Ranking Soulsborne LEVEL 1 RUNS from EASIEST to HARDEST
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- The rules of a level 1 run are as follows: Pick the lowest level starting class, don't invest stats and beat the game. I have been asked countless times what is the hardest SL1 or (Soul Level 1) run is in all of the souls games. I decided to cover key differences in what makes them more difficult and some extras from personal experience on Demons Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring and the Dark Souls Trilogy. Comment below if your order would be different! Make sure to check out the links in the pinned comment and the level 1 playlist below.
Level 1 Run Playlist: • Dark Souls 3: Worlds F... - Ігри
Livestreams at www.Twitch.tv/Squillakilla
Lifestyle Content at instagram.com/OGSquilla
Updates at twitter.com/OGsquilla
Join our Discord: discord.gg/QmgJatzWJd
i finished soul level 1 for ds2 last week and by the way, small mistake there is 41 bosses not 42, ive only done the ds trilogy and im not a speedrunner by any means but i personally found ds2 the toughest in sl 1, also royal rat authority is hell without spells or pyromancy cause of the 4 toxic doggos
Squilla making it obivous that he never tried a SL1 run of My Little Pony.
Try watching a My little pony speedrun, mfs got it down to the minutes😅
omg, don't call him out like that
Probably for the better, the only game with that name is mobile hoo-ha.
Now Adventure Ponies 1 and 2, those are some speedgames.
I'm not making any of this up.
@@RougeMephilesClone don't know any of those, i was thinking more about maretime bay adventure, it's got some pretty interesting skips to reduce time by a lot
I mean speed running Adventure Bay is harder than it looks. Not "top level" speedrun games but definitely something that's interesting to watch once.
I always found it quite poetic that Gwyn's weakness was fire as he desperately dedicated the rest of his life to prolong the Age of Fire. What started his reign ultimately became his downfall as well
pov you wield a fire sword but you are weak to it
Man literally let the fire burn him down, so it's not surprising that he became weak to it over time. Also same goes for Aldrich, who is exclusively weak to fire when compared to other lords of cinder
@@churchofthetea4273your character in game anytime you wield a fire sword
I still remember how I came to Gwyn with Quelaag's furysword and absolutely obliterated him. It felt almost like a cheese strategy.
The way i see it is Gwyn has the lighting element, so it makes sense he's weak to fire. But thar doesn't explain why he has a fire sword
Im amazed you didnt mention using pyromancy in DS1, it doesnt need any stat investment only upgrading the pyro glove. Combined with power within you can reach insane damage
Yeah sl1 can be more op than a leveled playthrough because all your souls can just go into powering up the pyro flame and buying the expensive spells and rings
The community has kinda split SL1 runs into two separate categories: Pyromancy and No Pyromancy.
@@KaoruMzk This exactly, pyromancy is strong in DS1 that it was a speedrun route all by itself. Going SL 1 Pyromancy in Dark Souls 1 kind of defeats the purpose.
It's not a fucking glove.
@@arcuz7862 THEN WHY DO I WEAR IT ON MY HAND
Prisoner's Chain is a must for ds3 sl1 imo, the health and stamina cancel out the vulnerability
And there's a ring that boost your defense at full health essentially negating the added damage
Silly opinion, first off to those who understand ur basically saying you don't know the movesets. So you should put the ego away trying to do sl1 with gundyrs ring lol... secondly a smart player uses Flynns ring and Chloranthy and Lloyds sword (stated in the video) saying gundyrs ring is a MUST is just hilarious bro. It's useless. Learn the movesets, learn the game.
@benkenobi8816 the absolute lack of self awareness to tell US to put our ego away and then say that. Also you only listed 3 rings and the game has 4 slots, so you could easily fit prisoner's chain into that setup and be able to survive some stuff that would otherwise one-shot you. You also neglected to mention the extra stamina that it gives you, which is helpful even if you never get hit
@@benkenobi8816bro you really using rings? They give you such an unfair advantage, just go out there fists only. What, you want to kill bosses quickly? Learn the movesets, learn the game
@@benkenobi8816a yes, we all players should beat the Game level 1, Broken sword, calamity ring while doing a no hit run, and we must get Gut becuase we are useless piece of garbage
Edit: you saying we must put our ego aside yet you write the most elitist ego comentary ever
To answer your question about Gwyn, his power is related to lightning, not fire. I always interpreted "Lord of Cinder" as an ironic title. That he let himself burn as cinder to keep the First Flame lit. At that point he was nothing but cinder for the flame.
Good point!
He used to be the lord of Sunlight, now that he’s hollowed and nothing but kindling he’s become the lord of cinder, just as you said
It's also the thing that's consuming him. It's really not a power up, it's a curse that's slowly killing him. His demise accelerating when the player applies even more fire to him makes sense in that context. The ever lit candle melts faster if you take a freaking flamethrower to it.
