Gargoyle's Black Blades | Elden Ring Wiki

I'm using my new game+3 playthrough to get all my weapons which require somber smithing stones up to +9, but after taking a look at this thing, it didn't deserve the meager runes i poured into it.

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I discovered something very interesting about this weapon that everyone seems to despise so much... I was perusing the Tarnished.dev Weapon Damage Calculator and trying to wrap my head around how every Affinity scales.... What I discovered is that out of literally every single weapon in the game, and regardless of Affinity or if the character is at level 713 with 99 all stats or has 55 in all stats or even 25 in all stats, the end result is the same: Gargoyle's Black Blades has the highest single-weapon Damage Per Second out of literally every weapon in Elden Ring.... In other words: If you 2-hand this weapon and spam attacks on a neutral enemy like Maliketh or a Falling Star Beast this weapon does the most sustained damage out of every single weapon in the game at 1036 DPS.... If you're wielding two weapons then 2 Black Blades drops a lot farther down the list to like 20th-place (and 2 Bandit's Curved Swords with ~1400 DPS or dual-wielded Venomous Claws with ~1300 DPS begin to dominate), but it's still impressive that this weapon everyone hates so much is actually technically the most powerful single weapon in the entire game lol.... Also surprising was that INT is one of the worst scaling stats at 99-all-stats, while FAITH & QUALITY dominate the top of the list, but overall every stat performs comparably equally, so the end result is that as long as you're spending your points efficiently that every sensible stat-build performs roughly equally, just with Flame Art FAITH and pure Physical QUALITY coming out on top.... Occult + Faith ie an Occult Erdsteel Dagger was the absolute worst DPS weapon in the entire game, so just don't try to force opposite Affinities together and you'll do fine.... For a while now Gargoyle's Blackblade (the greatsword) was already what I considered the most underrated weapon in the game since Corpse Wax Cutter is SO GOOD (and it's the single best Dragon-killing-weapon), but now apparently I should add the Gargoyle's Black Blades (the twinblade) to the list of extremely underrated weapons. One is a solid sword with god-tier Ash of War, and the other is a god-tier weapon with a solid if permanent Ash of War. Both weapons are far stronger than the community give them credit for... Holy Damage is far less of a factor than people act like - If a Holy weapon does ~20% more damage than a Magic weapon (which the Black Blades do), then the resistances of the last bosses ends up evening out; and on all the other 95% of bosses who don't have high Holy resist Holy weapons are beasts. Holy is a perfectly fine damage type for the entire game.

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Seriously, Black Gargoyle weapons are lame, but this is probably the worst

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Has higher base Holy damage and Faith requirements, but scales poorly with Faith... What? Why...

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Why doesn't it have destined death. Missed opportunity. For all the Black Gargoyle weapons...

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Why does this weapon not have a corpse wax version of spinning slash

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People complain about being unable to change the ash when it has the best twinblade ash smh

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For those that do know and for some reason, twin blades with the spinning slash of war actually has Hyper armor while any other weapon with the ash of war does not.

This kinda makes this weapon a little unique and helps win against a lot of trades from a weapon that type that isn’t meant to trade.

Nothing is stopping you from infusing the same AoW on a different weapon but this is probably the best way for a str/faith user to effectively use it

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Love the look, too bad it can't be infused

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It should have that same awesome skill from the gargoyles.
Wasted opportunity.

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This weapon is the just the best perfect storm of bad. It has low range, a skill which has no unique properties but can’t be infused, deals Holy damage but scales poorly in it, and is found late into the game.

It’s like From Soft looked at this weapon and said, “you will be our perfect little useless weapon”.

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Elden ring: the most amazing game weighed down by awful coop, reused bosses, excessive AOE, Malenia, and most importantly feeling outclassed in terms of cool moves and everything. After 1000 hours of Elden Ring I didnt learn anything. Mind you Dark souls 3 took 3 years to figure it out. It was only my second souls experience so I gave it a chance. But Elden Ring is too ****in big. As time passed the flaws only became more apparent whereas in DS3 it became more and more beautiful. Lastly. Malenia shouldnt heal if you block and we should be way more mobile and have way cooler weapon arts. Elden ring. 1000 hours of blue balling.

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this weapon looks so sick but NO destined death??? "such is the mark of those who serve Maliketh" my ass!! if I spend my life serving an iron clad dog i'd expect i can at least use his cool death powers!

