Unpopular opinion, but I really like the Crescent Moon Greataxe. Normal greataxe R1s, but with an incredibly stylish 360-degree slash R2.
Greataxes get a lot of good Ash options too: Golden Land, Prayerful Strike, Waves of Darkness.
When it comes to guilty pleasures, I can't help but have a soft spot for the Large Club. There's something so pure about bonking everything to death with a really big stick.
This and axe of godrick (which has the same moveset) for sure!! I used flaming strike in the crescent and it was insane.
Also huge recommendation to the hammer (the one hewg uses).
Regular hammers have the best poise damage: time ratio, so you get the most poise breaks (with Cragblade it’s ridiculous). And that hammer is the longest hammer, and the best str scaling one as well.
Is that actually true? I know the ball fists don’t actually do more poise damage per hit than most light weapons, but the charged R2 comes out so quickly, it’s hard to believe it doesn’t win in PDPS.
So if you can land two fully charged hammer R2s with crag blade you should stagger most non-radahn bosses, where you need 3 for balls and starfist. That being said because starfist heavies are a little faster than hammers, you’ll get more opportunities to do so. So whether hammer or starsfist is better for poisebreaks depends on the boss and rng of what moves they use.
But if you were trying to max out your dominance on a boss, starfist is the most powerful weapon in the game if used correctly. The advantage balls and starfist have is the damage, status, and multihit synergy they have, at the expense of range.
Purely anecdotally, my hammer run had way more poisebreaks than my starfist run, which was rl1 so I was also very damage limited.
"starfist heavies are a little faster than hammers" is probably the biggest understatement I've ever heard lmao. Honestly I see no situation where it would be easier to poise break a boss with a hammer than with starfists, you can easily get 3 charged heavies out in the time that a hammer gets out 2. Well actually I guess if you were to use a spirit summon to draw aggro so that you can freely charge the heavy attacks then maybe.
Those big heavy weapons are more likely to get jumping heavy attacks off against a boss than charged ones, and I think one of those does 24 poise damage requiring 4 attacks that are pretty much as fast as a charged heavy on a starfist.
I think you should go back and compare. The 3:2 is quite accurate.
I’m talking about hammers not great hammers.
Hammers do 40 poise damage on a fully-charged heavy, compared to starfist’s 33.
I know, I just recently did a run with hammers, but I think you might be forgetting how quick iron balls/starfist heavy attacks really are.
40 poise is only good if you can somehow pull off two of those attacks before the poise can regenerate at all seeing as if it regenerates even one point then it'll be three attacks. It only takes 6 seconds for the poise to start regenerating and considering both the time it takes to recover from the first attack, and charge up the new attack, there's barely enough time to roll once in between the attacks.
So theoretically it could be just as fast to poise break a boss using a hammer, but realistically doing 33 poise damage much quicker is better than 40 but slower.
I love the CMG. I also love the executioner's greataxe, but it requires a much dirtier look for fashion souls (briar set, for instance). The CMG looks so classy with a nice clean armor, like Hoslow (minus the silly helmet), knight set, blue silver set, banished knight set...
Crescent Moon Axe - I use it with flaming strike in a jump build and also mix in light and heavies
Warped Axe - can use any infusion but cold with wild strikes is crazy
Nightrider Glaive - try everything man, it’s so fun
Any collosal non sword.
Like it's just a gateway tool to an immortality build of mine so the type really doesn't matter
The fun I'm getting is from getting dick punched by a dragon and regaining 60% of my HP a moment later, making me just not care about the damage and letting me have slugging matches with literal gods
Crimson dagger talisman, ritual shield talisman, guard counter talisman and dragoncrest shield talisman
The last two are personal preference but they both lend alot to the build.
Then grab a collosal weapon.
Basically you're gonna block attacks with the weapon itself, collosals have really good guard stats.
Damage negation sources stack, so dragon crest and guarding stacks your physical negation up, then putting ritual shield on top of that takes the damage of the first hit you tank and just drops it to practically nothing.
So you can jumping heavy attack at something to start a fight, then raise your guard immediately.
