Serpentbone Blade | Elden Ring Wiki

Chad katana

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One of the coolest movesets among katanas but you can't do anything with it. Pretty lame, Fromsoft. I don't know why they are so happy with making so many weapons worthless. They do this in all their games since Armored Core. Weapons can look cool, or feel cool but often be trash. Other weapons will be clunky, and boring, but be broken in the meta. They've no real desire to just make a game full of interesting, valuable and useful tools. It's very bizarre.

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Just got it off a table in the manor with Tanith dead

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Actualy this katana is pretty good because you can boost yor R2 with the multi attack talisman and with the charge attack talisman and with the crystal tears contropart ( sorry for my english)

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Manslayer from DS2 but even cooler.

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This could have been the Claymore of katana - the R2s are really that good! - but no bleed and no interchangeable ashes hurts, a lot.

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Literally just make it infusable from pleeeeeeaaaaaaaaase

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It has innate poison (but no bleed) but doesn't scale on arc. Also its a smithing stone weapon yet YOU CANT put other ashes of war onto it, nor buff. Why fromsoft? Just why?

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This page says "Uchigatana maintains higher reach" but the katanas page, in the range comparison table shows Serpentbone with longer range than Uchigatana.

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12STR/33DEX dualhanded / Blue Dancer Charm (and two more talismans) / the same but one hand
Keen Uchigatana +16 — 339 / 384 (weight: 8.5) / 382
Keen Nagakiba +16 — 335 / 377 (weight: 10) / ---
This +16 — 343 / 387 (weight: 9) / 384
Sorry, previous info is incorrect about Uchigatana (was quality infusion?). Anyway this looks cool. :)

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12STR/32DEX dualhanded / with Blue Dancer Charm (and two more talismans) / the same but one hand
Keen Uchigatana +16 — 311 / 352 (weight: 8.5) / 331
Keen Nagakiba +16 — 332 / 365 (weight: 10) / -
This +16 — 340 / 384 (weight: 9) / 380
Seems to be a valuable mid-game option against relatively hard enemies (Omens, Fallingstar Beast).

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Double slash on this really is pretty pointless and it just hammers in how much worse poison is. You’ve got rivers of blood with the same skill but extra range as well as arc scaling and this which has the basic skill and no way to increase poison buildup. I’d rather just have the skill changed to poison moth flight to make it more unique and either give it a bit of arc scaling or increase the buildup slightly

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Insanely confused as to why a weapon with no special ash of war that requires regular smithing stones can't be infused or have the ash of war changed. Think about how cool this weapon would have been if you could put poison moth flight on it, or at the very least came default with it instead of double slash. It's much more fitting imo.

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WTF why she dont have arcane scalling....

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It has unique R2, unique poison, looks awesome and is totally avoided by meta slaves. Love it.

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ok but why the redundant L2? just give it unsheathe ffs

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Idk how people diss this weapon, it’s pretty decent. It’s obviously not the best katana but it’s certainly not a bad one. Some of y’all can pointlessly compare it to the best katanas in game or say it isn’t viably for a status effect build(like no **** dude it’s obviously a dex weapon lol, ofc there’s better alternatives for that kind of build) but that doesn’t mean it’s generally bad lol. It would be nice if we can put different affinities and ashes on it. But I think it’s pretty balanced for what it is. The moveset, ash, and deadly poison compliment each other very well. It get proccs off fairly quickly even when you’re not focusing on trying to apply the status effect. It’s a B tier weapon imo and some of y’all need to understand that not everything in the game has to be so versatile, instant proc, or op.

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This weapon is more of a long sabre than a katana...

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You can't just L2 and win with this weapon so I don't like it.

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looks better on your offhand… I wish the handle would be flipped to the outer side of main hand, as it does when offhanded :v

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i love this sword

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I'd like to believe this sword's effect is the game's official take on Toxic from the older games. Scarlet Rot is technically the successor, but in the message options, 'toxic' is still under the affinities section. While DS3 never had a weapon for Toxic affinity (there was a staff that had a Weapon Art that dealt unique poison damage, I think?) both DS1 (Gravelord Sword) and DS2 (Bent Blade) did. If I'm reading into it right, this is also a separate status that likely shares build-up (bar/icon) with Poison, which is what DS3 inevitably did.

