Preliminary Analysis of Limgrave Twink Strength

[ressenmacher]

Disclaimer: this post is very rough around the edges. I lack many of the tools and much of the experience I had to work with in DS3, and as such my findings are significantly more tentative and limited. If you spot errors in this post or have sources/input that might help me improve it, please do share.

Introduction:

The purpose of this analysis is to examine the disparity in strength between twinked characters and standard characters within the first area of the game (Limgrave and subregions). For those unfamiliar with the term, a “twink” is a character that has been taken through the game (or dropped items) at a low Rune Level and Weapon Upgrade Level (so as to remain within matchmaking range of very low-level characters in the starting areas), collected a variety of gear throughout the game, and then come back to engage in multiplayer at low levels with an advantage over a player geared appropriately for the level. Specifically, I am comparing the relative strengths of a RL 30 +3 twink and standard player. This RL and WUL are roughly what one would expect from a player who has explored the majority of Limgrave and is beginning to tackle Stormveil Castle. As such, it makes the assumption that the non-twinked player has access to things found in Limgrave up to Stormveil: cookbooks, flasks, weapons, armor, upgrades, talismans, etc. This is an idealistic assumption (both in the actual assumptions and the fact that it’s looking at a character who has progressed all the way through the zone and is thus stronger than they were while progressing); it tends to highball the level appropriate player. In summary, three major factors emerge to explain the advantages twinks enjoy.

Pt 1: Consumable Healing Advantage

Pretty straightforwards, and the strongest of the twink advantages: having more upgraded flasks lets them heal significantly more damage than their opponents and thus gives them a sizable advantage. These calculations are an attempt to quantify how much. Two scenarios are presented. The first is a best case scenario, where the level appropriate player has the maximum possible upgrades for somebody confined to Limgrave. The second is a more probable scenario, where the level appropriate player has missed some flask upgrades. Note that it is still rather generous, as it assumes players have found 75+% of the upgrades sitting in the open world as lootable items. In my experience, that is generally not the case.

(note that this also discounts the use of the Flask of Wondrous Physick for both sides because it’s often used as something other than a healing tool. It also discounts the use of Raw Meat Dumplings because their scarcity renders formulaic use of them impractical, as well as that of Warming Stones/Frenzyflame Stones because that healing generally applies wildly varying amounts of its total potential):

Best Case Scenario (found all available seeds (6) and tears (4) + started with Golden Seed Gift):
-Twinked Phantom: 7 +12 Flasks = 7*810 = 5670 potential HP
-Twinked Host: 14 +12 Flasks = 14*810 = 11340 potential HP
-Standard Phantom: 3 +4 Flasks = 3*570 = 1710 potential HP
-Standard Host: 7 +4 Flasks = 7*570 = 3990 potential HP

Probable Scenario (Missed UTS, Kenneth Height’s, burial gift, and Roderika’s Golden Seeds, as well as one Sacred Tear):
-Standard Phantom: 3 +3 Flasks = 2*505 = 1010 potential HP
-Standard Host: 5 +3 Flasks = 5*505 = 2525 potential HP

To give these numbers some perspective, let's look at how they influence certain common scenarios:

1: A twinked invader will have 1.42-2.25 times the potential healing of a standard host
2: With either a twinked phantom vs an untwinked invader or a twinked invader vs an untwinked phantom, the twink will have 3.32-5.61 times the healing of their opponent will have.
3: A twinked host fighting an untwinked invader has a whopping 6.31-11.23 times their opponent’s healing.
4: Two twinked phantoms and a host ganging up on a level appropriate invader collectively have 13.26-22.46 times their opponent’s healing.
5: A single twinked invader fighting a level appropriate host and two level appropriate phantoms has 0.7652-1.25 times the potential healing of all their opponents combined.

Summarized, in a 1v1 a twink has a 42%-1023% healing advantage, depending on circumstances, and in group fights the side with the twink(s) has a 23.48% potential healing disadvantage to a 2146% advantage.

