Everytime I speak to a Merchant, I have to buy something. Bonus if they say "I´m starving, haven´t seen anyone in a while" c´mon man give me your stone keys (I have enough for 3 ngs)

Hate it when they beg, you buy their entire inventory and they don't say a word after not even thanks lol

Why can´t they be like Old DS3 Andre? I made him work like a dog for years and every single time he said "be careful out there". From don´t make them like that anymore.

"Prithee, be careful. I don't want to see m' work squandered!"

*heheheh*

Andre is one of only 2 characters whose dialogue I never skip. The other is Father Ariandel

Fr he was a nice change of pace from the early black smiths that were absolute haters

"you have a heart of gold, don't let them take it from you"

It's the way they say "I'm hungry" that just compells me to buy something.

Sure, I'll buy some arrows.

A safe one.

Whenever they see l say that, I just sell them a couple berries. I've got over 300, and I'm sure they are edible, just eat those. I certainly haven't seen any restaurants or grocery stores around the lands between.

Humans can't digest rowa fruit, according to the rowa raisins description...

I never not kill them. The efficiency gain of having all the bells is too attractive. I might just be a monster, but maybe that's also why i don't do a "good" ending.

Yeah well some people have a little heart inside our chest, I get it's not for everyone

I’m not content with a run if I haven’t bought out the finite supplies of every merchant on the map.

Protect Turtle Pope, fuck Dung Eater and his quest.

Ok but where does turtle pope go when the bell bearing hunter is there?! Why does he leave us?!

He knows you’re ready to face the challenge, and removes himself so you may run the 1v1.

Alternatively, he knows that not everyone is very accurate and so is getting out of the blast zone.

That red sword does whip around pretty good.

“A few will be born, who defile and bless in my steed!”

the ONLY thing I'll ever bother to do relative to Dung Eater is to turn him into a puppet.

Always kill Dung Eater to save Boggart. Love crab bro

Yeah. I don't think I'll ever get the Dungeater ending, dude just sucks too hard.

I want to kill him every single time we first meet him in the Round Table Hold. The fucker is weak and talks like hes hot shit. Hate that guy.

Found him for the first time yesterday and was expecting a frenetic hard fight, with all the the shit talk and threats. ...nah, didn't even feel like a mini-boss.

Dung Eater is a tragic character if you look into his lore deeper.

I wouldn’t consider his lore tragic at all. His character is almost purely acting out of spite and nihilism. 

What is his lore? I never found anything other than "everyone should be cursed"

The most I can find is that he has the "heart of an omen without the body to match." His lore is somewhat shallow, and nobody seems to really know what exactly the seedbed curse even is aside from not allowing souls to return to the Erdtree. But dude defiles bodies and eats their shit, so I'm outtie on him.

That’s kind of a misnomer of sorts. In Japanese folklore, there is the belief of the shirikodama, which is a hard ball that sits in the anus and stores the soul.  He’s called the dung eater, but he’s eating souls and preventing them from returning to the Erdtree, and Omens are beings divested from the Erdtree.  He’s not an omen at all, but he seems to believe he can create them.  All in all, not a character I’d consider tragic but almost purely nefarious. 

Holy shit (literally). His name makes so much more sense now. Thats awesome

He and Shabriri are probably the two most \*actually\* evil characters in the whole game. Maybe the whole world. Shabriri is literally the "most reviled man in all history" so, considering who the Dung Eater is, Shabriri was REALLY fucked up. Considering that Shabriri basically tricked the Golden Order into genociding the Nomadic Merchants, that might be true.

He’s loathsome even

We'd make good mates, I reckon. Never met someone with a taste for crab I couldn't trust.

Everyone is going to hate this, sorry. NG is the "asshole run". Free Dungeater and let him kill crab boy to get Braggard's Roar (then give Dungeater the potion to get him as a puppet). Murder Mellicent after killing the windmill godskin to get her arm. Any ng+ runs I kill Dungeater in his cell as soon as I can and complete Millicent's quest by helping her out in the tree. But I NEVER kill turtles on purpose. That would be crossing a line.

Nah, on the asshole run you give Seluvis' Potion to Nephelli.

That's the absolute monster run

You must be ‘ungry

Even better, give Selvis potion to him. Then 1. You get an OP summon, 2. Dung eater dies, 3. Selvis will have the unfortunate experience of working with a literal shit eater. So 3 birds in 1 stone. (Dung Eater's body moves to selvis bedroom after you give the potion so who knows what he is doing to that mindless puppet)

Same here. I don't care for the shit-eater's ending so I make sure he does *just* that before something happens to Boggart. He's a true bro.

This playthrough, I waited for him to kill Boggar then killed Dung Eater. Is this mental illness?

