I was trying to get ranks in the Brotherhood of Blood covenent, but I think I'll abandon the idea, I'm getting sick of PvP.
Online, you encounter always the same thing :

- Buffed katana's and their laggy thrust of doom
- Buffed greatswords and their laggy thrust of doom

Now and then, you encounter some guy with original playstile, like this one using dual rapiers, not powerstanced, hitting with one, then the other, having somewhat better speed than if attack with only one... Or this guy with Ironclad armor two handing Havel's shield (which was annoying, but refreshing at the same time). But that's rare exemples. Other rarities are those who find ways to cheese their way like this guy and his buffed dagger, ALWAYS lagstabbing. The magic spammers seems to be less prominent, but those who still resorts on spells are so good at it you must be really cautious.

Before I knew it, I was myself resorting on cheap technique to try and climb the ranks. I think the "-1 killcount" is actually ruining the stuff, because it makes people use cheap tricks to win... actually more than they would without it. When a guy has a glowing aura, you know he will kill you in two or three swings, roll under all your attacks and/or lagstab you. Add to this the modded characters of doom you encounter from time to time and it makes the PvP a sad mess. Guys who PvP for fun seems to be non-existent.

Am I the only one to feel this way ?

oh yeah...well the truth is DS2 was not designed with PvP in mind at all. PvP is utter crap in this game compared to the previous one. J blackmel and other very high end PvP uploaders are just not playing the game at all for a myriad of reasons amongst which you find:

1) stupid stun locks that seem to be encouraged by the bad design of the game (why nerfing so badly the poise system it was so good even with the abuse of havel noobs compared to this stunlock fest)

2) complete imbalance in scaling making physical damage fairly useless

3) clumsy controls, slow response time and lags that are not any better than in the p2p protocol that we had in DS1...

the design of the game forces players into stremalined magic buff builds with fast hitting weapons to be efficient. they will not fix it. it is just a bad direction choice.

PvE is quite fun though for a while.

I got 50 orbs/victories in the Blood Arena fairly quickly (3-4 hours of fighting) and I did it around 1-2 weeks after the game came out. I was SL 99 and I run an exclusive Uchigatana build with a Firestorm to finish off 2000+ HP builds after I backstab or guard break them.

I'm actually a bit annoyed that buffed Katanas have become so popular in Dark Souls 2 because they weren't that popular in Dark Souls 1. I felt pretty good about rocking my Uchigatana for 500+ hours of Dark Souls 1 PVP.

I don't know what the current Blood Arena PVP is like, but it's my understanding that it's become a lot more powerful. I got used to killing dudes with 8-15 Uchigatana strikes while I'd go down in 1-4 hits. I wont be checking it out again until I get through these final 2 bosses and finally cash in my souls to level up to 150. I haven't decided on a build yet, but it seems like buffing weapons is the way to go. People won't stand a chance if I can take them out in 2-4 hits.

@myrmicus: guys in the arena are going to be as tuned as possible. Getting to rank 3 rquires a +500 spread- a difficult feat for which you must prepare. Finding a fight club or dueling on the iron keep bridge is a little more casual and is quite fun.

Lag is an issue, true, but I don't understand being angry at thrust attacks, dodging, and sorcery builds.

@hippocrit: Because NONE of the trust attack actually hit me, I was too far away and I STILL get the damage. And only thrust attacks ALWAYS cause this to me, that's why I hate them.

Dodging ? Yeah that's the game, but it seems that ennemy dodge makes them completely invulnerable... even whe my hit connect (complete with the hitting sound and fiery effect from fire weapon), they still get no damage. I, on the other hand, seem to get damaged while out of reach AND midroll.

Sorcery builds ? nothing against them, really, they're easy to predict and dodge. On the contrary, I applaud those who are still efficient with them in PvP, because of the dodging madness PvP has become. It's not so much the sorcery build than the fact that you never EVER encounter any ennemy that doesn't use weapon buff and kills you in few hits.

No offense but it is no more or less broken than it was in Dark Souls 1. Demon's Souls still has the best PVP of the 3 for a variety of reasons.

@karkarov: Can't agree more.

Ahh just as I expected, had so many people guffaw at my comments about how I wasn't looking forward to the pvp in dark souls 2 and have them say things along the lines of 'They're totally making the pvp balanced this time and it'll be great!'

Had about 40 bad experiences for every 1 good experience in the previous games' pvp. Such a shame because the good experiences were such highs.

