About to respec into a dex/intelligence build. If i wanted high melee damage & reasonable sorcery damage should i pump stats into dex or int? & what is the best weapon i should use. Thank you
Get the Moonveil, ice stomp ash of war, Lorettas slash, Dark moon great sword, wing of Astel curved sword, bastards stars. Some others but those seem like the best options.
Depends on the weapon some weapons as above posted are better with pure int some are good with dex then buffed if you want hybrid then you probably want similar lvls like a dex weapon keened then buffed the main focus can be your choice whether you cast more or melee more or you can do even like 40-40 as a example
Does the damage from the ashes *ability* scale off the applied affinity, or still use the original stat for its damage? For example using bloody slash with a heavy affinity, does the slash attack itself now scale with strength? Or does that differ between ashes?
Mostly from weapon upgrade. Attack power (Which is basically a mix between weapon base damage and scaling) seems to affect it a little, but by 2-3 points of difference, when my testing was of attack power of hundreds of difference. So, it's mainly by weapon upgrade, and that's it. I´ll have a video soon breaking all this down, my discoveries and such.
@@rpjames8 thank you! This was my biggest question. Like why would I put on a magic ash if I was a dex build instead of finding another that’s actually dex. Your reply is what I found in my testing as well.
Ashes of war will change your scaling that weapon draws from, you weren’t far enough into the game yet but a updated video would be good for the new players
@@rpjames8 Some of my ashes of war aren't working properly when I put them on different weapons. for example bloody slash works perfectly when I put it on "Rogiers's rapier" but doesn't when I put it on "Nagakiba Katana". Any idea what's going on?
I'd like to point out some things that werent mentioned here First of all, changing the scaling will decrease the base damage of the weapon, this applies to all scalings as far as i know If you use elemental scaling (magic, sacred etc) then you can no longer buff the weapon *from sorceriers or incantations* -but any other buff should work- (edit: greases dont work either) Active ash of war damage (such as Loretta's slash that was used in the video) will use a predetermined element *that cant be changed* plus whatever the weapon currently has So overall, its not really worth switching the scaling outside standard unless you have a major gap in stats, such as 40 strength and 20 dex, in which case heavy would be preferable as it can cover the damage loss from changing the scaling, sacred/magic/whatever gives worse scaling to their equivalent sorcery/incantation buffs HOWEVER, blood/poison/cold will add the corresponding status effect (doing so will reduce any base of those 3 by a bit), so they can be used with a bit more leniency, but their respective buffs should still be better, its just that these are useful even if you dont have the corresponding stats to scale them (but keep in mind that status buildup is better on faster weapons)
What I’ve heard is if you use hosrfrost on a bleed weapon that the bleed can proc the frost as well. So I want to test hoarfrost stomp on a bleed weapon with another status effect whetstone like poison to see if I can triple proc the frost.
Hey man you said you use magic or sacred SCALING you cant buff weapon with sorc or incantations? or you meant if you use magic or sacred typed ash of war you can no longer buff them? or is it talking about afinity?
@@ChickenSoupMusic my hookclaws are +8 and deal 60 blood buildup, if i switch to frost scaling then it drops to 45 blood buildup and gets a 78 frost buildup, if i switch to poison it (once again) drops to 45 blood buildup and 76 poison idk how the status scale exactly but i have 65 int (cold scaling) and 12 arcane (poison scaling)
@@tyranorex940 You can´t cast buffs on weapons that already have an element. If you place a holy affinity into a weapon, you can't buff it. If you place a bleed affinity into the weapon, you can't buff it.
Around 6:45 is what still confuses me. Why is that your scaling is going up but your damage is worth on both numbers? This is my first fromsoft game so I'm still confused on that. Thanks for the guide! Edit: I noticed that in this particular case it was removing the Dex scaling which lowered dmg, but I could've sworn I've had it lower the dmg even when it didn't remove the scaling for some.
Alright, take a look at the weapon, and what kind of scaling it has. It has B Dex and E STR? It's a Dex weapon because B is Higher than the E STR. So it's going to get more damage from placing points into Dex.
@@rpjames8 Thank you the reply! That part I'm pretty sure I understand, I think what was confusing me was answered in your reply to another I comment I saw that says that applying an AoW lowers the overall dmg a bit--so at my low levels of attributes it probably is worse, but as you stated once my stats are higher it should outweigh the tradeoff and be better, correct?
I'm confused how not one tutorial has mentioned about the physical damage numbers changing, often lowering them but giving a better scale number. I think there is more info needed because it's that way on most weapons and I'm confused that I would increase the weapon scale number but lower the physical damage. How can I know its a better trade off?
This is only partially true. Because it f you are strenght/faith build and you want to use ash that scales better in dex, but you have no points in dex, you still be better off going for heavy affinity even when it will be C in str compared to B in dex (as you have all your points in str)
Great video c: additionally for weapon variety some weapons can perform well with suboptimal scaling via a better moveset or just because there isnt a option in the class. Granted there seems to be alot of variety and options for different builds
Im working on a dual katana dex/faith build, i have both katanas on keen scalin and will be adding points into faith down the line to get buffs and incantations, thank you James for the great explanation. 🙏👍
@@joshuavick887 Uhm, no. It actually does sound quite viable. He's working on hybrid melee/Magic build, that can increase his damage tremendously by using weapon buffs. It's better, and more damaging than lets say a pure dex build. And more versatile as well.
@@joshuavick887 I speak from my Souls experience. But ER as well. A Capped dex A weapon gives you 600 dmg as much. A Capped Dex weapon with 50 Dex and weapon buff 50 fth ends up giving you like 800. Corroborated in My posted builds! Cheers!
I'm alittle confused. If I put on a magic ash of war (like Loretta's slash) but choose the standard affinity, what would dictate the actual damage scaling of the loretta slash skill if there's no INT scaling added to the weapon?
this is my first souls game and this is super confusing to me lol. can anyone help me figure out the best route to take with duel wielding greatswords (lordsworn/clamore) any help would be greatly appreciated. in the mean time ill try to figure it out myself.
