Once upon a time a computer programmer had the silly idea that it might be fun to learn how to draw and decided to keep a daily sketch journal based on his adventures in playing the game Dark Souls 3 with a character focused almost entirely around the Luck stat instead of something more obviously useful like strength.

Full Series

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 1: Let’s Do What Now?

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 2: Off To A Smashing Start

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 3: In Which The Plot Is Expositioned

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 4: Second Hand Swords

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 5: A Burning Question

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 6: Performance Enhancing Embers

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 7: The Quest For Pants

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 8: The Bigger They Are

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 9: I Have The High Ground

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 10: Maybe Everything Isn’t Always Horrible

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls Part 11: How Magical

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls Part 12: Pants At Long Last

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls Part 13: Power Underwhelming

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls Part 14: Vigorous Religious Debate

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 15: Terms And Conditions May Apply

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 16: Fault, Private Eye

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 17: Weird Incentive Structure

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 18: Finally A Taste Of Power

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 19: A Blast From The Past

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 20: The Enemy Of My Enemy

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 21: Fear Is The Mind Killer

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 22: Didn’t See That Coming

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 23: Famous Architecture

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 24: Suspiciously Like Work

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 25: No One Expects The Lordric Inquisition

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 26: 8 Ranks in Knowledge (Dungeon Design)

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 27: Haute Couture

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 28: Castle Mania?

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 29: Unintended Consequences

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 30: Even More Plusses

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 31: Darn It Jim, I’m A Luck Knight Not A Doctor

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 32: Are We There Yet?

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 33: Stuck Playing Checkers On A 4D Chessboard

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 34: Leap Of Faith

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 35: Use Your Words

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3 Part 36: Maybe This Wasn’t Such A Great Idea

Let’s Illustrate Dark Souls 3: Final Thoughts

Believe it or not Fault did eventually manage to Luck Knight her way through the final boss and I finally got to see what the normal ending of Dark Souls 3 was like (minimalistic but nonetheless touching and nostalgic).

But before we close this project up I just wanted to share a few last thoughts.

Thoughts On The Game

I came into Dark Souls 3 with a lot of baggage from having played both the previous Dark Souls games as well as Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne. This made it very hard to enjoy the game on it’s own merits.

In fact, as I played the game for the first time I found myself feeling disappointed. The plot didn’t quite live up to my expectations and the mechanical changes made to spellcasting meant none of the builds I had planned out in my head worked quite like I expected them to.

Sure, I still beat the game but I wasn’t happy about it. Which was a real tragedy because the game really did have a lot to offer and a lot of things I should have loved.

This is what gave birth to the Luck Knight build. Making a purposefully silly build took my mind off the non-viable builds I had wanted to try and let me enjoy the game for its challenge. Plus knowing ahead of time what to expect from the plot meant I was able to enjoy it for the solid sequel it was instead of being critical of its failure to be as original as, well, the original.

At which point everything clicked and I had fun again.

So final analysis: It’s a fun sequel with challenging and interesting gameplay. The plot was disappointingly straightforward for a FromSoftware adventure game but given this was the second sequel to what was originally meant to be a standalone game I think they really did the best they could.

Thoughts On The Gimmick

Playing with a Luck Knight build focused entirely around the almost useless Luck stat definitely made the game harder than it needed to be, but not nearly as hard as I had worried it would. Admittedly the first two and last two bosses were extremely frustrating but most of the rest of the run was merely pleasantly difficult. I got to see the full move set of every boss (I think) and had to come up with actual strategies for how to dodge and fight. No super tanking or overwhelming bosses so badly they barely had a chance to fight back.

Overall the biggest challenge was the artificially low strength and dexterity I was stuck with due to my silly “no higher than one third of luck” rule. This really crippled Fault’s damage output and severely limited her choice of weapons and shields. She didn’t get a 100% shield until very near the end of the game and she didn’t qualify for any good crowd control weapons until she was far enough in the game she didn’t need them anymore.

Fortunately the existence of luck scaling hollow weapons meant Fault wasn’t completely helpless. But even then I think I was using them wrong. From what I could see Hollow weapons don’t become pure luck scaling weapons, instead they keep their old scaling and then add a small amount of luck on top. So a build with say, 30 dex and 30 luck would probably get a lot more mileage out of a hollow rapier than my 16 dex 50 luck build.

