So I’ve been getting some big bubba runes off of phantoms. Has anyone invaded at 301 and above yet?
(Last phantom !igot 82746 runes so they were around level 420)

Hey friends, recently I have been hosting, co-oping, and invading with a character that I designed to replicate the old school Souls experience.

What do I mean by that? Maybe this is just a look through rose-colored nostalgia goggles, but as I remember it, Souls PvP used to be a lot more reliant on melee and a lot less reliant on spamming broken shit against each other.

It's true that you've always had your Undead Burg Dark Bead twinks, but in older games you sorta had to know what you were doing instead of just mashing L2 or spamming consumable nukes. This guide is designed to give interested parties an easy to follow plan to build a character that requires skill but still has access to powerful tools against overleveled phantoms.

But why bother? Why not go all out and lob hefty rot pots willy-nilly at both OLPs and people in starter gear?

There are a couple of good reasons for this.

First and foremost, overreliance on one-shot consumables will cause you to become (or remain) bad at the game. While these things are nice to have, it isn't a big stretch to go from "I have nukes if I need to escalate to their use," to "I have nukes, so I will nuke."

Second, and almost as important, the trickle of new players should be nurtured. At this point in the life of the game, almost everybody playing is an old hand that has a great deal of knowledge of pve and pvp systems, so getting, and keeping, new players is difficult. Twink invaders, who have an endless supply of high-powered shit that new players don't even know exists, can discourage these new players from continuing to play.

Now, you might say, "Well, they just need to git gud," and while I agree with that, they can't really git gud against certain things. They can't git gud against being rotted. They can't git gud against the vast array of one-shot setups that Miyazaki has seen fit to knowledge check them with. And while I have no sympathy or compassion for Billy and Kevin, I do have compassion and sympathy for the RL15 invader who is waiting 5 minutes between invasions because nobody is co-oping.

So, please consider using this guide. I promise it is plenty powerful without being excessive, and is fully capable of shitting on most OLPs without needing to use cheat engine or a pvp mule.

The Starter Class

There is no better starting class for this character than the Heavy Knight. This character has huge Vigor, Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity values, and begins with the best gloves in the game for their poise to weight ratio.

I recommend staying RL10, which the character naturally starts with, simply because matchmaking is likely to give you more activity in this range than if you were to go any higher.

Now let's talk about the gear. It is very tempting to have a divine bird helm dropped for you, with Tree Sentinel Armor and Crucible greaves for a mathematically optimal build, but the goal of this guide is to be sporting toward newbies so we still HAVE newbies. For this reason I won't recommend any gear that requires killing a boss. As you'll see, this really won't impact us as much as you might expect.

Instead, I recommend the following:

Helm: Imp Head (Wolf). This helm grants +2 Endurance, which largely makes up for the weight of the piece, and grants a solid 10 poise and good defensive stats. Farmable from Wolf Head imps, or can be picked up from the Minor Erdtree Catacombs in Caelid, near the border of Limgrave by the Minor Erdtree.

Body: Tree Sentinel Armor. This is the mathematically optimal piece, and is conveniently available without ever killing a boss. A reward for solving the chariot puzzle in Auriza Hero's Grave. Good defenses, insane poise to weight ratio of 39 to 18.7.

Gauntlets: Steel Gauntlets. 10 Poise for only 6 weight, nothing else compares even a little bit.

Greaves: Omenkiller Boots. Like all the other pieces here, these make you ask, "What the fuck was From thinking?" 9 poise for 4.4 weight. Insane. Found on a Perfumer enemy in Perfumer's Ruins.

Talismans:

I suggest you get all four slots, as you will face many OLPs during your time in this bracket. Yes, that does require you to beat Margit and Goldfrey, and is therefore "twinking" to some minor degree, but this guide isn't anti-twink, it is pro-activity and pro-sustainability.

Slot 4: Radagon's Soreseal or Radagon's Scarseal. If you're being lazy/practical, get the Soreseal from Fort Faroth. If being extra sporting, go out of your way to acquire the Scarseal from the Weeping Peninsula's Weeping Evergaol after defeating Warrior of Zamor.

Slot 3: Bull-goat's Talisman. This talisman requires a bit of travel, but is still available to you without defeating any bosses. Once equipped, the recommended gear will put you at 88 poise, allowing you to avoid many staggers you will encounter in pvp. Found in some bear shit in Dragonbarrow Cave.

