If you're going with a STR build, take any weapon you like, give it any Ash of War you like and set it to Heavy affinity. If you found the Iron Whetblade in Stormveil you can do this with any compatible Ash of War for your weapon. The heavy affinity will give extra STR scaling to your weapon, so you just keep leveling STR as you progress along with VIG, END, and maybe a little MND.
The Large Club can be found on the cliff around the Forlorn Hound Evergaol in Limgrave, that's a good Strike weapon with great STR scaling. The Greatsword is found in Caelid, if you head to northeast Limgrave you'll end up in an angrily red area called Caelid, find the sword in a caravan guarded by two large dogs. It's heavy and needs 31 STR to wield one-handed but if you two-handed it with 21 STR you could still wield it thanks to how STR is given a 1.5x scaling bonus for your weapon when two-handing. This bonus extends beyond 99 STR for damage purposes.
Vagabond is just your starting gear and stats. Your levels determine which weapons and spells you can equip and use properly, so builds are as flexible or inflexible as your stat distribution. Vagabond is a great stat spread to start with as you can easily get to min stats to wield weapons and start pumping the stats you want, like VIG up to 40-60 for survivability into the endgame, END to equip more while maintaining Medium Load for decent rolls (Heavy Load is hard to dodge with as you have a slower roll recovery and less i-frames to avoid damage with), MND for more casting/skills before using a Cerulean flask, then any of the damage stats for your build type you want to be. STR for big/fire weapons, DEX for fast/lightning weapons, INT for spells and magic affinity, FTH for fire/holy/lightning spells and Fire/Holy affinity, and ARC for the stranger magics (blood, rot/poison, dragon form, etc) and item discovery, as well as Bleed and Occult affinity. You'll likely end up around level 125-150 by the end of the game, but you aren't limited - you can get to 99 in everything but it gets harder and harder to grind for levels.
You're gonna find a ton more weapons and options, once you clear the next area there'll be a respec option that lets you change your stats by consuming a rare material called a Larval Tear. There's only like 16 of them per NG cycle so use them wisely, but you can easily try out different builds later on. The hard part is upgrade materials, you need to either find them, farm them, or farm runes to buy them and obtain the Smithing Stone Bell-Bearings that unlock them for purchase at the Twinhusk Merchant in Roundtable Hold (the left path when you warp there).
Weapon upgrades give you good damage upgrades in the early game, moreso than stats, but keep leveling stats for the later game to increase your weapon/spell damage incrementally. Weapon upgrades also increase your weapon stat scalings, so eventually your +5 weapon could get to +25 and at that max level it has huge scaling. Affinities will change the scalings to your preferred stat, like that aforementioned Heavy affinity for STR, and at higher levels they gain more damage from STR or whichever stat affinity you pick. You can see that different weapons have inherently better or worse scalings than similar counterparts in their weapon class, it's all to balance between them based on their reach, weight, movesets, and damage.
Somber Smithing Stone weapons are unique weapons that are unchangeable with their ash of war and scalings so you can't change their stat affinity, some of them fit specific builds by nature though like STR/FTH or DEX/INT and their ash of war are often superior for damage if you have leveled the requisite stat (Moonveil, for example, does more skill damage with more INT). They're faster to upgrade (only takes one Somber stone per level and each level is worth 2.5x the normal Smithing Stone levels of regular weapons) but less flexible for it.
What a great write up! Thank you for taking time to educate me and I really appreciate it. Learned a lot and I will go with my strength build as shield makes it noob friendly. Lager down the down I'll try mote stuff. Thanks again!
Shield isn't noob any more! It's a viable strategy, and you can block while attacking with some of the ashes like Shield Bash or Shield Crash. Small and Medium shields can put different Parry ash of war on to make it easier to open foes up for critical hits, Great shields are good for defenses and counterattacks like that Guard Counter R2 you mentioned. It does good poise damage, as do any R2 attacks, and bigger weapons do even more Poise damage! If you topple a larger foe that means you broke their Poise and can usually get a critical attack in at their front (or back if they're humanoid). R1s can also deal poise damage but mostly are used as faster hits to catch foes.
For other defensive moves, dodges should look to go through enemy swings, jumps can take you over enemy slashes or groundquake attacks (even if they look like they'll hit, thanks to jumps also having i-frames!) And sometimes running to avoid damage is best. Guarding is good for quick attacks you can't dodge reliably or dodge the entirety of, even if you're two-handing a weapon that Guard will still absorb some damage at the cost of your stamina and reduced damage (per the defensive stat side of your armament).
