What does the amount of dropped souls depend on?

Sometimes I get 15k and then I get 198k. I always thought it depends on the soul level of the beaten intruder? And the sl should be vary by about +/- 10%.

Why such a big difference?


Thanks!


Best Wishes

If you invade as a red phantom you get 10% of the cost of hosts next level.

If you are invaded by a red phantom and you kill the phantom you get 50% of the phantom's next level cost.

If invaded its 50% of cost of his next level up in souls. A red can pretty much invade infinitely up any level but can only invade down within 10% of his own, so it'd explain the difference. Blues can invade down and i'm not 100% sure on the proper calcs but sin is involved.

As for invading it's pretty much the same except with a 10% return instead of 50%.

If I understand this correctly, the best way to get a lot of souls is if a red phantom comes into my game and I beat him? I get 50%?

Nor no, they are subjected to the 10% level cap. That means only red phantomes can enter my world who are a little higher than I am. (approx. 10%). So the soul earnings aren't that high even though I get 50%.
For example I'm at sl90 and the player who invades me is at sl 109 (what is about the max that could enter my world, he needs 74367 souls for sl 110). In this case I would earn 37k.

It would better if I entered a different world because I could invade a player with a very high sl! If I beat him I would earn 10 % of a huge amount (e.g 10% of 8 millions equals to 800k if the player I invaded is at sl 711 or higher)

Is it correct what I say?

Pretty much summed it up, as for the last option its also leads to a better chance of getting your *** kicked.

Forest Covenant can be the best, loads of high levels hang out there to be invaded, unfortunately alot are gankers. However I netted 800K souls in 20 mins in the forest on an SL8 character once.

Short of NG+ or more painted world phalanx grinding with avarice/silver serpent + pyro overkills off of tempest or forest grinding, invading other worlds is probably the fastest ways to get souls. If you're lucky enough to off someone much higher than you it's the fastest, but it's hard to both invade such a person AND kill them.

I got 60k from one fight last night invading into new londo. Ganker was standing in the middle area of the bridge, so I start spamming great soul arrows at him (I'm mid 50's with 15 int, but have dusk + bellowing + oolacile ivory so they still hurt quite a bit). After eating a few of them (or taking 100 dmg chips blocking) he got annoyed and charged me. I tried to kick but it didn't even land before he fell off lol. For some reason, his phantom mostly just moved back and forth also trying to block the soul arrows, pretty awkward.

In two nights of play recently I have ~5 kills from only spamming great soul arrow, even against people with significantly higher levels. It shouldn't work, but it often does. That isn't counting games where I chip someone for 200-300 before engaging instead. It's a great low-level spell, perfect switch-to while 2 handing since if they run to flask the short cast time and tracking means you're going to drop ~220-300+ on them depending on armor which is often enough to kill. Turtles who aren't behind crest, havels, or stone shield don't enjoy it either.