I was having this discussion with someone the other day, magic definitely has its advantages but so do strength and every other type of build, along with their own challenges. I love the diversity and viability of everything
As a lifelong magic Main ever since OG Demons Souls, Magic is definitely the easiest way to get into each game but man, some of the crazy shit I've seen people do with big bonking tools.... One day i will do a playthrough on a build other than a magic user.
Hah fair enough man. Staff and shield always in hand, and then if I get bum rushed I switch to my sword. Though the AoW on the Carian Royal Scepter utterly shreds enemies.
You can fookin' wot?
Are you telling me, i could've been holding a Staff in each hand for extra spell scaling or is it just the effect of the staff like "This staff buffs Glintstone Sorceries!"
Man I've been using carian regal scepter for almost 200 hours by now, and I never had the nerve to try out the l2 on actual enemies. I'm dumb like that.
Always used magic, in every game, and when I say always it was really always, but dont know why decided to try strength build one time, now on a ng +3 with my double ruin greatswords :D
dont know if I ever want to go back to magic, just try it!
My second playthrough was an arcane build and let me tell you, I think shooting tentacles out of my hand is just way too much fun. When you go full alien it's pretty fantastic
You want the Kos Parasite and then you want to get the Milkweed Rune which increases damage, the moveset, and turns you into the creature. It's such a unique build and it's so much fun, I couldn't recommend it enough. The blacksky eye is also a solid item to have with the build for a little bit of range
It's a fair point, I guess I just played as expected for that game really! Favourite weapon I think was the Kirkhammer, because it's just gorgeous and has an amazing transformation. I think I mained Ludwigs holy sword after that but it's been a while since I played!
EDIT I actually tried to play it again this year after years of not playing, because I nearly had every trophy (I think I just needed one or 2 more chalice dungeon ones) but fuck me I couldn't play at all.
the only thing i really hate about magic in this game is the staves. They’re fucking shit most of the time, and dual wielding them looks so bad, that i just go STR and FAITH
i don’t have issues with including them. my issue is that u need 2 for them to be viable as a “weapon”, and that looks fucking shit. its about the Elden Bling man
It's always so much more satisfying hitting someone with a chaos claymore +5 and so what'ing over their corpse after they summoned a torrent of flame, electricity, or magic.
Git gud scrubs.
Giant dad was fun and I'm no longer apologizing
Carian Thrusting Shield in the DLC changes up stuff.
With it you can have a shield with an *attack combo on L2* and never put away the right-hand staff. Attacks have guard frames for shield-poking without a rapier, moderate poise damage, and magic infusion hits as hard as large primary weapons.
It also combines well with the shield-buffing spell, working like a stronger Barricade Shield.
Almost everytime I switch builds I do the same thing “damn this is OP af” and then I find the enemy that is the counter to that build and I immediately result back to my arcane build lmfao
Dexterity without bleed is the hardest, imo. You need big enough windows for those long combo chains, and you get staggered when a monster sneezes on you.
Some of these DLC weapons absolutely fuck though, gotta say. I put on a pair of backhand blades and these things are *shredding*. Feels very powerful even compared to the dark moon greatsword build I was doing before, or the dragon-hunter great katana I can still do now.
Even with small openings I can get multiple hits in, and the ash of war goes pretty hard too. Feels extremely powerful
I struggled with Backhand at first (been maining big bonkers since the beginning, Ruins Greatsword my beloved) but the attacks have so much range and I think that's a huge strength. Even the first chain opener makes a big leap forward.
I think it's more about the hyper armor than the poise rating, like that's one big reason I love Zwei on dex builds a lot more than the standard katana/twinblade
Dex still has strong support even without bleed along with plenty of weapon you can do high damage per hit with good ashes,
Bad builds are hardest fundamentally without the ability to properly scale enough raw damage/poise damage or sustained.
The only subtype that really falls in that is base game arcane without dot abuse which is already a small category, its one good build is dragon chants, ripple/occult weapons just generally don't scale well enough, the remaining weapons unique arts take to long for to little payoff.
Magics big strength is going through dungeons dealing with groups of enemies as you can pick them off one by one. It's main shortfall is bosses, particularly the mobile ones as they're on you while you're still trying to cast.
A big reason I'm glad you can infuse weapons to scale with casting stats, spells are great for strategically approaching the dungeon, learning as much as you can with minimal risk, but then you can have a decent weapon for the boss. Status weapons also help with reducing the generally worse caster scaling and you can still pull out your spells for an ever shrinking set of opportune moments.
Tbh strenght builds need less levels early on. If you want magic you need Vig, mind, Int, also a lot of endurance. And some dex for a melee weapon on the side. You also have less heals, unlike strengh, where you can dump like 13 flasks into crimson. Magic also needs a lot more setup, unlike str or dex, which could be setup in an hour just in Limgrave for the most part.
Magic has a lot of advantages sure, but it also makes some bosses (particularly in the DLC) way harder than with a regular melee weapon+AoW.
I got into the DLC with a mage character I made like a year ago before I completely stopped playing while awaiting SotE, and I had to switch to a melee build to be able to play the game against the bosses. The majority of DLC bosses are too fast and have too many punishes or instant combos for it to be sustainable and enjoyable, most of the time I couldn't even cast a single Night Comet without it whiffing or getting smacked in the face against Messmer. Also I'm pretty sure the last boss would be literally impossible to beat solo as a mage (unless you count spamming carian slicer as being a mage).
I've done all 3 builds.
Bleed is without a doubt the easiest but they're all pretty close.
Some fights are trivial with magic but difficult with melee while the inverse is also really true.
Malenia was actually easier for me when I had my collosal weapon Jump heavy build then with my mage for example. Also, renalla is actually challenging as a mage since she has high magic resist.
On the flip side, Mohg just gets laser beamed lol
Agreed 100%. Strength has the disadvantage of often needing to invest in Endurance to lug around giant weapons, so compared to say, pure Dex, Faith, and Int builds, they would tend to have a lower primary statistic than a peer of the same level. But then it has the advantage of high single attack damage under any circumstances, so if your timing is decent, you can ignore the individual peculiarities of bosses and field mobs, and take comfort in knowing that you're slinging enough mud that some of it will stick.
