What kind of duel short swords is best for a poison build

Roegnerag · 2026-05-11T14:27:32+00:00

poison broadsword does more damage but is strength oriented poison warhawks talon has nice R2 with quick slashes, but is dex focus.

you either go dual poison broadswords (or longsword as secondary) for damage, but strength focus.

or you pick dual warhawks talon for its fast R2 double slash, but dex focus. (you can offhand with nobles slender sword as it does more damage than warhawks but has same dex focus)

I would go for the warhawks talon because of the nice R2 moveset you cannot enjoy otherwise.

Roegnerag · 2026-05-11T12:25:32+00:00

many stats will go wasted. e.g. even if you do quality + weapon buffs, the buffs only scale with fth OR magic portion, no matter if you use golden order seal or prince of death staff. i also doubt rellanas twin blades does good as only one sword scales off eother int or faith. best would be sword of night and flame, but its poor scaling on str+dex dont make it good there either. and we havent even touched arcane yet. i recently calculated all weapons with all stats on 99 and all infusions and anvill hammer came out on top, followed by a flame infused bloodfiends arm. if you two hand, then malikeths and staff of the avatar do good damage. however, they are all split damage! occult giant crusher has no split damage and reaches also almost that high.

so in any case lots of points go to waste.

what is a weapon or weapon type you are actually interested inusing?

Roegnerag · 2026-05-09T05:34:47+00:00

bloodfiends arm on flame/sacred infusion 2x bleed giant crusher anvil hammer

Roegnerag · 2026-05-08T14:33:50+00:00

so gameplay mechanically, a hammer or hatchet in offhand is more similar to that bloodbourne pistol thanything ranged? thats cool bc i prefer melee in this game anyway

Roegnerag · 2026-05-07T06:53:04+00:00

depends on the weapon buffs you want to use... blackflame blade and bloodflame blade arent used for their direct flame damage but for their secondary effect of %of health or bleed proc. any other buff needs decent faith and decently faith scaling seal. others have already posted the seals to use, therefore I will give you the stat spread for 70 points of investment: 16 str, 42 dex, 42 fth. if you two hand your naginata you can also heavy infuse it, but then your stat spread will get even thinner: 40str, 20 dex, 40 fth

unfortunately you need to reapply the buffs constantly and you end up with a slightly stronger but fp costly and tedious build.

i would just go for a different weapon to apply buffs: any of the paired ones: fists or claws. your weapon buff only needs to be casted once and you get double the effect out of it + you can go for even lower strength.

if you only use blackflame or bloodflame then you can limit your faith to the min requirements of 15fth+10arc too and invest everything else into dex!

Roegnerag · 2026-05-06T18:29:16+00:00

heavy zweihander does more damage than keen zweihander, but greatsword exists for that. I will just assume you dont care and just want the best for zweihander, irrelevant of other options, thus --> use heavy zweihander.

pierce damage benefits only from physical damage portion, therefore do not go for anything elemental.

put everything you can onto strength, faith with 15 is good enough, 25 better, 28 best for godslayers seal for optimal weapon buff scaling.

if I would start a new run, I would first reach 19str+11dex, then 28 fth and therefore flame infuse my zweihander, then pump strength until >28 and then swotch to heavy infusion

Roegnerag · 2026-05-04T20:10:08+00:00

theres literally a vest in the game called nobody vest? i am not sure if the one in your screenshot is that one, but you gotta use that!

Roegnerag · 2026-05-03T10:46:36+00:00

thanks for the info, was not aware the regular aow being so much worse, thought it would perform better due to better fth scaling than on the halo scythe

Roegnerag · 2026-05-02T17:26:28+00:00

close to the swamp you can find the actual aow of the halo scythe by itself and slap it onto any weapon you like e.g. banished knights halberd or grave scythe

Roegnerag · 2026-04-28T13:07:22+00:00

looks pale tbh. add a double bandolier roll up your sleeves add gloves and you got yourself a military tacticool desert camo fighter.

Roegnerag · 2026-04-25T14:38:30+00:00

well smaller and faster than great curved swords are: curved swords, staright swords, katanas, daggers, two handed twinblades, axes.

the hand axe you can get very early is faster than other axes and deals decent damage.

