Dark Souls Part 052: Darkwraiths and The Four Kings Losses
0As soon as you lower the water level, the New Londo Ruins becomes so much better. The Darkwraiths are so much more fun and worthwhile to fight than the Ghosts and Wraiths ever were. Down here you can find a bunch of them, as well as two Masses of Souls. Large bloblike enemies that have very strange long range attacks. They can also spawn the Wisp enemies that you run into in the Catacombs that go after you. Neither of them are too tough. The Darkwraiths are lesser Black Knights. You just don't want to get hit by them because they hit hard. The Masses of Souls can be sidestepped and slowly slashed to death.
The most important item you can find in the New Londo Ruins is the Very Large Ember. This is what allows you to upgrade your weapons to +15. The Darkwraiths down here commonly drop Titanite Chunks, and rarely drop Titanite Slabs. I was lucky enough to get one in this video, and at least a couple more throughout the playthrough. At least that makes up for the slab I missed from the Stray Demon. They really should have allowed you to combine Titanite pieces into large ones with Frampt. Even if it took like 10 chunks to make 1 slab, that's still better than the low chance of a slab drop. Such a missed opportunity.
After fighting through all of the lower area of the ruins and killing all of the Darkwraiths, I run back to Firelink Shrine to spend some souls on a level up. Another thing that sucks about the New Londo Ruins is that there is no Bonfire there. The closest ones are the one at Firelink Shrine and the one in The Abyss which is basically useless. Every time you die there it's a long run back to where you are from Firelink Shrine.
After showing where Beatrice's Summon Sign is located, which only appears if you summoned her for the Moonlight Butterfly, I enter the boss area to fight The Four Kings. It's important to equip the Covenant of Artorias Ring before entering the fight or you won't be able to see things properly. I also don't recommend summoning Beatrice for the fight because her presence increases the health of the boss and she fires her spells too slowly. The Four Kings are actually a pretty easy boss, but you need to be able to kill them fast enough. I believe a new king spawns every 45 seconds, so the idea is to kill them quickly so that you don't get overwhelmed. Unfortunately I was not powerful enough and ended up failing for two attempts. You'll notice despite my lack of power I was able to make it pretty far simply because the kings give plenty of time for you to heal when needed.
After losing to The Four Kings a second time, I knew that I wasn't prepared yet and decided that I need to upgrade my weapons first. I got the Very Large Ember and a Titanite Slab after all. Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something? I exit the game back at Firelink Shrine.
DEATH COUNT: 40
CHAPTERS:
00:00:00 Title & Character Select
00:00:27 Lower New Londo Ruins
00:04:20 First Mass of Souls
00:08:05 Very Large Ember
00:09:16 More Darkwraiths
00:12:15 Building Area
00:15:33 Going Back to Level Up
00:18:45 Going Back Down
00:21:43 Killing the Darkwraiths Again
00:28:08 Four Kings Failed Attempt 01
00:34:54 Heading Back Down
00:37:45 Killing the Darkwraiths Yet Again
00:41:42 Four Kings Failed Attempt 02
00:46:04 Exiting the Game