For the Glory of Alvina

Quarik wrote:What should I throw my stats into to go up that high? STR and INT for versatility? More faith for better buffs? Level my vit to 99?

Quarik - well I'm basically increasing 4 stats: STR, DEX, FAI, and INT - alternating between these four as I level. My vitality is at 50 so with the RoFP I am able to take some damage and still survive and given an opportunity cast Heal or pop a humanity.

Creating a spare toon so you can keep leveling your existing Hunter or creating a new FH toon so you can stop leveling your existing FH (so you can use it for other purposes such as FH training, host/invading in other areas, etc) is a good idea.

Kay, thanks. I'll just get some points into everything. Switching from my scythe to a glgs sounds amusing.

It's a great idea to have an identical toon to train with. I focused on having my stats on what I'm using at the time. So my dex hit 50 first. Then I did end and vit for survivability. Strength hit 50 after so I can use some more hefty weapons. I finished int so I can use Velka gear and get some double damage. Faith I'm leveling now just for some divine and occult weapons

So many posts to keep up with!

I hope to practice with you again Befowler, and yeah funny thing is using force to let you practice dodging WotG actually helped me a bit in my timing, I also got to using force with a weapon and there were points where I could cast as you went to swing, interrupt your attack, then get a free hit. Though it doesn't work with all weapons, heavy weapons of course couldn't.

Also Befowler don't forget you can use the ring from anywhere, so you don't have to be in the forest actually. Yeah those force parries were great, I actually paused for a second after each one trying to make sure I really saw what I had just seen haha. By the way, how was my weapon switching in combat? That's another thing that would be great practice, weapon switching fights.

As I said, if anyone is interested I could easily make a low level toon to practice with people on. I'd probably just give him, weapon using stats so he can wield what we need for animations, and vitality and end, so he really wouldn't have to be a high level.

[url=mugenmonkey.com/darksouls/?c=313228270 ]I wanna make a ragna forest hunter. How does this look to start him off?[/url]

Shouldn't you use a Canvas Talisman?

The weapon switching was great, it really was a challenge for me to keep up with. I couldn't swap gear mid-fight myself because all those unupgraded weapons I dumped in inventory had moved everything around, plus my char is a mage char with mediocre end and no ring of fap so my encumbrance is very very close to the 50% edge. There's nothing worse than swapping weapons in a fight and going from DWGR flipping to fatrolling without realizing it. I think practicing inventory management is a great idea and one of my "next level" steps (along with lots of avoiding BS practice).

Candidly those duels were better than anything I've experienced in FC, and having a specific goal in mind be it particular weapons/spell training or just wanting to obliterate more farmers really helps with focus. I am excited to put what I learned to use, pointy, soul-crushing use.

Tolvo this would be my first ever build to use ANY sort of talisman and miracle. I don't have a clue on the mag adjustment, but I'm only using it for replenishment, to hopefully stack with Sanctus and negate power within.

The aim is to make a glass cannon so glass cannon-y that it'll nuke a farmer if he so much ad looks at me funny, but a tiny flick will kill me. So a fun build that'll make the farmers think I'm absolutely insane.

Also, I found your theme song for when you cosplay shiva: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viVtri3nBEY

If you use the lingering dragoncrest ring, it will cause PW to last longer, as well it reduces the damage you take each second. Because of this, with Sanctus you'll just regenerate the health back. You also can't use Replenish and PW at the same time.

That is a nice tune, but typically the song I set up for when I'm fighting farmers is this, WAR.

In that case to he'll with wasting levels for a miracle I won't use. Here's the revised build made to chase you down and beet you to a pulp with fists and an oversized knife mugenmonkey.com/darksouls/?c=316783135

Now that is a warrior's build.

Hope everyone will get an opportunity to do some serious invading this weekend. I have being invading for a few hours now. Just had the longest invasion yet (about 25 -30 minutes - sadly I did not record it). The host was good - he went through 2 reds and hunter before he finally killed me with the old DSS - three BSs in row will kill you (I'm surprised I survived the 2nd one). I was successful in making this farmer use up a lot of his resources (he almost overused his MLGS ) - sometime harassments (hit this guy with like 10-15 poison knifes - farmer was clearly pissed ) is my objective when I am playing around.

nsane32 - can't wait to see you in action

Good hunting everyone and remember absolutely no mercy for gankers.

