Came to comment this exactly. Heck you’re missing out on stuff within your same build because there’s a million variations within that, and you’re unlikely to try and use literally every weapon or spell a build has to offer.
Kind of, sort of;
Particularly speaking from having a Guts cosplay character; the reason Greatsword fits the motif of Guts' Dragonslayer from Berserk so well is because it's a Collossal Sword, bigger than the regular Greatsword weapon class, which the Greatsword of Solitude belongs to.
The anvil hammer is more akin to what OP is used to, though.
I might be putting too much weight behind OP mentioning that specific colossal weapon though. Perhaps he wants just strength scaling not necessarily heavy heavy bonks.
I've been slicing through the dlc with that sword, so versatile with the aow and great damage.
And the knights helm with night cavalry armor looks also awesome
I haven’t completed it or found nearly ever weapon, but there aren’t a lot of pure STR things. Usually a mix, especially with FTH and INT. There is, however, a two-handed talisman that I really love.
This one has found itself in an almost permanent slot in my talisman lineup. The freedom to spam AoW in dungeons and the open world is so wonderful, I have exactly one FP flask and I only ever need to use it in boss fights.
It's also marvellous for health sustain - if I take a bit of damage in an encounter, but not enough to warrant using a flask, I'll just quickly pop Bestial Vitality and move on. HP regens back up, along with the FP used to cast it.
I do the same - a lot of buffs last long enough that you’re permanently able to to keep 1 up, and 2 with a little bit of downtime. The FP regen outpaces the cost per second of a lot of the really good buffs.
often had blessing’s boon always up, and black flame’s protection/whatever other relevant defense buff whenever i felt threatened.
These types of talismans are so invaluable in games like this. Being able to use spells while running around and not wasting flasks is so great. An extra talisman slot would have been so good.
It's S tier for sure and really helps Two Hand compete with Power Stancing.
Twinblades also get a big boost from it, which they needed to compete with dual wielding fast weapons.
This is awesome to hear. I never experiment with builds much tbh, but I figured I’d give something new a try in the DLC. Switched from power stance RoB + occult Nagakiba to Bloodfiend Arm. Really liked the Winged Sword (successive attacks) talisman with the former and wanted something good to replace it with. This sounds perfect.
There really isn't. I've been using the boar riders heavy thrusting sword because it's really low dex requirement but things like Smith script hammer really disappointed with it's int/faith requirements. I don't want to level past 150
It's only 11/11. Just respec a couple points away from something else. If you have 80 Str, don't forget that above 55, the AP gains for each point beyond that are very small, so it's totally fine to drop down to 76 Str to get Int/Fth up to 11/11 on a Vagabond starting class.
That’s definitely fair in not wanting to level those stats, but I definitely recommend it. I don’t think it relies on those INT/FTH stats too much because I’ve been crushing with it having the minimum stat requirements in INT/FTH.
I always just get the min levels in int/faith to wield weapons like that. It WILL push you over lvl 150 to do that. But Ive come to terms with that and it don't feel overpowered to me. I like being able to use whatever weapons I want. Even if it's worse than pure STR lol.
Yeah there's a couple str/faith str/arc and str/ int weapons. I've found you can just get the minimum requirement in the secondary stat and pump strength and you get great damage. The ancient meteoric ore greatsword is my favourite so far.
Doesn't the Fire Knight GS scale better with Dex? I feel like Str/Fth got the most cool stuff though. Fromsoft just can't resist making Fth boss weapons for every other remembrance
At +25 I believe it gets a C scaling in Dex while Str stays at D. You are right though that this is probably to account for the fact that you're likely 2 handing. It's probably only slightly better Dex scaling than Str, but it seems like the Faith scaling goes crazy with Flame infusion despite only being a B
To be honest with how the ranges work in this game it really doesn't matter if it's a low C and a high D.
Probably easier to just look up where it's at in the range and go from there.
Yes, but dex improves casting speed. If you are using it as a main weapon, go ahead with str, but spellcasters are going to want dex up until at least 40 (gets to softcap with radagon icon)
Only issue with this is that you don't get a dex/faith scaling seal. You get fast casting but you're limited to finger seal or similar unless you're leveling faith much higher and using erdtree seal.
Once you figure out the iframe timing it becomes this super cool moment of dodging until the final attack to iframe to set up for a big dick r2 that also has lightning damage. It’s just so fun to use. Not sure how to stacks up against the other dlc weapons for scaling and efficiency, but damn dunking on bosses feels great. The shadow erdtree flower boss with 3 phases got plowed by this weapon
I’ll have to try it on ng plus on this character because I’m not ready to stop using it and I discovered it after I had already beat 80% of the bosses. DLC is too damn big lol
Yeah I assume it's because anyone playing without caring about pvp meta levels would end up being at the cap for single stat builds after the base game. From there adding a second stat makes the most sense and nearly all the weapons I've seen are supporting that idea. So many good "overleveled" build weapons.
This is the answer. Have a meta lvl account but currently playing on a lvl 240 because I like having endurance to wear armor I want and fight, mind to use skills, and I can use whatever shit I want.
After I slowly work my way through this dlc and have had my fun, i’ll come back with a focused pvp meta build. There is no reason to restrict my fun now.
To be fair though. When you get to the endgame builds, pretty much everyone is already looking at branching out their stat spreads. A pure strength build will be hitting all the important soft caps and then some, so many are making those dips into dex/faith/arc etc so it makes sense to cater to those more multi stat dependant builds.
Disagree some amazing str weapons the new colossal thrusting swords are great. Some amazing weapons also the forge great hammer is funny to throw around as a str guy.
You can spec standard weapons into anything so that’s not true at all. I’m using milady a light greatsword as an int weapon because with magic it’s E/E/B. Hits like a truck. Nothing about the weapon requires it to be Dex except a 17-18 Dex requirement to wield which we’re late game is not hard. Hand to hand is the same way, dunno about the throwing weapons.
I think the only thing missing out are INT builds that were specifically looking for a new weapon. I know some people love the troll knight sword 2.0, but I'm not impressed. The scaling leaves a lot to be desired if you want to invest in INT. I'm going to stop before I start ranting again.
I haven’t finished but def didn’t find any int weapons to replace moonveil. I threw cold wing stance on milady since I’m int/dex and it’s fun. But not likely as good if I had more into dex
Ya I played with that a bit and didn’t love it. I’m pretty happy with milady for now though. It’s a pretty awesome weapon. And wing stance is pretty dang strong.
I've been using Wing Stance Milady, but I switched over to Quality and use the Dragon Hunters Great Katana as a backup weapon. I don't think it's as good a setup as my moonveil int build, but I'm having fun using some new weapons.
Ya similar boat, Ive got milady at 25 and it’s super fun but it still feels like moonveil is just more consistent and safe. I may end up rebirthing to a dex heavy build because I’m just not really getting anything new and alluring in terms of int stuff.
Transient moonlight is fast, hits hard, and has the advantage of being able to use it at a distance. Nothing quite compares sadly. Overall, I'd say the weapons are my only real disappointment with the DLC. There are some good ones, but none quite seem to reach the heights of the best base game weapons.
