Ringed City: Halflight

From the Ringed Inner Wall bonfire, head down the staircase, killing every enemy on your way to the turtle clerics. Kill all turtle clerics and the Ringed Knight. Then kill all enemies on your way to the Ringed City Streets bonfire. The Preachers, i.e. giant locusts in the swamp, drop Soul of a Champion and various other soul items of lower values. Halflight can be farmed for souls. Kill him, then use the Purging Monument to revive him for another kill. Rinse and repeat.

Assuming Halflight is alive or has been revived, my preferred route is to start at the Ringed Inner Wall bonfire and head to Halflight's boss room, killing the Ringed Knight on my way there. Then I would kill Halflight. Next, from the Ringed City Streets bonfire I would kill the 5 nearby hostile Preachers. A Chaos infused Lothric Knight Sword is effective against any Preacher. After a certain number of hits using this weapon, switch to the Mendicant's Staff for the kill. There is a 6th Preacher nearby, but he isn't hostile unless you hit him. Finally, I would go to the Purging Monument, or the Statue of Velka, and spend some souls to revive Halflight. Rinse and repeat. See these videos for how to cheese Halflight using the Storyteller's Staff, poison, and toxic:

Farming souls: Halflight, Spear of the Church, Dark Souls III

Dark Souls 3 Halflight no aggro easy kill

Below are some data on the approximate number of souls per round, including the amount of souls required to revive Halflight and the percentage increase in souls obtained per round relative to the previous NG cycle. I used the above soul boosting items to farm souls from the 5 hostile Preachers near the Ringed City Streets bonfire and Halflight. However, I didn't use the Mendicant's Staff for the fight against the Ringed Knight in front of Halflight's boss room. The numbers within square brackets were the amount of souls spent to revive Halflight. According to this page, the amount of souls required to revive Halflight is equivalent to 500 multiplied by your character's soul level. In theory, the ideal way to farm Halflight is to be at NG+7 as early as possible with as low soul level as possible. After levelling up and as long as you continue to farm Halflight, there is a certain point at which the number of souls required to revive him would exceed the amount of souls obtained from his death.

• NG+0: 90,980 [101,000]
• NG+1: 430,450 [144,000] (473%)
• NG+2: 468,895 [163,000] (10%)
• NG+3: 470,851 [173,000] (0.4%)
• NG+4: 505,840 [183,500] (7%)
• NG+5: 510,702 [193,000] (1%)
• NG+6: 518,065 [200,000] (1.4%)
• NG+7: 525,422 [207,000] (1.4%)

Comparing the Ringed City route and the route for the Grand Archives, the Grand Archives is better for farming souls. However, enemies in the Grand Archives do not drop any soul items. Only the Preachers drop Soul of a Champion and various other soul items.