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* The Heide Knight Sword can be acquired quite early in the game, though you'll have to farm for it on the PC, Xbox One and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 versions of [=SotFS=]. Thanks to it's inherent extra Lightning Damage, you can boost it's damage by investing in Faith (and even further if it's been infused with a Boltstone), it's easy to upgrade (as it uses normal Titanite) and can even be buffed with the Lightning Blade miracle. One of these can easily carry you through most of your first playthrough.
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* The Heide Knight Sword can be acquired quite early in the game, though you'll have to farm for it on the PC, Xbox One Platform/XboxOne and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 Platform/PlayStation4 versions of [=SotFS=]. Thanks to it's inherent extra Lightning Damage, you can boost it's damage by investing in Faith (and even further if it's been infused with a Boltstone), it's easy to upgrade (as it uses normal Titanite) and can even be buffed with the Lightning Blade miracle. One of these can easily carry you through most of your first playthrough.
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* Some of the more aggravating PVP techniques are also laughably easy to perform with devastating results. To wit:
** ''Dead-angling'', where you circumvent an opponent who has their shield ''up'' with an attack which is likely to hit their unprotected sides ''without even trying''. Of the better weapons to abuse this somewhat questionable strategy, none are more dangerous than the [[SinisterScythe Great Scythe]], which also causes ''bleed'' damage to keep the pressure on your unfortunate victim, the [[{{BFS}} Murakumo]], whose moveset is almost entirely based on this strategy, and the Black Knight Greataxe, which was already explained above.
** ''Turtling'', in which you use a spear or [[RoyalRapier rapier]] and hide behind your own shield (heavens forbid you if you're using [[GameBreaker Artorias' Greatshield]]) to poke your opponent to death. This strategy got slightly nerfed in a patch which increased the stamina drain when doing thrusting attacks with your shield up, but it's still annoying to face one since you have to risk trying to break their guard while taking damage from their pokes.
** ''Backstab fishing'', where the player does ''nothing'' but circle around their opponent in order to backstab them, allowing for instant massive damage from a CriticalHit, made even worse if they use the Hornet Ring for a solid 33% (50% pre-patch) increase in critical hit damage.
** All the above are not so bad compared to stacking Poise and using any weapon (usually a GameBreaker like the Claymore) that can easily stunlock low-poise opponents, a strategy otherwise known as ''poise race'', where the fight usually degenerates into which player can break the other's poise first and stunlock them into oblivion.
* Before a patch that reduced its overall usefulness, the Iron Flesh pyromancy [[http://youtu.be/4UdcKGWmZMs was known to turn boss battles into a cakewalk]] due to the massive increase in physical defence and poise, with the added effect of making light and medium attacks bounce off the user. And since it's a simple passive effect without any stat adjustment, you don't need a high Intelligence stat or a maxed-out pyromancy flame to enjoy it.
* Pyromancy requires no stats to equip aside from the necessary amount of attunement slots for the spells you want, and doesn't scale with stats at all, instead increasing its damage through upgrading the Pyromancy Flame. This makes it the magic of choice for characters who don't use magic, since almost all classes start with at least one attunement slot and the ones that don't need only one or two levels in Attunement to get one. Great Combustion from a fully upgraded Pyromancy Flame does a respectable amount of damage even in the late game, and will greatly help out any physical fighter against enemies that resist physical damage. Its damage can be further increased by things like the Crown of Dusk and the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (despite the latter saying it only boosts sorceries). Of course, all of this is also what makes it the magic of choice for low-level {{griefer}}s who like to invade helpless noobs in the beginning areas of the game and one-shot them with endgame-tier magic.
* The Great Scythe is easily the best Dexterity weapon in the entire game. It combines utterly ''ludicrous'' damage scaling with excellent reach, insane base damage, a very versatile moveset, and some of the best dead-angling capability of all the weapons. Oh, and just to round out the package, it's fully buff-able and also has a Bleed effect. Combine it with Power Within and some buffs, and nothing can stand against you.
** Its boss soul equivalent, the Lifehunt Scythe (forged from the soul of Crossbreed Priscilla - YouBastard) requires more forethought to use, but is potentially even ''more'' terrifying. It has the same powerful reach and move set, and trades slightly lower stat scaling and the loss of buff capability for slightly higher base damage and ''the'' deadliest Bleed effect in the game. Most Bleed weapons inflict 30-35 points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's Bleed bar is full, they take about 30% of their max HP as damage. Priscilla's power of Lifehunt causes the Scythe to inflict '''50''' points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's bar is full they take '''50%''' of their max HP as damage! The drawback is that each hit also inflicts 40 points of Bleed buildup on the wielder, with the same danger of slashing their life in half, but a Bleed-resistant set of armour and the Bloodbite Ring can give you so much Bleed resistance that this isn't likely to be a problem, and even if it is, a simple Bloodred Moss Clump can negate it again. Your opponent is certain to die of blood loss before you do.
* The Gold Tracer, a dex-based long dagger that has a huge variety of attacks (which also makes it difficult to parry) and, more importantly, builds bleed damage at an astounding 40 points per hit. Thanks to its light weight, it's a great choice for a side weapon.
* A rather localized example is the Golem Axe, a boss weapon that has the ability to launch a wind blast with decent damage and heavy knockback. While this is usually really nice to have but not amazing (granting heavily melee-geared characters a ranged option that scales with Strength), its greatest strength is the ability to turn the [[ThatOneLevel Tomb of Giants]] into a complete non-threat, by using said ranged knockback to throw all of the area's DemonicSpider enemies off of cliffs without them even getting to move from their spawn point... incidentally turning the entire zone into a pretty damn good soul farming spot.
* For player-versus-player, a few rings stand out.
** The [[SheFu Dark Wood Grain Ring]], which changes a player's fast roll into a ninja flip which has incredible speed, invincibility frames, and mobility. Good timing with a fast roll can allow a skilled player to cheese through almost any attack; a ninja flip makes it borderline effortless. The downside is that it only works if the player's equipment load is 25% or lower, but [[NotTheIntendedUse when combined with Havel's Ring...]]
** The [[StatusBuff Ring of Favor and Protection]], which gives a 20% boost to HP, endurance, and equipment load. It may not look like a significant increase, but what truly boosts it to game-breaking levels is that these effects stack with other stat-boosting equipment such as Havel's Ring and Mask of the Mother, which can make a normally MightyGlacier build into a seemingly invincible LightningBruiser with a metric crapton of HP. These boosts are so practical that most players would recommend to always consider reserving a ring slot. Additionally, because it's available in a early level area, it's the go-to ring for low-level griefers.
** The [[NoSell Wolf Ring]], [[BoringButPractical which simply adds 40 extra poise]] to the player. More poise means the chances of falling under the dreaded StunLock drop greatly, which opens up the opponent up for a counterattack or backstab.
** The [[CriticalHit Hornet Ring]], which boosts critical damage by 30% (50% before a patch), when combined with weapons that already multiply critical damage such as rapiers and daggers, can almost one-shot near any build with a backstab or riposte. Even without a critical hit multiplier, the boost is enough to make that already powerful Claymore or Great Scythe hit that much harder.
** The [[RingOfPower Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring]], which boosts all magic damage by 20%. Doesn't seem like much, but combined with a spell that can hit multiple times such as Homing Crystal Soulmass or Dark Bead, it becomes essential on most mages. Even warriors who only dabble in magic or pyromancy can abuse it -- especially pyromancy, thanks to pyromancy spells requiring almost no stat requirements.
** The [[CriticalStatusBuff Red Tearstone Ring]], which gives the player an absolutely massive 50% attack boost with any and all forms of weaponry, spells, and critical hits, with the only catch that the player be under 20% health to activate. When it does, however, the duel quickly becomes a sudden death match, as one mistake will either kill the player who's already half dead or the player who thought they had the match already in the bag.
