Last invasion was totally worth if just for that charged r2 that knocked the Phantom off the ledge. One of the reasons I like zwei so much is its efficiency. Low weight, requirements, and UGS with stomp. The fact that Astora gives you this (minus stomp) with incredible infusion scaling makes it really, really freaking good. But yeah, Astora's range and move set gives it the edge. I'm still gun shy of that fucking rolling attack. I know I can parry it now, but I still never try. In the end, it can't fling people into the air and therefore is worthless to me. Kidding, but only kind of. Great video, seriously. And a beautiful run down on a beautiful weapon.
Thank you. And believe me, it broke my heart having to exclude the Zwei and LKGS from the potential candidates as especially the latter used to be my go-to UGS. Launching people is probably the best feeling, closely followed only by getting a double parry and sex (in that specific order). For style points, weapons with stomp are definitely the way to go. But you know us Germans: if it isn't ze most efficient and effective choice, it is not worz your time. We get nervous seizures otherwise. Nasty stuff. Probably genetic.
I still cannot say if the Stomp WA is worth it or not.. It's very easy to dodge it and rarely hits people Its damage is not even as high as Dragon-slayer greatAxe or Morne greatHammer Actually, even the mad king halberd and split-leaf greatsword have better WA damage than Stomp!!
Eh youd be surprised how much youll actually hit people with it. sometimes the stomp by itself gets you outta bad situations. i also find the Greatsword full stomp more effective in gank situations. i mean shit. watch Saints vid on the sword. its literal porn when you come out victorious even after being trapped in the corner
Astora is a classic. I agree with all your points. three points to add: 1) while a lot of people know it can be parried these days, the timing is pretty tough and usually not worth the risk of getting a partial. 2) if you use the WA as a parry sort of, getting consistent hits is pretty easy (plus counter hits). The hyper armor on it is far more reliable than per example the stomp WA. What I often do is bust it out on the moment that I would otherwise do a parry, and the result is that I can charge through whatevers hitting me for massive counter damage without my opponent having the ability to reaciton parry (them being stuck in animation) 3) about rolling attacks: lothric knight greatsword stays afloat on its rolling attack. Amazing range and absolutely enormous damage paired with a leo ring (it is a quick poke after all) make it just about everything the astora has, but more damaging and easier to parry (pros and cons eh). Of course other than that its a heavy ungainly beast that works for shit on any player worth their salt.
Oh man that last one. you make some really good points. don't underestimate the stomp tho, it works really well against fishers that roll BS the first swing, you can actually catch them with a R1 outa the stomp. and popping pocket poise is amazing for GTFO of tough situations. Astoras really is an amazing ultra and you can make a build around fairly early on.
I'm looking forward to invading with the Farron Greatsword just to rustle the jimmies of you, Saint and Skitter now (the list is growing!). That aside, the Astora GS is a beautiful specimen for every point you've described. It was hard for me to put my finger on just what it was about the Curved Greatswords I didn't like so much, and this is it. The Astora is more of a _complete package,_ something where you could use every move in its arsenal and feel good about it. I need that in my weapons. Also? Your roll-catch chains with the Astora in these clips are a breathtaking sight to behold. I've never seen _any player_ line them up so perfectly one after another with a UGS of all things. Just excellent.
Hey Schwa, you should watch Sermeyu’s videos of him using the Farron GS. He taught me a lot about the weapon that I didn’t realize before, like L1>R2 combos and some things I’m sure you already know about it like the rollcatching potential of it.
Hi Nyff, I invade almost daily for about 8 hours per sitting, and wouldnt rank astora even as a top 5 invasion weapon, somewhere in top 10 probably. Nice vid! I should add some reasoning: Basically after a lot work and practice in both invasions and try hard duels, I learned that the vertical moveset is considerably superior on UGS, and Astora lacks this, despite being efficient to build for.
First of all, I greatly enjoy your content, the work you're doing is fantastic! May I ask what makes you believe UGSs with vertical swings are superior for invasions? I instantly believe that for duels, but for invasions, I found vertical UGSs frustrating to the point of wanting to rip my hair out every time I tried them. In my experience, they are good for neutral pressure against singular targets as well as for the R1 into R2 combo such as on the Cathedral Knight GS. But none of those two features are very relevant in invasions where you usually have to put up with several people at once, right? I could be wrong, but just like the Splitleaf and Crucifix, vertical UGSs to me seem more like ganker weapons than invader weapons, because they work well against singular targets, but do not shine at all against several targets at once and neither against an evasive host rolling around the bonfire. All I can give you as "evidence" for that is a considerable amount of hours spent in invasions on my part as well. Plus, as far as I can tell, all vertical UGSs weigh considerably more than the Astora, the lightest being the Cathedral Knight GS which almost weighs twice as much, making it much more difficult to reach a good amount of poise. Is there something I missed that makes vertical UGSs better for invasions?
Yea when I first used the vertical moveset I personally thought it was trash, but just so you know I made it to 2nd place in a competitive PVP ladder using the Gugs (beating out top tier builds like demon scar, PKCS, splitleaf, and Lothric sword), and I've done two sets of Gugs invasions, as well as 2 sets of astora invasions. The range is a lot better on the vertical moveset, its also harder to backstab bc the second swing strikes behind you. Realistically if you want to win your invasions you wont get into group fights, you'll actually split the fights into 1v1's. 2v1's are for showing off or getting lucky. But besides that point if you need a horizontal swipe for spread out targets the gugs has an R2 that nearly 360's all the way around, dealing considerable damage and it has the best R2 range for UGS in the game (except the RKUGS, which I dont count bc they're generally not that good as the invader). That extra range on the R1 is also very important for harrassing. Astora's light weight is nice but not really that important, for my competitive build I was reaching the armor poise that I needed pretty easily, and still maintaining a good 700+ AR on a dark build, not sure the same can be said of FUME, but FUME starts off with Great Hammer poise and superior block frames on the stomp. Anyways, just my two cents. EDIT: I didnt watch the entire vid but wasnt sure if you even mentioned the very powerful Harald Curved Greatsword, and its buddy, the Exile Curved Greatsword.
Ah I havent played ds3 in a few weeks, already feeling rusty lol. It's heavy, blocks your screen, and Im not a fan of the R2. Nice WA though. Definitely capable of 2-shotting some opponents, but I can't recommend it over the Great Club
I totally agree with your points I just found very useful against greedy people. I mostly play UGS and I'd agree with you that the Greatsword is the best (especially dark). The range and the second R1 smashing down being you makes it quite powerful. My favorite is still LKGS with Lightning Blade (backup Blessed) and an offhand Arbelast for more passive and/or skilled opponents. The damage is just obscene. I love UGS because every victory seems special and earned. I played a bit of PKCS and obviously won 90% even though I had little to no practice with weapon. Those wins felt cheap.
The Astora GS was my first love when I started invading (I'm quite a new player since I played DS3 for the first time this summer) and despite I'm now trying to differentiate the arsenal I use as most as I can, the Astora has a special spot in my heart and from time to time I still use it (together with the great mace). I don't have a deep knowledge on the game as you or many other great invaders that I follow as I try to learn something from them and mostly used it as I liked the weapon from the first time I found it and it is quite mindblowing to me to hear that it is as good as you described it since I seldom see it when I invade or I'm being invaded. This is a great video that describe very nicely the Astora GS, surely next time I use it I'll remember your teachings
Two small corrections for your video, the Zweihander has the same rolling attack as the Astora Greatsword, complete with the same properties; additionally, both weapon s rolling attacks give full use of poise health (every single other rolling attack on Poise weapons gives half the poise health of an R1). Great video, as always! Glad to see more love for the Astora's Greatsword.
Thank you for the kind words! However, I have to correct your correction (I verified this in-game just now): The Zwei has the rolling poke, not the overhead smash.
Well, that was embarrassing. Last time I tested poise values (admittedly last August or so), I saw that the Zwei had the same rolling slam that the Astora's did. Oh well. At least the Astora's abnormal rolling attack poise health is still true. Best UGS getting better after every patch. Thanks for the quick response, and keep up the great work!
i used the astora shortly after i found it on my first playthrough and have rarely put it down since. when played properly it can beat essentially any weapon in the game, yes even against high skill players, in both duels and invasions with the exception of quickstepping weapons. but it is a simple matter to pair it with an offhand straightsword, personally i like gotthards, because fashion. when fighting a skilled ss, cs, or katana user, especially in a duel type situation, you are better off going freecam and turning mid swing similar to dead angling, the r1 sweeps are so wide and have such reach that even people with thousands of hours in the game are going to have an extremely hard time getting proper spacing once you get good at this technique, especially with how much you can change the hitboxing area during its slow swing. another factor is that while people think that the timings of ultra weapons are essentially fixed this is not quite true. all ultra weapons are a bit quirky with their swings. everyone knows that you can r1 into another r1. however what most people do not appear to know is that as long as you do not enter a walking running or rolling animation you can activate the second r1 while the cancellable recovery animation plays, the one where you bring the sword or club back around and rest it on your shoulder. this animation is a few seconds in length, and if you attack from it while standing still the second r1 comes out with almost no telegraph that it is happening, allowing you to bait with the first r1 and stand there, if they try to punish you simply r1 again. when fighting other ultra weapons 1v1 the r2 with lockon is your best friend. it is thrust, so you will counter hit. as a result you should out damage almost any other ultra weapon hit for hit, so as long as you can either out hyper, or out space, you have a very big advantage. in a duel the weapon art is useless at best, suicide at worst. in an invasion against multiple people it is the most amazing thing, and probably the best weapon art in the game from a practical standpoint. the optimal use for it, in my experiences, is immediately after trading into 2 or more people with r1 r1. immediately l2+r2. then switch target to the one with the lowest health. if he runs, it chases him down and will likely kill, as it can hit for 1100 damage if the full thing connects. if he stays the result is the same. the hyper frames of the wa are essentially instant, starting the moment you push the button, and the poise health is strong enough to out hyper the full spin of ledo's great hammer weapon art with around 38 poise. and no one attempts to parry after just eating 2 2handed r1 attacks from an ugs. the rolling attack is good in all situations, but excels when fighting mages as you can dodge a spell and hit them. the closer to max range you can land it the more effective it is. people dont think you can hit them because you are so far away, and no one will ever get the parry timing down at max range. the only thing you never want to do with the rolling attack, is to roll directly at the person and activate the attack if they have a parry tool in hand. this is essentially the only time you will get parried on the rolling attack, and even someone bad at parries can pull it off. you simply telegraph your intent too much when you do this. i seem to have written a book...
Very interesting video Nyff. You go into an impressive amount of depth. After hundreds of hours co-oping on the XB1, I have joined the master race at last! I think the miserable frame rate and poor wifi connection really put me off PvP back then, but starting off as an invader now is like exploring a whole new game. Fascinating.
I also got a Dark Astora with me for quite some time now on my "meta 125" build for invasions. Mainly I use a Dark Lothric but its a beast to have off-hand! They dont expect you whooping out that thing (that was she said) and pounding them just after you rollcatched somebody 5 times in a row with the Lothric. I like it alot. Thanks for showing me new ways..I was also using the charge to punish Estus but I never used that rolling attack...figured it would be parry prey haha. Nice to see you back btw
Sorry for the weak voice and occasional snifffling, got a bit of a cold going on right now. Also, I'm genuinely putting this up to debate and am interested in what you will say about my choice for best poise weapon for invasions. Note: I will most likely argue with you. Other than that, I wish you all great holidays! Also, the build: mugenmonkey.com/darksouls3/264232
4:55 "One handed attacks, freeing your offhand to block, or parry," or for secondary weapons like a Crossbow, or Estoc. (My personal choice is a Parrying Rapier.)