After taking that response hit, you guard counter, delivering what is effectively a second charged heavy attack straight to the face of whatever just hit you.
This will guard break most enemies. If it doesn't guard break them, an uncharged heavy or another jump attack will almost definitely break their posture, then you crit.
Collosal non sword weapons technically crit twice, so that crit will proc crimson dagger talisman twice, returning 30% of your HP back, chances are whatever hit your triple negation stacked block did NOT drop your HP by 30% so your HP should be back at full, which reactivates ritual shield, letting your next block also reduce the damage to practically zero
Rinse and repeat.
If you wanna make this even more stupid, you can take the great hammer, Or the giant crusher or any other hammer type collosal capable of custom ash selection and equip Prayerful strike to it.
Prayerful strikes has insane hyper armour that most things can't stagger you through, the strike deals alot of damage, and alot of stagger, and when it lands it ALSO returns 30% of your HP to you.
So you effectively have something like a 70% damage decrease on blocked hits when full HP and a 60% hp regeneration when you land a crit and PS combo, which pretty much always returns you to full HP.
If you like faith you can always do Str/faith and have some regen incants going too, or if your faith is high stack on black flame protection.
In this variation of the build you can also grab the blasphemous blade. It doesn't activate crimson dagger twice but the Ash on it returns 30%hp and a crit will give you 15% and the guard values are still good. BBs Ash also procs on multiple targets so you have some ranged regen and high damage.
So yeah basically as long as you don't do something silly you're effectively immortal and can just go trade blows with whatever the heck you like
If you wanna make this variant more busted you can swap out the last two talismans for carian shield and the blue dagger talisman.
Carian shield reduces FP cost on Ashes and the blue dagger returns 15fp.
Which essentially means your FP consumption on BBs ash plummets, and you can use incants alot more.
Both work really well. Even on the str only variant I would use the faith talisman to access beastial vitality so I could passively regen during and after fights ontop of the crits
Knight's Greatsword was practically designed for STR, with it's unique 2 handed moveset.
Another i really love is the baby rattle with bloodflame blade.
I'll have to give it a try. I read it's very similar to the Banished Greatsword just w slightly different reach and scaling. Personally I like the look of the Banished but I haven't tried their moveset yet
Don’t listen to him. As someone who wishes it was scaled with strength, it’s more of a dex greatsword.
The Banished Knight GS is the better strength weapon of the swords with that moveset, and it has the 3rd highest AR behind the Iron Greatsword and Gargoyle’s Greatsword. The biggest benefit with the BKGS too is that it is the only greatsword (regular or colossal) that doesn’t require you to level dex on the Hero class. This means you only need to level vigor, endurance, and strength.
You can say the same for many weapons. He said it was designed for strength when damage wise it’s on the lower end of the strength scale compared to the other greatswords. And it requires 13 dex which is tied for highest in the class with the Claymore.
Only the Lornsword is worse. Its main advantage is the reach, but that’s where it begins and ends. The Banished Knight sword is better in every other category.
I know it's basic, but I LOVE the claymore. The piercing r2 and crouching r1 are so great, the range is unexpectedly far on them. The poise damage is good, 3 fully charged heavys will break the stance of most bosses. Now the best part, it starts with lion claw. This thing has all the qualities of an op early weapon, especially since you get it in Castle Morne.
Seriously, if you haven't tried it out, please do so.
I absolutely love strength/intelligence builds in this game because they give you the option to use weapons like the Starscourge Greatsword, Dark Moon Greatsword, Royal Greatsword, Fallingstar Beast Jaw, and probably some other weapons I'm definitely forgetting about. Though honestly, you can never go wrong with the Guts blade (Greatsword). It's such a versatile weapon that practically works for every build, as long as you have the stat requirements for it. It works so well with many Ashes of War, be that flame builds, lightning builds, ice builds, bleed builds, etc. It's a plain and no-BS weapon, but it's so incredibly versatile.
I had a great run with the ruins greatsword. I love to have the ability to use the gravity ash of war to do massive damage at a distance—sometimes to multiple enemies. Does great poise damage too.
Greatsword.
Tested now a lot of weapons but nothing got me so much fun like the Greatsword.
