I feel it's worth mentioning that the Wakizashi dagger works in powerstance with Katanas and is essentially just a small Uchigatana. If you're Musashi fan you're gonna wanna check it out.
Just a heads up. I did make a majority of this video before the patch so the rankings are going to be a little different compared to what I think now but I do go over that in the Rivers Of Blood portion of the video
@@Mystearica ROB is better for PvE. Am at NG+7, bleed outclasses everything essentially. As it does percentage dmg, so it scales very well with increasing difficulty. ROB is also spammable Vs Moonveil, where recovery time is required. Furthermore you can use Mohgywn's Sacred Spear in your bleed build, which is absolutely op for mob clearing.
@@Spectrallivia yea you’re right. I have 25+. Duel blood Nagakiba with 50 dex and 50 arcane. I can solo just about every boss in the game. Beat Melenia on 3rd try but had help with a fellow blood user
50 vigor 20 FP 40 endurance 20 strength 50 Dex 9 intelligence 15 Faith 50 Arcane Game is cheese The only thing I could do better is make my FP to 30 and focus on Faith and intelligence to try some cool magic/Frenzy/dragon abilities Edit: I use bloodhound and Seppuku ashenwars… before the hate, I just PVE and have fun with friends. If you invade me, that’s on you but I won’t go out of my way to PVP
The weapon art on the blade of malenia can be more fluidly transitioned if you turn the camera around as you use the skill; similarly to how she tries to corner you during her fight. The ore blade should be used on enemies who don't bleed. That's why it exists.
One positive I have seen with the Meteoric Ore Blade is that it works really well when paired with some kind of party tool. Assuming your parries are good, gravitas is great as a riposte wakeup attack, and even if they dodge, being a katana it’s chase-down game is nothing to sneeze at
A Parry tool suggestion; Wakazashi, when infused with parry, has the dagger parry, but powerstances with katanas. It’s a nice aesthetic choice, and works rather well.
I love Serpentbone even if it's probably the worst of the bunch. I wish the weapon art left a poison cloud or something, to justify using it over the R2.
me too, and trust me if you know how to make your build around it and powerstance it can easily be the best katana dont listen to all these brainless rivers users lol
I like serpentbone as a power stance weapon. Mainly because the weapon art isnt the best, but that Deadly Poison buildup could be very powerful when paired up with a blood nagitana. People sleep on deadly poison, it can do so much damage.
Check out Rage Gaming’s channel, they cover the Serpent Bone katana with some add ons that buff heavy and simultaneous hits, it’s actually crazy for breaking poise
as someone new to these games, I found the unga bunga with MOB to be extremely effective, relying entirely on standard attack patterns, and Gravitas is whatever, so it's worth offhanding a good shield skill.
Meteoric Ore Blade hard counter flying enemies. They just dropped like a rock. Its high AR paired well with a shield. Barricade shield , or Carrian Retaliation shield and you chang your playstyle completely
It's also the only katana that scales with Strength over Dexterity, plus it has the Ichimonji skill froom Sekiro as a heavy attack, which hits very hard.
Glad to hear this. Been building it up past 2 days and built it exactly same. Only +16 rn but i give it to my mimic and i switch between it and my uchikatana with blood slash on it
Unfortunately the Wakizashi is incredibly bad - you have about half as much range as an Uchigatana, but you still have to use the Katana moveset (dagger moveset is a *lot* faster). And when fully upgraded and Keen infused, it has only a tiny bit more range and damage (under 10%) than the misericorde, a dagger that gets to use the dagger moveset.
In my experience with katanas i actually think the power stance is pretty bad and pointless because you don't hit with both at the same time, only with one after another and the attack speed is almost the exact same as with a single katana while with a single you can two hand the weapon for the STR bonus and better moveset. Also the power stance moveset has WAY shorter attack range than just a single two handed katana. For me, it's pretty bad.
Rivers of Blood is straight up broken right now. Spammable weapon art that has a generous hit box and range, stacks bleed really fast and staggers anything. Stack it with Exhortation of Blood and the White Mask and you can literally spam lock everything to death.
Dragonscale and serpentbone need serious help, for the former it takes 25fp for a dogwater attack and a 20sec buff that should be innate. The latter needs deadly poison buildup and more of it, maybe through arcane scaling. Of these though the dragonscale is the most disappointing. Meteoric ore blade, moonveil, and rivers of blood all have a secondary damage type and status buildup, it wouldn't be too busted to just give it innate frost buildup and lightning damage. Even if they did, it would still be overshadowed because bleed is so strong, but it'd at least be viable. Desperately needs not just a buff but an entire rework.
Dragonscale ability is for buffing, not attacking, it adds damage AND a status buff, Serpentbone literally already has deadly poison so Im not sure what you want there. The dragonscale also has the hidden 20% damage buff to dragon type enemies. Yes, bleed is strong, it is going to be strong, thats just how bleed is right now, they work perfectly fine as they are and while I wouldn't complain about a buff, they're hardly bad weapons, if you can't make them work it says more about you homie, just beat the game dual wielding both because I wanted the katana moveset but didn't want to be dependant on bleed.
