Golden Epitaph | Elden Ring Wiki

why there is a throne with spears around it ??? Is Godwyn related to Messmer ??? I can't wait to have the answer

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This is certainly a contender for "least practical weapon". Of course it has holy powers, you just put a hilt on an altar decoration. Should honestly do blunt damage.

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"O brother, lord brother, please die a true death." Obviously its efficacy against Those Who Live in Death and Godwyn's cursed undeath made us all believe this refers to Godwyn, and further, it is clearly stated that it was made "to commemorate the death of Godwyn the Golden, first of the demigods to die."

But the hilt is almost unmistakably Messmer's throne, surrounded by spears... Godwyn's death was the first, as the game is always eager to stress. "And it soon became the catalyst," says Rogier. Game changer. Demigods can die now.

Godwyn was at best a half-brother to Miquella, but it looks very strongly like Messmer may be the ill-fated third sibling of the twin prodigies. Perhaps in actuality, this sword was created to truly kill Messmer, rather than banish him, to let him die a true death, as was impossible before Godwyn's demise.

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more of an ornament than the weapon called the ornamental straight sword

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The hilt of the sword looks kind of like Messmer’s throne, and it’s surrounded by spears as well.

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the thing that makes this the best deathbird killer is that the buff applies to all your damage, including spells. that means that all spells will do increased damage to undead. one of the most cathartic moments from my magma build playthrough was using this with rykard's rancor on the snowfield deathrite bird and just watching its health disappear in chunks. very satisfying

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i just wish it were actually sharp. if you look at the side it's a weird uneven slab of gold and it makes me sad :( it's more of an ornament than the ornamental straight swords

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When having buffed yourself with Golden Epitath, the AOW of Morgott's Cursed Sword just bounces off people. Apparently this was a problem with the Golden Epitath for some other weapons as well, i don't know if they fixed it with the other weapons yet, the forum posts were old, but the problem persists with Morgott's sword.

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„Confusion will be your epitaph”
~Black Knife Tiche

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This weapon is bugged as per recent updates. Someone posted that activating it while having Beast vitality causes it to " bounce off empty air, eat FP but not actually activate buff. More over, npc's will react as you are hitting them, meaning they will aggro after a couple of such "ghost" hits."

Meanwhile I am having similar issues while wearing the Deathbed Dress. My character staggers for the duration of the effect and I cause damage to nearby friendly players and NPCs. This made Boc aggro, though luckily I had a celestial dew in stock.

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Activating this weapon's skill nearby friendly npc or players WHILE having Bestial Vitality incantation active on your character will make the weapon bounce off empty air, eat FP but not actually activate buff. More over, npc's will react as you are hitting them, meaning they will aggro after a couple of such "ghost" hits.

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The only weapon remotely helpful to golden order builds. It's either this or sword of nerfed & lame. Both swords are used solely for their weapon arts but this one let's you get a small holy damage bonus, which gives your spells a slight bite. This is yet again one of the most golden order themed weapons (it even has a carving of Goldmask as its tip!!!) But God forbid we have any golden order themed weapons actually scale with faith & int!


Use a sacred claymans harpoon with golden vow. You will do more damage.

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Ostrava's Rune Sword

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It seems as though using the ash of war reduces the damage of all non-holy sorceries and incantations. Tested using a 45/45 int/faith build on a variety of enemies, although not on any bosses. Spells like Black Flame or any of the lightning incantations, as well as sorceries like Loretta's Greatbow and Comet, all did significantly REDUCED damage after using this skill.

Holy-based spells, like Discus of Light or Wrath of Gold, all received equally significantly INCREASED damage. I cannot find this being discussed anywhere on this page, but it is DEFINITELY worth noting that the skill is not always beneficial.

While I have observed this effect in many cases, I am not sure of the mechanics behind it. Any guesses?

