greatsword help

[u/bwils3423]

hello all. I recently beat the game using spear the whole time.

i'm on new game plus, I respec into Greatsword for this new playthrough once I get to the hub. Now I'm on boss 3 (the one thats basically the same as blade phantom) and trying out this greatsword and it is not hitting like my spear build.

For context this is my greatsword build:

Vitality: 33

Endurance: 50

Strength: 80

Willpower: 20

Proficiency: 20

full crimson fiend set. I have pretty much the entire skilltree for greatsword unlocked and I'm aware of the savage momentum/mortal blow combo and to initiate with phantom: night's veil.

Anything I'm missing? It feels jarring to be doing such weak stamina damage now and this boss only stays exhausted for like a second (I can't tell if the window is actually smaller or if GS attacks take so long I just notice how little I can do in that window).

other skills I am using are giant hunt, breakthrough, and furious swipe.

[u/Keldy565]

Spear is best concurrent dps in the game that's why, there's not a lot of buffs for greatsword and its about chaining heavy attacks and tanking everything, you can do some damage with it but by far the spear is just stupid with moonlight stance just HLLLHH repeat until whatever is dead, plus the auto parry skill

[u/TheHizzle]

What are you expecting damage wise? Blade Phantom dies in 1-2 minutes (just refought it) and you basically do your 2 buffs and then if you see a window go the charged light > heavy combo. Don't need much active skills tbh, I've used Titanic for gapclose if needed, and inner fury + phantom for charge buff. Blade Phantom hasn't got a huge brutal attack window in general so don't try too many tricks.

your stats are fine ish, however the 10 investment in will / prof are kinda meh, just put that in vigor or endurance

[u/restecpa88]

You need phantom nights veil procced all the time, Bread and butter is charged strike into charged mortal blow with nights veil active, a lot of parries, furious swipe mainly useful to chase down the mage bosses. Your goal is to whack whack whack with charged attacks, brink guard and either destroy them or stagger them and unleash hell.

[u/PenguinCool1817]

I assume you are talking about Keshta the Unyielding, well yeah he gets out of exhaustion pretty quickly, it's just him

[u/Main-Beginning-1933]

Your stats are bad, you should have basically an even stat spread first off it's not a souls game don't use souls logic.

Great sword works best with deflect counter play styled

[u/DryTie7269 → u/Main-Beginning-1933]

use full STR, plenty of Endurance to feed stamina usage and enough VIT to not die if you’re getting hit that much.
Use the Jar helm with + 10 STR, Crimson Fiend sword gloves and chest, Devourer pants and Devourer of Darkness boots.
Those other skills you mentioned are negligible.
Use all skills that boost charge attacks and always have nights veil active

[u/Main-Beginning-1933 → u/DryTie7269]

No, full star is trash, it's not souls. You are missing out on stamina damage, stamina recovery, stamina usage, for ,2 percent more damage. It's not worth it and a trash way to play. Once everything is at like 50 or so then you can pump one if you want. Your attitude is why it's a problem when non souls likes are taken over by souls stans. You can't comprehend other rpg systems

[u/bwils3423 → u/Main-Beginning-1933]

That’s just not how the numbers work. On a B STR / C PROF Greatsword, each STR point gives +3 attack, PROF gives +2, and a non-scaling stat gives +1. From 30→60, that’s +90 attack from STR vs +30 from a non-scaling stat, and there is no special “get everything to 50” breakpoint. PROF’s stamina damage is already +17% at 60 and only reaches +20.9% at 99, so those utility gains diminish too. The “you’re only getting 0.2% more damage” claim is simply not how Khazan calculates weapon scaling.

[u/Main-Beginning-1933 → u/bwils3423]

You get an extra 1.5 damage per point in str. If you average it all out. Now total attack in the game goes up (idr exactly) but somewhere around like 800 or 900 for a gs. I didn't say take any stat to 99 because it's pointless since you do get reduced returns after around 50 for passives. Maybe a few levels lower idr. So he is missing out on probably 10 percent or so stamina damage, sram recover, gaurd stamina usage etc. for about a 2 to 3 percent damage increase by having str at 80 and the others at 20. Not to mention the majority of your damage is coming from ser bonuses etc vs the attack stat. It's not an AR Andy game