How do you beat Spears?

So they're spamming r1 while you roll into it? As I said, suspect.

The only time I get parries on spear players is if I just run up and get a lucky one. Or a tank parry, which is risky. The range makes it way harder to do than pretty much any other weapon. Plus it's fast as sh*t and will usually stun on the second hit as most people are sitting at 53ish poise.

Forum Pirate wrote:So they're spamming r1 while you roll into it? As I said, suspect.

The guy probably didn't know bout Roll I-frames, but honestly I doubt that trick would work 100% of the time, or even 50%.

How many good spear users spam R1? I sure don't....

Exactly, Rynn. Which is why tank parries, probably the most effective way to parry a spear, are risky. Usually I'll try at least once to get a tank parry, but more often than not I just give them a free hit before they roll away.

The easiest way to parry a spear is to wait for them to roll R1. But, good spear users don't do it often and usually roll to the side.

This thread is a gold mine for anyone using a spear... Personally, I use a +14 Pike for all of my pvping nowadays and when combined with resin or sunlight weapon it is simply amazing. Between the pike, Artorias' greatshield, and a few miracles/pyromancies (mists mostly), I have yet to lose a single fight for any reason other than my own stupidity (fell off cliff, walked into lava, burned by dragon, etc...)

Best Spear user that I know of is Pep_Pock, and I'm very happy to be able to say at least he doesn't use the try-hard builds anymore; when you see him rocking a +5 Lightning Pike, Replenishment, Giants. and a Mask of the Mother that's when you it's time to fall down, and die. However, it's more the person holding the controller that makes it frighting, instead of the gear. I remember once I faced the exact same build used by someone else, and I got wrecked because I approached it wrong; I was careless, and playing against it casually. I was invaded almost immediately afterwards, and placed my best foot forward to get the win with 85% of my health left which was a solid reversal that I was able to repeat consistently. I don't advocating pulling out all the stops for every fight, and I do personally groan whenever I see a Spear, but if you want to win, you got to win. You have to focus on doing your best, you have really need to take everything you've put in, and make a display of your proficiency. Spears are a top tier weapon, and it means you have to work harder on your end, but it will always come down to your end; it is your patience, practice, and preparation that will always be the most important part of determining a fight. However, if you are playing for fun, don't let someone rain on your parade; go find some fight clubs, find a stream, find a user covenant, or just take it on the chin, and move on.

OrnsteinBro wrote:

goober0331 wrote: I hate being clearly out of someones range only to have my health get chopped away a few seconds after they attacked cause the lag is awful.

Hahaha, that. But to use that special latency sorcery you kind of have to be European, lol.

You would be surprised at how many people I invade who are in France, Netherlands or the UK. The lag is always on their side!!!

And I live in Kansas so I would say I'm getting pretty screwed matching up with people across the Atlantic......

I would like to thank you all for giving tips on Spear users, but I find that some of them don't work.

I can't parry spears because good spear users attack from the tip of their range where you can't parry. If you get close they roll away and the range from the roll attacks are also decent. There is no easy way to catch them even in fast roll. You can argue to also use a spear, but that reinforces the fact that you can only fight a spear with a spear. Fact is that a spear has so many advantages for practically no dedication. If you have the stats for a spear, you're good to go and put in other stats (like 1 attunement?) for great combustion to play keep away.

I know from experience. I have had an 80% win rate with a Demon's Spear and GC set up ONLY. I'm not even that good of a player. Spears have a tone of advantages and katanas are really the only things that can actually match them by range, and even then, spears can adopt a spear&shield playstyle.

I FREAKIN LOVE YOU GUYS AND ANYONE WHO PLAYS THIS GAME

I've basically resorted to doing nothing but spamming pivot BS against spear users now. It's the only method I know of (if you're not a caster) that CONSISTENTLY works. It helps to have 63+ poise to tank two hits versus one at 62- as well. Spear fights are probably my least favorite in the game. They're frustrating, annoying, and boring. And admittedly, that has everything to do with my one-dimensional counter tactic, but if I can't get some damage in myself in those fights, it tends to leave a sour taste in my mouth. I don't enjoy getting worked like that.

