Honestly it would help it out so much. Sweep may be garbage but if they were part of the same package you could at least use it as a mixup tool for when people think you're going for the uppercut.
@@jamesruth100 yup exactly. If they roll back, uppercut would catch. If they roll sideways, sweep would catch. Makes both usable. Currently, giant hunt is just uppercut+1
I wish that were the case for all ash of wars. Like radahn’s blades get cragblade/starcaller-cry/psycho-crusher, maliketh’s gets jumping-projectile/double-sweep/plant-and-spam. Of course with higher fp usage to prevent spam. But of course that amount of depth is impossible when you add 192&8294728483)282947 weapons instead of specializing a few
It should've been a thing. They just have to rework R1 to do the sweep. The thing is, I actually like the Stamp into R1 in DS3 because I could choose between doing the slow uppercut or a quicker horizontal slash to get into a R1 chained. But in ER, it just goes back to the starting R1 and forces you to use a R2 since they're both similar speeds. If they switch the useless R1 with a sweep then that would definitely be one of the better Ashes of War because being able to switch timings and benefit greatly from the reduced dmg in a trade is fantastic. Unsheathed and Square Off works so well because they already have strong vertical attacks but a quicker sweep works situationally for mixing up. Moreover, these moves are too cool to waste on a useless ash.
Glintstone pebble legit stunlocks endgame level enemies like omens and cleanrots to death with zero retaliation potential. It even stunlocks THAT red eyed, dual wield banished knight in castle sol. No idea why anyone complains about moonveil easy mode when this exists.
Cause there’s a lot of ways to trivialize PvE. PvP is plagued by much worse than Pebble and MV *cough* BHS *cough* it literally gets you out of true combos such as Pebble and Stomp
because both can be comboed with a phantom who double-teams you with both and takes you 100%-0% without any ability to dodge or escape. Experienced it yesterday- A single laggy Moonveil clips you, the other one comes in, and you're dead. And you can do the exact same thing with G Pebble
@@JesusProtects it's not guard breaking, very few people will try to tank a pebble with shield- it's the stunlock. someone clips me with a GS, for example, and now the glintstone pebble comes through, combo'd, and then the GS user's charged R2 finishes me off. No way to escape.
@@FishFosh Think you're missing the point. I'm not saying it should be rated in relation to other ashes, but on it's niche in actual meta setups, which pretty much automatically makes it more useful than everything else in D.
I believe Piercing Fang actually does damage through guard as opposed to just breaking it. Piercing Fang is hella telegraphed compared to Impaling Thrust though. There's valid use cases for both.
Sacred Blade is one of my favorite Ash of War because when I was doing my first playthrough as a Faith build it was the only way I had a Faith scaling weapon for the longest time. That Holy infused Broadsword did a lot of work
The twinned Sword you get from D comes with the ash on somber and gets great scaling with faith and strength, put shard of alexander + Holy scorpion charm on 60 faith soft cap you can hit players for 650-900 Damage on hit, you can look away from opponents before doing it as well, i've caught many people before it's real fun
@@equilibrium5280 oh yeah I know about all the other cool Faith weapons now, but on my first playthrough I didn't want to look anything up, and just missed other early faith stuff. I ended up using the Cipher Pata and Coded Sword mostly
yea its annoying how you can only buff your infused weapon if you use an ash of war that contains a buff. You can't buff it with a spell, probably good though to avoid insane 500+ elemental damage stacking though lol
...Fire also works. Like Flame Strike and Flame of the Redmanes. Try dragging a long weapon while on horseback for the cowardly scarab. Also for Sacred Blade you can't hit with the weapon and the projectile.
0:45 Barbaric roar attacks have LUDICROUS levels of hyperarmor, I don't think it's deserving of a higher score, but that should be mentioned. I had 39 poise (no bull goats) and was able to poise through jumping heavies of non-colossal weapons while I was using charged barbaric roar attacks on the Nagakiba.
I have been doing co-op in the Capital at RL80 with the Duelist Greataxe using Barbaric Roar, the only things I've found that can stop my hyperarmor in Roar R2s are bosses doing moves that probably do infinite poise damage, like Morgott's hammer swings. Everything else you can just facetank. It sucks in PvP obviously but in PvE there's very little that can stand up to the swings.
I tried the same thing on the Nagakiba but sadly even with the damage buff from the Roar medallion the heavy attacks don't do that much damage and the bleed build up is also seemingly lowered. But the hyper armor is really good on it and allows you to always get some hits in.
@@TSE_WOODY It ain't very good, but damn is it funny to use. The juxtaposition of the "graceful" and "elegant" katana instead being swung around by a maniac is just funny as all hell.
4:24 earthshaker is actually pretty decent, try it out sometime; it causes an explosion effect and if you catch someone in the actual attack it stunlocks into the follow up, in a duel it's a little meh but can severely punish aggression. It's basically waves of darkness with less aoe blasts and a working follow up.
Yes except Waves of Darkness is just better in every single way. I love earthshaker, used it all the time in lower level invasions, but it's just a straight downgrade
@@yeahmemia late I know but earthshaker is a strength thing so you shouldn't run fire you should run heavy, earthshaker is worse golden land which is worse waves of darkness
honestly lot better spread than i was expecting with the AoWs. I havent used a lot of them, but i still havent done a lot of different builds yet. One thing did occur though i see that i expected, that being there just being straight up worse versions of other ashes, that also used to be core things like say parry vs golden/carian parry.
You can put regular parry on a weapon. Royal Knight's costs twice the fp of regular resolve, while only doing 20% more damage. Piercing fang can't be put on claws or daggers, impaling thrust can. Toph's can deflect multiple missiles, Carian only one. Regular quickstep doesn't have the frontal lobotomy requirement of Bloodhound's. Stuff is often strictly better, but rarely a straight upgrade.
Fun tip I've discovered for Raptor of the Mists: It comes out much faster than a roll, allowing you hard counter Storm Stomp follow up attacks. Most people don't event try to dodge because they never expect you to suddenly counter the Storm Stomp true combo. Honestly I love that ash. Yeah it's quite hard to hit with the jumping attack, but it gives you the ability to always be applying pressure. You can get away with being far more aggressive than is usually safe, in a way which often throws players off.
Not to mention you can dodge almost any aoe attacks. I've run many PvP duels with raptors of the mist and you can pretty much dodge any attack. Also I'm pretty sure it makes your hitbox smaller which has caused me to completely dodge attacks without it activating leaving me right beside them for a crouch slash.
Wild Strikes is pretty useful in PVP on high poise builds as it completely regenerates your poise health, so using it once after a trade at a distance is basically a buff
3:08 note about golden parry though: the area valid for the parry with it swings around rather than being constantly in front of you, so it has more margin of error than carian retaliation even if it has equal or even better frames and range. also glintblade phalanx is basically ranged flame of redmanes in pve, does roughly the same amount of stagger if you can hit with all four swords.
p.s.: also crazy as it might be... regular parry is better than storm parry. because you can put it on other weapons too, rapiers, knives, curved swords, etc obviously situational, but if i gotta pick between a regular parry that doesn't do anything parituclarly useful and a parry i can put anywhere, i'd pick the second any day.
@@iota-09 I wish you could put parry on any weapon and let us DS2 it up. I don't care if it was slow as ass and only worked once in a millennia, parrying someone with an UGS was nut worthy.
4:44 in an open world invasion enchanted shot is extremely good as it can be fired from stealth to deal a nice wee bit of damage, a good initiator for combat; not better than C tier however as it's still a bow's damage.
Glintstone phalanx is really good posture damage,with my shield +sword first playthrough i used it all the time against heavy hitter mobs where going close is dangerous,2 cast knocks down Crucible Knights,i think 3 knocks Malenia,and really fucks up the AI,because the AI dodges the initial cast,but the effect goes in later and the mobs just facetank it. The delay literally fucks up the AI brain for great posture hit.