** [[MightyGlacier Havel's Ring]] is borderline necessary for any heavy-armor player. All it does is boost your equipment load by 50%, but that 50% is ''felt.'' Being able to walk around and quick roll in ''Havel's Set'', the heaviest armor set in the game, is a very feasible feat by the time you're able to actually find it in the world, and turns the rest of the game into an utter joke as you shrug off enemy attacks and power through them to devastating effect.
* The Black Bow of Pharis, coupled with the Hawk Ring, gives you a sniping weapon that allows you to [[DeathByAThousandCuts chip away]] at the game's {{Demonic Spider}}s from far outside their aggro range.
* A non-combat-related example (at least not ''directly'' related to combat) is the Fog Ring, the new version of ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' own GameBreaker, the Thief's Ring. It makes you translucent and hard to see, basically drastically reducing the aggro ranges of most enemies. This makes picking them off at range even more of a cakewalk, and breaks the challenge of some levels right across your knee, as dangerous combat encounters with multiple opponents are reduced to a series of simple duels to be handled at your leisure. It's particularly useful for avoiding attracting the attention of ranged attackers when you're engaged with something else, such as the lightning-throwing snakemen in Sen's Fortress while you're trying to navigate the swinging blade traps, or the bow-equipped Undead Crystal Soldiers in the Duke's Archives.
* The Balder Side Sword earned the FanNickname "Baller Swag Sword" for its high Dexterity scaling, longer reach than other straight swords, and moveset; particularly the strong attack combo which consists of multiple consecutive thrusts (making it a good candidate for Leo Ring wearers), as opposed to the Longsword or Sunlight Straight Sword which alternates thrusts with upward slashes, and other straight swords which lack a thrust attack altogether.
* For those who [[LowLevelAdvantage take advantage on low level invasions]], Guardian Tail buffed with [[PoisonedWeapons Rotten Pine Resin]] can almost inflict poison instantly, it [[NoSell ignores parrying]], can hit people hiding behind a shield, and buffed Guardian Tail has no visual effect on it, which can often catch new players or even veterans off guard. By doing this in Undead Burg, where new players have no access to Purple Moss Clumps and are likely to have low health, it effectively turns every single low level invasion into a CurbStompBattle in the form of watching your victims being succumbed to your poison, haplessly awaiting for their inevitable deaths.
* The [[DraconicHumanoid Dragon Form]] can become this for [[LowLevelAdvantage low level invasions]], it has a [[FixedDamageAttack fixed damage unarmed punch]] that doesn't require any upgrade, a firebreathing attack that can stunlock your foes, and a roar that can both push someone away and briefly buff you. Moreover, it ignores the weapon summoning range inplemented in ''Dark Souls Remastered'', allowing those who manage to get the Dragon Stones with a low level character to unleash the horror upon unsuspecting newcomers. Those who picked the Sorcerer class can combine the firebreathing Attack with the Pursuers spell right at [=SL20=], resulting in an unblockable combo that can often instantly kill anyone getting caught by the flame.
** ''Dead-angling'', where you circumvent an opponent who has their shield ''up'' with an attack which is likely to hit their unprotected sides ''without even trying''. Of the better weapons to abuse this somewhat questionable strategy, none are more dangerous than the [[SinisterScythe Great Scythe]], which also causes ''bleed'' damage to keep the pressure on your unfortunate victim, the [[{{BFS}} Murakumo]], whose moveset is almost entirely based on this strategy, and the Black Knight Greataxe, which was already explained above.
** ''Turtling'', in which you use a spear or [[RoyalRapier rapier]] and hide behind your own shield (heavens forbid you if you're using [[GameBreaker Artorias' Greatshield]]) to poke your opponent to death. This strategy got slightly nerfed in a patch which increased the stamina drain when doing thrusting attacks with your shield up, but it's still annoying to face one since you have to risk trying to break their guard while taking damage from their pokes.
** ''Backstab fishing'', where the player does ''nothing'' but circle around their opponent in order to backstab them, allowing for instant massive damage from a CriticalHit, made even worse if they use the Hornet Ring for a solid 33% (50% pre-patch) increase in critical hit damage.
** All the above are not so bad compared to stacking Poise and using any weapon (usually a GameBreaker like the Claymore) that can easily stunlock low-poise opponents, a strategy otherwise known as ''poise race'', where the fight usually degenerates into which player can break the other's poise first and stunlock them into oblivion.
* Before a patch that reduced its overall usefulness, the Iron Flesh pyromancy [[http://youtu.be/4UdcKGWmZMs was known to turn boss battles into a cakewalk]] due to the massive increase in physical defence and poise, with the added effect of making light and medium attacks bounce off the user. And since it's a simple passive effect without any stat adjustment, you don't need a high Intelligence stat or a maxed-out pyromancy flame to enjoy it.
* Pyromancy requires no stats to equip aside from the necessary amount of attunement slots for the spells you want, and doesn't scale with stats at all, instead increasing its damage through upgrading the Pyromancy Flame. This makes it the magic of choice for characters who don't use magic, since almost all classes start with at least one attunement slot and the ones that don't need only one or two levels in Attunement to get one. Great Combustion from a fully upgraded Pyromancy Flame does a respectable amount of damage even in the late game, and will greatly help out any physical fighter against enemies that resist physical damage. Its damage can be further increased by things like the Crown of Dusk and the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (despite the latter saying it only boosts sorceries). Of course, all of this is also what makes it the magic of choice for low-level {{griefer}}s who like to invade helpless noobs in the beginning areas of the game and one-shot them with endgame-tier magic.
* The Great Scythe is easily the best Dexterity weapon in the entire game. It combines utterly ''ludicrous'' damage scaling with excellent reach, insane base damage, a very versatile moveset, and some of the best dead-angling capability of all the weapons. Oh, and just to round out the package, it's fully buff-able and also has a Bleed effect. Combine it with Power Within and some buffs, and nothing can stand against you.
** Its boss soul equivalent, the Lifehunt Scythe (forged from the soul of Crossbreed Priscilla - YouBastard) requires more forethought to use, but is potentially even ''more'' terrifying. It has the same powerful reach and move set, and trades slightly lower stat scaling and the loss of buff capability for slightly higher base damage and ''the'' deadliest Bleed effect in the game. Most Bleed weapons inflict 30-35 points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's Bleed bar is full, they take about 30% of their max HP as damage. Priscilla's power of Lifehunt causes the Scythe to inflict '''50''' points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's bar is full they take '''50%''' of their max HP as damage! The drawback is that each hit also inflicts 40 points of Bleed buildup on the wielder, with the same danger of slashing their life in half, but a Bleed-resistant set of armour and the Bloodbite Ring can give you so much Bleed resistance that this isn't likely to be a problem, and even if it is, a simple Bloodred Moss Clump can negate it again. Your opponent is certain to die of blood loss before you do.
* The Gold Tracer, a dex-based long dagger that has a huge variety of attacks (which also makes it difficult to parry) and, more importantly, builds bleed damage at an astounding 40 points per hit. Thanks to its light weight, it's a great choice for a side weapon.
* A rather localized example is the Golem Axe, a boss weapon that has the ability to launch a wind blast with decent damage and heavy knockback. While this is usually really nice to have but not amazing (granting heavily melee-geared characters a ranged option that scales with Strength), its greatest strength is the ability to turn the [[ThatOneLevel Tomb of Giants]] into a complete non-threat, by using said ranged knockback to throw all of the area's DemonicSpider enemies off of cliffs without them even getting to move from their spawn point... incidentally turning the entire zone into a pretty damn good soul farming spot.
* For player-versus-player, a few rings stand out.
** The [[SheFu Dark Wood Grain Ring]], which changes a player's fast roll into a ninja flip which has incredible speed, invincibility frames, and mobility. Good timing with a fast roll can allow a skilled player to cheese through almost any attack; a ninja flip makes it borderline effortless. The downside is that it only works if the player's equipment load is 25% or lower, but [[NotTheIntendedUse when combined with Havel's Ring...]]
