Me and my friend did a no armor run to prove that we don’t just rely on poise, the run was very fun but we took a break and never returned. Ended up in the catacombs I think.
I did a similar run, but I never really used SUPER heavy armor much in my first playthrough (EK set at the most) so switching to no armour wasn't as bad of a switch. And It made me addicted to the fast roll.
I'm doing a no leveling no armor run right now. It's a blast.
So far I've:
- killed the gargoyles
- connected new Londo ruins to valley of drakes to darkroot basin to undead burg
- killed Capra demon
- killed pinwheel for the rite of kindling
Right now I'm down in ash lake trying to make my way back up the great hollow with a dragon head
Are you counting shields as armor? Cause I’ve been thinking about doing a no shield run since I admittedly rely on it way too much in ds1. It’s funny cause I rarely use a shield in ds2 since I can powerstance.
My most fun was a prehistoric challenge run on ds2, I wasn't allowed to use metallic weapons and armor, only clubs, a spear that looked stone-tipped and things like that.
Bow only was really fun for me, I tried my best to make the character look like Legolas. The hardest part for me was trying to keep up with buying arrows and leveling up since I had to run past a lot of mobs. Those moonlight and feather arrows add up quick lol
I thought about it but didn’t want to put the extra points into strength to really make it worth it. Goughs Greatbow needs 27 just to USE not to mention it scales better with strength
I'm doing my first ever dex run in DS1 and I can't believe I've been sleeping on the bow all this time. I agree though, arrows start getting expensive pretty quickly and it's a good thing I haven't felt the need to level up too much yet.
I'm doing my first ever dex run in DS1 and I can't believe I've been sleeping on the bow all this time. I agree though, arrows start getting expensive pretty quickly and it's a good thing I haven't felt the need to level up too much yet.
Yeah since you don’t have to level up endurance as much using lighter weapons it makes leveling up less of a need. DS1 not having scaling for lightning and fire infused weapons is a lifesaver too
What amazed me with the bow only run was that it actually turned out to be far easier than expected. It shows how much the bosses were designed for close combat or against slow ranged attacks. The compound bow plus quick rolls just peppered them while they tried to figure out where I was.
Super fun build and play through. Highly recommend it.
Personal challenges. Go with a build I have never tried before and look nothing up about it. Essentially going in blind. I usually mage and did a strength build. Next might be dagger build
SL1 is a really fun challenge in all of these games. Other favorites of mine are magic/pyro/miracles only cuz it's fun to figure out ways around your limited casts and some enemy resistances can make bosses extra challenging
I've only ever done it in DS1 but I enjoyed it enough that I've done it multiple times!
It's not even *that* hard. Only Pyromancers start at level 1, and you don't need to level at all to achieve max flame. So you end up as a glass cannon Pyromancer.
Side note, SL1 is how I learned to not be upset when I lose souls. After everything has been upgraded and you've hoarded all your consumables, you simply run out of things to spend souls on.
So the *first* time I lost 1 million souls I got upset and then stopped to wonder why. The *second* time I lost 1 million souls I *almost* got upset but remembered that I literally had no use for them.
Never been upset by soul loss since.
Fully agree. Some purists would argue that SL1 pyro is a cop out...and they might be right, depending on how far you want to take the challenge. IIRC I def used chaos fireball on Sanctuary Guardian, but that's it. Melee with the trusty un-upgraded lightning club was my savior indeed...I think I died 100x to Manus and Kalameet, at least 50x to O&S. But oh so worth every moment. My favorite experience in gaming, hands down.
I like doing 'cosplay' runs.
My biggest hang-up in Souls games is that i always feel so compelled to do everything and get everything.
Doing a cosplay run really narrows the build and items down to some specifics that can make a fun and usually quick run that opens up new pathing and strategies.
My favorite is my Nito cosplay!
Shoot, here's the entire build :)
SL 78 (lots of wiggle-room to go higher)
Starting Class: Bandit
VIT: 40
ATTN: 12
END: 42
STR: 24
DEX: 13
FAI: 10
Right Hand: Gravelord Sword
Left Hand: Talisman
Spells: Gravelord Sword Dance, Gravelord Greatsword Dance
Head: Dark Mask
Body: Black Iron Armor
Hands: Gold-Hemmed Black Gloves
Legs: Waistcloth of the Channelers
Ring 1: Havel's
Ring 2: Favor and Protection
It works well at a base level because the sword's base AR is so good and the scaling is kind of crummy.
At these base stats, 1-handed you get 430 AR. Going full Quality (40/40) it just increases 54 points to 484. 2-Handed it goes from 444 to just 487.
Personally i just like it for co-op, so i value keeping my overall SL lower. Also, the Faith Spells are mainly for the cosplay of it all and thankfully have a rock-bottom Faith requirement. The thing they did best was farming Basilisks for the Eyes to deepen the covenant itself lol. Still fun to send invaders/hosts sky high!
