Ash of War: Bloody Slash | Elden Ring Wiki

Make sure you have Regen going with this, you don't want to get locked out of your own ash of war in pvp at low health!

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I call this aow the vigor check, im not a pvp guy, im over 200 doing pve for fun and i hv one shot so many invaders with this, it just feels good

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Having tested on the Troll just before Godrick's boss fight, I can confirm that Bloody Slash applies the effects of weapon buffs. This includes Black Flame Blade and Blood Flame Blade.

So either enjoy extra fire damage, or a stronger bleed application that doesn't decay for 2 seconds and builds. Using it 2-3 times in a row should apply Bleed to most enemies while also doing a shitload of damage.

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I dont think it was intentional that damage scales with both arcane and weapon level, given how insane it is.

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This is best of Bleed build from new game till end game

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This thing hits like a freight train on semi I just hit for 2600 and it didnt even proc bleed bruh

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This will almost always deal more damage than a Backstab for most weapons beside maybe Daggers, this is something easily verifiable by backstabbing any enemy, then using this after they stand back up. I can backstab something for 858, and then this thing will do 964 against the same target, it's kind of crazy.

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If you use this ash of war in front of bloody finger Okina within the mountaintops of the giants he will drop a fully upgraded rivers of blood, but you need to be on 50-60hp when you use the ash or you have to reset.

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Occult is better than blood and 80 arcane is way better than 50 arcane. 80 to 99 is only about 200 more on the zombie in rotview balcony however. 80 arcane deals 3145 damage with occult nagakiba and warhawk's talon. there isn't more damage if the blade hits

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has solid damage, but is painfully slow.

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In PvP this can be somewhat hard to land in a duel where the opponent is only focusing on you. However where this shines is as a roll catch against panick rollers and in invasions where the focus is split between you and PvE enemies. If you manage to land this you can often chunk upwards of half their health. Often times hosts and furled fingers will become overconfident due to their numbers which can lead to them taking terrible trades or running into ashes such as this one. This also works wonderfully against very slow attacks that lock you in place such as destined death and waterfowl dance or against a fully charged ancient lightning spear. Pairs well with bestial vitality to help offset some of the self damage.

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What weapon would get me the highest damage from Bloody Slash with Occult infusion. If it's not too much to ask, I'd like an option with innate bleed as well as the highest damage option without it.

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Why this absolutely deciments anything regardless if they bleed or not will always confuse me. It's disgusting how much damage this does even when you don't build for it.

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Why is this not usable by any weapon that can slash? Decent AoW locked off from use by a good deal of builds by completely unnecessary restrictions once again. Thanks Fromsoft.

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AKA: My other weapons and spells don't work solution.

This will nuke everything, including your own health.

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My question is, if I am dual-wielding scimitars, etc. Will it matter if I have the ash of war on the off-hand or main hand?

Like does offhand scale less or anything?

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THERE WILL BE BLOOOD
SHED

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OK, niche application of a fringe early-game AOW: this scales incredibly well with arcane, and despite getting a bonus when used on a blood-infused weapon it actually performs better on occult. Throwing this on an Uchi or other naturally bleed-inflicting weapon will cause it to deal outrageous damage and bleed buildup on the skill with the added bonus of continuing to build bleed with R1s. I'm at the point in Elden Ring where "bloody slash occult Flamberge + dragon incants" sounds like an exciting off-meta departure rather than an inconvenient mess.

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Certified NPC killer

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Serpent God Curved Sword is a good candidate for this AoW: fast swings play nice with bleed and the heal effect can help off set the life drain of Bloody Slash.

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bloody slash should only be applicable on slashy weapons... daggers, curved swords, glaives, katanas, curved greatswords, reapers... a slash attack is more suited to causing bleeding as well so it makes sense

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This is especially strong on a dagger of all things theoretically at least... it has the highest arcane on all occult infusions so if someone can test that would be nice.

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This on omen cleaver = cutting all of your fingers off every time you use it

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Duels using this have a 67% chance of killing themselves with it.

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I did some rudimentary testing, and the base Bleed build up, without any scaling, seems to be around 40-60.

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does it increes bleed build up on stadart or it's only when you add the afiinity? (talking passively, not when you use the skill)

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MEMORIES BROKEN

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So i can verify, as of 1.08, this moves does inflict bleed and, oh boy, does it ever. On a decent Arc build the move alone does about 15-20% health damage to 90% of enemies and bosses (even those immune to bleed) and then 2-3 hits with it procs a huge bleed that does around 25-50% health. My head asplode how good it is, especially considering how little health and FP it costs. Plus it just looks dang cool AND you can get it so early on. Dual wielding Warhawk's Talons, one with bleed affinity, one (mainhand) with occult and i am shredding through the game like never before and dying far less often than i have on all previous builds.

