Dark souls 3 Invasions: Weapons Part 2

This is the second part of weapons I've had solid success with in invasions.

Straight swords:
Straight swords, in my opinion, are the best weapons in the game right now. They swing just slightly slower than the rapier and the small curved swords but have a much better hit box because of the horizontal swing. It's still not good to spam R1 but the weapon can't really be spot parried so R1 is definitely going to be your bread and butter. Just don't mash on it unless you are 100% sure the enemy doesn't know what the Parry button is. The best thing to do is One hanged R1, R1, R2 on straight swords where the R2 is the stab attack. I think this excludes the dark sword but Fuck the dark sword forever. This combination will catch most people who roll away with the stab attack because it takes almost the exact time of the roll to come out and the hotbox extends a good deal longer than the model. The lothric knight sword and anri's straight sword are my two favorites. I think the lothric knight sword has legitimately the best moveset, because of the 2 handed R2 thrust attack, but use whichever one you like or your build is specced out for. The other reason the straight swords are amazing is the weapon art: the shield splitter. L2+ R1 will pop open 90% of shields and leave the opponent open for a riposte. This is so useful when you have 3 gankers turtling behind shields. Combined with the hornet ring, this can make short work of the shield happy gank squad.

Sellsword Twinblades:
This is probably the best dex weapon for invasions and it's simply because it does a lot of damage very quickly. Both 2 handed R1, L2, R2 and L1, L2, R2 combo. The second one does more damage I believe but 2 handed L1 is easier to Parry. This weapon has been nerfed 3 times and it still does just an immense amount of damage. The popular way to use this weapon, thanks to oroboro, is to run it with the darkmoon blade buff. Crystal magic weapon or lightning will also actually do fine because it just adds damage. The buff and the damage from the combo just generally delete phantoms with one touch. You can also run the weapon without the buff on a quality or dex build but you are going to have to hit everyone twice, usually. If you can get the opponent healing, the combo will out damage the estus. It might take a few hits, but you should be able to finish them off with ease.

Invasions in Dark Souls 3: Weapons

This post is just for weapons that I personally have had success in invasions with and weapons that I have seen a lot of success with. You can really use whatever weapon you want but some are just better saved for duels. If you have fun with a certain weapon over others, try it out though. The game is still young and things are still being discovered. I think I will split this one into multiple parts also.

HYPER ARMOR:
First and foremost, weapons with hyper armor and are cannot be parried are going to be the easiest. Invading gankers is never easy, but these weapons will give you the best shot. Hyper armor, if you are not aware, is a property in dark souls 3, bloodborne, and many fighting games. The idea is that during your attack animation, you can take damage for a hit or two but your animation will continue allowing you to do damage back. It still requires some calculation but ideally you would do more damage to your opponent than they will do to you. This is most effective versus small, low damage weapons as opposed to high damage weapons that also have hyper armor. As a rule of thumb, the hyper armor starts as soon as the weapon has forward momentum. On some weapons it seems even earlier. I don't know the data on this honestly. Most huge weapons will have hyper armor. Anything that counts as an ultra greatsword, great axe, curved great swords, and great hammers. These specific weapons all have unparriable 2 handed R1 and R2 attacks (I believe curved great swords are just the 2 hand R2) which is another huge benefit. The other two weapons that I know have hyper armor are the regular greatswords when 2 handed and halberds. These two weapon classes are ALWAYS parriable though.

HORNET RING:
The second piece of equipment is the hornet ring. This does more damage when you get a riposte. The percentage is weird since a patch, but it's still fantastic. In my opinion, this is almost necessary in higher level invasions. You can't rely completely on Parry fishing, but if you get one you need to make it count if it's 1 versus 3-4. This ring has been nerfed but it can still one shot most phantoms since they have a 30% health deficit compared to the host. If you suck a parries, Parry fish for like 20-50 invasions and learn the timing or get a friend to swing at you for a while. It's essential when invading if you want to have a solid success rate.