Same here this is my first souls game and looks like we chose the same type of build. I'm currently level 50 right now but to my approach for my first character I didn't follow the "light" on the map, I looked up rune farming videos to level up and armor farming/location videos. Keep in mind after many deaths from all that grinding thats when I actually chose to fight the first boss and it was really easy but you still need to know game mechanics of course.
Thanks for explaining that stuff. Just one question I have. Can you remove the ash of war and place on a new weapon, or its stuck forever? I sold a sword with the ash of war on it today for 100 because I thought it was not possible
@@rpjames8 I have a question too: is it possible to use two different ashes of war if I am using two different weapons on each hand? Specifically speaking the bloodhound claw and reduvia
@@juancardenas6021 Yup. To use the ash of war from the left hand, you would have to two hand the left hand weapon though. But you can definetly have different ashes of war on each hand.
To put the Affinity Granted mechanic into simple terms ?? Use whatever Ashes of War and Affinity to best suit your Build Stats, so you can derive the best output for that weapon !!
At 7:28 in the Attack Power section for Physical there is a Red 143 and Blue 57. I know Red is bad and Blue is good, but when you cycle through different Ashes of War these numbers change. Could someone please explain what the 2 numbers on the right of Physical actual mean please? Thanks
Im more confused then a homeless man under house arrest. So the physical damage, is just what the weapon without any buffs will do to an enemy. With an ash of war, you are adding an ability, but theres a trade off. From what i see if effects physical damage negatively but with scaling it increases damage by scaling to what exactly?
Left damage is base damage. Right damage scales from base damage. Depending on letter, it's higher or lower scaling. Think of a C scaling weapon as: 300+100 and a B scaling as 300+150 and A scaling as 300+200.
Is there something like diminishing returns in terms of scaling in combination with stat points being spend? A friend told me that if a weapon has for example C in faith, it's is a waste of points to have 50, 60 or more in faith, because you would need S scaling to make good use of the points spend.
Just watched some guides on YT on this, yours is by far the most easy to understand, while offered the right amount of detail. Just earnt a sub for sure, goodluck on building the channel mate
I’m desperate to know if bloodhound’s step can be changed to faith scaling, so sacred or lighting (or fire)? If not I’ll have to wait a few dozen levels until I have dex leveled up as high as I currently have faith.
I watched this video to help me understand what ash of war is. I still have no idea what it is after I watched it. In the future can you provide the basic information on what it does and why it is needed?
Let me ask u a question , without doing it please answer it honestly with what u think will happen. I have a Godskin peeler +20 , and I’m running a mage build (no dex…. 60 in Intelligence) I want to use the Godskin Peeler so what do I do? I put Frosty Mist AoW on it and change the affinity to cold to get a nice frost build up with the innate blood build up. When I apply the Cold affinity to this weapon after equipping it with the Frosty Mist AoW, what do you think happens to the weapons scaling? What stat goes up in scaling and what stats go down? You won’t believe the answer
See I thought intelligence would go up also. But no Frosty Mist with cold affinity bring Int scaling from a C to a D and it brings Dex up from D to a B
plz help im vagabond switching to uchigatana build every affinity except heavy and blood shows reduced dmg idk why why wopuld quality affinity reduce base dmg wtf would be the point??? what does it increase???
Decreases base damage to increase scaling damage. If you invest heavily on DEX, the scaling is going to compensate and increase the damage the more you place points into DEX.
@@rpjames8 thank you so much this was putting a huge damper on my enjoyment of the game getting confused with stuff i just beat godrick yesterday do you think its ok to go uchigatana build if i farm extra points for dex stat or should i make my uchi affinity heavy and stay mainly strength until i can respec at higher lvl ?since all my points r strength for greatsword etc i also am concerned about becoming over leveled thnk you very much if you reply does it matter if i put my affinity on my wep before or after upgrading it??? ill try to watch much more of your vids!!
I want to use a faith/frost build. The problem is I want to put the hoarfrost stomp ashes of war on my longsword but it scales with INT. Can I make this work somehow? I know you talked about this at the end of the video but I didn't quite understand.......
Magic ashes of war can't have holy scaling. However, if your build is Dex/FTH then you could place that Magic Ash of War and set the affinity/scaling on dex, that way your weapon scales with DEX, rather than INT and you would still have hoarfrost in it.
@@rpjames8 Yea that makes sense & thanks for the quick response. It's just frost isn't magic only, the frozen lightning spear spell is purely faith for example, hence my confusion.
You want the affinity which does the most damage correct? Or is there some other factor to consider? I notice that the attribute scaling on come choices is very bad yet they end up having much more damage output.
Yes, special weapons like your crystal sword have already a weapon art attached to them and though cannot be changed with any ashes. There are 2 or 3 specific special weapons that can be upgraded with ashes but all the others can not .
It would be nice if you could change the affinity on normal weapons with normal ashes of war and still use weapon buffs. For example: changing the scaling of the soilders straight sword to faith with the sanctified whet blade, and using the square off “aow “ prevents you from using black flame blade incantation with it. Same with the erdsteel dagger and the quickstep “aow”. Maybe it would be too strong with high faith? I only have 30 and it doesn’t seem like it would be. It’s pretty annoying bc I really don’t like the faith scaling weapons available or their ashes of war and you still can’t use the weapon buff incantations with at least most of them I think. Ideally id like to add faith scaling to the flamberge with a basic “aow” and still use black flame blade (I knew it sucks, but the aesthetic). It can’t be that much stronger or am I doing something wrong ? I mean I would expect it Not to work with sacred blade or something like that bc it buffs your weapon and shoots a projectile. But idk why it wouldn’t work with the scenarios I mentioned
@@rpjames8 I've played FromSoft games in the past, but never to this extent. I got about ⅓ of the way through DS 3, Sekiro and Bloodborne before putting them down and never picking them up again. If I could change just 1 thing about these hands, it wouldn't be the difficulty, it would be to get rid of the vagueness when it comes to mechanics and quests. Other than that, I'm loving this game.
