How to farm Souls in Dark Souls 2

Prev: Levelling up in
Dark Souls 2   Next: How to make Dark
Souls 2 Easier

As with the previous title in the Dark Souls franchise, the theme is death and slaughtering your enemies will earn you souls. Souls act as the in-game currency allowing you to purchase weapons, items and resources for leveling up. As you kill and collect these souls, your character will carry them at all times but if you’re killed you’ll lose all of these newly acquired souls. Therefore if you’ve got enough souls to purchase a desired weapon, level or item, don’t hesitate! You’ll have one opportunity to collect your lost souls, once you’ve died make your way back to your original location and touch your blood spill. However if you die before reaching this area, your souls will be gone for good.

Unlike in the original Dark Souls game, enemies will now vanish after a character kills them a certain number of times. Although this may prove useful for beginners aiming to avoid frequent combat scenarios, it also means that we cannot farm these enemies for souls in the same way we are familiar with. It’s still possible, with the assistance of a few bits of equipment available, allowing us to force certain enemies to respawn and also increase the number of souls received from their death.

As you advance through the levels, you’ll begin to need a higher amount of souls to continue through the level progression. Therefore we’ve composed a handy guide to assist you in earning and farming Souls in the new Dark Souls 2, available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.



Dark Souls 2 Equipment

Bonfire Ascetic: The Bonfire Ascetic can be purchased from a selection of merchants and can be burned at a bonfire in order to respawn any nearby enemies and strengthen their abilities. This will make them harder to kill and drop more souls once defeated.

Covetous Silver Serpent Ring: The covetous silver serpent ring can be discovered quite early on in the game and once equipped will reward players with an extra 20% of souls when killing enemies.

Jester’s Gloves: The Gloves work in a similar way to the silver serpent ring, allowing the players to receive a boost of souls from fallen enemies when equipped.

Tseldora Set: The Tseldora Set can be obtained from the Parasite Spider, Parasitized Undead or alternatively from Maughlin the Armorer in Majula. The full armor does not provide much defense however the main benefit is that each piece of the set contributes to additional soul gain.

Dark Souls 2 Locations

Farming souls using this technique can be executed at any bonfire using any of the enemies. However, for the best results, due to its small size and powerful surrounding enemies, we recommend the Dragon Shrine. Firstly, burn your Bonfire Ascetic and equip any two other pieces of equipment listed above. Now, explore the surrounding area killing any enemies that cross your path. Each enemies will drop around 4500 souls a time and as there are approximately 14 enemies within this area, you’ll gain roughly 60,000 souls if you successfully clear the zone. Lastly, continue to repeat this process until the enemies begin to fade, enabling you to net a minimum of 50,000 Souls.

If you run out of enemies to destroy, make your way back over to the bonfire and burn another Bonfire Ascetic. But remember, this will raise the enemies’ difficulty, so approach with caution!



How to farm Bosses in Dark Souls 2

To farm the bosses indefinitely you’ll need to acquire the White Soapstone, which allows players to summon assistants to aid them through the progress of the game. Place your sign at the foot of a bosses fog door and if your are summoned for assistance and defeat the boss you will be rewarded in souls. Again, you may use this technique with any of the bosses, however we’d recommend selecting the harder bosses such as Ruin Sentinel or Nashandra as there will be more demand for assistance in these difficult matches and they will also offer you more souls. Not only is this technique a great way of earning souls in Dark Souls 2, but it’s great practice for you to experience a battle with these bosses ahead of your own fight.

Farming Souls from lower levels

For the fresh new faces of Dark Souls 2, who are hovering around levels 15-30, can earn easy souls within the Forest of Fallen Giants. Clearing all of the hollow warriors from the area offers a simple way for beginners or low-level players to farm souls. Begin at the Bonfire ahead of the Majula entrance and finish off at the round courtyard.

For information, take a look at this gameplay video below, detailing the techniques used to farm souls in Dark Souls 2 courtesy of IGN.

For more Dark Souls 2 cheats, visit our full cheats page here. Have you got any Hints and Tips for Dark Souls 2? Let us know in the comments below. 

 

If you enjoyed this, here’s a few more you’ll definitely enjoy: