Dark Souls 2 PvP Guide

Dark Souls 2 PvP Guide by Uncreativerenew

These are things I consider to be fundamentals of the game.


First of which is spacing.

Generally spacing be boiled down to two questions. “Can they hit me, If I don’t roll?” and “Can I hit them, If they don’t roll?”

Obviously, you want the first question to be no and the second question to be yes.

However, life isn’t fair and you can’t always have it like this. But usually you can get the second best thing and get both questions to be yes or no which. (usually)

When considering spacing you have to consider the range of all of their attacks and the range of all of your attacks. This includes arrows and spells, but we will talk about dealing with arrows and spells later. For now we will just pretend that every fight is against a person who has only melee weapons and the general guide lines for this will be modified if they have projectiles.

If you have the longer weapon you want to stay in the range where you can hit them and they can’t hit you. This makes you for your first attack very hard to punish (so long as you don’t wiff) and keeps you generally safe from them any attack they throw at you.

If you have the shorter weapon you either want to stay far away where they can’t hit you and you can’t hit them or get in close enough where you both hit each other. The last option is to move in and out of their attack range trying to bait them to swing and miss an attack allowing you to get in and punish.

Now with Arrows and spells it changes it so that they can attack you if you get too far. So If they have a bow and arrow you have to stay close enough so that if they begin casting a spell you are close enough to punish it either before the spell is cast or after the spell is cast.

Now there is a good reason why the question on the end says “If I don’t roll”. The big thing with spacing is that if you or they completely miss an attack that you did not roll/backstep though. Then it’s a very easy punish. This makes spacing very very very important because most people very often completely miss an attack. Which gives you an opening to attack so long as you didn’t roll/backstep. If you did roll/backstep you usually will not be able to punish that attack safely. You can still try to but if they swing again your going to be hit in the face and trade most likely. You have to be careful with the spacing though. What they see on their screen is not always the same as what you see on your screen.


Secondly is avoiding attacks.

Avoiding attacks can be dodging, rolling, or just simply running in a way that makes their attack miss naturally.

Rolling is usually the safest option for avoiding attacks. It has instant I-frames and has the most i-frames of the three. Its downside is you usually can not punish their attacks if you do this.

Backstepping is the next option for avoiding attacks. Its i-frames aren’t instant but it does have a decent amount of i-frames in total. It can be used to punish the slower weapons safely and can be used to some times trade with your opponent if they have a fast weapon. Sometimes, however if your weapon is too slow you can be parried if you do this.

Running in a way that makes their attacks naturally miss is a mouthful so ill just shorten it to Dodging-sprinting shortened again to (D-S). (someone tell me if there is a better name). (D-S) gives you the largest opening to attack but is pretty specific on what weapons it works on and is pretty difficult to do. Some openings are large enough that you can get a backstab on them.

Some easy ones it works on are

When they do a katana Running R1, Sprinting perpendicular to them towards their off hand side will make them whiff.

When they do a katana (1H) R2, Sprinting perpendicular to them towards their off hand side will make them whiff. When they do a spear R1, Sprinting perpendicular to them towards their off hand side will make them whiff.

When they do a Thrusting sword Running R1, Sprinting perpendicular to them towards their off hand side will make them quiff.

When they do a halberd (1H) R1, sprinting perpendicular to them towards their off hand side will make them whiff.

When they do a halberd (2H) R1, sprinting perpendicular to them towards their off hand side will make them whiff.

These are some it might works. (unconfirmed on the sprinter side but on the swinger side it looked like it worked)

When they do a katana (2H) R1, sprinting perpendicular to them on the side they hold their sword on might make them whiff.


Thirdly is roll catching.

Roll catching is hitting your opponent after their invincibility frames end. Due to how latency works in this game their invinciblity frames can end while they are still in attackin range. This allows you to get one or more extra hits in to the opponent. How you roll catch depends on the weapon you are using, how far your opponent is from you when you hit them, how much equip load they have and where they roll. There are plenty of ways to catch rolls but i’ll list the ones I know for sure. The simple ability to roll catch makes the damage out put of these weapons higher then most weapons and puts these weapons as some of the top weapons in the game.

For SS weapons you can catch rolls if you do a delayed sweeping (1H) R2 on any roll that is perpendicular or towards you

For the greatsword that doesn’t have the vertical R1s you can catch rolls by continuing to hit R1 on any roll that is towards you at an angle or directly towards you.

For the Chaos Blade you can catch roll if you do a delayed (2h) R2 on any roll that is not a fully back roll.

For the Estoc you can catch rolls if you do a slightly delayed (1H) R2 if they roll backwards, have low equip load, and you hit them fairly close the first time.

For the Bandit/battle Axe you can catch any roll if you do a delayed (1H) r2 if your first hit was close to them.

For Spears you can catch rolls if you do a delayed (1H) and (2H) R1 if your first hit was close and they roll anyway that is not towards you at a slight angle towards the side that does not hold the spear.

For most weapons if you hit them with a combo when you are close to them if you have a secondary spear in your main hand you can switch to that spear then hit them if after the combo you immediately change your weapon to the spear and hit R1 and this will catch most players who do have high equip load for any direction.

For most weapons you can catch rolls if they roll directly towards you.

For all weapons except for the thrusting swords and spears you can catch rolls if they roll towards you at a slight angle. If your a spear/thrusting sword user you can change to a backup weapon and swing that to catch their rolls if you see them roll towards you at a slight angle.

The one major way to avoid roll catching is to delay your rolls. The downside of delaying your rolls is that if you delay them and they just mash R1 instead of doing a roll catch, then your going to be hit again. The other major way to avoid roll catches is to know how they usually roll catch and simply roll in the direction where the roll catch does not work. Another way to avoid roll catching is sometimes to just your self mash R1 if you have a fast weapon. This works due to the fact that for roll catches you have to delay your attacks.

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