Soul Farming
From Wikidsouls
Soul Farming Tips
1-1
This one can be a bit tricky, but if you can get it down you can rake in a lot of souls very quickly. This is easiest to do after you've fought through the level at least once before and have opened up all of the shortcuts. Start out by entering 1-1 from either its archstone or from Phalanx's archstone and head to the tower to the left of the room where you fight Phalanx (left when facing the room). Fight your way up the stairs, killing or avoiding the Dredglings along the way (beware the explosive barrels if you are a low level, they will not explode if hit with a non-fire attack but many of the Dredglings here carry torches. Once you have made it to the top of the tower run along this wall killing everything along the way (there should be a Blue-Eyes Knight, a couple of archers, a guy with a sword and shield, and a guy with a spear and shield). Once all enemies are dead along this stretch you want to head into the room at the end (opposite end of the way you got up here). Through this small room there is a passage that leads to a deadly Red-Eyes Knight. The trick here is to lure him back to the tall stairwell that you ascended earlier. Once you are inside the stairwell, position yourself behind the railing at the edge and hold up your shield. You want the knight to walk down the stairs, see you, charge, and then fall to his death. The positioning on this can be tricky to get down, and luring the Red-Eyes Knight there can be frustrating and deadly because if you get too far away he will turn around and walk back, but if you get too close he can easily kill you in one hit. Once you have the positioning down you can let him plummet to his death giving you 2070s, then run down to and collect whatever he dropped and repeat the process over again..
Alternate Strategy:
If you are just beginning your first play-through and have killed phalanx, im sure you have noticed the red eyed knight in 1-1 that keeps killing you. There are a number of strategies to defeat this high leveled enemy at the beginning of the game. But here is mine. First off make sure you learn soul arrow ASAP from sage freke's apprentice in the nexus. With this equipped go up to where the red eyed knight is, and clear out the enemies around there. Ok, so now there is a bridge between you and him. Ok there is a catapult/chariot thing right outside this buildings door (where the paladin and archer were) you want to get the red eyed knights attention and make him follow you. You want to run back across the bridge and hide on the other side of that catapult thing (staring at the door the knight will emerge from) The knights AI is pretty stupid and he will try to stab you from the other side of the catapult allowing you to pelt him with soul arrows repeatedly until hes dead. No danger of getting hit or having to run around barrels and hope he falls off....you just KILL HIM at level 1! :D ENJOY your early level building!
note: I have tried this on the Chinese/English version and the US release version and it works on both....the guy just cant stop glitching!
1-2
This is a fairly easy way to farm for low level characters. Each run nets you at least 950 souls. After defeating the Tower Knight, warp to the Nexus and come back to refresh the zone. Run to the opposite direction of the fog to enter 1-3 and you will see 2 Blue Knights and 3 archers. Since you are approaching them from behind, it's very easy to sneak up on them and kill with back attacks. The 2 Blue-Eyes Knight attacked with back attacks will net 499 souls each if killed in one hit. Each run will probably take less than a minute. It's a nice way to level up quickly at the beginning. You will also get some Moongrass so it is a great spot to stock up on Crescent Moon Grass, Late Moon Grass, and Half Moon Grass as well as the occasional Throwing Knife from the knights.
1-4
The quickest 6000+ Souls in the game. Warp to 1-4 Go backwards towards the end of 1-3. Kill the 3 Red Eye Knights on the steps. Should take like 2-3 minutes. 6000+ Souls will be headed your way.
2-2
Remember those fat Bearbugs that were a pain the butt to kill? Well your worries are no more if you gained the spell Soul Sucker! This spells instant kills anything that is willing to stand still while you touch it for some length of time and gives you DOUBLE THE SOULS! In NG+, you can start "sucking the life" out of these Bearbugs right after you free Yuria, since she is the one you learn it from.
Now to the farming. Make sure your world tendency for Stonefang Tunnels are pure Black so you can get the most out of each kill as possible. Bring a lot of spices and some protection because some very fat Bearbugs can do very damaging bodyslams. Come from the Flamelurker's Archstone and enter the tunnels from the back. Start Soul Sucking every big Bearbug you can get your dirty little hands on. The Biggest ones give around 20,000-21,000 souls, The Middle sized should give around 12,000 (needs confirmation), and the Black Phantom Bearbugs that spawn on Pure Black Tendency give around 12,000 souls also, all with Ring of Avarice and Silver Bracelet (females) equipped.
If you ignore all of the smaller, less important bearbugs you should be able to run away with at least 120,000 souls, per run.
