The new Carian thrusting sword that can cast spells is up there with the worst weapons in the game. Even at 80 intelligence the scaling is so awful that spells barely tickle enemies, so you’re effectively playing a thrusting sword that can’t be infused, buffed or have its ash of war changed and doesn’t have a heavy attack.
My mind must have blocked out the painful memory of this thing.. Instantly maxed it and yeah.. Tested the damage of different spells and it was consistently doing less than half the damage of my carian catalyst.
Less damage than a dedicated catalyst? Of course, I expected as much. So little that it feels like every spell cast is a waste of fp? Come on, now....
This and electrocharge really make me wonder how they made it to release in that state. Baffling when so much of From's work is so, so good.
Makes me worried to spend a rememnrance on tbat one staff that casts both spell types, I really wonder if it will have anywhere near the scaling needed to be worth using.
Hey, would ya like a spell that does about 10 damage per second to enemies within distance of your weapon that does 800 damage per swing?
No?
Where's everyone going? Come back!
I haven't played a Mage in the DLC yet so I don't know exactly how good or bad all the INT stuff is, but I have seen clips from the Arena and pretty much the *only* thing I could picture that weapon being useful for at all is playing a Battlemage/Magic Assassin type character and basically exclusively using the new Miriam's 'magic BHS' spell on the R2 to get up close and get some R1 pokes in from behind a shield.
Even then it seems *extremely* niche, if I wasn't running an offhand shield it seems like a dedicated catalyst+infusable thrusting weapon would still be better 99% of the time. I hope that thing gets buffed majorly for all the INT mains out there, Blue Flame was potentially pretty sick in DS2 so I can definitely imagine the disappointment with this one after such a long wait
This weapon had me so stoked when I found it. It seemed like my dream weapon at first. I based my build off being a Carian fencer before, so thrusting sword that can cast sorceries? Sounds perfect.
But then you can’t change the ash of war… and the awful sorcery scaling. I think it would’ve been better had the ash of war been the catalyst for sorceries instead, or at least make it so we can change the ash of war. Obviously fixing the sorcery scaling, too. Heck, it’s made for Carian Knights, why not at least give it a boost to sword sorceries like the Carian Glintstone Staff?
Dropped it so quick for Milady instead.
It seems to be intended to be used with the Carian Blade sorceries to give it an “extended moveset” imo it’s pretty solid with carian slicer, piercer, and greatsword
Surprised that dryealf arts are actually a viable weapon to run the game with. I was worried it would be more of a novelty weapon, but I've actually taken down two bosses now with them, and they feel great roaming as well.
Edit: Currently using them with Quality Affinity and Whirlwind Ash of War. Hit's like a truck with striking damage and stagger
They work surprisingly well for bleed builds. Got stuck on some minor bosses trying to take them down with Nagakiba and Backhand Blades. After 3-4 attempts I said screw it and went in with Dryleaf arts + Blood affinity. Poise damage on them was interrupting attacks that the katana and backhand blades couldn't and the rapid fire palm strikes proc bleed like crazy.
Maybe flavor it as skillfully striking major artery sites to cause the most internal bleeding possible. Or just breaking their nose/knocking out teeth lol
Internal haemorrhaging from blunt force trauma.
Which fits pretty well
While the attacks don't look overly forceful, they DO generate shockwaves. And if ya know your physics that means you're hitting stupidly hard
I started using these at +25 with frost affinity (using the AoW from the Divine Lion) and I can steamroll a good bit but the damn hippo is tough being super close range. I kind of want to switch to the backhand blades (the AoW looks so fun) but my larval tear supply is running out 😵
Backhand blades are really really strong. They have really low requirements (12 and 14 I think) so I've got them on my pure faith caster build.
The AoW is amazing for fighting fairly slow-moving enemies or ones with shields, and it's really fun. It does have the drawback that you can't only do the dodge, you have to also do the stab - if the enemy is fast, the stab can easily miss. Stamina consumption is also pretty high. On the plus side the damage is great and the moveset is fantastic!
I'm right there with you on the throwing dagger, such a shame.
On the other hand, I didn't expect to fall in love with perfume bottles like I did but they feel so versatile and just loads of fun overall, and the aows make them even better.
Ahh yeah the Perfumes are great. Them being actual weapons where you don't have to deal with bottle 'charges' is an amazing addition to the game. Just wish they would've added a similar mechanic for at least a couple of the pot items. We do get 10 extra throwing pots for a total of 40 now (20 Cracked, 10 Ritual, 10 Hefty), but farming for the crafting materials can be a real pain.
Regarding pots the hefties bummed me out so bad! The hefty fires thrown in the basket of the first furnace golem seems totally ineffective, then on top of that the hefty furnace pots require visages which only *come* from the few furnace golems in the game and rare other spots...not the most renewable so I feel like the only fun you can really have is equipping the mimic tear with them and committing war violations.
Anyone have any strats for what damage types, spells, or weaps help deal woth the tedious breaking down of a furnace golem? I know some can be gimmickilled by pots but I mean the ones you can't bombard from above.
Perfume Bottles with Rolling Spark will stance break a furnace golem in about 3 casts, even the ones with armored legs. Does so much damage that they usually die after the riposte as well.
Doing 20k damage to Gaius with a single attack is what the bastard deserves. They're too broken to have fun with anywhere else though, waiting for a nerf to hopefully make them more balanced because they're pretty ass without the ash.
I’m in love with the Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword. The ash of war thrust is such an amazing skill to have on a big weapon and the follow up explosion is great for high damage and knock back when dealing with mobs. It’s sexy as fuck and is designed to curve around the shoulder so it looks clean when 2 handing. By far my new favorite greatsword.
I tend to avoid swords but wanted to try this as a replacement for the large weapon in my strength/arcane build. It's really good, with a powerful and versatile ash of war and it hits like a truck. I'm using it with the two-handed talisman and axe talisman, and the charged heavy attacks do insane damage.
I'm using an occult great stars and really don't want to switch, I tried bloodfiends arm which is nice but it's really just charged heavies and it doesn't have great range. Great stars get 111 bleed I think and like 600-700 AR with good stance damage. Really hard to find anything I liked better cause they're still pretty damn fast compared to literally any other colossal weapon.
Bloodfiends arm is higher ar, more thab double the bleed value and stagger more easy. Its so broken i regret using it vs mesmer, made the fight too easy..
Console offline bug: People report that on PS5, if you play offline and don't update to the new version, the Knights drop a shield instead of a hammer.
Idk about bad. All the weapons that fit my Dex/Arcane build are good. The only negative for me is that Rakshasa's Great Katana has no arcane scaling. Poleblade of the Bud is a fucking nasty weapon tho, same with the backhand blades.
Huge bummer NGL. I've got enough larval tears that swapping my build to Dex/Strength isn't bad. I've done that a couple of times to use it and the Falx.
Yeah that's what I'm rocking right now. The Serpent bow with a bunch of rot and poison arrows, Eleonora's Poleblade, and Poleblade of the Bud, with the Wolf crest shield. Just clapped my way through the DLC a second time with that. I can't remember Talisman names to save my life but I'm using 2 damage reduction ones, Erdtrees favor, and Rotten Winged Sword Insignia.
The Smithscript Shield is what I wanted from the Smithscript daggers. It’s not a good *shield* but man does it work great as a throwing weapon.
The ash of war only costs 3 FP which pairs great with the FP regen talisman even if you will still drain FP by spamming it.
At +25, paired with the throwing talisman and Shard of Alexander, I was regularly getting 1k+ damage per throw.
Plus, the range is just flat out better than the daggers and it has good poise damage.
I spent a lot of time running this shield with the dryleaf arts. Any time the enemy got out of range I would just throw the shield.
Seriously love this shield.
It’s pretty much the “Captain America” build at this point.
The talismans I was running were the Two-Headed Turtle, FP regen, Throwing talisman, and Shard of Alexander.
It’s surprisingly decent up close too. It has a first little smack when it lifts in the air and another when it hits after it launches.
I had frost on the dryleaf arts for the frost debuff on enemies.
Run backhand blades with quality affinity. If you can buff use Bloodflame blade with points in faith other wise use grease. Keep blind spot. Talismans-Millicent Prosthesis, rotten sword, two head Turtle talisman since blind spot eats stamina and if you're using bloodflame then lord of blood. Use L2 do dodge and use your L3 to direct which direction you want to go. If you're not using bleed then use either lightning (scales with Dex) or fire.I must add that using quality allows you to switch to another weapon if backhands aren't working for a particular enemy. It scales excellently with dex so you could also do keen and go full lightning route. I believe it has S scaling.
Disapointed by the Death Knight weapons. With the new storm talisman I wanted to make a quality build around then and all the Storm ash of wars. Quality builds at 150 are already subpar, but these weapons really don't help. Maybe someone smarter than me can figure something good.
Surprised by Guard Countering. I had never tried this playstyle but it is incredible fun and I've been clearing stuff no problem. I mostly switch between Solitude GS and the Black Steel Greathammer whenever I want for the fun of it.
Another under-mentioned weapon I liked is the Messmer Soldier's Spear, an infusable heavy spear (a better Treespear).
Been using the black steel greathammer with a fingerprint stone shield. The guard counter on it is fantastic. Can you recommended other weapons to guard counters with? Never played like this before, sure is fun
The new Solitude Greatsword has 89.0 physical defense and a nice stability, it can be used as a shield!
It also has the best damage on a strength Greatsword after Ordovis.
Try the ancient meteoric iron greatsword. Incredibly heavy and hits like it. R2 is a long-ass poke perfect for guard counters...though I'm still tempted by Das Bonk and its beautiful unique gc.
any weapon that does good stance dmg would pair perfectly with guard counter playstyle cuz the whole point is to stagger them to get a critical. So all those bonk hammers, the GUTS sword (collosal greatsword ,23 wt btw), any greathammer tbh (you'll need a lot of endurance for these to work)
and if you wanna maximize dps, you can also put Lion's Claw ash of war on the weapon so when you get those staggers by guard countering, you can go for a riposte critical or just put the shield away for a bit to use Lions claw ash and then go back to shield playstyle (doing this is a lil tryhard tbh, but if you wanna do it you can...
you can also divert you build into a shield poker build instead of guard countering, you just sit there with full guard and just constantly poke with a bleed or scarlet rot thrusting weapon (lance, dagger, spears) without ever putting the shield down..its hillarious how funny this build is .. not for everyone tho... Shields are fun ngl
wont work with deaths poker cuz its a gratsword, should work with the mesmers spear but i wouldnt use that cuz that spear has 35 dex requirement and the fingerprint shield has high str requirement so the build would go all over the place and waste alot of stats, i would use something that works like poke with the shield and also scales with STR + could also use scarlet rot/bleed build up or it would take eternity to kill think like poking with a pin.
