My subjective list based on what I find fun: 1. Hand to Hand 2. Light Greatswords 3. Backhand Blades 4. Great Katanas 5. Perfume Bottles 6. Beast Claws 7. Thrusting Shields 8. Throwing Blades
Bum ass list 1: great katana (nothing else compares) 2: perfume 3: Smithscript weapons? Idk what category that is 4: Theusting shield 5: beast claws 6: hand to hand 7 light Greatsword I haven’t tried backhand blades due to my misery facing them in PvP but they seem fun enough for PvP, probably would place second or third
I strongly believe that making new weapon classes for some of these were completely unnecessary, Throwing Blades only has one pathetic dagger, that you could easily more to the Dagger class, Beast Claws can just be moved to Claws, Hand to Hand, can be moved to Fists, and Thrusting Shields, are still shields, except they do more damage. I’m not hating the game btw, Shadow of The Erdtree was amazing, I’m just pointing out redundancy. I just feel like there’s 8, just so they could say there’s 8, in order to build up additional hype for the DLC and if you want to make the argument the need to be in their own class, the moveset is different, well my counter argument is, Halberds, they have 3 distinct light attack chains.
the stance damage only really comes from charged heavies & wing stance's heavy attack. Try using an ultra greatsword in the offhand 😂 it looks goofy when youre idle but it pairs so well with it
If you use wing stance on the milady, you can get around 3k damage with the heavy stance attack and usually poise break within at least two uses which makes the milady at least an S tier weapon
That's a PvP thing. In PvE they consistantly have 10% more stance damage than straight swords on everything, which makes them tie with greatswords on the guard counter and charged R2.
The throwing weapons being so mediocre is likely because they are some of the only free projectiles in the game. No crafting, no fp cost. I'm guessing From was afraid to make them too good. I expect them all to get buffed. I can handle low damage, but the limited range is really annoying. I feel like the Greathammer is the only weapon out the gate that has okay damage and an effective throwing distance
@@donovan4222 right but that's what I'm saying. It's not free so they can make it as good as they want. The only other free projectiles are ones like the frozen needle thrusting sword, and that thing also has bad range.
What were you expecting? They're not going to make 10 unique variants of each weapon type. The only alternative would be making normal weapons, which means one of them would just be statistically better than all the other ones, making them obsolete
This is my only real disappointment with this DLC. 100 new weapons and barely one fifth of them are in these new classes. It should have been close to two thirds, if not at least half, since we had so many in the old weapon classes. To be fair, I do enjoy most of these, especially the hand to hands, backhand blades and beast claws. Still almost half of the new weapons being perfumer bottles or smithscripts, which are by far the worst, just really sucks. I did enjoy most of the new weapons overall regardless of weapon class, so I can't complain all that much. Also putting Giant Hunt on the Carian Thrusting Shield is hilarious.
Maybe some of the smithing stones and cookbooks should have been weapons. I don't care what anyone says. I don't think it was worth $40 cuz I bought the DLC for the new weapon types, maybe worth 30
Fun fact: you can duel wield Danes foot work, and dryleaf arts. I haven’t done much testing, but from what I’ve seen is that you get the default dryleaf arts light attacks, and a new heavy attack. I have no clue if it doubles status build up or anything, but I think it’s kind of cool.
You also might just be seeing the one handed heavy attacks of the weapon. No one talks about the one handed attacks of naturally powerstanced weapons for some reason
18:57 I’ve always wondered this too. There’s ashes like double slash and sword dance that get faster/slower depending on the weapon class and there’s ashes like repeating thrust that just always stay the same speed
I'm shocked you didn't mention the beast claw's range. If you're not utilizing the range all the time with them (I noticed you often weren't in your footage) they're going to be more underwhelming, but if you're making the most use out of the forward movement on essentially all their attacks, they're way more effective and fun as fast mid-ranged options. It opens up more obscure punish windows, and just the quality of being able to close the distance faster means you're getting more hits in faster than other weapons, which usually evens out of exceeds the damage you'd usually get after closing the distance yourself with a different weapon. It also makes their already good sprinting attacks even better. The forward momentum of the sprinting light attack is insane and the heavy sprinting attack does good damage and hits a lot. They get great use out of the new dash attack talisman.
To be fair the perfume bottles themselves weren't good at all even at launch of the dlc the only thing that saved them was rolling sparks being absolutely broken
@@free_instructions2259 so what, is it better to have another useless weapon class, like the other 90%? This is so idiotic logic, when From make bosses that can literally oneshot you with every attack, but does not allow us to do the same. Balancing in this game is sush a trash.
@@cgc7032 How exactly was your takeaway from my comment that I want them to be bad lmao. I was just saying that the only thing that was good about them was rolling sparks which got rightfully nerfed because it was way too op. I want perfumes to be good by themselves not because of an ash of war that just one hits everything because of a bug
@@cgc7032 Sounds like somebody got addicted to the Rolling Spark clutch. It's way more important to have the enemy be stronger than the player anyways, otherwise you might as well be using cheat engine.
The perfume bottles are so cool in concept, but they could have been so much better, I'm just glad there is at least one for every stat, and since it doesn't have weight almost at all, you can always have one in your inventory to at least apply frost
Thrusting shields are neither great shields nor great weapons, but if you compare directly to shield-poke builds they are fantastic. You can also cheese a lot of the bosses just with blocking R1s if you have the right set up.
@@lharsay Oh yeah, that's right. Barricade Shield is Tier 4 hardness, while greatshields are tier 2 (Ant's Skull Plate being the exception with tier 3).
@@TheTraveler980 That's not the main reason, you could put barricade shield on greatshields too. For the medium shields it gives a 75% stamina cost reduction, while on greatshields it's only 50%.