The benefit of wildstrikes in PVP is the instant hyperarmor + zero recovery. It’s unpublishable if you don’t do the follow up’s and it counters things like stormstomp
@@Ekqo3 Gambit makes you both invisible and silent, so you'd need yet another talisman to prevent that, because yes enemies can see and hear surprisingly well. I'll take using a two pound dagger I can quick swap to over wasting two talisman slots any day. It's a tiny amount of damage as well. Edit: Guy got confused at my awkward wording in relation to the post I was responding too
@@keeperdox what I meant from my comment was that muffled sound isn't worth using gambit for, and that invis via any source is basically useless, except in pvp, but the fact you can be invis standing is offset by the dmg reveal
5:02 storm stomp does not give the same level of hyper armor as endure. Endure gives super armor: a type of armor that completely ignores any type of poise calculation. Super armor allows you to push through things like stamp(upward cut) lions claw, or anything else that does maximum/infinite poise damage. Storm stomp has a limit(a very generous limit) to what it can tank(not factoring burst status effects like frost bleed madness sleep etc all the ones that force a stagger animation even through your roll invincibility), while endure has no limit. Stamp(just the L2 part) and lions claw also share this trait, no amount of poise damage can interrupt those ashes of war
Not sure if it changed when they lowered the amount of time bleed and frostbite stun for, but endure used to not protect you from bleed and frostbite stuns. Those overleveled RoB spamming phantoms would give me quite a bit of trouble on my spiked caestus stormveil invader because of it.
Yeah endure also buffs absorption by a significant amount, causes light hits to bounce off you, and lasts for 3 seconds unlike storm stomp iirc. Not sure if scott just missed all this but it's almost like ds3 perseverance with less duration
@@veras7927 it’s just that in DS3 the fact that you had poise was a W since it was Active rather than Passive, in ER everyone already has poise. Poise for the boys
@@thethumblessn00b19 But he put storm stomp in S tier, which is useless if everyone has super high poise I think he's working under the assumption that you're using low-mid poise, where endure and storm stomp both shine
Wild Strikes has taken me by surprise, definitely died laughing to it a couple times. Someone that has no poise can break it out on you and suddenly they just tank anything you expected them to crumble from, if you just expect a trade, all of a sudden you get molly-whopped.
While there wouldn't have been time to go over them there are some instances where a weapon's strengths can make specific ashes really shine; in particular I'm thinking of Great Stars which is fantastic with Wild Strikes and Prelate's Charge because of its two passive effects (heal-on-hit and bleed buildup).
Lifesteal fist is actually kind fun in pve, a lot of people don't know that the startup actually lowers your hotbox a lot, meaning you could duck under attacks before commiting
The parry ashes are one of the best things ever! From my understanding the Ash has its own parry window and recovery frames, by that I mean that I you put it on a buckler or use it on a medium shield the effect is the same. In short, you eliminate the need to discriminate small shield from medium shield as an effective parry tool and from my experience these parry Ashes have low-ish starter frames, descent parry frames, and not the worst recovery. Sure it sound like “source, me” but if the videos I saw in-depth about parry frames are correct then all the Ash parry share the same (or very similar) frame data and they are all descent at that.
4:10 I feel this is a bit too much "in comparison to corpse piler" instead of the Ash of War itself, I think it's easily an A tier ability and on certain weapons can one shot. Also the bleed effect you mentioned isn't something inherently unique to Rivers (the range AND bleed is what sets it apart), as some setups can result in more (or at least similar levels of) bleed damage (such as rippler blade with bleed grease and double slash, which yes it can be put on halberds).
Double slash definitely deserves better of a rating. It's my go-to pick for greatswords (not ugs) because jumping r1 into WA roll catches like giant hunt does on ugs weapons, and does very respectable damage even with only the first part of the ash
Nice video, it's really helpful for people who want a good pve character but don't want to be useless in pvp. I think I'ma show this to my friend. Will you do a pure pvp tier list, I'd recon the placement would change a lot, like on glintblade phalanx.
@@corbincavitt635 Cope. PvP is shit in this game, and has been in all of the titles. With DS3 being the only minor exception. Games have always been designed for PvE first.
It should have been Carrian Barrier and Thop's retaliation. Would have made much more sense that you complete a whole ass quest to get a better version, and the Idea that Thops died because he invented a way to re-direct mage BACK at it's opponent feels way more fitting.
Gotta say, Assassin's gambit is excellent in PvE, especially when running through areas, but it's also great to just get closer to groups or active enemies without spooking them before you get there. Like the spell, it functions when standing, where as the talisman does not, but unlike the spell it also muffles your steps, which a lot of enemies would have heard otherwise. So you can sprint, without negatives. Too duplicate this one ash you either need both a sorcery and an incantation, or two talisman's, or one of either and a specific chest piece, or mix and match. You can throw it on a dagger, use it, and just reuse it occasionally. The damage is minimal, it costs much less fp than the spell, it frees up both multiple spell slots and talisman slots, and budgeting endurance for an extra two pounds is easy, especially if you also have occasional heavier weapons you'll swap out to. Or if you were just gonna keep Misericorde on hand for crit action only anyways, here's a good ash to just throw on it. Severely disagree with that rating. If you're trying to rate it from the perspective of both PVP and PvE, you kind of seem to have lead off with a mostly PvP consideration on the very first Ash rated. Or you didn't do a lot of stealth in PvE, which is certainly very fair if so. If you actually didn't use it much leveling up or exploring, it wouldn't seem terribly useful I guess. Stealth is a powerful tool in ER, and invisibility increases it dramatically. You can certainly play without using it, but the same is true for any and every Ash of war, Invisibility is one of the most potent mechanics in PvE, and still has many uses in PvP. I'm not saying this is S tier, but it definitely ain't that low. XD I hope you keep up the content, I thoroughly enjoyed your Spell rankings for PvP video, I hope PvP gets fixed soon, I miss it. Equally loved your video on that, agreed completely honestly. Thank you. Edits: Spelling, grammar, clarifications, elaborations, and a thank you.
@@brandontaylor7744 long as they don't see your bar behind walls, but honestly, most are fairly blind a lot of the time, and you can vacate that spot fast anyways
I agree, but also heavily disagree. Assassins Gambit is an excellent WA with only horrible uses. First of all, its extremely easy to miss, kill 1 boss and you miss the entire WA (or like most normal people do, kill the NPC the first time you see him in the shack and poof). Secondly, the entire use of the WA in PvE is "this enemy is too strong or bothersome, so I will avoid him", which only leads to the "im underleved to fight this enemy, which I reached after skipping all the minions" problem. (yes, you can counteract this problem by farming ahead of time, but if you do that, you might as well farm to be strong enough to 1 shot all those bothersome enemies). And Third, this is a WA that will nearly 100% of the time, be used on either the second character/run, OR by players with an Assassin Roleplay fetish, and in both of those scenarios, the full Dark Assassins Set, is simply a superior option that works exactly the same, without the need of reapplying every couple of seconds. Using this WA is not a niche thing, its an EXTREMELY niche thing. I personally think it could have been even lower, but I wont argue for the idea of it being 1 tier higher.
@@Chris____. You could argue that it's hard to find for almost every Ash in the game. giants Hunt only drops off of one boss, so does ice spear, the fact that you can miss it is a wierd consideration since you can look it up, and it would apply to almost every single ash. Which you're likely willing to do if you're watching this video. Arguing it's entire purpose is too skip an enemy if it's too strong is a strawmen at worst or a lack of strategic thinking at best. I frequently used it to get the drop on enemies, picking off patrolling loners I would have had difficulty getting to without aggroing other things. I went through every zone and area killing every available mob, using this and the other sources of Invisibility interchangably. On my very first character, one who didn't have your assassin's fetish. BTW, I assume you mean the Black knife set, and that only muffles your steps. That's the chest piece I mentioned. You'd still need to use a talisman slot and never stop crouching (I dunno about you but I have better uses of my talisman slots) or a spell slot and far more fp. Making it inferior on its own definitively. I'm not even gonna address that you think most people just murder every vendor they meet automatically. That is a ridiculous point.
couple of notes: Piercing fang doesn't do a lot of shield damage, it's literally unblockable. Spinning Strikes reflects projectiles, which is situationally pretty useful in PvE. Not amazing but worth noting.