If I were to try and do a serious luck build with no restrictions I probably would have raised my dex to 16 as soon as possible in order to get access to the Uchigatana you can loot from the crazed swordsman outside the main shrine. It’s a decent weapon with bleed damage (which scales with Luck!). I would then raise my strength high enough to use a 100% shield and from there on out I’d raise Dex and Luck evenly. The high dex would boost my damage while the high luck would boost my drops and eventually add even more damage once I got access to hollow imbuing.

I would also probably stay hollow for the extra luck bonus on hollow weapons and maybe even give the Anri questline a go in order to get access to his super luck sword.

But like I said, being a Luck Knight wasn’t about trying to make a good lucky character. It was about playing the game on my own mildly disgruntled terms and winning anyways. Which I did.

So do I regret this run? Not at all.

Would I suggest it to anyone else? Not really.

Are people on the Internet going to try it anyways? Probably.

Thoughts On My Art

After comparing my first few entries to my last few entries I think it’s safe to say I’ve gotten better at drawing. But I think it’s also safe to say that better is not the same as good.

This isn’t particularly surprising. Two months of daily practice doesn’t even add up to a full 100 hours of work.

Still, I did figure out the basics of how my tablet and drawing software work and managed to develop at least a little hand eye coordination. I still have a long way to go but they say every journey begins with a single step and I just took 36 of them.

I guess the next step then is to move beyond casual doodling and start trying to develop some sort of actual consistent cartoon style. Maybe practice a little figure drawing.

Either way Dark Souls 3 is over, so we’re going to need a new source of inspirations. And while it will probably be a week or two before I start posting the next series I guess you do all at least deserve a hint.

Let’s just say that there was a point where the Elder Scrolls were merely middle aged.

Approaching the Firelink shrine bonfire after retrieving all the cinders allows you to kneel and receive the combined power of all the lords. This has no actual gameplay benefit but it does allow you to teleport to the kiln of the First Flame at which point you save the world by tossing a few more logs on the fire.

Or not. Seems like the Fire is guarded by the “Soul of Cinder”, which wields the combined strength of every hero to have ever linked the flame. That means it can literally do everything you can but better: Swordplay, pyromancy, sorcery and miracles.

Killing it doesn’t even end the fight. The boss just switches to a more godly fighting style full of fire and lightning and you have to kill it a second time.

The Soul of Cinder hits hard enough to blow through your guard and most of its attacks are sweeping 300 degree arcs that require near-perfect timing and positioning to dodge.

There is no gimmick. There is no secret. This boss is brutal even with a good build and I’m stuck playing as a Luck Knight.

I was going to try and draw a dramatic battle scene but somehow this felt more appropriate

With the wyvern dead there’s not much really to say about the rest of the peak. There’s a bunch more of those tough dragon-snake-men as well as some dragon-snake-priests that can summon powerful human heroes to fight you (most of which drop unique items the first time you kill them). You can also find a titanite slab and a warrior wearing the super-heavy Havel armor set. Killing him doesn’t earn you the armor but it does cause a random corpse in an unrelated area to spawn with the set as loot (no idea how you’re supposed to figure that out without a guide).

I suppose there’s also a super-duper-mega-ultra bonus boss here but Fault is just going to ignore him, possibly forever. Discretion is the better part of valor and all that.

Even if you ignore the bonus boss you can still fight your way all the way to the top of the peak where you’ll find an alter overlooking what seems to be a giant petrified dragon the size of a mountain. Meditating there earns you a special dragon stone that lets you transform your torso into a sort of dragon-hybrid form if you aren’t wearing any armor. I guess it’s cool if you’re into that (Fault’s prefers her armor).

But you know who is into that? That depressed knight that’s been hanging around the Firelink shrine all game. Return to home base with the dragon stone and the blacksmith will mention that the depressed knight wants to meet up with you in one of the old boss arenas. As soon as you show up the knight mentions something about how the path of the dragon only allows for one disciple at a time at which point he murderers you and steals your dragon stone.

Now the funny thing here is that he had just asked for the thing or maybe offered to trade his socks or some other random item for it Fault would have gladly accepted like the side-quest hungry RPG protagonist she is. But he just had to go and introduce murder into the mix and Fault is now dedicated to respawing again and again until she has her revenge. At which point, having earned a complete set of dragon artifacts, she promptly gets on with her life and never thinks about the way of the dragon again.