@@lharsay I forgot. Also, the Greatshield Talisman (not Dragoncrest) has diminishing returns the higher the guard boost is for a shield, so it is typically most effective on medium shields.
I think it's cool that lightning scales mostly with dexterity. Like at a certain point, you become so dexterous your summon lightning from your movements.
You're so right about the great katana being peak. I had a character who was doing nagakiba/greatshield and when I picked up the great katana it was just a straight upgrade in every way. Such a good weapon.
Perfume bottle has one niche use of killing those highly physical resisting slimes though. That's about it really. We really should have a big slime boss in dlc that make perfume bottle a viable option for those melee physical builds XD.
@@drudge5268 Nah, perfume bottle need quite a bit more though. First it need to do poise damage as much as at least a straight sword so lighter enemies can get stunlockd by this at least. I do agree range and damage boost is needed too though. Also unnerf the Rolling Flame a bit.
to defense of perfume bottles: they are extremely light so you can use them as side weapon to compliment movesets (for example - spears), I really liked to keep it as side grade for ganks that the game throws at you sometimes. It stuns and does damage in wide arcs with lingering hitbox so soldier ganks with dogs is not an issue. Also fighting the slimes in some particular locations.
Yeah I really dig them. They do way better damage than this guy is saying too. The frenzy ones on my int/faith character does pretty massive damage. They can interrupt most smaller enemies. Also they actually will stance break, obviously not the point of them but they will. Plus they're fun to use (at least for me). Something else people forget is the point of trying new things.
ngl you're massively underrateing the smithscript cirques, the throwing attacks do very good damage from a very good range when compaired to melee attacks and they track really well so you're very unlikely to ever miss. they don't cost very much stamina to throw unlike other smithscript weapons and the range on the attack means you can think of it kind of like having a pike but with double the range and half the stamina cost. just don't charge your R2 attacks and do tap R2s and it basically makes any boss that is usually annoying to hit like the ancestor spirit or gargoyles really easy because your attacks are all but guaranteed to hit. they are legit some of the best weapons in the game for learning a boss move set because they get so much range for what is effectively a melee attack so you can punish so much more often. 10/10 weapon
On the martial arts, there actually is a way to make their dps surpass most fist weapons. Both dryleaf arts and Danes footwork have a 2 kick combo as the jumping heavy, raptors black feathers plus claw talisman, and then divine bird pants plus shattered stone talisman means you're getting like 1.5x damage on jumping heavies.
I mean Maybe, but at that point you could use the greatsword talisman and do your jump attack build with a greathammer or colossal weapon and take things to stagger town. Better than fists at jump attacks, but not better than the usual suspects who all got buffed
The best way to use either of the dryleaf martial arts in this game imo is just to go all in on building specifically for palm blast. Infinite poise, monstrous damage, decent range when fully charged-if you can figure out how to make the most of using this skill it makes the hand-to-hand one of the most busted combat options ingame
@aprinnyonbreak1290 maybe, but martial arts weigh 1.0, meaning you don't have to pump as many points into endurance to not fat roll. And they do 2 hits per jump attack without needing to power stance, so you're basically getting 2 hits per jump heavy, plus around 20 pounds less of weight
@supermariolego878 I had more success using the jump attack strategy against mobile bosses, palm blast is definitely really strong, but imo I'd prefer the mobility over the damage
The Smithscript Cirque is underrated. Its throwing attack roll catches just about everything in the world, can sneak past blocks and is quite frankly just busted when used off horse back. Pair it with the dash ash of war for a gap closer and you can pretty much bend every AI over a barrel
duelling shields when combined with deflect crystal tear goes into complete overdrive. You can perfect deflect into a guard counter at will as the duelling shield will block any incoming damage during the guard counter and all of a sudden you have a quite safe but hyper aggressive weapon that can output safe but insane stance damage
I enjoy the smithscript weapons too, and so long as you infuse them with something like sacred they still scale surprisingly well. The axe in particular has a well balanced heavy attack for stamina usage and damage. Less stance damage of course, but the jumping attack throws the axe too which is really fun to mess around with.
Dane's footwork jumping heavy kick hits twice too and does an unbelievable amount of damage and stance damage. I recommend using jumping attacks and the block counter.
All of the dlc weapons are so effing fun to use, I’ve never switched up weapon types as much as I have been going through this content! Even perfumer is freaking sick, idk how they do it 😂
Fun fact if you have the Danes footwork in your left hand and do the first 5 hits of its attacks then use piercing fang on the dueling shield it will change the way the ash of war of the obsidian lomina changing the way dynastic sickleplay looks
Unlike everyone else I know what youre trying to say. Obsidian lamina is bugged, if you use some ashes of war on different weapons for some reason it’ll change the obsidian lamina. You can look it up on youtube and find clips
Youwy coming in clutch with the quality daily uploads! While my favorite new weapon class is the light greatswords, I ended up switching to the Great Katana for the final boss. Needed that super fast dummy big damage for that fight 😮💨
Definitely feel like Beast Claws are only recommended if you want to be Hoarah Loux and have fun. I went into the DLC with an Arcane Claw build with intention to swap to Occultist Beast Claws. They were really fun but got me into trouble and never felt like they justified their existence. Did almost the whole DLC with Beast Claws and don't regret it, but don't see myself ever using them again unless I find them early in a Randomizer (once it is fixed for DLC).
Another thing to note about great katanas is they have access to a feint attack (hold heavy attack then press B). U get a quick slash attack and rakshasa’s gets it as well, letting it still have a slash from heavy
wing stance will retain the relanna cameo buff if you spam the light attack, & it will continue into the heavy attack, though youll need to charge it up after. The light greatswords & backhand blades blend very well with a ton of weapons in the offhand too, like it's very reminiscent of the flow ds2's powerstancing had. Wing stance & the godslayer ugs especially feel like an extremely agile fume knight type setup, animations blending near perfect. Would recommend either of the stamp ashes on the great katana, as even w/o the followup youll just default to a poke. Kinda prefer it to the claymore w trading now
The nerf to smithscript weapons elemental infusions hurt me a lot on my pure faith caster. The spear in flameart complimented my build SO DAMN well, I was livid when I woke up and saw the nerf. Like...why?
