Heilde Knight sword aka the Drake Sword of Dark souls 2.

Is anyone else finding that the Heilde Knight sword is basically a better version of the Drake Sword? Now people may argue that the Fire Longsword is this effect but the Knight sword is actually more powerful than the Fire Longsword and lightning is resisted by a grand total of 1 boss in the entire game.

Both make the early game a hell of a lot easier due to high damage output even without upgrading them and both are fairly easy to obtain right near the start of the game.

Now the main point of divergence from the Drake Sword is that upgrading the Heilde Knight Sword is actually worthwhile. The Drake sword gained maybe...50 points of damage when upgraded, was far harder to find materials for to upgrade and generally got outclassed by upgraded normal weapons by the midpoint of the game once you had decent stats.

By contrast the Knight sword just keeps getting better and better, it's a Quality build weapon much like the Zweihander and at +10 does over 300 damage per swing, considering that the heavier hitting weapons only do about 200 damage more, require a vastly bigger amount of stamina to swing but are better if you can't hit the boss more than once before having to back off while the Knight Sword shines when you can just wail on a boss, putting the lower stamina requirements pre swing to better use.

I'd say the Mace is the Drake Sword of this game. For a starting weapon it's incredibly effective on most enemies and is easy to upgrade. If you're doing a strength build it's a great weapon.

The unupgraded Heilde Knight sword actually outdamages the unpgraded mace (requiring 2 one handed swings to kill the regular hollow enemies instead of 3 for the Mace). Once you get the mace upgraded and more points in strength then yeah the Mace will outclass the Knight sword.

Yeah, I used the knight sword from start to finish, it made most of the bosses stupidly easy. It might be deserving of a patch, actually, it really felt broken.

Yeah that's a huge exaggeration. I found it to be total shit compared to my mace or halberd or some other weapons I had. I wanted to like it, but didn't. It also takes up too much endurance to swing for how little damage it does (or maybe that's in my head), and the damage is split. No thanks.

It's pretty good! Especially since I was rocking DEX/FTH at the start. You're right, seems like lightning is very effective on lots of enemies. Speaking of, I'm pretty close to getting that lightning bolt throwing spell, I bet that's rad. I wanted to use my Skeptic's Spice on the spell to make it cheaper, but I haven't found who can help me with that yet.

well the difference is the heide sword scales and so if you put points into its core attributes of course it gets better, like any weapon. you can get the bastard sword early and if you upgrade that and scale the right stats it will carry you through the game too. or the mace. or the club.

the drake sword hit hard no matter what your stats, as it didn't scale, which is why it was such a crutch, and it also doubled the damage of anything else you could get for a while.

I found it to be pretty weak actually. And I only used it for about an hour. Until I found a Bastard Sword. Which did half again more damage per swing after upgraded a few levels. I was one shot killing everything at the time with the bastard. While it took 2-3, some times 4 swings with HK sword.

I know the OP mentioned early game specifically, but the Heide was definitely outshined by my halberd soon enough, and I don't feel like the Heide made most normal encounters substantially easier than the broadsword I started with. And, I definitely don't think it was markedly better for early boss fights. It's good, to be sure, but I certainly don't feel it's overpowered.

Like some other people in the thread by the time I got it I found it to be sort of weak compared to the other weapons I was using. Maybe if that is the first area that you head to then it is an alright starting weapon but I did several other places first. It certainly didn't seem to be on the same "oh shit" kind of level compared to the Drake Sword. As a matter of fact, I haven't found any weapon yet in the game that would be usable and would do "holy shit" damage right off the bat. Even the greatswords are really pathetic in their base form, like the Smelter Sword or Pursuer Greatsword. They also are impractical in various locations.

It's disappointing in a way that I haven't found anything to match the mace. I use the Drangleic Sword from time to time when facing enemies that require a bit of reach but generally my +8 Mace destroys everything.

Wait @drmechano, did you mean the Drangleic sword? I would agree with that. I used that sword for a very long portion of the game. And that sword is found early on also. However it does have high stats required, 25/20. So you can't use it as soon as you get it.

