My favorite PvP troll build of all time packed Blue Flame and as many casts of CSS as I could scrounge. Blue Flame is A) a sword, so you don’t expect it to be able to cast spells on its heavy unless you’re very familiar with the game, and B) casts just a hair slower than most staves do so it would fairly reliably throw off people’s roll timing once they did see the CSS incoming. That might have been my most successful blood arena build I ever made. I miss DS2 PvP quite a lot, I think it might have been the best in the series, but I might also be blinded by the rose tinted glasses. I was very active in the DS2 reddit for a couple years after release and again after Scholar came out. It was a good time.

Fair points on the rapiers’ poise damage, personally I keep the Stone Ring equipped pretty much from the cradle to the grave so that’s never bothered me all that much. If your build is otherwise ring dependent though I can see that being a problem. They definitely aren’t group attack weapons either, you need to bait and funnel to be effective with them. I’d argue that DS2 is heavy on the bait and funnel strategy anyway regardless of what you’re wielding, though. Drangleic loves a good gank.

That reminded me that I had a specific plan for the very early game in DS2: specific way to get through the Giants Forest and then I always went to the Tower with McDuff’s hammer.

Through Majula, into the Forest. Pick up the fire sword. Run Forest to Last Giant. Kill him. Parry Purse User to death. Dip into Bastille to grab the chest items, optionally open McDuff. Back to Majula, go to Heide’s. Farm Heide’s for a couple thousand souls and then kill Dragonrider. Skip Ornstein for now, back to Bastille. Wake up McDuff, grab his hammer. 2H the hammer and apply magic grease to kill the Ruin Sentinels. Pick up the target shield on your way out. Now the run begins.

I bet I did that exact set of steps probably a dozen times, lol.

Hm, I’ve never considered their stuff. By the time I’m fighting them by build is so well developed that I turn ignorant to the new options.

Ooh, if this has been your attitude, you’re in for a treat for the DLC areas. Have you been to them before? You kind of give the impression that you haven’t. I know the first time I went to them I walked out with a half dozen new pieces of gear I wanted to upgrade immediately, from each of the three places. Fromsoft always cooks up something special in the DLCs, they’re commonly considered the best areas of their respective games and always have the coolest gear. But, they’re also almost always end game areas, so you don’t get a ton of time to enjoy your new stuff, other than just taking it with you into the next DLC area or into NG+.