So, Sunken King, right?
As you may recall, Cyrene had to repair her armor once in the shaded woods. This was before I could stock up with tons of regular lightning spears in Drangleic, so my initial experience was ... horrid. The regular sunken zombies loved charging and jumping, the phalanxes could charge with their shields up, and poison archers were all over the initial area. They also had tons of health compared to what I faced before.
With limited supplies, Cyrene's best bet was to melee them, as unsavory as it was. Strangely, Disc Chime got them in two hits, and it was relatively easy to bait and get behind them. She also made use of the two pillars that could be raised by hitting switches with emit force. One dealt massive damage to the nearby sunken zombies and archer, while the other provided cover from the archer battery, and a way to approach them for Soul Appease. Yes that spell was the workhorse of this DLC, both here dealing with the archers, and shortly after the second bonfire while preparing my entry to the Dragon Sanctum, but more on that later. For now I opted to despawn these two groups, and to push through to the next archer gauntlet after opening the shortcut. It skipped a zombie and a phalanx too down below, all in all a good trade. Still had to deal with the corrosion bugs, who could eat through my HP like it was an all-you-could-eat buffet (It wasn't!), but were blessedly slow.
Beyond that, and a phalanx-archer ambush pair (and a cheeky zombie) was the next real challenge of the area. Multiple archers (again) and Phalanxes who would get up from their feigned deaths on an open space with few useful cover pieces. to hide behind. All around nightmare. The trick to this place was hitting all the switches to raise pillars, which would provide cover from all but a single archer, and to lure the phalanx to a safer location for disposal.
There were also crystal lizards with poison spitting statues on top of their heads, and they dropped twinkling titanite sometimes. Cyrene enjoyed that benefit. Past them and raising another pillar was the tree that when whipped, would repair all your equipment, and running across the other raised pillars used for cover led to the next bonfire.
That was where I left it on the backburner to focus getting to Drangleic and through the rest of the game.
By my return I finished farming sunlight medals in new game +1 Brightstone Cove (burnt an ascetic for Benhart's set, remember?). The farming method was simply to kill the first two falconers with lightning spears over and over again until one of them dropped something (usually a sunlight medal at that point), then clear out just enough of the rest to claim it in safety, and rinse/repeat. Rationale for this was that they were easier to kill before getting to raise their shields, and those two could be killed that way. Spending time on the rest, fighting it out with archers and fighters who could make mincemeat out of my girl was simply not sensible.
It cost about 400k soul memory to get the 30 medals, but it was worth it. Sunlight Spear had way higher damage per cast than the other two, although it could store only as much damage as my regular lightning spears, while costing two spell slots to equip.
Another piece of equipment I got was the Engraved Gauntlets, which has a rare 15% chance to boost regular hits and turn them into critical hits dealing 150% damage. It works with spells too, and it was worth way more than the by now minor casting speed from Lion Mage gloves.
Even with these items, I got a sobering reminder that ambushes and getting mobbed can be deadly. Looking at what I had waiting for me within the sanctum, I once again resigned myself to get rid of the enemies below the tower bonfire, as well as the archer and phalanx from the previous part. Not very elegant but preferable to soul memory "loss". Then when the way to the downwards bridge was clear, I ran into a Forlorn invasion that I alt-f4-ed out of and couldn't respawn since (note to self: have homeward equipped. The miracle can warp you back to bonfire and cancel out NPC invasions). Thanks to that threat to any prospective corpse run in the future, the pair of phalanxes on the final bridge (after the downwards bridge) also had to be despawned. Same for the first two rooms of the sanctum.
The main threat here were the dual wielding "ghost" Sanctum Knights in the first room, because while lightning spear made breaking their armor in the first room trivial, they had a nasty rush that would automatically dodge a followup lightning spear upon lockon. Nasty. Binoculars were the answer to that. The second room was a gigantic trap if approached carelessly, with initially a lone stationary "priestess plant" visible, and up to five enemies coming in from the side, three of them with poison aura. Statistically unwinnable. The way forward is also locked initially, and has to be stepped on or hit by weapons/lightning spears twice. At the first hit the rotary doorpiece opens up an archer to shoot you. Crown of the Sunken king? More like Crown of the Sardine Can!
