Recommended EndGame Weapons | Dark Souls Wiki

for straight swords, I found the silver knight straight sword to be quite effective

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This was either written by someone who has never even played Dark Souls or an idiot

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The soul weapons damage ia considered with 0 or 10 humanities?

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Sneed

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Always go normal upgrade, and buff your weapon with resin, miracle, or spell. even minimal investment in faith/int so you cast the buff is more or less equivakent to adding a resin but is “infinite” in that you dont have to farm or buy the resin.

My “best weapon” mini-guide:

Best Dex: Great Sythe as it has good speed, great reach, causes bleed, and has pretty decent stamina drain (when compared to a katana or the Balder Side Sword). Recommended buff: sunlight blade miracle or pine resin.

Best Strength: Large Club. buffable and its amazing moveset and poison aux effect more than makes up for the small drop in damage and slightly shorter reach over the great club or dragon tooth.

Plus it’s farmable in the early game (in the blight town exit tunnel. get there from firelink->new londo elevator with master key or via undead parish->darkroot basin->valley of drakes->blight town tunnel without master key).

Recommended Buff: poison resin will help the aux effect build up faster.

Beat Quality (balanced str/dex stats): Bastard Sword. Purchasable from Andre for 3000 souls. I prefer its moveset over the claymore (better combos, try alternating strong and weak attacks) and faster tgan Zweihander. One handed strong attack is overhand (like Zwei) and is pretty good at breaking poise and can pancake smaller enemies). Buy two of them and ascend the second one along the Occult path (with solaire’s help you can easily stun lock Gwynn in the final boss fight)

Recommended Buff: Dealer’s choice (fire resin when the boss is weak to it)

Best “No Scaling” (minimal stats to one hand the weapon is all you need): Gravelord Sword. Easy enough to get in the early game by joining the Gravelord Servant covenent. Trade dung and prisim stione with snuggly and kill titanite demons in the Undead Parish and Catacombs and you can get it to +3 before you’ve even rang a singke bell (dung/prisim sold by moss dealer as it only requires the basement key to get to her).

Its all about that strong thrusting attack (sends most enemies flying and breaks poise like a champ) While it cant be buffed, it has TOXIC aux effect (buildup is 30 per hit) and doesnt require embers, or humanity like the Bass Cannon (e.g. Chaos Zweihander) to be good. Long Live, Nito!

Most Fun Weapon: Gold Tracer. longer reach than the buffable Painting Guardian Sword and a better moveset. Too bad you can’t get it until the midgame (at best) as it requires you to beat O&S AND place the lord vessel. It’s found in the DLC (after the Artorias fight, no less), after a quick trip to Duke’s Archive to get the broken pendant that unlocks the portal to Oolacile.

Unlike the Scimitar and Falchion, which both have more of a carwheel style multihit attack, the goldtracer is more of a twirl/dance attack (along with the Painting Guardian and Priscilla’s Dagger). In the hands of an experienced player you can chain your combos to land 4-5 strikes before they even know what hit them (enough to cause bleed if enemy is susceptible to it).

Works great in either hand (no parry in off-hand), making it great for dual weilding.

Best Beginner Weapon: Zweihander. Grab it as soon as you get to Firelink by doing a suicide run in the graveyard. Turtle up and learn the timing of the strong attack and you can Pancake your way to victory in no time.

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Thank you for making this. Im doing a run where I get my soul level to the max, and wanted to knkw how I could be stronger.
I need souls to level up, but bosses are getting too strong for my magic :(

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Where's the Black Knight Halberd, I was able to kill Orstein in NG in 4 hits.

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This is a pretty **** guide tbh. Especially for new players. It doesn't take into account split damage issues (yes it's addressed in the info, but I feel a lot of people will skip over this and just go for "OOH! BIG NUMBERS!), weight, moveset, stat requirments or buffability. Each of these is far more important than squeezing out the highest AR number. Like the pike. It's one of the heaviest spears, uses tons of stamina compared to lighter spears, and has a high str requirements making it a horrible option for an enchanted weapon. No one in their right mind should use an enchanted pike over, say, an enchanted winged spear for like 10-15 extra AR. Not worth it in the slightest.

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WHERE IS THE ROCK LEGEND HIMSELF THE DRAGON TOOTH IS AMAZINGXD

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bruh with the ultra weapons no ZWEI!? how can i trust this when it doesnt show the best Ultra in the game!?

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Most of this is really really good, and I'll probably be using this for a while just for future builds. But I have one big problem, there's a problem with the Ultra Large Weapons section, it doesn't list the BASS CANNON as the best. Anyways thanks for the help!

