Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition – PVP Guide

 
 
A Beginner's Guide to Dark Souls PVP Forest Fighting

Made by pelida77
 
1. Intro ----------------------------------------------------[DkS01]

2. The Build for the Forest ---------------------------------[DkS02]
  2.1. The Build Level When you are Invading in the Forest. -[DkS03]
  2.2. A couple of general tips for your Build. -------------[DkS04] 
  2.3. The Build Level When you are Hosting (not invading)---[DkS05]

3. Some Tools to fight in the Forest ------------------------[DkS06]
  3.1. Backstabs. (and Types of BS's) -----------------------[DkS07]
  3.2. About Parry. (and Types of Parry) --------------------[DkS08]
    3.2.1. Some General Tips for Parrying -------------------[DkS09]
  3.3. Stun locking & Combos. -------------------------------[DkS10] 
  3.4. Using your Surroundings ------------------------------[DkS11]
 
4. Your Opponents. ------------------------------------------[DkS12]
  4.1. Some general tips when you look at your opponent. ----[DkS13]
  4.2. Your Opponents Soul Level. ---------------------------[DkS14]
  4.3. You Opponents Skill Level. ---------------------------[DkS15] 
  4.4. Gankers ----------------------------------------------[DkS16]
    4.4.1. General Tips dealing with Gankers. ---------------[DkS17] 
  
5. The Losers -----------------------------------------------[DkS18]
5.1. Glitchers (Swapping) -----------------------------------[DkS19]
5.2. About Laggers ------------------------------------------[DkS20]
5.3. Cheaters -----------------------------------------------[DkS21]
   5.3.1 What makes a Cheater? ------------------------------[DkS22]
   5.3.2 What to do with Cheaters. --------------------------[DkS23]   
   5.3.3. Fighting Cheaters. --------------------------------[DkS24]
5.4. The H&S Game -------------------------------------------[DkS25]
 
6. Farewell My friends! And Resources -----------------------[DkS26]
 
 
 
1. Introduction. [DkS01]

Hi, I'm pelida77. And this is my Dark Souls guide for online playing
PVP in the Forest (Darkroot Garden).
As you can probably tell English is not my native language, 
I've tried my best to fix the broken sentences
and grammatical mistakes, 
but still you gonna have to excuse me on that.
Any suggestions or corrections send a message here: 

pelida77@yahoo.com
 
This is a guide for a somewhat beginner but not for a complete noob
at the game. I don't claim to be the best player, I'm just regular, 
but I'll try to give a word of advice for beginners regarding 
what I've seen, sometimes learn, through my many hours playing. 

I'll avoid telling you the really basic stuff like: 
How do I become a Forest Hunter? How do I stay one?
How do I invade? How can I summon other people? Etc.
For all this and more very useful
information you can check the Wiki.
Mostly use the Wikidot and avoid the Fextralife.
(at least for pvp advice)
 
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/
 
I play on PS3/PC/PS4. But I'm not particularly fond of Remaster,
so some things I say here don't really apply for the Remaster
(like the number of Invaders you get, or when I talk about cheaters...
at least for now. Sadly, this will change for the worst in the future).

But given that I would be mostly talking about general stuff -
this could also be used by Remaster beginners in PC and PS4.
Certainly you can also use this guide for 360 and Xbox One...
Though as a reference I'll quote the Dualshock Joystick buttons. 
   
I made this guide for Forest Fighting (which is one of the most popular
arenas and my personal favorite); but really the same principles
described here could be used in other areas of the game 
(like Oolacile Town for example or most areas really)

I wrote this alone, but of course I took some resources from
the Web, mostly videos from other players that I quote in section 6.  

Ok let's begin. 

So, lets say you are a proud Forest Hunter of Alvina 
and your objective is to kill the trespassers, 
ultimately to protect sir Artorias Tomb.
Or maybe a treacherous blood thirsty Darkwraith, and all you want to do
is kill for humanity. 
  
But there are many ways you can achieve this. You can do it with 
an Over Powered build (OP) maybe Full Level, or you can do it with
a Low Level build. You can hide and wait for help and then 
gank upon the host, or you can do it the hard way and 
face whatever challenge is out there alone.
 
The great thing about Dark Souls is that it's not a game about Winning
or Losing but rather about How you do it... or try at least 
(it's about style)
Facing gankers with a Low Level build is not an easy task. 
That's why when you succeed, the reward feeling is so much sweeter!
 
You will lose a lot playing pvp in this game.
No matter how good you are.
Is just the nature of the game: The Forest gives and the Forest takes.

But with each loss comes a lesson,
and if you understand what you did wrong then you are getting better! 
In that sense Dark Souls PVP is identical to PVE.
You die over and over, until you finally get it!                     
 
 

2. The Build for the Forest [DkS02]
 
I'm not going to tell you how to make a build, you can find plenty 
information online on the subject. For instance, you could go to 
MugenMonkey.com and find pages upon pages of all kind of builds 
(or you can experiment with your own in the character planner)
 
I must warn you though that most of this so called "builds" are just
Over Powered rubbish (OP). 

A build it's a character that should let express yourself 
- your ability at this game -, within the boundaries of certain limits:
it should give you enough power but without making you OP... 
It's a character that lets you kill as a
direct consequence of your skills,
but still lets you learn the game; and to learn the game 
you need to be vulnerable.
 
To fight in the Forest you could use a Full Level Havel (Level 713),
full life, full endurance, full armor, full poise, Magic and Miracles;
With this abomination you would be powerful for sure and "win" many fights
but the problem is that it won't let you improve your skills at the game:
Whenever you win is not because you did something right and 
committed fewer mistakes, is just because: You-Are-OP.

And if you are pushing all your attributes to the maximum, 
What are you "building" exactly? Are you playing this RPG then? 
Are you playing?
 
Most players with OP characters end up just spamming the R1 button...
Hey, it's good enough to kill the noobs!... But not enough 
to overcome a good player (or even an intermediate one).
Sometimes you can kill a good player but notice I used the word overcome:
to surpass them with your skill... and yeah maybe even kill them. 
But that's not the point. 
 
But in any case if you can, only through your skill,
force an OP host and his summon to heal (maybe even more than once);
even if you die I would give you that round!
 
Hey! You survived a lot of time against terrible odds,
(and if you still feel upset you can find comfort knowing that this pair
wouldn't last 10 seconds by themselves against you.
And... Hang on baby, you will eventually get them!)
 
And mind me, a good player, might die a couple of times,
but they will read you, and eventually spank you, and spank you real bad! 
 
My rule is: You learn, you win. So... yeah, you died, 
but who's learning here?

 
2.1 The Build Level When you are Invading in the Forest [DkS03]      
 
 
Your build should be What we call Enough Level. But how much is enough?
Well of course it's debatable... But in my opinion, 
based on my personal experience,
if you are INVADING in the Forest the build should be around 
Level 100/120/125/130 and in between; But no more than that!
and no less than Level 100.
 
Of course there are players out there that invade with 
Low Level Builds (80/60/30 or even less), and certainly a degree of skill
is required to fight in equal terms with that... But -again in MY opinion-
these Low Level builds won't achieve the full potential
of What a build can achieve... and against certain OP players, 
no matter if you are good, you won't be able to put up 
a good fight with that (of course relatively speaking...
and a strong case could be made for Lvl 80 builds). 
 
150 invading is too damn OP in my opinion, it would let you use good armor
and probably some nasty miracle or spell... even if you don't do that,
it will give you more life or more endurance (and you need to master 
the right amount of endurance... you need to have limits)
 
The reason why we use 100/120/125/130 (and in between) is because 
the attribute of your character sensible slow down after       
giving it 40 points.
A character with:
- 20 in Vitality VIT will have 793 Health Points HP
- 30 VIT/1100 HP;
- 40 VIT/1325 HP;
- 50 VIT/1500 HP;
- 60 VIT/ 1588 HP
and so on: You can see there's a slow down.

This is even more noticeable in other attributes like
Strength or Whatever...

Mind that 88 HP difference is nothing, is just a slash with a knife...
 
So you see: it is pointless. Yes it will give you a little advantage
but at the price of not letting you improve at the game.
 
With 100/120/125/130 you have more than enough space to put points
in some attributes that you will carefully choose to make a build... 
it's important to dedicate your build to do something specifically...

A "build" that is able to excel at everything: Strength, Dex, Pyro,
Magic, Miracles, etc. Is not a build at all!
 
So at least 100, why not 120, no more than 125 
(I found 130 a ltl bit OP but still it will let you learn,
so maybe you could try this first... I don't know, is just
delaying the inevitable: to become good you need to do good!)  
 
If you make a balanced build with those limits in mind, 
you should have enough HP, enough endurance, enough armor, 
enough defense and enough offensive powers to even deal with
Full Level Gankers (you'll have the tools, 
though you'll probably die of course... at first)
 
So this is important, like I said, to learn the game.
But there is also another crucial reason to not go OP 
while you are invading.
 