@@thewingfather4325You can make anything work in this game. I'm saying both are inferior to comparable options in the katana category and they really are worse in status application too. I can use the serpent arrows with the bow and proc poison in 3 hits from a safe distance on any boss, then use a melee with more up front damage. Dragonscale blade locks you into an attack animation to apply your buff and it would be better off if it were a WA that allowed you to buff with one press then attack with a follow up input. As for the buff itself, you're spending 25fp for a ~20s buff. I can apply weapon buffs that scale with my seals to a nagakiba or whatever I want, and there are more reliable ways of activating frostbite. As you said, too, bleed is just too strong. Save for Radagon and Fallingstar Beasts most enemies that are vulnerable to these statuses can be bled. Unbuffed, nagakiba outdamages both(and has scaling on par with ds blade, better than serpentbone's) at base as do meteoric, rivers, and moonveil, and I don't know how much more damage dragonscale gets while buffed but you have to constantly use L2 to keep it up whereas others are more consistent and incant buffs will last longer. Would've been nice if serpentbone had arcane to increase the poison scaling and if dragonscale had faith scaling just to cement it as a unique katana option for faith builds, it's a missed opportunity. They're just worse options than their peers in almost all cases. Kind of sucks cause they're the best looking katanas of them all, imo.
Thanks for this video! Super helpful stuff. Bumping the idea of a tier list for craftable consumables in PVP again! Even now there's literally no other channel that even touches the subject, but there seem to be a lot of strong craftable consumables (e.g. crystal dart, albinauric pot, oil pot for low-level fire builds).
You haven't ever gone over lightning infusion, which scales off of dexterity. Might be a good backup for katanas for enemies that are immune to magic/cold/bleed!
More of a an offline advantage but the Ore blades ashes can be quite effective at sucking in a group of npc enemies and staggering them for you to be able to quickly get rid of them, also the initial stab into the ground before the ashes pulls enemies in can do decent damage if it connects with an enemy
Scarlet rot is a better status than Poison. It does more damage and lasts a decent amount of time. Poison lasts longer and deals less damage, which isn't exactly useful most of the time. It would be cool if poison's damage depended on your increased depending on your fp and stamina use in a later balance patch
@empreus Rot is infinitely better than poison but... Poison does scale if the weapon that applies it scales with Arcane (And you have levels in Arcane of course) and there is a Talisman to enhance it. Also the mushroom Armor Set which does the same.
Equip the poison talisman and the mushroom helm, then you can proc with poison just like bleed or cold. Occult uchi or Kiba with poison moth plus the poison katana could do both bleed and poison. Rot could come from rot breath if you have dragon communion seal.
rivers of blood with 60 arcane Stat and flame grant me Strength incantation is nuts. AR is a little over 800, with like 114 bleed build up. if you powerstance them on new game+ it's insane
@@Miishal3 powerstance is when you have two weapons equipped of the same type, one in each hand. 2 katanas for example. it opens up new moves and combos. You can still use regular light and heavy attacks with your primary hand, but if you use the left hand light attack you will do dual wield combos. including a new jump attack, roll attack, backstep attack
Im so sad serpent bone blade is stuck essentially two heavy attacks and no ash of war. Like come on, the scarlet rot rapier gets to be infused but the poison katana can't? Also wish the dragon katana was just better in any reasonable way. ice lighting is way to cool to to suck.
"everyone should know what it is" they say, being my first elden ring video coz I was avoiding watching any until I got annoyed that the stat requirements for all the weapons I'm finding are so far off and I don't know if they suck or not until after I level up to wield them
I just did a run with meteoric blade and its damage is insane that I ended going to ng+ to dual wield it and I have done that second run really easy, for me the best damage scaling katana over all katanas in game, my stats 80 str / 40 int it got almost 750 AR x2 dual wield, it melt bosses so easily. The R2 you can put the charge talisman and the tear and you can get insane damage.
@@P10-m9p kind of late to reply and im sure there are guides out there already. Theres a soft cap melee arcane scaling at 50. So i personally run 55 dex boosted to 60 by radagon and 50 arcane and i dump the rest into vigor and endurance.
Very nice video, needed this since I’ve never really used katanas and wanted to start using them. You should also do more pvp build videos, I’ve been really enjoying pvp even if there’s bugs and exploits
Moonveil was stealth nerfed and I don't see it being top 3 anymore. The ridiculous amounts of stagger/poise damage was reduced, so knocking down bosses doesn't happen as frequently. Other than that, good guide.
Note about Hand of Melania, is that heavier hitting bosses can actually knock you out of the animations of both the wind up, and the attack itself. So I would not reccomend it against high poise hard hitting bosses.
Wait, do you think if we have high enough poise and a heavy enough weapon we can actually knock her out of the animation during her boss fight too? I never tried it
@@GehrmansWheelchair well my mimic did that dual wielding uchigatana/moonveil. she lifted up into the air so i ran, then she came down but my mimic knocked her out after the first couple strikes. but it’s probably hard af obviously
you can knock malenia out of her startup when shes doing waterfowl with a status effect like frost or bleed, the most reliable method is a freezing pot.
Interesting guide, I really enjoyed watching it. I also made some tests with the bleed infusion, since you stated that it is not worth it and have a different opinion. With high enough arcane the base damage becomes significantly higher than when not using bleed, while the bleed stat also gets really high. So even with buffing the weapon you are not better off than simply going for bleed and seppuku that adds 30 raw damage as you need go through two defenses, when buffing and proc bleed less often.
The nagakiba is actually great occult infused if you build for it, and spinning slash is better than unsheathe if you're going arcane for the bleed buildup. Also, double slash is great to build up status effects.
Idk how you'd cover it, but I'd love to see a guide on which typing to use. I saw that on some weapons occult bleed proccs faster than with the blood infusion. Is there a way to tell which infusion is best/ how do they compare to seppuku / blood flame buffs? Also, sometimes occult makes the base dmg go down, while other times it goes up & same goes for the scaling. What does the number next to bleed mean? It's not the flat value, since the same weapon in occult proccs bleed faster @80 bleed than 114 bleed when blood infused. I don't get it - is it movesets dependent /diff per weapon / infusion based? Why are all those values so wanky 😭 Sounds like way more work to switch between, rather than just swapping the weapons, but I rly want some info on that minmaxing!