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Great backup weapon on a faith build for killing skelly bois

too bad this requires 12 str and prophet has 11. u can dual wield it tho

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"Please die a true death."
Is THIS why Miquella originally pursued Fundamentalism?
(Theory brought to you by the Stiff Ox).

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Currently allows enemies to "see" Night Comet, I guess they check the holy damage separately. Adding extra holy damage to literally everything the player can do (regardless of the target) is pretty funny.

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Can we also add to the notes that when this sword's weapon art - Last Rites - is used, whenever you kill a skeleton-type mob, they don't respawn like they normally would. Particularly useful as a quick offhand to buff in catacombs.

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Weapon Art + Deathbed Dress = Tourettes

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Behold, my Keyblade!

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Basically as a cooper this is a skeleton be gone spray.

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The weapon art damages you while wearing the Deathbed Dress.

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as the bonus damage is applied to every damaging thing you do, it may be slightly broken with things that hit a lot of times in a short span like lava pools from some spells and ashes, volcano pots, nightmaiden's mist, eochaid weapon art, mohg spear etc.

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Supposedly the effect from Last Rites works on spells. Does anyone know how that works with spells with many projectiles, such as phalanxes or rancors? Does each hit get the full 25 extra damage, or is the damage evenly split amongst each projectile?

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DELETE_DEATHBIRD.EXE

Also, the AoW stays active even if you swap the weapon you're holding - as long as it's somewhere in your weapon slots, you can fire off the AoW, switch to your favourite damage-dealer and watch every undead enemy melt -very- quickly. Works for weapons, arrows and spells (including the 'no respawn for you' effect as well).

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Rune Sword from Demon's Souls

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10/10 for farming bandit sword. Doesn’t even require upgrades unless you want to pop last rites and see some big critical numbers.

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When I fought my mimic, I was wielding this, mimic just kept spamming Last Rites, made me rethink my build

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i always have this on the off-hand when i have to beat skeletons, saves me the pain of having to hit their blue leftovers, especially when they are grouped.

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The ultimate anti-spook weapon ever created.

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rune sword but awesome

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I like to think that's an alien crucified at the top there. Little headcanon.

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This is one of the coolest designed weapons of all time. I ****ing love this thing. Whoever designed it give them a raise.

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Hey bow builds. give this a try instead of vow for fun. You’re welcome. I promise it won’t disappoint. Of course vow will win out when you want more defense but the AR increase on bows is really noticiable with Last Rites. Have fun!

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Looks a lot like Ostravas Sword from Demons Souls

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good for people who struggle with skeletons... i guess

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So I was doing a Sword of NF run with this as the pair. It made the undead portions of Farum so much fun! Last rites is a great buff. I’ve been using it more than Vow on this run even in normal situations because the 10% AR buff is usually more than enough and this skill is a lot more FP-efficient than Vow. Great aura buff. Yes I understand the scaling isn’t as cool if you were doing a dedicated infusion straight sword run, but sometimes utility can beat out AR and I definitely want to put this armament on that list.

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Kinda looks like a Keyblade if you're into a KH build

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This skill creates an aura which can buff your other weapons, even skills and spells.

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notes & tips could/should state that the weapon can be used as a holy dmg buff. I learned this from that Gino Machino guy, on his consumables only run. He used this as one of the buffs to stack before throwing holy pots. Meaning if you're doing holy dmg, this weapon is worth getting even if you don't actually use it, no need to upgrade it. Do buff, then switch to main weapon(s). Doesn't seem to stack with golden vow tho, but increase holy dmg a bit more.

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Okay if Godwyn appears as a DLC boss in some form, this weapon was absolutely made to murder his oyster lookin' ass.

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You know Death Birds? Send them to the afterlife, then kill them there too. Holy Damage already beat those things to a pulp, and this thing does so much bonus damage that it's actually kinda absurd.

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I feel like the item description gives us an idea of what's to come in the DLC, we have Miquella riding towards an Erdtree afflicted with death blight. While his soul is dead, Godwyn, Prince of Death, is alive and the leader of TwliD. We could be working with Miquella to bring him down.