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It's too fast and deals too much dmg

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Why do reapers not get this... like seriously, it fits perfectly

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Very good for taking out twinked out invaders/overleveled phantoms at low level because of the massive burst damage and the ability to go through walls.

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This now deals Bleed buildup!

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this thing doesn't hit like a truck, it hits like an airliner

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so i tried it and: this ash of war can kill you
so be carefull

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With 60+ arcane this ash of war on a uchigatana with damage boosting items regularly hits for 1000+ in PVP

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this is used in early game to put on an extra dagger or sword you happen to have and kill greyoll with the bleed affinity

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I put this on an occult claymore as a meme like "haha look at my funny dumb non-bleed blood I'm so quirky and different"
Couple of dozen one shots later I and I feel like Lady Maria
Not optimal but a lot nore fun than I thought.
Really efficient spam fest ash too in pve if you think whatever your fighting is gonna really chunk you if you get close.

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are we sure this skill causes hemorrhage build up?

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Even when using this with low Arcane it still does crazy damage. For such low FP cost it’s pretty incredible. I suggest pairing this with the talisman that regens HP overtime.

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The mimic boss in Nokron suicided after using this skill when he was near death xD

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So between this and Blood Blade what is the difference?

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Is cool but c'mon this is just a mortal blade ripoff and they even reused the animation, but why they didnt add the mortal blade second follow up attack? Seriously being just a single slash makes it feel incomplete compared to mortal draw

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Seems pretty underwhelming. Like 2k with 99 arcane.

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It would be good on my arcane build if it didn't remove bleed.

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Kinsa disappointed of how the attack itself does not cause any bleed buildup but the knight who had this on Fort Haight can cause bleed when using this :/

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Nerfed, yet still incredible. Damage is extremely high, and avoiding it is very difficult in PVP, especially when you consider lag. Do not listen to those who complain about the nerfs, it went from being absurd to just being incredible.

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So basically Mortal Draw but not nearly as cool-looking.

I kid, I use this to create double-bleed powerstance Scimitars and it's like playing Sekiro all over again, except with even MORE agility!

(P.S. - Valiant Gargoyles may be immune to status effects but they're not immune to the art's direct HP damage, which is MASSIVE)

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mostly used by neckbeards

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I still don't exactly get how the blood build-up works. If I pick Bloody Slash with the blood affinity, does it stack blood build-up when I hit with 'normal' attacks like R1/RB (Bloody Slash + the blood affinity)? Whereas if I pick Bloody Slash with the Heavy affinity, will I cause less blood build-up with normal attacks?

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Actually, even nerfed, bleed arcane build is OP in pvp from lev 60 till around lv 100. beyond that I've not tried yet but I think magic build dominates...

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Didn't drop for me this playthrough from him. Bugs I guess but this one is quite annoying.

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still amazing even after the nerf. only problem is that it does more damage to the player

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Ive made some testing, the HP penalty is 15% of max not fixed 130.

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This needed either a damage reduction, or a self-damage increase; not both.

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I'm mister lightning bolt, I'm mister storm...

glad this got a bit nerfed, but hey, I never tried it myself, so makes sense to start. shame it doesn't work on claws, would be interesting to give them a single HP cost longer ranged move.

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Still powerful after the nerf, it's just not beyond broken anymore, didn't feel satisfying killing bosses with it before at all because of how ez mode it made everything so maybe it'll actually feel good to use now without feeling like a cheater.

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I was expecting more of a balance (e.g: Increase a penalty (HP/FP cost), but also increase an advantage) than a straight up direct nerf. I guess it was too strong to remain like that, considering it's obtainable early in the game. Well, stuff happens, at least you can still give bleed infuse to a weapon of your choice I suppose.

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Im early game not even aware it was "nerfed" and didnt even notice it lol. Still nuking enemies with ease using this

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Anyone find a solid replacement for this now that 1.03 has nuked it?

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Damn shame they nerfed it

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Meh, this change could seriously hinder most early game blood builds.

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should b nerfed harder

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Awwww man... I was having a lot of fun with my light-rolling Determination/Blood Slash build!

Now I don't know what to do with arcane. Make a cringey seppukku build? Lame...