4-1
When you obtain a soul level of about 15 you will be able to take on the beginning segment of 4-1. Once you have re-spawned at the arch stone you will see a doorway in the distance with a gray lump to the left of the door. Once you get close enough A skeleton will form. Be careful these skeletons are Fast and roll a lot. You too will have to constantly roll to dodge or side step them. The Weakness of the skeletons is Fire. Maces or Bashing Weapons also work. Once your done with this skeleton you should receive about 230 Souls. Continue through the doorway to engage another skeleton at the bottom of the steps. About halfway through the steps you will find another skeleton along with a skeleton archer. Keep your shield up and wait for the skeleton to roll down the steps before engaging. This will give you more time to evade arrows while fighting the first skeleton. Once you have taken care off both there are another 2 skeletons at the top of the steps. Once you defeat them run back to arch stone with your 1300 souls and repeat.
4-2
Once you have beaten the Adjudicator in 4-1 you can easily make around 4500 souls for about 1 minutes worth of work. To make this easy make sure you have a bow and the miracle "Evacuate." Once you have these spawn at the Adjudicator Archstone and make your way forward until you reach the door with the switch in front of it. Step on the switch to open the door or step through if you've already opened the door and stand at the edge of the platform so you can see the Reaper. Get your bow out and kill the Reaper without dropping down. A recommended way to do this is aim for the bottom of the Reaper's cloak and keep pushing R1, since there is no damage difference when you hit it in the head versus in the legs it makes for an easier target. Once you kill the Reaper all of its summoned friends will also die netting you around 4500 souls. Drop down, collect the Shard of Darkmoonstone from the Reaper's body and cast escape to return to the nexus. Rinse and repeat for however many souls you want/need.
Alternate Strategy:
For NEWGAME+ only. This soul farming method was touched upon in the Official DS guide included in the collectors edition of the game, however it can be further exploited under stricter conditions. This technique will net you a maximum of == 150,000+ == souls per application. It requires Soulsucker AND Soulthirst an Int. of 40 or higher would be strongly recommended (at least ABOVE 200 MP). Have a thiefs ring, a graverobbers ring, if possible a Talisman of Beasts and Evacuate, or Shard of Archstones otherwise and some black leather gear (its the most light-weight armor in the game). Finally you'll need a bow and arrows, 7 stone of ephemerial eyes (for Pure Black WT) and PLENTY of Spice for MP replenishment. Fresh Spice is 50 MP and Old is 100 MP, while Soulthirst is 200 MP cost and Soulsucker is 100 MP cost per use. In this tip, you'll be using Soulthirst once and Soulsucker 4 times making a total of 600 MP being used per application. Patches sells Fresh Spice at 800 souls a pop, so if you use Fresh Spice, on average it'll COST you approx 5,000 souls to accomplish this task once. Remember that one successful application of this technique will net over 150,000 souls, while a less successful attempt will still manage a modest 130,000. Assume that you'll be using Fresh Spice.
Enter world 4 at the Old Hero Archstone, head outside to the "arena" where you fought storm king and bear to the left until you run off the cliff and kill yourself. If you respawn at the adjudicator's arch-stone, simply return to the nexus and re-enter at the Old Hero Archstone. Use a Stone of EphEyes to revive and repeat the suicide/revive process at most 6 or 7 times, the goal is to get Pure Black WT. The blacker the WT the more Souls you reap from your enemies. You must re-enter the world from the nexus in order for the WT to shift, so if you don't have to enter the nexus to get back to the Old Hero Archstone, then after the 7th suicide you should go ahead and hit the nexus so the WT can change. If WT is not PURE black, you won't get as many souls, so if you HAVE to have as many souls as possible, then MAKE SURE.
STAY in Soul form as you make significantly less noise (it works otherwise too). Equip everything mentioned above and get ready to get sneaky. from the Old Hero Archstone, run back through the cave w/ the leeches and the exploding white lights, avoiding all of them. Once you see the bottom of a stair case, look up and you'll see a Reaper. Shoot it with an arrow, it's too tall to make it into the stairwell so it'll give up and turn around. If it does not turn ALL THE WAY AROUND, shoot it again, if you have to kill it with arrows you still get 12000+ souls. In the event that the Reaper shows you his back side, make your way up the stairs. Once you can target lock, start taking baby steps and as soon as the light from your soul shard blooms on its back, take 1 or 2 more taps of the analogue stick in its direction and Soulsucker him! This will get you 21,200 souls, but you're not done yet, replenish MP as needed and keep moving (cautiously) around the bend and into the lower-ceilinged hallway.