Hey Dude, thank you very much for the video! I pretty much finished limgrave e peninsula area and had not understood how the ashes worked. I dont think they will be very usefull to me on my mage build, specially cause im using the meteorite blade and staff. I dont fully understdand scalling though. The blade has inteligence scalling, does this makes the physical (normal) hits stronger as well, or just the magic special abillitie of the blade stronger the more inteligence i have? If i dont use the abillitie it dosen't get the int buff and i just get the scalling on dex and sth on the normal hit? Also, the meteorite staff buffs meteorite magic, dos it buffs the special abillitie of the meteorite blade?
The scaling is always important. It determines all of your damage, both physical and magical. If a sword has let's say C int scaling and you have another one on A int scaling, the "A" one is going to be better the more intelligence you have!
@@rpjames8 Oh thats great. Much more confident o uping this sword and my int stat more exclusevly from now on. This game is not simple for beginners, its my first souslike. If it wasn't for guys like you guinding us with your grace, wouldn't go through the challenges. Thanks from Brazil!
I know this is a late reply, but maybe helps others reading through the comments like I was. @Andrei Georgescu Yes. Inherently the swords in your examples are designed to do physical and magic damage. The scaling is basically determining WHAT player attribute is used to increase the overall damage of the sword across the board (both physical and magic). So for example, if you have a sword that has C Strength scaling and B Intelligence scaling, both the attributes Strength and Intelligence will increase the sword's attack power values in both phys and magic, but Intelligence values will be increasing them in a larger threshold due to the better scaling rank of B vs C. However when it comes to affinities, you could change said sword to a physical affinity only, which would in turn remove its inherent ability to do magic damage at all (in the info window you'd see magic damage turn to 0), but this would possible lead to overall better physical damage though likely not 1:1 value (say the weapon does 50 phys and 50 magic by default, this may increase phys to say 80 base value, but not a rounded 100. it can make up for the loss of magic damage but not fully. altering the state of these values comes down to your own preference and likely situational things such as whether or not a mob/boss outright resists magic damage.) Though I could be wrong completely. Would be cool to see @RPJames chime in with some clarification. The scaling is the background instructions deciding which base player attribute increases the stats of the weapon itself and by how much. So ideally, check the weapon's stat screen, and be stacking the stat it scales off of best (highest rank out of E>D>C>B>A>S, E being worst, S being best, in that order). If it shows a " - " in the scaling window, that attribute does nothing for the weapon at all. Alternatively, use the ashes and affinities to alter the weapon into a scaling method that suits your current attribute build. Disclaimer, I am quite new to the game... but trying to learn and understand it myself. Hoping discussing it this way will help in that regard.
What happens to the default skills that are on weapons when you add an new ash of ear to it. I'm literally level 80 something and haven't used any cuz don't wanna lose the other skills and I don't know if I will ever be able to find the weapon again. Been using the bloodhound fang I think it's called and like it's ability, have a few ashes of war I'm curious to try, so hopefully someone can make sense of this so I can no longer be maidenless.
If you put an ash of war on a weapon it doesnt get rid of the old one, you can just go into the ash of war menu and unequip it and the weapon will get its base ash of war back. ( specifically if you have a weapon with an ash of war already equipped and you want it revert it to its original ash, go into the ash menu, select the ash of war you have currently equipped and select undo enchantment and itll revert back to its base one )
Ok so I have been trying to figure out why the standard affinity is always the best for my character, so when I choose another affinity the base damage goes down so much that the scaling doesn't matter!
@@rpjames8 so I think I'm starting to understand it a bit better, it's so weird that even tho the base attack plus the scale can be lower In let's say quality and higher in standard but then quality will still do higher overall damage. Makes zero sense to me lmao 🤣
So if I was doing a full-on dex build, I would use the Keen affinity for all ashes of war that I equip on my weapons, assuming that all my weapons scale with dexterity?
how do you unlock all those "affinity granted" option ? mine was much more limited. for example, a keen ash of war only has keen and standard affinity, heavy ash of war only has heavy or standard affinity for options. it will be cool to put bloodhound step on heavy weapon
At what point does a weapon become more dex or strength based. Running a quality build and want to use the grafted sword but the C str and E dex makes it feel like a strength build would be better
One question. Do Ash of War abilities, such as buffs or even the special attacks, scale based on the stat usually attributed to that ability's type or based the weapon's scaling it's applied to. For example, I am using Bloody Slash on a scimitar right now. If I make that a Keen scimitar, will the Bloody Slash itself scale up with Dex as it's the weapon's scaling stat, or will it's damage scaling be based on the Arcane stat as it is blood magic. I ask this because I am unsure. Considering that other spells are based on the incant scaling of your staff/seal, I would reason that it is based on the weapon's scaling, but I am unsure.
@@rpjames8 Ok so based off the weapon affinity and upgrades then. That makes sense. So I could use ashes of war with a heavy affinity to have a strong magic attack like Carian Greatsword without needing to invest in INT. That's incredibly nice to know.
Basically, the the scaling of a weapon determines how much your stats affect it. Heavy weapons usually scale higher with strength, dexterity scale higher with usually fast weapons (they also often have more unique move sets). In between are quality weapons and they usually scale decently in both strength and dex but not especially high in either, favoring a more balanced build. And then there’s arcane, intelligence and faith. Arcane is new to Souls games so I’m still figuring that out myself, but faith and intelligence work the same as strength and dex. High scaling intelligence weapons obviously go good with sorcery builds and high scaling faith weapons go good with cleric/healer builds.
When you upgrade your weapon can the scaling tier of your weapon go up or will it stay in the same tier?? So if it's C and I upgrade my weapon can it be a B or A
@@SkepticSloth I love when I do have the answers you guys seek. Go to Limgrave, the Dragon Swamp. Right above of the Aghel lake south it's going to be a silver scarab. Kill it, it will give you the unsheate Ash of war. Then, you can add an affinity to it!
