"The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction."
-William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

It has already been quite some time since I wrote this guide and I am still amazed by its success. Almost 3000 unique readers and it was even posted to Reddit (with my permission) although I have yet to read what they made of it. I have no idea what the standard is for Steam guides but the thought that but a single person sat down and read all that which is essentially a niche within the niche that is Dark Souls 2, humbles me greatly. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
Originally it was meant to be more humorous and whimsical in nature with made up anecdotes but I later resettled for a more matter-of-fact style with pretentious epigraphs instead. Some fragments of that are still in there but I rewrote most of it. You can make a drinking game out of the many times I wrote the words thrusting sword but it is hard to find a synonym that is not also misleading.
The pathos out of the way, the third and presumably final piece of DLC is out and we have a new thrusting sword, at last! I tested it thoroughly and, without spoiling too much, it's a rather interesting weapon with a confounding special effect. I also tested most of the other gear from the DLC but most of it seemed rather irrelevant to our interests.
You can find the evaluation of the new thrusting sword in the Armory II section. I also made some other small corrections here and there, nothing major.

Regards,
Anthile

"Alas, sir, I cannot fence."
-William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II

This guide was written for the purpose of introducing players to the most noble art of fencing in Dark Souls 2. When the game came out thrusting swords were but another unremarkable category of weapons. While not outright bad, they lacked a certain something. Now, quite a few patches later, thrusting swords have become fearsome weapons in the hands of skillful duelists. They are quick and nimble, and require a certain finesse.
The guide is primarily meant for somewhat experienced players. While newcomers may find useful information, the terminology and explanations could prove somewhat overwhelming.
Most of the information in this guide is based on my own experiences and experiments. I have made many notes while playing with thrusting swords and while I checked everything multiple times, there is bound to be some errors. Dark Souls 2 is not an exact science and plenty of its mechanics are simply hidden from the player. There is a lot of hearsay and rumour which is often accepted as fact - usually because there simply is no adequate explanation. Additionally this guide does not claim infallibility. If you think my opinions are complete rubbish and something entirely different works better for you, so be it. In fact, I encourage you to experiment for yourself and play in a way you are comfortable with.
In any case, I hope I can convince you to become a fencer yourself and pick up a rapier or two. There's many suckers out there with a need of some new holes in their bellies.



Another note: I will not use many screenshots in this guide mainly due to the draconic character limit per section

Current guide version 1.1, October 2014

"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
-A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire

With very few exceptions, thrusting swords rarely do anything but thrust attacks. They are essentially one trick ponies that are easily exploited. By yourself, if you know what you are doing or by your enemies, if you are sloppy.

Attack Rating
They have naturally a low attack rating (AR) and due to the fact that strength (STR) scaling is superior to dexterity (DEX) scaling, even the ones with high scaling letters don't look particularly impressive on paper. So what makes them so good? It is the combination of very high counter ratings and the introduction of Flynn's Ring in the first DLC, Crown of the Sunken King. This ring adds a flat physical AR that scales negatively with your maximum equipment burden, up to 50 at an maximum equipment burden of 60. The easiest way to get there is to set your vitality (VIT) to 10 and equip the Third Dragon Ring which will result in you receiving 49 AR. Getting the full 50 AR is possible but requires a bizarre and impractical setup of various equipment burden raising items and armor pieces. Then there is the Ring of Blades which adds another 20/35/50 (respectively) physical AR on top of that. This setup greatly benefits all fast weapons with low AR, not only thrusting swords.

Counter Rating
A counter hit occurs when when an opponent is hit during an attack animation. Thrusting swords generally have very high counter ratings. This combined with their quick attack speed is what makes them so strong. The game displays the counter rating as a number from 100 to 150 which is actually the percentage of damage you will do. So a weapon with a rating of 150 will do 150% damage on a counter. Research also suggests that counter hits do increased poise damage although I was not able to make a conclusion.
Counters are not critical hits which will be covered below.

Critical Hits
A critical hit occurs when you attack an opponent in a particularly helpless position. There are three distinct critical hit setups. The backstab is arguably the most common one. Maneuver yourself behind your enemy and attack. The riposte is available after a parry. The last one is the riposte after a shield break. At first it appears the last two are identical but they do produce different damage numbers. It is currently assumed that every weapon has distinct multipliers for each type of critical hit but for some strange reason From decided to hide these from the player. Thrusting swords deal the most damage from parry-ripostes but are generally unremarkable critical hit weapons. The Mail Breaker is the big exception and delivers some of the highest damage numbers, outperforming most daggers.