Of course it was merely a cheap shot designed to mess with newer players, and the real way was through the first room with the formerly ghost sanctum knights (whose armors don't repair upon resting at a bonfire, only when the area is upgraded to the next intensity level, either by starting a ng+ campaign or burning an ascetic.) and then coming into the room from the side, luring out the two poison aura sunken zombies, dealing with the two sleeping ones, shooting the priestess plant, the archer, and finally the sunken phalanx. There was also a hidden switch on the ceiling opening a wall section to some upgrade materials.
With these rooms exhausted, Cyrene could continue to a three-way fork in the road, coming in from the middle prong of the fork. To the left was some loot and a one-way shortcut to return from a further area. To the right was a closed door that would only be opened from the other side, and finally the forward corridor towards the fork's handle held a hole in the floor that could be jumped over to reach a switch to the left and a switch at the dead end forward. Hitting the leftmost one opened a door to the third room containing a sunken phalanx and stairs down. The stairs were trapped with a pressure plate at the top which I could activate to cause wall spikes to emerge and kill the two phalanxes I lured carefully.
My rewards down at room 3's side-chamber were two chests of upgrade materials, and a hidden chest revealed by hitting that dead end switch for the Puzzling Stone Sword. An useless item for this variant, but interesting weapon none the less.
With all paths checked, the only way forward was to drop into the hole. To my right (coming from the second room) was a corrosion bug, and a drop down to even more corrosion bugs in the bug den. It had to be done though, as this is the only way to get the Flynn's Ring. As for the bugs, Cyrene sniped two from above, and killed the remaining four by running circles around them. Good thing she was putting her souls into endurance now!
Dropping back down again and going left was a large hall with a ghost knight in sight, and spikes on the floor, and this time without armors in sight to break. Looks like the first room was just an introduction.
Still, with nothing to lose, Cyrene slowly dealt with the knight as a ghost (Ghost knights have vastly increased resistances around 75% and physical immunity) using regular lightning spears, and then a second knight guarding a ladder on the other side of a bridge separating the hall into two pieces. Both were annoying and slow fights. A priestess plant also needed dealing with, but there was ample cover. Now with the ladder I finally gained the high ground. From there Cyrene could dispatch another priestess plant guarding a shortcut to the right side of the fork in the corridors, and lure a ghost knight to fall down to the hall's floor, then run up the ladder to shoot it with total impunity. There was also a puzzle with another rotary door, but the switch behind said door. Some like throwing bombs, but I shot lightning spears instead. One from the top, the second from the bottom floor, and the third from the top again if I remember it right. Reward was the miracle Denial, which lets the user survive with 1 health if I take fatal damage.
There were two exits from the hall. One down-ladder being a stairs down going forward, and another from the shortcut just opened on the top level. This second one led to hall no. 2 containing THREE ghost knights, and lots of armors to break. First order of business was to lure them out one by one as the armors at the far end of that hall were too far even for lightning spears. Drop down, up the ladder, dispatch. Had to swap to my backup chime halfway through. By the third knight I simply equipped a bow and broke the three armors keeping them ghostly, and the rematerialized form pulled out a pair of crossbows and hit back. Turns out only their ghostly forms are locked in melee mode, and the regulars like playing shooter games.
With the other armors broken and the eternal sanctum key snatched, it was time to return to the first hall, and hit a switch that can be only seen when trying to go forward to the next area. This opened a wall section to a very useful bonfire. Cyrene gained a foothold in the sanctum.
From this position, she only needed to kill the priestess and two sanctum knights in the first hall, and another after the exit, each taking 3 shots or 4 instead of 10+. Next up was the Jester Thomas invasion, a powerful pyromancer with the ability to resist lightning and slowly heal with warmth. Annoying, but limited by NPC AI. Binoculars won this fight too after luring him into the cleared hall.
