katana dex build

[Digital Wino]

So I LOVE all three of the souls games, and I can hardly wait for Dark Souls 3. That being said, I'm finally getting around to finishing up number 2. I've gone with a dex build with primarily katana's as a weapon. Or rather I should say Katana. I got the uchigatana pretty early on, upgraded it to +10, and have been having a hell of a time finding a weapon to replace it. I got the washing pole, and upgraded it, but it only does 10 more dmg (I have a dex of 40) and seems quite a bit more unwieldy to use. Then today I got and upgraded a blacksteel katana to +10... but still, only slightly more dmg right now. I realize that in time, the blacksteel will scale better and be better than the uchigatana. But all in all, I feel that there is a serious lack of weapon progression, at least when it comes to dex weapons. I've also talked to both Ornifex and Straid, and the stuff they can make so far (I've just started the Iron Keep, I've gotten to the Looking Glass Knight in Drangleic Castle, and I have opened up the Shrine of Winter) seems kinda lame for a dex build. I mean there are a few dex weapons, but none of them do that much damage. A few of them have abilities that seem like they might be useful in the right setting, but for the most part nothing that seems like it's worth making it my main weapon. I just wanted to poke my head into the forums real quick and see if maybe I was missing something.

[Snowhusky5]

I have no advice for you on dex weapons, but you can always try dual wielding. DS2 has actual dual wielding mechanics to make it useful, but you are gonna have to look them up because theyre pretty complicated

[Pyramid Bread]

Well Ornifex's weapons upgrade differently than normal weapons (with petrified dragon bone). I'm not sure if you noticed but after they are upgraded their damage usually exceeds double of their original dmg output unless the boss soul used to make the weapon was from a Sunken/Iron/Ivory King area boss.

Loyce GS and Chaos Blade are probably the best dex weapons from Ornifex. Also Curved Dragon GS does alot of dmg and scales S with dex but requires 30 strength to use. Maybe see what Straid has to offer, I'm pretty sure he has a couple of weps which get good dex scaling

[Ruego Al Alba]

Chaos Blade or Darkdrift, though since Uchi's moveset is so good you might just stick with it.

[space madness]

Flynn's Ring, if you have 10 or less Vitality (get this from Shulva, Sanctum City).

To power stance weapons, you need 50% more strength and dex than is required from the weapons you're trying to power stance, and not all weapons will work together.

Also, katanas tend to have rather high counter damage, take advantage of this.

[Iri]

You won't get much more per-hit damage from a pure-DEX build than from a +10 Uchi (at 40 DEX Blacksteel does just a bit more damage, but that isn't notable due to a different moveset) - Chaos Blade will take it a little higher when you'll +5 it with all those Dragon Bones and has the best katana moveset in the game, but light DEX weapons are not about raw damage.
If you still want to have STR-like damage and playstyle with a DEX build - for whatever reason - go for Curved Dragon Greatsword.
If you want to do stupid damage with a katana - get 36 FTH, infuse Chaos Blade with Lightning and buff it with Sunlight Blade - or do similar thing with Dark path - and go for counter-hits with 2HR2s.

[TrueArchery]

1) Blacksteel has a better moveset imo

2) murakumo is a DEX weapon which requires only 20 STR and hits like a truck. Very good moveset, too.

3) is it just me, or can the curved dragon gs stun you for 4 1h R1s in pvp? I mashed roll but still got hit 4 times. No lag btw.

[Artful Dodger]

I just got my dual partizans from ornifex's shop last night. S dex scaling. Who needs boss weapons? The puzzling stone sword from the dlc is also worth looking at, if you're into short range weapons

[Digital Wino]

I have more than 10 Vitality, that was actually the first stat I raised to the soft cap. Right now I'm lvl 160, so honestly I don't think I have a single stat below 10, lol.

It's not so much that I feel that a dex weapon should hit as hard as a str weapon, they really shouldn't. To me at least, it seems that a dex weapon would be more about quick strikes. I tend to play rather defensively and hide behind my shield most of the time. I havn't even paid much attention to how much dmg str weapons do, as mine isn't high enough to really use the great swords effectively. My point was more that it seems that the weapon scaling for dex weapons is kinda off. Pretty early on you can get the uchi and upgrade it to +10, and there isn't really many places you can go from there. I'll poke around online and look at what the dmgs are for the special weapons once upgraded to +5. Maybe they get really good, but they start off pretty underwealming.