I know what you mean about most weapons being only half-viable for invasions. That's what makes things more interesting for me, honestly. I'm the kind of guy who carries around 3 primary weapons, a shield, a blessed caestus, and a crossbow, just so I can have something for every single scenario. I just experiment with different setups constantly and switch to what I need if need be. Some of my situational favorites, minus the obvious ones: Man Serpent Hatchet, Great Mace, Arbalest, Glaive, Follower Saber, Washing Pole, Gundyr's Halberd, Harald Curved Greatsword, Immolation Tinder, and of course the AGS.
Great video, Nyff! I've come to appreciate the Astora Greatsword quite a bit recently, creating low-level characters for PvP and invasions, actually. Great to see this in-depth insights now! Also: it's really cool to see new content from you. I joined the PvP and invasions just around the time you stopped uploading. Checked your previous content and learned from it. But it's cool so see and read (reddit) new stuff :-D And finally: frohe Feiertage und alles Gute für 2018! ;-)
Profaned Greatsword is the best poise weapon for invasions. It lights itself on fire and launches fools into the air. Q.E.D. Slightly more seriously... Astora's is very good, particularly if you're not a dummy with the charge attack. Not a single weapon, but a combo... I find that Great Club and off-hand Heavy Caestus is quite effective, but I have not been using the setup long enough to make any claims about objective viability. Happy Holidays, Nyff!
I can see that combo to be a lot of fun. And the caestus while dual-wielded actually gives some chase-down potential too which the great club lacks. I might try that out. Was a bit lazy with commenting recently, but I really enjoy your stream snippets btw! I never catch your streams, so it's nice to be able to follow your shenanigans that way!
Oh nice! I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying the snippets. My stream times are, unfortunately, just incredibly awful for anyone living in the UK or EU. Which is a real shame, as I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of fun co-invasions and duels.
An off-hand straight sword can be very effective. Caestus provides some interesting qualities, though. Namely, it gives you access to Perseverance, which can be very useful for getting heals off safely while under duress, or backstab shenanigans. The caestus running L1 is pretty damn good too.
I've been using the Profaned Greatsword a lot recently and I've been loving it. It's pretty long, has wide swings, has the stomp for mix-ups, has the fast af pokey rolls and the pokey R2 which does a tonne of damage when it hits (The charged R2s also gain extra fire damage but that isn't too important). The sword also doesn't weigh too much compared to other UGS, only 13.5 units. This lowish weight allows my character to get a considerable amount of armour on himself for the poise as well as having a Lothric Knight sword on the side, a caestus and even a parry shield or a crossbow, if I feel like it, all without going overweight. I know the weapon has its downsides, like only really being usable on quality builds and that it can't be buffed or infused and all that, but I still think it's pretty Nito. Oh yea and also Merry Christmas my dude.
Finally someone appreciates my main weapon for what it truly is!! Even though Bloodborne trick weapons had such a variety of moves that it was hard to find any of them useless, in DS3 the only weapons which have more than two (and I'm pushing it) useful attacks are straight swords with the Stance WA, It's really nice to have people as dedicated as you who find their way through lots of weapons to find beautiful "discoveries" like this one
My setup is: 1) Dark zwei - deals 400 damage in one hit, poise, majestic r2's. I use it only for crowd control, not fast enough to consistenly punish estus 2) Dark lothric knight ss + shield - no comments, usefulness in simplicity 3) Pontiif knight cs - for roll spamming solo hosts 4) Slot 2 dark dagger - don't have spare ring slot for hornet ring, so better than chaos 5) Dark scimitar - for shield users, lkss gets the job done too, but that's just my preference 6) Fillianore's chime for estus economy Build is sl140 str 20 dex 40 int 30 fth 30 with best phys def armor, TOD swap. Armor is -Morne's helm -Harald chestpiece -Winged knight gauntlets -Harald leggins Very good def, but i wear it for the fashion :P
This video really got me into Astora GS, and goddamn do I have to thank you for that. I never knew it was this fun to use. Since I don't have enough slabs and my character is mainly geared towards physical (str and dex), I compensate with buffs (Carthus Flame and pine bundles), and damn does it feel good to use it that way. Hits reliably as long as you're a poise tank too!
Honestly, the amount of time you spend fighting a person who isnt carrying a parry weapon or they are on wake up or they are running, etc. I would say, like Nyff did, that there are more times you can use it where you cant be parried than ties where you could. I never try to use any parryable attack from neutral anyway. You sound like an invader so Im sure you dont either.
The Astora was actually one of my first dueling weapons. I sucked but my opponents sucked more, so I had some success with it. Charge is underrated precisely because it is so easily parried in the hands of a noob. The key imo is to avoid using it out of neutral. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear those mean things said about my beloved CGS. ;) I agree with what you said (85% of that class is the running r1) and the roll timings are quite easy. However most people still can’t roll it properly, and among those who can, enough pressure can make them panic roll anyway. I’ll be giving the Astora GS another look when I return home. Awesome video and I agree that finding 10 invasion weapons would be a challenge.
One thing to add is that the Astora's is one of the BEST DEX weapons in the game. Putting a sharp gem on it and putting your DEX up to 80 will provide highly similar, if not higher, damage than a Dark Infusion. On top of still being buffable as well! I recommend you give it a shot that way. Also, being DEX gives you more access to the innate scaling and high damage of most dex-based weapons without needing to elemental infuse it. Sellswords at 80 DEX are even more painful than Darkmoon Sellsword builds. And if I still haven't sold you yet, know that Astora's Charge often 1-shots opponents at this high Dex
6:36 "In an invasion context, I wouldn't consider the Pickaxe an efficient weapon." Except for Pursuit. When you have a runner, I like to Inventory Swap in a Pickaxe for Galvanize. Throw in a Blooming Green Blossom, Chloranthy Ring, and the Grass Crest Backpack, they can run, but they die tired. The Spamina recovery is insane, but be ready with another weapon to switch to (I also have a Reposting Dagger, so that works with Quickstep and rollcatches as well.) It's noice to have, when you need to stack up that much Spamina recovery. Other than that, it's not a fantastic weapon, but as you pointed out, it's a Greathammer, and it's Leo Ring compatible. (All Thrust Attacks.0 So, in Trades, you will win, you will recover Spamina faster, and if they fight back, they just take more Counter Damage.) It's a shame you have to build around it, but you can.
steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/863983481893718181/9B4D9FEB50A85DAD12D02DCD0828BFD65E7747CE/ Notice it doesn't even make my top 10 Poise weapons for Invasions, because it kinda sucks outside of it's niche. (Chasing down runners.) It sucks at rollcatching, and doesn't have a very good running attack to catch them with. That's why I have the Butcher Knoife in the mainhand, so I can pull it quick (With a slotted swap to the grass Crest) to finish them off when I catch up, but when you have that 1 host that just runs laps back and forth between Bonfires to resummon, there honestly is no better build.
The only major shortcoming of the weapon that I have noticed is that when going up against something like a poise stacked RKPGs, the weapon art doesnt have enough poise health to punish the L1 spam like a stomp uppercut on the zwei or lothric, but the again im lazy and I like sending people to the moon free of charge
Recently I've noticed that before I became more of a crit fisher that I used to use rolling R1s on ultras quite a lot. Against a person with a parry tool I'd refrain from doing them or would do various things to mix it up but against anyone else it kept pressure up to the point that some experienced high stability shield users would get their guards broken. I think as I started to fish more that I had put it in my head that it was so easy to parry punish that I generally stopped using them. Kind of re-examining old clips and gankers I started to wonder what I can adapt that give me trouble from a group but as an individual. They're still not great in many ways but using them more often again now (even against parry spammers but usually dead angled away from them to test if they'll always parry for me to later backstab) I've been finding that ultra rolling R1s are good at forcing an opponent looking to R1 stagger you out of your roll to instead second guess that action. In addition to using it for tight space chase downs and creating space for a situation reset. I prefer a different UGS myself but I do agree that Astora is likely the best from it's very high build adaptability and low requirements.
I've seen so many people try to parry it when it's being two-handed. Using the fully charged r2 on someone who invaded me actually helped me win a fight. He was all over me with a straight sword, and I couldn't get any room to heal or counter, so I went for a Hail Mary with the r2. He stood there and tried to parry it and got his ass knocked down, which finally gave me the time to estus. So, I hit him with it again. He tried to parry it again. Then he tried to parry the regular r1's.
I just recently started using vordts hammer for lvl 35 ish invasions. It is without question the best gank spanking weapon. (I USE MANY DIFFERENT WEAPONS ON DIFFERENT BUILDS)Perseverance can help you hit multiple phantoms at once with ease and the frost can many times be the finishing blow after 3 hits. Also perseverance is great to heal with since you don't have to worry about rolling and just power through, heal, and counter attack. And finally...perseverance+parry and riposte, perfect against multiple people. Bait them to hit you while activating perseverance and you can parry them after their second swing no prob. Riposte for finishing move. It is truly a devastating weapon low lvl and just gank spanks altogether.
I still like the LKG better, probably because it has that sweet heavy/sharp/blessed infusion options, the stomp, the utility of using it with a lighting bundle, which gives more damage and timings... and my fav rolling attack (I love it, it's a rollcatching machine, and I've been using it for a year now) But yeah, the Astora is my second fav, just because of his weight and the fact it has so much variety and it's always so good I've used it dark at SL 100, sharp at 120 and Raw, since it has one of the best AR buff with that infusion, on a SL50 poise monster, and it always did a great chunk with every build, leaving me with plenty of points to bump in vigor, vit and stamina thanks to the low weight needed I think unless we're talking about unique weapons like the onyx or the moonlight, the lothric and the astora's have been my all-around choice for every character when it comes to invading Great video, and sorry for my ramble Keep up the fantastic work man
Perseverance is not a crutch for True (Armor) poise, because it wears off, and anyone with PvP experience can count to 4. However, it is useful for Tanking without Turtling. The other effect (Which has nothing to do with Hyperarmor, but is useful for trades) is it Doubles your Absorption, so you want it on a good Poise weapon to begin with. Vordt's is a great example: You don't need as much Armor, and therefore Vitality, because of the Absorption Buff, and Greathammer Poise. Frostbite is the new Bleed, and it nerfs the Host/Phantoms' Stamina recovery. (Also, because of the Partical effect, you can hit all 3 with it in each swing, especially in corridors.) Again, you have to build around it, but you can. (Incidentally the main weapon I Inventory switch out for the Pickaxe when they run. Typically frostbit, so the massive Stamina Recovery advantage is even greater. Basically, I kill them in the Green bar, and then the Red bar doesn't last much longer.)
Yes the Astora has been a favorite since the beginning... that low weight, the S scaling when sharp, the range! It's so nice to have a poise option with a dex build(not that I do that), and one of the best options at that.
glad to see the Astora Greatsword get some love, little disappointed that you didn't use it when you invaded me some time ago ;-; very nice video, hope to play again sometime
Sigh, another tryhard with a dark infusion...but to be serious, great video man, enjoyed it thoroughly. If I can give my opinion, my favourite two weapons to use on my poise build are the Lothric Knight Greatsword and the Great Club. The LKG has a better moveset IMO than the Astora, specifically the rolling R1 and I find stomp to be more useful for invasions. Yes, once you've got the host down to just themself then charge is better but c'mon, we all know invasions mean multiple opponents. It's also slightly longer and lightning damage, while not dark, is still pretty respectable especially when paired with a resin or bundle. And the GC has that R2, which really can not be underestimated. I've played top level players who are far better than me that still go down to it. Plus the additional poise health is nice. And Merry Xmas dude, if you wanna to test this new love against someone who understands poise, you know where I am :)
Thanks, St1cky! If I decide to brush the dust off my PS4, you're going to be the first to know about it. Re Great Club and LKGS: In my tryhard opinion, the Great Club doesn't have anything of value besides its R2 and big poise health. LKGS is too heavy, stat requirements are too high, elemental infusions are disappointingly bad on it, and stomp - while stylish af - is just too telegraphed. Besides, why do you even bring that up, you never use it anyway! But as I said, if you're comfortable with those the most, they are the best weapons for you, no question.