Dark Souls lets you invade same level range players or upper levels,
it won't let you invade below your level range. Typically 
-it depends on the covenant-, but the Lower Level Limit Formula is:

 X - (10 + 0.1x) Where X is Level

(so, a Level 100 invading can be matched with: Lvl 80 to 713)   

Exception: The Blades of the Darkmoon invaders but that's the reason
why that covenant sucks and its filled with lousy players... 
still the game pairs Darkmoon invaders with lower levels... 
but not really unfairly low... The formula here is:

 X - (50 + 0.2X)
 
[By the way, regarding this covenant I know that this is totally 
obvious and that you are new to the game, but 
JUST STOP INDICTING ALREADY!
It is completely pointless! The indictment was not meant to 
punish players "bad behavior" is just a bad "pairing" mechanic 
for a covenant. What you do with the indictment is send the 
Blades of the Darkmoon after the indicted player... 
but the indicted player probably wants to fight other players, so...]   
 
So, lets say, you make a Lvl 278 character... the lowest Host you get
is maybe a Lvl240; most probably you get a same Lvl 278 or Superior 
(a Full Level or close to it, Havel stinker with another abomination
as a ganking pal. A character at Lvl 240-300-400-500 almost doesn't 
differ from a full level, is just too damn OP).
 
Conclusion: If you make an OP character to invade, you will MOSTLY 
get OP characters as Hosts (and so, again, What's the point? 
You are not gonna out power them... Both of you will probably end up
spamming and healing, and spamming again until one of you dies in your
pathetic stinking suckiness!)
 
By making an Enough Level character you can still encounter,
fight and try to spank, from time to time, the full level abominations
I described above...
But the difference is you won't get ONLY these opponents. 
You'll get more invasions (because there's a wider range)... 
More frequent invasions, and more quality invasions too; 
cause the Good/Intermediate players know all this, and most of them play 
-When hosting- within the boundaries of Lvl 200; so if you make 
an OP character you probably will never get good players as rivals 
while invading (not hosting)... And even though you'll probably
lose against good rivals, you still need to face them from time to time! 
Because they are good, and if you manage to deal with them,
you become good too! Git Gud!
 
 
2.2 A couple of general tips for your build: [DkS04]              
 
 
i) It is said that you should make your build depending on the weapons
you want to use. So, regarding weapons and offensive techniques 
stay away from anything that seems too easy: Dark Beads,
Wogs, Twops, Crystal Magic (buffing in general), the Pow Within;
Falchion /Gold tracer (those weapons suck for learning!), Orthanc Spear,
Demon's Spear, Stone Great Sword, etc. You'll know it soon enough 
(all the weapons that are usually handed by the OP gankers).
Once you become a little better you could go back to all this and 
THEN use them... but, you know, try to do something stylish with them.
 
ii) As a general rule: anything that lets you kill with one hit (or close)
is not good; and anything that forces you to Spam the R1 button 
to get any results is not good either.
Try to learn first how to use the good weapons. Some say 
"there are no good weapons, just the right weapon for you"
I call that rubbish. The Titanite Catch Pole is objectively a bad weapon:
is slow, the animation and hit windows are bizarre, 
it doesn't do much damage, it's a very parryable weapon... etc. 
(You can still put up a fight with it, but I think that new players
 should stay away from it)
 
So what are the good weapons? The ones that let you master the game.
Usually the ones that Good Players use. If you encounter a skillful player
look at his weapon when he's fighting seriously... (you'll know because 
he will be very seriously trying to kill you, ha ha) 
There are a lot of choices, but most people agree that:            
Claymore, Murakumo, Katanas, Zweihander, Rapiers, Flamberge, The Halberd,
The Great Club, Furysword, Black Knight Halberd, Moonlight Greatsword,
Great Scythe, Balder Side Sword, etc. etc. etc. are Top Notch Weapons
(I'm not putting a complete list here, look for yourself.
Part of the becoming good process is to learn by yourself)
 
iii) Scaling: Of course on regard of your choice of weapon 
you should take notice of scaling. Weapons scale their damage according to
Parameter Bonus (from best to worse S,A,B,C,D,E, and "-" that is, non).
The damage depends on how much a particular stat has been raised 
(Strength, Dex, Int, Faith); 

All means that, lets say you choose to use a Uchigatana - which is a
Dexterity Parameter A weapon - it will deal way more damage with
a Dexterity build (a build that has given primarily points to Dexterity)

A Uchigatana will be way more dangerous with a DEX build; 
but here is the key: that doesn't exactly mean you should stay away from
Katanas or any other Dex weapon if you are using let's say
a Strength Build.

Katanas give you a particular approach to fighting, one that could be
useful against certain players... A guy with DWG ring for example,
flipping all over the place, it could be useful to finish him with
a fast Uchigatana running attack, I don't know...
 
So even if the scaling of a weapon is not the optimal for your build,
if you are able to use that weapon, you might want to considerate
having it in your inventory ready for a hard swap.                 

Also, a build could have a little bit of more than one thing 
depending on how you feel (Well balanced of course) and you could still
use a specialized Weapon, lets say a Katana or a Murakumo, 
only that perhaps it would deal more damage with their Chaos version 
(just as an example) Maybe you can still use a little bit of Wogs 
(as long as is not super OP) or emit Force or whatever... 
But regarding that the next point:
   
iv) Stay away from Magic/Miracle Builds at first.  You are a beginner
you need to master the basics. Melee is the meat and potatoes of this game.
And no matter what people say Magic is a coward way of fighting.

It's very common to see new players using Wiz "builds" and they suck at it.
They usually try to kill with one hit or even take advantage of the
phantom hit some magics have (like Soul Spear or similar) It lets you
learn nothing! Nothing at all! Same with Miracles like Wrath of Gods. 

Not even as a Backup plan. It is typical: you are facing a beginner or
intermediate player and they realize they are losing because you are better,
so they bring out their plan B: Wogs, Spells...  
You want to win with these, but maybe, just maybe, if you can't do it
only Melee, you shouldn't win...
 
I've seen players doing amazing things with their Wizard/Miracle builds...
but I assure you, to get to do that they first mastered Melee. 
And finally, unless you are cheating, there's a limited amount of castings,
so what you going to do when you run out? 
 
v) As a general rule: Fast is Good, Fat is bad.
You need to be Fast, you need to Fast-Roll. There are some good players
that from time to time enjoy themselves playing with Fat-Roll builds,
but even them can't do much against another Good player that is using
a Fast build. A Fat Roll build is a Bad build. And that's it.

And in a Ganking situation definitely Fat-Rolling is a great disadvantage.
A good case could be made in favor of Mid-rolling... if you are good...
but I'd say that if you are a beginner, you should leave this for later...
A Mid-Rolling build could let you learn subtle stuff about the game...
but you should master the basics and intermediate first.

In any case, you should notice (most players don't) that there are 
different Layers of Fast Rolling. You are a tiny bit faster when you have
no armor at all (or maybe just one little piece); and if you are in 
the limit between Fast and going Mid, you are still Fast Rolling but a
tiny bit slower than without armor... It feels different 
(I'm not talking about the DWG Ring here)
You get used to see what it is a natural Fast-rolling speed ring or not,
which is sometimes useful to recognize an OP player]
or even a cheater from afar. (If you see a Havel suit fast rolling at 
the speed of No-Armor there's something definitely wrong there...)
 
vi) About Poise
Most guides I've read advise you to try to get lots of poise.  
And poise could be a great thing to have... Max says: 
"Is like a warm blanket".

You can have Poise as high as 161, and as Low as 0. The problem is 
that having lots of poise prevents you from learning Toggle Escape...
With any suit that gives you 40 plus Poise most times you don't even
need to Toggle so you are not forced to use it; and again, 
you must have the practice (and to be vulnerable to master the mechanic).
 
Still... still... you might want a little bit of Poise because as always,
in a ganking situation you'll be receiving multiple attacks, that quickly
depletes your Poise... and you can't be getting into stun animation 
each time a fast slash of a Katana finds your body.  
So I recommend, you use 20+ Poise, you can even go lower... and if you
are good you will eventually feel comfortable with Zero; but 20+ 
in my opinion is ideal for learning; and depending on the weapons 
the gankers are using you can even swap to a Wolf Ring, that will 
temporarily give you an extra 40 points, that's 60 in total (but do not 
use a Wolfy as something permanent, that's a common mistake I see:
you get used to having poise, and in this game is not exactly like you
can use a ring in each finger, you know?)                         


2.3 The Build Level When you are HOSTING (not Invading). [DkS05]
  
When you are HOSTING in the Forest the terms change a little. 
Some people Host by themselves with Level 100/125 builds but it's hard.
Especially when you are not a Forest Hunter (I mean if the Forest is 
completely hostile to you: the creatures and the Forest People);
cause you are receiving the invasions of:
-Forest Hunters (up to two players), 
-DarkWraiths (sometimes up to 2 players)
-Blades of the Darkmoon (1 player but he will be higher level
than you... so probably a slightly OP cheap bastard. 
You won't get a super OP invader.
Even in this covenant the game takes care of you,
but he will be hard...)

I call the 100/125 Hosts, Lone Wolves (if they are alone of course) 
and if they do it, consistently, they must be good players. 
I respect a Lone Wolf, but ultimately Lonewolfing the forest 
is not the ideal set up for learning or to show your skills
and express yourself.  

Most good Players that Host alone in the forest are doing it with
125+ builds; make it 150 and even higher but definitely 
no more than Lvl 200.

Level 150 when you are invading would be OP, but here you will be
receiving wave after wave of enemies, that will Gank upon you 
(most of them at least), you need to be able to resist at least 
one backstab and poise through a couple of hits, even if you toggle;

(and you want to get a little wider universe of invaders, 
without them getting too damn OP) so, it is acceptable to be 
this high as a host, use some armor, and even heal... 

