Dealing with stacked fights

This isn't to complain, as much as ask how some people deal with fighting a host and his phantoms. Lately I've been running into alot of 2 on 1 fights, and unless they come at me one at a time (very rare) or the host isn't experienced enough and gets greedy (sometimes), I typically get slaughtered.

I in no way say it's unfair. I'm invading their game, they probably don't expect to get invaded, but I can only assume some hope they do, given they have a phantom from the start of an area (I never even thought to summon a phantom to clear a whole area personally in my playthroughs). For these situations, I'd love to hear from experienced PvP'ers how to deal with them.

My personal build is nothing special. Level 35, near base vitality and endurance, focus has been in dexterity more than anything, trying to teach myself to dodge more often than my first tank-build character, so I don't have alot of vitality for the purpose of force-teaching myself to dodge better. +15 uchigatana, +9 black leather gear and default darkwraith gauntlets. Great Chaos Fireball and Fireballs. Normal crest shield for physical defense, dark hand for enhanced magical and elemental defense. Havel's ring for fast roll and a variety of rings depending on the situation, one of the stoneplate rings or steel protection.


My primary problem is when I spot a guy with a phantom, I sort of freeze up. It's habit to bow when I find the target, but I've gotten attacked way too often doing it, so I tend to hesitate, and that lets them quickly decrease the distance and attack me, putting me on defense immediately. While I have to adjust my mindset and think quicker, I'm wondering if there's any specific pyromancies I can acquire to assist me. Great Chaos Fireball is a great use in cramped areas, but if there's two enemies, I find that incredibly risky and it leaves me open unless they're right next to each other.

Also, I find sorceries incredibly hard to defend against, no matter what I do. Dark Magic I can deal with, I find it easy to evade them. But stuff like Soul Spear and the like, it looks like I dodged perfectly, but then five feet away from what looks like the hitbox, I stand up from a dodge and lose half my health or more. Unsure if it's lag, or if sorceries have a larger hitbox than the visuals let on.


I'm sure there's loads of experienced players in here who can give a newbie like me advice, I've only been doing PvP for a few days. I've gotten around fifty wins, but just as many losses.


Minor edit - PC version

First of all I am giving you a +1 for not complaining.

Second, most serious PVP starts around SL100 and runs to about SL150. Invading at as low of SL as you are immediately causes players to think of you a griefer more than someone who wants serious PVP. Especially when you are using a fully upgraded uchi. I.E. don't expect good treatment.

Third. Learn to separate the host from his phantom. This best place to get this training (for PS3) is to become a Forest Covenant member and live in the Forest. There you can routinely count on getting 2v1 and 3v1. Learn to use the environment to your advantage. That includes terrain and mobs. Your best pyro for dealing with multiples will be great combustion or black flame, mostly due to the fast casting speed.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

I know my uchigatana is overleveled for where I typically invade, but I would think the fact that many enemies are entirely capable of killing me in a few shots helps balance it. Knowing that PvP is more of a higher level thing makes me more comfortable with leveling... though I have some friends who got Dark Souls on a sale a few weeks ago who are still relatively low level, and I'm awaiting to invade them on a surprise :p

Would any of the flame pillar pyromancies be considered useful, given the hefty startup time? I always viewed them personally as an ambush type pyromancy. Or perhaps I'll look into a weapon with a large radius swing. I've managed to take down people on NG+ (I believe they were, Havel's in Sen's Fortress suggests it, unless they got it transferred to them), but whenever it's two on one, I often just outright fail unless both the players are downright worse than me, unless I find that rare instance where the white phantom fights me first, then if I win I move onto the host (I prefer doing this of course, but rarely does it end up like this).

WoG and Force are good for crowd control. I use WoG in 2v2 arena when waiting for a partner respawn and it is a lifesaver. A nice knockdown equalizes and sets you up for a multitude of devastating wake up tactics.

Everyone remember when WoG was like public enemy #1? Memories.

Those are miracles, right? I've only done playthroughs in this game with either pure melee, or melee pyromancy hybrid (current playthrough). I'm attempting to stay at level 35 for a few reasons right now (mainly to screw with friends of mine who might not expect an invasion from me :p), but I'll certainly look into them for later when I start leveling for more 'serious' PvP as it was put.

For now miracles are out of my reach, but I'll certainly look into different pyromancies and experiment. I personally thought combustion was useless, but that's just because I'm massively inexperienced (only became a darkwraith on Sunday or so, first PvP then). Here I thought defeating Four Kings at level 30 was going to be the toughest part of being a darkwraith.

I would practice using Fire Tempest. At your level it is devastating if it hits using a +5 Chaos Hand. I have a lvl 25 DW who invades in the catacombs and it is a great equalizer when facing multiple opponents. Heck... I have a lvl 55 who has taken out 3v1 in the forest with it.