Pt 2: Consumable & Weapon Selection Advantage, Or: The Scarlet Rot Section

In a best case scenario, the level appropriate player has access to the Nomadic Merchant Cookbooks 1-6 and 8, Armorer’s Cookbooks 1-3, Missionary’s Cookbooks 1-2, Fevor’s Cookbook 1, and Frenzied’s Cookbook 1. As such, they lack:
-boluses for any status effect beyond poison and madness
-elemental damage reduction livers of any kind beyond fire
-greases beyond poison and fire

The means a twinked character has a substantial (15-20% relative to damage otherwise taken, with physical coming from crabs) ability to reduce damage of any source, something which the untwinked character can replicate only for fire. Their only damage increasing option is one of the most strongly resisted damage types in the game (though at least it isn’t also weaker AR wise like it was in DS3), and their only status increasing option is both strongly countered by boluses (esp. when punishes are weak, like at low level) and one of the weaker inflictable statuses, compared to the twink’s ability to target defenses by build and both use and counter every status in the game (if they have the stats for the Madness inflicting weapons, that is). The twink has access to a number of useful ranged weapons the untwinked character lacks, namely several kinds of bombs and Fan Knives. Furthermore, they have the Aromatic series of items, which can be very situationally useful (ex: ironjar to block a group on a narrow bridge).

All of this pales in comparison to one single point: Scarlet Rot. The non-twink can’t use it and can’t cure it, while the twink can do both.

If the enemy damage formula for Scarlet Rot is also used for the player (and it might not be, because the resulting numbers feel far, far too small from my experience; when going through the Lake of Rot, I found that Scarlet Rot could not be lived through with 12 +8 flasks + 49 vig), a player with 40 vig is taking 17-18 damage every second for a total damage of 1530-1620 over a minute and a half. A single application of Scarlet Rot will eat away more than a third of the host’s healing and more or less all of a phantom’s. This is incredibly debilitating and, because status effects will build up even on successfully dodged attacks, essentially constitutes unavoidable damage barring extreme cases of passive or kiting play.

For perspective, DS3 player-inflicted Poison ranged in strength from about 7-8 damage (unless your opponent had some stupidly high HP) and was widely considered to be very strong in low level play, and highly overpowered against players who lacked moss. Scarlet Rot does more than double its damage.

Pt 3: Equipment Advantage:

Talismans/Rings are weaker in general this time around, but they can still account for a large advantage.
Radagon’s Soreseal, a +5 stat boost of choice, Greatjar’s Talisman, and a swap slot for Dagger/Ritual Shield/Alexander/etc results in a character with a 20+ virtual level advantage over a level appropriate player.

This is the weakest section of this analysis, because I lack a character planner that can optimize armor for me and a strong understanding of what weapons compose the current low level meta. That said, using this site[eip.gg] I was able to fiddle with how an SL 30 twink might look vs a SL 30 normal character in the Vagabond set. The results are fairly similar to what was seen in DS3. The twink has significantly (200+) more HP than the standard character, significantly higher flat defenses (99 vs 87 across the board for physical as an example; note that I basically made these builds by grabbing a Samurai starter and pumping Vig), and a moderate absorption disadvantage (18% vs 26% physical, with the twink wearing the probably hideously unoptimized Lionel’s Chest + Exile everything else and midrolling with two uchis).

This is with Radagon’s Soreseal, Great-Jar’s Arsernal, and Millicent’s Prosthesis. Radagon’s is definitely weaker than PC, at 15% compared to the 4ish% penalty PC inflicted in DS3. After having a look at what swapping it for EtF+2 would look like, I think it’s the best option, but better testing might prove that isn’t the case. (for reference, I was able to get 89 flat defense and about 36% physical absorption with that setup, which probably means you’re taking comparable damage from everything that isn’t a really strong single hit and don’t get the other stat advantages).

TLDR:
-twinks outheal regular characters 1.5-11 times over in 1v1s, grossly obliterate standard players in ganks, and have enough potential HP that, when combined with their other advantages, they end up being more powerful than entire groups of low level players.
-twinks have substantial utility, survivability, and damage advantages because they have access to crafting materials the level appropriate character does not.
-twinks have meaningful HP and weapon selection advantages over level appropriate players, as well as potentially superiority in defensive stats.

