Ash of War: Storm Blade | Elden Ring Wiki

sword magic

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Really good against large and agile enemies with poor lock on locations, mainly ancient dragons, Elden Beast, gargoyles. Storm Blade allows the player to stay a bit away from them to actually see what they are doing, while also providing consistent damage when the attack openings of these enemies also have the annoying habit of placing them 20 feet away from the player, while also rewarding those instances when the player is close because the your weapon will also register damage if it physically hits an enemy.

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"It outtrades/poise breaks colossals, it deals too much damage, bla bla bla"

Duh, you re launching STORMS with it, not slight gusts. Be thankful it doesn't carry on elemental damage like godrick's storm blade does.

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anti wizard technology

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My beloved

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Tried out collosal hammers. Immediately put it back into storage when I realized stormblade really does beat them on trades. WHY?!

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So if im getting one tapped by this thing at 50+ vigor, medium/heavy armor, and the erdtree talisman+1, it's not op?

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What I've gotten from this comment section, is that this appears frequently in PVP, and people keep comparing it to crossbows, for whatever reason.
Personally? I just like it for summon builds. Not needing to invest heavily into a casting stat for great physical damage is a swell thing, makes this great for lower-mid level PvE.

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A comment below mentions this as most optimal on a caster due to synergy with star shower/frost… but it’s actually most optimal on a fth leaning caster that stacks regen/buffs, wins trades against collosals and suffocates every build that doesn’t have rot/quickstep. It’s not an anti mage tool if it’s optimal on the various types of mages and there’s a str scaling seal and a quality scaling seal. Yes. This is most optimal on a frenzy seal build with armor/mind, every buff/heal imaginable and the most annoying spells in pvp. Tell me you still don’t see a problem with ranged ashes of war… thank the lord people who go faith have no interest in spell spam and the people who go int for spell spam don’t bother with stormblade.

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Please remove from Daggers and thrusting swords, and add to axes and greataxes. Godrick literally casts this with an axe.

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So it does more damage than a spell, can be spammed and is also faster than any spell in the game even with max cast speed and it has hyper armor??? How someone can think this isn’t broken is beyond me.

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Storm wall should’ve 100% reflected this.

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When your newly buffed collosal still loses trades against a gust of wind. Invalidates single spears too. And bows. All ranged ashes of war need to do identical damage to crossbows.

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Hehehe It’s not an anti mage tool if a mage puts it on a high base damage weapon :) star shower to get people to roll at me and stormblade to win trades at melee or roll catch them. Glintblade phalanx will combo into stormblade or vice versa. The salt is great. It’s not my fault the best, most spammable spell in the game can’t be spell parried, reflected or blocked by BoG. I keep thunderbolt on a back up weapon too, since it will infinitely roll catch people at long range as they try to dodge star shower: shuts down healers or BoG application. And then I’m immune to BoG anyways with frost/stormblade/thunderbolt spam supported by star shower frame traps.

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1.09 patch has fixed the issue with storm blade doing no damage when buffed with AoW Golden Vow

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Based Ash of War. Shits on both mages and boofers that apply 30 boofs before every fight.

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Storm Blade does ZERO damage when buffed with Golden Vow (I Tested this with AoW version only).

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Why this can go on daggers but not axes is beyond me

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Tested this on the godrick soldier near the "gatefront" site of grace with 50/50 str/dex and a +24 longsword with each affinity as follows.
Standard: 812
Heavy: 805
Keen: 883
Quality: 864
Magic: 787
Fire/Lightning: 830
Sacred/Flame Art: 850
Poison/Blood: 859
Cold: 862
Occult: 816
The projectile scales exclusively with str/dex regardless of affinity chosen (stat boosting gear for int/faith/arc yielded no benefit for their respective affinities). though oddly heavy is the only affinity that doesn't benefit from dex the damage remains the same regardless of how high you pump dex.

50/50 is also seems to be the "hard cap" for the projectiles scaling as boosting str/dex beyond 50 with the starscourge/prosthesis heirlooms only nets a measly 5-9 points of damage each.

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my only gripe is that you can't use this ash on twinblades, why?

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I spam this in duels just for the sake of farming salt and hatemail lol plenty of salt here too.

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Yes because I want to dodge 50 times before we can fight. SkILl iSsuE. This embodies everything wrong with pvp and even pve. It’s just 3 dudes spamming the least commitment ranged option they have and it will win trades against melee. If it were fair, then why don’t crossbows do that kind of damage?

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This has 2 pages: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Storm+Blade and this one, https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Ash+of+War:+Storm+Blade
They disagree on many things. can someone fix?

