An Introduction to Dark Souls PvP v0.8

Actually with a 40/40 the critical with a +15 rapier vs +5 chaos is identical or with 10 dmg!

I have this on video actually...a jerk at the burg kept summoning me and every time I would spawn to him hornets BSing a red...I would out fight him only to fall victim to a hornets lag stab...I put my try hard pants on and equiped the hornets...1st time parry/Rpstl with chaos +5 then 2nd with +15 same guy same armor....the damage was within 10 or so but with a +15 you can buff gold pine so it would deal the most dmg!!

Hey Roan on the topic of Leo/BSS I have been messing around with a glass cannon melee dragon using RTSR/Leo...last night I got a dragon roar RTSR/Leo counter thrust with the BSS(buffed with gold pine) for 1150 dmg :affraid:

I think the next berserk is coming out this fall; after that stupid little flashback troll arc Miura said it'd continue some unspecified time in the fall.

All the example builds were updated for the Dark Wood Grain Ring effect change, and are made for Soul Level 100 in preparation for the Arena. These changes were made with the new user base in mind. I chose Havel's+RoFaP over Wolf+RoFaP because I am of the persuasion that the extra defence will make the HP worth more than the extra points in Endurance being placed in Vitality. For some reason the TinyUrl link to the Straight Sword build changed to some random picture. I'm not going to change it because I find it hilarious. Expect a few more changes to occur as I edit out references to SL120.

Going to be some big revisions once PTD comes out.

The biggest changes are going to be on the Greatsword section, and (hopefully) the Spears. I haven't got any meaningful confirmation on Greatsword stun into Backstab, under standard lag, nor of Spears bouncing off shields. I have seen confirmed that Katana's have the same swing speed as before. I have a few things I'd like to test myself, but I won't be getting around to any time soon. For example, I haven't seen a videos of Greatsword Strong Attacks into a Weak Attack. I know that if you can get the timing, and spacing correct, you can still do the 1h Claymore Strong Attack stunlock, but I wonder if you can do it with the other kinds of Greatsword Strong Attacks. I don't really trust any PvP videos so far, everyone seems way too new for any meaningful conclusions to be drawn about the new metagame.

However, I'm going to say that people should be considering Great Heal Excerpt, or Heal on all their Arena characters. For 14 Faith, and one Attunement slot, you get the equivalent of an extra life in the Arena if you win a fight with Excerpt. However, Heal might be a better fit on those really strapped for points, and might give you that extra 'oomph' to get 2 kills instead of one. Generally speaking, I am upset at the current disuse of the entire environment of the various arenas, but that's life.

Great guide roan but might I suggest "shield breaker" in addition to the types of attacks a Great Hammer can do. As an avid GH user since DS one of the best traits a great hammer has is the ability to break a guard. In most of my fights I almost always break the opponents guard atleast once especially in fights where both of us are fishing for punishes. If I happen to break a guard I almost always follow it up with the 2h roll attack since there seems to be a small aoe within the hitbox that basically causes your opponent to stagger with or w/o taking dmg but its usually the latter for me. I tested this on the dreglings near firelink and the r2 and 2h rolling attack seems to stagger them if you whiff it. But no one runs around with 0 poise so it might not make a difference.

There is a general problem with shield breaking, and large weapons. While large weapons have a good time breaking guards, it's an inability to keep up the commitment to take advantage is a problem. Even with the quickest weapons, if you aren't prepared to take advantage of it, then they'll be able to roll away safely. While all weapons have trouble keeping up the pressure, the immense stamina cost, and risk in attacking makes it hard to commit to the attack.

As well, the stagger, but no damage, area exists for many of the "Great" class weapons when they slam the ground. Generally, the running attacks do it the best. However, it is a fairly rare occurrence, and occurs at much more than zero poise. It doesn't really have that much of an effect on PvP, as it's almost impossible to do anything of the stagger, as you will still be in the recovery frames of the attack most of the times.

Thank you for going over guide, and you input is appreciated. However, it rarely makes a difference, but I should make a note of it so that new players don't think they are facing a hacker when their weapon doesn't do damage at the edge of their range.

Hi Roan! I've now read that whole thing two times, but i still can't come up with things to complain about.

Good job with those SL 100 builds. Though there was no Balder Side Sword & Pyromancy build. Did you forget to change that one to SL 100?

Roanispe wrote:If you use it [Painting guardian sword] while magically buffed, it'll do an incredible amount of damage rivaled only by the Ricard's Rapier.

I would add regular dagger to that list. It may sound weird but i think dagger's swing speed is even faster than painting guardian sword's. And neither pgs nor ricard's rapier have kick, but with dagger you can kick + R1 to deal some nice damage. I have seen these kind of builds a few times but not used one myself, so it is up to you.