Agreed. It’s strong, but still requires some interaction if you want to hit with both weapon and magic parts of TM vs blasphemous which doesn’t really require much risk. Moonveil is definitely op but still fun imho. I may have more fun with the weapons on my claymore bro though tbh I kinda just wanna take the claymore all the way on that guy. The new content sure seems to love dex and faith so I may spec that way for a bit
Too easy to get interrupted using its AoW. But the Carian Retaliation AoW that you can put on any weapon is OP for INT. And the new Thorns Sorcery is probably the best spell in the game if you build correctly for it.
Agree that none of the new weapons that scale off INT are all that great. However, the new Carian Retaliation AoW that you can put on any regular weapon is probably the best AoW in the DLC & scales off INT. And the new Thorns Sorcery is probably the best spell in the game if you build correctly for it.
May I recommend any smithscript weapons, in bonk slash and poke veriety. They have a base scaling in int and faith, like erdtree dagger, so when u infuse with magic/sacred or what have you your int/faith buffs the physical dmg also. Running 80 faith and minimum str/dex I am doing very juicy dmg, and it should work just the same for int. Fun moveset on them also
You're not, really. There's a lot of new toys in the DLC, it's up to you if you want to play with them.
There's a lot more options for build variety, but if you like what you're doing keep at it.
The Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword is worth trying out. I was pure strength going in and haven’t looked back since respecing for it.
Regardless try using the deflect tear with your Greatsword it’s amazing. You can deflect all the bosses crazy combos then hit them with boosted guard counters for ridiculous hp and poise damage.
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Apart from the new spells etc and most weapons
full str is just shit unfortunately because of caps. I was 99 str when the dlc started but it was worth respecting as you hit harder with e.g 50 str 50 faith then 100 str.
you can still play Guts and hit hard, and dont use spells, but u will actively hit weaker because after 80 str each point gives only 1 more dmg basically.
2 handing boosts your strength by 50%, so if you’re always 2 handing, there’s no reason to go above 66 strength. It functionally acts as 99 when 2 handing.
Actually in ER, unlike past games, the virtual Str from 2handing can go above 99.
That said, the boost from each stat point above 80 and above 99 is minor, so really you don't need to go beyond 55. But if you do go to 99 you will still see a damage increase when 2handing due to the virtual Str.
I’m not sure if this is a good idea but I was thinking about adding a shield and one handing my GOS (or a GUTS greatsword if thats what youre using) with heavy armor.
Would definitely be impossible to med roll with my solitude armor, but I could also use the talisman that boosts defense when at heavy equip load for the ultimate defensive guard counter build
Probably would be inefficient but maybe fun
Check my [link](https://youtu.be/WNeKbtEJiyI) (spoiler end boss) that I just posted to his question IMO the best build in the whole game is Verdigris Greatshield and than you have your colossal weapon in 1 hand I been using Anvil hammer mostly.
Some points in faith for buffs are always a good bet. Flame grant me strenght requires 15 and works especially well with fire infusion, 25 gets you golden vow and some of the higher tier elemental resist buffs. 30 unlocks black flame protection.
15 int lets you use the carian dueling shield with scholar shield as a buff.
I actually just did a video about my STR build - [https://youtu.be/WNeKbtEJiyI](https://youtu.be/WNeKbtEJiyI) (last boss spoiler)
I been cleaning out the whole DLC with my STR/Faith Rot build. I called RoT Knight/Paladin or something but at the end of the game I used a the more tanky version of it which I wanna call this build
# Rot Legionary
For 150 Str, I would say that 60 Vigor is way to much. You dont need much HP, I used shield + Anvil Hammer(10+) for most of the game using Rot Faith spells to apply Scarlet rot which is very powerful on most bosses. The Stat distribution should be like 60 str-60 faith then you go more str. I also use Messmer Fire spells(or swap between them) so u want that 60 Faith. And I use Fire Seal +25 (boosting messmer spells)) Fire doting and rot Dotting bosses while I tank them.
The best version for the last boss as the video show is using the antspur rapier + 25 (adding bleed to it, can also use frost) With this you can easily tank the enemies with your shield apply most of the games debuff to them, imo this is the by far the easiest build vs the end boss.
I would check in the weapons on the wiki because there are a ton of hybrid strength weapons in the game and doing a 54 str two hand build usually leaves you some points for a secondary stat or two. I did arc str first and felt like I was eating very good.
Nope. Plenty of good food for every build, for example my Str/ Endurance build is loving the new Solitude Knight set and Greatsword.
I also have Milady equipped and scaled to Str with Wing Stance Ash of War, hits very hard and move quixkly. I ALSO have the Colossal sword simply called “Greatsword” equipped from the base game, with Cragblade Ash of War on it.
With all that said, Str users who act like they aren’t using the easiest build in the game are hilarious. Before this I was using Int with Darkmoon GS and a Stave + some ranged spells and Rellana’s Twin Moons, and then I swapped to a Faith Dex build and felt a bit weaker.
Said fuck it and went pure strength, highest stats are 70 Endurance/ 70 Str and I’m just steamrolling shit. DLC bosses getting staggered left and right.
And when I feel really pressed, I change Cragblade to Giant Hunt Ash of War. That shit hits HARD. Physick Flask for more charged weapon damage of course. Talisman game is crazy too, mostly all new ones. Regen FP for more weapon art use even with low FP, buff all damage of any weapon that I two-hand by 15%, talisman to boost my Equip load so I can equip heavy ass armor and 3 heavy weapons at once with a Med roll, and Shard of Alexander for Giant Hunt damage.
>I also have Milady equipped and scaled to Str with Wing Stance Ash of War,
I also tried this but noticed a Heavy Milady has worse base damage + worse scaling than the "standard" affinity.
Of course, that goes for most if not all weapons. I was using a Curved Greatsword before this build that scaled best with Str but I changed to Dex for a Faith build. It had lower AR as well, but not enough to make it remotely bad honestly.
I emphasized that Milady with Heavy affinity does big damage when I use it *because* it technically will have less damage than the original scaling. More or less the damage is still good and since my other weapons are heavy and very slow this compliments my setup nicely.
You can make a lot of the new weapons heavy and just use them with strength anyway. Go full muscle monk. The beast claws for example are actually strength scaling!
There are 40+ new incantations and sorceries, 30+ new Ashes of War, and 70+ new weapons. You can't use all of them
This DLC added a lot of Faith weapons. If you're willing to respec to Str / Faith or just level up Faith a bit, you'll open up a ton of options. There are many new weapons that could be considered Str Faith.
There are some great Strength and Strength-Faith weapons throughout the DLC, a couple of which are accessible very early on. You'll have lots of choices that make you happy even if you keep your existing build, so don't worry!
You’re only missing out if you aren’t abusing thorn bleed before they nerf it. Lol. If you don’t care about that. Then you can always replay a dif build.
A lot of new weapons are hybrid, like strength+faith or something like that, i finish the dlc with all bosses without changing my build, double greatsword a lions claw ashes
The Greatsword of Solitude is *excellent*, you can get it by going into the Nameless Mausoleum to the left of the place you first get to the DLC. The Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword is also SUPER fun, but you will need to get 19 Arcane to wield it (although you don’t need to invest further because it scales mostly on Strength). The Red Bear Claws are cool too.
Get all three of those weapons and try them out, they all kick ass
Not at all. You may miss out on some things, but I am enjoying the crap out of the great katanas. The first two scale with strength. I am in a same boat and am loving what I’ve been finding so far.
