Aside from exploring intricately designed worlds, slaying legendary beasts, and creating the most fashionable character possible, many fans of Dark Souls will be quick to mention its thriving Player vs. Player community. Characters of all classes and builds can come together to pit their skills and equipment against one another in arena-style duels.
Dark Souls III has had quite a huge PVP scene since its launch in 2016, and it isn’t showing signs of stopping anytime soon. It can be daunting for newer players to get into PVP with the sheer amount of weapons, accessories, armors, and items each with their own big and scary numbers, but there are some builds that are worth trying. Here are ten great builds for Dark Souls III PVP.
Updated on February 5, 2021, by Reyadh Rahaman: When it comes to fighting real humans online, the same strategies used in Player vs. Environment encounters won’t cut it most of the time. The game’s AI can be cheesed and predicted relatively easily and it does not compare to the intelligent and evolving tactics of fellow Ashen Ones. To get a leg up on the competition, one needs to plan a build, practice with it, and then get good enough at anticipating a foe’s movements to deliver solid hits and get optimal damage trades. With the trial and error of many players over the last few years, a few builds have emerged as excellent ways to do all of the above and then some.
10 The Goblin
The meta of Dark Souls III has tended to favor more agile weaponry as opposed to the various gigantic hunks of metal players can find across Lothric, but that doesn’t stop them from being a force to be reckoned with in the right hands. Thanks to the addition of Weapon Arts, some bigger weapons have devastatingly quick and sweeping attacks at the cost of some FP, such as Ledo’s Great Hammer and Gael’s Greatsword.
These weapons are the stars of the show for this build, created by the user Hackberry on Fextralife. This build is mostly VIT/STR focused, where the user will switch between the two weapons when necessary. They both have amazing Weapon Arts for different situations and rings like the Ring of Favor, Prisoner’s Chain, and Chloranthy Ring help them to be used more effectively.
The goal of this build is to chain together attacks with both heavy weapons in order to decimate an adversary’s health in a very specific combo. Hackberry mentions that this involves leading with a light attack from the left-hand equipped Gael’s Greatsword. Due to the wide range of this sweeping slash, it can catch rolling foes fairly easily and stun them long enough to crush them with the right-hand equipped Ledo’s Great Hammer.
9 Crucifix Of The Mad King + Dark Blade
This insane-looking Halberd has attacks that combo into themselves, a heavy attack with a fantastic range, and a Weapon Art that is able to give users three entirely different things. This weapon is paired with the Dark Blade spell, which adds additional dark damage to the given weapon.
Anyone caught by the Crucifix of the Mad King is going to take a hefty amount of damage, which forces players to play cautiously as to not get killed by a single combo. It may not always be worth the risk, but the Weapon Art provides an extra option to fall-back on if needed.
Wielders of this wicked halberd should be wary, however, as its three vastly different Weapon Art effects are completely random. The first is an area-of-effect wave of dark energy that erupts from the wielder, the second is a blessing that boosts one’s poise, and the third releases a sinister dark orb that hovers around for a while before exploding violently. Be extra careful of this last one, as its explosion can also hurt the wielder.
8 The Witch
“The Witch” is quite the scary build to fight against for anyone not comfortable with defending against constant magical volleys and huge, sweeping scythes. The Izalith Staff is used to cast multiple spells, primarily Affinity, Floating Chaos, Crystal Hail, and Snap Freeze. Friede’s Great Scythe acts as the offhand weapon, which can be switched into to keep opponents at bay and build frostbite.
Intelligence and Faith are the main stats to invest in for this build, as they will significantly raise the damage output of multiple homing and AOE spells, as well as boost the damage of the scythe. Snap Freeze can increase the frostbite potential for the scythes, giving this build a ton of options to utilize.
Alternatively, players using this build can also use the Demon’s Scar and Scholar’s Candlestick. The candle-holding dagger is meant to cast Affinity as it boosts the damage of sorceries by 10%. The Demon’s Scar is to cast pyromancies as well as deal with threats at close range with its pseudo curved sword moveset. With the power of frost, fire, and darkness on one’s side, there are few foes who can last very long against one who has practiced with this build.
7 Passive Mage
Mages are never the most fun class to duel against, but Homing Soul Mass is definitely a contender for one of the most annoying but useful spells in the game. This class doesn’t look much different from a one-handed weapon and shield build, except for the inclusion of a staff for the usage of Homing Soul Mass.
The primary function of this build is to create space with the spell and wait for the perfect time to strike with the light weapon, and defending with a Black Knight Shield to make it difficult for the opponent to deal damage. Frustrating, but effective, for sure.
Since one is already running sorceries and likely has a lot of Intelligence, other spells can be included to enhance one’s deadly potential. Pestilence Mist, although possibly harmful to the caster, can be a great way to control the spacing of the duel as well as get some easy damage on enemies in a small area like a corridor or if they are backed into a corner. Hidden Weapon can also be used to make it harder for the enemy to tell how much reach one’s melee weapon has.
