''They love PvP when there's 3 of them, as a matter of fact they can't get enough of it'' hahahaha

It's extremely frustrating to fight a Necromancer and his 3 zombies that he can just resummon. Especially if he's already cleared the dungeon and taken the best loot before fighting you. Luckily town portal scroll can be cast without getting stunned if you use Perseverence quickly enough.

While I understand your "You beat me but can you kill me?" attitude, the amount of times you killed that phantom with that host doing absolutely nothing even if you had died they definitely didn't beat you.

This is nihilism put to practice

Reminds me of the invasion I had in the library, A whole platoon of summons and a very smart partner in crime, eventually I got him into a party and we kept using each other as bait for traps. Eventually we managed to get the host alone in a corner, and since I was running a STR build I used a great sheild to trap him in with my partner as he went crazy with a longsword. By far one of the best ones Ive had to date, also the longest.

I love the text at the bottom. "Summoning _another_ phantom...", like even the game is sick of their shit.

The fact that you can just power through an hour of that shit is inspiring to me

Best part: you killed him inches away from the elevator shortcut and he has to (or rather his level 800 phantom has to) do virtually the whole level over again. Testicular cancer.

Why would you buy Dark Souls 3 and then have your friend play it for you, I don't understand some people

Damn, that part about you expressing "if they would just chase me down at the same time, I would die" really meant a lot to me. Because it shows if the host wasn't such a paranoid coward, they could of ended up beating you and carrying on. But because of the host refusing, they wasted an hour of their time and you killed the host anyhow. Goes to show ... If you can't get away, die fighting. Or just fight because why are you running away in a 1v1??

I had a guy at Pontiff that was trying to play hide and seek or something, he had no armor so he could run fast and the obscuring ring so he could get away easily. So he would just run to a corner where we couldn't see him and wait for blues to summon. Then after he had a bunch of blues, he'd put on all his armor and weapons and join the gank squad. I got ganked once, but I was determined to kill him. I invaded him again and decided to play his game with no armor and the obscuring ring. I still killed a bunch of blues along the way, and eventually they stopped showing up. After almost an hour and a half of running around the map, I finally caught him and chased him until he decided to jump off a ledge. So I literally chased him around until he died of boredom, but it was worth every second of it.

“Invaders are such cowards! Stop hiding behind mobs and fight like real men!” I wonder how many of the players who say shit like that act like the host in this video.

"Hey this game I've been playing is really fun your friends play the entire level for you and deal with invaders

atleast the phantom had fun. Look at that boy go.

I think anyone who tries to defend this host's behaviour clearly hasn't actually done any invasions in Dark Souls 3. As much as I love the game, the amount of host advantage players receive is amazingly worse than any other title in the series. That's why I love the way you played this out, Saint. You said that other Dark Souls invaders are better at PvP than you, and that may be true, but I think this video proves you are a far better invader. As an invader myself, being patient and doing what you do is literally how I win most of my fights. There's too many variables in Ds3. Resummons, laggy netcode, Seed of the Tree Giant, and the huge potential for Blue Spirits in a world that already has 3 White Phantoms make invasions an absolute chore. A fun one, sure, but still, a chore. Playing safe, and waiting for the host to screw up is how you win these fights, and I commend you on your ability to keep it up for an entire hour. After all, we are basically Myazaki's tortured slaves. Because of the insurmountable host advantage, Our job in Dark Souls 3 is literally just to waste time, and hinder the host any way we can. Great video, Saint. Keep preaching the truth about the Dark Souls 3 invasion community.

I think it's simply an ego thing in that they think losing is beneath them and they deserve the win. Which frankly couldn't really be anymore detached from the overall reality of the series.

Losing souls hasn't been that big of a deal since soul memory...

