The King's Pets Trivia Quiz

Answer: Frigid Outskirts

Unfortunately, Frigid Outskirts has gone on to become inarguably the single most hated map in the entire game, for the overwhelmingly vast majority of the playerbase. Traversing the areas itself is typically quite awkward and irritating, as the player can only sometimes even see where they're going caught amidst a horrendous, oscillating blizzard. Moreover, Frozen Reindeer have become iconic for the role they play on this map, ambushing the player amidst those vision obscuring snowstorms.

At the tail end of it is the fight with Lud and Zallen. Honestly, the pure dread at having to go through all of Frigid Outskirts again should the player die is more of a source of tension than the actual boss fight itself. Yet, the boss fight is quite challenging, essentially facing two Aavas at once.

Answer: Fire

It should be fairly reasonable to rationalize that unarmored beasts, with exposed fur and flesh, who have spent their entire lives inside of a frozen hellscape would not appreciate Fire. The three King's Pets are 23% weak to it.

In addition, all three of the King's Pets actually have Magic imbued within their claws. They can also cast their own, unique version of Homing Soul Mass. As such, they carry fairly significant resistances of 37% to Magic. Not impenetrable, but enough to certainly be noticeable.

Answer: Masterless Glencour

As soon as the Eye of the Priestess has been picked up, both Ellie and Glencour can be summoned. Glencour had previously last been seen all the way back in Belfry Luna, to fight the Belfry Gargoyles. Yet, despite all the time away, his equipment and strategy are completely unchanged.

Eleum Loyce is a very, very popular place for invasions. There is an enormous stretch of wide open land just in front of the first bonfire, perfect for arranging a fight against a friend, or tearing your way into someone else's world uninvited. Glencour is uniquely very good at dealing with invaders, as he can and often will parry them aggressively if they show up.

This, perhaps, was From Software's motivation to specifically choosing him as an NPC to summon.

Answer: Manhunter O'Harrah

Worth noting, in order for O'Harrah to appear here, the player must have summoned her at least once in one of her other locations. This could be Brightstone Cove Tseldora to have her help with The Duke's Dear Freja, or it could be the Iron Keep for her assistance in dealing with Old Iron King. She does not need to actually survive these encounters, merely summoning her and then killing the boss in the same session as having summoned her will work.

That said, the juice is worth the squeeze for sure, as O'Harrah is by far the best choice for a summon. She is certainly better than Abbess Feeva or Head of Vengarl, though the player has the option to summon all three if they'd like.

Summoning all three is actually an excellent idea, particularly to help the player actually reach the boss. Of course, as these three NPCs are AI, they are not impacted by the vision obscurement imposed by the ongoing blizzard. That is a blessing, but in the case of Vengarl, it can actually occasionally be a curse, as he is weirdly aggressive when summoned here and will pick fights even with enemies that never noticed the player's existence.

All three of these summons are useful for actually fighting Lud and Zallen as well. Of course, these are two beasts vs just the one player, so the NPCs can help with the numbers situations greatly.

Answer: Eye of the Priestess

The Eye of the Priestess is found at a small, unnamed shrine, fairly deep inside the city of Eleum Loyce. The player essentially has to go through roughly 3/4ths of the area, and they will discover it on the natural path of progression.

Aava is possible to kill invisible, but doing so is predictably extremely difficult. Neither of the NPCs typically available to fight Aava will actually be summonable until the player gets the Eye of the Priestess, so in fighting invisible Aava, the player is going to be on their own unless they have a friend willing to assist.

Worth noting, if the player summons a friend, even if the friend has the Eye of the Priestess, Aava will remain invisible unless the host has the item. And of course, the Eye of the Priestess is a Key Item, so you cannot just have your friend gift it to you.

Answer: Become enraged, buffing and healing themselves

When one of them is slain, the other will immediately leap far, far away from the player. It will then roar very loudly, enshrouding itself with a crimson red aura and healing for about 40% of its health bar. The buff makes their attacks deal massive amounts of damage, to the point where the buffed Lud or Zallen will basically guarantee a two shot at worst on all but the tankiest of builds.

To navigate this, the Spell Quartz Ring is surprisingly effective, as the majority of the added damage via buff is Magic damage. Ring of Steel Protection can also be useful for Lud/Zallen's melee attacks. If using a Strength build, the Havel's Greatshield is perfect for this, with perfect physical absorption and extremely high Magic absorption to go with its trademark immovable Stability.

Answer: Extra Durability Lost

When striking any of these three with any melee weapon, the weapon in question will lose 2.5x the usual Durability. As such, especially for Lud and Zallen given that there are now two targets to slay, the player must ensure to either bring plenty of Repair Powder, the Repair Sorcery, or a usable backup melee option. The Bracing Knuckle Ring can also be an effective countermeasure.

Answer: Zero

It is actual comedy that anything in any "Souls" game could ever demand a 40 in anything and give literally zero scaling for it. Like, someone must have been asleep at the wheel designing the stats for this weapon, or perhaps an unpaid intern accidentally hit the "delete" button on the Dexterity scaling for this weapon. This weapon, in any event, has the dubious "dis"honor of requiring the most stats while offering the least scaling for them. In other words, this is the single most inefficient weapon in the entire game. It's not particularly close either, as the second most inefficient, the Wrathful Axe, does circles around the Ivory Straight Sword.

Simply put, please just consume the Soul of Aava, the King's Pet, make off with your 28,000 souls, and enjoy the rest of your playthrough while using an actually viable weapon.

Answer: Dexterity

Despite being a Greatsword, this weapon actually gets terrible Strength scaling, with an E grade even at the maximum upgrade level of +5. Its scaling in Dexterity, however, is quite terrific, with an A grade at that upgrade level.

Sadly, this weapon does needed to get knocked a few points for still requiring a 25 in Strength while giving very little value on that investment. But, it at least offers Dexterity builds with a Greatsword option. Dexterity weapons tend to be heavy on finesse, but offer low poise break. Greatswords offers the raw power to poise break that these builds usually go without, giving the weapon a niche.

Answer: Passive health regeneration

This is basically the Ring of Restoration, in the form of a shield. It also stacks with the actual Ring of Restoration, plus every form of health regeneration in this game. As such, this shield is clearly best served on a dedicated health regen build. Worth noting, the health regen is not affected by upgrade level, so the player should not waste their hard-earned Petrified Dragon Bone on this shield.

It is plainly useless outside of offering this health regeneration.