I've been using the blacksteel katana for now, because I do plan on starting to put more points into dex, but I will admit that I think I like the moveset of the uchi more. The normal attack slash seems to be the same, but I like the thrust on the uchi, it's really useful when in confined spaces.

So far I've left all my weapons as the base dmg type. The problem with adding say lighting dmg, is that it decreased the physical damage to add the lighting dmg. And while the over all attack power might be higher, it is now also going against two types of defense instead of just one. Maybe it's not as bad is DS2, but in DS1, every time I tried splitting the dmg types like that, I did less dmg. I got lucky in that game too and got the black knight halberd pretty early on, and just used it for almost the entire game. The other problem is that then it usually changes the way that damage scales as well. You no longer get as much of a benefit from your main stat, because you get a benefit from another stat as well.

I know that these games aren't exactly linear, but obviously some areas you go to before others, and some areas are harder than others. So it just seems to me that it would be nice if there was a little bit more in the way of weapon progression. And maybe there is with the str weapons.

And on the off chance it makes any kind of a diff, though I don't think it should, I'm playing the Scholar of the First Sin verson on the PS4. As I understand it, other versions were updated to it, but I don't know if they have the same alternate placement. You also don't just start out with access to the DLC content. Honestly, at this point I'm not even 100% sure what is/isn't DLC content.

[Knavery]

Originally posted by MrDerpHerpin:

-_- wow, another cancerous katana user.

Don't be a jerk.

[Iri]

Originally posted by MrDerpHerpin:

-_- wow, another cancerous katana user.

Oh, hello Mr. Hater, would you kindly tell me what kind of weapon should I use if everything is cancerous?
- Straight Swords: R1R1R1R1 for lockdown, R2s for easy roll catches.
- Cuved Swords: For example, the Warped one with both high AR, 130 counter and a potential one-shot unique powerstance move.
- Thrusting Swords: Stunlock, broken hitboxes, counter damage - even before mentioning Ice Rapier.
- Katanas: Counter damage that wins all the trades for you and phantom range poke.
- Axes: The combination of base damage, infusion/buff damage, critical damage and almost 360' swings with higher than average poise damage.
- Spears: Broken magical hitboxes, shield poking, thrust counter damage.
- Lances: That phantom range on almost every attack and multihit poise damage.
- Twinblades: Red Iron Win Blade shreds you into pieces with minimal investment.
- Fist weapons: Infinite stunlock and ridiculous with Vanquisher's and Engraved Gauntlets.
- Ultra Greatswords: Extreme stagger + high range + phantom range in some cases + very high damage + unparryable when two-handed. Should I even mention Ivory King UGS?

So, there's only Greatswords and eh... Maces left?

[Knavery]

Originally posted by Iris of the White:

Originally posted by MrDerpHerpin:

-_- wow, another cancerous katana user.

Oh, hello Mr. Hater, would you kindly tell me what kind of weapon should I use if everything is cancerous?
- Straight Swords: R1R1R1R1 for lockdown, R2s for easy roll catches.
- Cuved Swords: For example, the Warped one with both high AR, 130 counter and a potential one-shot unique powerstance move.
- Thrusting Swords: Stunlock, broken hitboxes, counter damage - even before mentioning Ice Rapier.
- Katanas: Counter damage that wins all the trades for you and phantom range poke.
- Axes: The combination of base damage, infusion/buff damage, critical damage and almost 360' swings with higher than average poise damage.
- Spears: Broken magical hitboxes, shield poking, thrust counter damage.
- Lances: That phantom range on almost every attack and multihit poise damage.
- Twinblades: Red Iron Win Blade shreds you into pieces with minimal investment.
- Fist weapons: Infinite stunlock and ridiculous with Vanquisher's and Engraved Gauntlets.
- Ultra Greatswords: Extreme stagger + high range + phantom range in some cases + very high damage + unparryable when two-handed. Should I even mention Ivory King UGS?

So, there's only Greatswords and eh... Maces left?

See... That's the problem with guys like him. They have issues with every weapon in the game. And it's probably not from personal experience, but from riding the coat-tails of others with the same opinion. He's an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I've seen other posts from this guy. He needs anger management classes or a lobotomy.

[TrueArchery]

But the Ladle is op aswell. It can outdamage a (ok, it needs to be unbuffed - so it's actually impossible ) straight sword or katana with a critical.