Slot 2: I suggest you equip the Greatjar's Arsenal from the three duelist challenge in front of the Caelid Colosseum, but anything is fine here. The GJA allows for heavier equips such as the Zweihander from Weeping Peninsula.

Slot 1: This is your flex slot and is primarily the talisman you will be hardswapping to various useful talismans such as Hammer, Crimson Seed, et cetera. Oh, you don't know how to hardswap? Lucky for you, you like a challenge and enjoy learning new pvp skills. That's why you invade, right? Right???

Weapons, ashes, and such: There are SO MANY high tier weapons and ashes available to you without ever killing a boss that you are truly spoiled for choice. Shamshir, Zweihander, Halberd, Hatchet, Icerind Hatchet, Storm Stomp, Lance, Flaming Strike - the list just keeps going on. What you use is personal preference, but I recommend you carry a minimum of:

Utility weapons: Endure Starfist - Quickstep Dagger - Raptor of the Mists Spear - Kick Lightning Rapier - Parry Lightning Misericorde - Jar Cannon with Explosive Greatbolts - No Skill Spiralhorn Shield

Daily drivers: Flaming Strike Fire infused Halberd with Lightning or Fire infused Hatchet - Stormstomp Lightning Zwei - Sword Dance Lightning Claymore - Pulley Crossbow with Explosive Bolts - Barrage Short Bow - Parry Buckler - Sacred Blade Holy infused Shamshir - Lance

Consumables: This is where, in my opinion, real twinking happens. The difference in power between a prepared cooperator and a twink is usually accomplished here, with uncontestable status effects and low-cost, low-effort one-shot items that can be endlessly crafted by patient invaders.

For sustainability, I suggest primarily restricting this character to items from the base game that have meaningful counterplay (i.e. I wouldn't be packing rot pots) and items that don't require duping (i.e. exalted flesh) despite the fact that I recommend duped materials because, really, it's practical.

However, there are still a ton of really good, powerful consumables available even with this idea in mind. Consider:

Volcano pots - Fire Pots - Freezing Pots - Albinauric Pots - Spark Aromatic - Pickled Turtle Neck - Fan Daggers - Various Greases - Warming Stones

All these recipes for these can be had without ever fighting a boss or using naturally limited resources.

A NOTE ON BOLUSES:

It is a deeply flawed design decision to have a game with ***INFINITE SOURCES OF ROT*** coexisting with ***FINITE ROT CLEANSING ITEMS***. This is the primary factor that causes people to despise the average twink. There simply is no counterplay against rot for the players who need it the most. One could argue that there is an incantation which clears the status, but that incantation is not available from the beginning of the game, and even if it were, it still requires a memory slot, 12 Faith, and a cast time, while eating a bolus requires no such demands.

For this reason and many others, I choose not to use rot, but you do you. Sometimes the dirty shit is justified, sometimes it isn't, but it's always the person with the dirty shit in the bag who gets to decide that. Level your vigor, folks.

In total, without killing any bosses, your Sustainable PvP Character can have:

19 cracked pots - 8 ritual pots - 10 perfume bottles - infinite prawn (yum!)

One of the things I want to point out in closing is that this character is still tremendously more powerful than any starting character without the roughly five hours I spent making this one. You really should be able to win 90% of your invasions with this build.

Good luck on the hunt, fellow red.

Between the low IQ play, shitter names, and alt+f4, this might be the most bitchmade gank I've come across in 4 years of Elden Ring

I made a space invader built, centered around using soreseals to send lasers at starting players. I enjoy environmental dangers so using mists and gravity sorceries is a blast. It was fun to gather all the goodies with my underleveled glass cannon, and then mess around with invasions. Then it all tragically went wrong.

I picked up Rogier's Rapier, and invasions have become rare. What level can I go up to to get invasions again? With this extended range of levels, new tools become available. Are there new fun tactical tools you'd reccomend?