News Flash! Hands are still really hard to draw.

Anyways, now seems like a good time to go and refight Prince Lothric’s brother and after a few more deaths than I’d like to admit Fault finally emerges victorious.

Ok, now I must really have all the Lords of Cinder. The thrones are all full and everything. That means it’s time for the final boss!

So where is that last bonus dungeon hiding?

Remember how after killing the Consumed King we learned the Way of the Dragon gesture? Well if you head back to Irithyl Dungeon and poke around a bit you’ll eventually find a bunch of corpses along with a petrified dragon man all doing that exact same pose on a certain cliff. There’s even a little rug set out with just enough room for you to squeeze in. Settle into some dragon meditation and then wait for a bit and you’ll be transported the Archdragon Peak.

Like the name suggests it’s a giant dragon themed mountain temple.

The main enemy in the region are dragon snake people who alternate between fighting with weapons, breathing fire and snapping at you with their creepy extending necks. Fight past a couple groups of them and you very suddenly reach the first boss of the area: A giant and nigh invulnerably ancient wyvern.

A helpful note on the ground suggests trying a plunging attack, but the only way to get above the dragon is by navigating through enemy filled ruins all while the wyvern lobs fire at you. But Fault is the master of dodge rolling and makes it to the plunge point with easy and grace.

She then falls horribly to her death because apparently you have to plunge attack from just the right spot to hit the wyvern’s head and if you accidentally position yourself two extra feet to the right you just graze the thing’s neck and then splat against the ground.

Wile E. Coyote, I feel your pain

But whatever. It’s not like dodge rolling to the top of the ruins was particularly hard and on Fault’s third try she sticks her rapier into the wyvern’s head and skewer’s it’s brain Skyrim style. She’s then rewarded with a ton of souls and teleported to the next portion of the dungeon (which thankfully has a bonfire right at the entrance so we can go spend those souls before we lose them).

Last time Fault dodge rolled past hundreds of hours worth of game design in order to jump straight to the next boss: The sickly prince Lothric.

It looks like it should be an easy win, but you’re not fighting the sick prince. No, you’re fighting his brother who happens to be an armored giant with a flaming sword and the ability to teleport.

Now conceptually I really like this fight. Teleportation is a cool gimmick and it forces you to abandon all your old ideas about managing range because there is no such thing as “keeping a safe distance” from an enemy that can spontaneously blink across the entire room.

I’m pretty sure Sun Tzu forgot to cover this particular scenario

The problem here, like with most interesting Dark Souls fights, is the camera. Sometimes your camera follows the boss after he teleports, making it easy to block or dodge his next attack. Other times it doesn’t forcing you to spin around wildly looking for the boss while mashing the lock-on button and hoping you don’t get backstabbed or hit by a shockwave in the process.

If the camera always stayed locked on that would be great. If it never followed the teleport I could manage. But it’s this randomness that (literally) kills me. Again and again. Every once and a while I get him to his second stage but I never quite win.

Ok, let’s take a break from Prince hunting and go explore the last optional area in hopes of getting Fault a few more levels.

Last time Fault killed yet another plot boss and is now allowed to enter the second half of the Lothric Castle mega-dungeon: a giant library filled with forbidden knowledge. It also has a crystal sorcerer just like the one we fought as a boss back at the road of sacrifice. You did read the lore attached to his soul/items and remember that there were two of them, right?

Every time you hurt the crystal sage miniboss he moves a little further up the library tower and he proves a constant soul spear spamming nuisance until you finally kill him.

Fortunately the dungeon’s other gimmick is much more fun. You probably noticed that all of the sorcerer NPCs in the library have giant candles on their heads. There are also giant vats of wax you can dunk your head in if you want your own candle hat.

“Why would you want a candle hat?” you ask.

“Why wouldn’t you want a candle hat?” I counter.

I guess if you absolutely need a reason there is the fact that the candle renders you immune to the ghostly hands that reach out of various shelves and books and curse you to death.

So get a candle head, avoid the curses, fight your way upwards, make a quick trip outside, fight some gargoyles make it to the top and finally face off with a classic FromSoftware encounter: A trio of violent adventurers made up of a warrior, a ranger and a sorcerer.