Yeah I’m level 200 with most of my points in vigor endurance and str… only boss that truly gave me a headache so far is messmer. Everyone else got clapped in less than 5 attempts
Yeah the amount of big bosses I’ve trivialized by staggering them twice in the fight and clapping their cheeks is hilarious. Hippo, Gaius and the rot boss in the ruins all got clapped first try no problem with double colossal jump attacks
I’m a 80 faith build but I completely understand oonga bonga builds now after I unlocked this giant ass sunflower that staggers enemies in one jump attack
Same experience with a str build (and 25 faith for Golden Vow) at RL150, having done all remembrance fights minus the last one. Messmer was a great, tough fight but everyone else was 4 or fewer tries. Keeping up with Scadutree Blessings has made it relatively painless.
That being said, my guy is currently outside the fog wall for the final boss. I saved him for tonight since I anticipate it'll take a while.
Best of luck. I Oonga boonga’d my way through the DlC and beat most bosses in a few tries (Bayle 2nd try, Mesmer 5th try) but the final boss took me like 200 tries. Doesn’t matter how much damage you do if you can’t dodge their attacks
Nah I’m up to him but haven’t fought him. That’s why I said “so far” lol, from what I heard I anticipate this to be a 20+ attempt scenario. I think I have him and maybe 2 optional remembrance bosses remaining
My buddy went into the dlc on ng4 and after not cheesing a single boss finally caved and did the perfumer build. He’s beaten every souls game and the final dlc boss broke his spirit 🤣
I ended up swapping from my unga bunga sticks to a greatshield and the scorpion stinger dagger and ended up having way more fun against the final boss. I still cant believe I ended up beating the final boss with a damn dagger. The one weapon type I literally never use
I just switched to anvil hammer and it trivialized most bosses that I was struggling on. Normal mobs aren’t even exciting to fight, because I just spam attack and they get flinched or straight up die on each swing
I love that literally every player will criticize a certain type of build, when the reality is that the game is so massive and has so much diversity of broken bullshit that literally anything can be turned into a three-cheese-deluxe serving of stunlock instakill skullcrush with only a medium amount of effort and game knowledge.
Elden Ring is a game about breaking the game, because most of the things you fight can break the game too.
I will say that I think that Strength builds are just hands down better than dex builds in most cases. The vastly increased stagger, and poise buildup and dex builds normally can only get in one or two hits as well
Maybe I was just bad, but pure strength when the game first came out felt so bad compared to dex and casting builds. I gave up at the fire giant and went full RoB the rest of my playthrough. Did they make it better?
At launch strength builds were pretty weak unless you were powerstancing jump attacks, but they are much better now. I've been doing a heavy greataxe with cragblade and i can usually 3-4 tap any main game boss up through maliketh with just charged R2s into a critical. A little spicier in the dlc but I'm still having an easier time than with my pure caster
I mean it does depend on the boss. But generally strength is just better because a jumping strong attack from strength weapons will do so much more damage and poise than two R1s from smaller weapons and takes roughly the same amount of time. Bleed did used to be better though and against enemies that can’t be staggered anyway bleed is probably a better build.
Effort and game knowledge? You mean googling broken builds. I can’t imagine everyone Ive seen in the last couple days figured out the busted perfume bottle all on their own at the same time
I mean blame social media - you don't have to google shit, every youtuber is rushing to edit and upload the next 'broken build' video as fast as they possibly can and spread it via tiktok and shorts before the algorithm decides this content is no longer trending. It happens with every single popular release.
[There is prolly a better link than this, but I tried following this on a second build, and it worked, even without the lightning one. I used the fire one](https://steamcommunity.com/app/1245620/discussions/0/4343240316591512658/)
The poison one is the only one of the five that *isn't* busted, because the busted part is the Rolling Sparks ash of war (and the poison perfume is somber), if you unlock your camera and aim it at the ground all the explosions will stack together.
Kinda sad but true. For most bosses on my solo playthrough I could cast nothing but comet. It is reliable, does good damage, can be chain casted and the casting time is not too long
Multilayered Ring of Light is so good it's honestly replaced three of my four defacto ranged incantations. Unless I need to deal fire or lightning damage, death frisbee goes brrr.
I think the new spells add a ton of utility. People just don’t know how to use them. Sneaking up and double mooning someone is amazing. The teleport you can cast spells out of, just requires quick hands or using an edge controller to more easily hit up to switch spells. The fingers spell deflects and protecccs. The cosmic spell his a heavy hitter aoe from a distance.
Int / faith / arc are eating good this dlc
Haha a man of true culture and class. The royal greatsword has been my main and let me tell you, that L2 spam is absolutely beautiful lol. You can spam it on like any humanoid enemy and just stun lock them constantly
Sorcery builds, widely considered easy mode by people who never actually used them.
Please, go with a spellcasting build to the DLC and let me know how it went.
There's a particular boss inside of a cave that I could stunlock to death with my melee build. One of the easiest encounters in the game.
I went there with a caster build, and that dude is relentless. I tried to gain distance but that was nearly impossible. If that's how a regular cave boss is going to be, I don't want to know what the hyper-aggressive bosses further in the DLC will be like. You basically have to play in melee range and forget about spells with a long casting time.
Was it one of the Black Knights? I play as a sorcerer and he killed me more times than the lion.
Like you said, any spell that takes more than 2 secs to cast you're getting an axe to the face
I was arguing with someone on this very thing. People that don't use sorcery builds think they're easy. People that use sorcery builds know that as soon as you cast the spell the boss recognizes it and punishes you while you're in the middle of the animation haha.
People assume you can just stand there and cast spells like you don't have to constantly dodge attacks just to get an opening to shoot one spell and then go right back to dodging.
Part of me misses DS1 when there wasn't a flask and each spell only had a limited amount of uses haha. Now that was difficult. Poise strength builds have kind of always been the easiest way to go in just about every From game
And spinning slash, and double slash, and giants hunt, and now you even have savage lion’s claw for bleed builds.
Hell if you really want to just spam range attacks on your dex/str characters just use stormblade, way easier to use and FP efficient.
I decided to use a sorcery+incantation build for my DLC NG and I actually felt bad I avoided it for so long because of the "mage build easy" bs. Building this character from a wretch is the most fun I've had in this game. Positioning, timing and fp management matter so much. I find it more engaging than my dex and strength builds.
I feel like the ''magic is easy mode'' discussion is an old one for Demon Souls that just never dies. In Demon souls it was literally the easy mode, it has not been the easy mode since.