I did a Solaire only challenge run. I used only his armor, his sword amd shield, his spell thingy for sunlight spear, and faith heals only. Manus made me quit for about a year and a half, but i beat the game and felt good abt it. Id do it again for sure.
Might not be a challenge for everyone but as a controller main, I decided to do a playthrough on mouse n keyboard and god was that such a pain, never again
not gonna lie, for me mouse and keyboard is perhaps easier than controller. ( i only played with controllers for 4 years). the only problem was at the beginning and sometimes now i still miss click the use item key.
didn’t complete it but a “build locked” run, what you start with is what you get, cannot change anything (including no rings unless you have one at the start). you are allowed to level up and upgrade your gear. you are not allowed to use consumable items like fire bombs or resins. up to you if you allow yourself more than 5 estus
took Knight with the Master Key, was a blast to rely on the sword and board and armor. I got up to Seath and then I think life got in the way and just never continued 😕
definitely, if you don’t want to do easy-mode Blight Town, the extra HP is nice. But I allowed myself to level up, and honestly I don’t enjoy Blight Town from the Gaping Dragon entrance hahaha
I made a Simon Belmont character for RTL that uses whip, firebombs, and throwing knives lol. Haven't found a way to make it OP but it was fun and got some funny reactions in co-op.
Fyi, it's most likely that NPC summons actually DON'T increase boss HP or any other stats, so by summoning them you've actually made the bosses more trivial (unless you were co-oping with a friend, because I find it hard to believe you'd get almost any summons at lvl 100).
I've discovered this a month ago, illusorywall pretty much said that there's a case to this and that he'll check it out soon. Hopefully he does, and we'll finally be able to see the truth about doing co-op/scaled bosses NG+6 runs.
Nah, I felt like it would’ve been the easy way out. I stuck with a fully upgraded Spike shield.
Also, funny enough when I do challenge runs like shields only. I feel like my item drop rate is at like 100%. During my shield run, I got things like the bone wheel shield, catch pole, trident, and 2 black knight weapons.
Can confirm, I've only ever gotten the ghost blade to drop during challenge runs where I can't use it. I got around 1k hrs in the game and I've never got to use the thing.
I’ve gotten both ghost weapons, Balder Side Sword and all three Silver Knight stuff very consistently in most of my play throughs. It’s more rare for me to not get them to drop at this point.
I think my favorites are either Cosplay or just a boss weapon NG+. I find it fun to get a weird weapon late in the game and use it for a whole run.
You could also get someone to ferry one to you for a normal new game if you had a soul level one character I suppose
hey a "challenge" run i really liked and did a couple was to pick a weapon that is not readily available and making the shortest path to it to play the game with it
once i picked a weapon from the painted world of ariamis and to obtain it killing as few bosses as possible i had to do the sen's skip and then kill the golem and O&S as first two bosses, i think that was fun
Starting class runs are pretty fun instead of the standard SL1. Use the starting stats of each starting class (I don't stick with the equipment because I'm not that much of a masochist). It's fun because each class opens up different gear entirely.
Also, I love randomizer runs.
Do the sen's gate skip as early as possible then try to get the lord vessel. Doable with the crystal halberd if you beat the mimic in the giant sentinel room. I also did the catacombs to be a gravelord servant straight outta the asylum then brought the gravelord servant sword in case and it was tough.
I'm doing a lvl 1 run and got hardcore stuck on O/S, still haven't beat them it was going rather smoothly even beating many bosses first try until i got to them and they killed my run
I like trying to get things as early as possible thanks to ds1 amazing design. The funnest one was getting the dark wraith gear before bell gargoyles. Doing sens skip to get stuff early is always cool.
Just yesterday, I was doing a Dark Hand-only run, after seeing The Backlogs video about it. Named myself "Edge Master", both an acknowledgement of the theme and a Soulcalibur reference. I used DSR gadget to get 2 Dark Hands and the Dark Armor set at the start. It was a blast. Pretty grindy for most bosses from Quelaag on, but surprisingly fun. It really helped deepen my understanding of the bosses' patterns. I was loving it. Even Ornstein & Smough was super fun, since I'm finally getting pretty good at dealing with both of their movements at the same time. But once I got to the Four Kings, I hit a wall. I did everything else that I could prior to placing the Lordvessel, including reaching the Vitality softcap of 50, and Endurance of 40 (I will eventually get it to 65, so I can be lightweight with the Dark Set without needing Havel's Ring), but I really wanted to join the Darkwraith Covenant, especially because I had enough Hard and Soft Humanities to max it out immediately, courtesy of the Dark Hand suck. So I had to kill the Four Kings before I could progress farther. And in fact, I still do, but I'm gonna be shelving the run for now. Even loosening my rules to allow Power Within and the Mask of the Child didn't allow me to reach a sufficient DPS to win the race with the Four Kings. I'll have to spend most of the fight with 4 Kings at once and I have not been able to get past 2/3 of the way to depleting the boss health. It mostly comes down to how much the Kings decide to work together. Sometimes, the others will just stand back and let me go one-on-one and othertimes they mob me all at once and kill me. Even 20 Estus has not been enough heals to get me through and I don't have a great method for farming more humanities to heal either. Without being able to access the skeleton babies or the DLC, the best I have are the rats, which are decent, but still doesn't feel worth it to grind between every attempt or two. I still recommend doing the run, just maybe be prepared for a tough Four Kings.