Show me exactly where St1cky touched you, you poor little soul. Please refrain from commenting like this on my channel. Next time, I'm going to block you.
I made a early game quality build around this weapon recently as I heard it was good but didn't know for sure. It carried me to gank city and beyond, not as an invader but as a host getting invaded (dried fingers active for the lulz, no phantoms obviously). I would have to say learning when to use the weapon art makes this weapon seriously good at worst, op at best. I liked using it while the opponent was mid-swing as they couldn't get out of the way, put their shield up, or parry in time so they took the whole load of damage straight to the face. When they caught on to what I was doing, I just pulled a straight sword out and used that. It also allowed me to keep a lower VIT stat with some lighter armor on and still have a decent arsenal at my fingertips. Not only that, but my mainboi is a Dragonslayer's Greataxe beefyboi, so having the familiar high damage kept me going with it.
They're pretty rare, but getting a fully charged R2 counter hit (with Leo Ring) is one of the most beautiful things in the world. I managed 1300 damage in one hit the other day.
I felt like crying watching that last bit of footage, that host was just letting all those phantoms do the whole level... sad times for dark souls. Glad you managed to kill most of them though.
i feel like a lot of the positive aspects of the astora also carry into the lothric. plus, lothric's stomp is incredibly useful for ganks as it lets you get pressed up against a wall, poise through everything and fling them in the air, and get out. (also it makes you feel cool as helll to use) ill personally choose it over astora every time, even if it lacks the charge chasedown, because i value the ability to stomp out of ganks more than i value chasedowns or viability in a 1v1
where's that 37.61 figure coming from? the closest one i know of is trading greatsword against greatsword from 100% poise health. but that requires 37.58, not 37.61. if you're using astora greatsword you only need 35.39 to poise from 80% through greatsword 2hR1s. in other words poise indefinitely through their swings, though even that is overkill because they have to be wearing like full havel's to poise through your first swing so they can actually initiate a second swing that you'd need to poise through. and you need way over 40 to poise from 80% through anything heavier, but way less than 35 to poise from 100% through everything heavier. so when using ultra greatswords, 35.4 is an ideal breakpoint for not playing with wolf ring. if you add wolf ring then 45.82 is a good breakpoint since it'll let you trade R1s for R1s with other UGS or curved GS users. i would agree that 37.58 is a good breakpoint when playing with greatswords though, but isn't this supposed to be about the astora GS, an ultra greatsword?
I've always liked the astora on virtue of just how many builds it fits into, how well it handles most situations in the game (PvE and PvP), and just how early you can get this cheese machine in any given playthrough.
The Zweihander is VERY popular between JPN players, mostly BS fishers, the stomp WA is a decent way to avoid bs fishing in a some what decent connection, in a dark/chaos build it does more dmg, just weight 10 units and it's has about the same range as the Astora gs and belive it or not the R2(overhead slam) is IMO better than the thrust attack of the Astora and a decent mix-up option, as you can see in some JPN videos. As for the rolling attack, i find it faster than the astora's which i consider very easy to run around and bs.
That is very interesting. I don't follow the Japanese community at all, so I didn't know that. But one thing: Are you talking about tryhard duels or invasions?
Ah I see. In the context of invasions, I'm a bit surprised, but regarding ultra only duels, I can see that. Stomp definitely trumps Charge if done against each other, and the higher dmg output of the Zwei is relevant for trades obviously. Interesting, thanks for that insight!
hey, great video! ive been using this thing and holy guacamole is it a beast. the only issue I have found with it is that the WA will pass through some players, but that might be all charge attacks. another VERY useful thing I found is to do the charging attack, and when their knocked down, charge the r2 for a rollcatch. that can very easily make for a 1 shot combo, even on hosts.
Recently been stacking 60 poise with the Hollowslayer and it poises through everything in the game except Greahammer R2's, not sure about Ledo's Hammer and Smough's Hammer though - not like they're difficult to counter anyways. Fashion is disgusting though - Exile Mask, Havel's Armor, Gundyr's Gauntlets and Havel's Leggings with the Hollowslayer, Yhorm's Greatshield and Ring of Favor + 3, Havel's Ring + 3, Leo Ring and the Wolf Ring + 3. 27 STR, 40 DEX gives Hollowslayer about 516 AR with ungodly counterhits. VIT is pretty damn high too, about 54 I think though I'd have to check again.
Arguably, there is no "Straight Sword of the UGS Class," because none of them have Stance. I agree, though I'd argue that the Sweihander is the other one. The Stomp Weapon Art is a good substitute for Stance, while Charge really isn't. (It's Parry Bait.) You can't Parry Stomp, you just get ragdolled trying. However, it's also very heavy.
The greataxe is the same way. Just the only difference is that it hits way harder for its shorter reach and its warcry power attack is beastly. When you use it right you can even chain 2 of them together and absolutely wreck people.
You forget the main reason - it just looks nicely. Not an oversized anime garbage, just a longer greatsword with a simple and working construction that it surely goes into "acceptable fantasy" category.
"I could not master any other weapons" -Nyff I got 1200 hours in Dark Souls 3 and over half of them were played in invasion PvP with poise weapons like the greatsword or the demon's greataxe and it worked and never stopped working And for the Murakumo Just because you cannot do anything with it rather than r1 and running attack spam doesn't mean other people are this limited
This sounds like the confession booth of a reality show, but the one episode where a psychologist appears and reveals what's wrong with everyone. The Astora seems to be the exception to that group however.
One of my favourite weapons as well. If you're not using the Astora, you either haven't tried it or are going for some kind of self-imposed challenge or cosplay. It's stupidly good even after it took a few hits from the nerf hammer.
Rewatching this in 2020, I liked the observation about perseverance being more of a gimmick than a strategy. I view parries in a similar light. Yeah, great when they're there, but you cannot build a suitable foundation on that. Nyff still teaching us 2 years later.
I love how at 7:25, I noticed your German grammar kicking in. "Does not a viable poise weapon make." Ahhh, I miss German lol nice participles, but also great vid!
It is one of my top 3 favorite weapons in the game, it's sorta my "I'm done messing around" weapon. I'd argue it's not only one of the best poise weapons in the game but also one of the best overall weapons in the game.
I use Astora UGS on my quality build and Ledo's great hammer on my pure strength build. Both perform decent in invasions. The other night, I wielded Astora UGS and with the help of another invader, we smashed a gank squad of 4.
3 best poise UGS for me: Astora, Cathedral and Zweihander (8 weight, 16, 10). Fume and GS (Ultra) are too heavy, Lothric Knight UGS heavily depends on Blessed or Sharp/Heavy gems with FTH-build, Lorian GS is quality so unless 40/40 you have very decent AR, Black Knight UGS was my favorite while it has 3 hit combo but FROM patched it so it's now just pretty good pure physical weapon occasional combo potential. However quite awesome review for this UGS, but i don't like to rely on meta-weapons too much. They make me lazy and invasions become boring.
Obviously the best poise weapon for invasions is caestus cause it has dks1 pocket poise. DkS1 pocket poise it's what plants and fishes crave. AGS is a beast of a weapon though. Frohe Weihnachten, Guten Rutsch und gute Besserung, in case you won't upload anything in the next weeks. So good to have you back in dks3.
The caestus is for dirty backstab fishers, you know I'm much too honorabru for that! Vielen Dank, Domperidone, Dir auch nen guten Rutsch, falls wir uns nicht mehr sprechen!
Personally I like a combination of poise and speed so the Hollowslayer is always my first love. One invasion I almost lost but won via Leo countering the host. It does take time to get used to but if there is a need for a combination of poise and speed I go for the Hollowslayer. Although one of the first weapons I ever used was the Astora Greatsword. I do think between it and the Zweihander are the best UGS in the game and are fun when you know how to use them.
I love the Astora greatsword and have used it for many invasions. Lately I've been choosing the Dark Zweihander because it's stomp weapon art does wonders against paired greatsword L1
You make good points but I think what one of the biggest problems people have with this game and PVP in general is there's a time and place for everything, people aren't generally very adaptable or versatile in this game. When I invade I carry something quick, like a straight sword, something with some poise, like the claymore, and something with big boy poise, like a zweihander. Every weapon has a time and situation for use, most people try to just stick with one weapon and that's not always gonna work. If someone pulls out a greatshield and starts turtling to try and get a backstab, I'll switch to the quick weapon, if someone wants to play the trade game with a poise weapon I'll pull out my big boy weapon. I've fought many people who don't know how to fight an adaptable Opponent they just crumble when you have a weapon to counter everything they've got, and of course experience is a huge part of it as well. this is why I also think buffs are very situational as well, buffs keep you constrained to one weapon, while just sticking with bundles or resins can allow you to quickly and easily switch and buff weapons.
I've always found horizontal greatswords to be trash due to how they are much much easier to outspace and punish compared to horizontal greatswords. The reach doesn't matter if your opponent outspace you and punishes your attempts to stick close so they can't outspace you. Though this all depends on whether they are on their first play through,they have some experience in PvP or are silver or gold in arena. Ultras are garbage on their own and are only feasibly good in invasions or in ganks where your opponent might be distracted or unable to to focus on you. Your use of the run away then turn suddenly for a nice good 2 hit is borderline the only use of ultras in invasions and even then if your opponent can read you well have fun wasting your time just to eat what could be an you died screen
Astora UGS, Lucern, Exile, Mace, Spiked Mace, Vordt's, LKGS, BKS, Hollowslayer, RHH. In no particular order, 10 viable Poise weapons for Invasions. My top 3 are Astora, Mace, and RHH. Assuming you have enough Poise/Armor to really use them, spacing, timing, and rollcatch skills. Parrying/Backstabbing optional. (None of these really excel at those.)
I am a fan of UGS since they made them OP as all hell in DS3. I tried every single one of them extensively and I always lean towards 2 of them, Lothric's and the fan favorite, the Zweihander. Mostly everyone say that Astora's the best because of low stats requirement and low weight but the Zweihander need less stats and weight only 10 (Astora: 16/18 Zweihander 19/11). Although the Zweihander doesn't have a trust R2 nor a charging WA, it has better hyper armor from what i've experienced, has a little bit better range (might just be me) and is also an iconic weapon of the serie. Astora will always fall a bit short behind the Zweihander in term of Physical damage no matter if you use Heavy on Zwei, Sharp on Astora or Refined on both, Zweihander will always have slightly better damage and only at the cost of 2 weight. So unless that 2 weight is critical for your fashion or "optimal" build, well stay with the Astora but as far as personal experiences went for me, I always found myself enjoying flipping people trying to foolishly R1 spam me more than charging at someone that was rolling away from me and taking the risk to fall on someone smart enough to try his luck with a parry. I personally wield mine with the infamous Chaos infusion not only for the memes, but also because it is really strong ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) But in the end it always come down to what weapon you prefer/feel more comfortable with. Bu still, you should really take a look into the Zweihander tho. It's as much of a beast that it is in DS1.
