Bleed Weapons and Ashes of War

[Flushing]

I just noticed that I can use Ashes of War on many weapons that cause bleeding.

I am sure that's common knowledge, but I am still on my first playthrough, and I have some questions about that:

1. If I use the Chilling Mist Ashes of War on a bleed weapon like Great Stars or Flamberge can it trigger both Bleed and Frozen?

2. Are there any non bleeding weapons that do multiple damage types (like Physical and Holy, Physical and Magic, etc.) that will also take Ashes of War for a third Damage Type?

3. If I give a bleeding weapon the Bloody Slash ash of War will it double or increase the Bleeding? Put another way do I get the core Bleeding Stats of the weapon + the Bleeding Stats from Bloody Slash?

4. Do consumables, like "Fire Grease" give more + damage than Ashes of War like Flaming Strike?

5. Do weapon enchantments like Order's Blade (imbue weapon with holy damage) provide more damage than Ashes of War like Sacred Blade, which also enchants weapons with holy damage?

6. Are there items or stats that will increase the uptime of weapon enchantments?

Thanks guys

[pauloandrade224]

yes times 5 i dunno about number 6 tho.

u can do a bleed weapon and then the bleed grease for even more bleed too.

[2001 Space Oddity]

Originally posted by Flushing:

1. If I use the Chilling Mist Ashes of War on a bleed weapon like Great Stars or Flamberge can it trigger both Bleed and Frozen?

Yes, and bleed + frost or poison is a pretty strong combo.

Originally posted by Flushing:

2. Are there any non bleeding weapons that do multiple damage types (like Physical and Holy, Physical and Magic, etc.) that will also take Ashes of War for a third Damage Type?

There are a few, like the Clayman's Harpoon (physical + magic) and Fire Knight's Greatsword (physical + fire). There are also some that can't take ashes of war, but can still be buffed with magic or grease, like Troll's hammer (physical + fire) and Treespear (physical + holy).

Originally posted by Flushing:

3. If I give a bleeding weapon the Bloody Slash ash of War will it double or increase the Bleeding? Put another way do I get the core Bleeding Stats of the weapon + the Bleeding Stats from Bloody Slash?

Yes it will apply the bleed from both the ash of war and your weapon. As far as I know, any ash of war that has a projectile will do more damage if you hit with both the weapon and the projectile, so even skills that don't do bleed benefit from hitting with the weapon.

Originally posted by Flushing:

4. Do consumables, like "Fire Grease" give more + damage than Ashes of War like Flaming Strike?

Fire grease adds 85 fire damage for 60 seconds, Flaming strike adds 90 fire damage for 40 seconds, plus you have the option of changing your weapon from pure physical to physical + fire. The skill itself also does a lot of damage if you land both the flames and the weapon strike.

For other weapon buffs you'll have to look them up to see which is better, for example lightning grease is 85 lightning for 60 seconds, Lightning Slash is also 85 lightning but for 40 seconds.

Originally posted by Flushing:

5. Do weapon enchantments like Order's Blade (imbue weapon with holy damage) provide more damage than Ashes of War like Sacred Blade, which also enchants weapons with holy damage?

Incantation buffs scale with the faith scaling of your seal, so it depends. Early on, you'll get more from Sacred Blade but as you level up your faith and your seal you'll get more from the incant.

Originally posted by Flushing:

6. Are there items or stats that will increase the uptime of weapon enchantments?

Old Lord's Talisman will increase the duration of spells by 30%, but it's a late game item.

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by Flushing:

1. If I use the Chilling Mist Ashes of War on a bleed weapon like Great Stars or Flamberge can it trigger both Bleed and Frozen?

Yes.

Originally posted by Flushing:

2. Are there any non bleeding weapons that do multiple damage types (like Physical and Holy, Physical and Magic, etc.) that will also take Ashes of War for a third Damage Type?

Actually uncertain about that one. My gut feeling says "no" but this game has trouble with consistent rules, so i wouldn't be surprised if there was an exception... But i really can't think of one.

