Hello Warlan,
As I already mentioned, my main character uses a 2H weapon and I wanted to share a few things I’ve incorporated into my build. Just today I faced the winged monsters while Pestilence was active. My build still isn’t fully optimized, but even so, I’m literally leaving chaos in my wake. Before I share anything, I have to admit I haven’t tested every single possible rune for 2H weapons—mainly because the game doesn’t make that easy. That said, I’ve tested quite a few and settled on 3 out of the 4 runes. Here are my little secrets:
Let’s start with the weapon.
As far as I know, Gnarled Saw has the fastest charged attack (no combo needed) of all 2H weapons. It takes just one second to cast. If you compare it to the Claymore, which might be the most commonly used 2H weapon, it charges in roughly half the time. Gnarled Saw simply allows you to land charged attacks in situations where other 2H weapons would miss because the enemy moves too soon. While its running attack does mediocre damage, we fix that with the Front Jump Kick rune. Front Jump Kick works in the same scenarios as the running attack, but it does significantly more damage, use stamina and is spammable.
The idea is simple: Gnarled Saw’s charged attack + Front Jump Kick is a very viable, low-risk combo. Any boss will be hurting after taking that combo, and their poise bar will skyrocket. But that’s not the end—today I discovered you can extend the combo using the Evasive Crushing rune (translated from Spanish). This rune (from some 2H axe I don’t recall) costs only 50 Focus and grants invincibility during part of its animation. It’s literally a dodge that ends in a strong attack. In practice, the idea goes like this:
You wait for the right moment to throw out your charged attack (1 second charge), chain it into Front Jump Kick, and if the boss tries to counterattack, you follow up with Evasive Crushing—dodging their hit and landing a third blow. This last part requires some skill, but even without it, the first two strikes are devastating and easy to pull off against any boss in the game.
P.S. The third rune I use is the damage buff—you can buy it from Eleanor’s shop.