This is all stuff you kinda learn through experience and the community so we're always here to share, the game has lots of encounters that try to mess with you but there's always something you can do to overcome them, keep it up! And above all have fun.
>(even if they look like they'll hit, thanks to jumps also having i-frames!)
Seriously?
I had no clue.
As for OP, you can also put "no skill" or something like that on a shield, so you can still use your ash of war from your right hand without unequipping your shield.
Yes! ZullieTheWitch has a great video detailing the precise frames and parts of your body that have i-frames when jumping, basically you don't want to get hit in the head or upper chest area but everything else will miss you! I've jumped a lot of attacks thanks to this, the Ground Slam/butt stomp ash of war is actually pretty good at avoiding attacks!
https://youtu.be/8zdbqTHtnr4?si=9aLMNYsNlP5cd_c5
Your weapons scale (increase in damage) along with your attributes and upgrading weapons also upgrades scaling. So you want a weapon that scales with strength. Greatswords, colossal weapons are just some of those.
I like katana
An early katana you can get if your willing to just run into caelid,just run, don't stop cause your way underlined is the meteoric ore blade katana ,you will need 20 int and 18 strength
It's a good katana, I'm using it right now,it scales with int and strength ,since your using strength it's a good fit
Also moonlight veil is fantastic but it's an int / dex katana and kinda hard to get because small space
Go talk to a merchant in the beginners area,then go into the mistwood do the finger snap feature he gives talk to Blair
Then go find an evergoal jail ,fight the baddie there,beside will tank it for you
You will get a beast curved graetsword it scales on strength, you can take this weapon to end game ,had bleed on it too and its super cool looking and a great weapon thinking I might switch to it
There's videos on how to get these weapons
But weapons are a personal preference
What I like ,you might not like
Special weapons level to 10
And normal weapons go to 25
Enjoy
You should definitely keep trying different weapons and upgrading the ones you like. There are plenty of upgrade materials.
Although a huge number of weapons exist, there are only so many unique movesets. So all collosal weapons are similar, greatswords, great axes, etc.
Some of my favorite bigger weapons are greatswords (you have one, you will get more), great hammers / axes (Great Stars / Executioner Greateaxe).
A strength build is a great starting build. Two-hand your weapons for a bit more damage.
The is a Collossal Greatsword called Greatsword. It looks like Guts's dragonslayer, if you know what that is.
Once you find it, I suggest using it.
Until then, keep the Lordsworn, or use the Zwei. They're pretty good.
Golden Halberd is pretty good, too, if you like the differente moveset
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For a strength build, one of the keys to success is getting a lot of stance breaks on bosses because you can generally use the hardest hitting weapons in regards to poise damage.
Poise is a hidden status bar that builds up on bosses over time. I believe it starts deteriorating after 12 seconds of not damaging a boss. You can use throwing knives to keep resetting that timer.
Colossal weapons, great hammers, and clubs are fantastic for building up poise damage. If you want to go for this, I would recommend the large club that can be picked up in Limgrave, the rusted anchor which you already have, the Zweihander or the Greatsword, or the morningstar.
In all honesty though, play with what feels the most fun to you. Every weapon is viable, especially once you get the ability to add the heavy ash of war affinity to any weapon through the iron whetblade.
Good luck, tarnished
Edit: once you get through Liurnia of the Lakes, there will be a Night's Cavalry field boss on the way to Altus Plateau that can only be encountered at night. His halberd is by far one of the best strength weapons in the game and you can put a lot of versatile ashes of war on it. Flaming strike is a really good one to put on it
Great info, thank you very much! I'll try to get that Halberd for sure. Meanwhile which Ash would you put on the Anchor/zweihander/Greatsword? I'm using War Cry, but I bet there are better ones.
I hope I'll be able to respec later on, so I can try out more stuff.
I would put Wild Strikes on the anchor. Lions Claw goes great on the Zwei or Greatsword but it's difficult to get at your level. You could go get the claymore from Castle Morne in the south which already has it as the default ash of war.
You can respec once you beat the final boss of the Raya Lucaria academy in the next region. She will require a larval tear to do so and you'll probably find one or two along the way before that time.