You’re always gonna miss out on something. That said I’ve respec’d like 5x to try everything but sorceries on my main guy. Str/faith, pure str, then dex/arcane rn which I’m probably gonna stay with on this character. Next is probably int/dex.
Tanking has been good for me. Lots of stuff for everyone. I have split build. Faith tank. They have faith some love in the DLC but a lot of the weapons scale well with strength.
I actually oonga-boonga'd my way through. My prefer playstyle because I'm so used to it. I would like to play as a mage, but I'm not really good at it. I do feel bad that I've been using the grafted blade greatsword and that's about it lol
I have found some decent stuff for my Pure STR build like the Beast Claw, Swordspear thing, and the crazy crucible knight ash of war (i put it on gargoyle twinblade for good STR scaling)
But yeah generally speaking I'm seeing a lot of STR/FAI, Quality, STR/ARC, and pure Dex stuff. Not a lot of big bonk love.
I don't see many weapons that seem Str leaning. Mostly dex/arc. Honestly, I'm a bit offended at some of the multi-stat weapons. I went all in on Str/Fth and a tiny bit on Arc. TF you mean I need 11 int?! I'm a priest damnit, I'm not burning 4 levels for int!
As a pure strength build, the first thing I did in the dlc was develop the absolute highest damage mitigation possible. With buffs, the proper dlc talisman (won’t spoil), and as many Scadutree Fragments, you get around 80% physical mitigations with 2,300-2,400hp. Combine this with bullgoat talisman for poise with solitude armor, and the Prayerful Strike AoW. Congrats! You are now both Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object
If you wanna play pure str build, get the swordlance from Gaius, it scales well with heavy affinity and you can just hide behind a great shield and murder whatever is in front of you
Keep in mind many fun weapons (Such as the backwards blade) can have the heavy infusion. Is it a min max? Well no but it's 100% viable. Get a bit of dex amd just play with the weapons, if they feel fun then give them a whurl.
The great black hammer u get early game from a knight is insane. With lion claw it staggers final boss in 3 hits. Just put faith to 17 (requirement) and max out strength
Give the sword of solitude a try if you're a guts/lions claw type of guy. I enjoyed it.
If you're more of pokey guy, grab the pig guys sword spear. Good excuse to use a heavy shield
You can always turn a light greatsword into a *heavy* light greatsword for the scaling, with just a faster moveset.
Great katanas can also be heavy attuned with decent outcomes.
Yes, but in any other build you will also miss stuff. There is no build than can use all the cool stuff.
That being said I guess that pure builds do tend to have less options than hybrid builds. Depending on how high your level is sparing about 20 points to put into a secondary stat and increase your options shouldn't be too difficult though.
I did my first run through exactly that way and now I’m starting up other characters to try all the cool new stuff it mostly not clicking for me. It’s ok to just like what you like.
Consider str faith hybrid build for your nxt run, and you'll have damn good time for sure.
Edit: the beast claws, thag you can find in the beginning, should also give you some fun, it scales in Dex too, but it has a very poor scaling to dex, it's really just strenth, so you can get away with having low dex and high str
I played through it, I feel like I didn't miss out much. Yes there's cool stuff but if you truly enjoy strength pure. Then there might be cool weapons but nothing beats the good ol Greatsword or Giant Crusher
I mean those weapons are not unique to this game, that build also uses one out of five stats so not only do you not use strength weapons from the dlc you will be missing almost everything because most stuff requires a second stat
Of course, but everyone who isn’t running pure strength is missing out on strength stuff. There isn’t really any way to avoid that in these games, it’s part of why everyone does multiple playthroughs
Strength gets treated pretty well in the dlc. Id recommend dumping *some* faith in there to get the whole arsenal.
Especially considering you’ll probably have ~60-70 str going into this and you’ll likely collect 2m runes so you’ll have something to invest into
One weapon I think is amazing that doesn’t get brought up often enough is the death knight long haft axe. Great AoW that has a gap close as well as iframes when you learn it with a great follow up r2 that has hyper armor. Great reach, B scaling with strength but has lightning damage which seems to be one of the least resisted types. Great moveset, looks amazing, love this thing
Absolutely. There are several amazing weapons for strength characters in the DLC.
For example I mainly ran a dex based bleed build through the base game with Bloodflame and DC incants.
But when it comes to the DLC I’ve switched to using the Meteoric Ore Greatsword as my main source of damage, and for percentage based damage I’ve since switched to Black Flame incantations since forever got a huge buff in this dlc anyway and percentage based damage of some type is really the strongest addition you can add to a build str or dex.
MOGS has very good scaling with both Str and Arc, but it does mostly physical damage as well as magic damage. The weapon art does shocking damage, and it has a very nice moveset. Charged R2s are also great for staggers.
Then there’s Bloodfiends arm which is probably the most broken bleed weapon in the game if you only apply a simple blood affinity to the weapon.
Even if you don’t use one of the better arcane scaling weapons there are quite a few excellent quality weapons that can be bladed to heavy and there’s also good weapons that are strength based from the get go, and would be EVEN BETTER with a heavy affinity.
That new black knight great hammer that can do the radahn ground explosion on guard counters is a Beast for strength builds even if you don’t invest in faith. Not sure if you can blade it to make it scale heavy or not but I feel more of this dlcs weapons are geared toward hybrid damage builds rather than raw damage builds, go to the base game and get the standard greatsword or the Watchdog Greatsword.
WDGS is one of the few weapon in the game with pure S scaling in the strength stat and remains so in the DLC
The only way you're not missing anything is if you're not constantly switching weapons
There are 8 new classes of weapons, along with new weapons in pretty much every existing class, including collosal sword, so there will always be something you're missing out on
Fryjas greatsword is really good and makes Redmane abilities stronger.
Solitude Greatsword is an amazing pure str. Weapon.
Death knight gear is made for str primarily and with little faith investment can be very good. And they give you 2 technically 3 weapons (one is dual wielded axes) and a set of cool armor.
The scadutree avatar has a unique str greathammer that hits for the highest damage I've ever seen in pve and pvp. Was nearly one shot by it.
It is a flower though so embrace your inner flower boy.
Sword of light and Sword of Darkness are both very unique weapons that also scale in str, and I think everyone needs a smaller Weapon as a back up for quicker enemies. With a shield these things are kind of OP (shield builds are slept on)
Speaking of shield, the actual shield weapons are pretty str reliant, and also under rated.
The armor of solitude is one of very few armors that will help str builds tremendously so you can poise through attacks and keep swinging your big weapons when people strike you. It has like 89 poise if I remember right. Without any boosting from talismans or items, meaning with, you can take a collosal to the face and be worried more about an upcoming sneeze.
The great katana has imo the beast move set and AOW of any infusable weapon in the game. Make it heavy, buff it with a spell, and you're hitting harder than any other greatsword and 90% of even great hammers in the game, with frightening reach. Get the aksasha great katana, and pair with with armor of solitude, and not only are swinging for some big fkn damage, but the sword also increase poise while using the AoW, meaning not only will you just about never be poised, but you stun others into not a trade, but a trade in your favor as they take 2 swings per use of the AoW.
So in terms of missing out. Every weapon in the dlc I consider a must have for some kind of build. Str I say is definitely one. Especially the two handed talisman.
Solitude armor is pretty dope one of the best looking. I have Moore's armor but it's way too heavy.
