For the Glory of Alvina

sparkly-twinkly-lizard wrote:as a forest hunter phantom can you undead rapport a forest npc to drag them along with you as back up, as the spell inflcts no damage it shouldnt betray the covanent

Hmmm, never tried. I'm going to give this a shot tonight.

please tell us if this works it could be really helpful! i know it works on the undead merchant... but the forest npcs aren't hollow... so i really don't know...

Are any of the forest npcs affected by undead rapport? I'd guess not, 'cept maybe the phantoms (if any are left). But they may react to the aural decoy thing a la the ents.

It's official: I'm excited.

befowler wrote:Are any of the forest npcs affected by undead rapport? I'd guess not, 'cept maybe the phantoms (if any are left). But they may react to the aural decoy thing a la the ents.

It's official: I'm excited.

I'm pretty sure undead rapport only works on hollows, and the ents do react to aural decoy when you're a forest spirit?

nsane32 wrote:yea farmers are a real problem in the forest I use my DMB to help

Hell yeah man bring to heel the sinners who farm in the forest!

befowler wrote:Another basic tip is to pregame your inventory management. Before you start defending the forest, clean out your backpack at a bonfire. Then after you equip everything you want, go into inventory and move around the other items you may need so they are close to what you are wielding already. Let's say you have the ring of fap and the cat ring for summoning. Move the DWGR right next to the cat ring in your inventory, so when you arrive you can immediately click on the cat ring in your inventory, move down one spot, and equip the DWGR in almost no time at all. Do the same with other things like a bow you might swap in for a weapon, a catalyst you might swap for a talisman, or what have you. This is a good idea for any area of the game, but in the forest can save your bacon if you appear close to the farmers and don't have the flip ring on already.

It can also let you quickly respec on the fly if you encounter another forest defender with an obvious build (such as wearing the dusk crown and running with a catalyst/MLGS). Depending on your own build, you may then want to switch over to focus more on melee if it looks like your ally will be focused on magic.

Excellent tip Befowler - you are truly a hunter extraordinaire (I guess any person that constantly invades would know this - but these tips are specifically for new hunter recruits). This tip alone can mean your victory or defeat. I realized this early on as hunter - as you get more refined (e.g selection of your best right and left attack/defense equipment) your inventory count will drop to the minimum necessary to get the job done - so you should be able to swap inventory items fairly quickly. Unless rolling is your style of fighting equipping the DWGR is a must - you have to be more nimble than the farmers unless you choose to be a havel-wearing destroyer of worlds then go ahead & roll away. It is imperative a hunter go in with the weapons they understand the best, even if it is under-powered - knowledge of your weapon's move-sets are the most important in my opinion.

Keep the tips coming hunters (or GLs, FDWs, etc) we just may create a field of battle worthy of striking terror in the hearts of farmers!!!

Now here is a little secret, one farmers will completely be caught off guard by. If they are chasing you into Alvina's and the bridge is in front of you just as you get on it roll to the right. I do this with DWGR so it may be required, but there is a patch of land leading to where the ninja bodyguard stands, and you can completely circle around, so many times I've completely avoid and outright killed farmers using this tactic. I often get a message about how I hacked and walked right through them, they not realizing the secret area that creates a circle around the house.

Also the reason the special Technique is not posted, is because it is to be reserved for just Forest Hunters, others may know about it but it is best to keep knowledge of it incredibly low, otherwise farmers will take advantage of it.

EDIT: A little devious of a trick, that jump near Pharis to the Mushrooms. Before making it I mark it with a prism stone. But, I mark the wrong spot to jump from, one that assures death. Farmers will think you are marking it for yourself, and jump using the stone marker. Whoops, free souls!

Devious and Bloody Brilliant man. Keep it up!

@Tolvo

Nice trick with the bridge. I'll be sure to use that tonight. I've got my TCC, soul spear, dusk crown, and bellowing dragoncrest ring ready to pound 'em in the back.

It might take a bit of practice to get around that corner, there have been times where in a pinch I just rolled clear off and to my death haha, they didn't even know I was dead and just kept running across the bridge.

Also always remember, some fights you just can't win. There are rare times where you will find Farmers who do have some understanding of what they are doing, or are extremely experienced at ganging up. In a one on one fight you might beat them, but this isn't the case. There is no shame in using your crystal to leave, it is best to wait for another hunter but sometimes the invasion will just take too long. Know when to pick your battles.

Great advice all around. Keep it coming!

I'll add one more: crystal soul spear is awesome in 2v2. The best way to score a hit is to use CHSM first to distract the person you're fighting, then toggle your target to the person fighting your ally and let loose with a CSS. It's almost a guaranteed hit & a stagger. The same thing can be done with an MLGS R2.

Do anything you can to keep them off balance. Doing things like sprinting away, then abruptly switching directions for a pivot bs 0HKO @pivot parry the inevitable wakeup bs or backroll out/ use the roll to set up a roll bs.

I'm happy to see this thread being filled up with useful information for all the hunters, and others who invade in the forest. Great work everyone.

Off of what Forum said, another little trick. Sometimes they will try to flank you. One or two will go for your front, focus on them. The host will usually circle around to BS you. Now this is incredibly hard to time, especially with lag, but "fall for it." let the host flank you and suddenly pivot remove lock on and riposte or BS the host for a quick kill. Again though, the timing for this one is hell.

Some great stuff here - I'm looking forward to getting back into the Forest to try some these tricks out. Even more so now that my 120 is finished. Bring it on!

I hope you have a blast taking it to the farmers, keep up the good work.

Another quickie one since I just used it a bit ago to kill a farmer running for Sif.

