hmm, 50 souls for 2 armor sets, 1 soul which yields 1 weapon and the relief that you'll never have to grind again until ds3? sounds worth it

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Oh boy, I remember grinding these back on my PS3. Thanks for the help magikdawg, I actually had tons of fun farming these while chatting with you. It always felt amazing, meeting nice people through random summon signs. Those were happier days indeed...

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This is like the most low effort, easy, grinding spot if you grab all the knights and summons, especially if you use the homeward spell to exit the boss arena to skip having to black crystal the npc summons. The knights and Lucatiel are good at taking aggro, but it does feel like they randomly just swap targets occasionally.
While getting 50 souls is atrocious, the burnt knights do drop souls so there's at least that. (honestly was surprised since they're boss adds, but now that i think of it, they don't have a boss health bar so it makes sense.)

It's pretty easy and maybe even relaxing to grind these out, besides those times you turn around to find Twiggy Shei getting ganked by 2+ knights and you have to save them.

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Hey so i just grinded these things out and ngl it took maybe 4 hours but if you find a summon sign make sure to use it! And maybe you meet a nice person like me! thank you lonlyRanger =) made my grind a lot more fun!
Kaiden

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Personally, I tried many weapons to make quick work of the Charred Loyce Knights, but my favorite has to be 2 Aged Smelter Sword powerstanced with 60 STR and 40 INT. Powerstance L2 can usually one shot them, or leave them with a tiny sliver of health, so they get finished by the others knights.
Although any powerstanced heavy weapon is enough to one shot them, I just like the blue explosion of the Aged Smelter Sword.

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Recently found out that the Smelter Hammer is very effective against the Charred Loyce Knights since it always pancakes them with the 2-handed R2 and Running/Backstep Attack as well as doing high damage to them since they're weak to strike damage, and unlike other Great Hammers like let's say the Dragon Tooth the R2 doesn't eat through it's durability in seconds if you're not using it sparingly since it has the highest durability in the game in SOTFS, makes it way easier to safely kill the Charred Loyce Knights. (surpassed in durability only by the King's Ultra Greatsword in Vanilla Dark Souls 2)

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USE GIANT WARRIOR CLUB(LIGHTNING) + SUNLIGHT BLADE + ROB +2 + SACRED OATH = 2 HITS OF R1 = KILL 1 KNIGHT in NG (2400 dmg R1+R1)

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Ngl, I kinda enjoy this farm. Okay, 50 is a bit much, maybe they should have put it 30, but with all 4 knights and the 2 NPC phantoms, this is a really relaxing grind. I have 54 FTH, 12 STR and 25 DEX for my Heide Spear. I summon my phantoms, fall into the hole, cast Sacred Oath and Sunlight Spear then charge for the knight that spawns in the left, and when I kill enough of them and the king decides to show up, I black crystal the phantoms out and feather back to the bonfire for the repeat. With Symbol of Avarice, Tatters, Gold Serpent +1 and Watchdragon Parma, I usually get 1-3 per run

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So, do you have to eat the Loyce souls before going to Alsanna? I just talked to her with 5 in inventory and nothing happened.

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I just dedicated an entire freaking day to this, AFTER the boss, and with Company of Champions covenant on. And because I warped too recklessly and missed a drop, I got a 51st Loyce soul to make up for it, just for good measure. Why? I don't know.

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I cant wait for Loyce Souls 2.

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I can't believe I was trying to farm these after the boss fight. It is SO much easier to get these before the boss spawns in. With the four Loyce knights and one or two phantoms. Usually get one or two souls per pull.

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as of writing this i have 39 loyce souls and i have:
8 charred loyce greatswords
10 charred loyce sheilds
14 charred loyce helms
9 charred loyce armor's
11 charred loyce gauntlets
8 charred loyce leggings
and i haven't beaten the boss yet....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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As someone who has been at the grind for a bit of a while, I'm providing my own suggestions here:

Personally, I found item discovery gear to be fairly helpful - prisoner tatters, prisoner hood, watchdragon parma, Covetous Serpent Ring, etc.
However, even with this set-up, I was getting 0-2 Loyce souls per run - with 2 being the "win the lottery" luck. However, after summoning Twiggy Shei and Lucatiel, I started consistently getting 1-2 Loyce souls every run through, and occasionally even 3 Loyce Souls. Do not underestimate the weird utility of phantoms. Also, don't forget the Aged Feather, a lot of homeward bones, or the Homeward miracle. On top of just getting Loyce souls and Charred Loyce armor/weapons, there's also good souls in farming the knights - Darksign isn't the best backout option. I started farming around SL 100, and am around SL160 now. Don't forget to hotkey Black Separation Crystal, too, if you summon Twiggy Shei and Lucatiel - you'll have to send them back before you can homeward.