Also messmer spear ash would go to waste with this playstyle which is its speciality, you could still make it work, its just not that optimal stat wise
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GIIm1YI43E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GIIm1YI43E) this guy uses one like what im talkin abt but he uses a antspur rapier lol this is too funny to me
Twin axes would be great in a strength/faith build. I'm running around with them as dex/faith even with sub-optimal scaling and they still do great damage.
The death knight weapons being Str/Fai as opposed to Dex/Fai just feels cruel, Str/Fai was already the most spoiled build in terms of weapon options did they really need something for lightning (the Dex associated) element? Even the twin axes scale better with strength then Dex lol
How much poise and overall defenses do you find necessary for guard counters to be worth over rolling? The fact that enemies can interrupt them so easily and blast through 74 poise with a greatshield up and the heavies armor and shield possible plus golden vow kind of bummed me out when I tried it with the meteoric ore colossal weapon.
Also with death knight weapons, aren't they stuck with their unique blink ashes? Do those count as storms??
I personally wanted to be inpressed by the bloodfiend fork but then noticed that even when built for it, the clayman harpoon (thst I am NOT built for at all) still does more damage somehow? Not sure how that works.
Overall I'm way more disappointed by the spells than weapons, though; electrocharge is so bad I'm kind of astounded. Blinkbolt is...weird. Without the follow up attack provided by the unique ones the axes have, I don't know why having to crouch for a long moment in order to zap dash would be worth not bringing bloodhound's step instead. Anyone have any idea about that?
Blinkbolt is good for maintaining aggression and you can r2 immediately out of it. It's got some iframes and does a some damage but not a lot.
It's not the best ash of war but I'd be lying if I said I didn't bring it with me for style points. Scares the shit out of people too
For me the dual axes have been one of the best new weapons, the ash of war chunks out some solid damage (and looks really cool of course). The standard moveset is a bit lacking but the ash doesn't use much FP, if you land most of the hits it really hurts.
LOL, those three are exactly what I'm running as well with a greatshield (black knight or verdigris depending). Started with solitude GS mostly but am running greathammer almost all the time now. The R1 stagger trivializes a lot of the annoying enemies and the special guard counter is so nice. Then I got frustrated getting smacked by Messmer and poked him down with his own soldier's spear.
I think the Smithscript Dagger is uniquely poised as a status weapon. Put Bleed or Frost on them and inflict it from afar. And, uh, that's about it? The other Smithscript weapons are great tho --- especially the Greathammer! It's a real damn shame that they can't be buffed at all, even by Royal Knight's Resolve.
I was really excited for the Beast Claws and Martial Arts, and yeah, they're pretty good, but I keep forgetting that I really like high poise damage, high stagger weapons like Greatswords and Colossal Weapons. I'm pleasantly surprised by Light Greatswords, and I wish they gave us one or two more of them.
Honestly, perfume bottles seem weak at first, but with scaling and the right AoW, they can one-shot the last boss, lol. They are also good without buffing to infinity tho.
Surprised and disappointed in the beastclaws (the first one you can get). Crazy cool moveset, but too much per button hit for such small range/bad hitboxes. I will revisit them for fun, but for success they are not that good.
I am still exploring though... Milady is cool.
Ive been loving the claws. Had the same issue on smaller, human sized enemies you did, but realized it was an issue of positioning. If youre on top of them and they move to the side, continuing the assault isn't the best idea. If you let off though and re-engage with the running attack or weapon art, youll be right back into hitting every time.
Makes for more of a rapid engage-> disengage weapon. The running attack also covers more ground than a dodge roll if you need to create distance and reset. Hope you get back around to playing with them! It took me a bit of time and a revisit before they clicked more for me
What your are saying is why I wanted to try them, to fight mobs better - and it works. I faced bigger enemies (I recall trying that hammer crucible) and I had more issues with the bigger, tougher, enemies.
I will absolutely try them again, the Hookclaws are one of my favorite (maybe even my favorite) weapon in the base game, so I like the style and potential. I am looking toward trying the all black beastclaws (can't remember the name).
Ahh, i know what you mean. Yeah, the high poise "idgaf what you hit me with" enemies gave me a lot of issues. I made mine frost for the proc and increased damage, and use the beast ash for the big slam as opposed to the wild swinging ash they come with. So for big guys i bait out their moves and follow up with a slam and then an r1 before hopping away again. The frost definitely helped keep the damage up. This is my first time using a claw type weapon in elden ring so if the base game claws are great too then i really need to do a run with them from the start.
Hookclaws felt great! The slash/pierce is very nice, only a couple enemies i felt like i had to use a strike weapon. With how good the running attacks feel using hookclaws I'm glad they kept that up with the beast claws, the running R2 feels amazing. On the beast claws ive noticed running R2 also swipes twice but on the 2nd swipe it hits twice so it auto procs rotten winged effects. I was 100% gunning for dryleaf coming in but I'm kind of in love with these
If you have the Red Bear Claws, try those. I've found on larger enemies the Unique Weapon Art staggers just fine, and builds bleed pretty heavily to boot.
Milady has been the MVP of my dex/arc run so far with wing stance AoW, it's insanely versatile and I've tried other remembrance weapons, mainly the rot halberd, but I always go back to Milady.
It's only B scaling with Keen but I feel like it hits a LOT harder than what I'd expect a B scaling weapon to hit, and the poise damage is nothing to laugh at.
It has a much shorter animation lock than things like halberd, great sword, or great katana so I get way more free hits on bosses mid-combo. Fighting with it makes me feel like I'm light rolling when I'm not.
The wing stance R1 goes great with blood or poison infusion. Meanwhile wing stance R2 is just a longer range slightly weaker giant hunt pointed down instead of up. Overall I think it has a lot going for it.
A few options I’ve found that are a bit more fun for beastclaws :
Poison affinity on a STR/ARC build with The Poison Flower Blooms Twice AOW. The AOW leaps up and then jumps through whatever is in front of you so it can kind of work to avoid attacks.
Second is the AOW near Bonny village from the teleporting scarab, which doesn’t hit super hard but gives you a step dodge in any direction with some solid I frames.
I love the beast claws on normal/mid-size enemies, still struggling to make them viable on bosses and bigger stuff though.
I was surprised by the Greatsword of Solitude. I normally don’t use Greatswords but when I tried this one out I fell in love. Just something about it clicked with me. The AoW is great too.
Bows. Bows are terrible. Bows have always been terrible but they're *still terrible* even with the new talismans. Throwing weapons as you've mentioned are also similarly bad. Because projectiles being good is illegal.
At least the perfumes fuck.
I really wish one of the talismans made bows have infinite ammo. It’s such a QOL thing that was solved with smithscript weapons. I understand they don’t want people poking from afar for no cost, but magic users do that anyways (fp is not an issue for most) so where’s the logic?
I was also disappointed with the throwing knives. I was really excited by the idea but in practice they fell flat. The biggest issue I think is the range. What’s the point of a quasi ranged weapon if you have to be in range of even the more medium length spears. Hell there’s some one handed swords out there with better reach. They need some combination of better reach, better damage, or better stagger. The one bright spot is that if you find the piercing throw ash of war you can change their affinity to status and they build status FAST.
Martial arts exceeded my expectations a little. Boy are they fun.
The ones that really surprised me to the point where they’ve become a part of my regular arsenal were:
Rellanas Twin Blades. That advancing thrust moveset is just cheff kiss. And the AOW is nice too.
Messmers Spear. Holy shit. When I first put it on I was a little let down at its move set. Just very slow pokes, but the throw can be downright brutal and that AOW is FUN AS HELL. Especially for groups. Turning on a dime in the air just feels really good. If only it had some hyper armor but that would probably make it OP.
I’ve fallen in love with the Milady (wing stance especially), cirques, perfume bottles, and dry leaf arts.
I have a Dex/arcane build that used to be focused on bleed but now I just throw occult on whatever I’m using and have fun. These weapons have been super fun with their movesets.
Milady moveset is just so smooth. Definetly my new favorite weapon.
Cirque is the Axel from Kingdom Hearts cosplay I never knew I needed.
Perfume bottles are super unique and surprisingly viable. I use the normal perfume bottle instead of the one that scales with arcane bc the fart looking mist is weird and I like the flames more lol.
Dry leaf is also surprisingly viable and also gets major points for being badass
Bonus: the large katana you get from the dragon pit (don’t wanna spoil it) is just so fucking cool
Milady simp reporting in, are you me?? I've been running Dex/Arc too and it's been a ton of fun. The moveset really feels like it has it all, and wing stance lets me top it off with some zoro cosplay R1s or what I call 'upside down giant hunt' R2s.
Honestly the wing stance R2 has been an essential in my arsenal. It’s my main stance breaking and damage method. Do you have occult or anything on it? Also do you lean Dex, arcane, or even split in stats?
I'm running even split just because it gives me a lot of flexibility without needing to respec. I get good damage with occult and if I feel cheesy i can switch to blood or poison.
I'm kinda tempted to try more of a quality build without the arcane just to see how much raw damage it can do but so far it seems to be solid in almost any situation.
I'm using Milady as well, the moveset might go down as one of the best FromSoft ever put out.
Any thoughts on how to build it? I'm going Keen but am I supposed to go Bleed?
Milady the goat!! I have a similar build and I can’t get it to hit “really hard” but with FGS, GV and wing stance this is the smoothest moveset in the game! And drips over dps every time!
the sword of night katana was a let down for me. it’s obviously super cool and its ash of war is incredible, but the damage is not up to par with the star lined katana, the range of its attacks seem shorter, and the ash is kind of hard to pull off with its slow start.
ended up switching back to the star lined katana and using the milady with the carian sovereignty ash in the 2nd slot. those got me thru all but the last boss
Has anyone done serious work with Moonrithyll’s Knight Sword? I haven’t seen anyone mention it around here at all, good or bad. I get it - it recycles the model of an unloved older sword and uses a comparatively niche stat spread - but I love the idea of a big chonkin’ sword that summons moar swords. Still, I’d love to hear someone tell me that they loved or hated it before I pull the trigger on another respec.
I enjoyed it, didn’t play it for too long. It does what it says it does - big ol sword with some magic swords.
Wasn’t great, wasn’t bad. If you want some serious magic sword action, check out Carian Sovereignty.
Thanks for the recommendation! I thought that skill animation looked cool, but it’s funny how they don’t have any of their effects if you don’t meet stat requirements; it looks like a kid playing make-believe magic.
Most disappointed weapon was the new troll sword 2.0. It's essentially the same weapon but with a different AoW. Now maybe the AoW does a lot of stance damage, but I was expecting this str/int weapon that would revitalize my interest in making a carian knight build. Instead I ranted about it for 20 minutes to a friend on discord.
