Leveling Arcane Worth It?

[Shizofrend]

I'd love to level arcane to improve drop rates but I am not sure if that will handicap me later on.
Is using it as a damage dealing stat much worse than dex, str or quality in higher levels?

I roll with straight swords, shield and melee knight set-up.
Maybe even greatsword if there'a a fast attacking one.
Haven't figured out how to change stats that weapons scale with yet and probably not even a material for it but I think it exists in this game.

Thinking of trying to get that one arcane scaling straight sword at east limgrave in church but again.
Would I have enough materials to have a couple of arcane scaling straight swords by time I'm done with on third of map or so?
Does it really suck versus endgame bosses unless you use bleed?
Is arcane bleed decent overall?
I don't like wasting too much materials and upgrades for something I might have to ditch near endgame.

Think I read somewhere str bumps dmg up slightly no matter what so would it be bad if I left str and dex on low just to wield some straight swords and invest all the rest in arcane and some in vig and end?

Can a weapon have both bleed and arcabe scaling? Like; if some straight sword I like has neither I can apply some items to it that make it scale with arcane and apply bleed or can I only choose one of those if said weapon has neither by default?

p.s. blood loss thingy is different than bleed, right?
noticed uchigatana makes enemies lose a chunk of hp after I smash them enough, even with normal attack. But bleed wouldn't do that, no? It makes them take DoT after it procs I suppose.

[GreatPalm]

you will find tools that allow you to add any ash of war+any type of scaling(any+any).
you can farm upgrade materials, only last level upgrade materials are limited. So, you can upgrade all your generic weapons to +24(+25 is last upgrade level). I dunno about boss/unique weapons but it should be same.
you can also reset your attributes at rennala so you can experiment

i think arcane build is garbage.

[MULTIPASS]

After beating one of the main bosses (probably the third if you follow a typical route) you'll gain access to an item that allows you to put arcane scaling on weapons using many different ashes of war. Arcane is mainly good for increasing bleed buildup, which is a very powerful technique through most of the game. Alternatively, occult scaling adds straight physical damage with arcane scaling.

I've played through the entire game with pure arcane and it was great.

[D. Flame]

ARC is the most broken build since the buffs in the last few patches. You may as well pump it up and farm whatever you are farming while ARC is still broken as hell. Then if they nerf it, just respec.

[Shiroe (cortana)]

arcane if you go for status effects, such as bleed, poison, frost, etc

[MULTIPASS]

Originally posted by Lost Soul in a fish bowl:

p.s. blood loss thingy is different than bleed, right?
noticed uchigatana makes enemies lose a chunk of hp after I smash them enough, even with normal attack. But bleed wouldn't do that, no? It makes them take DoT after it procs I suppose.

No, they're the same thing. Applying bleed fills up a bar on the enemy and takes a chunk off their health once it's full.

[Drake Ravenwolf]

Arcane will give attack power like any other attack stat, but it also increases bleed and poison buildup and even casting damage with the right foci
The thing causing mobs to lose a lot of health - that is the bleed, poison is a dot. To feel really op find a weapon with bleed on it naturally and then give it frost too - not all weapons let you add a custom to it tho

[Shoepots]

- Some weapons scale really well with arcane so it's definitely worth leveling if you plan to use one of those weapons.
- I wouldn't recommend the straight sword you're thinking of getting as your main weapon for too long. It does scale with arcane, but it doesn't have any buildup (bleed, poison, etc.) so you're losing out on a big benefit of building arcane.
- Like others said, you'll eventually find an item that lets you put arcane scaling on any normal weapon you like.
- You don't "need" bleed on an arcane build for endgame bosses, but again, you're wasting a big advantage of an arcane build if you don't have some type of status buildup.
- Don't worry about wasting upgrade materials, you'll be able to buy them from a shop that doesn't run out eventually.
- You'll be fine only leveling vig, end, and arc as long as you use something with decent arcane scaling.
- If you put bleed on your weapon, it will scale with arcane automatically.
- Blood loss and bleed are the same thing. Nothing DoT related here.

[SadPlatty©]

You can build arcane in the hopes that maybe JUST maybe, they added something random and unique as a call-out to Bloodborne for having the value high enough.

When that came out, I was playing side-by-side with a friend (not COOP, just on chat and talking about where we where at - things we found etc.); and I jokingly rolled all my points into ARC until things started to get wacky (I was like "You see that crazy thing on the Church!?" and he was like "No, but I did get picked up by something").

I mean, we got bloodhound step as a callout - regal bairn is sorta like the skeleton greave or whatever also (just a different color magic). They called it Arcane instead of luck too - so who knows.