Just my two cents.

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This not having arcane scaling is criminal.

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I don't understand some of the comments wanting a different AoW with this. Double slash is pretty good and kinda works great for the weapon's low build up with multi hits. You don't need Poison Moth Flight as the poison duration is actually short for the rot talisman. Because of the lunge it's also a good mixup with the R2. A single R2 triggers the multi hit attack boost talismans/physic which is too good with how quick the R2 is. High build up might be mandatory with bleed and frostbite but I think it's fine to be low on poison(and rot). You can't really reapply it quickly and the damage gain from infusing with keen/heavy vs poison would most likely equate to a higher DPS than waiting for the poison ticks unless you play super passively. My only complaint is why this isn't a somber weapon.

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Garbage since you can just use an infusable katana with poison instead and get better stats.

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this thing is deceptively good, amazing if for whatever reason you want to do a poison build but not build arcane. Its double slash DOES apply a hefty amount of poison, it feels as effective as Corpse Piler does. However, I'm pretty sure that RoB's weapon art Corpse Piler does have added range with the bloody arc coming off of it, which is something this sword lacks. I think if it at least had that (another commenter mentioned wanting green goo to fly out of it) it'd be perfect.
As it stands tho they are perfectly effective in my experience. I ended up dual wielding them which was also fun

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This is my favorite katana purely from an aesthetic standpoint, I've done multiple builds to increase its damage and while yes its possible it suffers from one simple shortcoming, there are far better options.

FromSoftware, please just let us infuse this weapon with an ash of war of our choosing, double slash is such a mediocre option.
Rivers of blood uses the same movement ability but Corpse Pilers unique attribute is the greater rang bloodflame effect, otherwise this is a much shorter range crumbier version of the same weapon with a different status effect.

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this thing would rock if it acted like a true standard weapon, ie can be buffed and swap the weapon art

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No infusion and no Arc scaling? Incredibly lame.

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would have preferred unsheathe over double slash. the heavy is already just double slash but better

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No reason why these aren't infusible

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Honestly… for PvP, this thing shreds. Doesn’t need a buff or tuning in the scaling department. It’s R2s are fantastic for mixing up with double slash and roll catching. It may actually need a slight nerf. But with the range being so short… maybe not.

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Does not use somber, can't infuse/change AoW, **** damage, no bleed, barely able to trigger poison that's why you are better of using any other katana with moth poison on keen. ffs

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Would be the coolest weapon in the game if From just let us Occult infuse it

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Bros, you have no idea how much I wish this weapon had a skill like Corpse Piler but with like green goo that inflicts rapid poison.

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-Unchangeable AOW
-Uses normal smithing stones

I wish I could change the ash and weapon typage, because the R2 is really friggin cool and might make procs easier, which would be great if it wasn't tied to poison since you cant change the type.

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come on from, not even a D in arc

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An easy fix to the Meteoric Ore Blade, Serpentbone Blade and Dragonscale Blade Katanas would be to increase the Meteoric Ore Blade Katana's scaling to B Str, E Dex and B Int, making it the Strength equivalent of the Moonveil Katana.

What I would do with the Serpentbone Blade katana is to make it buffable with grease or incantations(Similar to Bloodhound fang or Treespear), giving you the option to get bleed from Bloodflame Blade or more poison build up from Poison Armamanent.

What I would do with the Dragonscale Blade Katana is give it a passive frostbite of 50, making it more viable without using its Ash of War. The last thing I would do is change the Ash of War. It's simply not a good AOW to use as a weapon buff. What I had in mind would be to give it a AOW duplicate like some of the other Katanas have, like moonveil having a better version of unsheathe and ROA having a better version of Double Slash. So my idea would be to give it a better version of Piercing Fang(Nagakiba's AOW), and what I would change about it would be to make the blade call down a bolt of ice lightning into the blade whilst holding the weapon horizontally similar to Piercing Fang, and when thrusting, bringing down the bolt of ice lightning upon a foe like the ash of war it already has, giving the 130 flat lightning damage and 30 frostbite build up instead of 80, since it already has the passive 50 frostbite.

