no all found bonfires are at 1 and all shop stock levels are right

did some reasearch and this bug was meant to have been fixed by the last patch or so. no complaints from me lol

looking forward to the rest of the game, Shrine of Amana sounds evil. i seem to be playing it oddly: farm the monsters with Jester hat/gloves, gold and silver covetous rings until they don't respawn then go to a different area, do the same and come back for the bosses when I can't progress any further lol

ive currently cleared the areas;
Things Betwixt
Majula
Forest of Fallen Giants
Heides Tower of Flame
Cathedral of Blue
No-Mans Wharf
The Lost Bastille
Sinners Rise
i then struggled to find where to go next until that miracle lady opened up a path for me to Huntsmans copse.
I'm enjoying the game alot but, being a early Demon Souls player (imported the game 14 months before its western and european release and also dark souls1 playe,r i do find the game doesn't have that same feel and atmosphere to it, also the environments arn't as memorable or creative, they just don't feel as well crafted as Dark1 or Demons. It's also slightly easier, especially compared to Demon Souls.

nevertheless it is an awesome game and im really enjoying it.

I haven't reached that far yet (just killed the two Dragonriders), but have you tried poision arrows?

anyway after having wasted 6 pharros lockstones in doors of pharros I finally discovered where the boss is, me be stupid . I was expecting a hard fight after hearing all the stories of people struggling but it's actually a really easy boss, just chase after the back paws and all of its attacks missed me completely : /

No my dexterity is pretty low and crappy bow hardly does damage. I think I'll have to anyway in the next part, more cross-fire homing missiles. I'll hop to Gavan to buy some poison arrows, better slow than not at all. I don't like having to resort to a bow with all kinds of magic to my disposal, but the game just won't let me aim it :/ From a short distance careful positioning works to aim as long as the target is at the same height, but not while getting blasted by homing soul arrows at a ridiculous long distance.

That boss was the hardest for me so far. The 5 little rats jump me with poison and toxicity, and if I don't die from that, the boss 1 hit swipes me while getting interrupted by the small ones. Once i got rid of most of the small ones with lingering flame traps it was indeed not that difficult, hide out underneath the boss.

I do most areas multiple times too, and have cleared out a few as well with those rings. I like trying all the spells and different equipment, thus always hungry for more souls and the various titanites. (42 faith, 40 int, 50 attunement atm) Currently farming shrine of Amana for twinkling titanite. Once you get to the next bonfire it's trivial to clear it from the back. Damn healer with 2 agressive fast moving sword wielders, 1 flame swathe from behind, blows up all 3 in 1 go. The casters don't even notice, shoot them in the back next...
I tried helping someone else in co-op to get to the third bonfire, failed again. He was in ng+ though, even faster deaths.

I think I'll go back to blackstone gulch with another bonfire aesthetic. I need more titanite chunks after swapping equipment around and that seems the best place to get it so far. Plus I got sunlight spear for doing co-op sucessfully 30 times, that needs 55 faith ugh. My character is getting really lobsided lol.

The game could also use a better spell selector, cycling though 10 spells without being able to reverse if you overshoot can be costly. Plus to get the best results you need 2 different staffs (1 specialized in magic, 1 in dark for point and shoot hexes), 2 different idols (1 specialized in lightning, 1 in dark for aoe hexes) and 2 pyromancy flames (1 for hollow form, 1 for human form). Sometimes I just stand there half a minute trying to select the right stuff lol.
So far I'm using 2 flames and 1 staff and idol, plus shield and sword ofcourse. The alternatives need levelling up.
It's fun during boss fights, mix up the colors, shoot the most powerful in every category.

if it's anything like the first Dark Souls, you don't need dexterity or a good bow for poision arrows to work (that's why they're so great ), just shot enemies 4 times to poison them, even if you have no dex for the bow and your physical attack does no damage, poision will still finish most enemies fairly fast.

rat authority can still hit you occasionally if you're under it, but it only attacks with front paws so if you just run in a circular motion and chase after one of its back paws then it cannot hit you at all, but yeah, killing the small ones quickly without dying or getting toxiced is all to it.

I took a break from Shrine of Amana to tie up some loose ends.

First another round of Black gulch, bonfire at level 3. With the twinkling titanite of Shrine or Amana I maxed the sunset staff. At +5 it does 290 dark damage. 3 fast cast of dark orb makes short work of the hands. After clearing the poison statues I got it down to less then 3 minutes per round, 10 hands and 2 worms (flame swath kills the worms in 2 hits) I'm now wearing Mastodon chest piece +10, compensating for the low defense on the caster equipment in the rest of the slots. The giants at the bottom dropped another soul of the giant, not sure what that is for. (plus 19.6k souls for killing them)

Next that chest at the end of a fiery path in Iron keep. I raised my fire defense to 718, still died. Then combined everything I had, best fire defense armor, flame quartz ring, used the water pots up the ladder, great magic barrier, flash sweat, all added up to 1018. No more damage at all, immune now I guess. Got the treasure, turned out to be chaos storm, totally worth the effort.

There was still a break away floor in Shaded ruins I had not checked out. The guy in the wheelchair was sitting there next to another portal (previously found in Black gulch and Drangleic castle). He offered me to join the Pilgrims of the dark, which activated the portal he was sitting next to. Awesome side challenge dungeon, unfortunately I was not prepared and died the first time. Turns out you need to offer him a human effigy to try again, I have plenty of them. Being very careful I managed to complete it to gain a rank.
Each location has it's own small dungeon with a variety of enemies. Cleared all three and I got transported to a boss fight. I managed to survive on the first attempt. That gained me rank 2. The portal stayed open so I went back. The enemies were there again but the boss stayed away. Got back out and gained rank 3, a new armor set and Climax hex.
Climax takes 4 spell slots for 3 uses. The description says it uses up all your souls for a devastating dark orb, scales with nr of souls sacrificed. I wonder how much damage it will do.
I wonder if there are more covenants with side challenges like this? Awesome find.

where do you get/buy/farm the human effigies from? I'm running criminally short...
yeah those water pots + flash sweat got me chaos storm and in the same run the phoenix parma lol took hardly any damage at all

Enemies at the Shrine of Amana drop a lot of human effigies. Struggling there netted me a lot of them. Twinkling titanite drops there too, good place to use a bonfire aesthetic to stock up. The pilgrims of the dark npc sells some effigies as well as bonfire easthetics.
Instead of buying human effigies you can also use the ring of life, and repair that after you die, same cost. The ring is not worth losing the slot for though imo. Why do I only have 4 fingers in the game :) The ring is useful when you need to suicide run to get your dropped souls back.

Thank you muchly, kind Sir!
now to wait for a few more hours until a DS2 marathon...