I think the advantage the Heide sword has over the Drake Sword is that you get it for killing a fairly easy enemy instead of by firing bare arrows at a jumpy dragon's tail.

Dat club though...

I find that most of the weapons are really good once you upgrade them, you just need to find a move set that you like.

@afabs515: the large club? Or regular club? Large club is OfuckingP if you're a strength build

@narujoe93: Both. I took the regular club through the entire game. Now, in NG+, I am using the large club. Feel like a total badass swinging that thing one-handed.

There's a lot of early weapon choices that are better than the Heide Sword, but like many weapons in the game you can use it for a really long time should you so decide; because there just aren't as many shitty weapon choices this time around.

The fire longsword is better unless you are playing a strength/dex build. If you are playing a physical build the Heide will be stronger long term after lots of stats and upgrading. Also the fire longsword is easier to get, takes less stats to use, and will be useless end game unless you are a caster build. So I think the Fire Longsword definitely has more in common with the Drake Sword than the Heide Knight Sword does. Also the Knight Sword has one big problem, it's animations suck.

@fredchuckdave@daze Both 100% correct. There are tons of really solid weapons in this game. You can even take your plain starting class weapon in some cases and never use anything else if you have the build for it. Truthfully I don't think this game has a "drake sword" because even though the Fire Longsword and Heide Knight Sword are both really good.... neither of them make the game "easy" or feel 2+ times plus stronger than other weapons you could get at the same time. Which is exactly what the Drake Sword was.

If anything is this games Drake Sword it's the Drangleic armor and shield. Those things are ridicolously strong considering how early you get them.

It's got to be the Fire Longsword Or the Drangleic sword over the Hiede Knight sword. At level 105, If still using a +10 Fire Longsword on with my Strength Build and a +1 Drangleic Sword as my backup (works better against armored).

The Heide Knight sword was awesome when I found it, but it quickly gets outdated by the two I mentioned above.

It was one fo the first weapons I got and compare it to the broken sword hilt that the warrior initially starts out with (and the fact the warrior already has decent stats in str/dex, its two modifiers along with Fth for the lightning), four hits to kill a normal hollow one handed, now compare that to the two hits it takes the Knight sword, you can see why it feels a lot more powerful. Especially since my first character was a Main Str/some dex quality buildish character so in their hands it was pretty damn powerful and meant I could save the titanite for a weapon I actually wanted to use (in this case the Large Club). Like for like in the hands of a warrior the Knight sword is more powerful than the fire longsword +1 (like I said, three hits on a normal hollow vs 2 for the Knight sword)

I may have been too hasty to declare it the Drake Sword of the game, as mentioned on other builds it is outclassed once even small upgrades are applied to various weapons (the Mace is the main example, great starter weapon and an A scaling in strength once fully upgraded).

The Large Club was pretty awesome, though they took away the great rolling move it had...much sadness.

Its not that great. Also, weapons like the fire sword scale depending on your INT if you're a pure STR or DEX build you won't get a ton of use out of weapons with enchantments.

Actually if you really are a strength build you may want to toss that Fire Longsword and go back to Hiede's. It scales WAYYYYYYY better with dex and strength than a Fire weapon will. On paper my Fire Longsword +10 out hits my Varangian Longsword +10.... but in actual practice I find most mobs are more resistant to fire than they are being hit with pure physical damage and the Varangian actually wins 90% of the time.

Unfortunately I don't have more titanite atm to upgrade the bastard sword further so I still use the heide's knight sword that I upgraded to +4, and it's still better than the bastard +2.

Nah. The alternate stats on it make it less than useful for all classes, and even at its best it's only slightly better than other options. Drake Sword was two or three times as strong as everything else you could get at that stage, at the exchange of any scaling. Really, in this game pretty much any weapon you get with reasonable stats and a good moveset becomes a world-beater when you upgrade it to +10. I took a Falchion from beginning to end taking it to +10 and pumping DEX. I found some other cool, unique weapons, but nothing compared to a heavily upgraded basic weapon.