The only greatsword I can consistently win duels with, and I'm a lousy duelist at best. I also got my first gank spank with this weapon, and it was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done in Dark souls
As always great vídeo, man. I´m not just saying that. Also, I hope you get better from the cold. Wall of text inbound. It´s a tall order to consider one weapon above all the others hyperarmor weapons. I will go so far as to agree that the astora might be the best allround ultraweapon in the game (although people tendo to dismiss the RKPGS´s too quickly (I wholeheartedly hate them, just so you know) as there are a lot of mixups to be done with those and they are greathammers poisewise :( However most players playing with them are shit and that downgrades the weapon in the eyes of the community. That said I have doubts if the splileaf or the cruxifix are not stronger weapons for invasions than the astora, especially if you are only considering one weapon. Technically they have hyperarmor, however weak (especially the cruxifix, that has the poise of a greatsword) on their 2h r1´s and WA and both can do monstrous damage and are good chase down weapons. If you are just considering greatswords, curved greatswords, and the other ultras I can agree with you. I also agree that the curved greatsword category is overhyped imo (not your words, mine) although I recognise their strengths, especially where they sit poise wise (above greatswords, under ultras) and of course the running attack. That said I can make your case even stronger for the Astora that what you talked about in the video: Astora has the same very rare one handed r2 poke of the Zweihander. This attack has great range, allows to have a parry tool on the off-hand, still benefits from hyperarmor and works for leo ring counters. By speaking of the leo ring. The leo ring is great on the astora and I use it in all my astora builds for the r2´s (dunno if the charge WA benefits from the leo ring). Although I would prefer the fume or the Zweihander rolling poke though as I believe it has more range and works with leo. Also, Astora has a very good stamina consumption for a ultra according to Nico´s stamina depot which is always useful and very noticeable If you compare it against the Fume, for example. Other thing Astora has going for it is the charged weapon art as it is comprised of several small hits and so destroys ToD users, which is something no other ultra can do easily. Sorry, about the big comment… PS- Also, you killed a blue called Ajit Pai at 6:10! You saved the internet for the Yankees!
Wow, thank you for that very thoughtful comment! Great points about the Astora, didn't even consider its low stamina consumption. I'm not sure about the splitlead and crucifix. I feel like they are more powerful in the hands of gankers than they are in the hands of an invader. I tend to get rekt by them once in a while, but I didn't have very good results using them myself. Their problem really is their abysmal (Splitleaf) and still not too great (Crucifix) poise health. If you don't stack obscene amounts of poise, you will get staggered even by greatswords. And since gankers sure love their ultras, I just don't see them as good options. Plus, their moveset is amazing for chase-downs, but not so great when fighting several players at once I feel. I have to admit that I only have so much experience with those weapons, so I might be wrong here. But thanks again for your thoughts! Also, you're the first to notice that I'm the man who singlehandedly saved net neutrality smh.
You are right, of course by saying that their poise is weak and it is also true that they don´t fare as well as an ultra for multiple opponents. However they can bump their own poise with their weapon arts allowing you to poise through ultras in 1v1 scenarios. I did a video which i will link here ua-cam.com/video/tJ5F8_3gnP0/v-deo.html (if you want the link removed, please tell me) that at 34.38 min I discuss these two halberds. Both are weird weapons though that take a bit of time to get accustomed to though, but super strong on the right hands...
imo crucifix and splitleaf are "better," read easier to use, than the astora, or any ultra weapon, when it comes to duels and 1v1 invasion fights. however they begin to have issues when you start fighting 2 or more people. their hyper is strong enough for a single hit trade, but not against a dogpile from a gank, the astora is. and in the same tactic, the swing arcs of both are narrow and not suited to hitting multiple people with the same swing. the number of times in an invasion i have swung into 3-4 players, hypered their attacks and hit all of them at the same time for 600-800+ damage with r1+r1, absolutely delicious. so much for estus advantage, lol. follow into that with l2+r2 against either the host or the one with the lowest hp for maximum disrespect, and a kill. the l2 of the splitleaf, and the 2h r2 of the crucifix have good hyper, but are extremely limited in use due to zero variety options. their rolling attacks and plunging attacks are also complete garbage unless you are swapping to 1 hand, which often isnt viable as it telegraphs your intent or slows you down just enough that the opportunity gets missed. they are amazingly fun in duels though its also possible though that it is simply a matter of tactics, but i find that gank squads often dont give you any breathing room. and those are the situations where the crucifix and splitleaf fall short compared to the astora.
commie 416 Yeah I tend to agree with what you said. They are kind of different tools for different occasions so they are hard to compare, for me. The astora against a reasonable player will not have an easy time hitting him. The halberds are weaker against multiple players, undoubtedly.
figure eights and dead angling is what you need to do with the astora against a high skill straight sword or curved sword user. with a bit of practice it becomes almost impossible to properly space as long as you are being erratic. but yeah definitely alot more work than with something like the splitleaf. in a duel that thing is probably the best weapon in the game
Why not use a blessed cestus? Its dark infused. You cant deny any little health back if youre just going to hyper armor through everything. Its not like the build is based around the cestus anyway, mostly just going to use them to parry. I wouldnt recommend cestus if you arnt confident with your parries because it has a critical punish if you get a partial parry. I would recommend a medium shield. Also if you want to get even more poise, use the weapon art for the cestus then go to town with the astoras. The only down side to the astoras is the really really easy weapon art parry. I figured i would throw my opinions in there. Scary build ggs.
Much hasn't changed since this video has been posted, and I think the points made are clear, but that's for SL120 to 140. What about higher level PvP, 180 to 200? I have a strength build and I can use the weapon but compared to the Dragonslayers greataxe it's a 200+ difference in damage. It's either I wanna do 400+ with the axe, or 250+ with the astora. Everyone has poise and fast weapons, every invasion I've gotten into was either a straight sword, a meta weapon, or my own. Your choice though in the end
The Astor’s GS is nice, but at least for me, I wouldn’t call it top tier. I am a huge advocate for the Great Club. I play at SL90, and with bare bones stats, (24 STR for 1h) it gives me the most bang for my buck. I use manual aiming so I don’t have to worry about BS fishers, and pair it with Tsorig’s ring so shields aren’t an issue either. The Deprived build is my go to starting. With 10 in all you can use a long sword as an offhand if you run into quick steppers. to have 28str, 40vit and 40end, it only puts you at SL78. And if you use FAP+3, you drop 10 SLs, so you can do somewhat low level invasions with monster sl125 health and vit. It also only weighs 12 units. And I will stop preaching now. Good vid by the way.
It says so much about this community and Nyff that the who's who of dark souls PVP commenting and appreciating an opinion somewhat abstract. Love love love this game
I'm late to the party and no-one will probably read this, but just to say that Nyff's nomination of the Astora over the Zwei only works at the meta soul level. At lower soul levels (85 or less) you can't afford the poise, so stomp on the Zwei is worth its weight in gold. At 125 you can have the poise in addition to the other stats and the Astora is better.
The Zwei is definitely a great option, especially for lower SLs. However, I would challenge your point about poise being an issue at lower levels. You're right ofc that it is difficult to stack lots of poise under those circumstances, but the lower you go, the less likely you run into other players using ultras. So you don't need much poise anyway. Against PW-summoned overleveled phantoms with something like the Ringed Knight Paired GSs, I will give you that the Zwei is better able to deal with that. However, I would instead simply bring a Mace and use the Perseverance on that in such a scenario.
I invade a lot at 70-90 and you are getting a reasonable amount of ultras there, as well as a lot of friede's scythe (which can be a pain if you try and deal with it mid-gank without stomp or perseverance) but the real issue is greatswords. You're right about the mace being a good option but I would still argue the Astora isn't - too many opponents can just smack you out of your slow swings. Maybe I just need to git gud, but at 70-90 my win rate tanks with anything other than a straight sword + pocket Zwei/Mace, that setup is just sooo good. And thanks for the reply, I was just on my hobby horse about people saying "this weapon is great" when they mean "this weapon is great at level ~120", the Gameconomist just did a vid extolling the virtues of the Greatsword but that doesn't work as well below 120 (even if you agree that it's the best at 120, which I don't). Please keep producing the great vids.
In my experience the Harald is better than the Murakumo but both are excellent weapons. Halberds are good poise weapons, not only the Splitleaf but even the Lucerne and Red Hilted Halberd, the Great Machete is good in the offhand with a Longsword, the Spiked Mace is good for more than the weapon art and the Great Wooden Hammer is OK if you don't have the equip load for the Spiked Mace. I struggle to call and Ultra Greatsword the best in any discussion because, although they're better than Great Hammers in general, those two hammers and Ledo's are far superior individual weapons, not to mention the ability to offhand a strength weapon for combos with a straight sword or other weapons that Greataxes have.
I feel like the Great Club kinda got the shaft here. I mean trust me, I hold no shortage of hatred for this weapon for outclassing my beloved Quakestone in almost every regard except for WA, but It’s still one of the highest damaging weapons in the game that can buff itself for approximately 10% more damage, and both in and out of Warcry it has an excellent R2 that’s great for roll catching or mixups. The rolling attacks are similarly wide sweeps, and surprisingly useful, and it comes with great hammer poise and all in a package of only 12 weight. Perhaps it’s not as good as Astora’s, but still, felt like it got the shaft here.
I do agree that the Great Club can be quite good situationally, and good fun to use too. However, I stand by what I said: all it has is its 2HR2 and its poisehealth. And that's just not enough. Not in a duel at the bonfire against an experienced host. Not in a gank where a mage pelts you with souls spears while a washing pole weeb chases you down, etc., and you need to move and attack swiftly. It just doesn't get the job done in those situations, and so it had to get the shaft here.
endlich hab ich nen interessanten deutschen souls youtuber gefunden der gleichzeitig auch noch invader ist :D btw ist das astora auch meine go to Waffe für meinen dex lvl 60 invasion build :)
The crit multipier of the dagger is 140, and the hidden crit multiplier is even higher. The dagger does about 30 to 40% more crit damage than the Rapier.
@ Nyff Never heard of hidden multipliers? Heavy weapons hidden multiplier is called WEIGHTING! FUME has therefore the strongest stomp in the game and receives 148.8 weighting from Str.!! I could tell you way more - but WEIGHT matters!! ;)
Wait, the greatsword class has no mix up speed? Try switching to the one handed move set mid fight and stare in amazement as a few R1s roll catch the shit out of your opponent.
Last invasion was totally worth if just for that charged r2 that knocked the Phantom off the ledge.
One of the reasons I like zwei so much is its efficiency. Low weight, requirements, and UGS with stomp. The fact that Astora gives you this (minus stomp) with incredible infusion scaling makes it really, really freaking good.
But yeah, Astora's range and move set gives it the edge. I'm still gun shy of that fucking rolling attack. I know I can parry it now, but I still never try.
In the end, it can't fling people into the air and therefore is worthless to me. Kidding, but only kind of.
Great video, seriously. And a beautiful run down on a beautiful weapon.
Thank you. And believe me, it broke my heart having to exclude the Zwei and LKGS from the potential candidates as especially the latter used to be my go-to UGS. Launching people is probably the best feeling, closely followed only by getting a double parry and sex (in that specific order). For style points, weapons with stomp are definitely the way to go. But you know us Germans: if it isn't ze most efficient and effective choice, it is not worz your time. We get nervous seizures otherwise. Nasty stuff. Probably genetic.
I still cannot say if the Stomp WA is worth it or not..
It's very easy to dodge it and rarely hits people
Its damage is not even as high as Dragon-slayer greatAxe or Morne greatHammer
Actually, even the mad king halberd and split-leaf greatsword have better WA damage than Stomp!!
No one thinks stomp is good. But stomp is sexy AF. #facts
Eh youd be surprised how much youll actually hit people with it. sometimes the stomp by itself gets you outta bad situations. i also find the Greatsword full stomp more effective in gank situations. i mean shit. watch Saints vid on the sword. its literal porn when you come out victorious even after being trapped in the corner
i still love my zwei though
Astora is a classic. I agree with all your points. three points to add:
1) while a lot of people know it can be parried these days, the timing is pretty tough and usually not worth the risk of getting a partial.