Next up was the Jurassic Pond. The enemies there were what it'd look like if the dragon posteriors in Lost Izalith had mouths and could shoot. They also have weird hitboxes in melee, and I was terrified enough of them to clean out the road to the bonfire, realize that the bonfire is patroled by one, grab it and escape matrix-style via bonfire travel. Okay, take two, each jurassic dragon butt would be lured to the entrance and shot from a very safe distance. There were five total, and with them dispatched, Cyrene could clear out the loot, place the dragon stone found in the first hall (just hit the obvious switch when you enter) in it's socket, and unlock a shortcut to the first bonfire.
With the eternal sanctum key, the door at the very entrance of the sanctum could be opened, revealing two priestess plants itching to shoot me. They even killed Cyrene once! Guess at high distances the whole stunlocking business just fails because they get at least one shot off. Past this error on my part were four iron chests, one containing the item I coveted so much, the Lightning Clutch ring. It gives about as much damage boost as the sun seal, and stacks with it, at the cost of reduced physical defense.
On top of the ladder leading from the side room were a bunch of corrosion bugs, which were best dealt with by skipping through to another ladder up, leading to the sanctum shield. It's a spellcasting shield, similar to the Disc Chime, and I haven't tried it yet. Going back I killed one bug with lightning spears, and the other two from the relative safety on top of the ladder. On this level was a bridge to the last bonfire, guarded by an invader that couldn't do much being stuck in chase mode, on a narrow bridge. Sunlight and Great Lightning Spears for the win.
Beyond that bonfire lies the Cave of the Dead, which I'm leaving for later once I'm done gathering the other crowns.
At the bonfire was a convenient elevator leading back down to the downwards bridge from the sunken city, also leading to the dark greatsword hex spell. Kinda useless, but it was nice to round out my collection.
Continuing forward into the inner sanctum, Cyrene was accosted by Drakeblood Knights. Enemies with bastard swords and decent damage. Luckily it's quite slow. There was a lot of jumping down too, and another hidden bonfire that was definitely worth watching guides for. After some more useless clearing (I had all the materials I would ever need, and I missed only two crystal lizards because I didn't feel like repeating that particular part, although now that I'm writing it down I might just go and kill them for the heck of it) I reached one of the two bosses: Ellana the Squalid Queen. She is a tough customer with summons and spells, and she got me down twice with her dark bolts, and twice with the velstadt summon. Yes, she can summon a boss with enough health to qualify as a boss. I had summons of my own who dealt about two thirds of the damage in this fight to her while I juggled Velstadts. Yes. Plural, although only one at a time.
That hidden bonfire was incredibly helpful and I can't imagine going in blind into any fromsoft game. There is enjoying the element of surprise, and there is beating the players over and over for not having knowledge beforehand, maybe a map viewer, and data mining tools on their own.
Anyways with that done there was another boss to deal with, two summons available right next to a bonfire. Back to back bosses? Yay!
Sinh the Slumbering Dragon uses toxic and fire. He is also very resistant to almost everything, and summoning more than one phantom is actually a hindrance in this fight. I went in blind and only got him down to a third of his health, before my brother recommended me to drop the priest summon who doesn't deal enough damage. With that, and equipping Caressing Prayer, Cyrene got that fight over with ample estus remaining. She had to munch on a few wilted dusk herbs to restore her sunlight spears, but this is the kind of time where munching herbs was alright. Where else would I use them anyways, now that I had all the casts I'd ever want for general clearing?
With the dragon down, Cyrene claimed the Crown of the Sunken King. She also remembered to go back and get the King's soul and set. That makes it two crowns down, two more to go..
The crowns gives a bunch of bonuses to stats, and look nice, but they aren't really worth using over the saint's hood. No. That is another crown, to be claimed another day.