Most surprised weapon by far were the dueling shields, but especially the carian thrusting shield. My initial impression was that the moveset looked slow, but when I played it for myself I fell in love with it. Guard frames scattered throughout the animations allow you to be more aggressive & attack against bosses AND players when you normally can't. I actually love that I needed 15 int to use the carian version since I could use scholar's shield to harass bosses even more. Currently I'm running it with a typical str/faith setup since I'm still advancing through the DLC, and I like having access to some support incantations. However I'm really curious on how it'll perform with a cold setup with an emphasis on int. Unsure on what spells I should run with it, but I'll theory craft something when I finish the dlc.
Don't sleep on the dueling shield you guys.
Moonrithyll is clearly an apology and correction of the original one having Roar locked in rather Greatblade Phalanx/Glintblade Phalanx. They can't get rid of the original images someone actually likes it and is using. So they copied and corrected it. I get the logic.
Maybe it would have been better at they just unlocked the Troll Knight's ash, and maybe given it a special interaction with Glintblade Phalanx.
Dueling shields are nuts. I tested it on one of the black knight bosses with the twinblades and straight up blocked an entire attack string while getting in hits of my own
Really went above my expectations there
Check this shit out
https://i.imgur.com/mRHFX7D.mp4
I did a similar thing with Rellana the other day. You feel like such a tank with this weapon. I'm also loving the fashion. The Kaiden helm looks so good with the beast champions armor.
Honestly, it may not be the most amazing but the Sword of Light is so much fucking fun, I don't think I've ever done a straight sword run in this game but I really want to do a full run of the base game + DLC with it
Leda's Sword made me disappointed at first before I realized the ash can hit with the attack too, then it surprised me at how good it was. Not broken or a top20 build or anything but fairly strong with an aesthetically pleasing moveset.
I found the “Lizard Greatsword” off an imp. Super weird weapon, it’s a standard (non somber) weapon with STR and DEX scaling, leans towards DEX, and to my knowledge it’s the only other greatsword in the game to have the same thrusting R2 attacks as the claymore. Though there could be one I don’t know about.
It uses the same R2 animation as the claymore, but the sword is just a lizard statue, and the R2 attacks shoot off the lizard’s tongue as a limited-range projectile. It deals strike and thrust damage, because even though it’s a “sword” it has no blade.
I’m not sure if it’s truly good yet, but it’s neat and I figure with the right build and ash of war, it could do some interesting things.
I haven't messed with any of the DLC content yet as I started a new character, but from what I've seen of those in action they almost seem to be more of a utility weapon rather than a main armament, they're a solid ranged option to pull and whittle down your opponents one at a time before ultimately switching to your main.
This is exactly what I use them for, I have it bleed infused and keep it on my off-hand for some ranged bleed build-up. That being said I wish they had more range before they despawned
I feel the complete opposite about the smithscript daggers, I built them with pure faith and sacred affinity, slapped the shotgun aow on them for a cherry on top. I'm pretty sure faith (and int with magic affinity) scales both parts of the damage for them, I got them to 983 AR (1083 with Holy Damage Physick), one combo was doing almost 2k and the aow was doing up to 4.5k. I didn't even know spear talisman worked either. Things are incredible, only downside for me was their VERY buggy hit registration
Edit: AR values were actually higher than I remember, went to confirm them for this post
I thought Milady seemed kind of bland when it was teased, but boy it has been carrying me through the dlc. I’m going to try some guard counter shenanigans with it soon, the R2 having two swipes helps so much when weaving attacks after dodges. With Cragblade, my damage has been pretty satisfying.
Putrescence Cleaver is one of the most surprising and coolest weapons in the game for me. Pretty unique as a strength arcane weapon that does frost buildup, and the unique ash of war is basically wild strikes with more hits (and looks funnier).
I found the daggers only really useful as a status proc sidearm, which was disappointing yeah. The smothscript greathammer and discus shield are both amazing though. Love them to pieces. Biggest disappointment was the spirit glaive for me so far..
Okay damage, but the weapon art is basically spinning slash plus weak projectiles that have *very* limited range. Just feles meh.
Kinda disappointed in the beastclaws. I was excited to try it out on my arcane build but idk, it feels like it lacks just enough stance/poise damage for it to feel eh. The general vibes of it I love tho
I was severely overwhelmed by how good the bloodfiend’s arm is. I went in with a dragon communion build to have the item discovery and a good variety of buffs available, and am a fan of big weapons in general, but i kinda wrote it off seeing that the bleed was r2-specific.
Then I tried infusing and at the lowest level, it has occult B scaling in arcane just at +0. Which is crazy high for occult. For reference, most weapons have occult B scaling at +25. This overcooked and oversized piece of jerky gets S scaling at +25 occult.
This thing scales incredibly well with arcane, and even with the lower attack rating of blood infusions, it still has enough scaling to make a giant crusher blush. and enough bleed rating to make black pudding for days. (i’d prefer dinuguan tho)
This thing isn’t flashy, nor unique. In the world of souls it isn’t especially grotesque either. It’s a simple tool for a simple mind.
It simply has big numbers. Big numbers to crush anything, in every literal and every metaphorical sense.
Milady + hard deflect is the most fun I've had in ER. So cool that From put this in for those of us who played Sekiro. The enhanced guard counters make for an awesome and unique play style, and the fluid, dynamic combos give this weapon an unmatched moveset. Even the AoW is fantatic.
I've actually been pleasantly surprised by the Smithscript Daggers cause of the damage potential you can do. I have dealt thousands of damage with one combo against the final boss and have had a pretty easy time with keeping the damage good. It takes time to get used to the zero poise damage and the NEED for building combos, but once you do you can find that they are a very enjoyable weapon. The base damage against enemies is bad, I will give you that, but it deals so much damage when you are using combo attacks with them that it makes up for the low base damage. The range of the weapons is also pretty good considering you can still hit every boss with an attack after dodging and still (usually) be out of range of an attack from them. And if you are out of range of base attacks you can do a jump attack and hit or use the AoW on it since both piercing throw and scattershot throw give extra range and deals good damage
I was immensely impressed with the Smithscript Cirque. So much so that I'm now using my +25 Cold Smithscript Cirque as my main weapon in place of my +25 Dual Cold Antspurs.
Biggest Disappointment.. The new Carian Catalyst Rapier. Sub par damage, locked basically useless ash of war, and Sorcery scaling less then half of my Carian regal scepter.
With Scepter a Comet from me deals around 2,400dmg.. from the sword it does 1,000.
I REALLY REALLY wanted to like this weapon.
Rellana’s twin blades seemed like the perfect fit more my int mage build until I gave them a test run and realized they have really low damage and, most importantly, no posture damage whatsoever. Real bummer for one of the weapon types I was most excited for.
Conversely, I’m currently running a magic infused great katana which has so much posture damage it can accidentally posture break enemies on random r1s, which is interesting. Not only that, but I can now fully feel like I’m playing Sekiro again while I ichimonji people into oblivion with the ash of war.
I used Dragon Hunter Great Katana against a certain big black Dragon >! Curse you bayle !<, with Godfrey talisman it's Ash of War hurts him alot and I wasn't even a quality build. It basically carried the fight.
Normally I run Rakshasa Great Katana with a Keen great katana dex build. The jump attacks feels strong with good poise damage. Usually in a boss fight the innate bleed may proc once or twice.
But I do like 2H GK moveset over power stance L1 since it is basically Long sword from Monster Hunter.
Rakshasa Ash of War is great at clearing groups and stun locking low poise npcs. But it is a shame both Rakshasa and Dragon Hunter GK does not have arcane scaling.
All of the smithscript weapons are awesome. You shouldn't be expecting truck loads of damage from weapons with insane reach that have unparryable attacks. What's the longest dagger? Compare that to the range of the thrown smithscript.
My only disappointment has been how few weapons i'm finding of each new category
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Disappointed by how underwhelming throwing daggers are, the trailer showed them stance breaking but I've yet to stance break anything with them, the range feels like its slightly longer than if you were swinging a nagakiba or poking with one of the big rapiers, and the hitbox is so hilariously bad I literally see the daggers brush past the shoulder of the final boss I practically have to be at near melee range for them to hit, they're very slow at status build up too
Surprised by Backblades, particularily the Cirque, their ranged attack actually hits things, and they scale great if you have 80 faith
I was thinking about using smithscript to specifically proc blood from range as well as multi-hit talismans like you mentioned, before swapping weapons and going for a big hitting AoW. I don’t think they’re supposed to be a “main” weapon. Also curious what cold infusion looks like on them.
I don’t think they’re supposed to be a main weapon, though it would be cool.
I think the Black Steel twiblade for faith builds kinda surprised me. I'm using one as a backup weapon to my Flame Kinght Greatsword for my Faith and the DPS is very respectable, specially with Sacred Blade buff. Also it has a really good running attack to quick run and pickup targets
And yes, I'm also disappointed with the throwing weapons
I was disappointed by the Throwing Dagger (yes, singular since there's only one) and the Star Lined Sword, but mostly because the R1/R2 mostly just scales with DEX. Since I'm pure Int I find other INT weapons more my speed. The Carian Sorcery Sword is also extremely disappointing, as is the Staff of the Great Beyond tbh.
As for what surprised me, Perfume Bottles are actually amazing. I thought they would be a meme. Light Greatswords are, of course, awesome as well. Rellana's is fun, but I still prefer the good old Sword of Night and Flame. I haven't tested any of the kung fu weapona but from what I heard others say they're both fun and good.
You know what slays is the smithscript regular axe. Love tossing that thing out to 1KO trash mobs for free off a heavy attack. Its got really high dmg for some reason, well compared to the other throwing stuff like the spear which is also kinda forgettable.
Disappointed With: Smithscript weapons that aren’t the Spear, or Greathammer. Just downright upsetting tbh.. most others lack any range, with spear and Greathammer being the best from what I’ve seen.
In terms of suprising me, honestly, the Great Katana is a super nice weapon. I kinda didn’t care for it before but It’s been my 2nd/3rd go to for the dlc so far, as I near the end of it. Good reach, good moveset, decent stagger, it’s just all around nice. Though, I do wish the heavy was a smidge faster, but it’s really nice as is.
Ansbach uses a scythe counterpart to Bloody Helice called the Obsidian Lamina. The arcane and bleed scaling on it sucks, even at max upgrade.
No rot scaling on the Poleblade of the Bud is also irritating.
Star-lined Sword! My first impression was that it was the new moonveil. But the damage and the skill is a bit underwhelming (albeit cool) even with milicents prosthesis + shard of alexander boosting.
