If you hadn't already noticed, this is a VERY versatile build that can use the Meat Cleaver, DBS, Dex-based weapons, and blessed weapons to great effect. It should be noted that this build is VERY effective below SL 80 with proper stat distribution, but if your goal is to play with the big boys and girls, good luck! Your "broken ToB" means only -1HP/sec with Curse weapon. You should almost always 2H wield with this build, but you may use 1H R1 to get you out of a tight spot when necessary. Storm Ruler is much more reliable though… In order to initially learn spells, you need 10 MAG and 10 INT for a spellslot. Once you have learned them and have taken full advantage of poison cloud for particularly tough enemies, delevel back to SL 4, but be wary that you will lose all levels gained since you lose a point from each stat until default is reached. VIT is permanent and strength is resistant to deleveling until it is the last one to go, so make sure your SL is still low enough to delevel in a timely manner. Once that's done, you are well on your way to beginning a build that is as fun as it is effective.
First, some options to consider:
1) sacrifice curse weapon by lowering your INT stat and using Silver Coronet to compensate for lessened MP, just enough so that you may use Second Chance. (definitely not recommended if you want to use the Cleaver/ Dex-weapons/Str-weapons)
2) lower faith down to 2 miracle slots and place those extra points in VIT and/or DEX. But you eliminate the effective use of blessed weapons :/ You will still be a beast, but far less threatening and more grass and spice-dependent. You will also make your damage output almost purely physical, which is useless in the face of warding.
3) Turn this build into a Pure Faith build by reducing DEX to 12, STR to 26, and increasing FTH/VIT appropriately. Although you cannot use DEX weapons and slightly reduced your effectiveness with STR weapons, your character will be even harder to kill.
4) Deduct points from FTH/VIT/INT and add them to MAG to use light weapon instead of CW. MAG should not exceed 30. You lose your ability as a FTH build (-_-), but you now have a modest portion of magic to throw around.
5) Lower STR to 26 and raise DEX to 34 to possibly deal a little more damage with the MC, and more with Quality weapons and DEX weapons. Damage for the DBS doesn't go down significantly and you may only use it 2H, but the MC may outdamage it with this setup anyway.
6) Up Mag to 17 and reduce dex for the option to switch between light and curse weapon (LW is still impressive with the iCat), but they cannot be equipped at the same time :( I prefer this setup the most because it is quite powerful in either case.
STAT SPREAD:
1) increase MAG and INT to 10 right away and learn every spell you can. Don't keep leveling if you can do without, store "stock" souls with Thomas. Until you delevel, spend your souls on miracles, spells, and ore. Level VIT a little if necessary.
2) pick up the blessed mace from 5-1 and beat the leachmonger. You may also grab the Mirdan Hammer from the beginning of 3-2 beneath the shortcut bridge if you wish to forge that blessed weapon early.
3) Free Sage Freke from 3-1 and learn poison cloud.
4) Kill King Doran/Miralda (recommend using poison cloud as the melee damage you deal will be almost nil with Doran's HP regen, but Miralda proves a less formidable foe)
5) beat 1-2 and learn warding
6) Recommended: beat all of world 5 and learn death cloud, it is WELL worth it.
7) Delevel in 1-2 or 3-1 by invading and leaving with the white eye stone until MAG=6, then re-level with all of the souls you stocked (including the small flame scale if you used poison cloud on the gold dragon before deleveling) so that you have 18 STR, 18 INT, and 16 FTH. Until you get CW, use enchant weapon (I prefer getting LW before CW) with the wooden catalyst.
6) grab the Adjudicator's shield from 4-1, then proceed to beat the level (note: there is a useful shortcut that takes you straight from Vanguard to the final area before ADJ; use the ladder in the structure by VAN, go to the wooden-plank-bridge, roll off the edge to the wall below, then fall into the area below that and viola! easiest level to complete in the game)
7) beat all of world 2, grab a club/great club, and make the MC
8) beat 1-3, grab the ring of iron keys and minister's hat from 1-4, free Biorr and grab the bloody iron key, free Yuria and memorize warding, beat the Penetrator into submission (difficult, but it becomes easy with the distraction Biorr provides, warding, and a decent weapon buff on MC)
9) learn curse weapon (or Light weapon first if you want a little more power until you reach higher SL's)
10) From there, i would personally work on getting FTH, END, and VIT up. Enchant weapon adds about 100 dmg per hit with the wooden catalyst and is a good go-to until you get a lot of SWS, BT, and the ToB for curse weapon. Normally, i save DEX for last since you will probably focus on your blessed weapons for the first part of the game, but increase it earlier if you use a bow a lot. Until your VIT is high enough, use warding to stay alive. Make sure to get Morion blade and Clever Rat's ring by the time you have a SL of 60+.
