So, I have these stats for my samurai character. I can't decide what to upgrade next...

[Homelander]

Attr. Points	Stats	Stats 2
Vigor: 54	HP: 1793	Def vs Lightning: 135
Mind: 20	FP: 121	Def vs Holy: 185
Endurance: 40	Stamina: 142	Immunity: 344
Strength: 17	Max Eq. Load: 91	Robustness: 276
Dexterity: 55	Poise: 31	Focus: 269
Intelligence: 9	Defense: 140	Vitality: 307
Faith: atheist lol (8)	Def vs Magic: 153	R1 Armament: 631 (riversblood)
Arcane: 37	Def vs Fire: 189	L1 Armament: 478 (uchigatana)

I am playing Rivers of blood and uchigatana dual wield. I need cerulean tear potion in long fights so I have 12-1 allocation. And I don't know what to upgrade next. Any helps?

I'm wearing light armor so my character is a bit weak. But I find my damage not satisfying neither. So, any help will be much appreciated. I would reallocate my whole skills if you have better ideas.

[Night]

Need more information. Like are you going to stop leveling at a certain point for pvp reasons? What is your endgoal? Are you going to be playing the DLC?

[Homelander]

Originally posted by Night:

Need more information. Like are you going to stop leveling at a certain point for pvp reasons? What is your endgoal? Are you going to be playing the DLC?

Now, I'm doing the DLC (played for 15 hours and killed like 2-3 mandatory DLC bosses). Main game is already completed, but maybe I make an NG+ after beating the DLC. I never do PVP, mostly, I send coop sign to summoning pool and help other while exploring.

[Night]

Ok in that case if you are going strictly PVE focused build and you are doing the DLC I suggest picking between Dex or Arcane first. You should stick with one of them until it is at 70-80 first. You can get just enough Dex to be able to use the weapon if you are going Arcane and Occult ash of wars. Right now you have some weird mix of both dex and arcane and neither of them are optimal.

If you wanna have innate bleed and like Rivers of blood then go Arcane.
Then it would look like this:

Vigor: 60
Dex: for required weapon usage
Arcane: 80
Faith: Atleast 15 for "Flame grant me strenght" buff before every boss fight. If you go 25 faith you can even use Golden Vow. Don't underestimate these buffs, they make a huge difference.
The rest of the stats can be whatever you want depending on how high you level.

With an Arcane build you want to use the "occult" or "Bleed" infusions.
Arcane also give you all the dragon incantations and scales up their damage, so you have ranged spell options too.

If you decide to go with dex instead then you are going the lightning samurai path.
Go 80 dex instead of Arcane then, you don't need Arcane at all, but won't be using Rivers of Blood because that weapon scales of Arcane. Instead you will be using weapons you buff yourself with lightning (lightning scales off dex). For example a Uchigatana or Nagakiba with either lightning or Keen.
With dex you can go keen infused and buff the weapon with "bloodflame blade" which is considered powerful because it gives both the bleed and flame effect.

Once you reach either 70 or 80 dex or arcane, then you can start going 80 in the other stat aswell. But just so you know, sometimes strength gives more base damage, even with katanas. So for instance 80 str and 80 arcane gives more damage with something like a Nagakiba with occult infusion than 80 dex and 80 arcane would do.

Another thing is this DLC dishes out some really strong new katanas and weapons, so you will maybe be using those when you get them.

Anything else you are wondering?

[Fenix]

I would say put some points in to faith 15 for Flame Grant me strength, then 25 for Golden Vow, Maybe Bloodflame Blade for weapons you can put it on (more Bleed!)
Edit: Night Beat me too it.

[Night]

Just to clarify in case that was confusing.

The builds are:

Arcane Samurai:
80 Arcane
Uses Occult or bleed infusions.
Uses dragon incantations.
Innate bleed on weapons and therefore cannot buff the weapon with bloodflame or use consumable buff items on the weapon.

Lightning Samurai:
80 Dex
Uses lightning ashes of war.
Uses keen infused weapons which can be further buffed with things like Bloodflame blade or items.

Spellblade Samurai:
80 Int.
Uses Moonlight Katana.
Wants to use spells but with a Katana.

[Homelander]

Originally posted by Night:

Ok in that case if you are going strictly PVE focused build and you are doing the DLC I suggest picking between Dex or Arcane first. You should stick with one of them until it is at 70-80 first. You can get just enough Dex to be able to use the weapon if you are going Arcane and Occult ash of wars. Right now you have some weird mix of both dex and arcane and neither of them are optimal.

If you wanna have innate bleed and like Rivers of blood then go Arcane.
Then it would look like this:

Vigor: 60
Dex: for required weapon usage
Arcane: 80
Faith: Atleast 15 for "Flame grant me strenght" buff before every boss fight. If you go 25 faith you can even use Golden Vow. Don't underestimate these buffs, they make a huge difference.
The rest of the stats can be whatever you want depending on how high you level.