Hand to hand is so unbelievably fun, every now and then I use a poison and bleed one to fight Rellana with Poison Flower Blooms Twice. Such a fun combo
Me running through the DLC, I find that running Rellana's paired light greatswords, Using the Ashes of War is better against slower/smaller enemies, and just gunning bosses with jumping/running heavies into light attacks carries me through the fight, especially against faster bosses with little downtime.
Something I love about Milady is that it just feels like a better version of my favorite weapon from DS3, the Follower's Saber it is so good on so many builds, infused or not. It's great.
Little bonus for the beast claws weapons, hold R2(heavy) and then dodge button, you will do a nice damage and then make a quick backstep move... really useful in both PvP and PvE to end a chain of combo
Don't know if you didn't realize this or forgot to mention it, but the Rakshasa's actually gets hyper armor on regular attacks, not just the skill, but makes you take 10% more damage
Really like thrusting shields a lot for some reason. they kinda go hard when you don’t infuse them with elements, but seeing how the carian one is the best out of the 2 sucks that you can’t take it to the fullest potential without losing out on guard. Of course you can just slap on Greatshield talisman and use scholars shield to call it a day while you infuse, still think losing guard when you infuse is a massive downside. Hopefully the next souls like game they improve on all the new weapon types.
One more thing you didn’t mention about palm blast, in addition to the hyperarmour, you get a 25% defence boost while charging it, you can see it pop up as a buff
Honestly even when infused thrusting shields are still great, even on the offensive basically all of your attacks have I-frames somewhere in them, for example light attacks will have you blocking for a short moment after an attack and heavys will have you blocking during the wind-up, just overall very versatile
2:14 that transition from Radagon to Messmer was beautiful btw. I don't really know how to fix the smithscript daggers, but for the other throwing weapons I feel like they need a damage boost for the throwing attacks. They're already harder to land than regular heavy attacks (at least in pvp; pve is hit/miss). Beast claws and hand to hand should either be able to generally out damage claw and fist weapons respectively, or they should do more poise damage which is what I lean towards. Great katanas I'm not really sure what it is that makes me like them than greatswords and CGSs. In a way I'd say they feel more like polearm weapons such as halberds and reapers. Back hand blades and light greatswords are actually pretty good right now imo. BHBs have unique ash of wars that are a little too cheeky in my opinion but other than that they're in a pretty good spot. I haven't used thrusting shields and perfume bottles much though so I don't feel like I could recommend fixes for them.
I absolutely love the thrusting shields, they've got to be my favorite new weapon type of the DLC. The guard points in particular have saved me from getting hit more times than I can count, even if I'm not deliberately trying to time them. That alone makes them amazing weapons even in spite of their weaknesses. I can understand why the charged R2 deals such low stance damage, as it does have blocking frames on its charging animation and is much easier to land as a result. Sadly they do lose guard boost when infused, but you can still put Scholar's Shield on them even with an infusion to offset it.
The Milady with Wing Stance is probably my favorite weapon in the entire game. I didn't have much interest at first in the Backhand Blades but they have also become one of my favorites. Blind Spot is just insanely good and too fun to use.
Loving my Cold Great Katana with Repeating Thrust - I kinda stumbled into that combo and found it hyper effective. Happy to see the Katana get the top spot.
I'll vouch for the beast claws and say that one of their biggest strengths is their near complete lack of downtime after attacks, you can act almost immediately after everything which is really good. Still needs a buff.
Thrusting shield is so powerful imo, just because you're able to attack and block at the same time, meaning if you just press r1 over and over enemies can't hit you, and you do great damage against them.
Smithscript greathammer is actually really good. Makes a lot of the new bosses trivial, especially Commander Gaius and Scadutree Avatar. There are a lot of different buffs: spiked crack tear, smithing talisman, axe talisman, 2-handed talisman + consumables + incantations. A lot of the new bosses have only small openings to punish and if you too far away, then you are unable to do any damage before the next flurry of attacks. With the smithscript greathammer distance doesnt matter. And if you're close your charged attack deals additional hits before throwing. I was getting 1700 damage each throw + cold proc every 4-5 throws. The tracking is also pretty generous, the range has some fall of, but can go surprisingly far.
A critical attack is not the only option you have with stance breaks, and is often not even optimal. For Perfume bottle sespecially, it's so you can do one of your big weapon arts or a fully charged r2. These attacks can be very strong and require you to have that long opening, but do really good damage.
I think you are underselling the beast claws a bit. Due to their crazy movements they allow you to go into the offense more than any other weapon. It is insane how many "dodges" this weapon has within its moveset. In my opinion the claws are weapons with a high skill ceiling, but when mastered, they are some of the best weapons in the game.
I think they're great offhand weapons. Take the generic one, give it some utility ash like Poison Mist or Raptor of the Mist or Resolve or maybe No Skill or something, use its L1 to close gaps, then either switch off it or two hand your actual weapon once you're in. Kinda gives Beasthunter Saif vibes, except you ditch the attack string. Using it as a gap closer for like, Wild Strikes with the anchor is fantastic
I just wish they would scale down the visual model of great katanas. Keep the length but slim it down by 30 to 35 percent, so it actually looks like a proper nodachi and not a katana they just blew up in MS paint.
My most used setup in the end was occult Great Katana with the Spinning Gravity Thrust and some multiple-hit talismans. But I had a lot of fun with the oil tear. There are some insane fire build setups which hit like a truck without much work.
