Sounds epic! I need to finally get involved in the online scene, I do 95% of my Dark Souls gaming alone. I'll probably start getting active in helping people with bosses and invading soon.
By the way, would the Black Bow of Pharis be any use to my character that has roughly 30 DEX?
I suck so bad at invading. I killed maybe 2 or 3 out of the 10 times I invaded. I'm not patient and try for a quick end, ahah.
I am 40 Dex, and I do insane damage with the bow. So I'd say you would do some amazing damage at 30 Dex as well. It seems this game is the same as Demon's Souls, in that after you level a stat past 40, you start getting diminishing returns. While leveling my Dex, I was seeing a 5 increase to damage for my weapons, but beyond 40 it went down to a +1 increase.
I like when I'm higher level, waiting to get invaded in the burg, and some low level idiot with pinwheel mask / havels / elemental weapon will come into my game hoping I'm a low level player he can easily stomp on, and tries to black crystal out.
I will admit there is a grim satisfaction in messing up someone's game -- it's pretty satisfying killing a party of 3 inching their way through Sen's Fortress -- but when the other player doesn't stand a chance I don't see the point. Outsmarting and outmaneuvering your opponents is where the fun is, not instantly casting ascended great combustion on the dude hiding behind his shield in default pyro gear with a drake sword. So yeah, there's a lot of bullshit online, but tons of fun to be had as well.
And low level run of Demons Souls seems to me more difficult than a low level run of this game.
Sen's fortress is very fun. A black phantom was chasing us, but he got hit by one of those guillotine blades and knocked into the muck. I went after him and plunged as he was getting up and killed him. Was pretty great. It's been pretty hard trying to hit a player with the plunge attack.
Another invasion in Sen's Fortress, I was helping a player out as a Phantom, and he got invaded. I was behind a pillar, so I guess the invader didn't know I was there, and proceeded to attack the host. So I pop out and back stab him. I found that stealth kill pretty satisfying, haha.
Demon's Souls is pretty easy on low level, when you know all the enemy attack patterns. There are some problem bosses, though. Storm King was pretty annoying, with all of his projectiles. There is a safe zone where none can hit you, but I never really liked using it.
Oh crap, how much damage does power within add to archery?
I looked it up, and according to the Wiki it adds 40% to your damage. (I also learned just now that using a low level flame is best, since it decreases HP loss and still gives you a 40% boost). I like using it with that ring that increases your damage output at 30% health or whatever, since Power Within drains you anyway.