With an Arcane build you want to use the "occult" or "Bleed" infusions.
Arcane also give you all the dragon incantations and scales up their damage, so you have ranged spell options too.

If you decide to go with dex instead then you are going the lightning samurai path.
Go 80 dex instead of Arcane then, you don't need Arcane at all, but won't be using Rivers of Blood because that weapon scales of Arcane. Instead you will be using weapons you buff yourself with lightning (lightning scales off dex). For example a Uchigatana or Nagakiba with either lightning or Keen.
With dex you can go keen infused and buff the weapon with "bloodflame blade" which is considered powerful because it gives both the bleed and flame effect.

Once you reach either 70 or 80 dex or arcane, then you can start going 80 in the other stat aswell. But just so you know, sometimes strength gives more base damage, even with katanas. So for instance 80 str and 80 arcane gives more damage with something like a Nagakiba with occult infusion than 80 dex and 80 arcane would do.

Another thing is this DLC dishes out some really strong new katanas and weapons, so you will maybe be using those when you get them.

Anything else you are wondering?

I'm only using rivers of blood's ability for ash of war. It's probably (not sure) scaling with arcane. Sometimes I use bow also. In that case, Dex looks like more an option to me (but as a con, it stacks blood loss slightly slower than arcane build).

I thought vigor's hard cap was 50. So I stopped upgrading it at 54.

Faith 25 will be my first stop in that case.

I'm not planning to change my weapons unless I find super better option. And rivers of blood's scaling has Strength E, Dex B and Arcane D.

Anyway, thank you for everything. Now I'm focusing on Faith 25 and then, probably Dexterity for base damage or arcane for blood loss scaling.

Thanks again!

[Kyutaru]

Vigor's soft cap is 60. Past that it's meager gains, you get 200 more hp at 99. Not worth the points.

Faith 25 is optional with the new DLC, though it's always been optional really. Golden Vow exists as an ash of war that you can put on a dagger for buffing. It also now exists as a consumable item. No need to build for it.

As far as your light armor being weak, the Winged Crystal Tear exists. It makes basically any loadout Light for 3 minutes. If you can down the boss in three minutes by spamming the Rivers of Blood skill, you can have light rolling in even the fattest armor. Wear literally anything you want.

[Night]

Originally posted by A.V. Valentine:

Originally posted by Night:

Ok in that case if you are going strictly PVE focused build and you are doing the DLC I suggest picking between Dex or Arcane first. You should stick with one of them until it is at 70-80 first. You can get just enough Dex to be able to use the weapon if you are going Arcane and Occult ash of wars. Right now you have some weird mix of both dex and arcane and neither of them are optimal.

If you wanna have innate bleed and like Rivers of blood then go Arcane.
Then it would look like this:

Vigor: 60
Dex: for required weapon usage
Arcane: 80
Faith: Atleast 15 for "Flame grant me strenght" buff before every boss fight. If you go 25 faith you can even use Golden Vow. Don't underestimate these buffs, they make a huge difference.
The rest of the stats can be whatever you want depending on how high you level.

With an Arcane build you want to use the "occult" or "Bleed" infusions.
Arcane also give you all the dragon incantations and scales up their damage, so you have ranged spell options too.

If you decide to go with dex instead then you are going the lightning samurai path.
Go 80 dex instead of Arcane then, you don't need Arcane at all, but won't be using Rivers of Blood because that weapon scales of Arcane. Instead you will be using weapons you buff yourself with lightning (lightning scales off dex). For example a Uchigatana or Nagakiba with either lightning or Keen.
With dex you can go keen infused and buff the weapon with "bloodflame blade" which is considered powerful because it gives both the bleed and flame effect.

Once you reach either 70 or 80 dex or arcane, then you can start going 80 in the other stat aswell. But just so you know, sometimes strength gives more base damage, even with katanas. So for instance 80 str and 80 arcane gives more damage with something like a Nagakiba with occult infusion than 80 dex and 80 arcane would do.

Another thing is this DLC dishes out some really strong new katanas and weapons, so you will maybe be using those when you get them.

Anything else you are wondering?

I'm only using rivers of blood's ability for ash of war. It's probably (not sure) scaling with arcane. Sometimes I use bow also. In that case, Dex looks like more an option to me (but as a con, it stacks blood loss slightly slower than arcane build).

I thought vigor's hard cap was 50. So I stopped upgrading it at 54.

Faith 25 will be my first stop in that case.

I'm not planning to change my weapons unless I find super better option. And rivers of blood's scaling has Strength E, Dex B and Arcane D.

