Why am I doing zero damage to every late game boss?

[a person]

I am running a frostbite build, 31 int, 30 dex, +22 cold lordsworn straight sword, and I do almost chip damage to maliketh. Why?

[CazadorDeLobo]

Because there's tons of un-tapped damage potential in your current build, but its not balanced in a way where you can tap into it.

For instance, the Straight Sword category in Elden Ring is designed to be a sort of "starter" with little in the way saving them in a comparison to their larger cousins. Also, they don't scale into greatness, but effectively live in the garbage bin for the vast majority of builds at this stage of the game.

The short reach is NOT offset by high damage or high speed, as you'll notice Axes beat SS in every category besides the utility of thrusting damage, I guess?

Oh, and status buildup takes a big hit after the first proc, so the Frost element of your damage-dealing gets quickly negated by ramping resistances. All in all, it may be worth having a heavier weapon upgraded. In fact, I beat Maliketh by engaging in a sort of DPS race, not at all using the mechanics of the fight, because I think one of his second-stage attack strings really belongs in a rhythm game, and not a character action game.

[zero]

cause a cold lornsworn straight sword is CCC scaling, which isn't great, it'd be better off heavy, or use an actual int based weapon.

also you should have a +25 by azula, at that point.

edit: fixed the weapon cause i am blind, it seems, slightly better, same issue.

[Fineous🔥]

Maliketh gets a massive status resistance boost after P2 transition. Bring something doing decent raw damage without build-ups required.

[Faramund]

Originally posted by a person:

I am running a frostbite build, 31 int, 30 dex, +22 cold lordsworn straight sword, and I do almost chip damage to maliketh. Why?

Frostbite scales from wisdom friend

[Fineous🔥]

Originally posted by Faramund:

Originally posted by a person:

I am running a frostbite build, 31 int, 30 dex, +22 cold lordsworn straight sword, and I do almost chip damage to maliketh. Why?

Frostbite scales from wisdom friend

No....It scales from INT.

[CazadorDeLobo]

Originally posted by Fineous🔥:

Maliketh gets a massive status resistance boost after P2 transition

Slight correction in that most phase transitions will reset the counter for how many procs of status a boss has received, so it could possibly be easier in P2 for the first proc or two, but every one after that is multiplying the increased resistances of P2 as well.

This means that you should be going for a single proc of any given status once P2 commences, and not expect to get a second proc off before simply damaging the boss to death.

[Artek [General]]

1) Because they are end-game bosses, so their HPs are inflated to represent that.
2) Cold weapons (and any special effect infusions for that matter) are about procing the effect first and actually dealing damage later. If maliketh is resistant to frost - you're kinda in trouble. Dedicated pure damage infusions (heavy, keen, magic, etc) should always deal notably higher DPS across the board without relying on secondary effects.

But otherwise yes - Maliketh is like in top 5 hardest bosses of the base game, so good luck.

[Fineous🔥]

Oh my god....Obi. Welcome back, buddy.

Originally posted by CazadorDeLobo:

Snip

No, Obi. That makes like no sense at all.....Do your best to help OP, give it a go buddy!

[Faramund]

Originally posted by Fineous🔥:

Originally posted by Faramund:

Frostbite scales from wisdom friend

No....It scales from INT.

That's what I meant. I just used a translator

[a person]

Originally posted by CazadorDeLobo:

Because there's tons of un-tapped damage potential in your current build, but its not balanced in a way where you can tap into it.

For instance, the Straight Sword category in Elden Ring is designed to be a sort of "starter" with little in the way saving them in a comparison to their larger cousins. Also, they don't scale into greatness, but effectively live in the garbage bin for the vast majority of builds at this stage of the game.

The short reach is NOT offset by high damage or high speed, as you'll notice Axes beat SS in every category besides the utility of thrusting damage, I guess?

Oh, and status buildup takes a big hit after the first proc, so the Frost element of your damage-dealing gets quickly negated by ramping resistances. All in all, it may be worth having a heavier weapon upgraded. In fact, I beat Maliketh by engaging in a sort of DPS race, not at all using the mechanics of the fight, because I think one of his second-stage attack strings really belongs in a rhythm game, and not a character action game.

Ah. I wish I knew this sooner. But tbh I hate maliketh in general. One of my previous characters that relies on staggers and charged heavies struggles with maliketh because he just dodges away or his garbage hitboxes make me whiff a very important swing. Would you recommend a better weapon to use frostbite for (don’t say moonlight greatsword because I don’t have the time nor energy to do ranni’s entire questline)?