But at this point the dungeon has dragged on long enough so Fault just dodge rolls past them and the entire army they brought for backup in order to reach the boss arena and a convenient nearby elevator that drops her near the bonfire she unlocked after killing the Dragon Rider Armor. Somewhere during this process she also finds a rare titanite slab and boosts her hollow rapier to a full +10 but I ain’t telling you where in case you want the joy of finding it yourself. (And if you don’t there’s always the wiki.)

If it works it works.

With the creepy dark bonus area of the way Fault is now back to exploring Lothric Castle and is making much better progress thanks to her new armor and levels. It doesn’t take her long at all to fight past a few waves of soldiers and reach a convenient bonfire placed just before a big old castle guarded by twin dragons that barbecue anything that tries to get close to the castle gate.

Back in my generic file I just super-tanked the flames and dodge rolled to the exit but Fault can’t do that which leads me to discover that if you drop off the bridge in front of the castle there’s a little path that lets you sneak up behind the dragons. It looks like they’re both being controlled by some sort of ooze parasite. Killing the sentient infection kills the dragons and the path to the castle’s first plot boss is now clear.

I must admit it’s not often an action game leaves me thinking “If only Dr. Mario were here”.

The so called Dragon Rider Armor looks kind of like someone took one of the most infamous armored bosses from Dark Souls 1 and then stuck him in the microwave until he started melting. This boss hits hard and can enchant his weapon with lightning but he’s fairly easy to circle strafe and can’t do much to you as long as you stay behind him. Just be warned that the bizarre dragon-sized butterflies floating nearby will occasionally bombard the arena with magic which forces you to worry about dodging two attack patterns at once.

Beyond the optional boss in the dark copy of the tutorial area is a dark copy of the Firelink shrine prowled by three Black Knights which explode into pinatas of rare loot thanks to Fault’s high luck and covetous ring. Fault now switches into what will be her default armor set for the rest of this playthrough: Black Knight armor but with the Dancer’s Helm to save a bit on equip load. Good defense, looks cool, light enough for fast dodge rolls.

I never really noticed before but this armor set has a certain Darth Vader feel to it, doesn’t it?

Beyond the knights are some interesting goodies including a special item that can be used to unlock a bonus ending. I did this on my first playthrough for no good reason other than I had found the area on my own without any wiki help and I didn’t want that to go to waste. This time around we’re just going to stuff the ending item in our box and forget about it so I can see the normal ending instead.

With the corrupted king out of the way Fault can wander into a small underground cavern and learn the “Path of the Dragon” meditation gesture from an unusually zen corpse. There’s also an enemy or two and a fairly boring chest. Disappointing reward for beating an optional boss, right?

WRONG!

This little area actually has an entire secret zone hidden behind an illusionary wall.

The “untended graves” are a perfect copy of the tutorial area but filled with vicious undead. Also the sun appears to be missing. And the stars. In fact everything is deeply disturbingly dark.

While it’s hard to say exactly what’s going on here it seems this whole area is either an alternate reality where the First Fire died or perhaps an interactive vision of what a world without Fire would be like.

This is cool because while a lot of people both in and out of game have suggested we should just let the Fire die nobody really knows what that would accomplish. The status quo of the Age of Fire is pretty bad but that doesn’t’ necessarily mean that the Age of Dark would be any better.

Likelihood of stubbing your toe probably isn’t the best metric for solving ethical dilemmas, but it’s probably not the worst either.

Anyways, new optional area means a new optional boss. It’s actually the tutorial boss all over again, but stronger and faster than ever before. He’s one of those fighters who can just string together combo after combo, leaving only the tiniest of opportunities to actually fight back. Definitely a good place to burn an ember and summon a friendly phantom. If you killed the crazy katana wielding sword master back in the normal fire link area you can summon him here. Otherwise I guess you’ll need online help.

This is another boss that killed my non-gimmick character dozens of times in a row. In fact, it caused me to walk away from the game for several days (I got lost and assumed this was a required boss). But somehow Fault emerged victorious on her first try. Just like with the Sullivan fight I blame this on good muscle memory from my previous file along with the good luck of having the boss focus on the NPC phantom just long enough for me to pull off a brutal combo at the end of the fight.