Curseblade's Cirque should be it's own weapon class. The thing has 50 Guard Boost at max lvl for no reason, giving you access to a 4x hit guard counter combo. It's AoW is also a "Dance", which gets buffed by the dancer set. Pair this with Deflecting Hardtear, Curved Sword Talisman, RWSI, Millicent's Prosthesis, and you have one of the fastest hitting guard-counter builds while maintaining light rolls. Since the guard counter hits 4 times, it activates the multi-hit bonuses instantly. It's even got bleed for even more DPS. I tested in on NG+ Malenia, and was very pleasantly surprised.
I've been running an occult great katana from the start of the DLC and couldn't agree more. At 80 ARC and 66 DEX that thing gets 108 bleed build up on top of the 760+ pure physical damage, and moveset and range are just amazing. I also still run overhead stance on it as an ash. It's not be the most dps or utility, but it's so damn stylish and not bad. The heavy from it is good damage, insanely quick bleed build up, and gets good hyperarmor in the later half of the animation (as soon as the first hit connects).
light greatswords have stolen my heart also, throwing knives are extremely good at keeping aggro. it's what us people who get summoned have needed forever. it's niche as hell but has saved hosts before lol
I noticed you havent pointed out the Heavy Dodge cancel the Great Katanas have, its really great for positioning since most Great katana chains tend to move you forward, but its heavy dodge chancel makes you do a wide slash stepping backwards, and you can do it with either heavy chain, plus since it counts as a backstep, you can follow it up with a light attack to do a poke attack to keep up your position, it even works well in pvp just because how big it is
The fire perfume is really nice. Perfume talisman + fire scorpion + fire tear + flame grant me strength. Golden vow too, if you want. You can stunlock many enemies with them, like the birds, especially from horseback. I dunno what people are talking about with them being bad. Maybe they aren't the best choice on bosses, but going around the map, they're excellent.
Funny little thing with the ash of war Dryleaf Whirlwind You can actually stunlock Malenia to death with 2 people. All you have to do is - Summon someone and have both players equip the Ash of War - Just find a good opening - 1st person Ash of War, 2nd person Ash of War as soon as the 3rd hit lands for first player - Just keep going till she staggers - Riposte - Count to 3, Ash of War - Repeat
My subjective list based on what I find fun:
1. Hand to Hand
2. Light Greatswords
3. Backhand Blades
4. Great Katanas
5. Perfume Bottles
6. Beast Claws
7. Thrusting Shields
8. Throwing Blades
Bum ass list
1: great katana (nothing else compares)
2: perfume
3: Smithscript weapons? Idk what category that is
4: Theusting shield
5: beast claws
6: hand to hand
7 light Greatsword
I haven’t tried backhand blades due to my misery facing them in PvP but they seem fun enough for PvP, probably would place second or third
I really want to like beast claws, but you fly all over the place and miss like crazy. They’re pretty bad against high poise targets too.
I strongly believe that making new weapon classes for some of these were completely unnecessary, Throwing Blades only has one pathetic dagger, that you could easily more to the Dagger class, Beast Claws can just be moved to Claws, Hand to Hand, can be moved to Fists, and Thrusting Shields, are still shields, except they do more damage.
I’m not hating the game btw, Shadow of The Erdtree was amazing, I’m just pointing out redundancy.
I just feel like there’s 8, just so they could say there’s 8, in order to build up additional hype for the DLC
and if you want to make the argument the need to be in their own class, the moveset is different, well my counter argument is, Halberds, they have 3 distinct light attack chains.
Man Thrusting Shields are fun imo its like playing a different game.
People didnt even watch the video lmao this is your list based on fun and people are treating it objectively
Bro is on his journey to rank everything in this game. Next ranking: all new consumables and craft able items
But will he make it to top 10 stones or will he do a purposely bad cover of blinding lights first?
Bro is not rusty
@user-wh4fx4cn1t rusty is not the OG, my young friend.
Pray tell, have you heard the legend of a man from "down-unda" who has an affinity for rats?
I want to see how the Golden vow consumable compares to the ash and spell
if u say so promotional account
2:12 that transition tho.
I came to the comments to see if anyone else saw that, it was cleeeeeeeeeean.
Right? Amazing
yea that was sick
Are your standards that low?
@@blackfoxgames4431 Is your number of maidens that low?
Rank all the Scadutree fragments next
That's something for rusty to do lol
@@paulfritze2214 lol true
Oh great the hilaaarious comments from Rusty videos are making their way over here
the ones from gaius get F tier because you have to fight gaius to get them
@@bootstrap925 lmao I 100% agree
2:16 are we not gonna talk about how smooth that transition was?
The light greatswords have like no hyperarmor and stance damage but are still one of my favorite weapon classes
the stance damage only really comes from charged heavies & wing stance's heavy attack. Try using an ultra greatsword in the offhand 😂 it looks goofy when youre idle but it pairs so well with it
If you use wing stance on the milady, you can get around 3k damage with the heavy stance attack and usually poise break within at least two uses which makes the milady at least an S tier weapon
That's a PvP thing. In PvE they consistantly have 10% more stance damage than straight swords on everything, which makes them tie with greatswords on the guard counter and charged R2.
Their poise damage is bugged, most new wep types are using 1.07 values
@@lharsay oh ok thanks
2:10 transtion too clean 🔥
The throwing weapons being so mediocre is likely because they are some of the only free projectiles in the game. No crafting, no fp cost. I'm guessing From was afraid to make them too good. I expect them all to get buffed. I can handle low damage, but the limited range is really annoying. I feel like the Greathammer is the only weapon out the gate that has okay damage and an effective throwing distance
If they just increased the R2 damage by 15% these weapons would be atleast somewhat useful against bosses.