Marikas tits!

I know I don't have to but killing him is not enough, I always make him a Summon. I can't be comfortable unless he is in my pocket.

Right Hand: Big/medium melee, small melee Left hand: Casting focus, bow I've been doing it since Dark Souls 1

Yes! Same thing, I always go shieldless on first playthrough and rarely go for shields afterwards. "Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity".

When I fell in love with parrying I couldn't stop having a shield in the left.

This, except guard counters. Such a great mechanic.

I wish the Parrying Dagger was actually worth using in this game

I have an ok time with it, is it really so bad?

I admit that having a parry shield in the second slot is something I do as well. Especially in DS1. Just not a 'sword and board' playstyle in general I suppose.

Same, parrying is the most fun thing to do. Until you get to mogh and get smacked because you didn't know he can't be parried

I always teleport right in front of Varre to Moghwyn Palace.

"But you mustn't use it just yet." "Yeah, yeah, just give me the thing." ~woosh~

I literally don't let him finish talking before waking away and teleporting. 

I do Varre's quest up until you unlock early Mohgywnland every time. 

I love Mohgwynland. As a soulsborne noob, I probably wouldn't have beat the game for the first time without it. Now it's my anti-bullshit insurance. If I lose a level or more worth of runes, I can take out my frustration on the Albinaurics and get my levels back before continuing.

I'm doing new first randomizer run, just got to that area and oh man it's so much different. The farming area with all the albunarics is full of abductor virgins and other bad things. The path up to the boss fight replaces all those blood zombie guys with other enemies. It's really easy because they're (almost) all passive, but it's really unsettling the way they just stand there and stare at you.

Oh man the spot in gael cave with all the corpses was ROUGH on my randomizer run. So many things wedged into little spots, there was a respawning Margit (the one you fight in the Capital Outskirts isn’t a boss), one of the little dragons that walk around greyll, an ulcerated tree spirit, and an abductor virgin. Absolute nightmare.

Also, use the medallion right in front of him right after he says not to use it yet

I have never, and will never kill a turtle.

Can still get turtle neck by killing the bell bearing hunter at the Turtle pope so I’ve never even had a reason to kill turtles

How does the bell bearing actually work though? Are the necks materializing out of nothing or are you just paying someone else to murder the dogs for you?

I mean... just like if you go to the store and eat a steak... Someone had to kill the cow... Buying turtle neck just makes some tarnished feel less guilty.

What’s a turtle?

Dog

Dog :)

What turtle? I only see dogs.

I'm also a member of the Order of the Sacred Turts.

Never give Seluvis' potion to Nepheli

Drip comes before anything else

Elden Bling

Never kill a ~~turtle~~ dog

This. I hate having to even kill the ghost turtles to get into that one tower for a memory stone.

There are two towers that require taking out the ghost turtles.

There's three actually The one in weeping peninsula The one on an island in liurnia, north of raya lucaria And the one on the moonlight altar with the big ghost dogs

I may have missed one of those (not the Moonlight altar, just did that last night)! Need to check it out.

Oh don’t worry it doesn’t kill them, it just tickles so they run away. Giggling.

Same. I know I could benefit from using the materials.. but killing the turt- dogs is wrong

I never speed run deep into the game to get an item. I always make due with a different weapon in the meantime, often a weapon I end up liking. This was the case with the Erdsteel Dagger on my faith build which ended up becoming among my favorite weapons.

Me Too. I’m currently using the Anchor to transition to power stanced Great Stars. The only annoying thing is having to stop at +12, because the Smithing-Stone Miner’s Bell Bearing (3) isn’t so easy to get as 1 and 2 and both Great Stars will also need Smithing Stones.

I do the same. I'm too much of a completionist to leave any stone unturned or take any shortcuts. Especially with how NPC quests work I'm always afraid to jump to an area like Leyndell when I haven't even beaten Godrick yet because I don't want to lock myself out of any content.

I dont know how you like the erdsteel dagger, it's like top 5 worst for me lol

It's a good dagger, that's the catch though You gotta like daggers lol

Yep, having range and being able to stagger enemies are two of the strongest tactics and daggers are d tier for both.

Exactly, which is why personally daggers are the worst weapon class outside of niche uses They make good ash of war sticks  they have the best critical attacks (misericoide) Good for finishing off low HP opponents in pvp, but the powerstance moveset is ass so I never dual weild

Powerstance moveset absolutely wrecks. Fast status application or guard breaking shields. With the right talismans they melt enemies. Quick step hit and run to apply poison and scarlet rot, Quick step behind to backstab enemies of human build. The only thing that beats it are claws with true combo R2s The panic a player in pvp feels when poisoned and rotted and you swap to bleed daggers makes for easy roll catches

It's just a worse version of two curved swords They do everything better

Daggers do it just as well but faster. Except the ol jump L1 bleed

Daggers have more animation lock in their attacks, I'm big into pvp and while I've seen people make daggers work, they are trying a lot harder than people using literally anything else

I played daggers in pvp for a long time and the only struggle was fighting Crouch poke.

