I have been having a wonderful time with this game and I was curious what builds other players are having success with. I would consider myself a souls veteran, but definately not an expert.

For my own build:

I started with Vagabond and went with the biggest hitting, widest swing weapons I could find. As soon as I realized you could powerstance I started dual wield Greatsword and Zweihander both set to Heavy. I dipped my toes into faith for some healing and weapon buffs, but it has not seemed very effective for me.

How have you been playing?

Pure Int with no spells.

I utilize my vast intellect to know how to hit something just right with my Dark Moon Greatsword just don't ask me what the hell a "glintstone" is.

pure vigor. No one one-shots ME.

Mostly greatswords so I keep dumping stats into Vigor, Strength and Endurance but I keep picking up weapons that all require faith or arcane and I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should respec.

I went for a "quality" melee build, but really what that means is I'm too indecisive to make anything interesting, for I pumped strength and dexterity with vigor and stamina as my secondary stats. I've upgraded the same goddamn lordsworn sword I found in the first goddamn soldier camp and twin armor with a wolf head. It's gotten me through the first half of the game but I'm starting to reconsider now that some of these bosses are wreaking me. but I already burned so many smithing stones on this damn sword.

I am the living embodiment of hand-wringing.

I went the speed runner route... well sort of. I'm not speed running the game, but I got the main weapon speed runners are currently using, because its one of the most powerful weapons in the game and makes killing groups of enemies and bosses a lot easier. That weapon is the Icerind Hatchet, and it's special move the Hoarfrost Stomp. When duel wielding with it, you can do the stomp and it works really well. You have to upgrade it using smoldering material, but its worth it as the weapon upscales very nicely on top of everything else, it doesn't cost a lot of FP to use either. I did put a lot of points into expanding my FP anyway. However, its not perfect. The stomp is hard to use again very mobile enemies and enemies that are strong against frost damage. The weapon can be found quite early in the game. I won't spoiler the location, but I'll give a hint. It's somewhere in the northwest swamp area.

Also with my INT Build if I feel like being a tremendous piece of shit then I swap to the Moonveil and let my mimic use it while I greatsword.

Very few bosses have been able to deal with this.

I was doing a dex build, but then I found a sword that shoots lasers and fire, so I re-speced in order to use that thing.

Bad.

It's bad.

I'm just staggering around doing prisoner. I just beat Gridlock or whoever he is, playing down and dirty with an NPC I met, and my jellyfish. I have little conception how to play my character, but saw something on the Wiki called 'Enchanted Knight', that appealed to me as a destination.

It's been fun, but I'd really like to lose the helmet. Which I do take off occasionally.

Strength/faith build and abuse of a later game 2 handed weapon called blasphemous blade whose weapon art is a line attack that does fire damage. The weapon also heals you every time something dies while you are wielding it.

The end of the game was very easy for me with some bosses only taking 2-3 tries.

For my battlemage (astrologer), I go with intelligence and dexterity. Its primary weapons are Lusat's staff in the off-hand as well as the buckler shield when needed. The main hand is equipped with either Moonveil or Moonlight Greatsword. It simply depends on the situation. Samurai is a mix of health, stamina, dexterity, and strength. It's equipped with the long ass samurai sword whose name I can't remember in the main hand and frozen uchi in the off-hand.

Dual swords that cause bleed and frost, where I run around and quickstep everywhere. And then I switch weapons to a greatshield and big bleed sword when I need to block ridiculous AOE attacks.

@rubberbabybuggybumpers: I'm doing the same build, and I just got the Wing of Astel, which has replaced Moonveil and is much better than Dark Moon. I highly recommend checking it out. The ash of war is absurd.

I have a naked green man running around with a two-handed rusty anchor. Almost all of my points have gone into strength and Vigor. My anchor is equipped with the very powerful sword art: kick.

My build is sort of ridiculous in the sense that it includes very disparate pieces that each require separate high stats, but I have never minded grinding so that I can use all the things. You just really need to be high-level/in endgame to use all of them at once.

