Does "Luck" have any effect on the quality of drops? I've been pumping it up lately (since it was at a measly 9 up until NG++) for the combination of the Blueblood sword as well as better drops, but does it really help? And the the Sword of Searching affect the quality of drops, too? Or just the frequency?

Luck doesn't have any effect on the quality of drops, rather than in the amount of drops themselves.

I ran with only 7 luck through the entire two gameplays and I got good drops and some lame ones, hell I even got the Guillotine Axe from a soldier rather than from BP Miranda.

Sword of Searching does augment the quality of drops, but only for random Ores, so you can get let's say, better Hardstone drops, but the same Bladestone drops.

So there's really nothing you can do to get the "pure" or "chunck" ores other than just farm like crazy? And I assume play in PBWT?

The only way to increase the "odds" of getting better ores are to play on PB WT, since enemies have better drops in that tendency. Plus some Pures only appear on PB WT, like on the Black Phantom Black Skeleton.

Good to know. I'll stop spending Soul Levels on Luck now, because, damn it takes a lot of souls at level 160 to level up.

By the way...the Dark Silver shield (I upgraded it to +3 for now) worked AWESOME against those skeleton "beams". That part used to be so hard (especially the pincer attack at the end) and it was a piece of cake with that shield. Unfortunatly, it kills your magic power, though.

My DSS+5 worked like a charm against those enemies and the Tower of Latria 3-1 guards xD The problem is the huge chunk of stamina that those attacks take out of you.

At SL 160 how many souls do you need to level up? I remember that at SL 134 I needed 110k souls to go to 135.

Im not sure of my exact sould level, I think it was around 160. Whatever it is, its taking just above 180k now.

Gahh I am still slowly working on beating this game once before I even try any blue/black phantom online stuff. I'm still in the 30s level wise and am working through the second levels. So many geckos that I keep messing up, also have a hard time understanding how to get cetain weapon upgrades but will do some more looking at the online wiki. Game is just great although I wish the online co-op was easier to do.

Has anyone actually played as the end boss for another persons' game? That sounds wicked fun but it seems to be a rare luck of the draw thing.

Hummm, I don't think you can actually help at the Old One, but for every other boss I think that's feasible.

I have helped against False King Allant, Dragon God and Storm King.

This is what I did when decided to farm the last pieces I was missing.

- Went Pure Black Character Tendency (doesn't affect drop rate, but I was Black when I decided to farm).

- Went Pure Black World Tendency (Black World Tendency increases enemy damage and souls earned, and yields better item drops, most especially for Ore).

- Held Large Sword Of Searching in my Off-Hand while killing the mobs that droped my items.

Here's more information on the Large Sword Of Searching from the Demon's Souls Wiki.

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/large-sword-of-searching