Parry-riposte


Shield break-riposte


Backstab


Same weapon, same enemy, three critical hits and three different numbers.

"It is easy to kill someone with a slash of a sword. It is hard to be impossible for others to cut down."
-Yagyū Munenori

Movement
Movement is an absolutely crucial part of fencing. Since you will get most of our damage output from counter attacks, blocking with a shield is out of the question most of the time. Learn how to roll properly so you have the optimal window to counter. For AI opponents you will want to diagonally roll into their shield hand. Never roll away from attacks - it almost always backfires. This is very counter-intuitive compared to how virtually every other game handles rolling and it's going to take a while for it to sink in. Even better than dodging attacks is to completely move out of the way. Often you can simply sidestep blows - remember that you can run in combat.
Additionally, learn to not rely rely on lock-on too much. Thrusting swords have poor tracking.

Parry
Parrying is quite difficult in Dark Souls 2 and while it's usually very lethal when followed by a riposte, it often is simply more trouble than it's worth. However, since three of the thrusting swords come with a parry when held in the right hand it makes sense to learn how to do it at least some of the time. It's challenging but also very rewarding. You wouldn't believe who and what can be parried in this game.
There really isn't a secret to it, just a lot of training. Essentially you hit the parry button and when the animation plays you first have some wind up frames, then the active parry frames followed by some recovery frames. Every weapon has a different amount of frames for each phase.

Source: Reddit, data by user VagabondWolf and graph by user TheHolyChicken86.
Note: This graph is already outdated and the Monastery Scimitar functions like a regular curved sword now.

As you can see, there are better parrying tools but thrusting swords are still alright.

Powerstance
Dark Souls 2 introduced a new mechanic called powerstance. When you hold an appropriate weapon in your left hand and have 1.5 times the stat requirements, hold down the weapon-swap button (Y on a Xbox controller) and you will enter the powerstance. When in powerstance the move set of your left weapon is changed to a special move set that involves striking with both weapons at once.
Thrusting swords are very light and have very moderate stat requirements which makes them ideal for using the powerstance. When using any of the three thrusting swords with the rapier move set you can even powerstance and parry at the same time!
Not all weapons can be used in powerstance. Thrusting swords are only compatible with other thrusting swords, twinblades, lances, katanas, spears, straight swords, curved swords and daggers. Most of these weapons greatly benefit from high DEX so you have quite the variety to choose from. Additionally powerstance mvoe sets involve a certain hierarchy of weapon categories which I think is mostly based on general size and weight. For example, powerstancing a thrusting sword and a spear will give you the spear move set while powerstancing a thrusting sword and a dagger will give you the thrusting sword move set. Spears and lances have the highest priority while daggers have the lowest. This is generally a good thing considering the thrusting sword move set is not all that exciting.

Thrusting Sword+Spear -> Spear move set
Thrusting Sword+Lance -> Lance move set
Thrusting Sword+Twinblade -> Twinblade move set
Thrusting Sword+Katana -> Katana move set
Thrusting Sword+Straight Sword -> Straight Sword move set
Thrusting Sword+Curved Sword -> Curved Sword move set
Thrusting Sword+Thrusting Sword -> Thrusting Sword move set
Thrusting Sword+Dagger -> Thrusting Sword move set

The thrusting sword, spear and lance move sets are almost identical, you simply thrust with both weapons at once. The other move sets are mostly combinations of quick slashes. Twinblades have a particularly poor powerstance moveset which involves an awkward and slow chopping motion with both weapons. Technically you can even get the axe powerstance move set with the Red Rust Sword but that's almost as bad as the the twinblade one.
Keep in mind that you can still perform jumping, running and rolling attacks with your left weapon even in powerstance. This is something many people are not aware of and can enhance your attack variety even further.

"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
-Luke 22:36

This section is dedicated to comparing the different thrusting swords in the game. Some weapons improve their scaling letters when upgraded which is factored in. DEX and STR have been set to 40, the soft cap. For the Chaos Rapier I set INT to 20 and FTH to 40 which results in a fire bonus of 60, also the soft cap.
As I've mention fairly often by now, almost all thrusting sword attacks are thrusts. Be it rolling, running, light or strong attack, unless I say otherwise you can assume all it does is thrust.


Rapier
The Rapier is the most average of the thrusting swords. Despite its unassuming appearance it is a formidable weapon, capable of killing everything and everyone in Drangleic. On paper it really doesn't look like much but the aforementioned combination of speed and high counter damage make it so deadly. Instead of a strong attack it allows you to parry.