Prelude
As you may recall, Cyrene had to repair her armor once in the shaded woods. This was before I could stock up with tons of regular lightning spears in Drangleic, so my initial experience was ... horrid. The regular sunken zombies loved charging and jumping, the phalanxes could charge with their shields up, and poison archers were all over the initial area. They also had tons of health compared to what I faced before.
With limited supplies, Cyrene's best bet was to melee them, as unsavory as it was. Strangely, Disc Chime got them in two hits, and it was relatively easy to bait and get behind them. She also made use of the two pillars that could be raised by hitting switches with emit force. One dealt massive damage to the nearby sunken zombies and archer, while the other provided cover from the archer battery, and a way to approach them for Soul Appease. Yes that spell was the workhorse of this DLC, both here dealing with the archers, and shortly after the second bonfire while preparing my entry to the Dragon Sanctum, but more on that later. For now I opted to despawn these two groups, and to push through to the next archer gauntlet after opening the shortcut. It skipped a zombie and a phalanx too down below, all in all a good trade. Still had to deal with the corrosion bugs, who could eat through my HP like it was an all-you-could-eat buffet (It wasn't!), but were blessedly slow.
Beyond that, and a phalanx-archer ambush pair (and a cheeky zombie) was the next real challenge of the area. Multiple archers (again) and Phalanxes who would get up from their feigned deaths on an open space with few useful cover pieces. to hide behind. All around nightmare. The trick to this place was hitting all the switches to raise pillars, which would provide cover from all but a single archer, and to lure the phalanx to a safer location for disposal.
There were also crystal lizards with poison spitting statues on top of their heads, and they dropped twinkling titanite sometimes. Cyrene enjoyed that benefit. Past them and raising another pillar was the tree that when whipped, would repair all your equipment, and running across the other raised pillars used for cover led to the next bonfire.
That was where I left it on the backburner to focus getting to Drangleic and through the rest of the game.
New powers
By my return I finished farming sunlight medals in new game +1 Brightstone Cove (burnt an ascetic for Benhart's set, remember?). The farming method was simply to kill the first two falconers with lightning spears over and over again until one of them dropped something (usually a sunlight medal at that point), then clear out just enough of the rest to claim it in safety, and rinse/repeat. Rationale for this was that they were easier to kill before getting to raise their shields, and those two could be killed that way. Spending time on the rest, fighting it out with archers and fighters who could make mincemeat out of my girl was simply not sensible.
It cost about 400k soul memory to get the 30 medals, but it was worth it. Sunlight Spear had way higher damage per cast than the other two, although it could store only as much damage as my regular lightning spears, while costing two spell slots to equip.
Another piece of equipment I got was the Engraved Gauntlets, which has a rare 15% chance to boost regular hits and turn them into critical hits dealing 150% damage. It works with spells too, and it was worth way more than the by now minor casting speed from Lion Mage gloves.
Gaining entry
Even with these items, I got a sobering reminder that ambushes and getting mobbed can be deadly. Looking at what I had waiting for me within the sanctum, I once again resigned myself to get rid of the enemies below the tower bonfire, as well as the archer and phalanx from the previous part. Not very elegant but preferable to soul memory "loss". Then when the way to the downwards bridge was clear, I ran into a Forlorn invasion that I alt-f4-ed out of and couldn't respawn since (note to self: have homeward equipped. The miracle can warp you back to bonfire and cancel out NPC invasions). Thanks to that threat to any prospective corpse run in the future, the pair of phalanxes on the final bridge (after the downwards bridge) also had to be despawned. Same for the first two rooms of the sanctum.
The main threat here were the dual wielding "ghost" Sanctum Knights in the first room, because while lightning spear made breaking their armor in the first room trivial, they had a nasty rush that would automatically dodge a followup lightning spear upon lockon. Nasty. Binoculars were the answer to that. The second room was a gigantic trap if approached carelessly, with initially a lone stationary "priestess plant" visible, and up to five enemies coming in from the side, three of them with poison aura. Statistically unwinnable. The way forward is also locked initially, and has to be stepped on or hit by weapons/lightning spears twice. At the first hit the rotary doorpiece opens up an archer to shoot you. Crown of the Sunken king? More like Crown of the Sardine Can!
