I just finished my initial testing with the Brotherhood of Blood dueling arena. I asked everyone I fought for their soul level to try to figure out the soul level range for the duels in that place. My current Soul Level is 67 and I have a Soul History of 500,000 souls. The people I fought had the follow soul levels...

? (did not give me soul level, but I believe his level was very high)

150

115

124

60

157

86

78

111

100

I have seen a lot of conflicting reports on what governs PVP invasions, but I haven't really seen anything with the arenas. My invasions with the Red Sign Soapstone revealed that most people were close to my own soul level so my findings in the arena were pretty surprising.

You might say that Soul History could be playing some part in how the match making is getting set up in the Brotherhood of Blood dueling arena, but to that I present this little piece of information. The guy with the SL of 157 asked for my Soul History (he was interested in what I was doing) and I gave him my 500,000 number. He told me his Soul History was 3.59 million.

This has lead me to conclude that the Brotherhood of Blood dueling arena has no soul level range. It seems to be first come first server. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

I plan to experiment with the Blue Sentinels in a similar fashion to see if the same thing is happening over there.

I think you are correct, that the arenas do not have a level restriction. I am a Blue Sentinel and have been doing the training matches in that. And I have fought guys that were way more powerful than me, and wearing much later game armor. So they must have had a much higher soul count. I also fought one dude who must have just found the place, because he was using all starting game gear and I killed him in two hits. I don't like the arena matches. Because I have yet to have a close, seaming "fair" fight. One of us is always overpowered compared to the other.

I think it might truly be "training" because you don't lose anything from participating in the fights. You can use the place as much as you like and see what type of late game equipment and abilities people are using. I've learned that random explosions during combos seems to be a popular thing. It seems like a counter attack spell or something.

I think it might truly be "training" because you don't lose anything from participating in the fights. You can only gain cracked orbs. You can use the place as much as you like and see what type of late game equipment and abilities people are using. I've learned that random explosions during combos seems to be a popular thing. It seems like a counter attack spell or something.

@golguin: Its a ring, I actually just found it in the fog forest area. After so much damage it explodes. I haven't seen anyone using it though myself. I haven't tried as it doesn't state if I take damage from its explosion or not.

@sterling: You don't take damage from the exploding ring. It actually says in the description....the user reamins unharmed of something like that.

So, another question. Have you found a reliable way to acquire/buy cracked red eye orbs? I only always find very few all over the place and thus immediately run out, especially since you also loose them if the host disconnects or banishes you.

Also, that explosion ring just fucking sucks. Way cheap.

Where is this dueling arena? I found the blood covenant.

@demoskinos: For that one, its in that room with the dude who is the covenant master. Those three statuses on the wall. You have to be in the covenant to use them though. Same for the Blue Sents, the room with the bonfire has three statuses. All three for each do the same thing as far as I can tell.

You can join the Brotherhood of Blood and fight in the duel arena (talk to statue right across from the short covenant dude). You will get a cracked red eye orb for each victory. You don't lose your humanity or anything from participating in the duels so you can do it as much as you like.

@golguin:

Yeah, but don't you use up your tokens of spite if you loose? Meaning if you start out with very few red eye orbs or tokens and loose once or twice you're done?

Oh weird. I'll have to check that out.

No because you could always use your red soapstone to earn more tokens of spite.

As far as I know you don't lose anything. I had about 14 tokens of spite before I started. I fought around 10 matches and lost most. It didn't seem like I lost anything as I still had my tokens of spite. You just win cracked red eye orbs.