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[Ben_Hurr]

I'm playing on the PS3 obviously.  And you're assuming I'd try to play through the game in human form as often as possible, why would I do that when it brings nothing but disadvantages except for coop?

Especially early game where every area is infested with gankers looking for easy kills, it's utterly pointless to engage these guys unless you're a masochist.

And in my experiece invaders have every advantage except being able to estus heal; they almost always have maxed out equipment and pvp toys, you're usually fending off monsters when they show up, and network latency means you can't even accurately see what they're doing.

The only time you don't have the advantage is if the host is literally waiting for you in full pvp gear with two buddies by a bonfire.  And considering how irritating most invaders are, I don't blame them at all for doing that.


And yeah, nobody is arguing that tanks are easy to kill in PvP with sorcery, backstabs, etc.  It's just not a problem because invaders are so easily avoided entirely.

edit:
It makes me sad that I've never been in a gravelorded area, even online. )':

[Raptor85]

actually in dark souls host has the upper hand when theres latency, so when there's lag host can quite easily lagstab invaders, side effect of the shitty p2p netcode. The guys invading < sl20 are pretty easy to kill, due to the leveling system they're generally either sl1 or sl6 so even a +5 weapon you'll kill them in a few shots or a well timed parry, their advantage is rarely the gear but simply being better at the game, plus those early areas have lots of ledges so all it takes is a half decently timed kick to end most fights.  Host doing 3v1 in pvp for a cheap advantage i always find funny too, i love to video killing all 3 of them and show their psn id's so they can join the wall of shame of dark souls gankers, i livestream doing that pretty often too on my twitch.tv account, it's pretty funny how a lot of them think that somehow 3 people who don't know how to pvp somehow helps, and how they sit around for no reason other than to "farm" souls in pvp areas, those people ruin the game for a lot of the newer pvpers who just want a fair fight.

[TeeGee]

The guys invading < sl20 are pretty easy to kill, due to the leveling system they're generally either sl1 or sl6 so even a +5 weapon you'll kill them in a few shots or a well timed parry

Dunno about that. One of the first invasions I had was at a very low level. I managed to punish his whiff with a full Claymore 2h combo which... took less than 30% of his healthbar. Then he hit me twice with his elemental weapon and I died. The guy clearly had top-tier gear while I was still just going through the levels, learning the game, finding my stuff. Made me want to stay hollow through most of the early game areas.

[Ben_Hurr]

Yeah, hanging around in the forest and 3 on 1ing people is kind of stupid.
...of course they do it for the same reason low-level griefers do, because it works.

You're just the one anomaly that makes them shrug their shoulders then go right back to what they're doing.


And I don't know what you're talking about with the host having the advantage when theres lag, all I get to see is a dude teleporting everywhere and lagstabbing me.  Or even when they aren't obviously lagging, still sidestabs frontstabs everywhere stabs.

Hurt a low level invader with +5 weapons?  Are you kidding?  Maybe if you get a lucky parry or backstab 2 or 3 times.


It's like we're playing two different games; mine where you can get backstabbed and one shotted from across rooms, from the side, while against walls, etc. and yours where invaders warp in and proceed to run in circles while making fart noises.

I'm actually starting to wonder if you're some mysterious grandmaster at this game Raptor85, because everything seems trivial and easy to you when 90% of the community has problems with it.

[Ben_Hurr]

So I beat all the bosses in the dlc area, beat up manus, and get...

nothing, except some shadow sorceries and presumably a boss weapon for my trouble?  
Well that was disappointing, loot wise.  I don't even know where Dusk went after I tried to help her.



So thinking I'm done, I walk out to the area where the sanctuary guardian was; and instantly get double-teamed by TWO guardians.  Well played FROM, well played.

I guess it's an opportunity to get two more tail whips?!
So now I'm dual-weilding tailwhips.

