 tips we haven’t seen anywhere else, and you’ll definitely find something below that’ll help you through Lothric.
Hide your shame
Everyone has a base amount of damage reduction decided by their level and what stats they’ve invested in, and armour gives a percentage-based amount of damage absorption on top of that. But what you may not know is there’s actually a defence *penalty* for not equipping armour in a particular slot. For the chest, legs, helm, and arms, this is 20%, 14%, 10%, and 6%, respectively.
So even if you equip the lightest, dingiest, most unimpressive rags in your chest slot, you’re avoiding a 20% defence penalty. That’s more than worth it, and you’ll still be able to keep your weight down enough to carry your ultra greatsword or get that sub-30% equip load Indiana Jones roll.
Simple focus
While spells require the full amount of FP (mana) to cast, weapon skills don’t. With less than the full amount, your weapon skill might do less (depending on what it is) -- but it’ll still fire off, as long as you’ve got at least 1 FP in the tank. Some of the weapon skills are more like spells anyway, and there’s a way to effectively get unlimited casts.
The Simple infusion makes a weapon generate FP at a slow rate (about one every five seconds), That’s a cast every five seconds. With something like the Lothric Holy Sword, which only fires its weapon skill if you have some FP, you’ll be able to all but spam it.
You can infuse an off-hand weapon or perhaps a shield you keep on your back, if all you want is the passive FP. And there are other FP generating items such as Aldrich’s Sapphire, which restores FP for a critical hit, or the Executioner’s Greatsword, which restores FP for attacks, but a Simple infusion is perfect for using weapon skills over and over.
This is your guiding light in swamps
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Get through that sludge quicker
The dagger’s special weapon skill is a quick, Bloodborne-style hop around the back of your enemy, but that’s not what most people will use it for. The most handy application of this is when trudging through Dark Souls 3’s many swamps. To my knowledge there isn’t anything akin to the Rusted Iron Ring, so your movement through waist-high water is extremely slow and you’re limited to the Peter Griffin roll -- unless you L2 with the dagger all the way through.
Hopping through sludge will spend all of your FP, but it’ll still work after it runs out. It’ll spend stamina, too, but it’s far more efficient than rolling. Just make sure you have enough stamina to hop away if you aggro one of the building-sized, tree-wielding swamp shamans.
Be disciplined with your roll
One of the nasty tricks you’ll see in Souls games is specifically designed to punish players for spamming the roll button, but I’ve never seen it more prevalent than in Dark Souls 3. You’ll see this in quite a few boss fights, as well as smaller fights with tougher knights and minibosses.
Here’s how it works. A boss hits you with an attack large enough to stun you for a small period, but it’s only the first hit in a combo -- straight away, you can see it winding up for the second hit. You’re supposed to panic here. Spam that roll button! Get away! But that second attack is deliberately timed to track and hit you as you exit your panic roll.
What’s the solution? Usually it’s waiting about half a second. Instead of spamming the button, roll at the appropriate time for the incoming attack. It’s counterintuitive, but let go of the block button and wait a tad, then roll at the last second -- otherwise you’re taking two hits, not one.
Junglist's advice for ducking under
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Sorcery is no longer the game’s hidden easy mode
From has been trying to figure out how to truly incorporate magic into the stamina-based combat system for a while now, and it appears the pendulum may have swung the other way. Not only do some spells take a large amount of stamina, they take a large amount of mana, too.
This means you have to take away some of your Estus charges and assign them to Ashen Estus, limiting your healing ability. Plus, the amount of stats you need to invest in Attunement for more mana and spell allocations, combined with the fact that spells don’t do impressive damage until you hit high numbers of Intelligence, mean that you’re taking a lot of juice away from much-needed health and stamina. For pyros, who need both Intelligence and Faith on top of everything else, I can’t imagine a viable PvE build before NG+.
Enemies are also hardcoded to punish distance a lot more this time around. Whether you’re backing off to safely cast your spell or swig Estus, many mobs and bosses will have some kind of gap-closing attack to shut you down. Like it or not, everyone is going to get used to dodging close-quarter attacks, and sorcerers won’t see big damage numbers until much later.
Vitality is decent this time around
In previous games, very few people invested in the stat that gave you a higher equipment load, opting instead to use rings. But now that you can’t upgrade armour, Vitality has been given new life. Armour stats now scale with Vitality, so your armour does become more useful the more you up that stat. Not only will you be able to carry more weight, but the percentage-based damage reduction makes a big difference in those massive boss attacks -- something that would one-hit another player will do considerably less damage to you.
Just be wary that upgrading it becomes less effective after 40, and there are other stats (like health and stamina) that need love too. It might have use in PvP, too, seeing as invaders already suffer a damage penalty.
For the hardcore it's not all about bosses
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There are more mimics than chests
I’ve gotten in trouble for telling people this, as it seems to make them terrified of every chest they come across. But there are a few easy ways to tell if a chest is in fact a chest, or a chest that hasn’t had its Snickers bar. Firstly, look at the chain. If it starts low and loops upwards, that’s a mimic. Second, move your camera around so it intersects with the chest. If you see a tongue and some sharp teeth inside, guess what? Mimic.
When fighting mimics, they can sometimes look like they’re attacking straight forward, but the animation veers to the side. You’ll look safe, but won’t be -- so this can be solved by rolling through every attack.
The amount of mimics in the game is brutal. The first few chests you come across will be mimics, and aside from a few treasure-laden endgame areas, I do think the number of mimics is right up there with the number of normal chests. The good news is, after you defeat them, they still drop good loot!
Game Your Lift
It’s been in every Souls game, it’s been in Bloodborne, and there are plenty of example of it here, too. Often a lift in Souls games will feature an opportunity to step off the lift early into some secret area, so keep an eye out for stray platforms while you’re going up or down.
On top of that (how ‘bout that wordplay?), some lifts have two platforms: A top, and a bottom. As these two go up and down, they effectively give you access to three different areas. Whichever area was hidden by the default state of the lift probably has some goodies for you to collect, so keep testing out lifts to see if they’ll take you higher or lower than you thought.
Look out for the overhead attack
And by “Look out for”, I don’t mean it’s dangerous. When you see an enemy reaching up to swipe diagonally downwards like a boxer doing an overhand right haymaker, this is a gift from the developers. These attacks don’t need to be blocked or rolled through, both of which take stamina -- simply step under the attack.
Usually in boss fights, these attacks will be hidden inside a combo, perhaps requiring a roll or block before you step under the next swing. But after you memorise the patterns, it can be done reliably, and saves enough stamina for an extra swing or two.
Who spooks the Spooks?
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Spook is the new Master Key
There’s no Master Key to let you into various locked doors, like there was in Dark Souls 1, but the closest thing is the Spook spell -- gifted to the Assassin class right from the start. Spook not only quietens your footsteps to get past enemies or sneak up for a backstab, it completely negates fall damage up to a certain point.
Many stages of the game require a long trek downward, and simply casting Spook can get you access to an area without fighting certain enemies or needing certain keys. If you’re looking to blast through a section of the game quickly, this spell is a must, which is why the Assassin class is the go-to for many speedrunners and streamers.