** The [[StatusBuff Ring of Favor and Protection]], which gives a 20% boost to HP, endurance, and equipment load. It may not look like a significant increase, but what truly boosts it to game-breaking levels is that these effects stack with other stat-boosting equipment such as Havel's Ring and Mask of the Mother, which can make a normally MightyGlacier build into a seemingly invincible LightningBruiser with a metric crapton of HP. These boosts are so practical that most players would recommend to always consider reserving a ring slot. Additionally, because it's available in a early level area, it's the go-to ring for low-level griefers.
** The [[NoSell Wolf Ring]], [[BoringButPractical which simply adds 40 extra poise]] to the player. More poise means the chances of falling under the dreaded StunLock drop greatly, which opens up the opponent up for a counterattack or backstab.
** The [[CriticalHit Hornet Ring]], which boosts critical damage by 30% (50% before a patch), when combined with weapons that already multiply critical damage such as rapiers and daggers, can almost one-shot near any build with a backstab or riposte. Even without a critical hit multiplier, the boost is enough to make that already powerful Claymore or Great Scythe hit that much harder.
** The [[RingOfPower Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring]], which boosts all magic damage by 20%. Doesn't seem like much, but combined with a spell that can hit multiple times such as Homing Crystal Soulmass or Dark Bead, it becomes essential on most mages. Even warriors who only dabble in magic or pyromancy can abuse it -- especially pyromancy, thanks to pyromancy spells requiring almost no stat requirements.
** The [[CriticalStatusBuff Red Tearstone Ring]], which gives the player an absolutely massive 50% attack boost with any and all forms of weaponry, spells, and critical hits, with the only catch that the player be under 20% health to activate. When it does, however, the duel quickly becomes a sudden death match, as one mistake will either kill the player who's already half dead or the player who thought they had the match already in the bag.
** [[MightyGlacier Havel's Ring]] is borderline necessary for any heavy-armor player. All it does is boost your equipment load by 50%, but that 50% is ''felt.'' Being able to walk around and quick roll in ''Havel's Set'', the heaviest armor set in the game, is a very feasible feat by the time you're able to actually find it in the world, and turns the rest of the game into an utter joke as you shrug off enemy attacks and power through them to devastating effect.
* The Black Bow of Pharis, coupled with the Hawk Ring, gives you a sniping weapon that allows you to [[DeathByAThousandCuts chip away]] at the game's {{Demonic Spider}}s from far outside their aggro range.
* A non-combat-related example (at least not ''directly'' related to combat) is the Fog Ring, the new version of ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' own GameBreaker, the Thief's Ring. It makes you translucent and hard to see, basically drastically reducing the aggro ranges of most enemies. This makes picking them off at range even more of a cakewalk, and breaks the challenge of some levels right across your knee, as dangerous combat encounters with multiple opponents are reduced to a series of simple duels to be handled at your leisure. It's particularly useful for avoiding attracting the attention of ranged attackers when you're engaged with something else, such as the lightning-throwing snakemen in Sen's Fortress while you're trying to navigate the swinging blade traps, or the bow-equipped Undead Crystal Soldiers in the Duke's Archives.
* The Balder Side Sword earned the FanNickname "Baller Swag Sword" for its high Dexterity scaling, longer reach than other straight swords, and moveset; particularly the strong attack combo which consists of multiple consecutive thrusts (making it a good candidate for Leo Ring wearers), as opposed to the Longsword or Sunlight Straight Sword which alternates thrusts with upward slashes, and other straight swords which lack a thrust attack altogether.
* For those who [[LowLevelAdvantage take advantage on low level invasions]], Guardian Tail buffed with [[PoisonedWeapons Rotten Pine Resin]] can almost inflict poison instantly, it [[NoSell ignores parrying]], can hit people hiding behind a shield, and buffed Guardian Tail has no visual effect on it, which can often catch new players or even veterans off guard. By doing this in Undead Burg, where new players have no access to Purple Moss Clumps and are likely to have low health, it effectively turns every single low level invasion into a CurbStompBattle in the form of watching your victims being succumbed to your poison, haplessly awaiting for their inevitable deaths.
* The [[DraconicHumanoid Dragon Form]] can become this for [[LowLevelAdvantage low level invasions]], it has a [[FixedDamageAttack fixed damage unarmed punch]] that doesn't require any upgrade, a firebreathing attack that can stunlock your foes, and a roar that can both push someone away and briefly buff you. Moreover, it ignores the weapon summoning range inplemented in ''Dark Souls Remastered'', allowing those who manage to get the Dragon Stones with a low level character to unleash the horror upon unsuspecting newcomers. Those who picked the Sorcerer class can combine the firebreathing Attack with the Pursuers spell right at [=SL20=], resulting in an unblockable combo that can often instantly kill anyone getting caught by the flame.
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* By far the biggest GameBreaker in ''Dark Souls: Remastered'' is the {{Good Bad Bug|s}} that is soul item duplication. By buying 999 Wooden Arrows and using a clever combination of buttons, you can duplicate any "Soul of" item and earn hundreds of thousands or even ''millions'' of souls in a single go. This can help you level up to the ''hundreds'' on a first playthrough and immediately level up your stats to use certain late-game weapons properly, or have infinite amounts of money to spend at the shops.
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** [[FanNickname The Giantdad]], a [[MemeticMutation popularized version]] of the LightningBruiser build above, and by far one of the most used and hated variants: it combines the bare minimum of stats to use Giant's Armor (the highest physical defence in the game), the aforementioned Chaoshander to deal very high damage, the Grass Crest Shield for a huge increase to stamina regeneration, and most importantly, the Father's Mask and rings to make the build light enough to give the player full mobility. It all comes together to create a LightningBruiser that's very hard to hit, can tank a surprisingly high amount of damage, stunlocks you easily, and dishes out the pain. [[BoringButPractical Every]]. [[CurbstompBattle Single]]. [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Swing]]. [[note]][[MemeticMutation Just don't tell anyone you raised that dexterity stat.]][[/note]]
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** [[FanNickname The Giantdad]], a [[MemeticMutation popularized version]] of the LightningBruiser build above, and by far one of the most used and hated variants: it combines the bare minimum of stats to use Giant's Armor (the highest physical defence in the game), the aforementioned Chaoshander to deal very high damage, Giant Armor, Chaoshander, and the Grass Crest Shield for a huge increase to stamina regeneration, and most Shield. More importantly, the Father's Mask and rings to make the build light enough to give the player full mobility. It all comes together to create a LightningBruiser that's very hard to hit, can tank a surprisingly high amount of damage, stunlocks you easily, and dishes out the pain. [[BoringButPractical Every]]. [[CurbstompBattle Single]]. [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Swing]]. [[note]][[MemeticMutation Just don't tell anyone you raised that dexterity stat.]][[/note]]
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* The humble Warrior's Round Shield, when upgraded to [=+10=] under Magic path, [[MagikarpPower suddenly becomes the best small shield for blocking magic spells]]. It has [=84.5%=] magic damage reduction, the second highest in the entire game, losing only by [=5.5%=] to the unique Crystal Ring Shield. However, unlike the Crystal Ring Shield, you can actually parry with the Magic Warrior's Round Shield, and it has a higher physical damage reduction, durability and weights less than the Crystal Ring Shield, making it one of the most versatile small shields.
* Some of the more aggravating PVP techniques are also laughably easy to perform with devastating results. To wit:
** ''Dead-angling'', where you circumvent an opponent who has their shield ''up'' with an attack which is likely to hit their unprotected sides ''without even trying''. Of the better weapons to abuse this somewhat questionable strategy, none are more dangerous than the [[SinisterScythe Great Scythe]], which also causes ''bleed'' damage to keep the pressure on your unfortunate victim, the [[{{BFS}} Murakumo]], whose moveset is almost entirely based on this strategy, and the Black Knight Greataxe, which was already explained above.