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spamblade

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Everyone knows this needs a nerf. Silly poise damage (+often does the headshot stun), silly damage, outtrades heavy weapons, casts super fast, spammable. Be a mage but nevermind investing in mind/int and being countered by Barrier of gold/ crimsonwhorl.

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My favorite salt generator for invaders

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Has way to much poise damage knocks people out of thier frekin dragon animations when equipped to a dagger and these people had at least 75 poise or more bit ridiculous.

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Does this work with Antspur rapier? Does it apply the rot status effect from long range?

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A lot of seething down here

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Can be spammed ad nauseam and does a shitload of damage... just like half the spells and ashes of war in this stupid game.

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I don’t even use this AoW that often, but I play against it all the time. It’s not that bad barring you have a decent connection, and even in the event of a bad connection, things like Transient Moonlight or Wave of Piss + desync are far worse to deal with. You can literally strafe this AoW by sprinting sideways. Roll through it if you are walking. If you’re having issues against people spamming this, it’s a skill issue. Stop whining and git gud.

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People who don’t see what’s wrong with this send me hate mail for hard countering it with erdtree heal/beast sling or, when mage, using only slicer and swift pebble. Face palm lol you’ve literally forced us to use the only counters we have to your cheese. My str colossal build has to immediately ditch the colossal and switch to dagger because colossal loses trades to stormblade spam. At melee, the rhythm of the L2 spam always roll catches if you dodged the first two at close range, meaning you have to run away or you will get hit by the third or lose a trade. This doesn’t counter mages/clerics, we have counters to storm blade, but this ash instead invalidates collosals, and medium weapons like swords/hammers on pure melee set ups. As someone stated below, all these ranged ashes should do identical damage to crossbows.

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This ash is so unfair in PvP the amount of damage it does is absurd for how much you can just spam it. Yes,you can dodge all you want but eventually one of them will catch you in battle and when it does it's going to hit like a truck. Idk how or why but it does. This move right here can take me out in 3 hits or less with 800 hp and I'm only lvl75. So many people slap this on and call themselves good in pvp.

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PvP really went from being fun to this, huh. This Ash is really easy to dodge (sprinting sideways means you will dodge ALL shots), but even still it needs a nerf. It's insane amount of pressure on a bullet art- people can't drink their flasks, cast spells, even use other weapon arts if your opponent has this one, because it's just free damage in those scenarios, if not a guaranteed kill. Both sides take for granted how easy it is to dodge, and how ****ing annoying it is to fight against

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If you're complaining about this ash, learn to dodge. It's fine. Not broken. If you took the time to look at all the skills in the game and you chose to complain about this one, you should see an eye doctor.

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wild that this is the only thing in the entire game that flashes the stormhawk symbol before going off, not a single other storm ash does it.

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Comment below this one, claiming that storm blade is balanced, is utter hogwash. Stormblade is unbalanced and the proof is that it is now used by everyone, especially griefers. The claim that it’s difficult to optimize at 125 is also silly. It gets used by mages, the base damage is so high, never mind scaling from quality. Then you get bonus damage for headshots, plus true combo into another stormblade on headshots. This ash aims for the head. Also, it’s damage is so high, that it’s not even really a vigor check: let me explain. It massively overcomes physical resistances to the point where vigor is moot without boosted physical resistance of str investment stacked on armor and then stacked on vigor. This allows my 60 vigor meta str build to survive 6 stormblades while my 55 vigor, naked cleric can only survive 2. Oh and never mind damage, the spam alone prevents my strength build from attacking and invalidates every spell in my clerics arsenal... it’s no wonder people only spam swift glintstone as a caster. This ash also one shots at lower levels for the same reasons but amplified, regarding physical resistances, armor and vigor.

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I got a rant, and then a loveletter so if you love this ASH please read because I AM WITH YOU!!!!!!!!

So many people complaining about this ash now despite how bad it has been? It's still easy to dodge, easy to read, the damage IS B+ Average. It's range isn't bad anymore but if you're at max range you can literally just step to the side when it's cast and it will miss. The stagger is deserved, the whole purpose of the Storm Casts are Quality + POISE DAMAGE. We've been with it since it was at BEST a C tier skill and now that they've fixed it and they can't spam the same moonveil/RoB for free it's too OP? You're not mad that this ash is poorly balanced / designed, you're mad that you're fighting your RL300 peers who have bloated stats; just like you. The toxic weapons you've spammed got nerfed because of you, so you're going to have to deal with it when your bread and butter no longer carries you for free against balanced options. it is a QUALITY ash, it will literally NEVER be OP.
All of you need to stop using somberstone weapons and humble your playstyle, see how good you really are.