Use the Rapier when... you start out. It is the journeyman fencer's best friend and remains a faithful companion to the end.


Espada Ropera
The Espada Ropera is essentially the premium variant of the common Rapier. It has the same move set but higher base damage, better DEX scaling and longer reach. On the other hand, it also consumes somewhat more stamina and weighs a bit more. Did I mention it looks really classy? Truly a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

Use the Espada Ropera when... you want a better Rapier. Simple as that.


Chaos Rapier
The elusive Chaos Rapier is one of the rarest weapons in the game. It is another thrusting sword with the Rapier move set. However, this weapon comes with an inherent fire effect which means its damage is split in physical and fire. Theoretically it has the highest AR of any thrusting sword at the soft cap but the split damage means that you will generally end up doing less damage than purely physical swords. Additionally fire is arguably the elemental type that is resisted most often. Ultimately the effectiveness of the Chaos Rapier highly depends on your foe but it's difficult to find a niche for it.
Note: This weapon behaves anomalously when infused. Infusing it with poison or bleed will raise the fire scaling to S, which is superior to a fire infusion. This is likely a bug.

Use the Chaos Rapier when... you want to wield a unique weapon and have the patience to farm for it.


Ricard's Rapier
An old favourite from the first Dark Souls returns. Ricard's Rapier has poor base damage and not even the S scaling in DEX can help it from being inferior to the common Rapier not to mention the Espada. Its strength lies in its famous R2 attack which unleashes a flurry of thrusts, ideal to apply poison or bleed and to use resins or buffs with. In my opinion it pairs best if you also want to invest in sorcery for easy access to buffs. Otherwise it just doesn't hit hard enough.

Use Ricard's Rapier when... you like to use buffs and resins or you are an aspiring sorcerer.


Estoc
Another favourite from Lordran returns. The Estoc is the only thrusting sword with higher STR than DEX scaling which makes it a bit unusual. The move set is unique as well. The strong attack is a 90* slash making it the only thrusting sword that can reasonably hit groups of enemies well. On top of that it boasts the best reach (tied with the Spider's Silk) and its strong attacks pierce shields. So what's the catch? Well, it only has a counter rating of 120 instead of 140 like most of the other thrusting swords. You can't have it all.

Use the Estoc when... you like STR better than DEX and want to use it in combination with other STR weapons.


Mail Breaker
The Mail Breaker looks like a joke weapon on paper. Lowest base damage of all the thrusting swords as well as the shortest reach. Sure, it pierces shields but that's not as useful as it would seem. It's another weapon with a twist: the Mail Breaker delivers incredibly lethal critical hits and is only outdone in this category by certain daggers with a mundane infusion. Its use as dueling weapon is dubious.

Use the Mail Breaker... when you backstab or riposte somebody, otherwise don't bother.


Black Scorpion Stinger
The Stinger is yet another odd weapon. It has an innate poison effect but no scaling whatsoever so there is really no reason to not infuse it with a raw stone. Doing so will raise its base damage considerably and upgraded all the way to +5 it will outperform all the other thrusting swords when it comes to raw AR, safe for the Chaos Rapier. This means you can unleash its full potential with only 18 DEX and 10 STR. What's the catch with this one I hear you saying. Well, the Stinger lacks an improved counter rating (100) which means counter attacks, which are an integral part of the fencer's arsenal, don't do additional damage. Almost every other thrusting swords will outperform it eventually. The Stinger is in a very odd place because of this, even with the poison effect.

Use the Black Scorpion Stinger when... you want to keep your DEX low and prefer to invest in other stats but still wish to fence - and you like poison.


Spider's Silk
I still don't know if I missed something with this weapon. It has low base damage and despite an S scaling in DEX only the Mail Breaker and Ricard's Rapier have a lower AR. Unlike those two weapons it has no gimmick to make up for it besides piercing shields. Oh, and it's the only other thrusting sword without improved counter rating. It has a long reach, that's it. I don't understand what From were thinking but this weapon is virtually useless. Keep in mind that this is a boss soul weapon and needs precious dragon bones to upgrade.

Use the Spider's Silk when... From decides to buff it. Otherwise give it a pass.

Note: Some people argued that the Spider's Silk special ability actually completely ignores shields which seems to be true. Its damage is still fairly low but I can't argue that it makes for a great backup weapon.