** ''Turtling'', in which you use a spear or [[RoyalRapier rapier]] and hide behind your own shield (heavens forbid you if you're using [[GameBreaker Artorias' Greatshield]]) to poke your opponent to death. This strategy got slightly nerfed in a patch which increased the stamina drain when doing thrusting attacks with your shield up, but it's still annoying to face one since you have to risk trying to break their guard while taking damage from their pokes.
** ''Backstab fishing'', where the player does ''nothing'' but circle around their opponent in order to backstab them, allowing for instant massive damage from a CriticalHit, made even worse if they use the Hornet Ring for a solid 33% (50% pre-patch) increase in critical hit damage.
** All the above are not so bad compared to stacking Poise and using any weapon (usually a GameBreaker like the Claymore) that can easily stunlock low-poise opponents, a strategy otherwise known as ''poise race'', where the fight usually degenerates into which player can break the other's poise first and stunlock them into oblivion.
* Before a patch that reduced its overall usefulness, the Iron Flesh pyromancy [[http://youtu.be/4UdcKGWmZMs was known to turn boss battles into a cakewalk]] due to the massive increase in physical defence and poise, with the added effect of making light and medium attacks bounce off the user. And since it's a simple passive effect without any stat adjustment, you don't need a high Intelligence stat or a maxed-out pyromancy flame to enjoy it.
* Pyromancy requires no stats to equip aside from the necessary amount of attunement slots for the spells you want, and doesn't scale with stats at all, instead increasing its damage through upgrading the Pyromancy Flame. This makes it the magic of choice for characters who don't use magic, since almost all classes start with at least one attunement slot and the ones that don't need only one or two levels in Attunement to get one. Great Combustion from a fully upgraded Pyromancy Flame does a respectable amount of damage even in the late game, and will greatly help out any physical fighter against enemies that resist physical damage. Its damage can be further increased by things like the Crown of Dusk and the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (despite the latter saying it only boosts sorceries). Of course, all of this is also what makes it the magic of choice for low-level {{griefer}}s who like to invade helpless noobs in the beginning areas of the game and one-shot them with endgame-tier magic.
* The Great Scythe is easily the best Dexterity weapon in the entire game. It combines utterly ''ludicrous'' damage scaling with excellent reach, insane base damage, a very versatile moveset, and some of the best dead-angling capability of all the weapons. Oh, and just to round out the package, it's fully buff-able and also has a Bleed effect. Combine it with Power Within and some buffs, and nothing can stand against you.
** Its boss soul equivalent, the Lifehunt Scythe (forged from the soul of Crossbreed Priscilla - YouBastard) requires more forethought to use, but is potentially even ''more'' terrifying. It has the same powerful reach and move set, and trades slightly lower stat scaling and the loss of buff capability for slightly higher base damage and ''the'' deadliest Bleed effect in the game. Most Bleed weapons inflict 30-35 points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's Bleed bar is full, they take about 30% of their max HP as damage. Priscilla's power of Lifehunt causes the Scythe to inflict '''50''' points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's bar is full they take '''50%''' of their max HP as damage! The drawback is that each hit also inflicts 40 points of Bleed buildup on the wielder, with the same danger of slashing their life in half, but a Bleed-resistant set of armour and the Bloodbite Ring can give you so much Bleed resistance that this isn't likely to be a problem, and even if it is, a simple Bloodred Moss Clump can negate it again. Your opponent is certain to die of blood loss before you do.
* The Gold Tracer, a dex-based long dagger that has a huge variety of attacks (which also makes it difficult to parry) and, more importantly, builds bleed damage at an astounding 40 points per hit. Thanks to its light weight, it's a great choice for a side weapon.
* A rather localized example is the Golem Axe, a boss weapon that has the ability to launch a wind blast with decent damage and heavy knockback. While this is usually really nice to have but not amazing (granting heavily melee-geared characters a ranged option that scales with Strength), its greatest strength is the ability to turn the [[ThatOneLevel Tomb of Giants]] into a complete non-threat, by using said ranged knockback to throw all of the area's DemonicSpider enemies off of cliffs without them even getting to move from their spawn point... incidentally turning the entire zone into a pretty damn good soul farming spot.
* For player-versus-player, a few rings stand out.
** The [[SheFu Dark Wood Grain Ring]], which changes a player's fast roll into a ninja flip which has incredible speed, invincibility frames, and mobility. Good timing with a fast roll can allow a skilled player to cheese through almost any attack; a ninja flip makes it borderline effortless. The downside is that it only works if the player's equipment load is 25% or lower, but [[NotTheIntendedUse when combined with Havel's Ring...]]
** The [[StatusBuff Ring of Favor and Protection]], which gives a 20% boost to HP, endurance, and equipment load. It may not look like a significant increase, but what truly boosts it to game-breaking levels is that these effects stack with other stat-boosting equipment such as Havel's Ring and Mask of the Mother, which can make a normally MightyGlacier build into a seemingly invincible LightningBruiser with a metric crapton of HP. These boosts are so practical that most players would recommend to always consider reserving a ring slot. Additionally, because it's available in a early level area, it's the go-to ring for low-level griefers.
** The [[NoSell Wolf Ring]], [[BoringButPractical which simply adds 40 extra poise]] to the player. More poise means the chances of falling under the dreaded StunLock drop greatly, which opens up the opponent up for a counterattack or backstab.
** The [[CriticalHit Hornet Ring]], which boosts critical damage by 30% (50% before a patch), when combined with weapons that already multiply critical damage such as rapiers and daggers, can almost one-shot near any build with a backstab or riposte. Even without a critical hit multiplier, the boost is enough to make that already powerful Claymore or Great Scythe hit that much harder.
** The [[RingOfPower Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring]], which boosts all magic damage by 20%. Doesn't seem like much, but combined with a spell that can hit multiple times such as Homing Crystal Soulmass or Dark Bead, it becomes essential on most mages. Even warriors who only dabble in magic or pyromancy can abuse it -- especially pyromancy, thanks to pyromancy spells requiring almost no stat requirements.
** The [[CriticalStatusBuff Red Tearstone Ring]], which gives the player an absolutely massive 50% attack boost with any and all forms of weaponry, spells, and critical hits, with the only catch that the player be under 20% health to activate. When it does, however, the duel quickly becomes a sudden death match, as one mistake will either kill the player who's already half dead or the player who thought they had the match already in the bag.
** [[MightyGlacier Havel's Ring]] is borderline necessary for any heavy-armor player. All it does is boost your equipment load by 50%, but that 50% is ''felt.'' Being able to walk around and quick roll in ''Havel's Set'', the heaviest armor set in the game, is a very feasible feat by the time you're able to actually find it in the world, and turns the rest of the game into an utter joke as you shrug off enemy attacks and power through them to devastating effect.
* The Black Bow of Pharis, coupled with the Hawk Ring, gives you a sniping weapon that allows you to [[DeathByAThousandCuts chip away]] at the game's {{Demonic Spider}}s from far outside their aggro range.
* A non-combat-related example (at least not ''directly'' related to combat) is the Fog Ring, the new version of ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' own GameBreaker, the Thief's Ring. It makes you translucent and hard to see, basically drastically reducing the aggro ranges of most enemies. This makes picking them off at range even more of a cakewalk, and breaks the challenge of some levels right across your knee, as dangerous combat encounters with multiple opponents are reduced to a series of simple duels to be handled at your leisure. It's particularly useful for avoiding attracting the attention of ranged attackers when you're engaged with something else, such as the lightning-throwing snakemen in Sen's Fortress while you're trying to navigate the swinging blade traps, or the bow-equipped Undead Crystal Soldiers in the Duke's Archives.
* The Balder Side Sword earned the FanNickname "Baller Swag Sword" for its high Dexterity scaling, longer reach than other straight swords, and moveset; particularly the strong attack combo which consists of multiple consecutive thrusts (making it a good candidate for Leo Ring wearers), as opposed to the Longsword or Sunlight Straight Sword which alternates thrusts with upward slashes, and other straight swords which lack a thrust attack altogether.
