PvP

No, invaders are also not affected by AI enemies. However, some enemy AI AOE attacks (like dragon breath) or environmental damage (like lava) will still damage invaders. But no, in general you want to stay the hell away from AI enemies.

I talked about PvP generally earlier, and what I think most people need to have is a quickly accessible surprise. If you're a magic user, don't dress like one and telegraph by casting your orbs early as hell. If your primary is a large club, wait for him with a dagger in hand. Then pounce.

Then we move to phase 2, which is pressuring the battle. I don't recommend healing as that authorizes healing on their part by the Unwritten Laws of Dueling. If they heal, then fuck it. You rarely want to go for combos, as they are a recipe for being parried by anyone with a bit of poise. Whatever your weapon is, learn the sprint attack, the roll attack, the jump back attack, the 2h options, and switch between them freely.

Items that are disproportionately effective in PvP: small shields, esp. the heater shield, with bigger parry windows for the lag; the steel ring for boosting your ability to survive being nickel and dimed into the grave, the humble reinforced club and its ability to clean out poise in 1-2 2hr2 hits, 50% movement with better damage resist so you can't get one shotted (ie throw on some stone armor bits) as easily, and so on. Also, there's no shame as an invadee in using a souped up pyro glove or other "unsporting" move to clear out an invader; we're they're used to it, and it's all part of the game when you are the transgressor.

How would one get a ghost to drop it as soon as one got to firelink?

There are two transient curses in a corpse-in-a-bottle on the way into the Londo ruins, so use one of those, pop a humanity for the item find, and go to town. The ghosts drop more curses, and there are two more on an easily accessible corpse in the building that houses the large ember. Seems faintly unpleasant, because ghosts, but certainly doable.

IIRC you can get 5 humanity fairly easy/quickly, maybe some soft humanity farming in the burg to get to 10 to increase the drop rate. Once you got that you can run to New Londo and hope you get lucky. There are some transient curses right out there to get started, too.

I was under the impression that the drop rate stat caps out at 410, which should be at about... 7 humanity. Am I wrong about that?

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about transient curses.

It does cap at 410, which is 10 humanity + covetous gold serpent ring or symbol of avarice.

Correct. In terms of what I would realistically do, I would clear to the blacksmith and get a +5 weapon, ideally the reinforced club, in order to efficiently clear ghosts. But with 2-3 humanity you have a great shot at getting both more transient curses and the occasional jagged blade, not to mention the questionable utility of having the Very Large ember before the Large. I would likely only get that far with my sturdy +5 light crossbow leading the way, though.

My point is simply with the jagged blade like many other seemingly overwhelming weapons, they are technically accessible to a starting character and thus not the same as getting a lightning weapon. Fire weapon is iffier, but I just prefer the appearance of propriety that comes with not using elemental weapons.

Yeah. As explained above, it's not a linear increase in drop rate for each point of humanity, and you can get only half the max boost from humanity and half from items. That's why I tend to favor 2-3 humanity if I'm forcing the issue as it's a good boost that delivers results.

F-that, do whatever you need to do to win. Let the dead have their honor. For the living, sweet sweet humanity.

Obviously I don't disagree. I'm just saying that against most invaders who are worth a damn, starting a healing arms race isn't going to work out well for you so maybe avoid that unless it's completely impossible to. I usually only heal as an invader if I am dealing with multiple opponents and they are using estus, but I can say with some confidence that battles of attrition rarely work out well for the person focused on PvE and that healing often transitions it to such a battle.

I got bullshotted in Blighttown Sunday night. I did everything right. The invader notice came in so I moved to a favorable position on the walkways, swapped out of my ninja suit (poison resist), put my +5 flaming Uchigatana in hand (I'm level 25 fuck you), and waited. Dude finally found me but he was poisoned (good). I ducked and dodged and whittled him down and let the poison help, using the walkway to my advantage. He was throwing dung pies and trying his pyromancy nonsense, but it wasn't connecting. He could not penetrate my defense.

Then, suddenly, I died. I don't even know how. He didn't hit me or anything. I just went from full health to zero.

What's up with that? Haxx, or awful lag?

There's some exploit using ... Tranquil Walk of Peace I think, which does what you describe. Don't recall exactly how it works, got hit with it once.

Ugh little douche couldn't beat me in a fair fight so he cheats. This is why I hate people.