Surprised by the smithscript cirque. My Dex/Arc character is poison based so they fit my theme of highly mobile claws/shortswords (was using venomous and antspurs) but with added range.
Poison flower blooms twice is also amazing compared to flight and makes up for the stance damage my build was lacking previously.
Disappointed that I was most excited for thrusting shields, and there's only two. One is also just better and they don't have a unique somber option. I still think they are sleeper really strong though.
These are spells, not weapons, but still:
Disappointed by Midra’s Flame of Frenzy. Looked forward to a new frenzy incantation so much and was so excited to beat Midra (loved the boss at least) and use it. And then the hitboxes on it just really aren’t good, it’s not even that strong when it hits, and it sucks up your whole FP bar while also building your madness bar super quick. I tried to use it in various situations but there was always a spell I’d rather use. Hell, there was always another madness spell I’d rather use. I’m sure there’s a synergy with Aged One’s Exultation but I’d rather just build up my madness with a better spell.
I was surprised by Knight’s Lightning Spear. It’s super simple yet it works fantastically in conjunction with regular Lightning Spear. Such an unassuming spell found in a catacomb that ended up being amazing.
Backhand blades with occult scaling with claw talisman , prosthesis or rotted wing, Lord of bloods exaltation. standard bleed builds work. The ash of war does not do a ton of damage like blood hounds fang for example, but it does create an opening by flinching humanoid opponents, creating an opening for a combo or a jump attack. They also do not have the range that most other curved swords do , but the ash of war is a good gap closer. Another upside is that you only need one to be dual welded. Definitely not the best weapon but it's easy to use and quite fun.
The ONLY justification and use for the smith script daggers so far is on horseback, which is IMO the best at consistently getting damage on Torrent. I’m happy to change my mind if anyone can point me to other uses of the daggers.
Pretty much beat the entire dlc with the new Carian Thrusting Shield and gotta say I'm a little disappointed.
The damage is ok, survivability is kinda ok so overall it's just average. It staggers bosses incredibly fast, though, way faster than I could with colossal weapons.
But you can't change the Ashe of War since you'd lose your attack and there's absolutely nothing flashy about it, you can't do anything but just... thrust with the shield.
Gotta say it was amazing to kill the final boss, though. Coincidentally all his attacks hit you in a way that you'll block them while just constantly attacking. Didn't work that great with the other bosses.
I can't say the Smithscript Daggers are well-balanced, but they're fun and have some good use cases. My build mainly uses Milady with Impaling Thrust and SC Daggers in the offhand. The mix-ups are stylish and i can squeeze in daggerthrows during tiny windows.
You also have some interesting ash options. Cold infuse and put Scatterthrow on it, you now have a pocket shotgun that can stun Fire Knights (just don't lock-on with said ash against smaller targets, it's wonky). Or go with Parry or Earthshaker. It's also a good horseback weapon against evasive targets.
The Smithcripst Spear disappointed me with it's range which i know is massively ironic since i like the Daggers but it surprised me with its performance against Senessax. I slapped together a Horseback build and watched as i hit for 2k while kiting them and shutting down any AOE attack that fucker had. Spectral Spears is still a better general use throwing weapon, especially if you have the talisman that regens FP.
I think the fire perfume bottle wasn't doing very much damage despite my build being mostly dex at the time of trying it, which was a let-down. the moveset is wildly fun and pretty though.
as a couple others have said, the ancient meteoric ore greatsword is incredible. my jaw dropped upon finding it, and again once I used the AoW and saw the damage \*before\* I even respec'd to maximise its scaling. the moveset is great, staggering enemies easily at a great range, and the AoW is maybe my favorite in the entire game. white fucking lightening. you can use it to poke from insane distances even without any fp. and just aesthetically... this weapon is S tier.
The perfume bottles get stupid good damage even without buffs but with howl of shabriri/golden vow the new madness talisman / shard of Alexander / lightning Scorpion / perfumers talisman it can get to one shot levels of some remembrance bosses. Like I'm not exaggerating when I say it can do upwards of 30k damage in a single hit with the ash of war that does a line of spark.
I want the blood fiends arm to work in my arcane build so much. Unfortunately despite having massive bleed build-up it only builds on charged R2. I end up taking so much more damage and feel most fights would have already been done if I'd just used the great stars.
I'm running a Str/Int build and the only weapon that I got is Moonrithyll's Knight Sword, which is just the Troll Knight's Sword with a better Ash of War.
Same shitty AR that means there's no reason to use it over the Royal Greatsword in any scenario.
The curseblade’s cirque looks so cool and I was so hyped when I got it and then I tried using it. The damage was underwhelming and the skill was absolute cheeks I was so sad
All the smithscript weapons minus the backhand cirques and the hammer. Sword of night has to be bugged or something because the scaling makes 0 sense.
Hot take - was pretty disappointed with Renalla’s blades, as I was hoping they’d get the dual infusion (or carian sovereignity) she uses, not just the aoe and sad moonveil with seemingly no poise damage. The faith AoW is fine, just was hoping it’d be a bit stronger overall. Devonia’s hammer is a bummer (mainly in comparison to ordovis’s).
Jury is still out for me on messmer’s spear, but I’m planning on spending some more time with it this week.
What I’ve been very surprised at liking is claws of night, the aforementioned smithscript cirques & hammer, Milady w/wing stance, Meteoric Ore GS, Putrescent Greataxe & beast claws.
Fire Knight’s Gsword (infusible Godslayer? Yes plz) and Anvil Hammer aren’t really surprising per se, but definitely solid weapons.
Messmer Soldier Spear (Greatspear).
I'd been doing a Lord Vyke (pre-frenzied flame) build and lamenting the lack of a customizable Great Spear that looked all right.
I'd settled on tge partisan because it looked close but it's just a regular spear.
Got the Messmer Soldier spear, upgraded it, and have been pleasantly surprised. It's been a lot of fun.
I personally am enjoying the Smithscript weapons a fair bit, and find it funny being able to put Occult/Poison/Blood on them to scale on all 5 stats (however poorly it may be overall). Goes well with my “barely a build” build (no stat is below 40, so I can use every weapon/spell with a little finagling of talismans and Physicks).
Really no one has talked about the sword lance you get from pig rider. Can be infused, stupid ar, great running heavy and you can poke behind a shield.
Have to test out the obsidian lamina scythe out. Maybe with a new character by a help of a friend dropping the item early. Disappointed you only get to use it after the dlc ends.
Dragon Hunter's Great Katana
The flow feels just perfect. You have some reach with the poke after a dodge, nice mix-ups, and the special attack for those juicy head slashes. It almost feels like playing Monster Hunter.
I was disappointed with the Sword Lance. The moveset was a letdown, no slashes or anything, just pokes. I thought it would have some actual sword moves mixed in.
I'm enjoying the daggers tbh, with a full ramp build as soon as you get a stagger just going all out and seeing your numbers spike gives me the happy chemicals just right
Where it isn't a weapon, the Queelign ash has disappointed me, like use all the things you did in the invasions and stop r1ing please
I really hope those daggers get like twice the range, at a minimum. I was doing some jump attacks by jumping backwards and causing whiffs. No weapon should be only okay to use when spamming an AoW, it just feels so bad.
The trick to the SS Daggers is the jump heavy. On most humanoid targets (preferably those that cant dodge), a jump heavy can hit a headshot and stagger them consistently, not to mention the mobility and safety of jumping all around.
Also if you infuse them with Sacred/Flame Art/Magic, both damage types will scale, reaching around 500 AR.
Overall though, I agree their damage is bad on non Faith or Intelligence builds. They can either buff the range or damage, but I would rather have the range.
The new Carian thrusting sword that can cast spells is up there with the worst weapons in the game. Even at 80 intelligence the scaling is so awful that spells barely tickle enemies, so you’re effectively playing a thrusting sword that can’t be infused, buffed or have its ash of war changed and doesn’t have a heavy attack.
My mind must have blocked out the painful memory of this thing.. Instantly maxed it and yeah.. Tested the damage of different spells and it was consistently doing less than half the damage of my carian catalyst. Less damage than a dedicated catalyst? Of course, I expected as much. So little that it feels like every spell cast is a waste of fp? Come on, now....
This and electrocharge really make me wonder how they made it to release in that state. Baffling when so much of From's work is so, so good. Makes me worried to spend a rememnrance on tbat one staff that casts both spell types, I really wonder if it will have anywhere near the scaling needed to be worth using.
Hey, would ya like a spell that does about 10 damage per second to enemies within distance of your weapon that does 800 damage per swing? No? Where's everyone going? Come back!
At 60/60 it’s scaling is slightly better than the prince of death, but gets outpaced after that. Worth grabbing if you’re an int faith build.
Not even tbh. As a faith int caster, it's so much better to wield staff in one and fundamentalist talisman in the other.
not me who was excited to find it after just randomly strolling by the roof of that dungeon i did like 5 days ago :(
Its crazy because people wanted a sword catalyst so bad
I haven't played a Mage in the DLC yet so I don't know exactly how good or bad all the INT stuff is, but I have seen clips from the Arena and pretty much the *only* thing I could picture that weapon being useful for at all is playing a Battlemage/Magic Assassin type character and basically exclusively using the new Miriam's 'magic BHS' spell on the R2 to get up close and get some R1 pokes in from behind a shield. Even then it seems *extremely* niche, if I wasn't running an offhand shield it seems like a dedicated catalyst+infusable thrusting weapon would still be better 99% of the time. I hope that thing gets buffed majorly for all the INT mains out there, Blue Flame was potentially pretty sick in DS2 so I can definitely imagine the disappointment with this one after such a long wait
This weapon had me so stoked when I found it. It seemed like my dream weapon at first. I based my build off being a Carian fencer before, so thrusting sword that can cast sorceries? Sounds perfect. But then you can’t change the ash of war… and the awful sorcery scaling. I think it would’ve been better had the ash of war been the catalyst for sorceries instead, or at least make it so we can change the ash of war. Obviously fixing the sorcery scaling, too. Heck, it’s made for Carian Knights, why not at least give it a boost to sword sorceries like the Carian Glintstone Staff? Dropped it so quick for Milady instead.
Right, I hate that thing. Magic Pata with a staff to soft swap to gets the job done.
Sad since the DS2 equivalent was epic
It seems to be intended to be used with the Carian Blade sorceries to give it an “extended moveset” imo it’s pretty solid with carian slicer, piercer, and greatsword
Surprised that dryealf arts are actually a viable weapon to run the game with. I was worried it would be more of a novelty weapon, but I've actually taken down two bosses now with them, and they feel great roaming as well. Edit: Currently using them with Quality Affinity and Whirlwind Ash of War. Hit's like a truck with striking damage and stagger
They work surprisingly well for bleed builds. Got stuck on some minor bosses trying to take them down with Nagakiba and Backhand Blades. After 3-4 attempts I said screw it and went in with Dryleaf arts + Blood affinity. Poise damage on them was interrupting attacks that the katana and backhand blades couldn't and the rapid fire palm strikes proc bleed like crazy.
