So I've played a ton of both Dark Souls and Demon's Souls but the only build I've never really tried is the no shield build. I think I'm decent enough to do parries but I'm leaning more towards a 2H strength build.

The strength builds I'm thinking of are either trying to conserve weight by using the Butcher Knife or Man Serpent Greatsword or going all out attack with something heavy like the Demon's Greataxe.

Obviously a dual wield build would focus on dexterity with either a Great Scythe or an Uchigatana with a Parrying Dagger in the off hand.

I plan on using the fast roll so armor doesn't matter until I get my endurance high enough which I'll probably just use the Black Leather set. At this point I'm just looking for more reasons to play more Dark Souls so any suggestions would be helpful.

EDIT: Also this will be for PvE only and rings will be Ring of Favor and probably Havel's ring till I get my endurance high enough and after that I don't really know.

Gratz on getting pinned to the top of all forums? (Also sorry I can't give any actual advice).

Chaos or Lightning Zweihander is great and if two handed, only 16 strength is needed so points could be spend in endurance.
Also, the Zweihander can be obtained pretty soon (cemetery area near firelink shrine)!

DARK SOULS IS CONSUMING THIS SITE ALL FORUM POSTS RELATED WILL BE PINNED! (I have no idea what happened and also can't offer any help)

Either lightning or chaos zweihander\claymore. I prefer claymore's move set to that of zweihanders but that is a personal thing. With going through with the elemental route you need only small investments into the STR attribute and pump your vitality and endurance.

If you're a real man/woman you'll get 30 Faith and go full Grant. It's completely useless for PVP but it's a one-hit boss killing machine if you have the Red Tearstone ring.

I think it does the single highest damage per swing, bar none, except possibly the Artorias Greatsword at like lvl 250 or whatever. Its damage is split between physical and magic, though, so some enemies will be less susceptible.

Actually the Demon's Greataxe does the most damage technically as it does pure physical damage. I'm not a fan of split damage as I think From really toned it down in comparison to Demon's Souls.

I should say that I'm not interested in any split damage weapons otherwise the Grant would be at the top of my list. Sorry but I don't want any lightning or chaos weapons

@topsteer: Given that this is a new character and you know the game quite well by now, I would be surprised if you reached beyond SL80 during this new playthrough (heck, a lot of people only hit SL40-60 on their 2nd playthroughs just because you're better at the game by then and know which areas are optional).

As such, given that you want to be fast rolling (possibly even backflipping with the dark wood grain ring?), I'd probably prioritise vit and end to get your dodge on and be able to take a hit at low SLs.

This leaves little in terms of stat points to spare in terms of dumping into dex or str (it'd be very hard to hit the 46 (/31 for 2h) str requirement for the demon's greataxe for example, or the ~40 dex needed to get the most out of a +15 Greatscythe).

Hence, I'm with @indigomaterie and @bambamcz in saying you're likely better off with something like the lifehunt scythe for dex or a good lightning/chaos/fire weapon like the Zwei (the good dex weapons loose their bleed effects when put on this path, making them pretty lacking compared to the str weapons). As such, you just need 16 str or 24 for 1h and you're good to go - dump everything else into the survival stats. Though, to be fair, you'll need to grind a fair bit to get the mats to exploit these weapons.

If I were you, I'd get 16 str and main the Claymore with the Zwei a handy alternative. With the former you can both 1h and 2h with just 16 str, so you can play with an offhand or not depending on how you feel in the moment. It has pretty good animations and if you like it, it's also a great lightning/chaos/fire weapon, outdamaging both the Uchi and Greatscythe on those paths.

You could be high end / vit with the dark wood grain ring and be doing 514 damage with a Claymore in 1h, more with 2 - though, to be fair, it'll be split damage. Sounds like a fun run to me.

@topsteer: Well if you don't mind the humanity shackles of Chaos weapons, you can also try a Chaos +5 Greataxe. I think that actually does the second-highest, and is effective against almost all enemies, barring the Centipede Demon. Does 728, compared to the Demon Greataxe's 670. Demon's Greataxe has that awesome pop-up move though.

I think the way to go is getting a strong 2 hand and making it elemental "I like the fire Zwei, makes a couple of bosses hard though". Then just blasting points into Vit and End to keep you alive over the lack of a shield. I also recommend trying to min/max the armor as much as possible to get ok poise and fast roll, then stacking the wolf ring on top of it. You have no idea how much you miss poise until you don't have it anymore.

Wow, if you're not going for split damage then you're in for a much more interesting run...

