Gettin old sucks...

[Rlec]

I love this game but I just cant get by Guardian Silva. Im leveling to try and make it easier. Im level 56 now and wondering if I was to get to 100 would it be easier significantly?

52 years old so maybe my hand eye coordination is limiting me? Any other oldies out there able to kill this game bosses no problem?

Lastly any advice is greatly appreciated. Watched videos and read guides but the young make it look effortless and hardly get hit.

[Hexo Mia]

the best advice I can give you is to use Umbral knight, and quick stab him on the back while he is open, also use the plant lady that spin (cant remember her name) is one of the best spirits to break the enemies stagger bar, beside that is all about timing right and not get too greedy with the hits, good luck

[Resident Asswhole]

Originally posted by Roderick✪Legend:

Is all about timing right and not get too greedy with the hits,

45 years old here and beat the game with 100% completion. Some of the boss battles can be grizzly, but I found once I had leaned the pattern, mastered the dodging the battle really boiled down to me being able to survive and punish the boss for their mistakes. As Roderick said try not to "get too greedy".

[ステームビン]

You could try use Eleine (the witch) and the western merchant (the crow). I'm like half your age so maybe it not my place to say anything but I like using those long range spirits because my strategy for everything before outside of the boss rush is to attack from afar and give myself more time to react to what the bosses throw at me.

[Ark Tolei]

Without knowing your playstyle it's hard to give too much advice, but it's easy in these games to fall into too defensive a playstyle when you're struggling, and stop dealing meaningful damage. I think it's really valuable to bring fire and forget damage sources (like the aforementioned western merchant) to ensure that damage is always coming out, but it's also valuable to just go full aggro every few attempts and see where the failure points are, only dodging in response to attacks, and not actively positioning yourself safely.

The archer is going to be really solid for this fight, it has a ton of burst damage on large targets. Trying to deal sustained damage via weapon combos is much harder and more reactive than waiting for an opening, hitting a volley, and retreating before the boss starts the next attack.

My overall advice if timing dodges to use iframes is difficult for you, is to minimize the time it takes for you to exploit the bosses vulnerability windows, and maximize the amount of damage you're doing, so that the attacks you will inevitably fail to avoid don't have time to run you out of healing.

Your damage will increase by about 50% by hitting max level, but boss hp will increase as you go further in. Much more important will be finding the spirits that maximize damage with your playstyle, and maxing out those spirits, as you get further there are many spirits that unlock, that dramatically improve your ability to punish boss openings from multiple ranges.

[Rlec]

Great advice and I thank you all. Ill report back when Im successful.

[Rlec]

Well that didn't take long. My first attempt and won. Last night I did level up to 58 and was able to buy level 4 of the bird and witch blast thing. It must have helped. I was on a sliver of health but I did it!!!!!

Thanks for the encouragement and advice!!

[Hexo Mia]

Originally posted by Rlec:

Well that didn't take long. My first attempt and won. Last night I did level up to 58 and was able to buy level 4 of the bird and witch blast thing. It must have helped. I was on a sliver of health but I did it!!!!!

Thanks for the encouragement and advice!!

grats

[ステームビン]

[Resident Asswhole]

[some guy]

Just wanted to say, more often than not, these types of games are fairly playable with a slower reaction time. I'm not sure how comfortable you became in the meantime but the core skill is learning attack patterns and seeing how much time you have to safely "punish" boss combos. No need to fancy dodge everything, often there is a way to play safe and just do as many hits as you know you can do and stopping at the right time (vs getting greedy).

This dynamic between your instincts to mash buttons, when you see an (overwhelming) enemy and the need to be patient/conservative is basically what gave Dark Souls its claim as being "super hard". Funny enough, I had a person who never plays video games be fairly competent at Dark Souls quite quickly because I believe it really is more about learning, anticipating and being patient than reacting. This goes a bit against the comment that helped you out but I thought I'll just add it, in case you can take anything useful out of it.

[Kheryo]

If you posted this for Silva, I'm fairly sure you'll feel similarly with the next boss, which is imo the most difficult in the game, so I'll give some additional advice.

As you progress through the game you will get 3 relics that reduce incoming damage, namely :
Broken Music Box (Chapter 5, or earlier if you're creative)
Cracked Familiar Stone (Chapter 5)
Snowdrop Bracelet (Chapter 7)

They stack and having them all equipped makes boss fights significantly more forgiving.
I also recommend the Holy Spring Water that increases prayer potency.

There are two additional survivability relics I will not spoil that also help, one of which you can grab much earlier than its dedicated chapter (6 instead of 8) if you're wiling to dive in an obviously overleveled area to get it.

Avoid "additional prayer uses" and "increase max HP" in favor of damage relics.
I feel shorter fights trump the extra HP pool you'd get from them, but that's my experience, it might differ for you. Just know that these two are at odds, whereas the ones recommended above are always worth the slots in my experience.

As many said, Umbral Knight is the best shortrange main DPS as long as you feed it ancient souls in time with your progression, and Eleine is the best DPS after that (both normal & super).

Do not underestimate summons (there are two) as their constant stream of attacks can cause bosses to animation reset and allow you to land a lot more hits per attack window than fighting by yourself.