yall have no concept of what kinda shit im on rn

"Excuse me, ah, yes, excuse me Hollow Infantryman, coming through. They went this way? Splendid, we shall cut this fiend off at the ladder. To arms, brethren! We have a speedrunner to slay!"

Hello honest casual roleplayers, I wanna ramble about PvP. Not talkin' tech or fundamentals or metaphysical third-eye spellcasting. Just talk about my PvP experience, where I came from, what that journey was like, just wanna talk about it and stuff.

I've thought a little bit about DS2 PvP. Every once in a while, I do acknowledge it. I think about the landscape of it, the culture of it, the sort of "cliques" it has formed over the years. I think about the thoughts and feelings different people have towards it, both positive and negative, I think about the average level of knowledge of the broader DS2 playerbase when it comes to PvP in this game. I think about where this game has been, where it's at and where it could go.

I love DS2, dearly and sincerely. I didn't pump 5k hours into learning this game because I didn't enjoy it, I'll tell you that much. I started back in DS3 watching clips of JeeNine on Youtube, thinking "wow, you can do all that in DS3? That's fucking crazy, I wanna do that too." Eventually, I gave DS2 a shot. Well, I did try DS2 PvP a few times prior, but it never clicked.

One of the things that helped me get into DS2 PvP was a strong community of people who also loved the game, who enjoyed learning and teaching and improving constantly. It was downright inspiring. I thought people hated this game, and here's all these people dedicated to this shit? Fucking awesome, there's gotta be something here then. I started as a lot of people do; running random shit I had on me in invasions, or just copying whatever builds I saw in the Top 16 section on Soulsplanner. A lot of weird gimmicky stuff, a lot of poorly optimized mid-tier weapons. It was kinda fun, but I didn't really see that big draw that kept those people playing.

I think what made it click for me was the first few times I queue'd up for BoB arena. I'd done quite a bit of invading, maybe 500 hours before hitting the arena once. I was feeling pretty confident, I was winning my invasions with a good amount of consistency. My first experience in BoB arena was about 5 matches of me getting absolutely slaughtered. I had no idea what was happening to me or what my opponent was doing. I couldn't get space, I couldn't hit them, I was getting shredded like wheat.

I was feeling pretty disheartened, not gonna lie. I was in more casual PvP communities at the time, and it felt like all the advice I'd ever been given, all the tips, all of it just crumbled in the face of the arena opponents. What was going wrong? I was told the build I was running was good, I was told the strategy was good, it seemed to work when I was invading, what was I doing wrong here? Is it just a skill issue?

Knowledge Check

After a bit of frustration, I got back to work. I tried looking at the situation from a different angle; instead of thinking about what I'm doing wrong, what about, "what are my opponents doing that I'm not?" What if I get inside their heads for a minute, and think. When I'm getting my ass beat, how are they doing it? Why are they taking the actions they do? What is it they are doing that is working that I am not doing?

The first thing was movement. It's the first thing of value I was actually taught about DS2 PvP. It was summarized to me like this: "You can immediately tell how skilled a DS2 player is based on whether they are locked-on or not when a match starts." I didn't know about the lock-on debuffs at the time. I was like most, locked-on 24-7, waddling around like a duck, rolling, waiting for my character to re-orient so I could swing. I had already noticed that the people who were beating my ass weren't locking-on. I didn't know if it was a flex, or a specific strategy or what, because nobody was doing that in DS3.

I was taught about the lock-on debuffs, from the move-speed penalty to the increased startup on sprinting. It was explained to me that I should only lock-on right when I attack, so I can make use of the tracking, and basically never use it outside of that. So I tried it. And... I didn't get it right away. Now, in DS1 and DS2, even in PvE it's better to not always be locked on all the time unless you're casting something, because those lock-on penalties are like, half the game's difficulty. But I'd already been playing DS2 for several hundred hours, and now I gotta learn to play without lock-on? It wasn't even that I couldn't aim my attacks, that part came fairly easily. You just turn the character to swing, takes a little getting used to, but not too bad. But now, add the input for locking on just before an attack and it gets a little weird-feeling. At the start I forgot I was supposed to be hitting lock-on at all, so I'd just be doing match after match never hitting it. Eventually, after getting reminded to do so a few times, I got the hang of it, and eventually it became second nature. Slight adjustment to the controller grip and a bit of practice, and now it's no problem.

Man, learning and improving feels real good, huh?