Originally posted by Flushing:

3. If I give a bleeding weapon the Bloody Slash ash of War will it double or increase the Bleeding? Put another way do I get the core Bleeding Stats of the weapon + the Bleeding Stats from Bloody Slash?

Yes, infusing a Bleed infusion on a weapon that already has Bleed will result in even more bleed. In general it makes it like 50-100% stronger? A weapon that usually deals 50 bleed will start dealing 80, something like that.

Originally posted by Flushing:

4. Do consumables, like "Fire Grease" give more + damage than Ashes of War like Flaming Strike?

That is hard to answer due to how these games calculate damage taken.
Despite the fact that Grease adds like +100 elemental damage - in practice it results it only about +25 more damage dealt to an average enemy, because every separate damage type must first break through opponent's damage resistance, and that's before getting reduced further by % absorption.
Elemental infusions tend to deal more damage in early game where enemies just don't have any resistances, but tend to fall off in late game, especially against bosses that will just by chance having crazy resistance to your damage type specifically.

Originally posted by Flushing:

5. Do weapon enchantments like Order's Blade (imbue weapon with holy damage) provide more damage than Ashes of War like Sacred Blade, which also enchants weapons with holy damage?

Uncertain, but i believe the answer is generally "yes". Dedicated spells with high casting stat will have more effect than AoWs, with certain rare exceptions.
For example i believe poison coating provides exactly the same Poison value as Grease, at which point the only difference is that Grease is hard to come by / craft, while spell is with you always.

Originally posted by Flushing:

6. Are there items or stats that will increase the uptime of weapon enchantments?

There is a late game talisman that increases duration of spells by 30%.
However it does not affects AoW buffs, nor Grease.

[Flushing]

Thanks guys

Originally posted by Myself:

2. Are there any non bleeding weapons that do multiple damage types (like Physical and Holy, Physical and Magic, etc.) that will also take Ashes of War for a third Damage Type?

Originally posted by 2001 Space Oddity:

There are a few, like the Clayman's Harpoon (physical + magic) and Fire Knight's Greatsword (physical + fire). There are also some that can't take ashes of war, but can still be buffed with magic or grease, like Troll's hammer (physical + fire) and Treespear (physical + holy).

I am very interested in this answer, are those all of the weapons?

I am trying to do a search on Google, but I am not pulling anything up with my keywords.

I was able to pull up two more weapons (Varre's Bouquet and Bloodhound Fang) by searching for "Somber Weapons that can be enchanted" but that's it.

[2001 Space Oddity]

Originally posted by Flushing:

Thanks guys
I am very interested in this answer, are those all of the weapons?

I am trying to do a search on Google, but I am not pulling anything up with my keywords.

I was able to pull up two more weapons (Varre's Bouquet and Bloodhound Fang) by searching for "Somber Weapons that can be enchanted" but that's it.

There are more, but I don't know all of them. You can check the wiki and see which weapons can be buffed, and what their damage types are,

[Flushing]

Originally posted by 2001 Space Oddity:

Originally posted by Flushing:

Thanks guys
I am very interested in this answer, are those all of the weapons?

I am trying to do a search on Google, but I am not pulling anything up with my keywords.

I was able to pull up two more weapons (Varre's Bouquet and Bloodhound Fang) by searching for "Somber Weapons that can be enchanted" but that's it.

There are more, but I don't know all of them. You can check the wiki and see which weapons can be buffed, and what their damage types are,

Thank you

[Akatosh]

Take care that the weapons have affinities (heavy, keen, ...) which change the stat on which they scale. Putting a katana with blood ash will make it Arcane instead of Dex, which may make you lose a lot of power, for exemple.

If you found the matching sharpening knife, you can put the bloody ash of war and make it keen again, but you will lose that extra blood on regular hit.

[Yal]

Originally posted by 2001 Space Oddity:

Originally posted by Flushing:

3. If I give a bleeding weapon the Bloody Slash ash of War will it double or increase the Bleeding? Put another way do I get the core Bleeding Stats of the weapon + the Bleeding Stats from Bloody Slash?

