It's him...

Doing my best to get a Red Pyramid Thing cosplay going for the Halloween season. Went with the spear variant because none of the swords that look like the Great Knife are any good at all really. Offdag necessary simply for build functionality.

GGs guy for helping me feel swag

For some reason Old Dragonslayer breaks more than any other boss in the game when you do goofy shit to it. I've killed him, and he just pops back up and stands there, non-hostile, unkillable. This happens in the PvP mule too for some reason.

Managed to invade Chasm, and accidentally fell into the hole at the end. Instead of dying, I got sent back to Black Gulch and I think it also pulled the host and phantom there as well, as far as I can tell.

I assume the double jester setup was because they were ganking, but I don't think they'll be doing much like this.

listen buddy havels set is trash you need to actually level your HP. yeah you gotta do it man or you just die in two hits. this happens.

Not very often you got to do 3v1s before Seamless. I like the system in Seamless where dead players go to spectator, so you don't have resummon nonsense.

Pursuer broke on Seamless for me and my co-op partner, had to go back to my own world and fight him solo. I was really scared, I didn't think I was gonna make it it's my first time ever playing a video game before I was so scared and nervous and pissing, I was pissing everywhere :(

My jeans may be soaked, but this fight was clean fire emoji fire emoji fire emoji one-hundred emoji

Nikon D50 and Nikon AF 60mm f/2.8 D Micro lens

Trying to play to the strengths of my lens more with more close-ups, but I think even far shots still look pretty good.

Decided to go the extra mile and also do mock-ups for the title screen and main menu of this fake RIDGE RACER TYPE 4: reMAKE thing I've been doing. Super, super happy with how these turned out, even with some minor inconsistencies between the two images. The reason the "Options" menu tab looks like that is a little nod to the text formatting of the original PSX version of R4, where letters would not underhang, so the P sits above with the rest of the letters. I didn't work well for "Garage", so that one wasn't able to get the same treatment.

incredibly down bad for R4 right now so I made a mock-up of some kind of teaser poster or w/e. decided to share it, hope ya like it.

DS2 has a lot of PvP tech, from quick rolls to feints to torch speedies to bleedglitch and beyond. Bows, however, don't have much tech to them that we know of. There's bow toggling, where you toggle off of your bow to cancel a draw, saving stamina and allowing you to reposition. There's also the sharpshot, where you let loose an arrow a frame before you backstep. Other than that, nothing I know of.

I want to see if anyone out there can figure out something that's left me perplexed: Can you stance swap a bow?

For those who don't know, stance swapping is tech that allows you to swap from 1h to 2h or 2h to 1h mid-combo. This is done (2h to 1h) by pressing Stance > Attack > Stance very quickly. For 1h to 2h, you do Stance > Stance > Attack very quickly. The video above shows a demo of a successful stance swap.

I was thinking about how this would work for bows, as I can't figure out what about the draw prevents you from stance swapping. It would be sick to be able to create frame traps by stance swapping out of a bow draw.

If anyone is able to do this, let me know and I'll drop you idk a bunch of souls or smth

Knocking off some rust with some red summon signs, always a fan of how nasty bows can be.

also ignore that connection at the end i have ethernet its literally not my fault

Hello, I have recently purchased a second-hand Polaroid OneStep Flash (the "red-stripe" model seen above.) I purchased Polaroid brand 600 film from a retailer that is brand new. When I load the film, the camera gears sound like they are perpetually whirring, and neither the darkslide nor film will eject. Any ideas as to what the issue is?

yall have no concept of what kinda shit im on rn

"Excuse me, ah, yes, excuse me Hollow Infantryman, coming through. They went this way? Splendid, we shall cut this fiend off at the ladder. To arms, brethren! We have a speedrunner to slay!"

Hello honest casual roleplayers, I wanna ramble about PvP. Not talkin' tech or fundamentals or metaphysical third-eye spellcasting. Just talk about my PvP experience, where I came from, what that journey was like, just wanna talk about it and stuff.

I've thought a little bit about DS2 PvP. Every once in a while, I do acknowledge it. I think about the landscape of it, the culture of it, the sort of "cliques" it has formed over the years. I think about the thoughts and feelings different people have towards it, both positive and negative, I think about the average level of knowledge of the broader DS2 playerbase when it comes to PvP in this game. I think about where this game has been, where it's at and where it could go.

I love DS2, dearly and sincerely. I didn't pump 5k hours into learning this game because I didn't enjoy it, I'll tell you that much. I started back in DS3 watching clips of JeeNine on Youtube, thinking "wow, you can do all that in DS3? That's fucking crazy, I wanna do that too." Eventually, I gave DS2 a shot. Well, I did try DS2 PvP a few times prior, but it never clicked.

