Notes from author
Solaire uses a unique quality-scaling straight sword, and the Darksword is an "evil version" of that. It's equivalent in base damage and scaling, but is obviously more evil-looking and has an interesting R2 mixup. Solaire is notable for his armor and greathelm; the only other greathelm is the black iron helm, so I built around making this heavy, imposing, yet somewhat familiar fashion souls. (It also has decent poise and great defenses.) Solaire uses a unique and very sturdy round metal shield, the only other round medium shield in the game is the Iron round shield, which conveniently has great-shield deflection properties and amazing stability. Finally, Solaire is a faith-quality, but this is supposed to be Dark Solaire, so I made him an int-quality build. (Crystal magic weapon synergizes very well with straight-swords, augmenting their damage by leaps and bounds while their good range and very fast swing speed uses the flat buff amount to great effect.