On the topic of weapons - anything that deals Dark damage or Lightning damage is a good idea. I personally was using a Heide Spear, since I speedran to Eleum Loyce (eventual goal - Everlasting Knight build, need ivory crown, want regular Loyce set for light weight and bling). I do not recommend Heide Sword - the spear does around 100+ more damage and has better reach. The Heide Spear also works beautifully with Lighting infusion, since it hardly loses any physical damage and gains a chunky lightning damage boost. I have heard talk of Crypt Blacksword, but as someone who hasn't even killed Mirror Knight in this playthrough yet, I don't have anything to say - but I imagine it would be monstrously effective. Otherwise, if you can bring some resins, Sunlight Blade, or Dark Weapon, that will also help your damage output - when it comes to farming, speed is the name of the game. Burn the enemies down, rinse, and repeat.

The Burnt Ivory King himself, also happens to be weak to lightning and dark. So the Heide Spear can carry you through the entire Old Chaos. However, I don't recommend killing Ivory King before getting the 50 Loyce souls - for one, after he's dead, you can't summon the NPCs for the easy and odd Loyce soul drop-rate boost. For another, the Charred Loyce Knights can eventually despawn if you aren't in Covenant of Champions after Ivory King has been killed.

When it comes to an actual combat strategy against the Charred Loyce Knights, I recommend either tunneling the pyromancers or meatgrinding whoever the 4 Loyce Knights and 2 phantoms dogpile on. Meatgrinding with the pile of Shiny Bois is an effective strategy to melt Charred Loyce Knights, and thus can reduce farming time extensively.

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finally got the 50, and now I have:
- 12 Charred Loyce Greatsword
- 11 Charred Loyce Shield
- 9 Charred Loyce Helm
- 12 Charred Loyce Armor
- 12 Charred Loyce Gauntlets
- 13 Charred Loyce Leggings

took me around 10h
who the hell though it was a good idea to have such a big grind... 50 of such a rare drop
it's not a MMO were they try to keep you busy after you get addicted so they can sell you their monthly subscription, it's a solo game. this isn't supposed to be like that.

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It's unclear if I could drop these souls to people just like I can drop them other types of souls.

Cuz if I can, these souls remain unconsumed after doing the quest, and I really have no use for them other than sharing with people. Anyone knows if other players can see them when dropped by you?

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I have 5 loyce souls but I didn't got any piece of the set. Killing the boss is needed for Alsanna rewards?

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I've just finished to farm them offline a couple of hours ago, it was rough and took almost 4 hours, but it is worth it for the Burnt Ivory King set.

-Remember to farm the souls before you kill the boss, or the drop chances will be way worse and the knights will eventually stop spawning.

What I did was summoning both phantoms (apparently they help with the drop rates) and having equipped the Symbol of Avarice, Prisoner's Tatters, Watchdragon Parma and Gold Serpent's ring +1.
Go in with the 4 Knights and your 2 summons, kill everything, loot the drops and use the Black Separation Crystal on both summons, then Feather/Bone out.
Reset the area at the bonfire, rinse and repeat until you have at least 50 souls in your inventory.
Note that in order to get your rewards, you'll have to kill the Ivory King and then talk to Alsanna (for the Loyce set + her soul) while for the Ivory king's set you'll have to purchase it from Maughlin in Majula.
I was kind of lucky with the drops, but the most souls I got from a single run were 5 while I also had several 0 souls runs.
In 3 to 5 hours at worst you'll have your shiny Loyce set alongside the Burnt Ivory King set and the soul of Alsanna without having to kill her.
It's a big farm but it's worth it.

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The knights aren’t spawning anymore for me, even though i’m part of the covenant of champions. Is it an old-gen glitch or something? I am playing on an Xbox 360 if that helps.

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Im so f ing pissed off they ruined one of the best boss fifhts by making it grinding bullsh t. Cool entrance, now lets repeat it 200 times until you hate it. F king DS2

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I just got a bug on sotfs ps4 that gave me back all 50 souls when i logged on the day after farming and spending them all xD

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Nevermind, finally re-got Charred Loyce Leggings after stupidly/accidentally selling them. Took over an hour.

However, I have to echo others comments, once you’ve beaten the Ivory King, they continue to spawn.

Enter room, kill the three, and leave. Repeat. Sometimes not all three spawn but they usually do. Nonetheless, this is infinite farming as far as I’ve experienced. Moreover, I got way more Loyce souls than I did Charred gear, for whatever it’s worth. Good luck all!

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Hi all, accidentally sold my Charred Loyce Leggings. Willing to trade 5 Loyce Souls for a pair. Playing PS4.

