Tips for All bosses "speedrun"

[MaxorMeow]

Hi, everyone!

My friends and I are planning to do a little competition this weekend and I could use some advice.
The first player to kill all bosses wins!
We are nowhere near as good as the speedrunners you see on Youtube, but we'll try doing our own "speedrun" nonetheless... :D

Can you give me some advice on how to get the upper hand?

We've agreed not to use full mage builds as those will ruin the fun.

I don't think I'll be able to finish it at a low SL, so I plan to kill lots of enemies on the way to get some souls for levels and upgrades. I'm also too bad to use the Red tearstone ring, so that's a no go...

I was thinking about making a quality build with some points in Vitality and Endurance. Maybe an upgraded Claymore would be a decent weapon to use throughout the whole run?
Is Warrior a good starting class in this case?

Is there anything else I should look out for?

Thanks for your time! :D

[N.Wiseman]

If you can, use multiple weapons suitable for different situations. For example, killing a boss through bleed can be a whole lot faster and easier than pure damage. Don't forget that pine resin buffs can make your early game go a lot more quickly and smoothly.

Obviously, know the fast routes through the area. For example, the quickest way to the gaping dragon from the room with the butchers is to roll through the barrels left of the chest, through the door into the giant rat room, then slide down the left side to the room with Domnhall of Zena. You probably knew this, but that sort of thing will halve your timings.

Strongest starting classes for a speedrun would be thief (master key and bleed wep), sorceror (ranged/magic), cleric (strong weapon + heals(!)), bandit (highest dmg and strength) or pyromancer (pyromancy OP). But warrior is fine and gives you reasonable armour early, so you could start with it.

Claymore is a very good weapon. It's not ideal that you'd have to upgrade it with embers and 30-ish materials to get to full damage, rather than just use ten twinkling titanite as a black knight weapon or similar could use. This means you'll take longer to do good damage, but having such a solid, buffable weapon might be worth it. Depends on your preferences!

Have you and your friend decided whether summoning NPCs is allowed? Also, what glitches/skips are allowed? For example, you can skip the entire demon ruins area and get a free demon firesage kill just by save/quitting over the Daughters of Chaos elevator. The best speedrunners might not use this, but I'd use it to gain an edge on my equally casul friend!

Probably loads of other stuff, but don't forget to have fun!

[MaxorMeow]

Thanks for the info! :D

I forgot to mention that we decided to use no glitches/skips and no summons at all.

I've thought about Black Knight weapons, but I need a backup plan if they don't drop!

[King Robert Baratheon]

Origineel geplaatst door MaxorMeow:

Thanks for the info! :D

I forgot to mention that we decided to use no glitches/skips and no summons at all.

I've thought about Black Knight weapons, but I need a backup plan if they don't drop!

The Astora's Straight Sword is a quality (faith) weapon that upgrades with twinkling titanite, it has a divine enchantment/blessing so it "permanently" kills skeletons even if their necromancer is alive and you can get it as soon as you arrive in Lordran if you have the master key. It is in front of that diseased dragon who will aggro when you pick the weapon so chances are you'll die but if you do thaat when you're hollow and don't have any souls or humanity then it's not big deal. You do have to have 14 faith to use it and it supposedly does not scale well so a +10 regular weapon or a +5 divine weapon will outclass a +5 Astora's Straight Sword easily. It's a really good weapon though imo.

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/astora-s-straight-sword

[N.Wiseman]

Astora early is good.

So is the Gravelord Greatsword, and you can get the souls for using that by running down and killing Pinwheel immediately. This will turn all early bosses into a cakewalk, as the damage totally outclasses anything you are meant to have by then.

The sword performs badly at endgame levels/positions, but is a viable midgame weapon, which Astora Straight Sword is NOT.