One of the things that helped me get into DS2 PvP was a strong community of people who also loved the game, who enjoyed learning and teaching and improving constantly. It was downright inspiring. I thought people hated this game, and here's all these people dedicated to this shit? Fucking awesome, there's gotta be something here then. I started as a lot of people do; running random shit I had on me in invasions, or just copying whatever builds I saw in the Top 16 section on Soulsplanner. A lot of weird gimmicky stuff, a lot of poorly optimized mid-tier weapons. It was kinda fun, but I didn't really see that big draw that kept those people playing.

I think what made it click for me was the first few times I queue'd up for BoB arena. I'd done quite a bit of invading, maybe 500 hours before hitting the arena once. I was feeling pretty confident, I was winning my invasions with a good amount of consistency. My first experience in BoB arena was about 5 matches of me getting absolutely slaughtered. I had no idea what was happening to me or what my opponent was doing. I couldn't get space, I couldn't hit them, I was getting shredded like wheat.

I was feeling pretty disheartened, not gonna lie. I was in more casual PvP communities at the time, and it felt like all the advice I'd ever been given, all the tips, all of it just crumbled in the face of the arena opponents. What was going wrong? I was told the build I was running was good, I was told the strategy was good, it seemed to work when I was invading, what was I doing wrong here? Is it just a skill issue?

Knowledge Check

After a bit of frustration, I got back to work. I tried looking at the situation from a different angle; instead of thinking about what I'm doing wrong, what about, "what are my opponents doing that I'm not?" What if I get inside their heads for a minute, and think. When I'm getting my ass beat, how are they doing it? Why are they taking the actions they do? What is it they are doing that is working that I am not doing?

The first thing was movement. It's the first thing of value I was actually taught about DS2 PvP. It was summarized to me like this: "You can immediately tell how skilled a DS2 player is based on whether they are locked-on or not when a match starts." I didn't know about the lock-on debuffs at the time. I was like most, locked-on 24-7, waddling around like a duck, rolling, waiting for my character to re-orient so I could swing. I had already noticed that the people who were beating my ass weren't locking-on. I didn't know if it was a flex, or a specific strategy or what, because nobody was doing that in DS3.

I was taught about the lock-on debuffs, from the move-speed penalty to the increased startup on sprinting. It was explained to me that I should only lock-on right when I attack, so I can make use of the tracking, and basically never use it outside of that. So I tried it. And... I didn't get it right away. Now, in DS1 and DS2, even in PvE it's better to not always be locked on all the time unless you're casting something, because those lock-on penalties are like, half the game's difficulty. But I'd already been playing DS2 for several hundred hours, and now I gotta learn to play without lock-on? It wasn't even that I couldn't aim my attacks, that part came fairly easily. You just turn the character to swing, takes a little getting used to, but not too bad. But now, add the input for locking on just before an attack and it gets a little weird-feeling. At the start I forgot I was supposed to be hitting lock-on at all, so I'd just be doing match after match never hitting it. Eventually, after getting reminded to do so a few times, I got the hang of it, and eventually it became second nature. Slight adjustment to the controller grip and a bit of practice, and now it's no problem.

Man, learning and improving feels real good, huh?

Once I learned how to properly toggle lock-on, it's like my gameplay improved ten-fold. I was moving around the arena like water, spacing felt easier and more natural, my pivots got better and faster. All I did was learn something so fundamental as how to move my character properly and suddenly I was actually competing with other players. I was putting work in, winning some matches, winning multiple matches in a row. "Nothing Ever Happens" gamers were in shambles.

Just as I figured this out, however, I ran into another roadblock.

Only Missingno. Can Defeat the Halberd Frametrap

Halberd 2h running attack is a little bit infamous. It's most likely the reason halberds were considered "really good, top tier" in DS2 history. It just creates a vortex of damage that strikes three times, and if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, even if you roll the first hit, you're getting clipped by the second, or the third. Halberds were a problem. The attack comes out and no matter what, you're just eating damage and you gotta live with that, right?

So, DS2 has some glitchtech. Everyone knows about recovery cancel or attunement glitch, and generally those are no-nos. RC makes certain matchups unplayable, attunement glitch setups are just really tedious to fight, so most people are against that. Of course people will still use that, but depending on who you are, it might just be a BC and block.

