The key is rolling compatriot. However, this can still be hard when someone waves their spaghetti arms around and suddenly grows a third arm in the middle of their attacks and bashes you. However, the real problem with shield breaker is the range. Please, do refer to my earlier post, or allow me to post it here. This next law is ABSOLUTE. If you do not roll a shield breaker, no matter how far away you manage to walk, even at the distance of the first souls's demon spear, you will get hit by it. And you will sit there, for the entire duration it takes for your enemy to walk over to you. Combine this with a dagger, a buffed weapon, or anything in general, and you win. Shield breaker has an immense registry problem, and above all, when I see it coming, I back the hell off, whether it be backwards, or past them, or in a circle. It never matters. 100% of the time I get hit. And then I'm dead because front stab animations hurt like a bitch. Shield breaker in itself isn't OP, the registry and range is. You know what I do when I see them raise their arm? Lower my shield and -blam!-ing smash them over their head with my anvil hammer. Problem solved.

I'm more so annoyed by that because of how powerful shield breaker is right now, Rolling is the only option to avoid damage at close range, and that puts heavy or medium armor users at a disadvantage.

This is true. I believe that even if you lower your shield, you can take damage from the shield breaker hit, but very little. But because of this, LOL POISE comes into play and you can be initiated into a stunlock because of this. To me it seems strength and fat rollers in Souls were always, how to say, underfoot. In Souls II there is literally no point to using a heavy weapon. I mean sure the damage output can be tremedous, but this doesn't make up for the fact that you'll slow roll, your swings are slow, LOL POISE allows you to get broken out of your slow swing by a naked guy using his fists, and you have NO range. Dark Souls pvp is almost like a shopping list or choose your destination book. "Right, magic buffed weapon, check, fast roller, check, katana, check. Time to break out the magic rings, lots of physical resistance, and let's see if we can smash him ups some." *turtles dark buffed katana* SHIELD BREAKER!!!! Rolls shield breaker and is punished for rolling by getting stun locked, proceeds to page 278 to death.

And that's the reason I hate shield bash, and poise. I like medium armor, great swords, and great shields, even if I have upgraded my vitality alot to still have decent roll speed, I'm at a massive disadvantage to anyone using light armor and weapons

Don't even get me started on magic. Fat rolling magic is basically a no-no. It seems like the heavier gear you have, the shorter your windows of invincibility are when you roll. So fat rollers basically have none. And, since I've become so god damn fed up with this magic bullshit, I slapped on all Havel's gear and anvil hammer together and fat roll. Basically, I just take my chances whenever they shield bash, either by smashing them with my own shield for lols or using my hammer. It's better than sitting there and getting bashed into a stagger animation that is literally 12 seconds long.