"Dark Souls 2" - Crown of the Ivory King Quiz

Answer: Drangleic Castle

Right after the first bonfire in Drangleic Castle, the player needs to enter the room full of statues, where the Ruin Sentinels spawn. From there, entering the door on the far bottom right and simply proceeding forward for about ten seconds will allow the player to find the Frozen Flower on a corpse in the middle of the room.

Answer: All four Primal Bonfires lit

One of two ways, and generally the easiest, to open the Shrine of Winter is to journey to boss fights with The Lost Sinner, The Duke's Dear Freya, Old Iron King and The Rotten, defeat them, then light the Primal Bonfires behind their boss rooms. A second, alternative way to open the Shrine of Winter is to accumulate a Soul Memory of X * 1,000,000 with X representing the number of playthroughs that particular character has been through.

For example, if on that character's first playthrough, the player will need to accumulate one million Soul Memory.

The number needed is to be gained that playthrough, meaning even if you begin New Game Plus with ten million Soul Memory, because it'd be that character's second playthrough, you'd need to reach twelve million to open the Shrine of Winter.

Answer: "Turn back."

This voice, later identified as belonging to Alsanna the Silent Oracle, continuously warns the player to leave the city as they make progress traveling through it. Of course, no video gamer worth their salt would ever dare to actually heed a warning from an NPC, so we're going to otherwise forget she ever tried.

Answer: She is invisible

If Aava is fought as soon as possible, she will be practically invisible to the naked eye. This means dealing with her attacks is a luck oriented affair, given that the player will not be able to actually see what attacks she is about to use. This can be corrected by traveling through Eleum Loyce before actually fighting the boss, but serves as somewhat of a 'hard mode' if the player would like.

Answer: Eye of the Priestess

The Eye of the Priestess very simply removes Aava's invisibility and makes her easy to see. Interestingly, it has the same effect on Shaded Hollows at the Shaded Woods area. Dealing with the latter is similarly frustrating to fighting Aava, only less deadly because they simply aren't as powerful as her. For those finding traversal through Shaded Woods to be annoying because of this, entering this DLC just for this item could make sense.

Answer: Masterless Glencour

As always, Steelheart Ellie is an underwhelming option as a summon due to her poor range courtesy of using fist melee weapons, average healthpool and genuinely pathetic damage output. Glencour, however, is quite a bit more useful- he does acceptable damage, but more importantly comes with three Estus Flasks and is quite tanky.

He can serve as a solid distraction to allow the player opportunities to heal, buff or simply get in attacks on Aava.

Answer: 40

40 in Dexterity would be fine if it weren't for the fact that the Ivory Straight Sword gets absolutely zero scaling off of anything whatsoever, making those 40 points of investment get next to no real value. As well, the weapon is actually considerably slower than other straight swords while doing less damage than most of them.

The only reason this weapon would ever see use is its unique skill, which still isn't close to saving it from mediocrity. When two handed, swings with this weapon will see it emit a long blade of light from its tip, extending its range at the expense of its massive 250 Durability.

The blade of light does okay damage, but it's nothing too impressive and presents the aforementioned added problem of durability. Simply put, this weapon as a whole is horrible, arguably the worst boss soul weapon in the entire game, and not worth using at all.

Answer: Loyce Knights

By default, the player will be given one Loyce Knight to assist them for this fight. A total of five can be had, and it is recommended the player at least get themselves four to work with. The Burnt Ivory King is fought alongside four portals which will endlessly spawn Charred Loyce Knights that will help him. Eventually, the Loyce Knights will sacrifice their lives in order to freeze and deactivate these portals, eventually allowing for a one-on-one with the Burnt Ivory King. Without these Loyce Knights to seal the portals, however, the player will constantly be assaulted by heavily armored enemies, some with ranged attacks, that are difficult to kill with the Burnt Ivory King breathing down their neck and will respawn endlessly.

As such, the average player will want to secure at least four knights, enough to seal all the portals.

Answer: Lucatiel of Mirrah

Both of these NPCs are frankly horrible selections, as the player can already gather help in the form of Loyce Knights. Loyce Knights do not buff the health of the Burnt Ivory King like summons typically would, whereas Twiggy Shei and Lucatiel will buff Burnt Ivory King if they are summoned.

