How effective is a bleed/poison combo

[Dr. Professor Commander]

Though I know using poison on Godfrey and against Mohg can be useful for applying pressure, but how effective is it overall? Say I slap it on something like the scav curved swords or in a combination like a blood Uchigatana + seppuku and a poison Wakizashi in the off hand or something?

To add to that, if I have a poison/bleed hybrid weapon, would Lord of Blood's and Kindred of Rot's Exultation talismans stack together with their bonuses if both status effects are procced?
(The talismans increase damage when Poison, Rot, or Bleed are successfully inflicted for anyone that's unaware)


Or should I simply not bother and stick to the Frost/Blood combo?
For an idea of my capacity here are my stats

Vig 49
Mind 35
End 30
Str 60
Dex 80
Int 60
Fth 60
Arc 60

[Xengre]

In lower level builds/earlier into the game before you can start doing more rapid bleed buildup and start having higher AR scaling off upgraded weapons poison and rot are going to be more viable, but at your point I wouldn't usually bother with poison. This becomes absolute if you start using Seppuku because its simply goign to bleed at such a rapid rate that the time spent wasted on trying to proc poison even over a longer fight isn't going to compare to the dmg that could have been done while bleeding in that same timeframe.

You could potentially try and stack poison and rot if its a longer fight and your not utilizing Sepukku as long as you have weapons upgraded and set to apply it extremely fast but the only option to do this in an efficient manner is to use a rot based weapon (limited selection and does not work with deadly poison options due to weapon types) + a weapon that can be buffed and apply poison to it or align affinity to poison. Alternatively, you could use rot weapons or dragon breath + Ash of War Poisonous Mist (as it is relatively efficient at applying poison at close range and is basically one med/slower speed swing) then swap. Simply put though, any high end bleed build, especially Sepukku, just means DoTs aren't efficient due to kill speed.

I would recommend if you are willing to use Sepukku (saying this as some might not because its so OP, not that you shouldn't if you want to) then you ought as well stick to frost + bleed.

That is a lot of wasted stats in your build btw... you ought as well get Vigor to 60, get enough FP to be efficient for your needs, up your End adequately, and then put your points into your focused stats primarily like arc/dex as necessary rather than such a strong even skew into largely unused stats.

[Jouni]

Regular poison deals 630 damage + 6.3% of max health over a period of 90 seconds.
Deadly poison deals 420 damage + 4.2% of max health over a period of 30 seconds.

That is very little in a late game situation.

[Dr. Professor Commander]

Originally posted by Xengre:

That is a lot of wasted stats in your build btw... you ought as well get Vigor to 60, get enough FP to be efficient for your needs, up your End adequately, and then put your points into your focused stats primarily like arc/dex as necessary rather than such a strong even skew into largely unused stats.

Well I don't normally use Seppuku, though I can't argue it's effectiveness, I usually use it when I don't have a damage type other than bleed on the off-hand weapon to kind of attempt to make up for the lack of blood loss on my off hand weapon to an extent. Like a scav curved sword with bleed and seppuku on the primary, while the off-hand scav sword would still have it's base bleed buildup and the addition of a cold affinity instead (this was the combo I used on Malenia in my NG+7 run).

I'm simply curious about how it can effectively be used in a passive or supplemental manner as an off-hand weapon affinity. Most of my candidate weapons do have innate bleed buildup though.

I'm primarily a Fth/Dex/Arc build with incantations, fire, holy, and bleed being my strong areas, where my "wasted" points while not being useful to my build (like int), are useful for using a wider array of weapons.