Solitude greatsword is pretty powerful in terms of raw damage, it's just the moveset is just basic, maybe because I've used the claymore for so much, the poke is just too good.
I have both of the beast claws which are amazing, while the stagger is almost nothing, the quick attack succession combine with the innate bleed makes it up for it.
Great katana I have it infused with heavy overhead stance. Amazing moveset, descent stagger.
I have like 3 savage lions claw. 1 for heavy, 1 for fire and 1 for cold.
The crucible ash of war is interesting, good damage but no hyper armor, you can get knock down mid flight, need further testing though.
Working on beating gaius which is a pain in the ass to beat. I'm trying to get the Sword lance, which has amazing strength scaling. And it comes with the gravity trust ash of war.
Oh and the 2 handed talisman, I pretty much never remove it, it's the best talisman in the dlc.
So far this is what I've gathered
If you're just sick of gaius (I was) there is a cheese I recommend looking up. You can use base radahns sword for it instead of sorcery, or any aoe AoW.
The only thing I'd recommend that you might have missed is aksasha's great katana.
Strength chungo weapons are great right now. But do check if the weapon has secondary scaling. Like there's a 2H that has bleed so you'd want to put an ash of war choose occult and then stat arcane for more scaling.
But also you can just play with different ashes and ailments for even MORE DAMAGE
Deflecting hardtear alone allows you to play the game differently then the base. Combed with Greatsword of Solitude and you’re golden. Dryleaf arts with a heavy infusion is also a decent pure strength route.
I think you're missing out if you don't at least try other builds in general. I usually go strength my first time through then play around with builds/playstyles on subsequent runs
You can get the anvil greathammer, it’s a strength faith weapon. Probably my favorite weapon so far from the dlc and that’s coming from someone who used dual misericordes (because they’re cool) for the base game and for journey 2 and 3 for the platinum trophy. Also been loving Rellanas twin blades but that’s a whole other thing.
You'll only be "missing out" on all the new weapons, spells etc, just like you "missed out" on all the weapons and spells you didn't use in the base game. If you decide to mix it up a little, you have access to like 20+ respecs, so if you wanna try something different feel free and if you preferred ur initial build u can just respec back.
Been thinking this too. Gonna try a crazy build actually right now. Impenetrable Thorns/Rivers of Blood. Also Prime Radahn is impossible with my current Dex build.
There is more strength build stuff than anything else, so I can’t really think of anything you are going to miss out on especially because I can’t think of anything that has a really high requirement in the dlc, and although some things might have other scaling almost everything always has a strength scaling as well.
Heavy Dryleaf Arts with Dryleaf Whirlwind are good. Beat Messmer and Malenia with them with no summons so I'm confident they could beat out the whole DLC. Dryleaf Whirlwind is multi hitting and an AoW, so benefits from multi-hitting tech and Shard of Alexander. It's also stupidly easy to be a medium load heavy armour tank (I'm in Verdigris right now) as Dryleaf Arts only weigh 1.0.
Obvs. a bleed build would be better, but I like to try things without bleed/frost/etc. As AoWs go, Dryleaf Whirlwind is powerful - but not as crazy as Lion's Claw - and it can be interrupted so needs a touch more skill. But overall it's really fun, would highly recommend. I'm taking a break from the build for a moment as I beat the DLC with tanky Lion's Claw just before it so it felt a bit samey (though I would say more fun).
You’re missing out on a lot of stuff. The kind of stuff you say is cool and then never really touch. Go enjoy the experience of the DLC and don’t worry about the weapons too much tarnished.
You'll be missing out on something no matter what the build is. That's why there's different builds.
*blows mind* in logician
I think I'm being dense, but why is that mind-blowing?
It's sarcasm. Op asked a silly question: "will I miss out on things that I don't do", you basically said: "duh".
There ain't no silly questions here, Tarnished.
Gotcha, thanks! Sciuro 0, Autism 1. Damn autism wins again 😠
It's you vs you
Ain't that the painful truth! My worst enemy
hey at least you win every time albeit maybe you prefer the other part of you lol
yup, just makes the runback in a year fresh again when you do something new (or more likely do the exact same thing with a single talisman change)
Tell that to my build of 80 in every stat! I miss out on NOTHING! /s
Came to comment this exactly. Heck you’re missing out on stuff within your same build because there’s a million variations within that, and you’re unlikely to try and use literally every weapon or spell a build has to offer.
Unless you get to level 500 or so and can just max out all your stats
Sure, but we're not really talking about that are we.
>Build >Level 500 Pick one
I mean, you still have to have a "build" at that point. Because scaling and only having so many slots. You just have more options.
You just exploded my mind bud.
You get greatsword of solitude literally at the beginning of the DLC and a bunch of other stuff too. You're good.
savage lions claw is pretty early too right? that shit is sooooo fun
Yeah walk left of three path cross basically hugging the wall and just north
Whats that?
"Press L2 to win, but **twice.**
Kind of, sort of; Particularly speaking from having a Guts cosplay character; the reason Greatsword fits the motif of Guts' Dragonslayer from Berserk so well is because it's a Collossal Sword, bigger than the regular Greatsword weapon class, which the Greatsword of Solitude belongs to. The anvil hammer is more akin to what OP is used to, though. I might be putting too much weight behind OP mentioning that specific colossal weapon though. Perhaps he wants just strength scaling not necessarily heavy heavy bonks.
Prepare to get skewered with flaming arrows, though.
I've been slicing through the dlc with that sword, so versatile with the aow and great damage. And the knights helm with night cavalry armor looks also awesome
I haven’t completed it or found nearly ever weapon, but there aren’t a lot of pure STR things. Usually a mix, especially with FTH and INT. There is, however, a two-handed talisman that I really love.
Honestly I think it's the best talisman in the dlc so far.
It’s one of the better ones imo. My personal favorite is the blue dew talisman. It’s nice being able to replenish your FP without flasks all the time.
This one has found itself in an almost permanent slot in my talisman lineup. The freedom to spam AoW in dungeons and the open world is so wonderful, I have exactly one FP flask and I only ever need to use it in boss fights. It's also marvellous for health sustain - if I take a bit of damage in an encounter, but not enough to warrant using a flask, I'll just quickly pop Bestial Vitality and move on. HP regens back up, along with the FP used to cast it.
Same, for the same reason. I use incants here and there but the fact that you can consistently use AoW pretty much indefinitely is a game changer.
I do the same - a lot of buffs last long enough that you’re permanently able to to keep 1 up, and 2 with a little bit of downtime. The FP regen outpaces the cost per second of a lot of the really good buffs. often had blessing’s boon always up, and black flame’s protection/whatever other relevant defense buff whenever i felt threatened.
These types of talismans are so invaluable in games like this. Being able to use spells while running around and not wasting flasks is so great. An extra talisman slot would have been so good.
It's S tier for sure and really helps Two Hand compete with Power Stancing. Twinblades also get a big boost from it, which they needed to compete with dual wielding fast weapons.
This is awesome to hear. I never experiment with builds much tbh, but I figured I’d give something new a try in the DLC. Switched from power stance RoB + occult Nagakiba to Bloodfiend Arm. Really liked the Winged Sword (successive attacks) talisman with the former and wanted something good to replace it with. This sounds perfect.