As well, Lucatiel will generally never survive until the king himself actually shows up, as the Charred Loyce Knights will typically overwhelm her easily unless the player can kill them almost immediately as they spawn.

Answer: She is his wife

Where Sinh (and the Sunken King) had Elana, Fume Knight had Nadalia and Vendrick had Nashandra, Burnt Ivory King has Alsanna. Like the others, Alsanna is a fragment of Manus, Father of the Abyss.

Answer: Put him out of his misery

The Burnt Ivory King built his throne directly over Old Chaos, a fancy way of saying the Abyss. He then led his men into Old Chaos with the goal of vanquishing the Abyss and all of its horrible entities. This sadly failed, and the king was corrupted by the Abyss as a result. Portrayed as kind and benevolent, Alsanna believes he deserves a more noble, honorable death and this is why she asks the player to defeat him.

Answer: Fifty

Once 50 Loyce Souls are obtained, the player can turn them in to Alsanna and receive the entire Loyce Knight armor set plus the Soul of Alsanna, Silent Oracle. Loyce Souls will only be dropped by Charred Loyce Knights that can only be found during the boss fight with the Burnt Ivory King.

This was likely a way to encourage players to help others defeat the Burnt Ivory King, as if they do, they can kill Charred Loyce Knights in other players' worlds to potentially receive this drop. Incidentally, when being summoned by other players, Charred Loyce Knights will drop Loyce Souls at a slightly higher than usual rate, supporting the idea that this was meant to encourage cooperative play.

Answer: Light attack

The two handed light attacks on this weapon are catastrophically, almost unfairly powerful especially if used up close. This causes the weapon to extend a large blade of light, enhancing both its range and its power substantially. While the blade of light wasn't good enough to make the Ivory Straight Sword good, when applied to a weapon that actually has great stats, it's enough to make it one of the best, strongest weapons in the entire game.

Answer: Allies will be slightly healed

The amount of health restored is based on whether the heavy attack was performed while one-handing or two-handing the weapon. The former will heal for slightly less. Interestingly, heavy attacks also slightly pierce shields, ignoring up to 40% physical absorption.

Answer: Head of Vengarl

Vengarl is probably the most useful NPC, as he is the tankiest and hits the hardest. However, his AI does have an odd tendency to start wandering away from the player and picking fights with enemies who hadn't even noticed the player's existence, causing unnecessary fighting.

This is not a problem he usually has, nor is it shared by Manhunter O'Harrah or Abbess Feeva, the player's other options for help.

Answer: Frozen Reindeer

The surrounding blizzard makes seeing basically impossible. The Frozen Reindeer are very fast, and don't seem to have any issues spotting the player. As such, the player will frequently find themselves being ambushed by sometimes several massive Frozen Reindeer all at once, coming from different sides. Because of how abrupt their appearance tends to be, dodging their charge attacks can be close to impossible unless the reaction is basically perfect.

The charged attacks do a lot of damage as well, and the icing on the cake comes from the reindeer possessing massive health bars and taking a king time to kill.

Answer: Extra durability is lost

When striking Lud or Sallen, 2.5x the weapon's usual durability decay takes place. Because of this, it is very easy to quickly break a weapon, especially those without great durability to begin with. Repair Powder or the Repair spell are thereby essential.

Answer: Buff and heal

When Lud is defeated, shortly thereafter, Zallen will take a huge leap away from the player and roar loudly. This roar applies the Enraged status effect, making Zallen do a lot more damage. While roaring, he will also heal for roughly a quarter of his health bar.

Answer: Dexterity

With an S scaling in Dexterity, this is an excellent weapon for Dexterity builds. Moreover, it stands out amongst its brethren Greatswords not just for having a different stat build, but a beneficial unique moveset. When two handed, light attacks are the same as if this was a straight sword, though it does not have to sacrifice power for this, making it a freely beneficial addition.

Answer: Healing

Specifically, this shield will heal the user for 40 HP every minute. It also stacks with the Ring of Restoration. When combining the two, long journeys, namely the one just getting here through Frigid Outskirts, become much less dangerous or costly to one's healing resources.