Distributing Attribute points.

[Jasmine005]

Noob girl here, Playing as a Samurai with the base weapon Uchigatana, (because I haven't stumbled across a better Katana yet.). Currently dying my way across Lake Lucaria Academy. To get the most attack power from the weapon do I need to LvL up both Str and Dex, or just Dex? I'm LvL 87 and have 35 points in both Str and Dex everything else went to Vig, End, and the FP stat.

[Sparhawk 59]

Try get a good ash of war on it also and use the stones to level it up

[Furin]

Depends on what you do with the ash of war, which let's you define a scaling. If you take "keen" it will upgrade the dex scaling and make dex the thing you want to invest in (only taking as little str as needed for you to wield the weapon).

If you take quality, it will raise both scaling measures (str and dex) and both stats will have an effect.

And, for the lols, if you make your katana heavy, the str will do the bonus.

The letters for scaling are like grades, with the exception of S, which is the best, but not all weapons can achieve S.

Also, also, you'll propably need to find multiple whetstone items to get all the different scalings available in the game.

[David]

This applies to all weapons. Look at the weapon's scaling and it'll be a rank from E to S. If there's no rank that stat won't affect it.

Uchigatana is base D/D str/dex so you can level both str and dex, or just str or dex if you want to since levels are limited in growth.

If a weapon was S str E dex you'd level Str, and if it was E str S dex, you'd level dex, etc.

(and as above poster said, ashes can alter the scaling)

[Sparhawk 59]

Do you own the game? its not showing that you do!!

[Bastila Shan]

You want both strength and dexterity for that weapon, and make sure you upgrade it at the smith with the smithing stones 1 through to 10+

[Superboniato]

37 points in both is A LOT for a level 87.

In souls games i always suggest: (to reach a preestablished level)

Level up HEALTH until the softcap
AND level the stat at the minimum you need to a weapon you enjoy using.

ONLY AFTER THAT, you can choose which kind of build you want.
Quality, strength...

It seems you leveled up too early offensive stats, leaving HP to a secondary option.

The damage its higher in a better upgrade weapon, with a player level 0, than a no upgrade weapon in a player level 40.

If you are into katanas, most of them requires about 20 Dex.
If you like moonveil you need 23 points i think in INT.
If you like bleed, then ARC its the stat you must level up.

If you are into Quality (str+dex) as you are already...maybe another weapon works better, or infuse your weapon into Keen (i think that is the word in the game)

[Arlen]

Assuming you have stormed stormveil castle - you should have a whetstone that allows you to choose any of the scaling options of ashes of war. Pick Heavy if you want to go strength based, Keen if you want Dex based - Quality is combination of both, but has a lesser scaling letter, which means you are effectively gimping yourself.

And welcome to the souls community!

P.S. - there is an item you can get that allows you to redistribute your Attribute points, so don't fret about thinking you ruined your character. You just have to kill a certain creature in limegrave.

[Baron01]

Standard Uchigatana has scaling of D for Strength and C for Dexterity. This means you should always try to push more Dexterity for this weapon. Scaling is simple but obscure mechanic, Fromsoft did not help the situation by using letters to indicate to what extent each weapon benefit from different stats. While there are six distinct levels of scaling indicated by letters(S, A, B, C, D, E) reality is that this is just visual simplification and the scaling is more granular. Each letter has multiple steps within each level/letter that is why you can see same letter being flagged as better (blue highlight) when comparing some weapons.

If you keep standard Uchigatana as an example, you should only allocate points to Strength to satisfy requirements of your gear to wear them and put rest of your points (dedicated to offense, do not neglect Vigor or Endurance for offensive stats) into Dexterity. Once you reach soft-cap for Dexterity, which would be either 60 or 80 you can start allocating points to Strength.

Weapon scaling is further complicated by ashes of war and weapon affinities that can be applied to weapons as part of ash of war selection (potentially with enough whetblades you will be able to apply whatever affinity you like but without any you will only be able to apply those affinities associated with any given ash of war).

[Bastila Shan]

Originally posted by Baron01:

Standard Uchigatana has scaling of D for Strength and C for Dexterity. This means you should always try to push more Dexterity for this weapon. Scaling is simple but obscure mechanic, Fromsoft did not help the situation by using letters to indicate to what extent each weapon benefit from different stats. While there are six distinct levels of scaling indicated by letters(S, A, B, C, D, E) reality is that this is just visual simplification and the scaling is more granular. Each letter has multiple steps within each level/letter that is why you can see same letter being flagged as better (blue highlight) when comparing some weapons.

If you keep standard Uchigatana as an example, you should only allocate points to Strength to satisfy requirements of your gear to wear them and put rest of your points (dedicated to offense, do not neglect Vigor or Endurance for offensive stats) into Dexterity. Once you reach soft-cap for Dexterity, which would be either 60 or 80 you can start allocating points to Strength.

Weapon scaling is further complicated by ashes of war and weapon affinities that can be applied to weapons as part of ash of war selection (potentially with enough whetblades you will be able to apply whatever affinity you like but without any you will only be able to apply those affinities associated with any given ash of war).

Wiki says its D for both strength and dex, unless that differs when its leveled up

[Kalameet]

Many weapons at +0 scale with D/D unless stated otherwise.

Whetblades, along with ashes of war can change the scaling of a weapon to fit everyone's needs.

Reinforcement (+1, +2...) Also causes a scaling preset to further improve at each upgrade step

Anyway, the standard scaling presets are:

• Standard - more weapon base damage, less overall scaling
  
• Heavy - less base damage, more Strength scaling
  
• Keen - less base damage, more Dexterity scaling
  
• Quality - less base damage, high scaling from levelling both STR/DEX

There are also element scaling effects, for INT/FAI/ARC builds.

[Naewyng]

Your main problem was starting out as a samurai. You can only salvage your character now if you split your points 50/50 between VGR and ARC.

[Baron01]

Originally posted by Hoboslayer:

Wiki says its D for both strength and dex, unless that differs when its leveled up

Yes, it does. I should have mentioned "at max upgrade." However, Dexterity scaling for standard Uchigatana becomes C at +5 so Dexterity is always your better stat for damage.

[Drukaris]

piracy is bad mkay

[Baron01]

Originally posted by Drukaris:

piracy is bad mkay

Care to elaborate on your immaculately worded statement a bit more?

[Quasiendo]

Originally posted by Sparhawk 56:

Do you own the game? its not showing that you do!!

Originally posted by Baron01:

Originally posted by Drukaris:

piracy is bad mkay

Care to elaborate on your immaculately worded statement a bit more?

If you read carefully you'll know that drukaris meant the same like sparhawk mention on the earlier post. she doesn't own the game.