- Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:01 pm
#16717687
As someone who has been at the grind for a bit of a while, I'm providing my own suggestions here:
Personally, I found item discovery gear to be fairly helpful - prisoner tatters, prisoner hood, watchdragon parma, Covetous Serpent Ring, etc.
However, even with this set-up, I was getting 0-2 Loyce souls per run - with 2 being the "win the lottery" luck. However, after summoning Twiggy Shei and Lucatiel, I started consistently getting 1-2 Loyce souls every run through, and occasionally even 3 Loyce Souls. Do not underestimate the weird utility of phantoms. Also, don't forget the Aged Feather, a lot of homeward bones, or the Homeward miracle. On top of just getting Loyce souls and Charred Loyce armor/weapons, there's also good souls in farming the knights - Darksign isn't the best backout option. I started farming around SL 100, and am around SL160 now. Don't forget to hotkey Black Separation Crystal, too, if you summon Twiggy Shei and Lucatiel - you'll have to send them back before you can homeward.
On the topic of weapons - anything that deals Dark damage or Lightning damage is a good idea. I personally was using a Heide Spear, since I speedran to Eleum Loyce (eventual goal - Everlasting Knight build, need ivory crown, want regular Loyce set for light weight and bling). I do not recommend Heide Sword - the spear does around 100+ more damage and has better reach. The Heide Spear also works beautifully with Lighting infusion, since it hardly loses any physical damage and gains a chunky lightning damage boost. I have heard talk of Crypt Blacksword, but as someone who hasn't even killed Mirror Knight in this playthrough yet, I don't have anything to say - but I imagine it would be monstrously effective. Otherwise, if you can bring some resins, Sunlight Blade, or Dark Weapon, that will also help your damage output - when it comes to farming, speed is the name of the game. Burn the enemies down, rinse, and repeat.
The Burnt Ivory King himself, also happens to be weak to lightning and dark. So the Heide Spear can carry you through the entire Old Chaos. However, I don't recommend killing Ivory King before getting the 50 Loyce souls - for one, after he's dead, you can't summon the NPCs for the easy and odd Loyce soul drop-rate boost. For another, the Charred Loyce Knights can eventually despawn if you aren't in Covenant of Champions after Ivory King has been killed.
When it comes to an actual combat strategy against the Charred Loyce Knights, I recommend either tunneling the pyromancers or meatgrinding whoever the 4 Loyce Knights and 2 phantoms dogpile on. Meatgrinding with the pile of Shiny Bois is an effective strategy to melt Charred Loyce Knights, and thus can reduce farming time extensively.