It's funny because the most recent patch nerfed them further, now they have insane dropoff in damage unless you throw them directly into their arse
Bolt of Gransax is still the best projectile in the game even though it’s not completely free lol
@@donovan4222 right but that's what I'm saying. It's not free so they can make it as good as they want. The only other free projectiles are ones like the frozen needle thrusting sword, and that thing also has bad range.
@@TheSpectralForce have you tried the lizard sword?
The fact we have 100 new weapons in this dlc but the new weapon classes only has 1-4 weapons is my biggest disappointment with this dlc
Yeah I totally agree and the ones we get most aren't that great either.
Yeah, not really worth the $40 now that the honey moon phase it's over.
Completely agreed.
What were you expecting? They're not going to make 10 unique variants of each weapon type. The only alternative would be making normal weapons, which means one of them would just be statistically better than all the other ones, making them obsolete
@@ilikestamps2978 some variety for 40 dollars, not reskinned skills and unispired non infusable weapons. Ds3 and ds2 had way better dlc weapons.
This is my only real disappointment with this DLC. 100 new weapons and barely one fifth of them are in these new classes. It should have been close to two thirds, if not at least half, since we had so many in the old weapon classes. To be fair, I do enjoy most of these, especially the hand to hands, backhand blades and beast claws. Still almost half of the new weapons being perfumer bottles or smithscripts, which are by far the worst, just really sucks. I did enjoy most of the new weapons overall regardless of weapon class, so I can't complain all that much. Also putting Giant Hunt on the Carian Thrusting Shield is hilarious.
I'm disappointed that there's no int wepons 😢
@@Lazzerglassesthere is one second with a s int scaleing
Maybe some of the smithing stones and cookbooks should have been weapons. I don't care what anyone says. I don't think it was worth $40 cuz I bought the DLC for the new weapon types, maybe worth 30
@@benjaminjacobs3498 It's not worth $40 despite the huge map, new bosses, and 40 hours of content?
@@tridonstrident6785 the shivering isles was twice the size and 30$
Fun fact: you can duel wield Danes foot work, and dryleaf arts. I haven’t done much testing, but from what I’ve seen is that you get the default dryleaf arts light attacks, and a new heavy attack. I have no clue if it doubles status build up or anything, but I think it’s kind of cool.
Wait that could be so cool if that's true and on top of that being able to two hand either and witch the moveset agian
You also might just be seeing the one handed heavy attacks of the weapon. No one talks about the one handed attacks of naturally powerstanced weapons for some reason
18:57 I’ve always wondered this too. There’s ashes like double slash and sword dance that get faster/slower depending on the weapon class and there’s ashes like repeating thrust that just always stay the same speed
I'm shocked you didn't mention the beast claw's range. If you're not utilizing the range all the time with them (I noticed you often weren't in your footage) they're going to be more underwhelming, but if you're making the most use out of the forward movement on essentially all their attacks, they're way more effective and fun as fast mid-ranged options. It opens up more obscure punish windows, and just the quality of being able to close the distance faster means you're getting more hits in faster than other weapons, which usually evens out of exceeds the damage you'd usually get after closing the distance yourself with a different weapon. It also makes their already good sprinting attacks even better. The forward momentum of the sprinting light attack is insane and the heavy sprinting attack does good damage and hits a lot. They get great use out of the new dash attack talisman.
From S to Trash, how the perfume bottle has fallen.
To be fair the perfume bottles themselves weren't good at all even at launch of the dlc the only thing that saved them was rolling sparks being absolutely broken
@@free_instructions2259 so what, is it better to have another useless weapon class, like the other 90%? This is so idiotic logic, when From make bosses that can literally oneshot you with every attack, but does not allow us to do the same. Balancing in this game is sush a trash.
@@cgc7032 How exactly was your takeaway from my comment that I want them to be bad lmao. I was just saying that the only thing that was good about them was rolling sparks which got rightfully nerfed because it was way too op. I want perfumes to be good by themselves not because of an ash of war that just one hits everything because of a bug
@@cgc7032 Sounds like somebody got addicted to the Rolling Spark clutch.
It's way more important to have the enemy be stronger than the player anyways, otherwise you might as well be using cheat engine.
@@free_instructions2259 against large enemies like bayle they were still good like he said but otherwise yes
The perfume bottles are so cool in concept, but they could have been so much better, I'm just glad there is at least one for every stat, and since it doesn't have weight almost at all, you can always have one in your inventory to at least apply frost
Thrusting shields are neither great shields nor great weapons, but if you compare directly to shield-poke builds they are fantastic. You can also cheese a lot of the bosses just with blocking R1s if you have the right set up.
This is true, they are better than even the Fingerprint Shield with poking... at least in PvP.
@@TheTraveler980 Brass Shield+Barricade Shield was already better for poking than Fingerprint+Scholar's Shield.
@@lharsay Oh yeah, that's right. Barricade Shield is Tier 4 hardness, while greatshields are tier 2 (Ant's Skull Plate being the exception with tier 3).
@@TheTraveler980 That's not the main reason, you could put barricade shield on greatshields too. For the medium shields it gives a 75% stamina cost reduction, while on greatshields it's only 50%.
@@lharsay I forgot. Also, the Greatshield Talisman (not Dragoncrest) has diminishing returns the higher the guard boost is for a shield, so it is typically most effective on medium shields.
I think it's cool that lightning scales mostly with dexterity. Like at a certain point, you become so dexterous your summon lightning from your movements.
The smithscript cirque is a cheese weapon for enemy npcs
bro thank you these vids literally helped me beat the dlc and making the game more fun blessings 🙏
You're so right about the great katana being peak. I had a character who was doing nagakiba/greatshield and when I picked up the great katana it was just a straight upgrade in every way. Such a good weapon.