It's also why Radahn is vulnerable to the player's use of Scarlet Rot. Like yeah, he's accustomed to fighting against the rot and has endured its infestation for years. But that's the residual of it from forever ago when he fought Malenia. Rolling around in the lake of rot getting a fresh dose of it would surely mean he finally gets overwhelmed by the thing his constitution has been eroded by all this time.
The only thing I can't really reconcile is Mohg being vulnerable to bleed. Lore wise I mean. I know there's a technical gameplay thing about it, but I want a good lore justification for that one.
I swear to god the first time I fought him, going back to the 360 days I always read it as "Gywn: Lord of Cider". This was before all the guides told you to parry him, use RTSR etc. We were blocking with a farmed black knight shield, fully upgraded with limited twinkling before it was able to be bought and hoping for the best! Good times with the pre patch version of DS1.
Yeah, Gwyn is basically a rehash of Zeus in Greek mythology. The ancient dragons were like the titans, and Zeus /gwyn leads the other ‘gods’ to usurp them as the rulers of the world, such as Nito being similar to Hades. Zeus like Gwyn is also lightning based.
The Greek gods always had issues with ensuring the mortals/human were loyal and reliant on them, their power existed in the prayers of mortals, in that respect they almost feared them as they needed them, and in that sense, they feared a future where humans did not need them, and therefore would do things to ‘ensure their loyalty’. In the same way Gwyn feared humanity for its potential for a future without need for the lords, and created the dark sign to keep the humans needing the lords.
The only SL1 run I have ever attempeted, and completed (all bosses) is DS3. The ring that boosts defense at full HP is a MUST HAVE. It saves you from so many one shots and you can always heal to full hp again with one estus. It made so many bosses super easy.
I used it in my SL1 too. Was able to tank a lot!
Damn I never thought about using it in my playthrough, would have been nice.
I did BL4 and SL1 in DS3. BL4 bosses weren't the issue, the annoying enemy runs were. But DS3 feels almost made for SL1. It's insanely fair and gives you back that first time playthrough thrill.
both lloyd ring are a must for sl1 atleast for me
agree, it makes casual player like me can complete sl1, also the gundyr ring need to get it ASAP
I’m partial to the dragon’s slayer axe in DS3. It’s a pain to get going because it takes 3 ring slots up but the damage is noticeably better against the late game enemies you’re using it against
I found it to be a huge disappointment actually and only used it for Friede and Twin Princes. The 3 ring requirement means you have to pick between Lloyd's sword and shield talisman. If you pick the shield talisman, the axe isn't that much stronger than a raw broadsword. If you pick the sword talisman, you are much more likely to get oneshot. Also, the broadsword has a much faster moveset which I was more comfortable with. It's certainly a viable option but I didn't think it was worth the effort personally.
EDIT: wait, it only requires 2 ring slots. the moveset was the most important factor I guess
@@blargghkip I wouldn't mind the axe since im pretty sure the 1st swing of a axe is of identical speed to a straight sword
@@cogwheel5979 the thing is you have to 2-hand the axe at SL1 which uses a much slower moveset
I find it to really be good in the ng+'s as the wildly increased dps becomes a must as more time on the battlefield is more time to get killed by some utter bullshit, like in lord of cinders case.
No one ever mentions sekiro in the sl1 experience. The game has no overt leveling, but i think prayer beads are the games equivalent. I did a run without ever upgrading with any prayer beads and had a lot of fun. Difficult but fun and really memorable.
Having ressurection in Sekiro is pretty nice. It guarantees that any unexpected one-shot move (usually high damage grabs) still allows for one more chance. So damage never feels too unfair since you're always guaranteed 2-3 missteps.
For no-hit runs attack power 1 is considered equal to sl1. Shura ending doesn't require an insane skill under this restriction, but all remembrances run becomes stupidly hard even for the most skillful players. Go watch it, you won't be disappointed.
Sekiro at base vitality, attack power 1, charmless, demon bell would be the hardest amount of mechanical challenge that you can put, and at that point, that's probably harder than most other SL1 runs (besides DS2 maybe) because your damage output is so low that you're gonna be fighting endgame bosses for 25-30 minutes at minimum, and the longer each attempt gets, the harder it gets to not make mistakes. I feel the difficulty would be akin to doing a SL1 no weapon upgrades run to make the damage output comparatively similar across the games. If you allow increases in attack power but not vitality, Sekiro imo, is pretty easy compared to SL1 of DS3/ RL1 of ER, because it's just knowing the fundamentals slightly better than you normally would after completing your first run.
