Answer however you like. Whether that be you'd had the most fun with it, you think it is the most unique, has the most interesting dynamic, gives the best rewards, whatever.

For me, it is probably Heirs of the Sun. I just really like helping people for some reason and I find I get summoned much faster and more frequently when I'm in that covenant. Also, while I was a bit disappointed, on some level I like how the first two rewards you get are kind of useless. I still used the shield a bit as I only use those for parrying.

On a side note, I absolutely hate the Blue Sentinels. For whatever reason, I've never been summoned as one even in NG+. It's shitty.

just like dark souls i feel kinda indifferent about all of them - i appreciate the handy arena the Blood brotherhood have, but i'm not into invading, at least as a sinner, i like co-op a lot, but is there any real reason to do it as a sunbro rather than as a regular white phantom?

I like the Pilgrims of Dark covenant the best. The Dark Chasm of Old is a great challenge and the boss is one of the more interesting from a combat perspective.

I've spent a lot of time in the Bell bros. I like the Belfry Sol as a PvP area, but Belfry Luna is crap.

I think I've seen a bunch of Blue Sentinels in Belfry Sol. Sometimes I invade as a grey phantom and an Arbiter of Justice shows up. I think they must be using blue eye orbs to invade sinners. I assume they're Sentinels but don't know for sure. Invading someone who is already fighting two dudes seems like a good way to cheese that covenant's ranks.

Heirs of the Sun: I generally like this covenant. It pretty much the only good co-op covenant in the game. I like that you do the Praise the Sun gesture when you get summoned, and it is a nice call back to DSI. Plus, I find that the rewards for this covenant are actually kind of OK. They certainly aren't great, but I haven't found another way to get them outside the covenant and I can at least see some limited circumstances where they might be useful to low level players or specific builds.

Way of the Blue: Utterly useless. I find that invasions are usually quite rare, and they've done a better job of balancing the invasions that do occur, so you aren't typically in the DSI position of getting griefed by someone you have no chance of beating. There is really no reason to be in this covenant.

Brotherhood of Blood: Hate this covenant. The requirements for gaining rank are ridiculous and you get -1 to your count if you get killed. Most of the rewards are pretty poor too, and you can get all of them as drops in NG+ or later.

Blue Sentinels: Again, since invasions are so rare, I have never once been summoned to help someone else repel an invader. Plus, the requirements for gaining rank require a ridiculous number of kills, compounded by the fact that you get -1 to your counter if you lose. Also like the Brotherhood of Blood, all of the rewards kind of suck, and are available in other places.

Bell Keepers: Probably my favorite covenant. You get reliably summoned for PvP, to the extent that it can be almost obnoxious sometimes. It is a good way to farm titanite chunks, which you get when you win, and because entry into the affected areas is voluntary for other players, it avoids my objection to the Rat King covenant.

Rat King: I think this covenant is an interesting idea that wasn't entirely successful in implementation. I like the idea of being able to place traps for other players, but in practice there is no reason to do so. You do get Pharros Lockstones for wins, but there are plenty of those to go around in normal gameplay.

My primary objection to this covenant is that unlike the Bell Keepers, where you get summoned as an invader, in the Rat King covenant, other players are forcibly summoned to your world to participate. As I find this strongly objectionable when I'm playing solo, I don't feel it is right to subject other players to it either.

Dragon Remnants: No experience with this covenant.

Company of Champions: Kind of a "meh" covenant for me. I suppose its good for bragging rights, but you can get largely the same effect by tossing a few Bonfire Ascetics, which has the added benefit of allowing you to continue to co-op if you want.

Pilgrims of Dark: No experience with this covenant. I kind of wish they hadn't made it so damn difficult to join, since you apparently have to hunt down some dude three times in out of the way places to get into the covenant.

Just my two-cents. Overall, I really wish that they had done a better job with the rewards. Right now they occupy a place sort of the like the Boss Soul weapons - occasionally useful but generally underwhelming. I feel like the covenant rewards need to be both useful and unique to the covenants so that there is an actual reason to grind for the levels. This is particularly true with the Blue Sentinels and Brotherhood of Blood - if I have to kill that many damn players, the rewards had better be pretty awesome, and right now they aren't.