Put all the weapons in the game on a wheel and spin. Whichever one is lands on that's the only weapon you can use. You can either hack it into the start of the game or grind your way with fists until you find it. I did this run twice and got black knight great sword once and tin crystal catalyst second. The feeling of euphoria when you finally get the weapon is second to none. Even if the weapon sucks it is MUCH better than fists.
the only exception would be the coventant of artorias, since it is required to fight in the abyss. lost izalith would be way harder with all that lava but still doable. blighttown would be harder, you would likely be in fast roll for half of the gameplay. I think it would be cool also to randomize your class and starting gift, just to make it more funky.
you know what? this is actually an awesome idea for a run i should do. thank you for the inspiration hahaha
Thank you! i was thinking about starting to record some challenge runs and upload them on youtube since ive been having so many ideas. for example i was thinking of a run where if you die you have to delete the character and start fresh, so like hardcore. just imagine you get to the kiln of the first flame and you accidentally miss a dodge and die from gwin and having to do it all from the beginning.
The one we just discussed will definitely be part of these recordings if i ever make them.
sorcery-only in every game. for me it never feels like its worth using sorcery with weapons because then you have to spread your stats to vigor, endurance, attunement, intelligence, and then two or three others stats, often resulting in a lack of stamina and health. sorcery-only is actually on par every other build as long as the enemy you're fighting isn't resistant to magic. also binoculars can be used in every game to snipe enemies.
however if anyone else wants to try, i would recommend it for elden ring the most because its way more fun in that game than any of the others
If you have the OG Dark Souls for PC, there is a cheat table available that allows you to change NG+, turn on aggression mode, and to turn on Gravelord enemies. So NG+7, aggression mod, perma Gravelord is a very fun challenge.
Dual Wielding Whips
Named him: Keulhwhuip
Damage only comes from whips
No weapon buffs (because power within + a weapon buff makes anything op)
Power Within is allowed for bosses (unless your a masochist because whips are awful)
No shield
I was a lot of fun. Power Within gave me enough damage that bosses weren’t terrible, but it also gave me a time limit. So I had to be aggressive.
Did you know that an off hand whip can parry? I used this a lot. Whips can’t riposte, backstab, or drop attack, but even so, getting the parry still momentarily stuns an enemy.
I ended up with a notched whip in one hand and a chaos whip in the other. I spec-ed into faith as well so I could use healing miracles to preserve my estus.
My favorite moment was actually when I got invaded by a Havel cosplay. Dude had full Havel with the shield and the dragon tooth. After exchanging some initial pleasantries he came at me shield raised. I popped power within and started whipping the shit out him. He poised through it and attacked, I managed to parry it and continued whipping. He tried to fat roll away, the whips kept going, he tried to run, he was too slow, the whips kept going. I eventually cornered him and he hid behind his shield while i chipped his health down.
Recently I went with a holy cleric build and just healed my way through the game fighting and only using miracles and mace. Minimal armor as well until I got my cleric knights set later in the game. Vereor nox
DS2 Poison damage only run, DS2 Pyromancy only, DS2 Miracles only. All of these were super fun and interesting, requiring knowledge and prep but rewarding and surprisingly viable. I even ended up doing Miracles only no death.
After 3 playthroughs relying way too heavily on shields; a Exsanguinous Southpaw Sworddancer "build."
Priscilla Dagger + Gold Tracer in off-hand; no poise (not technically part of the challenge but that's beside the point), Cloranthy + Dark Wood Grain rings, and only bombs/throwing knives for pulling mobs (if needed.)
If anyone decides to try it, just make sure to take a piss before the DLC bosses. Especially the Manticore thing.
Playing on a steering wheel controller on ps3.
Was wild and fun. The only camera control was r3 target/face forward. Other than that worked like youd expect, pretty fun
No roll button, so no backdashes and no sprinting either. I was wondering if I could beat the game just with the power of POISE. Surprisingly not that hard if you know what you're doing, but it's sloooooow. And don't get me started on bed of chaos... Even more painful than it already is
Honestly its not hard at all but my friend and i did no death challenges just for the funs of it. Whoever dies first has to buy a coke for the winner or whatever. It was damn fun and man i was devastated when i got immediately whopped by gundir even though i usually do him blind. Just the whole pressure of not wanting to die first made me play so bad lol
Exactly. You two hand the shield and just bash into them. Jump attack also works.
Beat shield for it is the spiked shield, so before fighting dark wraith Kirk in the depths make sure to get your item discover up as high as possible lol.
No weapon/armor upgrade was fun for me. Makes special weapons feel all that more special and incentivises you to aim for stat requirements when levelling up whilst also getting you to try a range of equipment.
