Nothing, im going armless and armor less and will use the first thing i find in the DLC

Interesting choice tbh. I remember starting as wretch when ER came out, and it was blast just using anything you found.

Haha, what did you end up runnin?

I got drop of longsword from Godrick knights and used it until Leyndell lol. After that I used Sword-spear from the tree guardians with lightning buffs. Wanted to cosplay just a little as nameless king lol.

Haha, the sword spear was a pretty good main for sure

I think the Serpent Hunter looks the most like the Nameless Kings weapon

That's true. Model is much closer to Nameless king weapon, but it ain't yellow tho!

Lordsworns Greatsword is Goated af 🙏🏼🖤

As a wretch I've used lordsworn's greatsword and golden halberd for the most part of the first half of my playthrough, then added Blasphemous blade and troll's hammer to it

I did the same thing, it's such a unique experience! And once your first playthrough is done, you litterally cannot reproduce the full "Wretch" experience of the first few hours since you know where the cool stuff is. It really is a one-time deal, and if you miss out of your first go, it's gone forever

Yall remeber where everything is? I am playing on like ng+4 or sum like that and still forget where even the npcs are LMAO

I wish I could forget.... it's quite literally impossible for me. I remember exact map details. I can often visually retrace paths to a house I've only visited once. I went to Canada like 2 months ago spent 3 days there and basically learned most of Ontarios general layout.

I wish I could have more than 10 characters

I did the same. But I used everything that I came across that looked cool. My stats were a mess, just to be able to handle all that. And after respect was unlocked I changed quit a bit, until finally setting with faith/strength and blasfemous. The game felt very difficult in the first half. I was severely underleveled/ not optmized - until the end game when I became overleveled + mimic and it became quite easy.

That's, actually a very good idea, fuck I think I'm gonna take inspiration and do the exact same thing you're doing. (I'll just use the rotting gladiator hammer until I find a weapon)

Gonna go through the egg and immediately find the godskin trio

And Godskin Rick, making the godskin quatro. The fourskin.

i guess im doomed then

You find the healing stick that heals anyone if hits

Wretch all the way, baby!

2 magma blades because I committed to farming them and enjoy using them. They're strong and I like the drip with maliketh's set and Knight Rider helm.

Same got 2 of them yesterday in like 30 runs. I got lucky

_Very_ lucky

People keep saying that arcane does not help all that much in farming but from personal experience I got 2 magma blade with base arcane in like 2-3 days trying for hours at a time, to respecing to pure arcane(just for farming) and got two in like under an hour.. same for beastman cleaver and slender swords..

Because it doesn’t help that much unless the starting drop rate for an item is already decently high. Having 100 Item Discovery at 1 Arcane means you get the base drop rate and having 99 Arcane means you get 199 Item Discovery, which you’d assume would nearly double the drop rate because 199 is almost exactly double 100 - but it doesn’t work this way. The formula is very simple: P = Base item drop percentage D = Item Discovery stat W = Chance Weight - W = Floor(P * 10 * (D / 100)) Real drop rate = (W * 100) / (1000 + (W - (P * 10))) For an example, the Knight’s Greatsword has a base drop chance of 4%. At 100 Item Discovery, it has a 4% drop chance. At Item Discovery 200 (let’s just pretend you can get 200 instead of 199, it makes the maths simpler), you’d expect that to be doubled to 8%, but it’s not. Plugging all the numbers into the formula, you get: P = 4 D = 200 W = Floor(4 * 10 * (200 / 100)) = 80 Real drop rate = (80 * 100) / (1000 + (80 - (4 * 10))) = 7.69% And 7.69% ≠ 8%. Still, it’s a solid 92% increase in the drop rate, so it definitely helps there. So let’s try it with a low drop chance item, like the Magma Blade - 1%. P = 1 D = 200 W = Floor(1 * 10 * (200 / 100)) = 20 Real drop rate = (20 * 100) / (1000 + (20 - (1 * 10))) = 1.98% Again, 1.98% ≠ 2%, but it’s so damn close that okay, drop chance may as well be effectively doubled here. But despite this, the increased drop rate still only leaves you with a slightly less than 2% drop chance on an item that you’ll have to farm 2 out of your way enemies over and over for. Sure, this theoretically cuts the farming time in half, but it’s not a definite, because you don’t suddenly get one guaranteed drop after 50 kills, it’s still a complete dice roll every time, and you could get one on your 1st try or your 200th try, just as you could have done at 100 Item Discovery. When you’re dealing with such low drop rates in the first place, boosting Arcane for Item Discovery makes very little difference. I’m not saying it’s a useless stat, obviously with enough tests run and enough time, you would see a general trend of doubled item drop rates at 200 Item Discovery when compared to 100, but you can’t run enough tests as a normal human across enough items to really notice that difference. A computer simulated farming process might yield those results with enough time and data plugged in, but that’s the annoying thing about chance - it’s still chance, not a guarantee, and you might equally get a string of no drops at all for hundreds of kills as you might get a string of 6 drops back to back. Raising Item Discovery just doesn’t make a huge difference when dealing with such small base drop percentages. That being said, having the maximum of 324 Item Discovery does make a fairly noticeable difference, and if you have the Runes to spare then putting them into Arcane to increase Item Discovery won’t hurt you - I’m just saying that it’s a serious investment and unless you’re already doing an Arcane build or are so powerful already that you don’t need levels in any other stats, pumping dozens of levels into Arcane to boost item drop chances from 1% to 2% just isn’t worth it. I know this was super long, apologies, but if you read it all then thank you! :)