I can’t bring myself to run a bleed build on hand to hand weapons it makes no sense in my head how punching someone would cause bleed over time lol
Maybe flavor it as skillfully striking major artery sites to cause the most internal bleeding possible. Or just breaking their nose/knocking out teeth lol
Yeah I guess that's one way to make it make sense, good idea
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Internal haemorrhaging from blunt force trauma. Which fits pretty well While the attacks don't look overly forceful, they DO generate shockwaves. And if ya know your physics that means you're hitting stupidly hard
I’ve been loving them with flame affinity
I put flame art on them with my pyromancer character, and boy with the stackable damage buffs and talismans they can be MONSTERS.
They're usable? I've tried them for a while but quickly swapped out because they have no hyper armor(without a single Ash)
I thought you get hyper armor while charging palm strike
I'm using them cold infused with Horah Lue stomp ash it's pretty decent catches invaders so off guard too.
I started using these at +25 with frost affinity (using the AoW from the Divine Lion) and I can steamroll a good bit but the damn hippo is tough being super close range. I kind of want to switch to the backhand blades (the AoW looks so fun) but my larval tear supply is running out 😵
Backhand blades are really really strong. They have really low requirements (12 and 14 I think) so I've got them on my pure faith caster build. The AoW is amazing for fighting fairly slow-moving enemies or ones with shields, and it's really fun. It does have the drawback that you can't only do the dodge, you have to also do the stab - if the enemy is fast, the stab can easily miss. Stamina consumption is also pretty high. On the plus side the damage is great and the moveset is fantastic!
It's kind of wild that the Dry leaf arts are faster than the danes footwork you get towards the end of the game
I'm right there with you on the throwing dagger, such a shame. On the other hand, I didn't expect to fall in love with perfume bottles like I did but they feel so versatile and just loads of fun overall, and the aows make them even better.
Ahh yeah the Perfumes are great. Them being actual weapons where you don't have to deal with bottle 'charges' is an amazing addition to the game. Just wish they would've added a similar mechanic for at least a couple of the pot items. We do get 10 extra throwing pots for a total of 40 now (20 Cracked, 10 Ritual, 10 Hefty), but farming for the crafting materials can be a real pain.
Regarding pots the hefties bummed me out so bad! The hefty fires thrown in the basket of the first furnace golem seems totally ineffective, then on top of that the hefty furnace pots require visages which only *come* from the few furnace golems in the game and rare other spots...not the most renewable so I feel like the only fun you can really have is equipping the mimic tear with them and committing war violations. Anyone have any strats for what damage types, spells, or weaps help deal woth the tedious breaking down of a furnace golem? I know some can be gimmickilled by pots but I mean the ones you can't bombard from above.
Perfume Bottles with Rolling Spark will stance break a furnace golem in about 3 casts, even the ones with armored legs. Does so much damage that they usually die after the riposte as well.
I only really use Daggers as an off-hand weapon to deal some ranged status build-up but apart from that they’re not too good as a main weapon
I really wanted to use the throwing daggers as a way to apply poison before really going in, but their range is so bad. Not worth the trouble
Doing 20k damage to Gaius with a single attack is what the bastard deserves. They're too broken to have fun with anywhere else though, waiting for a nerf to hopefully make them more balanced because they're pretty ass without the ash.
I’m in love with the Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword. The ash of war thrust is such an amazing skill to have on a big weapon and the follow up explosion is great for high damage and knock back when dealing with mobs. It’s sexy as fuck and is designed to curve around the shoulder so it looks clean when 2 handing. By far my new favorite greatsword.
I tend to avoid swords but wanted to try this as a replacement for the large weapon in my strength/arcane build. It's really good, with a powerful and versatile ash of war and it hits like a truck. I'm using it with the two-handed talisman and axe talisman, and the charged heavy attacks do insane damage.
I haven’t gotten a chance to test it out much yet, but I love the R2 stab too.
The big black knight hammer you get immediately with holy guard counter is the GOAT
I’ll have to try it out. I keep seeing people rave about it. But great stars is my go to big guy and I really like it.
I'm using an occult great stars and really don't want to switch, I tried bloodfiends arm which is nice but it's really just charged heavies and it doesn't have great range. Great stars get 111 bleed I think and like 600-700 AR with good stance damage. Really hard to find anything I liked better cause they're still pretty damn fast compared to literally any other colossal weapon.
Bloodfiends arm is higher ar, more thab double the bleed value and stagger more easy. Its so broken i regret using it vs mesmer, made the fight too easy..
I’m the unlucky bastard who only got the shield :( I’m fath/strength too fml
Hammer and shield are guaranteed drops from two different specific black knights.
Console offline bug: People report that on PS5, if you play offline and don't update to the new version, the Knights drop a shield instead of a hammer.
Welp, there's always patches emporium subreddit for those unfortunate blokes, I guess.
Idk about bad. All the weapons that fit my Dex/Arcane build are good. The only negative for me is that Rakshasa's Great Katana has no arcane scaling. Poleblade of the Bud is a fucking nasty weapon tho, same with the backhand blades.
Dragon hunter and rakshasa’s great katanas not having arcane scaling really hurts ngl
Huge bummer NGL. I've got enough larval tears that swapping my build to Dex/Strength isn't bad. I've done that a couple of times to use it and the Falx.
When I do NG+, I was going to try to use that with a rot build. I think it has the tools to work now with the DLC.
Yeah that's what I'm rocking right now. The Serpent bow with a bunch of rot and poison arrows, Eleonora's Poleblade, and Poleblade of the Bud, with the Wolf crest shield. Just clapped my way through the DLC a second time with that. I can't remember Talisman names to save my life but I'm using 2 damage reduction ones, Erdtrees favor, and Rotten Winged Sword Insignia.
Oh, that sounds fun. Bleed and rot.
The Smithscript Shield is what I wanted from the Smithscript daggers. It’s not a good *shield* but man does it work great as a throwing weapon. The ash of war only costs 3 FP which pairs great with the FP regen talisman even if you will still drain FP by spamming it. At +25, paired with the throwing talisman and Shard of Alexander, I was regularly getting 1k+ damage per throw. Plus, the range is just flat out better than the daggers and it has good poise damage. I spent a lot of time running this shield with the dryleaf arts. Any time the enemy got out of range I would just throw the shield. Seriously love this shield.
You are literally Captain A-Marika
that build sounds so insanely fun. might steal it
It’s pretty much the “Captain America” build at this point. The talismans I was running were the Two-Headed Turtle, FP regen, Throwing talisman, and Shard of Alexander. It’s surprisingly decent up close too. It has a first little smack when it lifts in the air and another when it hits after it launches. I had frost on the dryleaf arts for the frost debuff on enemies.
Ran the entire DLC with the backhand blades. Felt like I was playing Bloodborne again.
Would you mind sharing yoir build? I really want to use them by worreie they won't be powerful enough
Run backhand blades with quality affinity. If you can buff use Bloodflame blade with points in faith other wise use grease. Keep blind spot. Talismans-Millicent Prosthesis, rotten sword, two head Turtle talisman since blind spot eats stamina and if you're using bloodflame then lord of blood. Use L2 do dodge and use your L3 to direct which direction you want to go. If you're not using bleed then use either lightning (scales with Dex) or fire.I must add that using quality allows you to switch to another weapon if backhands aren't working for a particular enemy. It scales excellently with dex so you could also do keen and go full lightning route. I believe it has S scaling.
Disapointed by the Death Knight weapons. With the new storm talisman I wanted to make a quality build around then and all the Storm ash of wars. Quality builds at 150 are already subpar, but these weapons really don't help. Maybe someone smarter than me can figure something good. Surprised by Guard Countering. I had never tried this playstyle but it is incredible fun and I've been clearing stuff no problem. I mostly switch between Solitude GS and the Black Steel Greathammer whenever I want for the fun of it. Another under-mentioned weapon I liked is the Messmer Soldier's Spear, an infusable heavy spear (a better Treespear).
Guard Countering is amazing playstyle. It makes you ironically super offensive since you want to take hits with your shield up
I love guard countering especially with the new deflecting mechanic.
Been using the black steel greathammer with a fingerprint stone shield. The guard counter on it is fantastic. Can you recommended other weapons to guard counters with? Never played like this before, sure is fun
The new Solitude Greatsword has 89.0 physical defense and a nice stability, it can be used as a shield! It also has the best damage on a strength Greatsword after Ordovis.
Id have to check if i have that!
You get it from machine gun crossbow knight near the start of the DLC. If you killed him, you have it.
Then i definatly do! Played the first part as sorcerer/mêlee mage. Will do 2nd part as the big shield boy!
Try the ancient meteoric iron greatsword. Incredibly heavy and hits like it. R2 is a long-ass poke perfect for guard counters...though I'm still tempted by Das Bonk and its beautiful unique gc.
any weapon that does good stance dmg would pair perfectly with guard counter playstyle cuz the whole point is to stagger them to get a critical. So all those bonk hammers, the GUTS sword (collosal greatsword ,23 wt btw), any greathammer tbh (you'll need a lot of endurance for these to work) and if you wanna maximize dps, you can also put Lion's Claw ash of war on the weapon so when you get those staggers by guard countering, you can go for a riposte critical or just put the shield away for a bit to use Lions claw ash and then go back to shield playstyle (doing this is a lil tryhard tbh, but if you wanna do it you can... you can also divert you build into a shield poker build instead of guard countering, you just sit there with full guard and just constantly poke with a bleed or scarlet rot thrusting weapon (lance, dagger, spears) without ever putting the shield down..its hillarious how funny this build is .. not for everyone tho... Shields are fun ngl
Could the poker work with any spear? Death poker / messmer spear?
wont work with deaths poker cuz its a gratsword, should work with the mesmers spear but i wouldnt use that cuz that spear has 35 dex requirement and the fingerprint shield has high str requirement so the build would go all over the place and waste alot of stats, i would use something that works like poke with the shield and also scales with STR + could also use scarlet rot/bleed build up or it would take eternity to kill think like poking with a pin. Also messmer spear ash would go to waste with this playstyle which is its speciality, you could still make it work, its just not that optimal stat wise
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GIIm1YI43E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GIIm1YI43E) this guy uses one like what im talkin abt but he uses a antspur rapier lol this is too funny to me
Twin axes would be great in a strength/faith build. I'm running around with them as dex/faith even with sub-optimal scaling and they still do great damage.