And one more thing. You only mentioned toggle escape when talking about greatswords and axes etc. but i didn't find a guide on how to actually do it. Were you supposed to add it in the Poise section?

FinPeku wrote:Hi Roan! I've now read that whole thing two times, but i still can't come up with things to complain about.

Good job with those SL 100 builds. Though there was no Balder Side Sword & Pyromancy build. Did you forget to change that one to SL 100?

Thank you very much for looking over my guide, not once, but twice, and one day do hope to see the SL100 builds that I made somewhere up on the leaderboards. About the Straight Sword build, for some reason, tinyURL changed it to some picture of a bridge with water flowing underneath it. I found it funny enough to leave it as is, but if people do want a SL100 Balder Side Sword build, then here it is. It meets the same specifications, and tactics as is currently listed underneath for SL120 at the cost of some poise. However, it does hit an important breakpoint of 36 poise, which let's it tank a one-handed Greatsword hit, which still can stunlock irregularly.

FinPeku wrote:I would add regular dagger to that list. It may sound weird but i think dagger's swing speed is even faster than painting guardian sword's. And neither pgs nor ricard's rapier have kick, but with dagger you can kick + R1 to deal some nice damage. I have seen these kind of builds a few times but not used one myself, so it is up to you.

You are right, I should perhaps add the Dagger, but that's a class of weapon that new players shouldn't be using. It's low damage, and low range make it something I'd not suggest to someone trying to enter the PvP scene. A fun fact about the normal Dagger is that you can actually get a Strong Attack off a kick! It also does thrust damage, so you can have the Leo's on it, which would make it potenially useful on a Spear build, or the like. However, outside of its high swing speed, and mediocre critical damage, they aren't really a good weapon.

FinPeku wrote:And one more thing. You only mentioned toggle escape when talking about greatswords and axes etc. but i didn't find a guide on how to actually do it. Were you supposed to add it in the Poise section?

I'll get around to adding a video, with a description of toggle escape.

Okay, I've tried to do something different with the first class of spells to be covered Pyromancies! Rather than simply do headings, and be done with it, I tried for an organic approach to explaining the spells by constructing a build with it. Admittedly, buffs have not been done at the time of writing this, but I plan on actually making it a separate topic; a buffed playstyle is different enough from a normal one to be talked about separately. While the current format might not be the most useful for an experienced player that just wants to skim this for facts they might have missed, I do hope it's more useful, and engrossing for a new player. As well, it's very hard to write spells like I'd do a weapon; weapons have multiple attacks, spells are single purpose.

Some things that I still need to do include: Bows, Sorcery, Miracles, reformatting to have game names to be italicized, include a bunch more off-hand mentions of minor things I forgot, then get around to fixing grammar, and spelling. Odds are I'll need to gather a some more videos, but that's lowest priority. I'm hoping I'll get some feedback if the way of explaining pyromancies was helpful, but, if not, when I sit down with my half-page of scribbles to start writing, I'll pick randomly.

As an aside, it's my 200 post! A non-milestone for many. I'll throw on a Touhou based Dark Souls pictures for my amusement.

Who Nuclear here?:

Still reading through your pyro additions. So far, I like.

That's good to hear that so far you like it; your opinion on the alternate style is really one that I do want to hear. I'll be waiting to see what you have to say when you are done, but no rush.

Here is a random Chen Comic:

Just read the pyromancy section. Good stuff Roan, good stuff.

One thing i was thinking about with the dex/pyro build was that if you change pyro glove to right hand and short bow to left, you could use a great combustion or (iirc) even a chaos fire whip instead of riposte after parry. With bellowing dragoncrest ring and crown of dusk it would surely outdamage the riposte thus be a better choice. Unless you are going for a wakeup gc.

Thoughts?

There are few reasons why I'd not change the placement of Pyro Glove, and the Shortbow. The most fundamental reason is that aiming differs slightly between two hands, and I want to emphasize the ease of taking everything that you learn with a pyromancer, and being able to apply it elsewhere. However, that's more a little nuance about what this guide is about, but with that specific build I believe that being able to cast spells on the off-hand is more useful.

First, let me talk about the cases where having the Pyro Glove on the main hand would be better. First of all, the weapon being used on the main hand can't be incredibly damaging on the riposte, otherwise it'd be better to just use that. Another case is when ability to threaten with a Great Combustion combined with your main weapon isn't a required option. Ideally, you want to be able avoid getting hit, and what happens with the off-hand Pyro Glove is that the spells you have act as a fairly solid discouragement against getting up close, and hitting. A shield could play a similar role; instead of discouraging attacks, you block them. Bare-handed parries, unless you have some sort of reputation as a parry-pro, don't really act as an incredible deterrent. A final, more situational case is when your opponent is loaded with Poise. One Great Combustion does 53 poise damage, and unfortunately, I forget how much poise damage a Chaos Fire Whip does exactly, but provided you don't break their poise, you can land a subsequent hit. Just as you said, two fully boosted Great Combustions that will be counter hits if (I remember correctly) would certainly out damage many weapons ripostes.