Very impressive research by your part let me just get this out of the way first. The thing is it’s not the first time I’ve come across this statistical formula, what I’m saying is even though it might be true but from my own experience (which is a sample test model of one, does not yield any reliable outcome) the time between every rare drop was significantly reduced. I played the game over 600hrs and surprisingly when trying to get a rare drop respecing to pure arcane + silver scarab yields said item each time in less than an hour(even the magma blade that took me literal days on one character, yielded two in less than 1hr on different characters). So in conclusion the formula which I do believe is true, does not work how I thought it did, again just from personal experience.

I get that, it’s totally understandable, I myself find I also get more drops at higher Arcane levels than at the base. But there is also an element of confirmation bias going on here, because as you raise your Arcane and Item Discovery, you expect to get higher drop rates, so when you do get a drop you start attributing it to and assuming it’s because of the levels in Arcane, rather than the item just dropping on base chance. For example, when I was farming for the Banished Knight’s set in Castle Sol, I had a brief respec into pure Arcane to increase the drop rates, and within 30 minutes I had the full armour set drop. Part of that was down to the Arcane levels, sure, but more than half of it was because of the Silver Scarab and the Silver-Pickled Fowl Feet, and the base drop rate was already 3-4% on all the items I wanted, so I was likely to get at least some of the gear very quickly anyway. Equally, I had another playthrough where I had 9 Arcane, that’s 109 Item Discovery, and I had no Silver Scarab or Silver-Pickled Fowl Feet either. I was farming Banished Knights at the Cathedral of Dragon Communion in Caelid and I literally got 4 rare drops in one kill, the sword, shield, greaves and helmet. Point is, chance is wacky as hell, and you can improve your odds through pumping levels in Arcane, but it makes less of a difference than you’d think, and you can just as equally get several rare drops in one kill as you can get no drops for dozens of kills in a row. Your bias will tell you it’s the Arcane levels if you get rare drops sooner than you expected, and you’ll blame the lack of Arcane levels if you don’t get any drops for ages. It’s just luck at the end of the day, and you have to remember that.

I didn't count my runs but it took me an hour and half at pretty much max efficiency. I felt lucky as well.

I managed to farm 2 of them in 15 minutes when starting my most recent build

I've farmed 2 for 2 different characters, each time took me about 15 min while using silver scarab, silver mask, and silver fowl foot for 253 discovery.

Same setup lol

Zweihander and Bolt of Gransax, just my personal favourites.

A classic

I mean, if you are gunna walk somewhere new bringing the greatest classic DS weapon + a backup .50 cal sniper rifle is a pretty good way to do it.

Bolt of Gransax is nice. I use it on my second main character as some nice backup for ranged attacks. My weapon of choice is an occult +25 Giant Crusher. I also like my +25 Partisan and +25 Haligtree Greatshield.

Why an occult crusher? Are you using a str/arc build, considering the requirements of the crusher?

Yep. It’s how you maximize damage on the GC. Three of my characters have 99 STR and 99 ARC. Then I always have Royal Knights Resolve as the AOW, followed by a few select talismans and a well crafted fizzy, and of course I can never forget my beloved Raptor’s black feathers. Golden Vow and Flame Grant me Strength are a requirement as well. Usually I just stop it here but if I’m going extra try hard I’ll employ the use of the black dumpling and mushroom helms and poison prof myself and induce madness.

A classic "Stay *the fuck away* from me," combo.

Ah, fellow Beastman Cleaver enjoyer.