I tell people this about peircing fang, in my experience its the best shield counter and can do over 1000 damage with Alexanders shard against fingerprint shield i thought it was a bug at first.
storm assault chad representing i have nearly oneshotted or even done so in oneshotting people with this thing. the initial hit - which comes out fast - usually combos into the final big hit
I wonder if the initial wind storm staggers players the same way storm stomp will true combo. To me its biggest weaknesses is a long end recovery and high poise enemies, but that landing wind storm can catch someone if they rush in too early.
PSA. SHIELD BASH IS THE MOST SLEPT ON ASH OF WAR IN THE GAME. it's a press for s button and paired with the dragonclaw greatshield you can do more damage than many weapons while taking 0. It is an amazing trade vs many things without being entirely broken. Also dragon greatclaw is the designated shield bash shield
Can confirm that flame of the redmane is one of the best PvE ashes of war. You can stunlock a lot of bosses because you can break their posture while they are still recovering from a reposte, leading to another reposte.
I'd argue that the main benefit of Sacred Blade is on the PvE side is that they absolutely did not fuck around with the anti-skeleton buff it comes with, that thing can dish out 700 damage a swing on a barely upgraded broadsword once you've buffed it.
I dont think it's a good idea to nerf bleed build up, what should be fixed are phantom hits, if someone dodges a hit, there shouldnt be status build up on them
@@ARTEMISXIX hehe, then it's just a matter of semantics, i see it more like a fix, and i agree about the boluses, i think it would balance bleed but will keep build diversity
I hit storm assault all the time. I love how much people underestimate. Usually their disrespect is what nets me the victory, the key is making sure they get stunned by the opening jump. You can usually land the slam and it does about 1600. Also, the wind swirls that linger usually stun people trying to run in and punish, which allows me to perform a follow up. Very underrated ash of war IMO
Shield bash should be at least in A category. Besides good tracking, speed and damage it has one very strong property - you can't be guardbroken till the end of animation, even if you get hit multiple times with 0 stamina. I've seen it being used in high level competitive duels as a good counter to CS crouch pokes, and also against other setups.
Should be above Shield Crash. SCrash is pretty bad at high level duels and can even get you back-stabbed. Shield Crash is an insanely good trade/outright free damage if you use it wisely. It's incredibly good on the Crucible Hornshield which is a decent greatshield with some of the best damage (282) without being overly heavy. Although Spiked Palisade and Fingerprint are also good options.
As an archer I actually genuinely enjoyed enchanted shot, that arrow tracking is very good against dodge heavy enemies or anything that usually has naturally high movement like bosses that slide around the arena which you'd usually miss a lot of shots against, it's just generally very good for makinh sure your high damage ammo doesn't get wasted. It also does pretty good damage which is very similar to the damage output of other damage based archery skills so generally it has more utility than most bow skills that aren't barrage or rain of arrows.
Wild Strikes has a tech for pvp so it might be even higher. Prelate Charge can be used alongside Bloodflame so you apply bleed while dragging enemies in PVE (and applies more pressure in PVP), which cheeses both Malenia and Soldier of Godrick, making it actually nice. You can also put it on Butchering Knife or Great Stars to regen your health while dragging enemies in PVE (since both weapons have the passive ability of getting a bit of hp back with each hit and the AoW lands hits nonstop). Gravitas might not deserve a higher spot but it is worth pointing out that having a pocket weapon with it is great for PVE since it knocks down flying foes and those are usually very annoying for most people.
Yup, I agree with 95% or more of this tier list. I can nitpick on some placements (thopps over normal parry) But this is the most accurate list according to my experiences. And Yeah Vow of the Indomitable was how I beat Malenia my first time, it is the non BHS way to cheese waterfowl. I would also say the Roars are tricky, as they almost need to evaluated on a per weapon class, or even per weapon basis. The multi-hit roar for instance is better for status effects or innate bonuses like the Greatstars 1% heal on hit. And then there is the ability to stack black flame blade incantation with alot of these ashes that can power some up in a very R.K.R.~ish way (want to shoot black flame glint blades? splash that on your sword before using Phalanx and now your glint blades will apply the debuff, same with ice spear thunderbolt beast roar etc but weirdly not stormblade and it does not work with Ashes that already apply a weapon buff)
shield bash is completely underrated. its a guaranteed won trade because you cant be guard broken while its up. the only thing you cant block is anti block things like ice spear. giant hunt, comet azur, rkr jump attack. all get full blocked by shield bash and traded with.
Enchanted Shot has one good use. Killing the stupid bird to farm XP in Mohgwyn Palace. Slap it on long bow, takes any aiming consideration out of the farm, lock on from across the ravine, charge it, wait for birb to pass That Branch(TM) and release.
Square off stance breaks Margit in 2 hits, and breaks the tree sentinel in about 4 hits (harder to test this because he tends to run away and regen poise). Vagabond starts with equipment that can easily solo all of limgrave without any upgrades. It's actually kinda crazy.
Wild strikes used to be INSANELY good when frostbite used to stun people, put that on a weapon like the rusted anchor, swing about 2 times and do the heavy attack. On the small swing before the large one it would stun them with frost (for most people unless resistance is high), leading into a true combo for the heavy follow up WHILE they were frost bitten (taking more damage). I have to test it to see if it still works but yea, wild strikes ftw
Mostly agree with everything except I'd swap Barbaric Roar and Warcry. Charge range is imo practically useless in PvP, whereas giving something like a curved sword hyperarmor actually improves your options and lets you win hard trades in PvP. I'd admit I've had limited experience with both, but I have tried them in invasions on several occasions and my impression is that warcry baits you into charge attacks you never hit and you get easily punished for it, while Barbaric Roar at worst baits you into charged attacks you miss but which are difficult to punish; and you have better odds at landing the charged attack due to being a bit less telegraphed and easier to aim. I'd also nudge Icicle Spear to S rank. It's not quite as good as flame of the redmanes for posture damage, but it still dishes it out for mobs and bosses, and the frost status is great. Used it to beat Morgott phase 1 with no upgrades RL10 (staggers in three uses if you're fast), Alecto, Putrid Tree Spirit, etc. That along with belonging on every PvP build as a counter to shields makes it far too good to be "just" A rank I think. Mobs also tend to have a hard time dodging it, as a bonus.
Braggart's roar is where it's at, takes 3 seconds to roar but lasts 10 seconds longer for 30 seconds, gives insane hyper armor on charged attacks so you can setup into a baited trade to get super high damage. It's my favorite roar buff and probably belongs on high A tier because of stamina and defense buff on top of 8.5% damage increase
7:15 The glintblades on the ash of war have absurdly high posture damage. More than any of the spells, and its insanely useful against large PVE bosses. You'll be hard-pressed to find something that doesn't stagger in 3 casts, and I don't think I've encountered any that could take more than 5. For stagger potential, it's the mage's flame of the Redmanes.
I literally went through the entire Shaded Castle up to the boss using just that spell into criticals. Absolutely mindless, cast it, walk until it launches at something, get stagger, crit, cast again ASAP, repeat.
i agree bloody slash is underrated, also it doesnt scale that much with arcane and its extremely powerful even with no arcane investment. it has literally nothing to do with bleed, other than it gives you the option to do a blood infusion, yet i've only ever seen people with bleed builds use it. if you put it on a dagger or something and switch to it, it will catch a lot of people off guard because they've only ever seen it on bleed katanas, and you do over a 1000 damage with no stat investment at all.
I'd place Carian Retaliation above Golden Parry, actually. The two have identical parry frames (come out at frame 8 and last 14 frames on both small and medium shields) but Carian Retaliation ONLY costs FP when parrying spells, while Golden Parry costs FP all the time and turns into a normal parry otherwise. The chief benefit of Golden Parry is the distance, to get risk-free parries at a distance with proper spacing or to parry multiple things, e.g. ganks, but getting the better frames all the time is big, especially if you're running a medium shield because the normal parry sucks balls if you run out of FP for Golden Parry.
