Behold, a new and improved version with even more math than last time! Want to see me do this in Dark Souls 3? Look here: Dark Souls 3 with Mathematically Optimized Damage | Weapons Version • Dark Souls 3 with Math...
A couple of quick notes that I didn't outright address in the video (and a correction!): - Sunlight Blade: While Sunlight Blade would do more damage per second to a resistant enemy (i.e., Seath), gett it locks us out of using Darkmoon Blade as it breaks the covenant and you need to be in the covenant to use DMB. I mistakenly responded to some people that DMB was better against Seath but that's not true; it's like 183 damage versus 62 damage. That'll teach me to not respond to comments in the middle of the night lol. A lot of the later game bosses are generally equal in terms of resistances to magic and lightning, especially Gwyn who has a lightning defense of nearly 2 so I think DMB is just better. - Canvas Talisman: Apparently, the canvas talisman outperforms the Darkmoon talisman based on the faith I was at in the run. I had no idea! Unfortunately, Patches may or may not have tripped and fell into a hole, so his services were unavailable... - I had a graph on screen that I was going to explain but I forgot to do so. The blue dots represent a weapon with an AR of 100, 200, and 300 with all physical damage, and the orange a weapon with those same ARs but split between physical and elemental infusion. As you can tell, an infused weapon is much worse than an uninfused weapon, as that graph doesn't even account for possible weapon buffs.
@@bloodalchemy I actually want to keep my HP as low as possible to mitigate the HP loss from Power Within, so it ends up being a bit of a negative believe it or not.
@@thabos8Getting all of that and grabbing the Crystal Lizards in the Great Hollow gives you enough twinkling titanite for like 2 +5 Black Knight weapons and a high chance at a Slab without you needing to beat any bosses.
I may just be too high, but... in practice, it's been demonstrated that you *can* "one shot" every single boss in the game. Is the dps in this just faster? I guess it depends on from what timeframe you are measuring? Idk.
@@caiocouto3450this is so true. I see people complain on various social media platforms that RU-vid never gives them stuff they're interested in. All I do is hit like on the occasional video I like, dislike and do not recommend on stuff I don't, and sub+bell on stuff I REALLY like and absolutely want to see more of. I'll also never forget the time I was reading a community post a YTer made, and someone in the comments was complaining about how they subscribed, but didn't ever see their stuff in their recommended... Absolutely ignoring the subscriptions tab
@@caiocouto3450 my problem with youtube algorithm is when you watch just one video on certain topic it starts bombarding your recommended page with videos on same topic. It can really kill the diversity of content you are going to watch.
It's funny cause when i first played the game around it's release. I basically cleared 70-80% of the game with it. I didn't even change the pyromancer garbs. 😂 Could definitely kill gwyn with it with little difficulty. DS3 is similar, the starting broadsword and the deep hand axe you find early on, can clear the game pretty much, if you're decent.
@@tacticalmattress I wonder now if there's anything similar in Elden Ring, I feel A LOT of the starting gear of classes might be slept on by many people.
@@vicstoron majority of the content in Elden Ring is recycled content from DS3. Down to the combat and movement. Theyre slightly different but almost identical.
Your math focused approach is really nice to give you a unique angle vs other souls RU-vidrs. You’ve earned my subscription for sure! I’d love to see you tackle Bloodborne
Holy sh*tballs dude I was a detractor from the first vid had a few criticisms and none of them were even RELEVANT to this run (outside power and a weapon buff) like I was super confussed about banning tail weapons. I will say I think it's arguable that sunlight is more "optimal" just because it's a bossfight to get not a farm for 80 bird ears. You outdid yourself far more work than I would have done on a followup unless I was very annoyed lol. As for my weapon I would have guessed iether the black knight Halbert or the zweihander with buffs. Big swing make big numbers
Thanks! I think this is more what I envisioned to be honest, but when I did that first one I though cataloging stuff like attack speed and everything was too tall a task. Glad I did so however!
Excellent video, just as last time. I knew from the moment the video started that Ricard's Rapier was gonna be the main receiver of Darkmoon Blade but did not expect the Hand Axe to be the secondary. I knew it was good but not *that* good. RTSR+Power Within with a powerful weapon buff like Darkmoon Blade can turn any weapon that can receive it into a powerhouse tbf but seeing the boss healthbars melt like that was definitely satisfying. With how short of a window many of the bosses died in I do think it's worth noting that the Dragon Torso Stone is usable while outside the Covenant, you'll just have to use the lowest level version of it which is still a large damage boost, just not as potent as any of the other ones present.