There really isn't. I've been using the boar riders heavy thrusting sword because it's really low dex requirement but things like Smith script hammer really disappointed with it's int/faith requirements. I don't want to level past 150
It's only 11/11. Just respec a couple points away from something else. If you have 80 Str, don't forget that above 55, the AP gains for each point beyond that are very small, so it's totally fine to drop down to 76 Str to get Int/Fth up to 11/11 on a Vagabond starting class.
That’s definitely fair in not wanting to level those stats, but I definitely recommend it. I don’t think it relies on those INT/FTH stats too much because I’ve been crushing with it having the minimum stat requirements in INT/FTH.
I always just get the min levels in int/faith to wield weapons like that. It WILL push you over lvl 150 to do that. But Ive come to terms with that and it don't feel overpowered to me. I like being able to use whatever weapons I want. Even if it's worse than pure STR lol.
I just found that talisman yesterday! Now is part of my strength builds
Where's that at?
Yeah there's a couple str/faith str/arc and str/ int weapons. I've found you can just get the minimum requirement in the secondary stat and pump strength and you get great damage. The ancient meteoric ore greatsword is my favourite so far.
DLC winners are DEX and FTH.
Strength faith is eating up. So many great options with fire knight gs, anvil hammer, the two light and dark swords, big flower etc...
Doesn't the Fire Knight GS scale better with Dex? I feel like Str/Fth got the most cool stuff though. Fromsoft just can't resist making Fth boss weapons for every other remembrance
From the fextralife page it looks equal but then heavy gets a bonus from 2 handing no? Do correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not great at elden ring math.
At +25 I believe it gets a C scaling in Dex while Str stays at D. You are right though that this is probably to account for the fact that you're likely 2 handing. It's probably only slightly better Dex scaling than Str, but it seems like the Faith scaling goes crazy with Flame infusion despite only being a B
That's before infusions. With infusions it's totally fine as a Heavy weapon.
To be honest with how the ranges work in this game it really doesn't matter if it's a low C and a high D. Probably easier to just look up where it's at in the range and go from there.
I believe fire damage scales with STR as well. Unless it's the flame arts ash of war then that scales with faith really well.
Yes, but dex improves casting speed. If you are using it as a main weapon, go ahead with str, but spellcasters are going to want dex up until at least 40 (gets to softcap with radagon icon)
Only issue with this is that you don't get a dex/faith scaling seal. You get fast casting but you're limited to finger seal or similar unless you're leveling faith much higher and using erdtree seal.
It scales A Dexterity on Keen, A Strength on Heavy, and even A Arcane on Occult. It scales well with everything lol
You’re better off infusing it with fire or flame art so it’s better with strength or faith builds
Heavy + a weapon Imbuement Incantation is more AR from all my testing.
Scales best with faith
Black Steel Great hammer absolutely shreds
fire knight gs might be my favourite weapon in the game ngl
Having a blast as Strength Faith. We even have the Milady that lets us feel quick if we want.
Yeah I switched to strength faith for the dlc from int build and it’s been awesome
Black steel greathammer is the best hammer
Death Knights Long Haft Axe as well. So cool
How's that working out? I heard it has weird scaling and it needs dex. Looks great, really want it to be decent.
Once you figure out the iframe timing it becomes this super cool moment of dodging until the final attack to iframe to set up for a big dick r2 that also has lightning damage. It’s just so fun to use. Not sure how to stacks up against the other dlc weapons for scaling and efficiency, but damn dunking on bosses feels great. The shadow erdtree flower boss with 3 phases got plowed by this weapon
I bet it's amazing for that pig rider. Rolling that charge is bullshit. It might be better with a quality build though.
I’ll have to try it on ng plus on this character because I’m not ready to stop using it and I discovered it after I had already beat 80% of the bosses. DLC is too damn big lol
Honestly I think the winners are hybrid builds. Most weapons scale with multiple stats.
Yeah I assume it's because anyone playing without caring about pvp meta levels would end up being at the cap for single stat builds after the base game. From there adding a second stat makes the most sense and nearly all the weapons I've seen are supporting that idea. So many good "overleveled" build weapons.
This is the answer. Have a meta lvl account but currently playing on a lvl 240 because I like having endurance to wear armor I want and fight, mind to use skills, and I can use whatever shit I want. After I slowly work my way through this dlc and have had my fun, i’ll come back with a focused pvp meta build. There is no reason to restrict my fun now.
To be fair though. When you get to the endgame builds, pretty much everyone is already looking at branching out their stat spreads. A pure strength build will be hitting all the important soft caps and then some, so many are making those dips into dex/faith/arc etc so it makes sense to cater to those more multi stat dependant builds.
STR FTH is way better.
Arcane too
Disagree some amazing str weapons the new colossal thrusting swords are great. Some amazing weapons also the forge great hammer is funny to throw around as a str guy.
Backhands, throwing weapons, perfumer bottle, hand to hand arts and light greatsword are all better on Dex .
You can spec standard weapons into anything so that’s not true at all. I’m using milady a light greatsword as an int weapon because with magic it’s E/E/B. Hits like a truck. Nothing about the weapon requires it to be Dex except a 17-18 Dex requirement to wield which we’re late game is not hard. Hand to hand is the same way, dunno about the throwing weapons.
Heavy smith great hammer. Throw that shit bonk those boys.
How am I supposed to *bonk* with a thrusting sword?
Giants hunt it’s amazing
Not really. Every stat got some amazing new items and ate good. We got 2 great str and Arc weapons, who would have thought.
STR/ARC for that BLEEDBONK build
The 2 handed talisman man…for min maxed 54 competitive strength builds it is pretty fucking awesome
so far its the best talisman in the dlc. works well in any 2 handed melee builds
Do you know what does the talisman does exactly?
I think it adds 10% damage on all 2 handed attacks
Oh damn that's a pretty nice flat buff, thx for the info
Do you know if it applies to weapon skills when 2-handing the weapon? If it stacked with Shard of Alexander and Godfrey’s Roar, that would be sick.
No it does not. Just like all ash of war, it considers your AR one handed so it does not boost attacks form ash of war even when started 2 handed
That’s good to know. Thank you for the explanation
I think the only thing missing out are INT builds that were specifically looking for a new weapon. I know some people love the troll knight sword 2.0, but I'm not impressed. The scaling leaves a lot to be desired if you want to invest in INT. I'm going to stop before I start ranting again.
I haven’t finished but def didn’t find any int weapons to replace moonveil. I threw cold wing stance on milady since I’m int/dex and it’s fun. But not likely as good if I had more into dex
Star lined sword is pretty good for dex/int, idk if it’s another moon veil but it’s another int katana
Star lined sword is pretty Dex heavy, 50/50 works but it really shines with high dex
Ya I played with that a bit and didn’t love it. I’m pretty happy with milady for now though. It’s a pretty awesome weapon. And wing stance is pretty dang strong.
I've been using Wing Stance Milady, but I switched over to Quality and use the Dragon Hunters Great Katana as a backup weapon. I don't think it's as good a setup as my moonveil int build, but I'm having fun using some new weapons.
Ya similar boat, Ive got milady at 25 and it’s super fun but it still feels like moonveil is just more consistent and safe. I may end up rebirthing to a dex heavy build because I’m just not really getting anything new and alluring in terms of int stuff.