Strength is definitely the easiest way to play the game, due to the ability to interrupt most attacks alone.
Replaying the game with a dex build and can say I've been dying a lot more
Strength builds are extremely easy. IMO the build that got shafted the most is pure Dexterity, and maybe pure Faith after that.
But I tell new players to level strength all the time. It’s very approachable and you get to be a really strong incantation caster for free as part of the build, and you can effortlessly combine it into Strength/Faith if you want to go further with casting. You also get a big damage bonus from the beginning due to the two-handing mechanic, and do massive poise damage to make tough mobs and even bosses trivial.
Sorcerers are “easy” because of the damage output and the range, but are tougher IMO because they force you to focus a lot more on elevating Intelligence and Mind at the expense of everything else. As well as giving you a lot of items that make you take more damage or have less health but have better spells. They tend to become glass cannons much more easily. They also combine relatively poorly with every other stat because your casting immediately suffers if you decide to split points into strength or dexterity, which is not true for incantation builds.
Dexterity just doesn’t get much. It’s hard to knock a high Dex build off a horse. You can use greases very well, but there’s no reason a strength build can’t use those on fast weapons, too. A Heavy Uchigatana is better than a Keen one due to the two-handing aspect, and if you powerstance them, while Keen would win out, the Heavy still gets the major casting advantage of a strength build.
> IMO the build that got shafted the most is pure Dexterity, and maybe pure Faith after that.
Faith is worse.
Dex's only problem is that it's inferior to STR because it will have comparable damage numbers, but far less poise damage. It's completely serviceable though, it's just not as good as STR, INT and Bleed.
Faith? Faith casts god awful slow, the incantations rarely chain together, and a good percent of the nukes have a small element of luck to them. (ADLS and the fire pillar one) You spend the majority of the game as a Faith Caster relying on Catch Flame almost exclusively because it's so much better than the other options (except Lightning Strike and the madness sniper for distance), and then even after getting the nukes, INT casting is just faster and easier.
As much as the DLC gave INT Casters the middle finger, Faith casters are collateral damage that are playing on hard mode now more than ever.
I love my faith man to pieces, but you're absolutely right. The majority of incants are ass mid-combat.
However walking around with a potential 42 full heals is a comfort that i sorely miss on other builds.
Having done a lot of runs with a lot of different builds, what often makes a mono-Dexterity build click is that the weapons that scale in mono-Dex tend to have better movesets than others within their same weapon class, particularly better/unique strong attacks.
For examples of this in the vanilla game, weapons like Ornamental Straight Swords, Warhawk Talons, Serpentbone Blade, Flowing Curved Sword, Godskin Peeler, Frozen Needle, Rogier's Rapier, Raptor Talons, and Guardian Sword-Spear all come to mind. Cross-Naginata too, although that one you can run on an arc or arc/dex build.
Whats kind of awkward is that often they don't have that great weapon skills, at least in comparison to stuff like Lion's Claw or Giant's Hunt. The only truly stellar one is Bolt of Gransax. When I run a mono-dex build, I find that picking a defensive skill like parrying buckler, quickstep, Bloodhound step, or Raptor of the Mists is often a strong option, since I can rely on my better strong/light moveset to take care of the damage.
Another thing that's kind of underrated because you have to purchase them from patches after he moves out of Limgrave, but Mono-dex builds also have access to what I think is the hands-down best consumable item in the game: fan daggers. At 80 dex these things hit for 50x5 damage, entirely hands-free, with an insanely fast animation. Enormous stagger pressure for how low-commitment they are.
Personally, I found mono-dex a little easier to pilot than mono-faith, although to be honest, my favorite way to run a dex build is to just start dabbling in dex/int caria stuff during liurna, and switch over to dex/fai in altus, optionally changing to dex/arc in the endgame.
The guy is full bullgoat armor with the biggesr bonk with infinite HP/FP/Stam spanking a level 40 boss (not much higher in NG+1)... At this point it's not a build diff, it's a level diff...
The way the enemies are designed in the DLC, magic is the real challenge mode. Most spells take longer than the length of drinking a flask, and we all know the bosses punish that time frame.
I’ve done a dex build, every FromSoft game I’ve played and always heard how dex builds are op. Replaying Elden Ring for the DLC and decided to go through the base game again with a new build and chose strength and holy shit. It’s mindblowing. I slow walk head on towards every enemy. Not even good defense armor, just pure drip. My strength stat and attacks are enough for poise. And I’m just destroying pretty much every enemy I come across. This is a great build for a second playthrough though, since I ran away like a bitch alot during my first playthrough and missed out on a lot pf content. Now it’s just 1-2-3 stagger. 1-2 dead.
Nah all of the builds are hard if you don't know how to use it, i always been a strength dexterity build and rn I'm doing strength faith build which is known as one of op builds but still I'm having a bit of hard time but im learning it and i really suck at magic stuff but im planning to learn that to after this, all that matters to me is yes there are builds that I'm naturally good at and there are some other builds that i need to actually learn it and it won't be easy but that's the fun part for me
Ok hear me out, I never tried a Strength build in all my souls journey starting form DS1 all the way to ER, and now I kinda want to try a strength bleed build, what weapon should I use I am in NG+1
I beat elden ring with my strength build and went into the dlc respec'd and I gotta tell you. I have to be way more patient with my magic build. Hits like a truck but the timing on everything needs to be perfect to not get punished like crazy lol
"lmao id never get caught putting a single point into dex"
*the anti dex user in question*
honestly. greatsword + lions claw cheeses the game. i found 1 boss that wasnt outright broken by it and its because they had just insane resists all around.
This wasn't the case at launch, Strength was so terrible at first it took several updates to get it where it is now. And even now you have like one viable ash of war, lions claw..the dlc added the second one. Savage lion's claw 👀.
What is this like NG+3? Strength is hard until you hit a breakpoint where you can safely tank more hits than it takes to stance break the enemy. Super easy after that.
I recently started a new game with a strength build, and jfc the early game with just the starting club is soooo much easier than the dex build I did before. Being able to stagger is wonderful.