I've been protecting the forest in between binocularing the hell outta things and it's on this weekend. Broke....I hear ya....a couple nights ago I got this guy alone finally and just spent as long as I could making him whiff and throwing knives at him. That's one of my favorite things to do

Heresy alert: I'm going to be Dead Islanding with some buddies on XBL today, but hope to get back to forest defense (and sweet sunbroin') on the PS3 by saturday evening. If I can corner him I also plan to force Tolvo to backstab me repeatedly for pivot bs practice, so anyone else up for that should feel free to join us. Bring unupgraded weapons so we can drag it out as long as possible. Ahh, good times.

More on topic, I really think a patch worthy aspect of FH is fixing the idle hunter syndrome. I think this is what brings the covenant the most disrepute, and it really is embarrassing. It also makes life harder for the rest of us. How trivial would it be to make the ring not summon anyone idle for more than say 2 minutes? Obviously people could remain "active" and still refuse to fight, but at least they'd have to watch themselves get pummeled.

Well, I decided to join the Covenant for the first time. Not really a low character level kind of Covenant, is it? After getting slaughtered though, I power leveled some of my stuff, and now it's actually taking longer for me to eventually die. Overall it's more fun than I thought it would be, especially the 2v2 or 3v2.

Any tips for a bow user? I've got a lightning long bow +2 and a Dragonslayer Bow. Still questioning whether the lightning upgrade was worth it, but so far it seems ok.

Bow user eh, I love my bow but primarily for harassing in the forest. You can kill people but man is it tough. What's your dex? If it's high enough upgrade a bow on the regular path as far as you can. I won't bother with math but straight up damage is usually the way to go. Same goes for regular vs fire arrows. If you are thinking of a true range weapon black bow of pharis and feather arrows do full damage at crazy distances, especially with a hawk ring. If you're looking to be a little closer compound bow is faster I believe. Poison arrows are a good way to get people to panic and Chase you. Dragonslayer can be amazing, particularly with knock down.

Befowler I'm going to be a bit busy today, but later tonight I'll be free after I get back from spending some time with humanoids in real life scenarios, I'm not very accustomed to it but I hear its a healthy thing to do.

For the Dragonslayer, Hawk and Ring of Fog are the way to go, max distance, zoom, and fire away. Use the trees for cover, and harass them from far away. They will eventually search for you in which case you'll want to switch those rings out and flee to a better vantage and actually fight, typically flat out killing with just a bow isn't done, unless they're standing by the cliff.

Hah, I did get a couple of knocks off the cliff. Also randomly killed a red phantom when I was aiming at the other guy.

I think I will loose the lightning and go just straight max bow. I prefer a longbow, if things get to close range then the fight is usually over. I'm kind of a glass cannon, can't take too many hits and I'm not good in melee anyways.

Dragonslayer, Fog and Hawk are definitely a good combo. But I usually just throw on Hidden Body when I'm hunting, and reserve the other ring slot for my Red Tearstone. I go down easily anyways, so I'd rather trade health for jacked up damage output. I think I've gotten over 600 damage a few times. My dex is only about 24, and strength is 20.

Mostly though, my tactics are snipe; retreat; hide; repeat. Unless and until another Forest Hunter gets summoned, then I get closer and give them covering fire while they're meleeing.

Ok friends and allies of Alvina here is the latest installment of Forest Defense videos for your viewing pleasure. This was my second longest invasion to date. The fight started out as a 1v2 then turned into a 2v2, then turned into a 1v1 then turned into 1v2.Forest Covenant came out on top in this battle. My objective for all of my invasions today was to force each host to use up as much of their resources as possible and as you can see this host used up alot during the battle - if he would have won he definitely would have left the forest to recharge somewhat increasing our chances of keeping this camper from digging in. At times my objective is to possibly make it less dangerous for the next hunter who invades for "I am my brothers keeper !!"

I made many errors during this invasion but luckily they did not cost me my life and victory was ours.

Tolvo - I have been working on my unlocked Mura fighting - I will get better with more practice and time.

Roll the tape....

https://youtu.be/3Ewr3IOkCto


Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

No quarter, no mercy I would expect nothing less from a ganker! Good hunting!!

You kind of did what a lot of people complain about from Forest hunters, if he genuinely wanted to duel that Red Spirit that is. He might have been a red phantom farmer, I'm not really sure. But I personally think after the red phantom died when you got close to him and the blue invaded, you should have just let those two duke it out. This guy was using a greatshield, which in open quarters PvP is terrible, so I wouldn't have worried too much about him killing the hunter anyway. Again though, you seemed to backtrack a lot and out into wide open areas, which in typically PvP is good however in the forest you can use the trees as cover and cause your enemies to hit them. it is kind of the idea of not losing ground, exchanging ground. Circle around. As well, you held your shield up far too often I think, you want that down unless you are blocking. If you suddenly have to BS or something it won't work because you were blocking. As well it shows too much of a sign for when you are going to attack, your shield is down. You were really telegraphing a lot of your plans mid combat, which enemies will pick up on.

