Mamoulian War

Yesterday, I have finally finished the Crown of the Iron King DLC. And it is a mixed bag for me. The majority of Brume Tower, is good and interesting design from my PoV. They made some areas filled with to much mobs, but, after few try and error attempts, they have become manageable. Only few Ashen Idols gave me some troubles. So after approx 5 and half hours after entering the DLC, I was able to defeat Fume Knight. All attempts have been made with two summons. This fight was pure DPS race. I had to make more damage to him before he wiped out my summons, and few of the attempts ended up with him with less than 5%. All in all I had 10 attempts IIRC, before being victorious. And even in that last attempt, he defeated both my summons, before I was able to land a finishing blow on him. So far so good only 15 wipes during this whole time. But this was the last part of the DLC which I have enjoyed. I have used the Tower Key and unlocked the way to Iron Passage... I should not have done this... **** it... The worst ever area in all of From Soft games, I have ever played. Multilevel areas, which were not completely accessible, filled with enemies, which sniped your ass into the otherworld in few seconds, if you were to slow to get into hiding spot or stayed to long out of it, fighting the melee waves jumping at you... **** it once again... And in the last room, just before the fog gate as a bonus oversized like-a-truck hitting mob, which destroyed half of HP of your summons... If by any miracle, I have survived up until the boss room, I became so pissed of at the whole gauntlet, that I was losing my concentration and made mistake after a mistake, so the boss has kicked my ass... Rinse and Repeat... For 3 and half ****ing hour... Until I was able to have enough concentration, to not mess up the boss fight... I hate you Myiazaki... 40 wipes in that session alone with hundred thousand plus souls lost, due getting gangbanged all the time... This area has completely discouraged me from playing the game further. I had so bad mood after that session, that I wanted to uninstall the game... Well, on the next day, I have tried to log into the game again, to check the latest area, which I still needed to finish, but the mood was still very very low... To my "surprise" another gauntlet... Thankfully, this time not as ridiculous as the Iron Passage, but it definitely did not make my mood for DS2 better... Anyway, I have done few tries on Sir Alonne and tried to learn his moves, when to heal, and when to avoid his moves at all costs. Due to me being down in the mood, my reflexes have been lousy as well, so I was not able to outroll or block all of his attacks, whenever he aggroed on me, so all the time, the fight ended up few seconds, after he got buffed after piercing me with his Katana... So I have quit the Brume Tower, and went to completely clear my head to grind 100 Mad Warrior kills, new Human Effigies, which I have lost in high numbers during my Iron Passage ball torture, and enough souls to fully upgrade Grand Lance to +10 (as I have noticed, that my Lightning Heide Lance is doing not as much damage, as I would expected on the boss - later I have found out, that he has a pretty high resistance against all of magic)... Stopped at 91 Mad Warriors, and went to sleep, pissed as much as the day before The only good part of the day was the interesting encounter with the 5 Prowler black phantoms, which have spawned on my way to the Bonfire before the Memory of the Old Iron King. After this, I went on a scheduled business trip, so I had no time to be pissed on the game anymore, so when I got back 3 days later, I had like two hours window, in my schedule, so I decided to boot the game again, with much clearer head. First I have finished the Mad Warrior grind, to acquire the Bell Keepers set, and from the new souls, I have put 1 more point into ADP Then I went back for the memory, and cleared the area up until the fog gate. There I've noticed, that I have enough souls to fully upgrade the Engraved Bracers, which increase the chance of critical hits, so I feathered back to a blacksmith. Cleared it one more time, fully healed my two summons, and readied my newly upgraded physical Grand Lance +10. Even though I was hit few times by the boss, which almost wiped me out, this time, I was able to avoid his buffing attacks, so the fight was a little bit easier, and my summons have taken much less damage. This helped tremendously with the DPS race, and made the fight much more manageable. To my surprise, I was able to defeat Sir Alonne on my first try. Which was absolutely unexpected, because I still had 50 minutes of my free time window, and I did not have any plans to move in the game at that moment Then I have remembered, that I still have to extinguish 1 Ashen Idol, and to pick up 1 Item, which was not accessible, when I have entered the Brume Tower. And one Crystal Lizard, but I was to lazy to try and run to it again The story, which almost turned into tragedy, has been finished. All three bosses down. This probably cost me few new gray hairs, but in the end, I was satisfied, that I have not given up on the game, although, I will probably never forget about that idiotic Iron Passge... Next stop, the last DLC, which I heard has some stupid design decisions as well. Hopefully not in the vein of Iron Passage. We'll see... Deathcounter: 250