Ice Rapier
The new Ice Rapier is a large, barbed thrusting sword seemingly made from, well, ice. In length it rivals the Estoc and Spider's Silk and damage-wise it is marginally better than the default Rapier (same scaling letters). It also has some bleed build up but not all that much. So what's the catch this time? Instead of a strong attack it shoots a blue icicle that deals magic damage, not unlike other weapons with projectiles such as the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Ultra Greatsword. This consumes 10 durability (5 with Bracing Knuckle Ring +2) per shot and even though this weapon comes with an usually high durability of 50 it's not exactly something you can spam.
The main reason writing about this weapon is the tricky damage calculation for the projectile. The Ice Rapier's thrusts deal only physical damage and it has no magic component at all yet the projectile does seem to deal magic damage - maybe. Upgrading the weapon does not influence the damage of the projectile and neither do infusions - except for a Magic infusion. The Sorcery Clutch Ring does not boost the damage of an uninfused sword but it works on a Magic Ice Rapier. The projectiles also cause more damage on counters and these counters are boosted by the Leo Ring even though it claims to only affect physical damage. Then there is the Red Tearstone Ring, also saying it only boosts physical damage but that at least was debunked some time ago. Only Sorcery buffs will actually raise the projectile damage.
All of these stack, too! I excessively tested on the lone Ice Soldier near the third bonfire of the DLC. A one-handed non-counter projectile with an uninfused, unboosted weapon did a mere 89 damage while a two-handed counter hit with Leo Ring, Sorcery Clutch Ring, Red Tear Stone Ring and Crystal Magic Weapon went up to 284. It's still not a whole lot of damage in any case and arguably only useful as a finisher in PvP.
However, just like with other projectile weapons the trick is to hit enemies with it at point blank for massive damage. When you shoot a projectile you still perform a regular attack in the same animation. I was invaded while I did the screenshot for this weapon and with the regular thrusting sword setup consisting of Flynn's Ring, Ring of Blades and Leo Ring I did a massive 948 damage on a counter - other weapons don't even have critical hits this high.

Use the Ice Rapier when... you want to trade the Rapier's parry for limited ranged capabilities and the potential to do extremely powerful special attacks.

Overview
*DEX adds a bonus for both poison and bleed. The exact bonus depends on the upgrade level and infusion of the weapon in question.

The total AR is derived from soft sap scaling (see above), fully upgraded weapons, Ring of Blades (+50) and Flynn's Ring (+49).

Conclusion
As you can see, the scaling breaks about even for 40/40 quality builds although the weapons which only scale in DEX don't require any STR which makes them more attractive for hybrid builds. The Espada Ropera is the non plus ultra when it comes to pure physical damage. The Black Scorpion Stinger is surprisingly competitive when infused with raw but lacks a good counter rating while the Chaos Rapier has the highest potential AR but is held back by its split damage.

Endurance
Reader ChosenSewen has contributed a table of stamina consumption for the various thrusting swords. According to his notes he used 99 Endurance as well as the Third Dragon Ring.

Black Scorpion Stinger: 13 R1s, 9 R2s one-handed, 10 R1s 7 R2s two-handed.
Rapier and Chaos Rapier: 12 R1s one-handed, 10 R1s 7 R2s two-handed.
Ricard Rapier: still 12 R1s, but they take slightly more, 4 full combos R2 one-handed, 9 R1s 3.5 combos with R2 two-handed.
Espada Ropera: 11 R1s one-handed, 9 R1s 6 R2's two-handed.
Spider's Silk: 10 R1s 8 R2s one-handed, 8 R's 6 R2s two-handed.
Estoc: 10 R1s, 7 R2s one-handed, 8 R1s 6 R2s two-handed.

Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.

Off-hand Weapons
I will not describe all the possible weapons you can use in your left hand here as that would require a guide of its own but I will give a brief overview for each category. Using two different weapons that are not powerstanced is mostly useful for PvP where a larger variety of attacks will make you harder to figure out.

Straight Swords
Straight swords are very similar to thrusting swords in nature but lean more towards true quality scaling, have a lower emphasis on counter attacks and mostly just slash. They also tend to track better. The Fume Sword, the Ashen Warrior sword, the fabled Sun Sword as well as its inferior cousin, the Shortsword, feature thrusting attacks that can be exploited through the Old Leo Ring. If you are okay with just slashes then the Varangian Sword or the Drakekeeper's Sword will do just fine. The Puzzling Stone Sword can be an interesting choice due to its whip-like strong attack that catches people off-guard all the time but the damage is fairly low.