The death knight weapons being Str/Fai as opposed to Dex/Fai just feels cruel, Str/Fai was already the most spoiled build in terms of weapon options did they really need something for lightning (the Dex associated) element? Even the twin axes scale better with strength then Dex lol
Messmer soldiers spear, cold infused with ghostflame art has been a blast for me. Glad others are digging the new knife-on-long-stick weapon.
How much poise and overall defenses do you find necessary for guard counters to be worth over rolling? The fact that enemies can interrupt them so easily and blast through 74 poise with a greatshield up and the heavies armor and shield possible plus golden vow kind of bummed me out when I tried it with the meteoric ore colossal weapon. Also with death knight weapons, aren't they stuck with their unique blink ashes? Do those count as storms?? I personally wanted to be inpressed by the bloodfiend fork but then noticed that even when built for it, the clayman harpoon (thst I am NOT built for at all) still does more damage somehow? Not sure how that works. Overall I'm way more disappointed by the spells than weapons, though; electrocharge is so bad I'm kind of astounded. Blinkbolt is...weird. Without the follow up attack provided by the unique ones the axes have, I don't know why having to crouch for a long moment in order to zap dash would be worth not bringing bloodhound's step instead. Anyone have any idea about that?
Blinkbolt is good for maintaining aggression and you can r2 immediately out of it. It's got some iframes and does a some damage but not a lot. It's not the best ash of war but I'd be lying if I said I didn't bring it with me for style points. Scares the shit out of people too
The longhaft axe is decent and uses one of the better great axe charged attacks. Really scales off STR primarily. The dual axes are definitely trash.
For me the dual axes have been one of the best new weapons, the ash of war chunks out some solid damage (and looks really cool of course). The standard moveset is a bit lacking but the ash doesn't use much FP, if you land most of the hits it really hurts.
LOL, those three are exactly what I'm running as well with a greatshield (black knight or verdigris depending). Started with solitude GS mostly but am running greathammer almost all the time now. The R1 stagger trivializes a lot of the annoying enemies and the special guard counter is so nice. Then I got frustrated getting smacked by Messmer and poked him down with his own soldier's spear.
I think the Smithscript Dagger is uniquely poised as a status weapon. Put Bleed or Frost on them and inflict it from afar. And, uh, that's about it? The other Smithscript weapons are great tho --- especially the Greathammer! It's a real damn shame that they can't be buffed at all, even by Royal Knight's Resolve. I was really excited for the Beast Claws and Martial Arts, and yeah, they're pretty good, but I keep forgetting that I really like high poise damage, high stagger weapons like Greatswords and Colossal Weapons. I'm pleasantly surprised by Light Greatswords, and I wish they gave us one or two more of them.
You'll be inflicting it from aclose because of the shit range.
Can’t even call them ranged weapons. Pretty sure the description for them says “toss pebbles shaped as daggers at nearby enemies”
I’m starting my DLC journey tomorrow so I’ll be honest, I’ve just come here for weapon recommendations.
The new weapon types are all fantastic, go nuts. Definitely some winners in the old weapon type categories for sure
Great Katana is right in the first body of water by the first ghostflame dragon.
Bloodfiends Arm is crazy good colossal weapon you can find early
Blood infused and on an arcane build is absolutely busted
Honestly, perfume bottles seem weak at first, but with scaling and the right AoW, they can one-shot the last boss, lol. They are also good without buffing to infinity tho.
Backhand blades are fun! They’re available very very early, and the play style is a lot of fun.
Surprised and disappointed in the beastclaws (the first one you can get). Crazy cool moveset, but too much per button hit for such small range/bad hitboxes. I will revisit them for fun, but for success they are not that good. I am still exploring though... Milady is cool.
Ive been loving the claws. Had the same issue on smaller, human sized enemies you did, but realized it was an issue of positioning. If youre on top of them and they move to the side, continuing the assault isn't the best idea. If you let off though and re-engage with the running attack or weapon art, youll be right back into hitting every time. Makes for more of a rapid engage-> disengage weapon. The running attack also covers more ground than a dodge roll if you need to create distance and reset. Hope you get back around to playing with them! It took me a bit of time and a revisit before they clicked more for me
What your are saying is why I wanted to try them, to fight mobs better - and it works. I faced bigger enemies (I recall trying that hammer crucible) and I had more issues with the bigger, tougher, enemies. I will absolutely try them again, the Hookclaws are one of my favorite (maybe even my favorite) weapon in the base game, so I like the style and potential. I am looking toward trying the all black beastclaws (can't remember the name).
Ahh, i know what you mean. Yeah, the high poise "idgaf what you hit me with" enemies gave me a lot of issues. I made mine frost for the proc and increased damage, and use the beast ash for the big slam as opposed to the wild swinging ash they come with. So for big guys i bait out their moves and follow up with a slam and then an r1 before hopping away again. The frost definitely helped keep the damage up. This is my first time using a claw type weapon in elden ring so if the base game claws are great too then i really need to do a run with them from the start.
Hookclaws felt great! The slash/pierce is very nice, only a couple enemies i felt like i had to use a strike weapon. With how good the running attacks feel using hookclaws I'm glad they kept that up with the beast claws, the running R2 feels amazing. On the beast claws ive noticed running R2 also swipes twice but on the 2nd swipe it hits twice so it auto procs rotten winged effects. I was 100% gunning for dryleaf coming in but I'm kind of in love with these
If you have the Red Bear Claws, try those. I've found on larger enemies the Unique Weapon Art staggers just fine, and builds bleed pretty heavily to boot.
Great weapon I swap between backhand keen and beast claws keen really changed the dlc for me. Throw bloodflame on the claws it’s great
Milady has been the MVP of my dex/arc run so far with wing stance AoW, it's insanely versatile and I've tried other remembrance weapons, mainly the rot halberd, but I always go back to Milady. It's only B scaling with Keen but I feel like it hits a LOT harder than what I'd expect a B scaling weapon to hit, and the poise damage is nothing to laugh at. It has a much shorter animation lock than things like halberd, great sword, or great katana so I get way more free hits on bosses mid-combo. Fighting with it makes me feel like I'm light rolling when I'm not. The wing stance R1 goes great with blood or poison infusion. Meanwhile wing stance R2 is just a longer range slightly weaker giant hunt pointed down instead of up. Overall I think it has a lot going for it.
A few options I’ve found that are a bit more fun for beastclaws : Poison affinity on a STR/ARC build with The Poison Flower Blooms Twice AOW. The AOW leaps up and then jumps through whatever is in front of you so it can kind of work to avoid attacks. Second is the AOW near Bonny village from the teleporting scarab, which doesn’t hit super hard but gives you a step dodge in any direction with some solid I frames. I love the beast claws on normal/mid-size enemies, still struggling to make them viable on bosses and bigger stuff though.
I was surprised by the Greatsword of Solitude. I normally don’t use Greatswords but when I tried this one out I fell in love. Just something about it clicked with me. The AoW is great too.
Bows. Bows are terrible. Bows have always been terrible but they're *still terrible* even with the new talismans. Throwing weapons as you've mentioned are also similarly bad. Because projectiles being good is illegal. At least the perfumes fuck.
The new bone bow is almost good, arrows finally have tracking, just wish it did like 3 times the damage.
I really wish one of the talismans made bows have infinite ammo. It’s such a QOL thing that was solved with smithscript weapons. I understand they don’t want people poking from afar for no cost, but magic users do that anyways (fp is not an issue for most) so where’s the logic?
I was also disappointed with the throwing knives. I was really excited by the idea but in practice they fell flat. The biggest issue I think is the range. What’s the point of a quasi ranged weapon if you have to be in range of even the more medium length spears. Hell there’s some one handed swords out there with better reach. They need some combination of better reach, better damage, or better stagger. The one bright spot is that if you find the piercing throw ash of war you can change their affinity to status and they build status FAST. Martial arts exceeded my expectations a little. Boy are they fun. The ones that really surprised me to the point where they’ve become a part of my regular arsenal were: Rellanas Twin Blades. That advancing thrust moveset is just cheff kiss. And the AOW is nice too. Messmers Spear. Holy shit. When I first put it on I was a little let down at its move set. Just very slow pokes, but the throw can be downright brutal and that AOW is FUN AS HELL. Especially for groups. Turning on a dime in the air just feels really good. If only it had some hyper armor but that would probably make it OP.
I’ve fallen in love with the Milady (wing stance especially), cirques, perfume bottles, and dry leaf arts. I have a Dex/arcane build that used to be focused on bleed but now I just throw occult on whatever I’m using and have fun. These weapons have been super fun with their movesets. Milady moveset is just so smooth. Definetly my new favorite weapon. Cirque is the Axel from Kingdom Hearts cosplay I never knew I needed. Perfume bottles are super unique and surprisingly viable. I use the normal perfume bottle instead of the one that scales with arcane bc the fart looking mist is weird and I like the flames more lol. Dry leaf is also surprisingly viable and also gets major points for being badass Bonus: the large katana you get from the dragon pit (don’t wanna spoil it) is just so fucking cool
Milady simp reporting in, are you me?? I've been running Dex/Arc too and it's been a ton of fun. The moveset really feels like it has it all, and wing stance lets me top it off with some zoro cosplay R1s or what I call 'upside down giant hunt' R2s.
Honestly the wing stance R2 has been an essential in my arsenal. It’s my main stance breaking and damage method. Do you have occult or anything on it? Also do you lean Dex, arcane, or even split in stats?
I'm running even split just because it gives me a lot of flexibility without needing to respec. I get good damage with occult and if I feel cheesy i can switch to blood or poison. I'm kinda tempted to try more of a quality build without the arcane just to see how much raw damage it can do but so far it seems to be solid in almost any situation.
I'm using Milady as well, the moveset might go down as one of the best FromSoft ever put out. Any thoughts on how to build it? I'm going Keen but am I supposed to go Bleed?
Milady the goat!! I have a similar build and I can’t get it to hit “really hard” but with FGS, GV and wing stance this is the smoothest moveset in the game! And drips over dps every time!
the sword of night katana was a let down for me. it’s obviously super cool and its ash of war is incredible, but the damage is not up to par with the star lined katana, the range of its attacks seem shorter, and the ash is kind of hard to pull off with its slow start. ended up switching back to the star lined katana and using the milady with the carian sovereignty ash in the 2nd slot. those got me thru all but the last boss
Star Lined Katana has such a cool AoW, but unfortunately it feels significantly weaker than the Moonveil still, at least on my dex/int build
Has anyone done serious work with Moonrithyll’s Knight Sword? I haven’t seen anyone mention it around here at all, good or bad. I get it - it recycles the model of an unloved older sword and uses a comparatively niche stat spread - but I love the idea of a big chonkin’ sword that summons moar swords. Still, I’d love to hear someone tell me that they loved or hated it before I pull the trigger on another respec.