* For those who [[LowLevelAdvantage take advantage on low level invasions]], Guardian Tail buffed with [[PoisonedWeapons Rotten Pine Resin]] can almost inflict poison instantly, it [[NoSell ignores parrying]], can hit people hiding behind a shield, and buffed Guardian Tail has no visual effect on it, which can often catch new players or even veterans off guard. By doing this in Undead Burg, where new players have no access to Purple Moss Clumps and are likely to have low health, it effectively turns every single low level invasion into a CurbStompBattle in the form of watching your victims being succumbed to your poison, haplessly awaiting for their inevitable deaths.
* The [[DraconicHumanoid Dragon Form]] can become this for [[LowLevelAdvantage low level invasions]], it has a [[FixedDamageAttack fixed damage unarmed punch]] that doesn't require any upgrade, a firebreathing attack that can stunlock your foes, and a roar that can both push someone away and briefly buff you. Moreover, it ignores the weapon summoning range inplemented in ''Dark Souls Remastered'', allowing those who manage to get the Dragon Stones with a low level character to unleash the horror upon unsuspecting newcomers. Those who picked the Sorcerer class can combine the firebreathing Attack with the Pursuers spell right at [=SL20=], resulting in an unblockable combo that can often instantly kill anyone getting caught by the flame.
* Some of the more aggravating PVP techniques are also laughably easy to perform with devastating results. To wit:
** ''Dead-angling'', where you circumvent an opponent who has their shield ''up'' with an attack which is likely to hit their unprotected sides ''without even trying''. Of the better weapons to abuse this somewhat questionable strategy, none are more dangerous than the [[SinisterScythe Great Scythe]], which also causes ''bleed'' damage to keep the pressure on your unfortunate victim, the [[{{BFS}} Murakumo]], whose moveset is almost entirely based on this strategy, and the Black Knight Greataxe, which was already explained above.
** ''Turtling'', in which you use a spear or [[RoyalRapier rapier]] and hide behind your own shield (heavens forbid you if you're using [[GameBreaker Artorias' Greatshield]]) to poke your opponent to death. This strategy got slightly nerfed in a patch which increased the stamina drain when doing thrusting attacks with your shield up, but it's still annoying to face one since you have to risk trying to break their guard while taking damage from their pokes.
** ''Backstab fishing'', where the player does ''nothing'' but circle around their opponent in order to backstab them, allowing for instant massive damage from a CriticalHit, made even worse if they use the Hornet Ring for a solid 33% (50% pre-patch) increase in critical hit damage.
** All the above are not so bad compared to stacking Poise and using any weapon (usually a GameBreaker like the Claymore) that can easily stunlock low-poise opponents, a strategy otherwise known as ''poise race'', where the fight usually degenerates into which player can break the other's poise first and stunlock them into oblivion.
* Before a patch that reduced its overall usefulness, the Iron Flesh pyromancy [[http://youtu.be/4UdcKGWmZMs was known to turn boss battles into a cakewalk]] due to the massive increase in physical defence and poise, with the added effect of making light and medium attacks bounce off the user. And since it's a simple passive effect without any stat adjustment, you don't need a high Intelligence stat or a maxed-out pyromancy flame to enjoy it.
* Pyromancy requires no stats to equip aside from the necessary amount of attunement slots for the spells you want, and doesn't scale with stats at all, instead increasing its damage through upgrading the Pyromancy Flame. This makes it the magic of choice for characters who don't use magic, since almost all classes start with at least one attunement slot and the ones that don't need only one or two levels in Attunement to get one. Great Combustion from a fully upgraded Pyromancy Flame does a respectable amount of damage even in the late game, and will greatly help out any physical fighter against enemies that resist physical damage. Its damage can be further increased by things like the Crown of Dusk and the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (despite the latter saying it only boosts sorceries). Of course, all of this is also what makes it the magic of choice for low-level {{griefer}}s who like to invade helpless noobs in the beginning areas of the game and one-shot them with endgame-tier magic.
* The Great Scythe is easily the best Dexterity weapon in the entire game. It combines utterly ''ludicrous'' damage scaling with excellent reach, insane base damage, a very versatile moveset, and some of the best dead-angling capability of all the weapons. Oh, and just to round out the package, it's fully buff-able and also has a Bleed effect. Combine it with Power Within and some buffs, and nothing can stand against you.
** Its boss soul equivalent, the Lifehunt Scythe (forged from the soul of Crossbreed Priscilla - YouBastard) requires more forethought to use, but is potentially even ''more'' terrifying. It has the same powerful reach and move set, and trades slightly lower stat scaling and the loss of buff capability for slightly higher base damage and ''the'' deadliest Bleed effect in the game. Most Bleed weapons inflict 30-35 points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's Bleed bar is full, they take about 30% of their max HP as damage. Priscilla's power of Lifehunt causes the Scythe to inflict '''50''' points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's bar is full they take '''50%''' of their max HP as damage! The drawback is that each hit also inflicts 40 points of Bleed buildup on the wielder, with the same danger of slashing their life in half, but a Bleed-resistant set of armour and the Bloodbite Ring can give you so much Bleed resistance that this isn't likely to be a problem, and even if it is, a simple Bloodred Moss Clump can negate it again. Your opponent is certain to die of blood loss before you do.
* The Gold Tracer, a dex-based long dagger that has a huge variety of attacks (which also makes it difficult to parry) and, more importantly, builds bleed damage at an astounding 40 points per hit. Thanks to its light weight, it's a great choice for a side weapon.
* A rather localized example is the Golem Axe, a boss weapon that has the ability to launch a wind blast with decent damage and heavy knockback. While this is usually really nice to have but not amazing (granting heavily melee-geared characters a ranged option that scales with Strength), its greatest strength is the ability to turn the [[ThatOneLevel Tomb of Giants]] into a complete non-threat, by using said ranged knockback to throw all of the area's DemonicSpider enemies off of cliffs without them even getting to move from their spawn point... incidentally turning the entire zone into a pretty damn good soul farming spot.
* For player-versus-player, a few rings stand out.
** The [[SheFu Dark Wood Grain Ring]], which changes a player's fast roll into a ninja flip which has incredible speed, invincibility frames, and mobility. Good timing with a fast roll can allow a skilled player to cheese through almost any attack; a ninja flip makes it borderline effortless. The downside is that it only works if the player's equipment load is 25% or lower, but [[NotTheIntendedUse when combined with Havel's Ring...]]
** The [[StatusBuff Ring of Favor and Protection]], which gives a 20% boost to HP, endurance, and equipment load. It may not look like a significant increase, but what truly boosts it to game-breaking levels is that these effects stack with other stat-boosting equipment such as Havel's Ring and Mask of the Mother, which can make a normally MightyGlacier build into a seemingly invincible LightningBruiser with a metric crapton of HP. These boosts are so practical that most players would recommend to always consider reserving a ring slot. Additionally, because it's available in a early level area, it's the go-to ring for low-level griefers.
** The [[NoSell Wolf Ring]], [[BoringButPractical which simply adds 40 extra poise]] to the player. More poise means the chances of falling under the dreaded StunLock drop greatly, which opens up the opponent up for a counterattack or backstab.
** The [[CriticalHit Hornet Ring]], which boosts critical damage by 30% (50% before a patch), when combined with weapons that already multiply critical damage such as rapiers and daggers, can almost one-shot near any build with a backstab or riposte. Even without a critical hit multiplier, the boost is enough to make that already powerful Claymore or Great Scythe hit that much harder.
** The [[RingOfPower Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring]], which boosts all magic damage by 20%. Doesn't seem like much, but combined with a spell that can hit multiple times such as Homing Crystal Soulmass or Dark Bead, it becomes essential on most mages. Even warriors who only dabble in magic or pyromancy can abuse it -- especially pyromancy, thanks to pyromancy spells requiring almost no stat requirements.