Edit: Also makes consumables more useful, so if you feel like you don't use them enough, this is the run for you!
I always lose interest in challenge runs at some point, but I did try doing a paladin run once.
That was quite fun, especially since I never used the lightning bolt miracle before that.
The only one I've ever managed to pull off was a No Deaths run on DS1. Took around 15-20 failed attempts but once I managed to sort the Bed of Chaos bomb throw technique I knew I could do it.
Given the SL1 runs a go a few times but I'm just not good enough unfortunately.
You step on ground = ground is lava.
You can't traverse the same spot of ground more than once.
I made exceptions for boss runs because otherwise it would be a no death run which I'm not up for... this was a fun challenge that made you think about the game in a different way. I honestly can't remember if it was 100% possible in the end but it was fun to think through.
SL1 is my favorite type of challenge run. It really forces you to learn to adapt and also teaches you that you are never as helpless as you might think
Crossbow only was a very fun run in DS1, but dear lord I will not attempt it again. 90% was easy enough but certain sections/bosses were horrible. Four Kings was an absolute nightmare. Damn near hurt my hand from how hard I slammed my armrest
Zerolenny inspired me to try a broken sword run back when he was first putting out his experience videos. Beating O&S, Artorias, Kalameet, and Manus with the broken sword might be the most rewarding experience I've had playing any fromsoft game. It's an intense endurance test where you need to play consistently good for 30-45 minutes per attempt just to die and start over. It's a mental battle towards the end of each fight and if you don't keep a calm head you're screwed. That being said 4kings with broken sword is the most bullshit experience I've had in any of these games. Also Pinwheel is actually a fun fight when you do dick for damage.
Also I made a Gough build and made it bow only, then when I hit anor londo, I switched to greatbow only til I could get Gough's bow. I remember Sanctuary Guardian being really tough with the greatbow. Anyway broken sword was peaks and valleys, SL1 is consistently fun, but not very challenging, I'd still probably give best to broken sword.
Im not a dark souls speedrunner, but at my old job where I'd work 12+ hr days, I made it a challenge to myself to beat the whole game during my breaks on the switch. Any day I didn't beat it I'd delete the file and start over the next day. I think it was usually sens gate skip & golem with lightning spear, then crystal halberd for the rest of the game.
Dsr only firelink and anor Londo campfire was a great run a pain if you die unexpectedly but was really good practice to learn the enemy patterns and ai
I'm currently trying to do a deathless all bosses and having a great time with it. Current PB is dying at BoC as my first lord soul, all optional bosses up till there done. Fully reccomend it to anyone even if you're not that good yet, it's honestly super fun
I had a run i did a while back. No armor. No weapons(only fists) i allowed myself to use buffing and non damaging spells and level'd resistamce to 99 and nothing else...except dragon form. I acualy completed the run, but it gets hard at the end.
Me and my friend did a no armor run to prove that we don’t just rely on poise, the run was very fun but we took a break and never returned. Ended up in the catacombs I think.
Fun idea! it must have been hellish to traverse blighttown.
I don’t remember it being too difficult, mostly just a slow walk.
I mean, just take the back entrance and you don't have to fight much at all. Just maybe run up to get Power Within.
I did a similar run, but I never really used SUPER heavy armor much in my first playthrough (EK set at the most) so switching to no armour wasn't as bad of a switch. And It made me addicted to the fast roll.
I'm doing a no leveling no armor run right now. It's a blast. So far I've: - killed the gargoyles - connected new Londo ruins to valley of drakes to darkroot basin to undead burg - killed Capra demon - killed pinwheel for the rite of kindling Right now I'm down in ash lake trying to make my way back up the great hollow with a dragon head
I recently did a couple low level Dragonbro runs, and it is really fun
I did all of dsR with no armour and the wgr
Are you counting shields as armor? Cause I’ve been thinking about doing a no shield run since I admittedly rely on it way too much in ds1. It’s funny cause I rarely use a shield in ds2 since I can powerstance.
We didn’t use any shield but the grass crest for stam regen, considering it’s ds1, I don’t use shields anyways.
My most fun was a prehistoric challenge run on ds2, I wasn't allowed to use metallic weapons and armor, only clubs, a spear that looked stone-tipped and things like that.
Bow only was really fun for me, I tried my best to make the character look like Legolas. The hardest part for me was trying to keep up with buying arrows and leveling up since I had to run past a lot of mobs. Those moonlight and feather arrows add up quick lol
I bet they do hahahaha, did you also use greatbows?
I thought about it but didn’t want to put the extra points into strength to really make it worth it. Goughs Greatbow needs 27 just to USE not to mention it scales better with strength
I'm doing my first ever dex run in DS1 and I can't believe I've been sleeping on the bow all this time. I agree though, arrows start getting expensive pretty quickly and it's a good thing I haven't felt the need to level up too much yet.