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Why doesn’t it have a unique skill :(

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why did fromsoftware to decide to make this weapon absolutely sh!t. who thought it was a good idea to make a somber weapon with 0 SPECIAL THINGS ABOUT IT. it doesn’t do black flame, it doesn’t do DD, it’s ash of war is a normal one. AND you can’t even buff it. this is such a cool looking weapon dropped from of the hardest world bosses and they absolutely ruined it.

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Wow look at this boss and his moveset. This is gonna be a hard one. But damn look at that weapon art. Its like a Spinning Slash of Destined Death and Sorrow and Destruction.

Spinning Slash of Destined Death and Sorrow and Destruction at home:

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This really should've had a destined death version of Queen's Black Flame to mirror the actual attack these guys use. As it stands, the only conceivable reason that this can't be infused despite its dollar store weapon art is that From hates fun

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this weapon needs a new ash of war on it cause spinning slash is not that cool for a cool weapon

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Wish this had the uber powerful spinny charge they can do.

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I’d REALLY love a buff for this weapon… allow players to either use buffs on it OR infuse with ashes. I get that it has a high AR but it’s split damage and still doesn’t make up for the useless ash of war imo. I really don’t see why the black versions of the gargoyle weapons are so strange and limited, it’d be different if they were unique in any way or the ash of war shared the properties of the black blade with the maximum health reduction. Please From, change the black gargoyle weapons.

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i think the point of this is to be used with Clawmark Seal for Bestial Incantations. the other Gargoyle Twinblade doesnt scale from Faith unless you infuse and when you do that, the Strenght Scaling is lower than the Faith Scaling. But the Clawmark Seal has really good scaling for Incants from Strenght, like you can have most of your points in Strenght and abit in Faith and still have them be strong cuz you can two-hand the seal. Which is also why all beast incants require incredibly Low faith. So this twinblade has scaling from Str and Fth but the Str scaling is Higher. Gargoyles are servants of Maliketh who is Beast Clergyman so it makes sense this weapon is related to that playstyle.

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Fun fact, all the black gargoyle weapons give off a black red flame on impact similar to the Black Knife and the Maliketh’s Blackblade. Shame it doesn’t seem to actually do anything.

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Duel wielding this with the other gargoyle twinblade with an 80 str build freaking rules, I don’t know what everyone here is talking about.

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Use it as a left handed weapon you don't have to infuse, problem solved.

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One of the worst weapons across all the games. There's worse stuff but this is just weak af compared to its competition

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This weapon is nonsensical.
-It's really late into the game where holy starts falling off hard.
-It has a 22 FTH requirement but D scaling.
-It's not infusible.
-The weapon art is generic and can't be changed.
-Uses sombers.
-Gargoyle's Twinblade with holy infusion is superior in every way.

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After looking at stats 'n moves, I don't see any point in properly using it. for twinblades, the gargoyle twinblades seem like a better option, and if you want a FAI/STR type weapon, there are many more options to choose. am I missing something here?

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Requires 22 Faith and yet only gets D scaling, while it requires 18 Strength yet scales to B.

Gotta love From Soft and their weird requirements.

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It is a crime how this doesn't have any of the Gargoyle's moveset.

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Im convinced that most of these holy weapons u get late game are for people who plan on doing a ng+ so they can ACTUALLY USE these on enemies that they’re made for.

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why does it use somber stones but have a generic weapon art and no distinguishing qualities?

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Like the gargoyle axes they’re seemingly worse than the normal counterpart

Generic ash of war that can’t be changed and forced holy damage which is bad late game

From made a lot of really odd choices in Elden ring, more than usual I’d say

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Makes no sense to use this. It doesn't have a unique corpse wax attack like the greatsword version and you can just scared infuse the normal gargoyles Twinblade for similar stats and a better ash of war.

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They serve their purpose. They get the most ar, out of all the twinblades when it comes to holy damage.

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I do not see any use for this unless you use it as off hand weapon where it only exists to do power stance with the main hand and nothing more.

However the fth requirement kills it too because the only reason to power stance twinblades is to get some sh*t stacking be it poison, blood, frost whatever. Not all arcane builds use fth as you know. And even if do use faith, the this is still useless as off hand because not all fth builds go for holy damage stuff either...