In fact, in my opinion when you are hosting alone in the Forest 
Chugging Estus is a must. 
Of course, some players take proud on healing only with humanities
when Hosting, but I don't think they get too far in 
a ganking situation. 
You need to Chug, because at 150 you are strong, but against gankers,
that are also strong (maybe 100/125/150/200 or more, who knows?) 
means nothing... also considerate that for the most part this are not
your regular gankers... some of them are well seasoned 
hardcore invaders that won't fall for the usual tricks.
 
Hosting alone at 150, multiple invasions in the forest 
is hard in this game...
Though on the other hand, when invading against gankers you can only
heal with humanity (or Heal Miracle) which are slower methods of
healing of course, so that makes it a challenge... 
So, who knows what's harder, right?                              

Anyway, this was messed up in the Remaster... Arrgh! They tried to
bring balance to the game by letting everyone heal with Estus... 
but it became a Chug Fest. Dark Souls it's the best example of 
challenge, that's What's great about it, and they changed that!...

But in any case, it is acceptable to Chug at 150. Anything more than
that becomes a little cheap; that doesn't mean you should chug like 
a frigging alcoholic each time you get hit and especially if
you are ganking it is low to heal your summon with chugs 
(and a shameful sign of fear... 
but, you know: That's just the way gankers are!).
 
Try to master the art of Chug while protecting your back from backstabs.
There are lot of places considered to be safe for chugging 
like platforms that are a bit tricky to climb, and weird parkour jumps
all over the place... 
you need to master all this, and the only way of doing it is by trying
over and over, and sometimes failing... shamefully failing...  
Frequently, a simple tree or a wall, or the air over a cliff would 
give you good enough refugee against backstabs for a sip or two 
(The reverse backstep, omni step, is a good thing to know if you want
to quickly set yourself relatively safe against a wall, but usually
is easier just to position yourself with the directional)

Here's a tutorial by the awesome "Tubame Ys" showing
how you should chug in the Forest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1KWIv5q6yI
 
You could also summon help while hosting... But I somewhat advice
you against it (This is definitely different in Remaster, because
they messed up the level range, and also you get many more invaders 
- for now-...) Sooner or later you'll end up ganking and killing
most players instantly. And there's nothing to learn there... 
Once you start cheaping your road off, there's no stopping...
Sometimes good players gank... but I can assure you they didn't 
get good by ganking.
Either way, you gonna die, the Forest gives and the Forest takes...
but the whole idea is not to defeat every single player,
but just survive a little longer... just one more invasion.   
 

3. Your tools fighting in the Forest. [DkS06]                  

 
Of course, I don't intend to tell you what you should do, 
what's stylish and what isn't in the game. What I want to do with
this section is try to fix some misconceptions most people have,
even expert players on the game. 


3.1 Backstabs [DkS07]

 
Let's talk first about the elephant in the House: Backstabs (BS).
Everyone seems to hate them. It's not honorable, it's cheap, bla bla.

Well I'm here to tell you... and this is controversial... Backstabs
are the essence of this game. For better or for worse. 
In my opinion they are what makes this game great. The reason why
people still play and love the original Dark Souls is because of 
Backstabs (even if they don't realize it) 

Bs's make the game fast; like the SunlightBlade bro says this is 
a game of Paper, Scissors, and Backstabs.
In this game you don't have the long extremely boring duels you 
could have in other Souls games; all ends fast enough and you
move into the next fight, the next invasion, the next challenge.

Backstabs are also an equalizer among players, because even the
most stinky lousing noob will soon enough learn how to BS; 
and if you are not careful even this noob will be able to kill you
(or at least be close, so that adds tension to the fight) ...
I have lost many times against extremely bad players, 
because I was playing with my food, having fun with my prey
and... got backstabbed! 

The duels against bad players would be too damn easy if this risk
wasn't there always in the background... Without backstabs that 
poor noob would be completely doomed. So, it puts you and him in
equal terms... sort of... 

People blame BS's because they are relatively easy to execute, 
and deal a lot of damage... and so supposedly, that's the reason 
why players won't try anything else, supposedly... But that's 
rubbish, it's a lie. Without BS's a cheap player will just try
the next cheap thing... and in fact if you are good, you don't 
really see in the Forest the OP cheapies going for BS's... because
they know that against a good player that won't work.
 
Also, being easy to execute, kinds of put more emphasis on the 
other techniques that are not so easy to execute like a parry for
example. Yeah BS is easy, so it gives more meaning to try a parry,
or to even try to win without BS's. 

All this I just said it's my opinion and it's debatable; but in any
case, I can assure you 100%, objectively, if you want to become 
good in the Forest YOU NEED TO LEARN HOW TO BS... and that's a fact. 

Of course, some players take proud in not using them...
And this works in duel situation, but you can't really learn how to
deal with OP gankers without Backstabs (unless you are using a cheap
tactic, like I don't know, OP Wogs or Dark Beads or Whatever).
 
Even in the case you feel it's dishonorable (which I found laughable...
dishonorable is to cheat, not to use a core mechanic of the game 
the way it was intended to) and you plan never to use a BS you still
need to learn how to do it; at the very least to know the mechanic
by heart, and understand what other players will be doing. You can't
really avoid a mechanic you don't fully understand. 

I notice most beginners and even intermediate players do not 
understand the complexities of a BS, because they can't use it  
properly or they just disregard it as a cheap move. 

But there are many ways of landing a Backstab. 

Some Types of BS's: 
 

i) Lock Round BS: The simplest one, and the first people usually learn;
while lock on target go around your opponent and hit the R1 button in 
their back when the BS window opens. But even here there are some
things you can do to spice it up. What about suddenly changing your
direction? You are going Right to BS, but suddenly change to Left.
And maybe change your direction once more 
(very useful against players that are doing the same). 

ii) Running BS: While you are locked, you run into one of your
opponent sides and in the limit - sort of - when the BS window opens,
you hit the R1. Sometimes you get the animation of the BS,
but without the Damage. That's a Lagstab. It happens when the 
other player is also trying to BS you, and you both BS at the same time,
so the game cancels the damage. Extremely useful against gankers,
because even though you are not damaging them, they are not damaging
you and it lets you rest - I mean your fingers- and rest your character
to recover stamina,and even earn a little time (maybe another 
invader it's on the way).

You usually end up just in the receiving side of the Lagstab 
(also without the damage).   
But in a Lagstab your opponent is also getting the animation 
of being backstabbed... you can tell that this happened because
they are not going for another hit but weirdly for a moment kind 
unlock and face the other side showing you their backs.
If you are on the giving side of the lagstab you can even heal,
because you get out of the BS animation faster.
Of course is extremely useful to learn Backstab escape.          
Is not a consistent technique but sometimes it can really 
save you, go to "donttrustidiot" link on the resources section.  

The same principles of the previous one applies here... 
You can signal the other player you are going for a Running Left BS,
and at the last moment change direction and go for a Running Right BS.
And in the event you notice the other player reacts to it, 
and punish it (guessing that your signal is a lie and you were 
always going for the other direction) you can signal Left and still
go for the Left Side!!! You need to adapt.
 
iii) Unlock or Pivot BS. Self-explanatory, you unlock and try to go
for their back just like in the Lock Round BS. 
But here it is faster; the angle while rounding your opponent without
a lock lets you go through a smaller distance, you can even go 
right through one of his sides. Again, you can round them Right,
you can go Left, you can signal one of the sides and go for the
other one, and all sort of combinations (people call this pivots). 
I say that the most important aspect of an Unlock BS is the 
surprise element. You are lock on your target and suddenly you
unlock and go for a BS.

Essential to deal with the gankers when you are fighting one of them,
and the other one is chugging like a pig, you can unlock and run 
to him for a BS to punish his healing.Because is faster 
(if you have to round and BS while lock, it will take an eternity 
and the ganker will just get out of the healing animation)        

Also, you usually see some players, even good ones, unlock dancing
in the forest (going in circles), to avoid BS's and maybe get the
opportunity of land one on their own.
The dancing moves are safe only if you have some armor on (you 
usually see Havel Mom's doing this, dancing Havel Moms I call them),
but good players would read dancing moves and punish them. 
Look what they are doing and predict where they gonna be.
(I'm talking about the meaningless dancing around, you know?... 
multiple unlock circles are not bad moves) 
Lastly if you dance, you are signaling the other player that you know
the game a little at least, because new or bad players won't 
dare to unlock.  And even if they do, there's a safe way of dancing 
and a wrong way of doing it. So, you can read if the other player 
is a bad dancer. 
And Why would you want to give all this info?... What dancing players
end up doing is, dance around noobies, but as soon as they get a 
good player: Is Back to Lock baby!
 That doesn't mean you shouldn't go for Unlock fighting,
because it's crucial that you do. But rather than pointless dancing
in random directions you should unlock and perhaps predict what your
opponent is going to do. You could land a Predictive BS if you manage
to predict where your opponent's back is gonna be in a second or two
and be there at the right position by unlocking.                  
 
iv) Roll BS: You roll into an opponent and BS him... But of course,
he'll be Lock on you, or turtle back, or anything... so he probably
won't be giving you his back...
So the way you usually execute this is wait until the opponent begins
attack animation, and roll into him through his animation
and then BS him. 