@@rpjames8 No see that's my problem. The unsheathe ash of war just gives my uchigatana the "keen" affinity. And the affinity menu only lets me change it to keen, heavy, or quality. I have a magic affinity ash of war but in order to add the affinity to my uchigatana I have to replace my "unsheathe" weapon art. How do I keep unsheathe but add magic affinity instead of keen?
Say the strength is at E and the dex is at a C and I’m a dex/int character does it mean I should go for the dex always for scaling and you can only choose one str or dex meaning one will always be low in red while other is in higher blue? Does that make sense? And I noticed the dmg is usually red at top so using ashes lowers dmg?
Yup. Using ashes does lower damage. And yes, It makes sense. Ashes of war lower damage for you to focus precisely on that, on leveling the Scaling as high as possible, while balancing and not breaking the game. Still, proper use of scaling, it's always going to out class standard.
@@rpjames8 so if I’m dex character does it matter if str stays red as long as I keep raising the dex? Will that make sword better focusing just on dex an not worry about str
Depends. Some buffs already have a determined buff damage. Like Golden bow. However, electrify armament, for example, scales of spell buff. The higher the spell buff, the higher the damage applied to your weapon.
@@rpjames8 at 6:33 it shows Str will change from E to C which is better, however it shows that physical dog decreases from 112 to 101. So it scales better but you still lose damage?
So the higher rating of the scaling, the higher the damage increase when leveling up the stat of the scaling?
Precisely!
@@rpjames8 Thanks a lot!!! ❤️
Good thing someone in the comments explained it. Thanks Rashid.
Yes! I like choosing a weapon, and finding a good Ash of war. Then invest points in the stats for the weapon scaling to do increased damage.
Oh dude I'm super dumb. Played the shit out of this game and didn't know this until now
Thanks for the video. Am I the only one that can't finish the game because I keep changing my character lol.
About to respec into a dex/intelligence build. If i wanted high melee damage & reasonable sorcery damage should i pump stats into dex or int? & what is the best weapon i should use. Thank you
Get the Moonveil, ice stomp ash of war, Lorettas slash, Dark moon great sword, wing of Astel curved sword, bastards stars. Some others but those seem like the best options.
Depends on the weapon some weapons as above posted are better with pure int some are good with dex then buffed if you want hybrid then you probably want similar lvls like a dex weapon keened then buffed the main focus can be your choice whether you cast more or melee more or you can do even like 40-40 as a example
@izami iza thank you
@@CesarCastro-mv5wt np so far seems like theres alot of options for different builds I was honestly very surprised
I can’t put any ash on my treespear this is so stupid
Unique weapons can’t be AoW’d. They usually already have a unique AoW on them.
Does the damage from the ashes *ability* scale off the applied affinity, or still use the original stat for its damage? For example using bloody slash with a heavy affinity, does the slash attack itself now scale with strength? Or does that differ between ashes?
Mostly from weapon upgrade. Attack power (Which is basically a mix between weapon base damage and scaling) seems to affect it a little, but by 2-3 points of difference, when my testing was of attack power of hundreds of difference. So, it's mainly by weapon upgrade, and that's it.
I´ll have a video soon breaking all this down, my discoveries and such.
@@rpjames8 thank you! This was my biggest question. Like why would I put on a magic ash if I was a dex build instead of finding another that’s actually dex. Your reply is what I found in my testing as well.
Ashes of war will change your scaling that weapon draws from, you weren’t far enough into the game yet but a updated video would be good for the new players
I believe I covered that. Ashes of war do not change the scaling. The affinity the Ashes carry, do.
Thanks! I was trying to figure out exactly how this all works, especially how it interacts with with faith/int scaling. Very well explained 👍
Glad I could be of service!
@@rpjames8 Some of my ashes of war aren't working properly when I put them on different weapons. for example bloody slash works perfectly when I put it on "Rogiers's rapier" but doesn't when I put it on "Nagakiba Katana". Any idea what's going on?
3:41 for those of you looking for "Affinity Granted."
The text note you placed at 1:25 was very helpful, thank you!
I'd like to point out some things that werent mentioned here
First of all, changing the scaling will decrease the base damage of the weapon, this applies to all scalings as far as i know
If you use elemental scaling (magic, sacred etc) then you can no longer buff the weapon *from sorceriers or incantations* -but any other buff should work- (edit: greases dont work either)
Active ash of war damage (such as Loretta's slash that was used in the video) will use a predetermined element *that cant be changed* plus whatever the weapon currently has
So overall, its not really worth switching the scaling outside standard unless you have a major gap in stats, such as 40 strength and 20 dex, in which case heavy would be preferable as it can cover the damage loss from changing the scaling, sacred/magic/whatever gives worse scaling to their equivalent sorcery/incantation buffs
HOWEVER, blood/poison/cold will add the corresponding status effect (doing so will reduce any base of those 3 by a bit), so they can be used with a bit more leniency, but their respective buffs should still be better, its just that these are useful even if you dont have the corresponding stats to scale them (but keep in mind that status buildup is better on faster weapons)
This dude has some valuable info here.
What I’ve heard is if you use hosrfrost on a bleed weapon that the bleed can proc the frost as well. So I want to test hoarfrost stomp on a bleed weapon with another status effect whetstone like poison to see if I can triple proc the frost.
Hey man you said you use magic or sacred SCALING you cant buff weapon with sorc or incantations? or you meant if you use magic or sacred typed ash of war you can no longer buff them? or is it talking about afinity?
@@ChickenSoupMusic my hookclaws are +8 and deal 60 blood buildup, if i switch to frost scaling then it drops to 45 blood buildup and gets a 78 frost buildup, if i switch to poison it (once again) drops to 45 blood buildup and 76 poison
idk how the status scale exactly but i have 65 int (cold scaling) and 12 arcane (poison scaling)
@@tyranorex940 You can´t cast buffs on weapons that already have an element. If you place a holy affinity into a weapon, you can't buff it. If you place a bleed affinity into the weapon, you can't buff it.
