PVP - All builds have Pros and Cons!... Naaah, Dex Spam.

[The Miurge]

Time to rediscover America! Another "DS1 Player went to DS2..." thread.

I've been playing DS1 for few hundred hours. I had a lot of fun with it - after some time totally ♥♥♥♥ PVE. In PVP sometimes I won, sometimes I failed, but it was still fun as hell!

All builds had fairly good chance against each other. I was killing as a Sorcerer, SunBro, Giantdad, Spear&Shield, Sword&Board, Full Havel and fast rollin light armour. The balance wasn't the worst, I had a chance to kill everyone, and everyone had a chance to kill me. Fair enough.

And now I came to DS2. Played some hours - made a nice, fun STR oriented build for the Greatsword I found and then Titanite-pumped it. Some more tweaks and I was fast rolling with Greatsword and Heavy Armour (~40 poise, some resistances). More levling in HP and stamina of course and were good to go for the New PvP!


Then, I went to the BellTower to check PVP out.


ROUND ONE! START!

Someone invided me. A guy with a dagger. He just went straight up to me, stunlocked my face with ~2 hits and killed me with 5 hit chain, just like that. With a dagger. Well ♥♥♥♥, this guy knows how to roll a good enchantment build! I'm still ok with that. Respawn.

ROUND TWO! START!

Another dude invides! A rapier. Ok, no problem! But then he went straight up to me, stunlocked me (mind the broken poise) and poisoned right away. Three seconds of looking for estus in panic mode aaaaand Respawn.

ROUND THREE! START!

Third dude. I was aware, that at this point, Armor is just pointless and changed it for tower shield. Opponent has a whip. Yup, three hits. This time, at least I finished one strike of my Ultraslow Greatsword and hit him! A HUUUUGE Sword wih perfect scaling, STR 40 two Handed R1 hit him for, about 1/5 Healthbar. Respawn.


A few more invasions later I realised that "real" PVP players were using fast weapons only. Sometimes someone cast an easy to dodge spell, but a good 89% were just Rapiers, Estocs, Whips, sometimes a hipster with a spear. With no poise (which in DS1 was, yes, a bit nooby, but the only way to send a UGS swing agains a Dex user), using STR now is useless. Later I researched that bows and crossbows (minus Avelyn) are still a PvP counterpart for Monty Python, and mages can hit only when Lag is strong in them. I heard that hexers are OP, but I haven't seen a single one of them in that time, so I go no opinion on them.

Yup. New Dark Souls, new rules. Started New Game, now I'm rolling a Dex build. Few hours in and owned almost every invader or Wrold Master I encountered with a Mail Breaker.

https://imgflip.com/i/arm4n


PS: I know that I should "git gut" and "go pro dirty casul", but in DS1 it at least "felt" like it had a point. Here it's just dodge/R-spam or ofcrs parry. I guess I'll just focus on beating PvE a few times for fun.

[Big Boom Boom]

Lulz at broken poise. Poise now works exactly the same as DS, with the exception of practically handing out Stone Ring to add some extra poise dmg. You can poise tank, and 40 poise is not heavy armour. That's medium armour, Faraam level.

And you obviously need to learn how to use heavy weapon. A lot of people still run around with Great Hammer and it's a world of hurt. Of course, this is in max SM tier NG+ against HavelNumbnessGMBJesterchestScumitarMundaneBanditKnifeHexerlagswitcher.

[Foe]

You have absolutely no DS2 PvP experience and you think that you already know how the PvP works in this game. Well ... you don't. Heavy weapons are totally viable.

[cua_bien02]

Messaggio originale di Vel_1828:

A few more invasions later I realised that "real" PVP players were using fast weapons only. Sometimes someone cast an easy to dodge spell, but a good 89% were just Rapiers, Estocs, Whips, sometimes a hipster with a spear. With no poise (which in DS1 was, yes, a bit nooby, but the only way to send a UGS swing agains a Dex user), using STR now is useless. Later I researched that bows and crossbows (minus Avelyn) are still a PvP counterpart for Monty Python, and mages can hit only when Lag is strong in them. I heard that hexers are OP, but I haven't seen a single one of them in that time, so I go no opinion on them.

Yup. New Dark Souls, new rules. Started New Game, now I'm rolling a Dex build. Few hours in and owned almost every invader or Wrold Master I encountered with a Mail Breaker.