I enjoy it. I mean yes, it certainly has its issues. But its alot better than Backstab the Game. (dark souls 1's pvp)

I for one love the pvp in this game. It took me forever to actually beat NG because I'd rather spend my time invading with the Bell Keepers. As for encountering mostly buffed katanas and greatswords, it could be an arena thing. I tend to get a lot of variety outside of the arena. Sure, they might be popular, but unoriginal? I mean really, how much more original is a dual rapier build? Dual mundane avelyns is pretty out there and it was probably considered very "original" at one point, but even if it still is, does that make the build any less annoying? The damage is real, man. Very real.

Unfortunately, weapon buffs are somewhat necessary at this point (well not necessary, but certainly very helpful) since the scaling is kind of bonked at the moment (less so for strength weapons). The fact that you can buff infused weapons doesn't help either, since they do comparable damage at base stats to standard +10 weapons with 40 str/dex. Add that to the fact that you can pretty easily get high physical resistance without fat rolling, and it means that you're basically nerfing yourself by not trying to attack with some kind of buff or infusion, since elemental and magic/dark resistances are somewhat harder to stack.

Also, keep in mind that soul level and soul memory don't mean anything in the arenas. You can and will be matched with players way outside of your level range. They should probably fix that at some point . . .

@announakis I don't know how much credence I lend to MartyrsBrigade/jblackmel at this point. The stuff about the scaling being broken is dead on, of course, but he just seems so bitter in his video critiques, especially when he pretty much accuses the Soulbrandt guys of not being negative about the game because they got advanced copies. As if it couldn't be that they genuinely love the game.

That was the worst thing about Dark Souls 1 PVP. I was strictly a Darkwraith invader so host always had the connection advantage. Backstabbing was so bad that I eventually got used to fighting with my back constantly up against a wall and I'd only attack when I was confident that only the tip of my Uchigatana would hit because I couldn't know if the person was going to front back stab me.

PVP in Dark Souls 2 doesn't have the problem so that's an auto win. If From fixes the hit boxes on several weapons then it would be amazing.

It's slightly more broken. The way poise works now makes Ultra weapons mostly worthless since it seems you need a ton just to tank a katana. The way agility has effected rolls and the out of control hitboxes (Curved Swords and Curved Greatswords seem especially bad) has made precise dodging incredibly difficult.

I'm sick of PvP too. I just want Hidden Weapon, but every time I run into a Dark Weapon, spin-to-win Halberd in Vengarl's of Havel's I loose all motivation. I had hoped the early days would have more veritey, but things are teeth-grindingly boring right now.

Other than the Bell Tower I haven't messed with the arena stuff until after I got my platinum trophy over the weekend. As a hex user who doesn't use melee it's been sort of hit or miss it terms of match quality. The questionable latency has led me to play as if opponents are 3 feet closer than they actually are. At least a third of the time that I win is me getting lucky with Affinity one shotting my opponent. Other times I finish dudes off with Dark Orbs or Great Soul Sword after whittling them down with poison clouds or Dark Hails. I've yet to truly die from stun lock but laggy backstabs are rather prevalent.

Since my build is rather vulnerable at close range I've attuned AoE hexes for dudes that get close. Even with my cast speed buffed as hell those casts are too slow to catch most melee dudes off guard. I will say it was rather trivial to max out my dragon covenant ranks on the Iron Keep bridge since I could cheese most of those fights knowing exactly where they're going to spawn. I don't know about you guys but I watch One Piece and some of the recent episodes makes me think that one day Dark Souls could have some amazing arena multiplayer.

I will have to resort on gower's ring... The anti-backstab one, because of the sheer amount of lagstab I get...
The weigth of this ring is INSANE.

I refuse to call anything but the two arenas pvp. It's pvp&e and in the bell tower its even pv2p&e.

I still kill most invaders pretty easily. In the arena it's a different story. And I agree with the OP here. It's basically a game of rock paper scissors. Skill is secondary. And I resent the fact that even the arena retains a vs environment element. i.e. ledges to roll off of, but that's more of a pet peeve.

There is no way to engage in actual rule based pvp. I don't think it would be that hard. maybe they come up with a way for folks to start their own covenants with arenas where you can pick certain predefined weapons? And the cov lord gets to be ref :) I dunno, it just seems like an opportunity missed. They were onto something with demons but they dropped the ball.

Well greatswords are nigh useless with the awful tracking or whatever you might call it. I've only seen it happen on that particular weapon type but you'll very often swing in a completely different location than your enemy actually is. I don't know what it is but it happens a lot when using an ultra greatsword with a downward strike moveset - which is useless because of that moveset alone, unless you plan to win all your battles with a running hit.

My biggest issue, still, is poise or a lack thereof no matter what you're wearing. I've had rapier users stunlock me into a series of 7 or so strikes no matter what armor I'm wearing. Here is a handy tip - get a poisoned rapier, and stunlock someone with it. Perfect way to build up enough poison damage for it to take hold.

