Dark Souls & Other Souls-Likes

This is just NG, you have NG+, and, you should be finding items called Bonfire Ascetic which increases the difficulty of enemies in the area, pushing them to NG+ or higher.

Finally beat those damn Sentinels. Had to slowly chip away at their hp 1 hit at a time. Took like 15 minutes, geez, talk about overkill.

Sublime Bone Dust. I got one, not sure if I should use it at the bonfire in Majula, or save it, or what?

Turns Flask into Flask+1

You can use it there or anywhere really, it's an upgrade for your flask.

shards upgrade the number of uses, and dust upgrades its quality

Things Betwixt
Death 1: Died to giant rat thing before witches.
Death 2: tried fighting it with my new sword :3
Death 3: ^ :x
Death 4: Failed the jumping test...
Death 5: Failed the jumping BACK test xD
Death 6: ^... x.x
Death 7: Died to Twin Ogres guarding Boat
Death 8: ^...
Death 9: Killed one, Died to the other
Death 10: Died to second Ogre
Death 11: Killed second Ogre, Went for revenge for the one at the start.
Death 12: Died to the ogre again, HP getting to be about 50%.
Death 13: Died to the ogre for the last time, but killed it afterwards.

Heide's Tower of Flame
Death 14: Died to the Giant with a big sword ;_;
Death 15: Killed the Giant with a sword, but then swiftly died to the one with the club by falling off the edge into the water.
Death 16-19: Okay, area too difficult :) picked up a human effigy to restore my HP and left.

Forest of Fallen Giants
Death 20: Died to a long swordsman but the area seems more reasonable.

Heide's Tower of Flame
Death 21: Wanted to give this place a few more tries.
Death 22: And I'm backing out again, a room with 3 >_>

Forest of Fallen Giants
Death 23: Died to another long swordsman :<
Death 24-27 Died a few times, up to falling off a tree branch 5 feet and dying <.<;
Death 28: Died trying to recover my souls ;_; *sniff* 7k souls lost~

Heide's Tower of Flame
Death 29-30: Back again, backed off a ledge, I just can't learn, or won't give up Dx
Death 31: Impatience got the best of me, again <.<
Death 32-33: Fell off a ledge... Died to Great Sword giant.. OKAY I GET IT I'LL GO BACK

Forest of Fallen Giants
Death 34-35: Exploring the first part of the fortress.
Death 36-42: Fighting The Last Giant boss
Death 43-49: Exploring the two other areas of The Forest of Fallen Gaints, found the NPC Cale, found the boss The Pursuer, and found another bonfire deeper in. I actually ended up losing the 11k souls I earned from killing the boss The Last Giant (sad), so I farmed the 11k back at this bonfire. I still have to fight the Pursuer, doing that next. Also noteworthy, I beat The Last Giant with my morning star, without any upgrades. I have now gone back to Majula and upgraded it to +4.
Death 50: First death to The Pursuer.
Death 51&52: Deaths against The Pursuer.

Heide's Tower of Flame
No deaths... xP

No-Man's Wharf
Death 53 & 54: Both were from the high bleeding inflicting monsters that have 2 arms and walk around. Both times I had 2 of them on me at once, not a good spot to be in without stairs or a hallway x.x

The Lost Bastille
Death 55-57: The Heide Knight spearman >.>;
Death 58-60: The two undeads that have a super OP AoE attack when they fall down.
Death 61: The group of 5 undead rushing me caught me off guard at the start.
Death 62-66: Fighting the Ruin Sentinels bosses... 3 of them.
Death 67: Ran off a ledge... lost 12k souls...*sigh*

Huntsman's Copse FYI, this was the beta test area
Death 68: Fell down in a pit with poison butterflies and a strong enemy, only 1k souls so left them behind
Death 69-77: Missed a jump :P I found out the correct way to get the shiny :< It's not my fault... I got it by jumping in the beta. ;_;

The Lost Bastille (Belfry Luna)
Death 78-86: bell tower guardians and a bell tower guardian invader :| Finally rang the bell D:
Death 87-102: Belfry Gargoyles fight
Death 103: Got tired of dying, switched to a physical resist 100% shield and then quickly goofed. THE PAIN IS OVER, GARGOYLES DEFEATED \o/ I think I lost 6k souls in this fight.
Death 104: Died from seven dogs and Dark Spirit "Vorgel the Sinner", jerk >:|
Death 105: Suicide run through enemies I can't stand anymore (AoE exploders) to open a cell door at the top of the tower.

