As the name suggests I am currently trying to make sword and board work. I initially used Warricks sword to decent effect but never was able to get the timing down perfectly (parrying was also a struggle). I started using Daraks one handed straight sword after it dropped with a tower shield, but I’m still struggling heavily.
I’m 26 atm with 24 in Health, 15 Stam, 42 Str, 22 Faith (needed for the one hander), and 20 in equip load. I’m trying to make a focus generating build work with a mix of solace ring band of calmness, and other similar effects.
The biggest issue I find is damage taken. I’m wearing a mix of mesh and plate very close to encumbered and even with the additional armor the shield provides I just don’t feel tanky at all. I still take decent chunks of damage from regular blocking and don’t have means of self healing (I’d stick heal aura rune in the sword, but can’t remove runes from it presumably because it’s gold) other than food.
I tried using a decent one hand axe drop with the heal aura and damage surge runes and full gem slots, but it’s attack animations are horrible compared to the straight sword.
I want sword and board to be viable, but I’m just not sure if anyone else is having any luck. I’d love to hear other people’s builds or tips (admittedly I do need to improve on parrying, though multiple enemies especially in the crucible make that very challenging).
How intersting that we almost have the same build:
One thing that felt overpowered for me, was applying the rune from the blood rusted sword to the daraks.
That rune does an immense amount of stagger damage as well as damage itself and is spammable with little to no focus cost (50)
In terms of damage recieved, I went from cloth to mesh/plate armor with the same shield you have and I’m 26 with 524 armor.
Before armoring up, I was one hit, so trust me, if your armor value is up there, you’re pretty tanky, that’s just how it is. You got a decent amount of health (i Have 24 for as well)
Heal aura is pretty weak at this point, so you’ll have to resort to farming/buying (if you have grodons pantry at level 3) quality food
Dodge first, to learn their attack patterns, use blocking only as a last resort, once I feel confident I go for parries, or if you’re fighitng crucible knights already, they are pretty easy to catch off guard and simply just dodge their attacks and backstab them, that’s usually a 1 hit kill
I didn’t realize you could apply Runes to the gold weapons. I thought I tried earlier and the weapon wasn’t coming up as a legal target. Will have to look into that.
One thing I will say is that getting a weapon that has heal on damage has been a huge game changer. A one handed axe dropped last night with 3% health on damage and with other increased healing effects affixes on gear that has helped tremendously. The health I gain from hitting helps offset damage taken from blocking, though I still need to practice parrying more. Fully upgrading the gear I was wearing was nice as well. It’s worth noting too that I downgraded two pieces of gear to leather so have 2 leather and 2 mesh in order to fall in the normal weight range.
The Echo Knight is still giving me trouble, but I’ve been able to get to him consistently at least now which is a huge improvement considering I was struggling to even complete some of the rooms. It is still frustrating the amount of enemy attacks that put you off balance or put you on the ground, but I just need to improve on that end and get the timing down for rolls or parries.
I used the tiny feather on my most heavy armor pieces so it would enable me to normal roll instead of “fat roll” that’s how I make sword and board work. I also am decent at parrying(it takes practice and learning the enemies attacks) I only had 1 plate piece (used tiny feather) and my chest also has tiny feather slotted and the rest was mesh. Slot an emerald into your head to reduce the cost of your attacks. Chest and Legs are your heaviest armor pieces so you want to save tiny feathers for those pieces. Also if you look at your blood rusted sword you’d be surprised at how much it weighs so you might consider also using a tiny feather for that too. You stam is only 15 so that emerald in your helm will help with stamina management. you really want to be in the medium(normal weight range) so your rolls and movement won’t take as much stamina. I’ve found if you’re going to go heavy build this game seems want for you to use a 2 hander for that.
With a full plate set fully upgraded I was well over 1000 armor. Add in certain rings and over 1200. I also make sure to get to 30 life (initial 10 + 20 invested).
With a good rune ability, some focus gain, and those rings that boost both armor AND damage, you should be set.
Also with respect to damage: getting the minimum in one stat and maxing out the other for the sword won’t give you the best outcome. They scale better together, at least I think they do. Better to have 33 in both than 22 and 42 imo.