Around 6:45 is what still confuses me. Why is that your scaling is going up but your damage is worth on both numbers? This is my first fromsoft game so I'm still confused on that. Thanks for the guide!
Edit: I noticed that in this particular case it was removing the Dex scaling which lowered dmg, but I could've sworn I've had it lower the dmg even when it didn't remove the scaling for some.
Alright, take a look at the weapon, and what kind of scaling it has. It has B Dex and E STR? It's a Dex weapon because B is Higher than the E STR. So it's going to get more damage from placing points into Dex.
@@rpjames8 Thank you the reply! That part I'm pretty sure I understand, I think what was confusing me was answered in your reply to another I comment I saw that says that applying an AoW lowers the overall dmg a bit--so at my low levels of attributes it probably is worse, but as you stated once my stats are higher it should outweigh the tradeoff and be better, correct?
@@dogs-game-too Yes!
@@rpjames8 It all makes sense now, thank you!!
I'm confused how not one tutorial has mentioned about the physical damage numbers changing, often lowering them but giving a better scale number. I think there is more info needed because it's that way on most weapons and I'm confused that I would increase the weapon scale number but lower the physical damage. How can I know its a better trade off?
This is only partially true. Because it f you are strenght/faith build and you want to use ash that scales better in dex, but you have no points in dex, you still be better off going for heavy affinity even when it will be C in str compared to B in dex (as you have all your points in str)
Great video c: additionally for weapon variety some weapons can perform well with suboptimal scaling via a better moveset or just because there isnt a option in the class. Granted there seems to be alot of variety and options for different builds
All the ones with commentary I've watched so far have sucked explaining this. Your silent vid(lol) did an amazing job clearing it up 4 me. Ty
Im working on a dual katana dex/faith build, i have both katanas on keen scalin and will be adding points into faith down the line to get buffs and incantations, thank you James for the great explanation. 🙏👍
Here to serve!
@@joshuavick887 Uhm, no. It actually does sound quite viable. He's working on hybrid melee/Magic build, that can increase his damage tremendously by using weapon buffs.
It's better, and more damaging than lets say a pure dex build. And more versatile as well.
@@joshuavick887 I speak from my Souls experience. But ER as well. A Capped dex A weapon gives you 600 dmg as much.
A Capped Dex weapon with 50 Dex and weapon buff 50 fth ends up giving you like 800. Corroborated in My posted builds! Cheers!
@@joshuavick887 I don’t see where anyone said anything about INT here.. he said Dex/Faith.
Can't understand a thing your saying anyway 🤣
*you’re
I'm alittle confused. If I put on a magic ash of war (like Loretta's slash) but choose the standard affinity, what would dictate the actual damage scaling of the loretta slash skill if there's no INT scaling added to the weapon?
Been testing. Ashes of war skills scale directly from weapon damage and upgrade. More upgrade than weapon damage overall.
this is my first souls game and this is super confusing to me lol. can anyone help me figure out the best route to take with duel wielding greatswords (lordsworn/clamore) any help would be greatly appreciated. in the mean time ill try to figure it out myself.
Same here this is my first souls game and looks like we chose the same type of build. I'm currently level 50 right now but to my approach for my first character I didn't follow the "light" on the map, I looked up rune farming videos to level up and armor farming/location videos. Keep in mind after many deaths from all that grinding thats when I actually chose to fight the first boss and it was really easy but you still need to know game mechanics of course.
brotha have you tried clearing your throat?
sadly my favourite weapon (moonveil katana) cant change ash of war ):
Because it's already a sick wep. BI
@@rpjames8 got that right
Its a meh katana with an oh so skill.
So just get a better katana and use a better ash.
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 bro this comment is 2 months old i have 200h in the game i dont even use it anymore, but it was nice for my first playtrough
Thanks for explaining that stuff. Just one question I have. Can you remove the ash of war and place on a new weapon, or its stuck forever? I sold a sword with the ash of war on it today for 100 because I thought it was not possible
Yup, it's swapable. You can even drop ashes of war to your Friends.
@@rpjames8 I have a question too: is it possible to use two different ashes of war if I am using two different weapons on each hand? Specifically speaking the bloodhound claw and reduvia
@@juancardenas6021 Yup. To use the ash of war from the left hand, you would have to two hand the left hand weapon though. But you can definetly have different ashes of war on each hand.
To put the Affinity Granted mechanic into simple terms ?? Use whatever Ashes of War and Affinity to best suit your Build Stats, so you can derive the best output for that weapon !!
I could’ve done this video explanation in 2minutes…
Be my guest. ^^
Was planning on building that armor set but I'm kind of bummed that the blues don't match.
Have you posted a video of this exact build? Weapons, armor, magic, and stats to focus on? I'd like to give it a try.
Yup, ua-cam.com/video/yOf5A_ZC5aI/v-deo.html there you go buddy!
At 7:28 in the Attack Power section for Physical there is a Red 143 and Blue 57. I know Red is bad and Blue is good, but when you cycle through different Ashes of War these numbers change. Could someone please explain what the 2 numbers on the right of Physical actual mean please? Thanks
The left value is The base damage. The right is how much extra you get from stat allocation based on the scaling.
due to this red coloring I stil find it confusing, I watched many explains still kinds dont get it
Dude what about the other stat after attaching your ash of war, standerd, heavy, magic,,, holly, what does this do?
That's granted affinity, talked about it. ^^
My faith is higher than my dex, so is sacred/lightning better for me than keen?
Im more confused then a homeless man under house arrest. So the physical damage, is just what the weapon without any buffs will do to an enemy. With an ash of war, you are adding an ability, but theres a trade off. From what i see if effects physical damage negatively but with scaling it increases damage by scaling to what exactly?
Left damage is base damage. Right damage scales from base damage. Depending on letter, it's higher or lower scaling. Think of a C scaling weapon as: 300+100 and a B scaling as 300+150 and A scaling as 300+200.