In that case, I would go for the Lifehunt Scythe if you don't mind relying on bleeding - or the Greatscythe for raw DPS. Either could be used in 1h or two at low stats (14/14 for greatscythe, 14/16 for the lifehunt), so you can experiment with whatever you find more fun. Used in two hands, they're still up there compared with any other weapon in terms of raw DPS though I guess they lack the sheer feeling of mass of a Demon's Greataxe.

The main question would be your stat distribution. Going for non-split damage means you want A or S scaling no matter which weapon you choose, that'd at least mean that once you've gotten to ~30 end and ~25-30 vit you can put everything into your damage stat and get the most out of it.

In any case, I guess my recommendation in terms of the actual thread topic would be to go for an option that allows you to experiment with both dual wielding AND 2h-ing. Options are always good (and is why I lean towards dex, so I can use bows and a large variety of weapons).

As such, I recommend dex with your primary weapon being the Greatscythe. On the offhand (when you are using one) you can go with the parrying dagger, but you may end up just 2h/R2ing with the greatscythe just for the massive numbers it dishes out. The rest of your kit would probably be a bow and maybe a balder sidesword or something else light for when you're in tunnels or narrow hallways and can't get your swing on.

This is turning out to be harder than I thought, maybe I should go with a split damage weapon. What do you guys think about a lightning or chaos Large Club? I like the moveset and the Blighttown Barbarians are easy enough to farm. My other thought would be a greataxe but I'm not a huge fan of its moveset.

EDIT: Bah, maybe I'll just go with a Zweihander after all.

Haha - Lightning Zwei or Lightning Claymore. That'd be where I'd go :P

(I vastly perfer the Claymore moveset, though both work and the Zwei is so easy to find)

ED: To get to the Claymore, you need to get past the Hellkite Dragon and get to the Sun Altar. Once you do so, he'll disappear for a while which allows you to pick up the sword from a corpse on the bridge (note; I'd do this rather than killing it... on NG+ I never managed that). The claymore is largely considered to be one of the best weapons in the game.

My first time through the game I was 2 handing the battle axe at the start. It was 1 hitting everything till pretty much the gargoyles. Then I changed to halberds because I figured I would need to learn a move set for a better weapon at some point. I ended up going through NG++ 2 handing the Black Knight Halberd. It's so good, and unlike other BK weapons, it can be buffed.

I used a +15 great scythe during NG+ in a (almost) shieldless 2H run. I usually off-handed the parrying dagger. Busted out a shield for things like the Anor Londo rafters. Got my INT high enough for Crystal Magic Weapon. That weapon is killing machine. The running 2H R1 attack is lightning fast, and the sweeping range of the 2H R2 is amazing.

I like the Black Knight Greataxe, but it can be difficult to find until the very end of the game.

Dual-wielding isn't really a viable option in this game. I hear they've made it so in Dark Souls II. If you mean two-handed weapons, though, that's reasonable.

Sounds like you're going Strength, but if you're looking at a Dex Dual Wield, you might really want to look at a left-hand Silver Knight Spear. In the right hand, if you roll and then use a spear attack, you do a short swipe instead of a long range jab. If you put the spear in the left hand, it only has one attack (the really long range jab), so you can roll (since you won't have a shield) and immediately follow up with a long range attack. It's great for keeping yourself at range without a shield both in PVE and PVP. And if you combine it with something that moves fast, like a Gold Tracer in the right-hand, you can do high damage fast because even though a Gold Tracer will only do half the damage of a Zweihander, you can hit something with it three times in the same amount of time as one Zwei swing. Something like this: DEX PYRO

But IMO, with your interest in Strength you'd probably be better off with the best of both worlds. A Quality build can use a normal Zwei, Claymore or Halberd and get better damage out of it than an elemental, plus it could handle the same dual wield set-ups as the last build I linked, and it could two hand all of the really monster Strength Weapons like the Demon Great Machete and Demon Great Axe or stuff with cool special attacks like the Dragon King Great Axe, Dragon Great Sword, or Golem Axe. If you go with a Quality (Strength and Dex), you can try everything and always be able to do good damage.

QUALITY

SAME BUILD DIFFERENT EQUIP

With that build you could even go with some sort of insane hybrid like this- SCREW DEX PYRO MAN -since a Quality Build gives you so much flexibility all you have to do is change your equipment to try any weapons set up you want. Shield, no shield, dual wield, two hand, dex weapons, str weapons, whatever and it all gives great results on the normal upgrade path.

I want to do a quality build with a Cestus in my offhand, but I haven't decided what else to use. I'm thinking Clamore?