Katanas
This category of swords includes some of the most powerful weapons in the game. Katanas hit hard, have excellent scaling in DEX. They possess high counter ratings (up to 150) and most have a powerful thrust on the heavy attack as well as a running lunge. An easy way to exploit this is to start with a running attack from your katana, follow up with a light attack from your thrusting sword and finish with a heavy thrust - if you have enough stamina you can even throw in a second heavy attack.
The only downsides they have are the relatively high weight and they are somewhat fragile - which is not much of a downside at all, really. The lightest katana is the Darkdrift (3) but even though it can pierce shields its counter rating is the lowest of its kind at 130. The Uchigatana is a step up with a weight of 5 and a formidable counter rating of 150 - the Manslayer is identical to the Uchigatana except it's one unit heavier and has an innate poison effect. The infamous Chaos Blade is even more powerful but every hit will hurt you as well. The other katanas sacrifice weight for reach or don't have an easily available thrust attack so they are of no interest to us.

Curved Swords
Using curved swords and thrusting swords in accord is a surprisingly fluid fighting style. Both weapon types are very fast, light and primarily scale with DEX. When one handed, the R1 and L1 attacks combo very nicely and the powerstance attacks give you some much needed area-of-effect potential. Curved swords also parry in the left hand and they're a bit better at it than thrusting swords. If only their counter ratings weren't so low.
The Falchion hits relatively hard and has an innate bleed effect which make it the bread and butter curved sword. The Red Rust Scimitar pairs nicely with the Estoc as it is the only one of its kind with superior STR scaling. Arguably the best curved sword is the Warped Sword. It boasts the second-highest base damage (after the Red Rust Scimitar), the highest counter rating and on top of that it features a unique strong powerstance move, a whirlwind attack which is as devastating as it is stamina-consuming.

Daggers
Daggers are a curious choice to use in the off-hand. Although historically accurate, they don't really do anything another proper sword couldn't accomplish as well. They don't even thrust particularly often and you can't perform critical hits with off-hand weapons. Nevertheless, it's still viable and makes for an authentic duelist feel. Their high speed and low stamina consumption make them ideal for poison or bleed infusions.
The humble vanilla dagger has a counter rating of 150, a thrust on the heavy attack and an A scaling in DEX which makes it a boring but practical default choice. Mytha's Bent Blade also has a counter rating of 150, causes poison and toxic but has much lower damage and scaling. The aforementioned Parrying Dagger is, as the name implies, an excellent parry tool but it is one of the weakest weapons in the game otherwise. The Royal Dirk and Black Flamestone Dagger are strange weapons, more sword than dagger. They have substantially higher base damage and reach than the other daggers and the latter even has higher STR than DEX scaling. Unfortunately they also have the odd Heide Knight Sword move set without a readily available thrust - certainly an acquired taste.

Spears & Lances
Why you would use a bigger weapon in your off-hand, I do not know. Spears are very much like thrusting swords, slower but with longer reach. The Partizan is fairly lightweight (4.5), has an S scaling in DEX as well as a devastating sweep attack. Pate's Spear has tolerable weight still (6), hits somewhat harder and features powerful multi-hitting attacks from the lance move set. If you want a companion to Ricard's Rapier, the Channeler's Trident has a very similar flurry attack but is fairly weak otherwise and breaks fast.
Lances are not of much interest to us as they are heavily leaning towards STR builds. The Grand Lance has proper C/C scaling and hits very hard. Its running attacks can be useful to close in on an enemy but certain spears such as Pate's Spear have these moves as well. The problem is that the attacks are fairly slow and predictable which either makes them easy to parry and renders you vulnerable to backstabs.

Other weapons
The second DLC, Crown of the Old Iron King, gave us a very special weapon. A greatsword that is more powerful when held in the left hand, with a powerful whirling attack on the strong attack. Now, greatswords and thrusting swords don't go too well with different playstyles and the Majestic Greatsword has very high stat requirements but it's a lot of fun.
Two of the whips also make for decent secondary weapons: the Spotted Whip, which is the most potent poison weapon in the game and the Old Whip which deals enormous damage but breaks very easily. Whips cannot be parried which makes them useful once your opponent pulls out his buckler.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."
-Shunryu Suzuki

This chapter describes various shields, rings, armor pieces and more. Basically, everything you can wear and isn't some kind of sword.

Rings
As mentioned earlier, the combination of Ring of Blades, Flynn's Ring, Old Leo RIng and Third Dragon Ring is crucial to this build. The Third Dragon Ring is the one ring that can replaced without a substantial decrease in damage, presumably with the Chloranthy RIng. The Stone Ring is an option that increases poise damage which is mostly relevant for PVP. The two Tearstone rings can be useful if you like to live dangerously although with low armor only the Red one is going to do you any good. If you want to cast more buffs or wish to use Sacred Oath without substantial investment in ATN, the Southern Ritual Band can help you out.
There are, of course, many more rings but they are even more situational than the ones listed here.