6 The Reddit Build
This is the top-rated build on MugenMonkey, and for good reason. The Estoc has been seen as a top-tier thrusting sword since the beginning of Dark Souls III, but pairing it with a greatshield creates nothing but a match filled with tears and rage-quits.
The premise is extremely simple – invest stats into STR and DEX, get a few buffing spells like Blessed Weapon or Tears of Denial, and hide behind a veritable wall and stab until the enemy is dead. Countering this style of play can be pretty difficult without the right weapons, making it one of the easiest builds for anyone to use.
The thurst-type damage dealt by the Estoc allows its wielder to get some bonus damage when hitting foes who are in the middle of an attack animation due to the hidden counterattack mechanic. Players can do this with near impunity because of the offhand greatshield’s massive damage reduction. Havel’s Greatshield is the best for this tactic, though less heavy kinds are still totally usable.
5 Trigod
Another of the top MugenMonkey builds, Trigod, showcases just how powerful the current DS3 meta is. This build revolves around the use of a dark-infused Lothric Knight Sword, which is one of the best straight swords in the entire series that also has a very common but potent infusion.
Along with the Black Knight Shield and the Magic Shield spell, this is about as basic as it can get in terms of a build, but the fundamentals often outweigh the fancier stuff when it comes to PVP. Lloyd’s Sword Ring, Ring of Favor, Prisoner’s Chain, and a fairly balanced stat-spread make this a potent build against just about any enemy.
With this sword’s slashing and thrusting attacks, players have a lot of versatility in melee range. The higher than average Critical stat on the Lothric Knight Sword also makes backstabs and ripostes especially punishing to careless foes. Equipping the Hornet Ring can make this even more devastating.
4 Murky Hand Scythe
This weapon is likely among the most hated in the entire Dark Souls III PVP community, often cited as a braindead weapon with the ability to carry new players. Think of it what one will, but there’s no denying the sheer damage output and speed that it bolsters.
There are a variety of different builds for this weapon, but a more interesting one consists of buffing the dark-infused dagger with different spells like Darkmoon Blade before engaging in combat. This will raise its already excellent damage output to insane levels for a short time.
Gaining B-tier scaling with both Intelligence and Faith offers a pretty big boost in its attack rating if the player has invested sufficiently in these stats. This combined with the hard to block dark damage can let its wielder take chunks out of a foe’s health bar regardless of whether or not they are using a shield.
3 Demon’s Scar
While players can wield gigantic swords and hammers that weigh hundreds of pounds, there’s nothing more intimidating than someone swinging around a literal flame. This “curved sword” is quick, damaging, and is paired with Pyromancies like Black Flame and Chaos Bed Vestiges to make use of the weapon’s Intelligence and Faith scaling.
The Demon’s Scar was definitely designed to work well with Pyromancies, as it can easily combo into some of them or be spell-canceled for some highly damaging and difficult to avoid combos. It’s easy to use, customizable, and way too effective.
As with other curved swords in the style of a Scimitar, the running attack is insanely fast and very hard for enemies to see coming due to the very short windup. Its kick move also imitates that of the Scimitar in that it slashes horizontally quickly before launching the user into a backflip to avoid counterattacks. This versatile moveset used in conjunction with pyromancies at long-range makes it easy for its wielder to constantly keep the pressure up against most adversaries.
2 Warrior Of Sunlight
Most of the time, miracle builds used to get laughed at for their ineffectiveness, though after a few years, and many updates, the developers at FromSoftware have decided to throw lovers of the sun some treats. The Ringed City DLC has provided players with a couple of awesome miracles, such as Lightning Arrow.
This low-FP, highspeed spell can zap foes multiple times before they can even blink. Since one is running a high Faith build, it would be a good idea to infuse one’s weapon with lightning for the most optimal type of damage.
The Sunlight Straight Sword is a decent choice, though a Lothric Knight Sword infused with a Lightning Gem yields much greater scaling at S-tier. This lets it do some huge damage that pairs well with the speed of Lightning Arrow as well as the blade’s awesome moveset.
1 Pontiff Knight Curved Sword
Curved swords are a dominating weapon in the PVP meta for Dark Souls III due to their speed, damage, and moveset, and the Pontiff Knight Curved Sword demonstrates just how deadly they can be. Its Weapon Art, Frost Blade, is absolutely huge, its attacks are extremely good at catching rolls, and it is difficult to defend against such a quick weapon.
This weapon is often seen paired with a Caestus for the Perseverance ability, or a dark-infused straight sword/Murky Hand Scythe to better deal with prominent shields. There isn’t much that this build can’t do and the interchangeability of its off-hand weapon and spells makes it that much more viable.
The frost build-up applied by this blade can not only wreak havoc on a foe’s stamina bar but also apply great pressure in a duel. As one of the few weapons capable of doing this, it will give many adversaries pause when they see the wielder rushing at them like an avalanche descending a mountain. It is also the longest of all the curved swords, making it very easy to out space foes who aren’t wielding polearms or greatweapons.
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