No-Man's Wharf
Death 106-107: D pointed out that I missed a building, died xP

Huntsman's Copse
Death 108: Fell off a ledge... Dx

Huntsman's Copse (Undead Purgatory)
Death 109: Failed the jumping back test at the end of the rope bridge after picking up a shiny.
Death 110: Didn't manage the skeletons very well.
Death 111: Got hit by the chariot, lost 15k souls.
Death 112-113: Tried running to the boss entrance <.< got killed entering the fog door :<
Death 114: Died to...idk what to call them, they have a status effect on their polearm/staff.
Death 115: Pretty sure stuff is getting more difficult, I'm doing less damage and they are doing more.
Death 116-117: Dying to the Executioner Chariot
Death 118: Died on the way to the boss~
Death 119: Still dying at the start of the boss battle.

So I went back to the beginning and talked to that one girl who isn't the 3 sisters, and she gave me a Handmaid's Ladle. Probably not important. And the guy at that statue in Majula gave me a Ring of Steel Protection. Said I died a lot and it should help lol

The Pursuer for the cheesy win :/

Death one - Forest of Giants - The three Conquistadors surrounding the sleeping Heide Knight. I was a naked level one Deprived trying to fight them with my bare fists. I killed 2 of them.

Death two - The Conquistadors before the ladder to death one.

Death three and four - Hippo cyclops near the casket

Death five - Learning the new ladder controls trying to best those 3 Conquistadors.

Death six ~ eleven - incidents involving farming conquistadors in hopes of armor and a sword. I eventually got the full hollow infantry set. Life is kinda rough being naked and level 1.

Death twelve - Actually in The Inbetwixt - Got ganked from behind while letting my health ride low

Death thirteen - Knight of Heide sleeping under the tree upon awakening him with a punch.

Archers are terrible shots. As long as you don't stand in one spot they miss 95% of the time. You're basically playing as a Barbarian it seems. Can't wait to invade people who do the same thing. Oh and the majority of weapons heavy attack can hit two enemies and stagger them at the same time as long as you position correctly.

The Black Armor edition really does give you a decent advantage at the start of the game. Getting all those items at the start, especially the 90% physical resistance shield made for some easy early farming off the beginning mobs. Not the bare-handed derps; the fat tub of lard derps.

Dem Sentinels...

Honestly going to have to call the developers out on this, but fights in the game so far seem less mechanically driven and more power/variety of powers oriented. It's like, "I hope you have multiple avenues of attack/ranged weapons/magic/weapons with good reach/weapons with certain attack patterns, otherwise you're going to get owned hard by simple enemies." Whereas in the first game, you were fine to use just about anything, and it never felt to me like I was forced into using multiple things to progress with ease, though in certain situations difference attacks were more effective. Mainly I'm just miffed that I'm having a hard time with the limited items offered to The Deprived.

I tried a Deprived out too earlier. Horrible decision. @_@

The Executioner Chariot isn't exactly a difficult enemy.

It's HP seems rather low for exchange in high attack power and unblockable moves.

The "easy" part which I struggle with the most is actually getting to the boss.

BTW, the number of deaths in an area determines if enemies despawn or not. All my enemies on the way to the boss have now despawned, and it saddens me. Yes the boss is kicking my ***, but at least I could get a bit of souls on the way there. That really ticked me off bad, Dark Souls isn't about that at all.

Worst part is I don't know how to get my enemies to come back to fill the area back up. It's an empty wasteland as I run from the bonfire to the fog door to die to skeletons or the chariot.

A weapon upgrade won't even fix this fight, as my problem is dodging. I get my two hits off and then I'm stuck blocking and healing because I never was very good at dodging, and now it's hurting me in more ways than my pride. I just want the enemies to respawn ~.~

It's really not so bad once you find a shield, because your bare fists are actually fairly strong. It's when the game throws groups of enemies at you though. Being level 1 means there are only two weapons to use that I have found. The dagger in the tutorial(after I had already farmed a sword I could not use due its 7 STR req) and the Broken Straight Sword. Both are legitimately powerful enough to get by, and both offer some group defending swings, but both have such limited damage while pushing the enemies so far back, that after a certain amount of swings you literally have to back off, or the enemies recover and you die.

Another problem is that both of these weapons have no reach. There's this one Hollow Soldier on a ledge that is literally the height of my waist. I have to power attack lunge with the broken straight sword just to hit him, even though my swing arcs can clearly reach him, the game says that they don't.

Skeleton Lords downed in two attempts.

Save the Mage for last! Do not touch it until the other two and the minions that spawn upon their death are dead.

The only way to get the enemies back is to burn an Ascetic. Thus making them and the boss harder. :<

I got destroyed by the black phantom before the boss, so I decided to stay away for a while.

They aren't so bad if you take them out 1 by 1, but ugh, I make the worst simplest mistakes that kill me on that boss

Two-handing has a 2x STR modifier, instead of a 1.5x modifier.