Phantoms can be summoned by players who are within 10 levels of them +10% (example, a player of level 50 can summon players of between level (50 - 10 = 40 * .9 =) 36 and (50 + 10 = 60 * 1.1 =) 66. Heirs of the Sun are the only exception to the rule as the player of level 50 can also summon them if they are within 10 levels and +20%. So 32 and 72 respectively.

@zevvion: ah okay, that's a good enough reason, heirs of the sun it is!

Blue Sentinels, which is the only one I've really tried to get into was a gigantic disappointment. I've worn their stupid ring for 35 hours, been summoned twice, and NEVER been on time to help.

Oh, and Bell Keepers and Rat Scum can go f*ck themselves.

Company of Champioins: I found this covenant to be a lot of fun, even if I thought it took a bit too long to reach the top rank. Still the extra challenge was welcome and entertaining.

Pilgrims of Dark: This one is my favourite, challenging maps with really good encounters, especially given the fact that this is "just" a sidequest. Plus Darklurker is an awesome boss, even though I did have pyromancies attuned at the time, without knowing it would be extremely weak to it. Flame Swathe needs a nerf I guess... just a joke, don't kill me

Heirs of the Sun: Jolly cooperation is always a good fun. I was Sunbro all the way in DKS, here I think it's good that it takes some time to reach this covenant as Sunlight Spear is just a beast. Other than that the extra soul memory\level range for sunbros is a good touch.

Brotherhood of Blood: I love PVP, though I suck so at times I manage to run out of cracked red eye orbs... I really miss the infinte invasion items. The arena can be a good fun as well.

Blue Sentinels: Well being called "Arbiter of Justice" feels kinda cool but the amount of downtime between summons kinda soured it for me. I guess there are just too few people in the Way of Blue.

don't have personal experience with the other covenants. Ratbros are at times kinda annoying as I just want to pass through that area but I guess it's not that bad. Bell Keepers are pretty much the same. What saves those from being extremely frustrating is the fact that all the related areas are optional except from Door of Pharros, where though I have yet to be invaded...guess the game likes me. Dragon covenant feels a bit weird and like too much work, I will eventually get to it.

Is just wearing the blue sentinel ring alone supposed to get you summoned automatically? I know little and less about how invading works so I'm curious, as I'm actually a member of BS currently.

I've been sticking with Way of Blue because I want to see if the damn thing works, and so far, it hasn't. I've been invaded a handful of times and each time I've been invaded a Blue Sentinel has never showed up (yes, I'm wearing my ring). I'm either killing the invaders too quick (happened a couple of times) or I'm being killed too quick (this is more likely since I suck at PvP) but I haven't seen a single Blue Sentinel yet.

You need to be human while wearing your ring. A member of the Way of Blue needs to be human and also wearing their ring and get invaded. No one is in the Way of Blue because it's a shitty covenant, so no one in BS ever gets summoned.

The only one I reached max devotion was Pilgrims of the Dark. Never found the covenants to have enjoyable mechanics surrounding them or worthwhile rewards. Mostly just deal with them to get extra lore and world contex.

They were great ideas. Just poorly implemented. If crack red eye orbs were more plentiful (like a lot more) and you didn't have to be human while wearing the rings. A lot more people would use them.

I've tried most of them. Uhhh ill do a run down like everyone else.

Way of blue- i always start as one just cus Why not? Free hp ring to start you out but i bounce once im able.

Blue Sentinels - Wellll, i WOULD absolutely LOVE this covenant. Protecting people who arent good at PvP from being shanked, invading invaders and NPC killers, doing honorable duals. Sounds perfect. It's just busted. Which is a huge shame.

Brotherhood of blood - Well its pretty much exactly like the darkwraiths in dark souls 1. Except you don't get an infinite orb which blows. Free duals makes it superior to blue sentinels who have to pay a token of fedelity for each dual which is just stupid and unnecessary. Aside from that its ok. They should patch in an infinite orb though...