Also, it should probably be obvious, but I'm just not interested in PvP at all, none of this is geared at that, especially since I'm so high-level that I'm way out of the standard summoning range.

Sword of Night and Flame (24 INT, 24 FAI): The weapon skills melt stuff and really aren't that expensive for what they do. The magic beam thing, which is basically a slightly toned-down Comet Azure (sorcery that requires 60 INT), is particularly crazy for its combination of range and power. Summon some spirit ashes to draw aggro and then hang back and destroy bosses from relative safety.

Bolt of Gransax (40 DEX, 20 STR): Late-game lightning spear. The skill is great for sniping stuff since, when charged, it will travel a huge distance at a very high speed that makes it almost impossible to dodge (even first-form Malenia usually can't dodge it), and also has great knockdown (it will even knock down Crystalians, which seems pretty crazy). Also, I just like spears, both for their range and the fact that you can do the attack-while-blocking thing if needed. FWIW this is the second-highest DEX requirement that I know of.

Golden Order Seal (17 INT, 17 FAI): Sacred seal that scales off of both INT and FAI. If you're only doing one of those stats, you're better off with a single-stat seal/staff, but if you're investing heavily in both then this thing gets just ridiculous scaling. As a bonus, it has zero weight.

Incantations:

• Lightning Spear (17 FAI): The most basic attack incantation is also probably the best one for general PvE use. I don't use it a ton in late-game and it can be replaced by the skill on Bolt of Gransax (though that's a higher FP cost and a longer animation), but I still use it to snipe annoying out-of-reach ranged enemies, like archers standing on balconies etc.
• Erdtree Heal (42 FAI): Your basic large heal. Ends up being way more efficient than using healing flasks for those occasions when you have the time to cast it, i.e. between fights.
• Blessing of the Erdtree (38 FAI): Health regen. Nice to cast when heading into a boss fight or other tough encounter, especially if you can get your summons with it, too.

A high guard boost greatshield: Since they added the new mechanic where you can counter with a strong attack immediately after blocking, there's never been a better time in a From Software game to hide behind a gigantic greatshield, which is what I was always inclined to do anyway. For "fashion souls" and slightly less burdensome weight and requirements, I like the Golden Greatshield (34 STR, 17.0 weight) or the Haligtree Crest Greatshield (36 STR, 18.5 weight), which both max out at 76 guard boost and have high damage negation stats. Or, if you want the truly insane Havel's Shield equivalent, there's the Fingerprint Stone Shield (48 STR, 29.0 weight), which when upgraded to max gives a ridiculous 90 guard boost, effectively more than twice as good as the other two I mentioned; it also has elemental damage negation between 75 and 81 for everything. FWIW this is the highest STR requirement that I know of.

Finally, talismans (these sometimes get changed situationally):

• Carian Filigreed Crest: Reduces FP cost for weapon skills by 25%. Since I use weapon skills a lot, this is a good one.
• Green Turtle Talisman: Faster stamina regen, always nice.
• Greatshield Talisman: Boosts guarding ability even more. And if you're using the maxed Fingerprint Stone Shield in conjunction with this talisman, blocking actually uses no stamina at all. Which seems like overkill, I suppose, but fun for now (likely to be patched, I should think).
• Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman: Boosts physical damage negation, which is clearly the best general use kind of damage negation. Of course I switch this out if I'm going into a boss or area that focuses heavily on some particular flavor of elemental damage, like magic or fire.

Lastly, my usual flask split is 9 healing, 5 magic.

EDIT: I suppose I should also mention that I typically use the Greatshield Soldier Ashes because they're so good at drawing aggro; each of the five periodically does a little yell to draw attention. They do little damage, but they're a wonderful distraction while I destroy bosses from range.

I wish I had more interesting talismans. I feel like there's a correct set of Talismans for every build that you maybe just rotate one different one to suit something very specific.