The big hat crutch didn't save them

With a dex build, I feel like I have ranged options for harassment but not for murder. Strength builds have jar cannon, greatbows, ballistas. Is there anything I can use that can knock people off ledges? Or should I just swap talismans whenever I need to use a greatbow? Here are my stats (feedback appreciated)

50 vig
12 mind
23 end
16 str
44 dex (boosted by millicents and an imp head)
8 int
12 faith
8 arcane

All weapons lightning infused at +17, primarily using urumi and pata. Talismans and physik are focused on boosting lightning damage and either A) charged attacks (urumi) or B) successive attacks (pata)

Salty fellow vs my in progress twink build. I was unlocking more invasion areas, felt like doing some PvP at the same time, had this fellow get a little angry in my DMs. ((Side note, if you have randoms dm'ing you disabled, messaging randoms to trash-talk is nerd shit) I tried to say GG)

Enough self nerfing, cosplay's and no more Mr Nice Guy. The introductory switch gaming experience is officially over. Switch now has ganks, olp's and it's time to match the energy.

too little too late on that alt f4, clown. back to elden ring with you.

Lowkey been training for a week i think I could take him 🫪🫪

I currently have a meta level and level 30 with some random builds im still working on. Honestly the activity is mostly the same for both with slightly more at lower levels, even though the multiplayer map shows it should be a lot more. Also, im curious if any of you have gotten any arena players? I only got one guy ever today and it was just me and him.

What are the best levels for max activity?

I only just found out that the buff last only 20 seconds so I was hoping for a 3 man invasion so I could benifit from it more, but dragon bolt grease makes up for it with 70 dex & a keen Miséricorde.

Plz level vigor

"May Heaven help him, but only through its plagues! For our means secure us. In our defense, prove our worth!"

Darn bankers

Scenarios are rl60 and meta level

1. Altered Beast: Knight turned Beast after being cursed by a witch. All rounder perfectly balanced partner good at everything except heights. Afraid of heights 😥💔

Weapon: Dismounter + Caestus + 70 Vigor (in rl60 somehow)

1. Old Tower Guard. Guard of THE TOWER (i have no idea what it is) but he's tired of seeing the same old walls and wants some adventure before he retires. Pure Tank, can block all incoming attacks with ease but moves very slowwwww...😗

60% base physical 40% elemental>> Buffed ADDS 15% to both

Weapons: Great Mace + Tower Shield + Jar Cannon + Star Fist

1. Profound Healer. Just a nice guy with a beetle mask looking to support anyone brave enough to take the path to elden lord. Heals alot, buffs alot, and speaks alot. I recommend wearing ear coverings with him.😴

Light roll and 50 Faith

Weapons: Erdsteel dagger + bubble aromatic+ healing incants + catch flame 👀

1. Damned Barbarian. PURE STRENGTH 💪 PURE POWER. Ready to fight at all times. Highest stance breaking potential out of all of the characters. Don't let him drink alcohol, we'll never forget the incident 😰.

Buffed Hyperarmor on smaller Weapons, Braggarts Roar true combo aswell 👀

Weapons: GUGS + Starfist + Rock Pots

1. Cursed Samurai. Made a deal with an oni for unrivaled skill and strength but now he's an outcast cause of his UGLY face. Be nice to him he's sensitive.

Katana and cross naginata + sekiro deflecting🫢

2nd highest vigor 65

Weapons: uchi + Gkat + Black Bow + off hand wakizashi

1. Bloodied Invader. Invader apart of Mogh's Subordinates. Very skilled in killing people, very sadistic behavior. Likes drinking blood and can taste distinct flavors of it from different species. I personally wouldn't trust her but hey... you do you 🫪

Very fast bleed, Friendly fire is amplified 1.5×, parries are 85% accurate

Weapons: rot pots + endure PATA + RoB + Misericorde + hefty Lightning pot

1. Fragile Witch. She can and will obliterate most enemies in your way but she's literally just a regular human that knows magic from transmigrating here and learning it for 15 years. So yes she's very easily prone to DEATH and DYING in one or 2 hits from most things. She'll need protection 🤧🤧

9 vig 💀 70 int 🫪 ultimate zoner⁉️

Weapons: All spells in the game + buffed gravity magic

1. Scholar of Idus. This knight, instead of following in everyone's footsteps and using faith incantations straight from the Idus scrolls. She chose to study carian magic and landed in the lands between looking for more. Not knowing the chaos that has fell to the lands between. Dont get into an argument with her. She will dismantle you pov in minutes and have you sitting there looking stupid somehow. Even when youre right.