Sekiro is by far and away my favorite souls game. And yes. Its a Souls game
@@common_undead i started a run a while back that was exactly this. it was pretty frustrating at times but a lot of fun, although i am still stuck at sword saint, unfortunately
Don't forget that for DS1 and DS2 pyromancy is great for sl1 due to most damage being tied to upgrades rather than stats and scaling. Managing attunement is annoying but that's why it's just another tool to go alongside melee and not your whole build.
Ds2 actually has a lot of damage come from scaling, some pyros just have good base damage.
Bloodborne was probably the hardest for me if we also count all the non root chalices. Loran Darkbeast is just a nightmare.
Glad we agree. The cursed chalice was hell as well but Loran Darkbeast BL4 still haunts me
@@JMB_SmashI cried real tears when fighting the cursed amygdala
@@Halcyon1997cursed amygdala is the easiest boss in the game
@@uncleol No the easiest boss in the game is the witches of hemwick. Even then bosses like Micolash and heck even Cleric Beast is easier than Amygdala, especially the cursed variant that has boosted damage and health compared to the normal version. Fighting the camera during chalice amygdala alone is harder than the bosses I listed.
@@paledrake there is a special method I use that literally ends the amygdala fight in seconds
I love how your level 1 videos detail a bunch of useful items and weapons to make the run easier for people while I just use the starting weapon and go monkey mode.
Nice to see you here
Nice to see y'all here lol :)
You forgot to mention a lot of op stuff for the ds2 sl1 run. peasant set gives you +6 adp, the vessel shield gives you a ton of stats (you dont need to meet the stat reqiurements to get the benefits), ring of the embedded gives you +7 levels to vigor, endurance and vitality, brightbugs are SUPER useful for the dlc bosses, elizabeth mushroom nullifies the damage aura from the smelter demons. Starting my ds2 sl1 run i thought it was gonna be horrible, but honestly it wasn't that bad, It took me a lil less than a week to beat all the bosses.
Don't forget that hook wep wich i don't quite remember where to get it but i think it raises a bit of dex.
Long time no playin that game.
Honestly, DS2 SL1 is the easiest one in my opinion, maybe DS1 one is on the level because of how OP pyro is
The game is not that hard itself, and every second item is breaking it)
The crowns in the game also up various stats or give special effects
definitely a very solid list. i would probably put ds3 lower because of how good rolls are, and elden ring in A because the few bosses that were hard, were REALLY hard (looking at you, radagon and elden beast)
If you're only talking base game ds3, yeah it felt pretty fair to me. Damage is almost never a huge problem and you can pretty much always keep yourself out of oneshot range with rings if you want to play it safe. The DLC bosses on the other hand... Yeesh
@@FakeHeroFang ehh, maybe it's because I've replayed fights like midir and gael quite a lot through mods like the convergence, but I found them to be on par with or easier than late game base bosses. friede and demon prince were definitely the 2 hardest though
Elden ring bosses do because easier when you learn about the hidden posture bar system
@@mrpurplewhite those are the two I'm currently stuck on, yep. I'm close with Friede but the princes are such a long fight
Midir was legit easy in my SL1 run, I died more times to crystal sage
I did my BL4 in Bloodborne because of this video, was easy enough until the DLC, and Gerhman, now i want to do SL1 of DS3! Love this content, you give so much useful info
At one reborn on my bl4 and this video has convinced me to continue been playing it for about a year, my ds3 sl1 took 200 hours, so here we go lmao. Great video subscribed and looking forward to more! 🦎
You got this man. Just don't give up on Ludwig or Orphan.
Good luck bro!!
I haven't done every game yet but for now BL4 in Bloodborne was the hardest so far, took me more or less around 400 tries with every single DLC boss (well not the Failiures), it was banana's crazy run! DS1 was pretty straightforward with pyromancy, scaling just from the glove - went smooth honestly. Ringed City was a challenge in DS3 along with Soul of Cinder and Nameless in a base game. Still gotta do DeS, ER and DS2 as SL1 character.
I can relate to you on Bloodborne as my BL4 DLC run was my 3rd Old Hunters run and Ludwig took me 448 tries, Maria took 365, and Kos took 373, and then Laurence after practicing on a non BL4 took me 224 tries.
@@knightfromlordranThat is dedication at its finest right there.
For anyone whos thinking of running ds1 sl1, another aspect that can make your time a lot easier is that pyromancies dont have a stat requirement, and with all the extra souls you get from not leveling up, you can easily afford to upgrade your glove and buy the strongest spells, that being said I understand if you don’t want to use this as it simplifies the run greatly and it is a challenge run afterall
Broski dark souls 1 sl1 is literally combustion only and it’s much easier than doing it with the giant hammer.
Or just any pyromancy, because none of them require int or faith
@@5AMACE yep, I oneshotted Manus sl1 with pillars of chaos ☠️
@@raijeki saaame, it was so fun just seeing him melt
@@raijekiis not pillars of chaos one shot at SL1 agains manus super rng tho ?