Is there something like diminishing returns in terms of scaling in combination with stat points being spend?
A friend told me that if a weapon has for example C in faith, it's is a waste of points to have 50, 60 or more in faith, because you would need S scaling to make good use of the points spend.
Your friend is correct! C weapons are good for quality builds only.
Is there a chart somewhere that tells u this info. I'm new to the game and I think that would help
Just watched some guides on YT on this, yours is by far the most easy to understand, while offered the right amount of detail. Just earnt a sub for sure, goodluck on building the channel mate
Thank you so much Bruce!
Yo same bro, I'm subbed due to your concise and meaningful explanations! 😭
@@justaguywhoworkshere5974 You guys are da true MVPs!
Thanks for the video I’ve learned a few new things from your explanation and from the comments . 👍👍
Does anyone know what the best build for a prophet would be?
I dont normally subscribe and I don't do UA-cam other than tutorials and guides, but you called me gorgeous so I subbed. Good video too.
Because you're damn gorgeous >:c
I’m desperate to know if bloodhound’s step can be changed to faith scaling, so sacred or lighting (or fire)? If not I’ll have to wait a few dozen levels until I have dex leveled up as high as I currently have faith.
I watched this video to help me understand what ash of war is. I still have no idea what it is after I watched it. In the future can you provide the basic information on what it does and why it is needed?
Increases your overall damage, and its needed to kill pipols.
Thank you...I know it’s very basic but not other guide was telling me if they were consumed on use.
great video, very usefull !
Prophyz ma' boi!
3:20 bueno= Hispanic 😂 thanks for the info👍
3:20 bueno= Hispanic 😂 thanks for the info👍
Let me ask u a question , without doing it please answer it honestly with what u think will happen.
I have a Godskin peeler +20 , and I’m running a mage build (no dex…. 60 in Intelligence)
I want to use the Godskin Peeler so what do I do? I put Frosty Mist AoW on it and change the affinity to cold to get a nice frost build up with the innate blood build up.
When I apply the Cold affinity to this weapon after equipping it with the Frosty Mist AoW, what do you think happens to the weapons scaling? What stat goes up in scaling and what stats go down? You won’t believe the answer
Intelligence, since cold further increases Intelligence scaling! That's a noice frost mage set up you got right there!
See I thought intelligence would go up also. But no
Frosty Mist with cold affinity bring Int scaling from a C to a D and it brings Dex up from D to a B
Your the best fucking teacher bro I needed taught just like this Thankyou I subbed
As a daily life teacher, your words are really encouraging. I really apreciate It!
plz help im vagabond switching to uchigatana build every affinity except heavy and blood shows reduced dmg idk why why wopuld quality affinity reduce base dmg wtf would be the point??? what does it increase???
Decreases base damage to increase scaling damage. If you invest heavily on DEX, the scaling is going to compensate and increase the damage the more you place points into DEX.
@@rpjames8 thank you so much this was putting a huge damper on my enjoyment of the game getting confused with stuff i just beat godrick yesterday do you think its ok to go uchigatana build if i farm extra points for dex stat or should i make my uchi affinity heavy and stay mainly strength until i can respec at higher lvl ?since all my points r strength for greatsword etc i also am concerned about becoming over leveled thnk you very much if you reply does it matter if i put my affinity on my wep before or after upgrading it??? ill try to watch much more of your vids!!
The wing spear is the best weapon in all souls titles imo
It's a solid weapon!
Why is it so good compared to others with a higher dmg??
@@Jake-ts1twit just works for me
@@Jake-ts1tw there is no "best" weapon because it depends entirely on the player's playstyle. He means it's his favorite weapon
I know that magic attacks from ashes of war don't scale withweapon damage. But do they scale withattack type attributte?
subbed! more people should sub to your channel bruh
I want to use a faith/frost build. The problem is I want to put the hoarfrost stomp ashes of war on my longsword but it scales with INT. Can I make this work somehow? I know you talked about this at the end of the video but I didn't quite understand.......
Magic ashes of war can't have holy scaling. However, if your build is Dex/FTH then you could place that Magic Ash of War and set the affinity/scaling on dex, that way your weapon scales with DEX, rather than INT and you would still have hoarfrost in it.
@@rpjames8 Yea that makes sense & thanks for the quick response. It's just frost isn't magic only, the frozen lightning spear spell is purely faith for example, hence my confusion.
why cant i get heavy scaling on my RKR ash???
very helpful, but I hope your throat is in a good shape, it doesnt sound like it
Smoking, I know, it sucks. But it helps with stress. Glad I could help!
You want the affinity which does the most damage correct? Or is there some other factor to consider? I notice that the attribute scaling on come choices is very bad yet they end up having much more damage output.
Yup, the best one for your main stat.
@@rpjames8 Okay thank you.
I found a sword called Crystal Sword. It seems like I can’t apply any ashes of war to it. Are there certain weapons that can’t use ashes of war?
Yes, special weapons like your crystal sword have already a weapon art attached to them and though cannot be changed with any ashes. There are 2 or 3 specific special weapons that can be upgraded with ashes but all the others can not .
@@Antidepressiva1980 thanks!
Hy mate you video is very helpful one question only how to get that many affinity options on ashes of war scaling I only have 2 ?
Paladin out there using smite evil 😆
Noob question , what button to click to active ash of war for pc ? Im using xbox controller.
Thank you very much for the guide, it helped me a lot 🖤
Thank you very much for watching!
I like your background music, good video.
I like your profile pic. Good comment.
Its kind of odd but I didn’t manage to get a a/s scaling… best I had was B
Never seen a better scaling on eldenring
It would be nice if you could change the affinity on normal weapons with normal ashes of war and still use weapon buffs. For example: changing the scaling of the soilders straight sword to faith with the sanctified whet blade, and using the square off “aow “ prevents you from using black flame blade incantation with it. Same with the erdsteel dagger and the quickstep “aow”. Maybe it would be too strong with high faith? I only have 30 and it doesn’t seem like it would be.