Try to post the TASS news on the Codex, and let us know

I have finished the Crown of the Sunken King DLC And I have finished all of the bosses as well, including the “Gank Squad”. I have done my best to go through the place without any spoilers, which of course caused to me a lot of surprises, like moving into “one-way exit” rooms, which of course led to a lot of my demises. Again, I had more of wipes falling of the “cliff” or being gang banged by mobs which I have not seen before it was to late, than on actual boss-fights The areas areas of the DLC were gorgeous, and I liked the puzzle mechanics incorporated in them. Despite them being fatal to me occasionally Aggro range of some mobs has been in upper range, but not as crazy than the revamped Gutter, so you could still outrun some mobs, if you messed up, which a did a lot First boss was Elana. Not that hard fight with the help of summon/s, unless she summoned Velstadt, who hit pretty hard. I got few times in to the “crossfire”, which ended me pretty fast. I think it took me 4-5 tries to finally defeat her, while keeping Bernhart of Jugo alive for his questline. Next one was Sinh. I knew, there is some dragon around, but was not sure, if the next fog gate will lead me to him. It did, thankfully I had two summons at hand again. And it required really a lot of running around to be able to hit him with my melee weapon. And when I hit him, I have noticed, that he is “corrosive” so my weapons and shield durability went down fast. Thankfully, I keep my extra Lightning weapon in the inventory, so I was able to switch mid-fight to new one. In the end, I was able to get him down to 2 or 3 percent, with not much issues. Unfortunately, then I have missed one dodge, and got hit by his Breath of Fire. Which I have survived, with 2 or 3 percent as well, but unfortunately, I acquired Toxic debuff as well, and I was to slow to pop the Poison Moss. The second try was similar, just that one of my summons got obliterated in first 30 seconds of fight, so I though, that I will be finished off soon as well. Thankfully, the second summon, was tanking much better than during my first try, which was tremendous help, and I was able to defeat him. But before that, I got stunned for a few seconds, as my screen froze up, and for a moment, I was afraid, that it can corrupt my save file Thankfully the game unfroze, and Ingot his soul. The last boss was the Gank Squad. 3 NPCs, in a big room, with few spots to hide. Bit the first “treat” was the road to them. Few interconnected corridors, with no chance to get back, if you messed up. Again, I had no clue, what to await before the fog gate, so I have put my best gear on, and the I let out loud “WTF” as soon, as I’ve seen three health bars on the screen First attempt was not bad. I have noticed an archer right away, so I went fast for him, and was able to connect few backstabs with him. Unfortunately my two summons got obliterated with the other two guys, which of course led to my hasty demise again The next two tries was terrible, in one, I got instakilled with a backstab from Havel fan, in other I dropped into water, and was not able to find where the exit is As soon, as I found him, I started to run around a little bit, like a headless chicken, trying to find out, the AI behaviours. And I have found few interesting patterns, which I learned to exploit a little bit more in the next try. Then the 5th or 6th try I tried to connect all of the dots, which I have found while running around, and tried to “master” them. When doing them properly, it made the fight much easier, but I still had to watch out for every enemy move, to not get asskicked or backstabbed. First I have defeated the dual wielding rogue, then the tank, while trying to pull both of them out of sight of the archer, which worked most of the time. I have still collected few arrows from him, but everything was under the control The last one was the archer. And to my surprise, he was for me hardest to hit. I started with the backstab, but that was it Every other attempt, he either outroll me, or punished me for that, so I had to resort to slow hit, shield, run and roll tactic again. He was still able to punish me few times, for being to greedy, but not hard enough to deplete all of my HP. So far this was the hardest encounter for me, and this is the only boss, which I can’t imagine to defeat with melee character without summons at my side. The design of the encounter is fun and interesting, but I am to lame to solo it, so I am really glad, that they implemented NPC summons in the singleplayer portion of the game as well. I am already afraid, how this encounter will play out in NG+, when their damage will go up… We’ll see. For now, I am the owner of the new Crown and full Sanctum Knight set, which I am slowly upgrading to max Death Counter: 177

PS3 Demon’s Souls and all versions of Dark Souls 2, have in-game counter for deaths. Well Demon’s Souls not anymore, as the counter has been on a tablet hidden in the part of the Nexus, which you could access only when online, and the servers are long down. And then I found out, that there is a nice Deathcounter/Soundboard app for streaming, so I thought, why the hell not use it, just for the giggles

Well, after reading this interview with russian ex-officer, especially the last few paragraphs, they will be happy if, they get only looted. It sums pretty much, how twisted is Russian thinking As for the local civilians, the former officer believes they will be written off by the Russian authorities. 17/ "Since this is Russia, we won’t give a **** about the civilians left there. It’s already clear that the locals have been abandoned to fend for themselves — people there are on their own. 18/ "They’ll level everything with artillery and aviation: after all, what is Kursk Oblast compared to Russia?”

