Dark Souls 3 - April 2016 : You Died, You Died, You Died

After I got handily dispatched in PvP by one, I switched over to a sharp spiked mace and I'm so happy with it. Finished NG. I don't think I can recall a better series of final bosses than there are in this game... Midir and Gael especially feel like some kind of high-water marks

One of my favourite moments in DS1 was the first time I won NG and plowed through the first half of the game in NG+ in a couple of hours. I started doing the same in DS3 and it's just amazing how small the world is compared to how it felt the first play through... how I had to carefully strategize every section, remember every enemy's location. It doesn't feel as if the ease with which I play is a product of "higher stats, better gear" so much as it is "Man Of Pus doesn't scare me any more"

Consistently the most overpowered enemy on the second play through is the evangelist. It feels like they levelled-up their spiked mace to match my own

I read up and understand now what they mean by "meta level" and I am halting my character's development at SL 128 to hopefully enjoy some PvP. I intend to keep running my high-DEX setup but will likely switch to mage-mage if my patience permits me a NG++ run

Congrats!

I actually opted out of meta-level pvp a long time ago, the damage is so high that you can die in three hits, and everyone's got everything on their builds (hornet ring, tears of denial, chaos bed vestiges, etc).

I've got a sl44±4 character that I use in the Cathedral through central irithyll, a sl66+6 for Pontiff, and a sl77+7 for Grand Archives. I've found a lot more groups actually trying to get through the levels that way, and for me it's more fun to fight a group of players who maybe aren't pvp experts than dueling one person who is (although they can be fun too). But groups at meta level who are just trying to crush invaders, I burnt out on that.

Also lower-level pvp is fun because the damage to health ratio is more forgiving. You can take a bunch of hits, make mistakes and learn from them, and also need to apply pressure instead of playing passively and waiting for that one big parry or whatever.

I def. feel like I missed out not playing online, but I don't feel like I missed too much. It almost sounds like a different game.

It kinda is! Certainly a completely different set of skills. You don't have to worry about pressuring or roll-catching the AI, or playing parry mind games.

Yeah, I was reading something about the mirror knight in DS2, where it can summon another player, and a lot of people pointed out that it summoning an NPC is not too bad, but if it succeeds in summoning a player the player could be a lot more trouble than the boss.

Same for the spear of the church in DS3, and the Old Monk in Demon's. I guess they just skipped the 'player as boss' in DS1 and BB.

I really lucked out I guess with my Halflight PvP moment. I went in solo and beat the guy solo. Since then I've "been the boss" about twenty times, each time there were 1-2 accomplices, and I've only managed to hold my ground against them.. 25% of the time?

Also you're not kidding about "meta PvP". I'm getting destroyed. Nosomuch because I can't go toe-to-toe with an invader, and more because there are clearly some tactics involved. I've had invaders suddenly backed up by one or two identically dressed helpers. Invaders making a bee-line for the most dangerous part of the area and letting a mob of enemies do the job. I've been playing Darkmoon as my covenant and I get summoned most often to late-stage DLC areas (Dregs, Ringed City) and my SL 130 character, weakened by the summon, is definitely struggling with Ringed and Haldar Knights that I would otherwise not have issues with. One Dark Spirit cleverly led us into the death from above area of Ariendel and I didn't even have time to roll away between the thunderbolts from the tower.

One particularly nasty summon found me and the Dark Spirit in the entry zone of Ringed City with the 100 phantom archers. I was able to murder the dude in a Saint Sebastian fever dream