Overall, it’s better than it was in DS3, largely because the rings are weaker, the really broken-at-low-level stuff doesn’t seem to have been found yet, and players can upgrade their healing much faster. That said, it’s still severe enough to create highly unfair encounters, especially when considering that these calculations are in general highball estimates of the level appropriate player’s strength and encompass scenarios that will occur over about 1/7th of the game (discounting the underground).

If you are more familiar with certain aspects of the game than I am, I’d really like some help improving my analysis by:
-figuring out whether Scarlet Rot damage inflicted on the player follows the same formula as it does on enemies, and whether there is a difference between player and PvE inflicted scarlet rot like there was with DS3’s poison
-figuring out what the optimal low level equipment and armor combos are to maximize absorption.
-looking at damage increases of greases and optimization available to the twink
-getting informed as to what (if any) weapons are outliers in terms of strength at low levels like the DSA and Dark Hand were in DS3

[Xengre]

I love you did a solid attempt at a break down with detailed figures. It might not have everything but it is a good starting grounds for discussion in that thread and I wish I found it before this one but I'm too lazy to do two threads in such detail at this point.

On your point of HP something to point out is that "twinked" invaders are unlikely to have fully maxed # of estus or amount of heal per estus while maintaining low weapon upgrades due to the size of the game and difficulty they'll encounter with later scaling compared to DS3. It can happen, but it will probably be far rarer than what we saw in DS3 so your example was definitely an "extreme" comparison for practical comparisons. Your point about standard host + phantoms, or standard host + late game built up phantoms, would be much more applicable vs a somewhat "twinked" invader so their pool of healing should noticeably surpass the invader in almost every case in a more practical sense (and as you showed even in an extreme maxed twink's case typically would unless host was alone and activating finger).

Do we know if crab negation gets nerfed similar to Talisman's in PvP yet, if you've had a chance to test or seen a source who has tested it? Or is it closer to spell and other ash buffs that keep full effect even in PvP? Crabs are an interesting point that, while not huge, is a point of min-maxing for sure.

About boluses they're not actually relevant for Scarlet Rot as a solution for anyone as Sacremental Bud ingredient in their crafting is finite. Supposedly they respawn but the conditions are either very extreme or most likely boss based PLUS an additional CD mechanism making them literally finite. I mean, technically, they can be farmed from a mob but the drop rate is heinous. "Flame, Cleanse Me" is a superior option for early and late game and can be gotten extremely early. Sadly, you have to actually find it which presents limitations and while it can be acquired super early... realistically at the most absolute early points of the game odds are unlikely a standard host will have it. :( Alas, a similar situation to poison in DS3 which could be countered by blessing but actually having it or being obviously aware of solutions is an information game... that newbies are likely to fail due to no fault of their own.

Madness from Vyke's Spear and stuff is an interesting situation. The invader having a bolus for it might not be relevant because odds are the host doesn't have the weapon most of the time unless it was dropped for them at low level. Exception being a "twinked" ally phantom of host on occasion (odds of this hard to say, could be frequent or not). Host dealing with this as a standard host is also of interest because if you are building up madness then you are probably being hit way to much. In the end Madness currently follows a similar issue of bleed in PvP where bolus is not particularly the best solution as not getting hit in general. If anything, it could be said to be less of an issue than bleed with exception of host having very low HP due to a bad build as the burst flat dmg on top of % and the attack itself could lead to instant death similar to being hurt then hit by a critical from a parry at low HP (or if HP simply too low to begin with). More of a build issue and/or getting hit too much issue in general. I won't completely discredit the value of bolus for this but, honestly, not that important.

You mention poison but there is an antidote spell very early. That said, without it poison can be very problematic similar to moss if host HP is obscenely low. Fortunately, the spell is nearly impossible to miss being at the Roundtable Hold from the first NPC you are likely to see there and you can get there nearly immediately due to Melina kidnapping you (lol).