now, for an ACTUAL review of this ash; It's a great, legitimate option now after the blade had it's hitbox fixed. You aren't fast enough to trade with Light attacks but it's a good callout for heavy attacks or a big ash of war. It's a good way to end a match on the roll catch but rest assured, if you want it you have to EARN it. It usually only works in neutral once, and then the opponent will always know to how to read it. If you want to git gud, this ash will get you there without forcing an unfair uphill battle. If you're running a faith build, it is a very good middleground for your ranged spells and beastial sling. if you're running int builds, it should pair really well with gravity for those who want a more complex playstyle than moonveil + spam flavor of the month. Like I said, it's a quality ash so it's probably going to be hard to optimize this at anything below RL 125, but I'll check this post again later on and follow up after I try it out at RL 60 and 90.

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Wins trades against collosal weapons. I’m not exaggerating.

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This Ash of War counts as a bolt for the purpose of the Arrow's Sting talisman

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Now, I've never used Moonveil nor Rivers to compare with what 11 Dec 2022 anon is talking about, but I can safely say this ash feels like cheating.

It lets me get away with poor distancing such that I can both punish when I'm well out of range AND get a chunky trade if I'm too close.

From my understanding, there is both a melee and a ranged component to this ash. If you're in melee range you get hit with both for hefty damage. I say just get rid of the melee portion and you'd solve a lot of problems.

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Storm blade has initiative against most weapons at melee range. Need I say more?

It’s not a ranged ash it’s an overpowered melee ash on parr with moonveil and rivers. That also happens to have longer range than dragon breaths. And because it aims for the head it can poise break through endure (personal experience)

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Damage too high, cast too silent, hitbox too wide, recovery too short, speed too high, cost is too cheap. Does pure physical to boot.

It’s so obvious these ranged ashes should have done crossbow damage. No reason for this to win a trade against an actual weapon.

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all yall who just swapped from bestial shout to this to cheese better in duels know who you are. The rest of you wind sword users have a blessed day

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I enjoy using this on my banished knights sword when dealing with dragons. Does a nice chunk of dmg when hitting them in the face. The ones in Faram are a little trickier so it’s better to stand underneath them and hit w/ the projectile and the blade

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Now that there's a hitbox on the swing from 1.07, you can actually just use this as a melee attack lol. It's about as fast a greatsword R1 but decently stronger if you connect both hits. Still applies statuses if you hit with the weapon too!

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I’m duels I use erdtree heal to shield from it. If they’re gonna invalidate my interesting spells I’ll invalidate their spam.

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Erdtree heal with fast cast is a hard counter to passive spam in duels. It’s very interesting that they see nothing wrong with beast roar/storm blade spam but seethe if I trade into storm blade with a heal. Barrier of Gold for mages, erdtree heal for storm blade enthusiasts. I also like holy ground for armor+ regen when theres time. I make it look like I’m attacking to make room for these buffs so they back up instead of L2. Even the best players will recoil if you jog towards them.

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Gankers wet dream. No audible chime, unlike true spells, so you can’t react if it’s off screen. It’s so stupid, even on the mobs who use it. They put away their crossbow that do no damage then immediately vigor check you with a spell that’s better than renalas. In pvp it is faster than most spells so if you punish a passive melee build with a spell they actually trade you and win from distance. All cool spells invalidated while the melee tank plays like a coward. But this isn’t an anti mage tool, it’s actually an anti-melee tool. Storm blade on anything will win the trade against great hammer while having absurd range. It has a melee portion with ranged portion to suffocate both melee and mage. Beats out storm stomp at doing the exact same thing but better. Also, by using this against a mage, you now force them to use only swift glintstone pebble and slicer... unreactable and still really powerful spells... would you rather see their interesting spell mixups that have openings for melee punishes? or simply get chipped down by a
6fp spell for 5 minutes every time you try to L2?

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Why let mages have all the fun, turn your sword into a gun! Another ace in the hole for straight swords especially, as their short range is now solved and you can just shoot sword beams at the enemy's head or if they're flailing around. Cheap, effective, and fills a vital niche in your moveset without trivializing the game the way Flame of the Redmanes does. About the only downside is having to drop Square Off for it.

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i can tell this is good because of all the people yelling about it

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There’s no point in sacrificing armor for mage stats. My mage is now a bull goat, 60 vigor, dex build who spams storm blade, thunder bolt and flame strike. It’s not my fault the best spells in the game scale purely of dex :) and I no longer have to worry about barrier of gold. Crimson burst/crimson whirl tear of course. Minimum faith for black flame blade so ghost hits do damage.