Wish the crit was a stab even if that would be absurd
@@rando843 Nah man, crit stabs would be peak for great katanas, check out some of kensei's executions in for honor, those are excellent examples.
Perfume bottle has one niche use of killing those highly physical resisting slimes though.
That's about it really.
We really should have a big slime boss in dlc that make perfume bottle a viable option for those melee physical builds XD.
There was a boss like this in one of the Nioh games (can’t remember if it’s one or two). But it was a giant water blob
@@jedwalker4543Umi-bozu from Nioh 1 probably. Pretty boring boss though tbh.
@@Londoniusthe3rd that’s him! Actually died several times to falling off into the water more than him actually killing me lol
The perfume bottles just need a damage and/or range boost to give them a bit of a push.
@@drudge5268 Nah, perfume bottle need quite a bit more though.
First it need to do poise damage as much as at least a straight sword so lighter enemies can get stunlockd by this at least.
I do agree range and damage boost is needed too though.
Also unnerf the Rolling Flame a bit.
The bug that has faster attacking weapons hit slower against bigger targets has been the bane of my existence since the game released
Thanks!
to defense of perfume bottles:
they are extremely light so you can use them as side weapon to compliment movesets (for example - spears), I really liked to keep it as side grade for ganks that the game throws at you sometimes. It stuns and does damage in wide arcs with lingering hitbox so soldier ganks with dogs is not an issue. Also fighting the slimes in some particular locations.
Also I suppose you can't parry perfume bottles' attacks
Yeah I really dig them. They do way better damage than this guy is saying too. The frenzy ones on my int/faith character does pretty massive damage. They can interrupt most smaller enemies. Also they actually will stance break, obviously not the point of them but they will.
Plus they're fun to use (at least for me). Something else people forget is the point of trying new things.
Great katanas are easily my favs as well, I very much agree with this list. Good video, the guy really did his homework
ngl you're massively underrateing the smithscript cirques, the throwing attacks do very good damage from a very good range when compaired to melee attacks and they track really well so you're very unlikely to ever miss. they don't cost very much stamina to throw unlike other smithscript weapons and the range on the attack means you can think of it kind of like having a pike but with double the range and half the stamina cost. just don't charge your R2 attacks and do tap R2s and it basically makes any boss that is usually annoying to hit like the ancestor spirit or gargoyles really easy because your attacks are all but guaranteed to hit. they are legit some of the best weapons in the game for learning a boss move set because they get so much range for what is effectively a melee attack so you can punish so much more often. 10/10 weapon
On the martial arts, there actually is a way to make their dps surpass most fist weapons. Both dryleaf arts and Danes footwork have a 2 kick combo as the jumping heavy, raptors black feathers plus claw talisman, and then divine bird pants plus shattered stone talisman means you're getting like 1.5x damage on jumping heavies.
I mean
Maybe, but at that point you could use the greatsword talisman and do your jump attack build with a greathammer or colossal weapon and take things to stagger town.
Better than fists at jump attacks, but not better than the usual suspects who all got buffed
The best way to use either of the dryleaf martial arts in this game imo is just to go all in on building specifically for palm blast. Infinite poise, monstrous damage, decent range when fully charged-if you can figure out how to make the most of using this skill it makes the hand-to-hand one of the most busted combat options ingame
@aprinnyonbreak1290 maybe, but martial arts weigh 1.0, meaning you don't have to pump as many points into endurance to not fat roll. And they do 2 hits per jump attack without needing to power stance, so you're basically getting 2 hits per jump heavy, plus around 20 pounds less of weight
@supermariolego878 I had more success using the jump attack strategy against mobile bosses, palm blast is definitely really strong, but imo I'd prefer the mobility over the damage
The Smithscript Cirque is underrated. Its throwing attack roll catches just about everything in the world, can sneak past blocks and is quite frankly just busted when used off horse back. Pair it with the dash ash of war for a gap closer and you can pretty much bend every AI over a barrel
Dude I’m so glad you’re receiving the attention you deserve, been the best Elden Ring info channel since release
Didn't like great katana at first but I watched your video where you used great katana + blood tax and I started to really like them
duelling shields when combined with deflect crystal tear goes into complete overdrive. You can perfect deflect into a guard counter at will as the duelling shield will block any incoming damage during the guard counter and all of a sudden you have a quite safe but hyper aggressive weapon that can output safe but insane stance damage
I must be the only person that really enjoys the smithscript weapons. The fact that i can throw them makes me so happy, even if the dps is low.
Try the Claws of Night!
I enjoy the smithscript weapons too, and so long as you infuse them with something like sacred they still scale surprisingly well. The axe in particular has a well balanced heavy attack for stamina usage and damage. Less stance damage of course, but the jumping attack throws the axe too which is really fun to mess around with.
Seems like throwing blade and perfumes might fit more as an offhand or secondary weapon, a convenient alternative to their consumable counterparts.
Dane's footwork jumping heavy kick hits twice too and does an unbelievable amount of damage and stance damage.
I recommend using jumping attacks and the block counter.
That transition at 2:17 had me thinking I zoned out and didnt realize you were fighting Messmer
Messmer spear is absolute cinema
That little edit transition from Radagon to Messmer was sick lol
All of the dlc weapons are so effing fun to use, I’ve never switched up weapon types as much as I have been going through this content! Even perfumer is freaking sick, idk how they do it 😂
Smith script cirque is underrated. Ive been crushing pvp with it
I think the devs forgot that losing out on a heavy attack was enough of a downside for smithscript weapons. They didnt need to be that terrible
2:15 that is a sick transition
Fun fact if you have the Danes footwork in your left hand and do the first 5 hits of its attacks then use piercing fang on the dueling shield it will change the way the ash of war of the obsidian lomina changing the way dynastic sickleplay looks
This shit sounds ai generated 💀
What?
did you have a stroke?