Armor Sets
Flynn's Ring will limit our encumbrance limit to a mere 60 which will greatly limit our wardrobe. Pretty much all the premier caster sets (Saint, Black, Chaos, Hexer, Tattered Cloth, Black Witch) are pretty decent with some of the highest elemental resistances. The light armors offer some more physical defense (Wanderer, Black Leather, Leather, Rogue, Brigand, Manikin, Shadow, Lion Warrior) if you feel that is more important. For something more exclusive you can try to get the Lion set, Monastery set or the Moonlight Butterfly set. Maybe you even join the Dragon Remnants and duel for the Black Dragon set.
The third DLC added the Northwarder set. Each part of it increases the duration of buffs which make it arguably the functionally best set of light armor.
Ultimately the differences between the sets are negligible so wear what you think looks best.

Note: Some readers noticed the omission of Lucatiel's set because it does look like a classic swashbuckler. Well, that's true, it looks great but it's also oddly heavy. It's still usable if you wish and now the third DLC even gave us a mask-less version of the hat!

Special Armor Pieces
Besides entire armor sets there are also armor pieces with unique special effects, often unlisted. Basically every caster head piece raises your INT, FTH and sometimes both. I will only list the ones that are relevant to the fencer.

Black Witch's Hat: Grants you one additional attunement slot.
Saint's Hood: +1FTH, 10% more spell uses rounded down.
Crown of the Old Iron King: Regenerates spell uses every two minutes.
Hexer's Hood: +1FTH/INT, 10 % more spell uses rounded down.
Engraved Gauntlets: Have a low (5%?) chance to deal additional damage on hit. It's not spectacular and they are fairly heavy but it's better than nothing.
Shadow Gauntlets: Increase bleed damage of weapons. A must have if you want to go with that.
Sanctum Knight Leggings: Not exactly fashionable but they reduce fall damage by a great amount and muffle your foot steps which makes for easier backstabs in PvE and better stalking in PvP.[/i]
Additionally every piece of the Lion Warrior set reduces fall damage and the Moonlight Butterfly set produces a permanent poison aura. Be careful with that as it will also affect friendly NPCs.

Shields
Remember when I said I shields were useless for us? Well, that's not entirely true. Some attacks are easier to block than to dodge, especially when you go up against multiple opponents at once or you face archers.

Buckler and Target Shield: These two are the best parrying shields if not the best parrying tools at the moment. However, they are pretty bad at doing anything but that. It's enough to stop the occasional arrow but nothing more.
Watcher's Shield and Llewellyn Shield: They parry not quite as good as the dedicated parry shields but they will actually protect you in battle. Both have over 90% physical reduction as well excellent elemental reductions and it needs a proper boss to do anything but chip damage.
Royal Kite Shield and Large Leather Shield (also known as "pancake"): The blue collar shields. Ugly, light, easily available and reliable. Great as arrow umbrellas and against the occasional axe. You can still parry with them but it requires a bit more effort.
Blossom Kite Shield, Slumbering Dragon Shield and Shield of the Insolent: They are all pretty terrible as shields but they will give you a small boost to stamina regeneration when worn. The way this works means you can wield your thrusting sword in two hands while the shield is on your back you will still get the bonus. It's not particularly practical but it's an option.

Note: Reader Vun says the Manikin Shield has the same parrying animation as the dedicated parrying shields but with better resistances. I honestly cannot tell the difference but it seems to be an option. At least it looks better.

Bows
Bows are light, primarily scale with DEX and deal thrusting damage which means they compliment any fencer nicely. There are plenty of bows in the game but the humble Shortbow outperforms them all until you find the Hunter's Blackbow which is the best bow in the game. I wish I could say more but it's not exactly a competitive category of weapons.

High in front advanced,
The brandished sword of God before them blazed,
Fierce as a comet
-Paradise Lost, Book XII

To the fencer magic is nothing but supplementary. Buffs are a crucial part of our strategy but for proper attack spells we won't have enough ring slots and too many points would have to be moved from the physical abilities. Creating a proper hybrid is certainly possible but not what this guide aims for. I will merely describe infusions as well as the benefits of each class of magic to the fencer.