Everyone knows the stairs past Alvina, already many know this but for those who do not it can really save your hides and rack up a kill. First of all, never run down those stairs. There is an opening you can see, not the steps that lead up, but in between the broken upwards and the working downwards steps. Go through that and land on the stone railing of the stairs below, you won't take damage and can keep moving. One can get trapped easily if they try to run down the stairs, one farmer using this to block the front and the other blocking your rear. This can however be used against others who are fleeing, use this to flip and land in front of or on top of them and finish them off. As well if one blocks the entrance and the other the rear there is a way out. The railing of the lower steps can be run up, you can quickly run up them and roll or leap right over a farmer and be out in the open where you can again have the forest at your back helping you kill the wicked farmers.

GCFO on the bridge is great too, nearly impossible to dodge @ the lava buys you a second to recover or hide behind a tree/start a chaos storm. same thing under alvinas stairs/anytime you're obscured by a cloud spell, if you have a bit of space they'll run straight into it

Here's just a fun little thing you can do. Sometimes when you kill the other two enemies you'll be left with a host who obviously has no clue what they are doing. If you hit them for 100 damage out of their 1.3k+ they'll roll away and flask. These people I love love love, to drain of their humanity. So if you have a Dark Wraith hand on you equip that sucker and just toy around with them and have some fun. Sure the forest is a hell hole, but who says we can't skip through it from time to time?

By the way for any hunters out there who need a bit more of a visual representation, I've found some videos on Youtube that though appear to be for entertainment purposes, can show a lot of tricks of the trade and ways to combat Farmers in the forest.

https://youtu.be/ewujkMZ2i30
https://youtu.be/JlnXu2GP5sY
https://youtu.be/XHbFXrHp2wg

Behold, the Dark Knight. Not quite sure if the clips he uses with Dark Souls are from a Movie or show or something, but boy does the suspense get built sometimes.

Some of the ideas I've mentioned using he incorporates, I sometimes wonder if the Japanse hunters are a bit more knowledgeable of these things.

Those are some great videos, love seeing effective forest cov members. Good clips on inventory management on the fly too, heh. Most interesting thing though is that this and other similar videos show how lag does seem to benefit japanese players a lot. Kinda amazing how half the time everyone is swinging at a spot he was 2 seconds earlier, while he can attack them in real time.

Where it is most noticeable I think is in his parries, as you'll see he always parries quite early to get it to work, as well there are moments where on his screen they are doing the animation ready to be riposted, yet his strikes won't land because they've actually flipped away. Lag is a sadly necessary thing to get used to.

And yeah his item management is absolutely insane, I've been working on mine a bit more between swords, rapiers, halberds, and knives. I like to keep them un used to my moves, I'm working on a adding a Chaos Flamberg and Chaos Zweihander to the mix as well. Just remembered another weapon to add, Chaos Mura, that is a pretty beast one for Dead Angling the turtle hosts.

EDIT: Also is it me or does there seem to be a very small number of Hunters on the forum?

I just took a break from Skyrim to become a Hunter again last night. Not sure if the PSN maintenance had any impact but I was treated to constant summoning. I posted a couple of stories in another thread from last night where I used some of the tips in this forum successfully. Some I already had a good grasp on but the Pharis bow jump spot was an idea I used semi-successfully last night. I found very few duels but still had a blast. I didn't win as much as I would like but man did I cause some havoc for a lot of farmers. I can't stress the impact that status effects like poison and bleed do to your opponent's psyche. Every time I was summoned in the trees I would patrol to determine if it was farmers and if so poison arrow one of them to draw them.

Another tip I'm not sure I recall seeing is NEVER let your opponent force you to adjust to their fight. I was fighting a dragon with a lightning zwei (honorably actually). I am more of a defensive fighter, trying to react to mistakes. I try to use unconventional methods (large shield so no riposte) and dodge using space rather than rolls/flips. He actually figured out that I had a good grasp of space so he back off to make me approach him. I shot him with a poison arrow. He approached and I chipped him down. He backed again once he was low and did the "come on" expression. I switched to my bow and toggled to two hand to show him "nope....you come on."

Actually something to go with that Status Effect mention. Blood loss, terrifying right? So much health lost in one go, but some people don't realize this. Say you get hit and the counter goes up and you can see it go off, roll. You can dodge blood loss, pretty crazy isn't it?

Another good tip - if you are fighting in the area with MPs (and they are still alive) and to mitigate the host (or phantom) from using the jump across tactic to circle behind you. Place your back to one of the MPs and cast a stand-off offensive spell like CHSM (or HSM) to keep from being BS'd also you will get advanced warning when an enemy is closing from the rear since the spell will fire. I thought of this as I was getting backstab by Sunbro in this area. I was able to kill the Sunbro after he BS'd me but the host ran away to re-summon the Sunbro I just killed. I just BC'd out since I didn't feel like dealing with unhonorable actions of what was clearly a farmer. I ran into this situation about three times last night - I think we have the farmers on the run since some don't appear to have the 'minerals' for a 1v1.

Another trick with that, pure stealth in use. If you get over to the parents whom which are alive you can hide using them. Run into them a bit and if you have small enough weapons or a talisman, empty, pyro glove slot switch to those. After running into an NPC as an invader you'll phase through, and stand inside of them. if you aren't wearing too bulky of armor you will be completely invisible. Hope this helps. I've gotten the jump on many farmers scanning an area for me through this.

EDIT: Though I don't use magic, I imagine as a Pyromancy, Miracle, or Sorcery heavy character you could get a cast off without them being able to see what you are doing since you are inside of the parent.