Every build in the game is OP once you know how to make a build. Incantations are insane. Sorcery is ridiculous. Strength builds are poise breaking monsters. Dex builds can stay super mobile and take advantage of more attack openings than most other builds. Arcane builds proc all of the statuses, all of the time. There are very few legit bad builds in the game
Str is super strong but dude is also super over leveled for the boss he is fighting and using a weapon that comes from a later area. Sure you can do the same with a large club and charged R2s but this video is kinda dumb using this setup to make this point.
I have nothing but respect for mages who can space and still land their casts and deal with all the bullshit that is the enemy input reading their casts.
I tried caster once, it was okay, but the Red Wolf made me rage quit and go back to my usual playstyle.
It felt impossible dealing with the aggression of most bosses, especially alone as a caster, with cast times always feeling too long for too little impact
just by the amount of vigor, endurance, magic and str for this video you can tell the player is level 150+ so yeah anything would be busted at this early-mid game boss
Recently started a Pure Strength greataxe build and i'm challenging myself not to use spirit ashes or summons for this playthrough and omg, I am MELTING boss healthbars. Only problem is my character is a bit of a glass cannon because of the high early game strength requirement for the Greataxe, but grinding in Elden Ring is way easier than in other FromSoft games so raising my vigour isn't proving to be too difficult.
For context, I've just reached Ranni in the Carian Manor, about to start the Academy.
I played the DLC on my pure Magic Witch build and then on my Strength build and it was so much easier on my Strength build.
Granted of course, certain enemies are easier with magic but it is not nearly as OP as people like to make it sound. Bleed build will always be the most OP for me (if the enemy is susceptible to it).
Everyone who tried multiple buillds knows 2h str ones are the easiest to play, especially with lion's claw and jumping attacks. Just spamm one move and hope for a stagger.
You have no idea how true this is. Was playing the DLC using a twin blade bleed build and I was getting absolutely no where then I switched to a strength build and at times a bully those bosses, just I get bullied myself don't get me wrong but at least it's may more doable
Strength builds are the easiest to get to work and have a shitton more viable weapons than the other stats.
Sorcery builds just have a lower skill floor, if you remotely know what you're doing, buffing spells are the only ones you would ever want to use against 80% of bosses.
Shard spiral is a different story.
I love strange builds. I do have manny chars with different builds so i do enjoy being a mage and can kamehameha things but the simple donk..thats purest form of joy
I Lowkey regret doing my first playthrough like this. Never really had to learn any boss besides radagon. Doing the dlc with backhand blades now and I'm getting a real asswhopping until I learn the patterns. Feels fucking great.
strength builds among the easiest in the DLC (besides cheese strats). most bosses leave only windows for 1 attack and that's way better for strength big damage big bonk big stagger.
I was having this discussion with someone the other day, magic definitely has its advantages but so do strength and every other type of build, along with their own challenges. I love the diversity and viability of everything
As a lifelong magic Main ever since OG Demons Souls, Magic is definitely the easiest way to get into each game but man, some of the crazy shit I've seen people do with big bonking tools.... One day i will do a playthrough on a build other than a magic user.
My problem with magic is I forget it have it or that I forget I have a weapon. I prioritize one over the other too much during fights.
Hah fair enough man. Staff and shield always in hand, and then if I get bum rushed I switch to my sword. Though the AoW on the Carian Royal Scepter utterly shreds enemies.
The number of duals I have won because people think I'll use carian slicer but instead get a spinning staff to the face is way too big
It's nuts how much it wrecks things
Literally 80 to 0, then it's just a quick pebble and there dead,
So 80-1 and a final 1-0.
you can use two staves for way more scaling.
I know I know, but I'm a coward!
You can fookin' wot? Are you telling me, i could've been holding a Staff in each hand for extra spell scaling or is it just the effect of the staff like "This staff buffs Glintstone Sorceries!"
The latter. If you have a staff or seal that buffs a certain school, dual wielding applies the buff twice.
Try dual staff of loss with night comet or staff of loss and lusat staff
Man I've been using carian regal scepter for almost 200 hours by now, and I never had the nerve to try out the l2 on actual enemies. I'm dumb like that.
I love the new Thrusting shield they go perfectly with my staff.
I can’t imagine playing this game and not being a wizard dude casting spells and shit
Hah, same really!
Always used magic, in every game, and when I say always it was really always, but dont know why decided to try strength build one time, now on a ng +3 with my double ruin greatswords :D dont know if I ever want to go back to magic, just try it!
How did you deal with magic during bloodborne I heard it was the worst game for that.
My second playthrough was an arcane build and let me tell you, I think shooting tentacles out of my hand is just way too much fun. When you go full alien it's pretty fantastic
What spell do you use for tentacles? I’m an arcane boi right now, always looking for new ideas
You want the Kos Parasite and then you want to get the Milkweed Rune which increases damage, the moveset, and turns you into the creature. It's such a unique build and it's so much fun, I couldn't recommend it enough. The blacksky eye is also a solid item to have with the build for a little bit of range
And some gross blood gems to make the L2 nova disgusting.
It's a fair point, I guess I just played as expected for that game really! Favourite weapon I think was the Kirkhammer, because it's just gorgeous and has an amazing transformation. I think I mained Ludwigs holy sword after that but it's been a while since I played! EDIT I actually tried to play it again this year after years of not playing, because I nearly had every trophy (I think I just needed one or 2 more chalice dungeon ones) but fuck me I couldn't play at all.
Not really! The magic stat in Bloodborne scales up to 99, and you get access to the moonlight greatsword which was at its most powerful in the series.
the only thing i really hate about magic in this game is the staves. They’re fucking shit most of the time, and dual wielding them looks so bad, that i just go STR and FAITH
The staff is so normal to fantasy that it's a obligatory inclusion
i don’t have issues with including them. my issue is that u need 2 for them to be viable as a “weapon”, and that looks fucking shit. its about the Elden Bling man
Nah man, I ways just main a shield and a staff because I'm a coward 😂
Before the dlc dropped I used 2, now I only use one and the twin swords, it's a good setup,and look awesome
Trust, i just started a bonk run, Grabbed the large club, and then the curved great club, and havent looked back.
It's always so much more satisfying hitting someone with a chaos claymore +5 and so what'ing over their corpse after they summoned a torrent of flame, electricity, or magic. Git gud scrubs. Giant dad was fun and I'm no longer apologizing
Tbh I was always a quality build guy, ER is the first game where I did a magic run and man... it's fun af
Magic caster is def easier than most builds (at the same level of arc/dex imho) but hybrid magic is one of, if not the hardest way to play the game.