This is one of the most important commentary videos about invasions ever made. One thing I wonder about is how and why this kind of host was introduced into an invader's daily experience with DkS 3. Because I honestly think that is the case. Hosts in DkS 1 and 2 wanted to survive too, they ran, they chugged, they hid, they ganked. All good. But this kind of host who does *nothing* on his own, completely evades any form of PvP unless it's a 3v1 minimum, etc. is definitely a new thing starting with this game. Why? Is it the game mechanics? The appeal to a broader mass of gamers? Why? I really want to know. Also, I'm dying to hear what you wanted to say about your and my understanding of "tryhard" invasions. I think you wanted to expand on that when you were talking about my recent video, but then (understandably) changed the topic back to what was happening. Would you mind explaining what it was you wanted to say there?

Soo can we see an unedited version too just so we can truly understand the pain of these invasions?

I legit stopped in the middle of singing love songs to my big tiddy goth girlfriend to watch this video, Saint. It'd best be good. EDIT: It was good

that's a really good point about metagaming in tabletop RPGs. it's like breaking the fourth wall, doing shit that seems inconsistent with roleplaying. like you're pretending to be a fantasy character in an imaginary universe that's ostensibly similar to the real world. but in order to model that world the game has to boil it down to simple mechanics like rolling dice and shit. the character you're roleplaying isn't supposed to know the damage he deals is subject to the random whims of dice. if he knew that shit it would disrupt the fantasy. it's kind of like players on a roleplaying server in WoW talking about boss mechanics in terms of numbers and shit. there's sort of a line between roleplaying tactics and metagame tactics, i guess. obviously in tabletop RPGs it's something that a small group of players mutually agree on, if you don't want to constrain yourself like that you don't have to. same with WoW, most of the servers are not RP servers. the trouble with games like dark souls is there is none of that segregation. and since people who overtly care about roleplaying are usually in the minority of any hobby they get pushed aside. but the truth is we all care about it to varying degrees, we just may not realize it. in dark souls 1 the reason most players complain about backstabs is not because they're cheap or they're unfair. after all, everyone has access to them and they are mechanically very deep and skill-testing. the reason people complain about it is because it's super meta. the actual chosen undead isn't supposed to know jack shit about chain backstabs and backstab canceling and toggle escapes. and all of those things look incredibly unrealistic in a game that's supposed to have realistic graphics and relatively normal laws of physics. it's really disturbing to the illusion of reality the game is presenting. it feels fickle and arbitrary because the animations suddenly stop and players teleport and it's not clear how it works. that doesn't mean there isn't a method to the madness that you can learn, it just means that the method is not at all intuitive. some players don't mind this very much. but even people who love dark souls 1 pvp would probably prefer it if the game's most important pvp mechanics (the shit at the top of the learning curve, the things that define the game's best players) didn't look completely out of place with the rest of the game and didn't appear so jarring and impossible. they would most likely prefer it if, instead of learning backstab cancelling, they had to learn some mechanics about wielding their sword in a different way or combining certain maneuvers in the right order. if these things weren't important, then why would game developers bother implementing shit that looks logical at all? why bother making street fighter moves make any fucking sense? why not just make everyone a fucking triangle and make the whole game about spinning your triangle at just the right speed to flip the opponent triangle into the air or something. the reason street fighter exists at all is because people like the mechanics to be intuitive. punching and kicking are real things and they behave the way you'd expect them to. even the magical shit behaves in an intuitive way. street fighter is especially popular because most of its really skill-testing mechanics look entirely consistent with the laws and aesthetics of the fictional universe it's set in. there are a few little tricks that get into weird territory but they are much more subtle than dark souls 1's issues. anyway i love pvping in these games but i completely understand why so many people don't. the simplest way i can put it is that the metagame is just way too far removed from the actual game. a testament to that is the fact that most of the skill-testing mechanics (meaning the things that "pro pvpers" do that normal players don't) are basically overlooked or even unintended consequences of mechanics playing poorly together, and are things that were removed or at least intentionally rebalanced in later games. like nobody at from soft wanted chain backstabs that you had to do really unintuitive things to avoid (like standing perfectly still, which most of the game teaches you is a really un-safe thing to do). so those kinds of things will turn a lot of people off, everyone has a certain tolerance for this kind of thing, we're all on a spectrum. the games that get this really right are more popular because fewer people rule them out. dark souls is mostly a PVE game so it never suffered much for it. but from soft knew it would be even better if it made sure the most important mechanics were less jarring and less disruptive to the fantasy, and that's why many of these issues were progressively removed in later games. dark souls 3 still has some of these issues but they're much less obvious and less extreme in appearance, and from what i've said it should be pretty clear it's mostly about appearances. it's like if you're trying to play dungeons & dragons and your buddy says he's wearing a hot dog costume. it's not like it ruins the game, it just disrupts the fantasy. it's out of place.

