Dark Souls 3 SL 40-50 Invasions Part 2: Weapons

These are the most effective/fun weapons I've found success with at SL 40-50. I'm not saying they are the most effective and my build is not optimized by any means. These are just weapons that I've found a strategy for and have had really solid success with (at least above 60% win rate, I'd estimate.)

Lothric knight greatsword:

This weapon is a beast. It can be buffed, so combined with a lightning bundle it has over 450 AR at +4. That is HUGE and can 3 shot a lot of phantoms. My build van only 2 hand it, but that is just fine because it adds a little damage and has the unparryable sweep attack that can decimate group health bars. Combined with the Leo Ring, the charged two handed R2 can do something like 700 damage on a counter hit, I believe. This was the first weapon I tried on this build and I've used ultra greatswords a lot, so I moved on to new things fairly quickly.

Gargoyle Flame Spear:
People say this is the best spear in the game and I believe it. It does really high damage, has great reach, can hit multiple enemies, and people don't use spears much so most people don't seem to know the Parry timing. It can't be buffed so what you see is what you get and that is A-OK. This can wear a group of gankers out of their estus pretty quickly. Another fun thing to do is bottleneck the gankers, and play a game of siege where you just try to get pokes in while they try to get past your crazy reach.

Dragonslayer Axe:
This is not the dragonslayer greataxe boss weapon, this is the one you get from killing Creighton the wanderer in Central Irithyl after you help Sirris. Infusing this weapon with raw gave it the best damage for me, but this probably depends on your build. It does a massive amount of damage and can be buffed. The lightning bundle will do 500+ damage if you can get both hits of a two hit combo. The only downside is that Katanas seem to be a terrible match-up for it. I'm pretty sure it just gets outspaced and will just straight beat it if you both swing at the same time. No trades, just interrupts. If you run into a solo Katana user switch to a straight sword, a longer weapon, a weapon with hyper armor, or out-space and punish to win.

Dark Souls 3 SL 40-50 Invasions Part 1: Stats and Tools

I've been experimenting for the last few weeks with very low level invasions. My current build is 45 and is not very  optimized, but I've had solid success and I've experimented with quite a few different tools to destroy gankers. I'm going to go over what my main toolset is, and why I think it is a great tool. I've been loving low level invasions and so much creativity is cultivated there because it requires you to min-Max as much as possible. 

My current build is level 45, with all +4 weapons. I chose this level because it seems to be a good level to invade at Cathedral of the Deep, the Catacombs, and probably Crucifixion Woods and the Smouldering Lake. It also guarantees that the highest weapon I will have to deal with is +6 because the invasion range is +-2 upgrade levels and it also very unlikely anyone will be running around with +8 weapons in the areas I'm invading. I am planning on going up to 53, I'm just a little nervous that I won't get constant invasions like I'm getting right now. I have seen other people get solid invasions at 53 though.  Now, here are my tools and tips:

Build:

This is my current build:

Vig:27

Attn:12
End:18
Str:18
Dex:20
Int:12
Fth:8?
Luck:9?
I'm going off of memory with the last two. Intelligience was to use a specific weapon, which I will get into later but it's mostly unnecessary for what I do. This is not optimized, I'm just experimenting with a lot of different things. I will probably respec when I choose a specific weapon or set-up but it is working just fine.  

Hornet Ring:
This isn't actually the MOST important tool you are going to have at this level and that is because it is unlikely to one-shot your opponent. It will definitely do more damage when you get a riposte, but it probably won't one shot unless you are super optimized. I, at least, haven't found a way to one-shot at my current level of 45. The mail breaker and the dagger might be the best bet. Still, it is a great way to guarantee you finish off your opponent if you get the parry and riposte with a little bit of damage on them. 

Other Rings:

I have been rocking the Prisoner's Chain, the Ring of Favor, the Leo Ring, the Hornet Ring, and the Priestess Ring. Depending on your build, some of the best rings are going to be the "give you extra level rings" because they can help you get the most damge or at least minimum stat requirements for weapons. At +4, most weapons won't have the best scaling so I don't think STR and DEX are the most important things to worry about. One way or the other, they are great ways to have wiggle room with your build and stay within a good invasion range.

Catalysts:

It's really not a bad idea to have at least 10 Intelligence and Faith. The Spook spell is really useful to get to the host quickly in certain areas, and having access to a chime weapon art can be very useful. You can activate the heal, and run away and essentially have a bunch more heals as long as your build doesn't require FP. At this level for a melee build, that's really going to be the extent of these tools unless you use hidden body or force. The other spells you have access to are not going do enough damage to matter unless you go complete glass cannon spell build. This is totally an option but I don't have enough experience with it to give you information about it. 

Consumables:

Consumables can be very useful. Bombs, arrows, knives, moss clumps, resins, and bundles are definitely going to be the most useful to you. Bombs and arrows aren't going to kill your enemy, but they can be used to wear down a gank squad when you are playing a battle of attrition. Great arrows can knock people off of cliffs for one shots. Resins and bundles can be used to raise your damage briefly. Bundles can almost completely replace a weapon buff, because it does more damage than a hybrid/buff build would do at this level. The red and purple moss clumps are probably going to be the two best clumps. Poison can really wear you down in a fight. Knives are great for finishing your enemy off or maybe inflicting poison.