Invasions in Dark Souls 3: Soul Level

If you have played Dark Souls 3 for an extended period of time or pay attention, you have probably experienced the pain of invading or at least heard complaints about it. There are some very legitimate complaints about invasions, but this was they game we were given. You don't have to play it if you don't like it. In my opinion, invasions in DS3 are some of the most fun I've ever had in a game. Killing 2-5 gankers is a really rewarding achievement, especially in a game as difficult as dark souls. I have a few ideas and tips for you if you are looking to start invading, get better, or just hear some ideas that I've had success with. I'm going to break this up into multiple parts so it's easier to digest and separate.

SOUL LEVEL:
This is a question that a lot of people have: what level do I take my character to? That is completely up to you, but in order to get the most invasions you are going to want to cap your level somewhere that YOU like invading. It's really that simple. I personally have characters at 70, 100, and 120. The invasion range is +-10 soul levels AND +-2 weapon levels so logically you can go up or down 10 levels from my levels and still get solid results.

Taking your build to level 70 can be considerably easier for invasions than 120 because you HAVE to sacrifice some stats in that level. You just don't have room to be completely optimized. Chances are the players you are coming up against have no idea what PVP is, or are building to 120. Either way, their stats are going to be all fucked up at 70. The reason 70 is better than say, 30, is that you can have your stats and weapon at a level where you can kill phantoms fairly quickly. You only want to take your weapon to +8 if you plan on invading at level 70. This will allow you to invade the people with maxed weapons, but you won't be excluded from the people with +6 weapons. At certain points in the game, titanite chunks are few and far between so this seems to be the optimal upgrade point for invading people who are blindly playing through the game and where you get the most damage and most invasions.

The 100-120 range can be considerably harder to deal with. You don't have to make very many sacrifices at these levels and fighting 4 invaders with all ultra weapons or have a caster in their midst or everyone has tears of denial cast....the list goes on. These invasions can be fucking difficult. However, you can still have some success if you're pretty good and they can still be a lot of fun. Just be aware that unless you have certain builds, the gankers are going to be ridiculous sometimes...I mean seriously. It's like they think they are playing halo or something, they need a team to win, and they are going to go to dark souls nationals for the team championship. It can be really dumb. If you also want to do duels and have a complete build this range is the one you want to take your characters to.

More on Build Optimization

After some experimenting with a pure dex build and some other builds, I have a quick bit of information that was not really clear to me on the last guide. This post is really about how scaling functions within the game and how it works with your build.

Scaling is how much your stats add damage to your weapon. They are indicated by a letter underneath the requirement stats of your weapon on your weapon information screen. The letters are from E-S. S is the best, meaning that it will add points for every level you have in that particular stat. E means you might accidentally get some damage with every 10 levels. Those two stats are the easy ones. The others get weird.

With your build, you want to shoot for C-S letter scaling. Many weapons will only become B, A, or S with an infusion. C will do pretty good damage with a particular stat, therefore B should be better...and it is, but sometimes only slightly. For example, at 45 dex (I believe that's what I had) I was doing 370 Attack Rating with the lothric knight sword, which is pretty good damage. I infused it with the sharp gem giving it B scaling and it went all the way up to...374 AR.  Nearly useless. It's just not really a good use of a gem.

The point I am trying to state is that the letters barely mean anything. The letters just indicate which stat is going to be better if you want to use that weapon. My lothric knight sword might scale slightly better if  I go 60 dex than it would have otherwise (I haven't, I usually only go 100 with my builds) but I haven't gone all the way up that high.

However, 370-374 is totally respectable damage. Trust me, I've killed a lot of people with that build...like 100+ invasions dominated. So if you have a weapon you want to use, and you have the stats to use it, go for it. Depending on your build, it might be fantastic or trash no matter what the letters say. Optimization is great for damage, but it's not the MOST important thing in the world if you can use the weapon to its full potential.