By making these changes, It would make them more likely to be used and be able to hold their end against the Moonveil and Rivers of Blood Katanas.

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Truly no love for poison builds. This is just a worse rivers of blood in every way. It doesn’t even get arc scaling

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There’s no reason this shouldn’t be infusible. It’s reinforced with Smithing Stones, not Sombers, it’s Ash isn’t unique, and while it has Deadly Poison buildup, the Fists that do the same thing are also infusible.

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There’s no reason this shouldn’t be infusible. It’s reinforced with Smithing Stones, not Sombers, it’s Ash isn’t unique, and while it has Deadly Poison buildup, the Fists that do the same thing are also infusible.

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I really hope they add a talisman that applies arcane scaling to your equipped weapon. It would help for instances like this where the weapon is stuck with a flat unscalable status build up.

Something like: 'Adds additional Arcane scaling to currently equipped weapon, but at the cost of reduced Strength scaling.'

Ofc wording/specifics could be moved around, but it would be great for even more build complexity.

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R2 is sexy

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This is probably the best katana if you like parrying because unlike the others that actually have useful weapon arts you lose nothing by overwriting this with an offhand skill

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I wish this weapon art could be changed, or at least it had Arcane scaling as if it were a poison weapon. I know people like their straight melee weapons, but it’d be nice if this sword could increase its poison buildup or be paired with another poison weapon with Arcane scaling for damage.

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If its weapon art cannot be changed, why not just put the poison moth flight on it, instead of the boring double slash...

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I rushed this weapon to try the whole game with it two handed. I stacked "consecutive hit" buffs from talismans and flask. I also got kindred of rot, shard of Alexander, and mushroom crown. These synergize well with this weapon because you can tap its R2 to do quick double slashes and build up charges/apply poison and then when you are stacked with damage multipliers you unload the weapon art for massive damage, weapon art can also build stacks charges faster than most weapon arts. People say they wish they could put another weapon art on this thing but i cant think of any that would be better for it.

However this weapon is hard to get the most out of because you need to keep stacks up, and poison bar up to apply poison, to get your damage multipliers up. It takes very aggressive play to get the most out of the weapon. For bosses that move around a lot and are super aggressive themselves it can be hard to dodge everything while keeping the charges up. For bosses where its easy to keep charges up you will do insane damage pretty easily. I just went to go try mohg and i killed him on the first attempt before he could nihil. I'm not even using spell or item buffs, 55 dexterity, i was shocked.

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underrated and very good for a duo katana setup:

1. the poison is a good addition to the blood in extended fights
2. high AR net
3.multi hit nature good for stacking up which makes the l1 combo hit like a truck

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god i wish this was a better weapon

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This weapon needed like a rivers of blood skill but instead of blood , poison ( like an fusion of poison moth flight and double slash )

and at least a D scaling in arcane to increase poison build up

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The damage is fine, almost exactly the same as a keen uchi at 80 dex. The poison buildup could be higher but it's workable. Ultimately what ruins this weapon for me though is being stuck with double slash. I'd much prefer other options.

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It's a good weapon. On pure dex build it outdamages unbuffed Uchigatana, Nagakiba and Dragonscale blade. It's AR is only beaten by Hand of Malenia. The range is decent, unique R2 attacks are cool. The downside is you can't change AoW, but Dual Slash is pretty good. Also it absolutely slaps in terms of aesthetics imo

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cant increase poison build up you better up dex, tho the damage is lower especially late game

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This should be buffable Siam e they ****ing made it normal upgrade

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if poison receives a buff next patch, this weapon will become the new meta

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You can get this without beating any bosses (get Rya to invite you to Volcano Manor), but it did take me quite a few tries to do the assassinations with a low-level character. I had the most success by repeatedly poking from outside their range with Uchigatana R2.

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this needs a buff

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rivers of poison

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This weapon cannot be buffed with greases. Not sure who decided to say you can boost it with consumables ("body buff" consumables sure, but that applies to everything).