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Behold the sweetfish river running through my beloved hometown.

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It’s basically the rune sword from Demon’s Souls

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something wired i found when using last rites buff on wing of Astel will make the ash of war (Nebula) do 0 dmg

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An unstated bonus about this weapon is just how devastating it is against Death Birds. If you are every struggling against them, especially those stupid Death Rite Birds near end-game, pull this out and use its buff. You will melt through those birds. Also gives the buff to allies as well, so everybody does great damage against the birds.

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Has to be a reference to the Rune Sword from demons souls.

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I wonder if the quote is from Miquella to Godwyn as it does call him brother…

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dawnbreaker

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This thing is CARRYING me through a big chunk of Farum Azula. If you're somewhere with lots of skellingtons it's worth the investment

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Golden straight sword that scales with faith? Perfect for a corrin cosplay build along with dragon incantations!

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This weapon might not be strong but its soooo pretty. Its a shame its not really.

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Still does holy damage. So...still bad.

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This thing slaps after patch 1.07, unless you have like 80 faith this is the better choice to the coded sword. Or, use this in off hand and coded sword in main.

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Just got a huge buff against undead. Pretty ridiculous if you have two of them.

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Go to sword for any graveyard problems.

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Here's a neat little thing I noticed while playing a Golden Order build, the Sacred Order and Shared Order ashes of war depict the symbol of the Golden Order itself.
Last Rites, despite being identical to Shared Order, was produced by Miquella, so when you use that skill, you will briefly see the Haligtree symbol, the mark of Miquella himself. :)

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Miquella saw himself as just a “brother” to Godwyn despite them not sharing the same father and the latter of the two having his father exiled from the lands between. Kinda touching.

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Reminds me of Rune Sword from DeS.

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“O brother, rise if you would.”

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The scaling on this sword isn't great. I prefer my regular Lordsworn's Heavy Straight Sword + Order's Blade. I can just put points into STR so my Clawmark Seal incant scaling gives me the same holy damage (+100% to undead) as Golden Epitaph and way more phys damage. At lower levels this sword makes sense, but at higher levels the scaling makes more of a difference (lvl 40 STR, B STR scaling). The Square Off ash of war that comes with Lordsworn's is too op. Did I mention I love the Lordsworn's Straight Sword?

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Now wait a damn second, a Straight Sword with 14 Faith Requirement that's good against undead? I'VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE! (Astora's Straight Sword, Dark Souls 1)

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Best sword to fight the undead. it naturally has 30% damage increase against the undead and gets 50% more with last rites. keeps them down for good and has relatively good scaling compared to putting sacred on an ordinary straight sword with sacred order. if you are not pure faith build this sword is the best.

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Impressively weird weapon description.

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This weapon is pretty good for it's sole purpose, to wreck undead.

It has fairly low stat requirements too, 14 Fth is easy enough to splash into (If only to get 15 Fth for Flame, Grant Me Strength but also Heal is nice to have access to in order to wreck Revenants)

Making it a decent weapon to hang onto in order to use when you encounter undead. Killing skeletons outright without needing to buff is very convenient and with the WA you can MELT Tibia Mariners and Deathbirbs due to the massive damage multiplier you get.

The only thing that's kind of WeirdChamp about it is the fact that it's a weapon dedicated to killing undead... Yet it's not a Strike weapon while Strike damage is strong against undead.

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So does this sword make me see 10 seconds in the future?

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I wish you could use this to kill Godwyn for good. Poor bastard needs rest.

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The buff from this is weaker than AoW: Shared Order. Wut?

Like I buff and switch to my main weapon and the bonus Holy damage is lower than Shared Order.