Once I learned how to properly toggle lock-on, it's like my gameplay improved ten-fold. I was moving around the arena like water, spacing felt easier and more natural, my pivots got better and faster. All I did was learn something so fundamental as how to move my character properly and suddenly I was actually competing with other players. I was putting work in, winning some matches, winning multiple matches in a row. "Nothing Ever Happens" gamers were in shambles.

Just as I figured this out, however, I ran into another roadblock.

Only Missingno. Can Defeat the Halberd Frametrap

Halberd 2h running attack is a little bit infamous. It's most likely the reason halberds were considered "really good, top tier" in DS2 history. It just creates a vortex of damage that strikes three times, and if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, even if you roll the first hit, you're getting clipped by the second, or the third. Halberds were a problem. The attack comes out and no matter what, you're just eating damage and you gotta live with that, right?

So, DS2 has some glitchtech. Everyone knows about recovery cancel or attunement glitch, and generally those are no-nos. RC makes certain matchups unplayable, attunement glitch setups are just really tedious to fight, so most people are against that. Of course people will still use that, but depending on who you are, it might just be a BC and block.

There is some glitchtech, however, that is not only accepted, but also considered fundamental to DS2 PvP. There's one in particular that is perpetually relevant: Quickrolls

I'll quickrolls, in case you're not familiar. A quickroll is a way to get consecutive rolls out faster. The input for this is to: Attack, roll, buffer an attack mid-roll, then cancel that attack with another roll. Thanks to DS2s animation cancelling system, canceling the startup of a rolling attack with another roll allows you to get your consecutive roll out sooner than if you were just mashing the B button.

So, what the hell, Margaret? What do you mean a glitch is fundamental to DS2 PvP? Well, it's kinda sick, but quickrolls are actually very balanced. It extends your evasive capabilities at the cost of extra stamina, and poor and predictable use of quickrolls can be easily punished. It's kinda like rocket jumping in Quake, or combos in OG Street Fighter II. It wasn't quite intentional, but it actually makes the game healthier and more playable by preventing players from getting stuck in infinite frametraps.

Learning this was super exciting, just the idea that a glitch or bug was fundamental to a game was so novel and unique to me. It felt like, for the first time, having an understanding of the game's inner workings, like pieces were truly falling into place on how DS2 actually functions.

The Quest for 150

At this point I'd decided DS2 was my game. Friendship ended with DS3, now DS2 was my best friend. It was unbelievable how much cool shit I could do in DS2 compared to DS3, where interactions and engagements felt so binary and wrote, where it never felt like I was the one doing something cool. I didn't want a flashy weapon skill to make me feel like I was doing something cool, I wanted actually do cool shit as an expression of skill and knowledge, and DS2 was like the biggest sandbox I could have dreamed of.

I'd set my sights on something. I'd been seeing these neon red and blue motherfuckers all over the place once I started hanging out in the arenas. The coveted Rank 2 aura. At the time, it was like the Holy Grail. The arena was so difficult, if you had a Rank 2 aura, you must be pretty strong. It was a goal, something to aspire to within DS2. No random out doing PvE is gonna have this, and by god it carries over when you invade, too? Had to have it.

It took two years. From the time I started actually playing in the arena, to the time I actually got it, it took two years. I was playing consistently, too, maybe once a day for any length of time. I was putting in work, I was putting in matches, and it still took two years. It was a brutal climb. I remember how proud of myself I was just to get the Rank 1 aura. But why did it take so long?

The BoB climb is a tug of war. The way covenant ranks work in Brotherhood of Blood, is that you start at 0 points. For every win, you get one point, and for every loss, you lose a point. Sounds simple enough, you just need to win more than you lose, and it's only 150 points, right? Yeah, it'll take a while, but that's not too crazy high.

So, the big elephant in the room, is that the BoB arena is notoriously where all the killers live. That's where the cream of the crop is, the really good players. Also the Russians. This means that for every poor innocent random who queues once after beating Chariot at SL65, there are maybe 5 other people at SL155 who are absolute killers who are going to rob you of god knows how many points. If you rematch the same god over and over, your points are just gonna go down, and down, and down, and down. Up 5, down 30 type shit. It's brutal, it's BRUTAL, it's disheartening, it's frustrating, but nothing good was ever won without effort.