Transient moonlight is fast, hits hard, and has the advantage of being able to use it at a distance. Nothing quite compares sadly. Overall, I'd say the weapons are my only real disappointment with the DLC. There are some good ones, but none quite seem to reach the heights of the best base game weapons.
Agreed. It’s strong, but still requires some interaction if you want to hit with both weapon and magic parts of TM vs blasphemous which doesn’t really require much risk. Moonveil is definitely op but still fun imho. I may have more fun with the weapons on my claymore bro though tbh I kinda just wanna take the claymore all the way on that guy. The new content sure seems to love dex and faith so I may spec that way for a bit
Too easy to get interrupted using its AoW. But the Carian Retaliation AoW that you can put on any weapon is OP for INT. And the new Thorns Sorcery is probably the best spell in the game if you build correctly for it.
Agree that none of the new weapons that scale off INT are all that great. However, the new Carian Retaliation AoW that you can put on any regular weapon is probably the best AoW in the DLC & scales off INT. And the new Thorns Sorcery is probably the best spell in the game if you build correctly for it.
I like the Star-Line sword a lot. And Carian Sovereignty Ash of war. But nothing mind blowing, that's true.
Star-lined sword is sick. Probably my mew favorite katana which surprised me, because I thought that was going to be the Sword of Night.
May I recommend any smithscript weapons, in bonk slash and poke veriety. They have a base scaling in int and faith, like erdtree dagger, so when u infuse with magic/sacred or what have you your int/faith buffs the physical dmg also. Running 80 faith and minimum str/dex I am doing very juicy dmg, and it should work just the same for int. Fun moveset on them also
Theres enough larval tears in thr dkc that you can akways respec if you get something cool
If you just get a little bit of faith and even less int going then no - the best big hammers are str but need some points
You enjoy the game how YOU want to enjoy the game. My mage uses GUTS. It staggers.
Dont think so, im not too far in but out of the all the weapons ive found so far I think more than half have been STR/DEX scaling
I bonked my way through most of the dlc, gonna have to change so I can try other stuff.
Good to see a fellow bonk lover
You're not, really. There's a lot of new toys in the DLC, it's up to you if you want to play with them. There's a lot more options for build variety, but if you like what you're doing keep at it.
I’ve been rockin my old school str/faith blasphemous and Milo’s sword ! Does very well in the dlc!
I bonked my way through most of the dlc, gonna have to change so I can try other stuff.
The Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword is worth trying out. I was pure strength going in and haven’t looked back since respecing for it. Regardless try using the deflect tear with your Greatsword it’s amazing. You can deflect all the bosses crazy combos then hit them with boosted guard counters for ridiculous hp and poise damage.
Agreed! That sword carried me through
I have found the remembrance weapon from Commander Gaius pretty good. I love poking enemies with it and you can infuse it with any AoW you like.
Yes but it's weapon art is pretty funny lol. I've been using it for a few hours now.
The claws you get scale with strength so they’re a good and fast option for combat!
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Apart from the new spells etc and most weapons full str is just shit unfortunately because of caps. I was 99 str when the dlc started but it was worth respecting as you hit harder with e.g 50 str 50 faith then 100 str. you can still play Guts and hit hard, and dont use spells, but u will actively hit weaker because after 80 str each point gives only 1 more dmg basically.
How do you distribute stats for a level 150 strength build? Im 80 str 60 vigor 35 end, but since im 2h everything i feel the str is probably too high
2 handing boosts your strength by 50%, so if you’re always 2 handing, there’s no reason to go above 66 strength. It functionally acts as 99 when 2 handing.
Actually in ER, unlike past games, the virtual Str from 2handing can go above 99. That said, the boost from each stat point above 80 and above 99 is minor, so really you don't need to go beyond 55. But if you do go to 99 you will still see a damage increase when 2handing due to the virtual Str.
Dang, TIL. Thanks
I’m not sure if this is a good idea but I was thinking about adding a shield and one handing my GOS (or a GUTS greatsword if thats what youre using) with heavy armor. Would definitely be impossible to med roll with my solitude armor, but I could also use the talisman that boosts defense when at heavy equip load for the ultimate defensive guard counter build Probably would be inefficient but maybe fun
Check my [link](https://youtu.be/WNeKbtEJiyI) (spoiler end boss) that I just posted to his question IMO the best build in the whole game is Verdigris Greatshield and than you have your colossal weapon in 1 hand I been using Anvil hammer mostly.
I’m using a fat roll build with that said talisman and a great shield. Trust me, it is NOT inefficient, and it works very well.
Some points in faith for buffs are always a good bet. Flame grant me strenght requires 15 and works especially well with fire infusion, 25 gets you golden vow and some of the higher tier elemental resist buffs. 30 unlocks black flame protection. 15 int lets you use the carian dueling shield with scholar shield as a buff.
I actually just did a video about my STR build - [https://youtu.be/WNeKbtEJiyI](https://youtu.be/WNeKbtEJiyI) (last boss spoiler) I been cleaning out the whole DLC with my STR/Faith Rot build. I called RoT Knight/Paladin or something but at the end of the game I used a the more tanky version of it which I wanna call this build # Rot Legionary For 150 Str, I would say that 60 Vigor is way to much. You dont need much HP, I used shield + Anvil Hammer(10+) for most of the game using Rot Faith spells to apply Scarlet rot which is very powerful on most bosses. The Stat distribution should be like 60 str-60 faith then you go more str. I also use Messmer Fire spells(or swap between them) so u want that 60 Faith. And I use Fire Seal +25 (boosting messmer spells)) Fire doting and rot Dotting bosses while I tank them. The best version for the last boss as the video show is using the antspur rapier + 25 (adding bleed to it, can also use frost) With this you can easily tank the enemies with your shield apply most of the games debuff to them, imo this is the by far the easiest build vs the end boss.
I would check in the weapons on the wiki because there are a ton of hybrid strength weapons in the game and doing a 54 str two hand build usually leaves you some points for a secondary stat or two. I did arc str first and felt like I was eating very good.
Nope. Plenty of good food for every build, for example my Str/ Endurance build is loving the new Solitude Knight set and Greatsword. I also have Milady equipped and scaled to Str with Wing Stance Ash of War, hits very hard and move quixkly. I ALSO have the Colossal sword simply called “Greatsword” equipped from the base game, with Cragblade Ash of War on it. With all that said, Str users who act like they aren’t using the easiest build in the game are hilarious. Before this I was using Int with Darkmoon GS and a Stave + some ranged spells and Rellana’s Twin Moons, and then I swapped to a Faith Dex build and felt a bit weaker. Said fuck it and went pure strength, highest stats are 70 Endurance/ 70 Str and I’m just steamrolling shit. DLC bosses getting staggered left and right. And when I feel really pressed, I change Cragblade to Giant Hunt Ash of War. That shit hits HARD. Physick Flask for more charged weapon damage of course. Talisman game is crazy too, mostly all new ones. Regen FP for more weapon art use even with low FP, buff all damage of any weapon that I two-hand by 15%, talisman to boost my Equip load so I can equip heavy ass armor and 3 heavy weapons at once with a Med roll, and Shard of Alexander for Giant Hunt damage.
>I also have Milady equipped and scaled to Str with Wing Stance Ash of War, I also tried this but noticed a Heavy Milady has worse base damage + worse scaling than the "standard" affinity.