Yes it will apply the bleed from both the ash of war and your weapon. As far as I know, any ash of war that has a projectile will do more damage if you hit with both the weapon and the projectile, so even skills that don't do bleed benefit from hitting with the weapon.

Basically, projectiles and melee hitboxes are wholly separate and nothing stops enemies from being hit by them all. This can occasionally be bad (if you dual-wield Sleep weapons you risk immediately waking the target up) but generally you want to use this to your advantage.

Also, side note: the listed amount of bleed/frost buildup is the exact amount that's applied on each hit; using stronger attacks will NOT cause more buildup, so using your fastest attack (or something that hits multiple times, like the Double Slash ash-of-war) will be more effective when speccing into status ailments.

(As a reference point, most regular enemies have like 200-300 resistance to all ailments they're not resistant/immune to and bosses have 1500-5000, it varies a bunch but the most common enemies are in that ballpark.)

Originally posted by 2001 Space Oddity:

Originally posted by Flushing:

4. Do consumables, like "Fire Grease" give more + damage than Ashes of War like Flaming Strike?

Fire grease adds 85 fire damage for 60 seconds, Flaming strike adds 90 fire damage for 40 seconds, plus you have the option of changing your weapon from pure physical to physical + fire. The skill itself also does a lot of damage if you land both the flames and the weapon strike.

For other weapon buffs you'll have to look them up to see which is better, for example lightning grease is 85 lightning for 60 seconds, Lightning Slash is also 85 lightning but for 40 seconds.

From what I've seen of elemental ashes that buff your weapon (Flaming Strike, Sacred Blade, Lightning Slash etc) you always get more total power when buffed picking the same element the buff applies, even if you haven't specced into the magic stat that increases that element's scaling. And especially if the weapon has matching scaling or innate damage of that element, which messes with the formula so the damage gets almost completely converted to elemental (Black Steel Greathammer my beloved)

[TWEAKER TWEAKER PUMPKIN EATER]

Originally posted by 2001 Space Oddity:

Originally posted by Flushing:

1. If I use the Chilling Mist Ashes of War on a bleed weapon like Great Stars or Flamberge can it trigger both Bleed and Frozen?

Yes, and bleed + frost or poison is a pretty strong combo.

Originally posted by Flushing:

2. Are there any non bleeding weapons that do multiple damage types (like Physical and Holy, Physical and Magic, etc.) that will also take Ashes of War for a third Damage Type?

There are a few, like the Clayman's Harpoon (physical + magic) and Fire Knight's Greatsword (physical + fire). There are also some that can't take ashes of war, but can still be buffed with magic or grease, like Troll's hammer (physical + fire) and Treespear (physical + holy).

Originally posted by Flushing:

3. If I give a bleeding weapon the Bloody Slash ash of War will it double or increase the Bleeding? Put another way do I get the core Bleeding Stats of the weapon + the Bleeding Stats from Bloody Slash?

Yes it will apply the bleed from both the ash of war and your weapon. As far as I know, any ash of war that has a projectile will do more damage if you hit with both the weapon and the projectile, so even skills that don't do bleed benefit from hitting with the weapon.

Originally posted by Flushing:

4. Do consumables, like "Fire Grease" give more + damage than Ashes of War like Flaming Strike?

Fire grease adds 85 fire damage for 60 seconds, Flaming strike adds 90 fire damage for 40 seconds, plus you have the option of changing your weapon from pure physical to physical + fire. The skill itself also does a lot of damage if you land both the flames and the weapon strike.

For other weapon buffs you'll have to look them up to see which is better, for example lightning grease is 85 lightning for 60 seconds, Lightning Slash is also 85 lightning but for 40 seconds.

Originally posted by Flushing:

5. Do weapon enchantments like Order's Blade (imbue weapon with holy damage) provide more damage than Ashes of War like Sacred Blade, which also enchants weapons with holy damage?