Love the video, completely agree with many of the ashes of war I've used, only one I can say was actually very useful by ng+3 was assassins gambit purely for the "speedrun" factor, I just run past everything and beeline to my objectives if I hate the area in particular. I know there is a talisman that does something similar but I believe it only works on players and when you're crouched, whereas assassins gambit allows me to full sprint. Enemies will still spot you if you're close enough but typically they can't catch up by the time I've left. In my experience it's been very reliable in my last playthrough for those places I can't be bothered to deal with regularly ex. siofra river archers lol
i have a goofy funny build using poison mist, the slash itself actually does damage and a lot of it too, like minimum 1000 with shard of alexander and kindred of rot's exultation is basically guaranteed to proc. its only really useful in close quarters invasions where you have corners but if you can use it right people are afraid
Storm Slash is slightly slower than beast roar on the first hit and slightly faster on subsequent uses, so it’s more spammable. Specifically for high strength builds that don’t benefit from dex scaling, it can be a better alternative
Blood Blade is actually God tier, both in PvE and PvP. Has fantastic pressure, VERY low cost, excellent build up, decent damage, and goes through just about anything at a relatively speedy pace.
Glintblade phalanx is good at high level duels when combined with things like halberd offstoc, you need to roll it, which halberd can reaction punish with rr1 or offstoc. I'd say it's much stronger than ice spear at high level due to how hard ice spear is to land, it's a solid A tier skill
that's what i'm saying dude, ever since demon's souls you had to respect that homing soul mass and it's no different in Elden Ring. it does kind of lose utility in invasions though
It's crazy how a lot of things good for pvp are garbage for pve, try some the ashes mid to late game and you have little opportunity to use them because you will be comboed to death or have you health chucked instantly. Everything is just too fast in this game relative to our skills and base movement.
Spinning slash depends on the weapon, if you're using a halberd then the follow up attack is a ground slam but something lighter like a katana has a double follow up slash that is much better
Golden land is one of my favorite ashes of war...helps against ganks and does decent damage even through shields. Also i really want a holy stomp just like radagon's stomp. Also hoarfrost is decent in pvp after you stagger someone they usually roll back and hoarfrost catches them.
I'm surprised No Skill got D-tier. For fashion, it is a must; it lets you use your main hand AoW while holding a torch or shield, without having to two-hand it.
I think Endure is actually slightly underrated for PvE here. If your build has high DPS without needing an ash then getting 3 seconds of uninterrupted spamming with a huge absorption buff can really make it feel like you're playing on easy mode. Still no bloodhound step for sure but it's very good against some bosses, I particularly like using it against Mohg.
Holy ground is incredible. Combine with the healing physick and in a duel you can have crazy regen. The effective area is larger than the sigil itself suggests. Just keep in on a random shield and cast it for cheap and effective regen. I use it for my mage builds and physical builds. Only con is the cast speed is slow.
I think that storm assault should be higher because the first hit actually true combos into the slam, and that first hit lingers for a super long time. I have had tons of success with it in pvp
if you think Sacred Blade my beloved is too slow, then you don't know how to use it. mind games. you make your opponent think that you see it only as a buff. then, when they whip out their ranged or zoning abilities, you go full godskin (while you're out of their massive damage area) and hit that L2 immediately. this thing is a hard counter to malenia cosplays, 2-move AoW, low poise damage spells, anything that makes your character stand still etc. be prepared to eat half their hp with one well timed cast and and then hunt them down for the sake of Marika's Tiddies.
I've gotta disagree with the Gravitas placement a little bit. It's not just the pull that's useful. It has the hyper armor slam that Waves of Darkness has, except Waves of Darkness can't be applied to smaller weapons. Gravitas gives small weapons a strong hyper armor/poise breaking move for trades that allow them to use their normal quick moves as followups. Plus if the slam lands, the wave afterwards usually combos. It's waaaaay easier to land and way more useful than the carian greatsword techniques in PvP. Having those in B tier over Gravitas doesn't seem right
I wish Stamp Sweep, and Uppercut were the same ash, with different inputs. Like square off and unsheath.
Honestly it would help it out so much. Sweep may be garbage but if they were part of the same package you could at least use it as a mixup tool for when people think you're going for the uppercut.
@@jamesruth100 yup exactly. If they roll back, uppercut would catch. If they roll sideways, sweep would catch. Makes both usable. Currently, giant hunt is just uppercut+1
@@jamesruth100 and it'd be useful in pve for groups of enemies
I wish that were the case for all ash of wars. Like radahn’s blades get cragblade/starcaller-cry/psycho-crusher, maliketh’s gets jumping-projectile/double-sweep/plant-and-spam. Of course with higher fp usage to prevent spam. But of course that amount of depth is impossible when you add 192&8294728483)282947 weapons instead of specializing a few
It should've been a thing. They just have to rework R1 to do the sweep. The thing is, I actually like the Stamp into R1 in DS3 because I could choose between doing the slow uppercut or a quicker horizontal slash to get into a R1 chained. But in ER, it just goes back to the starting R1 and forces you to use a R2 since they're both similar speeds. If they switch the useless R1 with a sweep then that would definitely be one of the better Ashes of War because being able to switch timings and benefit greatly from the reduced dmg in a trade is fantastic. Unsheathed and Square Off works so well because they already have strong vertical attacks but a quicker sweep works situationally for mixing up. Moreover, these moves are too cool to waste on a useless ash.
im more impressed that you know all the names of the ashes with just their icons lol
Mostly lol. Still super impressive, just looking at the icons i could maybe get half
1k+ hours played will do that to a man.
@@Heowolf 1000 hours?! jesus where do people find time in their lives to play games so much lmao
@@Wordplay7891 it's not hard to build up hours when it's your job
@@Wordplay7891 it's his job
Glintstone pebble legit stunlocks endgame level enemies like omens and cleanrots to death with zero retaliation potential. It even stunlocks THAT red eyed, dual wield banished knight in castle sol. No idea why anyone complains about moonveil easy mode when this exists.
me when pebble does ugs damage times ten
Cause there’s a lot of ways to trivialize PvE. PvP is plagued by much worse than Pebble and MV *cough* BHS *cough* it literally gets you out of true combos such as Pebble and Stomp
because both can be comboed with a phantom who double-teams you with both and takes you 100%-0% without any ability to dodge or escape. Experienced it yesterday- A single laggy Moonveil clips you, the other one comes in, and you're dead.
And you can do the exact same thing with G Pebble
I played a mage for like 30 hours and didn't manage to guard break a single enemy with the pebble. What are you guys on about?
@@JesusProtects it's not guard breaking, very few people will try to tank a pebble with shield- it's the stunlock. someone clips me with a GS, for example, and now the glintstone pebble comes through, combo'd, and then the GS user's charged R2 finishes me off. No way to escape.
The slight benefit of Thop's Barrier is that it can deflect more than one magic projectile at once.
I'd probably bump up no skill considering how strong shield poke builds are, the utility of having instant access to your weapon art is hard to pass.
No skill is as good as your other ash of war in that case, but rated entirely on its own merits...well, it has none because it's nothing.
@@FishFosh Think you're missing the point. I'm not saying it should be rated in relation to other ashes, but on it's niche in actual meta setups, which pretty much automatically makes it more useful than everything else in D.
I think these are rated in a vaccum
In defense of Impaling Thrust, its actually faster than Piercing Fang, so theres that to take in mind.
I believe Piercing Fang actually does damage through guard as opposed to just breaking it. Piercing Fang is hella telegraphed compared to Impaling Thrust though. There's valid use cases for both.