However, there is a delay between when you throw a parry, and the opponent being parried, under standard lag conditions, that is long enough for you to switch to an off-hand Pyro Glove to dish out the flames. However, this really only works if you know that you have the parry, and having the glove already out does admittedly give a bit of leeway. Stringing these sort of conditions together, I threw together this build here as an example when I'd think having a main-hand Pyro Glove would be good. It's a Claw build, and certainly something I'd not suggest to someone new to the game, but it can provide a change of pace for someone that has been around the block a few times. However, there is nothing stopping someone from doing main hand Pyro Glove on the original build if they think they can bait a parry with it; I think on one occasion, I did a parry into a Great Combustion then Chaos Fire Whip against someone with 56 Poise. They weren't staggered by the Combustion, but got locked into the Fire Whip for the win. The emphasis is on thinking they can bait a parry, if they are unsure they should try to avoid it, but, then again, you can't get what you don't go for.

Just going to point out the armour set on that build weighs 0.1 more, and has 1 poise less than the typical Knight's Chest, Gloves, and Hollow Warrior Waist Cloth, but comes with better elemental defence at the cost of physical. It still hits the breakpoint, and can act as an alternative if you know that your going to fight someone using Lightning weapons; It's 29 more lightning defence. The fire defence is higher too, but not by much. It's a small advantage, but might end up giving that small difference you need to win with.

Alright. I knew you would have a thorough explanation about that, haha. Oh, and how important do you think those cast canceling tricks are when playing with a pyro based build. I have pyro build but i practically never use them although i know how to do it.

I'm really looking forward to your thoughts on sorceries by the way.

Well, let's think about what cancelling tricks do, before we come to a conclusion of how important it'll be for your build. What happens is that game prevents you making an animation from 180 degree turn. It's a short turn, and it takes very little commitment. The running pivot-cancel takes a higher commitment, but it's much easier to pull off, and provides a much bigger window to cancel. If you are doing any kind of pivot-cancel, you are, at the most basic level, switching one commitment for an ideally smaller one. At a secondary level, it also switches the location of your back quite rapidly; it invalidates most punish attempts if done correctly. Finally, at a tertiary level, it saves a casting of a spell, but keeps some of the threat. We can say that when you are doing a pivot-cancel, you are doing these three things.

How useful are doing these three things? Obviously, it depends on what sort of spells you are casting; since you are asking about Pyromancies, let's examine some pyros. Pivot-cancelling Fire Surge is impossibly normally, and can only be done with a running pivot-cancel. However, the commitment is so low, the threat so minute, and the value of saving a single casting so negligible, pivot-cancelling it is worthless. Similarly, when we think of Great Combustion, it has similar properties, and similarly worthless to pivot-cancel. When we get to the larger spells, we can say there is some worth to pivot-cancelling; the Fireballs, while not strictly necessary to pivot-cancel, can have some usage can help avoid a backstab when you try to land a straight downward fireball. If you want to become better at being a Pyro, it's well worth learning every trick to get the most out of your Fireballs, so while you won't need to, it's good be able to pivot-cancel these consistently. Being able to pivot-cancel anything with a larger commitment is almost a necessity. If you try to cast Fire Tempest, it leaves your back very open, but the pivot-cancels make harder to tell when your back is in fact ready to be stabbed. It can really make all the difference with the larger spells, but it's quite possible to have a solid, vanilla Pyromancer that uses only Great Combustion, and Great Fireball, but making the jump from good to great takes those other spells.

A rule of thumb is that anything that has large commitment, you must be able pivot-cancel it if you want to use it. A few exceptions exist, for example the various, but generally useless, Fog spells don't need to be cancelled. Nor does White Dragon Breath, or Chameleon. In fact, Sorceries are essentially free of the need to pivot-cast, but they tend to be pretty stat intensive. The Dark Sorceries effectively fill a niche that Sorceries didn't have before: it gives something for the 30s, and might really help make casters more viable at SL100. The Soul Spears, and the very good capstone White Dragon Breath are hard to squeeze in for the arena, but I'll try to see if I can make anything happen them work for me.

