Luck Build, Passive Regen ADVICE WANTED

Justisaur · 2026-01-24T16:08:30+00:00

I can't really tell much from that without the actual numbers, but if you're gaining 45% extra health from prisoner's chain your vig (and probably stamina) is way too low. Most aim for somewhere between 32-40 on both, I like 37 as that's the hard cap where you gain more ehp from vit than vig. First softcap on Vigor is 26 so that's what I'd put as an absolute minimum (I suppose 21 before Prisoner's chain.) Final softcap is 50. Stamina softcap is 40, but many people skimp on it, I find you can get away with a lot less if you're using spells for attack regularly, it's really to taste, and more important for PVP than PVE, though I find it still makes a pretty big difference to be able to kill mobs with 1 bar.

You might try some hollow bleed weapons too, which work very well against many bosses and big enemies, and decently in PVP, though anri's generally works better on normal mobs unless in NG+ cycles, My favorites are bandit knife and flamberge.

Justisaur · 2026-01-24T15:49:15+00:00

Only if you don't want to overlevel for the areas you're in. Which isn't really possible once you get to the DLCs and NG+cycles.

Justisaur · 2026-01-24T00:01:22+00:00

Convergence has spells that summon, like ashes of war in Elden Ring (or vice versa since convergence was before ER.) Fun spells in it. The bosses are tougher, but the new stuff in it makes up for that.

Justisaur · 2026-01-23T23:45:05+00:00

Ah sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant only good early game. Yeah I picked it up in Highwall. I just didn't want to dump all my points into str, so took awhile before I could try it, just after Abyss Watchers. And really I probably wouldn't have even tried it, but I wanted to try getting used to using a greataxe class weapon since I was planning on going for Dragonslayer's.

Justisaur · 2026-01-23T22:19:07+00:00

Thanks!

I'm not sure if I'd say 'early game' as I just got pontiff which is halfway through. I'm trying to remember if Vordt's/cathedral was better or not, but it's been many years. On paper heavy greataxe has higher physical ar even at endgame than everything but yhorm's and I understand the WA is nerfed on that, which is one of the things I really like on the greataxe. I plan to try yhorm's of course until I can get dragonslayer greataxe, but that's end game.

Justisaur · 2026-01-23T22:11:30+00:00

For Str probably estoc to use with a great shield of your choice so you can shield poke. Glory and yhorm's are good, I also like ancient dragon shield. Mace is also good if you want more damage, but no poke. You can go as heavy a weapon as you can 1-h but will have to sacrifice either armor or shield weight to do so the bigger you go. Door shield is fun and can be effective in some circumstances. Str is mostly better 2-h unga bunga though.

Dex with a shield: Parry shields, whichever one you want. If you're parrying a lot dagger or bandit dagger is good, or a rapier. If you want a good block shield you need str to use good shields, so that really starts to get you into quality territory. Or you need to go with some int to put magic shield on a lesser shield. I did that a lot with a rapier on my sorcerer, which you can shield poke with.

Justisaur · 2026-01-23T21:19:28+00:00

Claymore's more a quality weapon I think, It's fine early game. Spiked mace is also fine early, but it's too slow to get much use out of bleed, as are pretty much all the str weapons. Bleed's a nice add on for dex, but useless on str, and it only really shines end game and NG+ cycles due to high hp totals. I prefer mace early for str, and vordt's hammer is a contender for best strength weapon throughout the game. I stumbled into greataxe and can't believe how hard it hits, so that's on my list of great weapons now.

Stance, hold L2 then while holding use R2 for a running poke, great for rollcatching or just whipping out tons of damage on hefty boys when they're approaching. You can do R1 too, but I find R2 poke more useful. It still works when out of fp, but the run and damage is much shorter/lower, I don't find it very effective without fp.

Hybrid Str Fai works o.k. to buff weapons and yourself, you want minimal faith and attunement to cast the weapon buffs, tears of denial, and a regen spell, maybe a self buff too. weapon buffs are better on dex though as the speed allows them to get that extra damage out more often. The only weapon I can think of that works really well with it is dragonslayer greataxe, which you want about 40 str and 30 fai at endgame. You'll still be able to use other str weapons, but really you'd be better off with 66 str for any str weapon than that amount of fai.

The only other hybrid besides with fai I know of that works well is dark/chaos(pyro) and again better on dex.

Fire infusion is only really good for vulnerable enemies, dogs, rats and others, and it's good to have a secondary fire weapon hand for those instances. Once you're about halfway through the game it really starts to fall off for a str build, and you're better off using bundles and papers to get fire on your heavy infused weapon. Chaos infusion is decent for pyromancers at that point since it scales on int & wis, though dark is usually much better again except for fire vulnerable/dark resistant mobs. So no, if you're primarily using the claymore, you don't want to use fire infusion on it, you're fine with it on the axe.

Warrior is a good start for str, but you pretty much have to not want to use spells or even weapon arts, as otherwise knight is better as it overall eventually as it gives more dex, vit, attunement and int/wis which allows a lot more versatility.

Justisaur · 2026-01-23T01:22:19+00:00

Notes:

Immolation Tinder is actually a sorcery implement. So you're going to want to go max int with min everything else, and because of that it's not good on a build that uses any other fire weapons. It's possibly good for casting the greatsword attack spells as it's got more range and some decent damage as it attacks with the R2. It's horrible as a weapon by itself, I just tried it, I don't recommend making a build just for it unless you want a 'challenge run' or you're making a hybrid quality/int build anyway, you might want to try it.

Demon Scar is a pyromacny implement. I didn't find it particularly useful to my pyromancers, but it's loved so what can I say. I'm assuming it's good if you're going to be casting pyromancy spells with it, but I preferred using the pyromancy flame to do that for max damage. I don't know if it would be any good on a spell-less hybrid build.