Basically, my first character was a sorcery build and I had enough fun with the int weapons throughout the game that I still wanted to use them on my Prophet at one point. I also don't mind a low vig-high dps output build (which is why I favor dual wielding if it wasn't already obvious lol) which is why stats like my higher int are still useful, it's just more situational, but at the same time increasing my versatility and options if my current damage type is being resisted. So whether it's my dual Miquellan knight's sword to deal holy damage, or using Moonveil paired with my cold Wakizashi or another katana, I'm still going to be dealing considerable amounts of damage no matter what damage type, and having a wider variety of damage types available with those stats. The whole goal I had in mind with levelling was more focused on status proccing, and adaptability without compromising damage output too much... Which is also where my faith is useful because on top of whatever damage type I'm currently using I'll frequently use buffs like Golden Vow, and talismans providing further damage buffs like Lord of blood's exultation, rotten winged sword insignia/Milicent's prosthesis or the scorpion charms.

[MULTIPASS]

Bleed is so effective it would make the poison pointless. If you want a damage over time, use scarlet rot - there are several options in different weapon classes.

[Xengre]

Well, ultimately at that level it isn't a horrible thing to be well rounded to trial different builds and be flexible. It isn't optimal but its certainly not going to perform significantly worse, either. I do think you should improve your Vigor to 60 though.

As mentioned, bleed is just very strong later, especially if Sepukku is involved. At your stat point its going to be difficult to make DoT effects truly meaningful, not that you can't have fun with them. For instance, NG+7 Malenia will only take 100 per second from rot. That is ~6k dmg in 1 minute or nearly 8 minutes of pure rot DoT (excluding time of trying to apply it) just to kill her. As you can see there is issues with its effectiveness and while you can stack poison to reduce it the overall issue is other builds would do the job far faster. If you want to play with such builds I would probably do it in a NG run, instead. That said, you can still make it work just fine and have good damage regardless with poison/rot weapons thus if you really want to go ham. You might not perform at 100% uber efficiency but you are still going to kill stuff just fine and experimenting is always a good thing.

Since we're on this topic another option you could consider is a fire + frostbite build, the flask to boost fire dmg, talismans and the spell buff as well, etc. With your spread stats you should have plenty of options to test out there.

[Dr. Professor Commander]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Since we're on this topic another option you could consider is a fire + frostbite build, the flask to boost fire dmg, talismans and the spell buff as well, etc. With your spread stats you should have plenty of options to test out there.

I have very briefly, but not to the same extent as I have in DS3 or enough to realize it's full damage potential since my ability to effectively wield frost was far less effective because it was before I started investing points into INT. Do fire weapons reset the frostbite proc as easily as past FromSoft games? In ER it's mostly been Magic+cold/holy, bleed+cold, and magic+holy (and occasionally flame art affinity), or a blood affinity on both weapons being dual wielded.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Stormin Norman:

Originally posted by Xengre:

Since we're on this topic another option you could consider is a fire + frostbite build, the flask to boost fire dmg, talismans and the spell buff as well, etc. With your spread stats you should have plenty of options to test out there.

I have very briefly, but not to the same extent as I have in DS3 or enough to realize it's full damage potential since my ability to effectively wield frost was far less effective because it was before I started investing points into INT. Do fire weapons reset the frostbite proc as easily as past FromSoft games? In ER it's mostly been Magic+cold/holy, bleed+cold, and magic+holy (and occasionally flame art affinity), or a blood affinity on both weapons being dual wielded.

Fire damage reset frostbite in one application and they don't reset or negatively impact frost buildup so you can freely use fire unhindered in one hand with frost in the other if your goal is specifically procing frostbite bonus dmg as much as possible. The Flame Grant Me Strength spell will boost physical + fire scaling, while you can use the fire flask to further boost fire dmg. Get a weapon that scales with your desired stat while flame infused (ex faith for instance) and talismans for AR/fire boosting and you can get some pretty high dmg while proc frostbite frequently. Arcane will not help frostbite at all unlike bleed. Frostbite is purely determined by weapon upgrade and attack rate.

Frostbite can stun bosses in Elden Ring and with faster application builds such as daggers or jumping curved swords and some other quick weapons you can stunlock many bosses/mobs with it as well.

