What are the Level and Weapon Upgrade Levels for PvP?

[Flying Lemming Soup]

DS3 veteran here who only just now upgraded from my previous potato to a system which can play this game. I'm given to understand that Elden Ring uses a very similar PvP matchmaking system to DS3 in terms of level and weapon upgrade level. In DS3, if you wanted the best chance of PvP you would keep your weapon upgrade level at 1/10th of your actual level. If you wanted SL20 PvP, you had a +2 weapon. SL60 PvP, a +6 weapon, and so on. Is there a similar 'meta' in Elden ring?

If I'm progressing normally through the game and want to maximize PvP potential, what weapon upgrade levels should I keep, relative to my character level?

Is there one definitive 'meta' level that everyone who likes PvP sticks around in?

Thanks in advance.

[Imperator Ricardo]

Generally, active levels are 80 at +17/7 weapons, and 125, 137, 150, all at maximum level weapons.
There are some inbetweens and some lower ones, but these are the main ones being played.
For Invading, particularily 137 at +25/10 appears to be very active.

[LuckyCheshire]

Not really that I'm aware of. Once you get past level 100 or so, almost everyone has a max level or max - 1 weapon. On your way up, your levels should be fairly organic as you progress through the game unless you're grinding trolls for hours on end or only killing story bosses and nothing else.

The 'meta' level that gets thrown out a lot is 150. It's a really arbitrary number though, and I can't try weird hybrid builds very effectively at that level. I've been able to find matches at pretty much every level honestly. I've been sitting at 265 for a long time now with my main save, and I'm almost always able to find matches quickly.

If you're playing the arenas, there is a trick with the queues that not everyone knows. Something is f*cked up with the priority system, your matching priority falls over time instead of rises, so the longer you wait actually the less likely you are to find a match. If you don't find a match in 5-10 seconds, cancel and start searching again. You'll get matches much faster that way. Invasions are set up a bit differently, but they honestly suck in Elden Ring anyway.

[Flying Lemming Soup]

Originally posted by Imperator Ricardo:

Generally, active levels are 80 at +17/7 weapons, and 125, 137, 150, all at maximum level weapons.
There are some inbetweens and some lower ones, but these are the main ones being played.
For Invading, particularily 137 at +25/10 appears to be very active.

So, I can roughly estimate it as being 1 weapon tier per 5 levels, instead of every 10? That translates to about level 80 with a +16-17 weapon, or +25 at level 125. Might be a good rule of thumb.

Originally posted by LuckyCheshire777:

The 'meta' level that gets thrown out a lot is 150. It's a really arbitrary number though, and I can't try weird hybrid builds very effectively at that level. I've been able to find matches at pretty much every level honestly. I've been sitting at 265 for a long time now with my main save, and I'm almost always able to find matches quickly.

If you're playing the arenas, there is a trick with the queues that not everyone knows. Something is f*cked up with the priority system, your matching priority falls over time instead of rises, so the longer you wait actually the less likely you are to find a match. If you don't find a match in 5-10 seconds, cancel and start searching again. You'll get matches much faster that way. Invasions are set up a bit differently, but they honestly suck in Elden Ring anyway.

Good to know the game is still popular enough for me to find fights two years in. And I'll keep the priority system in mind, TYVM.