Well in PS3 version of DS2, I got almost 1500 deaths, and IIRC, in Demon’s Souls I got around 750, no clue, how many Deaths I Had in DS1, and almost 500 in DSR. So I am slowly getting there

Russian soldiers doing in Kursk the best what they can do. Looting of civilian houses

More DS2 again This time, just some small time grinding and then to finish up the session, another encounter with Royal Rat Authority. And this time it was a successful one. It was big help, that I had a chance to purchase full Forlorn Armour Set, which has a nice upgrade for Poison Resistance compared to my old gear. This helped a lot. But TBH I still have not a clue, how have I survived the fight The 4 adds jumped all around the place, and the boss hits like a truck. I almost got obliterated by a gang bang right in the beginning, but somehow, I cleared all the adds, and later had a chance to pop an Estus. This pretty much saved my attempt. On the other hand the boss has very low HP compared to most, which I have fought, so even though he hit hard, I was able to get him down in few minutes. The biggest problem in the fight, was that if I locked him, the Lance always missed, and when I fought him without locking in, my clumsiness has shown in full glory Still down on first try in this session and on third in total. Unfortunately, during the grinding session, I accumulated 5 more wipes Deathcounter 150.

Because, there is absolutely nothing flammable inside the cooling tower, unless you bring it there by hands and fire it up yourself. It is just extremely big concrete cup for cooling the water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_tower#/media/File:Inside_of_a_Natural_Draft_Cooling_Tower_3.jpg Most likely some drunken RU soldier dropped their cigarette into the pile of tires

Few units (no clue how many soldiers) have been moved from Kharkiv and Doneck regions already. And IIRC the soldiers from Kharkiv direction have been hunted down while travelling in a column. There are more and more videos of RU soldiers surrendering, allegedly slowly getting towards first thousand. So the most probable situation is, that some commanders in Kursk are again lying through their teeth, that they can still manage it, and the higher command does not move enough soldiers up north yet. UA maintains absolute “radio silence” so we can only guess what news from RU side is truth and what is made more shiny than in reality

So far the worst "day" in DS2 23 wipes at Dragon Shrine and Giant Memories I have forgotten about the difficulty spike between Dragon Aerie and Dragon Shrine, so I have changed my covenant to Company of Champions, and the got repeatedly obliterated by the second Dragonkeeper Guard with mace. I was simply not able to avoid his attacks, and he hit like a truck on steroids for my current level. So I had to shamelessly change the covenant back to something, which I can survive, and moved slowly up the stairs. Noticing, that if I summon phantom/shade, all mobs in the next room will run towards you and attack you. Which pulled like 12 or so mobs at once on the final stairs. I never run so fast towards the bonfire After that "incident" I run back to the Ancient Dragon, and talked to him for the Ashen Mist Heart, skipping the fight for now. Probably until I clear all DLCs. After that, I went into the Giant Memories, and man-o-man... I did sucked a lot at the first one. I missed few jumps, then I was pierced by archers, which I have not noticed, and then I got destroyed by mob firing the ballista, which cost me around 60k Souls Ok. I tried to refocus a little bit on what am I doing, and then with just a few more hickups, I arrived at the Giant Lord fight and won on the first attempt with the help of Bernhart of Jugo, for his questline. I have also picked up the Drangleic Helm, and finalized the armour set. Now, I am just thinking about where to go. Either moving to the first DLC, or Darklurker, or grind a little bit for the covenants. Deathcounter: 145

A summary of current situation in Kursk from PoV of one Z-blogger.