[Raptor85]

The sidestabs you're seeing are probably just people playing without camera lock moving into you at the furthest backstab angle, generally coming in with a roll into you and standing up facing your front partially at your side.  You don't have to be completely behind someone to backstab, facing towards someone's front even from the side is enough, you can't really do it with camera lock though (it becomes second nature to lock to center camera on someone then unlock while attacking, it frees up your movment not just for stabs but so you can keep your front facing them or break away in any direction).  Knowing how to execute stabs like that plus parry timings though they're mostly pvp things will make the mobs in game 1000x easier to fight too


If you havent, give the artorius soul to the lady who appears back in the arena you fought him, the silver tracer has too short of a range to be that great but the gold tracer is easily one of the best, if not the best small curved sword in the game, it's super fast, causes bleed, and has enough poise break to stunlock up to mid-light armor when held in two hands (basicly, you hit someone with a solid hit like that, and they're dead unless you run out of stamina before you kill them, they can't break the stun until you stop attacking them). For the manus soul, the boss weapons are kinda meh unless you want to cosplay artorius (it makes the corrupted version of his shield and sword like he held during the fight, the sword though does give you that flipcut move which is kinda cool, wish it hit harder though), but you can trade it to snuggly for pursuers, it's extremely slow moving but if you know how to use it by far the strongest spell in the game, i've managed to hit some of the level 300+ guys for easily 1.8k damage oneshotting them (it's hard to tell exactly how much damage the spell does in a full impact because it only shows how much the target takes, up to their max hp) It can also nearly oneshot quite a few of the bosses in loop 1, though it also has to be said that pursuers is probably also the hardest spell to actually hit anything with in the game as well due to it's extremely limited range and slow movement speed.  A lot of people cast pursuers from a distance and just kinda hope they follow and hit, but what you really want to do is cast as close to them as possible and before the pursuers can lock and fire roll into them and past them, most people lock on so what this does is not only makes the pursuers right next to them but turns their camera, making the entire spread slam into them at once.  Smarter players see you casting it and immediately gain distance but tbh there arent that many smarter players in the forest so it works about 99% of the time on ganker hosts.  I agree though, the DLC was distressingly short, it was well designed but only took a hour or two to beat and only had those few areas and bosses :/  If you haven't do it in ng+ though, the bosses change quite a bit, unlike the simple adding of more hp and damage like the main game bosses the DLC bosses actually get a lot faster too...which definitely makes manus in particular a more interesting fight.  The guardians you fight on the way out also aren't quite as strong as the first one, though i freaking love that tail whip, lol, best part about it is that it works in your offhand so you can sting people while still using your sword. It's not a terribly useful weapon but it has a cool animation and just looks awesome.

[TeeGee]

Haha, Forest covenant is fun!

[TeeGee]

A funny/awesome thing just happened to me. I was playing around with the Forest Hunter covenant. My character is around SL 55, so perhaps a bit underpowered for most of the opponents. But whatever -- I wanted some PvP practice. Won some, lost many more.

Then, as I'm about to call it a day, I get summoned to defend the forest. Okay, why not. One more time won't hurt. The host is clearly way above me in both player skill and character power. I manage to land some hits but it barely even makes a scratch. It looks like it's going to be a quick and easy battle for him. And then, he makes a stupid mistake and gets too close to a chasm. I launch a kick. It connects and drops him down to his death... BAM! +250k souls!

Dunno if it's a glitch or if he really was so over-leveled. Or maybe the rewards are different if the host dies from environment? In any case, at that point in the game it was worth 12 Soul Levels :D. Cool!

[Raptor85]

forest covenant can invade any level above them infniitely, 250k souls means the host was around SL 450, the most you can get for a single kill in cat covenant is around 900k, method of death doesnt matter, just the level of whoever died and whether they're host or invader (hosts get more souls for a kill than invaders do)

[TeeGee]

Why would anyone get to SL 450 is beyond me. And he didn't even feel any more powerful than the regular SL100 or SL125 PvPers I'm meeting. Still, gotta hand it to him -- he's going to remain in my heart as the most helpful player I've met.