Why does faith not pair well with any Katana? Just curious as I’m still experimenting with weapon choices. Currently making a faith build but haven’t decided on a weapon I like. your previous vids were extremely helpful
None of them initially scale with faith . You can only apply ashes of war to the Uchigatana and Nagakiba. So the choice is very limited. That being said, both are very good weapons.
True, I only use faith as a third stat to enable dragon incantations and the nasty end game killer blood flies or whatever it's called and some buffs. Not as a main stat. I'm really interested in trying the coded sword though, so tired of the heavily armored knights with shields in the endgame.
Rivers of Blood is objectively the strongest. It can almost 1 tap most players since the weapon art actually does two hits for the price of one. And it slaps. But you dont HAVE to be a bleed katana user if you wanna be melee. The magma blades can be extremely good. The collosal swords. A non-fingerprint shield and spear is nice. I dont count fingerprint since it's technically bugged with not draining stamina and ignoring aoes.. Theres other options is all I'm saying
I assume he backup his game, and just find the old save when he test other weapon. He could also dupe weapon with an co-op partner, but that also work similar with giving away a weapon and then use an backup save that still has that weapon.
I thought he mentioned killing someone for a ballbearing that allows you to buy as many smithing stones as you want, but I don't know if that covers all types since I haven't done that yet.
You can only upgrade the weapon to the final level with ancient dragon stones of a limited quantity. You can buy materials to go to +9 somber or +24 normal with bell bearings, though.
Keen would be better because you can just put seppuku or a blood buff/armament on your keen weapon, i tried out occult with 60 aracne it was good but in my opinion i prefer keen because it gives you way more options
Occult at 80 arcane is better. Top end dmg is nice, but try hitting the same target with a high dex build and a high arc build with occult, and you'll clearly see top end dmg is not indicative of weapon DPS because it doesn't account for bloodlust procs, which will happen more often with high arcane. Rivers of blood is far and above every weapon on this "list" in terms of DPS.
I will say that the lightning on Dragonscale Blade does scale with Faith, so if you got 45 faith it will do you 130 extra damage. I tested this on a DB that was not levelled up. But I assume it will probably not scale the lightning more at +10. So it might have a use in a Dex/Faith build, but of course you could always use Lightning buffs, or Bloodflame Blade on a Uchigatana or Nagakiba that will do probably much more damage. Edit: This weapon seem to got a buff from last patch as it does also 130 lightning damage with 24 faith, so I assume it got 130 damage whatever your faith stat is. So they gave it 70 more lightning damage. Not that it change much as it doesn't change the lack of bleed.
I think its very strange that it not only doesn't have bleed, but it also doesn't have frost build up innately? It just seems to me like something it should def do. I really like the faith spells for ice lightning, they're super cool, so when I got it, I was so excited and maxed it out, but its super underwhelming in a build with some dex and most faith. The weapon art is really cool and does LOTS of damage for me, but its so slow and the buff is so short. :(
The base uchi with occult with dual seppuku is the highest dps you can pair it with mogh blood talisman blood mask rotten winged insignia hand of milicent dragon communion seal swarm of flies Use golden vow then flame grant me strength left hand sepuku right hand sepuku base uchi or curved scavangers sword use jump attack does 4 it's with one jump attack insta procs bleed anything that bleeds this setup kills the fastest theres no need for frost
Don’t listen to this guy on what to infuse your weapon with. He’s got good advice otherwise (I left a like) but he’s misinformed on how some of the best damage scaling with infusions and spell buffs work.
Because there are more options with faith weapons with straight swords so powerstancing weapons are much more preferable with straight swords however if you don’t care for powerstancing then there’s nothing wrong with just buffing your weapon
When you get it that ash is applied to it yes but it isn't the default. You can apply that piercing fang that came with it to other weapons upon acquisition.
Nah, I'm running a nagakibo with unsheathe/lightning armament Uchi in left with sacred scaling golden vow/sacred blade. + Flame grant me strength is ez
The problem is that in order to be 'as efficient' as the builds that utilize the weapons proper scaling you need to apply extra steps. Extra steps that could be spent supplementing your damage on a weapon that your build already properly scales to. You can certainly do it with a Faith/Dex build but there are a ton of other options that will not only allow for equivalent (Or more) Damage but will allow you to use your memory slots for other things outside of just buffing your weapon. The Nagakiba scales with Faith but not 'particularly' well and there are a lot of weapons that outclass it in terms of Faith scaling.
Faith dex is fine. I use 32 faith 45 arcane 50 dex just to get the right incantations and 300+ scaling on dragon communion. I also have 50 dex but I dont actually need it if I use Occult infusion. Still the extra damage is nice.
Lol compare the damage numbers between Blood Uchigatana in this recording and Keen Uchigatana (affinity) and it seems like the blood does more damage...you said the extra 34 bleed wasn't worth it for the loss in scaling but the numbers show Blood at 247+303 and the Keen at 258+294...it scales BETTER, just has a -10 to the base damage. Plus that's nearly 50% of your bleed! Seems super worth. Maybe review and see if you misspoke? I'm not super far in the game myself, so it's also possible I missed something. Loved the video, keep it up!
Not sure if this is your ranking after the patch? But I’m gonna have to highly disagree. I’m currently almost level 500 and I’d have to say the top 4 katanas in order are the RoB, Hand of Malenia, Moonveil, and Uchigatana. But to each their own!
