How to Farm Souls
One of the biggest changes in Dark Souls 2 in comparison to the original Dark Souls is that enemies now vanish after being killed a set number of times. However, with the help of one item and a few pieces of equipment, you can not only respawn the enemies, but also get more Souls from them!
What You Need
To make this work, make sure you have the following items:
- Bonfire Ascetic - Obtained from various merchants, this can be burned at any Bonfire to increase it's level. Doing so will respawn all nearby enemies, make them slightly harder and cause them to drop more souls.
- Covetous Silver Serpent Ring - This ring is found very early in the game and when equipped, it increases the amount of souls you get from enemy deaths.
- Jesters Gloves - Purchased from the merchant in the Iron Keep. Wearing these will boost the amount of souls you get for killing an enemy.
- Tseldora Set - This cloth set can be obtained by farming the spiders and spider-men in Brightstone area. It can also be grabbed from the armor merchant in Majula, if you kill him. Each piece of this set has a minor increase to souls per kill.
Where You Need to Go
Although this process can be done at any bonfire, against any enemy, the best results will come from the Dragon Shrine. Burn the Bonfire Ascetic, and equip the two items mentioned above. Now go through the zone killing enemies. Each one will drop around 4500 souls. Since there are roughly 14 enemies in this small zone, you will get around 60,000 souls if you clear the entire zone. Repeat this process until the enemies begin disappearing and you will net over 500,000 souls.
This can be done in any zone, but the Dragon Shrine is one of the best due to its small size, and powerful enemies, who drop tons of souls. If you run out of enemies to kill, you can always burn another Bonfire Ascetic, just remember that this will increase enemy difficulty, so burning too many could be disastrous.
A better place to do this is in the memory of Jeigh equip all your lightening spear miracles enter the memory and run straight forward. You will likely take 1 hit off the fireballs just down a flask and continue running forwardand to the right. When you reach the ballista hug the wall on the right and the giant statue head will roll past you killing everything in its path. If the head only killed one of the giants finish the other off with lightening it cannot reach you from the other side of the head. Once done exit the memory then rinse and repeat as the giants will spawn infinitley. To make a huge ammount of souls kill the giant lord then use a bonfire ascetic and kill him again he gets harder to kill everytime but the ammount of souls you get for killing the other giants becomes huge.
Boss Farming
So long as you have the White Soapstone, you can farm Bosses indefinitely for Souls. Place your summon sign outside of a bosses fog door, and if you get summoned and defeat the boss, you will get souls rewarded to you. This can be done for any boss, but there will be more traffic at specific, harder bosses, like the Ruin Sentinel, or Nashandra.
This is also a great way to learn a boss fight ahead of your own attempt. Help a few other people, learn the fight and what the boss can do, then run in and beat it on your first try because you know exactly what to expect.
The best bosses to farm for souls are Velstadt and King Vendrick. With the Tseldora Set and the Covestous Silver Serpent Ring +2 equipped, Velstadt can yield over 200,000 souls and King Vendrick yields about 600,000 souls, making for a total of over 800,000 souls per each run. Keep in mind that these two bosses do increasingly more damage with heightened Bonfire Intensity.
For New Characters
New characters (around levels 15-30), can find consistent and easy souls in the Forest of Fallen Giants. Clearing this area of hollow warriors can provide reliable and stress free Souls farming for low level players. Starting from the Bonfire located straight ahead of the entrance from Majula, a character can work their way up to the round courtyard with 3-4 hollow infantry, a knight in silver armor and a bowman.
Players can then make their way through the hallways containing 4 Hollow Infantry and then in to an open rooftop with 2 hollow infantry and a warrior throwing fire bombs; up the ladder from here is a bonfire with a vendor. New characters can go between these Bonfires for easy souls and a reliable and safer way to level up.