She said they left, not that they didn't exist.
Anyway, making my Chaos Warrior finally got me into katanas, though I'm still not such a dick as to use That Big Stupid Katana.
Here's what I came up with. SL45 Ninja build for killing Forest Hunters. I might put it on the wiki, so far it's done pretty well, (four wins, two losses, one loss was against an sl45 with Crystal Magic Washing Pole so that shit barely counts). Super easy to use and super easy to make, I did it in a few hours. Since I'm not vit gouging I didn't need Giant Blacksmith or any of the other hard areas.
1. Get to Andre, by Havel or the regular way
2. Save up 20,000 souls
3. Get DWGR
4. Get Uchigatana (either by atoning and rejoining Forest Hunters, or by killing Undead Merchant Male, you don't really need anything he's selling)
5. Get it to +5
6. Go get the Large Ember
7. Go to Blighttown, farm large shards, then suck it up and get the shadow armor.
8. +10 Uchigatana
9. Kill Quelaag and the Gargoyles if you haven't already
10. Go ahead and kill the Daughter of Chaos for her soul, you don't need her
11. Do Sen's Fortress to get Balder Shield and Gold Serpent Ring, kill the Golem if you want (you can probably kill Darkling Lady for her soul too, but you're getting into overkill Estus-wise at that point)
12. Kill Ingward and get the Very Large Ember, farm Darkwraiths for chunks.
13. Kill the Stray Demon for his slab (super easy with katana's bleed)
14. +15 Uchigatana
15. Finish leveling if you haven't already, buy your ninja tools with whatever's left and get PvPing. Farm Depths rats for humanity when you run out.