@@gtavtheavengergunnerlegend3340 I posted this 2 months ago, when I had already surpassed level 500. I’ve used all the katanas to their maximum potential. I stopped playing a long time ago, so I have no idea if there has been patch balances
Great now I’m undecided on my build. I wanna do a dex, faith build with dual wield but I’m undecided on going for the scythes build you showed or HoM and Nagakiba dual wield. The scythe build seems a bit better especially since it scales with faith but HoM ability seems rlly cool and katanas would have a faster moveset. Anyone have any thoughts?
I feel it's worth mentioning that the Wakizashi dagger works in powerstance with Katanas and is essentially just a small Uchigatana. If you're Musashi fan you're gonna wanna check it out.
I am lol
Can you give the wakizashi parry art of war? Cause that would be awesome
@@jamesmiller6886 you can!
@@jamesmiller6886 you can! and that gives it the dagger parry which is excellent.
Aoshi from Kenshin vibes using a short sword for defense and the long katana for offense
NOTE: Do NOT defeat the Fire Giant before fighting Okina, otherwise he will NOT spawn and you have to go to NG+
Damn... I was stoked to have killed the giant now I’m not anymore.
Update 1.04 has officialy fixed this thank god.
phew…. glad i ran into okina first lol
Good, less people with the broken op weapon lmao
@@pimp_floyd5024 imagine caring what weapon people use in pve. and if you’re a pvp person and can’t counter rivers idk what to tell you… get good ?
Just a heads up. I did make a majority of this video before the patch so the rankings are going to be a little different compared to what I think now but I do go over that in the Rivers Of Blood portion of the video
I don't do PVP at all, do you still think that Moonveil is still better than Rivers of Blood after the patch?
Thank you!
Again ,thanks for ur work man.
been wondering since the previous video what armor you have on? and great vid as always
@@Baksodiskon goldmask set. The helmet is from the fur set
@@Mystearica ROB is better for PvE. Am at NG+7, bleed outclasses everything essentially. As it does percentage dmg, so it scales very well with increasing difficulty. ROB is also spammable Vs Moonveil, where recovery time is required. Furthermore you can use Mohgywn's Sacred Spear in your bleed build, which is absolutely op for mob clearing.
Currently, River of Blood should be No1 just by the sheer amount of damage
idk why but rivers of blood does less damage for me than the nagakiba
Agreed
@@Spectrallivia yea you’re right. I have 25+. Duel blood Nagakiba with 50 dex and 50 arcane. I can solo just about every boss in the game. Beat Melenia on 3rd try but had help with a fellow blood user
50 vigor
20 FP
40 endurance
20 strength
50 Dex
9 intelligence
15 Faith
50 Arcane
Game is cheese
The only thing I could do better is make my FP to 30 and focus on Faith and intelligence to try some cool magic/Frenzy/dragon abilities
Edit:
I use bloodhound and Seppuku ashenwars… before the hate, I just PVE and have fun with friends. If you invade me, that’s on you but I won’t go out of my way to PVP
@@JoeVahns start leveling arcane lmao, the difference will be huge.
The weapon art on the blade of malenia can be more fluidly transitioned if you turn the camera around as you use the skill; similarly to how she tries to corner you during her fight. The ore blade should be used on enemies who don't bleed. That's why it exists.
FYI - moonveil was stealth nerfed slightly. The weapon art is apparently slower, I haven't tested it, but for those interested, check it out.
I've been playing with it, really doesn't feel much different, I'm just trading with the r2 weapon art a little more often
@@silverboulanger2 yep, nothing major after testing it myself, still OP
@@IVANGUARDI pvp not much change pve staggering is harder now.
Moonveil WA does less poise damage so it doesn’t god stagger bosses but it’s damn near unchanged in PVP
It wasn't nerfed. And they'd say it if it was. There's no logical point to "stealth nerfs".
One positive I have seen with the Meteoric Ore Blade is that it works really well when paired with some kind of party tool. Assuming your parries are good, gravitas is great as a riposte wakeup attack, and even if they dodge, being a katana it’s chase-down game is nothing to sneeze at
A Parry tool suggestion;
Wakazashi, when infused with parry, has the dagger parry, but powerstances with katanas. It’s a nice aesthetic choice, and works rather well.
I love Serpentbone even if it's probably the worst of the bunch. I wish the weapon art left a poison cloud or something, to justify using it over the R2.
me too, and trust me if you know how to make your build around it and powerstance it can easily be the best katana dont listen to all these brainless rivers users lol
I like serpentbone as a power stance weapon. Mainly because the weapon art isnt the best, but that Deadly Poison buildup could be very powerful when paired up with a blood nagitana.
People sleep on deadly poison, it can do so much damage.
Check out Rage Gaming’s channel, they cover the Serpent Bone katana with some add ons that buff heavy and simultaneous hits, it’s actually crazy for breaking poise
Trick Question use Serpentbone because its the coolest and the most honest weapon here. No one shot gimmicks, no bleed, just a fun weapon.
as someone new to these games, I found the unga bunga with MOB to be extremely effective, relying entirely on standard attack patterns, and Gravitas is whatever, so it's worth offhanding a good shield skill.
Post-Patch Rivers of Blood should be No1 IMO. The damage and the bleed buildup are fantastic
Yes, but this video was made pre patch
post patch nagakiba even with seppuku does do a little less damage but still its bleed is SO much better. id still argue RoB is inferior
Meteoric Ore Blade hard counter flying enemies. They just dropped like a rock.
Its high AR paired well with a shield. Barricade shield , or Carrian Retaliation shield and you chang your playstyle completely
yh and it does trash damage, has the worst bleed build up of all the katanas and has the least range with the worst scaling
It's also the only katana that scales with Strength over Dexterity, plus it has the Ichimonji skill froom Sekiro as a heavy attack, which hits very hard.