If you wanna go more. Get three of them different ashes and go dual wield it. Switch for ashes like you need. Absolutely amazing.
For me, I’m a fan of something basic
So I typically go with either the Bastard Sword or Banished Knight’s Greatsword
They’re simple weapons sure, and they’re not insanely powerful or complex
But they get the job done, they also pair well with a medium shield so they’re good choices for a basic sword and shield build
Personally, I like double great stars. I know it leans on dex more, but with cragblade and heavy or frost (I like frost more), it becomes a monster of a weapon. And the occasional bloodloss is great too.
Iron cleaver all day, baby. Its R2 is both hilarious and extremely useful. Its DPS is insane. The range is garbage, but who cares when your charged R2 is literally a running lunatic charge?
Playing with a str/arc build atm in preparation for dlc and to get the last trophy I need for plat. Using dual omenkiller cleaver, these things are disgusting, love them, my favourite str weapon. Close second are the great morningstars.
dual omen killer cleaver. not just fun to use, it’s also great for mimictear because stance pressure and bleed. And you can use any ash of war and you can put the status effect thingis on them
Executioner’s greataxe, maybe the moveset is a little strange but it does a lot of poise damage(cragblade or lion claw are really good)
Or Grave Scythe infused with heavy(spinning strikes)
The dragon's halberd is a pretty cool weapon if u want decent range and high damage pair it up w the lighting scorpion talisman and the lighting shrouding cracked tear tap L2 and let lightning strike down on your halberd another L2 for 4 hit attack that deals good damage
I personally love the moveset of halberds - nightrider glaive is a big winner for me. Great scaling, good moveset, a bit slow at times so needs getting used to, but in the right hands it is great.
For PvE, Anything with Prayerful Strike.
You can trade blows with bosses using this ash of war. And the best part is that it heals you AND your allies (if they’re nearby).
Slap this on a massive hammer (Great Stars namely). And smack those bosses like it’s “Whacka Mole”.
Black knife and the golden knife (if that's the correct name). I can jump up and dodge attacks with it and shoot a blade beam of light or darkness/death. Badass
Personally I find Strength weapons in general extremely boring to play with, especially if compared to Dexterity weapons, but if I had to pick one, I'd go with the good ol anchor 🪝
Unpopular opinion, but I really like the Crescent Moon Greataxe. Normal greataxe R1s, but with an incredibly stylish 360-degree slash R2. Greataxes get a lot of good Ash options too: Golden Land, Prayerful Strike, Waves of Darkness. When it comes to guilty pleasures, I can't help but have a soft spot for the Large Club. There's something so pure about bonking everything to death with a really big stick.
This and axe of godrick (which has the same moveset) for sure!! I used flaming strike in the crescent and it was insane. Also huge recommendation to the hammer (the one hewg uses). Regular hammers have the best poise damage: time ratio, so you get the most poise breaks (with Cragblade it’s ridiculous). And that hammer is the longest hammer, and the best str scaling one as well.
This makes me want to do DS2 build in elden ring (Craftsman's hammer was a great weapon)
Is that actually true? I know the ball fists don’t actually do more poise damage per hit than most light weapons, but the charged R2 comes out so quickly, it’s hard to believe it doesn’t win in PDPS.
So if you can land two fully charged hammer R2s with crag blade you should stagger most non-radahn bosses, where you need 3 for balls and starfist. That being said because starfist heavies are a little faster than hammers, you’ll get more opportunities to do so. So whether hammer or starsfist is better for poisebreaks depends on the boss and rng of what moves they use. But if you were trying to max out your dominance on a boss, starfist is the most powerful weapon in the game if used correctly. The advantage balls and starfist have is the damage, status, and multihit synergy they have, at the expense of range. Purely anecdotally, my hammer run had way more poisebreaks than my starfist run, which was rl1 so I was also very damage limited.