Anyway, thank you for everything. Now I'm focusing on Faith 25 and then, probably Dexterity for base damage or arcane for blood loss scaling.

Thanks again! :dealwithit:

Vigour soft cap is 60 like most stats really.

If you are using the rivers of blood just for its ash of war then I should probably tell you that ash of war can be put on other katanas like the Nagakiba too. The ash of war is called "Double Slash" so look it up and find it. It is on a tree branch in Sellia town of sorcery in Caelid.

A keen infused Nagakiba with bloodflame blade has both more range and damage than the Rivers of blood and does the same thing. Personally I use double slash on a Nagakiba with 80 arcane and bleed infusion.

If you still want to stick with the Rivers of Blood you should also know that Arcane not only buffs its bleed proc but also its damage, cause it seems like you think Arcane only boosts its bleed but dex boosts it damage.

Here, use this calculator to figure how much damage you get from stats and so on:
https://eldenring.tclark.io/

[Night]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Vigor's soft cap is 60. Past that it's meager gains, you get 200 more hp at 99. Not worth the points.

Faith 25 is optional with the new DLC, though it's always been optional really. Golden Vow exists as an ash of war that you can put on a dagger for buffing. It also now exists as a consumable item. No need to build for it.

As far as your light armor being weak, the Winged Crystal Tear exists. It makes basically any loadout Light for 3 minutes. If you can down the boss in three minutes by spamming the Rivers of Blood skill, you can have light rolling in even the fattest armor. Wear literally anything you want.

Yeah I thought so too, but those items that give golden vow buff and other stuff are not easy to get and farming them is more hassle than just putting down 25 faith on a build with no level cap. Plus the dagger buff gives a weaker golden vow version than the actual buff.

[toughnails]

Originally posted by Night:

Arcane Samurai:
80 Arcane
Uses Occult or bleed infusions.
Uses dragon incantations.
Innate bleed on weapons and therefore cannot buff the weapon with bloodflame or use consumable buff items on the weapon.

A small correction, as I'm also playing an Arcane Samurai.

Nothing has A/S scaling in Arc (except for Occult Bloodhound Claws, but eh), so there's very little reason to go beyond 70 Arc. Just put those 10 points into Dex and you'll get better base damage with Blood infused weapons (e.g. the new Backhand Blades which are perfect for this build). And you only lose literally 1 point of bleed build up.

I'd recommend 40/60 Dex/Arc or 60/70 if you go to RL200 (which is where I'm stopping).

Also, @OP, dump Endurance, no reason to ever go beyond 27 End on this build. That's 13 levels right there.

[Nauct]

I'd get 80DEX, I also like 54STR so when you're 2handing you're at the soft cap of 80. Probably don't need that much END with a light weapon that has low stamina usage.

I don't go bleed builds, so can't comment if ARC is worth or not

[Yal]

You can give any weapon Arcane scaling with poison, bleed or occult infusions.

Dual-wielding adds a penalty to ailment buildups, damage, posture damage etc so it's not actually doubling them. It might be more effective to twohand one katana at a time for faster attacks + higher posture damage?

I'm a big fan of Double Slash on the uchigatana, it compliments its moveset very well. (If you continue the combo it hits 6 times). Maybe Double Slash + Poison infusion on the uchi to get an avenue of indirect damage to compensate for less raw damage? (and this adds arcane scaling as a bonus)

[Wolfguarde]

If you're only using RoB's skill, you can sub out at least one other weapon's skill for the golden vow buff. Bloodhound's step on the wakazashi will give you some additional mobility if you want it for situations where an enemy has a long telegraph for a wide range or otherwise difficult-to-escape attack, and you've got enough time to switch out a weapon before dodging. Personally, if I have a weapon slot free and don't plan to fill it, I like having parry on a set of caestus as well.

You'll want arcane at at least 45 to hit the second softcap, I'd then either raise arcane to 80 or dex depending on what you're prioritising for damage (basic physical damage or bleed).

[Gaydalf, the Wild Wizard]

Max dexterity because it’s cool

[Cacomistle]

Depends what you want. If you want to bleed them to death, arcane. You could also drop one of the swords (like if you just want to spam rivers of blood art) and probably wear the heaviest armor in the game with a medium roll. Bleed probably does more damage overall than just raw damage, since pretty much all the bosses seem vulnerable to it.

The strongest thing you can do overall is probably level faith to give yourself flame grant me strength, bloodflame blade, and/or golden vow (you can get a weaker golden vow from weapons though).

I also think just using a single katana and unsheathe is quite strong. Its no longer really bleed build since you're doing mostly single hits (though you can absolutely still bleed), but it does a lot of stagger, its fast enough to hit consistently, and the damage is pretty good. I'd drop the arcane for that though.