Some weapons hold by your opponent are way more BSable through rolls
than others, usually the slow and heavy ones. For example,
the Large Club. So, if you are using a club (which is a great weapon
by the way) and you are guessing your opponent is good be careful 
when you hit, because he'd probably be waiting a fail Slash 
(or try to provoke one) to roll through it. Of course, you can use
this knowledge into your favor, maybe unlock and hitting exactly 
where you predict their roll is gonna end.
 
You can also execute this Roll BS with the DarkWood ring (DWR) 
and it's a whole different experience.
So, you probably want to master both methods.

A typical trap you can use to deal with an OP player, or even an 
Infinite Health cheater, is to set yourself near a cliff and again,
when they try to hit you, RollBS them into the chasm (where their 
OPiness or cheats means nothing... they'll just die) 
 
v) Reverse Roll BS: Hard to execute technique. Basically,        
while moving slightly back,you unlock with R3 and almost at
the same time execute a backwards jump, that is: press circle button
If executed at the right moment this will propel you forward
while you roll letting your character facing your opponent's back...
then BS. It is Hard to execute in PVP (specially against gankers...
but What isn't right?) at least, it's one more tool, and if you master
it you can do amazing things.
You can also do this with a Darkwood Ring on, and it feels, 
again... different.
(Watch tutorials and practice, you'll need a target to lock and 
unlock on, but you can even practice in PVE: agro an NPC)
Here's a link to a tutorial for the reverse roll by SunlightBlade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca_ddvBKYtE

You wouldn't believe that my Senpai, the one that teached me the
most on this (and other stuff) is no other than 
the Crestfallen Warrior!   
 
vi) Poise Through BS: Self-explanatory again, you poise through
an enemy attack while going for his back. For this you need to 
understand how many hits of your enemy's weapon you can resist with
current poise without entering into stun animation. List on Wiki:

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/poise

... It is also possible to toggle escape the attack 
(by predicting it) switch weapon when the attack hits you and go
for the back - lock/unlock- and right or left.
 
Ok. I described here a few, just a few, there are even more ways  
to engage a BS, but I let you discover them.
 

3.2. About Parries [DkS08]
 
There's a mysticism surrounding parries. Players that are considered
Top Level usually post their fights with lots of stylish parries on 
YouTube... What you don't usually see is their videos with all their
pathetic failed attempts, right?...
It's a Wonderful Mechanic because is slightly harder than BS's and
others, and represent a risk because failed parries are quite 
punishable, but in fact they are not that hard to execute.
  
Types of Parry (as always, I just describe a few):
 
i) Spamming R1 Parries: It's basically the first type of parry     
you learn. If you see your opponent spamming the R1 with a weapon,
you can attempt a parry. Is really easy, just get close enough and
parry; of course, if you fail the opponent will get multiple hits 
on you, that can even stun you to death... So, a safer method to
perform this is with a shield, you receive the first hit in 
the shield (L1 Shield Up) and then you parry (while shield up, L2).

Some weapons are more parryable like this than others... 
When you block Heavy Weapons with a normal shield, it slightly 
moves you backwards, so even if you get the timing sometimes the 
proximity is not right in the second hit.

Light Swords, spears and katanas are very parryable through 
this method. And some weapons are just good for spamming, 
like the Golden Tracer or a Dragonslayer Spear. These can only 
effectively inflict damage through R1 spamming (effectively...
they are not good for critical, not good for subtle slashes or 
running attacks) so you can learn to punish that. And when you 
punish them just one time, they'll fear you, and probably stop 
the spamming, and then their choice of weapons become irrelevant. 
(What you gonna do with a Gold Tracer? Other than spamming I mean...
And if you are not spamming, what are you doing with a Gold tracer
in your hand?!!! Fighting in this game is like asking questions...)

ii) Toggle Escape Parry. You can poise through a spamming attack 
(with enough poise thanks to armor or the Wolf Ring) or you can 
Toggle Escape into a Parry. 
This is extremely useful against Heavy Weapon's spamming, like the
Black Knight Greatsword or a ZweiHander, you receive the first hit
then you toggle escape into a parry.    
Mind though that good players won't fell for all these tactics,   
and their spamming could just be a trap to make you think 
you can parry them!   
 
iii) Set Up Parry: like Admiral Ackbar suddenly realize, It's a trap!
You are signaling a certain move, it could even end up with a hit,
but the important part is to make your adversary think that he can
punish you... then you safely repeat the move (and maybe even 
one more time) but then finally you end it up with a parry.
That is all you really want... The simplest of these tactics you see
is when someone throw something at you (knifes, bombs, arrows, etc)
at the right distance... so, you start getting annoyed and you 
finally run attack or roll and attack, and then they parry... 
 
iv) Lucky Parry: Many New, Intermediate and Good players, throw 
Lucky parries, which consist in performing them at the end of a 
certain move... maybe a roll and then a parry... maybe an unlock
pivot and a parry, maybe a hit and a parry. Just to see if they 
get lucky... But as everything in this game, if you read it 
you can punish it. Newbies usually spam their parries, you can see
them hitting the L2 more than once (there's no need to tell you 
how you can punish all this)
 
v) Predictive Parry: It consist on predicting When and Where your
adversary is gonna hit. This is the one that you really Want to master,
because it shows real skill and knowledge of the game. It requires you
to read your opponent moves, his weakness, how repetitive he's being,
what he's doing Wrong. 

You are able to get inside your opponent's head and predict exactly 
what he's gonna do... You don't see or react to the movement per se,
you guess... but is not entirely luck based.
 
What you like about Chess? Someone asked Bobby Fischer once... 
"I like the moment when a man's ego breaks" - he answered. 
A predictive parry is a real Ego Breaker. I've seen extremely good 
players and even cheaters, just crumble into pieces after you manage
to predict a parry upon them.

Anyway, an extremely useful predictive parry to learn is one used to
counteract Running BS's (and other BS's really) You run upon them to
trade BS’s but at the last moment you unlock and set yourself in the
right position and throw a parry where you think your opponent is gonna
hit the BS. (This could also be considered a set up parry... because you
can even be Signaling Backstabs and Lagstab a few times first, 
and then go for the Parry)      
 
Some weapons let you make good predictions. If you see a Rapier,
it is probable that at some moment in the fight the opponent
is going for a Critical, and at some moment in the fight he'll go for 
a running attack. And you can parry all that.
    
Parry running attacks is tricky, and even more if you have to 
predict them, but they are really rewarding parries!

It's quite common to get partial parries (When you don't get hurt by
the attack but neither your opponent gets into the parry stun animation)

A good method to avoid getting parried is hitting your opponent from 
a certain angle (just a side)... they'll usually fail the parry and 
you'll get your hit. 

You need also to master Dead Angle Hits (there's plenty information 
and videos online). Now, Expert players claim that you cannot parry
a Dead Angle Hit (and it's partially true) but if you manage to predict
a Dead Angle and by unlocking correct your position you can get a parry
from that hit too (then again, is not really a Dead Angle,
just a Dead Angle attempt).

You can parry anything baby, you just need some nerves of steel!
 
The only safe method I know of to avoid getting parried is being
unpredictable, or not hitting at all. I remember one very upset player
complaining because I Bs him repeatedly, punishing his parry attempts.
I could also have tried to parry him... but he didn't press the R1 
button once, not once.

And a player not hitting, well, definitely you can't parry that.  

Good players try to be unreadable. But they don't feel bad if they 
get parried; because again: parry is just another mechanic of the game...
a bit fancy, but still: means nothing.                                    

 
3.2.1. Some General Tips for Parrying [DkS09]
 
i) The timing of parries in PVP is different than in PVE 
(because of lag or latency) ... So, if you want to practice 
try not to do it in PVE: you'll get used to a different timing.
It could be useful to go to a quiet place and summon a friend to
practice with low damage weapons.
But not really. In fact, there's no better teacher that actually
playing the game, and attempting parries in PVP fighting...
You could be a master at parrying your summoned pal when you know
the conditions and that there will be no punishment; and then really
suck when it comes to actually parrying an unknown opponent in an
actual fight to death or shame!
 
ii) Different Weapons have different parry windows. A common mistake
I see, is people practicing parries with no weapon in hand, but you 
need to get used to these different windows.
Usually intermediate players are good at parrying one sort of weapon
and then stick to it; so that's the one they'll try to parry and not
the other ones, but you should force yourself to parry ALL sort of 
weapons. Especially the ones you fear the most.
Force yourself, and be punished: but learn!
 
iii) Different Shields have slightly different Parry windows...
meh, sort of... What I mean is, is not the same parrying with a 
Heater Shield, than just your arm, or a left hand weapon, or a...
Parry Shield... Theoretically a Buckler gives you a slightly 
wider parry window (2 more frames); but I can assure you is not
really noticeable (to the point you can take advantage of it),
so in reality is not easier to parry with a Parry Shield than
just a regular, and it kinds of mess up your understanding of the
different parry windows... And most important of all: it signals
your rival that you want to parry him! Whenever I see a parry shield
(or parrying dagger) I know this guy is quite new and... He wants
to parry me, so I'll be on the look to punish that.
 
iv) You should force yourself to attempt all sort of parries without
heavy armor on. I usually see Giant dads, Havel Moms, Havel’s Child,
Onion Bros and all sort of Heavy Armor opponents attempting parries... 
But with Heavy Armor on, the punishment for a failed attempt is not
as hard. So maybe they are good for setup parries, but definitely not
good to learn the predictive parry... With light armor on, you need
to learn to read your rival and predict the parry, because if you fail
you are probably done. You are done! you hear me?!               