Those thoughts about the ice spear sure aged well LMAO
Lol was lookin to see if anyone said anything
Sacred Blade is one of my favorite Ash of War because when I was doing my first playthrough as a Faith build it was the only way I had a Faith scaling weapon for the longest time. That Holy infused Broadsword did a lot of work
The twinned Sword you get from D comes with the ash on somber and gets great scaling with faith and strength, put shard of alexander + Holy scorpion charm on 60 faith soft cap you can hit players for 650-900 Damage on hit, you can look away from opponents before doing it as well, i've caught many people before it's real fun
@@equilibrium5280 oh yeah I know about all the other cool Faith weapons now, but on my first playthrough I didn't want to look anything up, and just missed other early faith stuff. I ended up using the Cipher Pata and Coded Sword mostly
yea its annoying how you can only buff your infused weapon if you use an ash of war that contains a buff. You can't buff it with a spell, probably good though to avoid insane 500+ elemental damage stacking though lol
@@equilibrium5280 shard of Alexander shouldn't even be in the game, it's what makes all builds do ridiculous damage.
...Fire also works. Like Flame Strike and Flame of the Redmanes.
Try dragging a long weapon while on horseback for the cowardly scarab.
Also for Sacred Blade you can't hit with the weapon and the projectile.
0:45 Barbaric roar attacks have LUDICROUS levels of hyperarmor, I don't think it's deserving of a higher score, but that should be mentioned. I had 39 poise (no bull goats) and was able to poise through jumping heavies of non-colossal weapons while I was using charged barbaric roar attacks on the Nagakiba.
You know this guy is based because he used roar on nagakiba
You put barbaric roar on a KATANA? Someone go buy this man a beer!
I have been doing co-op in the Capital at RL80 with the Duelist Greataxe using Barbaric Roar, the only things I've found that can stop my hyperarmor in Roar R2s are bosses doing moves that probably do infinite poise damage, like Morgott's hammer swings. Everything else you can just facetank. It sucks in PvP obviously but in PvE there's very little that can stand up to the swings.
I tried the same thing on the Nagakiba but sadly even with the damage buff from the Roar medallion the heavy attacks don't do that much damage and the bleed build up is also seemingly lowered. But the hyper armor is really good on it and allows you to always get some hits in.
@@TSE_WOODY It ain't very good, but damn is it funny to use.
The juxtaposition of the "graceful" and "elegant" katana instead being swung around by a maniac is just funny as all hell.
4:24 earthshaker is actually pretty decent, try it out sometime; it causes an explosion effect and if you catch someone in the actual attack it stunlocks into the follow up, in a duel it's a little meh but can severely punish aggression.
It's basically waves of darkness with less aoe blasts and a working follow up.
Yes except Waves of Darkness is just better in every single way. I love earthshaker, used it all the time in lower level invasions, but it's just a straight downgrade
@@kappa731 it’s the change up potential, also nice to have a F/U attack that actually works 🤷♂️
Elden Ring one of the games ever 🙃
@@kappa731 I'm pretty sure you can't have it with the fire infusion unlike earthshaker
it has a hitbox for the hit and the slam, and along with the follow up it can oneshot pretty consistently
@@yeahmemia late I know but earthshaker is a strength thing so you shouldn't run fire you should run heavy, earthshaker is worse golden land which is worse waves of darkness
The disrespect to Thops' Barrier, gosh. Should be a tier above regular parry at least, given it's a no cost spell parry with improved frames.
that true it should be above parry. my brain was fried towards the end
@@ScottJund it's all good scotty bby
Doesn't it also parry incantations? It should get some love
honestly lot better spread than i was expecting with the AoWs. I havent used a lot of them, but i still havent done a lot of different builds yet. One thing did occur though i see that i expected, that being there just being straight up worse versions of other ashes, that also used to be core things like say parry vs golden/carian parry.
You can put regular parry on a weapon.
Royal Knight's costs twice the fp of regular resolve, while only doing 20% more damage.
Piercing fang can't be put on claws or daggers, impaling thrust can.
Toph's can deflect multiple missiles, Carian only one.
Regular quickstep doesn't have the frontal lobotomy requirement of Bloodhound's.
Stuff is often strictly better, but rarely a straight upgrade.
Fun tip I've discovered for Raptor of the Mists: It comes out much faster than a roll, allowing you hard counter Storm Stomp follow up attacks. Most people don't event try to dodge because they never expect you to suddenly counter the Storm Stomp true combo.
Honestly I love that ash. Yeah it's quite hard to hit with the jumping attack, but it gives you the ability to always be applying pressure. You can get away with being far more aggressive than is usually safe, in a way which often throws players off.
Well said. It always seems to be highly regarded, but not often enough used. It’s become a staple on most of my builds.
Not to mention you can dodge almost any aoe attacks. I've run many PvP duels with raptors of the mist and you can pretty much dodge any attack. Also I'm pretty sure it makes your hitbox smaller which has caused me to completely dodge attacks without it activating leaving me right beside them for a crouch slash.
Wild Strikes is pretty useful in PVP on high poise builds as it completely regenerates your poise health, so using it once after a trade at a distance is basically a buff
3:08
note about golden parry though: the area valid for the parry with it swings around rather than being constantly in front of you, so it has more margin of error than carian retaliation even if it has equal or even better frames and range.
also glintblade phalanx is basically ranged flame of redmanes in pve, does roughly the same amount of stagger if you can hit with all four swords.
p.s.: also crazy as it might be... regular parry is better than storm parry.
because you can put it on other weapons too, rapiers, knives, curved swords, etc
obviously situational, but if i gotta pick between a regular parry that doesn't do anything parituclarly useful and a parry i can put anywhere, i'd pick the second any day.
@@iota-09 I wish you could put parry on any weapon and let us DS2 it up. I don't care if it was slow as ass and only worked once in a millennia, parrying someone with an UGS was nut worthy.
4:44 in an open world invasion enchanted shot is extremely good as it can be fired from stealth to deal a nice wee bit of damage, a good initiator for combat; not better than C tier however as it's still a bow's damage.
Glintstone phalanx is really good posture damage,with my shield +sword first playthrough i used it all the time against heavy hitter mobs where going close is dangerous,2 cast knocks down Crucible Knights,i think 3 knocks Malenia,and really fucks up the AI,because the AI dodges the initial cast,but the effect goes in later and the mobs just facetank it. The delay literally fucks up the AI brain for great posture hit.
Wow, dare I say this is one of the tier lists ever made?
The benefit of wildstrikes in PVP is the instant hyperarmor + zero recovery. It’s unpublishable if you don’t do the follow up’s and it counters things like stormstomp
also don`t forget it resets your poise health
@@alexandrosstavrou4224 it resets poise health? Very interesting
honestly for pve i like assassin's gambit, you can toss it on another weapon and swap to it when you need it.
but you could just do that with the ring or armor piece and not take damage for it, as for the invis, it is basically useless
@@Ekqo3 Gambit makes you both invisible and silent, so you'd need yet another talisman to prevent that, because yes enemies can see and hear surprisingly well. I'll take using a two pound dagger I can quick swap to over wasting two talisman slots any day. It's a tiny amount of damage as well.
Edit: Guy got confused at my awkward wording in relation to the post I was responding too
@@keeperdox nah the Black Knife armor removes sound. As long as it’s unaltered of course.
@@thethumblessn00b19 was referring to when he mentioned invis, but yes it removes sound only.
@@keeperdox what I meant from my comment was that muffled sound isn't worth using gambit for, and that invis via any source is basically useless, except in pvp, but the fact you can be invis standing is offset by the dmg reveal
Beautiful tier list my guy. I appreciate the considerable weight of being outclassed. I do think the mists are better than you give them credit for.
Prelates charge, if you hit them with the initial slam and don't hold L2, you'll hit them with the upward swing.