The Dragonslayer Spear Incident and How I Learned to Stop Being Good

A common struggle with any game is finding the character that fits you, that suits your playstyle. That was a big struggle during my climb. There were all these top-tier weapons, Warped Sword, Ice Rapier, Longsword, Chariot Lance, Blacksteel Katana. I used all of them, quite a bit even, but nothing was quite clicking with me. Lance was the closest for a while, with an offhand axe, but I just couldn't get consistent enough with it.

Eventually I settled on a spear. I never see spears commonly in DS2, either in the arena or while invading. Seems kind of a rarity. See a lot of curved swords, thrusting swords, ultra greatswords, but rarely ever a spear. I hadn't fought many spears during my climb, so I was a bit curious.

The first thing I'll say about spears is that they're boring as fuck. They don't have the same oppressive offense as thrusting swords, probably their closest counterpart, so basically all they do is kinda just wait for their opponent to do something and then say "nuh uh" with their insanely long range. And hey, did they just try and roll in on you? Well that's what the dagger/straight sword in your left hand is for. You got keepaway on keepaway.

Spear was the key. It was the single most consistent setup I'd used up to this point, and for one reason: It's a straight matchup check weapon. Against spear, you either have the matchup or you don't. It's nasty, it's kinda fucked up, it's kinda evil, but if I can matchup check most of the game, hitting 150 points in BoB shouldn't be a problem, right?

3801 and Counting

Spear ended up being my main. It's by far my most used weapon. It's comfortable, it's consistent, it's simple. On that character, I'm sitting on 3801 BoB points. Fuck the Rank 2 aura, I blew past that and BoB rank 3. Now, learning spear wasn't without hitches. I didn't immediately understand what exactly spear was in the grander scheme of things. I just knew it was a long-range poking stick, I didn't know it was the world's most consistent matchup fish. All of the other weapons I used allowed for a lot more aggression, and spear wanted to be more patient. It was an adjustment, for sure. Once I got the hang of it, though, it was like a knife through butter. It felt like, not only was I winning in the BoB arena, I was actually competing in it. I was learning, improving, match after match, able to remember the playstyles of specific opponents and how to counter them, and they would counter me back and we would just go back and forth and it was fucking awesome. It was so engaging, because it felt like I had come so far, that I wasn't just learning DS2, I was learning the individual people I fought and that fucking rules. All despite being carried by my setup ;)

The Invasion Situation is Crazy

Once you get really good at a game, it's kind of hard to go back to certain aspects of it with the same whimsy and excitement as you did before. This is the part I really wanted to talk about, because I feel a bit... forlorn about it, I guess.

Starting out with invasions was an uphill battle in of itself. Those aren't just NPCs you're fighting, those are real humans who can adjust tactics and change their approach with the singular goal to beat you. There's a sort of meme of a romanticized idea of what an invader is, a "bad red man" who just wants to invade you with the sole purpose of ruining your day because they hate you, they hate good things and they hate fun. Maybe some people are like that. I think that's a very melodramatic idea of what invaders are, and an equally melodramatic idea for an invader to have.

The only reason I ever invade is because I just wanna fight people. Sometimes the arena's not super active, maybe it's late at night or something, but I really wanna fight people. I don't wanna do PvE, because I dogwalk PvE in my sleep. I want to fight a real human, a real challenge.

The problem is, all that arena grinding has left me in a bit of a situation. Now, I enjoyed learning and improving at DS2 in the arena, I look back on that journey fondly and I look forward to continuing to learn the game in the future, but where I'm at now? Like, I just should not be invading at all ever.

Whenever I invade someone now, it's like a coughing baby versus a hydrogen bomb. 5k hours of experience versus someone doing PvE for the first time in DS2. I've got my Dragonslayer Spear and Fume Sword setup, rank 2 aura, and I just think for a second. When I go on the offensive and start attacking my opponent, from the moment I engage to the moment I inevitably win, what is it like in their shoes? What is going through their head? "Why are they moving like that? Why are they glowing? Oh my god why does that spear do so much damage? I can't even get in to do damage because they just swing the sword.

What the fuck am I supposed to do? What exactly do you expect me to do here?"

I don't wanna say "it's lonely at the top", because I don't want to imply I'm a god at DS2. I still have bad habits that net me a few fair losses, and still plenty to learn, but compared to the average PvE gamer? Like, what the fuck could they possibly do, man? They're getting hounded by chain running attacks they can't even react to, they're seeing this dual-wield setup, when the fuck do you ever dual-wield in any of the other Souls games? They don't know how to deal with that, not at all! And the lock-on? They're probably thinking I just freshly installed the game, I don't even know how to lock on and OH GOD THEY'RE GETTING MURDERED.