Incantation buffs scale with the faith scaling of your seal, so it depends. Early on, you'll get more from Sacred Blade but as you level up your faith and your seal you'll get more from the incant.

Originally posted by Flushing:

6. Are there items or stats that will increase the uptime of weapon enchantments?

Old Lord's Talisman will increase the duration of spells by 30%, but it's a late game item.

while i believe most of this is correct splitting smg types in from games has always been an issue as enemies have flat static damage resistances ie if a boss has 100 phys resist and 70 ele resist across the board if you show up with a weapon that does 230 phy a swing and 115 lightning a swing both the weapons dmg numbers will have the monsters defences subtracted from themselves. effectively splitting damage types without an aim to trigger afflictions is usually not suggested atleast beyond two types. I finished an odd ds2 playthrough a couple months back where i used a greatsword with 3 damage types while not really aiming to proc afflictions and it was ehhhh at best. just thought id toss it in here thats why youll see a lot of challenge runners and such run physical weapons primarily or magic so as to not split their damage types as infusions and what not will typically hurt your scaling for phys or vice versa

[Monad]

There's a weapon that can put 3 statuses on it at once:
Antspur rapier: Rot - Poison - Bleed

[Flushing]

Originally posted by Monad:

There's a weapon that can put 3 statuses on it at once:
Antspur rapier: Rot - Poison - Bleed

Looks pretty cool. I am not a rapier fan but will mess around with it.

[Flushing]

Originally posted by TWEAKER TWEAKER PUMPKIN EATER:

Originally posted by 2001 Space Oddity:

Yes, and bleed + frost or poison is a pretty strong combo.



There are a few, like the Clayman's Harpoon (physical + magic) and Fire Knight's Greatsword (physical + fire). There are also some that can't take ashes of war, but can still be buffed with magic or grease, like Troll's hammer (physical + fire) and Treespear (physical + holy).



Yes it will apply the bleed from both the ash of war and your weapon. As far as I know, any ash of war that has a projectile will do more damage if you hit with both the weapon and the projectile, so even skills that don't do bleed benefit from hitting with the weapon.



Fire grease adds 85 fire damage for 60 seconds, Flaming strike adds 90 fire damage for 40 seconds, plus you have the option of changing your weapon from pure physical to physical + fire. The skill itself also does a lot of damage if you land both the flames and the weapon strike.

For other weapon buffs you'll have to look them up to see which is better, for example lightning grease is 85 lightning for 60 seconds, Lightning Slash is also 85 lightning but for 40 seconds.



Incantation buffs scale with the faith scaling of your seal, so it depends. Early on, you'll get more from Sacred Blade but as you level up your faith and your seal you'll get more from the incant.



Old Lord's Talisman will increase the duration of spells by 30%, but it's a late game item.

while i believe most of this is correct splitting smg types in from games has always been an issue as enemies have flat static damage resistances ie if a boss has 100 phys resist and 70 ele resist across the board if you show up with a weapon that does 230 phy a swing and 115 lightning a swing both the weapons dmg numbers will have the monsters defences subtracted from themselves. effectively splitting damage types without an aim to trigger afflictions is usually not suggested atleast beyond two types. I finished an odd ds2 playthrough a couple months back where i used a greatsword with 3 damage types while not really aiming to proc afflictions and it was ehhhh at best. just thought id toss it in here thats why youll see a lot of challenge runners and such run physical weapons primarily or magic so as to not split their damage types as infusions and what not will typically hurt your scaling for phys or vice versa

Thank you for this. I understand.

For me I ended up defaulting to holy Ashes of War because the Golden Halberd was the best weapon I had for the longest amount of time.

I will likely do a respec soon, but I haven't really committed to a final build yet. It may be a Strength Collosal weapon build because I am most experienced with Collosal swords.

I just don't like the cosmetics of the "Guts Greatsword", but the Watchdog Greatswords are hard to farm.

It might seem boring but I may swap it with the Zweihander. It's less damage but one of the longest colossal swords in the game.