Introduction
This guide explains how to be over-powered early and helps you survive your first SL1 playthrough of Dark Souls III. I'm a casual gamer and do not yet know how to perfectly no-hit each boss fight. Experienced SL1 runners would most likely skip most of the contents here. Below I share some tips and tricks.
- Your starting class must be Deprived. Choose "Rusted Gold Coin" as your burial gift. You will be given 7 Rusted Gold Coins, immensely useful for farming rare items. Several more Rusted Gold Coins are available at various locations in the game.
- Farm the Symbol of Avarice as early as possible. This head piece is indispensable whenever you want to farm rare items. The first Mimic is located at the High Wall of Lothric, in a room underneath the Lothric Wyvern.
- Many useful weapons can be one-handed or two-handed once you have collected these five rings: Knight's Ring, Hunter's Ring, Carthus Milkring, Scholar Ring, and Priestess Ring. A combination of these rings can allow you to two-hand various ultra great swords. You must equip the Knight's Ring, Hunter's Ring, and the Carthus Milkring to properly two-hand the Astora Greatsword. Two-handing the Zweihander only requires the Knight's Ring and the Hunter's Ring.
- Infuse your weapon with a Raw Gem to give you high base (physical) damage output. Boost your damage output by buffing your raw infused weapon with an elemental resin and/or equip various rings. Two useful rings to grab early are Flynn's Ring and the Red Tearstone Ring. The damage output of your buffed weapon can be further increased by equipping one of the Clutch Rings. For example, if your weapon has built-in lightning damage such as the Dragonslayer's Axe, equipping the Lightning Clutch Ring would grant you bonus lightning damage. Buff the weapon with Gold Pine Resin/Bundle for extra lightning damage. You can even equip the Lightning Clutch Ring and the Fire Clutch Ring, while also buffing the Dragonslayer's Axe with Charcoal Pine Resin/Bundle.
- Use a ranged weapon to safely clear areas. At SL1, you have enough stats to properly wield the Light Crossbow and the Knight's Crossbow. Equipping the Carthus Milkring would allow you to two-hand the Short Bow or the Composite Bow. The best bow to have is the Composite Bow because it has a weapon art that allows you to shoot multiple arrows one after the other, and you can shoot after rolling. The best crossbow is the Avelyn because it can fire three bolts at a time, a useful feature to have for chipping the HP of strong enemies.
- Get Havel's Ring as soon as possible. The ring raises your maximum equip load so you can equip heavy armour pieces while maintaining a weight ratio below 70%.
- The safest strategy to deal with enemies, including bosses, is to bait an attack and go in for the punish. You don't have enough HP to tank hits.
- To tank a boss, cast Tears of Denial and wear heavy armour pieces while being below 70% weight ratio. Many of the late-game bosses, and the DLC bosses, can one-shot you. Tears of Denial would allow you to tank one hit. Together with heavy armour pieces, you can tank at least two hits and survive long enough to learn a boss' attack patterns.
- Use poison and/or toxic to chip the HP of a boss, or a strong enemy, while you wait for an opening to attack. Poison Arrows and Poison Knives are useful to build up the poison metre of an enemy from a distance. Poison Mist and Toxic Mist are ideal for medium range. Dung Pie and Stalk Dung Pie are useful, but only if you have plenty of Blooming Purple Moss Clumps. For close range, the Poison Rotten Ghru Dagger+10 is the best weapon for rapidly poisoning an enemy. The best weapon for poisoning an enemy is the Storyteller's Staff because the chip damage of its poison scales with the HP pool of an enemy and the poison lasts a long time, longer than Poison Mist. As you play through higher NG cycles, the poison from the Storyteller's Staff also scales with the current NG cycle. The weapon art of the Storyteller's Staff together with Toxic Mist can rapidly drain the HP of enemies that are vulnerable to poison and toxic.
- Learn the weaknesses of a boss. Is the boss weak against a particular element? Apply the corresponding elemental buff on your weapon. Is the boss vulnerable to bleed? Use the Blood Bandit's Knife+10 or the Blood Warden Twinblades+10. Is the boss vulnerable to frostbite? Use the Irithyll Straight Sword+5 or the Irithyll Rapier+5 to trigger frostbite, followed by a fire weapon (e.g. Black/Firebomb, Fire Dagger+10, or Torch+10) to reset the frostbite metre. Can the boss be parried? Use the Small Leather Shield or the Caestus to parry. Can the boss be riposted? Use the Hornet Ring in conjunction with a Fire Dagger+10, a setup that also works against a boss that is vulnerable to backstab.
In general, learn from your mistakes and the experiences of other players. Study how no-hit runners deal with a specific boss and incorporate their strategies into your game play. You might find these videos useful. Search youtube for more videos on no-hit strategies.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwVkoN-0aMzPMPXJPFko1az4aDUeSIzE3
Dark Souls 3 ALL BOSSES NO HIT TUTORIAL
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Dark Souls 3 - World's First 0 Hits Taken SL1 No-Upgrades/Infusions All Bosses + DLCs
