u/Eralion_the_shadow

I feel like the most effective strategy is to start the fight with two shields equipped and then switch to a two-handed weapon or a one-handed weapon and a shield. It reduces your versatility, but if you’re the one who starts with the aggro token, I think it’s the best approach.

At the same time, it feels a bit cheesy to me, but I don’t see anything in the rules that prohibits it. Though I’m not sure if I’m just missing something.

I love DS3 as one of my favourite games, but I have a major issue with its lore.

 

In my opinion, DS2 assumes that there have been different eras of fire and darkness. That’s the whole point of breaking the cycle.  When you speak to Aldia at the end of DSII, you decide whether to sit on the Throne of Want, keeping the flame alive, or become a Lord of the Hollow. Or you can ignore the flame and do something completely different.

 

But DS3 seems to assume that there has never been an era of darkness. Lothric's great betrayal, the fact that the flame resurrects the Lords of Ash from the past and the Ashen Ones, the entire universe converging at a single point, etc. All of this should have happened every time the flame is about to burn out at the start of each age of darkness. Besides, the era of the Deep as something special doesn’t make sense if there have already been several ages of darkness.

There are many themes of stagnation present in the game, which are shown very clearly in the Ariandel DLC. When speaking to a Corvian Settler, he says that, unlike outsiders, they set fire to the paint when it rots. This suggests that they do not prolong any stage of the cycle any longer than necessary.

Contrary to everything I've said, Untended Graves seems to be set in the past, a past in which the fire was not linked. I say this because the Shrine Handmaid seems to recognise you if you speak to her first at Untended Graves and then at the “standard” fire-linking shrine. It also makes sense that it is the past from Gundyr’s perspective. He was late to link the flame, so he went from champion to judge (iudex) and became tainted by the pus of man over time.

Setting aside the Ringed City itself, which is protected by Filianore, the Dreg Heap is a fusion of all parts of the world, a fusion of place and time. Shouldn’t this happen every time an Age of Darkness begins? And speaking of the Ringed City itself, assuming that Filianore keeps it frozen in time with her dream (which is a big assumption and my own headcanon), is an Age of Darkness possible without the Pygmy Lords?

Finally, I think it’s important to talk about the eyes of the Fire Keeper. They show a world without flame. Is that world without flame different from other worlds in the Age of Darkness?

 

In my opinion (and I’d love to hear yours), the only way these thematic contradictions can be resolved is through a metacycle. In DSI, you choose whether to extend one phase of the cycle, the Age of Fire, or move on to another, the Age of Darkness. In DSII, the decision is whether to be part of that cycle of fire and darkness or to seek something else. In DS3, you have more endings. Linking the flame is similar to DSI, but the flame seems weaker than in DSI. The other three endings seem different: you don’t let the flame go out on its own, or you steal it, or you extinguish it. Perhaps this affects the cycle itself. With the flame stolen for Londor or for the Ashen One himself, the cycle may not be able to reestablish itself as before. It is not simply another Age of Darkness, but something different, an age of the Deep, perhaps?

Finally, in the ending “The End of Fire,” the maiden speaks of future flames. This could simply indicate that, as always, there will be a new age of fire. Or, perhaps, that the metacycle itself will start over and that the next time the flame appears, it won’t be as weakened, quite the opposite. The new flame will be rather like something new, just like in the initial cinematic of DSI.

 

TLDR: Both thematically and in terms of lore, there are arguments for and against the idea that there have already been other ages of darkness at the beginning of DSIII. Have there been, or haven’t there?

I accidentally deleted my main save file whilst showing the game to a friend. Is there any way to recover it? I have a manual save, but it’s from Day 1, and I was on Day 4