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this would look awesome as a greatsword

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this would look awesome as a greatsword

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Since this weapon is so similar to Rune Sword from Demon's Souls (in appearance primarily), it would have been cool if the weapon art was something more defense based. In Demon's Souls, just holding Rune Sword gave you a hefty boost to your magic defense, and if you also used the Rune Shield or Dark Silver Shield you would see another magic defense boost added on top. My ideal version of this weapon would be to make it so that it would have a small boost to your magic defense from holding it, but have the weapon art give you Barrier of Gold, but rather affecting you and your allies, it only affects yourself and has the length of magic fortification. Defensive weapons are cool as they give such a neat way to play.

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I heard this weapon by default deals an extra 1.3x damage to undead in addition to its other effects.

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Golden... epitaph? I know it is not, but it surely sounds a lot like an Umineko reference.

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its ok, coded sword is significantly better though

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This also perma-kills summoned skeletons like in black knife catacombs. Does "Those Who Live in Death" only mean skeletons or are there specific enemies that applies to?

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The ash of war is nearly useless because it doesn’t stack with Golden Vow

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otstrava?

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You can actually grab this on a fresh new Faith character, for an easy early Faith unique. It means grabbing the two medallions and a stonesword key, and the agonising journey all the way to the Auriza Hero's Grave, but in any case it has low stat requirements, and there are no bosses or farming standing in the way. The ability to dab on skeletons is also kinda value for low level characters.

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The bane of Undead and those blasted Death Rite Birds. Seriously, this thing does so much damage to those enemies types, it's totally worth holding onto just for when you encounter them.

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Ohohohooooooh Beaaatooooriiiceeeeeee

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This is the Rune Sword from Demon's Souls. There are actually a lot of references to DeS in Elden Ring. More than any of the other games. Very cool!

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Not worth it TBH. A +25 holy imbued longsword deals slightly better damage while having the benefit of having customizable ashes of war. Only thing this one has going for it is that it perma-kills skeletons

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Is this a JoJo reference?

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Combine with buffs and talismans and flasks that increase Holy damage?

Could be the new Astora's Straight-Sword?

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This thing absolutely annihilates Death Birds.

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Low AR at first glance but the thing with this weapon is that it's imbued with the power to slay skeletons. You can stack its weapon art on top of the passive and deal an obscene amount of damage on anything that is undead. As far as i can tell, this is mainly a PvE sword.

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Lore dump:

Like a previous commenter said, the "young boy" in the description is probably Miquella. The weapon skill is the only skill in the game that uses the Haligtree incantation icon, the same one that you get when you use Miquella's needle in the Placidusax arena. Miquella is also cursed with eternal youth, ergo "young boy" who could consider Godwyn a "brother."

The skeleton-kill effect seems to be a consequence of Miquella's "humble prayer." Those who Live in Death come from Deathroot, which in turn comes from the corpse of Godwyn at the roots of the Erdtree in the Deeproot Depths. The skeleton-kill seems to be the consequence of the prayer extending out to the derivatives of Godwyn, in his role as Prince of Death.

I'd be super curious to know if this weapon has any unique interaction with Fia or Lichdragon Fortissax.

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When you walk away, you don’t hear me say…

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When you walk away, you don’t hear me say…

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great sidearm for a pure faith build, sitting at 606 AR with minimum stats and 80 faith. The skeleton banish effect has also been super useful in certain areas

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Doesn't seem to kill skeletons permanently if you are powerstancing with it in your offhand

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It's a Keyblade!

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Weapon DOEs have a special effect to it. this is so far as i've been testing the only weapon that doesnt require a weapon art or spell on it to out right kill skeletons without them getting back up. Much like holy spells and pots. but basic holy damage does not seem to out right kill them, unless it's this sword.

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This paired with the gilded iron shield would be quite nice for an Ostrava cosplay.

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I think the "young boy" in the item description is miquella because of the haligtree motif that appears when you use the weapon skill

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sick umineko reference

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Does NOT scale with the Golden Vow incantation, they will replace each other

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Does NOT scale with the Golden Vow incantation, they will replace each other

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Last Rites buff will also stay active if changing / unequipping weapon

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