The only overpowered thing you can get early on was the Drangleic armor set and shield. The armor is ridiculous for the weight, and the 100% physical block shield is the only non-greatshield I've found that does that. The only downside is requiring twinkling to upgrade. I used the armor for a big portion of the game, till I started mixing jester set and super-heavy armor, and I used the shield all game.

The Drangleic Shield is badass when you get it, but at end game trust me.... get the Defenders Shield. Said it before will again. Havel's is the best tower shield (except for fire enemies then you want a Grym Greatshield) but the best medium shield is easily the Defender's. It is basically the Drangelic shield.... only higher stability, better resistances, and it weighs 1 pound less.

I don't think it's overpowered at all. I've been using it since I picked it up. I'm 20 hours in and it's still proving itself very useful the more I upgrade it, but it still feels like it's doing as much damage as it needs to in order for me to stand a fair chance in fights. I can one or two-hit kill weaker enemies while most bigger foes take four to six hits, and with my build focusing on dexterity and endurance, I can get a pretty high DPS output from it. I've been switching between that and an upgraded broadsword, which also does a decent amount of damage and is fairly comparable to what my HK is doing at this point.

Hyperbole much? Does it one shot every enemy for the first quarter of the game? No? Than it's not the drake sword.

It's closer to the Asotra Straight Sword than the Drake Sword. it's starts really off strong, but unless you keep up with STR, DEX, and FAI (which I did on my first character), it won't stay viable for long, even upgrading it.

I used that Black Armor Edition homunculus mace they gave me through about half of the game. As a strength build, it stayed useful until I had the stats for the Drangleic Sword, then I used that instead.

Yeah i'm going to have to go with the Drangleic sword on this one. I used that thing for a majority of the game, never upgraded it once, and it was still my main weapon cause it was doing so much more damage than any other weapon even though i had upgraded them.

@soldierg654342: @pyrodactyl:

Actually it two shots enemies for pretty much 1 quarter of the game up, three usually.

I actually prefer the idea that Soldier put forward and honestly seems more fitting, it is the Astora's straightsword of the game, unless you meet its requirements and are building a str/dex build, it stops being useful once the second third of the game kicks in.

Yeah, I think the move set is more important than stats. I've been using a shortsword for the entire game and it's still viable late game because of it's speed and flexibility.

It's a perfect storm. I've heard people roast it on the spit for being useless. But man oh man, that animation set and lightning damage? Fucking forget about it. It's been flawless for me. +10 and couldn't be happier.

Scratch that, I can't kill Crystal Lizards worth a damn with this thing. I've killed one in thirty eight hours of play. No bueno.

It has baked-in elemental scaling. Any weapon with baked-in tertiary scaling is good given you are leveling its scaling stat since you can infuse it for even more scaling (and then use a weapon enchantment spell to increase it further). It isn't going to match the raw power or reach of a well-scaling 2h weapon, but with the proper build it can do amazing damage for a shortsword. If you're going the str=faith>dex shortsword route though, eventually you will want to upgrade to a lightning infused Sun Sword to replace your Heide's.

@drmechano: If you only consider basic hollows...the mace is worse early on. If you consider the Old Knights and other armored enemies(a large number of bosses namely early bosses) the mace is better. Let alone if you upgrade the mace or infuse the mace(with faintstone is >> fire or heide knight sword for a int build) like you said. The thing is you should be using a +2/3 weapon before killing the 2nd boss (realistically speaking) which then makes the mace even better due to the scaling and lower blunt resistance from armored enemies even for casters.

Where can I find this sword???

Only weapon that broke the game for me on first playthrough was finding the Black Knight Halberd as Dex. I was really looking forward to getting some good dualwielding katana action going but nothing ever really compared after finding the BKH.

It really is. I was one shotting most enemies with that thing, and the 2 handed strong attack flattens smaller enemies so you can just smack them again when they try to get up.

No, not even close. The Drake sword could pretty much one shot most enemies for a while in the game, assuming you started in the general path they laid for you(which most did) , and also because of how bad it scales later became a problem so people had to wise up.

The Heide Sword scales okay in general as a quality weapon, yet doesn't 1 shot everything as soon as you get it, yet it is very strong. I don't feel that comparison comes close at all.