Durability is a nonissue. You can go ages without bothering to do anything about just like in DS1, and it only applies to melee weapons anyway.
I just fought a martyr king who had a throne installed on the roof of his giant frozen castle, not giving any fucks. Very difficult and fun battle, probably one of the best in the Souls series, just like Pops earlygame. Looks impossible on NG+. (unless you rely on parries, maybe?)
I actually hated that fight because of his tendency to fly out of camera range before stomping on your head. Did you grab his crown? It's not entirely obvious that it's sitting on the floor in the middle of the room (instead of forced into your inventory like most boss drops). Wearing it opens up a new area behind his throne. It's also pretty swank and part of my preferred outfit along with noble dress + knight's gloves and skirt. Looks very queenly.
Nightmare Frontier is done, 100% as bad as advertised (even with maxed frenzy resist I died from that once, and boulders seem to be like OHKO damage even with 1100+ HP). Know I missed some loot in there but cannot divide by the number of fucks given. The boss took a couple tries. Should've been cool but camera souls was rampant like it usually is with gigantic enemies that can't fit in the screen. I had to switch back to the whip because the daggers couldn't hit his head, very annoying. Also chalk up another boss killed by throwing knives because it was too much of a bitch hitting him otherwise during the last phase where he totally wigs out. So glad I keep stocked up on those things.
I'm pretty burnt out on this latter third or so of the game but I'm trying to be thorough because I don't want to play this again. It's a very neat game, does lots of cool things and is definitely worth playing for any Souls enthusiast, but the shift from well-intentioned people tragically turning into monsters that it seemed like was Bloodborne's theme in the first half moving instead to "No actually the church was really always interested in UFOs and star children so here's all Chthulhuspace all the time" is really jarring and doesn't work for me at all, especially knowing I'm basically at the end of the game and there is nothing more to it than that. A lot of this stuff could've been better suggested than shoved in your face.
So at this point I'm just FAQing whatever it seems like I'd otherwise miss. Retrieved the key for the workshop and went for the upper Cathedral Ward. This place is populated primarily by Jim Henson's Allant Babies and that is exactly as bad as it should sound. Fought the second boss in the basement, got it halfway down, died because someone thought it was a good idea to give her a massively powerful charging dive that executes at the same time you're already trying to dodge a barrage of laser bolts. Thanks guys, there's 1/3 of my healing supplies down the drain. Fuck this place for now.
Fenrir, is there another lamp in Unseen Village past the chapel warp point? I'm getting too frustrated trying to deal with the hunters keeping the prison lamp locked out, so if there's something else later then I'll just skip them and move on.
