How do you rush the game?

[r3bs]

So i got bored and decided to rush for the Helix Halberd which is in Shrine of Amana. I do play a lot and also watch speedruns, but i doubt i'll be able to get there within 1-1.5 hours like speedrunners do. Need a suggestion on which weapon to use to get the 4 Old Souls (rapier, or are there options?) so i can open the Shrine of Winter. The only difficulty i see is getting through Alonne Knights to the Smelter Demon, other than that i know what to do in each location. My goal is to get to Amana within 3 hours tops.

Any suggestions/tips/route will be appreciated :)

[$Dominu$]

you dont need the 4 old souls,you can farm the rotten with bonfire ascetics till you hit 1mill sm.

[$Dominu$]

or one great old one of your choosing.

[Abaddon]

I asked the same question and everyone answers "farm the rotten with ascetics", but there are no ascetics anywhere except for the starting gift on the way to the rotten, and I often use it to ascetic the dragonrider (probably not the right thing to do).

[$Dominu$]

Origineel geplaatst door Abaddon:

I asked the same question and everyone answers "farm the rotten with ascetics", but there are no ascetics anywhere except for the starting gift on the way to the rotten, and I often use it to ascetic the dragonrider (probably not the right thing to do).

perhaps you should do an ascetic run,bastille/harvest valley/iron keep with a bit of help ofc.

[Abaddon]

Well, if I have to reach the iron keep in order to start rushing I don't know where the rushing part stands.

I'll try to find some videos, but the closest I've been to "rush" something was dragonrider cheese, kill licia, ascetic, cheese again and go to the copse. I guess I could buy a chaos rapier, dark weapon and rely on that to kill stuff, but I doubt I can reach 1M souls in 3 hours that way.

If you could be more specific about zones that would help a lot.

[$Dominu$]

Origineel geplaatst door Abaddon:

Well, if I have to reach the iron keep in order to start rushing I don't know where the rushing part stands.

I'll try to find some videos, but the closest I've been to "rush" something was dragonrider cheese, kill licia, ascetic, cheese again and go to the copse. I guess I could buy a chaos rapier, dark weapon and rely on that to kill stuff, but I doubt I can reach 1M souls in 3 hours that way.

If you could be more specific about zones that would help a lot.

well okay,i used a guide yesterday for the bonfire ascetics i can show you it

[r3bs]

Yeah i can see only 3 ascetics you could get easily - character generation, Bastille, and Harvest Valley (Skeleton Lords are kind of a joke boss). The Rotten gives "Souls Awarded: 47,000 (Standard Game) - 94,000 (NG+) 117,500 (NG++)" + his souls is 25k i think, and he will drop 3 Old Dead One's souls for each ascetic, which is 60k each. Well i think this should be enough considering we will be killing some random bosses along the way like pursuer/giant/skelelords/dragonrider.

[Maldoror]

"Git Gud" :D

[r3bs]

Ok im gonna give it a try now.

[Dexter]

If You watch speedruns You should know that killing Rotten 4 times is the fastest way possible...
You can easly get 3 ascetics without "hard" boss battles. I will not write down where they are or how to get them, the only thing I can say, watch speedruns for Scholar and/or watch Otzdarva's guide on illusionary rings(he also is going for ascetics and Rotten but He takes more time to play it safe).
And "the best" and fastest early PvE weapon is rapier.

[Abaddon]

Thank you Dominus for lending me a hand, I'll summarize the speedrunning part from the guide you provided (By ZombiePlasticClock) to speedrun:

First of all, the goal is getting 4 bonfire ascetics and kill the rotten once after another. If you are looking for specific goals be sure to integrate them with this:

Ascetics:
#1: Starting gift - During character creation
#2: Lost bastille - At the cage/elevators right below Straid's bonfire
#3: Harvest valley - Stone trader (You have to buy it for 7500 souls) right next to the first bonfire
#4: Iron keep - At the right far side of the iron bridge, right after the first bonfire. (This one's hard to get).

Path:
Things betwixt (Starting gift: Ascetic) > Majula > Heide tower (Cheese dragonrider) > No man's wharf (Rush for the boat) > Lost bastille (At the elevators: Ascetic) > Heide tower 2nd bonfire (Either kill Licia and loot the key or exhaust the dialogue) > Majula (shift bridge direction) > Huntsman Copse > Harvest Valley (Merchant: Ascetic) > Earthen Peak > Iron Bridge (Broken bridge: Ascetic) > Gutter > Black Gulch

After that kill the rotten, burn ascetic at the 2nd bonfire and repeat until you run out, that's the end of the early game rush for what I read, if you know something else that might be of interest feel free to share.

[r3bs]

Thx Abaddon - i am currently running a slightly different route, im 57 mins in and i need copse>harvest valley and then get to Rotten. I am skipping Iron Keep and i will see where it gets me in terms of XP (only 3 ascetics). Lost a bunch of time on Dragonslayer because of the Heide Kinghts interferring with my Dragon fight - had to kill all the knights on the route after 2 deaths. I might try doing your route later on for science.

[Abaddon]

Actually you aren't meant to kill Ornstein, only the dragonrider. All the collectibles in the way are also optional, some I'd recommend getting on the first trip (e.g. no man's wharf branch, lizard, ring, and maybe even Gavlan) but most of them (soul of a brave warrior and such) are quite trivial since you'll be getting a ton of souls from the rotten.

I'm going to start a new run and see how it turns.

[r3bs]

I know but i wanted an Old Leo ring since im running a Rapier, i thought it might help me with Rotten at higher NG's.

[TrueArchery]

Origineel geplaatst door r3bs:

I know but i wanted an Old Leo ring since im running a Rapier, i thought it might help me with Rotten at higher NG's.

The question is whether it's faster to kill the Heide Knights, the dragon and Ornstein in order to get the Leo Ring for faster Rotten-kills or to just give 0 ♥♥♥♥♥ and kill the Rotten without it. I think the 2nd option is faster.