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What’s the point in crossbows again? Or kukris? Or even leveling fth/int? This ash wins trades against my great hammer. If we’re gonna follow that logic, then crossbows should reliably 5 shot most tank builds just like this ash does and great bow should reliably one shot all tank builds too. Sounds broken and unfun? Well duh, all spell like ashes need to be nerfed down to crossbow level damage.

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Cheese. It’s a fast melee attack with more range than most spells. I suspect it resets poise/hyper armor and channels the hyper armor of the weapon it’s used on. Basically L2 instead of melee to abuse poise against anything that’s not an epee/halberd thrust. Then you have a more powerful, cheaper, faster spell than any mage and your spam can’t be checked by erdtree great shield, poise or BoG etc. Collosal hammer loses the trade to it so it really is an L2 to win. All these spell-like L2s need to be hard nerfed and people need to use actual spells/crossbows/kukris etc for the health of the game and build diversity.

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Fun fact: This is the only thing in the game that causes the Storm Art emblem to appear on cast. Pretty neat.

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beast roar but balanced

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Having trouble with commander Niall? Here ya go, the knights are basically free kills

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One of the best spells in the game. Thunder bolt, flame strike beat it and beast roar beats them all for best spells in the game due to roar talisman and high land axe stacking. I’m amazed they gave bull goat strength builds better spells than actual mages lol just level mind once you have bull goat, 60 vigor and 54 str and two hand to milk that str.

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I dont know if anyone noticed this but it can basically adopt elemnts it goes through like campfires, and other things

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with 50 faith, 50 dex on a +25 Keen Claymore and +25 Godslayer's seal after buffing with BFB it does insane damage, 3k if you can hit the full combo which isn't hard with it's stagger damage

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I only wish that it was a little bit faster and that the weapon had a hitbox when you cast it.

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The most underrated Ash of War. Especially since you can get it right away and gives melee a great range attack. It scales with your weapon damage, so you can use any affinity, although heavy/keen/quality is the best because you can then further buff with Golden Vow and Scholars Armament. On a Gargoyle's Greatsword it starts at 1k damage and stacks each time, 2k, 3k, 4k. You can just melt bosses with it. Beat the Godskin Duo in 15 seconds. Also try it with the very underrated Noble's Slender Sword. Nagakiba is also a great choice with this.

*Great skill against the invisible mages that pop in and out because it's got a big AOE, so you can just fire it in their direction and clear the path.

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The best thing about this ash is the flexibility with infusions, it doesn't lock you out of certain affinities like the flame/magic/sacred projectile ashes do, and it hits almost as hard as the more specialised skills, I'm doing 800-1k dmg per cast to end game mobs on a +25 weapon

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It's a shame you can't put this on halberds, would be a nice alternative to Ice Spear

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The balanced glintstone pebble

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This is probably the most underrated quality ash of war because people think that thunder bolt is superior to this ash of war but that’s pretty far from the truth.

1. Storm blade staggers people no matter what: the poise damage on this thing is great because it can stagger pretty much anyone regardless of their poise(basically a ranged storm stomp).

2.solid fp to damage ratio: It cost 10 fp for the fist cast and then 6 fp onward, this means that storm blade is a little bit more spamable than thunderbolt (by like 3 to 4 casts).

Stormblade provides a ranged option to interrupt your opponents, it dose more damage than beast roar but it’s slower, unlike thunderbolt it staggers everyone regardless of their poise but it has less tracking.

It’s a jack of all trades but a master of none, versatile, cheap, underrated, the only thing that’s holding it back is its speed, but it’s compensates with its low fp cost. 8/10

(I’ll finish rating all the quality ashes of war eventually but I need some time using them to fully see if they have any potential, or if there just crap)

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Doesn’t do damage if you apply the ash of war shared order on another weapon

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i wish it was chargeable

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The projectile does not apply the effects of buff spells like Blackflame Blade, Bloodflame Blade, Electrify Armament, or Poison Armament.

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Wind Blade

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There seem to be two classes of swords with respect to the damage of this skill. I'm not sure what determines what class a weapon is in. You could call them light and heavy but that doesn't really work since at least one dagger is "heavy". I haven't tested all swords but here's what I have:

All weapons were Keen +24 w/ 25/52 str/dex:

"Light" (690 damage on sewer omen):
cane sword, warhawk's talon, estoc, rapier, flowing curved sword, dagger

"Heavy" (709 damage on sewer omen):
omen cleaver, monk's flameblade, broadsword, weathered straight sword, lordsworn straight sword, knight's greatsword, bandit's curved sword, mantis blade, uchigatana, erdsteel dagger

The erdsteel dagger was the lightest weapon I tested that does the "heavy" damage.