The phantom looks like he actually knows how to have FUN during an invasion.

I have no clue why people are so damn scared of pvp in a game where death doesn't really matter. They were just wasting their own time by refusing to fight you.

*host's phantom dies* Host: Yeah, you beat me. But can you do THIS!?!? *furiously mashes finger against the roll button*

And people wonder why I like the firewitches much. They put in a lot of work if you let them. Good work Saint. You pulled off one hell of a mental triathlon.

only times i think black crystal is justified is when its a 4v1 with overlevel password summons. the host doesnt deserve the estus he gets from you dying.

I’d probably have sat through the entire hour and enjoyed every minute, because I derive a disgusting type of pleasure from the idea that a host is out there somewhere and scared that he might have to kill 12 more enemies before he can afford that Undead Legion set he been saving up for. Great vid, saint!

Metagame is still a perfectly functional word and the D&D days are today's days. For shame.

I've watched this video a bunch of times, I love it. The funniest part to me is that the host was so horrible that he died like a bitch against regular mobs when he finally got the courage to do something instead of letting his phantom do all the work. You can't sink lower than that.

This is legit every fxcking invasion I have.

Came back to watch this gem video. Always good content

"I have no interest in PvP" then go offline

This shit reminds me of when i invaded at SL351+. I was in Gank city and instead of a 3v3, its a 4v1. So i decide to wait it out at the long ladder and use the Ring of Flavor glitch. I was able to kill a few phantoms. One of the dark summons sends me a message to see if i was the guy in the world. We talk back and forth for awhile, no salt or anything at all. Like 15 minutes pass and the host ends up dieing. Point of the story is 351+ is fuckin cancer and you gotta fuck cancer with cancer sometimes.

Wait a second, there are invaders who disconnect when they are about to lose to a blue?

Its just cuz he doesn't want to lose his ember and spend 3 minutes getting enough souls to buy a new one -Mahatma Ghandi

I really like invasions, as soon I'm invaded I wait for the player and jumps off nearest cliff - all for denying them the kill, I take away the fun and they're salt for the lack of engagement and time wasted. It's perfect.

Funny that you posted this today because I literally just fought a dude at Vordt that dragged out an invasion for like 45 minutes. I killed his blue while I only had 100 HP left and he just ran behind the Dancer’s fog wall and sat there. He had no estus and used a divine blessing. I kept hitting him through the door when he got close and eventually he ran out and I killed him.

Using a slightly modified version of your build, I've found that a good spear (Lothric War Banner, in my case) + Avelyn gets rid of those kinds of Hosts. I never use the Avelyn on regular Hosts, since this is pretty heavy twinking, but gankers, "roll spammers", and runners are fair game. Also, the Avelyn is perfect for those situations like at 3:00 where the Phantom rolls away with just a sliver of health.

Saint "you know what I mean?" Riot.

Only disagreement i have is running back to the bonfire being useless. The more souls you have on you, the more alluring of an idea it is to go back to a bonfire to get it all back safely and quickly. It's not hard to get souls, sure. But it's tedious to get back large quantities that you owned. EDIT: First heart i ever got! \ :D / Guess i should do something nice back. Uhmm...Oh, of course: Good video, i actually did learn a few things.