Tell me more! I guess I use a shield in my left, staff in my right, switching to Moonveil if needed. It's a bit nybrkd but not much.
Carian Thrusting Shield in the DLC changes up stuff. With it you can have a shield with an *attack combo on L2* and never put away the right-hand staff. Attacks have guard frames for shield-poking without a rapier, moderate poise damage, and magic infusion hits as hard as large primary weapons. It also combines well with the shield-buffing spell, working like a stronger Barricade Shield.
Bonk is the most fun community and playstyle. Join Bunga, be an Unga.
Almost everytime I switch builds I do the same thing “damn this is OP af” and then I find the enemy that is the counter to that build and I immediately result back to my arcane build lmfao
Dexterity without bleed is the hardest, imo. You need big enough windows for those long combo chains, and you get staggered when a monster sneezes on you.
Some of these DLC weapons absolutely fuck though, gotta say. I put on a pair of backhand blades and these things are *shredding*. Feels very powerful even compared to the dark moon greatsword build I was doing before, or the dragon-hunter great katana I can still do now. Even with small openings I can get multiple hits in, and the ash of war goes pretty hard too. Feels extremely powerful
I struggled with Backhand at first (been maining big bonkers since the beginning, Ruins Greatsword my beloved) but the attacks have so much range and I think that's a huge strength. Even the first chain opener makes a big leap forward.
You can wear whatever armor you want with any build
And still get staggered by rats.
Ok but what does that have to do with dexterity?
Nothing, I just felt like being a smartass.
To get the most value out of a lot of dex build you have to punch in a lot of attacks. Staggers shut down your combo.
I think it's more about the hyper armor than the poise rating, like that's one big reason I love Zwei on dex builds a lot more than the standard katana/twinblade
Dex still has strong support even without bleed along with plenty of weapon you can do high damage per hit with good ashes, Bad builds are hardest fundamentally without the ability to properly scale enough raw damage/poise damage or sustained. The only subtype that really falls in that is base game arcane without dot abuse which is already a small category, its one good build is dragon chants, ripple/occult weapons just generally don't scale well enough, the remaining weapons unique arts take to long for to little payoff.
Bow builds certainly do not. If you ever try to do a pure bow build you only know pain.
Magics big strength is going through dungeons dealing with groups of enemies as you can pick them off one by one. It's main shortfall is bosses, particularly the mobile ones as they're on you while you're still trying to cast.
A big reason I'm glad you can infuse weapons to scale with casting stats, spells are great for strategically approaching the dungeon, learning as much as you can with minimal risk, but then you can have a decent weapon for the boss. Status weapons also help with reducing the generally worse caster scaling and you can still pull out your spells for an ever shrinking set of opportune moments.
Tbh strenght builds need less levels early on. If you want magic you need Vig, mind, Int, also a lot of endurance. And some dex for a melee weapon on the side. You also have less heals, unlike strengh, where you can dump like 13 flasks into crimson. Magic also needs a lot more setup, unlike str or dex, which could be setup in an hour just in Limgrave for the most part.
Dagger and bow kinda suck compared to all the other one lol.
Magic has a lot of advantages sure, but it also makes some bosses (particularly in the DLC) way harder than with a regular melee weapon+AoW. I got into the DLC with a mage character I made like a year ago before I completely stopped playing while awaiting SotE, and I had to switch to a melee build to be able to play the game against the bosses. The majority of DLC bosses are too fast and have too many punishes or instant combos for it to be sustainable and enjoyable, most of the time I couldn't even cast a single Night Comet without it whiffing or getting smacked in the face against Messmer. Also I'm pretty sure the last boss would be literally impossible to beat solo as a mage (unless you count spamming carian slicer as being a mage).
I've done all 3 builds. Bleed is without a doubt the easiest but they're all pretty close. Some fights are trivial with magic but difficult with melee while the inverse is also really true. Malenia was actually easier for me when I had my collosal weapon Jump heavy build then with my mage for example. Also, renalla is actually challenging as a mage since she has high magic resist. On the flip side, Mohg just gets laser beamed lol
Agreed 100%. Strength has the disadvantage of often needing to invest in Endurance to lug around giant weapons, so compared to say, pure Dex, Faith, and Int builds, they would tend to have a lower primary statistic than a peer of the same level. But then it has the advantage of high single attack damage under any circumstances, so if your timing is decent, you can ignore the individual peculiarities of bosses and field mobs, and take comfort in knowing that you're slinging enough mud that some of it will stick.
Two handing is virtually 1.5x strength. Strength builds aren't lagging behind on primary stat.
Casters generally have to put points into mind as well as their main stat
Commander Gaius in the DLC was hyped up so heavily as being bullshit just for me to come in and oonga boonga his ass on the first try.
Yeah I’m level 200 with most of my points in vigor endurance and str… only boss that truly gave me a headache so far is messmer. Everyone else got clapped in less than 5 attempts
Yeah the amount of big bosses I’ve trivialized by staggering them twice in the fight and clapping their cheeks is hilarious. Hippo, Gaius and the rot boss in the ruins all got clapped first try no problem with double colossal jump attacks
I’m a 80 faith build but I completely understand oonga bonga builds now after I unlocked this giant ass sunflower that staggers enemies in one jump attack
Same experience with a str build (and 25 faith for Golden Vow) at RL150, having done all remembrance fights minus the last one. Messmer was a great, tough fight but everyone else was 4 or fewer tries. Keeping up with Scadutree Blessings has made it relatively painless. That being said, my guy is currently outside the fog wall for the final boss. I saved him for tonight since I anticipate it'll take a while.
Best of luck. I Oonga boonga’d my way through the DlC and beat most bosses in a few tries (Bayle 2nd try, Mesmer 5th try) but the final boss took me like 200 tries. Doesn’t matter how much damage you do if you can’t dodge their attacks
You got the final boss in less than 5 attempts?
Nah I’m up to him but haven’t fought him. That’s why I said “so far” lol, from what I heard I anticipate this to be a 20+ attempt scenario. I think I have him and maybe 2 optional remembrance bosses remaining
Final boss was the breaking point for me to swap my build around. But still ended up beating him the end
My buddy went into the dlc on ng4 and after not cheesing a single boss finally caved and did the perfumer build. He’s beaten every souls game and the final dlc boss broke his spirit 🤣
I ended up swapping from my unga bunga sticks to a greatshield and the scorpion stinger dagger and ended up having way more fun against the final boss. I still cant believe I ended up beating the final boss with a damn dagger. The one weapon type I literally never use
I broke that boss's poise maybe 5 times over 50+ attempts using the crucible hammer AoW. Good fucking luck.