Quick Build Optimization Guide

This is a brief guide of a bunch of build ideas for Dark Souls 3. This information is all over the internet already, but it is definitely not consolidated and it took me a few months of playing to actually find some of this info.

This guide is for PVP BUILDS. PVE is entirely possible to win with anything. PVP means you have a level cap. If you just keep leveling up, that's totally fine and do your thing, but you don't need a guide to put Max points everywhere. The current meta is 120 but going anywhere from 100-130 will net you plenty of players to play with because the summon range is +-10 levels. Most people go 120 but as long as you are within 100-130 you will get plenty of players to fight. Don't listen to anyone who complains about you going above 120. They can't stop you from playing how you like and they have the exact same options you have. So, if you follow the meta, it helps to know where your stats will be giving you the most bang for your buck since you have a limited amount of them. Here's how it breaks down:

Starting Class and Defensive Stats:

Starting class, more or less, does not matter. You can respec 5 times per New Game cycle or if you upload your save and reload it then you can respec infinitely. However, you can only respec down to your classes Base stats so choosing a starting class that doesn't waste stats can be important for some. Knight, Deprived, Mercenary and Pyromancer have the least amount of wasted stats. The rest of the classes have too much luck, in my opinion. Luck is useful, but only really useful on a Bleed/Luck build and I will go into that later. Choose your poison, no matter which class you choose you will have a few wasted points but it's not THAT MANY points.

Vigor, endurance, vitality and attunement are your defensive stats. They will help your survivability and how much you can use certain attacks. In my opinion, you should go at least 27 vigor but above 50 is useless. If you are invading at 120, go AT LEAST 35 but if you are just dueling you can stay embered and your health will be great at 27-34. Endurance can be anywhere from 18-40. I've heard of some casters going to just 15 but that seems a little low to me. Strength builds are going to need to go higher, like 30-40, but low stamina consumption builds can go to 18. Vitality will all depend on what you want to wear and hold. I don't think you want to go higher than 25 but this all depends on fashion and how many weapons you want to hold at once. It raises physical defense higher than other stats but vigor will give you better survivability. Also, don't go above 70% equip load. Fat rolling will get you killed easily. Attunement is going to really depend on build. 120 casters should go 30, melee builds can leave it at 10-11 and bring some  ashen Estus flasks if you need the extra weapon arts. No one seems to care if you chug that in the middle of a duel. It will really depend on your play style and how much you depend on weapon arts and how many points you have left over.

The builds:

Quality build:
The Quality build is equal parts dex/strength. The Jack-of-all-trades melee build. It can use nearly every weapon in the game. A great build for beginners and pros alike. For maximum damage output you will want to go 40 strength and 40 dex. Refined gems are the ideal infusion for your infusable weapons.

Strength build:
Big. Heavy. Weapons. This build has slower weapons but they hit HARD. A lot of strength weapons have hyper armor too, which means you'll take damage but your attacks won't be interrupted. They can be great in duels and they are fantastic against gankers. 50-60 strength will give you really great damage, but if you two-hand a strength weapon at 66 strength you actually get the the same damage as you would at 99 strength. Going 66 strength won't give you very much room for other things so I recommend going minimum dex requirement for whatever weapon you want to use. Heavy gems are what you want to use to infuse your weapons.

Dex Build:
Dexterity builds are for fast and tricky weapons. They are typically lighter so you don't have to pour as much into vitality. These weapons tend to do better in duels than they do in invasions, but they can definitely do some work against gankers 50-60 dex is ideal for optimal damage in pure dex builds. Sharp gems will net you the most damage from your infusions.

