So has anyone been leveling Adaptability at all?

I'm around level 90 now and I just noticed I haven't put a single point into it. I've heard it increases move speed, flask drinking speed, and invincibility frames on your roll, so it seems super useful and I'm kind of regretting not leveling it.

To anyone who has leveled it, does it seem useful so far at all? I'm tempted to respec. :/

It's extremely useful.

It absolutely increases your speed / rolls and it gives you natural poise. So yeah, i'd get it up to at least 20.

I've been levelling it up because I felt like my guy was real slow at the beginning. I've gotten it to around 15 or so and I'm feeling like my guy is now agile enough to do what I want him to do when I want him to do it, so I'll probably stop leveling it.

Nah I guess it's useful but so is vit, vig, str and end. So many useful stats this time around since they spread out the effects more.

I've gotten it to about 15 with SL of 67. I can certainly see a difference in flask drinking speed, although it hasn't been a complete game changer or anything. I feel like getting it to around 20-25 is ideal depending on the rest of your build.

I have at 15 right now (SL 83), but I plan on also getting it to 20+. It's proven quite useful so far.

Thanks guys. While I'm not really having any trouble progressing through the game right now, I'll definitely pump a few points into it.

I have about 21 adaptability which is roughly 99 agility. I'd need a side by side comparison with my default stat for me to know how much faster I am. But I like to imagine it helps me a great deal. Being able to fast roll is great, even if the distance I cover is small. I find the invincibility frame on the roll to be longer too, though I'm not sure if that's an agility factor or something they just buffed in general from Dark Souls 1.

The flask drinking speed increase alone is reason enough for me to dump some points into it every so often.

I feel that Adaptability is THE STAT if you want to be any good at PVP or if you're in the Company of Champions.

Enemies are a lot faster to react and counterattack while in the covenant so you need to be able to quickly dodge after attacking. Those turtle enemies were almost impossible to attack without getting hit with a counter attack (couldn't get away fast enough) when I was just starting out, but with 20 Adaptability they basically can't touch me unless I get greedy. The same went for the sentinels in the tower. I was too slow to reliably attack after their combo, but I was eventually able to attack 2 times in a row and still have enough time to dodge away.

It is my highest stat (currently SL 60) and I plan to continue to level it up for PVP purposes. I'm around 30 hours in and I've engaged in PVP (1v1 fights) around 15 times.

I have 21 and I'm not so sure about it. I don't feel like my guy moves half as fast as the enemies still, even the big knights seem to be able to react quicker. I wear lions armor too so I'm PRETTY light.As far as it being the PVP stat, I don't think it matters when everyone still seems to just want to lagstab you. They need better networking for these games if they continue. I thought it was ok in DS, bad in DS1, and still bad in DS2. Whenever I end up in a fight where people are clearly just trying to lag stab I just run around in circles with my shield up because that's boring. I really wish they'd limit healing too. Using a Lloyds takes too long and is likely to get you killed.

I am still at 10 for this stat. And I am SL 109. I don't see the need to increase it any further.

I'm not clear on healing during PVP. There are times when I've been UNABLE TO HEAL during a fight. My estus and life gems were grayed out. It might be related to the Company of Champion covenant as I've been invaded while in the covenant and while I was in something else. I'll take note of this moving forward to see when I'm limited.

@golguin: You can not heal if you are summoned to another world as a grey phantom (pvp). Not sure about any other situations. Only time I haven't been able to heal.

What's a gray phantom? There was definitely no healing allowed during several 1v1 PVP fights.

@sterling: I was able to heal when I was summoned as a grey phantom. It seemed to heal me way slower than usual, though.

I've been putting points in it hoping that it will increase the estus animation speed from the abysmal rate at which I drink now, but quite honestly I don't know if I can really tell any difference. I have it at 14 or 15 and I just might stop. I've sort of made peace with the fact that drinking Estus in boss fights is nigh impossible now and simply rely on the stones instead.

@golguin: A grey phantom is when you are summoned to another world for PVP due to a covenant ring. There are two that have this. This way the person who is in the covenant has the better advantage of the person they fight. As they can set traps.

@steadyingmeat: Hmm, I've yet to be able to heal when I get summoned to fight for the bells. And I don't think I could for the rats either.

Its one of the best stats, you should absolutely level it- for virtually any build possible. I guess you COULD maybe ignore it if you're going to do a super heavy armor tank build, but it still increases Estus and item use speed so even just that is helpful from the agility.

It caps the agility out hard in the high 30s it seems, I think 37-39 ish, just a note.

I've never been summoned into another world as part of a PVP ring. It has all been cracked red eye orb on my part and getting invaded by other people in my world while I'm by myself. All I know for sure is that I was able to heal during a fight (did it on 2 occasions) and there have been times when my healing options were grayed out.

@golguin: Maybe they threw a Loyd's Talisman at you?

Yeah, I level ADP and VIT every few levels, it's definitely had an impact.

No. No one has used a Lloyd Talisman on me. This didn't just happen once. I have been unable to heal on multiple occasions. It struck me as very odd because I thought that invaders now had the ability to heal, which seemed crazy to me because I was used to never healing in Dark Souls PVP.

