Ash of War: Spectral Lance | Elden Ring Wiki

Does this do Thrust Damage? I kinda want to pair this with a Lucerne and the Spear Talisman.

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Well, isn't that great? Just another misinformation on this wiki! This AoW does NOT apply the HP damage over time from Black Flame Blade! Thanks for making me waste my time trying this, Fextralife!

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This on a spear + Cold Infusion Highland Axe + dual Magma Blades = GoW: Ragnarok Kratos build

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Forger the description, this does INSANE damage on an arcane build.

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This ash, iron spear, falchion with sword dance, kaiden sellsword set, steel wire torch= ds3 follower cosplay build

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This is bizarre, I've gotten this skill before on previous characters, but as of 03/06/2024 the scarab just didn't show up in Raya Lucaria Academy. Sucks because it's a great skill but I can't acquire it

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Really fun to use at point-blank range

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THis is my go to AoW for fighting dragons. It just feels so good to chuck javelins at their heads until they go down before moving in for a riposte. Way more fun than standing underneath them hitting their legs plus it makes it easier to dodge their attacks. Probably my favourite AoW in general because of how unique it is

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Not close to where the description says it is. Instead of "going slightly southeast" after the wooden bridge, just follow the path t up towards the doorway. Pass the doorway and hang a left and you see it. Heading northish the whole time.

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just tested it for the first time with a +0 occult pike with 9 ARC..........i've read in the comments that it supposedly has good tracking........FALSE, it's minimal tracking and perfectly fine as it is, it didn't had any in DS3 so it's a good thing there is now...there is undoubtly great stance damage...it's also fun to knock back enemies with it...it feels like you got a really strong throw...but has a bit less range than expected but hey, it's still an OK projectile who has a chance to land head shots.................perfect for a Hoplite/Spartan build using a shield/partisan combo who doesn't wants to use a bow nor spells and wants a more powerful projectile than throwing daggers (Kukri actually deals decent damage and bleed buildup if you wanna test it out with 50ARC/DEX)

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This is such an amazing tool on an arcane build. Arcane scaling makes the damage/stance/range combination so good. Actually use it on a short spear for low weight as a quick swap and shoot tool. Great universally, and for enemies where your other arcane tools fall short. Short spear has the two-hit heavy if you are going bleed infusion, but put this on light spear of your choice it is so worth the weight.

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whats the fp cost on this? trying to decide between this and ice spear

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"Does not include weapon scaling in its damage calculation, making it deal poor damage in general" is very misleading. This skill scales with arcane, but that scaling transfers no matter what your infusion so you won't notice any damage changes unless you put points directly into arcane. Hope this clears things up for anyone wanting to invest in this banger of a skill.

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Using this on a heavy lance for a strength/ faith pve build and it compliments my miracles well.

The ranged poise damage it does should give you ample time to cast something more appropriate (or you can just rush in for the crit.)

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fun to free-aim

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I love this AoW, feels so cool chucking a ghost spear at Malenia at point blank range but my goodness could it use some faster recovery after the spear toss

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So fun to use. I'm using this for the first time with the iron spear +25, quality build. It deals alotta damage and has long reach.

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Black Flame Blade doesnt affect this ash of war, i just tested it out, its a shame

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Despite turning into a standard partizan, when used on nightrider's glaive it seems to have a ridiculous amount of stagger. Not sure if the same goes for other heavy halberds, but woth a try.

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Despite turning into a standard partizan, when used on nightrider's glaive it seems to have a ridiculous amount of stagger. Not sure if the same goes for other heavy halberds, but woth a try.

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What are good (Great) Spears / Halberts to put this on?

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It just needs to be quicker and it would be my beloved.

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does this aow trigger blood loss build up?

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Pair this bad boy with arrow's reach talisman and you can snipe trash mobs for days, good for a spear build with limited ranged options

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This AoW absolutely WRECKS Lansseax. You need to remember to keep your distance and dodge his big AoE attacks, but you can mostly just target his head, back up, and spam. His head takes a lot more damage and he's weak to piercing damage specifically, so it works absolute wonders. The fact that you can use it from range is just perfect.