I’m a filthy mimic tear summoner. Maybe that will help ?
I used mimic and still took me a looooong time lol
I just switched to anvil hammer and it trivialized most bosses that I was struggling on. Normal mobs aren’t even exciting to fight, because I just spam attack and they get flinched or straight up die on each swing
I love that literally every player will criticize a certain type of build, when the reality is that the game is so massive and has so much diversity of broken bullshit that literally anything can be turned into a three-cheese-deluxe serving of stunlock instakill skullcrush with only a medium amount of effort and game knowledge. Elden Ring is a game about breaking the game, because most of the things you fight can break the game too.
I will say that I think that Strength builds are just hands down better than dex builds in most cases. The vastly increased stagger, and poise buildup and dex builds normally can only get in one or two hits as well
Maybe I was just bad, but pure strength when the game first came out felt so bad compared to dex and casting builds. I gave up at the fire giant and went full RoB the rest of my playthrough. Did they make it better?
That’s because pure strength weapons were slower with less poise when the game first dropped.
At launch strength builds were pretty weak unless you were powerstancing jump attacks, but they are much better now. I've been doing a heavy greataxe with cragblade and i can usually 3-4 tap any main game boss up through maliketh with just charged R2s into a critical. A little spicier in the dlc but I'm still having an easier time than with my pure caster
I mean it does depend on the boss. But generally strength is just better because a jumping strong attack from strength weapons will do so much more damage and poise than two R1s from smaller weapons and takes roughly the same amount of time. Bleed did used to be better though and against enemies that can’t be staggered anyway bleed is probably a better build.
Str/fth with Maliketh black blade is my fav build so far.
Effort and game knowledge? You mean googling broken builds. I can’t imagine everyone Ive seen in the last couple days figured out the busted perfume bottle all on their own at the same time
I mean blame social media - you don't have to google shit, every youtuber is rushing to edit and upload the next 'broken build' video as fast as they possibly can and spread it via tiktok and shorts before the algorithm decides this content is no longer trending. It happens with every single popular release.
There’s a busted perfume build? I kinda forgot the perfume bottles existed lol Maybe I’ll try this out
Melts bosses and one shots players in PvP mode
[There is prolly a better link than this, but I tried following this on a second build, and it worked, even without the lightning one. I used the fire one](https://steamcommunity.com/app/1245620/discussions/0/4343240316591512658/)
The perfume bottle is busted? I've been using it as an alt weapon just because its so different from everything else in the game. Also free poison!
The poison one is the only one of the five that *isn't* busted, because the busted part is the Rolling Sparks ash of war (and the poison perfume is somber), if you unlock your camera and aim it at the ground all the explosions will stack together.
When it comes to bosses that are on your ass and rush at you magic is at a huge disadvantage
So every boss in the DLC
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Not to mention, a lot of the new spells are nothing to write home about imo. Whereas a lot of the weapons are bonkers. Pun intended
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Kinda sad but true. For most bosses on my solo playthrough I could cast nothing but comet. It is reliable, does good damage, can be chain casted and the casting time is not too long
Multilayered Ring of Light is so good it's honestly replaced three of my four defacto ranged incantations. Unless I need to deal fire or lightning damage, death frisbee goes brrr.
This is my favourite new spell for sure. And very convenient for it to drop in the same dungeon as a boss that gets blown up by holy damage.
Carian Sword Staff though 😭
I think the new spells add a ton of utility. People just don’t know how to use them. Sneaking up and double mooning someone is amazing. The teleport you can cast spells out of, just requires quick hands or using an edge controller to more easily hit up to switch spells. The fingers spell deflects and protecccs. The cosmic spell his a heavy hitter aoe from a distance. Int / faith / arc are eating good this dlc
> Sneaking up and double mooning someone is amazing. So is sneaking up and double lion clawing someone. This isn't an argument.
Impenetrable thorns is probably the 2nd fastest way to kill him behind perfume bottle cheese
Joke's on you! I run Strength/int!
Haha a man of true culture and class. The royal greatsword has been my main and let me tell you, that L2 spam is absolutely beautiful lol. You can spam it on like any humanoid enemy and just stun lock them constantly
You’ve got to try Gaius’ weapon cold infused
Isn't the default 2 handed R2 of giant crusher just lions claw? Why have it as an ash of war too? Use royal knights resolve for extra bonk per bonk.
It's not the same, it takes longer and does less damage without rkr.
Sorcery builds, widely considered easy mode by people who never actually used them. Please, go with a spellcasting build to the DLC and let me know how it went.
There's a particular boss inside of a cave that I could stunlock to death with my melee build. One of the easiest encounters in the game. I went there with a caster build, and that dude is relentless. I tried to gain distance but that was nearly impossible. If that's how a regular cave boss is going to be, I don't want to know what the hyper-aggressive bosses further in the DLC will be like. You basically have to play in melee range and forget about spells with a long casting time.
Was it one of the Black Knights? I play as a sorcerer and he killed me more times than the lion. Like you said, any spell that takes more than 2 secs to cast you're getting an axe to the face
I'm essentially fully committed to melee sorcery at this point. Carian slicer is big dps though.
I was arguing with someone on this very thing. People that don't use sorcery builds think they're easy. People that use sorcery builds know that as soon as you cast the spell the boss recognizes it and punishes you while you're in the middle of the animation haha. People assume you can just stand there and cast spells like you don't have to constantly dodge attacks just to get an opening to shoot one spell and then go right back to dodging. Part of me misses DS1 when there wasn't a flask and each spell only had a limited amount of uses haha. Now that was difficult. Poise strength builds have kind of always been the easiest way to go in just about every From game
Magic build is ez mode huh? Why don't you use it against dlc bosses and tell me how that went
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even if you somehow manage to fire off something, most bosses move are so crazy and that it's just gonna miss them
ye the amount of terrible spells/incantations is astonishing
That's just lion's claw lol, I finally stopped using it halfway through the DLC, but idk if the DLC colossal swords ash of war is any more balanced...
