Slash/Strike/Thrust Effectiveness vs Enemies

[Melth]

As most of you are probably aware, there are 4 types of physical damage in dark souls.

1) There's the 'regular' type of damage which many weapons (such as straight swords, axes, greataxes, halberds etc.) use.

2) Slashing damage (mainly done by things like curved swords, curved greatswords, and katanas)

3) Thrust damage (mainly spears, thrusting swords, arrows, forward thrust attacks with straight swords etc).

4) Strike damage (mainly hammers, great hammers, fists).

There are some exceptions to the above outline and some individual attacks for various weapons which don't do the type of damage you would expect, but that general pattern holds.


Now because most armor sets available to the player have Slash defense > Thrust = Regular > Strike, I had assumed that there was a similar trend for enemy defenses. That in general slash would be penalized, thrust would be neutral, and strike would have a small advantage


I just pulled the defense data for all the various enemy types in the game, and that's actually not the case though!

First of all, most enemies (and especially most bosses) are just neutral across the board.

Secondly, thrust is the only damage type which is actually weaker against more enemies than it is strong against. It's weak against the numerous kinds of skeleton enemies for one thing, and some others too. And almost nothing is weak to it.

Thirdly, it turns out that there are actually a lot more enemies weak to Slash than resistant to it. So having slash damage is, overall, an advantage more often than a disadvantage. That really surprised me.

Fourthly, strike damage is indeed probably the best overall. Tons of things are weak to it, some of those weaknesses are extremely large, etc. It IS weak against a few enemies, but not very many.


There is usually a certain physical logic to which enemies are resistant to or weak to certain damage types, Skeletons are weak to being smashed but resistant to being poked. Squishy, fleshy enemies like pisacas or infested barbarians tend to be weak to slash but resistant to strike. Heavily armored things or stuff made out of stone tend to be weak to strike and resistant to slash.

But there are also a few weird exceptions. The evil bushes in darkroot garden are pretty much the only thing in the game weak to thrust. I have no idea why. Butchers in the depths seem like they should be weak to slash and resistant to strike because they're big and fleshy, but it's the opposite. And slimes in the depths don't have any special resistance to strike (they just resist all physical damage equally well)


One notable finding for PvE is that there are absolutely no enemies in the game who are resistant to both Slash and Strike damage. So if you keep a slash and a strike weapon, you're pretty well set to have a slight advantage most of the time and never have a disadvantage.

And thrust weapons are going to be very slightly disappointing overall, with the caveat that Counter damage exists and will help you when you can catch enemies in mid attack.

All in all, most enemies are neutral in defenses, but there are enough enemies with a substantial weakness or resistance that it can be worth thinking about!

[Asker]

It's unfortunate that this concept lost most of it's importance after Demon's Souls. Bringing a thrusting weapon into Stonefang or a crushing weapon into Shrine of Storms gave you a big advantage.

[dcy665]

Third move of several thrusting swords are slashes, as I recall.

Ents (the trees) are weak to fire, the weapon itself doesn't matter much, but saying that I usually pull one in with arrow (strike) and finish them off with fire. Which is normally a Balder side sword or a gargoyle halberd, both with fire+10.

[SS_BAJA]

well rip me who only uses spears, guess I should carry a backup sword too

[Bandy]

[BSS mentioned... drool...], a fav from long ago before it became a flavor of the month.

[dcy665]

Originally posted by SS_BAJA:

well rip me who only uses spears, guess I should carry a backup sword too

Spears are cool, don't get me wrong. They just have built in limitations. The wacky Catch Pole the Titanite Demons use is a great weapon. I loved it. Finally had to realize that it sucked in a narrow hallways. 'Cause I died. More than once. Low ceilings blocked the jump (strong) attack as well.

Using fire weapons with a slash, or a lunge can be useful backup choices. Don't forget lightning as several enemies are weak to it.

[Rena Ichigawa]

Originally posted by SS_BAJA:

well rip me who only uses spears, guess I should carry a backup sword too

Silver knight spear. Exceptional range, amazing damage, and scaling. Heavy attack is a very wide sweeping strike. It's even naturally divine so it can negate skeleton revivals from necromancers, and Nito. It's just a bit of a pain to farm.

[Wushiba]

Originally posted by Melth:

Interesting find, thanks for sharing!

[NightCoreMoon]

and then you have dark souls 2 take this to ludicrous extremes

[Fried Noodles]

Originally posted by Bandy:

[BSS mentioned... drool...], a fav from long ago before it became a flavor of the month.

Oh, you liked something BEFORE it was cool, didja?