I think a lot about how, in DS2, there's just no in-between, it's just gap. Nothing in DS2 could ever prepare a PvE gamer for what a seasoned arena player is gonna do to them, they don't stand a chance in hell. It's a bit sad. You know, I used to say that "invasions are casual PvP, Iron Keep is mid-level PvP, and arena is high-level PvP", but Iron Keep's usually just dead unless you specifically organize a fight club or something. And honestly, the gap between Iron Keep players and arena players just keeps growing wider and wider over time. It's like invasions, Iron Keep, and the arenas are their own separate ecosystems, and arena players are dedicated to a point where the other two just can't keep up with that ecosystem, so when that ecosystem bleeds out, people are just getting atomized left and right.

How can that gap be bridged? I try to post stuff on this sub to at least get people some knowledge so they have something to work with, but is it enough? Will the arena just forever exponentially outpace the other PvP spaces in DS2? It's like evolving yourself into a box, where the only climate you can survive is the harshest ones, and you're like an invasive species in any other environment. I dunno, it kinda makes me sad. I wish that mid-level PvP was more filled out, I wish there were more people who had the drive to improve, even while keeping the more whimsical casual attitude.

I love DS2 and I just hope there's still people out there who pick up this game, see how sick it is, fall in love with it and just go all in. I dunno, this whole post was just rambling. It don't mattuh, none-a dis mattuhs.

we hit da clip bro, hi youtube, hi video, say hi feet sniffer

From here on out I'm gonna title my posts as "DS2Concept", which is a series of posts to explain fundamental and advanced PvP knowledge, concepts, and theory for Dark Souls II, so that this knowledge is accessible to all willing to learn and improve at this game.

Hello my fellow Drangleicheads, I have the flu which means it's time to post.

Today we're gonna be talking about dual wielding. No, I don't mean powerstancing, though I will be talking about that today too, in brief. Dual-wielding is one of the cooler aspects of DS2 buildmaking, something you don't see much of in the other Souls games. There's a lot of reasons why dual wielding is really good, from the influence of poise, to unique true combo potential, to covering the weaknesses of another weapon.

In a LOT of cases, many of the weapons in DS2 want to have a partner weapon, so I'll give a few examples and explain why they work:

try dual-wielding, or try horse

Lances: Lances in my opinion are kind of the poster child for a weapon that wants a partner. On their own, they're quite slow, outside of the one-handed running attack and the one-handed rolling attack. If two-handing, you're basically playing a sluggish spear, and in a game where speed is king, being sluggish is something you do not want to be. This is why lances pair extremely well with a lot of fast weapons. Let's take daggers, for example. Daggers offer a quick way to get an opponent off of you so that you can take control of your space. Lances have good range, so you want to have your opponent in a position where it is dangerous for them to approach. Ideally, you want to space them out enough that they will whiff an attack, allowing you to punish with the very fast one-handed running attack, or the also very fast one-handed rolling attack. Any weapon you pair with a lance serves this function. Straight swords have more poise damage at the cost of being slower (Longsword also has an INCREDIBLE R2), axes are basically just R2 machines, thanks to their R2s being very fast and having excellent tracking, allowing you a very wide range of coverage, at the cost of this being fairly taxing on your stamina.

Greathammer and Twinblade: Here's a fun combo. Greathammers have a frankly insane rolling attack. It's super fast, does a ton of poise damage, you can stance swap the rolling attack to follow up with an two-handed R2, which if delayed properly can basically autoconfirm into a pancake unless your opponent knows how to quickroll. What's even better, is that there is a simpler solution to capitalizing on that rolling attack. Greathammer rolling attack (the upwards strike one that Dragon Tooth has, idk if there are other ones but this is the one that works and is good) will TRUE COMBO into a twinblade L1, resulting in astronomically high damage. If you notice your opponent likes to mash out of hitstun (foolishness, Dante), they will get absolutely blendered by your followup L1s counter damage. These weapons have excellent synergy when played defensively, and on offense you can heavily punish any mistakes your opponent makes. Granted, this is a one-trick pony setup, so if your opponent figures out how to deal with your gimmick, you're literally toast.