Infusions
Infusions are best used for weapons that have a high base as well as poor scaling - which is not true for any thrusting sword except the Black Scorpion Stinger. This because of how armor and resistances work in Dark Souls 2. Physical armor subtracts a total amount of damage while elemental resistances subtract a certain percentage. If you were to infuse a thrusting sword with their relatively low base damage then the physical scaling would suffer while elemental damage goes up. This often leads to the curious situation where your total AR goes up but the actual damage you do goes down - depending on your enemy. Generally it is much easier to protect yourself against elemental damage than physical damage which is why I recommend to not infuse your thrusting swords.
Mundane infusions work differently. Infusing a weapon in such a manner cuts its base damage in half and replaces whatever scaling it has with a new scaling depending on your current lowest stat. If all your stats are at 30 except for STR which is somehow at 6 then it would give you scaling for STR. This means you want your stats very evenly distributed. This may very sound odd so far but the scaling is phenomenal and is purely physical. It softcaps when all your stats are at 30 at which point you get a flat 200 physical AR although that would require a soul level of well over 200. Obviously this works best for weapons that already have a low base damage to begin with. Additionally, it will also prevent you from using Flynn's Ring since you can't keep your VIT low.
Example: The Estoc has a base damage of 210 when upgraded to +10. When infused with a mundane stone the base damage goes down to 105. With all stats at 30 we would gain 200 damage, add the Ring of Blades +2 and we are at 355AR. Without the mundane infusion, 40/40 in STR and DEX as well as the two rings we have a theoretical 210+98+100=408AR - quite a bit higher at a lower stat investment. Not even the Mail Breaker receives a higher AR from being turned mundane.

Pyromancy
Pyromancy mainly specializes in powerful short range and AoE spells, both of which are very useful to a fencer. The obvious benefit of pyromancy is that you don't need to put points in FTH or INT and still can do some damage - although you would still benefit from doing so. Flame Weapon, the pyromancy weapon buff, can be available fairly early on and Warmth is the only proper healing spell that is not a miracle. Additionally you will have access to spells that can cause poison and toxic if you're into that. Forbidden Sun also happens to be the best nuke in the game, often use to end duels and runners alike.

Sorcery
This school of magic provides the most weapon buffs and the weaker ones are available very early. The attack spells are not particularly interesting as they take quite a while to cast and are more geared towards mid range although Soul Greatsword can be of use. Sorcery also has plenty of other handy utility spells in the form of Repair, Chameleon, Cast Light or Yearn. The best choice if you want a lot of weapon buffs.

Miracles
Attack miracles have been nerfed into the ground and besides the myriad healing spells miracles don't have all too much to offer. Sunlight Blade is a very powerful weapon buffs thanks to the rarely resisted lightning damage but you can't cast it very often. Magic Barrier and Great Magic Barrier raise your elemental resistances significantly and are fantastic against casters. Sacred Oath is probably the highlight: a self-buff that raises your physical AR and your physical defense - it even works on nearby friendly phantoms.

Hexes
Hexes are contain a mix of powerful offensive magic (often at the cost of souls) and spells that hinder your enemy. It's a bit like a best-of of the other magic schools. Numbness will give you a nice damage reduction for a brief amount of time at the cost of visibility (it makes sense when you use it). Promised Walk of Peace will add encumbrance to you and everyone nearby which will put most people into walking mode and cause them to fat roll, very handy if you can manage it. Profound Still will completely disable spells for all hostile casters nearby but not for yourself - not even bosses are safe from it. Dark Weapon is yet another weapon buff, also available quite early.

On Weapon Buffs
From toyed around with weapon buffs some patches ago and it seems people still have not figured out what exactly changed. I do not use them very often so it's difficult for me to verify claims. All the top buffs (Crystal Magic Weapon, Sunlight Blade, Dark Weapon) add 50 elemental AR and a damage bonus of 30% to that respective element. Magic Weapon and Great Magic Weapon are somewhat weaker, Resonant Weapon has been nerfed into obsolescence and Flame Weapon is also weaker with a fixed duration of about 90 seconds. The duration of each buff scales from their respective stat otherwise (INT for Dark Weapon).

"The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner. Now, I am the master."
-Darth Vader, Star Wars

If you read this then I hope this needlessly elaborate guide has helped you in some capacity be it that you set out to become a fencer yourself or you figured out that you'd rather do something else with your life. In any case, thank you for reading and somehow making it through my garbled prose.
Writing this guide took several weeks. Usually I did not write more than one or two hours a day if at all. A lot of time also went into testing things in-game and writing down numbers.