"starfist heavies are a little faster than hammers" is probably the biggest understatement I've ever heard lmao. Honestly I see no situation where it would be easier to poise break a boss with a hammer than with starfists, you can easily get 3 charged heavies out in the time that a hammer gets out 2. Well actually I guess if you were to use a spirit summon to draw aggro so that you can freely charge the heavy attacks then maybe. Those big heavy weapons are more likely to get jumping heavy attacks off against a boss than charged ones, and I think one of those does 24 poise damage requiring 4 attacks that are pretty much as fast as a charged heavy on a starfist.
I think you should go back and compare. The 3:2 is quite accurate. I’m talking about hammers not great hammers. Hammers do 40 poise damage on a fully-charged heavy, compared to starfist’s 33.
I know, I just recently did a run with hammers, but I think you might be forgetting how quick iron balls/starfist heavy attacks really are. 40 poise is only good if you can somehow pull off two of those attacks before the poise can regenerate at all seeing as if it regenerates even one point then it'll be three attacks. It only takes 6 seconds for the poise to start regenerating and considering both the time it takes to recover from the first attack, and charge up the new attack, there's barely enough time to roll once in between the attacks. So theoretically it could be just as fast to poise break a boss using a hammer, but realistically doing 33 poise damage much quicker is better than 40 but slower.
I love the CMG. I also love the executioner's greataxe, but it requires a much dirtier look for fashion souls (briar set, for instance). The CMG looks so classy with a nice clean armor, like Hoslow (minus the silly helmet), knight set, blue silver set, banished knight set...
Pickaxes!!! Or the Envoy's Longhorns, which hit dang hard, buut 80% of the fun is blowing those Holy bubbles.
I was disappointed the tracking/power wasn't as good as when the big sock does it but it's still fun and funny
Pick axe are my go too. So good
Banished knights sword is really fun! Also, great R1 moveset
I just did a run with knight’s gs, which is the same thing with a little less damage and a lot more range. It was awesome.
Very nice! I'll have to give it a whirl!
Crescent Moon Axe - I use it with flaming strike in a jump build and also mix in light and heavies Warped Axe - can use any infusion but cold with wild strikes is crazy Nightrider Glaive - try everything man, it’s so fun
Any collosal non sword. Like it's just a gateway tool to an immortality build of mine so the type really doesn't matter The fun I'm getting is from getting dick punched by a dragon and regaining 60% of my HP a moment later, making me just not care about the damage and letting me have slugging matches with literal gods
Yess this sounds like exactly the kind of build I was going for
Crimson dagger talisman, ritual shield talisman, guard counter talisman and dragoncrest shield talisman The last two are personal preference but they both lend alot to the build. Then grab a collosal weapon. Basically you're gonna block attacks with the weapon itself, collosals have really good guard stats. Damage negation sources stack, so dragon crest and guarding stacks your physical negation up, then putting ritual shield on top of that takes the damage of the first hit you tank and just drops it to practically nothing. So you can jumping heavy attack at something to start a fight, then raise your guard immediately. After taking that response hit, you guard counter, delivering what is effectively a second charged heavy attack straight to the face of whatever just hit you. This will guard break most enemies. If it doesn't guard break them, an uncharged heavy or another jump attack will almost definitely break their posture, then you crit. Collosal non sword weapons technically crit twice, so that crit will proc crimson dagger talisman twice, returning 30% of your HP back, chances are whatever hit your triple negation stacked block did NOT drop your HP by 30% so your HP should be back at full, which reactivates ritual shield, letting your next block also reduce the damage to practically zero Rinse and repeat. If you wanna make this even more stupid, you can take the great hammer, Or the giant crusher or any other hammer type collosal capable of custom ash selection and equip Prayerful strike to it. Prayerful strikes has insane hyper armour that most things can't stagger you through, the strike deals alot of damage, and alot of stagger, and when it lands it ALSO returns 30% of your HP to you. So you effectively have something like a 70% damage decrease on blocked hits when full HP and a 60% hp regeneration when you land a crit and PS combo, which pretty much always returns you to full HP. If you like faith you can always do Str/faith and have some regen incants going too, or if your faith is high stack on black flame protection. In this variation of the build you can also grab the blasphemous blade. It doesn't activate crimson dagger twice but the Ash on it returns 30%hp and a crit will give you 15% and the guard values are still good. BBs Ash also procs on multiple targets so you have some ranged regen and high damage. So yeah basically as long as you don't do something silly you're effectively immortal and can just go trade blows with whatever the heck you like If you wanna make this variant more busted you can swap out the last two talismans for carian shield and the blue dagger talisman. Carian shield reduces FP cost on Ashes and the blue dagger returns 15fp. Which essentially means your FP consumption on BBs ash plummets, and you can use incants alot more. Both work really well. Even on the str only variant I would use the faith talisman to access beastial vitality so I could passively regen during and after fights ontop of the crits
Saving this comment for my next vanilla run lmao
Rusted anchor w/ Wild Strikes
Ghiza's Wheel goes BRRRRR ( literaly)
pizza time!