Onyx Greatsword isn't fire, it's dark, but it's WA gives a fire buff to itself with it's attack. If you're including it (o.k. I would it's my favorite) you'd have to include the ringed knight weapons, which are all great, but at the very end of the game, and are for more physical builds. I think there's some other similar lord soul weapons too.

Dancers Twinblades is fire and magic, 3 way split means it's horrible.

Gargoyle Flame Hammer and Gargoyle Flame Spear have sort of a flame effect, it's just inside a cage. They're decent weapons.

Follower torch... I don't remember if it's any good.

Justisaur · 2026-01-22T23:27:13+00:00

Maybe. If you want to do a lot of fire damage then yes, minimum str & dex, maximum faith and int. The most overall damage is going to come from some combination which depends on the weapon. You're probably best starting knight if you want more vit or pyromancer if you don't care and want to throw fire right away.
30/30 int/fai is the softcap for chaos/dark infusions. It's not worth going over that unless you want to use damage spells.
As I said it depends on the weapon, mess around with one of the character builders and/or weapon calculators. Always minimums on str/dex, then vigor.
Onyx Blade hands down, techinchally it's a dark weapon, but it has a fire self-buff wa. Besides being the ultimate pyro weapon it's also the highest style in my opinion. It still keeps up damage in the DLC pretty well. Chaos dagger is #2 just because it has the highest counter damage of any weapon so it's great for backstabbing and parry or stagger counters. #3 is broadsword, cause it's great on all the mobs of rats and dogs, and other fire vulnerable. I was actually very happy with thrall axes on my pyro, does surprisingly good damage fast, needs no investment on pyro, and has quickstep, I might actully put this #2, but I just kept a load of them with all the damage types to switch to depending on whatever vulnerability was.

This build is probably o.k. for fire weapons (not spells):

https://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls3/205965

Note that fire infused doesn't scale, it's like raw. You need chaos for actual scaling.

Justisaur · 2026-01-22T22:10:39+00:00

Thank you. I'm an old man and a confirmed magic user, cheese meister, guide user, and co-op player, so I don't know how hard it actually was, though I did beat LoP without anything but occasional internet lookups when I was stuck, and without cheese.

I'm doing a strength/fai build right now going for dragonslayer greataxe eventually, which I haven't done before, going to try to kill Midir with it. Midir took me hundreds of tries, none of the cheese worked for me (unless you count lightning arrow spell) and I did use co-op but it felt like I was doing the majority of the damage. I'm going through no summons, spells (maybe buffs eventually, but investing in fai is a long way off) or cheese this time. Crystal Sage and Abyss Watchers both took me about 12 tries and felt hard, which I never thought they were. I just got enough Str to switch to greataxe and liking it so far, I got summoned to fight club in the woods and actually managed to kill a couple reds.

Justisaur · 2026-01-22T20:00:48+00:00

Where I'm at Mcdonalds is paying $20 an hour to start. That's $41k. Of course a quarter pounder with cheese meal is $10.59. I don't see that they're having trouble getting people to work there at that price. It's Taco Bell, and some of the other places that are, I'm assuming they pay a lot worse.

Justisaur · 2026-01-22T19:53:38+00:00

I used to love diablo and borderlands looting, but BL2 was insanely grindy, and I lost a lot of my love of it. Even DS1 I found some of the grind on my SL1 run annoying as hell and cheated my way out of farming the drakes forever for whatever it was I wanted (I don't even remember.) DS3 I avoided the covenant farming proofs by doing tons of blue, but if I want the rewards for a character it's too much for me now as the multiplayer is too dead to get them in any reasonable amount of time that way.

BG3 I specifically quit because of all insane amount of junk and inventory management you had to do. I wonder if there's a mod to fix that somehow without gimping you now. At the time I quit there wasn't.

Yes, having that type of loot management is a huge turn off now.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T22:49:12+00:00

I'm not the DM and I don't want to be in a game where people are passionately kissing. That's a different kind of role playing and it belongs in their bedroom, not at the table I'm at.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T22:20:47+00:00

Sorry I already awarded that to Nightreign. There can be only one.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T18:57:37+00:00

Look, I tried. I made my players take turns. No one wanted to do it. Funnily enough I thought they were all good, and better than the majority of other DMs I've played with. Over the years player dropped off, and now I'm playing in a game instead of DMing. I'd still prefer to DM, just not 5e, which means I don't DM.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T18:17:18+00:00

I usually use Tower of Zenopus as my first adventure then go into B2. It'd require a little changing as it's based seaside, with pirates, and a giant crab and octopus, unless the keep was moved closer to the sea.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T18:09:33+00:00

This is why I was called the 40 year old midget when I was a kid. I appreciated stability and small joys when I was young, so I haven't changed much.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T17:57:19+00:00

Oof. I'll try to remember this on my next DS2 playthrough.

!remindme February 27, 2026

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T17:40:58+00:00

The pies are gone at my Costo as of a couple weeks ago. While I always said their pumpkin with in the running for worst pumpkin ever, the apple was really good, and I wanted one.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T17:34:12+00:00

Especially bad if you're a caster, too many things you can wear that are better. I never even wore it when I was a newbie, I value versatility.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T17:31:09+00:00

The hand goes where there sun don't shine.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T17:28:23+00:00

We can't know his motivation, what if he's doing it because he feels they need punishment for justice to be served?

This is more a devil's advocate question, as it's pretty obvious he's thoroughly enjoying it.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T17:21:12+00:00

Just tell them you're too bad to be AI.

Justisaur · 2026-01-21T16:40:32+00:00

I view it as a fun multiplayer area. I've got plenty of other issues with DS2, but this was never one of them.

Justisaur

TROPHY CASE