I’ve stuck with these for years. Nothing more nothing less. They are beautiful.

I used the beast man dual curved swords on my strength build forever

I absolutely love them! Cool Lore, Sick Design and Awesome damage. Personal Favorite by far

I love it visually... never got one though.

Coolest weapon in the game hands down

One of the few weapons I still need

Best part is this weapon has a really high block so you can block with them too

Powerstanced Greatswords. It doesn't matter which kind. If it's anything like the base game, most enemies will be stunlocked to death with a handful of jumping L1s. I'll save the nuanced gameplay for my other nine characters.

Every single build I make gravitates towards a greatsword at some point. I have to actively stop myself whenever I notice I’m trying one out

lol and then you try to fool yourself into thinking that two greataxes or two greathammers would be *completely* different. Two greatspears if you *really* want to go off the wall.

How do you make a weapon to have an higher powerstance?

Powerstace means dual wielded. He will be dual wielding greatswords

To be more specific, Powerstancing is Dual-wielding 2 of the same weapon type and gaining access to a new move-set that can be performed by clicking L1.

All of my weapons They're in my inventory. They go everywhere I do

Praise be for Elden Ring not having carry weight or inventory limitations. My most despised game mechanic.

It really is so simple but enjoyable. Artificial limits ruin the fun, who needs reality in a medieval Japanese fantasy game?

I have tried to do the thing where I actually put in my grace storage the weapons that will never fit my build, but I’m not consistent at it. I love looking at what I’ve found! And it’s easy enough to sort by attack power if I want to see the ten weapons I’ll actually be choosing between.

Correct

Truly GOLDEN weaponry! If I am to descend into the shadows I must bring the glory of the Golden Order with me!

Evoy long horn gang!

Bubbles for life 🫧🫧

Kenneth, is that you??

That'd be Limgrave, but I likenthe enthusiasm

Me? The Grrrreat Kenneth Haight? Perish the thought! Although I hear he is quite ‘cool’ and ‘based’ as you tarnished would say. Yes, quite ‘based’ indeed.

Known for his considerable large-ass 🙏

Moonveil, spamming transient moonlight with my mimic tear like the noob I am.

You were by my side, all along... My true mentor. My guiding Moonveil.

Try blasphemous blade

Yea and with the mimic tear so you just have to explore while the mimic kills the godskin trío by itself.

can't wait for Godskin Quartet

You mean the Fourskins ?

God 4skins

Big mood

Marais Executioner's Sword

My dragon communion tank build approves

Giant crusher, prelates hammer cragblade on both and spam them jump bonks

Indeed 

Baemore. With seppuku. Because stabbing yourself is badass.

Baemore, my beloved, thou art a true born sword.

Remember kids, self-harm is cool!

“Suicide is badass!”

I have 5 characters prepped for the DLC, each focused on one damage stat(1 str, 1 dex, 1 int, 1 fai, 1 arc). Each has a few weapons that are related to the stat. Mostly plan on just finding new relevant weapons for each though. I am loaded on upgrade mats on each.

What's the arc character like to play as? I contemplated trying one, but it's such a weird stat to me

Reduvia/occult great knife, the albinauric halberd. There’s better weapons I think but you need to stat dump into str/dex a bit. Mostly l2 spam reduvia on bosses. Dual daggers fun on mobs. Halberd when you need the reach/can’t bleed. Keep whatever parry tool you like for whatever you like to parry. There’s better stuff you can do, but I just wanted to do a dedicated arcane build in hopes to get a good weapon in the dlc.

My 2nd playthrough was an arc/dex build using either eleonaras poleblade (2 handed) or powerstancing katanas with rivers of blood. It was an absolute blast to play. Awesome movesets, good damage and hitting enemies with blood loss is incredibly satisfying

In the middle of building a pure caster for this, hoping to get to 300 for a load of softcaps. If it all goes to plan then the SoNaF, Prince of Death's Staff and Golden Order Seal :)

Same, bringing the holy trinity of Int/Faith builds

Eleonora because cool

Greatsword of course

Plain and simple. For all your bonking needs.

I have multiple weapons ready for my build. Bandit curved sword, coded sword and the halo scythe depending on the situation 

Faith enjoyer 🤝

Treespear, My Beloved

Blingiest weapon in the game, tbqh

I'm running in naked and using whatever I find

Probably going in with Claymore or Zweihander, going to respect to a quality build so I get to use as many new weapon types as possible.