 
3.3. Stun locking & Combos [DkS10]

To know how many hits of a certain weapon you can poise through
without getting into stun animation it is just as important as to
realize how much your opponent could potentially poise through. 
I already told you is not good to spam the R1 button... Well now
I'm telling you the opposite. It could really surprise your 
opponent... and psychologically probably next move he'll try to
punish the spamming, well now you do something different. You can
even hit and stun lock through dead angles...
Is good to also learn some combos, with diferent weapons and maybe
even spells.
I'll describe a basic combo with the Claymore: While unlock you 

1) Run-attack 2 hand the weapon, hitting the opponent 
2) Hit the opponent one more time with a 2 handed slash. 
Which probably gets the opponent into stun. 
3) You unlock BS.

You can spice it up a little bit depending on the rival, in 3
you could add the casting of a Black Flame and then BS. 
Or you could just simply kick, idk... is up to you...

Here are some videos made by "DarkSoulsMindEye" with examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0HUoDXjXB8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msaqRUQGb9U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDIwTdmgsg4

As always it's a good idea to watch the best players for this;   
so go to section 6, resources.


3.4 Using your Surroundings [DkS11]
 
To know the space where you fight is important too. Is not the same
fighting in an Open Space, than in a restricted environment 
(like in a bridge), or amongst the trees in Deep Forest.   
We are mostly talking about invading the Forest here, so, notice
that Open spaces in the Forest (the ones without trees) are not 
exactly completely open. This is not flat ground Street Fighter 
Training Stage style; there are slight protuberances in the terrain,
rocks, logs, and small plants... all these things act as minor 
obstacles, minor nuisances. You can't really perform a running 
attack if in the middle of your run there's a small plant. 
Obstacles mess up every attack, every move: learn how to take 
advantage of that. 

In an Honor Duel is consider to be cheap using the terrain in your favor.
But I said it before, the Forest is not an Honor Duel's area. 
That doesn't mean that you should disengage and run to Deep Forest
every time you need to heal on a 1v1. (Sometimes even expert players
don't comply to this) But it depends...you should establish here
your own limits and never settle: always try push these limits 
forward, harder, for the better! 

Now, the Forest is the best area for PVP in my opinion, because of how
large it is, and how much obstacles there are... It is like a huge
maze of trees. I've been playing in the Forest since the beginning
of the game, I know it by heart... and still sometimes get disoriented!
(for a second or two). That makes it an ideal area for spanking
the gankers. Because they also get lost 
(don't realize their surroundings).                              
 
A Giant Dad of the Old Days with a Zweihander is quite a force to
reckon; and in a Ganking situation it becomes even more scary...
But in Deep Forest that same Zwei in the hand of a clumsy player
can easily get stuck in the trees... this player will soon realize
he cannot hit near a tree... and then perhaps comes the time to try
a BS on him, because now he cannot stop this BS attempt with his 
usual method of unlock hitting the air with the Zwei... then you
are using the trees in your favor.

You can use the trees to obstruct one of the gankers while you are
dealing with the other one. Sometimes you can even use the trees 
to correct the angle of a Bs. 

You can even hide what you gonna do, while you are running from the
gankers, and they pursue: you can cast a Pyromancy and burn them 
to the ground. You can even take them now to an enclosed space of
the forest, the bridge, and here now you surprise them by suddenly
change your direction swapping into your own Zwei here! Be creative.
   
You could also use the critters and Forest People...
The Demonic Foliage (tree/bushes hollows) are extremely dangerous,
not so much because of their damage output, they are quite weak,
but just their force in numbers... And they can easily stun you,
and let you vulnerable with their multiple attacks.
Mushroom Parents are quite slow but hit like a truck. 
The Great Felines are fast and powerful (but they don't respawn)
You should use the critters with the gankers (not always... but maybe
with the real OP ones, is up to you...)
About the Forest Protectors, all of them are weak and very easy to
clean... But sometimes you could use their help, specially the 
cleric (he casts healing and if you are close enough, he can 
even heal you!)
 
Gankers soon realize this and learn to fear the critters, that's why
they usually try to clean the forest (kill everything) So it becomes
a very good sign that we are dealing with OP gankers - and maybe 
even cheaters - to spawn in one of the Forest locations and start 
seeing all over the place dead critters: Watch Out!
Unless he's really new to the game a lone host will not attempt to 
clean the forest from critters...

But if you are hosting alone, killing the Forest Protectors of Alvina
is a Must! (the Forest People, leave the critters alone though) 
Like I mentioned before, there are weird jumps all over the place
in the Forest. For example, It could be really useful to escape to
heal from the gankers by jumping from 
the Upper Portion (the one with the Forest Protectors) 
to the Downer Portion (the one with the Mushrooms).
But only if you notice they don't really know what they're doing 
and they cannot follow. A common trap in this follow jumps is waiting
for them down, blocking with a shield or weapon (you'll occupy the 
landing space and they'll just fall into the chasm)… a good way to
prevent this is to plunge attack on the blocker (but it's also risky
if the jumper is expecting this, cause instead of blocking he could
be waiting close, ready to punish your plunge attack animation)
This is one of the most basic jumps I described here, but there are
others, and parkour maneuvers that are extremely hard to perform   
(look videos and imitate) You will need them.  

 
4. Your Opponents [DkS12]
 
As soon as you get into a fight the first thing you need to do is 
get a good measure of your opponent... Take some time to look
at him and judge him, what is his main game?...
Try to not show any of your cards.

 
4.1 Some general tips to look from your opponent: [DkS13]


i) What Weapons is he using? 
Try to imagine the mechanic of that weapon hitting... Is that weapon
dangerous? Is it a good weapon or a bad one?
What's the weakness of that weapon? For example, the Large Club is
pretty scary doing criticals: Backstabs and Ripostes...  But the R2
attack is extremely slow.  R1 strike it's clumsy I would say...   
You can easily dodge it, parry, and even roll through it and go for
a BS. The guy playing with a Large Club, may try to hit you with a 
strike to break your poise, and a good player would even put a
set up to that...
But I'd say his main game is going for criticals.
And there's a high probability that he is also using a Hornet Ring 
(You can tell because the critical animation landing hit are 
different with a Hornet Ring on and off... and you can safely see
this in a Lagstab) He could have a secondary weapon that is faster
to sort of bring balance to the equation, usually a simple Knife or
a light sword, like a rapier or something fast. But this of course
it is the ideal set up, he could have any other weapon and you need
to take notice of that too. Also mind that, as long as your build 
lets you, there's no limitation to the types and number of weapons
you can use (what I mean is, you can hard-swap weapons through menu
during a fight... It's a bit tricky, but you get better by DOING IT:
bring the menu with start, and swap the weapon, or ring or whatever...
You can even move the character while you are swapping,           
(though you can't really hit...)
 
ii) What Armor is he wearing?
Does that armor provide him a good defense for HP? Does he look bulky?
If he looks bulky, for example he's wearing a Havel armor, maybe you 
can take little by little his life with a fast weapon... but if he's
also healing, you need to go for criticals.
 
iii) Can you Break his poise? You can make a rough calculation of 
how much his poise is. Try to take a good look at his arms... Maybe
he's not wearing much in the body, but in the arms, he could have a
Havel piece. Also, related to this: Does he know how to toggle?
Even if he does, it is useful to know if you can break his poise...
Because there are two kinds of toggling, one when you react to the 
stun animation immediately hitting the swap after it (slower method);
and the other one when you predict that the weapon of your opponent
will get you into stun animation and so you toggle exactly at the 
same time it hits (and so, it's even faster)... This requires a 
certain mastery of the toggling and not all players know this...
 
iv) What is his plan B? Most bad and intermediate players (and even
some good ones) usually have a plan B. When their main tactic is 
failing because you surpass them with your skill, they will resort to
this plan B. It depends on the player, the ones that are truly cheaters
at heart will take out their NoWeaponsName; a Cheapy will just start
healing with blessings; an OP player about to die will try with OP Wogs
or DarkBeads; and even a good player will go for a swap to          
the Red Ring. Or any other tactic.                               

You need to identify what is the plan B of your opponent,
even if you have just a glimpse of it (for example you saw a Talisman
for a second or two) and keep in mind a tactic to punish it.
NoWeaponsName with all its might it is parryable weapon! (and parrying
that really shows your disdain for the puny cheater); Divine Blessings
are quite fast but not fast enough to deal with chain BS's or stun 
locking if they don't know how to Toggle.

You can jump Wogs and Dark Beads into a BS and you can even learn to
jump into Pursuers spell at the right spot and make the pursuers 
cancel each other!

And about the Red ring well, it gives great attacking power but it 
doesn't really give them more HP so just stay calm and give the
final blow. Usually the Red ring swapper will go for a running attack
or a BS. It's a good thing to learn the Red Ring swap for yourself 
(to use it with gankers and cheap players) but try not to if you are 
just getting fairly outplayed... it is cheap! 