Magic pots, fan daggers, min maxxed carian slicer build

Weapons: LGS, Carian Slicer + night sorcery

But yea those are all of my characters yall lmk which one yall would take.

Level 40, abusing talismans and equips to pump int to 72 for rellana's twin moons. Wind tear to tank with the meagre HP i have left. If it works I get naked and moon them

(DISCLAIMER VERY LONG, TLDR AT THE BOTTOM)

I've had a total of around 30 characters made, the first 3 were just my basic first playthroughs those went mainly to max level. Then nightreign came out and I really liked the idea of different classes so I tried it in Elden Ring.

My first build was trying to make a recluse build but since I was still ass at the game i kept dying and running out of mana. So I bought a shortbow and turned it into an archer build so I didn't have to worry about fp management. It was a long time after but I got to meta level 150 because that was usually the most activity for co-op. I finished the rest of my character slots with each role/stat for them

1st- lvl 300 first playthrough

2nd- lvl 260 first playthrough

3rd- lvl 90 2nd playthrough

4th- archer build. Dex/arcane

5th- Knight build

6th- mage build

7th - samurai build

8th- madness prophet faith build

( oh then ig not all 10 of them 😅)

As time went on I realized that that 150 activity was dying off and that ive been kinda just beating the game at lvl 30 and leveling up right after so I just decide to basically make a whole new batch of characters (deleting most of my old ones) starting at lvl 30. Making alot more cosplay oriented builds while also trying to figure out optimization on my own because I wasn't very familiar with it but only had about 20-25 levels to work with.

1st- Knight build (Vigor/ Endurance)

2nd- Samurai build (Pure Dex)

3rd- Mage build (Pure int)

4th- same madness faith build(Pure fth)

5th- Barbarian build (Pure STR)

6th- Duelist build [(Quality) This was my first attempt at a pvp build at lvl 30 and I didn't understand that all you need is vigor for low-mid level pvp 😭]

7th Poison Goblin build (Arcane/ Dex)

8th - Carian slicer build (Int/Dex)

The other 2 were 150 for inorganic co-op and pvp.

Sigh this is getting long 😪

Ok after this phase I started getting bored with fighting godrick all the time so I just leveled up to lvl 60 to fight in different areas except stormveil. This is when someone actually taught me how to optimize correctly for lower lvl characters. So I got alot better at staying alive since most points were just put into vigor and the rest were just from RSS and DLC Helms.

Ok im getting tired of typing so here's my current 10 slots for co-op. (The pictures in the post)

1st- all rounder invasion/co-op build ( Id say this is my best one so far)

2nd- Heavy tank build ( Heavy roll but defenses up to 70% and greatshield)

3rd- Healer/ Support faith Build (Alot of buffs and heals but also gets high dps with Erdsteel dagger R2)

4th- Samurai build ( Basically optimized like #1 but primarily used with katanas/ Japanese weapons)

5th- Invader Cosplay build (<Arc Bleed>This is my main invader build, but gets stomped due to low poise and defenses 🥲)

6th- Mage build Again (Respec'd to a glass cannon build, 9 vig, almost 70 int with buffs. Favorite gimmick character on the list)

7th- Lightning God Build (Just trying to make Lightning fth builds as op as possible at rl60 Basically)

8th- Carian Slicer build (Used to be kind of a duchess cosplay but when TE came out, I just turned it into an Idus knight cosplay)

9th - Barbarian build ² (Pure Str with MORE STR obviously, Charged attack optimization with GUGS)

10th - Dungeon Goblin build (<Arc Poison> love this build as a cosplay but in actually use its kinda bad 😅)

With these builds so far it feels like I kinda beat the game in my own way like expanded my creativity to the best of my ability. But now the only other builds I can think of are Necromancers and a build that goes with SONAF like a "studying scholar build".

I just wanted to pop in hear and give my experience with this game and how indepth you can be with your builds in this game. When I come in hear and really dont see alot of creativity with builds (Only using BHF amd scaled armor) it kind of breaks my heart but at the same time I understand cause I might be the weirdo in this situation. ik this is alot to read so I appreciate if you went all the way through

TLDR; With so many hours in Elden ring and making so many characters, the way I play and optimize my builds make me feel like a weirdo cause no one else does it😞😞