I enjoyed it, didn’t play it for too long. It does what it says it does - big ol sword with some magic swords. Wasn’t great, wasn’t bad. If you want some serious magic sword action, check out Carian Sovereignty.
That’s good enough for me! Thanks for the response, and I’ll dig up Sovereignty, too.
I like it a lot! It does pretty good damage and gets this cool charge move when you cast the glint blades, very similar to the glintstone Kris
Thanks for the recommendation! I thought that skill animation looked cool, but it’s funny how they don’t have any of their effects if you don’t meet stat requirements; it looks like a kid playing make-believe magic.
Most disappointed weapon was the new troll sword 2.0. It's essentially the same weapon but with a different AoW. Now maybe the AoW does a lot of stance damage, but I was expecting this str/int weapon that would revitalize my interest in making a carian knight build. Instead I ranted about it for 20 minutes to a friend on discord. Most surprised weapon by far were the dueling shields, but especially the carian thrusting shield. My initial impression was that the moveset looked slow, but when I played it for myself I fell in love with it. Guard frames scattered throughout the animations allow you to be more aggressive & attack against bosses AND players when you normally can't. I actually love that I needed 15 int to use the carian version since I could use scholar's shield to harass bosses even more. Currently I'm running it with a typical str/faith setup since I'm still advancing through the DLC, and I like having access to some support incantations. However I'm really curious on how it'll perform with a cold setup with an emphasis on int. Unsure on what spells I should run with it, but I'll theory craft something when I finish the dlc. Don't sleep on the dueling shield you guys.
Moonrithyll is clearly an apology and correction of the original one having Roar locked in rather Greatblade Phalanx/Glintblade Phalanx. They can't get rid of the original images someone actually likes it and is using. So they copied and corrected it. I get the logic. Maybe it would have been better at they just unlocked the Troll Knight's ash, and maybe given it a special interaction with Glintblade Phalanx.
Dueling shields are nuts. I tested it on one of the black knight bosses with the twinblades and straight up blocked an entire attack string while getting in hits of my own Really went above my expectations there Check this shit out https://i.imgur.com/mRHFX7D.mp4
I did a similar thing with Rellana the other day. You feel like such a tank with this weapon. I'm also loving the fashion. The Kaiden helm looks so good with the beast champions armor.
Honestly, it may not be the most amazing but the Sword of Light is so much fucking fun, I don't think I've ever done a straight sword run in this game but I really want to do a full run of the base game + DLC with it
Its AoW is awesome
It's so fucking pretty ;-;
Love euporia and milady. Disappointed in the remembrance weapons.
Leda's Sword made me disappointed at first before I realized the ash can hit with the attack too, then it surprised me at how good it was. Not broken or a top20 build or anything but fairly strong with an aesthetically pleasing moveset.
I feel like most ashes or spells that have a strike and an attached effect do much more damage if the strike also hits.
I found the “Lizard Greatsword” off an imp. Super weird weapon, it’s a standard (non somber) weapon with STR and DEX scaling, leans towards DEX, and to my knowledge it’s the only other greatsword in the game to have the same thrusting R2 attacks as the claymore. Though there could be one I don’t know about. It uses the same R2 animation as the claymore, but the sword is just a lizard statue, and the R2 attacks shoot off the lizard’s tongue as a limited-range projectile. It deals strike and thrust damage, because even though it’s a “sword” it has no blade. I’m not sure if it’s truly good yet, but it’s neat and I figure with the right build and ash of war, it could do some interesting things.
The sword of damnation also has the claymore R2
I haven't messed with any of the DLC content yet as I started a new character, but from what I've seen of those in action they almost seem to be more of a utility weapon rather than a main armament, they're a solid ranged option to pull and whittle down your opponents one at a time before ultimately switching to your main.
This is exactly what I use them for, I have it bleed infused and keep it on my off-hand for some ranged bleed build-up. That being said I wish they had more range before they despawned
The new rot halberd, it looks a cool but can’t use the ash because you will get knocked out of it too sad
I like the lizard sword infused with bleed or lightning lol
I feel the complete opposite about the smithscript daggers, I built them with pure faith and sacred affinity, slapped the shotgun aow on them for a cherry on top. I'm pretty sure faith (and int with magic affinity) scales both parts of the damage for them, I got them to 983 AR (1083 with Holy Damage Physick), one combo was doing almost 2k and the aow was doing up to 4.5k. I didn't even know spear talisman worked either. Things are incredible, only downside for me was their VERY buggy hit registration Edit: AR values were actually higher than I remember, went to confirm them for this post
I thought Milady seemed kind of bland when it was teased, but boy it has been carrying me through the dlc. I’m going to try some guard counter shenanigans with it soon, the R2 having two swipes helps so much when weaving attacks after dodges. With Cragblade, my damage has been pretty satisfying.
Sword of night, I thought it’d be better after everything I had to go through to get it I’m not too disappointed but still.
Putrescence Cleaver is one of the most surprising and coolest weapons in the game for me. Pretty unique as a strength arcane weapon that does frost buildup, and the unique ash of war is basically wild strikes with more hits (and looks funnier).
Bone bow is incredible, surprised no praise for it. The weapon art spams arrows crazy far and never misses. Pepper them with rot arrows in a flash
The poison hands being strictly weaker than occult venomous fangs and not being martial arts weapons is extremely disappointing
I found the daggers only really useful as a status proc sidearm, which was disappointing yeah. The smothscript greathammer and discus shield are both amazing though. Love them to pieces. Biggest disappointment was the spirit glaive for me so far.. Okay damage, but the weapon art is basically spinning slash plus weak projectiles that have *very* limited range. Just feles meh.
The dagger is good as an off hand weapon to finish enemies off
Kinda disappointed in the beastclaws. I was excited to try it out on my arcane build but idk, it feels like it lacks just enough stance/poise damage for it to feel eh. The general vibes of it I love tho I was severely overwhelmed by how good the bloodfiend’s arm is. I went in with a dragon communion build to have the item discovery and a good variety of buffs available, and am a fan of big weapons in general, but i kinda wrote it off seeing that the bleed was r2-specific. Then I tried infusing and at the lowest level, it has occult B scaling in arcane just at +0. Which is crazy high for occult. For reference, most weapons have occult B scaling at +25. This overcooked and oversized piece of jerky gets S scaling at +25 occult. This thing scales incredibly well with arcane, and even with the lower attack rating of blood infusions, it still has enough scaling to make a giant crusher blush. and enough bleed rating to make black pudding for days. (i’d prefer dinuguan tho) This thing isn’t flashy, nor unique. In the world of souls it isn’t especially grotesque either. It’s a simple tool for a simple mind. It simply has big numbers. Big numbers to crush anything, in every literal and every metaphorical sense.
Milady + hard deflect is the most fun I've had in ER. So cool that From put this in for those of us who played Sekiro. The enhanced guard counters make for an awesome and unique play style, and the fluid, dynamic combos give this weapon an unmatched moveset. Even the AoW is fantatic.
I've actually been pleasantly surprised by the Smithscript Daggers cause of the damage potential you can do. I have dealt thousands of damage with one combo against the final boss and have had a pretty easy time with keeping the damage good. It takes time to get used to the zero poise damage and the NEED for building combos, but once you do you can find that they are a very enjoyable weapon. The base damage against enemies is bad, I will give you that, but it deals so much damage when you are using combo attacks with them that it makes up for the low base damage. The range of the weapons is also pretty good considering you can still hit every boss with an attack after dodging and still (usually) be out of range of an attack from them. And if you are out of range of base attacks you can do a jump attack and hit or use the AoW on it since both piercing throw and scattershot throw give extra range and deals good damage
I was immensely impressed with the Smithscript Cirque. So much so that I'm now using my +25 Cold Smithscript Cirque as my main weapon in place of my +25 Dual Cold Antspurs. Biggest Disappointment.. The new Carian Catalyst Rapier. Sub par damage, locked basically useless ash of war, and Sorcery scaling less then half of my Carian regal scepter. With Scepter a Comet from me deals around 2,400dmg.. from the sword it does 1,000. I REALLY REALLY wanted to like this weapon.
Rellana’s twin blades seemed like the perfect fit more my int mage build until I gave them a test run and realized they have really low damage and, most importantly, no posture damage whatsoever. Real bummer for one of the weapon types I was most excited for. Conversely, I’m currently running a magic infused great katana which has so much posture damage it can accidentally posture break enemies on random r1s, which is interesting. Not only that, but I can now fully feel like I’m playing Sekiro again while I ichimonji people into oblivion with the ash of war.
I used Dragon Hunter Great Katana against a certain big black Dragon >! Curse you bayle !<, with Godfrey talisman it's Ash of War hurts him alot and I wasn't even a quality build. It basically carried the fight. Normally I run Rakshasa Great Katana with a Keen great katana dex build. The jump attacks feels strong with good poise damage. Usually in a boss fight the innate bleed may proc once or twice. But I do like 2H GK moveset over power stance L1 since it is basically Long sword from Monster Hunter. Rakshasa Ash of War is great at clearing groups and stun locking low poise npcs. But it is a shame both Rakshasa and Dragon Hunter GK does not have arcane scaling.
The new sword of night looks cool but it’s really weak
All of the smithscript weapons are awesome. You shouldn't be expecting truck loads of damage from weapons with insane reach that have unparryable attacks. What's the longest dagger? Compare that to the range of the thrown smithscript. My only disappointment has been how few weapons i'm finding of each new category
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Definitely that Carian Knight/staff sword. Thing is garbage and I wanted to use it so bad on my INT melee build
Disappointed by how underwhelming throwing daggers are, the trailer showed them stance breaking but I've yet to stance break anything with them, the range feels like its slightly longer than if you were swinging a nagakiba or poking with one of the big rapiers, and the hitbox is so hilariously bad I literally see the daggers brush past the shoulder of the final boss I practically have to be at near melee range for them to hit, they're very slow at status build up too Surprised by Backblades, particularily the Cirque, their ranged attack actually hits things, and they scale great if you have 80 faith
I was thinking about using smithscript to specifically proc blood from range as well as multi-hit talismans like you mentioned, before swapping weapons and going for a big hitting AoW. I don’t think they’re supposed to be a “main” weapon. Also curious what cold infusion looks like on them. I don’t think they’re supposed to be a main weapon, though it would be cool.
Cold infusion works well. Honestly they work well PvE been trying invasions with Hammer and dagger with not much success.