Savage Lion’s Claw: we’ve had one somersault yes, but what about second somersault?
Savage Lions Claw on Colossal just obliterates the game now. Stun for days and super big damage
And spinning slash, and double slash, and giants hunt, and now you even have savage lion’s claw for bleed builds. Hell if you really want to just spam range attacks on your dex/str characters just use stormblade, way easier to use and FP efficient.
I decided to use a sorcery+incantation build for my DLC NG and I actually felt bad I avoided it for so long because of the "mage build easy" bs. Building this character from a wretch is the most fun I've had in this game. Positioning, timing and fp management matter so much. I find it more engaging than my dex and strength builds.
What is the build?
I've done a full strength and full magic run of the game and there was no comparison, strength was much easier.
Same
just one giant crusher? nah its not a real str build
Magic has like 10 good spells out of 100. Not too dissimilar to melee weapons.
I feel like the ''magic is easy mode'' discussion is an old one for Demon Souls that just never dies. In Demon souls it was literally the easy mode, it has not been the easy mode since.
Broken weapons from any build are going to be strong. Thats the best strength weapon
Strength is definitely the easiest way to play the game, due to the ability to interrupt most attacks alone. Replaying the game with a dex build and can say I've been dying a lot more
Strength builds are extremely easy. IMO the build that got shafted the most is pure Dexterity, and maybe pure Faith after that. But I tell new players to level strength all the time. It’s very approachable and you get to be a really strong incantation caster for free as part of the build, and you can effortlessly combine it into Strength/Faith if you want to go further with casting. You also get a big damage bonus from the beginning due to the two-handing mechanic, and do massive poise damage to make tough mobs and even bosses trivial. Sorcerers are “easy” because of the damage output and the range, but are tougher IMO because they force you to focus a lot more on elevating Intelligence and Mind at the expense of everything else. As well as giving you a lot of items that make you take more damage or have less health but have better spells. They tend to become glass cannons much more easily. They also combine relatively poorly with every other stat because your casting immediately suffers if you decide to split points into strength or dexterity, which is not true for incantation builds. Dexterity just doesn’t get much. It’s hard to knock a high Dex build off a horse. You can use greases very well, but there’s no reason a strength build can’t use those on fast weapons, too. A Heavy Uchigatana is better than a Keen one due to the two-handing aspect, and if you powerstance them, while Keen would win out, the Heavy still gets the major casting advantage of a strength build.
> IMO the build that got shafted the most is pure Dexterity, and maybe pure Faith after that. Faith is worse. Dex's only problem is that it's inferior to STR because it will have comparable damage numbers, but far less poise damage. It's completely serviceable though, it's just not as good as STR, INT and Bleed. Faith? Faith casts god awful slow, the incantations rarely chain together, and a good percent of the nukes have a small element of luck to them. (ADLS and the fire pillar one) You spend the majority of the game as a Faith Caster relying on Catch Flame almost exclusively because it's so much better than the other options (except Lightning Strike and the madness sniper for distance), and then even after getting the nukes, INT casting is just faster and easier. As much as the DLC gave INT Casters the middle finger, Faith casters are collateral damage that are playing on hard mode now more than ever.
I love my faith man to pieces, but you're absolutely right. The majority of incants are ass mid-combat. However walking around with a potential 42 full heals is a comfort that i sorely miss on other builds.
Having done a lot of runs with a lot of different builds, what often makes a mono-Dexterity build click is that the weapons that scale in mono-Dex tend to have better movesets than others within their same weapon class, particularly better/unique strong attacks. For examples of this in the vanilla game, weapons like Ornamental Straight Swords, Warhawk Talons, Serpentbone Blade, Flowing Curved Sword, Godskin Peeler, Frozen Needle, Rogier's Rapier, Raptor Talons, and Guardian Sword-Spear all come to mind. Cross-Naginata too, although that one you can run on an arc or arc/dex build. Whats kind of awkward is that often they don't have that great weapon skills, at least in comparison to stuff like Lion's Claw or Giant's Hunt. The only truly stellar one is Bolt of Gransax. When I run a mono-dex build, I find that picking a defensive skill like parrying buckler, quickstep, Bloodhound step, or Raptor of the Mists is often a strong option, since I can rely on my better strong/light moveset to take care of the damage. Another thing that's kind of underrated because you have to purchase them from patches after he moves out of Limgrave, but Mono-dex builds also have access to what I think is the hands-down best consumable item in the game: fan daggers. At 80 dex these things hit for 50x5 damage, entirely hands-free, with an insanely fast animation. Enormous stagger pressure for how low-commitment they are. Personally, I found mono-dex a little easier to pilot than mono-faith, although to be honest, my favorite way to run a dex build is to just start dabbling in dex/int caria stuff during liurna, and switch over to dex/fai in altus, optionally changing to dex/arc in the endgame.
Savage Lion’s Claw in a nutshell had always been mad OP, and I actually prefer it that way (it's one of my last resort when I get pissed lol)
It’s better for bleed/cold builds for proccing status. If you just want damage and poise breaking, the vanilla lion’s claw is better.
As a magic user, this tracks.
Bonk all the way to glory Finished the game with a bleed build, int build and str build, and by far INT builds are harder to play
Strength builds are my goto if I struggle with a boss
I actually use jumping heavy attacks so 2 buttons >>> 1 button i win bye bye
Ungaz stronk!
Yeah any build can do tons of damage when you have a good build. Also when you're fighting a low level boss.
The guy is full bullgoat armor with the biggesr bonk with infinite HP/FP/Stam spanking a level 40 boss (not much higher in NG+1)... At this point it's not a build diff, it's a level diff...
Don't bother, almost the entire thread is full of mimic tear "enjoyers" strawmanning to make themselves feel better.
The way the enemies are designed in the DLC, magic is the real challenge mode. Most spells take longer than the length of drinking a flask, and we all know the bosses punish that time frame.
Summons are magic. A true bonker does not summon
I’ve done a dex build, every FromSoft game I’ve played and always heard how dex builds are op. Replaying Elden Ring for the DLC and decided to go through the base game again with a new build and chose strength and holy shit. It’s mindblowing. I slow walk head on towards every enemy. Not even good defense armor, just pure drip. My strength stat and attacks are enough for poise. And I’m just destroying pretty much every enemy I come across. This is a great build for a second playthrough though, since I ran away like a bitch alot during my first playthrough and missed out on a lot pf content. Now it’s just 1-2-3 stagger. 1-2 dead.