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The greatscyth deserves a place cause it has bleed+greater reach than lifehunt scythe

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This guide tells you what weapon has the higher damage statistic. Weapons that do two types of damage deal less damage making this guide over simplified and misleading. The words 'best' and 'end game' shouldn't be used to describe this guide.

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Silver Knight Straight Sword! <3

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Why most if not all of these have upgrade path of enchanted, is that the best upgrading path by any chance?

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Let me put it simple stupid (im at playthrough 8, and have at least 10 builds made in ds1 alone, not a total noob).
For post endgame, unbuffed, easy mode:
primary - moonlight greatsword
secondary - greatsword of artorias (side weapon for magic resistant enemies which are almost non-existant or pvp vs anti-mages)
spells - sorcery & dark sorcery (beads pretty much)

funs :
cursed greatsword of artorias - for ghosts
divine zweihander - chill mode for catacombs (worth to prioritize this early game, as it disables alot of other enemies)
grant & buffed murakumo are good alternatives
*heavy crossbow or awelyn if you dont cast

dont judge weapons solely by damage output, but by utility they bring, stamina drain and movesets. the ones with highest damage like demons great hammer - are usually worse at making that damage.

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You can actually get two Demon’s great hammer. First: starting gift Black Firebombs, kill very first boss, he drops the hammer. Second: give the Sack head armor to the crows at the Asylum, they give you the hammer.

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There are elements of this article which are blatantly wrong. For instance deciding to do something different I consulted this article for a heavy weapon of the lightning type and settled on the Man-Serpent Greatsword. Only to discover that its damage is 550, Not 610. The other end game weapons lists may be "Inconclusive" But yours is flat out wrong and misleading. Likewise much of the information here is disagreed with by the wiki this article is located on although I am aware this article isn't affiliated with the wiki. Simply put I feel like you decided that your personal knowledge was enough and that you didn't need to double check the game or alternative sources. Which by the way even if you're 100% certain about something you should do if you're posting anything for other people just in the off chance that you're misremembering or remembering an earlier version or confusing two similar situations. Because if you're wrong it can and will affect other people.

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Thank you for your work, it means a lot

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Thankyou so much for this. By far the best article on this wiki. Hope theres a same article for ds2 and ds3.

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Thx for all your work. This is a great article!!

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Where are you getting the Raw Greataxe of like 700 plus AR? With 40 Strength? I don't understand, as the wiki says it has 322 AR with only C scaling in strength.

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So much complaining and hate for no reason. You’re allowed to disagree, but most complainers seem to completely miss the point of this. It’s not meant to be a guide on what weapons to use for certain builds or what weapons are great for certain builds. It is also not a guide on good weapons in the early game. Read the *****ing title. It’s meant for end game. It is meant for characters who have high stats all around. Plus, it also shows the very true fact that virtually any weapon is manageable in PvE with the right stats and as long as it is maintained. Plus, people really need to credit this guy for his hard work. Be glad that the information exists. You don’t have to use it or find it helpful. You can offer criticism, but majority of the people just want information on something that this wasn’t even meant to cover. Look up other people’s word or do your own if this doesn’t target what you’re looking for. Give the man some credit, help him improve if necessary, and enjoy the information. Don’t complain because he didn’t give you information that the topic doesn’t even cover.

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Why are there so many complaints in the comments? This took a LOT of work! The whole point of Dark Souls is that there is no universally optimal weapon. It depends on the individual’s style, preference, and stat choices. I personally found this article interesting and helpful because it compares weapon damage output under the same stats without getting too detailed with the, literally, plethora of factors. I consider this more of an endgame guide, or for someone who’s played the game a fair bit and wants to know in the long run (with high stats all around) what weapon to dedicate precious slabs to. Thanks for the hard work!!!

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in the damage calculation of the bandit's knife, in the chaos path, have you calculated the damage bonus at +10 humainty? if not, it is possible to reach the damage output of the enchanted one or near?

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I just beat NG with a +15 scythe and am doing well in NG+ so far. In the end I don't think it matters all that much as long as the weapon is upgradable and you are comfortable with using it.

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These numbers do not reflect the damage values on each weapons info page. Very misleading.

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This isn't a very useful article, in my opinion. Very few builds are going to spread their stats so evenly. It says that weapons with a tiny bit more AP are better than those with a vastly better moveset (prefect example would be Bastard Sword vs Claymore). It ignores the fact that split damage is vastly inferior. The best endgame weapon is going to depend more upon your build and your fighting style than theoretical maximum potential AR numbers with a max-level build.

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Smough's Hammer +5 450/0/0/0 D/-/-/- +50% STR scaling

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All weapons are good but they will all fall the the Chaos+5 Zweihander and 10 humanity

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Someone make this list for Dark Souls III.