There is some glitchtech, however, that is not only accepted, but also considered fundamental to DS2 PvP. There's one in particular that is perpetually relevant: Quickrolls

I'll quickrolls, in case you're not familiar. A quickroll is a way to get consecutive rolls out faster. The input for this is to: Attack, roll, buffer an attack mid-roll, then cancel that attack with another roll. Thanks to DS2s animation cancelling system, canceling the startup of a rolling attack with another roll allows you to get your consecutive roll out sooner than if you were just mashing the B button.

So, what the hell, Margaret? What do you mean a glitch is fundamental to DS2 PvP? Well, it's kinda sick, but quickrolls are actually very balanced. It extends your evasive capabilities at the cost of extra stamina, and poor and predictable use of quickrolls can be easily punished. It's kinda like rocket jumping in Quake, or combos in OG Street Fighter II. It wasn't quite intentional, but it actually makes the game healthier and more playable by preventing players from getting stuck in infinite frametraps.

Learning this was super exciting, just the idea that a glitch or bug was fundamental to a game was so novel and unique to me. It felt like, for the first time, having an understanding of the game's inner workings, like pieces were truly falling into place on how DS2 actually functions.

The Quest for 150

At this point I'd decided DS2 was my game. Friendship ended with DS3, now DS2 was my best friend. It was unbelievable how much cool shit I could do in DS2 compared to DS3, where interactions and engagements felt so binary and wrote, where it never felt like I was the one doing something cool. I didn't want a flashy weapon skill to make me feel like I was doing something cool, I wanted actually do cool shit as an expression of skill and knowledge, and DS2 was like the biggest sandbox I could have dreamed of.

I'd set my sights on something. I'd been seeing these neon red and blue motherfuckers all over the place once I started hanging out in the arenas. The coveted Rank 2 aura. At the time, it was like the Holy Grail. The arena was so difficult, if you had a Rank 2 aura, you must be pretty strong. It was a goal, something to aspire to within DS2. No random out doing PvE is gonna have this, and by god it carries over when you invade, too? Had to have it.

It took two years. From the time I started actually playing in the arena, to the time I actually got it, it took two years. I was playing consistently, too, maybe once a day for any length of time. I was putting in work, I was putting in matches, and it still took two years. It was a brutal climb. I remember how proud of myself I was just to get the Rank 1 aura. But why did it take so long?

The BoB climb is a tug of war. The way covenant ranks work in Brotherhood of Blood, is that you start at 0 points. For every win, you get one point, and for every loss, you lose a point. Sounds simple enough, you just need to win more than you lose, and it's only 150 points, right? Yeah, it'll take a while, but that's not too crazy high.

So, the big elephant in the room, is that the BoB arena is notoriously where all the killers live. That's where the cream of the crop is, the really good players. Also the Russians. This means that for every poor innocent random who queues once after beating Chariot at SL65, there are maybe 5 other people at SL155 who are absolute killers who are going to rob you of god knows how many points. If you rematch the same god over and over, your points are just gonna go down, and down, and down, and down. Up 5, down 30 type shit. It's brutal, it's BRUTAL, it's disheartening, it's frustrating, but nothing good was ever won without effort.

The Dragonslayer Spear Incident and How I Learned to Stop Being Good

A common struggle with any game is finding the character that fits you, that suits your playstyle. That was a big struggle during my climb. There were all these top-tier weapons, Warped Sword, Ice Rapier, Longsword, Chariot Lance, Blacksteel Katana. I used all of them, quite a bit even, but nothing was quite clicking with me. Lance was the closest for a while, with an offhand axe, but I just couldn't get consistent enough with it.

Eventually I settled on a spear. I never see spears commonly in DS2, either in the arena or while invading. Seems kind of a rarity. See a lot of curved swords, thrusting swords, ultra greatswords, but rarely ever a spear. I hadn't fought many spears during my climb, so I was a bit curious.

The first thing I'll say about spears is that they're boring as fuck. They don't have the same oppressive offense as thrusting swords, probably their closest counterpart, so basically all they do is kinda just wait for their opponent to do something and then say "nuh uh" with their insanely long range. And hey, did they just try and roll in on you? Well that's what the dagger/straight sword in your left hand is for. You got keepaway on keepaway.

Spear was the key. It was the single most consistent setup I'd used up to this point, and for one reason: It's a straight matchup check weapon. Against spear, you either have the matchup or you don't. It's nasty, it's kinda fucked up, it's kinda evil, but if I can matchup check most of the game, hitting 150 points in BoB shouldn't be a problem, right?