Heirs of the Sun - Jolly cooperation. Good fun. If im summoning help, which i often do now that ive already beaten the game solo so now i can guilt free summon for every boss i opt for any Sun duders. Because well, thats their thing!

Bell Keepers - This one is great. Rapid fire pvp summons if you're wearing the ring and near a belltower. Plus you get titanite chunks each win you get. I mean it does make going through the bell towers kinda hell because you WILL be invaded but whatever its good fun. Tons of chunks. Great covenant.

Dragon Remnants - I oddly really like this. It's basically just a glorified red summon sign but it's all good fun. One of my favorites. Easy to max out too, so if you want that achievement/trophy i'd just spam duals for an hour on iron keep bridge. It was the first covenant i maxed out. Plus you get nifty dragon stones that turn you into a dragon knight, not great but its a fun little toy to play with.

Pilgrims of the Dark - Took me FOREVER to find the location in black gulch. But uh i joined, entered the dungeon, proceeded to get jumped by two guys going nuts with a third spamming massive fireballs at me and i proceeded to go NOPE dont care enough and left.

Champion covenant - NOPE NOPE NOPE.

EDIT- forgot the rat king covenant.

Rat King - I was only in it alittle bit, takes too long in between invaders and you can't go somewhere else, so i can't farm items inbetween bell invasions for example. Aside from that its pretty cool. The trap idea is nifty. I dont get why people get mad at rat covenant guys, you dont lose anything even if you die to them.

Well Pilgrims is easily the best covenant; but apart from that I suppose the Bellkeepers gave me the most enjoyment; both being invaded and invading others. Belfry Sol is awesome.

You can still do Blue Sentinel invasions without getting summoned using cracked blue eye orbs, and you can do arena combat PvP using tokens of fidelity at the statues near the Blue Cathedral bonfire... but yeah, the lack of ring summoning kind of sucks. Heirs of the Sun, Pilgrims of the Dark and Bell Keepers are the best.

@bambamcz: @clonedzero: @sterling: I don't know if you already know this but you can buy cracked red eye orbs in NG+ and there not cheap either. It is a shame there isn't an infinite red eye orb though.

Heirs of the Sun - I enjoy co-op way more than PVP and they seem to connect more easily. Sunlight Spear is great fun as well.

Bell Keepers - Mainly for the titanite chunks especially early on in the game.

The one main problem I have with most covenants is that when you go to offer whatever it is to rank up there isn't an offer all or offer a certain amount choice, so sitting there offering for example 30 sunlight medals is a pain.

Aside of the Pilgrims of Dark I hate the covenants , I mean I like the old invasion stuff since the Demon Souls days , but most of covenants have so much silly requirements that just blows it. It too bad that there arent many traps on the normal levels that they are kept for the rat covenants , I still remember my fav kill in Dark Souls 1 me activating the bridge on the catacoombs making my invader fall to his death. And friggin hate that miracles are tied to them as rewards .... sheesh I just want my wrath of gods without having to engage on PVP. So if there is another Souls game I sooo hope they scale back all this covenant nonsense and just make it regular invasions and co op (and apparently they are still the ones that actually work on Dark Souls 2 anyway). Or make covenants offline like the Pilgrims of Dark (which is why it is my favorite)

My favorite would probably be Bell Keepers. It was a nice way to kill some time and gain some extra souls and chunks. It's also great that upon successful invasions you get all your spell uses, equipment durability, and estus reset even if you're in the middle of a dungeon when being summoned. My only complaint is that the devotion rewards are kind of bunk for a full magic user. So stay the hell out of the bell tower or else.

Second place would go to Heirs of the Sun. Encouraging co op play is simply a pleasant experience to be apart of. Sunlight Spear is pretty rad as well. Pilgrims of the Dark is okay if a bit easy. It's kind of weird that you need to do a scavenger hunt for Darkdiver before joining. The Darklurker was fairly challenging as far as optional bosses go. Rest of the covenants were sort of whatever.

I like the Rat King covenant myself, setting traps, ambushing, getting some areas mobs just wont hit you in, and the joy of working for such a nice boss. Nothing beats it!

Woah, woah, woah. You DO NOT get the same effect by tossing a few Bonfire Ascetics. Company of Champions is unique.