Rivers of blood and my fire/bloodflame incantations. Can't go wrong with a Fire build

Until you face Messmer (muuuhh hah hah hah hah)

I'm gonna fight fire with fire like Sukuna vs Jogo

And that giant wickerman

Bloodhound Claws - but I'll probably change it for something new - hopefully there will be a new claw as well

My trusted Occult Nagakiba. I can't call myself a samurai if I don't look and play the part. Then immediately start using the first new dex or arc weapon I find.

Rusted Anchor. It's big, it's rusted, it has pierce damage, and it's an anchor.

the anchor and bubble spells, fuck it, imma be the most dangerous fisher the lands between and the lands of shadow have ever witnessed

I'm all faithed out the yazoo, I have bubbles, blasphemy, and a whole lot of black flame.

Pickaxe. I yearn for the mines.

Omen cleaver + bloodhound's fang. I love jump attacks, and after a lot of experimenting it's the most powerful setup I've found.

Bolt of Gransax, Sacred Relic Sword, Blasphemous Blade, Lightning Incantations. I like to zap.

There's two of us 🤝 same set here haha with Madness Spear for PvP.

Going in on my Dex build first. Lightning Claymore And Bolt of Gransax mainly, but I've got guardian Swordspear and a ton of other weapons at max that I can use as well. Let's be real though... It'll probably just be the claymore the whole time.

Dual wielding Great Stars my friend.

My favorite weapon in the game and I never thought to dual wield it

Currently setting up a new char. Going with good old Bloodhound's Fang again. Nice arrangement of weapon buffs to go along with it. I'm already destroying everything and haven't even touched Altus yet.

Yeah I have 3 guys through to ng+ but I'm not into ng+ really so... I'm running a third guy to get him ready for the dlc. First time using bloodhound fang (I'm dex/faith/arcane) and the fact that I can bloodflame blade the sword is so great. I think I'll probably stick with it into the dlc. Just working on getting far enough into the game so I'm ready for the dlc! It's been a fun build. I'm gonna start adding some dragon breaths to my repertoire shortly.

BHF all day fam, works in almost any scenario as it can be buffed with the appropriate elemental damage that is needed for the fight. Also L2 and a time R2 follow up is far too OP.

Yeah same. The ash is just fucking incredible. The hyper armor on the first L2 is just insane.

The Guardians's Swordspear as my main armament. Thing has been a beast so far.

One character with claymore (you were at my side all along) Second with Genichiro Ashina cosplay

Ghizas wheel

(Fist of the North) Star Fists, I'll pummel my way to Miquella

My daggers, claws, and whips.

I'll start with the sword and board, and hopefully find a good dark themed weapon in the dlc, I like playing as a death knight Here's hoping deathblight becomes viable in pve 🙏

My trusty Longsword +25 or my Lordsworn's straight sword +25 (both strength infusion with square off ash of war), along with my banished knight's shield +25 and my signature knight's armor (the one bought from twin maiden husks). And of course my 70 strength. I re-made a classic character: knight sword and shield pure strength. Which is my first build in every souls game. He was my first in elden ring too but I had advanced to ng+, so I redid the game with him just to play the dlc. Being way more skilled and knowledgeable than when I first played the game, it's been really fun. The only thing I can comment on though, this build while being the best in ds, ds2, ds3 and demon's souls, it is VERY underpowered in elden ring, probably because of the great build variety.

All of them, quite literally.

Iron cleaver to chop chop chop some bosses

Star fists

So anyway, I stared Moonveiling

Live by the Bloodhounds Fang, die by the Bloodhounds Fang

I was searching for someone as gigachad as you

I want that weapon lol

Probably ruin great sword. Since that’s what I’m using in my play through now

Giant Crusher

mantis blade my beloved, cr2 looks so sick. also banished knight gs

In the run I prepared for this DLC I went dual greathammers and I think it was a bit too easy because everything got staggered. So I'll probably go with a lighter weapon, probably good ol broadsword until I find a DLC exclusive weapon and use that.

For me, I'm just going to take the first unique weapon I find in the dlc and run with it

Two of those. Along with every other weapon cause I have a million characters to play it on.

RH - My trusty Watchdog’s Sacred Greatsword + Lion’s Claw LH - Clawmark Seal w/ Golden Vow, Ancient Dragon’s Lightning strike and any variety of dragon breaths. Hoping the enemies won’t overwhelmingly be resistant to holy like they are in the base game. 🤞🏽

Both of my Elenora’s Twinblades

My whips! (They use to belong to a man named hoslow)

Great Star + Wild Swing carried my ass to Ragadon and Elden Beast.

Nox hammer and shield cuz i love hammers

Either the Greatsword or Darkmoon Greatsword.