Dark souls 3 Infusions: Elemental Infusions

The infusion system can be a little confusing in Dark Souls 3. I've watched quite a few videos of people's opinion about it, and I believe there is a lot of misinformation about it. I'm going to clear up some of the misinformation and give my own opinion on the elemental infusions in the game.

The elemental infusions are Crystal, Chaos, Lightning, Dark, Deep, and Fire. Crystal, Chaos, Lightning, and Dark scale. Deep and Fire split the damage 50/50 between physical and dark/fire. Essentially, the scaling weapons are going to be better if you have a caster build on account of your stats will be stacked to maximize spell damage. If you just want a weapon with elemental damage to help in PVE or go through shields better in PVP, infusing with Deep or Fire is a fine way to go.

Now we are getting to the confusing part: The scaling infusions! To be brief, when you infuse with an elemental infusion, your weapon will lose some base physical damage, add elemental damage, and then add scaling with intelligence, faith, or both. Now, your weapon will do split damage between an element and physical and will scale far less with your physical damage stats.

Now, the actual numbers come into play and how they work within the game. If you compare a +10 crystal longsword and 60 intelligence, for example, and a +10 refined longsword and 40/40 strength/dex, the crystal long sword will probably have the higher attack rating, indicating that it will do higher damage. It probably will in PVE versus certain enemies but it will not do as high of damage in PVP.

This difference in AR and actual damage is because of how defenses work in PVP.  Essentially, your character has flat defense ratings for every damage type. When you hit someone with a split damage weapon, the defense subtracts damage from both damage types separately. If your character has 120 defense for both physical and magic, then that crystal long sword's physical AR will go through the 120 physical defense and the magic AR will go through the magic defense on your character. This will result in lower damage taken than if the longsword did one damage type. There are a few split damage exceptions, but generally speaking it is better for your weapon to do all, or at least most of one damage type.

Now for the misinformation: a lot of people just write off the scaling infusions and say they are crap. In my opinion, the damage is fine. If you go 120 with a caster and pick a weapon that has a B-S rating when infused, it's probably going to be fine. You chose to be a caster, so the melee weapon should be supplementary anyway. If the damage reflected the AR the same way a pure physical, there would be absolutely no point in going Quality, Strength or Dex build. You would have the best melee damage and extremely strong range attacks. You don't want that game. No one wants that game. I think this was a good choice for the developers to go with. If you are going with a hybrid build, go with 40 strength or dex or a raw weapon with the buff. It's that simple to me.

I hope this clears up some questions people had about elemental infusions. I hope it also shows some people have some really silly expectations on how much damage elemental infusions SHOULD do. To me, the elemental infusions are fine. Stay creative with your builds, folks.

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3: The Beauty

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a beautiful, complex, deep game. I'm sure this has been said hundreds of times before and the scene has been thinning out, but I think now we are actually seeing some of the best days of the game now, even though the game has been out for several years.

The most brilliant thing to me about the game is it is exactly as deep as you want it to be. This can be true of pretty much all games, but the basic combos are very, very low execution in Marvel. Nearly every character has the magic sequence combo: LMHS xx Sj.MMHS OTG Super. This combo can be pretty much mashed out with every character with a few exceptions that have a variation of this combo. Even more basic than this, command normals are pretty great with a lot of characters. If you and a friend are absolute beginners for fighting games, you can instantly do pretty cool attacks with H and a direction.

On the deep end of the spectrum, the game is a complete sandbox for combos. There are definitely optimal combos, but if you are having trouble with a combo you see in a video or would rather use a different assist you can probably come up with a combo that works. I have seen so many combo videos for this game and I can assure you there are near limitless possibilities in this game. At tournaments, you will see a lot of top-tier teams being utilized still, but you can see many teams that are utilizing really creative strategies with the mid-low tier characters.

This brings me to my next point: I think that we are actually seeing some of the best days of UMVC3 at a tournament level right now. There are a lot of people who have probably been playing for years with unconventional teams that are NOW placing top 8. We still see plenty of Morrigan-Doom and Zero May Cry type teams, but now we are seeing much more than that. In the last year, I have seen Deadpool teams, Phoenix Wright teams, Jill teams, Morrigan's that don't rely on Astral Vision, Resident Evil teams...the list goes on. There is just so much creativity that is now working in the game. This could be a result of some of the top players moving on to SFV and other games but I don't really care. I am just happy to see so much creativity in this game that, at one point, looked like it was going to be all Zeros, Morrigans, and Vergils. Like I mentioned earlier, this game has been out for several years and we are now seeing such a burst of creativity actually winning in the game. It's beautiful.

This whole article is really just a love letter to a game I just find endlessly fascinating. It's not my favorite fighting game of all time, I just love it like I love all fighting games. I think it will continue to be played at tournaments and be a consistent highlight, but I want to make sure of it by spreading the word that it is still very, very exciting.