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They carry over into NG+ so you can get the armors again without the need to farm twice (drop rate in NG+ does not seem any better btw)

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7 loyce souls as a phantom, with host, 2 other player phantoms and just 1 knight. No item find gear. Should I play lottery?

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Farmed for about 1.5 hours on NG with symbol of avarice and gold serpent +1 and only got 7 souls. Did the last 30 mins without farming gear and didn't notice much difference but the drop rate is so low anyways that it's hard to say.

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Killed at least a 100 after beating the boss and they keep respawning.
Sometimes only 1, sometimes 2, sometimes none, but after resetting the area they come back eventually.

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Weird mine seems to have unlimited spawn even after i killed the ivory king

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I got 96 Loyce Souls. Mostly by aiding my covenant in this fight. Got tons of souls too. You dont need a special tactic in my opinion. Just get summoned

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I guess you are in this page for some tips for farming the souls too. Well, after reading all the tips in Reddit and in this page, so far, this is what worked in my 5-6 hour run (with snack breaks in between of course. Farming can get boring)

1. The technique where you go to the Old Chaos, kill the loyce knights, and feather out when Sauron starts entering the battle, is what I did. As the guide says, they spawn infinitely this way, unlike when the King is dead where they only spawn 12 times and stop.
2. Having summoned phantoms did make Loyce souls spawn more commonly. I didn't know this at first and I got around only 5 Loyce souls in the first hour. But when I summoned phantoms, I noticed that I sometimes get up to 3 Loyce souls in one run! I play offline so I summon the NPCs Lucatiel and Twiggy.
3. Despite what others may claim, I noticed that I did get more Loyce souls when I wore Item Discovery boosters like Symbol of Avarice, Prisoners Tatters, Watchdragon Parma, and Covetous Gold Serpent Ring+2.
4. To make each run finish faster, I needed to quickly kill the Charred Loyce Knights. I settled with the propeller, Red Iron Winblade buffed with Sunlight Blade because they can get close to 2k damage with two R1 moves. It drains stamina fast though so I try not to overdo it.

In the end, I ended up with 50 Loyce souls along with 10 Charred Loyce Helm, 10 Charred Loyce Armor, 8 Charred Loyce Gauntlets, and 11 Charred Loyce Leggings.

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The only thing I’ve gotten from them was the greatsword. I’m ok with that because I’m built to use one

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How to get loyce souls fast
1. Find all the loyce knights
2. Descend into the old chaos
3. Slam a 2x4 into your skull until you die of brain trauma

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For some reason she won't accept any souls from me. I have 35. You just need to talk to her right?

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If you are new to the game (like me) DON'T trust the farming gear strategy! If tried every single gear they told me to use and after many tries I didn't get nothing at all. My theory is that the gear increase the chance of dropping their respective Armour and Weaponry, NOT the souls. I can somewhat confirm this because I started a new farming session without ANY of the item discovery gear. I just went in there with my regular Armour, my weapon and a normal shield and suddenly I got 3 souls after 5 runs again. I have to admit that the wiki (might) be right about the Droprate decreasing after killing the enemies over and over again. I didn't used Ascetic and currently I'm farming them after Ivory King and with CoC equipped. But with farming gear I didn't got anything besides some Armour now and then. Now I'm farming without the gear, after killing Alonne Knights for confirmation and... As I said, it worked for me. So again, don't let yourself fool by the advice on this page, do it like me. If you recognize no drops anymore, kill some other enemies to recover the drop rate. (Again!!! This part is somewhat confirmed! It's possible that it's just a coincidence)

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Untested Loyce Souls Farming note: Using "drop rate" equipment and/or items may in fact lower chances of Loyce Souls drop due to an obtuse mechanic. Point of reference:

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Should I be getting less than one per run? Using solo strategy with the 4 knights since summons don't do anything (this wiki has tons of fake info)

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The drop rate is better when summoned. Don't bother with the item drop gear.

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Does anyone know if the accumulated souls in a previous playthrough still work in NG+?

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Not that hard and a reasonable good soul farming spot. Just equipped symbol of avarice, prisoner's tatters, gold covetous ring +2 and watchdragon parma got around 1 soul per run and plenty of levels. Summon the two NPCs and have all the white Loyce knights and you can beat the enemies quite fast, banish your helpers and feather back to the bonfire while the boss gate is arising.

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it does work... joining the CoC will spawn them inftly...

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To my surprise, I ended up killing the Ivory King, and am now farming for Loyce souls after the fact.

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Pro-tip: if you farm after you beat the Burnt Ivory King you can make knights spawn from the gates without having to wait a few minutes by quitting to the main menu and logging back on. If knights stop spawning join Covenant of Champions.

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If you use smaller weapons I advice adding the stone ring to your equipment since the knights have decent, but not unreasonable, amounts of poise.