[KeyboardBerserker]

The Light Greatsword from the dlc ended up my main, cold enchanted. I keep my damage stats WAAY higher though.

[zero]

Originally posted by a person:

Originally posted by CazadorDeLobo:

Because there's tons of un-tapped damage potential in your current build, but its not balanced in a way where you can tap into it.

For instance, the Straight Sword category in Elden Ring is designed to be a sort of "starter" with little in the way saving them in a comparison to their larger cousins. Also, they don't scale into greatness, but effectively live in the garbage bin for the vast majority of builds at this stage of the game.

The short reach is NOT offset by high damage or high speed, as you'll notice Axes beat SS in every category besides the utility of thrusting damage, I guess?

Oh, and status buildup takes a big hit after the first proc, so the Frost element of your damage-dealing gets quickly negated by ramping resistances. All in all, it may be worth having a heavier weapon upgraded. In fact, I beat Maliketh by engaging in a sort of DPS race, not at all using the mechanics of the fight, because I think one of his second-stage attack strings really belongs in a rhythm game, and not a character action game.

Ah. I wish I knew this sooner. But tbh I hate maliketh in general. One of my previous characters that relies on staggers and charged heavies struggles with maliketh because he just dodges away or his garbage hitboxes make me whiff a very important swing. Would you recommend a better weapon to use frostbite for (don’t say moonlight greatsword because I don’t have the time nor energy to do ranni’s entire questline)?

there is only really 5 plot beats to rannis quest (fingerslayer blade, the stalking shade, astel, go get ring->end), so functionally you only need to fight 2 creatures that entire time.

of course if you don't want to do that, there is very few int/str weapons that are frostbite related with good scaling, sadly,

[Humpenstilzchen]

The weapon is not the problem ,your stats are just way too low. At this stage you should have your main damage stats somewhere between 60 and 80.

[Fineous🔥]

Originally posted by Faramund:

Originally posted by Fineous🔥:

No....It scales from INT.

That's what I meant. I just used a translator

Ah, ok.

Anyways you dont want to rely solely on status procs, specially for the last main game bosses. Time to re-spec and reinvent yourself! With that stats you provided in the main post im sure you are a bit underleveled.....But thats ok!

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by a person:

Originally posted by CazadorDeLobo:

Because there's tons of un-tapped damage potential in your current build, but its not balanced in a way where you can tap into it.

For instance, the Straight Sword category in Elden Ring is designed to be a sort of "starter" with little in the way saving them in a comparison to their larger cousins. Also, they don't scale into greatness, but effectively live in the garbage bin for the vast majority of builds at this stage of the game.

The short reach is NOT offset by high damage or high speed, as you'll notice Axes beat SS in every category besides the utility of thrusting damage, I guess?

Oh, and status buildup takes a big hit after the first proc, so the Frost element of your damage-dealing gets quickly negated by ramping resistances. All in all, it may be worth having a heavier weapon upgraded. In fact, I beat Maliketh by engaging in a sort of DPS race, not at all using the mechanics of the fight, because I think one of his second-stage attack strings really belongs in a rhythm game, and not a character action game.

Ah. I wish I knew this sooner. But tbh I hate maliketh in general. One of my previous characters that relies on staggers and charged heavies struggles with maliketh because he just dodges away or his garbage hitboxes make me whiff a very important swing. Would you recommend a better weapon to use frostbite for (don’t say moonlight greatsword because I don’t have the time nor energy to do ranni’s entire questline)?

Hey, Straight Swords are perfectiy viable. They are jack of all trades - kinda do a bit of everything without any special gimmicks which their brothers (axes, maces, etc) have to depend on instead.

A better frostbite weapon... They all should be about the same. Quicker weapons always excel at procs more than big heavy ones. I had a character with a Frost Parrying Dagger - could proc frost real quick, but after that i had to deal damage properly with a real weapon for obvious reasons (in fact that's what frost seems to be for).
You know what you can do? Find yourself a normal weapon that already deals some other status effect like Bleed or Poison and turn that into a Frost weapon to become the ultimate bullsh*t stacker. Katanas sound like the easy go-to choice for that matters, they all do bleed, pretty much the selling point of the weapon class. So you will be Frostbiting and Bleeding the guy at the same time (although there is a chance he's probably mega-resistant to both, so the real solution is to invest into a weapon that's actually meant to deal damage and not just stack special effects).