About 6 minutes in I am already frustrated with your lack of Sun Princess Ring to regenerate HP, Saint. I understand that by this point you're still not expecting an hour long fight, but even during _any_ slight attrition-based invasion (five minutes or higher in my opinion), Sun Princess makes a huge difference as it gets back a great deal more HP over that longer period, quite a bit moreso when stacked with an offhand Blessed infusion or even a Chime weapon art for any of those FAI or Dark builds. Alright, now let's see how the rest of this turns out... edit 1: Eight minutes in and you've handed the controller to St1cky, I see! edit 2: Eleven-and-a-half minutes SUN PRINCESS RING THANK GOD. Also _holy shit this host_ edit 3: _oh shit my comment was predicted in advance, THAT INVADER-YOMI IN KZfaq COMMENTS THO_ edit 4: Fifteen minutes in, that phantom kill around the corner was _heavenly_ ♥♥♥ holy shit edit 5: Finished. I'm still somewhat surprised that these sorts of players anger and frustrate you as much as they do. It's obvious that you and I invade for somewhat different reasons and with somewhat different intents; for me, this is the jackpot of invasions, the exact variety of player I want to meet in my adventures, because nothing pleases me more as an invader than having made a player witness the sight of Hell itself, and these are the sorts that are most vulnerable to such a showing of torment. Thus, what you describe as "bitchy tryhard tactics", I define closer to normalcy. I'd have put on Sun Princess right off the bat in this invasion with the _initial intention_ to drag an invasion out as long as I can get it, rather than resign myself to that. I agree with you that it is "wrong" of aspiring invaders to be offended when they get invasions that are meant to be dragged out long, nor do I defend a host that is going to let his summoned friend play the whole game for him, but for me, meeting these players and torturing them is the rule of invading, not the exception. Because weak people are an _eyesore._ Thanks for the video, Saint, this was enjoyable.

"man 400$ for the console, 60$ for this game, and 12-60$ for the online subscription. Boy... I sure can't wait to have somebody else play this for me."

"This is also the point, where the Host gets their shit pushed in, and their fuckin' corpse pointed at, because that's what they deserve." Holy shit what a line.

Good vid. Yesterday I invaded a host and his phantom at dragon barracks. They refused to play the level and just stayed at the bonfire so I decided I would torture them with the milwood greatwood. After literally 35 minutes of staying around the bonfire getting hit by greatarrows the host killed himself. Could have saved as a lot of time if he had done that from the start.

I wish I could effectively do low lvl Invasions.

If Central Irithyll isnt notorious for this kinda garbo host behavior, Im George Washington. I had a similar face off against a summoner class and his phantom army. They sat by the bonfire for around 40 minutes while I shot greatbows down on them trying to get them to play the game while they did their little point downs and welcome spam. After another 15 minutes of baiting them out and killing a few phantoms host pulls the plug anyway. Unfrigginbelievable- get off it dude

And now we have elden ring where every invasion is a gang situation and the host just sits back and spams spells.

when people say dark souls is a hard game, they don't mean the pve... in reality they mean being an invader

How he understands dying but the host dont? He doesnt, he understands that he loses nothing for dying as a summon, i bet if he was the host he would be playing exactly like the host... Great vid man

I tried your moonlight knigth build but istead of 60 int i went with 60 fth and the Wolnir's meme sword.. BOI, the ar is low (467) but i really like it.. id like to see you giving it a try.. don't let me suffer alone.

A whole hour? You sir have great patience.

This rant is glorious. Loved every second of it and would have listened to you talk about it for an hour too.

Distinct lack of verticality... You had an hour man. No excuses.

This was pretty entertaining, your commentary was great.

First video I've seen on your channel, great first impression!

oh god

Well done.

I miss Demon's Souls invasions, 1v1 and you both had everything to gain, and everything to lose. Best man walks away. Had maybe 3 bad invaders and 1 bad host in the 200+ hours I dumped into that game.

absolutely perfect soundtrack for this situation

This video was on my recommended home tab thing, I started watching and immediately noticed the FF9 music! My #1 favorite FF that is terribly underrated!! You earned my sub.

daamn dude, did this recently blow up in views? YT re:recomended it to me

Hi, first souls game for me. I learned most of this stuff and later maximized efforts from watching these vids so good job on that. Keep up the good work.

this was honestly my most favourite dark souls invasion video

Yeh if I had the patience all my invasions would be like this

I commend your attitude Saint. I've had many hosts try to train me around the fountain at Central Irithyll. If you can't win, don't play the game. Forcing the host to play the entirety of the level is genius.