3801 and Counting

Spear ended up being my main. It's by far my most used weapon. It's comfortable, it's consistent, it's simple. On that character, I'm sitting on 3801 BoB points. Fuck the Rank 2 aura, I blew past that and BoB rank 3. Now, learning spear wasn't without hitches. I didn't immediately understand what exactly spear was in the grander scheme of things. I just knew it was a long-range poking stick, I didn't know it was the world's most consistent matchup fish. All of the other weapons I used allowed for a lot more aggression, and spear wanted to be more patient. It was an adjustment, for sure. Once I got the hang of it, though, it was like a knife through butter. It felt like, not only was I winning in the BoB arena, I was actually competing in it. I was learning, improving, match after match, able to remember the playstyles of specific opponents and how to counter them, and they would counter me back and we would just go back and forth and it was fucking awesome. It was so engaging, because it felt like I had come so far, that I wasn't just learning DS2, I was learning the individual people I fought and that fucking rules. All despite being carried by my setup ;)

The Invasion Situation is Crazy

Once you get really good at a game, it's kind of hard to go back to certain aspects of it with the same whimsy and excitement as you did before. This is the part I really wanted to talk about, because I feel a bit... forlorn about it, I guess.

Starting out with invasions was an uphill battle in of itself. Those aren't just NPCs you're fighting, those are real humans who can adjust tactics and change their approach with the singular goal to beat you. There's a sort of meme of a romanticized idea of what an invader is, a "bad red man" who just wants to invade you with the sole purpose of ruining your day because they hate you, they hate good things and they hate fun. Maybe some people are like that. I think that's a very melodramatic idea of what invaders are, and an equally melodramatic idea for an invader to have.

The only reason I ever invade is because I just wanna fight people. Sometimes the arena's not super active, maybe it's late at night or something, but I really wanna fight people. I don't wanna do PvE, because I dogwalk PvE in my sleep. I want to fight a real human, a real challenge.

The problem is, all that arena grinding has left me in a bit of a situation. Now, I enjoyed learning and improving at DS2 in the arena, I look back on that journey fondly and I look forward to continuing to learn the game in the future, but where I'm at now? Like, I just should not be invading at all ever.

Whenever I invade someone now, it's like a coughing baby versus a hydrogen bomb. 5k hours of experience versus someone doing PvE for the first time in DS2. I've got my Dragonslayer Spear and Fume Sword setup, rank 2 aura, and I just think for a second. When I go on the offensive and start attacking my opponent, from the moment I engage to the moment I inevitably win, what is it like in their shoes? What is going through their head? "Why are they moving like that? Why are they glowing? Oh my god why does that spear do so much damage? I can't even get in to do damage because they just swing the sword.

What the fuck am I supposed to do? What exactly do you expect me to do here?"

I don't wanna say "it's lonely at the top", because I don't want to imply I'm a god at DS2. I still have bad habits that net me a few fair losses, and still plenty to learn, but compared to the average PvE gamer? Like, what the fuck could they possibly do, man? They're getting hounded by chain running attacks they can't even react to, they're seeing this dual-wield setup, when the fuck do you ever dual-wield in any of the other Souls games? They don't know how to deal with that, not at all! And the lock-on? They're probably thinking I just freshly installed the game, I don't even know how to lock on and OH GOD THEY'RE GETTING MURDERED.

I think a lot about how, in DS2, there's just no in-between, it's just gap. Nothing in DS2 could ever prepare a PvE gamer for what a seasoned arena player is gonna do to them, they don't stand a chance in hell. It's a bit sad. You know, I used to say that "invasions are casual PvP, Iron Keep is mid-level PvP, and arena is high-level PvP", but Iron Keep's usually just dead unless you specifically organize a fight club or something. And honestly, the gap between Iron Keep players and arena players just keeps growing wider and wider over time. It's like invasions, Iron Keep, and the arenas are their own separate ecosystems, and arena players are dedicated to a point where the other two just can't keep up with that ecosystem, so when that ecosystem bleeds out, people are just getting atomized left and right.

How can that gap be bridged? I try to post stuff on this sub to at least get people some knowledge so they have something to work with, but is it enough? Will the arena just forever exponentially outpace the other PvP spaces in DS2? It's like evolving yourself into a box, where the only climate you can survive is the harshest ones, and you're like an invasive species in any other environment. I dunno, it kinda makes me sad. I wish that mid-level PvP was more filled out, I wish there were more people who had the drive to improve, even while keeping the more whimsical casual attitude.

I love DS2 and I just hope there's still people out there who pick up this game, see how sick it is, fall in love with it and just go all in. I dunno, this whole post was just rambling. It don't mattuh, none-a dis mattuhs.

we hit da clip bro, hi youtube, hi video, say hi feet sniffer