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It would be interesting to see these ranked by PVE use and ease of access as well. 99 in all stats is way hard for a first run, getting to +15 is way hard for a first run, and if you don’t know farming routes then even getting upgrade materials to make your +10 weapons can be tricky. So, good work, could be nice to add “early game options” rather than just max stat compares. Shout out to the Claymore, Great Scythe, and Morningstar, all good and entirely ignored :P

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Thank you! XD

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WERES THE BASS CANON

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What about zweihander

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Appreciate the work, but, you miss vital things, such as, effect bonuses and moveset as well as durability and range and poise damage as I seem to see my abyss greatsword stagger a drake in 2 hits and the bastard sword in 3 with 1 hand, I know this is old but if read, next time consider these, example, abyss greatsword, has aoe capacity and a longer jump reach attack with strong attack with very high poise damage can reach 3m (not actual calc just example). Bastard sword, standard slash moves, 2m reach, mediocre poise dam. Then do damage numbers, I know its longer but its a huge factor that makes the difference between 5 new controllers or linking your 50th first flame

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Thx you, for this hard work

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Thank you for all your hard work

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Best small weapon is Gold Tracer +5

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I never got the chance to play the first Dark Souls before my ps3 broke, but i must say i LOVE the original Greatsword. Just the fact that it’s an ultra greatsword with a slash/thrust moveset and scales in both strength and dexterity makes me fall in love with it. It doesn’t have the highest damage output, but it’s still very high at +15, mine does 669 physical damage at 50/50 strength/dex. The slash attack does great against big groups of enemies, and the thrust attack eats right through most shields. I one-hit those snake people with it even when they have their shield up, and with the sword being so damn long, i can hit them from like 10 feet in front of me. It also eats right through the crystal shields that the crystal skeletons use, which makes it way easier to kill those bastards when they decide to hide behind their shield forever. I also tend to like weapons that have very high physical damage since a lot of enemies are resistant to other types of damage

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the greataxe raw plus five doesn't break 600 if its just may stats then it makes sense but in that case I'm probably spent all that time for nothing

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REEEE! What about (insert my personal favorite weapon) it does (ramble on about how dope it is) this guide is (REEEEEE some more)!

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Can i just add my 2 cents? the "Best Weapons" in the game depend largely on how the player plays. i, myself, am a huge fan of the Uchigatana, having finished all 4 DS games with one (or 9). I don't however consider it to be one of the best in the game in terms of "total" damage output (damage to stamina cost) While a friend of mine plays almost exclusively with weapons similar to the Black Knight Greatsword as soon as she gets them and, no bragging intended, we can both pretty much sail through the games. So in my opinion the "best" weapon is the one that you're most comfortable with.

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I like silver knight sword

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Why no zweihander? At +15 50/50 Str/Dex the ar is around 650-700 (probably wrong I'm not looking at it atm) if you drop 50 faith on that and buff with sunlight blade it gets over 1000 ar. What I'm saying is this list is bull

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Nope this didn't help me at all. I guess I will be bringing the Astora Straight Sword through my whole playthrough.

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This guide doesn't seem to account for stat scaling at all. You are recommending almost exclusively weapons that scale the best along 3 stats (straight, Dex, int). This page focuses on raw numbers and maximum potential instead of plausible numbers and the practical returns you may see. Aside from that, there are values in here that are blatantly wrong. Another comment points out raw great axe as an example.

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is that the cursed or regular greatsword of artorias?

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Best weapon: Black Knight Halberd

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your greataxe Raw damage appears to be completely wrong. and stats at 99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99 is almost completely useless for.. pretty much everyone. almost literally everyone. and the lack of moveset consideration is the final nail in the coffin for this.

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This page does not show any "Heavy" weapons stats?

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Is the dark sword still a good weapon? I read that it got nerfed.

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No mention for the Zweihander?

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I wanna use the bass cannon as a dil do

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BKH

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Horrible guide, no info about stamina useage weapon range, which is way more important then damage or dus. .

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Z

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Guides like this are why new players often make the wrong choice for their builds.

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Dude, you got It wrong. Having a higher AR does not make an enchanted weapon stronger, specially at late game, because the high resistances on the enemies will reduce your split dmg a lot more than it would ever do to a pure dmg weapon. Very few weapon are trully Vetter when elementally infused. Its not even Fair to have int ir faith builds with better melee dmg than fisical builds, sinceramente they have powerfull spells and a lot more utility

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what evidence does a speed run prove? speed running to determine best weapons? lmfao. what an absolute retarded *****. you simply wrote speed runs to gloat about it. moron. speed runs are "inconclusive" towards finding out what the "best weapons are"

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what about the zweihander?