If it’s ash of war had a follow up attack similar to the one you get from Astel’s remembrance, I feel like it would be a lot better
Totally subjective but I'm on NG3 and the +25 Cold Nagakiba with Bloodhound Step has been by far my favorite weapon.
Glad to hear this. Been building it up past 2 days and built it exactly same. Only +16 rn but i give it to my mimic and i switch between it and my uchikatana with blood slash on it
i have not heard of a more degenerate build in my life shameful
@@combatking2433 I have not seen a more degenerate person. Let the man enjoy his build, it’s not affecting you
Glad they are putting even more effort on balance and repairs.
You forgot the hidden katana, the wakizashi, its a dagger with katana moveset and can be powerstanced with katanas hue
Unfortunately the Wakizashi is incredibly bad - you have about half as much range as an Uchigatana, but you still have to use the Katana moveset (dagger moveset is a *lot* faster). And when fully upgraded and Keen infused, it has only a tiny bit more range and damage (under 10%) than the misericorde, a dagger that gets to use the dagger moveset.
@@soleil2947 but it's cool though
@@soleil2947 its a dagger for parrying while powerstancing katanas tho
@@WumboGuy argument pulverized
In my experience with katanas i actually think the power stance is pretty bad and pointless because you don't hit with both at the same time, only with one after another and the attack speed is almost the exact same as with a single katana while with a single you can two hand the weapon for the STR bonus and better moveset. Also the power stance moveset has WAY shorter attack range than just a single two handed katana.
For me, it's pretty bad.
Great content! The "crouching attack" is simply the same as the rolling attack
If you use blood hounds step then attack it’s also the same
That's not always the case I believe
I reckon that serpentbone isn't that good for using in your main hand, but would be really good as an offhand weapon
Rivers of Blood is straight up broken right now. Spammable weapon art that has a generous hit box and range, stacks bleed really fast and staggers anything. Stack it with Exhortation of Blood and the White Mask and you can literally spam lock everything to death.
oof now rivers of blood is probably a contender for 1, it melts in pvp its crazy
Dragonscale and serpentbone need serious help, for the former it takes 25fp for a dogwater attack and a 20sec buff that should be innate. The latter needs deadly poison buildup and more of it, maybe through arcane scaling. Of these though the dragonscale is the most disappointing. Meteoric ore blade, moonveil, and rivers of blood all have a secondary damage type and status buildup, it wouldn't be too busted to just give it innate frost buildup and lightning damage. Even if they did, it would still be overshadowed because bleed is so strong, but it'd at least be viable. Desperately needs not just a buff but an entire rework.
Dragonscale ability is for buffing, not attacking, it adds damage AND a status buff, Serpentbone literally already has deadly poison so Im not sure what you want there. The dragonscale also has the hidden 20% damage buff to dragon type enemies. Yes, bleed is strong, it is going to be strong, thats just how bleed is right now, they work perfectly fine as they are and while I wouldn't complain about a buff, they're hardly bad weapons, if you can't make them work it says more about you homie, just beat the game dual wielding both because I wanted the katana moveset but didn't want to be dependant on bleed.
@@thewingfather4325You can make anything work in this game. I'm saying both are inferior to comparable options in the katana category and they really are worse in status application too. I can use the serpent arrows with the bow and proc poison in 3 hits from a safe distance on any boss, then use a melee with more up front damage. Dragonscale blade locks you into an attack animation to apply your buff and it would be better off if it were a WA that allowed you to buff with one press then attack with a follow up input. As for the buff itself, you're spending 25fp for a ~20s buff. I can apply weapon buffs that scale with my seals to a nagakiba or whatever I want, and there are more reliable ways of activating frostbite. As you said, too, bleed is just too strong. Save for Radagon and Fallingstar Beasts most enemies that are vulnerable to these statuses can be bled. Unbuffed, nagakiba outdamages both(and has scaling on par with ds blade, better than serpentbone's) at base as do meteoric, rivers, and moonveil, and I don't know how much more damage dragonscale gets while buffed but you have to constantly use L2 to keep it up whereas others are more consistent and incant buffs will last longer. Would've been nice if serpentbone had arcane to increase the poison scaling and if dragonscale had faith scaling just to cement it as a unique katana option for faith builds, it's a missed opportunity. They're just worse options than their peers in almost all cases. Kind of sucks cause they're the best looking katanas of them all, imo.
For the serpentbone it synergies well with the kindred of rot talisman.
i agree with giving it more deadly poison build up but arcane scaling? nah
Rivers of Blood is the strongest imo. With certain Winged Sword Insignia and Lord of Blood's Exultation it dominates bosses and enemies.
The White Mask from the War Surgeon Set makes it pretty ridiculous as well. Dual wield Rivers of Blood and a +25 Uchi with Seppuku.
@@Sabamonster what about +25 Naga with Sepuku?
@@LetsLvl_Up imo Nagakiba is more ideal, the range is what really sets it apart from Uchi.
Thanks for this video! Super helpful stuff. Bumping the idea of a tier list for craftable consumables in PVP again! Even now there's literally no other channel that even touches the subject, but there seem to be a lot of strong craftable consumables (e.g. crystal dart, albinauric pot, oil pot for low-level fire builds).
You haven't ever gone over lightning infusion, which scales off of dexterity. Might be a good backup for katanas for enemies that are immune to magic/cold/bleed!
