That build you struggled to make.

[Dollmaker]

So i guess most people will have that one build they wanna make, but it always appears that something is off and you burn trough the Larvas changing stats, weapons, etc. Until you finally get what you desired.

Which build was it?

For me it was an Arc build, originally it was heavy focus on Dex and medium Arc, then, the opposite, being more on Arc, then a bit of Str and Dex with still heavy focus on Arc and lastly, focus on Str and Arc and a bit of dex.

Took a while, but i finally got an Arc build that i liked, im mainly using the Executioner Sword, the skill of that thing is fun to use, also Mogh's Trident every now and then.

[Sparhawk 59]

Arc = bleed mmmmm. Makes me laugh how many use it and how many hate bleed builds

[Sunny]

I used a heavy faith build with gargoyle's blackblade at the start. Wasn't happy so respecced 4 times to make a dragon incantation build with high arcane.

Dragon spells were slow, so specced to 60 vigor and heavy armor to survive. I lived, but it took 3 flasks to heal to full. Healing spells only scale with faith apparently, so Respecced back to my original build.

After testing multiple weapons I went for a banished knight halberd with black flame tornado for its low requirements and decent moveset. I now have 68% physical resistance, 70 poise and can heal >2000 hp in a single cast, while chucking pyromancies all over the place... Life is good.

It only costed me 12 Larval tears and roughly 10 maxed out weapons. my left kidney and it appears I'm maidenless. But I think it was worth it.

[Climhazzard]

I made small adjustments to my sorcery build a number of times. And even replayed through the game once with it to reduce my level some.

[Sickerton]

Wanted a Necromancer build, and noticing that both the skele-summon and blood thorn spells were INT/Faith hybrids went for that. After finding out that nothing was all that good in either of those schools of magic, dropped INT entirely and focused on a Faith/Arcane setup that focuses on bleed and blackfire Incantations with rot backup options. Still not as many useful spells as one would hope, but with bleed and rot in general being so strong it's at least workable.

[Star Taker ✨]

its a matter of game knowledge and expereince

[❛❛Vénttea❜❜]

Trying to min-max my physical katana (Hand of Malenia) and sorcery/incant builds.
It's honestly hard especially with the limited memory slots and certain spells/chants uses more slots. I achieved the initial goal, not the best due to memory slots but good enough to make it fun and varied.

The issue is poise. Even though the Waterfowl isn't exactly the best weapon art, it's good for clearing mobs but easily knocked off, same goes for the other 3 spells/chants I use. Due to poise limitations, I have to solely rely on physiks for the 10/15 seconds of poise to change the tide of some battles (not Azur's Comet).

I run a mix of INT/DEX/FTH

[Requimatic]

Originally posted by ❛❛Liechée❜❜:

Trying to min-max my physical katana (Hand of Malenia) and sorcery/incant builds.
It's honestly hard especially with the limited memory slots and certain spells/chants uses more slots. I achieved the initial goal, not the best due to memory slots but good enough to make it fun and varied.

The issue is poise. Even though the Waterfowl isn't exactly the best weapon art, it's good for clearing mobs but easily knocked off, same goes for the other 3 spells/chants I use. Due to poise limitations, I have to solely rely on physiks for the 10/15 seconds of poise to change the tide of some battles (not Azur's Comet).

I run a mix of INT/DEX/FTH

There's a Talisman that increases Poise if you can spare the slot. I think it adds +12 or +15 or something? or it could be percentage-based.

I really want to like Hand of Malenia, but I just can't. Waterfowl Dance is just mostly "meh" from every instance I've tried to use it. I've just got a HoM +9 collecting dust in the chest now. I get more use out of other Katanas, like Moonveil, Rivers of Blood, and even non-unique ones that I can put Ashes on, like Uchigatana.

That's when and if I even use a Katana.. I've moved away from them and went to Greatswords almost entirely. The variety with Greatswords is amazing.

To be honest, I wish they'd at least give us the ability to change scaling or affinity for unique weapon arts. That way more weapons would be more useful for more builds. With Hand of Malenia, for example, you could change just the affinity of Waterfowl Dance to Poison, and have all those hits racking it up.

That would give HoM the little boost it would need to make it more of a viable option and not be totally overpowered.. which would work for a LOT more weapons and make a LOT more builds a LOT more viable.

Personally, I would like to see a lot of Dark, Death, or Ghostflame-related Ashes & Affinities added. I feel like the whole "Dark Knight" archetype would be really fun to play in Elden Ring, but there aren't too many ways to cater to it without using very specific weapons.. which don't scale too well.

[❛❛Vénttea❜❜]

Originally posted by Requimatic:

There's a Talisman that increases Poise if you can spare the slot. I think it adds +12 or +15 or something? or it could be percentage-based.

I was thinking of using that Talisman but sadly I can only get 10 - 12 poise out of it. I originally aimed for 60 while keeping my fashion intact, sadly it is not feasible so I placed a different talisman over it.

Originally posted by Requimatic:

I really want to like Hand of Malenia, but I just can't. Waterfowl Dance is just mostly "meh" from every instance I've tried to use it. I've just got a HoM +9 collecting dust in the chest now. I get more use out of other Katanas, like Moonveil, Rivers of Blood, and even non-unique ones that I can put Ashes on, like Uchigatana.

As for HoM, I rarely use it on bosses since it is underwhelming unless you overbuff yourself. I use it purely for the aesthetics and mob clearing potential and the risk vs reward factor. Moonveil or RoB trivializes too much with low risk and the other AoW isn't that aesthetically pleasing and satisfying to use on the Uchitagana for me. I can see where you are coming from.

Originally posted by Requimatic:

That's when and if I even use a Katana.. I've moved away from them and went to Greatswords almost entirely. The variety with Greatswords is amazing.

I always have a greatsword off-hand. Depending on location, I always swap my first weapon slot to Greatswords/Hammers/Rapiers.

Originally posted by Requimatic:

To be honest, I wish they'd at least give us the ability to change scaling or affinity for unique weapon arts. That way more weapons would be more useful for more builds. With Hand of Malenia, for example, you could change just the affinity of Waterfowl Dance to Poison, and have all those hits racking it up.

That would give HoM the little boost it would need to make it more of a viable option and not be totally overpowered.. which would work for a LOT more weapons and make a LOT more builds a LOT more viable.

Personally, I would like to see a lot of Dark, Death, or Ghostflame-related Ashes & Affinities added. I feel like the whole "Dark Knight" archetype would be really fun to play in Elden Ring, but there aren't too many ways to cater to it without using very specific weapons.. which don't scale too well.

Honestly that would be good and I do agree. Funny enough, it can also be broken in its own way if it builds up that fast considering if you succeeded in using all three flurries. The damage isn't the problem its more just of the wind-up being so easily broken out of it. 2 hits from Rats can easily make this go wrong.

As for the Dark Flames. It'd be nice if there is a castable version similar to how you cast Adzula's Blade or Carian Granduer.