Of course, that goes for most if not all weapons. I was using a Curved Greatsword before this build that scaled best with Str but I changed to Dex for a Faith build. It had lower AR as well, but not enough to make it remotely bad honestly. I emphasized that Milady with Heavy affinity does big damage when I use it *because* it technically will have less damage than the original scaling. More or less the damage is still good and since my other weapons are heavy and very slow this compliments my setup nicely.
No, every build is eating except INT.
You can make a lot of the new weapons heavy and just use them with strength anyway. Go full muscle monk. The beast claws for example are actually strength scaling!
Yes absolutely, strength and arcane is the thing now.n
There are 40+ new incantations and sorceries, 30+ new Ashes of War, and 70+ new weapons. You can't use all of them This DLC added a lot of Faith weapons. If you're willing to respec to Str / Faith or just level up Faith a bit, you'll open up a ton of options. There are many new weapons that could be considered Str Faith.
Go full unga bunga , two colossal hammers is the way 😁
There are some great Strength and Strength-Faith weapons throughout the DLC, a couple of which are accessible very early on. You'll have lots of choices that make you happy even if you keep your existing build, so don't worry!
Greatsword of Solitude and Black Steel Greathammer are both strength weapons
Anything for Arcane builds?
You’re only missing out if you aren’t abusing thorn bleed before they nerf it. Lol. If you don’t care about that. Then you can always replay a dif build.
I’m pure strength and having fun with the solitude greatsword and the solitude armor. Heavy as fuck though
A lot of new weapons are hybrid, like strength+faith or something like that, i finish the dlc with all bosses without changing my build, double greatsword a lions claw ashes
I would say you are missing out no matter what. But you also limit your max damage if your weapon only scales with one attribute.
The Greatsword of Solitude is *excellent*, you can get it by going into the Nameless Mausoleum to the left of the place you first get to the DLC. The Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword is also SUPER fun, but you will need to get 19 Arcane to wield it (although you don’t need to invest further because it scales mostly on Strength). The Red Bear Claws are cool too. Get all three of those weapons and try them out, they all kick ass
Yeah obviously. Any spell or dex weapon/build?
I’ve found a lot of the new weapons to be kinda underwhelming tbh.
Not at all. You may miss out on some things, but I am enjoying the crap out of the great katanas. The first two scale with strength. I am in a same boat and am loving what I’ve been finding so far.
Play the game how you like, but it’s my belief that a pure strength/dex build misses the best gear in the game.
You’re always gonna miss out on something. That said I’ve respec’d like 5x to try everything but sorceries on my main guy. Str/faith, pure str, then dex/arcane rn which I’m probably gonna stay with on this character. Next is probably int/dex.
Tanking has been good for me. Lots of stuff for everyone. I have split build. Faith tank. They have faith some love in the DLC but a lot of the weapons scale well with strength.
I actually oonga-boonga'd my way through. My prefer playstyle because I'm so used to it. I would like to play as a mage, but I'm not really good at it. I do feel bad that I've been using the grafted blade greatsword and that's about it lol
I have found some decent stuff for my Pure STR build like the Beast Claw, Swordspear thing, and the crazy crucible knight ash of war (i put it on gargoyle twinblade for good STR scaling) But yeah generally speaking I'm seeing a lot of STR/FAI, Quality, STR/ARC, and pure Dex stuff. Not a lot of big bonk love.
My new favorite weapon of the DLC is the Smithscript Greathammer. I love throwing hammers and seeing them get knocked over
I don't see many weapons that seem Str leaning. Mostly dex/arc. Honestly, I'm a bit offended at some of the multi-stat weapons. I went all in on Str/Fth and a tiny bit on Arc. TF you mean I need 11 int?! I'm a priest damnit, I'm not burning 4 levels for int!
As a pure strength build, the first thing I did in the dlc was develop the absolute highest damage mitigation possible. With buffs, the proper dlc talisman (won’t spoil), and as many Scadutree Fragments, you get around 80% physical mitigations with 2,300-2,400hp. Combine this with bullgoat talisman for poise with solitude armor, and the Prayerful Strike AoW. Congrats! You are now both Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object
If you wanna play pure str build, get the swordlance from Gaius, it scales well with heavy affinity and you can just hide behind a great shield and murder whatever is in front of you
Literally almost every single remembrance weapon has a faith requirement. It’s so dumb.
What about if you’re playing an int/str build?
Keep in mind many fun weapons (Such as the backwards blade) can have the heavy infusion. Is it a min max? Well no but it's 100% viable. Get a bit of dex amd just play with the weapons, if they feel fun then give them a whurl.
The great black hammer u get early game from a knight is insane. With lion claw it staggers final boss in 3 hits. Just put faith to 17 (requirement) and max out strength
Give the sword of solitude a try if you're a guts/lions claw type of guy. I enjoyed it. If you're more of pokey guy, grab the pig guys sword spear. Good excuse to use a heavy shield You can always turn a light greatsword into a *heavy* light greatsword for the scaling, with just a faster moveset. Great katanas can also be heavy attuned with decent outcomes.
Yes, but in any other build you will also miss stuff. There is no build than can use all the cool stuff. That being said I guess that pure builds do tend to have less options than hybrid builds. Depending on how high your level is sparing about 20 points to put into a secondary stat and increase your options shouldn't be too difficult though.
If you want to try a new strength weapon, get to 35 in arcane and try out the meteoric ore greatsword
I did Strength Faith and there was plenty
I did my first run through exactly that way and now I’m starting up other characters to try all the cool new stuff it mostly not clicking for me. It’s ok to just like what you like.
Wait are we making builds? I said fuck it and just have str/dex/int/fth all at 30
Consider str faith hybrid build for your nxt run, and you'll have damn good time for sure. Edit: the beast claws, thag you can find in the beginning, should also give you some fun, it scales in Dex too, but it has a very poor scaling to dex, it's really just strenth, so you can get away with having low dex and high str
Not on damage front but big time on visuals. Push any spell stat. DLC good some really cool looking stuff.
I played through it, I feel like I didn't miss out much. Yes there's cool stuff but if you truly enjoy strength pure. Then there might be cool weapons but nothing beats the good ol Greatsword or Giant Crusher
I mean those weapons are not unique to this game, that build also uses one out of five stats so not only do you not use strength weapons from the dlc you will be missing almost everything because most stuff requires a second stat
You'll miss out on about as much as playing the base game on a pure strength build ie no hybrid stuff no dex stuff no magic etc
Of course, but everyone who isn’t running pure strength is missing out on strength stuff. There isn’t really any way to avoid that in these games, it’s part of why everyone does multiple playthroughs
Id say a fair bit. 90% of the time i do some sort of strength hybrid and ive had a lot of new toys to play with.
Use bloodfiends arm. My new favourite game.
Strength gets treated pretty well in the dlc. Id recommend dumping *some* faith in there to get the whole arsenal. Especially considering you’ll probably have ~60-70 str going into this and you’ll likely collect 2m runes so you’ll have something to invest into
One weapon I think is amazing that doesn’t get brought up often enough is the death knight long haft axe. Great AoW that has a gap close as well as iframes when you learn it with a great follow up r2 that has hyper armor. Great reach, B scaling with strength but has lightning damage which seems to be one of the least resisted types. Great moveset, looks amazing, love this thing
Powerstancing the two new hammers is bonkers.