@@jajasking9652 not super but yeah 7/8 times out of 10 it will do 2 ticks instead of 3
For me BloodBorne was by far the hardest. Also LvL1 Malenia, no summon.
Digging the format. Have you thought of doing a follow along sl1 or no hit for the less experienced to learn from
Thanks for the video. It definitely does depend though on which is the hardest. Like a lot of souls challenges, it really depends on how hard you want to make it. You can completely cheese your way through RL1 / SL1 without much practice (for example, DS1 pyromancy or ER various cheese methods to speedkill), or you could just use basic weapons on each game to make it a challenge
Also fuck Gideon LMAO
i think Gwyn's weakness being fire kind of makes sense because he couldn't keep away from the firein the beginning and now he's consumed by it
It was so odd seeing another persons lvl 1 progression in dark souls remastered. I ended up leaning heavily on the pyromancy spells and never thought to get a better weapon, but had a lightning and fire hatchet.
Solid ranking. DS2 is unquestionably the hardest, especially in NG+7. Elden Ring has so many tools to make the game easier, but I'd say the underlying difficulty, complexity of boss movesets, etc. is pretty similar to Bloodborne and DS3.
Mans out here doing sl1 ng +7 runs. Maniac.
@@prospect2 Yeah, except for DS2. The difficulty jump from NG to NG+7 is usually pretty reasonable in these games, but trying SL1 NG+7 in DS2 changes a person lol.
I fully agree with your placement of DeS, and as I have not played ds1 sl1 yet I can’t say if it is easier than ER but I had an extremly easy time with ER, I think it’s by far the easiest (aside from DeS which I picked on purpose not to use magic on) because of all the options you have. Bloodborne I would say is definitely harder though but I do say ER is one of the easier. Haven’t done ds2 sl1 either
DS1 isn’t that bad. If you get cursed, you can use the Sanctus Shield to regen health so you can stay in RTSR range while using power within without losing health. Gives you a massive damage bonus.
Armor also matters a lot more. You can still tank the four kings just using havel’s armor so you can get a high level weapon pretty early. Stacking humanities lets you get the full benefit from a chaos weapon as well, so you get good damage all around and the attacks in general aren’t tough to dodge compared to the later games. It’s definitely one of the easier runs
I absolutely loved my sl1 ds2 run. So many tough fights. I ran pyro with hand axe and didn’t want to go through with any guides. The 3 man gank squad was so hard I had to cheese it with poison clouds and I got hard stuck on elana. I hope one day I decided to go back and finish it as I spent a large amount of time grinding for the pyro girls top for the fashion and as I have never completed a sl1 play through start to finish.
Lol you missed the Peasant Set in DS2. You get it early and with it and Ladle you get to the 92 Agility breakpoint and with Mad Warriors Mask and Simpleton ring you get to the 96 breakpoint
Love this kind of content :)
I started a Bloodborne BL4 run after doing Dark Souls SL1. I'm at the Shadows, and I don't know if I have it in me. I can't imagine what the endgame bosses and chalice dungeons are gonna be like considering the trouble I'm having now.
I love this new videos you start doin, keep them cooming.
a no death no bonfire sl1 run at ds2 is still an achievement i am proud of reaching! great game great feeling
Great vid!
The succinctness, editing, and writing on this video are superb
things to note 5:36 hornet ring’s damage boost does not work on any boss other than Friede, abyss watchers, and obviously spear of church and grave tender. All other boss riposte are “special riposte” that some how does not benefit from hornet ring damage, a few common enemy also share this trait such as giant crabs. A simple rule of thumb is, if the enemy can be backstab, hornet works, if not, than hornet probably doesn’t either, with very few exceptions.
glad you made a video of this
Bloodborne BL4 absolutely broke me. I set out wanting to do all bosses, but after I did the Wet Nurse I just stopped. She's the last mandatory boss, so I called that a win and walked away.
It really is jaw-dropping how VASTLY more difficult BL4 was to, say, DS1 SL1.
I platinumed Elden Ring this weekend after a 14 hour struggle against soloing Malenia...hearing that it takes you even a few hours sometimes to beat her makes me feel a little less like a terrible player. Love the content!
Cogratz, how about now you try to solo her with 0 weapon upgrades, will be fun.
Great video, couple of thoughts:
1. No shout out for Prisoner's Chain ring in DS3? Damn near essential for me.
2. The later Chalice Dungeon bosses at BL4 are fucking insane, and would make Bloodborne #1 on this list if they were included.
My favorite streamer to watch hands down.. great video!
Love your videos man
Really Cool Video and I totallly agree on that List.
