SL 3 Darkwraith; Lautrec of Carim

With this build you will be able to invade anyone anywhere. it will require some advanced skill level and recommended for people who got familiar with the game already.

Quick overview

So, after playing dark souls for quite awhile i decided to share my build for roleplaying Lautrec and how to become a darkwraith on sl 3, to be able to invade anyone anywhere ( almost )
this is a bit hard build and heavily rely on parry and dodging, both pvp and pve.

This is 100% melee build.

The only magic you will rely on is power within (pyromancy) to buff your damage against bosses.

Starting Class: wanderer
Soul Level: 3 ( default value )
Gift: master key ( you will use it probaby just once to get havel ring )

Pros

• you will be able to invade anyone anywhere
  
• bonus props for roleplaying

Cons

• a tad hard
  
• no shield gameplay ( you would not use any shields to block, due lack of stamina to absorb damage, and you will be inable to use shields with descent stability anyway )

dual-weild with style
shields are for scrubs and backstabs are cheap, so take on parries like true swordsmen of Carim who famous for fighting without shield!

But why wanderer?

For people who wounder why you should pick wanderer for that build, here is why:

• because wanderer is sl 3. this is the lowest starting sl after pyromancer ( sl 1 ) and cleric ( sl 2 )
  
• you have enough dex & str to use falchion ( this will be your main bosskill weapon, since it's 2H R1 spam is fast enough )
  
• you have enough atunment to have one spell slot, and here goes power within (PW)
  
• you have enough intelligence to buy dragon lingering ring , which will be quite usefull in couple with PW
  
• you have enough stamina to midroll in armor with havel ring and all types weapons you will use.
  
• you have enough strenght to use quelag furysword two-handed
  
• you have enough str & dex to use lightning spear two-handed

Fight style

your fight style will be pretty simple: you parry with scimitar and two-handed riposite with rapier and hornet ring. this is how you will deal with all enemies and players, except bosses.

Required items & how to obtain

• first of all, you will need to do a suicide rush to blight town to get falchion. This will be your main boss kill weapon.
  
• next, you will need to buy rapier from undead merchant and equip it to right hand, scimitar will be used in left hand, so you will get used to parry animation and it's duration.
  
• rapier will be your main pve weapon against regular humanoid enemies.
  
• after you got rapier, go to tower basement and kill havel to get havel ring. it will be slightly faster using rapier then any other weapon.
  
• your next stop is elite knight armor, and it will be your main armor set untill you will kill four kings
  
• you will need to pick up lightning spear to get rid of iron golem
  
• you will need to join forest hunters to buy one shotel in blight town and abandon it after you become darkwraith obviously.
  
• you will need hornet ring, you don't need to fight sif, just get there after you established forest hunters covenant and stay away from sword. ring is behind the grave.
  
• you will need to visit lower undead burg and kill capra demon to get large ember ( no tips on killing capra othe then dodging his attack at first, getting up on high ground, killing dogs and killing capra while dodging. no need to try to use shield to block his attacks, since your lack of stamina, so two-hand your falchion and roll, this is your strategy for every boss in game )
  
• you will need steel protection and gold serpent rings from sen's fortress
  
• you will need crest shield from undead asylym
  
• don't forget to pick up shotel in sen's fortress, you would not use it as weapon untill you will become darkwraith so no need to upgrade it
  
• You will spend all souls you earn for weapons and armor upgrades. and keep character on starting level.

Pre-Anor Londo loadout

Weapons

right hand 1

• falchion +5 / +10 ( you will turn it into lightnign later )

right hand 2

• rapier +5 /+10

left hand 1

• scimitar +5 / +10 ( you will use it to turn it into quelag furysword later )

left hand 2

• pyromancy flame (unupgraded)

Armor

Elite knight armor ( upgraded as much as you can, unless you feel comortable enough to fight O&S without armor at all )

After reaching Giant blacksmith

after you reached giant blacksmith you upgrade your falchion to lightning to use against Smough and create quelag furysword from upgraded scimitar, which you will use to kill Ornstein.

!!! Getting Lautrec set !!!

before killing smough and orsntein you would want to kill knight Lautrec of Carim to get his armor after s&o fight. best way to kill him is get next to colomn where he and his buddies stand and wait for him to come to you. you will have a moment to parry him and if he would not die after that you should run away and catch him same way again. it may be hard, but this is one of the ways ( you don't necessary need to use pwer within, but if you willing, try to riposite him with quelag sword and hornet ring. not sure if he will die in one shot, since i killed him in 2 riposites and one hit using lightning falchion +1 )

Smough and Ornstein loadout

it doesn't really matter who you will kill first and last, but i recommend to use power within only on super-ornstein or super-smough.