You mention Ragadon's Soreseal for +5 stats but there are two reasons it isn't a problem.
1. The +3 version is on weeping and almost identical in stats.
2. Unlike Prisoner Chain which is more obscure and hidden behind mandatory to beat bosses that some find hard on a route that, unless you like killing NPCs randomly, you are less likely to find early the route to Ragadon's is almost forced upon you if you explore northern Limgrave and meet Hunter D. He marks the waypoint portal on your map. From there you just explore a bit south to see if there is anything of interest and find a site of graces tucked right next to it and can see the item through the boards in the wall. For the adventurous sort lured by its visibility they will run and grab it regardless. Others may not but it is practically shoved in your face, in truth. Odds are most will not explore past that point, though, due to the obvious dragon issue. This was a rather interesting design choice, especially after the whole Prisoner Chain incident in DS3. I think this plus the weaker +3 version were intentional to make things fairer for less skilled players and to reduce complaints but who knows for sure. As for Greatjar’s Talisman it isn't especially relevant, but you could of course use it in an attempt to min-max and maybe slightly improve combat performance with the right build. Honestly, not a huge deal as it is like comparing someone with med armor vs heavy armor builds be it early or even late game.

Actually, because I appreciate your post though I don't fully agree with all analysis on it I've changed my mind and will put this response there as well since it has no responses at all (such a mostly solid post really does warrant a response and discussion). That said, I'm not going to go super deep atm no it (maybe later if I can be bothered) but hopefully it helps others jump in and discuss.

(lazy copy paste from other thread since OP presented link to this one)

[doublejesus]

So dumb question maybe but is the +3 for somber or for standard smithing stone weapons? Been thinking about invading since I've beaten the game a bunch already and want to spice it up.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by doublejesus:

So dumb question maybe but is the +3 for somber or for standard smithing stone weapons? Been thinking about invading since I've beaten the game a bunch already and want to spice it up.

its for regular most likely. +3 somber is equal to +8 regular roughly.

as for the tc :

a few things. its pretty simple to get 14 flasks without even beating morgott at low level. did this myself recently. while i was level 40 with +3 special gear the difference wouldnt be that big that its not possible. plus the twinkvader needs all 4 charm slots so must reach godfrey shade boss ANYWAY as these cannot be traded.

its unknown if spirit ash upgrades influence matchmaking as of yet. i havent seen data for or againist it. if they are ignored its silly easy to get into endgame areas with just a +10 oleg doing your job for you on most bosses. this would make staying at low upgrade easier than ds3. there really isnt a reason to defeat maliketh or anything past him for the twink as it doesnt give anything such a low level can make much use off.

you assume all flasks set to healing for the twinkvader. given the power of ashes of war and spells the twinkvader wants fp flasks aswell atleast 1 of them. so 7 is not a given.

getting to +10 flask upgrade is easy and can be done before even entering the erdtree city. the final 2 upgrades are in the mountains and are probaly wasted anyway due to the hp limit on low level you would overheal with these. thus unneeded.

you also assume the host never leaves limgrave. a big IF. youre never confined to limgrave afterall. game is open world. you can just walk right past stormveil.

the invader needs to stay at or BELOW the hosts level and upgrade level to even invade them. so if host has +2 regular weapon invader can have AT MOST + 2 regular and +1 somber aswell. on that front the invader has no advantage. even at low level due to the invasion matchmaking rules.

rotten breath is insane at killing low level hosts. but very often they are accompanied by endgame casul carriers which will just hand them the healing item for it.

radogans soreseal is by far the strongest charm in the game currently. given pretty much ANY build even at meta levels (125-150) uses this thing a nerf is likely to happen on it (but probaly not soon as there is simply more serve balance issues beforehand) the lower your level is the bigger the advantage of this thing is. and its easy to grab even without tradeing you can get it early if you know where it is.

the armor advantage isnt really there due to weight limits for the invader beeing very low even if you got the jar charm and a erdtree favor. both are also available early game easyly.

most low level invaders stop at 20 already to be able to invade outside of stormveil aswell. at 30 you wont see much invasion success in most of limgrave.

the fact pasword summoning exists gives the host extreme advantage even at low levels.

currently none of these numbers matter much as you can just madness eye lazor snipe any host or invader if you stay out of range and wait for a good snipe moment. this is due to absolutly silly status buildup values which will hopefully soon see a serve nerf accross the board.