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This weapon has quite a bit of utility if used with a bleed weapon as well. You can easily proc Kindred of Rot buff with this sword. If you powerstance with a bleed katana, you can get Lord of Blood buff simultaneously. I feel like people are too focused on the fact that the Ash can't be changed. People rely on Ashes entirely too much and this is a good example. Who cares about Double Slash when the R2 attack does pretty much the same thing? This is not a poison Rivers. It shouldn't be treated like one. It's a tool to get you buffs that also gets buffed in the process (sword, mushroom head, and talisman all proc) and applies Lethal poison. My current build is an unoptimized mess that allows me to use all 8 katanas (and wakizashi) whenever I want. Despite my purposefully shitty build, Serpentbone Blade still shines as one of the best options against bosses and ironically named "Lesser" enemies. I can totally see people build around this weapon. It has lots of potential. You can't L2 spam to win with this but this will help set up the big burst damage; eapecially when you're caught off guard and don't have time to buff.

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Why does this not have Arcane Scaling? The Serpent bow does

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The Manslayer at home:

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Imagine if it could spray out the god devouring servant’s poison attack instead of the silly double slash

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The scarlet rot rapier is infusable, buffable, and can build 3 statuses at once, but a poison katana is too OP, Fromsoft? IMO it should have had poison mist instead of double slash to add extra poison - and make the R2 combo even better

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If Antspur Rapier could be infused, why can't this?

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Just found a mod that allows for this truly awesome weapon to be buffable and its AoW to be changed. I'm yet to respec to an Arcane build, but judging from the way Occult infusion works on innate Bleed on weapons, this thing is going to have about a 100 Lethal Poison buildup with 60 Arc. I'm wondering if this powerstanced with Occult Uchi or Nagakiba, with Lord of Blood's and Kindred of Rot's Exultation, Winged Sword Insignia and/or Millicent's Prosthesis would make a fairly broken Poison + Bleed build. And if you add Rot with, for example, Rotten Breath... Oh boy.

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Listed as 0 crit lol

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upgrades with regular smithing stones... has a non-unique skill... can't be infused?

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Rivers of poison

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If it’s not going to be infusable, From could at least put some bleed on it

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All serpent weapons should do 15% bonus damage to poisoned targets

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You know what's weird...

Yapped actually has data for this to be infused. It's one of 2 non-infusable weapons that has all the data in the game's code that actually has the data for all the different infusions (The other being Treespear).

Which means, they actually planned to make its AoW changable, but eventually decided not to (Either that or they simply forgot to change the "Ash of War Type" from "0 - Prevent Change" to "2 - Allow Change")

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For those wondering why this can’t be infused with ashes of war despite being a smithing stone weapon, I believe the decision was intentional. Since lethal poison stacks with normal poison when infused and keeps the long duration along with the high tick damage. If you paired this with say poison moth flight you’d potentially be chunking 70% of a boss’s healthbar with just one attack.

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such a good r2 stuck to such a mediocre weapon

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The property of the R2 isn’t that interesting, as all R2’s have a greater “stack” for such talismans than R1’s. This means that weapons with a multi hitting R2 share the exact same property, most notably Rogier’s Rapier, Short Spear and Cleaneot Knight’s Spear, as well as the Ornamental Straight Sword after Golden Temper. Even a few slower weapons have such an advantage, such as the Treespear.

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honestly this weapon's viability would've been boosted immensely by having the ability to change its AoW and even put affinities on it. I mean, every non somber bleed weapon can have even a frost or poison affinity and keep the bleed, so this could've been the same but for poison. AND, it doesn't even have any faith/int/arc scaling, but even if it did we still have weapons with those that can be given any affinity, the Erdsteel Dagger and Clayman's Harpoon to name a few. I just don't see the point, or at least wish it had a different skill that wasn't outclassed by its unique heavy moveset

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I'm seeing Poison Moth Fligh but I'm thinking of a corpse pillar but like posion.

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While lethal/deadly poison does run out faster, this is mostly a buff. If you're a poison build you're likely able to re-apply it quickly, and it's another opportunity to re-apply the damage boosts from Kindred of Rot's Exultation and the Mushroom Crown.