2) if you use the WA as a parry sort of, getting consistent hits is pretty easy (plus counter hits). The hyper armor on it is far more reliable than per example the stomp WA. What I often do is bust it out on the moment that I would otherwise do a parry, and the result is that I can charge through whatevers hitting me for massive counter damage without my opponent having the ability to reaciton parry (them being stuck in animation)
3) about rolling attacks: lothric knight greatsword stays afloat on its rolling attack. Amazing range and absolutely enormous damage paired with a leo ring (it is a quick poke after all) make it just about everything the astora has, but more damaging and easier to parry (pros and cons eh). Of course other than that its a heavy ungainly beast that works for shit on any player worth their salt.
Oh man that last one. you make some really good points. don't underestimate the stomp tho, it works really well against fishers that roll BS the first swing, you can actually catch them with a R1 outa the stomp. and popping pocket poise is amazing for GTFO of tough situations. Astoras really is an amazing ultra and you can make a build around fairly early on.
I've been preaching the astora for awhile now. You get to be a big boy but also a fast boy.
I'm looking forward to invading with the Farron Greatsword just to rustle the jimmies of you, Saint and Skitter now (the list is growing!).
That aside, the Astora GS is a beautiful specimen for every point you've described. It was hard for me to put my finger on just what it was about the Curved Greatswords I didn't like so much, and this is it. The Astora is more of a _complete package,_ something where you could use every move in its arsenal and feel good about it. I need that in my weapons.
Also? Your roll-catch chains with the Astora in these clips are a breathtaking sight to behold. I've never seen _any player_ line them up so perfectly one after another with a UGS of all things. Just excellent.
Thank you, Schwa!
Rip nyff
Hey Schwa, you should watch Sermeyu’s videos of him using the Farron GS. He taught me a lot about the weapon that I didn’t realize before, like L1>R2 combos and some things I’m sure you already know about it like the rollcatching potential of it.
I hate that stupid sword whenver I invade a gank situation, just pisses me off to no end. If it is a solo host, then I love playing against it!
Farron memesword
11:38 ''But other fuc-factors remain.''
Hi Nyff, I invade almost daily for about 8 hours per sitting, and wouldnt rank astora even as a top 5 invasion weapon, somewhere in top 10 probably. Nice vid!
I should add some reasoning: Basically after a lot work and practice in both invasions and try hard duels, I learned that the vertical moveset is considerably superior on UGS, and Astora lacks this, despite being efficient to build for.
First of all, I greatly enjoy your content, the work you're doing is fantastic!
May I ask what makes you believe UGSs with vertical swings are superior for invasions? I instantly believe that for duels, but for invasions, I found vertical UGSs frustrating to the point of wanting to rip my hair out every time I tried them. In my experience, they are good for neutral pressure against singular targets as well as for the R1 into R2 combo such as on the Cathedral Knight GS. But none of those two features are very relevant in invasions where you usually have to put up with several people at once, right? I could be wrong, but just like the Splitleaf and Crucifix, vertical UGSs to me seem more like ganker weapons than invader weapons, because they work well against singular targets, but do not shine at all against several targets at once and neither against an evasive host rolling around the bonfire. All I can give you as "evidence" for that is a considerable amount of hours spent in invasions on my part as well.
Plus, as far as I can tell, all vertical UGSs weigh considerably more than the Astora, the lightest being the Cathedral Knight GS which almost weighs twice as much, making it much more difficult to reach a good amount of poise.
Is there something I missed that makes vertical UGSs better for invasions?
Yea when I first used the vertical moveset I personally thought it was trash, but just so you know I made it to 2nd place in a competitive PVP ladder using the Gugs (beating out top tier builds like demon scar, PKCS, splitleaf, and Lothric sword), and I've done two sets of Gugs invasions, as well as 2 sets of astora invasions.
The range is a lot better on the vertical moveset, its also harder to backstab bc the second swing strikes behind you. Realistically if you want to win your invasions you wont get into group fights, you'll actually split the fights into 1v1's. 2v1's are for showing off or getting lucky. But besides that point if you need a horizontal swipe for spread out targets the gugs has an R2 that nearly 360's all the way around, dealing considerable damage and it has the best R2 range for UGS in the game (except the RKUGS, which I dont count bc they're generally not that good as the invader).
That extra range on the R1 is also very important for harrassing.
Astora's light weight is nice but not really that important, for my competitive build I was reaching the armor poise that I needed pretty easily, and still maintaining a good 700+ AR on a dark build, not sure the same can be said of FUME, but FUME starts off with Great Hammer poise and superior block frames on the stomp.
Anyways, just my two cents.
EDIT: I didnt watch the entire vid but wasnt sure if you even mentioned the very powerful Harald Curved Greatsword, and its buddy, the Exile Curved Greatsword.
TheGameconomist What about Ledo's Greathammer? It's also a poiseweapon and has alot of damage. (Not a perfect weapon but a fairly viable option)
Ah I havent played ds3 in a few weeks, already feeling rusty lol. It's heavy, blocks your screen, and Im not a fan of the R2. Nice WA though. Definitely capable of 2-shotting some opponents, but I can't recommend it over the Great Club
I totally agree with your points I just found very useful against greedy people. I mostly play UGS and I'd agree with you that the Greatsword is the best (especially dark). The range and the second R1 smashing down being you makes it quite powerful. My favorite is still LKGS with Lightning Blade (backup Blessed) and an offhand Arbelast for more passive and/or skilled opponents. The damage is just obscene.
I love UGS because every victory seems special and earned. I played a bit of PKCS and obviously won 90% even though I had little to no practice with weapon. Those wins felt cheap.
The Astora GS was my first love when I started invading (I'm quite a new player since I played DS3 for the first time this summer) and despite I'm now trying to differentiate the arsenal I use as most as I can, the Astora has a special spot in my heart and from time to time I still use it (together with the great mace). I don't have a deep knowledge on the game as you or many other great invaders that I follow as I try to learn something from them and mostly used it as I liked the weapon from the first time I found it and it is quite mindblowing to me to hear that it is as good as you described it since I seldom see it when I invade or I'm being invaded. This is a great video that describe very nicely the Astora GS, surely next time I use it I'll remember your teachings
Two small corrections for your video, the Zweihander has the same rolling attack as the Astora Greatsword, complete with the same properties; additionally, both weapon
s rolling attacks give full use of poise health (every single other rolling attack on Poise weapons gives half the poise health of an R1).
Great video, as always! Glad to see more love for the Astora's Greatsword.
Thank you for the kind words! However, I have to correct your correction (I verified this in-game just now): The Zwei has the rolling poke, not the overhead smash.
Well, that was embarrassing. Last time I tested poise values (admittedly last August or so), I saw that the Zwei had the same rolling slam that the Astora's did. Oh well. At least the Astora's abnormal rolling attack poise health is still true. Best UGS getting better after every patch. Thanks for the quick response, and keep up the great work!
i used the astora shortly after i found it on my first playthrough and have rarely put it down since. when played properly it can beat essentially any weapon in the game, yes even against high skill players, in both duels and invasions with the exception of quickstepping weapons. but it is a simple matter to pair it with an offhand straightsword, personally i like gotthards, because fashion.
when fighting a skilled ss, cs, or katana user, especially in a duel type situation, you are better off going freecam and turning mid swing similar to dead angling, the r1 sweeps are so wide and have such reach that even people with thousands of hours in the game are going to have an extremely hard time getting proper spacing once you get good at this technique, especially with how much you can change the hitboxing area during its slow swing. another factor is that while people think that the timings of ultra weapons are essentially fixed this is not quite true.
all ultra weapons are a bit quirky with their swings. everyone knows that you can r1 into another r1. however what most people do not appear to know is that as long as you do not enter a walking running or rolling animation you can activate the second r1 while the cancellable recovery animation plays, the one where you bring the sword or club back around and rest it on your shoulder. this animation is a few seconds in length, and if you attack from it while standing still the second r1 comes out with almost no telegraph that it is happening, allowing you to bait with the first r1 and stand there, if they try to punish you simply r1 again.
when fighting other ultra weapons 1v1 the r2 with lockon is your best friend. it is thrust, so you will counter hit. as a result you should out damage almost any other ultra weapon hit for hit, so as long as you can either out hyper, or out space, you have a very big advantage.
in a duel the weapon art is useless at best, suicide at worst. in an invasion against multiple people it is the most amazing thing, and probably the best weapon art in the game from a practical standpoint. the optimal use for it, in my experiences, is immediately after trading into 2 or more people with r1 r1. immediately l2+r2. then switch target to the one with the lowest health. if he runs, it chases him down and will likely kill, as it can hit for 1100 damage if the full thing connects. if he stays the result is the same. the hyper frames of the wa are essentially instant, starting the moment you push the button, and the poise health is strong enough to out hyper the full spin of ledo's great hammer weapon art with around 38 poise. and no one attempts to parry after just eating 2 2handed r1 attacks from an ugs.
the rolling attack is good in all situations, but excels when fighting mages as you can dodge a spell and hit them. the closer to max range you can land it the more effective it is. people dont think you can hit them because you are so far away, and no one will ever get the parry timing down at max range. the only thing you never want to do with the rolling attack, is to roll directly at the person and activate the attack if they have a parry tool in hand. this is essentially the only time you will get parried on the rolling attack, and even someone bad at parries can pull it off. you simply telegraph your intent too much when you do this.
i seem to have written a book...
Very interesting video Nyff. You go into an impressive amount of depth. After hundreds of hours co-oping on the XB1, I have joined the master race at last! I think the miserable frame rate and poor wifi connection really put me off PvP back then, but starting off as an invader now is like exploring a whole new game. Fascinating.
I also got a Dark Astora with me for quite some time now on my "meta 125" build for invasions. Mainly I use a Dark Lothric but its a beast to have off-hand! They dont expect you whooping out that thing (that was she said) and pounding them just after you rollcatched somebody 5 times in a row with the Lothric. I like it alot. Thanks for showing me new ways..I was also using the charge to punish Estus but I never used that rolling attack...figured it would be parry prey haha. Nice to see you back btw
Sorry for the weak voice and occasional snifffling, got a bit of a cold going on right now. Also, I'm genuinely putting this up to debate and am interested in what you will say about my choice for best poise weapon for invasions. Note: I will most likely argue with you.
Other than that, I wish you all great holidays!
Also, the build: mugenmonkey.com/darksouls3/264232
Best invasion weapon is the broken blood straight sword.
I would say the spiked mace is the best or at least one of the best poise weapons
4:55 "One handed attacks, freeing your offhand to block, or parry," or for secondary weapons like a Crossbow, or Estoc. (My personal choice is a Parrying Rapier.)
I know what you mean about most weapons being only half-viable for invasions. That's what makes things more interesting for me, honestly. I'm the kind of guy who carries around 3 primary weapons, a shield, a blessed caestus, and a crossbow, just so I can have something for every single scenario. I just experiment with different setups constantly and switch to what I need if need be.
Some of my situational favorites, minus the obvious ones: Man Serpent Hatchet, Great Mace, Arbalest, Glaive, Follower Saber, Washing Pole, Gundyr's Halberd, Harald Curved Greatsword, Immolation Tinder, and of course the AGS.
Great video, Nyff! I've come to appreciate the Astora Greatsword quite a bit recently, creating low-level characters for PvP and invasions, actually. Great to see this in-depth insights now!
Also: it's really cool to see new content from you. I joined the PvP and invasions just around the time you stopped uploading. Checked your previous content and learned from it. But it's cool so see and read (reddit) new stuff :-D
And finally: frohe Feiertage und alles Gute für 2018! ;-)
Profaned Greatsword is the best poise weapon for invasions. It lights itself on fire and launches fools into the air. Q.E.D.