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The damage is pretty poor, but it's cheap to use and does a ton of stance damage. I've also found that it's throw arc is very likely to land headshots on standard human-sized enemies like npc invaders and standard soldiers. I would highly, highly recommend getting the short spear from the roundtable and putting this on it as a sidearm if you're not planning on using spells. The damage isn't great but the short spear is very light at only 4 units and it's the stance damage at range that you really want.

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"You’re as good as naked before my spear" - Lancer

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This AoW is an absolute beast if you're planning to run polearms. The sheer impact of the poise damage is absurd and it deals solid damage (I was running a quality Dragon Communion build with 27 Arcane). Perfect for picking off targets at a range. Some bosses also just eat these to oblivion, like Astel.

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Does this do pierce damage?

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Supposedly spectral lance deals 5x the weapon class' base stance damage to enemies, but I'd need to see some numerical proof to believe that. Great spears and halberds do about twice the stance damage of spears, but get the same results staggering the same enemies with this. At 5x the amount, the difference should be drastic, but in practice the projectile takes the same number of hits to stagger a target, accounting for the possible bonuses from stealth and head shots.

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This should still use the Arcane scaling intrinsic to your weapon in the bullet calculation, no? Pest's Glaive would theoretically get you more damage compared to a Partizan at the same weapon level when occult due to the scaling difference (1.44 vs 1.062 in version 1.09). The base damage on this skill is low so I doubt it's much but weapon choice should still affect this AoW.

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Hurling a vulgar militia saw like a throwing spear would've looked ridiculous, but only slightly more ridiculous than my vulgar militia saw spontaneously transmogrifying into a partizan. What could have been.

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As of the latest update 1.09, spectral lance no longer applies black flame blade. Could not test to see if blood flame blade interaction still worked but it appears to no longer apply either. Rest in peace.

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Slap the Spectral Lance AoW on this and you've got a winner: A ranged attack which deals a massive 27.5 stance damage. For comparison, the pre-nerf FotR was 40. So this is almost as much... but it's a long range attack.

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Today I have been fighting invader using this Ash of war, for some reason when I equipped spiked pallisade shield with cold infusion, spectral lance did no damage to me, I was not guarding or anything, just standing still as I realised it deals no damage to me

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Just discovered this on my 3rd acc going NG+ with a high arcane short spear build and goddamn I’m excited all over again.

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What a damn disappointment. I can't believe it transforms your spear into a small partisan for the throw when they could have just "spectralized" whatever spear you have the Ash equipped on. As it stands it just feels way out of place using it on anything except the partisan. I wanted to use it on the actual Lance (Great Spear) until I found this out.

That + the fact that it gains damage from Arcane scaling that would make you want to use it with Occult infusion, but Occult infusion can't carry buffs which means you can't use Black Flame Weapon on it at the same time as Occult infusion, just means it's a messy thing to want to spec into. I don't really know how to reconcile this without losing something worth having with it.

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Damage is affected by golden vow and flame grant me strength

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Deals pure Physical damage based on weapon upgrade level and your Arcane stat. Poise Damage is inherited from the weapon, giving Great Spears a 10% bonus.

Can carry Bloodflame Blade and Black Flame Blade, but doesn't seem to inflict direct status, despite a visual indicator for Bleed appearing.

Deals VERY heavy Poise damage, and its damage:cost is respectable. Just doesn't annihilate things the way other Skills do.

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>Does not include weapon scaling in its damage calculation, making it deal poor damage in general

this is false. It can also apply bleed and poison. It can deal headshot damage as well.

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Does anyone know what kind of damage the spear does and if it can be modified? For example: if one uses magic affinity will the spear become magic damage that can then be boosted by Rogier's set?

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holy mother of recovery time. this recovers worse than a heavy jump attack from a colossal sword, what in the world...

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It seems like the primary damage comes from the weapons level. Tested 3 different lvl 25's and lvl 0's, and damage was minimally different (+- 10), which could have just been damage drop-off from slightly different ranges (rested at gatefront and hit same guard without moving). Lvl 25's did about 620, lvl 0's did about 100. Arcane does directly add noticeable damage, but not near as much as weapon level.

