Let's talk about Drakeblood Greatsword.

[Artek [General]]

To be honest i don't think this thing fits anywhere as of right now.
Yes, i heard there are couple of viable builds out there (mostly Darkmoon), but i despise buffing. Which is ironical because as DKGS user i have to keep this thing buffed to make it PvP viable (it's kinda alright in PvE allthough not without some kinkiness)

So here's some facts about this thing:
- its the shortest greatsword in the game, together with bastard sword. If not shorter. Which is a huge disadvantage since it gives you much less space to work with unlike something like Claymore or Hollowslayer which are both about 20-30% longer. No catching for rolling people with this one.
- it's the lightest GS and weight only 6kg (2,5 less than bastard one)
- it deals 3 damage types in the same time: Physical (standart), 160 innate and about +140 with 40/40 builds (so 300 in summary), and 144 for both Lighting and Magic at +10.

There are 2 problems i see with DKGS:

The problem #1 - The split damage. Despite having a good 580 AR in the stats - in reality it will deal somewhere between 150-250 damage to player-like enemies including hostile NPCs (exiles, the graveatender from the recent DLC...) which is comparable to damage of a straight sword.
That being said: you can buff the thing with resins and deal something closer to 300 damage but not more than that, which is a shame because 40/40 +10 refined claymore will actually deal more damage without any buffing required. It also will have longer reach and a thrusting attack on 2H moveset.

The problem #2 - The overall size of the thing and the fact that its considered to be "greatsword". Have you seen this thing? It weights only 6kg, the model is extremely small, almost laughable when compared to other greatswords.

I believe there could be 2 things to be done to make DKGS better in one way or another:

1) Turn the poor thing into a straight sword. With it's weight and size it's not far from Lothric Straight Sword and actually could work as very heavy straight sword instead of being very light greatsword (which is objectively worse because it does all the things Greatsword do worse and deals Straight Sword damage in the same time at least in PvP conditions).

2) The damage could be revisited and tweeked: lighting and magic damage could be reduced and physical one could be increased in return. Elemental damage types are not that good anyway because of the flat damage resistances nor are they helpful in PvE: any enemy with a decent resistance will reduce your damage output. Shouldn't a very short sword work like a shotgun and deal more damage at all times than his longer brothers?

[MrRaggaedeman]

It's decent but overall pretty weak when compared to pretty much every other gs. The only upside it has is that it consumes a very small of stamina per swing.
In the best case scenario you can keep a player in the R1 blender for quite a long time.
Other than that. It's not useless but not that great either.

[Inu]

Really a shame that it has gotten this weak since it was first seen in DS2. Back then it was... well still short, but dmg was good and moveset was great.

[Krono]

Well, like you said, you really need to buff it for it to be any good unfortunately

[Charlememe]

You could consider it a greatsword for faith builds - raw drakeblood with darkmoon or lightning blade at 60 faith is easily comparable to the hollowslayer damage-wise, which is one of if not the best greatsword. That's pretty much what it's meant for, and if you don't like buffing then it's not meant for you.

[odinigh]

Originally posted by Twenty Good Men:

You could consider it a greatsword for faith builds - raw drakeblood with darkmoon or lightning blade at 60 faith is easily comparable to the hollowslayer damage-wise, which is one of if not the best greatsword. That's pretty much what it's meant for, and if you don't like buffing then it's not meant for you.

Pale or Lightning resin, Lightning or Darkmoon Blade buff, and both clutch rings.