morningstar and arcane

[lar unuruur]

hello!
id like to go bleed route. any suggestions how much id need arcane up to get bleed fast?
are morningstar or flail good weapons for fast bleed build up?
i liked morningstar in all previous games, sort of my go to weapon on melee`s first timers. would want to stick with it. just not sure how much to invest in arcane if at all.
thanks.

[Sparhawk 59]

soft cap is 80 arcane

[Sparhawk 59]

thought about Nightrider flail or the great stars?

[Toad]

I'd heard around 50-60 arcane will give a pretty hefty bloodloss buildup. Katana's are one of the better weapon classes for it. The Uchigatana can be picked up early, as well as the Reduvia dagger. Flail weapons are also pretty decent, but I can't speak from experience.

[Citizen of Zozo]

Raising Arcane is no different than raising Dex, Faith, Int, etc. It's a stat that weapons can scale with. So you either go all in or hybrid with another stat. Either way, you want to just keep raising it as you progress through the game.

[lar unuruur]

i am thinking about morning star, mostly, because of strike damage from my experience in previous ds.
i got that dagger, mentioned above. its description says 30 blood loss buildup. morningstar and basic flail have 50. not having katana. not reading much to avoid spoilers. first run will never happen again. i want open what i can without looking what is found where. so far only have reduvia, morningstar and flail.

[Professor Hugedix]

Originally posted by lar unuruur:

i am thinking about morning star, mostly, because of strike damage from my experience in previous ds.
i got that dagger, mentioned above. its description says 30 blood loss buildup. morningstar and basic flail have 50. not having katana. not reading much to avoid spoilers. first run will never happen again. i want open what i can without looking what is found where. so far only have reduvia, morningstar and flail.

Consider that reduvia hits probably about twice as fast as the morning star and also has a spammable ranged weapon art that inflicts bleed. Morning star is great if you want to inflict more stagger per hit or if you're fighting armoured enemies, I don't think you will be able to scale it with arcane for quite some time though, if you're just starting the game.

[medicinezombie]

It's not easy to get Arcane scaling on a Morningstar - only way I see is to put Poisonous Mist Ash of War on it (no bleed Ashes of War work on Morningstar). That would get the best Arcane scaling, and cause poison and bleed with each hit.

(edit: aside from using the Whetblade to change affinity, but the bleed one is pretty deep in the game)

Other option is do a hybrid build, Arcane + Dex or Str (or both). You could use bleed grease/other buffs on the weapon then

[Noquid]

I'm playing a Dex/Arcane build and am level 70 atm. I have Reduvia, Uchigatana and flail. Unless a target is only vuln to strike I just don't see the point in using flail, but try to keep it upgraded just in case. The problem with a bleed build is if the target is resistant to bleed or invulnerable then you're in a difficult situation. Uchigatana can be altered with Ashes of War and gives some flexibility but if you go bloody slash your damage isn't very good and you have to trigger hemorrhage. Plus your weapon choices are very slim until late game which makes a dex/arcane build difficult. Dragon communion is very good with arcane but if you're doing that you would go faith/arcane...I may change the build.

[Gabi]

Just do whatever feels good. Don't worry how you spec your character, it won't be an issue in the game. I don't want to spoil anything, just do what you think will be fun/will work, mistakes will be made but nothing that will cause you issues.

[Señor Brown]

50 ARC is a good target for a bleed build while still allowing other stats to be prioritized (such as vigor).

Since the Morning Star comes with bleed by default, you can also apply the Occult Infusion. This will greatly increase ARC scaling for your weapon's Attack Rating (AR) and bleed buildup.

The Morning Star is a solid weapon for both bleed and stance-breaking, at the cost of reach. Flails are similar and cannot be parried, but are slightly slower. I'd recommend the "Wild Strikes" Ash of War for either weapon.

[lar unuruur]

thanks for good answers!

[Kalamir]

The Chain-Link that drops from the pumkinheads that wield them, is the best Flail for Most infusions, including Aracana infusion. As a Flail apreciator, I can tell you that Flails will always do less damage then a Bleed Hammer (like the Spiked Club & Morning Star) for less stats requirements. This is because they have slightly lower Base DMG & AR. However, in exchange for this, Flails gain the sickle property of 40% shield bypass, ignore Weapon Flinch & are unparriable.

[GONDAL]

If you jump off a cliff in Siofra River Bank and then alt-f4 in the loading screen afterwards, you will respawn in Nokron early without having to kill Radahn. This allows you to obtain the black whetblade early and put bleed on any weapon that can take ashes of war.