First step is to acquire enough estus shards and lifegems to get you down the pit in Majula. The first estus shard is obtainable near the Majula well which is next to the pit. Hit the rock on the edge of the well to raise a corpse which has a shard on it. There is another shard at the Forest of Fallen Giants, near the 2nd bonfire (the one where Hag Melentia is) - on the raised platform where the 1-off Pursuer appearance is. While you are in the area, make sure to visit Cale the Cartographer and exhaust his dialogue. He will give you a key that grants access to the locked house in Majula which holds another shard in the basement.

With these shards you should have 4 estus flasks, and combined with the lifegems you should have attained along the way you will have enough healing wares (advisable to have around 10 or more gems along with your estus flasks) to get to the bottom of the pit. If you need more lifegems you can buy them from Melentia.

Next up is getting down the hole in Majula to reach The Gutter safely. This can be done very early in the game depending on your character's VIGOR stat. To fall down the hole in Majula safely, your character will need to have around 1350+hp to survive the fall.

An easy way to do this is to first go to the Forest of Fallen Giants and kill the Pursuer and the Last Giant for a decent amount of souls. Kill Dragonrider in Heide's Tower and Flexile as well if you like. Warp back to Majula and level up your VIGOR stat to the point that you have more than 1350 hp. Use the souls of the bosses you have killed so far if you need more souls.
The hp requirement can be attained or supplemented with the Blue Seal that you receive for joining the Way of Blue covenant at Majula as well as the Life Ring obtained at the Forest of Fallen Giants.

Also (and this is a good shortcut as you will need much less than 1350hp, morelike only 900) you can purchase the Silvercat Ring from Sweet Shalquoir in Majula which will reduce fall damage.

If you have a fragrant branch of yore, you can run to the Shaded Woods (accessed near where you first arrive at Majula) and farm Lion Warriors for their armor set - of which every piece provides fall damage reduction.

After your hp is high enough (and you are in human form), drop down the hole in Majula. You will need to take all your gear off (apart from fall damage-reducing items) as the heavier you are, the more fall damage you take. Make sure to have enough lifegems and estus to heal after taking damage each fall. After the first few drops, do not drop to the ledge/doorway which grants access to the first Grave of Saints bonfire.


Instead, look to your left and you will see a ledge which you can fall down to with full hp which has a ladder leading up to a door you won't have access to yet. From that platform, drop down further until you see the final ledge/doorway and go through. There will be a corridor leading to the next area once you safely land.

To get to Black Gulch, you will need to traverse The Gutter. Once at the very bottom of the Majula pit you will come across a broken bridge with a crystal lizard on it. Kill the lizard if you can and jump across to the chest at the other side. Then drop down and watch out for some exploding hollows - they can pack quite a punch at low soul memory so be prepared. Once they are defeated, (or self-destructed) you can optionally kill the Syan Knight in the other doorway to access a chest with a sublime bone dust in it. Go back through the doorway where the exploding hollows were and takes the ladders down to access The Gutter. Where the poison statues are, make sure you have close to full hp to survive the two final falls before the first Gutter bonfire.

Light and rest at the first bonfire, then take the bridge to your right and continue right across a second bridge. Run straight past the two hollows (or kill them) and drop down to the platform with three unlit torches, run across the bridge and turn right. There should be alot of poision statues and a hunting dog enemy. Dodge/run past all of them (or destroy as you like) towards the ladder and go up it.

There is another bridge on this platform you will cross. Continue across the bridge straight ahead across the next platform and across another bridge where there is an exploding hollow in wait. Kill or avoid it and continue right along the platform which leads to a fog door below. Go through the fog gate watching out for another exploding hollow who will agro as you approach the gate and continue straight through the house where there is another bonfire at the other side once you break the false wooden wall with your weapon. After resting (if you need) head down the ladders, watching out for hollows as you go and clear out the ground floor when you get down there. Once on the ground floor look around for a ladder which goes up to chest containing the Great Club, as this weapon will probably be handy for The Rotten bossfight ahead. Upgraded, the Great Club is a boss-slaying beast that only needs 14 strengh to wield 2-handed. Use throwing knives or a weapon with long reach to break the half dozen corrosive vases blocking the way to the next area and drop down, picking up the fragrant branch of yore on the way. Through the fog gate and on your left will be the first Black Gulch bonfire