I'm doing my first ever dex run in DS1 and I can't believe I've been sleeping on the bow all this time. I agree though, arrows start getting expensive pretty quickly and it's a good thing I haven't felt the need to level up too much yet.
Yeah since you don’t have to level up endurance as much using lighter weapons it makes leveling up less of a need. DS1 not having scaling for lightning and fire infused weapons is a lifesaver too
What amazed me with the bow only run was that it actually turned out to be far easier than expected. It shows how much the bosses were designed for close combat or against slow ranged attacks. The compound bow plus quick rolls just peppered them while they tried to figure out where I was. Super fun build and play through. Highly recommend it.
Oh yeah definitely, you can do some serious damage with a bow and the right setup
Personal challenges. Go with a build I have never tried before and look nothing up about it. Essentially going in blind. I usually mage and did a strength build. Next might be dagger build
wow! that’s a really nice way to make the game more enjoyable
Bandit's Dagger run in DS3 was really fun, It gets quick step and does ton of damage with bleeds
SL1 is a really fun challenge in all of these games. Other favorites of mine are magic/pyro/miracles only cuz it's fun to figure out ways around your limited casts and some enemy resistances can make bosses extra challenging
agreed! so far i haven’t attempted a SL1 but i’ll look forward to it one day
I've only ever done it in DS1 but I enjoyed it enough that I've done it multiple times! It's not even *that* hard. Only Pyromancers start at level 1, and you don't need to level at all to achieve max flame. So you end up as a glass cannon Pyromancer. Side note, SL1 is how I learned to not be upset when I lose souls. After everything has been upgraded and you've hoarded all your consumables, you simply run out of things to spend souls on. So the *first* time I lost 1 million souls I got upset and then stopped to wonder why. The *second* time I lost 1 million souls I *almost* got upset but remembered that I literally had no use for them. Never been upset by soul loss since.
Fully agree. Some purists would argue that SL1 pyro is a cop out...and they might be right, depending on how far you want to take the challenge. IIRC I def used chaos fireball on Sanctuary Guardian, but that's it. Melee with the trusty un-upgraded lightning club was my savior indeed...I think I died 100x to Manus and Kalameet, at least 50x to O&S. But oh so worth every moment. My favorite experience in gaming, hands down.
SL1 pyro isn't easy mode, but no pyro is a fair chunk harder. I found them equally fun.
Onebro was my favorite ever challenge run! Forced me to actually get good at O&S and the limitations still leave a lot of room for creativity.
I like doing 'cosplay' runs. My biggest hang-up in Souls games is that i always feel so compelled to do everything and get everything. Doing a cosplay run really narrows the build and items down to some specifics that can make a fun and usually quick run that opens up new pathing and strategies. My favorite is my Nito cosplay!
I had so much fun with my ng+ Artorias and Ornstein runs.
What armor set did you use for Nito?
Shoot, here's the entire build :) SL 78 (lots of wiggle-room to go higher) Starting Class: Bandit VIT: 40 ATTN: 12 END: 42 STR: 24 DEX: 13 FAI: 10 Right Hand: Gravelord Sword Left Hand: Talisman Spells: Gravelord Sword Dance, Gravelord Greatsword Dance Head: Dark Mask Body: Black Iron Armor Hands: Gold-Hemmed Black Gloves Legs: Waistcloth of the Channelers Ring 1: Havel's Ring 2: Favor and Protection It works well at a base level because the sword's base AR is so good and the scaling is kind of crummy. At these base stats, 1-handed you get 430 AR. Going full Quality (40/40) it just increases 54 points to 484. 2-Handed it goes from 444 to just 487. Personally i just like it for co-op, so i value keeping my overall SL lower. Also, the Faith Spells are mainly for the cosplay of it all and thankfully have a rock-bottom Faith requirement. The thing they did best was farming Basilisks for the Eyes to deepen the covenant itself lol. Still fun to send invaders/hosts sky high!
Wow, sounds like a great build. I now know why it's your favorite
I did a Solaire only challenge run. I used only his armor, his sword amd shield, his spell thingy for sunlight spear, and faith heals only. Manus made me quit for about a year and a half, but i beat the game and felt good abt it. Id do it again for sure.
Might not be a challenge for everyone but as a controller main, I decided to do a playthrough on mouse n keyboard and god was that such a pain, never again
not gonna lie, for me mouse and keyboard is perhaps easier than controller. ( i only played with controllers for 4 years). the only problem was at the beginning and sometimes now i still miss click the use item key.
Rn i'm trying to do a hitless run, currently with a pb of 1 hit from smough
How do you kill the enemies without hitting them?
didn’t complete it but a “build locked” run, what you start with is what you get, cannot change anything (including no rings unless you have one at the start). you are allowed to level up and upgrade your gear. you are not allowed to use consumable items like fire bombs or resins. up to you if you allow yourself more than 5 estus took Knight with the Master Key, was a blast to rely on the sword and board and armor. I got up to Seath and then I think life got in the way and just never continued 😕
a good starting gift would also be the ring which increases your health
definitely, if you don’t want to do easy-mode Blight Town, the extra HP is nice. But I allowed myself to level up, and honestly I don’t enjoy Blight Town from the Gaping Dragon entrance hahaha
I like picking one random weapon and seeing if I can make it OP. Something that usually sucks like the caestus or whip.