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Good riddance to this and hoarfrost stomp. Complain and downvote but they were objectively broken

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Using +15 keen Uchigatana if it matters, Bloody Slash takes 109 of my HP on use (1198 to 1089) after 1.03 so its not always 130 damage

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The self damage is 7.5% hp not 130 flat. From the tests I have done I have taken 140 and 148 damage from using the ash of war.

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The insane amount of damage you take per cast now + less dmg and slower cast makes this Ash of War more harmful than good.

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Thanks, my build is now ruined. Time to respec and try new thing I guess !

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nerfed

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Patch notes said a "minor nerf" to this skill but thats straight up BS. I do 20% less damage than I did before (800 instead of 1000), it seems to cost almost double the hp, and slowing its casting time down has caused dozens of hours of muscle memory using the skill to be worthless now. That extra few frames makes you liable to get hit by so many more attacks.

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Cast time seem roughly identical post patch, damage did take a hit I can def notice, other than that still a solid ash of war for the early game.

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Fun fact: this is the only way to get a slashing attack on the Godskin Stitcher

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I bloodslashed my way through a lot of early/midgame content in this game and not only does it become old and stale, it also feels like effectively cheesing your way through the content. The dmg it does is absurd and the reach and stagger do the rest. Minibosses and even real bosses just can´t handle the slash. Other PvE content is even worse, three soldiers approaching you? One bloodslash, three dead. One of those scary knights? Bloodslash and stagger. Guard counter? Roll out of it and wind up that bloodslash. Counter their counter with slashing, the blood variety. Those glintstone miners with rockhard skin that makes non-strike weapons bounce off? Turns out, bloodslash. Radahn was almost slashed on first attempt(10% health left), then it took 5 or so more to slash him for good. Helped 50+ ppl through Rennala fight by slashing that poor lady to oblivion. For the few bosses that actually resist it, use a strike weapon instead.


I don´t care what ppl use in PvP and invasion but PvE, you are almost ruining your experience by bloodslashing your way through all the content. I stopped using it because it was all I was doing. Why hit a boss 30 times with regular attacks when you can bloodslash him into oblivion with 10? Why not just press that button? I actually look forward to re-playing the bloodslashed content in ng+ without it. It´s a crutch and it´s not fun after a while.

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This is partially false, I've done some testing. Bloody Slash scales on two things: weapon enhancement (1-25) and the Arcane Attribute (it works correctly). Character buffs such as Golden Vow do increase the damage, significantly might I add. Weapon enchantments such as Bloodflame Blade do NOT increase the damage, probably for the best honestly. Two more things of note: Bloody Slash does NOT cause bleed buildup (even with Bleed affinity), If it does it's so little that it's impossible to proc but I'm putting my money on that it does not at all (18 uses on the troll by Secluded Cell). The second thing: Keen, Heavy, and Quality Affinities do cause it to do a slight amount more damage (single digits with a +0 weapon and 20's Strength and Dexterity). Overall the perfect weapon for this Ash is a slow, short reaching, high stat requirement weapon. Ash of War's always used at same speed, Bloody Slash has some range, and the higher stats increase the damage (though not much from what I can tell). That being said the damage is superb, hits multiple targets, it costs next to no FP, and it looks pretty cool. Use it on whatever you please. I'm going to test a build with 40 Vigor, 25 Mind, 25 Endurance, 16 Strength, 13 Dexterity, Min Intelligence, 25 Faith, Max (80+) Arcane; while using an Occult Claymore +25 and Shield. Casting Golden Vow and Flame Grant Me Strength while opening my blood vessels at vagrants.

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works wonders for arcane builds just starting out, even if you choose bandit, because this ash of war also works with daggers like the great knife.

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The solid, dependable, knock off a chunk of everything's health choice of discerning Tarnished everywhere.

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Not gonna lie, I'd have just stuck with this for the visuals but that absurd range, low cost and somewhat decent instant-death level damage seems a decent reason to use it as well I suppose.

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According to my testing the damage is based on two things. First the upgrade level of your weapon and secondly your arcane stat based on the infusion on your weapon with occult yielding the highest damage if you have a high arcane stat. However the exact scaling on your weapon doesn't matter really just the infusion (again occult is best at high arcane), i tested the Great Knife (A-Scaling) and the Uchigatana (B-Scaling) and both weapons dealt the exact same damage. So if you try to maximize the damage of bloody slash you want to get an occult weapon and pump arcane as much as you can, but otherwise you may use whatever weapon you like aslong as it can run this skill ofcourse.