5:02 storm stomp does not give the same level of hyper armor as endure. Endure gives super armor: a type of armor that completely ignores any type of poise calculation. Super armor allows you to push through things like stamp(upward cut) lions claw, or anything else that does maximum/infinite poise damage. Storm stomp has a limit(a very generous limit) to what it can tank(not factoring burst status effects like frost bleed madness sleep etc all the ones that force a stagger animation even through your roll invincibility), while endure has no limit. Stamp(just the L2 part) and lions claw also share this trait, no amount of poise damage can interrupt those ashes of war
Endure still sucks tho lololol
Not sure if it changed when they lowered the amount of time bleed and frostbite stun for, but endure used to not protect you from bleed and frostbite stuns. Those overleveled RoB spamming phantoms would give me quite a bit of trouble on my spiked caestus stormveil invader because of it.
Yeah endure also buffs absorption by a significant amount, causes light hits to bounce off you, and lasts for 3 seconds unlike storm stomp iirc. Not sure if scott just missed all this but it's almost like ds3 perseverance with less duration
@@veras7927 it’s just that in DS3 the fact that you had poise was a W since it was Active rather than Passive, in ER everyone already has poise. Poise for the boys
@@thethumblessn00b19 But he put storm stomp in S tier, which is useless if everyone has super high poise
I think he's working under the assumption that you're using low-mid poise, where endure and storm stomp both shine
Wild Strikes has taken me by surprise, definitely died laughing to it a couple times. Someone that has no poise can break it out on you and suddenly they just tank anything you expected them to crumble from, if you just expect a trade, all of a sudden you get molly-whopped.
Especially with a cold weapon
seeing this after they nerfed ice spear hurts
While there wouldn't have been time to go over them there are some instances where a weapon's strengths can make specific ashes really shine; in particular I'm thinking of Great Stars which is fantastic with Wild Strikes and Prelate's Charge because of its two passive effects (heal-on-hit and bleed buildup).
Lifesteal fist is actually kind fun in pve, a lot of people don't know that the startup actually lowers your hotbox a lot, meaning you could duck under attacks before commiting
"Goddammit, I did it again."
The parry ashes are one of the best things ever!
From my understanding the Ash has its own parry window and recovery frames, by that I mean that I you put it on a buckler or use it on a medium shield the effect is the same.
In short, you eliminate the need to discriminate small shield from medium shield as an effective parry tool and from my experience these parry Ashes have low-ish starter frames, descent parry frames, and not the worst recovery. Sure it sound like “source, me” but if the videos I saw in-depth about parry frames are correct then all the Ash parry share the same (or very similar) frame data and they are all descent at that.
There is an entire video of a guy getting the parry frames in detail.
ruclips.net/video/qOEcWX6cWeo/видео.html
No skill should be C because it allows you to use shields without comprimising ash of war usage on your right hand weapon. Useful for pve imo
4:10 I feel this is a bit too much "in comparison to corpse piler" instead of the Ash of War itself, I think it's easily an A tier ability and on certain weapons can one shot. Also the bleed effect you mentioned isn't something inherently unique to Rivers (the range AND bleed is what sets it apart), as some setups can result in more (or at least similar levels of) bleed damage (such as rippler blade with bleed grease and double slash, which yes it can be put on halberds).
Double slash definitely deserves better of a rating. It's my go-to pick for greatswords (not ugs) because jumping r1 into WA roll catches like giant hunt does on ugs weapons, and does very respectable damage even with only the first part of the ash
I absolutely love double slash ever since I started using serpentbone blade for my deadly poison build. 100% would recommend
Problem there is ripple blade cannot be infused. Perhaps the malitia halberd is what you meant.
@@sirgideonofnirtheall-knowi1881 ripple blade + halberd can be infused using greases
@@dariusfilip4695 that's not an infusion, that's a buff. You cannot change their ashes of war, therefore you cannot INFUSE them.
Nice video, it's really helpful for people who want a good pve character but don't want to be useless in pvp. I think I'ma show this to my friend. Will you do a pure pvp tier list, I'd recon the placement would change a lot, like on glintblade phalanx.
Awesome video, as a PVE guy who only messes around with PVP I’m really looking forward to hearing your opinions on these!
As a Darkmoon GS user, I remember some of these ashes from before i got it
I'm glad he's keeping the most important aspect in consideration, PvE
Lmao for scrubs maybe
@@corbincavitt635 Cope. PvP is shit in this game, and has been in all of the titles. With DS3 being the only minor exception. Games have always been designed for PvE first.
@@KnightAarant DS2 was great for PvP if you factor out Soul Memory, such a shit mechanic.
Gravitas is situationally useful in PVE against flying enemies but it's probably better to run past them most of the time
It should have been Carrian Barrier and Thop's retaliation. Would have made much more sense that you complete a whole ass quest to get a better version, and the Idea that Thops died because he invented a way to re-direct mage BACK at it's opponent feels way more fitting.
One thing about Prayful Strike. You still heal on i-frame hits on PvP.
Still needs to come out faster imo. Fun for Malenia CoOp tho
all the butt slam ashes should be automatic S tier because they're funny, and that's the most important factor in any playstyle
Gotta say, Assassin's gambit is excellent in PvE, especially when running through areas, but it's also great to just get closer to groups or active enemies without spooking them before you get there.
Like the spell, it functions when standing, where as the talisman does not, but unlike the spell it also muffles your steps, which a lot of enemies would have heard otherwise. So you can sprint, without negatives. Too duplicate this one ash you either need both a sorcery and an incantation, or two talisman's, or one of either and a specific chest piece, or mix and match.
You can throw it on a dagger, use it, and just reuse it occasionally. The damage is minimal, it costs much less fp than the spell, it frees up both multiple spell slots and talisman slots, and budgeting endurance for an extra two pounds is easy, especially if you also have occasional heavier weapons you'll swap out to. Or if you were just gonna keep Misericorde on hand for crit action only anyways, here's a good ash to just throw on it.
Severely disagree with that rating. If you're trying to rate it from the perspective of both PVP and PvE, you kind of seem to have lead off with a mostly PvP consideration on the very first Ash rated.
Or you didn't do a lot of stealth in PvE, which is certainly very fair if so. If you actually didn't use it much leveling up or exploring, it wouldn't seem terribly useful I guess.
Stealth is a powerful tool in ER, and invisibility increases it dramatically. You can certainly play without using it, but the same is true for any and every Ash of war, Invisibility is one of the most potent mechanics in PvE, and still has many uses in PvP. I'm not saying this is S tier, but it definitely ain't that low. XD
I hope you keep up the content, I thoroughly enjoyed your Spell rankings for PvP video, I hope PvP gets fixed soon, I miss it. Equally loved your video on that, agreed completely honestly. Thank you.
Edits: Spelling, grammar, clarifications, elaborations, and a thank you.
I've also found a lot of use with it in pvp if I use it before I'm in sight of the host and circle behind them.
@@brandontaylor7744 long as they don't see your bar behind walls, but honestly, most are fairly blind a lot of the time, and you can vacate that spot fast anyways
I agree, but also heavily disagree. Assassins Gambit is an excellent WA with only horrible uses.
First of all, its extremely easy to miss, kill 1 boss and you miss the entire WA (or like most normal people do, kill the NPC the first time you see him in the shack and poof).
Secondly, the entire use of the WA in PvE is "this enemy is too strong or bothersome, so I will avoid him", which only leads to the "im underleved to fight this enemy, which I reached after skipping all the minions" problem. (yes, you can counteract this problem by farming ahead of time, but if you do that, you might as well farm to be strong enough to 1 shot all those bothersome enemies).
And Third, this is a WA that will nearly 100% of the time, be used on either the second character/run, OR by players with an Assassin Roleplay fetish, and in both of those scenarios, the full Dark Assassins Set, is simply a superior option that works exactly the same, without the need of reapplying every couple of seconds.
Using this WA is not a niche thing, its an EXTREMELY niche thing. I personally think it could have been even lower, but I wont argue for the idea of it being 1 tier higher.
@@Chris____. You could argue that it's hard to find for almost every Ash in the game. giants Hunt only drops off of one boss, so does ice spear, the fact that you can miss it is a wierd consideration since you can look it up, and it would apply to almost every single ash. Which you're likely willing to do if you're watching this video.