@humanity: With greatswords you can't move your joystick when you attack because that changes the direction. Lances and spears have the same thing (I think).

Note on ultra greatswords, they are useless by themselves but combine it with a Bandit Greataxe or a Lion Greataxe and the powerstance moveset is... pretty much the same moveset you get when powerstancing longswords... which is insane ! It drains insane amount of stamina, but few are those who can predict such move.

Side note on Gower's ring : It says it negates the critical from backstab, but that's not what it actually do. The phantom that hugs your backs actually takes ALL DAMAGES done to your back. That said, it breaks insanely quickly by doing that (I had to repair it 3 times already in less than an hour).

@myrmicus: The only ultra greatsword I kind of like is the Pursuer Ultra Greatsword because it has that awesome looking baseball homerun sweep that knocks PVE enemies off their feet. I've rarely been able to hit actual players with it though.

My favorite sword for PvP has so far been the Black Knight Greatsword. It has a great moveset and it's really long. This means I can get pokes in that most people consider to be safe on. Also my entire PvP strategy thus far has been brute force. I've got a fair amount of stamina and that sword hits for a lot, so when people shield I simply keep hitting them until I run out of stamina. Usually, they run out of stamina and stagger before I do and then I can get one or two hits in. Instead of realizing that I can barely even move by this point most people get scared and roll away, letting me get some stamina back and do it all over again.

Whenever I face magic users I will either win or die in one hit. Even though I'm wearing the Throne Watcher armor, which is highly resistant to magic (it also looks awesome) most, if not all spells tear right through me. I can be at full health and a concentrated hit from that orb hex spell will simply kill me in one hit. This makes fighting magic users quite dull for me because one bad roll and I'm dead, there is absolutely no room for error. Overall I feel like the game favors magic users the most out of all the previous entries, Demon's being a close second. It's extremely difficult to just raw-brute-force your way through encounters but magic just eats everything up like nothing. On NG+ when I was assisting someone with the Ruin Sentinel boss fight, the magic NPC was doing way more damage than my fully souped up crushing weapon that usually destroys anything in armor. I felt like I was just chipping away when they were standing off in the distance firing off spells and taking huge chunks of the lifebar away with them - I feel like it should be the opposite, enemies should be weaker to physical because it's riskier to engage them up close and it's magic that should chip away at a steady rate.

@humanity: Well, actually, my most successfull build in PvP is my "Fist of the Gods", using the Company of Champions ring to pummel my opponents to death. Connecting a flurry of punch is often instant win. And if it's not, invisible Avelyn finish them of.

On greatsword note (not ultra, simple greatsword) I like Mirrah Sword and King's Sword best, for its moveset.

@myrmicus: One of my favorite PvP moments was sitting around the bells, doing some PVP when I got called in and it was a 2 on 1 situation, with me being one of the two aggressors. The guy already there put down a warmth spell, (the one that makes a floating orb that heals nearby people if you're not familiar with it - I myself am a melee character so hardly know any spells) and dood took his fists out. So I thought hey, lets make it fair, and I put my weapon away and begin using my bare fists too. The single guy we were fighting kept his sword out and that was fine by me. I got a ton of cool fist backstabs and we eventually overwhelmed him. Pure fists though were super weak haha.

Still I thought it was neat just because it seemed a little more fair.

I didn't do Lucatiels questline the first time through the game, and now on NG+ I got her to survive every fight since the patch made it super easy - I just have to get to Shrine of Dragons to finally get the stuff which is a pain. I'm guessing her sword probably scales with Dexterity which would mean it's useless for me.

@soldierg654342: I'm not sure I get the "ultra greats are useless because of poise" argument. If you have a giant unwieldy sword, it should be hard to swing. If you miss a swing with a huge sword, you should be left pretty vulnerable. Poise shouldn't mean you just don't give a crap about being attacked while you laugh and destroy somebody with an oversized weapon whose downside doesn't matter anymore.

@hippocrit: I think the point is, because poise is almost useless, using ultra greatsword is pretty much suicide : You get hit during the swing, you get staggered. And if you don't get hit during the swing, they dodged anyway. I never got beaten by an ultra greatsword wielder and I'm far from being a beast in PvP. It's not a coincidence that you almost never see any ultra greatsword around...

Little question concerning the PvP ranking.
You get +1 kill when beating a guy.
You get -1 from getting beaten.
But does your killcount can become negative ? In other words, does loosing crapload of duels before figuring out a decent build I'll have to climb back from my loss, or will I start from zero ?

The risk-reward for Ultra Greats should be you risk taking a few swings for big damage. But with the poise break points being so low in this game, I rarely see anyone tank more than one hit, which means they almost never get a swing off in range to actually connect. The changes they made to poise are now the opposite problem that Dark Souls had, which is what you described.