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This ability doesn't seem to cause hemorrhage like that page says. I tested it. Even though your weapon may cause bleed when using this ability your weapon has no hitbox.

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Bloody Slash is one of the strongest Ashes of War in the game in terms of raw damage. It technically has no damage type and is treated as raw (standard) damage, and is only reduced/resisted by enemies actively blocking. But here is where it gets rad. If you change your weapon affinity away from Blood and make it non-elemental (Keen, Quality, Heavy, or Standard) you can still use the Bloody Slash technique and it will do MORE damage based on your weapon's stats. Now the other bonus is that you can also apply elemental grease or a enchantment to your weapon and that damage will be applied ontop of the Bloody Slash and again will not be resisted by your enemy.

So for example (estimates since I can't look at my in-game stats at the moment) I have a Sword that does around 180+50 dmg at Standard affinity, with Bloody Slash it deals around 600 damage in a single hit. But using the faith spell Blood-Flame and coating the sword in Fire, Bloody Slash now directly deals a consistent 800+ damage per hit. Which for comparison, a backstab/critical-hit only does around 1.2k of damage at max for me currently. So by ramping up my HP/Stamina stats I have been able to consistently melt most enemies by spamming the technique when facing normally tanky foes. Overall it's low FP cost, decent cast/attack speed, and high damage output makes the small HP trade-off very negligible for my melee/tank build. Often this move let's me 1-hit kill anything weaker than a fully armoured Knight, and is best offset if you use the regenerating HP tear in the Wonderous Flask, or use the Assassins Talisman to regen HP by just scoring critical hits on low-tier enemies using a parry/guard-counter or backstab (basically this playstyle favors thinking like a Vampire, and using weaklings to feed off of to regen HP during dungeon crawls while melting the more troublesome foes in 1-2 hits).

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Tested: works on twinblades.

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It will proc bleed. I have it on a long sword with the affinity to bleed. It takes a few stikes but i have seen it.

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I learned that the health cost can kill you if you're health is low enough and also it will still consume health without doing the actual weapon art if you are out of FP :/ wish it just wouldn't even let you use the move if you were in either of those circumstances

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The guy that drops this is the guy that took over fort haight. He’s described as obsessed with blood.

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I have the broadsword +17 keen and the bloody slash is just way too OP, I almost do not use it that often to not make the game to easy ... xD,

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If I use this with keen scaling (wheteblade ability), the weapon loses the bleed sum?

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Just don't look at the animation too hard if you're squeamish, lol, makes my hand hurt.

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I have bloody slash on two grossmesser curved swords and using the L1/LB three attack combo, having a lot of fun with it so far but i've only cleared Stormveil and Lucaria Academy with it.

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Maybe I just am not noticing, but does this actually proc bleed build up? It does a lot of upfront damage but with all the blood animations I haven’t noticed if I’m procing bleed

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this did jackpoop against margit with my lord's greatsword. better to unequip any ashes of war so it can retain it's full attack power. maybe margit is immune to bleeding or i'm dumb

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Mortal Draw says Hello.

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Lol arc>luck 100 to 1 even has spell application ty from... While easier than some melee styles... Hardly op carry(this skill) compared to someone melting a boss far faster than any bleed with gravity magic from relatively safe positioning.. let's just call everything op and hopefully from slaps everything with the nerf stick ;)

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for reasons it makes some bosses much easier

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"op" but arcane doesn't have much else going for it, the nerf should be putting a 16ish arc stat req on it

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its gonna be sad when the whining of the playerbase gets this cool weapon art nerfed

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This will be nerfed to OP

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My friend has a keen uchigatana with this but mine isn't letting me use keen, just standard and arcane, anyone know why?

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Did some testing with the damage. I used a knight's greatsword and a flamberge, both with and without a blood infusion. The damage dealt was consistent, and the damage increase after I leveled arcane was consistent as well. Admittedly I didn't test to see if strength or dexterity changed the damage dealt, but from the testing I did do, it seems like it only scales off of arcane and weapon level, separate from a weapon's AR. I'll comment again if I do any further testing.

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The length of the weapon this is on doesn't matter, as the weapon doesn't have an active hitbox during the attack. Tested with the Great Épée; hitting with the blade didn't add any extra damage.
Therefore, this is very well suited to shorter weapons that can benefit from additional range. Using this on my Broadsword and it's a lifesaver against mobs and bosses.

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It seems the skill scales only from arcane. I have tested on different weapons, including daggers, straight and thrusting swords, and still it give me the same damage number

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