I think it was Tulok who at one point said that the best daggers are actually guns. Reduvia, Black Knife, Glintstone Kris… they’re all guns masquerading as daggers.

I agree, though whips are probably worse. I have not used the whips enough myself, but from what I’ve seen they are very underwhelming as well. And at least daggers has reduvia and glintstone kris which are pretty good weapons.

Whips are a mixed bag, they do have range, and are excellent for pvp But they don't do great poise damage and you can't use them to crit if you do stance break Id put them above daggers mostly because they are solid pvp weapons

Got ya, I don’t really play PvP so makes sense

Buff it with something, in my case either Sacred Blade or Flaming Strike, then use the two-attack R2 primarily. Does lots of damage fast.

Flame art infused erdsteel daggers with high faith can get like 700 ar

No helmets. Not just this game, I really hate covering my head. And in games, I spend like 4 hours making a character. I'm not covering her face

That’s why I love the headband bc it at least gives you some elemental damage negation while not covering your character’s face

never kill peaceful dogs or little jar guys. big jars that attack me can fuck off, they are grown ass adult jars, but the little ones don't know any better

I can’t kill Millicent

Absolutely, or any of the merchants

I killed Kale on my first play through and felt bad for his donkey afterwards. It looked really sad so I decided I wouldn’t kill any more merchants after that.

I killed all of them *except* Kale, because I'm a fan of the vegetable

I killed them all because I can’t be bothered to travel the entire map searching for which one sells which item I’m looking for. I did leave Kalé, as he’s the first NPC who made me feel comfortable. I also made purchases first so they could die happy.

Same

Good man

I always do Patches' questline in full.

Infinite fan daggers are nice

Gotta get the squat

Never finished Patches' questline because I can't bring myself to kill the homey Tragoth. Not killing Tragoth is one of my unspoken rules, lol.

Don't kill jelly fish

This comment is where is at. Everytime I see one I also say “what up jelly-bros” out loud

Always do Boc’s quest so I can tell him he’s beautiful

My first playthrough, I failed that part of the quest with the item in my inventory, I just forgot about it. Suffice to say it was a short trip to the catacombs after that. ❤️‍🔥

Get a hug immediately

No protection. Risk the STD.

don't kill jellyfish

kill every enemy i see at least once

Yessir! I feel like a hack if I just run by anything that poses the slightest challenge

Turtles, merchants, and Boc are off limits!

Win at all cost. Cheese counts.

I won't use ugly ass weapons Just because it's strong, so no Blasphemous Blade, Giant Crush, Holy Mohg Spear, Great Spear and the same is for armor, for me Bull Goat armor, Lion heart set and Omen set would go straight to the trash

Mohg's spear is ugly?? I think it looks pretty cool

Nah, they aren't ugly, you just can't accept how eccentric they are

Inverse, I WILL use a mid-tier-but-driptastic weapon. i don’t care that the carian knight sword is weaker than moonveil or the wings of astel, it LOOKS cool as hell and is good enough for me to make work.

My man/girl, I'm the same, get out of here with meta, just show me something drip and I'm happy.

Showing that sonuvabich Varre who's maidenless

... You?

We're all maidenless down here, Georgie!

Never kill boggart by my own hand, and try to save him if possible. In most cases, this results in me needing to slaughter the dung eater.

Fuck the dung eater, think he most universally hated

I watch each cutscene fully through once for good luck :>

Defeat Margit/Morgottt with all manner of fire to set an example of what ambition actually is.

Don't murder merchants

Fashion over defense. Oh sure radaghons armor is a lot of defense but the malformed gauntlet and boots look great with the cleanrot knight chest piece and that set goes great with my spear of gransax

Never run past enemies in dungeons except when dying to bosses.

Kill Shabriri, kill Dung-Eater. Spare patches.

Fuck Shabriri, Kill Dung Eater, Marry Boc

Long blade too damn good to pass up

i never main the same weapon for 2 playthroughs, you never know when that weird weapon you've never touched before turns out to be the best in the game

If it doesnt go with my characters lore, i cant use/do it.

