Nashandra Trivia Quiz

Answer: Throne of Want

Nashandra can be confronted in one of two ways. If the player did not beat Throne Watcher and Defender before acquiring the Giant's Kinship, they will fight the Throne Duo, and then Nashandra will come into their boss room right after and immediately begin her own boss fight. If the player did beat the Throne Duo before earning the Giant's Kinship, they will simply go into the boss room to commence the fight with Nashandra themselves.

Answer: Benhart of Jugo

Benhart's questline can be progressed if the player defeats Nashandra while Benhart survives the fight. This is going to be challenging however, as Benhart consistently ignores the dark wisps Nashandra will inevitably spawn around him, which will lead to him taking a ton of damage if the player doesn't address the wisps themselves.

In addition to Benhart, Bradley of the Old Guard, Head of Vengarl and Bashful Ray are possible NPC summons.

Answer: He was never actually the ruler of Drangleic

Nashandra clarifies that, while Vendrick was indeed very strong and never balked at an opportunity to prove his strength, he never actually truly claimed the Throne of Want and, thus, was never actually a King at all.

Nashandra's words here should not necessarily be completely trusted however, as there is some evidence that does contradict her claim. Vendrick is capable of applying an anti-Hollowing effect to very specific pieces of equipment, which is something he would not be able to do had he never truly claimed the throne. However, one could counter-argue that if Vendrick had truly claimed the Throne of Want, he would not have Hollowed as thoroughly as the player had witnessed him; after all, Nashandra did not Hollow and she was the formal Queen of Drangleic, though we also know she did not have possession of the Throne at any point herself.

In any case, she isn't necessarily lying, but she also isn't necessarily completely accurate in claiming that Vendrick was not actually a King.

Answer: It is a fake dragon

While Nashandra's claim about Vendrick isn't very substantiated, she is actually spot on with her analysis on the Ancient Dragon. Indeed, it is not actually a dragon, instead a construct who was essentially created by Aldia. Nashandra never mentions Aldia, so she might not know that it was Aldia's creation, but she does accurately point out that it is not a real dragon. Specifically, she says "You've met that dragon, that living, breathing sham? A false deity, offering nothing. What did that dragon tell you? That thing is a prop, a false deity. Don't be fooled, my Undead."

Answer: Lightning

It is just a 15% Lightning weakness to go with a 10% Strike weakness, nothing eye-popping by any means, but good enough to be noticeable. It will be very obvious to tell by just looking at Nashandra and fighting her for about five seconds, but her biggest resistance is Dark, which she blocks 50% of.

Answer: Curse

Immediately as the fight begins, Nashandra will spend about five seconds channeling, before she spawns a series of dark wisps around the player. Standing at all close to these wisps will rapidly build up Curse. As well, all of Nashandra's direct damage dealing maneuvers will inflict enormous Curse build up. It is pretty difficult to go this entire fight without being Cursed at least once, usually a few times.

Worth noting, if the player has received Vendrick's Blessing, they could put on one of the DLC Crowns or the Crown of the King to completely counter this. Vendrick's Blessing makes the player immune to Curse entirely.

Alternatively, albeit far less preferably, the Ring of Soul Protection can give the player a free mulligan, negating an otherwise successful application of Curse one time in exchange for the ring breaking entirely and needing to be repaired. The repair cost is 14,000 souls, and since the player is probably going to just get Cursed anyway, this is not typically worth it.

Answer: Alsanna

Alsanna is also a Fragment of Manus. In addition, Elana the Squalid Queen and Nadalia, Bride of Ash join this twisted "family."

They are related by way of all being fragments of Manus. In "Dark Souls 1", Manus was slain, and upon his death, his body essentially exploded and expelled shards of himself all over the Abyss. Most of his shards or, "Fragments", withered away into nothing, but some cultivated into sentient, intelligible life. Because Manus is wicked and evil, it's not surprising that fragments of himself would be too, explaining Nashandra's presence in this game and how deceitful and cruel she is.

Alsanna can be found in the "Crown of the Ivory King" DLC. Uniquely, she is a stark contrast to the other Fragments of Manus and actually ends up becoming a friend to the player.

Answer: Two-handed standard attack (R1 while two-handing the Scythe of Want)

The major deficiency of the Scythe class in this game is that it is an extremely weak weapon in particularly close quarters. The weapon family comes with a sweetspot mechanic, so the player will predictably do more damage when hitting with the blade of this weapon, as opposed to the hilt or shaft.

The Scythe of Want's two handed standard attack features the player essentially briefly spin it like it's a wheel. This lands the close quartered sweetspot every single time, and is a maneuver other Scythes simply cannot do. The ordinary Scythe moveset is basically useless if the player gets particularly close to their target, which normally forces the player to be a lot more particular on their positioning.

The Scythe of Want has no such restrictions, and can put in great work in situations regular Scythes cannot. As such, the Scythe of Want is overwhelmingly the best Scythe in the game by a million miles. The only caveat is that it does consume stamina at a well above average rate, so players may wish to consider putting some level ups into Endurance to compensate. This doesn't even take into consideration the weapon's surprisingly low stat requirements that come with strangely solid scaling.

Answer: No

The Bow of Want, for some inexplicable reason, deals part Lightning, and not Dark, damage. Given that Nashandra has zero attacks which deal Lightning damage, this is a strange development. The only possible explanation is that it's meant to represent the notion that Nashandra coveted the First Flame, tied to the Gods, and the Gods themselves, such as Lord Gwyn from "Dark Souls 1", were known for wielding Lightning.

This is such an extreme reach, but it's the only plausible explanation for why the Bow of Want deals part Lightning damage.

Answer: Highest Dark scaling of all Chimes

Even at a completely unupgraded +0, the Chime of Want's scaling in Dark beats the entire rest of the game, even when competing Chimes are at max upgrade versus the Chime of Want totally unupgraded. This thing is a Dark machine, and can be used to turn devastating Hexes like Climax or Great Resonant Soul into straight up war crime levels of destructive.

Though the Chime of Want is outperformed by at least one other option, it actually has fairly solid Lightning scaling as well. In fact, as a Lightning Chime, it is only plainly outclassed by the Dragon Chime, while being at least arguably better than anything else.

It would not really be inaccurate to suggest that this is the best all-around Chime in the entire game.