Two more bosses down in Dark Souls 2: SotFS. Both on second try. Velstadt and Guardian Dragon. The Undear Crypt changed just a little bit to vanilla, so I had not much trouble, even at the graveyard part with Pharos Lockstone room, where there are a lot of tombstones, which summon caster mobs. They definitely made that room easier in the SotFS. The other change, which was for a change more challenging, are 11 red phantoms, which are being summoned after the "candle-maiden" statue is being lit. This was a trouble, but in the end I was able to survive them as well, and slowly moved to the bossfight. Velstadt is much easier, while having summoned phantoms for help, but despite that, I died once, as I became to greedy at the end, and he just hit me with one of his wide reach swings On the second try, I misstimed one move against him as well, and nearly died again at the end of the fight, but luckily, I had enough HP to absorb that hit On the other hand, Aldia's Keep has become much much difficult area, as you can get one of the keys only after defeating 4 Forlorn red phantoms, which have very large HP pool and love to outroll you as soon as your backstab animation starts So I had to train a little bit how to properly fight them, which cost me few wipes, due to my clumsiness and less than stellar patience The second change was the gauntlet before the boss fog gate, this was made a little bit easier than in vanilla version. I was able to get through it with now again acquired patience from the phantom fights So no wipe for in there The locked Aldia's lab was fine as well, although it was a little bit more packed compared to vanilla, IIRC. Then I have decided to go and visit the boss, but, as always, I have forgotten, that there are two Ogres guarding two gates, so I went there like for a promenade, which promptly ended my suffering . This of course led to 59000 souls lost, as I was to annoyed, that after almost perfect run through the gauntlet, I got asskicked due to my memory not serving well So I made another clear, went to summon a phantom close-by, and entered the boss arena. This was my first ever melee attempt on this boss. And it needed much much more patience, than with a caster. So I needed a little bit more practice, to re-learn his moves. Still at 30% or so of his HP, he still managed to surprise me, and due to me messing up one roll, I got caught into his volley of fire, while landed on the floor, which ended my first attempt. Another gauntlet clearing was in order... *sighs* Now I went for the boss much better prepared for all of his moves, so I started of, with launching all of my lightning bolts at him, and then, slowly starting to run around him and hitting him again, and again, and again, and again, while trying to avoid all of his fire moves. This time, no major mistake happened on my side, so after a few minutes, I got a fresh Guardian Dragon Soul, and entered Dragon Aerie, after 11 wipes in total. Deathcounter 122. For now

Hmm, at the time, they had like 1/10th of their current drone fleet, less trained new recruits, and no F-16s. Even although it seems F-16s are not much of an power in this offensive move, I would asume, that it would end much worse for UA than today. Russia maybe had even more soldiers at borders at that time, as Avdiivka was still holding, and Russia was not outstretched in Donbass. And they definitely had few thousands of artilleries more to move around the frontline. Russia is lately losing 40 artilleries per day on average, so in a year, that’s more than 10k pieces in a year, which is significant firepower, which could end up any UA attempt in hours. Looks like all of the Russian Freedom Legion incursions were just a reconaissance for this large operation. There is absolute silence on UA side, all info is now only fromwhining on Russian Telegram, somwe will not see if this operation will be success or failure for few weeks minimum. The pace of breakthrough is for now, according to Russians, on par with Kharkiv Counter-Offensive in 2022.

Well, as these are mostly conscripts, they are most likely ethnic Russian who have been “parked” at places deemed most safe, and not from the ethnic minorities, about which no one cares in Russia, so their price might be much much higher on the PoW “market”. And there is a chance that this might spark some kind of ire among the more wealthy and more influential We’ll see in few days/weeks. Oh and this popped up, while browsing lates news I love Ukrainian sense of humor even in such a hard times.

Rumours are rumours, sometimes bull****, sometimes true. The video of 40+ is from single event. These events are ongoing for two days. And as the borders in Kursk were guarded by 18-19 years old fresh conscripts, with zero combat experience, and as TikTok warriors have ran away faster than Flash, it is quite plausible, that there are many more than just 40 of them edit: There are already two of such videos, confirming minimum of 80 PoWs taken.

Seems like the concern of the US is just Russian disinfo again. From what I understand, what US guys really said (Kirby IIRC), is that the usage of US stuff on a Russian soil inside a perimeter is still valid. They did not breach more than 100kms. Yet The rumours says, that UA has already taken more than 300 PoWs in two days of the Special Military Operation to protect Ukrainian speaking minorities living in Russia.