If you invade you have no right to be angry about what the other person does about it. Don't like it? Leave their world.

love your video and too be honest i would loved to see that hour long invasion.

I think I've found myself on the receiving end of a situation like this a few times... I'm mainly a PvE player, and 90% of my characters are casters. The only moments where I've ever went to resummon my password summon that I was co-oping with is when I'm invaded by low-level invaders on the high wall that are using dark hands. When you're playing a caster, and they roll through everything, there's really not much else you can do. Add to that the fact that dying on the high wall is more punishing because if you keep dying to those kinds of invaders, you may run out of the very few embers you have, and you've got one of my least favorite locations in the game. Any other location, and I get invaded, I'm completely fine with it. I'll fight to the death. I've got enough embers, and I don't spend much in the way of souls, unless I have enough for quite a few levels (though I do try to have very few souls on me if I can) So really my only gripe with PvP are low level invaders with dark hands. Still, I like me some PvP, and for that I have specific builds to use for that, but when I'm playing a PvE oriented Caster, where I typically have high int/faith at the cost a lot of vigor, and spells attuned more for taking on mobs, I wind up with a recipe for disaster. I guess it doesn't help that Casting is more difficult to effectively do in this game compared to the other souls titles. Anyway, I enjoyed the video saint, and you earned a sub

Mad covenant i play not to win but to make sure others lose

I honestly hate that stuff “oh yeah I beat dark souls one of the HARDEST games out there” I’m sure it’s very hard for you when you sit in a safe room and wait for your over leveled phantoms to clear the level.

My longest invasion in dark souls 3 was invading at the bridge in the painted world, waiting for the host at the bridge while hiding, destroying the bridge which killed his phantom, waiting at the top for the host and his resummoned phantom to get back up from the ice crab area and then killing the host at the ridge leading to the corvian settlement. All of this took 40+ minutes and all of this was worth it.

from now on if a host is passive I will be the who's passive and waste 1 hour of his time

Came back to this a year later, and it all still rings true. God bless the Dark Souls community, the more we change, the more we stay the same. It's pretty great. Don't forget your roots... Because like roots, they bear ever downwards. *Verticality.*

I had a host yesterday with 3 phantoms i killed his phantoms he runs and hide's i then spend the next 45 min's looking for him and killing 17 blue phantoms in the process...dark souls 3 for you.

I love how those two are fighting an intense Battle and then there's the white guy just waving

I've experienced these once or twice. These invasions really try my patience. My experiences happened in the area after Pontiff, with the host running off, us having a skirmish here and there, him summoning the same phantoms, but what's worse, is that Aldrich Faithfuls helped him in the end, ganking me. Honestly, these invasions usually make me black crystal out. Props to you for actually finishing it out! :D

When is the competed saint riot bible of invasions coming out? Cause this was a great chapter.

Every time that white phantom spammed l1 i could only thought in Logan Paul's constant dabbing Kill me

that white cleared almost all of irithyll while the host stood at the bonfire.

Oh wow saint did the point down. Lol I’ve never seen him do that.

*Not long enough*

Haha hour invasion, good stuff! Might have to change your recording settings to 1 hour if more of these happen! I had a 29.50 invasion the other day, my recording time is set to 30 min too, killed 6 or so blues and then the hidden host 'lost connection' I always do the same thing and play like an asshole if they drag it out - I've gone over half an hour and missed the start of the invasion on the recording quite a few times but never made an hour yet. Lol keep editing this as it gets further in, this is one of my favourite of your videos man. When people try and play 'Yeah You Beat Me, But Can You Kill Me' I'll play that game for as long as it takes and you are completely right - it's a whole different invasion, glad to have an actual phrase for them now! I'd say these are possibly the ones which provide the very sweetest of victories.

