In my years-later replay of Dark Souls 3, I've mostly found the game somewhat easier on a later playthrough. While there are a couple bosses that remain a bit tough - Aldrich seems to be the big one from the main game before you get toward late-game folks like Oceiros, Nameless King, Twin Princes, and the DLC bosses - I'm sort of shocked to realize how a bit of careful character building and familiarity with level layout can make things pretty easy.
Indeed, there aren't a ton of non-boss areas in the base game that I've really found myself stuck on. The Grand Archives, which is technically the last mandatory "level" is simple enough that I've just been using it as a farming location for souls (the candlestick scholars seem to be vulnerable to fire damage, which has made doing so on my pyromancer build really simple).
This mostly held through the first DLC. Ashes of Ariandel has its tough stretches - simply getting to and then dealing with all the Millwood Knights in their area is pretty tough - but I realized that you can totally skip past a lot of it to get to Ariandel Chapel pretty easily early on, and then the route through the hamlet with all the gross bird people and then the woods with the Followers is not all that bad (it helps that this time I've actually realized that you can use rotten trees to create shortcuts back to the bonfire in that latter woodsy area).
Elfriede remains a tough fight, though the fact that you can summon Gael for free - no ember required - helps a lot (even if he doesn't show up until phase 2).
On two of my new characters, I've managed to get past Elfriede and into the Dreg Heap, which is the first part of the Ringed City DLC, and which is, I'd say, not too inconsistent with the difficulty of the Painted World of Ariandel, though you'll want to prioritize taking out the weird little pilgrim slugs that project the angels, as they make big stretches of that much harder - but there are only 3.
Anyway, I took down the Demon Prince on my "paladin" character (summoning both Lapp and Gael seemed to do the trick) and moved onto the Ringed City proper (naturally, some PvPer invaded me while in that first stretch with the Judicator Giant and his archers, so that ember disappeared pretty quick).
And then I was confronted with how tough this place is.
Throughout DS3, they're pretty generous with shortcuts and bonfires, to be honest. I remember going through Irithyll on these later playthroughs and realizing that there honestly aren't any super gruelingly long stretches of enemies to fight before getting a shortcut or a new bonfire. But, unless I'm forgetting some really important shortcuts, holy crap is the stretch between bonfires 2 and 3 in the Ringed City a slog. And once you get to the third bonfire, the area opens up enormously, giving you the whole abyssal swamp.
Actually, somewhat hilariously, I one-shotted the Dragonslayer Armor, which comes back for a rematch in one corner of said swamp (apparently countless ages later - assuming there are many ages that go between the main game and the Ringed City). I actually did this on my first playthrough as well.
I've also managed to find a weapon for which my 50 Strength is not high enough to wield - Ledo's Great Hammer. Having just done a lot of grinding to get other stats up to prepare for this area, I imagine it'll be a lengthy grind to get the 10 more levels I'll need to wield that weapon (though hopefully with some of my better-scaling strength weapons I'll hit less of a diminishing return - perhaps along the way my Fume Ultra Greatsword will overtake my Greataxe).
The lengthy stretch I'm talking about here starts at the bonfire past the first judicator giant. You go into a corridor where you're immediately ambushed by one of these hunched dudes, of which there are four in a bit of a straightaway, two of whom radiate a curse status effect. Then, you fight your first ringed knight, followed by two more of them. Then you get these crawling clerics, who cast these circular area effects, in a multi-story tower. One of them requires some careful jumping to get to them. Then, when you get out of that area, there's this lengthy stairway with a couple of Harald Knights (who will confront you before the NPC behind a closed door finishes her dialogue, which is frustrating), with a couple of paths that lead off from there. Finally, when you get to the base of those stairs, you get into the big swamp area, and have those locust people to deal with before you can find your way to a bonfire in one of the buildings around a corner.
I just ran after a couple attempts to fight my way past all this.
I feel like there has to be a shortcut I'm missing because it's such a grueling stretch.
Naturally, I think this bears comparison to the Fishing Hamlet in Bloodborne, as the endgame area of the DLC, and thus probably the hardest part of the game. But this is almost like just "the cave with the two giant shark monsters" specifically, rather than just that area in general.
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