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Did some damage testing using the Halberd on a Godrick Soldier:

Heavy Infusion 80 Strength - 551 (long range) - 664 (close)
Occult Infusion 80 Arcane - 726 (long range) - 881 (close)

As you can see, Occult infusion adds quite a bit of damage to the AoW.
Notably, both of these Halberds had the same AR when one handed (665) but when two handed the Heavy goes to 714 due to the Strength bonus.

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Actually found this to be great for a tank build for coop. Combined with the gladiator (grave warden?) set, you can pull boss aggro super easy from a distance with just a couple of throws.

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Deals 25 poise damage on non weakness hits, seems fine but not broken.

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I like this on +24 partisan in a right hand slot with either a lightning Hoslow's or giant's red braid in a left slot. It's a fun and effective combination.
There are some interesting comments about the poise damage and missing human build enemies. I don't think a projectile weapon skill is necessarily about making an enemy vulnerable to a critical hit. I use it to buy time to use a flask or buff, It's handy to get a time out for my stamina bar to refill.
Also, this taking on the DoT characteristics of black flame if 'blackflame blade' is cast on the spear is a nice option to have as well.

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for pvp, this is a very good punish for big moves, like dragon breath, the big lightning incantations, moon sorceries, etc

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I picked this with the idea I wanted range coverage without any magic or crappy bow usage, and tbh the massive delay after use kills it. Renders the posture damage useless because 9/10 you'll never get to the enemy in time.

If you just want a range PvE skill to forgo ever using magic, Storm Blade is just way better for this particular scenario

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Just destroyed the Elden beast with this in my naginata.
It even hit its mark during the animation of the Elden beast flying up to use its special golden Ring move.
Absolutely solid against large monsters, but questionable performance against medium to smaller targets especially those with an in-built dodge.

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slap on a stonebarb cracked tear and you can stunlock a dragon for 30 seconds straight

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As of 1.07, the damage dropoff on long tosses seems to have gotten more lenient. Trying with a +17 Occult Naginata on 48 arcane on the guards outside at Gatefront, a point blank shot was giving me 632, whereas far tosses at the limits of my throwing range while locked on were giving me 490-520. Way better than before.

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To those who haven't used this. It is THE ash of war for players who don't want to invest in spells or... *shudders* ...use bows (plz buff bows fromsoft).
It has: amazing range; weird, but often hilariously good tracking; great damage; incredible poise break; you can give this to halberds, spears, and great spears (the Lance lmao).

This is incredibly useful for those of you who just HATE dragons, because a few hits on the head, and down goes its poise.
It's only disadvantage, is that smaller enemies usually aren't hit by this, and free aiming is near impossible. Plus, just like 90% of projectiles, most humanoid enemies and bosses, will straight up dodge this, unless they are locked into an animation.

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This Ash of War destroys all dragon enemies. The projectile easily tracks their head and deals massive poise damage to them.

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Can be reflected by erdtree greatshield in pvp.

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Wish would just yeet your spear and then would have to run over to pick it up then throwing this silly ghost spear

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It's pretty solid. It makes breaking poise on big enemies pretty easy from medium range and lets you set up your weapon switch for high critical damage.

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pros: great tracking and range, often hits enemies on the head
deals good poise damage, not like FOTR but pretty close, so it can be used as a long range option to keep a boss's poise meter from resetting if you cant get near it
decent fp usage to the value you get out of it
deals alright damage, nothing to write home about though

cons: slow start-up and god awful recovery time
its an occult aow, so the alright damage youd get on an arcane built becomes just plain mediocre on anything else

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Long Range BONK.

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put on claymans harpoon to go spear fishing

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This should get boosted by the arrows sting talisman imo, would be very poggers of From tbh

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I have respected every offensive stat to 50 and tried all ranged ashes of war, this one sadly deals the least damage and is slow.

Str best ranged ash is heavy infused stormblade/vacuum slice. Flame of the Redmanes with Heavy Infusion is a nice aoe Ash of War with some range.
Dex has Keen infused Beast's Roar and you can combo this with highland axe and roar medallion, it is top 2 in range with Spectral lance.
Str/Dex can use quality ashes well with heavy and keen respectively, Quality can also use theirs.
Faith/Int use spells/incantations instead. If not you have Sacred Blade and Glintstone Phalanx respectively.
Arcane only has Spectral Lance. It's almost never going to be leveled alone so likely you can use another ash of war or spells/incantations.