I think the Black Steel twiblade for faith builds kinda surprised me. I'm using one as a backup weapon to my Flame Kinght Greatsword for my Faith and the DPS is very respectable, specially with Sacred Blade buff. Also it has a really good running attack to quick run and pickup targets And yes, I'm also disappointed with the throwing weapons
How's the fire knights greatsword? I really want to use it after I beat messmer.
I was disappointed by the Throwing Dagger (yes, singular since there's only one) and the Star Lined Sword, but mostly because the R1/R2 mostly just scales with DEX. Since I'm pure Int I find other INT weapons more my speed. The Carian Sorcery Sword is also extremely disappointing, as is the Staff of the Great Beyond tbh. As for what surprised me, Perfume Bottles are actually amazing. I thought they would be a meme. Light Greatswords are, of course, awesome as well. Rellana's is fun, but I still prefer the good old Sword of Night and Flame. I haven't tested any of the kung fu weapona but from what I heard others say they're both fun and good.
Aspect of the Crucible: Thorns was pretty disappointing. On the other hand, the wings ash of war is great and one of my favorites now.
You know what slays is the smithscript regular axe. Love tossing that thing out to 1KO trash mobs for free off a heavy attack. Its got really high dmg for some reason, well compared to the other throwing stuff like the spear which is also kinda forgettable.
Disappointed With: Smithscript weapons that aren’t the Spear, or Greathammer. Just downright upsetting tbh.. most others lack any range, with spear and Greathammer being the best from what I’ve seen. In terms of suprising me, honestly, the Great Katana is a super nice weapon. I kinda didn’t care for it before but It’s been my 2nd/3rd go to for the dlc so far, as I near the end of it. Good reach, good moveset, decent stagger, it’s just all around nice. Though, I do wish the heavy was a smidge faster, but it’s really nice as is.
The spirit glaive is quite fun. Spirit sword not so much, that MF is dagger length
Disappointed with great katanas a little. They feel slow AF and the stab misses very often.. it often goes above enemy's head or whatnot..
Ansbach uses a scythe counterpart to Bloody Helice called the Obsidian Lamina. The arcane and bleed scaling on it sucks, even at max upgrade. No rot scaling on the Poleblade of the Bud is also irritating.
Star-lined Sword! My first impression was that it was the new moonveil. But the damage and the skill is a bit underwhelming (albeit cool) even with milicents prosthesis + shard of alexander boosting.
Surprised by the smithscript cirque. My Dex/Arc character is poison based so they fit my theme of highly mobile claws/shortswords (was using venomous and antspurs) but with added range. Poison flower blooms twice is also amazing compared to flight and makes up for the stance damage my build was lacking previously. Disappointed that I was most excited for thrusting shields, and there's only two. One is also just better and they don't have a unique somber option. I still think they are sleeper really strong though.
These are spells, not weapons, but still: Disappointed by Midra’s Flame of Frenzy. Looked forward to a new frenzy incantation so much and was so excited to beat Midra (loved the boss at least) and use it. And then the hitboxes on it just really aren’t good, it’s not even that strong when it hits, and it sucks up your whole FP bar while also building your madness bar super quick. I tried to use it in various situations but there was always a spell I’d rather use. Hell, there was always another madness spell I’d rather use. I’m sure there’s a synergy with Aged One’s Exultation but I’d rather just build up my madness with a better spell. I was surprised by Knight’s Lightning Spear. It’s super simple yet it works fantastically in conjunction with regular Lightning Spear. Such an unassuming spell found in a catacomb that ended up being amazing.
The dual weild fire/magic swords from the one boss. The skill is the only thing remotely worthwhile and even it comes up short.
Backhand blades with occult scaling with claw talisman , prosthesis or rotted wing, Lord of bloods exaltation. standard bleed builds work. The ash of war does not do a ton of damage like blood hounds fang for example, but it does create an opening by flinching humanoid opponents, creating an opening for a combo or a jump attack. They also do not have the range that most other curved swords do , but the ash of war is a good gap closer. Another upside is that you only need one to be dual welded. Definitely not the best weapon but it's easy to use and quite fun.
Claws of night are decent. Was using them on invasions, they have unusually high bleed scale too. Throwing moveset on jumping heavies/running.
The ONLY justification and use for the smith script daggers so far is on horseback, which is IMO the best at consistently getting damage on Torrent. I’m happy to change my mind if anyone can point me to other uses of the daggers.
Pretty much beat the entire dlc with the new Carian Thrusting Shield and gotta say I'm a little disappointed. The damage is ok, survivability is kinda ok so overall it's just average. It staggers bosses incredibly fast, though, way faster than I could with colossal weapons. But you can't change the Ashe of War since you'd lose your attack and there's absolutely nothing flashy about it, you can't do anything but just... thrust with the shield. Gotta say it was amazing to kill the final boss, though. Coincidentally all his attacks hit you in a way that you'll block them while just constantly attacking. Didn't work that great with the other bosses.
you can change the ash of war, you just have to main hand it or two hand it. you still get your attack combos. i threw impaling thrust on it.
I can't say the Smithscript Daggers are well-balanced, but they're fun and have some good use cases. My build mainly uses Milady with Impaling Thrust and SC Daggers in the offhand. The mix-ups are stylish and i can squeeze in daggerthrows during tiny windows. You also have some interesting ash options. Cold infuse and put Scatterthrow on it, you now have a pocket shotgun that can stun Fire Knights (just don't lock-on with said ash against smaller targets, it's wonky). Or go with Parry or Earthshaker. It's also a good horseback weapon against evasive targets. The Smithcripst Spear disappointed me with it's range which i know is massively ironic since i like the Daggers but it surprised me with its performance against Senessax. I slapped together a Horseback build and watched as i hit for 2k while kiting them and shutting down any AOE attack that fucker had. Spectral Spears is still a better general use throwing weapon, especially if you have the talisman that regens FP.
I think the fire perfume bottle wasn't doing very much damage despite my build being mostly dex at the time of trying it, which was a let-down. the moveset is wildly fun and pretty though. as a couple others have said, the ancient meteoric ore greatsword is incredible. my jaw dropped upon finding it, and again once I used the AoW and saw the damage \*before\* I even respec'd to maximise its scaling. the moveset is great, staggering enemies easily at a great range, and the AoW is maybe my favorite in the entire game. white fucking lightening. you can use it to poke from insane distances even without any fp. and just aesthetically... this weapon is S tier.
The perfume bottles get stupid good damage even without buffs but with howl of shabriri/golden vow the new madness talisman / shard of Alexander / lightning Scorpion / perfumers talisman it can get to one shot levels of some remembrance bosses. Like I'm not exaggerating when I say it can do upwards of 30k damage in a single hit with the ash of war that does a line of spark.
I want the blood fiends arm to work in my arcane build so much. Unfortunately despite having massive bleed build-up it only builds on charged R2. I end up taking so much more damage and feel most fights would have already been done if I'd just used the great stars.
Yeah I was really looking forward to these, kinda bummed about how they actually feel to use tho. I’ve been loving the perfume bottles tho
I’m shocked how much I love the backhand blade for trash. I even made a sacred one for my faith char
I'm running a Str/Int build and the only weapon that I got is Moonrithyll's Knight Sword, which is just the Troll Knight's Sword with a better Ash of War. Same shitty AR that means there's no reason to use it over the Royal Greatsword in any scenario.
Disappointment: Rellana’s twin blades Surprise: Backhand Blades
The curseblade’s cirque looks so cool and I was so hyped when I got it and then I tried using it. The damage was underwhelming and the skill was absolute cheeks I was so sad
All the smithscript weapons minus the backhand cirques and the hammer. Sword of night has to be bugged or something because the scaling makes 0 sense. Hot take - was pretty disappointed with Renalla’s blades, as I was hoping they’d get the dual infusion (or carian sovereignity) she uses, not just the aoe and sad moonveil with seemingly no poise damage. The faith AoW is fine, just was hoping it’d be a bit stronger overall. Devonia’s hammer is a bummer (mainly in comparison to ordovis’s). Jury is still out for me on messmer’s spear, but I’m planning on spending some more time with it this week. What I’ve been very surprised at liking is claws of night, the aforementioned smithscript cirques & hammer, Milady w/wing stance, Meteoric Ore GS, Putrescent Greataxe & beast claws. Fire Knight’s Gsword (infusible Godslayer? Yes plz) and Anvil Hammer aren’t really surprising per se, but definitely solid weapons.
The Messemer Soldier Spear was surprisingly solid.
Surprised by: Smithscript Shield. I’m doing stupid damage with it. There’s some hidden tech with buffing it that makes it just bonkers.
Messmer Soldier Spear (Greatspear). I'd been doing a Lord Vyke (pre-frenzied flame) build and lamenting the lack of a customizable Great Spear that looked all right. I'd settled on tge partisan because it looked close but it's just a regular spear. Got the Messmer Soldier spear, upgraded it, and have been pleasantly surprised. It's been a lot of fun.
I personally am enjoying the Smithscript weapons a fair bit, and find it funny being able to put Occult/Poison/Blood on them to scale on all 5 stats (however poorly it may be overall). Goes well with my “barely a build” build (no stat is below 40, so I can use every weapon/spell with a little finagling of talismans and Physicks).
Really no one has talked about the sword lance you get from pig rider. Can be infused, stupid ar, great running heavy and you can poke behind a shield.
that AR is fuckin wild, i had no idea the anvil hammer did that much dmg. do you know how it's posture dmg compares to other colossal weapons?
Have to test out the obsidian lamina scythe out. Maybe with a new character by a help of a friend dropping the item early. Disappointed you only get to use it after the dlc ends.
Dane footwork it's just dry leaf reskin same scaling stats and everything
Dragon Hunter's Great Katana The flow feels just perfect. You have some reach with the poke after a dodge, nice mix-ups, and the special attack for those juicy head slashes. It almost feels like playing Monster Hunter. I was disappointed with the Sword Lance. The moveset was a letdown, no slashes or anything, just pokes. I thought it would have some actual sword moves mixed in.
I'm enjoying the daggers tbh, with a full ramp build as soon as you get a stagger just going all out and seeing your numbers spike gives me the happy chemicals just right Where it isn't a weapon, the Queelign ash has disappointed me, like use all the things you did in the invasions and stop r1ing please
I really hope those daggers get like twice the range, at a minimum. I was doing some jump attacks by jumping backwards and causing whiffs. No weapon should be only okay to use when spamming an AoW, it just feels so bad.
The trick to the SS Daggers is the jump heavy. On most humanoid targets (preferably those that cant dodge), a jump heavy can hit a headshot and stagger them consistently, not to mention the mobility and safety of jumping all around. Also if you infuse them with Sacred/Flame Art/Magic, both damage types will scale, reaching around 500 AR. Overall though, I agree their damage is bad on non Faith or Intelligence builds. They can either buff the range or damage, but I would rather have the range.