 
4.2. Your Opponents Soul Level [DkS14]

 
Most times you can roughly guess what's your opponent Soul Level. 
Of course, if he's wearing a full Smough's set with a Hammer he's 
probably not low... Also, like I said before, take a good look at his
rolling; a heavy armor user fast rolling is a clear sign of 
an OP character.

But sometimes you can even see players "taking proud" of being
completely naked in the forest... Watch out for these too, 
cause if they are hosting the Forest without armor is because 
they are probably so damned OP that they don't need armor, right?

It could also be a somehow knowledgeable player taking advantage of the
DWR invincibility frames. But I'd say that a good player is usually not
naked in the forest... 

A more certain method of roughly guessing if your opponent is OP or not,
is just taking a simple slash with any minor weapon (not heavy I mean) 
and see how much damage you inflict. If you see really low numbers you
are probably dealing with an OP opponent.                        
 
A definitive method of knowing your opponent level is by taking a
good look at the amount of souls you receive once he dies.
Which is determined by the level of your opponent and not by the 
souls he's carrying. It depends on the amount of souls your opponent
needs to level up. As an invader you receive a 10% of the Souls 
your opponent needs; and as a Host you receive a 50% of the souls
your opponent needs to level up.

If you know this you can look at the Wiki Soul Level page, 
which list the amount of souls you need to level up, and then 
calculate exactly at what level your opponent is.

For example: as an invader (10%), if you receive 117.482 souls,
your Opponent is a Lvl 340 OP bastard! Because according to the list
(look at the wiki) he needs 1.174.825 souls to Level Up. 
(Again: mind that the percentage changes when you are hosting and
get invaded: 50% then)
 
Of course, to calculate this, you need to kill the opponent first...
Ha, ha... But, you know, unless it's a cheater any player will 
eventually die in the forest; and it's a great moment when 
- after maybe dying over and over - you manage to kill a player
that you know is OP as hell... but then his exact level 
gets revealed.

These players usually complain about the methods you use to kill them,
or even blame your supposed lag, but they get shut up real fast when 
you can - to their shame, said Bane- precisely tell their Level  
(I even bait them to lie about it first)
  
... Also is good to take notice of the amount of souls you
receive sometimes when other invaders die or you manage to kill them
(for example if you are a Forest Hunter, and the Host kill a 
Darkwraith, you'll receive the souls too... in this case is a 25%
of Souls he need to level up; you don't actually need to calculate
every single thing but mind that if you receive a lot of souls from
these invaders, the Host must be high too...)
 
   
4.3. Your Opponent Skill Level [DkS15]

 
Of all I've mention this is the most important. But the problem is 
there isn't an exact formula on what makes a skillful player. 
But as with all, I'm just giving general tips. 

If you see a player that looks kind of low level, with clothing 
that doesn't really give him an advantage;
pieces of armor that don't give him a lot of Defense or Poise, 
and you can also tell that there's a certain balance to it... 
maybe just aesthetically...  or maybe he has just one piece of armor
to give him a little bit of poise... perhaps none and he base his
fighting in toggling...

Be careful: you might be dealing with a Good Player. 
If he looks good, he might actually be good.
 
The opposite sometimes is true too: if you see a Havel Mom or other
Bulky forms in the forest, and you can reason that there's a certain
balance to the build, that is not just OP bullshit, Watch Out!
 
But the most evident telling that you are dealing with a good player
is the way they move. 

There's a certain confidence in the way an experienced player moves.
The way a player engages into fighting, the way they approach to 
execute what they've planned. And also, the way he reacts to your
moving, how he tries to punish what you are doing. 

Perhaps they'll perform during the fight something 
you know is hard... even if they fail... Read all that!
 
Same can be said about Intermediate players... they know how to
do things, only that, frequently they misplace the moment...

You might even encounter a hotshot: players that are just trying
to show off What they know of the game; maybe ravioli stepping 
all over the place just to show off... just pick the moment and
finish them; and soon enough they will end with all that foolery...
and it's really something, cause:
What happened with your raviolis, yo?                            
 
Lastly, about bad players. If you realize your opponent is a 
bad player; perhaps you shouldn't kill him fast and effectively.
Limit yourself somehow, and try to kill him just in a certain way.
In that sense, any fair opponent could be good practice.
You should play with your food, but you know, always be respectful:
I mean, always remember that a noob is not the lowest lifeform 
in the Forest (that goes to the cheater) and that if you 
play enough you will eventually encounter someone better than you.

       
4.4. Gankers [DkS16]
 
A Ganker is any player that's using a Gang to win. So, if you 2v1
or 3v1 or more another player you are ganking on him. And that's it!
 
This is not something necessarily wrong: the game was built around
this possibility and its one of the funniest aspects of Dark Souls:
It's superb when you deal with a couple of gankers all by yourself...
same wise, it feels great to punish all those stuck up hotshot
players, with the almighty power of your ganksquad!
 
Of course, you can be a Host and summon help; but you can also 
Invade and gank upon the host, with same or different covenants:
it doesn't matter, if you 2v1 on a player you are ganking. 
 
Some people claim, that the only "honorable" way of fighting in 
this game is through 1v1 duels. It might be so, but to them I say:
if you are not in the Forest for the 2v1s, 
Whatta are you doing in the Forest, yo?
 
The Forest is a well-known ganking area, and I insist, dealing with
gankers is the most fun aspect of fighting here (It was meant for
multiple players fighting. What would be the point of only dueling
in this huge tree maze like arena?).

And who cares about honor? You are trying to make of the game    
something that is not! This is not an honor balanced game!
For that you can play Street Fighter or other...
  
There's also a more restrict definition on What constitutes a ganker.
It would be a person that not only uses the advantage in numbers,
but also cheap tactics with the sole purpose of killing opponents 
as fast as they can and trying hard not to give them 
any sort of possibilities.

Of course, people disagree on what is considered to be cheap.
A typical example for me would be, a ganksquad of three, camping
around an invading spot (usually near the stairs) and as they get
invaded someone cast Tranquil Walk of Peace (Twops) and then they
beat the invader to a pulp, probably - Why not? - with Wogs.

There are others and some even worse.

In any case Twops is not the worst this game has to show; you can
only use it like 5 times per life... and the duration of the effect
is really short... So, if you see someone casting twops you can fast
run away, and then engage when the effect pass.                   

And you can still fight under the effects of Twops (you can perfectly
parry one of the Gankers) 

Way worse is the casting of Twops through the Stone Greatsword: 
in my opinion the only completely broken intended mechanic of the
game that FromSoft didn't fix (Intended mechanic, not glitches!).

Because even though the effect is even shorter, you can cast it a 
vast amount of times (with some repair powder or through multiple
swords that you can even easily farm for)
I think we can all agree that this constitutes ganking. 
And most people would consider this to be 
a really cheap method of ganking.
 
But is there an honorable way, or let's say, a good way of ganking?
I do think so. You just need to show some restriction from really
cheap tactics.

But hey, if you are not cheating (or glitching) and you get your fun
by ganking: all is fair in Love and War.
 
But keep in mind you won't learn much from it.
 
On your side, to deal with this type of Ganking, you have the 
Invasion Spawn Locations, that are not always the same... The gang
could be camping near the stairs so invade as a Darkwraith or a 
Blade middle of a bridge, on the other side of the Forest.
If you are a Forest Hunter, there are 4 different spawning places. 
They can't be everywhere all the time. They soon realize this, 
so they will divide their jobs, but as Julius Caesar said when he
finally kicked Asterix's butt: Divide and Conquer!

You don't really need to kill the gankers, just show them that   
you can hold yourself against them... 
 
 
4.4.1. General Tips dealing with Gankers [DkS17]
 

- Gankers are usually only good through their numbers, so you 
really don't need to kill them both... just one of them,
and the other one will follow... You need to pick your prey,
still damaging both but while doing it trying to decide which one
will be the easiest to kill first. 
Also mind that even gankers... even gankers have some sense of pride
(this doesn't really apply to ganking cheaters) … so, they don't 
really like to heal while they're dealing with just one guy. 
So, all you have to do is hurt them, repeatedly, and force them
to heal... A ganker might heal because he thinks your move was cheap
and caught him by surprise... but if you hurt them repeatedly 
the excuses will end... If the fight last long enough their gameplay
becomes more erratic: you own them. That's the moment,
go for the prey and kill! (maybe even doing something entirely
different, change weapon, technique, tactic, approach... idk)
 
- Time might be in your favor or against you. If you are invading 
in the Forest soon enough another invader will appear... you don't
even need this second invader to be good, just good enough to 
distract one of the OP gankers while you kill the other...
Of course, sometimes other invaders are just complete nuisances...
and remember a Host could gank even with a member of your 
own covenant (for example if you are a Blue, and another Blue 
is helping the Host. He can't hurt you but, he can be annoying
by getting in the middle and theoretically even parry you -
though that is not practical for sure -)

If you are hosting alone you need to kill fast, time is against you.
And heal... it doesn't matter if it's just a scratch, heal... 
1 pixel HP could be the difference between staying alive and 
respawning in the bonfire...
 
- You need to lure them to your terrain. If you want to take the 
fight into an enclosed space, don't just stay there and wait for
the gankers... Lure them... maybe trade a couple of hits where 
they are and then retire, pretending you want to heal. 
Or act panicked and run away. But... Ha ha it was all acting!
I'm not afraid of you guys!
    
