Let me tell you about Whips (Weapon info spoilers)

[Empathy (They/It)]

Dark Souls offers a variety of weapons but most often ignored are the whips. Which is a shame because whips are actually pretty fun weapons. This post is going to be about the effectiveness and use of whips in Dark Souls, and nothing else.

All whips share the same moveset. Your one-handed moves offer a variety of short/mid range pokes, with your heavy attacks performing sweeps. The range on the light attacks is similar to that of the spear, and is pretty easy to use. The heavy sweep attacks are somewhat unwieldy however, as the whip is deflected easily by uneven or tight terrain. The two-handed moveset allows for sweeps that can be easily be spammed for great damage and accuracy, but lack the range of the pokes. The heavy two-handed heavy attack is a delayed poke that doesn't really deal enough power and range to justify it's startup speed, although it can be re-directed mid-attack. Almost all whip attacks all do leave you open, and does not have the benifit polearms get where you recover speed when hitting something.

Another thing all the whips share is their inability to be parried. This is great when using the two-handed sweep move, as it's very predictable. I've seen some unwary players attempt to parry the whip, and those that do make themselves very vulnerable. However, the tradeoff is that whips themselves cannot riposte or backstab enemies. This doesn't mean that parrying is useless, however. Parrying an enemy's attack and then using the whip's jump attack deals rather respectable damage and can finish off enemies.

Whips are also strangely effective against shields, as they ignore shield deflection properties. Shields have a invisible stat called deflection, which determines if that shield is hit, the attacker is stunned momentarily. Whips also deal some damage through shields, which is especially useful on the whips that deal status effects. It's very easy to go whip crazy on turtling opponents with the two-handed sweep and get bleed or posion in.

Whips also use very little stamina. Not only that, but their light poke is actually just quick enough to stunlock enemies with no poise. This means that even with low-stamina builds you can stunlock some enemies rather easily.

A few players like left-handing whips, as you have access to both the light one-handed poke and can parry with the whip. Left-handing the whip also tends to result in more accurate pokes, but leaves you unable to access the full moveset.

So, now I'll go over the specific types of whips. The basic whip (found in blighttown) requires a dex of 14. It weighs 1.5 units so putting it on a character is easy. There aren't really any great upgrades on it aside from normal, as the whip's damage output isn't very high. Split damage whips aren't great, and in most cases won't deal sufficent damage late game. Crystal isn't great since you can't get more whips, and raw isn't good either since it's high dex scaling means that you'll lose damage even with 14 dex characters. At best you should have a normal whip and only use temporary enchants like resins/great magic weapon/sunlight blade. Since it can deal stable damage, it's generally better to use it in the right hand to have access to it's full moveset. It's also not a terrible candidate for buffing with invisible weapon in pvp.

The notched whip requires 16 dex and is 2.5 units. This still means it's about as light as a falchon, so it's fairly light. This whip has reduced damage compared to the basic whip, but deals bleed buildup. This means it's generally used for supplementing other bleed weapons, and is better suited for the left hand. Because it's not generally not used for damage, you can generally upgrade it whatever way you want. Crystal is still terrible though, due to the inability to get more notched whips.

The guardian's tail requires 15 str, 10 dex and is 5 units. This makes it's weight comparable to a polearm, and you do need to account for the weight in most cases. It deals more base damage than the regular whip, and scales with dex less potently. This weapon deals posion buildup, and can be buffed with resins, making it poison in as few as two hits. Because of this, you shouldn't upgrade it with anything other than normal/raw/crystal since only those weapon upgrades can be have resins applied. Since this weapon can be farmed by the two guardians in Oolacile, crystal is not an unthinkable upgrade. Raw isn't as awful as it is with the basic whip, if you desire the poison effect alone and have another weapon you plan to fight with.

So, with all this info, just how effective are whips? I'd say the basic whip works as well as the spear, but synergises less with shields and tanking and can't gain the bonuses of the leo ring. On the upside, it gains bonuses to damaging enemies through shields and poiseless enemies, as well as being immune to parries and shield deflection. The guardian's tail alone is one of the few poison weapons, aside from the large club and gold tracer. The notched whip synergies great with bleed weapons like the barbed sword or bandit's knife and can get that last bit of bleed buildup in with startling accuracy.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my thoughts on whips and even if you don't end up using a whip yourself, perhaps you will at least understand those that do.

[Griever]

I was so excited when I found my first whip, being a big Castlevania fan and all. I'm not very good at using them, though.

[ZakisFluffy]

The problem is, whips in pvp, is very predictable.
It's as predictable as greatswords however doesn't have the same stunlock ability that greatswords posses.
Most players will just roll+bs that, or poise through it and exchange blows.

Most pvpers use it as backup, in the same sense as a shotel.
Or they carry it on their offhand.

Those conisdering whips as their main, might want to consider utilizing buffs.
Having an extra fixed 200-300 damage per hit is something to note.
Whips can't be parried and have better range than the shotel, hence you can spam with it.
I've done this with SLB and DBM, works quite well. I'd put it in the same category as Oroboro's falchion spam.

[Empathy (They/It)]

Originally posted by Griever:

I was so excited when I found my first whip, being a big Castlevania fan and all. I'm not very good at using them, though.

That's pretty natural, since the whip sadly isn't very intuitive. Most of it's perks can only really be learned through experimentation or shared knowledge. That, and it's moveset feels pretty odd compared to every other moveset.

Originally posted by ZakisFluffy:

Most players will just roll+bs that, or poise through it and exchange blows.

I agree with you completely, though I've seen you can reduce backstabs slightly by not locking on and changing directions during two-handed sweeps. It's not enough to make it reliable, though.

[Kibbles]

Originally posted by Griever:

I was so excited when I found my first whip, being a big Castlevania fan and all. I'm not very good at using them, though.

But everyone knows in castlevania it's a combat cross, not a whip! GAWD!

[Shifty Mario]

Originally posted by Kesler:

But everyone knows in castlevania it's a combat cross, not a whip! GAWD!

Where are YOU getting the info from? Those that actually know knows that it's not whip or combat cross but a flail with a very very long chain. GOSH!

[Kibbles]

Originally posted by Shifty Mario:

Originally posted by Kesler:

But everyone knows in castlevania it's a combat cross, not a whip! GAWD!

Where are YOU getting the info from? Those that actually know knows that it's not whip or combat cross but a flail with a very very long chain. GOSH!

That's basically what a combat cross is! GAWD!