For some reason I went for minimal requirements for my lance 20 str, 14 dex, 10 int/fth and 99 arcane and Icy spear still does well over 1000 damage.
It's just universally good but has mediocre range
Sadly my +25 Occult Lance with Spectral Spear barely reaches 600 damage and it has damage falloff.

I personally rate this ash of war a 3/10. It has range, arcs goes towards the head and is cheap to cast but it's too slow, does too little damage, has a long recovery. No matter the build you have better damage options elsewhere.
It's a shame cause I personally like it.

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incredibly useful for melee focused builds, especially when it comes to hitting a dragon’s head. bonus points if you’re an arcane build, that way it does decent damage as well

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I wish this could be put on twinblades, it would be perfect for my Predator character.

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Can be used with the Shared Order ash of war to take out skeletons from range.

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Use this for my knight crit build. Spear with Spectral lance. Greatshield with shield crash. And lordsworns greatsword with dagger talisman to deal crits. Pretty good imo and it doesn't feel cheese like bleed

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Would be my favourite skill if it scaled off of weapon stats, currentlyt there's no point in me changing from seppuku to this on an ARC build, does give me a nice backup ranged attack though but an occult partisan is just not worth it in end game.

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use this on short spear and a backup mace, you are ready to slay a dragon

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Odd that this is Occult by default but Phantom Slash isn't. Personally I wish the latter was ALSO Occult, bc there are so few in the game.

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This has become one of my favorite abilities in the game. A few key points:
- It staggers many enemies in one or two hits
- With higher Arcane (45ish) it one-shots many weaker enemies. I was clearing Volcano Manor by taking out the slugs, poison zombies in one hit and the crawling face grabbers in two
- With Carian Filigree Crest, Ancestral Horn and Sacrificial Axe it costs no FP if you kill the enemy in one cast
- It has great range. I Can do the Palace Approach chicken cheese with it instead of using a bow
- It DOES make you take a small step forward, be careful on ledges as you may step off after casting it

I do wish the damage of the ability scaled with things other than Arcane, as you'd usually use Bleed weapons, but for my Faith/Arcane dragon incantation build it was amazing, a great way to conserve FP for incants while exploring

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While you're at it, don't disappoint Leonidas. He's watching you.

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This is my new favorite WA. Love catching some overconfident dill weed in the face with this or catching a runaway estus chugger. Black flame blade buff is a cool add on too.

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Does the spectral lance scales with occult (like holy rings in halo scythe scales with faith) or it doesnt?

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Why couldn't they just change the projectile model based off your polearm. It looks stupid.

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If you're thinking about putting this on your main halberd for close range stance breaking, don't do it, the slow windup and lack of hyperarmor means you'll get knocked out of the cast 9/10 times, glintstone pebble or ice spear works much better for that. I've found it's best used as a pocket greatbow, stick it on a light spear as a secondary weapon and it's actually amazing.

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it's funny how I have no problem with using a shiny rock to summon giant dragon heads, but using anything other than a Partisan to throw these feels weird and immersion breaking

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Tested on a cross-nagitana at ver 1.04.1 and it IS affected by the arrow's sting talisman, contrary to what the article currently says.

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Really fun to use but doesn't deal much damage (wish it scaled off anything other than Weapon levels, even something as low as D/D on Str/Dex)

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I think I figured out this weapon art.

For the damage of it, that relies on the weapon's level (as with all other weapon arts) but the damage can be further enhanced with points in arcane.

As for how the actual toss works, the game appears to treat the spear as an arrow, but only insofar as how its flight path and targeting work (this is why it's affected by the arrow range talisman and not the arrow damage talisman).

Because the spear flight is technically an arrow's, it gets similar rules applied to it, with damage decreasing the further you are from the target. However, this also means that the spear can hit "critical spots", like human and troll heads, which increase the amount of regular and poise damage the weapon art already does.

These are my findings after just doing 20 minutes of screwing around with the weapon art, if anyone wants to go deeper into the numbers and testing, feel free.

TLDR: This is a unique weapon art that I believe meshes together with the arrow system in order to produce the spear projectile, mixing in calculations from both systems.

