Invasion Cooldown Timer

Description

Dark Souls includes an invasion cooldown timer. It is triggered automatically to prevent rapid, subsequent invasions against a particular player.

Invasion Timers

There are two specific cooldown timers that prevent a host from getting invaded.

• Red Phantom Timer (when invading with Cracked Red Eye Orbs or the Red Eye Orb)
• Darkmoon Phantom Timer (when invading with the Blue Eye Orb)

Both are set to 15 minutes by default, and are triggered for a host when the hostile phantom leaves their world. It does not matter how a phantom leaves, as the timer is triggered regardless of who wins or loses during PvP. It also triggers if the phantom uses the Black Separation Crystal to leave, or simply disconnects.

The two timers act independently of each other, meaning a Darkmoon can invade while the Red Phantom timer is active, or vice versa.

There are no cooldown timers for most other forms of PvP, meaning a Forest Hunter can still invade a host who has either of the above timers active.

Clearing the Timer

The following items can be used to reset the timers back down to 0, allowing immediate, back-to-back invasions:

• Dried Finger
• Eye of Death
• Red Eye Orb / Cracked Red Eye Orb
• Red Sign Soapstone

The Dried Finger and Eye of Death both have a permanent effect until the player dies or reloads the area. They do not need to be used repeatedly, as they will keep the timers cleared after subsequent invasions. The Red Sign Soapstone and invasion items will clear only currently active timers.

Gravelord Timer

There is a third timer for preventing subsequent Gravelord infections. A player who has the "disasters are gone" message display will also have a 15 minute timer set¹, blocking both Gravelord Black Phantoms from showing up, and the Gravelord Summon Sign from appearing as well. The items listed above will clear this timer as well.

Cooldown Extension

It is possible for the cooldown timers to become longer than 15 minutes if the invaded player experiences subsequent invasions soon after the initial cooldown period ends. The length of the cooldown depends on a value known as the player's "Limit Level", which increases if a subsequent invasion occurs within a secondary, "follow up" time frame. The follow up timer begins as soon as the corresponding cooldown timer ends.

After Invasion Ends	Limit Level	Resulting Cooldown Length	Follow Up Timer
1st	1	15m	10m
2nd	2	15m	10m
3rd	3	20m	8m
4th	4	20m	8m
5th	5	20m	8m
6th	6	25m	5m
7th	7	25m	5m
8th	8	25m	5m
9th	9	30m	3m
10th	10	30m	3m

• Note that the Limit Level will not increase if the timer is cleared using any of the items listed above, it must be waited out to complete naturally
• Clearing the timer or waiting out the secondary time frame (without experiencing another invasion) will also break the Limit Level and reset everything back to 0
• Limit Level 10 is the max, though it is no different than Limit Level 9

Footnotes

1. It is possible to have the "disasters are gone" message display without triggering the timer. This only occurs when offline/ disconnected Gravelording is induced (when the infected player isn't connected to the Gravelord Servant who caused the infection any more).