[ressenmacher]

Originally posted by Xengre:

On your point of HP something to point out is that "twinked" invaders are unlikely to have fully maxed # of estus or amount of heal per estus while maintaining low weapon upgrades due to the size of the game and difficulty they'll encounter with later scaling compared to DS3. It can happen, but it will probably be far rarer than what we saw in DS3 so your example was definitely an "extreme" comparison for practical comparisons. Your point about standard host + phantoms, or standard host + late game built up phantoms, would be much more applicable vs a somewhat "twinked" invader so their pool of healing should noticeably surpass the invader in almost every case in a more practical sense (and as you showed even in an extreme maxed twink's case typically would unless host was alone and activating finger).

Originally posted by Nerevar:

a few things. its pretty simple to get 14 flasks without even beating morgott at low level. did this myself recently. while i was level 40 with +3 special gear the difference wouldnt be that big that its not possible. plus the twinkvader needs all 4 charm slots so must reach godfrey shade boss ANYWAY as these cannot be traded.

you assume all flasks set to healing for the twinkvader. given the power of ashes of war and spells the twinkvader wants fp flasks aswell atleast 1 of them. so 7 is not a given.

getting to +10 flask upgrade is easy and can be done before even entering the erdtree city. the final 2 upgrades are in the mountains and are probaly wasted anyway due to the hp limit on low level you would overheal with these. thus unneeded.

Yeah, this was basically my best case scenario for the twink. You're both correct; in practice it probably won't always be +12, and when it is it'll be at a lower rate than in previous games. At the same time though, the level appropriate players are also unlikely to be as strong as their potential best case scenarios imply, and the twink is favored more by that kind of suboptimal setup vs suboptimal setup scenario since so many of their later upgrades are just gravy on top.

As for having FP flasks, I'm not sure. I kind of figure that a twink that wants to use WAs might use a flask with bubble + fp restore for that, and if they're finding WAs to be powerful enough to forgo healing, I think that it's a bigger issue that the LAP doesn't have access to them than the extra twink healing would be.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

you also assume the host never leaves limgrave. a big IF. youre never confined to limgrave afterall. game is open world. you can just walk right past stormveil.

the invader needs to stay at or BELOW the hosts level and upgrade level to even invade them. so if host has +2 regular weapon invader can have AT MOST + 2 regular and +1 somber aswell. on that front the invader has no advantage. even at low level due to the invasion matchmaking rules.

This is a big if and might be over the standard level; I went with higher leveled situation so I could encompass all of Limgrave and because it favored the LAP some more.

I'm not sure that many people will go beyond Limgrave, though. Until you're right on top of Stormveil your only options are east into Caelid, Caelid through the Siofra River (itself very difficult below like 20-30), or being teleport trapped. I think that any player who winds up in Caelid is going to GTFO pretty fast if they aren't experienced and want to be there because...well...it's Caelid.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

rotten breath is insane at killing low level hosts. but very often they are accompanied by endgame casul carriers which will just hand them the healing item for it.

It's not even just rotten breath. Some weapons like the Antspur Rapier and...a dagger that I'm forgetting the name of have Scarlet Rot on them. It can be applied without FP investment.

OL phantoms are indeed problematic, but that's a separate thing; they're functionally like twinks but with way more variance in power.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

radogans soreseal is by far the strongest charm in the game currently. given pretty much ANY build even at meta levels (125-150) uses this thing a nerf is likely to happen on it (but probaly not soon as there is simply more serve balance issues beforehand) the lower your level is the bigger the advantage of this thing is. and its easy to grab even without tradeing you can get it early if you know where it is.

Yeah, I completely forgot about the early version, as can be seen in my response to Xengre in the other thread. It does help even the playing field a bit.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

the armor advantage isnt really there due to weight limits for the invader beeing very low even if you got the jar charm and a erdtree favor. both are also available early game easyly.

Nah, it does matter. Between ETF+2 and GJ it's a 10% physical absorption hike, which is seriously noticeable when you're already going up from about 25%.