** The [[CriticalStatusBuff Red Tearstone Ring]], which gives the player an absolutely massive 50% attack boost with any and all forms of weaponry, spells, and critical hits, with the only catch that the player be under 20% health to activate. When it does, however, the duel quickly becomes a sudden death match, as one mistake will either kill the player who's already half dead or the player who thought they had the match already in the bag.
** [[MightyGlacier Havel's Ring]] is borderline necessary for any heavy-armor player. All it does is boost your equipment load by 50%, but that 50% is ''felt.'' Being able to walk around and quick roll in ''Havel's Set'', the heaviest armor set in the game, is a very feasible feat by the time you're able to actually find it in the world, and turns the rest of the game into an utter joke as you shrug off enemy attacks and power through them to devastating effect.
* The Black Bow of Pharis, coupled with the Hawk Ring, gives you a sniping weapon that allows you to [[DeathByAThousandCuts chip away]] at the game's {{Demonic Spider}}s from far outside their aggro range.
* A non-combat-related example (at least not ''directly'' related to combat) is the Fog Ring, the new version of ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' own GameBreaker, the Thief's Ring. It makes you translucent and hard to see, basically drastically reducing the aggro ranges of most enemies. This makes picking them off at range even more of a cakewalk, and breaks the challenge of some levels right across your knee, as dangerous combat encounters with multiple opponents are reduced to a series of simple duels to be handled at your leisure. It's particularly useful for avoiding attracting the attention of ranged attackers when you're engaged with something else, such as the lightning-throwing snakemen in Sen's Fortress while you're trying to navigate the swinging blade traps, or the bow-equipped Undead Crystal Soldiers in the Duke's Archives.
* The Balder Side Sword earned the FanNickname "Baller Swag Sword" for its high Dexterity scaling, longer reach than other straight swords, and moveset; particularly the strong attack combo which consists of multiple consecutive thrusts (making it a good candidate for Leo Ring wearers), as opposed to the Longsword or Sunlight Straight Sword which alternates thrusts with upward slashes, and other straight swords which lack a thrust attack altogether.
* For those who [[LowLevelAdvantage take advantage on low level invasions]], Guardian Tail buffed with [[PoisonedWeapons Rotten Pine Resin]] can almost inflict poison instantly, it [[NoSell ignores parrying]], can hit people hiding behind a shield, and buffed Guardian Tail has no visual effect on it, which can often catch new players or even veterans off guard. By doing this in Undead Burg, where new players have no access to Purple Moss Clumps and are likely to have low health, it effectively turns every single low level invasion into a CurbStompBattle in the form of watching your victims being succumbed to your poison, haplessly awaiting for their inevitable deaths.
* The [[DraconicHumanoid Dragon Form]] can become this for [[LowLevelAdvantage low level invasions]], it has a [[FixedDamageAttack fixed damage unarmed punch]] that doesn't require any upgrade, a firebreathing attack that can stunlock your foes, and a roar that can both push someone away and briefly buff you. Moreover, it ignores the weapon summoning range inplemented in ''Dark Souls Remastered'', allowing those who manage to get the Dragon Stones with a low level character to unleash the horror upon unsuspecting newcomers. Those who picked the Sorcerer class can combine the firebreathing Attack with the Pursuers spell right at [=SL20=], resulting in an unblockable combo that can often instantly kill anyone getting caught by the flame.
to:
* The humble Warrior's Round Shield, when upgraded to [=+10=] under Magic path, [[MagikarpPower suddenly becomes the best small shield for blocking magic spells]]. It has [=84.5%=] magic damage reduction, the second highest in the entire game, losing only by [=5.5%=] to the unique Crystal Ring Shield. However, unlike the Crystal Ring Shield, you can actually parry with the Magic Warrior's Round Shield, and it has a higher physical damage reduction, durability and weights less than the Crystal Ring Shield, making it one of the most versatile small shields.
* Some of the more aggravating PVP techniques are also laughably easy to perform with devastating results. To wit:
** ''Dead-angling'', where you circumvent an opponent who has their shield ''up'' with an attack whichshields. While its stability is likely to hit their unprotected sides ''without even trying''. Of the better weapons to abuse this somewhat questionable strategy, none are more dangerous than the [[SinisterScythe Great Scythe]], which also causes ''bleed'' damage to keep the pressure on your unfortunate victim, the [[{{BFS}} Murakumo]], whose moveset is almost entirely based on this strategy, and the Black Knight Greataxe, which was already explained above.
** ''Turtling'', in which you use a spear or [[RoyalRapier rapier]] and hide behind your own shield (heavens forbid you if you're using [[GameBreaker Artorias' Greatshield]]) to poke your opponent to death. This strategy got slightly nerfed in a patch which increased the stamina drain when doing thrusting attacks with your shield up, butquite poor like all small shields, it's still annoying to face one since you have to risk trying to break their guard while taking damage from their pokes.
** ''Backstab fishing'', where the player does ''nothing'' but circle around their opponent in order to backstab them, allowing for instant massive damage from a CriticalHit, made even worse if they use the Hornet Ring for a solid 33% (50% pre-patch) increase in critical hit damage.
** All the above are not so bad compared to stacking Poise and using any weapon (usually a GameBreaker like the Claymore) that can easily stunlock low-poise opponents, a strategy otherwise known as ''poise race'', where the fight usually degenerates into which player can break the other's poise first and stunlock them into oblivion.
* Before a patch that reduced its overall usefulness, the Iron Flesh pyromancy [[http://youtu.be/4UdcKGWmZMs was known to turn boss battles into a cakewalk]] due to the massive increase in physical defence and poise, with the added effect of making light and medium attacks bounce off the user. And since it's a simple passive effect without any stat adjustment, you don't need a high Intelligence stat or a maxed-out pyromancy flame to enjoy it.
* Pyromancy requires no stats to equip aside from the necessary amount of attunement slots for the spells you want, and doesn't scale with stats at all, instead increasing its damage through upgrading the Pyromancy Flame. This makes it the magic of choice for characters who don't use magic, since almost all classes start with at least one attunement slot and the ones that don't need only one or two levels in Attunement to get one. Great Combustion from a fully upgraded Pyromancy Flame does a respectable amount of damage even in the late game, and will greatly help out any physical fighter against enemies that resist physical damage. Its damage can be further increased by things like the Crown of Dusk and the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (despite the latter saying it only boosts sorceries). Of course, all of this is also what makes it the magic of choice for low-level {{griefer}}s who like to invade helpless noobs in the beginning areas of the game and one-shot them with endgame-tier magic.
* The Great Scythe is easily the best Dexterity weapon in the entire game. It combines utterly ''ludicrous'' damage scaling with excellent reach, insane base damage, a very versatile moveset, and someof the best dead-angling capability of all the weapons. Oh, and just shields to round out the package, it's fully buff-able and also has a Bleed effect. Combine it with Power Within and some buffs, and nothing can stand use against you.
** Its boss soul equivalent,the Lifehunt Scythe (forged from the soul of Crossbreed Priscilla - YouBastard) requires more forethought to use, but is potentially even ''more'' terrifying. It has the same powerful reach and move set, and trades slightly lower stat scaling and the loss of buff capability for slightly higher base damage and ''the'' deadliest Bleed effect in the game. Most Bleed weapons inflict 30-35 points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's Bleed bar is full, they take about 30% [[ThatOneBoss Four Kings]], as all of their max HP as damage. Priscilla's power of Lifehunt causes the Scythe to inflict '''50''' points of Bleed buildup per hit and once the opponent's bar is full they take '''50%''' of their max HP as damage! The drawback is that each hit also inflicts 40 points of Bleed buildup on the wielder, with the same danger of slashing their life in half, but a Bleed-resistant set of armour and the Bloodbite Ring can give you so much Bleed resistance that this isn't likely to be a problem, and even if it is, a simple Bloodred Moss Clump can negate it again. Your opponent is certain to die of blood loss before you do.
