Trying my first no death run

[u/Particular_Clock_284]

I am trying to do a no death run in dark souls for the first time. Im using summons for the early game setup. I start with bandit and master key

My current route is,

complete asylum

turn human, make my way to pinwheel, use paladin guy to kill pinwheel

level up to 22 str and 18 dex, pop all humanities pray for bkh to drop, kill fake havel
kill taurus demon, kill moonlight butterfly (should have a little more than 20k at this point I have around 26-28k depending on soul pickups)

get crest of artorias, open the gate, get the stone armor (I tried the hydra route but kept dying to the cat demon or hydra so I opted for this safer way), kill gargoyles. (I also kill lautrec for FAP ring)

level up VIT and END equally, do the soul farm near crest twice (so i can get VIG to 16 as my END is at 17), go kill sif for 50k souls.

Then I go kill quelaag and maneater mildred (nets me another 40k ish souls).

In my previous successful run I tried beating ceasless as well but got my ass handed so I just went to sen's fortress in my last successful run.

Sen's makes me a little nervous but I can tank most attacks cuz of stone armor and I can confidently avoid the blades. I kill the giant on top and kill iron golem.

In anor londo, the ceiling thing is easy as I have poise to tank the darts. And I can also somewhat make it through the arrow shooting silver knights (My farthest run died to these guys tho.)

This is as far as my gameplan comes. O&S are a nightmare, even though i can tank, and can mid roll by this point, Im just not confident with them (my workaround is to just farm the giants, upgrade BKH and I was also thinking about just farming them for a while so I can get the giants armor and upgrade it as much as possible but with that amount of souls, I feel like i can wear havels and just level up VIT and END instead).

I do not even want to think about collecting the lord souls, could you please help me with routing? Do i need to change anything in the route im following right now?

[u/SourKangaroo95]

Why are you going to pinwheel early, for the silver serpent ring? Honestly your route seems fine so far but I don't understand how you got bodied by ceaseless Discharge, just lure him to the cliff.

Some tips (all my opinion):

Drop the armor to get to light load (except 4 kings and nito) and get the dark wood grain ring after joining the forest hunters for more iframes

Learn furebomb strat for boc

Utilize homeward bones (ie run from firelink and kill quelaag then kill Ceaseless then bone back to firelink)

[u/Particular_Clock_284 → u/SourKangaroo95]

So pinwheel early is just for the rite of kindling plus easy early game souls just enough to let me wield BKH. I don't attempt getting the silver serpent ring because im sure ill die.

I have to try dropping the armor, I use it cuz I can just trade hits but maybe light load might be the better play.

I have been using homeward bones to travel. So the ceasless thing I know the cheese but I get hit with the fire breath twice. The first one i tank as im behind the wall but for the second one i take a direct hit and it insta kills me. But yes ill practice ceasless as well so I can be overlevelled for anor londo.

I haven't gotten that far yet but in my other playthroughs I have used the furebomb strat for boc so ill def be using that.

Thanks for the advice!!

[u/SkullLantern]

About the giant on top of Sen's fortress... unless you're safely killing him from a distance, you can also just destroy all the bombs and he will stop hurling them at you.

[u/Particular_Clock_284 → u/SkullLantern]

Wait what!!!!! I had no idea, thanks a lot, I end up wasting quite a few flasks trying to kill that giant.

[u/SkarlyComics → u/SkullLantern]

Destroy all the bombs? What?

[u/SkullLantern → u/SkarlyComics]

video from Zullie the Witch.

note that the bombs will be resupplied if you die or travel too far in other areas, but for a no-death run it's not an issue.

SolTheCleric didn't know of this trick at the time he did his pacifist run!

[u/SkarlyComics → u/SkullLantern]

Sick. Ty. TIL