I used the Radagon Soreseal for a long time until stat caps just made it meaningless and I liked that style of gameplay.

My build feels pretty basic. Samurai.

VIG: 22

MIND: 13

END: 15

STR: 39

DEX: 20

INT: 9

FAI: 11

ARC: 8

Basically started this game anticipating to play it like Bloodborne and yet I've wound up having my shield up most of the time and discovering weapons/spells that demand INT or FAI which makes me feel like I'm missing out on a lot of the game. I'm just swapping between Redmane armor, Royal Remains armor (which sounded so OP in its description that I'm not surprised it's sort of useless) and even more generic grunt armor depending on how desperate I am to avoid fat rolling. I don't really keep any items or bows on me. I have a +9 Uchigatana but am starting to tilt towards a +2 Bloodhound's Fang after hearing Jason Schreier compliment it on the Triple Click pod.

Especially now that I realize those big 900+ damage chunks coming off boss' health isn't just a random mega-crit but that bleed damage finally hitting 100% and popping off! I did get the Moonveil and would love to give it a shot but I'm frickin' 14 levels away from being able to wield it so the goal right now is to get that STR up one more and give the Game of Thrones sword a swing.

My flask is 8 HP / 3 FP.

@nodima: Do remember that if you don't end liking the heavy STR weapon you're going for then you can always respec, take those points out of STR and put them in INT so you can try the Moonveil or one of those other INT weapons. All respeccing requires is beating the Lucaria Academy main boss and a fairly common consumable.

Full int with a ton of Vigor and Mind. Minimum requirements to equip the Moonlight Greatsword, it kind of just annihilates everything. If I put the magic sigil boost with the Godfrey talisman it does like 1500-2000 per charged swing.

Faith/Str, mostly melee 2H with godslayer and dragon incantations as backup. Still using the Golden Halberd almost 30 hours in, but it's getting slightly long in the tooth, so I'm keeping my eyes open for a replacement. It's been going well so far, so I'm feeling good about just continuing down this path.

Dex/Arcane dual blood dagger wielding wretch (Parry on offhand and Bloody Slash on main) with some Faith for dragon communion spells for a bit of fun. I'm not fantastic at parries but happily learning while rolling around the Lands Between with my low Vigor and hug debuff because I'm a bit of a masochist.

@jacksmedulla: I've been thinking about giving that weapon a whirl but I'm still having way too much fun with the Moonveil and especially the MGS. I didn't purposely go through all that Rot Lake horse shit to NOT use it. :P

I do have a cleric sitting at the beginning level. I think I'll be going with a strength/faith mix and start praising the motherfucking ring whenever I get the chance.

I will always use the dark moon greatsword despite being routinely infuriated by how truly terrible the targeting is with its heavy attack.

Started with a quality build for the katana, then swapped to Int/Faith to use the Sword of Night and Flame, then put a couple of points into Arcane just to get Rot Breath, which is what finally let me take down Radahn.

Also, because every Souls thread needs a hot take - Moonveil is only OK.

@therealturk: I mean it's certainly a hot take, not sure how you would back it up though.

Like I use my DMG because it's more fun but I have switched to the Moonveil often because it's just objectively better and more versatile in most situations.

I would like to use the Sword of Night and Flame though but I just hate how slow it is to use those weapon arts. So far I have only used it as a tool to farm enemies that are not reacting to me at all.

Went with a dex build, using a bow with mighty shot and the Uchigatana with unsheathe.

As usual, started with samurai dex build, and almost always end up with points distributed to almost all attributes because I want to try every weapons / spells
Usually with Uchigatana + Hoarstomp or Moonlight sword.

I only choose a proven good assembly

My most OP build is a pure faith using Blasphemous Blade with it's insane weapon art, and lightning, was able to one shot every boss once I got that and even one-hit some.

My first build was a pure strength using the greataxe with the wild strikes ash and the Starscourge Greatswords, it was a beast and I had to fight through the last few bosses for days but it was rewarding.