I finished all Fromsoftware Games SL1/RL1/BL4 this year and holy jesus that was a ride. I have completed all of these Games a lot of times and in very different ways so I felt confident enough to not use any Consumables and Weapon Buffs in the Level 1 Runs as well. It is insane that Bosses I felt knowing inside out even some easier ones can mess with you A LOT and how intimidating these Bosses become once again like you are facing them First Playthrogh again.
Your List actually reflects my List. I would Rank them the same with one exception and that is Sekiro.
I know Sekiro Level 1 ist not a thing however for me Level 1 in Sekiro is Base ATK/VIT and not using any Skills. I also didnt upgrade any of the Prostethics in my Playthrough.
That being said I would Add Sekiro "Level 1" above of DS 2.
In DS 2 not only the Bosses are extremely Hard at SL 1 also the simple Ways to the Bosses were a Pain. But there are Highs and Lows in DS2 were sometimes it actually was a Lot easier to Deal with. In Sekiro you dont really have that annoying run back to the Boss but the Bosses themselves from Midgame Point on are insanely hard to beat because most of them have to be killed by draining their HP and not the Posture mechanic. That often results in Boss Trys longer than 30 Minutes for Bosses like Owl Father, Demon of Hatered and Isshin. That for me put Sekiro on Top of all of them because you really need to 100% Focus not only to Dodge or Block but to Parry correctly every time if you dont your Posture will break wich end up with dying everytime in Late Game even by Divine Dragon.
I would recommend trying Sekiro Base ATK/VIT and no use of Skills if you want whats for me the Hardest Level 1 Challenge of these Games.
The hardest sl1 boss for me is a toss up between maliketh from elden ring or demon princes from ds3. I never knew how effective bleed was against the princes which made that fight a complete nightmare
Oddly for me, I didn't have any issues with the Demon Princes, but one of the hardest ones was Halflight.
I cheesed halflight with the profaned greatsword and have absolutely no regrets
Great vid squilla. Cant wait to watch you demolish elden ring dlc. Any ideas on what weapon youll use for your first run through it?
No mention for prisoner's chain and lloyd shield ring for ds3? Really?
I got as far as Hoarah Loux in my Elden Ring RL1 run with the Death's Poker and Uchigatana as my main weapons. I'll try to finish the run after the DLC drops but I think the build variety and the fact that you can get the Radagon Soreseal at the very start of the game makes it easier than most of the others.
This just reminded me that I was stuck and abandoned my SL1 run of DS3.
I got to the point where I either needed to beat Dancer or Pontiff, and neither of those was happening.
I had a very similar experience. I got stuck on dancer specifically for a long time, with so little durability, she's a whole different beast to deal with. I eventually got through her, but then got stuck on the rematch with gundyr when trying to beat him. Pontiff on the other hand, if you can nail the opening parry, becomes quite a bit more manageable thanks to the initial dps burst you can perform. From there, it's just a matter of grinding out attempts until you can reliably dodge enough to take him out.
I did Demon's, DS, and DS2, but stopped at Shadows of Yharnam in Bloodborne and never attempted the others. Almost a decade ago. Also never did all bosses. Now feeling like this would be fun to pick up again! Especially on Steam Deck where I can chip away while on the go!
I've only done SL1 for DS2. I beat all bosses and DLC minus the King's pets. Once you can use a dexterity ring you can use Rapier and it becomes much easier. Vessel shield makes other DLCs beatable along with poison arrows, since poison is really good at DS2.
Awesome video! Just started to get back into your channel, do you plan on playing Armored Core 6?
for Ds2, you still have clothes in your inventory- it’s the traveler’s set you’re wearing when you start the game before making your character. it’s still in your inventory and it’s really lightweight and the hood is very stylish
Not only can you experience Dark Souls 2 at level 1 horrors, with creativity to escape the character creator, you can experience it without stats at all at negative 44.
I accomplished the DS1 and DS3 sl1 run last year. DS3 was my first sl1 run and it was really hard in the endgame bosses. Especially Soul of Cinder that took me about 3 months of several attempts (did a lot of break to get trought), about 300-500 attempts (not sure about the count, I forgot to count at to some point). This kind of boss is easy in casual playthrough when you got a reasonable amount of HP to tank some of his devastating attacks. But in SL1 you don't really have the chance to fail, you have to be almost perfect. And also the fight is really long with the 2 phases. I have died in the 1rst phase on about 80% of all the attempts I have done. I break some keyboards with that, but at the end I beat him clean. Also Friede and Gael were really hard too but for Friede the first 2 phases is not really hard. The second phase can troll a bit tough. I did about 50-70 attempts. And Gael i did about 90 attempts to get him. Also I almost did a no hit run in my final attempt, but I got hit by his crossbow, RIP. But I took him down, so I take it as a win.
I did a SL1 DS1 run after that and it was much easier. Special Mention to Manus and especially Kalameet that they were really tough to take down even with the good hammer.