Slightly more seriously... Astora's is very good, particularly if you're not a dummy with the charge attack.
Not a single weapon, but a combo... I find that Great Club and off-hand Heavy Caestus is quite effective, but I have not been using the setup long enough to make any claims about objective viability.
Happy Holidays, Nyff!
I can see that combo to be a lot of fun. And the caestus while dual-wielded actually gives some chase-down potential too which the great club lacks. I might try that out. Was a bit lazy with commenting recently, but I really enjoy your stream snippets btw! I never catch your streams, so it's nice to be able to follow your shenanigans that way!
Oh nice! I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying the snippets. My stream times are, unfortunately, just incredibly awful for anyone living in the UK or EU. Which is a real shame, as I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of fun co-invasions and duels.
An off-hand straight sword can be very effective. Caestus provides some interesting qualities, though. Namely, it gives you access to Perseverance, which can be very useful for getting heals off safely while under duress, or backstab shenanigans. The caestus running L1 is pretty damn good too.
pincognito good point but I prefer more damage and range to perseverance
pincognito also I suck at parries so I very much prefer ss
I've been using the Profaned Greatsword a lot recently and I've been loving it.
It's pretty long, has wide swings, has the stomp for mix-ups, has the fast af pokey rolls and the pokey R2 which does a tonne of damage when it hits (The charged R2s also gain extra fire damage but that isn't too important). The sword also doesn't weigh too much compared to other UGS, only 13.5 units. This lowish weight allows my character to get a considerable amount of armour on himself for the poise as well as having a Lothric Knight sword on the side, a caestus and even a parry shield or a crossbow, if I feel like it, all without going overweight.
I know the weapon has its downsides, like only really being usable on quality builds and that it can't be buffed or infused and all that, but I still think it's pretty Nito.
Oh yea and also Merry Christmas my dude.
Finally someone appreciates my main weapon for what it truly is!! Even though Bloodborne trick weapons had such a variety of moves that it was hard to find any of them useless, in DS3 the only weapons which have more than two (and I'm pushing it) useful attacks are straight swords with the Stance WA, It's really nice to have people as dedicated as you who find their way through lots of weapons to find beautiful "discoveries" like this one
My setup is:
1) Dark zwei - deals 400 damage in one hit, poise, majestic r2's. I use it only for crowd control, not fast enough to consistenly punish estus
2) Dark lothric knight ss + shield - no comments, usefulness in simplicity
3) Pontiif knight cs - for roll spamming solo hosts
4) Slot 2 dark dagger - don't have spare ring slot for hornet ring, so better than chaos
5) Dark scimitar - for shield users, lkss gets the job done too, but that's just my preference
6) Fillianore's chime for estus economy
Build is sl140 str 20 dex 40 int 30 fth 30 with best phys def armor, TOD swap.
Armor is
-Morne's helm
-Harald chestpiece
-Winged knight gauntlets
-Harald leggins
Very good def, but i wear it for the fashion :P
This video really got me into Astora GS, and goddamn do I have to thank you for that. I never knew it was this fun to use. Since I don't have enough slabs and my character is mainly geared towards physical (str and dex), I compensate with buffs (Carthus Flame and pine bundles), and damn does it feel good to use it that way. Hits reliably as long as you're a poise tank too!
The last invasion gave me conniptions. Anyway, great video man, super interesting and well written.
If t weren’t for the easily parryable charge WA I’d score it higher but great video dude!
Honestly, the amount of time you spend fighting a person who isnt carrying a parry weapon or they are on wake up or they are running, etc. I would say, like Nyff did, that there are more times you can use it where you cant be parried than ties where you could. I never try to use any parryable attack from neutral anyway. You sound like an invader so Im sure you dont either.
The Astora was actually one of my first dueling weapons. I sucked but my opponents sucked more, so I had some success with it. Charge is underrated precisely because it is so easily parried in the hands of a noob. The key imo is to avoid using it out of neutral.
I’ll pretend I didn’t hear those mean things said about my beloved CGS. ;)
I agree with what you said (85% of that class is the running r1) and the roll timings are quite easy. However most people still can’t roll it properly, and among those who can, enough pressure can make them panic roll anyway.
I’ll be giving the Astora GS another look when I return home.
Awesome video and I agree that finding 10 invasion weapons would be a challenge.
One thing to add is that the Astora's is one of the BEST DEX weapons in the game. Putting a sharp gem on it and putting your DEX up to 80 will provide highly similar, if not higher, damage than a Dark Infusion. On top of still being buffable as well! I recommend you give it a shot that way. Also, being DEX gives you more access to the innate scaling and high damage of most dex-based weapons without needing to elemental infuse it. Sellswords at 80 DEX are even more painful than Darkmoon Sellsword builds.
And if I still haven't sold you yet, know that Astora's Charge often 1-shots opponents at this high Dex
6:36 "In an invasion context, I wouldn't consider the Pickaxe an efficient weapon." Except for Pursuit. When you have a runner, I like to Inventory Swap in a Pickaxe for Galvanize. Throw in a Blooming Green Blossom, Chloranthy Ring, and the Grass Crest Backpack, they can run, but they die tired. The Spamina recovery is insane, but be ready with another weapon to switch to (I also have a Reposting Dagger, so that works with Quickstep and rollcatches as well.) It's noice to have, when you need to stack up that much Spamina recovery. Other than that, it's not a fantastic weapon, but as you pointed out, it's a Greathammer, and it's Leo Ring compatible. (All Thrust Attacks.0 So, in Trades, you will win, you will recover Spamina faster, and if they fight back, they just take more Counter Damage.) It's a shame you have to build around it, but you can.
steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/863983481893718181/9B4D9FEB50A85DAD12D02DCD0828BFD65E7747CE/ Notice it doesn't even make my top 10 Poise weapons for Invasions, because it kinda sucks outside of it's niche. (Chasing down runners.) It sucks at rollcatching, and doesn't have a very good running attack to catch them with. That's why I have the Butcher Knoife in the mainhand, so I can pull it quick (With a slotted swap to the grass Crest) to finish them off when I catch up, but when you have that 1 host that just runs laps back and forth between Bonfires to resummon, there honestly is no better build.
I think you need to put out more Goddamn videos mate! This shit is excellent and I REALLY need more of it.
The only major shortcoming of the weapon that I have noticed is that when going up against something like a poise stacked RKPGs, the weapon art doesnt have enough poise health to punish the L1 spam like a stomp uppercut on the zwei or lothric, but the again im lazy and I like sending people to the moon free of charge
Recently I've noticed that before I became more of a crit fisher that I used to use rolling R1s on ultras quite a lot. Against a person with a parry tool I'd refrain from doing them or would do various things to mix it up but against anyone else it kept pressure up to the point that some experienced high stability shield users would get their guards broken. I think as I started to fish more that I had put it in my head that it was so easy to parry punish that I generally stopped using them. Kind of re-examining old clips and gankers I started to wonder what I can adapt that give me trouble from a group but as an individual.
They're still not great in many ways but using them more often again now (even against parry spammers but usually dead angled away from them to test if they'll always parry for me to later backstab) I've been finding that ultra rolling R1s are good at forcing an opponent looking to R1 stagger you out of your roll to instead second guess that action. In addition to using it for tight space chase downs and creating space for a situation reset. I prefer a different UGS myself but I do agree that Astora is likely the best from it's very high build adaptability and low requirements.
I've seen so many people try to parry it when it's being two-handed. Using the fully charged r2 on someone who invaded me actually helped me win a fight. He was all over me with a straight sword, and I couldn't get any room to heal or counter, so I went for a Hail Mary with the r2. He stood there and tried to parry it and got his ass knocked down, which finally gave me the time to estus.
So, I hit him with it again. He tried to parry it again. Then he tried to parry the regular r1's.
I just recently started using vordts hammer for lvl 35 ish invasions. It is without question the best gank spanking weapon. (I USE MANY DIFFERENT WEAPONS ON DIFFERENT BUILDS)Perseverance can help you hit multiple phantoms at once with ease and the frost can many times be the finishing blow after 3 hits. Also perseverance is great to heal with since you don't have to worry about rolling and just power through, heal, and counter attack. And finally...perseverance+parry and riposte, perfect against multiple people. Bait them to hit you while activating perseverance and you can parry them after their second swing no prob. Riposte for finishing move. It is truly a devastating weapon low lvl and just gank spanks altogether.
I still like the LKG better, probably because it has that sweet heavy/sharp/blessed infusion options, the stomp, the utility of using it with a lighting bundle, which gives more damage and timings... and my fav rolling attack (I love it, it's a rollcatching machine, and I've been using it for a year now)
But yeah, the Astora is my second fav, just because of his weight and the fact it has so much variety and it's always so good
I've used it dark at SL 100, sharp at 120 and Raw, since it has one of the best AR buff with that infusion, on a SL50 poise monster, and it always did a great chunk with every build, leaving me with plenty of points to bump in vigor, vit and stamina thanks to the low weight needed
I think unless we're talking about unique weapons like the onyx or the moonlight, the lothric and the astora's have been my all-around choice for every character when it comes to invading
Great video, and sorry for my ramble
Keep up the fantastic work man
Perseverance is not a crutch for True (Armor) poise, because it wears off, and anyone with PvP experience can count to 4. However, it is useful for Tanking without Turtling. The other effect (Which has nothing to do with Hyperarmor, but is useful for trades) is it Doubles your Absorption, so you want it on a good Poise weapon to begin with. Vordt's is a great example: You don't need as much Armor, and therefore Vitality, because of the Absorption Buff, and Greathammer Poise. Frostbite is the new Bleed, and it nerfs the Host/Phantoms' Stamina recovery. (Also, because of the Partical effect, you can hit all 3 with it in each swing, especially in corridors.) Again, you have to build around it, but you can. (Incidentally the main weapon I Inventory switch out for the Pickaxe when they run. Typically frostbit, so the massive Stamina Recovery advantage is even greater. Basically, I kill them in the Green bar, and then the Red bar doesn't last much longer.)
Yes the Astora has been a favorite since the beginning... that low weight, the S scaling when sharp, the range! It's so nice to have a poise option with a dex build(not that I do that), and one of the best options at that.
glad to see the Astora Greatsword get some love, little disappointed that you didn't use it when you invaded me some time ago ;-;
very nice video, hope to play again sometime
Sigh, another tryhard with a dark infusion...but to be serious, great video man, enjoyed it thoroughly. If I can give my opinion, my favourite two weapons to use on my poise build are the Lothric Knight Greatsword and the Great Club.
The LKG has a better moveset IMO than the Astora, specifically the rolling R1 and I find stomp to be more useful for invasions. Yes, once you've got the host down to just themself then charge is better but c'mon, we all know invasions mean multiple opponents. It's also slightly longer and lightning damage, while not dark, is still pretty respectable especially when paired with a resin or bundle.
And the GC has that R2, which really can not be underestimated. I've played top level players who are far better than me that still go down to it. Plus the additional poise health is nice.
And Merry Xmas dude, if you wanna to test this new love against someone who understands poise, you know where I am :)
Thanks, St1cky! If I decide to brush the dust off my PS4, you're going to be the first to know about it.
Re Great Club and LKGS: In my tryhard opinion, the Great Club doesn't have anything of value besides its R2 and big poise health. LKGS is too heavy, stat requirements are too high, elemental infusions are disappointingly bad on it, and stomp - while stylish af - is just too telegraphed. Besides, why do you even bring that up, you never use it anyway! But as I said, if you're comfortable with those the most, they are the best weapons for you, no question.
Show me exactly where St1cky touched you, you poor little soul.
Please refrain from commenting like this on my channel. Next time, I'm going to block you.
Ha, I thought he was being sarcastic as his name suggested.
He might have been, but it still wasn't very funny, was it?