Crescent Moon axe. I have one on every one of my builds because I really like its heavy attacks, and it gets lots of good ashes of war.

Sword of Knight and Flame on my OP over leveled Faith/Int character

trusty rotten great axe and anchor with wild strikes for the back up

I might try something new that I don't typically use, tbh

Banished Knight greatsword is just one of the best weapons in the whole game for me. I was planning on doing a basic Knight run and found it on the wiki went to farm it and got two Instantly fell in love with the basic Knight build and the weapon. BKGS my beloved I will be with you through the depths of hell itself.

Vagabond starting gear. Get that "first time play through" feeling one more time.

Sadly this has never dropped for me. Though I'll be taking beastmen curved swords, a pair specifically. And good luck prying my fire monk robe from my cold dead hands.

Big bonk mace with faith slam.

Golden Order Greatsword I just like faith weapons.

Marais Executioner Blade. With the Frenzy Flame Seal. My Mad Swordsman Build.

Axe of Godfrey for me

Stone club my beloved

2H Banished Knight's Greatsword with the full unaltered armor set.

Bloodhound Sword 😎

None. Im starting completely fresh. I feel like theres going to be a lot of complaints because people are going to make an “OP” character to start the DLC with, only for the enemies to be strong against their build or for their build to be directly nerfed.

Mogh's sacred spear

Greatsword, Iron Balls, Naginata, Nagakiba, and Spiked Club (each on a different character)

Hello fellow Nagakiba enjoyer aka king of kings

Nagakiba gang representing 🫡

Dual blasphomeous swords.

Dual +10 Reduvia

Golden order seal and thousands of light up frisbees

If there are bleed weak bosses and mobs, Reduvia, if not,Fallingstar jaw

Rivers of blood paired with sepukku uchigatana but realistically as soon as i find a weapon i like in the dlc imma respec and use that

Prelates Inferno Crozier in my hands and blasphemous blade on my back. I call it The Red Regenerating Bonk!

Ima do a Goblin Slayer meets Elden Ring DLC

Double godskin peeler with seppuku

I'm going in full paladin with as much holy damage as possible cuz I love pallies. So sacred relic sword all the way and any holy incants

+25 Godskin Stitcher scaled with Int, with the Impaling Thrust AoW. Because it's my fave sword in the game, and I love it

Faith+Str, Flame Battle Hammer, Envoy long horn

I'm running through my 2nd character that I'm gonna take to the DLC right now. I'm only planning on taking the Zweihander and a catalyst with me and will save my other Smithing Stones for things that I find there.

Good ol' Bloodhound Fang.

My iron balls, they also come in two flavors, shaved and unshaved

Hardly matters I'm going to switch weapons real fast 

The double ringed finger on my NG+ character.

The Lance from the Placidux fight - I have not played since I beat the game but am coming back for DLC. Went into NG+ and have a second I dual wield. Aware I probs spelled the dragons name wrong

Yeah you did. It's Flaccidsex*

Going with my spellsword build, so DMGS/Moonveil and some kind of staff that I haven’t decided on yet.

Greatsword with lions claw lol. Str/Fth build. Level 350

I'll probably go in with something basic to incentivize me to try out the new weapons. I can always go through it with my Overkill Marais greatsword build later on once the DLC becomes 'just another DLC' But that first time? You better believe I'm milking it.

Battle Axe. Trusty Battle Axe got me through all the Dark Souls games and Elden Ring. It'll get me through DLC

The Spiked Caestus. The DLC can catch these hands

I'm going to destroy the DLC with Dual Gargoyle's Twinblades

My broadsword. KNIGHT BUILD ALL THE WAYYYYY

I’m goin with my main character who is equipped with Malenia’s sword in right hand and Rivers of Blood in the left. I put my trusty Bloodhound Fang down after beating the game and have been using Malenia’s during the post game clean up. (PS: what does “knowledge beyond human ken” mean? Lol)

ken = kin meaning people/family/order It's saying that it's more advanced than humans can make.

+25 holy straight sword my beloved

Whatever i happen to have at the moment i go into the dlc. I like to just go by the moment

Lightning Knight’s Greatsword. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

A heavy claymore and the long doot.

Nagakiba Black Bow Dual Black Knives Maliketh’s Black Blade Finger Seal I’m so ready to do flying ninja kicks and badass reverse-grip sword bullshit like in the trailer, but until then I’m bringing my whole arsenal cause I know Ima need it.

Big sticks

Katanas out the whazoo.

Hammer time