I give up the RL1 Elden ring for the moment. I think the bosses hit way too hard. In a open world game when the player expected to level up his HP really high on the final bosses, you get easily oneshot.
Song playlist for the video? I really like the atmosphere on some of them
I have SL1'ed all Souls games except Demon's Souls and my ranking would have been very similar if not identical to Squilla's.
In case of Elden Ring it is actually insane how many things one can use in the game to boost an SL1 character. Most importantly, one can get Radagon's Soreseal for free right at the start of the game. It adds +5 levels in VIG, END, STR and DEX, i.e., equipping this talisman immediately converts a level 1 character into a level 21 character. Something like this was not possible in any of the previous games. DS2 and DS3 had rings that added +5 levels in both VIG and END, yet, for boosting STR and DEX it was necessary to equip additional rings. That is, Radagon's Soreseal actually combines three different rings from DS2 or DS3 and occupies just one talisman slot. Second, another boost of 20 levels for a duration of 3 minutes in any of the damage stats is possible by mixing certain Crystal Tears in the Flask of Wondrous Physick, so the Wretch can be a level 41 character for 3 minutes during, e.g., a boss fight. Further possible enhancements are possible by wearing certain armour sets and a large number of weapon buffs and body buffs available in the game. Moreover, ashes of war that in many cases represent very powerful spells (like Sacred Blade or Glintstone Phalanx) have no stat requirement and can be attached to any weapon. That is, such spells become accessible to RL1 characters (which I actually exploited quite a lot in my own RL1 run). In summary, an RL1 character in Elden Ring has a huge number of different options for playing the game, some of which are also shown in Squilla's video.
DS2 is on the opposite side of spectrum. As mentioned in the video, the only weapons which can be really used as an SL1 character are the hand axe (1-handed or 2-handed), the club or the mace (these two only 2-handed). It is not possible to even wield the short sword (4 levels of DEX missing). Later on in my SL1 run in DS2 I switched to the battle axe as soon as I got the +5 STR ring. So there are not really many other choices in this game under the SL1 constraint, and of course the fact that one does not have many i-frames for roll dodges, as mentioned in the video, is very bad, too. The possible fix to this, Simpleton's Ring unfortunately is hidden in the 2nd DLC. On the bright side, Flynn's Ring (the counterpart to Blue Dancer Charm in ER) was very good in DS2. It gave a flat damage boost of +50 AR on minimum equip load which, in this game, is determined solely by the vitality stat (and not the percentage of the burden). Since this stat is at +6 for an SL1 character one could take advantage of the full +50 AR boost, so incredibly good. But this ring is also a DLC item which can not be obtained early in the game.
These just some thoughts I wanted to have written down after I saw this nice video.
I only did SL1 runs on DS3 and BB, I never found the motivation to do it for any others but one day when the game relases slow down gonna give ER a try. It is a super fun challenge especially if you ignore guides and rely on your own knoeledge and trial and error
My first SL1 run was in Dark Souls III. Finally finishing it was if not one of the greatest adrenaline boost I‘ve ever had. I didn‘t do the DLC bosses yet but the base ones were already challenging enough.
I wish this video would‘ve been out earlier tbh💀
Gael SL1 is a ride.
Man you made me feel much better.
I did my Dks2 SL1 run YEARS AGO. It took me a a few months and I got all of the bosses...all but 2...but I tried off and on for YEARS. I beat ivory king...but I never...never beat Lud and Zallen...I tried for hours and hours and hours...I had to give up...I did an unarmed run to make up for my incomplete SL1 run.
But knowing you think DKS2 is the hardest to SL1 ALL bosses...gives me some pride and peace ✌️
Nicely done, Squilla!
The only tier list where Dark Souls 2 would ever be on top
Ds3 tips if you prefer maximizing survivability instead of damage, gundyrs chain that I forgot the name of for some reason is perfect for tanky twinks, and by stacking faith ring, fp reduction ring, and extra attunement slot ring you can cast ToD at bonfires before switching to your actual ring setup for an extra clutch, also fucking around with pyros at sl1 in ds1 is fun you can even one shot bosses with firestorm and correct setup
All the other games: hard because the bosses are hard.
DS2: hard because the player character is even weaker than any other L1 run.
The only level 1 run I tried was Demon's Souls and I couldn't get past Old King Allant. Would've cheesed him with Poison/Plague spells if I hadn't used the boss souls. Really goes to show how much planning you gotta do ahead of time for these kinds of runs.
So far I’ve only attempted the SL1 on dark souls 3 and I’m up to the demon prince, I have had a fair deaths so it’s been tough, it’ll be interesting to compare it to my next SL1 when I go to DSR next
Demon Prince sucks SL1! I found Friede the hardest in the end.
Fuck the twerps' phase 1 so much.
