Recommend me a new build

[Amins]

My first run, I started as a Wretch and gravitated towards a dual katana build with a focus on dex, supplementing with a couple incantations (primarily black flame and order's blade) and heavy clubs when blunt was needed. I used Golden Halberd a lot early game for when I felt I needed to do a lot of damage really quickly, but eventually found it outclassed by Unsheath.

Second run, I respecced into an arcane build with bloody helice and godskin stitcher focusing mostly on using Dynast's Finesse, and switched out to claws sometimes just for fun for quick bleed accumulation.

Third run, I just did a nudist speed run with my original katana build.

My fourth and current, I've decided to go with dual Sacred Relic Swords while switching out to a greatshield just to experiment with guard counters, as I haven't really played defensively like that much. I've invested mostly in strength and dex for the damage, while trying to pump faith up just to see what I can make work with it. I feel like I want it to be a holyish build, but the swords don't seem to scale too well with faith for some reason. Even still, I'd like some recommendations to make the most of faith. I'm trying to play around more with incantations, too. But the Sacred Relic Sword skill is just so powerful it makes most incants obsolete. Black Flame and Stone of Gurranq seem to work pretty nicely in certain situations when I want quick, focused ranged damage. I don't play well with buffs, either as I feel like most are either not worthwhile or are easily replaced with items.

Also, for future builds, I'd like to try experimenting with different weapon arts. I've only really used Unsheath and Dynast's Finesse, and haven't even touched the majority of the others.

[𝑀𝓊𝑔𝑒𝓃]

How about a build focused around the venomous fang , the weapon is pretty underrated imo , slap on royal knights resolve and the claw talisman and watch it melts health bars

[Amins]

Is poison buildup very effective? I hear it's not the greatest stat effect, but it's an idea. Maybe I could build off of that towards a toxic warrior build with serpent's bow and poison pots. Maybe even roleplay as a follower of the Dung Boy.

[Enderspoons]

Originally posted by Amins:

Is poison buildup very effective? I hear it's not the greatest stat effect, but it's an idea. Maybe I could build off of that towards a toxic warrior build with serpent's bow and poison pots. Maybe even roleplay as a follower of the Dung Boy.

For most sources that deal poison, the resulting effect deals more or less exactly half as much damage as Scarlet Rot does with the same duration (90 seconds).

Poison is nice to have around, but unlike its stronger cousin Rot, it won't be able to carry your DPS in a fight unless your flat damage sources are very weak indeed and you don't have any other %-based damage to work with (e.g. in a Rune Level 1 run).

[𝑀𝓊𝑔𝑒𝓃]

Originally posted by Amins:

Is poison buildup very effective? I hear it's not the greatest stat effect, but it's an idea. Maybe I could build off of that towards a toxic warrior build with serpent's bow and poison pots. Maybe even roleplay as a follower of the Dung Boy.

Venomous fang uses deadly poison which does more damage than normal poison but lasts for a shorter period but if you use the poison affinity than it deals deadly poison while lasting as long as normal poison , but the main star is the heavy jump attack paired with the claw talisman and ash of war like determination and royal knights resolve

[Amins]

Originally posted by 𝑀𝓊𝑔𝑒𝓃:

Originally posted by Amins:

Is poison buildup very effective? I hear it's not the greatest stat effect, but it's an idea. Maybe I could build off of that towards a toxic warrior build with serpent's bow and poison pots. Maybe even roleplay as a follower of the Dung Boy.

Venomous fang uses deadly poison which does more damage than normal poison but lasts for a shorter period but if you use the poison affinity than it deals deadly poison while lasting as long as normal poison , but the main star is the heavy jump attack paired with the claw talisman and ash of war like determination and royal knights resolve

Is the heavy jump attack different than other types of claws? I do use jump attacks quite a lot, so that would be optimal for my typical playstyle.

[zab]

fist weapons only

[𝑀𝓊𝑔𝑒𝓃]

Originally posted by Amins:

Originally posted by 𝑀𝓊𝑔𝑒𝓃:

Venomous fang uses deadly poison which does more damage than normal poison but lasts for a shorter period but if you use the poison affinity than it deals deadly poison while lasting as long as normal poison , but the main star is the heavy jump attack paired with the claw talisman and ash of war like determination and royal knights resolve

Is the heavy jump attack different than other types of claws? I do use jump attacks quite a lot, so that would be optimal for my typical playstyle.

Damage wise it gets an A scaling in strength and does around 432 with 60 str , i haven't tested it at 80 cause i like staying at rune lvl 125 which i feel is very optimal for me at least , but i am guessing the others like the raptor talons and bloodhound claws should perform similarly but i personally prefer the deadly poison status effect over plain old bleed that comes with the other claws

[fmalfeas]

Blackflame Blade + Whip/Petal Whip.

Between the strike damage, fire damage, and DoT, with the range and area of the strikes, nothing will be safe.

[nfinite.recursion]

I'm using Hookclaws in my Malenia killer build. I don't really recommend using jump attacks with claws outside of jumping to avoid low attacks and countering with an attack.

Claws are all about DPS and proccing bleed as fast as possible. Jump attacks are strong and deal heavy stance damage, but with claws the added damage and negligible stance damage from claw attacks combined with the slow recovery time from a jumping heavy attack makes jump attacks with claws only situational at best. The jump attacks are fine for trash mobs that you can one shot, but against faster bosses they're suicide.

[sethy]

try a rykard build with balshfamis blade and a bunch of fire spells

[Bobo]

I'm doing daggers for my current playthrough. Had been using Reduvia initially, then switched to Black Knife, and now I'm doing Reduvia mainhand with Black Knife offhand. Mostly pumping Dex now with Faith and Arcane around 25 and 20 respectively.

Claws are also pretty neat because you buff both with a single weapon buff.

[yuzhonglu]

Endure Ash of War with duel rapiers with blood infusion.

[IO]

I saw some player just use fist