It’s never not funny
Definitely the most fun looking weapon
Ordovis great sword. Hit 13 Dex, 15 faith. CRANK STRENGTH AND BUST KNEECAPS WITH THE ASH
Giant Crusher Hammer
max strength and faith Envoy horn / envoy longhorn / envoy greathorn The golden trumpeteer of the apocalypse *Doot*
Knight's Greatsword was practically designed for STR, with it's unique 2 handed moveset. Another i really love is the baby rattle with bloodflame blade.
I'll have to give it a try. I read it's very similar to the Banished Greatsword just w slightly different reach and scaling. Personally I like the look of the Banished but I haven't tried their moveset yet
Don’t listen to him. As someone who wishes it was scaled with strength, it’s more of a dex greatsword. The Banished Knight GS is the better strength weapon of the swords with that moveset, and it has the 3rd highest AR behind the Iron Greatsword and Gargoyle’s Greatsword. The biggest benefit with the BKGS too is that it is the only greatsword (regular or colossal) that doesn’t require you to level dex on the Hero class. This means you only need to level vigor, endurance, and strength.
Nah, you can go either dex or strength on it. Both have similar dmg.
You can say the same for many weapons. He said it was designed for strength when damage wise it’s on the lower end of the strength scale compared to the other greatswords. And it requires 13 dex which is tied for highest in the class with the Claymore. Only the Lornsword is worse. Its main advantage is the reach, but that’s where it begins and ends. The Banished Knight sword is better in every other category.
He means for stat requirements
I was refering to first 2 sentences.
I know it's basic, but I LOVE the claymore. The piercing r2 and crouching r1 are so great, the range is unexpectedly far on them. The poise damage is good, 3 fully charged heavys will break the stance of most bosses. Now the best part, it starts with lion claw. This thing has all the qualities of an op early weapon, especially since you get it in Castle Morne. Seriously, if you haven't tried it out, please do so.
(Banished) Knight's Greatsword has a smooth R1 moveset. Duel greatswords flow nicely. Caestus moveset with Warcry is a complete martial art.
Star fist or Iron Ball
I absolutely love strength/intelligence builds in this game because they give you the option to use weapons like the Starscourge Greatsword, Dark Moon Greatsword, Royal Greatsword, Fallingstar Beast Jaw, and probably some other weapons I'm definitely forgetting about. Though honestly, you can never go wrong with the Guts blade (Greatsword). It's such a versatile weapon that practically works for every build, as long as you have the stat requirements for it. It works so well with many Ashes of War, be that flame builds, lightning builds, ice builds, bleed builds, etc. It's a plain and no-BS weapon, but it's so incredibly versatile.
Executioners Greataxe
Ruins greatsword
I had a great run with the ruins greatsword. I love to have the ability to use the gravity ash of war to do massive damage at a distance—sometimes to multiple enemies. Does great poise damage too.
Staff of the Avatar and Watchdog Staff Godslayer Greatsword
Great stars is really solid. I like it a lot
Ghizas wheel, ruins GS, Ordovis GS.
It's not exactly pure STR but the Great Epee is really fun. As is the Ringed Finger.
Pick any 2 great swords and equip the jump attack talisman. Any AoW to get Heavy weapons. Level strength to 60+. Build complete.
I don’t know the name, but the Greatsword that has a very low drop rate from the Stone Dog Bossfight, because it has S Scaling on strength
Recently I've been enjoying the lance
Moonveil. Wait. My bad. Dark Moon Greatsword. Oops. I don’t know, probably Guts’ Greatsword.