STRATEGIES:
1) Pound your enemies into the ground with 1-3 hit kills when berserked with Curse Weapon and MC (at SL 128, my BASE damage for the MC, after being berserked without buffs, is about 1100!! add curse weapon and foe's/friend's ring and you one-hit just about anything with a direct hit, ~400 dmg for whatever comes close) One thing to keep in mind though: the MC steals HP per hit, so if you are berserked, keep Makoto around to compensate, usually behind MC since that is most convenient. 1v1 is a good opportunity to parry, your damage will ALWAYS break their second chance or may outright kill them through warding, but any mistake=instant death for you.
2) Use your maxed out regen to simply outlast your opponent while devastating them with your blessed weapon whenever they get too close (though more often than not, you will be running after them for a sweet backstab). Death cloud is amazing in this situation, especially when combined with the bleed and poison from Makoto+5 and MercUchi+5/ Poison cloud.
3) Utilize your cursed Hiltless/favorite sharp weapon/tearing weapon to punish like a good DEX build should.
4) Parry-riposte or backstab with your Fatal weapons and play like a ninja ^_^ Make sure you have perfect stealth for this though before you attempt it.
5) Choose your favorite primary weapon with proper buffs/clouds, equip Storm Ruler as your backup weapon, and use it's knockdown effect to its full advantage. Equipped with clouds, recovery, and second chance, you can be VERY hard to kill.
6) Figure something else out and let me know :)
7) My strategy: use the MC until the buff runs out, then switch to NR and try to parry (reminder: req's 12mag).
A final note: sorry for the extensive detail i've listed for this build, i wanted to lay out as many options and explanations as i could. Happy hunting!
This build can punish most blueblood builds. If they cannot combo or backstab you before light weapon wears off, pursue them and take them out with your best moves.
Ring of Magical Dullness seems to be more useful than regenerator's ring for the most part. I recommend clever rat's ring as a good go-to in body form overall.
Backstab whores are a problem against your heavy-hitting weapons… BE CAREFUL. Oh, funny story: i was invading the other day, berserked with foe's ring, and almost took out a party of three :) i also dealt 1239 damage, berserked, to a brushwood tank in BF and killed him with a single hit and BT as my buff ^_^ he prolly didnt know what happened for at least a few seconds lol. On another note: without buffs, i was dealing 900 damage THROUGH WARDING with the MC (berserked, foe's ring). Their armor was the full gloom set.
Ah, well… i lost a few battles today and have an additional warning: spamming R2 is not recommended. if you have trouble getting an opponent off your back and need to heal/rebuff, 1H the MC and hit them with R1 to send them flying (if you don't have SR equipped). It is slow and can be interrupted, but it can catch them off guard once in a while.
This is a sturdy build, even in soul form. Use the same tactics as usual, knock them back with SR, poison and/or plague them, then harass them as much as you want. Do not rely heavily on those statuses though. if they immediately cure it with a lotus, don't even bother using it again unless you can literally piggyback them until they die. Or use throwing weapons… it doesn't matter which, it's only to stop them from healing.
24 minute PvP battle last night! Very cool XD
Edit: For higher levels, raise STR and DEX equally as well as FTH. More VIT couldn't hurt, but consider raising INT for more spell slots: Equip CW and warding/clouds. If you feel so inclined, increase MAG and use light weapon with the iCat (not rec'd unless you can make good use of it). Or better yet, with 5 spell slots, you can have both LW and CW!! It is doubtful your opponent will expect that much diversity.