You probably just didn't get it with your German sense of humour.
I made a early game quality build around this weapon recently as I heard it was good but didn't know for sure. It carried me to gank city and beyond, not as an invader but as a host getting invaded (dried fingers active for the lulz, no phantoms obviously). I would have to say learning when to use the weapon art makes this weapon seriously good at worst, op at best. I liked using it while the opponent was mid-swing as they couldn't get out of the way, put their shield up, or parry in time so they took the whole load of damage straight to the face. When they caught on to what I was doing, I just pulled a straight sword out and used that. It also allowed me to keep a lower VIT stat with some lighter armor on and still have a decent arsenal at my fingertips. Not only that, but my mainboi is a Dragonslayer's Greataxe beefyboi, so having the familiar high damage kept me going with it.
11:35 "Other fucker- factors still exist." Was that a Freudian slip? :P
They're pretty rare, but getting a fully charged R2 counter hit (with Leo Ring) is one of the most beautiful things in the world. I managed 1300 damage in one hit the other day.
I felt like crying watching that last bit of footage, that host was just letting all those phantoms do the whole level... sad times for dark souls. Glad you managed to kill most of them though.
i feel like a lot of the positive aspects of the astora also carry into the lothric. plus, lothric's stomp is incredibly useful for ganks as it lets you get pressed up against a wall, poise through everything and fling them in the air, and get out. (also it makes you feel cool as helll to use)
ill personally choose it over astora every time, even if it lacks the charge chasedown, because i value the ability to stomp out of ganks more than i value chasedowns or viability in a 1v1
where's that 37.61 figure coming from? the closest one i know of is trading greatsword against greatsword from 100% poise health. but that requires 37.58, not 37.61. if you're using astora greatsword you only need 35.39 to poise from 80% through greatsword 2hR1s. in other words poise indefinitely through their swings, though even that is overkill because they have to be wearing like full havel's to poise through your first swing so they can actually initiate a second swing that you'd need to poise through. and you need way over 40 to poise from 80% through anything heavier, but way less than 35 to poise from 100% through everything heavier. so when using ultra greatswords, 35.4 is an ideal breakpoint for not playing with wolf ring. if you add wolf ring then 45.82 is a good breakpoint since it'll let you trade R1s for R1s with other UGS or curved GS users. i would agree that 37.58 is a good breakpoint when playing with greatswords though, but isn't this supposed to be about the astora GS, an ultra greatsword?
I've always liked the astora on virtue of just how many builds it fits into, how well it handles most situations in the game (PvE and PvP), and just how early you can get this cheese machine in any given playthrough.
That first guy could have just parried you while he was in disguise as the pot, and tbh I think it would have been pretty amazing if he did
The Zweihander is VERY popular between JPN players, mostly BS fishers, the stomp WA is a decent way to avoid bs fishing in a some what decent connection, in a dark/chaos build it does more dmg, just weight 10 units and it's has about the same range as the Astora gs and belive it or not the R2(overhead slam) is IMO better than the thrust attack of the Astora and a decent mix-up option, as you can see in some JPN videos. As for the rolling attack, i find it faster than the astora's which i consider very easy to run around and bs.
That is very interesting. I don't follow the Japanese community at all, so I didn't know that. But one thing: Are you talking about tryhard duels or invasions?
Nyff, Invasions or ultra weapon only duels.
Ah I see. In the context of invasions, I'm a bit surprised, but regarding ultra only duels, I can see that. Stomp definitely trumps Charge if done against each other, and the higher dmg output of the Zwei is relevant for trades obviously. Interesting, thanks for that insight!
Biltre came here to sing the praises of the zwei. Happy you beat me to it :)
hey, great video! ive been using this thing and holy guacamole is it a beast. the only issue I have found with it is that the WA will pass through some players, but that might be all charge attacks. another VERY useful thing I found is to do the charging attack, and when their knocked down, charge the r2 for a rollcatch. that can very easily make for a 1 shot combo, even on hosts.
Didnt know this sword was so great, i just liked that its light and scales with dEx
I think the only thing Astoria doesn't have going for it is a stomp WA, which can send aggressive people flying.
Nyff, the Harald Curved Greatsword. If you've got the mana, you've got the mixups
Recently been stacking 60 poise with the Hollowslayer and it poises through everything in the game except Greahammer R2's, not sure about Ledo's Hammer and Smough's Hammer though - not like they're difficult to counter anyways.
Fashion is disgusting though - Exile Mask, Havel's Armor, Gundyr's Gauntlets and Havel's Leggings with the Hollowslayer, Yhorm's Greatshield and Ring of Favor + 3, Havel's Ring + 3, Leo Ring and the Wolf Ring + 3. 27 STR, 40 DEX gives Hollowslayer about 516 AR with ungodly counterhits. VIT is pretty damn high too, about 54 I think though I'd have to check again.
Arguably, there is no "Straight Sword of the UGS Class," because none of them have Stance. I agree, though I'd argue that the Sweihander is the other one. The Stomp Weapon Art is a good substitute for Stance, while Charge really isn't. (It's Parry Bait.) You can't Parry Stomp, you just get ragdolled trying. However, it's also very heavy.
The greataxe is the same way. Just the only difference is that it hits way harder for its shorter reach and its warcry power attack is beastly. When you use it right you can even chain 2 of them together and absolutely wreck people.
1:59 Invaders who attack fellow invaders 😧, like an added tumor on an already cancerous situation.
You forget the main reason - it just looks nicely. Not an oversized anime garbage, just a longer greatsword with a simple and working construction that it surely goes into "acceptable fantasy" category.
"I could not master any other weapons" -Nyff
I got 1200 hours in Dark Souls 3 and over half of them were played in invasion PvP with poise weapons like the greatsword or the demon's greataxe and it worked and never stopped working
And for the Murakumo
Just because you cannot do anything with it rather than r1 and running attack spam doesn't mean other people are this limited
This sounds like the confession booth of a reality show, but the one episode where a psychologist appears and reveals what's wrong with everyone. The Astora seems to be the exception to that group however.
One of my favourite weapons as well. If you're not using the Astora, you either haven't tried it or are going for some kind of self-imposed challenge or cosplay. It's stupidly good even after it took a few hits from the nerf hammer.
Rewatching this in 2020, I liked the observation about perseverance being more of a gimmick than a strategy. I view parries in a similar light. Yeah, great when they're there, but you cannot build a suitable foundation on that.
Nyff still teaching us 2 years later.
I love how at 7:25, I noticed your German grammar kicking in. "Does not a viable poise weapon make." Ahhh, I miss German lol nice participles, but also great vid!
It is one of my top 3 favorite weapons in the game, it's sorta my "I'm done messing around" weapon. I'd argue it's not only one of the best poise weapons in the game but also one of the best overall weapons in the game.
I use Astora UGS on my quality build and Ledo's great hammer on my pure strength build. Both perform decent in invasions. The other night, I wielded Astora UGS and with the help of another invader, we smashed a gank squad of 4.
3 best poise UGS for me: Astora, Cathedral and Zweihander (8 weight, 16, 10). Fume and GS (Ultra) are too heavy, Lothric Knight UGS heavily depends on Blessed or Sharp/Heavy gems with FTH-build, Lorian GS is quality so unless 40/40 you have very decent AR, Black Knight UGS was my favorite while it has 3 hit combo but FROM patched it so it's now just pretty good pure physical weapon occasional combo potential.
However quite awesome review for this UGS, but i don't like to rely on meta-weapons too much. They make me lazy and invasions become boring.
Obviously the best poise weapon for invasions is caestus cause it has dks1 pocket poise. DkS1 pocket poise it's what plants and fishes crave.
AGS is a beast of a weapon though.
Frohe Weihnachten, Guten Rutsch und gute Besserung, in case you won't upload anything in the next weeks. So good to have you back in dks3.
The caestus is for dirty backstab fishers, you know I'm much too honorabru for that!
Vielen Dank, Domperidone, Dir auch nen guten Rutsch, falls wir uns nicht mehr sprechen!
"I can't beat this guy, he counters me!"
Personally I like a combination of poise and speed so the Hollowslayer is always my first love. One invasion I almost lost but won via Leo countering the host. It does take time to get used to but if there is a need for a combination of poise and speed I go for the Hollowslayer.
Although one of the first weapons I ever used was the Astora Greatsword. I do think between it and the Zweihander are the best UGS in the game and are fun when you know how to use them.
dat widower intro though... astora's greatsword is a beast
I don’t usually use poise weapons, because I find it too easy to get around them. I might give this a go, now.
11:39
"But other fucken factors remain"
I love the Astora greatsword and have used it for many invasions. Lately I've been choosing the Dark Zweihander because it's stomp weapon art does wonders against paired greatsword L1
You make good points but I think what one of the biggest problems people have with this game and PVP in general is there's a time and place for everything, people aren't generally very adaptable or versatile in this game. When I invade I carry something quick, like a straight sword, something with some poise, like the claymore, and something with big boy poise, like a zweihander. Every weapon has a time and situation for use, most people try to just stick with one weapon and that's not always gonna work. If someone pulls out a greatshield and starts turtling to try and get a backstab, I'll switch to the quick weapon, if someone wants to play the trade game with a poise weapon I'll pull out my big boy weapon. I've fought many people who don't know how to fight an adaptable Opponent they just crumble when you have a weapon to counter everything they've got, and of course experience is a huge part of it as well. this is why I also think buffs are very situational as well, buffs keep you constrained to one weapon, while just sticking with bundles or resins can allow you to quickly and easily switch and buff weapons.
I've always found horizontal greatswords to be trash due to how they are much much easier to outspace and punish compared to horizontal greatswords. The reach doesn't matter if your opponent outspace you and punishes your attempts to stick close so they can't outspace you. Though this all depends on whether they are on their first play through,they have some experience in PvP or are silver or gold in arena. Ultras are garbage on their own and are only feasibly good in invasions or in ganks where your opponent might be distracted or unable to to focus on you. Your use of the run away then turn suddenly for a nice good 2 hit is borderline the only use of ultras in invasions and even then if your opponent can read you well have fun wasting your time just to eat what could be an you died screen
Astora UGS, Lucern, Exile, Mace, Spiked Mace, Vordt's, LKGS, BKS, Hollowslayer, RHH. In no particular order, 10 viable Poise weapons for Invasions. My top 3 are Astora, Mace, and RHH. Assuming you have enough Poise/Armor to really use them, spacing, timing, and rollcatch skills. Parrying/Backstabbing optional. (None of these really excel at those.)
I am a fan of UGS since they made them OP as all hell in DS3. I tried every single one of them extensively and I always lean towards 2 of them, Lothric's and the fan favorite, the Zweihander.
Mostly everyone say that Astora's the best because of low stats requirement and low weight but the Zweihander need less stats and weight only 10 (Astora: 16/18 Zweihander 19/11). Although the Zweihander doesn't have a trust R2 nor a charging WA, it has better hyper armor from what i've experienced, has a little bit better range (might just be me) and is also an iconic weapon of the serie.
Astora will always fall a bit short behind the Zweihander in term of Physical damage no matter if you use Heavy on Zwei, Sharp on Astora or Refined on both, Zweihander will always have slightly better damage and only at the cost of 2 weight. So unless that 2 weight is critical for your fashion or "optimal" build, well stay with the Astora but as far as personal experiences went for me, I always found myself enjoying flipping people trying to foolishly R1 spam me more than charging at someone that was rolling away from me and taking the risk to fall on someone smart enough to try his luck with a parry.
I personally wield mine with the infamous Chaos infusion not only for the memes, but also because it is really strong ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
But in the end it always come down to what weapon you prefer/feel more comfortable with. Bu still, you should really take a look into the Zweihander tho. It's as much of a beast that it is in DS1.