Warped Sword and Ice Rapier: The classic meta combo. While it's fallen a bit out of favour as people have learned to deal with it better over time, it is still an extremely oppressive setup. Most setups in DS2 like to play defensively, such as spears and katanas, so it's pretty rare you have a setup that can crack an opponent's defenses wide open and punish them for basically breathing the same air as you. The combined movesets of the Warped Sword and Ice Rapier are extremely good. With Warped Sword in the right hand, you have access to both the one-handed and two-handed running attacks on-demand, both of which are EXTREMELY good and among the best in the game. You have very fast R1s that have high counter damage, capable of winning trades against some other top-tier threats like straight swords, axes, and daggers. They also don't lose out too bad against non-Old Leo Ring boosted counterattacks from some of the other top tiers. Now, this already sounds bangin', so why pair it with the Ice Rapier? Ice Rapier is an incredible offhand for the Warped Sword, being even faster, and being VERY capable of winning trades against many other top-tiers, even with the penalty it gets from being in the left hand. The only things this really loses out to are katanas (sometimes), spears, and lances (you have warped sword's incredible 2h running attack to counter these, as it has a lot of forward momentum that lets you basically neutral skip). When one-handing the Warped Sword, you can hit-confirm with it and true combo into the Ice Rapier on your L1. If your opponent is being whiff-punished, this lets you punish for MASSIVE counter damage, especially if you have Old Leo Ring on, as the counter damage applies effectively until your combo is broken. This lets you shred and tear your opponents. You have all the tools with this setup to be aggressive, defensive, punish easily and effectively, the running attacks all have great forward momentum for movement and spacing, this setup just kinda has it all. It does have a major weakness, it doesn't have any good rolling attacks on par with Longsword, lances, or greathammers, meaning that when an opponent forces your to roll, you have limited options to retaliate, you kinda just have to reset to neutral, but neutral is a great position for Warped IR to be in.

"Powerstancing" Google Doc Just Dropped

So, powerstancing, the darling of DS2 buildmaking. A feature so popular they had to add it back in Elden Ring (or as I like to call it, SMELLDEN Ring, because it SMELLS). Many powerstance setups in Elden Ring are (or at least were at some point), extremely good. Ps fists, ps straight swords, ps greatspears, there were a lot of good options, and each of these setups had really good options to capitalize on their movesets with the reworks to how jumping attacks work, as well as the addition of crouch attacks.

Unfortunately in DS2, powerstance isn't nearly as cracked. The main issue with powerstance setups is that unlike the above examples, powerstance movesets don't do a very good job at covering the weaknesses of another weapon to form something greater than the sum of it's parts, nor do they have any particularly viable synergies (bleed/poison claws suck ass!!!!!).

Let's use spears for example. These pair well with straight swords, axes and daggers, similar to lances and for a lot of the same reasons. These offhands synergize well with spears because they enable you to take advantage of the strengths of your mainhand weapon, in the case of spears, long range and high counter damage. You want to be able to keep your opponent from getting too close, basic spacing gameplay and a tool that assists in your gameplan. If we look at powerstanced spears, however, you don't get any of the benefits. The PS spear moveset is basically a higher damage version of the normal spear moveset, at GREAT cost. More equip load, higher stat requirements, higher stamina cost, all for a very unimpressive increase in damage, especially on a weapon class that already boasts some serious damage output (50DEX Dragonslayer's Spear with Old Leo Ring and RoBFlynn is devastating to get hit by). Without an offhand that enables your spear to do the thing it wants to do, you have much more limited options in your gameplan, meaning you basically have to resort to backpedaling as your only form of keeping space. You now have glaring weaknesses that are extremely exploitable without an offhand to compliment your mainhand, all for a small damage increase.

This isn't to say powerstancing is totally useless. Some setups work very well with powerstancing. Fists (regular in particular, I'll do a post on Bone Fist itself at some point and why powerstancing them is worse than 2H), as well as things like ps bleed greatsword with bleed straight sword are valid and viable powerstance combos. Fists have rollpunch, and straight sword R1 can true combo into powerstance L1 to rack up a LOT of bleed buildup. Both setups are a bit niche, but are valid and viable. For fists in particular, with the exception of Bone Fist you basically always want to be powerstancing them, and this goes for claws as well since they share a moveset. Powerstancing just happens to enabled the best use-case for fists, so do it!

I don't want to type anymore, tooooo sick! Maybe do a more comprehensive post on powerstancing at some point, idk. Play Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin it fucking RIPS.