Hey guys. Any answers would be appreciated
I was wondering how much the Dark Silver shield affects the moon sword damage. If the shield decreases the magic damage, wouldn't the damage from the 'moon' modification be negated?
it will not effect the magic damage with weapons only with spells
I cannot improve the build if i don't have any input! BTW, For those who doubt the effectiveness of this build, i challenge you in PvP. You'll find this build does substantial damage and is rather tough. It is not the strongest cleaver build, but it is more stat-efficient, more durable, and more flexible than its counterparts because of the high faith stat. This is about as close to a good paladin as you are going to get for this SL.
Hi,
Sorry if this is long, but there was alot I wanted to emphasize, especially being that finally, I see someone who has posted a very similiar build to what I am.
The great thing about this unique build is you can strategize using different spells, weapons and miracles, hence it's difficult to access may times from an opponents view, what freak kind of build is this? Very good for strategy, keeping others off guard, having the ability to utilize different weapons from Dex, to Strength and blessed with crushing power.
My build is similar to this as mentioned, having very strong faith ,endurance, and strength, above average dexterity and good magic. The one major difference which my build unfortuantely lacks is vitality. I def agree with you on increasing that particular stat. I substituted that by adding Dexterity at about 28 and magic at 22. Good things about doing that, but on the downside, two hits at times with an extremely powerful uchi, or fast sword, and it's a problem for me. My initial reasoning not to increase my vit stat was due to the fact that when defeating each boss in NG, some HP is added on to HP bar. However, after NG, and playing in NG+, and so on, , HP doesn't seem to increase anymore. Even after I knew this, stupidly I continued not to increase my vit's thinking I was a strong enough tank, only to great creamed by a four hit light weapon blue blood sword, and tricky, but great players.
Hence, although I still play with that character, as it is an effective build, I stared a new one…this time, lowering some of the magic and dex, and increasing my vitality. Very similar build like the one you described above,
The reason I like having decent MP power are for purely strategic reasons. A hit with my soul arrow is definitely not going to kill anyone by any means; not one, two, three or most likely four is going to do huge damage… LOL,nevertheless it also helps keeping other players off guard.
Another benefit to this build is when playing against torpedo headed magicians. Firestorm does negligent damage, not even breaking second chance, which is pretty cool considering the journeys of playing those that cast firestorm on me, only to see I'm up and about a second later.
The only thing I wanted to mention that I would differ with you is in miracles used.
Not that what you mentioned isn't right, but I was curious why you didn't think God's wrath was a very worthy miracle with a high faith stat this build has to use? The power this miracle gives off with high faith stats is crazy strong…can blow another player away to the next level:) Once that happens, take out a good blessed weapon, and usually it's bye bye:)
For my left slots, morion blade as you mentioned, is extremely helpful, and either talisman of beasts (if using combinations of spells and miracles),, or talisman of god(enough MP bar to use two god of wraths, not necessily one right after the other. … Rings you mentioned are exactly ones I use as well.
As you discussed the great beneftis this buld offers is a unique combat, utilizing a variety of different weapons, miracles and spells. Definitely interesting in your feedback though as to why you do not feel God's wrath is a strong miracle to use for this build as another strong option to use…
Other reasons to use this miracle is when playing as a blue phantom(great place to use miracle is in world 5-1 comes in handy to quickly decimate those grizzly things:)
You did a great job overall describing this caliber of build. The only flaw I've had at times was against strong blueblood Maybe others will disagree which is definitely fine, but some blueblood swords with light w. buff three four hit combo's have turned out to be adios to me:) Than again, I'm the guy with the low vitality!!haha Difference besides the vit with the build I have is my strength is at 32, sometimes like one handing a strong MC, or Great Axe, but this build as you mentioned offers a great deal of flexibility in weapons, spells, and mir…
I agree and disagree… I don't prefer magic for this build. the only reason i would ever have magic for something like this is to apply LW. Overall, the strategy behind this is, as you said, to keep your foes guessing, however, i think it is limited in that you can only equip two main weapons versus the three that would put this build over the top. I don't personally use this build much anymore despite its sturdiness, i've found the damage output for my latest MC build makes this one look like a joke with similar capability to boot. What i DO like about this build is that you don't HAVE to buff to have good damage output, it just helps. If you're interested in something with similar range, but greater potential, take a look at my LW Cleaver build on page 3 of the builds section.