The jar charm is in Caelid and locked behind three NPC fights where you're going to get oneshot if you're below level. I had to resort to rotten breath cheesing even with a fairly strong build because those NPCs ended up so powerful (I highly suspect it's only copying builds and then assigning a hugely bloated HP value. Maybe upping damage too).

Originally posted by Nerevar:

currently none of these numbers matter much as you can just madness eye lazor snipe any host or invader if you stay out of range and wait for a good snipe moment. this is due to absolutly silly status buildup values which will hopefully soon see a serve nerf accross the board.

Hopefully. And hopefully fast.

[urabe mikoto]

I love twinking because I always win

[Lime]

Scarlet Rot in Twink invasions never feels worth it, honestly, when things like Seppuku exists. You'll kill the host a few times over before the rot even reaches 500 damage. From a damage perspective.

From an invader perspective, Rotting a host and watching him slowly die while out of Flasks is a unique feeling. Often, though, their phantom steps in and helps.

[jingstar]

I believe that the meteorite staff has extremely high int scaling and is always +0. I'm not certain how weapon matchmaking deals with this however.

[jingstar]

Originally posted by Xengre:

On your point of HP something to point out is that "twinked" invaders are unlikely to have fully maxed # of estus or amount of heal per estus while maintaining low weapon upgrades due to the size of the game and difficulty they'll encounter with later scaling compared to DS3. It can happen, but it will probably be far rarer than what we saw in DS3 so your example was definitely an "extreme" comparison for practical comparisons. Your point about standard host + phantoms, or standard host + late game built up phantoms, would be much more applicable vs a somewhat "twinked" invader so their pool of healing should noticeably surpass the invader in almost every case in a more practical sense (and as you showed even in an extreme maxed twink's case typically would unless host was alone and activating finger).

I believe the invader can use a summon on their account to access late game areas without upgrading their weapons, unless summons are also affected by weapon matchmaking which I doubt is the case?

[Dragonirian]

You don't have overleveled password phantoms in your analysis. Normal hosts can summon their level 200+ friend with max weapon upgrades. And the scaling of +25 with any magic stat results in many one-shot situations DESPITE the supposed phantom downscaling.
While invader has little vig due to low level.
Meaning the flask advantage in that situation is obsolete. It's either play perfectly and avoid being hit or die.
Which leads us to "how many hits it takes to kill the player". Vig is the most op stat in the game in pvp for that reason. Many "normal" players dont level vig at all. While their summoned friends have it capped out.

Meaning invader has to rush to kill the host every time while being unable to deal with password phantoms whatsoever unless the phantom is extremely bad at the game and gets rollcarched to death.
But most likely it's one cast of lightning strike from phantom and the invader is dead.

Keep in mind, invaders can only invade coopers and most coopers play with their password summoned friends.

[Komarimaru]

Things to keep in mind, a "Twink" that cleared the game themselves or was carried, and took the time to gather and collect everything gets a massive advantage on consumables as well.

There's just so many things a twink can do that a normal host, and phantoms, generally cannot combat for the average player. You've aromatics which have no requirement other then materials(which are easy to farm) and most are extremely powerful. The many pots you can throw that can stagger or do large AoE damage, etc etc.

Even if the co-op has password summoned a massively higher leveled helper, it won't matter due to the higher RL person being scaled down to the hosts level range, including damage and health, invaders who twink don't experience this cutback of balance and check other then RL range and max Weapon level.

If they summon a helper of permitable range? Even worse chances versus a well geared and experienced person who took the time to twink.

[Wacky (LucentLogan)]

Originally posted by Dragonirian:

You don't have overleveled password phantoms in your analysis. Normal hosts can summon their level 200+ friend with max weapon upgrades. And the scaling of +25 with any magic stat results in many one-shot situations DESPITE the supposed phantom downscaling.
While invader has little vig due to low level.
Meaning the flask advantage in that situation is obsolete. It's either play perfectly and avoid being hit or die.
Which leads us to "how many hits it takes to kill the player". Vig is the most op stat in the game in pvp for that reason. Many "normal" players dont level vig at all. While their summoned friends have it capped out.