Of course it was merely a cheap shot designed to mess with newer players, and the real way was through the first room with the formerly ghost sanctum knights (whose armors don't repair upon resting at a bonfire, only when the area is upgraded to the next intensity level, either by starting a ng+ campaign or burning an ascetic.) and then coming into the room from the side, luring out the two poison aura sunken zombies, dealing with the two sleeping ones, shooting the priestess plant, the archer, and finally the sunken phalanx. There was also a hidden switch on the ceiling opening a wall section to some upgrade materials.
With these rooms exhausted, Cyrene could continue to a three-way fork in the road, coming in from the middle prong of the fork. To the left was some loot and a one-way shortcut to return from a further area. To the right was a closed door that would only be opened from the other side, and finally the forward corridor towards the fork's handle held a hole in the floor that could be jumped over to reach a switch to the left and a switch at the dead end forward. Hitting the leftmost one opened a door to the third room containing a sunken phalanx and stairs down. The stairs were trapped with a pressure plate at the top which I could activate to cause wall spikes to emerge and kill the two phalanxes I lured carefully.
My rewards down at room 3's side-chamber were two chests of upgrade materials, and a hidden chest revealed by hitting that dead end switch for the Puzzling Stone Sword. An useless item for this variant, but interesting weapon none the less.
From toehold to foothold
With all paths checked, the only way forward was to drop into the hole. To my right (coming from the second room) was a corrosion bug, and a drop down to even more corrosion bugs in the bug den. It had to be done though, as this is the only way to get the Flynn's Ring. As for the bugs, Cyrene sniped two from above, and killed the remaining four by running circles around them. Good thing she was putting her souls into endurance now!
Dropping back down again and going left was a large hall with a ghost knight in sight, and spikes on the floor, and this time without armors in sight to break. Looks like the first room was just an introduction.
Still, with nothing to lose, Cyrene slowly dealt with the knight as a ghost (Ghost knights have vastly increased resistances around 75% and physical immunity) using regular lightning spears, and then a second knight guarding a ladder on the other side of a bridge separating the hall into two pieces. Both were annoying and slow fights. A priestess plant also needed dealing with, but there was ample cover. Now with the ladder I finally gained the high ground. From there Cyrene could dispatch another priestess plant guarding a shortcut to the right side of the fork in the corridors, and lure a ghost knight to fall down to the hall's floor, then run up the ladder to shoot it with total impunity. There was also a puzzle with another rotary door, but the switch behind said door. Some like throwing bombs, but I shot lightning spears instead. One from the top, the second from the bottom floor, and the third from the top again if I remember it right. Reward was the miracle Denial, which lets the user survive with 1 health if I take fatal damage.
There were two exits from the hall. One down-ladder being a stairs down going forward, and another from the shortcut just opened on the top level. This second one led to hall no. 2 containing THREE ghost knights, and lots of armors to break. First order of business was to lure them out one by one as the armors at the far end of that hall were too far even for lightning spears. Drop down, up the ladder, dispatch. Had to swap to my backup chime halfway through. By the third knight I simply equipped a bow and broke the three armors keeping them ghostly, and the rematerialized form pulled out a pair of crossbows and hit back. Turns out only their ghostly forms are locked in melee mode, and the regulars like playing shooter games.
With the other armors broken and the eternal sanctum key snatched, it was time to return to the first hall, and hit a switch that can be only seen when trying to go forward to the next area. This opened a wall section to a very useful bonfire. Cyrene gained a foothold in the sanctum.
Opening new paths.
From this position, she only needed to kill the priestess and two sanctum knights in the first hall, and another after the exit, each taking 3 shots or 4 instead of 10+. Next up was the Jester Thomas invasion, a powerful pyromancer with the ability to resist lightning and slowly heal with warmth. Annoying, but limited by NPC AI. Binoculars won this fight too after luring him into the cleared hall.