[Raptor85]

lots of people just hang out and host pvp in areas like the forest and the burgs, being higher level means basicly ANYONE can invade you or you can pull anyones red summon sign, plus it's kinda a "sub-goal" to make a 710 character   And yeah, with an individual weapon they're not really all that much stronger than a SL 100 since the dropoff of how effective stats are after 40 is pretty extreme, but one benefit is they can literally swap to any weapon, armor, etc and play like a min/maxed character of that type.   Hang around in forest enough though and even that amount of souls won't seem like much, you'll even get in 3v1's with guys that high (though multiple people at that level are more rare, it does happen) and will have rounds where you'll easily make 500k - 1 mil on a single invasion, you very quickly get to the point where you don't even care about souls anymore since you have so many, hop on twitch and watch some pvp streams and you'll see most of us have 99 or 999 of all inventory and like 50 mil souls in reserve, lol..it really becomes "why not" buy out everything possible while you're going by a merchant then.

I like to keep my forest hunters around SL 55 or 60 myself (some around 100) because at around 55 you can invade anyone, even the lower level groups, so you'll get invasions far faster.

[Ben_Hurr]

So thats how you get that shadow version of homing soul mass?  That's very helpful. 
...to bad I already used Manus's soul up.     ONWARD TO NG+ I GUESS.

Speaking of NG+, I got there by cheesing Gwyn with Crystal Homing Soulmass;
It didn't feel epic at all.

The sidestabs you're seeing are probably just people playing without camera lock moving into you at the furthest backstab angle, generally coming in with a roll into you and standing up facing your front partially at your side.  You don't have to be completely behind someone to backstab, facing towards someone's front even from the side is enough ...

Yeah that kinda makes me go 'thats dum' if the backstab window is that unintuitively wide.  Did FROM pay any real attention to PvP at all?  Or did they just balance it for pure frustration factor.

[TeeGee]

Trying the Forest Hunter covenant from the other side. Which is trying to survive as a human in the forest. Less WTF moments, but looks like a safer and more steady way to get the basics and farm some souls.

[TeeGee]

Anor Londo done! Very cool level. It's nice to finally have some space to move around, especially after the Sen Fortress. Defeated Ornstein and Smough on the first attempt. They are either overrated or I'm overleveled. Standing between their legs and pummeling their balls was enough to kill them without the risk of getting hit. Fun fight either way.  

[Boud]

Damn seeing this topic made me wanna buy the DLC again... too bad it's overpriced
Anyone here playing it right now ?

Such an amazing game, one of the few games whose innards i have seen this year and one of the best experiences in my gaming "career" (so to speak  )

[Blademasterbobo]

If you kill ornstein first, it's not so bad. if you kill him last, though, it's pretty fucking hard.

[TeeGee]

I killed Smough first, as I think it allows you to get Ornstein's armor later. He was also easier to kill. Ornstein alone was a joke. Didn't hit me a single time and I wasn't even dodging or paying attention. Basically the same strategy works here as with most DkS bosses -- you can stay between his legs and he won't be able to hit you. All his attacks, including that downward spear strike, landed behind my back. And when he jumped back, I just closed the distance again.

It kinda sucks when you think about it. Since I learned that trick on Gargoyles, I haven't died a single time in a boss battle (except for Capra).

[Boud]

Indeed you get his armor that way (wich is better than smough's) and you can get a special lightning spear If I remember correctly. You're playing alone or coop for the bosses ? Because I did die the first time alone in that boss fight, wasn't prepared or leveled enough anyway.

[TeeGee]

I play alone. I'm probably a bit over-leveled due to having some fun in the forest, though. On one hand, I was hit only once or twice, so it shouldn't really matter. On the other, maybe I was hit only once or twice precisely because I could kill them rather fast. Hard to say.

[Boud]

Well you could be skilled , what class/build are you playing ?
You mean you leveled up using those "mobs" in the forest or did you join the covenant and hunt other players ?

Damn talking about it makes me wanna play it all over again, please a discount on the dlc