* The Gold Tracer, a dex-based long dagger that has a huge variety ofattacks (which also makes it difficult to parry) and, more importantly, builds bleed damage at an astounding 40 points per hit. Thanks to its light weight, it's a great choice for a side weapon.
* A rather localized example is the Golem Axe, a boss weapon that has the ability to launch a wind blast with decent damage and heavy knockback. While this is usually really nice to have but not amazing (granting heavily melee-geared characters a ranged option that scales with Strength), its greatest strength is the ability to turn the [[ThatOneLevel Tomb of Giants]] into a complete non-threat, by using said ranged knockback to throw all of the area's DemonicSpider enemies off of cliffs without them even getting to move from their spawn point... incidentally turning the entire zone into a pretty damn good soul farming spot.
* For player-versus-player, a few rings stand out.
** The [[SheFu Dark Wood Grain Ring]], which changes a player's fast roll into a ninja flip which has incredible speed, invincibility frames, and mobility. Good timing with a fast roll can allow a skilled player to cheese through almost any attack; a ninja flip makes it borderline effortless. The downside is that it only works if the player's equipment load is 25% or lower, but [[NotTheIntendedUse when combined with Havel's Ring...]]
** The [[StatusBuff Ring of Favor and Protection]], which gives a 20% boost to HP, endurance, and equipment load. It may not look like a significant increase, but what truly boosts it to game-breaking levels is that these effects stack with other stat-boosting equipment such as Havel's Ring and Mask of the Mother, which can make a normally MightyGlacier build into a seemingly invincible LightningBruiser with a metric crapton of HP. These boosts are so practical that most players would recommend to always consider reserving a ring slot. Additionally, because it's available in a early level area, it's the go-to ring for low-level griefers.
** The [[NoSell Wolf Ring]], [[BoringButPractical which simply adds 40 extra poise]] to the player. More poise means the chances of falling under the dreaded StunLock drop greatly, which opens up the opponent up for a counterattack or backstab.
** The [[CriticalHit Hornet Ring]], which boosts critical damage by 30% (50% before a patch), when combined with weapons that already multiply critical damage such as rapiers and daggers, can almost one-shot near any build with a backstab or riposte. Even without a critical hit multiplier, the boost is enough to make that already powerful Claymore or Great Scythe hit that much harder.
** The [[RingOfPower Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring]], which boosts alldeal magic damage by 20%. Doesn't seem like much, but combined with a spell and the shield is light enough to grant you that can hit multiple times such as Homing Crystal Soulmass or Dark Bead, it becomes essential on most mages. Even warriors who only dabble in magic or pyromancy can abuse it -- especially pyromancy, thanks to pyromancy spells requiring almost no stat requirements.
** The [[CriticalStatusBuff Red Tearstone Ring]], which gives the player an absolutely massive 50% attack boost with any and all forms of weaponry, spells, and critical hits, with the only catch that the player be under 20% health to activate. When it does, however, the duel quickly becomes a sudden death match, as one mistake will either kill the player who's already half dead or the player who thought they had the match already in the bag.
** [[MightyGlacier Havel's Ring]] is borderline necessaryvital extra mobility for any heavy-armor player. All it does is boost your equipment load by 50%, but that 50% is ''felt.'' Being able to walk around and quick roll in ''Havel's Set'', the heaviest armor set in the game, is a very feasible feat by the time you're able to actually find it in the world, and turns the rest of the game into an utter joke as you shrug off enemy dodging their attacks and power through rather than, say, face-tanking them to devastating effect.
* The Black Bow of Pharis, coupled with the Hawk Ring, gives you a sniping weapon that allows you to [[DeathByAThousandCuts chip away]] at the game's {{Demonic Spider}}s from far outside their aggro range.
* A non-combat-related example (at least not ''directly'' related to combat) is the Fog Ring, the new version of ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' own GameBreaker, the Thief's Ring. It makes you translucent and hard to see, basically drastically reducing the aggro ranges of most enemies. This makes picking them off at range even more of a cakewalk, and breaks the challenge of some levels right across your knee, as dangerous combat encounters with multiple opponents are reduced to a series of simple duels to be handled at your leisure. It's particularly useful for avoiding attracting the attention of ranged attackers when you're engaged with something else, such as the lightning-throwing snakemen in Sen's Fortress while you're trying to navigate the swinging blade traps, or the bow-equipped Undead Crystal Soldiers in the Duke's Archives.
* The Balder Side Sword earned the FanNickname "Baller Swag Sword" for its high Dexterity scaling, longer reach than other straight swords, and moveset; particularly the strong attack combo which consists of multiple consecutive thrusts (making it a good candidate for Leo Ring wearers), as opposed to the Longsword or Sunlight Straight Sword which alternates thrusts with upward slashes, and other straight swords which lack a thrust attack altogether.
* For those who [[LowLevelAdvantage take advantage on low level invasions]], Guardian Tail buffed with [[PoisonedWeapons Rotten Pine Resin]] can almost inflict poison instantly, it [[NoSell ignores parrying]], can hit people hiding behind a shield, and buffed Guardian Tail has no visual effect on it, which can often catch new players or even veterans off guard. By doing this in Undead Burg, where new players have no access to Purple Moss Clumps and are likely to have low health, it effectively turns every single low level invasion into a CurbStompBattle in the form of watching your victims being succumbed to your poison, haplessly awaiting for their inevitable deaths.
* The [[DraconicHumanoid Dragon Form]] can become this for [[LowLevelAdvantage low level invasions]], it has a [[FixedDamageAttack fixed damage unarmed punch]] that doesn't require any upgrade, a firebreathing attack that can stunlock your foes, and a roar that can both push someone away and briefly buff you. Moreover, it ignores the weapon summoning range inplemented in ''Dark Souls Remastered'', allowing those who manage to get the Dragon Stoneswith a low level character to unleash the horror upon unsuspecting newcomers. Those who picked the Sorcerer class can combine the firebreathing Attack with the Pursuers spell right at [=SL20=], resulting in an unblockable combo that can often instantly kill anyone getting caught by the flame. greatshield.
* Some of the more aggravating PVP techniques are also laughably easy to perform with devastating results. To wit:
** ''Dead-angling'', where you circumvent an opponent who has their shield ''up'' with an attack which
** ''Turtling'', in which you use a spear or [[RoyalRapier rapier]] and hide behind your own shield (heavens forbid you if you're using [[GameBreaker Artorias' Greatshield]]) to poke your opponent to death. This strategy got slightly nerfed in a patch which increased the stamina drain when doing thrusting attacks with your shield up, but
** ''Backstab fishing'', where the player does ''nothing'' but circle around their opponent in order to backstab them, allowing for instant massive damage from a CriticalHit, made even worse if they use the Hornet Ring for a solid 33% (50% pre-patch) increase in critical hit damage.
** All the above are not so bad compared to stacking Poise and using any weapon (usually a GameBreaker like the Claymore) that can easily stunlock low-poise opponents, a strategy otherwise known as ''poise race'', where the fight usually degenerates into which player can break the other's poise first and stunlock them into oblivion.
* Before a patch that reduced its overall usefulness, the Iron Flesh pyromancy [[http://youtu.be/4UdcKGWmZMs was known to turn boss battles into a cakewalk]] due to the massive increase in physical defence and poise, with the added effect of making light and medium attacks bounce off the user. And since it's a simple passive effect without any stat adjustment, you don't need a high Intelligence stat or a maxed-out pyromancy flame to enjoy it.
* Pyromancy requires no stats to equip aside from the necessary amount of attunement slots for the spells you want, and doesn't scale with stats at all, instead increasing its damage through upgrading the Pyromancy Flame. This makes it the magic of choice for characters who don't use magic, since almost all classes start with at least one attunement slot and the ones that don't need only one or two levels in Attunement to get one. Great Combustion from a fully upgraded Pyromancy Flame does a respectable amount of damage even in the late game, and will greatly help out any physical fighter against enemies that resist physical damage. Its damage can be further increased by things like the Crown of Dusk and the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (despite the latter saying it only boosts sorceries). Of course, all of this is also what makes it the magic of choice for low-level {{griefer}}s who like to invade helpless noobs in the beginning areas of the game and one-shot them with endgame-tier magic.