I just keep a spear on hand myself. Its kinda rediculous that thats necessary but its the most reliable counter that I have. Well, asside from fleeing and ambushing them for an insta kill (which I do)

Attrition.
Poisons, Rapiers/Spears that are elemental to chip away, and especially running off and using mobs. A spear user was never intended to be fought face to face. You can win, but they obviously were built to counter such offensiveness.

Spears have always been a problem. They are hard to parry (atleast for me), and don't bother with the tip. That is like trying to stop the bullet that has left the barrel of a gun. Use stuff like others have said, strafe in a direction (maybe go for a BS), use posion, use a spear (if they two hand go one handed and hide behind your shield!), and perhaps just out range them. Equip a bow to off hand and shoot at them, and they will close. Some will even get in your face and then switch out to your melee/shield and let them have it!

Wail on their shield with a weapon that causes bleed. Just make sure they're attacking because they'll try to parry if not. When i do this when they're trying to poke from behind a shield, they either bleed out or gettheir guard broken.

If they're not turtling and just keep their range while two-handing I just die.

Parrys. And bleed dodge. As explained previously, spamming into a shield is generally a terrible idea, for those reasons.

Sure they're not perfect strategies, but the spear users I fight generally don't parry while poking from behind a shield. Bleed dodge is there but hey, things normally aren't going my way anyway when fighting a spear so I just go berserk on them hoping luck is on my side. And if they show me ANY form of skill or knowledge to throw out parries or bleed dodge then of course I wouldn't wail on their shield like normal.

The way I play requires me to do this by the way, I'm just trying to see how many kills I can get by being 100% aggressive so if I lose then I lose.

Just from personal experience as a spear user: sorceries, miracles, and pyromancies will give you a bit of an advantage, assuming the spear-user is turtling. If not, your best bet would be using elemental weapons with fast attack speeds (katanas and curved wwordw especially). If the slash itself doesnt do much to them, the elemental damage will still wake them up a bit.

The Letter X wrote:Sure they're not perfect strategies, but the spear users I fight generally don't parry while poking from behind a shield. Bleed dodge is there but hey, things normally aren't going my way anyway when fighting a spear so I just go berserk on them hoping luck is on my side. And if they show me ANY form of skill or knowledge to throw out parries or bleed dodge then of course I wouldn't wail on their shield like normal.

The way I play requires me to do this by the way, I'm just trying to see how many kills I can get by being 100% aggressive so if I lose then I lose.

I cannot in good faith reccommend spamming and hoping they suck as a tactic, whatever the playstyle.

If you want to spam, great/large club roll r1 spam actually is effective if you can fight lock off to avoid a roll bs, because the attack is not parryable and eats a huge chunk of stamina if they try to block it.

Also consider that the first time they parry could well go through upwards of 700 hp, thats a big loss to take.

The idea was to discuss a way to consistently beat an experienced spear user, not adopt a fualty tactic and pray.

When I use my spear build and come up against lets say an uchi user who just rushes me and spams R1, I switch to my rapier and parry them every time, or just roll around and land a backstab.

R1 spamming against any build using a shield is a terrible idea.

I'll admit that my suggestion wasn't the best and now I realize probably should have been kept to myself, but I never suggested spamming R1/RB spamming. I only suggested trying to break the guard. I won't get into details in why I don't get parried when I try to break someone's block, but please don't take me as someone who's asking to be parried.

I wouldn't recommend trying to guard break either, for the same reasons but add gc punishing a kick or roll bsing a force/wog cast to the list.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against your input, but if I see something as a bad idea in an advice thread I feel obligated to point it out.

Even if your advice is something that is corrected it present a learning opportunity as the readers get to see how any why you think it works and why I say it doesn't, thus alowing them to make more informed choices.

Actually I think X is right in his first post. If you have a curved sword of katana( I learned to do this while using a PGS with SLB... YMMV) and they are actually poking from behind a shield, if you catch them trying to poke while you're in range the cost of blocking 2-3 swings and the poke they did will gaurd break, and if they're spacing them out you can still build bleed then take the last swing when they poke again, can't roll the bleed if your mid attack animation! Kicks can also help in this situation.

While this is a way to deal with 1h spears... 2h is another beast altogether. I pretty much do as Damage does to a tee. I just pivot BS. If I'm feeling patient I'll swap to a bow but really I don't always feel like waiting for poison arrows to do the job.