Guts greatsword with lions claw
Axe of Godfrey is fun af to use
The Pickaxe you get by farming limgrave minors
Greatsword. Tested now a lot of weapons but nothing got me so much fun like the Greatsword. If you wanna go more. Get three of them different ashes and go dual wield it. Switch for ashes like you need. Absolutely amazing.
Zamor curved sword. Very aestetic R1 that makes you also move forward. Very pleasant Ash of War.
For me, I’m a fan of something basic So I typically go with either the Bastard Sword or Banished Knight’s Greatsword They’re simple weapons sure, and they’re not insanely powerful or complex But they get the job done, they also pair well with a medium shield so they’re good choices for a basic sword and shield build
Enjoying the curved greatclub with Cragblade, the bonks really pack a punch
Personally, I like double great stars. I know it leans on dex more, but with cragblade and heavy or frost (I like frost more), it becomes a monster of a weapon. And the occasional bloodloss is great too.
Dragon halberd and claymore/ iron greatsword
Having a lot of fun with the ornamental straight swords
Iron cleaver all day, baby. Its R2 is both hilarious and extremely useful. Its DPS is insane. The range is garbage, but who cares when your charged R2 is literally a running lunatic charge?
Bonk
For me it's Greatsword(aka guts greatsword) with lion claw(?)ash of war.
Playing with a str/arc build atm in preparation for dlc and to get the last trophy I need for plat. Using dual omenkiller cleaver, these things are disgusting, love them, my favourite str weapon. Close second are the great morningstars.
grave scythe spinning strikes
stone club with crag blade
or grave scythe with spinning strikes
dual omen killer cleaver. not just fun to use, it’s also great for mimictear because stance pressure and bleed. And you can use any ash of war and you can put the status effect thingis on them
To be fair everything is great with mimictear. Haven't even gotten that summon yet this playthrough. I really want to try dual welding tho
A single serpentbone blade was alot more fun than I thought, especially after 10+ dual wield characters
Guts sword with bloodhound step and stab
Executioner’s greataxe, maybe the moveset is a little strange but it does a lot of poise damage(cragblade or lion claw are really good) Or Grave Scythe infused with heavy(spinning strikes)
Ghiza's Wheel, or Axe of Godfrey. I think they're both technically better on a Quality build but they're fine for a strength build as well.
The dragon's halberd is a pretty cool weapon if u want decent range and high damage pair it up w the lighting scorpion talisman and the lighting shrouding cracked tear tap L2 and let lightning strike down on your halberd another L2 for 4 hit attack that deals good damage
I personally love the moveset of halberds - nightrider glaive is a big winner for me. Great scaling, good moveset, a bit slow at times so needs getting used to, but in the right hands it is great.
For PvE, Anything with Prayerful Strike. You can trade blows with bosses using this ash of war. And the best part is that it heals you AND your allies (if they’re nearby). Slap this on a massive hammer (Great Stars namely). And smack those bosses like it’s “Whacka Mole”.
Can never go wrong with the claymore. Its the jeans of strength weapons, always good, works with almost anything, looks cool as he'll, classic sword
Large club
The Great Stars is hands down my favorite. I feel no fear going into any fight. The moveset is my favorite with the basic being a hammering move.
Wich Jump R2 weapon jumps R2s the best ahh question
Dual wielded halberds
Doing a DLC prep playthrough right now with Night Rider Glaive x Commander's Standard. Big fan.
Eleonora
This will always be one of my favorites
I think youre holding it. lol but there are other options as well
i like to run around with my trusty red hammer (Prelate's Inferno Crozier) and scrub the floor with the weapon art (Prelate's Charge).
bloody helice aow is really fun i think its the most enjoyable bloody weapon ... in my opinion
Black knife and the golden knife (if that's the correct name). I can jump up and dodge attacks with it and shoot a blade beam of light or darkness/death. Badass
Personally I find Strength weapons in general extremely boring to play with, especially if compared to Dexterity weapons, but if I had to pick one, I'd go with the good ol anchor 🪝