Poise is crucial to abuse; its functionality in Dark Souls is pretty stupid as poise break values are so low compared to the poise one gets from their armour.

If you seek to win at all costs over winning with your own creation then ChainMom/HavelMom/GiantMom + token Green Blossom is your go-to. What this does is not so much empower you at all, but remove the opponent has off the bat.

Backstabs are the meta. You can go numerous encounters at 125 where the enemy will fish and NOTHING ELSE. This limits your play to range-poking or counter-fishing. The more the meta takes hold of your PvP encounter the more one-dimentional your experience will be so you HAVE to love Dark Souls enough to get past how samey PvP can become at the higher tiers. Still not discouraged? Perfect. Become the flipping chaos blade chainmom you always wanted to be.