 
   
5. The Losers [DkS18]     
 
5.1. Glitchers (Swapping) [DkS19]                                
 
A Glitcher is just one little step away from a cheater. He's not
precisely cheating, but through the abuse of some broken mechanic,
he's intending to break the game too, just as cheaters do.
 
And same as cheaters Glitchers are usually bad players; so, because
they suck at the game, they intend to ruin it for everyone else.
The only difference is that they didn't mod their files (or take 
advantage of "gifted" moded items); but actually, Glitchers invest
time finding out how to abuse the game with a particular glitch,
how to break a mechanic of the game doing something
it wasn't intended for. 

Now, again, what is a Glitcher? I mean I'm here recommending that
you should learn how to Toggle, and isn't that a glitch?
Probably yes. But toggling is not used to break the game, 
to make it unplayable for others, to spoil the fun for others,
to plainly troll, but rather to expand on the possibilities of the
game adding one more subtle complexity to fighting.

Most glitches are just Harmless. And a lot of game breaking glitches
have been patched through the years.  But mostly, in the Forest,
you see Glitchers abusing of one major glitch yet: Swaping. 
In different variants, but basically you have two kinds:         
    
i) Moveset Swap: it consists on using the moveset intended for one
weapon with another weapon. 

The running attack of the rapier is very fast (though it doesn't 
cause huge damage); the running attack of the Large Club is clumsy
but powerful... Moveset swap lets you use the Big Club with all 
its might, and it's range, but with the fastness and the actual
moving mechanic of the running attack of a rapier.
So, it can easily kill you with just one hit.
(Also, you are not expecting that move from a club.)
  
There are multiple combinations of different weapons and their
moving sets.  You can tell someone is using Moveset Swap first of
all because of a weird move in a weapon. But also, in the example
I gave -which is one of the most common swaps - though he's 
bearing a Large Club or another Heavy weapon,
on the left side of the glitcher's character you can still see
the rapier's sheet! As if he were actually using the Rapier.
 
So that's signaling you that your opponent 
has Moveset Swap his weapons.
 
Ok, now you know, so What to do? If you are really good at 
parries and have some nerves of steel, you can attempt a parry!
You need just to imagine you are parrying an actual running attack
of a rapier... Easy right? Of course, if you fail                 
- and you probably will - you are done.
No second chance.

Prepare for a long fight. Swap immediately to a DWRing 
(and probably some item that will permanently feed you with stamina
- if you can afford it) Flip, flip, flip. Bring the fight were the
running attacks are hard to perform(deep dense Forest) Never 
engage from the front and don't try to run Bs him, or break his
poise from the front. It depends on many things, you may need
Luck Goddess to be with you but it is do-able.       
     
ii) Spellswap or tumblebuff: is the same that the previous one but
with spells. Usually what is used for is Buffing
an un-buffable weapon...

imagine a weapon like the Gold Tracer (ordinarily not buffable)
buffed with a sunlight blade miracle. If that thing grabs you...
it will cut you hard. There are even worse combinations. 

One of the worse is the Great Swordstone buffed with some Spell. 
Because of - again - the R2 area of effect broken mechanic of the
Great Sword Stone, that now will not only paralize you but also
hurt you with the Spell (and the area of effect kills you
in a matter of seconds)
 
Some players use the Area of Effect of the Channelers Trident
with a Buff, and they manage to kill other invaders from 
the same covenant or even their own yellow summons 
(or their host being a yellow summon). 

The good thing is AoE of the Channeler's Trident doesn't last
for long, and it has a really silly casting animation so you can  
see it from afar (plus, it's a terrible weapon by itself). 

I've also seen in the Forest people using Karmic Justice combined
with some kind of Spell; that thing kicks like a mule and kills you
even faster; but I'm not even sure if they're glitching, or cheating
or both or what... I don't even care, like I said,               
a glitcher is just a cheater in disguise.
 
Anyway, the best is to maybe play the Hide&Seek game, and wait for
your moment to attack.

On the good side to perform the Spellswap (and the Moveset) you need
to be quite fast in the swaping, so, Glitchers usually change their
armor into something heavy, to make them fat-roll and that way to 
increase the time to perform the glitch during a rolling; but that's
the problem with tumblebuffing, you need some easy and quiet time to
perform the swap; that's why usually you see one of the gankers 
trying to deal with you while the other is getting the glitch
to work... but it lasts the same time as the normal buffing
(and if you are not cheating you have the same amount of spells,
so is not unlimited)

 
5.2. About Laggers [DkS20]
 
Laggers are not glitchers (nor cheaters of course!); some players
just have terrible internet connection, is not their fault, 
but you don't really need to suffer them 
(don't whine... just block them) ...

Maybe you are the one on the side of the bad connection...
If that's the case know then that Dark Souls doesn't really demand
that much of an internet connection, and most problems are easily
fixable changing your Wifi for some direct cable to the Modem.

The Lag might be giving you a couple of victories but is also
preventing you from learning (so, if you really love the game maybe
you should consider investing on it?)
 
Why do I include Laggers on this section then? Because some players
intentionally use their bad connections into their favor,
they manipulate lag (that's what I mean by Laggers here)...
So, they are behaving like glitchers, sort of... sort of...
In my opinion is not as low... you can't tell 100% that
someone is lagging intentionally. 
 
A good sign would be when these players use Wogs or Spells,
or fast R1 spamming weapons, with their terrible lag... 
And terrible lag goes to both sides,
is not the same as a little lag, so they know... kind of...
They know they're lagging; and then you are safely far away
but they still spam spells, even for a place you haven't 
been yet... cause if you manage to transit that "casted" place,
you still get hit...

If you play long enough, you'll know the difference between a
player that sadly just have a poor connection and a Lagger.

As with all, you need to be extremely patient; wait, keep your   
distance... and when you engage, go for the kill.  
 

5.3. Cheaters [DkS21]

5.3.1 What makes a Cheater? [DkS22]
 
I remember my early days playing Dark Souls. I used to farm for 
hours the DarkWraiths of New Londo, just to get one single 
stinking Titanite Slab. It was painful, it was really hard...

Though rewarding, I remember those days fondly...  If I finally
was lucky enough to get a slab, I felt so happy, but most important:
I sure wouldn't risk to waste it trying a new weapon or armor 
I wasn't sure I would end up liking... So, It kind of made you 
stick with what you already knew... One type of character,
one build... maybe a couple of weapons... And that's it...
Better go for the sure thing!

Some years later the Mule appear (Domthy and others).  
Some people call me a cheater because I use a Mule.
To them I can only say that DkS is a pretty old game by now,
and I already paid my du farming (You wouldn't believe it if I
told you)

A Mule is not trying to destroy the game but rather
keeping it alive...
Is not trying to spoil the fun for others.
A Mule widens the possibilities, you are able to try new things,
new builds, new armor, the lousy weapons 
(and you might even like one of them), so, 
it helps to bring variety for yourself and in the opponents...

Is not the same than a Moded Cheating Save File, that comes 
with an outside game cheating item (like NoWeaponsName, 
Infinite Life or endurance armor) or a vast supply of
consumables that break the game 
(like Divine Blessings and Mushrooms)

I could agree that resorting to a Mule in the past, in the first 
few years of the game, was wrong... 
The game then was about exploring the possibilities 
not only fighting.

But now really, now the game is old and the mule is a reality...
There's an old faithful community playing the game,
and all of us use it.

Because, for a PVP player, long ago the game stopped being about
beating the Stray Demon, Killing the Forest People for souls and
farming DarkWraiths. 

(That was exciting the first 100 times... Now we just want to 
Build, Fight, learn, express ourselves and perhaps experiment 
something we haven't tried before... if there is anything) 
 
There's not a single Good player that would tell you that using a
Mule is cheating. You usually hear that from noobs. 

Like I said this is a community and through the years we all came
to an implicit agreement on What is considered to be cheating and
what isn't. 

Basically, if you can farm for it in-game, it might be cheap,
but not really cheating... that -sadly- includes blessings...

Ahhhghhh...Yes... using Divine Blessings, in my opinion,
is not precisely cheating... technically... 
 
It's a broken consumable for sure, one that FromSoft tried to fix
by making it extremely weird to obtain... 
(I think you can only get like 9 per playthrough and supposedly 
farm for it from the vagrants... ha, good luck with that!)
But it is an item of the game... sadly.
So, yeah... using blessings and mushrooms is not 
precisely cheating, though is cheap as hell! 

And you shouldn't use them. 

Some Good players say that they only reserve them to use them
with a Glitcher, or a Cheater... but really, if you use them,
you are kind of encouraging this behavior: Is like saying:
"Oh, I only cheat against cheaters!" And that’s what usually 
cheaters say: I only cheat against cheap players!
(But cheapness is always subjective)

A lot of cheaters heal this way too, so for a noob 
sometimes is not easy to tell who's cheating;

Lastly, if you're straight and still have tons of these
consumables, you don't fool me, you probably got them
from a cheater. So you encouraged that behaviour.

Time and time again in the Forest I've seen players 
-even good ones- pathetically begging a cheater 
for some blessings and mushies...

Usually you see cheaters hosting the Forest and then 
"gifting" consumables, leaving them all over the place
for people to grab them...