At this point you should be face to back with a Black Phantom Dual Katana Black Skeleton. This is the tricky part and it takes a little practice, so don't be afraid to run away if you screw up. Have your Fresh Spice hot-keyed to square, and have SoulThirst at the ready. This next part takes some manual dextarity in your part as Soulthirst has a VERY limited life-span. PAST the Katana Black Phantom, are 2 Paddle-Sword Black Phantom Skeletons. Use the same baby-step method to approach the Black Phantom Katana skeleton. It's harder to judge the correct distance because you don't have the soul shard light to use as an indicator (i say do some experimenting and just keep inching closer, until it notices you, then run away. If you cast Soulsucker and it doesn't die, then obviously you need to be closer, but WHEN you cast it take off the target lock and swing the camera around while the spell is casting to get a better feel for where you NEED to be regardless of whether or not the cast is successful. Practice makes perfect.). Once you're breathing down it's neck, cast Soulthirst, hit square twice WHILE SIMULTANIOUSLY hitting UP on the D-pad for Soulsucker, IMMEDIATLY cast Soulsucker and IMMEDIATLY hit square twice again, RUN up the path until you reach the bend, STOP, swing the camera around, target lock the closest Black Phantom Paddle-sword skeleton, sneak up and Soulsucker! As SOON as the spell animation STARTS, remove the target lock and swing the camera back around in preparation to RUN AWAY. If done correctly, SoulThirst should still be active by the time the Soulsucker animation ENDS. Hit square twice again, look back around the corner at the second skeleton and once it turns around, you know what to do.
If you messed up completely, then the worst consequence you suffer is that you wasted a few Fresh Spices on SoulThirst which doesn't really matter, because the difference between killing the katana black phantom WITH the combo than without, is about 13,000 souls. So if you didn't make it to the first Paddle-sword skeleton before Soulthirst wore off, you only lost out on about 8,000 extra souls and SoulThirst STILL paid for all the spice you used. If you're patient enough, you can cast Soulthirst before every time you Soulsucker and its still worth it, the ONLY drawback is that you'll have to restock Fresh Spice sooner than you would if you only used Soulsucker and you've only increased your take by a few thousand souls. The method mapped out here, only requires one use of Soulthirst with a pay off of 21,000 souls, subtract the cost of 4 Fresh Spice from Patches at 800 souls a piece (3,200) and you've made a profit if almost 18,000 souls.
4-3
Possibly the best spot for farming souls would have to be 4-3 after you have defeated the Storm King (See the page on the Shrine of Storms for how to defeat the Storm King). For a spellcaster, you're going to want to learn Soul Ray before you venture to this area at the cost of one Doll Demon's Soul. For even better results, get this world to Pure Black. If you happen to be a female spellcaster, you get the added benefit of being able to equip the Sliver Bracelets (+20% Souls per Kill) as well as the Ring of Avarice (+20% Souls per Kill). So, if you happen to be female with both of those equiped, can "Overkill" a flying stingray, and the world is pure black, prepare to get just over 3,000 souls per kill. Be sure to enter the area through the Old Hero's Archstone so you're not surrounded at the beginning. Just walk outside and to your right and stop when the first stingray starts heading your way. Just lock on with R3 and cast Soul Ray. You shouldn't have to seek out the stingrays, as they will just line up to try and kill you. If you're fast enough, you can kill them all one-by-one without them firing a single shot. You can expect to get about 35,000 souls per run (Assuming this is the first New Game).
If you REALLY want to maximize your Souls-per-kill ratio you're going to need a lot of MP and the spell Soul Thirst. Soul Thirst, in exchange for 200 MP per cast, gets you +200% souls per kill for the length of the spell. Because of the large MP cost, the best strategy for using it is to have both the Silver Coronet (+20% MP) and the Silver Catalyst (another +20% MP) and to have a bunch of Fresh/Old Spices. To get an extra punch with your magic, equip the Kris Knife in your left hand (Magic Booster) and equip the Ring of Magical Sharpness (another Magic Booster). You also will want to be in soul form to do this as well.
Like before, start out in 4-3 at the Old Hero Archstone. With Soul Thirst as your main spell, exit the room and head right. When you see the first stingray start your way, cast Soul Thirst and then quickly switch to Soul Ray. If you're at about 240 MP to start with, you should at least be able to get off two shots. When the first one is down, quickly use some of your Fresh/Old spice, then start moving down the hill, killing as much as you can.
Under all the right conditions, Soul Thirst will get you about 4500 souls per kill, and you can kill a lot if you're fast enough.