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It's good but the recovery time is painful

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Does this AoW trigger hemorrhage when applied to a Spiked Spear/Cross Naginata (both have innate bleed) and chosing the occult affinity?

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Am falling in love with this weapon art. It's great to use when summoned to support a host's boss fight. Can stagger most bosses in 3 or 4 strikes. And as description says, decent range, tracks well.

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This needs less recovery time and more damage. Could be fun on a weirdass minimum scaling build tho.

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I swap between a Lance with this ash buffed with black flame and a halberd with phantom slash. It's not super optimized or anything but it hits every potential range from close wide sweeps w the halberd, mid range phantom slash and swap to the Lance when I need some range. Always keeping black flame up as well as the black flame aoe as big dudes tend to sit in the dot fire while I hack away. It's fun and the gelmir knight armor and knight calvary helm with the Lance and a greatshield looks jazzy as hell

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While this skill is viable in PvE situations; It still need some buff to the animation part of it in general, at least it should be able to cast continually to make the caster have more options as following, and also really need to shorten the recovery time. The damage output is already really awful so I think the buff will do it justice.

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Time for Ghosts 'n Goblins. Sir Arthur shall search for the Elden Ring.

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Fought both black blade kindred with the weapon art, and vaguely hitting them in the wings/head stunned them in about 2-4 casts. Had mimic tear as a distraction and it also probably pelted them with the weapon art as well.

In a nutshell, hits pretty well and stuns reliably. Impaling thrust/piercing fang is basically the close quarters version, so a dual spear build can have both for weapon art options. Just be quick with inventory swaps.

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Transforms your polearm into a small partisan before throwing it at enemies.

Slightly follows moving targets, allowing you to hit them easier.

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the section here that says "Provides the Occult affinity, which adds Arcane scaling, decreases all other scaling types. Undead enemies are no longer able to revive." is wrong, Occult affinity doesn't prevent skeletons from respawning, you need to apply a standard affinity to the weapon and buff it with Order's Blade, the buff works on the spectral spears as well

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The location for this item is wrong. It's in the graveyard near the Cuckoo Church, not the courtyard. Kind of an important distinction in a dungeon that has like six courtyards.

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Wanted to check it out so i did some testing and these are the results:

My stats:
STR 51
DEX 40
ARC 8
INT 11
FTH 40

I put it on Nightrider' Glaive +25, with Heavy affinity it gets S scaling in STR and get 705 AR and AoW does ~485 dmg

Now with Occult affinity i get B in ARC and get 435 AR and AoW does ~485 dmg

Granted i was testing it on soldier of godrick outside of church of elleh on NG+ idk how it performs later since i just started

So i assume it scales off of weapon's upgrade lvl

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Scales with arcane. Love it with dual halberds occult affinity. Get them down, flying attackkkkk!!!

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Poise damage on this is insane.

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Extremely good at breaking posture from a safe distance, comparable to a charged heavy attack. Even big enemies go down in 2-3 hits.

Has decent mid-air tracking, damage is nothing special but it can headshot

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I wish that the aim on this for a locked target would be adjusted upwards just ever-so-slightly. It is designed to hit the target at the upwards arc of the throw when you're on level ground, which is fine against large enemies. There are countless times where a having the high ground against a dog or human-sized enemy will be locked to the target and track towards it across a huge distance… just to consistently land immediately in front of them of them. Given the time it takes to throw & that you step forward as you do, it's significantly less ideal for sniping compared to spell options like Rock Sling or Loretta's Greatbow. However, I feel like its lowered damage but extremely good stagger are already a sufficient offset, and it'd be nice if the tracking on this felt on par with those when you're above an enemy.

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You gain about 2 and a half points of dmg for each point in Occult on a Partisan.

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I think this should apply weapon aux proccs. Why is it occult if I can't throw my partizan from range and poison/stancebreak some poor sod?

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The only usable skill for arcane builds, I don't understand why they didn't make all other melee skills can be chosen as occult also?

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Sucks you can't put lightning or holy. Only poison bleed and standard

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For how long it takes to throw and how hard it is to hit anything because of its extremely slow velocity it should really do more damage, as of now you're much better off just using throwing daggers. I really hope they buff this because it could be a terrifically useful skill.

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