Respeccing questions

[Phog]

I'm still pretty new to Dark Souls 2 (first Souls game I've ever played is III, II is my second), so I have a question regarding respeccing my character with a Soul Vessel that ties into the meta builds of Dark Souls II - is everything viable? What i mean is, can I respecc my character into whatever I want - pyromancer, sorceror, hexer, strength/dex, etc. - and be able to use it in PvP and PvE? Like I said, I'm new to the game, so I'm not sure what playstyles are viable and which aren't.

Another question, while I'm at it - Are hexes any good for PvP? I mean, they seem strong, yes, but as far as I know all of them require souls to be used, and that means you have to keep collecting souls to use them, thereby increasing your Soul Memory and making it more difficult to find PvP matches. I'm sure they're good at first, but in the long run they end up screwing you over, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Bonkers]

Dark weapons buffed with Dark/Resonant Weapon is pretty much the best you can get AR-wise.

[MobiusPizza]

first, not all hexes consumes your souls
second, there is not actually top SM for pvp. I have a 300M SM caracter that still can find easy pvp at iron bridge and the blood arena.

Anything is actually viable, but some things are harder to use than others, about best boulds I don't really know much since I don't use to pvp. Anyway with the Soul Vessel you can reset all lvl points you got, but starting from the starting class, so if you started with a caracter with 10 fth you'll never be able to have less than 10.

[hachimagi]

Pure spellcasters can be easily avoided by experienced players.
Other than that, it mostly depends on your weapon and you can use some of the best weapons for pvp like the longsword and estoc with very low requirements.
So yeah it doesnt really matter.

[myoptic]

Casting is low tier for PvP, especially​ you use it as a crutch and never develop other good PvP skills.

You'll find that a lot of other players aren't that good and you can hit them with spells. Once you get a decent opponent, spells are pretty useless, even when used in combination.

On the other hand, sorcery nukes and pyromancy can be very useful when invading.

Not every weapon is PvP viable. There are good weapons and bad, independent of skill level. This isn't paper rock scissors. If i win with a Greatsword, it isn't because I'm good, it's because they were bad.

Try a straight sword or thrusting sword if you are new to PvP. Work on playing unlocked, spacing, running attacks, avoiding panic rolls​, etc.

Don't listen to the "anything is viable" and "I need a 200 soul level advantage to win in the arena" crowd.

[LastTourniquet]

Like what Mobius said if you respec with a Soul Vessel just remember that you HAVE to have at least the base stats that your character started with. You can not go bellow those base stats.

Something else you should be aware of is if you decide to do PvP mainly in the Arena then you do not have to worry about Soul Memory since the Arena is based on Soul Level (this is only the arena, all other PvP is based on Soul Memory).

Everything is viable for PvE but obviously some things are more effective than others. For example a Broken Strait Sword isn't going to be as effective as a Long Sword but if you really wanted to you could play through the entire game with the Broken Strait Sword. (Infact multiple people have).

For PvP it becomes a little bit more difficult when deciding if something is viable. It depends on the player mindset. Its easy to say you can beat the game (PvE) with a really weak weapon because everything is fairly predictable and there isn't any connection lag, but when playing PvP that isn't always the case. From my personal experience I mostly see Greatswords, Katana's, Rapiers, Ultra Greatswords, and some pure mages or off-hand spell casters here and there. That isn't to say those are the only things I see but as far as what is the most 'viable' for PvP I would say something that fits into those catagories.

[Yukkuri_Dango]

Yes, you can redistribute all of your stats however you like (you can't go lower than your class' base stats though). PVP and PVE use the same stats. You can get a soul vessel very early in the game, and you can get like 5 soul vessels throughout the game (near the endgame there's a good spot to farm soul vessels AND levels, if you wish) so you can experiment with several buils on one character.

[TrueArchery]

There are multiple definitions of "meta" .
The most common two are "most effective tactic available" (or something along those lines, fits well enough as abbreviation tho) and "most commonly encountered tactic/equipment" .

Sure some weapons fit both definitions, like the ice rapier, but ie the chaosblade isnt actually top tier because of the selfdamage which can be abused. However its extremely overused.

In terms of random pvp the "everything is viable" crowd isnt even wrong, since this game isnt - as said - rock paper scissors, but once you enter the skilled players zone rules change drastically.