[MrDerpHerpin]

Originally posted by Knavery:

Originally posted by Iris of the White:

Oh, hello Mr. Hater, would you kindly tell me what kind of weapon should I use if everything is cancerous?
- Straight Swords: R1R1R1R1 for lockdown, R2s for easy roll catches.
- Cuved Swords: For example, the Warped one with both high AR, 130 counter and a potential one-shot unique powerstance move.
- Thrusting Swords: Stunlock, broken hitboxes, counter damage - even before mentioning Ice Rapier.
- Katanas: Counter damage that wins all the trades for you and phantom range poke.
- Axes: The combination of base damage, infusion/buff damage, critical damage and almost 360' swings with higher than average poise damage.
- Spears: Broken magical hitboxes, shield poking, thrust counter damage.
- Lances: That phantom range on almost every attack and multihit poise damage.
- Twinblades: Red Iron Win Blade shreds you into pieces with minimal investment.
- Fist weapons: Infinite stunlock and ridiculous with Vanquisher's and Engraved Gauntlets.
- Ultra Greatswords: Extreme stagger + high range + phantom range in some cases + very high damage + unparryable when two-handed. Should I even mention Ivory King UGS?

So, there's only Greatswords and eh... Maces left?

See... That's the problem with guys like him. They have issues with every weapon in the game. And it's probably not from personal experience, but from riding the coat-tails of others with the same opinion. He's an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I've seen other posts from this guy. He needs anger management classes or a lobotomy.

i just really hate katanas.

[MrDerpHerpin]

Originally posted by Knavery:

Originally posted by Iris of the White:

Oh, hello Mr. Hater, would you kindly tell me what kind of weapon should I use if everything is cancerous?
- Straight Swords: R1R1R1R1 for lockdown, R2s for easy roll catches.
- Cuved Swords: For example, the Warped one with both high AR, 130 counter and a potential one-shot unique powerstance move.
- Thrusting Swords: Stunlock, broken hitboxes, counter damage - even before mentioning Ice Rapier.
- Katanas: Counter damage that wins all the trades for you and phantom range poke.
- Axes: The combination of base damage, infusion/buff damage, critical damage and almost 360' swings with higher than average poise damage.
- Spears: Broken magical hitboxes, shield poking, thrust counter damage.
- Lances: That phantom range on almost every attack and multihit poise damage.
- Twinblades: Red Iron Win Blade shreds you into pieces with minimal investment.
- Fist weapons: Infinite stunlock and ridiculous with Vanquisher's and Engraved Gauntlets.
- Ultra Greatswords: Extreme stagger + high range + phantom range in some cases + very high damage + unparryable when two-handed. Should I even mention Ivory King UGS?

So, there's only Greatswords and eh... Maces left?

See... That's the problem with guys like him. They have issues with every weapon in the game. And it's probably not from personal experience, but from riding the coat-tails of others with the same opinion. He's an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I've seen other posts from this guy. He needs anger management classes or a lobotomy.

and why would i need a lobotomy? or anger classes?

[MrDerpHerpin]

Originally posted by Iris of the White:

Originally posted by MrDerpHerpin:

-_- wow, another cancerous katana user.

Oh, hello Mr. Hater, would you kindly tell me what kind of weapon should I use if everything is cancerous?
- Straight Swords: R1R1R1R1 for lockdown, R2s for easy roll catches.
- Cuved Swords: For example, the Warped one with both high AR, 130 counter and a potential one-shot unique powerstance move.
- Thrusting Swords: Stunlock, broken hitboxes, counter damage - even before mentioning Ice Rapier.
- Katanas: Counter damage that wins all the trades for you and phantom range poke.
- Axes: The combination of base damage, infusion/buff damage, critical damage and almost 360' swings with higher than average poise damage.
- Spears: Broken magical hitboxes, shield poking, thrust counter damage.
- Lances: That phantom range on almost every attack and multihit poise damage.
- Twinblades: Red Iron Win Blade shreds you into pieces with minimal investment.
- Fist weapons: Infinite stunlock and ridiculous with Vanquisher's and Engraved Gauntlets.
- Ultra Greatswords: Extreme stagger + high range + phantom range in some cases + very high damage + unparryable when two-handed. Should I even mention Ivory King UGS?

So, there's only Greatswords and eh... Maces left?

sadly the game isn't really balanced when it comes to pvp.