Sorcerer:
Now for the casters. Intelligence is the stat you want to focus on for sorcerers and you want to go 50-60 to get the most damage out of them...and they can dish out MASSIVE damage. Seriously, watch out for gank squads with sorcerers in them. These builds are great in duels but not so get against gankers. If you invest stats in the Moonlight Greatsword, you can have a really really powerful weapon too because it scales best off of intelligence. You won't have a lot of points to invest in weapons, but infusing one with Crystal Gems will get you best results. If you want to use the crystal magic weapon buff, you can go raw with your infusion too.

Pyromancer:
Pyromancers are the quality build of the casters. You want to go 40 faith and 40 intelligence on this build. Pyro spells are some of the best in the game. They can hit really hard. They are also the easiest to free aim and that can be really rewarding. They can do really well in all PVP situations because of their damage output and the ability to free aim. If you want a weapon, you should go Chaos infusion. Again, you can go raw with the weapon if you want to use Carthus flame arc.

Cleric/Miracle:
The cleric or miracle build is a curious build. It's one of the most satisfying builds I've made because the spells do very little damage until a really high level. You want to go 50-60 faith to do most damage, but you can make some of the best hybrid builds with an investment of 30-40. Honestly, I might make an entirely separate guide for the miracle build. It's still fairly unexplored right now. In my experience, some of the talismans have amazing hyper armor so a significant investment in vigor helps to tank hits. You can usually win the trade. Lightning gems will net you the best damage when infusing if you want to use a weapon. Lightning weapon, darkmoon blade, blessed weapon, and dark blade are all great weapon buffs to put on a raw weapon too.

Dark Magic:
If you want to go dark magic, it can be tricky. It's almost necessary to go 130 on this build, because ideally you want to go 45 faith 45 intelligence. Last I checked, this does pretty good damage but it's not incredible. I haven't made this build yet, but I'm interested. It can be the most versatile but it's also the trickiest because you need very specific catalysts, talismans, and the pyromancy flame in order to utilize all your tools. If you want to infuse weapons then you should go with the Dark Gem, or Dark blade and raw infusion. I might make the build just to report on my experiments, but I don't like to respec much so it'll take me a good 15-20 hours.

Luck/Hollow/Bleed Build:
This is another tricky build but can net you some really amazing damage. Luck is not useful for damage, until you infuse a weapon with hollow. Then, it can do a TON of damage. The current thought process is to go Quality 40/40 str and dex and 30-35 luck. If you have a weapon at +10 Hollow infused, you actually get a +5 to your Luck stat. So, if you have a +10 hollow weapon or shield in both hands, you get +10 to your Luck stat. This will next you the highest damage for many weapons. Plus, the luck stat will help cause bleed pretty damn fast with certain weapons. The only weapon that I know of that scales off of Luck naturally is Anri's Straight Sword, which is one of the best straight swords even after a recent nerf. I really like the Luck build, but I've only gone to 100 with the build so I need to do some testing at 60 luck. There is very little testing done on it yet that I've seen.

And there you have it! These are not rules, just a brief guide on the best math in the game. Hybrid builds can be completely viable too, where you have a spell or buff that supplements melee and quality builds and pyro builds definitely don't HAVE to be 40/40. Seriously, watch Praise the Sun's YouTube channel. He consistently has non-optimal stats and dominates. Have fun. Experiment. Dominate.

Best Dex Scaling Weapons in Dark Souls 3

It's been a very long time since I've posted anything. Lately, I've been spending a lot more time playing dark souls 3 than I have fighting games. I still play fighting games but I just don't have as much time to dig in deep like I did a few years ago. However, I still love these games and I'm going to try to analyze and present some good information to players who are looking for help or are just looking for the same answers to questions that I have had.

First off: this list is geared towards pure Dex builds, which I have just started building. Fun fact I didn't realize about Dec builds is that the second softcap is at 60 Dex. Hybrid builds and quality builds can shoot for 40 dex but pure Dex should shoot for around 50-60 for optimal damage. Non-optimal stats are TOTALLY viable for duels (just watch Praise the Sun, he almost never bothers with optimal stat.s), but optimal stats are almost required for taking on gankers in invasions.

