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Yes, that's one way to do it. Run past everyone and go see the cleric beast to get one insight and (probably) die---I doubt you have a bold hunter's mark at that point but if you do you can also do that too to keep your souls and teleport back home. Then work your way through the area systematically and properly, leveling up when you get shortcuts etc.
If the cleric beast is *really* driving you crazy, you don't need to fight it. It's an optional boss.
Yea once you have an insight you can level, so go get an insight and then get leveled a little. Theres some good armor in the sewer that you can grab too if memory serves.
There's also an Insight at the end of one of the open canal/sewer areas that you can pick up without having to die to the Cleric Beast first. It makes it easier to explore Central Yarnham and level up a few times before you tackle the Beast.
I'll try it both ways, likely. My longest run this game was a few years ago, and I didn't make it past Vicar Amelia. I'd searched the sewers and stuff, so I've been over there, and I did a bunch of stuff that was Vicar adjacent because she kept killing me, but got caught up in DESTINY, OVERWATCH, &c. I'm back after some time with DARK SOULS REMASTERED and I'd forgotten so much.
The first two bosses are the big gates. There are a couple hard fights later but they don't really gate anything so you can put them off, coop them, do whatever.
Don't forget that you can use souls to buy blood vials. It will decrease your frustrations and visits to the frankenstein guys immensely to just give in and buy some.
On topic, my spouse started her own terraria world and is completely and utterly obsessed. I coop in from time to time and we fight the bosses, get weird stuff, etc. Terraris is my favorite minecraft-alike simply due to its variety of stuff. Making pixel art is not super time consuming so they just items upon items upon items in the game so it's always surprising what you find.
Lots of back and forth between games I already have.
Skyrim - Started yet another one. I finished that first big quest, the Golden Claw, and was bored already.
Lords of Waterdeep - it's a very good digital implementation. The AI players are fair to middling if you turn them all the way up. Played humans a couple of times. Most of the humans spring for the expansions, and I'm kind of cheaping out on that.
Total War - Shogun 2 - Still like it, but for me a lot of campaigns end when my neighbor shows up with a ginormous army and breaks all my shit. It seems they made it a little tougher than the original - I could park units in trees and let the enemy break their units on them. It's not nearly as effective now.
Civ VI - I won a Science Victory as Australia, and I still have Waltzing Matilda stuck in my head. I'm turning it up to Emperor, and everybody is now insanely aggressive.
BLOODBORNE update. Still hacking away, dying pretty rarely now, usually from blunders, so feeling all right. About to take on the Blood-Starved Beast. I just found the tower shortcut back to the lamp in Old Yharnam and I gotta say, THANK GOD. It is a long way, there are poison wolves, and Djura is camping and
blowing the shit out of everything. It's nice to be able to skip all that shit. I get a Chalice after killing this thing, I have literally never done that before and pretty much don't even know what they do. Some kind of instanced dungeon? Anyway, wish me luck.
Last edit: 08 Jul 2020 12:06 by jeb. Reason: readability
Chalice dungeons are procedurally generated levels. They're nothing special, don't bother unless you *really* feel like getting that platinum later. There are a few unique enemies and bosses in them and after an agonizing number of them there's a plot interesting final boss. I'd just look it up on YouTube unless you're obsessed like I was, a couple of the chalice bosses are absolutely maddening.
Do not beat the final boss until you have done the DLC, it automatically goes to new game+ and the DLC is great great content.
I saw BLOODBORNE on sale in the store with the DLC for $15 or something (normally the game is $20, DLC is $20). So I "bought" it, but it just started downloading, so I think it must have PS+'d to me in the past.*
From what I'd read, the DLC adds a lot of oomph to the Arcane build I am using right now, so that's a boon on multiple axes. I don't really "get" gems except I see the numbers go up when I put them in my Saw Spear. Should I save them? I have stacks of tempering blood gems.
(*I also picked up DARK SOULS III Deluxe edition which is like $22, normally $85, so that's a good deal for a game I will play. )
jeb wrote: I don't really "get" gems except I see the numbers go up when I put them in my Saw Spear. Should I save them? I have stacks of tempering blood gems.
You don't need to "save" them because they can be freely swapped in and out of your weapons so feel free to experiment with different combinations.
The way BB handles gems is bullshit, IMO. The best ones are only available as rare drops from certain enemies in certain chalice dungeons. There are whole spreadsheets devoted to this nonsense and people have spent hours trying to farm certain arcane gems. That's why I didn't have any guilt about cheating and using false depth chalices to access them easily because farming gems seemed like just another obscure subsystem haphazardly bolted onto an already-obtuse game.
You can complete the game without them but if you really want one of the best gems for your weapon/build, I'd do it via the false depth chalices (available after Vicar Amelia, IIRC).
The following user(s) said Thank You: jeb, Gary Sax
Killed Vicar Amelia on my first shot at her. No Bells or anything, just went in, danced and killed her. I had 25 "bullets" for my Firesprayer +3, and this got a lot done. Nice! I've been helping folks with Gascoigne and Blood-Starved Beast. Jolly cooperation!
Not really sure what to do next, there are some woods behind the Cathedral and I got some item that will let me go to the Nightmare, whatever that is.
I broke my rule of never playing games on the PC and bought Monster Train, because ive been watching streams of it and it just looks really fun. Got my first win today with Hellborne/Awoken, and it was a total blowout. Had a relic that gave me a Sting in hand every round (0 cost spell that does 5dmg and give +1 draw next turn), and one that gave my spells an extra upgrade slot. Ended up with a 0 cost doublestack Spreading Spores (gives a unit 4 regen and 4 spikes, and adds a copy of itself to your discard pile) and two 0 cost doublestack Sharpen (gives a unit +4 attack and 8 spikes), and two beefed up Thorned Hollows (big tanks who get +2 spikes when they heal). My win condition was putting a Thorned Hollow in the front on the bottom and putting infinite spikes on him, and eventually drawing my entire deck of free spells to buff him up faster and faster. Anything that got past was murked pretty handily by a Quick Multistrike Demon Fiend (50x2 attack before the enemies attack) on floor 2. Ended the final boss with 170 spikes on the Thorned Hollow, which did pretty quick work of destroying him.
Sound like you definitely have been watching streams, heh. Spreading spores was one of those cards that I didn't see the value of at all until I saw someone abuse a powered up version as you had. At face value for 2 cost, it's a bad card that puts more bad cards in your deck, but when it's free and adds more than 2 regen per shot...
I'm up to Covenant 23 and I tend to play Umbra + random right now. I enjoy the gorge mechanic and making the champion huge. It's probably a little while until you unlock them.