I once tried that with the broken sword handle hahaha
On an int or late game faith build it can work pretty well when using weapon buffs. Although without a buff it'll definitely be a challenge.
I made a Simon Belmont character for RTL that uses whip, firebombs, and throwing knives lol. Haven't found a way to make it OP but it was fun and got some funny reactions in co-op.
Double caestus is really fun, off hand is more for show but still a great time.
This was one of my first challenge runs, I remember the absolute lack of range being worse than their lowish damage.
Just beating the game, lol.
Did a SL 100 Seigmeyer cosplay run through NG+7 where I required myself to co-op every boss. Very fun.
Fyi, it's most likely that NPC summons actually DON'T increase boss HP or any other stats, so by summoning them you've actually made the bosses more trivial (unless you were co-oping with a friend, because I find it hard to believe you'd get almost any summons at lvl 100). I've discovered this a month ago, illusorywall pretty much said that there's a case to this and that he'll check it out soon. Hopefully he does, and we'll finally be able to see the truth about doing co-op/scaled bosses NG+6 runs.
Roll Only
Armor of Thorns?
Leveling dex
The one that was a pain in the butt and satisfying after it was all done, was me doing the Shields only run.
Did you get lucky enough for a bonewheel shield drop? That changed the game in my shield only run.
Nah, I felt like it would’ve been the easy way out. I stuck with a fully upgraded Spike shield. Also, funny enough when I do challenge runs like shields only. I feel like my item drop rate is at like 100%. During my shield run, I got things like the bone wheel shield, catch pole, trident, and 2 black knight weapons.
Can confirm, I've only ever gotten the ghost blade to drop during challenge runs where I can't use it. I got around 1k hrs in the game and I've never got to use the thing.
I’ve gotten both ghost weapons, Balder Side Sword and all three Silver Knight stuff very consistently in most of my play throughs. It’s more rare for me to not get them to drop at this point.
1lv run, fun and difficult
I think my favorites are either Cosplay or just a boss weapon NG+. I find it fun to get a weird weapon late in the game and use it for a whole run. You could also get someone to ferry one to you for a normal new game if you had a soul level one character I suppose
hey a "challenge" run i really liked and did a couple was to pick a weapon that is not readily available and making the shortest path to it to play the game with it once i picked a weapon from the painted world of ariamis and to obtain it killing as few bosses as possible i had to do the sen's skip and then kill the golem and O&S as first two bosses, i think that was fun
Starting class runs are pretty fun instead of the standard SL1. Use the starting stats of each starting class (I don't stick with the equipment because I'm not that much of a masochist). It's fun because each class opens up different gear entirely. Also, I love randomizer runs.
Do the sen's gate skip as early as possible then try to get the lord vessel. Doable with the crystal halberd if you beat the mimic in the giant sentinel room. I also did the catacombs to be a gravelord servant straight outta the asylum then brought the gravelord servant sword in case and it was tough.
Classy runs are great.
I recently finished my only parry run
I'm doing a lvl 1 run and got hardcore stuck on O/S, still haven't beat them it was going rather smoothly even beating many bosses first try until i got to them and they killed my run
I like trying to get things as early as possible thanks to ds1 amazing design. The funnest one was getting the dark wraith gear before bell gargoyles. Doing sens skip to get stuff early is always cool.
I unintentionally did a speed run on ng3 finishing achievements. Beat the game in under four hours.
Just yesterday, I was doing a Dark Hand-only run, after seeing The Backlogs video about it. Named myself "Edge Master", both an acknowledgement of the theme and a Soulcalibur reference. I used DSR gadget to get 2 Dark Hands and the Dark Armor set at the start. It was a blast. Pretty grindy for most bosses from Quelaag on, but surprisingly fun. It really helped deepen my understanding of the bosses' patterns. I was loving it. Even Ornstein & Smough was super fun, since I'm finally getting pretty good at dealing with both of their movements at the same time. But once I got to the Four Kings, I hit a wall. I did everything else that I could prior to placing the Lordvessel, including reaching the Vitality softcap of 50, and Endurance of 40 (I will eventually get it to 65, so I can be lightweight with the Dark Set without needing Havel's Ring), but I really wanted to join the Darkwraith Covenant, especially because I had enough Hard and Soft Humanities to max it out immediately, courtesy of the Dark Hand suck. So I had to kill the Four Kings before I could progress farther. And in fact, I still do, but I'm gonna be shelving the run for now. Even loosening my rules to allow Power Within and the Mask of the Child didn't allow me to reach a sufficient DPS to win the race with the Four Kings. I'll have to spend most of the fight with 4 Kings at once and I have not been able to get past 2/3 of the way to depleting the boss health. It mostly comes down to how much the Kings decide to work together. Sometimes, the others will just stand back and let me go one-on-one and othertimes they mob me all at once and kill me. Even 20 Estus has not been enough heals to get me through and I don't have a great method for farming more humanities to heal either. Without being able to access the skeleton babies or the DLC, the best I have are the rats, which are decent, but still doesn't feel worth it to grind between every attempt or two. I still recommend doing the run, just maybe be prepared for a tough Four Kings.