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The only way to really use this one is to have it in the left hand while dual wielding the non-infused one in the right

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If they can’t be infusable, I guess that’s fair. But at least make them unique weapons with their own skills. So cool when the Gargoyles use it, but we can’t?

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This and the rest of the weapons in this suite should all be infusable. I have put many hours into Elden Ring, tested many builds, and the conclusion I'm drawing is that From released the game with many oversights in weapon mechanic design or the developers possess a fundamental hatred for weapons with natural scaling in almost anything being infusable. Why Miyazaki?

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Can't swap spinning slash again so many great animations its too bad to see this one reused& locked on multiple weapons

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STR/FTH build here. I normally powerstance Winged Scythe (L) and Heavy Grave Scythe (R), but when I need close quarters combat, I swap this bad boy into L and a Heavy Gargoyle's Twinblade in R and just absolutely shred. The set-ups mirror so well because R weapon remains ash-able/enchantable/greaseable. And the scaling affinities line up fairly well.

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bruh i defeated him and got the halberd but the game didnt give me this :/

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What’s most disappointing about this weapon is that it has a generic weapon art which CAN’T be changed. Un-charged R2’s do more damage than the weapon art and does the same exact thing, so basically it’s like not naving any weapon art at all.

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how are people complaining about this weapon? when maxed it has like 140+ higher base damage than all twinblades except Eleonora's (still nearly 100 more than that). with a twinblade moveset that's crazy because they hit fast. 440 damage per hit. before scaling.

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My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined

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Why do all the black blade weapons have terrible weapon arts, the gargoyles literally use the life drain destined death moves with them, that's whole idea. Give us those moves on the damn weapons

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this really is one of those the boss when you fight it and the boss when you get it as a playable character, these looks so much more cooler when the kindreds uses them

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Can someone help me figure out what the deal is with this thing? And the other Gargoyle Black Weapons?

They seem to primarily be geared towards a Strength/Faith build, which I am using. But on all of them, either the scaling or the base damage is pretty rough, so neither the Physical nor the Holy damage ever really takes off. Despite having a higher AR of ~100 than their regular Gargoyle counterparts for me, they still do less damage per-hit, unless the enemy is weak to Holy damage, as is expected of a split-damage weapon with such a small AR difference.

To make matters worse, the regular variants can get a different ash of war, vastly expanding their utility. And on top of that, Faith builds can buff the weapon with Electrify Armament or something to completely close the AR gap.

Even after putting like 25 or so levels into Dex (I'm 66/34/55 or something rn, STR/DEX/FTH), to take advantage of the D or E scaling on these Black weapons to get a leg up on the Heavy infused ones, they still seem to suck in comparison. Just like they did at every other allotment I've tried with these weapons.

Is there something I'm missing or do these things really just blow?

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Lmao Kindreds literally have the shittiest drops in the game and they're even hard to kill.

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Really lame that it's considered legendary, honestly if you can change godskin peeler then this feels like it should two. At the very least it's a waste, no different move set, no unique ash of war effect.

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red iron twinblade my baby..

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The Black Blade Kindred is at the Forbidden Lands area (right before Grand Lift of Rold) and not at the Mountaintop of Giants

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Pretty neat, didn't know that these guys served Maliketh, and given the location of the Black Blade Kindred boss...

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Is it worth using this for a faith build or should i just enchant a different gwinblade?

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Always disappointing when a cool weapon has a basic skill AND is affinity locked.

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Ok so it seems (atleast what I’m seeing here) there are two black blade drops from the kindreds. One drops greatsword and halberd (in from of the beast deathroot guy) other drops twinblade and axe (mountaintop)…maybe?

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Can this be buffed by magic and incantations? Anybody check

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It's actually dropped by the one in the very top-right of Caelid iirc, the one directly in front of the Beast Shrine.

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There is a second black blade kindred past the royal capitol where you get this

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Can anecdotally confirm that this weapon drops from the Black Blade Kindred located in the Mountaintops of the Giants. The drops may be randomised or there may need to be a clearer distinction between the two minibosses on the main page for Black Blade Kindred.

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note that there are two versions of the black blade kindred boss, the one you get the twinblade from is the one right before the great lift to get to the mountaintops of the giants

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How to get the weapon is inaccurate. Black Blade Kindred only drops the sword version of the weapon, not the Twinblade version here. How do we get the twin blade version??

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Is this actually a weapon? I got a greatsword and Halberd from killing that Gargoyle and not a twinblade

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