To be fair, he probably decided to cheat before he knew whether or not he'd beat you in a fair fight.

Hey, I met that guy! He spawned in my face right outside the bonfire in the Parish. I had the same reaction - surely you're done now? Nope.

I tried to get a Fog Ring last night by doing some Forest Covenant PvP. I learned 2 things.

1. I suck at PvP. I didn't win a single fight.
2. To get the fog ring, hide near the giant mushroom men and wait for other invaders to do the work for you.

I got my Fog Ring pretty much the same way. Only one of the kills towards the ring did I get, while the other two were done by other invaders while I tried to wander around and find them.

I tried to practice PvP in that dueling arena in the expansion zone but no one uses that apparently.

Yeah, why does no one use this?

Easier way to get the fog ring is:

It's extra insulting when you get trashed by 2 guys immediately upon spawning as a forest invader, like instant backstabs before you can even finish standing, and they start spamming "VERY GOOD" balls at you.

Technically it's not that straightforward. The necromancers each have a chance to drop it, but you aren't guaranteed the drop unless you kill all of them. However, there is one laying on the ground in Tomb of the Giants that's very accessible, and that's the real easiest way, if you don't get lucky and get the drop from a necromancer that's convenient for the rest of your plans.

I guess you can shortcut past a lot of the necros to get to the Tomb of the Giants but I hate that place. Plus all those spinny skeletons can die in a fire. Those and the skeleton dogs in the tomb are the worst.

So I nearly beat someone in PvP finally. I was fairly under geared with my sorceress. Around 16end/16vit, +2 fire rapier, +10 heater, most of my points in int (27? 28?)and 3 types of soul arrows loaded up that seem far too easy to dodge. I was at the top of Sens near the bonfire and hadn't cleared out the fire boulder dude so my only place to fight this guy (2handing a bleed sword of some kind) was in the corridor right near the bonfire. I managed to block a few of his hits while bleed built up. Then circled him and got in a back stab, I locked on again and fired a soul arrow at him while he was getting up (maybe hitting, was hard to tell). Then half my health disappeared after the bleed hit max. I dropped down onto the double dart trap area and got a drink in and he got hit by one of the darts. He managed to hit me with some swings and triggered bleed again and I think just due to the low availability of room to maneuver I died. I might have gotten in a few shots there before I died but straight up I don't do a ton of damage with the rapier especially without crits and at only +2.

Charles was mentioning to me that magic weapon and crystal magic weapon are both good for pvp and that is about it for sorcery. The thing I hate about both of those is you have to left hand your catalyst. I prefer right hand with easy access to getting my shield up. Thoughts? Use two catalysts?

I think sorcery is pretty tough to play pvp with offensive spells, they're too slow to cast and can be dodged. The only time I was successful was when I had cast homing soul mass and bum rushed someone to make them commit to dodging the masses and then I chopped them with my enchanted halberd. You'll probably get more use out of utility spells like hidden body (they can't lock on you, tough for a quality opponent they're probably not locking on anyway), chameleon (I suppose you can hide then cheap shot them), and maybe hidden weapon (no clue, never attuned it).

If you want to waste/use an attunement slot on CMW in case you get invaded that's your call, but I'd rather play it with <25% and an enchanted weapon and let the chips fall where they may.

I think in general there are two approaches that work for me with sorcerers. One is magic weapon/crystal magic + lingering dragoncrest, where I have the catalyst in the left hand. This is a pure damage focus where I'm concentrating on either a painting guardian sword and combos or a larger weapon and its R2 or two handed or dash attacks. It is very effective.

The other is oriented around the moonlight horn/greatsword swapping and a left catalyst again to cast magic spheres/dark magic spells before wading right back into the fight. The purpose of the magic spheres is that everyone knows how to dodge them, but it's a rare opponent that can concentrate on both them and my greatsword r2/sprint attack or virtually anything the horn can do.

I would never do 2 catalysts, but I do occasionally use a catalyst and a pyro flame in order to surprise them with a combust or other pyromancy. The problem with trying to do both the weapon enchants and the attack spells is that you are giving up a lot if you don't use the lingering ring with the enchants and the bellowing/crown combo with the attack. I really like having that other slot available for either the steel ring in light armor builds or the cloranthy ring for <50% builds, to ensure I'm around long enough to eat a few hits.