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A1 weapon guide, but I think I'll just cheese it with my enchanted longsword +5.

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I don't know you guys, but with a good armor (Havel's set), a black knight shield and the Dragon King Greataxe, parrying Gwyn is a quick win, only 4 attacks.

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There's an issue with this research and presented data : even though the author said he tried them all personally
there's not much input on his usage. Also it's missing what is for me : critical data

example : stamina usage/movesets/hitspeeds & recovery

I understand that having the highest dmg could be desirable, particularly in pvp, but that's not all there is to it imho.

So, nice effort but unfortunately incomplete.

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Is it better to go enchanted or just do normal and SLB or DMB?

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where in the name of the sun is the claymore?

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you dont wanna use that black knight great axe in PvP youll get parried ALLLLLL DAYYY

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I find your lack of Zwei disturbing...

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There are two versions of Artorias' sword. You only mentioned one. The cursed version has only strength and dex scaling meaning it doesn't do the magic damage and instead does pure physical damage. It's good against characters with high resistance to magic (like artorias, seath, etc) Did you test both or no? Jw.

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i am still playing dark souls PTDE as it is the best game in series in my opinion... and wanted to do a lady of darkling file but the page says the estoc sucks should i improv with ricards rapier or Balder swag/side sword?

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I am doing a playthrough of this gem of a game, again again again and yet again:) Parry is so easy, when you are used to DS3 speed :)

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Whos still playing this in 2016? Im barely at level 317 with a good str. Build.

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It's funny, because most people are saying this is wrong, but what they didn't notice is that he said its for all stats at 99

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So halberds aren't a unique weapon class according to this guide, cool. I guess I'll just take my +15 Great Scythe elsewhere.

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am i the only one who use black blade?

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Just Wondering, how are the dlc weapons? (Abyss greatsword, tracers, SGA, etc.)

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Why is WP listed but not Uchi? Uchi is better in most damage cases.

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Do you think it's possible to beat the game for the first time using a lighting winged spear +5? I'm putting all of my souls into endurance(40 right now) and vitality (30 right now)

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Sunlight straight sword with a faith build, u can buff to over 600 . Dps per swing is insane

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Silently laughing as I see what are most likely Dark Souls 2 related questions, especially the ones asking about what Gems you use for enchanting...To the person who went through this trouble, thank you.I have used this general guide as a rule of thumb for selecting the weapons I would use my rare Slabs on and it hasn't led me astray even once, it's often a great idea to check this list if you're thinking of using a slab. (the only exception is with Crystal weapons, for those out there who would want to use one. Crystal +4 is better than Normal +15, so never use the Slabs on the final crystal level.)

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So I guess I am the only one who went through the entire game with a lightning+5 dagger.

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Just wanted to say Thanks for the time & effort you've put into this weapon guide. Whether its 100% correct or not (previous comments, not my opinion) I appreciate that this wouldnn't have been an easy task so I most definitely doff my cap to thee, and just so you know it has helped me BIG TIME.

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I'm surprised the dragons slayers great ax wasn't added to this list. On a good charge attack I can get that weapon to do almost a 1,000 damage. It's one of the most O.P weapons in the game. In PVP I can near one hit quite a number of players. Think you need to reevaluate them numbers bro. I'm seeing plenty of weapons that are significantly better than the ones on your list that are not added.

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I'm still strugling to find the way to "enchant" the darksword, what gem do you use?

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What exactly makes a weapon enchanted?? Wiki not telling me

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What stone u need to use for enchanted weapon? I always thought crystal was enchanted.

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Huh.I thought the Black Knight Halberd owned the halberd A LOT damage-wise.Aslo,what about ranged weapons?(I.e:Bows)

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I appreciate that you're giving the base damages, but you have to remember that Dark Souls has several different types of enemies. One weapon may be exemplary against a certain enemy, but not against another. Enemy resistances factor majorly, and not even getting started on the player's stat builds and how that factors into their damage.

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How about the Silver Knight Straight Sword? I just got the Lordvessel, and that sword works beautifully for me, in plus, I like straight swords.

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After going and getting/ upgrading the muramako, I know that Lightning has higher damage, and even then Zweihander is even more! I doubt the rest of this is correct either.

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If you were to calculate how many swings can be made with each weapon over 5 seconds and multiply the damage by that many swings, which weapon do you think has the highest DPS?

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Pike at the end of spears needs "Enchanted Pike+5" it just says "Pike+5"

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The weapon I chose for STR build was Claymore, and I do not see that anywhere in here. Lol. Now I'm sad

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with a high Int build you do more damage with Crystal Magic Weapon and a +15 weapon than a +5 Enchanted weapon

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