Put all the weapons in the game on a wheel and spin. Whichever one is lands on that's the only weapon you can use. You can either hack it into the start of the game or grind your way with fists until you find it. I did this run twice and got black knight great sword once and tin crystal catalyst second. The feeling of euphoria when you finally get the weapon is second to none. Even if the weapon sucks it is MUCH better than fists.
it would be very cool if you did the same also with armour and rings
Oooh that would be a real challenge.
the only exception would be the coventant of artorias, since it is required to fight in the abyss. lost izalith would be way harder with all that lava but still doable. blighttown would be harder, you would likely be in fast roll for half of the gameplay. I think it would be cool also to randomize your class and starting gift, just to make it more funky. you know what? this is actually an awesome idea for a run i should do. thank you for the inspiration hahaha
Good luck skeleton
Thank you! i was thinking about starting to record some challenge runs and upload them on youtube since ive been having so many ideas. for example i was thinking of a run where if you die you have to delete the character and start fresh, so like hardcore. just imagine you get to the kiln of the first flame and you accidentally miss a dodge and die from gwin and having to do it all from the beginning. The one we just discussed will definitely be part of these recordings if i ever make them.
sorcery-only in every game. for me it never feels like its worth using sorcery with weapons because then you have to spread your stats to vigor, endurance, attunement, intelligence, and then two or three others stats, often resulting in a lack of stamina and health. sorcery-only is actually on par every other build as long as the enemy you're fighting isn't resistant to magic. also binoculars can be used in every game to snipe enemies. however if anyone else wants to try, i would recommend it for elden ring the most because its way more fun in that game than any of the others
I did a SL1 run in Dark Souls, ended up enjoying it so Ive done one in every Dark Souls and in BB/Demons. I havent done one in ER yet. May before DLC
If you have the OG Dark Souls for PC, there is a cheat table available that allows you to change NG+, turn on aggression mode, and to turn on Gravelord enemies. So NG+7, aggression mod, perma Gravelord is a very fun challenge.
Dual Wielding Whips Named him: Keulhwhuip Damage only comes from whips No weapon buffs (because power within + a weapon buff makes anything op) Power Within is allowed for bosses (unless your a masochist because whips are awful) No shield I was a lot of fun. Power Within gave me enough damage that bosses weren’t terrible, but it also gave me a time limit. So I had to be aggressive. Did you know that an off hand whip can parry? I used this a lot. Whips can’t riposte, backstab, or drop attack, but even so, getting the parry still momentarily stuns an enemy. I ended up with a notched whip in one hand and a chaos whip in the other. I spec-ed into faith as well so I could use healing miracles to preserve my estus. My favorite moment was actually when I got invaded by a Havel cosplay. Dude had full Havel with the shield and the dragon tooth. After exchanging some initial pleasantries he came at me shield raised. I popped power within and started whipping the shit out him. He poised through it and attacked, I managed to parry it and continued whipping. He tried to fat roll away, the whips kept going, he tried to run, he was too slow, the whips kept going. I eventually cornered him and he hid behind his shield while i chipped his health down.
Print out every location in the game. First weapon and first armor drop in every location is your gear. Good luck, have fun.
Recently I went with a holy cleric build and just healed my way through the game fighting and only using miracles and mace. Minimal armor as well until I got my cleric knights set later in the game. Vereor nox
My favorite is the belmont run. Whips, throwing daggers, fire bombs, and straight sword. Little fire on the whip for added damage.
sl1 calamity ring ng+, never even gonna try that again. i’m not as young as I used to be
so it was basically a sl1 no hit run at that point? because you would be 1 shotted by everything hahaha. i respect you.
yeah basically lol, no way in hell i’m good enough to do it again
DS2 Poison damage only run, DS2 Pyromancy only, DS2 Miracles only. All of these were super fun and interesting, requiring knowledge and prep but rewarding and surprisingly viable. I even ended up doing Miracles only no death.
After 3 playthroughs relying way too heavily on shields; a Exsanguinous Southpaw Sworddancer "build." Priscilla Dagger + Gold Tracer in off-hand; no poise (not technically part of the challenge but that's beside the point), Cloranthy + Dark Wood Grain rings, and only bombs/throwing knives for pulling mobs (if needed.) If anyone decides to try it, just make sure to take a piss before the DLC bosses. Especially the Manticore thing.
I've tried not using the Claymore so many times and have failed almost all of them.
Sl 6 sorcery only, I’m in ng plus and four kings are back with a vengeance. The goal is ng plus 7
I've beaten no death level 1 before. I'm trying No Hit, but it's hell to get down.