[Sonnenbank]

Elden Ring is very simple in that matter.

Its straight up damage without anything special or complex.
therefore 1 solution is always the best.
And some solutions are always better than others.

f.e

1.)
rott is simply the same as poison but more damage per second.
2.)
fire + frost or frost + bleed are good but double bleed is always better (unless oponnent is bleed immune)

----double bleed simple is better than every other status combination.----

So no matter what you combine or try to achieve
-> simple double seppuku bleed beats everything

2.) Poison is completely useless unless you plan to run away from bosses.
And even if you do so rott is better than poison


So if you ignore style choice and simply go by effectivness the ranking is the following

1. Double bleed
2. Bleed + Frost
3. Frost + Fire
4. Bleed + poison

[Xengre]

sad truth, its like Final Fantasy balance where there is almost always something so blatantly outclassing everything else you either use it or choose to play suboptimal (ex. Beta, Quick/Delay attack, etc.).

Though I do think poison has better use in PvP coupled with rot or even at just low level, and there are some edge cases where you could stack poison + rot together in a challenge low level low upgrade run at earlier points in the game but otherwise its true poison falls short and your list pretty much sums up the issue of certain options are simply too good. All we really have left to add to this topic is jump attacks, a few exceptionally OP ash of wars (notably the spinning one from bell hunter weapon), and a few super cheese spell instant kill setups.

I want to emphasize Sonnen's double bleed beats everything point specifically when sepukku, esp with high arcane, are involved. The rate of proc would simply be high enough that even double proc bleed + frost wont keep up because frost has a static buildup rate based on simply weapon upgrade so a specialized high proc rate bleed build will beat it out if invested enough.

[Dr. Professor Commander]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Arcane will not help frostbite at all unlike bleed. Frostbite is purely determined by weapon upgrade and attack rate.

I thought the Cold affinity scaled with INT because its damage type is classified as magic in ER?

Speaking of frost scaling, I wonder if that was done for simplicity like what they did with merging Pyromancies with Faith so it would fall under one classification, and would scale with it's associated stat without having to invest your points more thinly across multiple stats?

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Stormin Norman:

Originally posted by Xengre:

Arcane will not help frostbite at all unlike bleed. Frostbite is purely determined by weapon upgrade and attack rate.

I thought the Cold affinity scaled with INT because its damage type is classified as magic in ER?

Speaking of frost scaling, I wonder if that was done for simplicity like what they did with merging Pyromancies with Faith so it would fall under one classification, and would scale with it's associated stat without having to invest your points more thinly across multiple stats?

Magic dmg will scale, cold will not. Frostbite is simply a status effect that does not scale off any stat other than weapon upgrade. The magic affinity dmg portion will scale however, but again this is magic not cold for the actual dmg type its just part of the cold affinity you see. Unfortunately, magic is the weakest dmg type in the game, however, frostbite more than makes up for it when used right such as with a fire + frostbite build.

Yeah, for a frostbite + fire build you could just focus on Faith, your basic vigor needs, and if you need some mind/endurance. As you suspect, it definitely reduces the need for stat skew so you can focus your stats much earlier for higher specialized stats.

[Scuzz]

I got a Claymore to 25 and put poison on it and I was shocked how well it did against some enemies. I did it too late to use it against any major boss but the damage is pretty good even without the poison effect.

[Shady_Milkman]

Originally posted by MULTIPASS:

Bleed is so effective it would make the poison pointless. If you want a damage over time, use scarlet rot - there are several options in different weapon classes.

This

[Heimdall313]

Originally posted by geralt:

bleed is so effective it makes everything else pointless

This

[Forest]

Better off just going straight bleed my dude. Bleed is stupidity OP for extremely high burst damage since the blood lost effect is % based and not a flat amount.

If you wanna use poison for a dot build I say no….. just no poison is utter trash in the game and drastically inferior to rot. So if you want say a tanky build that uses damage through dots you beat build into rot.