I don't know if you read these, but I said something to you in stream about the siegbraus and blessings. I've seen dudes take siegbraus with full estus available (not joking). I wanted to say thank you for playing the game without cheating and glitches and how you treat solo host and "casual" players. You brought this game back to life for me and I'm grateful.

Not sure why, but watching you endure the fuckery of the average casual and succeed encourages me to play Dark Souls 3 again.

When you are trash so you have other people play the game for you only for better players to point at your dead body Good job Saint. Love your stuff!

saint why. why. why? why.

That was the most satisfying point down witnessed.

Am I the only insane person that would be okay with him uploading the full invasion?

I think they didn't rush in to kill you because you were hiding amongst the enemies, making them play more cautiously. They had to consider the attacks of the others, not to mention that Burning Stake Witch which can hit with fire from a very long range. Those and Pontiff Knights can be deadly if left alone in a close proximity while attention is on someone else, and I saw the phantom try picking some of them off because he realized they were gonna make fighting properly impossible. That's why the phantom wound up playing a lot of the level, because the enemies get in the way of fighting invaders and the phantom had nothing to lose, and a lot of the times the phantom died was with the enemies being used against him or attacking him when he was trying to slowly chip away at the level's enemies. I feel like they were by the bonfire at the start, deciding how to deal with this situation. Why the host didn't use the item that turns enemies on invaders, I don't know. But when you invade someone's world, it's your choice to invade them, so there's no real use complaining about what experience they put you through. The host could've quit out of the game to preserve their souls, enemies killed, and ember status, so ultimately they were in control of the situation if they really wanted it to end sooner. That said, yeah all evidence points to the host being very incompetent. I completed Irithyll solo with full HP, FP, and Estus. Think a blue one was missing. They may have been a young kid or someone not very experienced, having their friend basically do it for them for the most part. They definitely didn't look as good as the phantom. Even with the host having far more to lose (the level resetting and all the enemies the phantom worked hard to kill respawning), he could've gone along to help kill the enemies at least. But maybe he was staying by the bonfire a lot to continuously summon his phantom friend who was knowingly going on a suicide mission each time he ran the level to basically get ganked. He was a trooper.

GG saint, nice satisfying ending that point down was well earned. The sad thing is though is that the host probably didn't learn anything from that encounter :( They are just too scared of being dominated by another player that playing super passive will be a hard habit to break.

I became a viewer of content through elden ring. Now I’m 5 years deep into your invasions

I feel like this is the best comment section to ask this so, what is the best soul level and weapon upgrade level for the farron keep swamp?

whenever something like this happens, i roll myself a joint. 'i have all the time of the universe, literally infinity'

Salty reddit post incoming about how invaders hide behind mobs and don´t engage the party... This host is mesmerisingly coward. Dark Souls 3 should have an obligatory solo pvp fight even if heavy lopsided in favor of the host at the beginning of the game (kind of a Iudex Gundyr meets solo spear of the church) or have more incentives to invade. A big part of the hate toward invaders and pvp´rs is that people say they don´t like pvp but they never tried it...and people hate what they don´t understand...Rant over. Anyway, great vid Saint!

i love invading on ds3 having super brave host with phantoms and blues as soon as hes alone im chasing him around the map till he resummons and is brave again

The summoner gets that he's going to respawn, but he just wants to advance, no one likes invasions and you know that.

Just started the vid so...when is the ear rape?

If you invade someone I don't think you can complain they're wasting *your* time.

i just got done with 2 back to back invasions that were both a half hour plus. thought about bc'ing out so many times but i didn't. this resonates with me like nothing else rn. this fucking guy was in TRC and had his 2nd phantom RUN TO WHERE HE WAS IN THE LEVEL TO PUT HIS SUMMON SIGN DOWN LIKE 5 TIMES. that dude earned his pointdown and honestly, i'd spit in his face irl if i met him.

Subbed and I don't even have the game yet.... you sir are someone who's style I like and will check you out more when I buy my copy