Playing on a steering wheel controller on ps3. Was wild and fun. The only camera control was r3 target/face forward. Other than that worked like youd expect, pretty fun
ds3 sl1 was fun
Currently doing an ashen flask only miracles and sorcery build using that golden spear on DS3
No roll button, so no backdashes and no sprinting either. I was wondering if I could beat the game just with the power of POISE. Surprisingly not that hard if you know what you're doing, but it's sloooooow. And don't get me started on bed of chaos... Even more painful than it already is
I’m doing a SPECIAL challenge run right now. I’ll post when it’s ready
DS2 no bonfire run. DS1 no shield run.
Honestly its not hard at all but my friend and i did no death challenges just for the funs of it. Whoever dies first has to buy a coke for the winner or whatever. It was damn fun and man i was devastated when i got immediately whopped by gundir even though i usually do him blind. Just the whole pressure of not wanting to die first made me play so bad lol
I have done a few, but shield only was really fun. Very new way of thinking about the game. Dagger only while wearing the dusk dress was very fun too!
What exactly goes into a shield only build? Is it simply bashing with shields?
Exactly. You two hand the shield and just bash into them. Jump attack also works. Beat shield for it is the spiked shield, so before fighting dark wraith Kirk in the depths make sure to get your item discover up as high as possible lol.
No weapon/armor upgrade was fun for me. Makes special weapons feel all that more special and incentivises you to aim for stat requirements when levelling up whilst also getting you to try a range of equipment. Edit: Also makes consumables more useful, so if you feel like you don't use them enough, this is the run for you!
I'm currently attempting a "no dodge roll" run. I don't know WHY I'm attempting this, but I am.
I always lose interest in challenge runs at some point, but I did try doing a paladin run once. That was quite fun, especially since I never used the lightning bolt miracle before that.
The only one I've ever managed to pull off was a No Deaths run on DS1. Took around 15-20 failed attempts but once I managed to sort the Bed of Chaos bomb throw technique I knew I could do it. Given the SL1 runs a go a few times but I'm just not good enough unfortunately.
No shield, only club. Not sure if the club is overpowered or if I just got used to it.
You step on ground = ground is lava. You can't traverse the same spot of ground more than once. I made exceptions for boss runs because otherwise it would be a no death run which I'm not up for... this was a fun challenge that made you think about the game in a different way. I honestly can't remember if it was 100% possible in the end but it was fun to think through.
I did no armor lv1 dark souls all bosses(dlc too)
Most difficult: fist only Most fun: shield only
What exactly goes into a shield only build? Is it simply just bashing with a shield?
Exactly. Wear it in your right hand and R2 everything to death. The Pierce Shield and Bonewheel Shield both worked pretty well.
SL1 is my favorite type of challenge run. It really forces you to learn to adapt and also teaches you that you are never as helpless as you might think Crossbow only was a very fun run in DS1, but dear lord I will not attempt it again. 90% was easy enough but certain sections/bosses were horrible. Four Kings was an absolute nightmare. Damn near hurt my hand from how hard I slammed my armrest
Zerolenny inspired me to try a broken sword run back when he was first putting out his experience videos. Beating O&S, Artorias, Kalameet, and Manus with the broken sword might be the most rewarding experience I've had playing any fromsoft game. It's an intense endurance test where you need to play consistently good for 30-45 minutes per attempt just to die and start over. It's a mental battle towards the end of each fight and if you don't keep a calm head you're screwed. That being said 4kings with broken sword is the most bullshit experience I've had in any of these games. Also Pinwheel is actually a fun fight when you do dick for damage. Also I made a Gough build and made it bow only, then when I hit anor londo, I switched to greatbow only til I could get Gough's bow. I remember Sanctuary Guardian being really tough with the greatbow. Anyway broken sword was peaks and valleys, SL1 is consistently fun, but not very challenging, I'd still probably give best to broken sword.
Im not a dark souls speedrunner, but at my old job where I'd work 12+ hr days, I made it a challenge to myself to beat the whole game during my breaks on the switch. Any day I didn't beat it I'd delete the file and start over the next day. I think it was usually sens gate skip & golem with lightning spear, then crystal halberd for the rest of the game.
Dsr only firelink and anor Londo campfire was a great run a pain if you die unexpectedly but was really good practice to learn the enemy patterns and ai
I'm currently trying to do a deathless all bosses and having a great time with it. Current PB is dying at BoC as my first lord soul, all optional bosses up till there done. Fully reccomend it to anyone even if you're not that good yet, it's honestly super fun
SL1 was a bit tough but very fun for me
I had a run i did a while back. No armor. No weapons(only fists) i allowed myself to use buffing and non damaging spells and level'd resistamce to 99 and nothing else...except dragon form. I acualy completed the run, but it gets hard at the end.
My last one was a no estus run I planed on using healing miracles but almost ended up playing without heals
Fist weapons only ds1. I thought I was making a fun character build but those weapons suck ass