Arguing it's entire purpose is too skip an enemy if it's too strong is a strawmen at worst or a lack of strategic thinking at best. I frequently used it to get the drop on enemies, picking off patrolling loners I would have had difficulty getting to without aggroing other things. I went through every zone and area killing every available mob, using this and the other sources of Invisibility interchangably.
On my very first character, one who didn't have your assassin's fetish.
BTW, I assume you mean the Black knife set, and that only muffles your steps. That's the chest piece I mentioned. You'd still need to use a talisman slot and never stop crouching (I dunno about you but I have better uses of my talisman slots) or a spell slot and far more fp. Making it inferior on its own definitively.
I'm not even gonna address that you think most people just murder every vendor they meet automatically. That is a ridiculous point.
@@keeperdox even if they do see my health bar, I'm already moved away from that spot by the time they would have gotten there.
couple of notes: Piercing fang doesn't do a lot of shield damage, it's literally unblockable. Spinning Strikes reflects projectiles, which is situationally pretty useful in PvE. Not amazing but worth noting.
I tell people this about peircing fang, in my experience its the best shield counter and can do over 1000 damage with Alexanders shard against fingerprint shield i thought it was a bug at first.
I'm whipping out the pitchfork and saying Lion's Claw deserves S tier
"Kick is bad" say that to the dozens of medium shield users I've kicked into their graves
storm assault chad representing
i have nearly oneshotted or even done so in oneshotting people with this thing. the initial hit - which comes out fast - usually combos into the final big hit
I wonder if the initial wind storm staggers players the same way storm stomp will true combo.
To me its biggest weaknesses is a long end recovery and high poise enemies, but that landing wind storm can catch someone if they rush in too early.
@@garitaevz yep, the initial storm part does stagger!
PSA. SHIELD BASH IS THE MOST SLEPT ON ASH OF WAR IN THE GAME.
it's a press for s button and paired with the dragonclaw greatshield you can do more damage than many weapons while taking 0. It is an amazing trade vs many things without being entirely broken. Also dragon greatclaw is the designated shield bash shield
Can confirm that flame of the redmane is one of the best PvE ashes of war. You can stunlock a lot of bosses because you can break their posture while they are still recovering from a reposte, leading to another reposte.
Phantom Slash can get people by surprise, because the phantom swings even if you get staggered out of your animation
I'd argue that the main benefit of Sacred Blade is on the PvE side is that they absolutely did not fuck around with the anti-skeleton buff it comes with, that thing can dish out 700 damage a swing on a barely upgraded broadsword once you've buffed it.
Seppuku is so damn broken it should be removed or bleed has to have a huge nerf
I would not be unhappy if status effects got neutered to Dark Souls 3 levels again
I dont think it's a good idea to nerf bleed build up, what should be fixed are phantom hits, if someone dodges a hit, there shouldnt be status build up on them
@@bagofcats879 What you listed is a nerf and one I'm 100% for. I also think boluses should be faster to consume
@@ARTEMISXIX hehe, then it's just a matter of semantics, i see it more like a fix, and i agree about the boluses, i think it would balance bleed but will keep build diversity
@@bagofcats879 From? Fix their netcode? Must be in a different universe, maybe EA & Activision aren’t trash here 😁
I hit storm assault all the time. I love how much people underestimate. Usually their disrespect is what nets me the victory, the key is making sure they get stunned by the opening jump. You can usually land the slam and it does about 1600. Also, the wind swirls that linger usually stun people trying to run in and punish, which allows me to perform a follow up. Very underrated ash of war IMO
Scott is probably the only person whose tier list I don't disagree with.
Shield bash should be at least in A category. Besides good tracking, speed and damage it has one very strong property - you can't be guardbroken till the end of animation, even if you get hit multiple times with 0 stamina. I've seen it being used in high level competitive duels as a good counter to CS crouch pokes, and also against other setups.
Should be above Shield Crash. SCrash is pretty bad at high level duels and can even get you back-stabbed. Shield Crash is an insanely good trade/outright free damage if you use it wisely. It's incredibly good on the Crucible Hornshield which is a decent greatshield with some of the best damage (282) without being overly heavy. Although Spiked Palisade and Fingerprint are also good options.
As an archer I actually genuinely enjoyed enchanted shot, that arrow tracking is very good against dodge heavy enemies or anything that usually has naturally high movement like bosses that slide around the arena which you'd usually miss a lot of shots against, it's just generally very good for makinh sure your high damage ammo doesn't get wasted. It also does pretty good damage which is very similar to the damage output of other damage based archery skills so generally it has more utility than most bow skills that aren't barrage or rain of arrows.
Wild Strikes has a tech for pvp so it might be even higher.
Prelate Charge can be used alongside Bloodflame so you apply bleed while dragging enemies in PVE (and applies more pressure in PVP), which cheeses both Malenia and Soldier of Godrick, making it actually nice. You can also put it on Butchering Knife or Great Stars to regen your health while dragging enemies in PVE (since both weapons have the passive ability of getting a bit of hp back with each hit and the AoW lands hits nonstop).
Gravitas might not deserve a higher spot but it is worth pointing out that having a pocket weapon with it is great for PVE since it knocks down flying foes and those are usually very annoying for most people.
Assasins Gambit stops mage Lock ons at range
Be careful now. We can't have people finding out more than 5 AoWs existing in the game.
Yup, I agree with 95% or more of this tier list. I can nitpick on some placements (thopps over normal parry) But this is the most accurate list according to my experiences.
And Yeah Vow of the Indomitable was how I beat Malenia my first time, it is the non BHS way to cheese waterfowl.
I would also say the Roars are tricky, as they almost need to evaluated on a per weapon class, or even per weapon basis. The multi-hit roar for instance is better for status effects or innate bonuses like the Greatstars 1% heal on hit.
And then there is the ability to stack black flame blade incantation with alot of these ashes that can power some up in a very R.K.R.~ish way (want to shoot black flame glint blades? splash that on your sword before using Phalanx and now your glint blades will apply the debuff, same with ice spear thunderbolt beast roar etc but weirdly not stormblade and it does not work with Ashes that already apply a weapon buff)
shield bash is completely underrated. its a guaranteed won trade because you cant be guard broken while its up. the only thing you cant block is anti block things like ice spear. giant hunt, comet azur, rkr jump attack. all get full blocked by shield bash and traded with.
Enchanted Shot has one good use. Killing the stupid bird to farm XP in Mohgwyn Palace. Slap it on long bow, takes any aiming consideration out of the farm, lock on from across the ravine, charge it, wait for birb to pass That Branch(TM) and release.
Square off stance breaks Margit in 2 hits, and breaks the tree sentinel in about 4 hits (harder to test this because he tends to run away and regen poise). Vagabond starts with equipment that can easily solo all of limgrave without any upgrades. It's actually kinda crazy.
Finally, my favorite elden ring content from a DBD stremer lol
Mfw assassins approach is one of the best ashes in pve because you can access it incredibly early and it let's you avoid almost any engagement
Can't wait for the incantation tier list
Wild strikes used to be INSANELY good when frostbite used to stun people, put that on a weapon like the rusted anchor, swing about 2 times and do the heavy attack. On the small swing before the large one it would stun them with frost (for most people unless resistance is high), leading into a true combo for the heavy follow up WHILE they were frost bitten (taking more damage). I have to test it to see if it still works but yea, wild strikes ftw
wow what a great video I'm definitely seeing for the first time
Poison Moth Flight is so forgotten that even the tier list makers forget to list it.
Top *TIER* content ;P
🫵👁🫦👁
I'd love to see a version with the unique ashes of war
Mostly agree with everything except I'd swap Barbaric Roar and Warcry. Charge range is imo practically useless in PvP, whereas giving something like a curved sword hyperarmor actually improves your options and lets you win hard trades in PvP. I'd admit I've had limited experience with both, but I have tried them in invasions on several occasions and my impression is that warcry baits you into charge attacks you never hit and you get easily punished for it, while Barbaric Roar at worst baits you into charged attacks you miss but which are difficult to punish; and you have better odds at landing the charged attack due to being a bit less telegraphed and easier to aim.