Haha, the thing with the canal image was that tinyURL had it spontaneously changed from a build to a picture of some random location. My own personal guess is that it's a picture of somewhere in English Speaking Europe. I found it hilarious, so I've sworn off fixing it unless another build ends up having the same problem. In case you are thinking of using the Balder Side Sword, here it is. It features equipment that matches the guide to actual usage. If you have some trouble getting into the habit of punishing your opponents mistakes, it might be worth switching to the Leo Ring. However, I'm of the opinion that sticking with the more devastating critical attacks is good encouragement to land more of them, and help make up for missing other chances as well. Once you are able to both parry, and backstab with suitable consistency, you might get more usage out of a different ring. Notably, the Leo Ring also works with the Composite Bow, and is a great substitution for Hornets. Other useful switches, include Cloranthy for almost constant pressure if you can deal it, Red Tearstone which gives you the ability to snatch a victory from near defeat, Wolf to allow you to avoid stagger from almost anything, or Darkwood Grain to give unrivalled mobility. You could also look into Havel's Ring to get more defence, and poise, but that is not as plug-and-play as the other choices. There are also 3 Attunement slots for playing around with, and it will let you find a sort of Pyromancy set-up that works best for you. However, while this build is modular with it's non-weapon equipment, it can really only use a limited class of Dexterity weapons. If you want to use a Straight Sword, but you are not sure how you would personally use it, I'd recommend this build.

If you are going to use the Halberd build as suggested, I'd look into getting a Great Scythe as well; both have the same Stat requirements, and weight, but play very differently. Other weapons that can be used include the two reasonable Katanas, the medium-sized Spears, and heck, even the Balder Side Sword. Try messing around, and find a weapon that feels right in your hands; I left some extra weight on this build to try to encourage different weapon usage. If this is your first serious foray into PvP, I'd not worry about trying to avoid over-used weapons; it's more important at first to develop general skills of spacing, and punishing before moving onto weapon specific skills. However, once you have firm grasp of the basics, you should try to latch onto one weapon (or combination of weapons), and stick with it through thick, and thin. After the fundamentals, nothing is more important than having your own style of play. If you know that you want to exclusively use the Scythe, take out 3 points of Endurance, and place them into Vitality in the example build.

About the Humanity, yeah, I have them set wrong currently. I should have had them set at 99. I'll get around to fixing that. It's very important to try to get these sort of advantages that don't increase your Soul Level; just like there is no reason to use a +14 weapon over a +15, there is no reason not to have more defence, unless you are still in the process of building your character.

Roan, old buddy, it's Nakohduh! Not sure if you remember me, but I just came back after getting the DLC and what better way to get the inside on new additions and changes than reading this guide! Do you still go on FC? Are you still on PSN?

Ello Nakohduh, I've not yet made any sweeping changes to the guide, but I'll be getting around to it soon enough, but almost all the advice I've given out I feel is still very applicable considering the new metagame. I don't really go to the current FC as I've been busy trying to get back to the same level of skill I was at before I had a month, and half break. I'm still on PSN, and will continue to be on it for quite a while longer. Finpeku, and I tested out some interesting properties about the new ability to parry from a blocking stance, and when I get around to typing it up, that will be the first real post-patch addition.

Ah, good stuff man. I know what you mean, I'm trying to shake off the rust from taking a break as well. I've been using the halberd, I remember you used to rock it when few people did. Now I see it more and more. that thing is beastly

Amazing! although I wish you would make more of a mention of the whip family. i use whips a lot~<3

Hi, new to the forums, Google sent me here looking for Dark Souls PvP info and at first I only joined to thank you for this thread.
But I hope it's ok to ask a question also...

I have finished the game several times offline, got all the trophies but never played much online only connected a few times for the updates.
When the DLC was released I started playing again and decided to try the online mode.
I figured I would be ok since I also survived defeating Sif for the third time but boy was I wrong... I have been burned and backstabbed more times than I'd like to remember.

Anyway a few hours googling later I ended up here and it's a great starting point, lots of useful beginners info which I need, badly.
Only one thing I am not sure about and that is armor, more specifically which armor to choose.

So far I have read that both poise and mobility are important in pvp, and most builds listed in this guide use the ring of favor and protection leaving only one free ring slot.
I am not sure whether to go with medium armor like the Elite Knight set and Havel's ring or very light armor and the Wolf ring?

Any advice on this would be very much appreciated!

Usually, heavy armor has more physical defence, but light armor has more elemental/magic defence. I would go for more physical defence if you are trying to be as efficient as possible.

You will get backstabbed a lot when you are new to pvp. But if pvp is something you're interested in, keep practicing and don't ragequit. You will learn to notice when people are trying to backstab you and what makes you vulnerable to backstabs.

User called "PhantomEWGF" has made some very useful videos about DkS PvP. Some of the things he mentions have been patched, but mostly the information is very good. Here's his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/phantomewgf

Thank you for your reply!

So something like the Elite Knight set would be good in combination with Havel's ring?
Basically the heaviest you can equip as long as you can fast roll?
The mixed armors I see on Youtube a lot are done for the combination of physical and elemental/magic defense?

And thank you for the Youtube-link, just subscribed to his channel...