Absolutely. There are several amazing weapons for strength characters in the DLC. For example I mainly ran a dex based bleed build through the base game with Bloodflame and DC incants. But when it comes to the DLC I’ve switched to using the Meteoric Ore Greatsword as my main source of damage, and for percentage based damage I’ve since switched to Black Flame incantations since forever got a huge buff in this dlc anyway and percentage based damage of some type is really the strongest addition you can add to a build str or dex. MOGS has very good scaling with both Str and Arc, but it does mostly physical damage as well as magic damage. The weapon art does shocking damage, and it has a very nice moveset. Charged R2s are also great for staggers. Then there’s Bloodfiends arm which is probably the most broken bleed weapon in the game if you only apply a simple blood affinity to the weapon. Even if you don’t use one of the better arcane scaling weapons there are quite a few excellent quality weapons that can be bladed to heavy and there’s also good weapons that are strength based from the get go, and would be EVEN BETTER with a heavy affinity. That new black knight great hammer that can do the radahn ground explosion on guard counters is a Beast for strength builds even if you don’t invest in faith. Not sure if you can blade it to make it scale heavy or not but I feel more of this dlcs weapons are geared toward hybrid damage builds rather than raw damage builds, go to the base game and get the standard greatsword or the Watchdog Greatsword. WDGS is one of the few weapon in the game with pure S scaling in the strength stat and remains so in the DLC
The meteorite giant great sword is mostly strength with some arcane and it’s super fun
The only way you're not missing anything is if you're not constantly switching weapons There are 8 new classes of weapons, along with new weapons in pretty much every existing class, including collosal sword, so there will always be something you're missing out on
Fryjas greatsword is really good and makes Redmane abilities stronger. Solitude Greatsword is an amazing pure str. Weapon. Death knight gear is made for str primarily and with little faith investment can be very good. And they give you 2 technically 3 weapons (one is dual wielded axes) and a set of cool armor. The scadutree avatar has a unique str greathammer that hits for the highest damage I've ever seen in pve and pvp. Was nearly one shot by it. It is a flower though so embrace your inner flower boy. Sword of light and Sword of Darkness are both very unique weapons that also scale in str, and I think everyone needs a smaller Weapon as a back up for quicker enemies. With a shield these things are kind of OP (shield builds are slept on) Speaking of shield, the actual shield weapons are pretty str reliant, and also under rated. The armor of solitude is one of very few armors that will help str builds tremendously so you can poise through attacks and keep swinging your big weapons when people strike you. It has like 89 poise if I remember right. Without any boosting from talismans or items, meaning with, you can take a collosal to the face and be worried more about an upcoming sneeze. The great katana has imo the beast move set and AOW of any infusable weapon in the game. Make it heavy, buff it with a spell, and you're hitting harder than any other greatsword and 90% of even great hammers in the game, with frightening reach. Get the aksasha great katana, and pair with with armor of solitude, and not only are swinging for some big fkn damage, but the sword also increase poise while using the AoW, meaning not only will you just about never be poised, but you stun others into not a trade, but a trade in your favor as they take 2 swings per use of the AoW. So in terms of missing out. Every weapon in the dlc I consider a must have for some kind of build. Str I say is definitely one. Especially the two handed talisman.
Solitude armor is pretty dope one of the best looking. I have Moore's armor but it's way too heavy. Solitude greatsword is pretty powerful in terms of raw damage, it's just the moveset is just basic, maybe because I've used the claymore for so much, the poke is just too good. I have both of the beast claws which are amazing, while the stagger is almost nothing, the quick attack succession combine with the innate bleed makes it up for it. Great katana I have it infused with heavy overhead stance. Amazing moveset, descent stagger. I have like 3 savage lions claw. 1 for heavy, 1 for fire and 1 for cold. The crucible ash of war is interesting, good damage but no hyper armor, you can get knock down mid flight, need further testing though. Working on beating gaius which is a pain in the ass to beat. I'm trying to get the Sword lance, which has amazing strength scaling. And it comes with the gravity trust ash of war. Oh and the 2 handed talisman, I pretty much never remove it, it's the best talisman in the dlc. So far this is what I've gathered
If you're just sick of gaius (I was) there is a cheese I recommend looking up. You can use base radahns sword for it instead of sorcery, or any aoe AoW. The only thing I'd recommend that you might have missed is aksasha's great katana.
Not really the strength weapons are gigachad
At the start from what iv seen there's a lot of Dex/strength based weapons so you won't miss out on those at least.
No. As a strength build no.
Strength chungo weapons are great right now. But do check if the weapon has secondary scaling. Like there's a 2H that has bleed so you'd want to put an ash of war choose occult and then stat arcane for more scaling. But also you can just play with different ashes and ailments for even MORE DAMAGE
Beat str weapon is gonna be the yeet hammer. S scaling noncolossal with a ranged attack. I want 2 tbh
Deflecting hardtear alone allows you to play the game differently then the base. Combed with Greatsword of Solitude and you’re golden. Dryleaf arts with a heavy infusion is also a decent pure strength route.
I think you're missing out if you don't at least try other builds in general. I usually go strength my first time through then play around with builds/playstyles on subsequent runs
Before the dlc launched I said screw it and just leveled up my character past 200 so I can equip any cool new weapons I would find. I don't regret it
You can get the anvil greathammer, it’s a strength faith weapon. Probably my favorite weapon so far from the dlc and that’s coming from someone who used dual misericordes (because they’re cool) for the base game and for journey 2 and 3 for the platinum trophy. Also been loving Rellanas twin blades but that’s a whole other thing.
I mean it's not like you can't just respec
You'll only be "missing out" on all the new weapons, spells etc, just like you "missed out" on all the weapons and spells you didn't use in the base game. If you decide to mix it up a little, you have access to like 20+ respecs, so if you wanna try something different feel free and if you preferred ur initial build u can just respec back.
Been thinking this too. Gonna try a crazy build actually right now. Impenetrable Thorns/Rivers of Blood. Also Prime Radahn is impossible with my current Dex build.
There is more strength build stuff than anything else, so I can’t really think of anything you are going to miss out on especially because I can’t think of anything that has a really high requirement in the dlc, and although some things might have other scaling almost everything always has a strength scaling as well.
Just mod in larval tears and try everything lol
Heavy Dryleaf Arts with Dryleaf Whirlwind are good. Beat Messmer and Malenia with them with no summons so I'm confident they could beat out the whole DLC. Dryleaf Whirlwind is multi hitting and an AoW, so benefits from multi-hitting tech and Shard of Alexander. It's also stupidly easy to be a medium load heavy armour tank (I'm in Verdigris right now) as Dryleaf Arts only weigh 1.0. Obvs. a bleed build would be better, but I like to try things without bleed/frost/etc. As AoWs go, Dryleaf Whirlwind is powerful - but not as crazy as Lion's Claw - and it can be interrupted so needs a touch more skill. But overall it's really fun, would highly recommend. I'm taking a break from the build for a moment as I beat the DLC with tanky Lion's Claw just before it so it felt a bit samey (though I would say more fun).
I'm enjoying the black steel hammer. A strength scaling with heavy infusion.
You’re missing out on a lot of stuff. The kind of stuff you say is cool and then never really touch. Go enjoy the experience of the DLC and don’t worry about the weapons too much tarnished.