Meaning invader has to rush to kill the host every time while being unable to deal with password phantoms whatsoever unless the phantom is extremely bad at the game and gets rollcarched to death.
But most likely it's one cast of lightning strike from phantom and the invader is dead.

Keep in mind, invaders can only invade coopers and most coopers play with their password summoned friends.

So true. Overleveled phantoms make twink invaders nearly obsolete in comparison.

[m0n]

Originally posted by Komarimaru:

Things to keep in mind, a "Twink" that cleared the game themselves or was carried, and took the time to gather and collect everything gets a massive advantage on consumables as well.

Or they just cheat. I know lot of people used CE to twink in ds3, I expect nothing less in ER.

[ressenmacher]

Originally posted by Dragonirian:

You don't have overleveled password phantoms in your analysis. Normal hosts can summon their level 200+ friend with max weapon upgrades. And the scaling of +25 with any magic stat results in many one-shot situations DESPITE the supposed phantom downscaling.
While invader has little vig due to low level.
Meaning the flask advantage in that situation is obsolete. It's either play perfectly and avoid being hit or die.
Which leads us to "how many hits it takes to kill the player". Vig is the most op stat in the game in pvp for that reason. Many "normal" players dont level vig at all. While their summoned friends have it capped out.

Meaning invader has to rush to kill the host every time while being unable to deal with password phantoms whatsoever unless the phantom is extremely bad at the game and gets rollcarched to death.
But most likely it's one cast of lightning strike from phantom and the invader is dead.

Keep in mind, invaders can only invade coopers and most coopers play with their password summoned friends.

Agreed; this is specifically a twink analysis. OL phantoms are another problem entirely, and they seem worse in this game than DS3; even twinks are like tissue paper against anything with good scaling.

Originally posted by Komarimaru:

Even if the co-op has password summoned a massively higher leveled helper, it won't matter due to the higher RL person being scaled down to the hosts level range, including damage and health, invaders who twink don't experience this cutback of balance and check other then RL range and max Weapon level.

it varies a lot, but my experience has been that OL phantoms can and often do hold their own or more against twinks; as an example, I just had a guy at 58 who was casting Placidusax and ripped off 70% of my HP (40 vig) with a single hit from a greatsword.

It seems to be worse on elemental builds.

Originally posted by Keepo:

Scarlet Rot in Twink invasions never feels worth it, honestly, when things like Seppuku exists. You'll kill the host a few times over before the rot even reaches 500 damage. From a damage perspective.

From an invader perspective, Rotting a host and watching him slowly die while out of Flasks is a unique feeling. Often, though, their phantom steps in and helps.

I kind of see where that's coming from, but you can outplay Seppuku, even if it's hard, and you really can't do that to rot. And once it's on, the twink's done; they just have to avoid combat until their opponent gives out.

Originally posted by Xengre:

Do we know if crab negation gets nerfed similar to Talisman's in PvP yet, if you've had a chance to test or seen a source who has tested it? Or is it closer to spell and other ash buffs that keep full effect even in PvP? Crabs are an interesting point that, while not huge, is a point of min-maxing for sure.

I actually have an answer for this now; yes, crab and prawn are nerfed in multi. Crab goes from a 20% damage reduction all the way down to...15%

Meanwhile, the other 20% damage reduction item, which takes up a talisman slot, gets nuked down to 4% in PvP.

Wot?

[Slinky]

Originally posted by Keepo:

Scarlet Rot in Twink invasions never feels worth it, honestly, when things like Seppuku exists. You'll kill the host a few times over before the rot even reaches 500 damage. From a damage perspective.

From an invader perspective, Rotting a host and watching him slowly die while out of Flasks is a unique feeling. Often, though, their phantom steps in and helps.

yes i have found this tru with poison also.. raw dps, frostbite, madness or bleed seem to work way better for pvp

[Raigavin]

That 'Twink' term again, sounds like a bad derogatory term. Why not mention as "Low Level Invaders".

I invade at level 1 weapons +0, I find it offensive to be labelled as a 'Twink'. But 9/10th of the summons with end game gear, who can literally cast and use any item with a password is completely fine?

Get the F out of here.