From the first bonfire head left and run through the area, or if you need, take it slow, destroying the statues and tar-pit enemies as you go. Where the two worms which pop out of their hidey-holes are, there is a ledge you can drop down

to access a cave where two giants are. The safest point is in front of the second worm just before the three statues. Killing the giants will get you the Forgotten Key, which is needed to access Shulva. These giants have huge hitboxes and hit hard, so poisoning them from a distance, or utilizing the small caves that the giants can't get into are good strategies for low SL builds.

After you have the key, take the elevator back up and head to The Rotten boss. Optionally you can access the second Black Gulch bonfire which is nearby (a fragrant branch of yore is needed to un-petrify the enemy blocking the path to the bonfire) to save time getting to the boss if you die while trying to beat him. Once you have obtained the Forgotten Key and The Rotten is dead, light the primal bonfire and warp back to Majula

Once in Majula, drop down the pit again but this time when you drop to the ledge with the ladder, climb the ladder and use the Forgotten Key to open the door. Inside are some useful items and weapons as well as the Dragon Talon which will grant access to Shulva.

Warp back to Majula using a homeward bone or continue to next bonfire where you will...

Warp to Black Gulch and head past the boss area. Run past the Primal Bonfire and keep going on to the Serpent Shrine and examine it.


This will take you to the door leading to Shulva. Once through the door, take the path to the first Shulva bonfire.

From the first bonfire, keep going until you meet your first sanctum soldier enemy. After defeating this guy, there is a switch on your left


which you will have to activate either using a projectile magic spell such as soul arrow or dark orb, or you can use an arrow/bolt/throwing knife/firebomb. Upon activating the switch, head across the newly raised platform and go towards the pink/red-tinged room straight ahead with the bugs in it. Don't enter the room but take a ledge to the left which will bypass this room. After dropping down another ledge or two and jumping onto some stairs where there is a sanctum soldier, you will come to an area with a building on your left and a path lined with enemies.

Along this path there are many switches on your left which, when hit with projectiles will raise platforms which will grant access to the second, Tower of Prayer bonfire which is only 30 seconds from the tree which this whole guide is about.

At the end of the path there is a small building with a ladder and a poison statue cluster from which you can use binoculars to look across the gap to see some red-eye statues which you will need to destroy using destructive great arrows (or similar heavy arrows), a sanctum crossbow special attack, a well-aimed firebomb, or long-ranged magic such as fireball and its variants or any soul arrow/spear etc (make sure to use binoculars to zoom in when doin this) - to reveal another switch which, when activated will raise a platform leading to the tree. There are more poison statues lining this passage which leads to a room which has amongst other items, a Notched Whip +7 which is what you need to hit the tree with to fix any broken gear.

Hit the tree once with the whip you just picked up to restore all equipped gear that is broken.

Get to the Pagan Tree in Shulva and whip it

While you can now rest assured that broken gear courtesy of hackers is no longer an issue for you, there are further measures you can take to nullify some of the grief hackers try to cause you. Killing the main DLC bosses and then accessing the King's Memory to receive Vendrick's Blessing will allow you to remain human even if you are killed in your own world if you wear any crown attained from the final DLC bosses as well as the King's Crown.

Which means, in essence, you will never have to worry about having your gear broken or cursed and hollowed by some d1ckweed hacker, ever again.

Enjoy!


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Also it is advisable to regularly backup your game save in case a teleporting hacker kills your npcs in Majula or somewhere else. This can be done by enabling viewing of hidden folders in Windows Explorer and then going to the drive Windows is installed on then clicking on Users > *Your User Name* > App Data > Roaming > DarkSoulsII > *Folder with lots of random numbers and letters*. In here is your game save. Copy it to another folder just in case something goes wrong.

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