More of a an offline advantage but the Ore blades ashes can be quite effective at sucking in a group of npc enemies and staggering them for you to be able to quickly get rid of them, also the initial stab into the ground before the ashes pulls enemies in can do decent damage if it connects with an enemy
Hand of Malenia may not be the very best but it holds the most sentimental value for me
haha same, like a trophy after a tremendous battle; probably the only reason I'm using it
Scarlet rot is a better status than Poison. It does more damage and lasts a decent amount of time. Poison lasts longer and deals less damage, which isn't exactly useful most of the time. It would be cool if poison's damage depended on your increased depending on your fp and stamina use in a later balance patch
@empreus Rot is infinitely better than poison but... Poison does scale if the weapon that applies it scales with Arcane (And you have levels in Arcane of course) and there is a Talisman to enhance it. Also the mushroom Armor Set which does the same.
Equip the poison talisman and the mushroom helm, then you can proc with poison just like bleed or cold. Occult uchi or Kiba with poison moth plus the poison katana could do both bleed and poison. Rot could come from rot breath if you have dragon communion seal.
rivers of blood with 60 arcane Stat and flame grant me Strength incantation is nuts. AR is a little over 800, with like 114 bleed build up. if you powerstance them on new game+ it's insane
Add white mask and blood lords exaltation and I hit well over 1k after a single blood proc
What do u mean by powerstance? Sorry I’m new to DS games lol
@@Miishal3 powerstance is when you have two weapons equipped of the same type, one in each hand. 2 katanas for example. it opens up new moves and combos. You can still use regular light and heavy attacks with your primary hand, but if you use the left hand light attack you will do dual wield combos. including a new jump attack, roll attack, backstep attack
@@carsonkouts oh i get it now, thanks and I’m gonna try it with RoB in my NG+
@@carsonkouts can you still do the rivers of blood ash of war if you power stance it?
Im so sad serpent bone blade is stuck essentially two heavy attacks and no ash of war. Like come on, the scarlet rot rapier gets to be infused but the poison katana can't? Also wish the dragon katana was just better in any reasonable way. ice lighting is way to cool to to suck.
I saw another comment saying that the lightning scales up with faith and Dex, I haven't tried it myself but it may be worth looking into for you.
Bleed only increases with Arcane if the weapon scales off it. If it doesn't leveling Arcane does nothing for it.
Serpentbone blade deals deadly poison, not regular poison. I feel like that should bump its viability up at least a bit.
Serpentbone blade needs a buff, it is one of the most beautiful looking katana’s I have seen.
"everyone should know what it is" they say, being my first elden ring video coz I was avoiding watching any until I got annoyed that the stat requirements for all the weapons I'm finding are so far off and I don't know if they suck or not until after I level up to wield them
I just did a run with meteoric blade and its damage is insane that I ended going to ng+ to dual wield it and I have done that second run really easy, for me the best damage scaling katana over all katanas in game, my stats 80 str / 40 int it got almost 750 AR x2 dual wield, it melt bosses so easily. The R2 you can put the charge talisman and the tear and you can get insane damage.
Rivers of blood with a proper dex arcane build i think rivals moonveil now in terms of power after 1.03 fixed the arcane scaling on the busted weapons
How much dex would be considered proper?
@@P10-m9p kind of late to reply and im sure there are guides out there already. Theres a soft cap melee arcane scaling at 50. So i personally run 55 dex boosted to 60 by radagon and 50 arcane and i dump the rest into vigor and endurance.
@@mr.international2778 Thats not late, I get questions, answers and attacks years later...😆
Very nice video, needed this since I’ve never really used katanas and wanted to start using them. You should also do more pvp build videos, I’ve been really enjoying pvp even if there’s bugs and exploits
Moonveil was stealth nerfed and I don't see it being top 3 anymore. The ridiculous amounts of stagger/poise damage was reduced, so knocking down bosses doesn't happen as frequently. Other than that, good guide.
moonveil still kind of crazy even if you can't stagger the bosses as fast.
It wasn't stealth nerfed lol, it was in the patch notes
Note about Hand of Melania, is that heavier hitting bosses can actually knock you out of the animations of both the wind up, and the attack itself. So I would not reccomend it against high poise hard hitting bosses.
Wait, do you think if we have high enough poise and a heavy enough weapon we can actually knock her out of the animation during her boss fight too? I never tried it
@@GehrmansWheelchair well my mimic did that dual wielding uchigatana/moonveil. she lifted up into the air so i ran, then she came down but my mimic knocked her out after the first couple strikes. but it’s probably hard af obviously
you can knock malenia out of her startup when shes doing waterfowl with a status effect like frost or bleed, the most reliable method is a freezing pot.
Killing it man keep up the good work !
Rivers of blood is super effing op
Interesting guide, I really enjoyed watching it. I also made some tests with the bleed infusion, since you stated that it is not worth it and have a different opinion.
With high enough arcane the base damage becomes significantly higher than when not using bleed, while the bleed stat also gets really high. So even with buffing the weapon you are not better off than simply going for bleed and seppuku that adds 30 raw damage as you need go through two defenses, when buffing and proc bleed less often.
That cosplay or whatever its typically called in the souls community is amazing. 12/10
Serpentbone is pretty fun. Can pair it up with coil shield for more poison.
i use it with the rivers of blood pretty fun build ups of blood and poison
The nagakiba is actually great occult infused if you build for it, and spinning slash is better than unsheathe if you're going arcane for the bleed buildup.
Also, double slash is great to build up status effects.
This entire weapon category needs a major nerf
It is worth noting that the poison damage inflicted by serpentbone blade is over twice than normal poison damage (according to the wiki)
Idk how you'd cover it, but I'd love to see a guide on which typing to use.