So, was able to shuttle my SL1's tracers over to a starting dex character, and it is everything I hoped it would be. "look at this scrub armed with a crossbow SHIT SHIT SHIT" is, I believe, the internal monologue of a number of my invaders so far. Being a fully geared up SL1 darkwraith just got a little more hazardous.

Two invasions tonight, 1 in the burg, 1 in the parish. Burg one killed me. All I had was a scimitar +3 and plain old grass crest shield. I was plinking them for 32 damage at a pop. I was able to somewhat stunlock them for a few hits and got 108 damage, but then stamina ran out and I got murdered.

The second (in the parish) was wearing Xanthous' set and used a whip that did poison damage. They also tried to cast poison cloud (maybe toxic), but I got out of the way. I broke the 'rules' and drank estus, cause fuck dying to poison over time. I thought I was going to get murdered during it, but did not and was able to get around and backstab them (had the chigatana+3 at this point) for massive damage. Then it was a few 2h attacks and they died. Woo.

You beat a guy with a poison...whip?



More seriously, I was surprised at how much the scimitar/falchion movesets throw off opponents in PvP. I still didn't win much when I was horribly outmatched, and obviously there are a lot of arguments for later weapons, and I hate the flip back replacing the kick, but other than all those things they have something to offer.

Sanctuary Guardian tail?

Yeah, I'm sure. I was just making fun of the concept of beating a whip opponent. Every time I've run into them they seem to have the same message: "CAN'T PARRY ME HA HA HA <invader dies horribly after being manhandled by a better moveset weapon>".

Well, not much I can do about what gear my invaders use so beating them was preferable to dying to them, or alt-f4-ing and waiting for steam to sync and then XBLA to sign in. Also if I alt-f4ed to a whip invader I'd have to take that to the confessions thread.

Pretty much if you see someone using a whip the etiquette is to spam Prostration until you're dead.

Invaded in the depths last night ~SL22. They started with Avelyn but switched to pretty amped up pyro when I closed in. Either way it wasn't much of a fight. I was wondering why I'm seeing so much late game gear on invaders and summoners (I saw an avatar for one guy with Smough's armor and obsidian greatsword outside the Parish at ~SL15. Tried to summon but, you know) that tromp back to the early levels to grief/twink, but I have to believe now that these are more of low SL NG+ people.

So today I did some coop with strangers along my way down to blight town with my dexterity character (the one with my SL1's excellent dexterity items). It was pretty quiet in terms of invasions apart from smashing Kirk's face in a bunch of times. But then I got to Blight town, and saw my white crystal grey out long before the game let me know someone was in it, but I still didn't really think it through and put on more appropriate gear. My plunging attack ambush did little as he clearly had upgraded armor circa +7-9 (the mask of the father is usually a good warning, as is doing a 136 HP on a 2h plunging attack), and the electric handaxe taking half my health bar (luckily Charles was kind enough to upgrade the thief outfit I handed off to him to +6 before passing it off to me or it would have been a one shot) told me I was dealing with a sl1 maxed invader or worse.

In any case, I had no answer for electricity in close quarters, and the hand axe + me having no poise left me with few options. I died, he bowed, apparently pleased with his performance.I figured I was pretty much the only game in town for invasions, so I I had my ten minute grace period and he'd be back.

Headed back down, retrieved my stain, and no sooner had I done so than I was invaded once again. Same guy. This time I headed for the bonfire area, to give myself room to work, and equipped my wolf ring and had my gold tracer and balder side sword ready to swap. The BSS convinced him to switch to a great scythe 2h (indicating definitely not SL1, perhaps original level dex class, perhaps just a normal low level darkwraith), which was fine as I swapped to my tracer and 2h batted him down, although I was down to about 40% health after the exchanges and he was at about 70%. With the clear area, I was free to evade him as he charged past me and land a no-lag backstab (alas, with only the gold tracer and not the silver), which put him at his last notch of health. Another quick combo as he tried to do something nasty, probably busting out the faith or pyro, and it was over.

After that I cleaned out Queelag and called it a night, but it's amazing how adrenalized these encounters leave you.

That's an awesome set of fights, and a perfect example of what I love about Souls PVP. It was the room to maneuver and your ability to 'impose your will' on the fight that won it.

This guy has some good videos on PvP. The second hit parry has saved me on a fair number of occasions.