Next up was the Jurassic Pond. The enemies there were what it'd look like if the dragon posteriors in Lost Izalith had mouths and could shoot. They also have weird hitboxes in melee, and I was terrified enough of them to clean out the road to the bonfire, realize that the bonfire is patroled by one, grab it and escape matrix-style via bonfire travel. Okay, take two, each jurassic dragon butt would be lured to the entrance and shot from a very safe distance. There were five total, and with them dispatched, Cyrene could clear out the loot, place the dragon stone found in the first hall (just hit the obvious switch when you enter) in it's socket, and unlock a shortcut to the first bonfire.
With the eternal sanctum key, the door at the very entrance of the sanctum could be opened, revealing two priestess plants itching to shoot me. They even killed Cyrene once! Guess at high distances the whole stunlocking business just fails because they get at least one shot off. Past this error on my part were four iron chests, one containing the item I coveted so much, the Lightning Clutch ring. It gives about as much damage boost as the sun seal, and stacks with it, at the cost of reduced physical defense.
On top of the ladder leading from the side room were a bunch of corrosion bugs, which were best dealt with by skipping through to another ladder up, leading to the sanctum shield. It's a spellcasting shield, similar to the Disc Chime, and I haven't tried it yet. Going back I killed one bug with lightning spears, and the other two from the relative safety on top of the ladder. On this level was a bridge to the last bonfire, guarded by an invader that couldn't do much being stuck in chase mode, on a narrow bridge. Sunlight and Great Lightning Spears for the win.
Beyond that bonfire lies the Cave of the Dead, which I'm leaving for later once I'm done gathering the other crowns.
At the bonfire was a convenient elevator leading back down to the downwards bridge from the sunken city, also leading to the dark greatsword hex spell. Kinda useless, but it was nice to round out my collection.
Inner Sanctum
Continuing forward into the inner sanctum, Cyrene was accosted by Drakeblood Knights. Enemies with bastard swords and decent damage. Luckily it's quite slow. There was a lot of jumping down too, and another hidden bonfire that was definitely worth watching guides for. After some more useless clearing (I had all the materials I would ever need, and I missed only two crystal lizards because I didn't feel like repeating that particular part, although now that I'm writing it down I might just go and kill them for the heck of it) I reached one of the two bosses: Ellana the Squalid Queen. She is a tough customer with summons and spells, and she got me down twice with her dark bolts, and twice with the velstadt summon. Yes, she can summon a boss with enough health to qualify as a boss. I had summons of my own who dealt about two thirds of the damage in this fight to her while I juggled Velstadts. Yes. Plural, although only one at a time.
That hidden bonfire was incredibly helpful and I can't imagine going in blind into any fromsoft game. There is enjoying the element of surprise, and there is beating the players over and over for not having knowledge beforehand, maybe a map viewer, and data mining tools on their own.
Anyways with that done there was another boss to deal with, two summons available right next to a bonfire. Back to back bosses? Yay!
Sinh the Slumbering Dragon uses toxic and fire. He is also very resistant to almost everything, and summoning more than one phantom is actually a hindrance in this fight. I went in blind and only got him down to a third of his health, before my brother recommended me to drop the priest summon who doesn't deal enough damage. With that, and equipping Caressing Prayer, Cyrene got that fight over with ample estus remaining. She had to munch on a few wilted dusk herbs to restore her sunlight spears, but this is the kind of time where munching herbs was alright. Where else would I use them anyways, now that I had all the casts I'd ever want for general clearing?
With the dragon down, Cyrene claimed the Crown of the Sunken King. She also remembered to go back and get the King's soul and set. That makes it two crowns down, two more to go..
The crowns gives a bunch of bonuses to stats, and look nice, but they aren't really worth using over the saint's hood. No. That is another crown, to be claimed another day.
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That setpiece resembles a Death scene in a Choose Your Own Adventure.