I'd also nudge Icicle Spear to S rank. It's not quite as good as flame of the redmanes for posture damage, but it still dishes it out for mobs and bosses, and the frost status is great. Used it to beat Morgott phase 1 with no upgrades RL10 (staggers in three uses if you're fast), Alecto, Putrid Tree Spirit, etc. That along with belonging on every PvP build as a counter to shields makes it far too good to be "just" A rank I think. Mobs also tend to have a hard time dodging it, as a bonus.
Braggart's roar is where it's at, takes 3 seconds to roar but lasts 10 seconds longer for 30 seconds, gives insane hyper armor on charged attacks so you can setup into a baited trade to get super high damage. It's my favorite roar buff and probably belongs on high A tier because of stamina and defense buff on top of 8.5% damage increase
7:15
The glintblades on the ash of war have absurdly high posture damage. More than any of the spells, and its insanely useful against large PVE bosses. You'll be hard-pressed to find something that doesn't stagger in 3 casts, and I don't think I've encountered any that could take more than 5. For stagger potential, it's the mage's flame of the Redmanes.
I literally went through the entire Shaded Castle up to the boss using just that spell into criticals. Absolutely mindless, cast it, walk until it launches at something, get stagger, crit, cast again ASAP, repeat.
i agree bloody slash is underrated, also it doesnt scale that much with arcane and its extremely powerful even with no arcane investment. it has literally nothing to do with bleed, other than it gives you the option to do a blood infusion, yet i've only ever seen people with bleed builds use it. if you put it on a dagger or something and switch to it, it will catch a lot of people off guard because they've only ever seen it on bleed katanas, and you do over a 1000 damage with no stat investment at all.
4:44 Enchanted shot is pretty good against preceptor miriam. Tracks well enough to hit her while she's strafing across the gap in the inverted tower.
Glintstone Pebble is that strong because it's so easy to parry.
You can parry the pebble, and the followup, and instakill the user.
I'd place Carian Retaliation above Golden Parry, actually. The two have identical parry frames (come out at frame 8 and last 14 frames on both small and medium shields) but Carian Retaliation ONLY costs FP when parrying spells, while Golden Parry costs FP all the time and turns into a normal parry otherwise.
The chief benefit of Golden Parry is the distance, to get risk-free parries at a distance with proper spacing or to parry multiple things, e.g. ganks, but getting the better frames all the time is big, especially if you're running a medium shield because the normal parry sucks balls if you run out of FP for Golden Parry.
Fun fact: No skill is actually the most used ash of war in the game by a large margin.
Yeah it's technically the most meta ash in terms of usage. The off hand blessed caestus was the same way in DS3.
@@daryla4430 Plus it's stackable with rivers of blood for extra damage 😉
Can someone put a time stamp for each ash of war? Idk why Scott didn’t put this list up online.. or put a time stamp.
Assassin Gambit's + Unseen form in that order makes it so that you can't be locked on so there's that
Could have made a tierlist for each thats double the content
Love the video, completely agree with many of the ashes of war I've used, only one I can say was actually very useful by ng+3 was assassins gambit purely for the "speedrun" factor, I just run past everything and beeline to my objectives if I hate the area in particular. I know there is a talisman that does something similar but I believe it only works on players and when you're crouched, whereas assassins gambit allows me to full sprint. Enemies will still spot you if you're close enough but typically they can't catch up by the time I've left.
In my experience it's been very reliable in my last playthrough for those places I can't be bothered to deal with regularly ex. siofra river archers lol
i have a goofy funny build using poison mist, the slash itself actually does damage and a lot of it too, like minimum 1000 with shard of alexander and kindred of rot's exultation is basically guaranteed to proc. its only really useful in close quarters invasions where you have corners but if you can use it right people are afraid
Flame of the Redmanes can stunlock Maliketh, it's crazy
Storm Slash is slightly slower than beast roar on the first hit and slightly faster on subsequent uses, so it’s more spammable. Specifically for high strength builds that don’t benefit from dex scaling, it can be a better alternative
Blood Blade is actually God tier, both in PvE and PvP. Has fantastic pressure, VERY low cost, excellent build up, decent damage, and goes through just about anything at a relatively speedy pace.
I think he meant to say compared to the reduvia version, which is objectively better
Glintblade phalanx is good at high level duels when combined with things like halberd offstoc, you need to roll it, which halberd can reaction punish with rr1 or offstoc. I'd say it's much stronger than ice spear at high level due to how hard ice spear is to land, it's a solid A tier skill
that's what i'm saying dude, ever since demon's souls you had to respect that homing soul mass and it's no different in Elden Ring. it does kind of lose utility in invasions though
It's crazy how a lot of things good for pvp are garbage for pve, try some the ashes mid to late game and you have little opportunity to use them because you will be comboed to death or have you health chucked instantly.
Everything is just too fast in this game relative to our skills and base movement.
AFAIK assassin's gambit lowers the distance of lock on by quite a bit, so it's definitely useful in some situations.
It's made me entirely invisible to a friend I was dueling, but I had to be a few feet away
Saw your DbD video the other day. I see you play other games, thought you only play ER. But your ER content is my favourite.
Spinning slash depends on the weapon, if you're using a halberd then the follow up attack is a ground slam but something lighter like a katana has a double follow up slash that is much better
Golden land is one of my favorite ashes of war...helps against ganks and does decent damage even through shields.
Also i really want a holy stomp just like radagon's stomp.
Also hoarfrost is decent in pvp after you stagger someone they usually roll back and hoarfrost catches them.
Good work Scott! Now I just need incantations tier list!
I'm surprised No Skill got D-tier. For fashion, it is a must; it lets you use your main hand AoW while holding a torch or shield, without having to two-hand it.
I think Endure is actually slightly underrated for PvE here. If your build has high DPS without needing an ash then getting 3 seconds of uninterrupted spamming with a huge absorption buff can really make it feel like you're playing on easy mode. Still no bloodhound step for sure but it's very good against some bosses, I particularly like using it against Mohg.
Holy ground is incredible. Combine with the healing physick and in a duel you can have crazy regen. The effective area is larger than the sigil itself suggests. Just keep in on a random shield and cast it for cheap and effective regen. I use it for my mage builds and physical builds. Only con is the cast speed is slow.
I think that storm assault should be higher because the first hit actually true combos into the slam, and that first hit lingers for a super long time. I have had tons of success with it in pvp
0:26 The Invisible Talisman doesn't work in PvE, so it still has a use.
The talisman works, just only on visibility not sound, at specific distances, while crouching, etc. I prefer gambit hands down though.
JUSTICE FOR STAMP SWEEP!!!!!
This list needs a B+/B- and C+/C- inbetween of all of these WA skills, lol. That small suggestion aside, Great List!
if you think Sacred Blade my beloved is too slow, then you don't know how to use it.
mind games. you make your opponent think that you see it only as a buff. then, when they whip out their ranged or zoning abilities, you go full godskin (while you're out of their massive damage area) and hit that L2 immediately.
this thing is a hard counter to malenia cosplays, 2-move AoW, low poise damage spells, anything that makes your character stand still etc. be prepared to eat half their hp with one well timed cast and and then hunt them down for the sake of Marika's Tiddies.
Scott assassins' gambit can be combined with the int spell to remove your enemies ability to lock on for 30 seconds.
C tier imo
I've gotta disagree with the Gravitas placement a little bit. It's not just the pull that's useful. It has the hyper armor slam that Waves of Darkness has, except Waves of Darkness can't be applied to smaller weapons. Gravitas gives small weapons a strong hyper armor/poise breaking move for trades that allow them to use their normal quick moves as followups. Plus if the slam lands, the wave afterwards usually combos. It's waaaaay easier to land and way more useful than the carian greatsword techniques in PvP. Having those in B tier over Gravitas doesn't seem right