AI when they think they can be people.
Unlike everyone else I know what youre trying to say. Obsidian lamina is bugged, if you use some ashes of war on different weapons for some reason it’ll change the obsidian lamina. You can look it up on youtube and find clips
Youwy coming in clutch with the quality daily uploads!
While my favorite new weapon class is the light greatswords, I ended up switching to the Great Katana for the final boss. Needed that super fast dummy big damage for that fight 😮💨
Hand to hand just got buffed in 1.14 too! Charged r2 build is such fun with those weapons, really satisfying.
Definitely feel like Beast Claws are only recommended if you want to be Hoarah Loux and have fun. I went into the DLC with an Arcane Claw build with intention to swap to Occultist Beast Claws. They were really fun but got me into trouble and never felt like they justified their existence. Did almost the whole DLC with Beast Claws and don't regret it, but don't see myself ever using them again unless I find them early in a Randomizer (once it is fixed for DLC).
That Radagon to Mesmer transition was insane
Another thing to note about great katanas is they have access to a feint attack (hold heavy attack then press B). U get a quick slash attack and rakshasa’s gets it as well, letting it still have a slash from heavy
Okay that transition from radagon to messmer was so damn clean
wing stance will retain the relanna cameo buff if you spam the light attack, & it will continue into the heavy attack, though youll need to charge it up after. The light greatswords & backhand blades blend very well with a ton of weapons in the offhand too, like it's very reminiscent of the flow ds2's powerstancing had. Wing stance & the godslayer ugs especially feel like an extremely agile fume knight type setup, animations blending near perfect. Would recommend either of the stamp ashes on the great katana, as even w/o the followup youll just default to a poke. Kinda prefer it to the claymore w trading now
The nerf to smithscript weapons elemental infusions hurt me a lot on my pure faith caster. The spear in flameart complimented my build SO DAMN well, I was livid when I woke up and saw the nerf. Like...why?
2:15 That transition is 🔥🔥🔥.
Just wanna say dude, been watching for over a year and seeing you get to 100k subs is awesome. Happy for you mate
Beast claws jump forward "attackness" as well as the feint attack they have make them the coolest weapon ever thank you very much
Hand to hand is so unbelievably fun, every now and then I use a poison and bleed one to fight Rellana with Poison Flower Blooms Twice.
Such a fun combo
Being able to do back to back pokes off 2h running and rolling attacks is so nice on the great katanas, they have stupid good range.
The transition at 2:16 is so smooth
That transition from radagon to messmer was so sick!
I love these videos because I respect and trust your wisdom as you're not given to hype and understand statistics so well. Thank you brother!
That transition at 2:16 was just👌
I'm an easy man, I see a new youwy upload, I click
Came here to mention “THẼ” transition just to see that the comments already had me covered. Fucking quality. Felt like a war movie flashback
The great katanas have a cool heavy attack cancel move by pressing backstep before you swing
armor sets sounds dope, thanks for the great content!
bro the transition at 2:15 was insanely clean wtf haha
The great Katana with Blood Tax(Occult) is amazing. I was genuinely impressed with it.
Me running through the DLC, I find that running Rellana's paired light greatswords, Using the Ashes of War is better against slower/smaller enemies, and just gunning bosses with jumping/running heavies into light attacks carries me through the fight, especially against faster bosses with little downtime.
Dry leaf arts with bleed damage kills Mohg before phase change if you're good enough.
This is true of basically all bleed weapons.
@@drudge5268 this is true, but also, it's really funny to just run up and beat the shit out of him
Something I love about Milady is that it just feels like a better version of my favorite weapon from DS3, the Follower's Saber it is so good on so many builds, infused or not. It's great.
14:47 two arrows sticking out of Malenia's face
Little bonus for the beast claws weapons, hold R2(heavy) and then dodge button, you will do a nice damage and then make a quick backstep move... really useful in both PvP and PvE to end a chain of combo
Don't know if you didn't realize this or forgot to mention it, but the Rakshasa's actually gets hyper armor on regular attacks, not just the skill, but makes you take 10% more damage
2:16 that was a sick ass transition
Really like thrusting shields a lot for some reason.
they kinda go hard when you don’t infuse them with elements, but seeing how the carian one is the best out of the 2 sucks that you can’t take it to the fullest potential without losing out on guard.
Of course you can just slap on Greatshield talisman and use scholars shield to call it a day while you infuse, still think losing guard when you infuse is a massive downside.
Hopefully the next souls like game they improve on all the new weapon types.
I love how you pulled a King Crimson at 13:06 and thought we wouldn’t notice 😂😂😂😂
One more thing you didn’t mention about palm blast, in addition to the hyperarmour, you get a 25% defence boost while charging it, you can see it pop up as a buff
Honestly even when infused thrusting shields are still great, even on the offensive basically all of your attacks have I-frames somewhere in them, for example light attacks will have you blocking for a short moment after an attack and heavys will have you blocking during the wind-up, just overall very versatile
2:14 that transition from Radagon to Messmer was beautiful btw. I don't really know how to fix the smithscript daggers, but for the other throwing weapons I feel like they need a damage boost for the throwing attacks. They're already harder to land than regular heavy attacks (at least in pvp; pve is hit/miss). Beast claws and hand to hand should either be able to generally out damage claw and fist weapons respectively, or they should do more poise damage which is what I lean towards. Great katanas I'm not really sure what it is that makes me like them than greatswords and CGSs. In a way I'd say they feel more like polearm weapons such as halberds and reapers. Back hand blades and light greatswords are actually pretty good right now imo. BHBs have unique ash of wars that are a little too cheeky in my opinion but other than that they're in a pretty good spot. I haven't used thrusting shields and perfume bottles much though so I don't feel like I could recommend fixes for them.