It’s pretty annoying bc I really don’t like the faith scaling weapons available or their ashes of war and you still can’t use the weapon buff incantations with at least most of them I think.
Ideally id like to add faith scaling to the flamberge with a basic “aow” and still use black flame blade (I knew it sucks, but the aesthetic). It can’t be that much stronger or am I doing something wrong ?
I mean I would expect it Not to work with sacred blade or something like that bc it buffs your weapon and shoots a projectile. But idk why it wouldn’t work with the scenarios I mentioned
I have 77 hours in and at level 174 and I had no idea what the difference between Standard and Keen was...
It's only natural! From Soft games never explain this stuff to the pipols.
@@rpjames8 I've played FromSoft games in the past, but never to this extent. I got about ⅓ of the way through DS 3, Sekiro and Bloodborne before putting them down and never picking them up again. If I could change just 1 thing about these hands, it wouldn't be the difficulty, it would be to get rid of the vagueness when it comes to mechanics and quests. Other than that, I'm loving this game.
Hey Dude, thank you very much for the video! I pretty much finished limgrave e peninsula area and had not understood how the ashes worked. I dont think they will be very usefull to me on my mage build, specially cause im using the meteorite blade and staff. I dont fully understdand scalling though. The blade has inteligence scalling, does this makes the physical (normal) hits stronger as well, or just the magic special abillitie of the blade stronger the more inteligence i have? If i dont use the abillitie it dosen't get the int buff and i just get the scalling on dex and sth on the normal hit? Also, the meteorite staff buffs meteorite magic, dos it buffs the special abillitie of the meteorite blade?
The scaling is always important. It determines all of your damage, both physical and magical. If a sword has let's say C int scaling and you have another one on A int scaling, the "A" one is going to be better the more intelligence you have!
@@rpjames8 Oh thats great. Much more confident o uping this sword and my int stat more exclusevly from now on. This game is not simple for beginners, its my first souslike. If it wasn't for guys like you guinding us with your grace, wouldn't go through the challenges. Thanks from Brazil!
@@LilPedro28 I hope to help as much people as possible!
I know this is a late reply, but maybe helps others reading through the comments like I was.
@Andrei Georgescu Yes. Inherently the swords in your examples are designed to do physical and magic damage. The scaling is basically determining WHAT player attribute is used to increase the overall damage of the sword across the board (both physical and magic). So for example, if you have a sword that has C Strength scaling and B Intelligence scaling, both the attributes Strength and Intelligence will increase the sword's attack power values in both phys and magic, but Intelligence values will be increasing them in a larger threshold due to the better scaling rank of B vs C.
However when it comes to affinities, you could change said sword to a physical affinity only, which would in turn remove its inherent ability to do magic damage at all (in the info window you'd see magic damage turn to 0), but this would possible lead to overall better physical damage though likely not 1:1 value (say the weapon does 50 phys and 50 magic by default, this may increase phys to say 80 base value, but not a rounded 100. it can make up for the loss of magic damage but not fully. altering the state of these values comes down to your own preference and likely situational things such as whether or not a mob/boss outright resists magic damage.)
Though I could be wrong completely. Would be cool to see @RPJames chime in with some clarification.
The scaling is the background instructions deciding which base player attribute increases the stats of the weapon itself and by how much. So ideally, check the weapon's stat screen, and be stacking the stat it scales off of best (highest rank out of E>D>C>B>A>S, E being worst, S being best, in that order). If it shows a " - " in the scaling window, that attribute does nothing for the weapon at all. Alternatively, use the ashes and affinities to alter the weapon into a scaling method that suits your current attribute build.
Disclaimer, I am quite new to the game... but trying to learn and understand it myself. Hoping discussing it this way will help in that regard.
@@rpjames8 very helpful all across these comments, and I appreciate it very much as a later new player to the game.
1:25 but you can duplicate any ashes of war with Lost Ashes of War to use on a second wepon.
How do i change a confessor early so i can scale faith?
Find a sacred based ash of war. It will contain holy affinity.
I understand now thank u
What happens to the default skills that are on weapons when you add an new ash of ear to it. I'm literally level 80 something and haven't used any cuz don't wanna lose the other skills and I don't know if I will ever be able to find the weapon again. Been using the bloodhound fang I think it's called and like it's ability, have a few ashes of war I'm curious to try, so hopefully someone can make sense of this so I can no longer be maidenless.
If you put an ash of war on a weapon it doesnt get rid of the old one, you can just go into the ash of war menu and unequip it and the weapon will get its base ash of war back. ( specifically if you have a weapon with an ash of war already equipped and you want it revert it to its original ash, go into the ash menu, select the ash of war you have currently equipped and select undo enchantment and itll revert back to its base one )
Ok so I have been trying to figure out why the standard affinity is always the best for my character, so when I choose another affinity the base damage goes down so much that the scaling doesn't matter!
I did updated the video with one where I explain that. You can find It in the Channel, let me see if I can find it.
ua-cam.com/video/m22x87LaULk/v-deo.html
@@rpjames8 so I think I'm starting to understand it a bit better, it's so weird that even tho the base attack plus the scale can be lower In let's say quality and higher in standard but then quality will still do higher overall damage. Makes zero sense to me lmao 🤣
@@rpjames8 also do you ever have random times where your character stats will change for awhile then revert back?
Thanks helped alot
So if I was doing a full-on dex build, I would use the Keen affinity for all ashes of war that I equip on my weapons, assuming that all my weapons scale with dexterity?
Yes, provided those weapons already have a good base dex scaling. C for example is a good base for affinity.
Waoww nice one man this video is my key to success ty verry mutch now i finnally understanding the scalling finnalyy !!!!
Subscribe and approved !!!
I am so glad I could be of service!
how do you unlock all those "affinity granted" option ? mine was much more limited. for example, a keen ash of war only has keen and standard affinity, heavy ash of war only has heavy or standard affinity for options.
it will be cool to put bloodhound step on heavy weapon
You need to unlock more ashes of war.