NG+ and Company of Champions does not equal NG++.

NG+ is not the same as Company of Champions as the covenant doesn't spawn additional red phantoms in various areas or for specific boss fights.

Company of Champions forces you into solo combat so you are forced to solo every boss.

Company of Champions also has the AI aggression boost. That is the most important part. I wont know if NG+ features the same AI aggression boost until I get there myself, but I've heard of no such feature in NG+.

Brotherhood of Blood, so I can invade with my special Rank 2 glowy. In all my hours, I've not once ever run into a "helper" Blue Sentinel. "Thorn in our sides" my ass, Titchy Gren.

@development: Yeah, Blue Sentinels is a worthless covenant. They should make Way of Blue more desirable, because I suspect the biggest problem is that no one is in that covenant because the only thing it does is something that rarely occurs anyway (being invaded). Either that or they should've made Red Eye Orbs more prevalent. In all my playthrougs I've been invaded like 3 times, not counting gray spirits. That's crazy. I put 150 hours into this game already.

Blue Sentinel : isn't a worthless covenent. Sure, they are badly implemented, their primary role isn't what I'm currently running with them and sure, the Brotherhood of Blood duel is better than the Blue Sentinel's one. I don't know if the Cracked Red Eye Orb works the same, but the cracked blue eye orb makes you invade all over Drangleic... I use the item in Iron Keep and invaded Forest of the Fallen Giants, Dragon Shrine or even Belfry Sol. While you only invade sinners, I ended up finding much more worlds to invade than with the Brotherhood of Blood. Plus, the -1 kill count with the Brotherhood of Blood, coupled to the number of kills required to rank up, ridiculous. Blue Sentinels have the same kill count, but no -1 upon death;

Brotherhood of Blood : Climbing ranks in this covenent a real nightmare. All the hardcore PvPers are in this one, so unless you resort on cheap builds, or are a PvP god, ou won't rank up in the Arena... adding to this the fact that the rewards are really underwhelming, you get the idea. This is stupid. On the plus side, the Arena is good and "free". Good thing.

Dragon remnants : A glorified duelling covenent. The fun part is that you can level up with them even without being part of them, since you get the dragon scales if you kill a dragon phantom.

Bell keepers : A really usefull covenent. You gang up against the poor soul who dare to enter the Belfries and get rewarded with titanite chunks ? Yes please ! Although, I feel sad for those I face while being a bell keeper.

Rat Covenent : I joined them for the ring and that's it. I'm kind of an honorable PvPer, so cheesing a poor soul with traps and monsters isn't my thing. The rewards are fun, but you get the same by place little white marks on the ground. On the other end, I like to wait in the Doors of Pharros or the Saints Tomb, just for the challenge of facing the guys on their very ground, winning against all odds. I find it more doable than being ganged up by two or three players, like when you step in the Belfries.

Company of Champions : I like challenges, so yes please. Plus, the last rank reward is marvelous. A ring that turns your bare fist into weapons more powerfull than a +10 Cestus ? YES PLEASE !

Pilgrims of the Dark : My first build wath a dex/hexe build, so this covenent was made for me. The content is cool and challenging (and not that hard... burn Dark Lurker, burn !) and I feel that covenent is the more "lore friendly". Plus, the ring... the ring ! +20% damage on your hexes ? Yes please ! My favorite !

Blue Way : Too bad it's so useless.

I haven't really messed with the Blue Sentinels, but I'm constantly getting invaded by them (around a few every hour). I imagine I'm constantly getting invaded because I'm a pretty high profile target. I'm SL 99 in a normal game with 165 hours (I have not gone into NG+), but I have a SM of 3 million so I'm drawing in all of the high SL and SM Blue Sentinels that want to play PVP against poor players that don't what they're doing and dabbled in invasions. Unfortunately for them I'm used to fighting in the Blood Arena against the good SL 150 players so they're mostly harmless. I won 50 cracked red eye orbs and used them to invade the Iron Bridge. I won most of them and I got my Sinner tag. I'm also human 100% of the time thanks to the ring so I'm high up in the invasion queue for those guys.

