Why is level 55 significant these days?

Just curious...I've seen a few threads today where people specifically mention having a level 55 toon, doing coop in anor londo, invading, what have you.  Is there a kind of unspoken sub-grouping of people that hover around that level, make builds for it, etc?

Reim did an invasion tour of the world and took average/median levels of each area.  Apparently SL 55 is pretty common.

Interesting...I suppose this might also get you some action with people on NG+ and above.

I thought it was because of the forum events here.  Every event I've seen promoted here was always a sl 55 event.

Also, reim's thread doesn't suggest sl 55 being particularly dominant in any area.

Average SL of Hosts, by are: Final UPDATE

I highly recommend reading it.  Over the past couple of months I started playing again, and have 2 new toons with 200+ multi-player victories.  I referenced the thread a few times.

I did find inconsistencies though.  For  instance my sl 11 seemed to get summoned just as frequently as my sl 48 (soon to be 55) in Anor Londo at the 2nd bonfire.  Maybe I was just helping mule griefers that wanted to warp? Idk man.  I think the ranges are probably gonna be hit and miss from here on out until DkS2 comes out.  

However, reim does say that the average host level across the board is sl 53, so there's that I suppose.

Back Lot Basher wrote:Just curious...I've seen a few threads today where people specifically mention having a level 55 toon, doing coop in anor londo, invading, what have you.  Is there a kind of unspoken sub-grouping of people that hover around that level, make builds for it, etc?

Periodically, the Forum holds PvP events, and the level cap that Baal and Emergence decided to go with is SL 55.

The level is great for invading players in high traffic areas like Anor Londo, New Londo, and a few other areas.

As for the events, it's a relatively good level for people to make a build without taking to long and still being effective to use in PVP.

It's developed kinda organically.  I coop a lot, and have used sl55s for years (in addition to 120s) -- at least for me, it is the lowest plateau where you can have a reasonably complete build of any kind, with sufficient stamina, attunement, hp etc along with preferred weapon or spell stats.  Sort of mini-me versions of the 120s.  The balance at sl55 between builds is also pretty good, you can put together a good tank, or a caster etc pretty well, which I think has been demonstrated at the forum events.

As a practical matter, you can coop or invade with 55s nearly anywhere, and you're particularly in sweet spots for Sen's, Anor, PW, DLC areas, Catacombs/Tomb, the forest, and the Archives.

Do you create more "elemental" type builds at this level, just using base stats for weapons, so you have more for vit and end?

That would work best in most cases.

However with a build that doesn't require a lot of poise, you can have enough freedom to stray from that mentality.

I use this: sl55/int

I left the attunements blank because it depends on what kind of mood I'm in lol.  Sometimes I use power within and hot swap my darkhand for pyrohand, etc, etc.

Making an elemental build is obviously more viable in a lot of instances, but not absolutely necessary.