PS: I know that I should "git gut" and "go pro dirty casul", but in DS1 it at least "felt" like it had a point. Here it's just dodge/R-spam or ofcrs parry. I guess I'll just focus on beating PvE a few times for fun.

First, I don't really get what you mean by "Monty Python", but greatbows wipe the floor in pvp. In fact, some people consider greatbow dirty fight.

Second, mages that "only hit when lag is strong" are nooby mages. Good mages don't just spam magic and hope for lag. Same for hexers, although I do admit I hate them simply because hexes are just too powerful. You meet more hexers at higher level due to the stat requirement for the most popular hexes.

You just need to get used to the new poise system. It's a bit wonky, but not completely useless. Poise only works when both of you are attacking, meaning that if you're inactive, you will get stunned by all weapons, but if you have enough poise and an Estoc guy hits you while you're swinging your Greatsword, you will poise through it and stunlock the guy to oblivion. The greatest problem for Str build are lagstab and parry spammers, not the poise system. If your Greatsword does only 1/5 hp of a Belfry luna invader, it looks like you only hit him/her with the tip of the sword, not the sweetpot. Weapons have sweetspots now. They only do full damage at the sweetspot, hit them with a different portion of the weapon, the damage will be less.

Your main problem though, is that you pvp in Bell Towers. Most Belfry Luna invaders are newbies and are generally bad to average at pvp. Belfry Sol is a little bit better. You want to see a variety of builds, go to Iron Keep bridge. And trust me, good Str weapon players will wreck you to tears.

[cua_bien02]

Messaggio originale di Big Boom Boom:

You can poise tank, and 40 poise is not heavy armour. That's medium armour, Faraam level.

^ This. Acceptable poise for heavy weaponry is above 100 due to this http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/poise

[Big Boom Boom]

I 2h Great Hammer so I don't really care about other people Poise. They will break, all hail mighty hammer.

An extremely powerful Great Hammer at low SM/SL is Raw Malformed Skull, which has 568 base AR and require only 17 STR to 2h it. R2 smash can potentially do 1k dmg on anyone, and backstab is OHKO.

[TeutonicTexan]

From my point of view, as a dex build (and as someone who is, admittedly, terrible at pvp). I have the most trouble against str builds. I use a rapier, a poison spotted whip and a black hunter's bow at range (I know, I know, I suk. I should git gud - I'm trying, I swear!). Yes, the rapier is great at stunlocking lightly armored caster's and other dex builds (that aren't using washing poles - can't even get close to those bastards), but it doesn't seem to do much against heavy armor. With the stone ring, after 2-3 hits I may stagger a heavy armor opponent, but consider this: at the sime time, I've taken 1-2 hits from their bigass weapon, which almost definitely staggers me. Also, these bigass weapons seem very difficult to dodge (might be lag, might be the massive hitboxes). All I can say is, in a build that I'm playing with about 50-50 wins-losses, about 90% of the losses come from str builds, in heavy armor, with bigass weapons.

[Kibbles]

Dex spam? DEX spam? No.

[Big Boom Boom]

DEX spam is probably only viable by turtling behind a Greatshield which require a lot of STR to 1h it. Don't know how effective it is by turtling Greatshield + Rapier weapon but Spear/Lance and even Halberd is definitely viable. Lance is also very good to turtle if you do not infuse them with elemental, as they have 160 Counter damage (only affect Physical).

[cua_bien02]

Messaggio originale di Big Boom Boom:

DEX spam is probably only viable by turtling behind a Greatshield which require a lot of STR to 1h it. Don't know how effective it is by turtling Greatshield + Rapier weapon but Spear/Lance and even Halberd is definitely viable. Lance is also very good to turtle if you do not infuse them with elemental, as they have 160 Counter damage (only affect Physical).

In that case backstab is the way to go.

[Big Boom Boom]

Messaggio originale di cua_bien02:

Messaggio originale di Big Boom Boom:

DEX spam is probably only viable by turtling behind a Greatshield which require a lot of STR to 1h it. Don't know how effective it is by turtling Greatshield + Rapier weapon but Spear/Lance and even Halberd is definitely viable. Lance is also very good to turtle if you do not infuse them with elemental, as they have 160 Counter damage (only affect Physical).

In that case backstab is the way to go.

Jester body!