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The most direct ash of war to compare this too seems to be beasts roar. On Rogier's Rapier +15 with 21 strength and 31 dexterity(not ideal testing conditions, but oh well) this out damaged beast roar even when beasts roar was paired with the highland axe and the roar talisman. Both cost the same fp(10) on the initial attack but this has a follow-up that only costs 6 fp.

However, beasts roar seems to come out slightly faster and has significantly better range, it also needs 4 deathroot to unlock, while storm blade only needs you to chat to Bernyl. But all in all, I think Storm Blade is an incredibly underrated ash of war.

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I cant for the life of me figure out how it's damage is calculated. I'm testing against the wolves near warmaster's shack in ng with an antspur rapier +25 and at 16/50 str dex 911, 26/60 str dex 954 damage when Keen infused. Ok so I try Quality with the same stats 859 and 903 damage. The attack damage difference between keen and quality at 26/60 str dex is 452 Keen vs 453 Quality. Now if you do make it heavy it gets no damage increase from getting more dex on the weapon art so scaling has some impact but quality vs keen scaling difference is huge. The exact scaling strength values are Keen: E (22) B (123), Quality: B (104) B (104). From the scaling alone quality should do more damage and from the total attack power it should do the same damage but it actually just does less damage. I tried a different weapon, keen great knife +25, it did slightly less damage than antspur at 931 with 26/60 but the base damage and total damage are way lower on the stats 392 GK vs 452 AntS. Great knife does have S (183) dex scaling power at keen. From these results Quality must have lower ash of war scaling to make up for you being able to put more points at higher levels. Base damage and upgrade level of the weapon possibly effects it way more than scaling. If it has any scaling at all it will benefit highly off of those stats with possibly a lower limit to how low the ash of war scaling can be making keen superior to any infusion because of higher base damage and heavy being the worst (2 handing has no effect on the damage either). Int and faith do not effect the damage if you infuse with anything that benefits from them. Arcane also doesn't seem to benefit it if you go occult but I couldn't test it much.

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Ah yes, the better r1

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Put this on Omen Cleaver and pretend you're throwing Wind Scars like Inuyasha.

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Wish it would say what type of damage it does

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It actually does 1k damage with 80/80 str/dex... I can't say this is a bad AoW, considering its range

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I notice this ash displays a floating symbol (of the hawk/sword crest) before the cast, like how the spell schools do, does anyone know of any other spells/ashes with the symbol?

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Not dropped by the Grave Warden Duelist.

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Pretty sure this is able to blow the sleep effect off of the Sword of St. Trina when the blow connects. Did some testing and reliably lost the buff each time I was hit by one of the pair of swordsman next to the giant before Godrick's boss door. Unsure if other weapon buffs are similarly dispelled.

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Does this ash of war apply debuffs like cold, bleed, or poison? I can't imagine it would but if somehow it did it could make for some interesting moments.

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I want this to be good, but after using it a fair amount, it's just kinda okay at best. It doesn't do that much damage, doesn't stagger reliably, and its range isn't great enough to compensate. If I'm comparing it to other weapon skills out there, I'd say it needs a small buff. Maybe a bit more range, perhaps more poise damage. While it's better than nothing, I think I'd still get more use out of the default "square off" skill that comes with most starter straight swords. It hits harder and does huge poise damage to make up for its lack of range. It is also a great option against shielded enemies.

The thematic "Wind Blade" aesthetic is awesome though, so if that's the style you want to go for, definitely pick this up. It is a fun skill to use, even if it doesn't have many advantages over other weapon skills.

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Good tool against Birds, Bats, Bugs and all other sort of flying foes

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usable on Katana? looks like a good Jubei build

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If you are going a pure melee build, it'd be handy to have this on a weapon as it gives you a way to attack from a distance, really handy for taking out them pesky birds.

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do 0 dmg used with the ash of war golden vow, its seem to be bugged bc others skills can be used with

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Storm blade is a fantastic ash of war for swords. It provides a decently powerful medium range attack. Useful for punishing enemies as they approach you or for blasting flying enemies out of the sky. The FP cost is really good too. Combine it with the filigreed talisman and you spam this attack all over the place. This has been total game changer for my play style and I love it so far!

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Sadly Hoarfrost Stomp makes any other ranged skill a joke. This skill by itself is also underwhelming, damage is slightly lower than r1 and having surprisingly short range meaning you sometime can't reach the mob hiding on rooftop waiting to ambush you. They have to buff either one of them.

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This didn't drop from the Grave Warden

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eh its alright

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Does solid damage, range isn't the best. Pretty decent way to get a ranged option. Okay in PvP for punishing roll away, but there are probably better options there.

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