anyway,

Weapons

right hand 1

• lightning falchion

right hand 2

• quelag furysword ( this is your weapon against ornstein, aswell as you will use it to riposite silverknighs in two-handed mode and just hit them one as they stand up )

left hand 1

• grass crest shield ( don't worry it will be useless for blocking against any boss and especially s&o, due your lack of stamina, so don't even try to block and just go two-handed, and yeah this is how you will fight all the bosses, sl 3 is sl 3 afterall)

left hand 2

• pyromancy flame (unupgraded) which you will use for power within

Armor

elite knight armor

Rings

havel ring, steel protection ring and lingering dragon crest ring if you are planning to use power within agains super-smought or super-ornstein ( doable without )

Alert!

after you done with S&O, you can breath freely, but don't talk to frampt of you would not be able to become darkwraith, anyway only 2 more bosses left to become darkwraith, so your next stop is great greywolf sif, which is not that hard and four kings

Four Kings loadout

Weapons

right hand 1

• lightning falchion

right hand 2

• power within

left hand 1

• crest shield ( you will block aoe and magic ball using it, other then that useless )

left hand 2

• empty

Armor

elite knight armor or lautrec armor (depends what upgraded better)

Rings

• havel ring
  
• covenant of artorias ring

Four kings strategy

your tactic will be simple: as soon as you on ground in abbys use power within and switch to falchion in two-handed of course. get close to king and spam him with r1. if your health is on 3-4 or half - heal. don't even block regular attacks and dodge only when you are about to heal.
you will kill 3 of them quite quickly and then your power within will ran out, so you just heal yourself and kill the last one.

Congradulations!

You killed 4 kings, so kaath appear.
place lordvessle with him, talk to him again and return to the abbys, he will ask you if you want to learn lifedrain, you say yes and you are SL 3 darkwraith.
feel free to use souls gained to upgrade favor armor and ONE shotel, since another will be used to parry only anyway.

Suggested loadout for pvp & pve

Lautrec loadout

Weapons
right hand 1

• lightning shotel +5

right hand 2

• chaos shotel +5

left hand 1

• chaos shotel +5

left hand 2

• pyromancy flame

you will switch from one to another shotel depending on enemy, left hand chaos shotel will do fire damage with light attack so you can put some presure on shield if striking with r2 is too dangerous yet, promancy flame will be used for power within.

rights

• havel ring
  
• steel protection ring

armor

• armor of embraced +5

PvP; Invading

so after you become darkwraith, you next stop is pvp
what you need to know about pvp?

get red eye orb
offer humanity to kaath as soon as possible to get red eye orb to invade infinite ammount of times.

are you ready to parry?
if you followed instructions above and used scimitar to parry enemies in pve you got used to curved swords parry animation, it's duration and have no habbit to press L1 anymore, so only couple of details left:

• in pvp you parry when person is abot to attack, not when animation started or in mid swing ( blind parry ) you will get used to it after some practice
  
• another type of parry is parry on 2nd hit, so if thats a fast weapon ( straight sword/katana/fist ) you press L2 right after you got hit 1st time, so your opponent will be stunned.

thats pretty much it. practice make it perfect, so enjoy invading anyone anywhere as Knight Lautrec the embraced on your SL 3 darkwraith.

it's VERY possible to take down high level players while you equiped lautrec loadout under power within if you parry them atleast once.

have fun!

Credits

Praise the FROM SOFTWARE for such an amazing game,
Praise Dark souls wiki and it's contributors for whole it's info and suggestions gathered together.
http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/

and feel free to give me an exsiccated cookie for this guide.
yeah, i'm exact creator of this one.
wikispaces name: lautrec_of_carim
gfwl name: Yan of Astora

link of guide/build on wiki:
http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/page/history/SL+3+Darkwraith%3B+Lautrec+of+Carim

good luck and have some nice parries!

[Tactical Shift]

to be fair the guide is quite outdated, or may be i got a bit better, basically if you will run with the shotel all the time, having it the only weapon you've upgraded to lightning, it's going to be good enough to kill everything, no need to get extra swords or falchion

[Elllll]

Honestly, im not slagging off this guide, since ive just spent many hours following it, just had a few questions :)

[Tactical Shift]

@telf, honestly it's not like you are being forced to do it, but if you would want to, you have a way

[Elllll]

@zebra

I realise that it lets you invade people at low levels, but surely its a little bit pointless? Imean, they are not going to put up much of a fight, are they?

[Tactical Shift]

1) to invade people freely
2) yes, this is how you parry

[Elllll]

Couple of quesitons:
How do i parry with the scimitar? With a sheild, i press tab, but if i do that with the scimitar, my character just twirls it around?

[Elllll]

What on earth is the point of becoming a darkwraith at SL3?

[Zillywen]

the weapons are wrong to be exactly like lautrec there are only 2 shotels one in rh1 and lh1 and lh2 is parrying dagger and the shotels are normal +15

[Stomo]

No honor.

[Zillywen]

i take that back i was terrible at parrying please forgive me lord