Next he's gonna rank best armor or at least the armor pieces that have effects on them
I absolutely love the thrusting shields, they've got to be my favorite new weapon type of the DLC. The guard points in particular have saved me from getting hit more times than I can count, even if I'm not deliberately trying to time them. That alone makes them amazing weapons even in spite of their weaknesses. I can understand why the charged R2 deals such low stance damage, as it does have blocking frames on its charging animation and is much easier to land as a result. Sadly they do lose guard boost when infused, but you can still put Scholar's Shield on them even with an infusion to offset it.
I just hope they give some more love to the less performing weapons instead of nerfing the best ones
The Milady with Wing Stance is probably my favorite weapon in the entire game. I didn't have much interest at first in the Backhand Blades but they have also become one of my favorites. Blind Spot is just insanely good and too fun to use.
Loving my Cold Great Katana with Repeating Thrust - I kinda stumbled into that combo and found it hyper effective. Happy to see the Katana get the top spot.
the rakshasa great katana gets the same hyperarmor as great hammers with their regular 2handed attacks. kinda crazy
I'll vouch for the beast claws and say that one of their biggest strengths is their near complete lack of downtime after attacks, you can act almost immediately after everything which is really good. Still needs a buff.
Thrusting shield is so powerful imo, just because you're able to attack and block at the same time, meaning if you just press r1 over and over enemies can't hit you, and you do great damage against them.
Smithscript greathammer is actually really good. Makes a lot of the new bosses trivial, especially Commander Gaius and Scadutree Avatar. There are a lot of different buffs: spiked crack tear, smithing talisman, axe talisman, 2-handed talisman + consumables + incantations.
A lot of the new bosses have only small openings to punish and if you too far away, then you are unable to do any damage before the next flurry of attacks. With the smithscript greathammer distance doesnt matter. And if you're close your charged attack deals additional hits before throwing. I was getting 1700 damage each throw + cold proc every 4-5 throws. The tracking is also pretty generous, the range has some fall of, but can go surprisingly far.
Completely agree. Every Great Katana option is amazing. My new favorite weapon category for sure.
I can't stop using the Milady, it's too much fun
A critical attack is not the only option you have with stance breaks, and is often not even optimal. For Perfume bottle sespecially, it's so you can do one of your big weapon arts or a fully charged r2. These attacks can be very strong and require you to have that long opening, but do really good damage.
I think you are underselling the beast claws a bit. Due to their crazy movements they allow you to go into the offense more than any other weapon. It is insane how many "dodges" this weapon has within its moveset.
In my opinion the claws are weapons with a high skill ceiling, but when mastered, they are some of the best weapons in the game.
I think they're great offhand weapons.
Take the generic one, give it some utility ash like Poison Mist or Raptor of the Mist or Resolve or maybe No Skill or something, use its L1 to close gaps, then either switch off it or two hand your actual weapon once you're in.
Kinda gives Beasthunter Saif vibes, except you ditch the attack string.
Using it as a gap closer for like, Wild Strikes with the anchor is fantastic
I just wish they would scale down the visual model of great katanas. Keep the length but slim it down by 30 to 35 percent, so it actually looks like a proper nodachi and not a katana they just blew up in MS paint.
My most used setup in the end was occult Great Katana with the Spinning Gravity Thrust and some multiple-hit talismans. But I had a lot of fun with the oil tear. There are some insane fire build setups which hit like a truck without much work.
Curseblade's Cirque should be it's own weapon class. The thing has 50 Guard Boost at max lvl for no reason, giving you access to a 4x hit guard counter combo.
It's AoW is also a "Dance", which gets buffed by the dancer set. Pair this with Deflecting Hardtear, Curved Sword Talisman, RWSI, Millicent's Prosthesis, and you have one of the fastest hitting guard-counter builds while maintaining light rolls.
Since the guard counter hits 4 times, it activates the multi-hit bonuses instantly.
It's even got bleed for even more DPS.
I tested in on NG+ Malenia, and was very pleasantly surprised.
I've been running an occult great katana from the start of the DLC and couldn't agree more. At 80 ARC and 66 DEX that thing gets 108 bleed build up on top of the 760+ pure physical damage, and moveset and range are just amazing. I also still run overhead stance on it as an ash. It's not be the most dps or utility, but it's so damn stylish and not bad. The heavy from it is good damage, insanely quick bleed build up, and gets good hyperarmor in the later half of the animation (as soon as the first hit connects).
light greatswords have stolen my heart
also, throwing knives are extremely good at keeping aggro. it's what us people who get summoned have needed forever. it's niche as hell but has saved hosts before lol
I dont mind nerfs but fromsoft need to give it a rest with weapons that weren't that good to begin with.
20:27 and the rakshasa one has hyperamor on regular moveset, unlike the others
I noticed you havent pointed out the Heavy Dodge cancel the Great Katanas have, its really great for positioning since most Great katana chains tend to move you forward, but its heavy dodge chancel makes you do a wide slash stepping backwards, and you can do it with either heavy chain, plus since it counts as a backstep, you can follow it up with a light attack to do a poke attack to keep up your position, it even works well in pvp just because how big it is
The fire perfume is really nice. Perfume talisman + fire scorpion + fire tear + flame grant me strength. Golden vow too, if you want.
You can stunlock many enemies with them, like the birds, especially from horseback. I dunno what people are talking about with them being bad. Maybe they aren't the best choice on bosses, but going around the map, they're excellent.
Funny little thing with the ash of war Dryleaf Whirlwind
You can actually stunlock Malenia to death with 2 people.
All you have to do is
- Summon someone and have both players equip the Ash of War
- Just find a good opening
- 1st person Ash of War, 2nd person Ash of War as soon as the 3rd hit lands for first player
- Just keep going till she staggers
- Riposte
- Count to 3, Ash of War
- Repeat