* The Great Scythe is easily the best Dexterity weapon in the entire game. It combines utterly ''ludicrous'' damage scaling with excellent reach, insane base damage, a very versatile moveset, and some
** Its boss soul equivalent,
* The Gold Tracer, a dex-based long dagger that has a huge variety of
* A rather localized example is the Golem Axe, a boss weapon that has the ability to launch a wind blast with decent damage and heavy knockback. While this is usually really nice to have but not amazing (granting heavily melee-geared characters a ranged option that scales with Strength), its greatest strength is the ability to turn the [[ThatOneLevel Tomb of Giants]] into a complete non-threat, by using said ranged knockback to throw all of the area's DemonicSpider enemies off of cliffs without them even getting to move from their spawn point... incidentally turning the entire zone into a pretty damn good soul farming spot.
* For player-versus-player, a few rings stand out.
** The [[SheFu Dark Wood Grain Ring]], which changes a player's fast roll into a ninja flip which has incredible speed, invincibility frames, and mobility. Good timing with a fast roll can allow a skilled player to cheese through almost any attack; a ninja flip makes it borderline effortless. The downside is that it only works if the player's equipment load is 25% or lower, but [[NotTheIntendedUse when combined with Havel's Ring...]]
** The [[StatusBuff Ring of Favor and Protection]], which gives a 20% boost to HP, endurance, and equipment load. It may not look like a significant increase, but what truly boosts it to game-breaking levels is that these effects stack with other stat-boosting equipment such as Havel's Ring and Mask of the Mother, which can make a normally MightyGlacier build into a seemingly invincible LightningBruiser with a metric crapton of HP. These boosts are so practical that most players would recommend to always consider reserving a ring slot. Additionally, because it's available in a early level area, it's the go-to ring for low-level griefers.
** The [[NoSell Wolf Ring]], [[BoringButPractical which simply adds 40 extra poise]] to the player. More poise means the chances of falling under the dreaded StunLock drop greatly, which opens up the opponent up for a counterattack or backstab.
** The [[CriticalHit Hornet Ring]], which boosts critical damage by 30% (50% before a patch), when combined with weapons that already multiply critical damage such as rapiers and daggers, can almost one-shot near any build with a backstab or riposte. Even without a critical hit multiplier, the boost is enough to make that already powerful Claymore or Great Scythe hit that much harder.
** The [[RingOfPower Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring]], which boosts all
** The [[CriticalStatusBuff Red Tearstone Ring]], which gives the player an absolutely massive 50% attack boost with any and all forms of weaponry, spells, and critical hits, with the only catch that the player be under 20% health to activate. When it does, however, the duel quickly becomes a sudden death match, as one mistake will either kill the player who's already half dead or the player who thought they had the match already in the bag.
** [[MightyGlacier Havel's Ring]] is borderline necessary
* The Black Bow of Pharis, coupled with the Hawk Ring, gives you a sniping weapon that allows you to [[DeathByAThousandCuts chip away]] at the game's {{Demonic Spider}}s from far outside their aggro range.
* A non-combat-related example (at least not ''directly'' related to combat) is the Fog Ring, the new version of ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' own GameBreaker, the Thief's Ring. It makes you translucent and hard to see, basically drastically reducing the aggro ranges of most enemies. This makes picking them off at range even more of a cakewalk, and breaks the challenge of some levels right across your knee, as dangerous combat encounters with multiple opponents are reduced to a series of simple duels to be handled at your leisure. It's particularly useful for avoiding attracting the attention of ranged attackers when you're engaged with something else, such as the lightning-throwing snakemen in Sen's Fortress while you're trying to navigate the swinging blade traps, or the bow-equipped Undead Crystal Soldiers in the Duke's Archives.
* The Balder Side Sword earned the FanNickname "Baller Swag Sword" for its high Dexterity scaling, longer reach than other straight swords, and moveset; particularly the strong attack combo which consists of multiple consecutive thrusts (making it a good candidate for Leo Ring wearers), as opposed to the Longsword or Sunlight Straight Sword which alternates thrusts with upward slashes, and other straight swords which lack a thrust attack altogether.
* For those who [[LowLevelAdvantage take advantage on low level invasions]], Guardian Tail buffed with [[PoisonedWeapons Rotten Pine Resin]] can almost inflict poison instantly, it [[NoSell ignores parrying]], can hit people hiding behind a shield, and buffed Guardian Tail has no visual effect on it, which can often catch new players or even veterans off guard. By doing this in Undead Burg, where new players have no access to Purple Moss Clumps and are likely to have low health, it effectively turns every single low level invasion into a CurbStompBattle in the form of watching your victims being succumbed to your poison, haplessly awaiting for their inevitable deaths.
* The [[DraconicHumanoid Dragon Form]] can become this for [[LowLevelAdvantage low level invasions]], it has a [[FixedDamageAttack fixed damage unarmed punch]] that doesn't require any upgrade, a firebreathing attack that can stunlock your foes, and a roar that can both push someone away and briefly buff you. Moreover, it ignores the weapon summoning range inplemented in ''Dark Souls Remastered'', allowing those who manage to get the Dragon Stones
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* The Moonlight Greatsword, obtained by cutting off Seath the Scaleless' main tail. While it's a great weapon to begin with, what really lands it here is its resource efficiency. The sword has fairly low stat requirements and insane scaling with Intelligence, giving pure Sorcerer builds a fantastic melee option that can be scaled with their primary stat rather than having to distribute level-ups between Intelligence and Strength/Dexterity. This means that you can power up your melee attacks ''and'' broken spells like Crystal Homing Soulmass and Dark Bead off the same stat. Furthermore, as a dragon weapon, it's upgraded using Dragon Scales (unlike many other broken weapons which require various types of Titanite); if you aren't trying to upgrade multiple dragon weapons or level up in the Path of the Dragon covenant, you can easily upgrade the Moonlight Greatsword without cutting into resources used to upgrade your other weapons/armor.
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* The Moonlight Greatsword, obtained by cutting off Seath the Scaleless' main tail. While it's a great weapon to begin with, what really lands it here is its resource efficiency. The sword has fairly low stat requirements and insane scaling with Intelligence, giving pure Sorcerer builds a fantastic melee option that can be scaled with their primary stat rather than having to distribute level-ups between Intelligence and Strength/Dexterity. This means that you can power up your melee attacks ''and'' broken spells like Crystal Homing Soulmass and Dark Bead off the same stat. Furthermore, as a dragon weapon, it's upgraded using Dragon Scales (unlike many other broken weapons which require various types of Titanite); if you aren't trying to upgrade multiple dragon weapons or level up in the Path of the Dragon covenant, you can easily upgrade the Moonlight Greatsword without cutting into resources used to upgrade your other weapons/armor. The cherry on top is that it's quite light for a greatsword, at 6.0 compared to, say, 10.0 for the Black Knight Sword or Greatsword of Artorias.
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* The Moonlight Greatsword, obtained by cutting off Seath the Scaleless' main tail. While it's a great weapon to begin with, what really lands it here is its resource efficiency. The sword has fairly low stat requirements and insane scaling with Intelligence, giving pure Sorcerer builds a fantastic melee option that can be scaled with their primary stat rather than having to distribute level-ups between Intelligence and Strength/Dexterity. This means that you can power up your melee attacks ''and'' broken spells like Crystal Homing Soulmass and Dark Bead off the same stat. Furthermore, as a dragon weapon, it's upgraded using Dragon Scales (unlike many other broken weapons which require various types of Titanite); if you aren't trying to upgrade multiple dragon weapons or level up in the Path of the Dragon covenant, you can easily upgrade the Moonlight Greatsword without cutting into resources used to upgrade your other weapons/armor.