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Does burning bonfire ascetic affect the chance of charred knights coming, after the king is dead? Or should people who killed him and don't want to be a champion just try again on NG+?

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Is anyone willing to farm these with me? Dark Souls 2 (Vanilla) PS3. Id: Gu-Towers and SM +- 8M

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If you've already killed the boss, it's way faster to feather out. Rest at the bonfire to replenish your magic and drop down again. I like to go for the 1st one on the left, you can burst him down easily. Then I take the next melee enemy while keeping distance to the pyromancer. Well and after 7h the remaining 20 souls aren't too hard with that much practice ;)

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I have no idea why people are crying. Yeah it's stupid but it's hardly a mandatory part of the game to do this. It's not like the reward is the even close to being the greatest weapon in the game (because it's not from what I've seen).

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Might be one of the worst ideas from has ever had (besides never finishing dark souls 1...).... even if the souls had a drop rate of 100% (as they should imo) it would be grindy. But 1h< instead of <6 hours in and 25 souls grindy..... This and the horrible coop area in eleum loyce makes me want to take this games down from a respectable 7/10 to 5/10.

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good idea from, make you need 50 of something with an abysmal droprate to proceed to the next area

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Open letter to the absolute, colossal a**hole perma-invading people trying to farm Loyce Souls. Go kill yourself, you worthless scumbag. Signed, literally everyone.

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just so everyone knows, the burnt ivory king armor is sold by maughlin in majula after you've gotten 50 souls and spoken to alsanna to get the rewards. if ivory king is still alive or you haven't gotten all the loyce soul rewards from alsanna he doesn't sell it.

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I really hate the random number theory... I got 4 souls on a run then i get only armor pieces on the next 5 runs...

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There is no drop boost, neither being hollowed nor having more or less burnt gear in the inventory. Tested it in SotFS and got even worse drop rates over the course of two hours. I think the authors had just a positive fluctuation. Still might be true for vanilla. But for vanilla there is no higher drop chance for phantoms when both wear full item drop gear - tested it with a friend and we got both exactly the same amount of souls (for all 50 farmed). So just wear full gear and invest time, there is no better strategie. Being human might be useful though, because of the summons that draw the attention from you so you can deal damage. It's frustrating when you're focussed by all enemies all the time.

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I note it says five souls for the gauntlets and five souls for the leggings, not five souls for the gauntlets and leggings. So, to clarify: Do I get the rewards based on the total number of souls I hand over, or are those numbers the cost of each individual reward? Because that would mean I have to collect 110 (1) souls to get everything.

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you dont have to use the seperation crystal, if you have the homeward spell memorized, you can quit the field instantly

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i may have accidentally glitch ivory king which made him stand and do nothing, might be caused by extreme poise or when i used iron flesh. Someone please test to confirm.

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This was a mistake by FROM. The idea in theory is cool but with ever decreasing drop rates and (in my opinion) an absurdly high amount of these souls needed it just takes the game from fun and challenging, to tedious and boring. Not really looking to waste 100 runs just to collect 50 items so i can access other items.

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I'm farming these in my first playthrough without using bonfire acetics to revive the burnt ivory king. I've been noticing that the charred knights I kill, the number of "blank" portal animations I get go up. Right now I'm standing in the Old Chaos and every now and then I'll see the portals flare up, but half of the time no enemy will spawn. I wonder if this is a bug in the SOTFS edition, or if it's possible to totally clear the Old Chaos of enemy respawns.

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Don't allow your soul memory to get too high either, I'm at 12.5m and I can't join anybody, 2 souls off as well

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If I will go to NG+ will souls remain in my inventory? Btw If they do,will 50 still be enough to have full Loyce set,and soul of Alsanna?

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Item discovery rate actually harms you here. The lower it is the better your chances if finding souls instead of
trash.

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Can Confirm that they do respawn infinitely if you have joined the Company of Champions. Was farming them without, and after a while, all three gates would light on fire, but only one would produce a knight.

Tip: Use the stone ring along with a fast yet strong weapon with a wide swing (Marakumo for example) to hit multiple of them at the same time.

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-farm them before you ***** up the burnt ivory king, drop rate is much higher -at a certain point, the knights will stop dropping their equipment and drop solely loyce souls. This is related to the amount of their equipment you have in your inventory. DO NOT SELL OR PUT THEIR EQUIPMENT IN YOUR ITEM BOX!! - Use ring of life protection to farm these efficiently, killing yourself before you fight the king. The knights that need to be farmed drop much souls and make repairs easy.

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In SoTFS, joining the covenants of champions actually makes them spawn infinitely even after the Burnt Ivory King is killed. (I'm farming Souls right now) It's harder to fight them but atleast you can still fight them.

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