I had a terrible night in New Londo

Last night, I decided to kill for the first time the 4 kings before any other major boss so I could talk to Kathee. (Never done that before).
I am playing with an Int. build. Most of the stats are allocated right now in Int and End, so my Vit is on 20. Kind of low.
I am not using RFoP becuase I am using the BD ring for powerful spells and obviously the CoA ring.
So, first I wanted to try my damage output and input against the 4 kings so I left my sign down and was summoned right away. It was the summoner, another phantom and me.
We managed to get to the boss gate and start the fight. I haven't been at the Duke's yet, so my strongest spell right now is the Soulspear. I used that and used great heavy soul arrow to and the damage taken by the kings from my casts wasn't bad at all. We won so I said, with some help, I could take them down, but if I get one of its power slash I'll be ohko.
I go down in human form, start to look for some signs and there was this sunbro which I summon right away. Then I summon another wp. The water was already down so we went straight to the boss gate. On the way I get invaded and while I was fighting one of the DW I can see the red phantom comming after me. He bsed me and because of my low health I died instantly. The bad part is that both of my phantoms didn't do squat at all. Nothing at all.
I go back to human form, and try to summon some phantoms after recovering my power and taking a glimps to my wstone in case it grays out.
Every phantom I summoned bc out. Not only one actually wanted to play or help or whatever.
I get invaded and crushed in one shot.
I said, f it, I'm doing it by myself and maybe summon beatrice to help a little.
Now the worst started. Invasion after invasion, no phantom to help since they all bc out if were summoned, beatrice being stupid all the time and the 4 kings banging my butt...
After 10+ attempts I managed to kill them and see Kathee for the first time.
It really annoys me that invaders not only use some sort of experimental, nuclear or biologic weapons that can one shot kill you only by swinging it in the air, they also use the mob as shields or distractors or bangers and hit you or bs you while you are fighting the enemies... It was only me, there was no need to use so cheap tactics.
And what can I say about the white phantoms... Never felt so dissapointed with this game before. If I am going to leave my sign is to be summoned and to protect the host at all costs. Have some fun.
If I want or expect to be summoned by a friend, i don't leave my sign right in the open, I use a special spot we already know and even if I get summoned by somebody else I help him and say to my friend to go back to the link and wait for me... It's just a couple of minutes though...
Really dissapointing.
Anyway, at the end I soloed the 4 kings and in human form with 20 vit. I know there is people who can beat them butt naked and using only their fists, but believe me. I felt great afterwards.

Sorry for the long post.

if youre an int you should up your points into int and vit first, unless it's a spellsword.

^ yeah... I'm still working on this build and I know about its limitations right now and thats not the point of the tread. My point was about last night's experience.
And wanted to share it with the community.
Believe me, I'll be working on my vit stats. That's for sure. Thanks.

What was your SL?

Bah, my int builds start and end with relatively low vitality, and every one of them is specifically built for Kings co-op, though I don't start offering myself until NG++, so I have plenty of crystal spells.

Anyway OP, that night was definitely an exception. I do Kings co-op regularly (I now have 5 characters devoted to it), and can tell you with confidence to not give up on it. You do tend to be sort of hooked to certain other players (servers-wise), so you were probably getting the same jerks over and over. On the other hand, on a normal day (when your phantoms are actually working FOR you) it's kind of nice when you start recognizing the gamertags of other phantoms you've fought with recently, and they recognize you.

I'm surprised to hear that your summons didn't protect you from the invader though, unless it glitched and they didn't see him. Or... some players are "gank-sensitive" due to near-constant complaining of invaders, so maybe they hung back thinking you wanted a 1v1? I doubt it, but maybe. Personally I always prefer the host back off and let the phantoms take on the invader, but in your case it sounds like they were nowhere to be found.

@ wyrm I am 65 because I ve been working on the Int first . I'll be working on the Vit now.
@ Callip: believe me bro, I'm all in for PvE. So I love to earn the souls from coop by putting my phantom against any treath for the host.
I run like crazy against the invaders because if my host dies we all loose and he looses more, he could even his stain.
That is why yesterday felt kind of dissapointed, because as a phantom I believe there is a code of conduct and honor.

I really don't like going human because of the invaders..not that I don't mind the atmopshere of PvP, but because these people use one hit tactics. I'm still new, this is my first roll in the game, but I got womped with a hammer, and someone freakin' cast a pyro aoe spell that one hit me, got backstabbed looking for the phantom a few times.

The thing that irritates me the most is..I can't get them back. It's frustrating, this game, while being a challenge, and a breath of fresh air for not leading you through with arrows and a minimap with fast travel..it also caters to trolls. Literally caters to them.

I completely understand. For pretty much the same reasons I played mostly hollow through like NG+5 or so. Excessive, I know, but I really, REALLY hated invaders. I've met a few good ones by now, but I still hate most of them, difference is that now I can often kill them.

If you're still at 65 and need help tonight, I can help you. My Int build is designed for the 4 Kings.

^^ Yes, and believe me, last night it was all about killing the 4 kings. And the invaders, all of them, used cheap tactics on me like running straight to the mobs or bstabing me whlie fighting an enemy npc.
Its incredible how they do that against a solo quester... They already have overpowered weapon, they already know you are low on vit because it ws the 2 nd or third time that they invaded me ... At least be honorable and face me without lurking into the mobs or stabbing me in the back while I'm fighting.
Not because you are a DW you offically have to be a douche.
And I wont generalize, because I know there are some DW with honor and pretty skilled to. But you don't need to be skilled to backstab a person or stunlock while he is defenceless.

OK. Send me a FR. I'm usually on from 10pm - midnight CST (it is 3:30 now). We'll slaughter them.

@thanks Reim, I was able to solo them with an enchanted weapon and plenty rolling and green herb and almost all my estus flasks.
I really appreciate your offering.
I was planning to get seath's tail tonight.

Sorry Reim... You were faster than me... But as I said, perhaps we can take seath... If you want of course.

Hmm. We could try. This build isn't the best for Seath. It has low Vit and End in favor of Int.

Ohhh, yes I forgot the low rsistance to curse.... I think I'm going to have another hell of a time with Seath... Sigh

Doelker wrote:Ohhh, yes I forgot the low rsistance to curse.... I think I'm going to have another hell of a time with Seath... Sigh

On the PS3, there is almost always someone around to summon. Camp by the bonfire for a bit and wait.

^Hmm... sounds like a sneaky invader tactic.

That is a good place to wait, you can see signs, if you see your bonfire gone you can just quit out and load back in, typically then you'll get a summon before an invader. If you make it past the fog gate you're typically golden, most invade in the archives, not out near the Crystal Caves.

What Tolvo said. It is what I do. Call me chicken, whatever.

If you actually need to do the boss I really see nothing wrong with it.

I know what you mean about the invaders. Today, I was doing co-op at O&S and I got summoned into a 1v1 going on, so it became a 2v1. The invader kept on chucking poison knives and fire bombs (none of which hit me or the host) and would hide behind the silver knights, until I killed off all the knights. Then, the invader runs into the titanite demon. They always think they're safe there, but I've actually been able to kill people in there because they drop their guard, so I followed. I went in and ended up getting killed by the titanite demon without getting hit by the invader. I then get a message about 5 minutes later, and I assumed it was the host saying that he beat the invader, but instead it's a message from the invader talking about how he owned all 4 of us (apparently 2 phantoms died before I summoned in) as a SL 8 and talked about how godly he was, where as all he used were cheap tactics and he didn't even kill me... Sometimes invaders can just be the worst.