I saw that on some weapons occult bleed proccs faster than with the blood infusion. Is there a way to tell which infusion is best/ how do they compare to seppuku / blood flame buffs?
Also, sometimes occult makes the base dmg go down, while other times it goes up & same goes for the scaling.
What does the number next to bleed mean? It's not the flat value, since the same weapon in occult proccs bleed faster @80 bleed than 114 bleed when blood infused. I don't get it - is it movesets dependent /diff per weapon / infusion based? Why are all those values so wanky 😭
Sounds like way more work to switch between, rather than just swapping the weapons, but I rly want some info on that minmaxing!
Why does faith not pair well with any Katana? Just curious as I’m still experimenting with weapon choices. Currently making a faith build but haven’t decided on a weapon I like. your previous vids were extremely helpful
Faith is great. Bloodflame blade adds fire damage, more bleed, and a bleed dot that lasts about 4 to 5 seconds keeping the buildup going.
None of them initially scale with faith . You can only apply ashes of war to the Uchigatana and Nagakiba. So the choice is very limited. That being said, both are very good weapons.
True, I only use faith as a third stat to enable dragon incantations and the nasty end game killer blood flies or whatever it's called and some buffs. Not as a main stat. I'm really interested in trying the coded sword though, so tired of the heavily armored knights with shields in the endgame.
Rivers still is super op and is fast and should be number 1. Then moonviel.
Moonviel was nerfed just wasnt in the patch notes. Range was reduced on projectile by like 20% and the damage was reduced by like 20% as well
no lol all they did was reduce the poise damage it does.
@@carsonkouts I checked the param files and they reduced the damage and range as well... Its literally in the numbers man LOL
Lookin at your character first thing in the video was way funnier than it should’ve been 😂😂😂
Rivers of Blood is objectively the strongest. It can almost 1 tap most players since the weapon art actually does two hits for the price of one. And it slaps.
But you dont HAVE to be a bleed katana user if you wanna be melee. The magma blades can be extremely good. The collosal swords. A non-fingerprint shield and spear is nice.
I dont count fingerprint since it's technically bugged with not draining stamina and ignoring aoes..
Theres other options is all I'm saying
These are excellent videos man, appreciate the time and effort.
After the patch, would you say Rivers of Blood is the best one ?
How does one get a lot of the ancient somber and ancient dragon smithing stones? Like how does he have so many +25 and +10? Just curious
I assume he backup his game, and just find the old save when he test other weapon. He could also dupe weapon with an co-op partner, but that also work similar with giving away a weapon and then use an backup save that still has that weapon.
I thought he mentioned killing someone for a ballbearing that allows you to buy as many smithing stones as you want, but I don't know if that covers all types since I haven't done that yet.
You can only upgrade the weapon to the final level with ancient dragon stones of a limited quantity. You can buy materials to go to +9 somber or +24 normal with bell bearings, though.
Looking forward to a best int weapons like your best faith weapon video
Occult makes the bleed on weapons scale so it can really be quite good
Keen would be better because you can just put seppuku or a blood buff/armament on your keen weapon, i tried out occult with 60 aracne it was good but in my opinion i prefer keen because it gives you way more options
Occult at 80 arcane is better. Top end dmg is nice, but try hitting the same target with a high dex build and a high arc build with occult, and you'll clearly see top end dmg is not indicative of weapon DPS because it doesn't account for bloodlust procs, which will happen more often with high arcane. Rivers of blood is far and above every weapon on this "list" in terms of DPS.
Blood Uchi is amazing. You're forgetting blood damage trumps base DPS, especially if you use Seppuku
Meteorics r2 is underrated
I will say that the lightning on Dragonscale Blade does scale with Faith, so if you got 45 faith it will do you 130 extra damage. I tested this on a DB that was not levelled up. But I assume it will probably not scale the lightning more at +10. So it might have a use in a Dex/Faith build, but of course you could always use Lightning buffs, or Bloodflame Blade on a Uchigatana or Nagakiba that will do probably much more damage.
Edit: This weapon seem to got a buff from last patch as it does also 130 lightning damage with 24 faith, so I assume it got 130 damage whatever your faith stat is. So they gave it 70 more lightning damage. Not that it change much as it doesn't change the lack of bleed.
nagakiba+bloodflame blade+ flame grant me strength. absolutely crazy
I think its very strange that it not only doesn't have bleed, but it also doesn't have frost build up innately? It just seems to me like something it should def do. I really like the faith spells for ice lightning, they're super cool, so when I got it, I was so excited and maxed it out, but its super underwhelming in a build with some dex and most faith. The weapon art is really cool and does LOTS of damage for me, but its so slow and the buff is so short. :(
Did they fixed/unnerfed its R2 as well?
Everyone hates on moonveil still with it nerfed into the dirt. But make another decent int weapon… especially for int/dex like I’m running
Moonveil got a shadow nerf. I’m no longer gaurdbreaking knights.
Git gud
@@rushpatriot2866 -learn to spell.
@@Corion2121 "gaurdbreaking" seems like you're the one needing to fix their spelling
@@Corion2121 How bout get a social life and learn what social ques are. How can you be a incel and bad at the game? 🤣
@@IHydro - eat me, eat sh!t, eff you, eff your mama, eff your grandmama.
Do next (heavy) thrusting swords.
Rivers of blood is the strongest katana for boss fighters hands down.
Try dual sepuku
It is the most dps in the game 12000 damage in 3 seconds
The base uchi with occult with dual seppuku is the highest dps you can pair it with mogh blood talisman blood mask rotten winged insignia hand of milicent dragon communion seal swarm of flies
Use golden vow then flame grant me strength left hand sepuku right hand sepuku base uchi or curved scavangers sword use jump attack does 4 it's with one jump attack insta procs bleed anything that bleeds this setup kills the fastest theres no need for frost
Yup the uchi with sepukku is the best katana hands down
@@labellebryce how about Naga Sepuku?