Now I'm running a Dex build for a no summons run with two uchigatana, most fun I've had so far. Plan to try and INT build eventually

New patch fixes Arcane so I may finally experiment with those builds.

Also nerfs Mimic and Sword of Night and Flame but does not touch the Moonveil because it's beautiful and perfect how could you think of tarnishing it.

@efesell: Had to do some science on the Sword of Night and Flame, since I'd been using it a lot and wanted to know exactly how hard it got hit.

Did a test on a giant in one of the last regions of the game so that I'd have something that wouldn't just die in one hit. Pre-patch the R1 did ~2,900 damage, while the R2 did ~2,300 damage.

(For reference: my +9 Moonveil was doing ~1,050/950 for R1/R2... not quite an even comparison since my SoNaF is +10, but close enough to show that the latter was just ridiculously more powerful to make up for its longer animations)

Post-patch those numbers went down to ~1,250 for the R1 and ~1,800 for the R2. Makes sense that the beam got hit much harder, since the combination of damage and range is what made it so insane. The R2 hits a wider area left and right of you, but it was always a more dangerous attack to pull off because you had to be so much closer for it to hit.

Anyway, the nerf is good, so far as I'm concerned. I mean, sure, I abused the hell out of it, but it did make me feel a little dirty... I just can't not use something like that when it's given to me. Now I'll have to fight bosses for real! I'll probably keep using the thing, at least for a while... might even enjoy it more now that it feels less like cheating. But we'll see. I'm certainly more motivated to experiment with some other things.

(Also, tbh, they didn't nerf Comet Azur, which when used in combination with the "Eliminates all FP consumption" Flask of Wondrous Physick can still melt bosses even harder than SoNaF ever could, though I had never bothered with it before since SoNaF was so busted already and didn't have the high MP cost to worry about.)

I know some people expected a Moonveil nerf and think it might still happen, but the truth is that the power of its attacks was never way out of line with other melee weapon ranged skills, the difference is that the animations are faster (and even then, somewhat mitigated by the fact that you need to get in a "ready stance" to use them, which a lot of other weapons don't need to do). Maybe it'll still take a hit at some point, but it also wouldn't surprise me if they just left it as-is.

Meanwhile, I never got on the Mimic train at all, so I don't particularly care about that one, other than that it's probably a good thing if one Spirit Ashes isn't considered head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Also nice that they fixed the weird arcane weapon scaling problem and added some NPC quests back in that were apparently bugged on release, or just incomplete.

Honestly with a functioning Rivers of Blood I think Moonveils star will dim a bit.

I used the mimic pretty extensively but yeah I can't complain if they nerfed it because it was capable of fighting too many things for you which I feel is outside of what is intended for those summons.

I'm really curious what they mean by

• Increased shield’s effectiveness.

Though...

All good points.

I was thinking the same thing about Rivers of Blood, since bleed is still pretty broken in this game generally and that skill both adds lots of bleed and has good stagger. But the fact that it is in such a late-game area means that it still can't really be a factor for new players like the Moonveil, which can be gotten early if you can beat that boss... a tall order in itself for a low-level newbie, I'll grant you.

Speaking to shields, I'm not sure what that means, either, but it did occur to me that I should test if you can still get zero stamina cost blocking with a fully upgraded Fingerprint Stone Shield plus Greatshield Talisman; turns out you can. I still wonder if they will eventually patch this out given that they increased the FP cost and lowered the duration of the Barricade Shield ash of war, which does the same thing on a temporary basis (adds a flat 35 guard boost, so that any shield 65 and above can have no-cost blocking for the duration of the skill). But then again, maybe they figure that if you want to invest 48 STR and a bunch of endurance to use Fingerprint then you deserve to be able to do that crap.

I roleplay as a vampire so I only explore the world at night. Mainly focus on arcane and faith. Dual wield Reduvian and Bloodstained Dagger. The Fanged Imp summons are my familiars. We are having a great time making everything in our path bleed.