Watched the whole thing, still don’t get it 😂
Maybe I can help you personally if you tell me what is it that you don't understand!
At what point does a weapon become more dex or strength based. Running a quality build and want to use the grafted sword but the C str and E dex makes it feel like a strength build would be better
B it's ideal. Quality weapons usually have both on C
Once u place an ash on a weapon is that it? Or can I move it to another?
Borat?!!
So do the bleed ashes of war scail
with arcane or no?
Hey Can you use a ash of war on the sword of Night and flames ? I’m a vagabond and really confused
You can't change ashes of war of special armaments.
I thought you can’t buff a weapon that has an ash of war?
You can, on Heavy, Standard, Keen, and Quality. Affinities that grant an element to the weapon, are not buffable.
@@rpjames8 thanks for the reply!
Great video pal. Earnt a new sub 👌🏼
One question. Do Ash of War abilities, such as buffs or even the special attacks, scale based on the stat usually attributed to that ability's type or based the weapon's scaling it's applied to. For example, I am using Bloody Slash on a scimitar right now. If I make that a Keen scimitar, will the Bloody Slash itself scale up with Dex as it's the weapon's scaling stat, or will it's damage scaling be based on the Arcane stat as it is blood magic. I ask this because I am unsure. Considering that other spells are based on the incant scaling of your staff/seal, I would reason that it is based on the weapon's scaling, but I am unsure.
It scales based of AR. The more overall damage you have, the better the skill will be.
@@rpjames8 Ok so based off the weapon affinity and upgrades then. That makes sense. So I could use ashes of war with a heavy affinity to have a strong magic attack like Carian Greatsword without needing to invest in INT. That's incredibly nice to know.
Should I be concerned or keep an eye on the physical stats with Aow or focus more on the attributes?
Attributes. Always. Elemental and Physical can both be good provided you handle your affinities well.
How do you unlock more affinity options on an ash of war? Specifically the blood slash one
Oh, it's in my blood paladin vídeo! Fort Haight!
This is the video I was looking for.
Basically, the the scaling of a weapon determines how much your stats affect it. Heavy weapons usually scale higher with strength, dexterity scale higher with usually fast weapons (they also often have more unique move sets). In between are quality weapons and they usually scale decently in both strength and dex but not especially high in either, favoring a more balanced build. And then there’s arcane, intelligence and faith. Arcane is new to Souls games so I’m still figuring that out myself, but faith and intelligence work the same as strength and dex. High scaling intelligence weapons obviously go good with sorcery builds and high scaling faith weapons go good with cleric/healer builds.
Arcane is Luck from DS3.
@@AirplaneBandit got it lol, thanks man
when i sit down at the grace, I don’t have to option to look at my ashes. how do I get that option
You need to unlock ashes first.
When you upgrade your weapon can the scaling tier of your weapon go up or will it stay in the same tier?? So if it's C and I upgrade my weapon can it be a B or A
It goes up!
@@rpjames8 nice 👍 thanks
Hey thank you for the response yesterday so quickly…where did you get that hood/cape?
Top left corner of the Altus Plateau! Near one of the Windmills!
What is the name of the hood ))
Thanks.
Thank YOU for watching!
I just want to know how scaling affects ashes of war damage :(
Got that one planned for tomorrow! Ive been testing.
this video was very helpful thank you.
Thank you for watching!
I want to change my affinity without changing my weapon art...
You can!
@@rpjames8 because I want to use the uchigatana with it's unsheathe weapon art but I want it with a magic affinity to scale with my INT
@@SkepticSloth I love when I do have the answers you guys seek.
Go to Limgrave, the Dragon Swamp. Right above of the Aghel lake south it's going to be a silver scarab. Kill it, it will give you the unsheate Ash of war. Then, you can add an affinity to it!
@@rpjames8 No see that's my problem. The unsheathe ash of war just gives my uchigatana the "keen" affinity. And the affinity menu only lets me change it to keen, heavy, or quality.
I have a magic affinity ash of war but in order to add the affinity to my uchigatana I have to replace my "unsheathe" weapon art.
How do I keep unsheathe but add magic affinity instead of keen?
@@SkepticSloth Uh, then it's not possible. Certain ashes of war do not allow you to have certain affinities. Said so in the video.
Say the strength is at E and the dex is at a C and I’m a dex/int character does it mean I should go for the dex always for scaling and you can only choose one str or dex meaning one will always be low in red while other is in higher blue? Does that make sense? And I noticed the dmg is usually red at top so using ashes lowers dmg?
Yup. Using ashes does lower damage. And yes, It makes sense. Ashes of war lower damage for you to focus precisely on that, on leveling the Scaling as high as possible, while balancing and not breaking the game. Still, proper use of scaling, it's always going to out class standard.
@@rpjames8 so if I’m dex character does it matter if str stays red as long as I keep raising the dex? Will that make sword better focusing just on dex an not worry about str
@@maxcruz5936 Yup, as a dex character you should avoid str like the plague.
I've been wondering forever: how does incant scaling effect spell damage or the amount of a buff/heal for each spell?
Depends. Some buffs already have a determined buff damage. Like Golden bow. However, electrify armament, for example, scales of spell buff. The higher the spell buff, the higher the damage applied to your weapon.
@@rpjames8 what about damage for attack spells? Like lightning spear
Do you also pay attention to the number changes to the right or just the scaling letters?
The damage numbers on the right, are the direct consequence to the letters's scaling.
@@rpjames8 at 6:33 it shows Str will change from E to C which is better, however it shows that physical dog decreases from 112 to 101. So it scales better but you still lose damage?
Ty for this
Thank you for watching!
Dont build your builds around your weapons! Choose weapons to fit your build!
This video was so informative. I think I want to do a hybrid build now.
I am so very glad I could be of service!
This was very helpful. I need more guides like this one. Thanks you!
I´ll definetly have more, Pacman ma' boi´!
Ausitm
Went and got Guts' greatsword and as a faith build I put the sacred weapon on it. I got an A for faith for scaling.