@@LetsLvl_Up katanas are fine until you get 2 scavangers curved sword . Nagakiba has the range but the uchigatana out damages it
@Ahmad Adnan yeah my brother this is a 7 month old comment and lol still it doesnt
Don’t listen to this guy on what to infuse your weapon with. He’s got good advice otherwise (I left a like) but he’s misinformed on how some of the best damage scaling with infusions and spell buffs work.
I love hand of melenia with my whole heart, but Jesus does RoB stack bleed quickly. Both are awesome ngl
serpentbone blade has one of the coolest heavy chains ever but i just can’t stand how it looks
The serpent katana does deadly poison, not regular poison. Don’t discount the blade.
Amazing video man, keep doing this awesome work! Greetings and congratz!
When you say offhand what does it mean? Also, if you are dual wielding, how do you use the unseath ability?
I think the rivers of blood getting a nerf soon
It’s bad enough they messed with my moonveil 😩
"I would like to see [Rivers of Blood] get buffed"
Be careful what you wish for...
Why would you say straightswords are the go to for faith? What wrong with the electrify armament version of what you're doing with magic buffs/ int?
Because there are more options with faith weapons with straight swords so powerstancing weapons are much more preferable with straight swords however if you don’t care for powerstancing then there’s nothing wrong with just buffing your weapon
RoB + Moonveil let's gooo
You were wrong with nagakiba unsheathe is not the default ash of war its called piercing fang
When you get it that ash is applied to it yes but it isn't the default. You can apply that piercing fang that came with it to other weapons upon acquisition.
So the katanas suck for us faith/dex users?
Nah, I'm running a nagakibo with unsheathe/lightning armament
Uchi in left with sacred scaling golden vow/sacred blade. + Flame grant me strength is ez
Yeah I don’t think a katana is your best bet, scythes or the black knife dagger I can highly recommend tho
The problem is that in order to be 'as efficient' as the builds that utilize the weapons proper scaling you need to apply extra steps. Extra steps that could be spent supplementing your damage on a weapon that your build already properly scales to. You can certainly do it with a Faith/Dex build but there are a ton of other options that will not only allow for equivalent (Or more) Damage but will allow you to use your memory slots for other things outside of just buffing your weapon. The Nagakiba scales with Faith but not 'particularly' well and there are a lot of weapons that outclass it in terms of Faith scaling.
Faith dex is fine. I use 32 faith 45 arcane 50 dex just to get the right incantations and 300+ scaling on dragon communion. I also have 50 dex but I dont actually need it if I use Occult infusion. Still the extra damage is nice.
@@anonymousl5150 how can you get those stats and be below at least lvl 150?
Lol compare the damage numbers between Blood Uchigatana in this recording and Keen Uchigatana (affinity) and it seems like the blood does more damage...you said the extra 34 bleed wasn't worth it for the loss in scaling but the numbers show Blood at 247+303 and the Keen at 258+294...it scales BETTER, just has a -10 to the base damage. Plus that's nearly 50% of your bleed! Seems super worth. Maybe review and see if you misspoke?
I'm not super far in the game myself, so it's also possible I missed something. Loved the video, keep it up!
Dragonscale doesn’t cause blood loss either??
Rivers of blood is nerfed now so it is not as broken as it used to be
Can you do greatswords next please?
Hello ! Do you want to update the video to the current patch?
What armor are you using?
none
-this post made by colossal sword gang
why not use the blood-type for Nagakiba?
I love your character build
Is this pre or post patch? I skipped around a little if you mentioned apologies. I'm assuming pre patch as Rains of Blood is bugged
It's rivers of blood, I think you may be confusing it with the Slayer song Raining Blood ... 😆 ...great song though.
@@whispersinthedark88 you knew what I meant 😂
I can only tolerate this insanity if I'm running the Katanas Begone mod off Nexus. F Miyazaki
The timing of this coming out with the patch is kinda awkward lmao. Still a great vid tho👌
Well, obviously....
Bloody katana with seppuku ash of war and proper arcane has 140 bleed build up my dude
As cool as this video is I don't know if redid your ranking after rivers got fixed because it should be at least 4
Not sure if this is your ranking after the patch? But I’m gonna have to highly disagree. I’m currently almost level 500 and I’d have to say the top 4 katanas in order are the RoB, Hand of Malenia, Moonveil, and Uchigatana. But to each their own!
The Nagakiba is just an objectively better uchigatana tho?
@@justinwickes4962 longer range, a little bit slower. Personal preference.
Rivers, moonviel, nagakeba
@@gtavtheavengergunnerlegend3340 I posted this 2 months ago, when I had already surpassed level 500. I’ve used all the katanas to their maximum potential. I stopped playing a long time ago, so I have no idea if there has been patch balances
Can you make a video for twin blades?
can you do great curved swords, ty for those vids btw
he already has a curved sword video
what is that armor i love it
lol the orc blade uses the sekiro ichimonji
Great now I’m undecided on my build. I wanna do a dex, faith build with dual wield but I’m undecided on going for the scythes build you showed or HoM and Nagakiba dual wield. The scythe build seems a bit better especially since it scales with faith but HoM ability seems rlly cool and katanas would have a faster moveset. Anyone have any thoughts?
I’m 65 dex 80 faith and I love HoM and Rivers of blood
pray to god the dlc will give us faith katana
int weapons next plz plz
Where is your double bladed katana. 🤷🏻♂️