Special thanks goes to:
Rockpapershotgun.com forums
The Dark Souls 2 subreddit r/darksouls2
Fextralife and wikidot.com Darksouls 2 wikis, although I wish they were more accurate
All the invaders who ended up as involuntary test subjects, you complete me
ChosenSewen, Vun, Nykout, Lost Warrior, TheIronSky and many others for additional input and corrections
You, for reading

Questions? Criticism? Corrections? Perhaps even praise? Feel free to contact me.

Where to find...

Rapier: Purchased from Lenigrast
Espada Ropera: Talk to Chancellor Wellager after you have defeated the Giant Lord
Chaos Rapier: Aldia's Keep, drops from the lone tailed monstrosity in the cage in the upper part, low droprate
Ricard's Rapier: Huntsman's Copse, enter the cave near the Bridge Approach bonfire and you will end up in a cave with poison moths
Estoc: Purchased from Lenigrast
Mail Breaker: Forest of the Fallen Giants, in a chest above the lone Ironclad Soldier where several Hollow Soldiers throw bombs at you
Black Scorpion Stinger: Mimic in Doors of Pharos
Spider's Silk: Defeat Duke's Dear Freja and trade her soul with Ornifex
Ice Rapier (DLC3): Drops from the Ice Soldiers that wield it in the third DLC, hard to miss


Fume Sword: Defeat the Fume Knight and trade his soul with Ornifex
Ashen Warrior Sword: Dropped by the sword-wielding Ashen Warriors
Sun Sword: Join the Heirs of the Sun, earn 20 medals and present them at the altar
Shortsword: Forest of the Fallen Giants, in the area with the Heide Knight behind the archer on the ledge
Varangian Sword: Dropped by sword-wielding Varangians in No-Man's Wharf
Drakekeeper's Sword: Dropped by the Drakekeepers that wield sword and shield
Puzzling Stone Sword: Dragon's Sanctum, in a chest beyond the room with the wall spikes

Darkdrift: Undead Crypt, talk to Agdayne after defeating Velstadt
Uchigatana: Purchased from McDuff
Manslayer: Shrine of Amana, defeat the Demon of Song and enter the temple after it - must be hollow to open the door
Chaos Blade: Defeat the Lost Sinner after using a bonfire ascetic or in NG+ and trade the Old Witch Soul with Ornifex

Falchion: Purchased from Lenigrast
Red Rust Scimitar: Purchased from Vengarl after taking care of his body
Warped Sword: Trade Flexile Sentry soul with Straid

Dagger: Sorcerer and Explorer classes start with it, Things Betwixt in the first fog door
Mytha's Bent Blade: Trade Mytha's soul with Straid
Parrying Dagger: Lost Bastille, in a chest behind the door opened with the antiquated key
Royal Dirk: Talk to Chancellor Wellager after you have defeated the Giant Lord
Black Flamestone Dagger: Starter weapon the the collector's edition, purchased from Chancellor Wellager after you have defeated the Looking Glass knight

Partizan: Purchased from Ornifex
Pate's Spear: Summon Pate for the Last Giant fight and talk to him at Earthen Peak, otherwise you can just kill him either during the Creighton quest line (or anywhere else but then you have to buy it)
Channeler's Trident: Trade Smooth & Silky Stones or Petrified Something with Dyna & Tillo in Things Betwixt, very random
Grand Lance: Memory of Orro, goes up the stairs until you see the soldiers fighting giants, hit the crane and jump onto the wooden platform and into the hole.

Majestic Greatsword (DLC2): In a chest at the bottom of the side tower where Maldron inavdes you, before the Foyer bonfire
Old Whip: Trade Smooth & Silky Stones or Petrified Something with Dyna & Tillo in Things Betwixt, very random
Spotted Whip: Trade Demon of Song soul with Straid

Old Leo Ring: Defeat the Old Dragonslayer
Flynn's Ring (DLC1): Dragon Sanctum, in a chest above the room with the many bugs
Ring of Blades (+1/2): Defeat the Pursuer in Forest of Fallen Giants; defeat Pursuer in Iron Keep; defeat Twin Pursuers in the Drangleic Castle throne room on NG+
First/Second/Third Dragon Ring: Covenant of Champions reward; talk to Tark with a Ring of Whispers; treasure in Dragon Shrine
Chloranthy Ring (+1/2): Treasure behind the Pharros door in Forest of Fallen Giants; in a chest on a ledge in the misty part of Shaded Woods; reward for defeating the Executioner on NG+
Stone Ring: Kill the very first, lone hippo demon in Things Betwixt