And don't call me sensei! I don't like attention.

well posted this on in the wrong treat but here it is again
Hey guys
As you have been reaing in my great search topic in the archives I've working on a forrest hunter toon
Yesterday I finaly got a +3
But I got greedy and wanted shiva's round shield so went to the swamp got some bugs to follow me to poison shiva and his guard
All
was going well his body guard died from poisoning.....still going on
shiva and just before he dies he becocomes hostile and dies from
poisoning
So I got kicked out the cov by Alvina

It took me long enough to get to +3 cause of al the gankers and grievers so I'm going to have a go again
Do you guys have some tips for me to get asap to +3
The toon is lvl 90 working with a chaos shotel and a chaos great skythe
Oh and I love the cov got some realy good PVP here, nothing feels better than killing a whitey first and the in panic host

Glad to have you Sunbro, and sorry to hear about that. It just goes to show it pays to not betray your fellow hunters.
Even if those two actually might be devils in disguise. :shock:

But yes, welcome friend. Feel free to post exploits, talk tactics, and ask questions. I only have one rule, don't refer to me as master, sensei, or grand bubba larceny, I don't like attention.

Although that brings attention to...Damnit, I won't go in circles again!

Tolvo wrote:You kind of did what a lot of people complain about from Forest hunters, if he genuinely wanted to duel that Red Spirit that is. He might have been a red phantom farmer, I'm not really sure. But I personally think after the red phantom died when you got close to him and the blue invaded, you should have just let those two duke it out. This guy was using a greatshield, which in open quarters PvP is terrible, so I wouldn't have worried too much about him killing the hunter anyway. Again though, you seemed to backtrack a lot and out into wide open areas, which in typically PvP is good however in the forest you can use the trees as cover and cause your enemies to hit them. it is kind of the idea of not losing ground, exchanging ground. Circle around. As well, you held your shield up far too often I think, you want that down unless you are blocking. If you suddenly have to BS or something it won't work because you were blocking. As well it shows too much of a sign for when you are going to attack, your shield is down. You were really telegraphing a lot of your plans mid combat, which enemies will pick up on.

And don't call me sensei! I don't like attention.

Tolvo completely understand you not wanting unnecessary attention - I edited the post.

I decided to add some additional commentary to hopefully shed light on the my actions during the invasions.

When we I first invaded the host immediately summoned - in the forest I treat any attempt to summon by a host as a hostile action. A summon is telling me the host wants to bang - if he wanted to be honorable then he would not have summoned and I would not have banged him. I would have let the first hunter fight the host especially since the other hunter was closer - kicked backed and waited my turn.

Now in regards to the red that was summoned. You can see in the vid I trailed the other hunter when I saw the summon signal - I always do this just in case the host's summon attempt is successful - I wanted and needed to guard the other hunters back while he engaged the host. You will note I was initially going hit the red with a CSS to the face but you see in the video I immediately switched back to my shield when he starts to bow. I did not bow since I was too close to the red and did not want a BS (I don't trust reds unless given a reason to). You will also see when the red invaded he was making a bee-line directly to the hill where the other hunter and the host were engaged - this to me indicated a bang was about to pop off. I make it point when I invade to not be in the line of sight of the stairs (or don't have my back to stairs) - I have been BS'd too many times when a red has invaded while I was fighting the host on the hill. You can see in the video the red did not initially see me - he saw the two fighting on the hill and that was were he was going in my opinion. My job was to keep the red from joining the host on the hill and I think I was successful at least with that objective. I pulled him as far away as possible - and yes I knew the ents could not hurt him. Divide and conquer in my book.

After the red was summoned all honor rules were thrown out the window from the 100th floor.

Remember the host tried to summon - he was looking for bang so when the second hunter invaded I wanted to serve him the same cold dish of gangbang he wanted me to have. The tables turned on him. Once a host makes a summon attempt that shows me he is a banger,ganker, farmer, etc. I always PM hosts who complain about being banged by hunters and tell them "Never try to summon".

Yeah - skare told mentioned to me about keeping my shield up to much - this is an area I still need to work on.

Everyone please watch the vid and let me know if my actions during the invasion were honorable or dishonorable.

Still learning..Still learning..

It seems that there almost no honerble fights around anymore
I'm getting jumped everytime I invade
I try to lure to Alvina and ten use iron flesh

My usual trick is to lure them to the bridge, funnel them, and stunlock all three at once, most always figure, "Well he can't circle around and BS, so he's easy pickings!" They forget about just what makes the Murakumo so great, dead angles.