I'll be the breaker...

I love PvP. I'm having a ton of fun with it. Maybe it's just better on 360? I see a lot of variation, not nearly as much katana's as you claim. I think it is much better than the previous games. While poise is on some level to shit, it also makes things a lot more interesting. Now, you won't have tanks just spamming out attacks when you're in range. They need to actually be careful to not get hit either.

I am mostly doing the Bell Keeper PvP though. I did some Blue Sentinel arena.

Same thing here. I got minimal lag, very little backstab unless I was asking for it, a ton of original goofy builds and it's a lot more fun than the shitshow that was dark souls 1 PvP. Also on 360 btw.

pvp is the worst thing about dark souls.

its all cheap tactics and is never fun. dont get the appeal

Yeah I never liked the PvP in any of the Souls games, it's nearly always laggy. Getting backstabbed while your enemy appears to be in front of your shoulder is the worst.

There's no doubt about it. People play to win at any cost, even the cost of fun. I don't know how these people do it, but I can't imagine having fun playing 300 matches with loading times that take longer than the matches themselves if you're using cheap tricks. That ain't fun past the first couple dozen kills, at most. You either start to feel bad or you just get plain bored, or I guess you can justify somehow: "they healed; they ran; they waited too long to engage; I'm tight on time."

I guess there's no evidence for it unless you were to interview a couple thousand players, but I certainly think the "-1" is a huge fucking motivator for cheap tactics, if only to get yourself out a negative kill/death ratio on any given day. It's shitty.

Guys who PvP for fun seems to be non-existent.

Nope, I exist. And in the BoB, no less. Despite what I described above, I actually enjoy it. Believe it or not, I've actually played enough matches that I'm good at dodging all the cheap shit (except Avelyn or backstabs if there's even the slightest bit of lag). I also would not recommend anyone waste that kind of time unless you're playing on the PC, where load times aren't taking 3 times longer than the matches. I don't use cheap tricks, either. I've got my Glowy, and I'm probably real close to Rank 3, although there's really no reason to get to Rank 3 at all (your aura doesn't change from 2->3 and at that point you more than likely have a few copies of the reward Pyromancy that you get).

@development: Load times are like 6-8 seconds. Are you on PS3 by any chance?

@zevvion: I am. Didn't realize the 360 was so much better; thought it was just a couple seconds better.

@zevvion: @development: Oh come on, the PS3 isn't so bad. Loading time doesn't take more time than the match, even if the gu curbstomp you with cheapness. But okay, let's say it takes double of time to load... that makes 12-16 seconds ^^

I love the PvP, but I haven't touched the BoB stuff so that might be a factor. I've hit rank 3 in Bell Bros and Dragons though. I've seen a lot of Avellyns, Havel's Greatshield, Moonlight Blade, Hexer's Hood and Dragonrider Bow. I also haven't had much problem dealing with poise. By the time someone hits me enough to stagger me they've usually used enough stamina to not be able to take another action.

You will get staggered from one hit when they 2-hand a weapon. No amount of poise can withstand that. Unless they are using a dagger or something.

I only think it's great. I was tired of the attack spamming poise powerhouses in Dark Souls. Now they at least have to pay attention. It's a good change if you ask me.

I was able to win 9/10 Dragon Covenant fights on that bridge and most of the builds people were using seemed super varied. But as soon as I tried the Blood Covenant arena it was all the same, laggy weapons with a long range, getting hit from miles away so it was impossible to dodge.

wear turtle armor or jester's chest piece to become backstab immune. gower's is handy for a bit but then it breaks pretty easily.

Yeah, but you multiply that by 2 for both loading screens, then add in the time it takes to find a match. You end up with a real lengthy waiting period. Some people can extend matches to medium or ridiculous lengths, but if a person doesn't heal and just wants to fight with skill (surprisingly many, recently) I run up to them and kill them between 5-30 seconds typically. And, I'm sorry, but it's not 12-16 seconds. It's around 30.

I two hand my weapon and never stagger anyone meaningfully with it because everyone dodges the first two hits at least. By the time I do hit them I'm out of stamina and they've restored their stamina during the stagger. I need to back off immediately. I'd rather do the shield smack than stagger someone, and the commonality of greatshields has made that pretty easy. Nobody gets me with the first two hits either, unless there is a touch of lag.

@mosespippy: Oh, I didn't get you were talking about dodging the first couple attacks. I thought you meant you just tanked them. Makes sense now.

Got invaded by one of the cheapest guy around today :

- Dual wielding avelyn
- hexed sentier spear
- hiding behind mobs to heal (using miracle) and fire his dual avelyn in my face

In the end, he only killed because he was lucky, some latency saved his ass. Wish I had some giant seed left...