But don't fool yourself, they're not trying to make it 
fair for everybody: they're just trying to break the game.         
 
 
5.3.2. How to deal with Cheaters [DkS23]
 
A cheater wants to destroy the game. Why? Because he finds it too
hard for himself so he tries to ruin it for everyone else. 
Because they are spoiled little teens that just hate Mom and Dad
and all the people in the world really; maybe because of some
sexual frustrations: size of their penis, hidden unsatisfied
appetites, forbidden curiosities, plain old virginity...

Who knows?!!!... Is just the way cheaters are... 
I stop long ago trying to understand the mind of a cheater.
Why would a cheater engage in a game,
and put a lot of hours into it, just to do nothing??!!! 
Some of the cheaters are DEVOTED to cheat. 
And they do nothing at all!!!
... Is just the way cheaters are...
Is just the way cheaters are!
 
The best way to deal with cheaters is just to block them.
Again, this is not a game about winning or losing, so just let them 
kill you, don't even move, and then add them to the block list. 
(you should also go to Dark Soul's Start Screen, 
to let the pvp pool refresh)
 
There's nothing to learn really from a cheater, all of them suck
at the game (because they never play it...
in an actual fight, when they kill you, is not because they're good,
is because of the cheat... for them there's no mistakes, 
because they're doing nothing at all;  
And mistakes are the ones that teach you the most)
This is an old game, it has a fair amount of activity but still,
is already hard to find a decent number of invasions when you are
playing straight, imagine when you are cheating 
and people are blocking you!!                                      
 
Of course, cheaters know this, so they usually end up creating 
multiple accounts -at least the most passionate ones- 

Like this guy I like to call Sho, he has:  sho-N-2 / sho11091109 /
sho_sho_1109 / sho-2-1109 and many other variants like that... 

But yeah I came to the conclusion that the guy is just
a freaking moron... I know it's you I'm gonna block you
immediately moron...

Just use a camouflage username! 
(Look at me giving advice to a cheater) But No!
That would be too damn creative... They completely lack of
imagination! 
 
In any case a cheater can't make infinite accounts... for each
account you gotta use a different e-mail 
(that you have to create also), fill the Data, create a username,
put the password (and then change the account... which is really slow),
etc etc; it's hard work! and they don't like to work, remember? 
They like easy mode! Sooooo: Just Block them! 
Don't even send a message, just block them. 

But perhaps you are feeling a little adventurous, and even
knowing 99% of the times you gonna die, you still would like
to engage with them... Well, here are some tactics.              
 
 
5.3.3. Fighting the Cheaters [DkS24]
 
When a player is annoyed, he doesn't play well, so,
the whole trick to fight cheaters is to annoy them... 
maybe the cheater will try to rage kill you then and momentarily
forget that you are near a cliff.

So it is advisable to BS them, of course, and even try to Parry
them; hey, at least you'll go with style!
 
If you can afford it you can cast Great Swordstones and another
player may try to BS or kick him into a cliff.

Try not to be so obvious, if you want to lure them toward a ledge,
perhaps first you should start the fight somewhere else...
Usually near chasms a cheater will pull out Dark Wogs, which has
larger range than normal Wogs
(but you can still learn to jump them).

Some cheaters modify their HP value (making it huge) but if you
bleed them, they still lost a 30% of their health (the Lifehunt
Scythe even have a 50% HP loss), so What would be the point of
having 65.000 HP when each time you are bled you lose 19.500 Hp
(that's the 30%, it doesn't matter how much health he got)...
So yeah you just need to bleed him like three or
four more times... ha ha... which is easier said than done,      
but still it's a good thing to know... 
 
If you see a cheater with a Dragon Head be carefull... 
He could launch an infinite fire attack... 
properly it is a glitch, but it was patched and now I think only
cheaters can perform it... maybe I'm wrong...
 
Not much else... I told you to block them! 
If you are playing on PC you could use WatchDog or similar...  
  
 
5.4 The Hide & Seek Game. [DkS25]  
 
Hide&Seek is a completely different beast. The game consists in
hiding from the cheater of course, and he will be looking for you.

The whole point is, again, to annoy the cheater, not to defeat him.
They want to kill you and kill you fast, because they are cowards,
so they don't want to leave even a remote possibility out of their
control; but they can't kill you if they don't know where you are.
 
Of course, sometimes the cheater doesn't engage in the game;    
they don't look for you... But here's the thing: 
if you are invading, you are using one Invading Slot,
that's one slot less for another invader to fall.
This way a cheater receives less invasions. If time enough passes
with a Host and the same Invader, for some reason, the game 
starts sending even less invaders: the invasions become more 
and more sporadic (and mind also that people block them). 
Yeah, you are not playing but neither are them

(hey I told you to just block them!). 
  
Being the Forest this huge area, there are a lot of places to
hide. Weird platform and critters you could hide into.
Look for these places and "exploits" of the game. 
Try to find new ones.

But frequently just being near a wall, or by a tree with a
Fog ring makes a player hard to see.

The best way to hide is being continuously on the move,
they might be looking for you in Fungus Forest, well hide UP. 

The Cheatboy just look into a weird platform and checked you
 are not there... Well, NOW go there! 

Still about this, you should notice that the one that always
have the advantage in the Foggy hiding game is the Host. 
Because the Fog ring works better in a Host... The red and blue
phantoms are noticeable colors even with a Fog...
On the other side, the Forest People and critters only react
to the Host, so they will point you in the right direction...  ]

Also, since a patch was release, you are able now to lock on
Fog ring users (that wasn't the case when Release), 
so if you suspect the Fogger is hiding in a certain area is
good idea to try to lock on him (continously pressing R3)
 
There's a well-known exploit in the Forest. On the upper corner,
following the wall to the right from the entrance stairs,
you could drop from DarkRoot Garden into Darkroot Basin.

This was highly probable not intended. But yeah,
you can even fight down there... I don't even have to tell
you how much of an advantage is fighting with a
Hydra on your side...
 
And there are a lot of new places to hide. 
But also a good portion of the Basin is made of 
dangerous ledges!!!

You can even make the cheater think you went down,
and sort of "trap" him there... Because there's no way back
to the upper part. (The Fog doors prevents him from doing it)     
 
You can of course spice up Hide&Seek all you want. Perhaps
you cannot kill a cheater because of his infinite health,
but you can certainly annoy him even more with arrows or
make him stumble with big arrows.

And maybe next time when he’s furious THEN try fighting him
near a ledge...
 
Maybe, while they're looking for you try to steal the items
they drop as "gifts" (and then discard them of course...
Is better not having at all any of these items...
is like Sauron's ring here, you feel its nefarious influence)    
 
There're four possible outcomes in the H&S game:
 
1) They can find you and then kill you really fast
(I don't even move then) 
2) They can Banish the Phantom as Invaders or challenge the Boss
as Hosts (but then all the critters and Forest people respawn,
and it would be a small victory for you... because it is anoying
to clean, even for a cheater.)
3) They can even kill themselves.
4) They disconnect (which is SO moronic that is certainly the
most common outcome with cheaters when they cannot find you)
 
 
6. Farewell my Friends! and Resources. [DkS26]
 
Ok, that's it. Of course, there'are way more things to say. 
But my whole intention was not to talk about every single aspect
of the game; but rather just to give a glimpse of it and a helping
hand to New Players, to get them in the mood...
into the whole Dark Souls Philosophy.
 
If you have any suggestions/ corrections you want to make, 
you can send me an e-mail here: pelida77@yahoo.com

Of course, you could always write your own guide... 
 
Again, I advise you to resort to the Dark Souls Wikidot 
for precise knowledge (I want to thank all the people 
that colaborates on the Wiki);
The Fextralife is quite good too, but I've found some
inaccuracies in it (mostly for the original Dark Souls.
For DkS 2/3 is great)

You can check this steampage made by "donttrustidiot";
but please do trust him, in my opinion his is the best PVP advice]
you can find on the web: 
 
https://steamcommunity.com/app/211420/discussions/0/364042262880883197/

A character planner is always useful, so go to:

MugenMonkey.com

Finally, here are some good old-timers in YouTube:

- EpicNameBro: I've never seen him playing pvp but
he opened my eyes into the whole Dark Souls Lore,
and it's really something.

https://www.youtube.com/user/EpicNameBro

- SunlightBlade: makes great funny videos, awesome top 10s.
Really cool guy.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSunlightBlade

- Jblackmel: Interesting commentaries
https://www.youtube.com/user/jblackmel

- SfcSpadesRpg: Really good stylized player. 
Watch his pyro ganking spanks!

https://www.youtube.com/user/SfcSpadesRpg

- Lettuce: Amazing japanese player. 
Extremely good at punishing cheaters.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkNkSDPLo1efBPLEr3f-e9g

- Tubame Ys: Devoted japanese player. 
Supper efective, more than being stylized.
Really good dealing with multiple invasions. 
(still rocking on PS4 Remaster)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWfYaXkVqt6aU_TKIpzuuw

- Piza SSR: Umeeeeeeh! Again great Japanese Player.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugwmeQCjw6OLh61JhZGdWw

- And a video on some weird Platforming in 
the Forest made by Vahellis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nedh8NTtFp0
 

Enjoy and GG my friend which means Good Game of course,
but in Dark Souls language also means Git Gud! 

So: Git Gud Bro!
 
(Made by pelida77)