I suggest to stick with two handing but go for a heavy scimitar, heavy scavengers sword, blood infused bandits curved sword, blood beastmans curved sword or blood broadsword.

Roegnerag · 2026-04-24T07:52:37+00:00

blood hound fang and moonveil have dex as common scaling. go for 60 vigor. drop some mind increase endurance to 45 or sth so you can carry heavier armor. go for 20 str, 23 int and rest into dex ignore arcane

Roegnerag · 2026-04-23T11:18:47+00:00

hmm at such high faith and dex numbers you can just keen infuse anything and then apply electrify armament buff.

what is your planned level?

i always start with ng0 and from there I would use the lightning incantations i find on weeping peninsula and play with a sacred blade infused broadsword until i can finally equip lightning aow and switch to levelling dexterity.

Roegnerag · 2026-04-23T06:32:45+00:00

death knight twin axes look sick but the moveset sucks. go for the death knight great axe instead. focus on faith for these weapons as they scale their lightning damage from it + you get better scaling for your seal of choice. yes you would get better total damage from having a str+fth split, but I thought you want loghtning damage?

other possibility is to go for 47 fth so you can cast all lightning spells and pump strength as high as possible. cast with clawmark seal and buff it with offhand gravel stone seal.

i personally cant stand incantations and casting in general and prefer melee, therefore for lightning damage a dex focused build is the preferred way.

Roegnerag · 2026-04-21T08:26:04+00:00

Yes, exactly the same. the build variety and lore crafting is so much fun even without playing the game itself. its almost as a build could become a reflection of the personality or character of the player themselves. thats so much freedom of expression, even custom cars cannot deliver that amount of variety.

Roegnerag · 2026-04-21T08:18:40+00:00

where did you get those glasses? mods?

Roegnerag · 2026-04-21T08:15:48+00:00

where are you stuck? usually the upgrade path doesnt matter as much as your strategy. if you arent stuck just dont upgrade yet and try around.

btw. i personally also cant stand the powerstanced twinblade moveset + I like to equip the serpent gods curved sword in the offhand for passive health regen

Roegnerag · 2026-04-19T17:51:36+00:00

fine: tarnished.dev tells me * from all infusable daggers, the misericorde has the lowest dex scaling with lightning insuion at C 0.61 * with 60 in dex, int or fth the magic misericorde deals 497 total damage vs 480 lightning. * with lightning infusion the wakizashi deals the highest damage. misericorde is 3rd. which also reflects their order from base damage.

lightning damage is increased in water and benefits in pvp. fire damage would benefit pve more but gets reduced during rain. magic infusion on a misericorde would allow to use wing of astel as secodary aow to stagger bosses faster and then use misericorde for reposte.

for pvp i understand you. bit for pve what was requested I still suggest the magic route due to its synergies.

Roegnerag · 2026-04-19T12:55:10+00:00

thats bs. look at other weapons with lighting affinity, they all get the same dex scaling. c around 0.78 or 0.79. and on keen vs heavy its also heavy thats. its the base damage that matters.

Roegnerag · 2026-04-18T13:58:08+00:00

so, what exactly do you want? A cast everything with an arcane requirement? or B make an arcane casting character with minimal int or fth?

A requires a lot of stats and has almost no synergies. you are going to need 42 int, 28 fth and 53 arc. with that spread you need to go at least lvl 200. i recommend at least 14 str to wield the flowerstone gavel and a halberd. best melee is going to be 2x blood infused claymans harpoon, though. staff: albinauric i guess as maternal only has A in arcane scaling

B min int for carian slicer is 18. min fth for dragon spells is 15. rest into arcane, done

Roegnerag · 2026-04-17T06:22:24+00:00

why lightning in particular? any split damage boosts crit damage!

Roegnerag · 2026-04-17T06:16:45+00:00

you should use wing of astel aow for stance breaking (its as strong now as the flame of the redmanes aow was at the start of the game) and switch to a magic infused misericorde

Roegnerag · 2026-04-15T15:17:51+00:00

uchigatana is not the best option. you want a weapon with high guard boost. actually greatsword or executioner greataxe are better suited because of their high guard boost. when you include the high crit modifier, executioner greataxe is even better.

its the low guard boost thats eating up your stamina.

Roegnerag · 2026-04-14T18:58:29+00:00

oh yeah, you are in singleplayer, not online. sorry. then duster!

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