@golguin: Oh, yeah, Arbiters invade me all the damn time. I'm talking about the auto-invasion that's supposed to happen when Sentinels wear their ring.

@zevvion I've been invaded a lot by black phantoms, actually, but probably only in levels 150+. I'm currently like 315 and there are plenty of black phantom invasions; though, Arbiters are still far more common. If I hang out in the Bastille or Iron Keep for a few seconds or a couple minutes I'm pretty much guaranteed to get an invasion from one or the other (provided my online stuff is working correctly; sometimes it seems to just stop connecting me to other worlds for an hour without telling me).

My sentiments echo a lot of the posts in here. I want to like Blue Sentinels, but it's kinda busted, especially on a normal playthrough. The Sun covenant is at least pretty fun, plus since you can get summoned by much lower level players you can wreck house and feel good about helping a fellow out. Pligrims of the Dark is pretty interesting, though I wish there was more to it; more stages or what have you.

A lot of the covenants rewards across the board kinda suck, though. I would have loved if maxing out the Sun covenant would unlock the Solaire armour set or something.

@yummylee: Sunlight Spear makes sense as the ultimate reward, but yeah, the shield and the sword are both shitty. They don't seem to have any special use either. It's a bit disappointing. I was hoping the shield would give slightly increased miracle damage or something like that, and the sword should have had a special attack. But no... both are just crappy.

@zevvion: The sword seems OK, as it has the classic lunge attack, and I've never upgraded it fully but it at least starts off with a B scaling in both strength and dex. It has some merit at least, whereas the shield is just garbage. The sunlight spear is also pretty handy to have too, I'll give you that. And the dragon armour does look pretty cool, and not to mention is incredibly light as well despite having comparatively decent stats. Although the firebreath & dragon shout abilities don't seem especially useful; maybe the shout is at least beneficial in PVP.

I admit I was a little hasty to generalise all of the covenant rewards as being poor, but from what I've already unlocked or potentially read, there's nothing there that would excite me in levelling up for the chance to use them. Wrath of Gods sounds like something worth having, but man both the Blue Sentinels and the Blood covenants sound so unappealing to try and climb up the ranks of. I guess the Dark covenant is handy if you're a hex user, though none of my three characters are so, they haven't proven much worth to me personally.

Besides the titanite chunks, I'm to believe the Belfry and Rat covenant rewards are in general pretty lacklustre as well. I did get to rank 2 with the Belfry, but I can't even recall what the rewards were... And in that sense they can't have been that great.

I've joined the Bell covenant on NG+ mostly to do some PVP and for that purpose it's been the most useful covenant. You'd think the Blood guys would make invading a lot easier but nope it's the Bell if you want to get some quick PVP.

This also led me to the conclusion that PVP in this game is laggy and terrible. The amount of times I'd hear my sword hit the opponent and see them take no damage, or go halfway into a backstabbing animation and see them roll away is crazy. I'd roll away from guys only to lose health a second later. Not to mention that, as in almost all soul games, magic users will kill you in two shots.

Oh and let's not even mention poise. The amount of times I got stun locked by a rapier..let's just not.

So from a purely mechanical standpoint I think the Bell covenant works the best. In terms of fun I probably like the Sun covenant because of the comraderie.

@humanity: Set your network setting to restrictive in the options, if you haven't already. Should help lessen some of the latency, though it'll of course be at the price of cutting down the number of compatible players for you to coop/PVP with.

I'll give it a shot although after last nights intense PVPing session mixed in with attempting to fight the gargoyles in NG+ I feel as if I've had quite enough Dark Souls for a while.

The Bell Keeper Covenant is by far the best source of Titanite Chunks though. Getting one every time you kill a trespasser is pretty insane. Especially because you get to double team them from time to time. To my knowledge, there isn't a single enemy in the game that drops Chunks commonly. I've farmed the hands in Black Gulch for them, but I got like 6-7 Large Shards before I got another Chunk. Which took a lot longer than just doing Bell Keeper PvP, not to mention by the time you receive 5 or so Chunks, you'll have to use a bonfire ascetic. I did farming like this for a while as I also needed Large Shards, but it's ultimately not worth it if you just need the Chunks.