Gwynn is the lord of sunlight(lightning), not flame, therefore not resistant to fire. In fact his whole purpose is burning now.😂
The fire surelly hurts him badly hence why he has assumed a hollow like state, tourtered in a similar way to many hollows especally in londor who liked to bleed and burn cursed undead to slow their revival.
Love the video. How would it change if it's a lvl1 any% ?
Ds2 and Bloodborne much lower than Ds3 and Elden Ring, because base game bosses are FAR easier than DLCs in these games.
I have always wanted to do a SL1 but am low key afraid. Maybe I will just try dip my toes in with Demon Souls.
I've done one on dark souls 1, and if you know the game it can honestly feel like a normal playthrough in terms of difficulty at times. It seems really hard but really isn't.
i honestly think ds3 is not that bad until late game. you can get fairly powerful early on by killing dancer early with the dark battle axe you find in a mimic in high wall wich dancer is weak to. you then get access to the knight ring and a whole lot of rescources. play with the irithyll longsword and later with the dragonslayer axe and you have great damage output even on sl1
@@xXRunDeathXx Yeah ds3 is a good choice for the first sl1 game. With Lloyd shield ring and prisoner's chain you just don't get one shotted even by end game or dlc bosses. Dancer is a big roadblock tho
@@haoyu53 dancer just requires patience. she is the first boss i do in every run. even my wife, who isnt a souls veteran at all did her on her first run because she was stubborn and the game said she could :D
@@haoyu53 Yep, DS3 is really generous with the amount of options you get as SL1. You can have a pretty big health due to rings and armour, you can even survive quite a lot of attacks even on NG+7 SL1, including Soul of Cinder.
I did an RL1 playthrough of Elden Ring that started as a "horseless" playthrough, and I wonder if Spirit Ash count as magic or not. They consume your FP, can only be used one per fight, and range drastically in utility. For all intents and purposes they are spells with a bit of an edge given to late game ones(mimic/Tiche). Like in order to use Black Knife Tiche, you have to devote your Wondrous Physic to her. But even to get her you have to beat Black Knife Alecto, Ringleader, who for some people is harder than a lot of the rememberance bosses, and a Rememberances only run might not even bother with her.
I'm betting they're categorized as invalid like being co-op help, but they have their own upgrade system, and without upgrades are generally useless. Even with upgrades, many of them often become one swipe fodder to late game bosses, and even the renowned Mimic bases itself off your own equipped gear(not counting Great Runes) and stats, meaning at RL1 it will be almost worthless.
But I suppose perhaps this is even worse than using Pyromancy for an SL1 in Dark Souls, ey?
Small correction about ds2 flynns ring, its not the same as ds3 it is instead tied to your equip burden itself vs how much of that burden is in use, example the vitality stat or effective vitality through things like royal soldier ring or the dragon rings can change the ar you get from flynns (you will still get full benefit of flynn at 9 vit with third dragon on but as soon as you equip something that will increase your max equip burden or lvl vit you will start losing damage on fynns) this probably wont matter too much just since the vit stat is so low on the sl1 but just putting it out there you can actually wear stuff with flynns in ds2 and still get the full benefit
I actually 100% agree with this tier list since I've played all of them in SL1 (except for Bloodborne). DS2, being my favorite DS game (no joke) and my most played, is easily the hardest one to complete and I didn't even beat all of the bosses (too tedious). And as you said, someone in Fromsoft thought that it's a good idea to make s as part of the attribute. I used to be one of those people who defends the AGI attribute and thought that people who complained about it probably has a skill issue. After my experience on beating the game on SL1, it made me realize how important AGI is to level up.
Gwyn being weak to fire actually says a lot about how his greed and pride has consumed him
i loved doing a sl1 run on dark souls 3, it made me realize just how much fair the game is
*easy
you saying the ivory king gave me flashbacks of watching otz do the hitless ds2 run that was torturous for the poor man.
3:32 "Big goober baby" what an insult lol
I should probably do more level one runs I've only done dark souls 3 no DLC because I didn't have it at the time
Ring of the Embedded in DS2 is incredibly powerful as on a deprived character it literally doubles your Vitality, Endurance, and Vigor
your outro is very sweet. i hope YOU have a great day too
It's clear squilla prefers a hitless playstyle, but lloyd's shield/ritual shield are very good for allowing you to survive hits vs later bosses, I cleared Elden Ring with a giant hunt greatsword and it felt very nice
You're such an underrated channel man
As someone who has also done all of these runs, i mostly agree with this list. Here are the changes i would make:
1) Put DS2 in B. It takes a bit to do all of it and the snowfield area is horrendous but this game has a lot of really good equipment that allows you to do well, also the runbacks alone would make this SS tier if not for the fact that enemies dont respawn after you kill them 12 times
2) Put Elden Ring in A Tier assuming you disallow sommoning as one usual does. I think you underestimate this one a bit since you have so much experience by now with these games
3) I would agree with Bloodborne in A but since i was so crazy and also did all chalice dungeons with a BL4 character i have to put this into S tier for me personally. DLC looks like a cakewalk in comparison to the top 3 hardest BL4 bosses:
Cursed chalice Amygdala!!