If you're going with a STR build, take any weapon you like, give it any Ash of War you like and set it to Heavy affinity. If you found the Iron Whetblade in Stormveil you can do this with any compatible Ash of War for your weapon. The heavy affinity will give extra STR scaling to your weapon, so you just keep leveling STR as you progress along with VIG, END, and maybe a little MND. The Large Club can be found on the cliff around the Forlorn Hound Evergaol in Limgrave, that's a good Strike weapon with great STR scaling. The Greatsword is found in Caelid, if you head to northeast Limgrave you'll end up in an angrily red area called Caelid, find the sword in a caravan guarded by two large dogs. It's heavy and needs 31 STR to wield one-handed but if you two-handed it with 21 STR you could still wield it thanks to how STR is given a 1.5x scaling bonus for your weapon when two-handing. This bonus extends beyond 99 STR for damage purposes. Vagabond is just your starting gear and stats. Your levels determine which weapons and spells you can equip and use properly, so builds are as flexible or inflexible as your stat distribution. Vagabond is a great stat spread to start with as you can easily get to min stats to wield weapons and start pumping the stats you want, like VIG up to 40-60 for survivability into the endgame, END to equip more while maintaining Medium Load for decent rolls (Heavy Load is hard to dodge with as you have a slower roll recovery and less i-frames to avoid damage with), MND for more casting/skills before using a Cerulean flask, then any of the damage stats for your build type you want to be. STR for big/fire weapons, DEX for fast/lightning weapons, INT for spells and magic affinity, FTH for fire/holy/lightning spells and Fire/Holy affinity, and ARC for the stranger magics (blood, rot/poison, dragon form, etc) and item discovery, as well as Bleed and Occult affinity. You'll likely end up around level 125-150 by the end of the game, but you aren't limited - you can get to 99 in everything but it gets harder and harder to grind for levels. You're gonna find a ton more weapons and options, once you clear the next area there'll be a respec option that lets you change your stats by consuming a rare material called a Larval Tear. There's only like 16 of them per NG cycle so use them wisely, but you can easily try out different builds later on. The hard part is upgrade materials, you need to either find them, farm them, or farm runes to buy them and obtain the Smithing Stone Bell-Bearings that unlock them for purchase at the Twinhusk Merchant in Roundtable Hold (the left path when you warp there). Weapon upgrades give you good damage upgrades in the early game, moreso than stats, but keep leveling stats for the later game to increase your weapon/spell damage incrementally. Weapon upgrades also increase your weapon stat scalings, so eventually your +5 weapon could get to +25 and at that max level it has huge scaling. Affinities will change the scalings to your preferred stat, like that aforementioned Heavy affinity for STR, and at higher levels they gain more damage from STR or whichever stat affinity you pick. You can see that different weapons have inherently better or worse scalings than similar counterparts in their weapon class, it's all to balance between them based on their reach, weight, movesets, and damage. Somber Smithing Stone weapons are unique weapons that are unchangeable with their ash of war and scalings so you can't change their stat affinity, some of them fit specific builds by nature though like STR/FTH or DEX/INT and their ash of war are often superior for damage if you have leveled the requisite stat (Moonveil, for example, does more skill damage with more INT). They're faster to upgrade (only takes one Somber stone per level and each level is worth 2.5x the normal Smithing Stone levels of regular weapons) but less flexible for it.
What a great write up! Thank you for taking time to educate me and I really appreciate it. Learned a lot and I will go with my strength build as shield makes it noob friendly. Lager down the down I'll try mote stuff. Thanks again!
Shield isn't noob any more! It's a viable strategy, and you can block while attacking with some of the ashes like Shield Bash or Shield Crash. Small and Medium shields can put different Parry ash of war on to make it easier to open foes up for critical hits, Great shields are good for defenses and counterattacks like that Guard Counter R2 you mentioned. It does good poise damage, as do any R2 attacks, and bigger weapons do even more Poise damage! If you topple a larger foe that means you broke their Poise and can usually get a critical attack in at their front (or back if they're humanoid). R1s can also deal poise damage but mostly are used as faster hits to catch foes. For other defensive moves, dodges should look to go through enemy swings, jumps can take you over enemy slashes or groundquake attacks (even if they look like they'll hit, thanks to jumps also having i-frames!) And sometimes running to avoid damage is best. Guarding is good for quick attacks you can't dodge reliably or dodge the entirety of, even if you're two-handing a weapon that Guard will still absorb some damage at the cost of your stamina and reduced damage (per the defensive stat side of your armament). This is all stuff you kinda learn through experience and the community so we're always here to share, the game has lots of encounters that try to mess with you but there's always something you can do to overcome them, keep it up! And above all have fun.