Another great video!! I learned a lot! Subbed!
The only greatsword I can consistently win duels with, and I'm a lousy duelist at best. I also got my first gank spank with this weapon, and it was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done in Dark souls
As always great vídeo, man. I´m not just saying that. Also, I hope you get better from the cold. Wall of text inbound.
It´s a tall order to consider one weapon above all the others hyperarmor weapons. I will go so far as to agree that the astora might be the best allround ultraweapon in the game (although people tendo to dismiss the RKPGS´s too quickly (I wholeheartedly hate them, just so you know) as there are a lot of mixups to be done with those and they are greathammers poisewise :( However most players playing with them are shit and that downgrades the weapon in the eyes of the community.
That said I have doubts if the splileaf or the cruxifix are not stronger weapons for invasions than the astora, especially if you are only considering one weapon. Technically they have hyperarmor, however weak (especially the cruxifix, that has the poise of a greatsword) on their 2h r1´s and WA and both can do monstrous damage and are good chase down weapons. If you are just considering greatswords, curved greatswords, and the other ultras I can agree with you.
I also agree that the curved greatsword category is overhyped imo (not your words, mine) although I recognise their strengths, especially where they sit poise wise (above greatswords, under ultras) and of course the running attack.
That said I can make your case even stronger for the Astora that what you talked about in the video:
Astora has the same very rare one handed r2 poke of the Zweihander. This attack has great range, allows to have a parry tool on the off-hand, still benefits from hyperarmor and works for leo ring counters.
By speaking of the leo ring. The leo ring is great on the astora and I use it in all my astora builds for the r2´s (dunno if the charge WA benefits from the leo ring). Although I would prefer the fume or the Zweihander rolling poke though as I believe it has more range and works with leo.
Also, Astora has a very good stamina consumption for a ultra according to Nico´s stamina depot which is always useful and very noticeable If you compare it against the Fume, for example.
Other thing Astora has going for it is the charged weapon art as it is comprised of several small hits and so destroys ToD users, which is something no other ultra can do easily.
Sorry, about the big comment…
PS- Also, you killed a blue called Ajit Pai at 6:10! You saved the internet for the Yankees!
Wow, thank you for that very thoughtful comment! Great points about the Astora, didn't even consider its low stamina consumption.
I'm not sure about the splitlead and crucifix. I feel like they are more powerful in the hands of gankers than they are in the hands of an invader. I tend to get rekt by them once in a while, but I didn't have very good results using them myself. Their problem really is their abysmal (Splitleaf) and still not too great (Crucifix) poise health. If you don't stack obscene amounts of poise, you will get staggered even by greatswords. And since gankers sure love their ultras, I just don't see them as good options. Plus, their moveset is amazing for chase-downs, but not so great when fighting several players at once I feel. I have to admit that I only have so much experience with those weapons, so I might be wrong here. But thanks again for your thoughts!
Also, you're the first to notice that I'm the man who singlehandedly saved net neutrality smh.
You are right, of course by saying that their poise is weak and it is also true that they don´t fare as well as an ultra for multiple opponents. However they can bump their own poise with their weapon arts allowing you to poise through ultras in 1v1 scenarios. I did a video which i will link here ua-cam.com/video/tJ5F8_3gnP0/v-deo.html (if you want the link removed, please tell me) that at 34.38 min I discuss these two halberds. Both are weird weapons though that take a bit of time to get accustomed to though, but super strong on the right hands...
imo crucifix and splitleaf are "better," read easier to use, than the astora, or any ultra weapon, when it comes to duels and 1v1 invasion fights. however they begin to have issues when you start fighting 2 or more people. their hyper is strong enough for a single hit trade, but not against a dogpile from a gank, the astora is. and in the same tactic, the swing arcs of both are narrow and not suited to hitting multiple people with the same swing.
the number of times in an invasion i have swung into 3-4 players, hypered their attacks and hit all of them at the same time for 600-800+ damage with r1+r1, absolutely delicious. so much for estus advantage, lol. follow into that with l2+r2 against either the host or the one with the lowest hp for maximum disrespect, and a kill.
the l2 of the splitleaf, and the 2h r2 of the crucifix have good hyper, but are extremely limited in use due to zero variety options. their rolling attacks and plunging attacks are also complete garbage unless you are swapping to 1 hand, which often isnt viable as it telegraphs your intent or slows you down just enough that the opportunity gets missed. they are amazingly fun in duels though
its also possible though that it is simply a matter of tactics, but i find that gank squads often dont give you any breathing room. and those are the situations where the crucifix and splitleaf fall short compared to the astora.
commie 416 Yeah I tend to agree with what you said. They are kind of different tools for different occasions so they are hard to compare, for me. The astora against a reasonable player will not have an easy time hitting him. The halberds are weaker against multiple players, undoubtedly.
figure eights and dead angling is what you need to do with the astora against a high skill straight sword or curved sword user. with a bit of practice it becomes almost impossible to properly space as long as you are being erratic. but yeah definitely alot more work than with something like the splitleaf. in a duel that thing is probably the best weapon in the game
Nice use of Make Them Suffer - Widower in your intro, gained a sub from me because of that.
Since it is light, I reccomend adding a fast weapon for fighting against dagger opponents.
11:39 "Other fuckers... factors " lol
I don't know Astora never really fit into my hand, I prefer other GS, with SS or CS as a backup.
One weapon is not a weapon.
Why not use a blessed cestus? Its dark infused. You cant deny any little health back if youre just going to hyper armor through everything. Its not like the build is based around the cestus anyway, mostly just going to use them to parry. I wouldnt recommend cestus if you arnt confident with your parries because it has a critical punish if you get a partial parry. I would recommend a medium shield. Also if you want to get even more poise, use the weapon art for the cestus then go to town with the astoras. The only down side to the astoras is the really really easy weapon art parry. I figured i would throw my opinions in there. Scary build ggs.
Much hasn't changed since this video has been posted, and I think the points made are clear, but that's for SL120 to 140. What about higher level PvP, 180 to 200? I have a strength build and I can use the weapon but compared to the Dragonslayers greataxe it's a 200+ difference in damage. It's either I wanna do 400+ with the axe, or 250+ with the astora. Everyone has poise and fast weapons, every invasion I've gotten into was either a straight sword, a meta weapon, or my own. Your choice though in the end
"Blade of the darkmoon Ajit Pai has died"
The Astor’s GS is nice, but at least for me, I wouldn’t call it top tier. I am a huge advocate for the Great Club. I play at SL90, and with bare bones stats, (24 STR for 1h) it gives me the most bang for my buck.
I use manual aiming so I don’t have to worry about BS fishers, and pair it with Tsorig’s ring so shields aren’t an issue either.
The Deprived build is my go to starting. With 10 in all you can use a long sword as an offhand if you run into quick steppers. to have 28str, 40vit and 40end, it only puts you at SL78. And if you use FAP+3, you drop 10 SLs, so you can do somewhat low level invasions with monster sl125 health and vit. It also only weighs 12 units. And I will stop preaching now. Good vid by the way.
YOOO so glad to see you back
It says so much about this community and Nyff that the who's who of dark souls PVP commenting and appreciating an opinion somewhat abstract. Love love love this game
You forgot to mention how amazing it is for fashion souls. Strong contender for classiest looking weapon in the game. IMO
0:34 I swear you are the one person I have ever seen to roll catch with an ultra gs
I'm late to the party and no-one will probably read this, but just to say that Nyff's nomination of the Astora over the Zwei only works at the meta soul level. At lower soul levels (85 or less) you can't afford the poise, so stomp on the Zwei is worth its weight in gold. At 125 you can have the poise in addition to the other stats and the Astora is better.
The Zwei is definitely a great option, especially for lower SLs. However, I would challenge your point about poise being an issue at lower levels. You're right ofc that it is difficult to stack lots of poise under those circumstances, but the lower you go, the less likely you run into other players using ultras. So you don't need much poise anyway. Against PW-summoned overleveled phantoms with something like the Ringed Knight Paired GSs, I will give you that the Zwei is better able to deal with that. However, I would instead simply bring a Mace and use the Perseverance on that in such a scenario.
I invade a lot at 70-90 and you are getting a reasonable amount of ultras there, as well as a lot of friede's scythe (which can be a pain if you try and deal with it mid-gank without stomp or perseverance) but the real issue is greatswords. You're right about the mace being a good option but I would still argue the Astora isn't - too many opponents can just smack you out of your slow swings.
Maybe I just need to git gud, but at 70-90 my win rate tanks with anything other than a straight sword + pocket Zwei/Mace, that setup is just sooo good. And thanks for the reply, I was just on my hobby horse about people saying "this weapon is great" when they mean "this weapon is great at level ~120", the Gameconomist just did a vid extolling the virtues of the Greatsword but that doesn't work as well below 120 (even if you agree that it's the best at 120, which I don't). Please keep producing the great vids.
In my experience the Harald is better than the Murakumo but both are excellent weapons. Halberds are good poise weapons, not only the Splitleaf but even the Lucerne and Red Hilted Halberd, the Great Machete is good in the offhand with a Longsword, the Spiked Mace is good for more than the weapon art and the Great Wooden Hammer is OK if you don't have the equip load for the Spiked Mace. I struggle to call and Ultra Greatsword the best in any discussion because, although they're better than Great Hammers in general, those two hammers and Ledo's are far superior individual weapons, not to mention the ability to offhand a strength weapon for combos with a straight sword or other weapons that Greataxes have.
I feel like the Great Club kinda got the shaft here.
I mean trust me, I hold no shortage of hatred for this weapon for outclassing my beloved Quakestone in almost every regard except for WA, but It’s still one of the highest damaging weapons in the game that can buff itself for approximately 10% more damage, and both in and out of Warcry it has an excellent R2 that’s great for roll catching or mixups. The rolling attacks are similarly wide sweeps, and surprisingly useful, and it comes with great hammer poise and all in a package of only 12 weight. Perhaps it’s not as good as Astora’s, but still, felt like it got the shaft here.
I do agree that the Great Club can be quite good situationally, and good fun to use too. However, I stand by what I said: all it has is its 2HR2 and its poisehealth. And that's just not enough. Not in a duel at the bonfire against an experienced host. Not in a gank where a mage pelts you with souls spears while a washing pole weeb chases you down, etc., and you need to move and attack swiftly. It just doesn't get the job done in those situations, and so it had to get the shaft here.
Love the build man, I have a question though. Why did you go with dark infusion instead of sharp which gives you a S rating in dex
endlich hab ich nen interessanten deutschen souls youtuber gefunden der gleichzeitig auch noch invader ist :D
btw ist das astora auch meine go to Waffe für meinen dex lvl 60 invasion build :)
6:21 That's why Ajit pai is destroying the internet.
Was? Ein Deutscher der Dark Souls Videos im internationalen Raum macht?
Wunder gibt es also doch...
Gutes Video!
Totes agree! I currently use it on a faith/dex build. Its really good!
Why is everyone using the chaos dagger instead of a Rapier? It has higher base atk and better stats while the Crit rate is the same (130)
The crit multipier of the dagger is 140, and the hidden crit multiplier is even higher. The dagger does about 30 to 40% more crit damage than the Rapier.
@ Nyff
Never heard of hidden multipliers?
Heavy weapons hidden multiplier is called WEIGHTING!
FUME has therefore the strongest stomp in the game and receives 148.8 weighting from Str.!!
I could tell you way more - but WEIGHT matters!! ;)
"Guten Tag" zurück. Abo und Like da gelassen.
Wait, the greatsword class has no mix up speed? Try switching to the one handed move set mid fight and stare in amazement as a few R1s roll catch the shit out of your opponent.
Gonna try it out. Nice vid.
I actually prefer long reach weapons for dealing with laggers.