I have only reached level 2 in the Bell Keeper covenant, I always exit it whenever I have sufficient Chunks to upgrade everything I have, which is long before I reach level 3 (isn't level 3 like 150 kills or something?) but I remember the rewards also being a Titanite Slab. So that's not bad at all I would say. Yeah, Slabs are a lot more common in DS2 as opposed to the first game, but still.

You can get Wrath of the Gods in NG++ from Wallenger by the way. Sounds bad, but I bet it's faster than doing 150 arena kills.

I have one character that I used hexes with, and did enter the Pilgrims covenant, but from what I remember, the rewards aren't that great. They are all hexes you could buy anyway, with the exception of one, but that one uses all your souls upon use. I'm sure it does a lot of damage, but that's not worth it. You'll never need it.

I am currently a blue but reading through this thread makes a pretty good case for me to drop it.

I don't need to be a sentinel to use the Arena in the blue cathedral?

Can I always re-join as long as I have a fid token in my inventory. Because I do like the holy water. It's pretty much the only splash damage/crowd control option I have ...

OK I will answer my own question here in case anyone cares.

No, you cannot participate in the blue arena anymore after you abandon. Nor can you buy holy water.

But you probably all know this.

But then I have to wonder why the hate? It is a really useful covenant...

@haniball: This isn't the most active board in the world. One day for your question to be unanswered doesn't mean no one cares. No one just didn't see it yet.

Blue Sentinels get hate because the most basic purpose of the covenant doesn't work like it should. Far from it. I've had one entire playthrough being nothing but a Blue Sentinel. I was a Blue Sentinel in most of my other playthroughs for a while. I've never been summoned to defeat an invader. There are too many variables that are too strict for the covenant to not work.

1. As a Blue Sentinel you need to be fully human AND have the ring equipped. There is no other covenant with requirements this harsh. Only the Bell Keepers and Rat King covenants require you to wear their respective rings, but you needn't be human in those.

2. The person summoning you needs to be in the Way of Blue, a covenant that serves no purpose except having a Blue Sentinel help you out when you are invaded. Way of Blue rewards seem to indicate the covenant is supposed to be a counter to the Brotherhood (for example, Brotherhood receives increased bleed damage as a reward, Way of Blue receives decreased bleed damage taken as reward) but it doesn't truly go anywhere. The rewards can be found in the world, due to the low amount of invasions a lot faster than getting them through rewards. For these reasons, a lot of people seem to not join or stay in the Way of Blue.

3. Invasions are rare in NG in the first place, due to the limited number of Crack Red Eye Orbs in the world and relatively rare drops to get more.

4. The reward requirements of Blue Sentinels are insane. You need to kill 50, 150 and 500(!) invaders respectively to increase rank to 1, 2 and 3. These don't stack with arena kills either.

The main purpose of Blue Sentinels, and why people were excited to join them, was helping against invaders. That rarely happens if at all. The only purpose of the covenant now is the arena.

@zevvion: i get all that but the arena and the holy water are far from nothing. Its maybe just me but i always thought invasions are a bit of a gimmick anyways. There is rarely a good battle that comes from it. Tbh i was disapointed with the arena too. But it beats the belfry or pharros anyday.

@haniball: The Blue Cathedral arena isn't even as good as the Undead Purgatory arena as you don't spend a token to enter that arena like you do when you're in the Blue.

It's just an expectation thing. People expected to be able to assist players with invasions, and that didn't happen even a little bit. I think invasions are an incredibly fun part of the game. I doubt I'd have as much fun with the game as I'm having now without invasions and covenants. I still really like the Belfry's. It's a lot of fun. Most fun I had with PvP for sure. I especially like how the chance gets smaller to be summoned, but is still there, whenever you are in a different part of the world.

I remember I was about to die, out of spell uses, only half health, and being summoned to protect the bell. I managed to win the fight which made my character reset with full health, spell uses and Estus back in my world. It was the best. Good times.

I liked HotS, but spending a few hours in the rat covenant probably the most fun. I did lots of dirty cheap things, but the guy you summon loses nothing, so I didn't feel too bad.