Trust me when I tell you it makes a world of difference. I keep my weight below 50% and I kept testing out roll speeds when I first started to level up the stat to see how much of a difference it was making. Increasing the stat by 3 points at a time every few hours while still fighting the same enemies makes it most apparent. The turtles and the sentinels at the tower are undeniable proof. Spamming the dodge button after a single attack and getting smashed as I tried to dodge compared with attacking twice and then being able to dodge away is HUGE.

@steadyingmeat: I find it to be pretty useful. I leveled it pretty aggressively at the beginning since I was curious as to what it did. I guess the way I would describe it is that it makes movement and item usage feel closer to DSI, if that makes any sense. You drink Estus faster, get more invincibility in your rolls and it seems to lessen the "dead time" at the end of an attack sequence (in other words, I recover from my attack animation faster, letting me roll or raise my shield sooner).

It might also increase the speed at which Estus heals you? That last one might just be my imagination though, or that could be affected by something totally different, but I definitely feel like I'm getting healed faster by Estus than I was at the beginning.

@sterling: I've had people be able to heal when they come and play with me in my playground, so you can definitely heal as a grey. Before I joined the covenant I got kidnapped and was allowed to heal too, as a grey.

I was thinking about getting it up to 20. We will see. I have a few other stats that have taken priority at this moment but after I get STR up to 30 I'll probably split leveling between endurance and the mobility stat.

When raised in lockstep with END it grants natural poise. So that's good if you want to maintain light armor.

Doesn't it also increase resistances to poison, bleed, and such?

@lawgamer:

I believe it's a .5 second difference between no adp, and max.

When I get the game I intend to play a fragile speedster type character. So yeah Imma be putting points into it like crazy.

I'd argue it's tied for the most important stat alongside endurance (for my tanky build at least). I don't even roll a ton, but when I need to roll, I usually need to roll fast. Also, it dramatically decreases the amount of time it takes to get a shield up after rolling/getting staggered, which is essential as a greatshield user. I was having real trouble with the controls for a while before I realized what adaptability was.

All movements felt really slow when I first started the game because of my low adaptability. At 20 it's starting to feel like the old Dark Souls, but the roll still isn't where I need it to be (fast roll) and I'm hoping for something like the flip ring for an even faster dodge animation.

I actually might do this when I do the respec.

I have mine at about 20 and I feel faster anyways. I'm thinking of taking a new character and killing the first boss then putting all my souls into adaptability just to see if you can notice a difference from the huge raise at once.

@golguin: My first playthrough was a heavy character, so roll speed didn't matter a ton, it was just the massive delays getting into/out of the roll that was the killer. Around 20 was when it started to get better, but I went all the way to 30 and it still felt like it kept improving.

I was thinking of burning one of my re-spec items and pumping it up to 50 and see what its like with that. See how crazy fast the animations feel compared to 10. I'll do that tomorrow probably as I am done for the night.

Couldn't sleep, load it up and tested it out. Then realized I must be too tired to do this, because the animations didn't seem any faster to me. Like at all. So off to bed.

I just did a near-naked run to get one of the items talked about by Brad/Vinny a lot in their recent chats (no spoilers). After doing that, I've started going as naked as possible just in the general game. I'm currently levelling DEX/END/ADP, running around two-handing a sword and generally being a shieldless rollmonkey. So far I'm keeping VGR and VIT at 4, and I'm really enjoying the play style. The difference between wearing full armour and naked rolls is pretty major (probably largely because of my low base VIT). I suspect at some point if I can learn pyromancy I'll try that? My Dark Souls character was a dexy pyro too.

In closing, equip load matters a lot; I'm levelling ADP but haven't really tested anything about its effect other than the poise-raising.

(I'm also interested to see if melee builds tend to go DEX/ADP/END and STR/VGR/VIT or if other stat clusters work for people.)

I feel like Vit is for Heavy builds and ADP is for dual wielder/ fast roll builds, but I could be completely wrong. I got my ADP to 15 and my shield raise speed seems fine now, which is what screwed me in the early game.

So I just raised my ADP about 14 levels, and......Honestly, I'm not really seeing much of a difference in anything. I think I'll go to about 25 and see if that makes any more of a difference.

It was the first stat I readily put my points in to beef up a little. It's also why for my second character I chose the explorer starting class due to its higher starting adapt stat. I haven't yet played through the game with a low adapt stat, so I can't compare how much harder it'd be without it, but given the animation speeds and other such benefits it's undoubtedly proven to be very useful.

Up until SL60 or so, I was a little hesitant to bump up END and ADA, but they're both now sitting at 14 (I think) and there's a very slight difference, but it's just enough to give me an edge, mainly because I'm able to get one extra swing in and I also roll a wee bit faster.

I think Adaptability and Endurance have to be leveled simultaneously, if you want the most out of it. I've seen a few people talk about stats that lose some of their effectiveness as soon as they pass another stat. I believe with ADP/END it's the natural poise that you have to gain from both.

Correct. I mean... if you don't care about Poise and just want the Agility, you can forego END, but I'm not sure I recommend ignoring either. That said, it's probably not necessary to go crazy with those stats, depending on your build.

Well I just used two of my respec items and leveled it to 99 and here's what I thought about it:

- Estus drinking time is definitely faster. Not by a whole lot, but it's definitely noticeable.

- You bring up your shield a lot faster

And that's all I noticed. Run and roll speed seemed pretty much the same to me. Didn't test it out in combat, so I can't comment on the invincibility stuff.