Otherwise, it does "increases your resistance to Instant Death" which I believe would translate to "If boss A hits for 1500, and you got 1400 life, you are down to 1", but didn't care enough to look into it.

[Poison Mind]

It's not garbage, it's quite good and flexible.

You have two choices with Arcane : either make it your main stat and then go for occult weapons (natural ones like executioner's greatsword or infusion), or make it a secondary stat to only boost statuses build-up while focusing on another primary (be it int, dex, faith or str).

Arcane will improve every statuses build-up (bleed, cold, poison, rot, death and madness) and these statuses are really powerfull ; Cold will need Int as secondary (except for one rapier i think), madness will need Faith as secondary, dex will drive bleed/poison/rot.

As you can see, dex might be the more flexible secondary stat for an Arcane build therefore i made an Arcane/Strength build (focus on executioner's sword). And it's still ok-ish.
Strength is the worst as statuses build-up goes because most strength weapons are slow hitters.

An example of a violent Arcane build is to focus on dex and dual-wield the rot and the ice rapiers (you can even infuse the rot one with bleed which will allow you to proc 3 statuses at high speed).

[jasonbarron]

Dual wielding Rivers of Blood and Utchikatana, "Blood" infused on the Utchikatana, and I pumped my Arcane to 60. Wearing the Mimic Mask and that gets the Arc up to 68. Thinking of putting one more point into it for obvious reasons.

That combo, especially if I unless the Mimic Tear, is insanely destructive.

[PistolaoBR]

You can put the scaling dmg of arcane if you choose the occult scaling, major dmg, S A B scaling, the bleeding scaling with do a C scaling on arcane and something other like str and dex, in some cases (katanas) will get a B on dex and C on arcane... so... occult is the way if you are looking for 80 arcane char.
But remeber that arcane will level up the blood building, meaning that with less hits the target will lose 13% to 40% of hp when the bleeding bar gets full
P.S the only special weapon that scaling mainly with arcane is the bloody helice... hope it helps

[Shizofrend]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

ARC is the most broken build since the buffs in the last few patches. You may as well pump it up and farm whatever you are farming while ARC is still broken as hell. Then if they nerf it, just respec.

I am play on version before 1.3 because 120hz adaptive vsync stutter fix works only on game version before 1.3

[Timbermaw]

You should only level up your damage and health stats

[Shizofrend]

So it buffa all status build ups? Sick!

ohh, blood loss and bleed is same, huh? Good to know.

I can endlessly respec my levels in elden ring?
Haven't gotten to that point yet and only have ine respec material so far.

Seeing how it buffs all status effects than I will certainly go arcane scaling straight sword with frost! I just love frost in video games.

I wish I could get more straight swords faster though. So far I've cleared west limgrave and that island to south but only found three of them. short sword, broad sword and some long sword. Got luckly last night tho and birb dropped one of their claw swords for me so gonna try that out.

Say, is item to duplicate ash of war farmable/unlimited or limited?

I'd feel bad using ash of war on weapon and theb losing it probably permanetly and in like 50 hours or more I've only found one aah duplication item ),;

Still don't entierly get how all that workswhen you wonna put stuff on weapons though; ashes of war, stat scaling change, status effect applying.
What I mean is, what do you put on weapons to give them different stat scaling, what do you put on weapons to give them ability to proc statuses. Is there really only one version of each ash of war if you don't duplicate it?
Speaking off, what's a good video that nicely showcases all ashes of war? I don't wonna waste something on a weapon when I don't even know what it does and how good it us. Sure extra info page explains it but that's not enough. That's why I didn't try any yet. Gonna try and find a videi that showcases them all and hopefully has time stamps or somethinf and then see what each one I have atm does.

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by SadPlatty©:

You can build arcane in the hopes that maybe JUST maybe, they added something random and unique as a call-out to Bloodborne for having the value high enough.

When that came out, I was playing side-by-side with a friend (not COOP, just on chat and talking about where we where at - things we found etc.); and I jokingly rolled all my points into ARC until things started to get wacky (I was like "You see that crazy thing on the Church!?" and he was like "No, but I did get picked up by something").

I mean, we got bloodhound step as a callout - regal bairn is sorta like the skeleton greave or whatever also (just a different color magic). They called it Arcane instead of luck too - so who knows.

Otherwise, it does "increases your resistance to Instant Death" which I believe would translate to "If boss A hits for 1500, and you got 1400 life, you are down to 1", but didn't care enough to look into it.

the thing you're talking about in Bloodborne is an Insight thing, I'm pretty sure at least, Arcane is basically just for using magic items and some weapons