What is the point of weapons having Wither damage?

[MasterZalm]

So, I got ahold of Vanguard Barros' Sword, and its Heavy Duty. Of all the long swords, it feels like it does the most damage, but the issue is, half of its hefty damage output is in whither damage. It has great scaling, mixed Str and Agi, but it doesnt look like the Wither dmg scales at all.

On top of that, any time you hit an enemy, half of the damage dealt is reserved for the next hit, but...you still get the second hit, and IT just reserves half of the damage for the next hit, and on and on. What is even the point? Like I get stuff like soulflay, build up a bunch of wither and then it gets nuked. But if your causing wither on every hit, is there even a point other than a tiny bit of damage eternally reserved for the next strike?

The only thing, mechanically I can think of is it is for resistance purposes. I cant imagine too many non-umbral enemies have alot of wither resistance, but even then, since the damage doesnt scale, its forever trapped in a limbo of mid range damage. Unlike getting Fire scaled with Inf and Holy scaled with Rad.

[Iñigo Montoya]

This is an odd one. I gave up on this weapon mid playthrough after I started noticing that fitsroy's sword was outshining this one by a large margin and it wasn't even upgraded to the same level as Barros' sword.

The Rune slots are also really bad and don't gel with the playstyle. This weapon is not well thought out.

[Gargoyle]

Originally posted by Iñigo Montoya:

This is an odd one. I gave up on this weapon mid playthrough after I started noticing that fitsroy's sword was outshining this one by a large margin and it wasn't even upgraded to the same level as Barros' sword.

The Rune slots are also really bad and don't gel with the playstyle. This weapon is not well thought out.

My guess is wither is more effective in an PVP situation.

[Clail]

Wither damage is great, but there are a lot of weapons in the game that have split elements but only scaling for one or the other.

Weird design for sure.

[Iñigo Montoya]

Originally posted by Clail:

Wither damage is great

No, it's not.

[Sabaithal]

Some enemies are more vulnerable to wither damage than other types, so its easier to damage them reliably.

And all it takes is a kick to deal all the wither damage at once.

[☼Solaire Of Astora☼]

Wither damage is pretty good against human-ish enemies.