Since the chat is down for the foreseeable future, I'm going to make an effort to try and get some traffic moving in the forums again. It's not the best idea and probably won't work, but screw it. So first I'm going to explain my setup in Dark Souls 3 and then go into some of the PvP experiences I've had so far.



I'm just about 100 hours into Dark Souls 3. I've beaten the game 3 times and have collected all the +2 rings I plan to get. I've got titanite slab upgrades on all the different gear I use and swap to, and have spent a LOT of time in PvP. I've since stopped leveling entirely in fear of being out of the soul range of most players (you can only play with other players who's levels are around 20 higher or lower to yours).


My Setup:
I main the Fume Ultra Greatsword with enough endurance to carry the early game Broadsword with the heavy infusion for an A scaling in strength. I'm also running Carthus Flame Arc, which works on both the Broadsword as well as the Greatsword. I'm also using the Black Knight Shield, which is a mid ranged shield that has the highest stability but also allows you to use your sword skill without having to two hand it. Fume Ultra Greatsword's skill (Stomp) is something that gives temp hyper armor.


My strategy:
General PvP strat is to get two clean hits on someone (Stomp really helps in this regard), and swap to the broadsword, which attack insanely fast compared to the ultra greatsword to do that last little bit of damage needed to win. Most the time, the change in speed is enough to trip up most players. Also, Stomp is a great way to bait out people who are parry happy. The greatsword uses up a TON of stamina, so stamina management is very important. I usually only go for heavy swings when I'm almost certain they will connect. Also, the backdash attack and the roll attack are great at getting quicker hits in for such a large weapon.


Arenas: (or as I've heard online, fight clubs)
So, in Dark Souls, there are online based covenants you can join. These give you roles and tasks to preform in OTHER people's worlds... and you will be rewarded. You can join other people's worlds specifically to help them with bosses or other player invaders... or you can BE said invaders, with the intent of killing the dude's world you invade. There are several other covenants, but that's the basis of it.

Where it gets interesting though, is that the community as created scenarios that, by all rights, shouldn't happen. There are people who deliberately summon invaders to their world... several at a time. And despite the goal of invaders being to kill the host, will fight each other... 1v1... in an orderly fashion. Most the time, standing next to the host they would be REWARDED for killing. There is no chat in Dark souls, there's no voice over IP. The only form of communications is through silent poses and gestures. But there everyone is. Standing in a queue waiting to fight the person who wins the current match.

This is very interesting to behold. It's basically a fighting game where there are no rooms, no lobbies, no turn order, and no rules. Yet all of these are imposed by players who can not even talk to one another. And even then, in combat, they mostly follow the PvP etiquette of bowing before matches, no healing, etc.


My experiences:
One of the more entertaining stories was when myself and Myoky grabbed the armor and weapons to a pair of bosses from the first game, and would wait for people to invade and see their reactions seeing former bosses waiting for them. You can see people using gestures that made it well known then knew what was going on. We even had another player come to fight us who, at the time, just so happen to be dressed up as another boss from the first game, who decided to come stand with us to wait for other invaders. I have a few screen shots of this, but not on me. I'll upload them when I get home. But that was a really fun evening messing with other people and generally having a good time.

My arena experiences have been really interesting as well. There are times when someone gets the balls to try and attack the host of an arena. It's great to see 3 or more red invaders immediately jump to the defense of the host and absolutely destroy them. There was a time only I was defending the host as a red invader, and after killing him, the host bowed to me, dropped a few souls and some ember and we went back to watch the fight going on.

In PvP matches, I mentioned there was an unspoken etiquette to follow. One of which is not to heal (aka, drink flasks. aka, chugging). usually when someone breaks this, you also would heal. This generally draws things out FAR too long. I've gotten to the point where even if someone heals, I'll keep the etiquette and not. In on world, the host noticed this. While the guy who was chugging had his back to the host, the host walked up and backstabbed him. He bowed to me, to which I replied with the applaud gesture, and the next guy in line jumped down.


There are a lot more scenarios where unspoken alliances and bonds are made, and it's one of the more interesting things to happen in Dark Souls that has made me love the series. And that's just the PvP aspect. Honestly, as vile and unorganized the internet is... you'd think in a game like Dark Souls, you'd get it the worst. But this community goes completely the opposite direction with it.

I've never played a Dark Souls game, and I don't plan to in the near future.
Still, that is pretty neat! I wish there were more communities like that.