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This weapon is incredibly slept on. Decided to pick it up for a poison build and I immediately fell in love with it. The unique r2 is great for proccing poison and it combos well with the ash of war, I feel like my character is a human blender with this weapon equipped. Not to mention that powerstancing with the wakizashi gives you yet another pool of fast-attacking moves to draw from when the right situation arises. I feel like between this weapon, rot's exultation and the Mushroom crown, poison could actually be viable for once.

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Add Arc scaling, make this a Somber weapon, and replace Double Slash with Poison Moth Flight. DO IT.

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this should have been at least upgraded with somber smithing stones, regular smithing stone are arguably harder to get

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its a poison RoB but not as good.

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Probably the closest we'll get to Griffith's sabre in terms of looks and slashes.
The guard is similar, and it slashed rather then poking like say, the rapier.
Also, the length of the blade seems to be the same.
10/10 Griffith cosplay + extremely fun to use, would recommend.

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Edit to my last comment: I think this thing could need a bit of arcane scaling. Let it sit at a D, starting with E scaling initially. Yeah, I know, there are a lot of other Super op arcane weapons already, but it makes sense to me giving this awesome blade at least a little benefit for it's build up.

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People call this weapon bad whilst comparing it to the arguably broken top tier weapons. Not every weapon needs to be top tier.
There are some weapons that are just fine, which is just fine.
It is completely viable still, honestly most weapons are.
But the fact you can't change the ashes on it is kind of sad, due to it having a non-unique ash on it already.

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This would've been INSANE in Dark Souls 3. Having to compete with the droves of uh... 'questionably balanced' alternatives in Elden Ring overshadows how fun this weapon is.

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Seems to be more of a pve weapon. You will never poison anyone in pvp with this. Well... Or maybe there is a possible interaction with other poison stuff? Like.. Prep your enemy with other poison weapons or spells and do the last build up hit with this weapon? Would be one hell of a circus to proc the heavy poison, but. Maybe it's a strat?

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Does the old lord’s talisman effect the time poison is active?

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Its a shame this has double slash while having a better double slash in its moveset. Pls From give it unique ash of war and increase poison buildup to 80-100 to be more in line with any poison infused weapon and it would be the coolest katana in the game that's also viable.

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Having used this weapon for a couple of days, I understand why it has no space for war ash, it has a fairly high damage and that poison may seem bad, but rarely does the poison end up in an enemy, so I do not see it as an impediment, its heavy attack is very good, if you could put ashes on it it would be clearly broken by the crazy combinations it could have

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Either give this thing a better or cooler art or add very small blood buildup and its top tier and viable. Still gonna use this blade in a build but it just needs something to make up for it.

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Crit for this weapon is 100. Wiki is listed as 0

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Those who lack vision say this weapon is bad because it doesn't deal the most damage. True Elden Lords say this weapon is great because it's cool af

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This weapon might be one of the best katana if it's able to put ash of war, but sadly not.

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like this weapon but it’s kind of lame that the ash is not unique, can not be removed, AND it can be put on other katanas with poison affinity after getting the black whetblade. the heavy attack is the only unique thing on it

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this woulda been sick if it had a unique more powerful or faster version of poison moth flight

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It says this weapon can be buffed with magic and consumables which is incorrect needs to be updated

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Prime weak weapon. Needs AoW or SS atleast. Useless now.

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this weapon is amazing
all I care about in a weapon is how cool it is
this thing also feels much more powerful than other katanas base damage wise and I like its r2 and its also REALLY good when using poison moth flight on an offhand weapon I just wish you could infuse/buff it but still I don't care about it being "weak" I think its an amazing weapon just for how cooler it is compared to other katanas that I don't think anyone should care about the "meta" or bleed and frostbite, Just pick a weapon that you think looks cool and use it

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Should have given the L2 boosted poison buildup. Nothing super busted, not like poison's that good anyways. Maybe give it boosted damage against poisoned targets, like 10%. As it stands, it's still fun to play with, but it doesn't feel.... special, y'know?

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