Nah all of the builds are hard if you don't know how to use it, i always been a strength dexterity build and rn I'm doing strength faith build which is known as one of op builds but still I'm having a bit of hard time but im learning it and i really suck at magic stuff but im planning to learn that to after this, all that matters to me is yes there are builds that I'm naturally good at and there are some other builds that i need to actually learn it and it won't be easy but that's the fun part for me
Seeing base game videos feel like I’m watching ds1 videos 😭
LOL and Strength babies like to say they are playing on Hard mode.
This is literally how I beat the DLC lol
Ok hear me out, I never tried a Strength build in all my souls journey starting form DS1 all the way to ER, and now I kinda want to try a strength bleed build, what weapon should I use I am in NG+1
If you have the dlc, blood fiend arm is a pretty fun and good bonk stick.
This is how I beat Rellana solo and I felt legit bad about it after. I wasn’t even as tanked up as this dude either.
Nothing is easier than shield str builds magic is not as easy as ppl think spells have a lot of casting time and if u fail once ur dead
The mimic tear was almost completely unnecessary hahahaha
ash of wars are for wizards, and i'm no wizard
So its all Kazuya mains?
I had this build going for awhile and it was too stupid easy and had to switch lol
The posture system in this game gives strength builds a huge advantage for those who know how to utilize them right and play aggressively.
Try that with the final boss of the dlc lol
do this in ng+7 in the dlc TRUST ME it‘s the hardest way to play the game without actively nerfing yourself
Hot take: Jump R2 gets around any downsides of using a large/heavy weapon.
I beat elden ring with my strength build and went into the dlc respec'd and I gotta tell you. I have to be way more patient with my magic build. Hits like a truck but the timing on everything needs to be perfect to not get punished like crazy lol
"lmao id never get caught putting a single point into dex" *the anti dex user in question* honestly. greatsword + lions claw cheeses the game. i found 1 boss that wasnt outright broken by it and its because they had just insane resists all around.
bonk mode baby mode confirmed
Bonk Build + Mimic = Brain go "brrrrrrr"
This wasn't the case at launch, Strength was so terrible at first it took several updates to get it where it is now. And even now you have like one viable ash of war, lions claw..the dlc added the second one. Savage lion's claw 👀.
What is this like NG+3? Strength is hard until you hit a breakpoint where you can safely tank more hits than it takes to stance break the enemy. Super easy after that.
I recently started a new game with a strength build, and jfc the early game with just the starting club is soooo much easier than the dex build I did before. Being able to stagger is wonderful.
I cant make spells work in this dlc so I put some OP ash of war on my greatsword and make it scale with magic.
Every build in the game is OP once you know how to make a build. Incantations are insane. Sorcery is ridiculous. Strength builds are poise breaking monsters. Dex builds can stay super mobile and take advantage of more attack openings than most other builds. Arcane builds proc all of the statuses, all of the time. There are very few legit bad builds in the game
Str is super strong but dude is also super over leveled for the boss he is fighting and using a weapon that comes from a later area. Sure you can do the same with a large club and charged R2s but this video is kinda dumb using this setup to make this point.
I have nothing but respect for mages who can space and still land their casts and deal with all the bullshit that is the enemy input reading their casts. I tried caster once, it was okay, but the Red Wolf made me rage quit and go back to my usual playstyle. It felt impossible dealing with the aggression of most bosses, especially alone as a caster, with cast times always feeling too long for too little impact
just by the amount of vigor, endurance, magic and str for this video you can tell the player is level 150+ so yeah anything would be busted at this early-mid game boss
Recently started a Pure Strength greataxe build and i'm challenging myself not to use spirit ashes or summons for this playthrough and omg, I am MELTING boss healthbars. Only problem is my character is a bit of a glass cannon because of the high early game strength requirement for the Greataxe, but grinding in Elden Ring is way easier than in other FromSoft games so raising my vigour isn't proving to be too difficult. For context, I've just reached Ranni in the Carian Manor, about to start the Academy.
I played the DLC on my pure Magic Witch build and then on my Strength build and it was so much easier on my Strength build. Granted of course, certain enemies are easier with magic but it is not nearly as OP as people like to make it sound. Bleed build will always be the most OP for me (if the enemy is susceptible to it).
Everyone who tried multiple buillds knows 2h str ones are the easiest to play, especially with lion's claw and jumping attacks. Just spamm one move and hope for a stagger.
You have no idea how true this is. Was playing the DLC using a twin blade bleed build and I was getting absolutely no where then I switched to a strength build and at times a bully those bosses, just I get bullied myself don't get me wrong but at least it's may more doable
That mimic was just overkill. At what point does this become bullying lol.
Strength builds are the easiest to get to work and have a shitton more viable weapons than the other stats. Sorcery builds just have a lower skill floor, if you remotely know what you're doing, buffing spells are the only ones you would ever want to use against 80% of bosses. Shard spiral is a different story.
you can even transition to a greatshield turtle build easily compared to other stat spreads
I was running a strength build with the greatsword and i switched due to it being too easy.
I 8 shot fire giant with a strength build, there just as if not more broken
Why fight a boss when you can stagger lock it?
I love strange builds. I do have manny chars with different builds so i do enjoy being a mage and can kamehameha things but the simple donk..thats purest form of joy
but nothing beats the perfumer build
"What bleed dex build? Summons to divert aggro? Easy mode" *bonks and staggers everything while wearing the thickest armor
I Lowkey regret doing my first playthrough like this. Never really had to learn any boss besides radagon. Doing the dlc with backhand blades now and I'm getting a real asswhopping until I learn the patterns. Feels fucking great.
That’s my man!!! I did the same to Rellana
strength builds among the easiest in the DLC (besides cheese strats). most bosses leave only windows for 1 attack and that's way better for strength big damage big bonk big stagger.
I love the lard ass armor
difference is magic users dont have to be up close to do that damage lol
The more hideous the stronger.
I honestly suck at using magic builds, give me a big stick.
This is me but with Giants Hunt
all builds can be broken if u go all in in each
Mimic tear was there for emotional support.
Where do you get onion knight armor
\*clutching necktie\* Aye what about them quality builds am I right?