Cursed chalice Watchdog!!!
And worst of all Loran Darkbeast!!!!
My list from easiest to hardest would be:
Demons Souls
DS1/DS3
Bloodborne
Elden Ring (all remembrances)
DS2 ( I never finished this run fully, oh the horror)
If including Sekiro with Base Vitality, I'd probably put that before Demon's Souls
when you gat a bad burn it gats super sensitive to heat but idk if that's what the devs were thinking making gwyn weak to fire
i need to know what BGM this guy is using because its so good throughout the whole video
What would you say is the most fun Fromsoftware game (so including Sekiro) to do alternative runs/challenge runs on?
Ooh I just finished an SL1 of Demon Souls and DS3 and was contemplating doing Elden Ring next but thought maybe it was out of my capability range 😅
If we were counting no prayer bead/attack power sekiro runs, I think that would be the easiest. As long as you can perfect deflect and dodge all attacks, its actually pretty easy compared to some other runs.
Do you think Elden Ring will be moved up to A when Shadow Of The Erdtree comes out?
Reinforced club at dark souls 3 worked surprisingly well for me due to the poise damage. Though you have to 2 hand it/use knight's ring. Also in dark souls 2, flynns ring gives you damage based on how low your vitality is, not how low your equip load is
Everywhere it says that Flynn's ring in ds2 is based on Max equip load and not vitality
For me it gives +50 damage as long as you are at 9 (or 13 not exactly sure) vitality or less
What music did you use for this video?
9:54 Michel Temer, the one that never misses
I've complete Waste of Skin and now I'm trying to do no leveling thief playthrough in Dark Souls 3 and it's the hardest playthrough I've ever done. Couple of factors play into it:
1. I'm playing on mouse and keyboard this time round.
2. I'm using only the dagger.
3. I fashion souls the entire game really. ( I got excited after beating the dancer, which was the most challenging boss I've ever beaten thus I started to wear his headgear which went really nice with firekeeper's robe which doesn't provide much protection.)
Great video, I mostly have the same order and general reasoning too. I'd personally swap Bloodborne's and DSII's placements, but that's only when adding the story chalices into the mix. I wouldn't blame anyone for not bothering with the dungeons. Lower Loran Darkbeast becomes such a nightmare to keep up with when it one or two-taps you and you lack the dps to easily stunlock it like Paarl. Not to mention Lower Pthumeru Rom in her cramped arena and the Defiled Chalice trio.
Ds2 is the only one I've come close to completing. I did it without the clothes that boosts ADP because i didnt know that was a thing and managed to make it all the way to Watcher/Defender. Couldn't quite get past them
With hunters ring, knight ring, and carthus milkring you can also use the brigand twindaggers which makes faster bosses like nameless or gael a cakewalk
Something about the twin princes on my sl1 ds3 run took me days of attempts to finally get
Bro put the entire sl1 meta in one vid, gigachad.
Doing a DS2 SL1 run
The light crossbow alone is enough to clear all of No-Man's Wharf. It's your very best friend for a long time when you get it
Honorable mention bosses:
Deacons of the Deep and The One Reborn
They might seem easy on a regular everyday run
Until you realise in sl1/bl4 you not only do not have much power but health as well
Causing the fight to last much longer and the chances of you dying to their attacks much higher
In Deacons of the Deep boss fight you can easily be ganged up on or blasted by fireballs or if you prolong the fight long enough death by curse
The One Reborn does a *LOT* of damage on a bl4 run and has a lot of health if you don't target its weakpoints, it also has a lot of areas where it can attack you such as it's limps, conjuring flesh drops, and it can also just mowe you down like a lawnmower on grass killing you instantly, you also have to kill the 6 witches before fighting him as well wasting even more time
I just looked a bl4 strategy guide for the One Reborn.
longest and most frustrating thing i did was a SL1 champion covenant run in DaS2, took fkn ages... never will i do that again...
I've tried DS1, 2, 3, and Elden Ring sl1 and finished none of them, though I only have a few bosses left to beat the game in ER. Elden Ring was probably the hardest of those, but also more interesting in terms of options. I really do not like the DS2 sl1 mostly because of hollowing and adaptability, but it did add a lot of interesting equipment options.
In general I've realized I don't like a lot of these runs that much since weapon selection is so limited. I get really damn bored of using the same two or three one handed weapons. Elden Ring rl1 is probably my favorite because of that.