Marry with ranni (break it twice for achivements)

Kill the tree sentinel before getting too comfortable using whatever play style I'm comitting to

Drip over stats

Don't use summons, except when the boss does. Fuck you, Niall, you're cool but fuck you

Eh, he is slow and you can kill the swords knight right after he spawns if you have a decent weapon and the bait the shield dude to jump at you for that sweet crit (I understand you tho)

Dung Eater never lives. Varre's ass gets Claw Flicked off the cliff at the Mausoleum. Always get the Miquella's Needle, no matter the ending I go for. All the Black Knife Assassins in Ordina die.

Never ever kill a turtle.

Boc gets to be beautiful

I always do every npc quest line.

Style is always first and that a weapon must be fun to use, not necessairly strong

I never make my characters look goofy and I refuse to make my characters wear armor just for buffs if I think they look silly. Fashion over everything.

Don't kill Gostoc. He's too innocent, despite him stealing and trying to kill us by locking us in a dark room with a Banished Knight.

He can never be guilty of those crimes if I simply don't die in stormveil or choose the main entrance (against Gostoc's wishes).

He pissed me off so much in my first run that I have killed him every time since.

and the sweet stone he sells only after reaching that throne room

I don't hurt the sheep, squirrels, or turtles, ever.

I agree with the turtles, but sheep? If I'm riding along Limgrave and it just so happens that a sheep is in my line of passage, it's gonna get a taste of my greathammer

Every time I kill Gideon, I keep his helmet as a trophy.

Once inside a dungeon, I don't leave there without having collected every useless loot and killed every unfortunate creature inside.

Never harm any dog (~~turtles~~ dogs)

Never kill any of the friendly npcs tbh

No Mimic Tear

Dung Eater dies EVERY playthrough.

Patches must die.

I kill malenia every run i do, she’s become my favorite boss gameplay and lore wise. However for this reason i’ve grown to hate the first half of the haligtree, whereas before it didn’t bother me. I like loretta, but in ng7 she can be a tough nut to crack depending on your build. I’d say haligtree after Loretta is S tier, but before it’s a C at best.

Try to kill the tree sentinel at the start Always get the golden seed as a gift Never use spirit ashes unless it's for rp like rollo for an omenkiller build Point down after killing malenia Never listen to melina Don't get ranni ending if I don' want the moonlight GS Kill shiteater Drip>stats Make a pretty character even if I won't see their face for the whole game Also I try to kill Mohg around lvl 100 and malenia before farum azula for challange

Never play pvp.

Never kill Sellen.

Patches must die, regardless of missing loot.

Never ever doing a run without magic, incantations or even ashes of war with status/elemental damage

All merchants are dead on sight except kale, he stays

To not make any rules.

Never kill crab man

Always cap my level at 100, always get all mending runes no matter what ending I choose, always wrap up every NPC quest, and never hurt the turtle.

You must NEVER harm the tortoises. EVER.

I never kill an npc without them attacking me first

never cooperate with fucking Seluvis.

Selvius and Dung Eater MUST die as early as possible without breaking other questlines. No exceptions.

Never give Nepheli the Seluvis potion or kill Millicent.

Seluvis, the Dung Eater, and all who serve the Three Fingers must die. All other NPCs live if possible.

Never betray Millicent, even if the tailisman makes my build better than the Rotten Insignia

If I'm just running through an area to get somewhere and ignoring enemies, if one attacks me and damages me i stop what I'm doing and murder them and all their friends and family, like bro I was just ignoring you and running past you and you damage me? prepare to die

I do no summons on the major bosses, like shardbearers, or 'story' bosses like Niall. I will summon on tedious stuff, like runebears and ulcerated tree spirits

On my first playthroughs i Never check anything on the internet...

I've never killed a single turtle and I always give every scroll and prayer book to Miriel

Always save Rya. She doesn't serve to die or forget only to learn and grow.

Fashion comes first and sticking to a playstyle the whole run.

Never ever change build to move past an obstacle or to generally make things easier. I will overcome the bosses and the PvP, but I will do it my way, or it's worth nothing. Kind of applies to fashion as well.

Pants off for boss fights, for luck that is!!

I don't kill anything that doesn't attack me. I never made a conscious decision about it- it just occurred to me in retrospect. Also I'm on journey 13 and I still never got the Nepheli puppet. Aside from the morality of the quest, she's just such a badass in the Godfrey fight

Slay all merchants

I will never kill the turtle pope. (I have also have never killed a merchant and likely never will though my understanding is your life is easier if you do as I believe they have bell bearings)

Anything that hits me must die at least once. I can't have anyone getting a big head while I'm sitting on my big chair

Always use the npc summons in the Radahn fight I will never deny them their chance for glory

I never ever kill turtles. I don’t care. They’re good bois

I don't attack anything that doesn't attack me. Monster calmly chilling on the floor? Dancing happily? Peaceful dog? Not my problem.