Is there actually a Dex build?

[VILE]

Most of the cool weapons I've come across have some form of faith or intelligence or arcane build baked into them. Is there a pure dex build, are there any items that increase attack speed or run speed? Dex feels lame compared to what I've come across.

[Deadeye64]

There is, but Elden Ring really tries to emphasize its want for us to make hybrid builds.

[schicic]

Use two uchigatanas since they are easiest to get. Upgrade to +25 and either keep sheathe or go into another KEEN skill for it. Sheathe is fairly powerful and chips away at the enemy posture. Great for bosses. If you give it Seppuku or another bleed skill, you will see how much damage it can really do. It is insane.

[Onni]

Yes, I did estoc build, it was good.

[doublejesus]

Currently doing dex/faith build Running Scorpion tail poker, Black Knife and Bloodhounds poison misrecourde with buckler for all the heavy knights. A royal knights resolve keen Falling Stars great mace for striking and blasphemous blade to cheese exploration.

Interesting thing I learned, the wakazashi knife can actually only be powerstanced with a katana and not other knives.

[Packet ( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Overflow]

Vim님이 먼저 게시:

You kinda at least need to apply Bloodflame Blade to your weapons with pure Dex to get the bleed debuff. Bloodflame only requires 10 points in Arcane. Not a huge investment.

Arcane not only buffs base bleed but also buffs the bleed bonus from any buffs.

[Jangkrik]

Pure dex is great with some lightning weapons. One weapon actually gives you a better lightning spear than pure faith build's lightning spear.

[mldb88]

Vim님이 먼저 게시:

You kinda at least need to apply Bloodflame Blade to your weapons with pure Dex to get the bleed debuff. Bloodflame only requires 10 points in Arcane. Not a huge investment.

I mean, it's also possible to go a pure dex build that doesn't even touch the bleed mechanic and work perfectly fine. I feel like people are overlooking perfectly viable builds just because it doesn't fall into the small niche pool of 'completely trivializes the game just build this because its the absolute best' category.

[Mepho]

Packet ( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Overflow님이 먼저 게시:

The claws are literally better with an arcane build and occult infusion. It’s the same damage with much higher bleed proc.

Sounds plenty viable if I'm honest.
Just lower bleed proc doesn't make it bad and actually just the same if the boss is immune.

[Codester]

< blank >님이 먼저 게시:

arcane/dex is totally dominant ...

Decent? Yes. Dominant? LOL not even close.
Blood builds only beat complete noobs to the series.

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Mepho님이 먼저 게시:

Packet ( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Overflow님이 먼저 게시:

The claws are literally better with an arcane build and occult infusion. It’s the same damage with much higher bleed proc.

Sounds plenty viable if I'm honest.
Just lower bleed proc doesn't make it bad and actually just the same if the boss is immune.

The issue with dex is that you have neither the heavy stagger damage of strength weapons, nor the constant proccing of bleed’s % based damage and the stun that comes with it. In the late game enemies can be extremely poise heavy and tanky and a pure dex build just doesn’t bring enough to the table compared to arcane and strength. It’s still able to win the game of course, but it is pretty statistically inferior to other builds unfortunately.

[Malitias]

To give you straight answers..
- You can definetely do fine with a fast, dex focused build and there are a lot of weapons that scale very well with dex, even if some might have some other attribute requirements.
(don't expect DmC here)
- There are no items that increase movement speed or attack speed.

[mldb88]

Packet ( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Overflow님이 먼저 게시:

Mepho님이 먼저 게시:

Sounds plenty viable if I'm honest.
Just lower bleed proc doesn't make it bad and actually just the same if the boss is immune.

The issue with dex is that you have neither the heavy stagger damage of strength weapons, nor the constant proccing of bleed’s % based damage and the stun that comes with it. In the late game enemies can be extremely poise heavy and tanky and a pure dex build just doesn’t bring enough to the table compared to arcane and strength. It’s still able to win the game of course, but it is pretty statistically inferior to other builds unfortunately.

The main tradeoff is that bleed weapons usually have poorer damage/scaling innately though to make up for the bleed procs. Even adding bleed scaling iirc using a weapon art lowers the scaling of other stats on the weapon. So yes, while bleed can be very effective due to the chunk damage, you'll end up doing overall less damage to bosses that are immune to it than using another type of weapons. Also a good selection of specific dex weapons have higher critical damage than other weapons, so if a boss is parryable (even if it takes multiple parries to actually open them up to a reposte/critical), you can make up for damage that way too.

[Qubert]

Deadeye64님이 먼저 게시:

There is, but Elden Ring really tries to emphasize its want for us to make hybrid builds.

Well you can get all stats to 99 and do anything you want. Really just the first play through that you will be a bit limited. Kinda nice really that they don't force one trick pony builds.

[Buliwyf]

Packet ( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Overflow님이 먼저 게시:

Nope. Dex is honestly a support stat in this game, the only good special dex weapon is at the end of the game and it’s just a decent katana that can’t be infused.

If you are thinking of doing a dex build, do an arcane build instead with dex as it’s support stat.

I say this as someone who did his first play through as dex until I realized the math didn’t add up and respecced to arcane

Beat the entire Game with the Nagikaba first playthrough alongside some Dragon Magic.

Dex weapon works more than fine.

[Klowers]

mldb88님이 먼저 게시:

Packet ( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Overflow님이 먼저 게시:

Most those weapons function better as an arcane build with occult infusion (almost same as AR as dex with keen) and using the seppuku ash or blood grease or bloodflame buff. You get the same AR and much much better bleed.

I mean, if you dump points into arcane and then make it scale off arcane, no ♥♥♥♥ it's going to work better off of arcane. This is true of almost any weapon that has low base stats to wield. The peeler and curved swords combos work perfectly fine off of keen as well.

I think what he means is Keen vs Occult. Here's the results in the AR Calculator for the weapon I use:

18 Str (req) 80 dex Keen Nagakiba +25 = 598 total AR

18 Str (req) 22 dex (req) 80 arc Occult Nagakiba +25 = 584 Total AR

Mind you this (I think) would be one of the better examples for Dex, considering the high dex requirements for this weapon. So the arcane build would have less extra stat points to go around. However considering how strong Bleed is and having the arcane gives you the option of putting a bit more in faith to use Dragon/Blood incantations it seems like it would be more than worth it 99% of the time.