Second: This list is just for best scaling. This is not a weapon tier list. Every weapon can be viable in PVP duels and every weapon is viable in PVE. These are just weapons that will scale to dex better than other weapons. Keep an open mind for some other weapons not on this list because base damage is important too. Play with what you like, this is just a list. Also note, all weapons are +5 or +10.

The list:

S Weapons:

Chaos Blade
Dagger (sharp)
Scimitar (Sharp)
Painting Guardian Curved Sword (sharp)

A weapons:
Farron Greatsword
Bloodlust
Shotel (sharp)
Rapier (sharp)
Ricard's Rapier (sharp)
Murakumo (sharp)
Harpe (sharp)
Claw (sharp)
Manikin Claws (sharp)
Great Scythe (sharp)
Corvian Great Scythe (sharp)
Winged Spear (sharp)
Carthus Curved Sword (sharp)
Rotted Ghru Spear (sharp)
Rotted Ghru Dagger (sharp)
Sellsword Twin blades (sharp)
All clubs sharp (untested by me, this is fextralife info. The clubs seem really strange to get A scaling)

B scaling:
Storm Curved Sword
Exile Greatsword

Most other infusable weapons receive B scaling when sharp except Halberds, and Axes. Those receive C. Some of these weapons still might be pretty good for your build depending on base damage. The other few that do not receive B are terrible with scaling period or scale better with odd infusions.

Bad dex scaling:
Bandit's knife
Mail breaker
Corvian greatknife
Astora straight sword
Drakeblood Greatsword

If I remember correctly those are all C or D, which still might be viable for your build but will not be optimal. So there you have it, plan your dex build around some of the weapons and enjoy! Duel on and happy hunting!

Fireballs, Beams, Projectiles in Fighting Games - Part 1

 It's been a while since I've posted anything on here. I've been thinking a lot about this subject, though, and I think this information can help a lot of new and intermediate level players.

Fireballs, Beams, and Projectiles are some of the most important aspects of 2D fighting games. They can be used for a variety of purposes. The most obvious reason projectiles are used is to zone and do damage from far away. However, there is much more to projectiles than one may initially think.

In Street Fighter, for example, the characters that have fireballs are far-and-away the most played characters in this game. For most new players, fireballs allow the opportunity to gain a few wins without actually learning any combos. Fireballs and projectiles are also awesome and dominate your friends who don't understand what QCF-Punch means (If you don't, it means quarter circle forward punch.) As you advance in your fighting game playing, projectiles and fireballs begin to mean zoning, space control, damage, chip-damage, set-ups, pressure, traps, and much more.

I'll start out with the most basic idea of projectiles and fireballs: zoning. Zoning is keeping the opponent at a distance and controlling the space in between your characters in order to minimize close combat. Some characters excel at zoning and it is actually the optimal way to play the characters. Some people may see this as cheap, but projectiles are a problem for even the top players and if you are going to play the game you need to know how to properly deal with them. It may be frustrating for your rush down character or grappler character to get in on a zoner, but it is incredibly possible in most games to get past fireballs and punish them.

Going a little bit deeper into the mental game the fighting genre we can see that projectiles act as a constant threat. This might seem obvious to some, but not everyone thinks of the deeper aspects of fighting games this way. If a player knows their opponent can use a projectile or has thrown one out, it forces them into making a decision. By default, it limits their decision making process. They may have had a battle plan from the get-go, but you are now forcing their hand. This goes for every attack you throw out, but projectiles are generally much more safe than other attacks. Projectiles often reach full screen, too. This means that no matter where the opponent is, a character with projectiles can still hit them. There is no safe zone where you can rest on your laurels against these projectiles. This need for constant mental awareness of the projectiles is why the threat aspect is so powerful and why projectiles are so effective and strong.

I'm going to leave part 1 here and I will discuss more fireball tactics and such in part 2.