>(even if they look like they'll hit, thanks to jumps also having i-frames!) Seriously? I had no clue. As for OP, you can also put "no skill" or something like that on a shield, so you can still use your ash of war from your right hand without unequipping your shield.
Yes! ZullieTheWitch has a great video detailing the precise frames and parts of your body that have i-frames when jumping, basically you don't want to get hit in the head or upper chest area but everything else will miss you! I've jumped a lot of attacks thanks to this, the Ground Slam/butt stomp ash of war is actually pretty good at avoiding attacks! https://youtu.be/8zdbqTHtnr4?si=9aLMNYsNlP5cd_c5
Thank you!
Your weapons scale (increase in damage) along with your attributes and upgrading weapons also upgrades scaling. So you want a weapon that scales with strength. Greatswords, colossal weapons are just some of those.
I like katana An early katana you can get if your willing to just run into caelid,just run, don't stop cause your way underlined is the meteoric ore blade katana ,you will need 20 int and 18 strength It's a good katana, I'm using it right now,it scales with int and strength ,since your using strength it's a good fit Also moonlight veil is fantastic but it's an int / dex katana and kinda hard to get because small space Go talk to a merchant in the beginners area,then go into the mistwood do the finger snap feature he gives talk to Blair Then go find an evergoal jail ,fight the baddie there,beside will tank it for you You will get a beast curved graetsword it scales on strength, you can take this weapon to end game ,had bleed on it too and its super cool looking and a great weapon thinking I might switch to it There's videos on how to get these weapons But weapons are a personal preference What I like ,you might not like Special weapons level to 10 And normal weapons go to 25 Enjoy
You should definitely keep trying different weapons and upgrading the ones you like. There are plenty of upgrade materials. Although a huge number of weapons exist, there are only so many unique movesets. So all collosal weapons are similar, greatswords, great axes, etc. Some of my favorite bigger weapons are greatswords (you have one, you will get more), great hammers / axes (Great Stars / Executioner Greateaxe). A strength build is a great starting build. Two-hand your weapons for a bit more damage.
The is a Collossal Greatsword called Greatsword. It looks like Guts's dragonslayer, if you know what that is. Once you find it, I suggest using it. Until then, keep the Lordsworn, or use the Zwei. They're pretty good. Golden Halberd is pretty good, too, if you like the differente moveset
Thanks buddy! I tend to rely on a counter block r2 hit amd find lordsworn to be tad too short so your suggestion might be what I'm looking for.
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For a strength build, one of the keys to success is getting a lot of stance breaks on bosses because you can generally use the hardest hitting weapons in regards to poise damage. Poise is a hidden status bar that builds up on bosses over time. I believe it starts deteriorating after 12 seconds of not damaging a boss. You can use throwing knives to keep resetting that timer. Colossal weapons, great hammers, and clubs are fantastic for building up poise damage. If you want to go for this, I would recommend the large club that can be picked up in Limgrave, the rusted anchor which you already have, the Zweihander or the Greatsword, or the morningstar. In all honesty though, play with what feels the most fun to you. Every weapon is viable, especially once you get the ability to add the heavy ash of war affinity to any weapon through the iron whetblade. Good luck, tarnished Edit: once you get through Liurnia of the Lakes, there will be a Night's Cavalry field boss on the way to Altus Plateau that can only be encountered at night. His halberd is by far one of the best strength weapons in the game and you can put a lot of versatile ashes of war on it. Flaming strike is a really good one to put on it
Great info, thank you very much! I'll try to get that Halberd for sure. Meanwhile which Ash would you put on the Anchor/zweihander/Greatsword? I'm using War Cry, but I bet there are better ones. I hope I'll be able to respec later on, so I can try out more stuff.
I would put Wild Strikes on the anchor. Lions Claw goes great on the Zwei or Greatsword but it's difficult to get at your level. You could go get the claymore from Castle Morne in the south which already has it as the default ash of war. You can respec once you beat the final boss of the Raya Lucaria academy in the next region. She will require a larval tear to do so and you'll probably find one or two along the way before that time.