Which rules you talk about? Do you think, the Azawad people do not deserve the liberation of their nation from oppresive junta governent Mali as much Palestinian people from Israel government? The Touaregs at least did not go and murdered thousand of civilians in a single day like Hamas did, but gone directly against the terorrists, who murdered the people of their own

Botswana ratified the peace summint memorandum a day after “Mali diplomatic incident” . Seems like it affects the “Global South” as much as bombing children hospitals afects Nestle doing business in Russia and the Kursk, well, this is becoming very juicy. Russian milbloggers have confirmed operational encirclement of Sudzha, which means approx 15 kms in a day, or in other numbers, 2 months and 20k of casualties of Russian Advance in Pokrovsk Direction, after the fall of Avdiivka

Oh noes, war criminals who have on their hands countless of civilian casualties have been eliminated in a country, which provides them safe harbour, and using them for killing civilians at home as well. What a disgraceful violation of the “world order” that Putin talking so much about

Well, there’s not much choice really. AMD. Especially with the information, that Nvidia had to delay their next chipset introduction due to the design flaws. Although this impacts enterprise customers, there are more and more rumours emerging about the delay pf RTX 50**s as well.

A little bit more into the Shrine of Amana again. I am spending now a little bit less time, as I would like to, but having a shoulder injury makes it very painful, whenever I sit and play behind my PS for more than 1 and half hour. Anyway, Looking Glass Knight has been defeated. Not much trouble, as I have called two summons just for the laugh I did not wanted to spent to much time with the fight, knowing, what awaits me next… Shrine of Amana… As I have mentioned before, to my surprise, the areas up to the second bonfire have been “blessed” by much better mob placing, than in Vanilla, so it was not as painful, as I have expected. Of course, I’ve made few stupid moves, so my Deathcounter has increased again, but it was much, much better experience this time around. The issue for me was the third part, before Demon of Song, I have destroyed my equipment few times in the mist from the giant “Sponge Bob”, and then I have spent few times clearing the area, out of the cave, as I forgot, that there is a red phantom invader, and I wanted my Awestone a lot, so I had to change the covenant just for this fight. Of course, I have died in this area as well, so I had to repeat it again and slowly with a crossbow. I have not found a 100% safe way to clear the mobs with melee, like the previous area, so it took a lot of time to get to Demon of Song. I went back to call phantom for the fight, and went through the fog. Took me three tries, as a felt to tired from my pain, but I wanted to get the giant toad at all costs. Of course two more tries meant two more clearings of the pond mobs, so it took me a lot of time to start a new fight. But my goal was fulfilled. With deathcounter stopping at 109 wipes.

Well, I have half of the shrine already behind me, and From definitely placed the caster mobs in much more annoying way. I have not needed to use the Crossbow that much, as in Vanilla, just on very few mobs, I was able to melee down most of them with no issue. In Vanilla, I simply had no chance to get through the area without spending to much time sniping them.

Little bit more of DS2 again. First in line was Duke's Dear Freja. For some reason, despite Tseldora being pretty annoying place to run around, and you have to Homeward a lot if you want all the loot. Especially the easter egg Pickaxe , I had zero wipes while traversing to her. Summoned two summons and had a chill fight The next one was Lost Sinner. And again, despite not in love, with the exploding mobs, I have managed to survive the walk to her up including the fight with her with no wipes. Again, no wipes, but before the end of the game session, I have decided to fight with Vengarl at his new position. I have lacked Fragrant Branch of Yore up until now. Of course before landing at his place, I had two comedy wipes again, due to me missing the landing point on a bridge to him Both bosses on first try. With summons, but that's OK for now. Plan is to have a little bit more challenge at NG+ The third one was the Dragonrider duo. The fight was again pretty fine with the summon helping out, but the road through Drangleic Castle was pain in the ass I have been surprised few times, with few changes from vanilla. The mob placing is completely different, so I did not knew, what awaits me. That's why I ended up with 8 asskicks before finishing the session. I have also tried to get the complete Ruin armour set, before venturing forth, but after 5 or 6 rounds with Ruin Sentinels, I am still missing the chest piece. But this one actually helped me a little bit with leveling up. 101 wipes. Next in line, Looking Glass Knight and Shrine of Amana... And I have found myself to put the next session off few times, as I hate this area as much as a flatearther, hates a geography book.

They are not attacking Algeria, they are attacking "the Western conservative values". It has absolutely nothing to do, that she is Algerian, it has everything to do, to further divide the people in the EU. Especially in the Eastern European member states, where this has turned into abomination feeding on hate, misogynia and LGBTI+ hate. Which further fuels Russian hybrid war goals...