Yeah honestly the main issue would be stamina. The roar takes a good chunk which kind of make it tough to get the 2hit combo without a huge stamina bar. You probably have to get close to the soft cap in order to hit everything in that 5second window. The rapier definitely surprised me as well. I didn’t even know about it until I did my platinum run, and even when doing set up for this I didn’t realize it could be buffed until messing around with online at calculators. It’s honestly a bit nuts how strong it ended up being.
The main piece of advice I saw on almost all soul level 1 runs was: hand ax or reinforced club. Stat scaling is great at high levels but for NG you can't beat speed + weapon buffs.
Found this channel two weeks ago and I must say the output and quality you put out is amazing! Keep up the good work, I really enjoy these videos and would love to see some ds2 & ds3 action at some point as well.
exactly the kind of content i like to see. i appreciate that you've stuck with it, revised previous mistakes, and further optimized your route. excellent video!!
Been following for a bit, and I can tell that the work you put in these vids will definitely be paying off soon. I can't imagine your subs not shooting up in the near future. Great video as always, brother. Can't wait to see what the future holds for this channel! (y)
I’m so god damn happy you uploaded Trev I’ve been binging your vids in the background while I do homework or play dark souls and your vids help me through a good deal of stuff! Keep it up man I wanna see more
This is so cool man, I have not done any exploratory work into DS1 but I dig into systems for optimality just like this for other games in my free time. I love your approach here, it’s similar to how I approach my projects but more rigorous. Looking forward to seeing what you do next, glad the algorithm finally delivered me to my people
more videos exactly like this please. 9/10 video rating, 1 knocked off for not farming the 0.21% drop rate Titanite Slabs (as already mentioned for ultimate DPS. Great work. Love math focus. Love statistics and DPS and calculations. Proud of you.
This makes me feel happy because way back when I knew weapon buffs were weird in DS1 and specifically tried this set up of ricards rapier with dark moon blade (cheat engined it in just to see cause the farm would be a pain to get the covenant to max) and yeah... Those results were absolutely hilarious.
When I want big boy damage. I always go with. Man serpent greatsword crystal +5 Power within Sunlight blade Darkmoon blade Attunement 14 Strength 66 Faith 40 Darkmoon talisman Pyro flame (ascended is preferred) Dragon torso mode with roar FAP ring Rtsr Finally low health. With all buffs active you'll get over 2,000 damage with either of the weapon buffs. I think you can get this setup at around SL75, if I remember correctly.
Well let's just say you may or may not be able to duplicate items here and there... I did this mostly without glitches but that was the one thing I allowed myself to do, otherwise it would've taken me like 15-20 hours if I had to guess? IIRC in my offline platinum run it took me a solid 3 or 4 hours to get 10, but I don't think I was doing it optimally back then.
Haven't seen the entire video but you can use the Sanctus shield to get to get a HO regen of 2HO every 2 seconds. This, with power within, curse and the rinf that halves your HP for a magic buff (I believe more magic uses?) makes you heal the same amount of HO lost from PW. This setup is basically a "safe" Hyper Mode. It helps because you can take your time in killing the boss as you will never die of natural HP loss
I actually ended up using that exact set-up. I actually had to micromanage my hp in some of the later fights as the hp regen will take me out of RTSR range.
Hey, really glad to see you included a graph at the 5 minute mark! Unfortunately, the dots are not labeled, and you didn't explain what the blue and orange dots mean (or what their difference is) before the graph left the screen. May I ask what those dots are marking?
Yeah I saw that after I rendered and uploaded. Thought I had labels on there sorry. Blue is damage at just physical AR, whereas orange is a 50/50 split between physical and elemental. So 100 vs 50/50, 200 vs 100/100, etc. the perils of being your own editor I sppuse
Hey just a quick note: For Four Kings, you can continue doing damage to any king during their death animation, and it will apply the damage to the boss's shared health pool (even though the king you're attacking is 'dead' already). You definitely had enough damage and time to get a 1 king kill!
As for farming for specific items, you can copy paste your current game's save file somewhere before you kill the enemy, then kill the enemy, if you do not get your drop, overwrite the game file with the previous one you copied. This way you save time, don't remember exactly where the game file is located, something like "NBGI" and something with a long string of numbers. You would have to search it up, I haven't done that in some time.
Fantastic work, a couple of questions. 1. If you calculated magic sources as well, how much did cast speed tank the DPS for Crapplemage? In terms of single-attack damage, that's the max on enemies without high magic resist AFAIK. 2. Counting ripostes in, wouldn't one of the high-crit weapons with hornet ring be better for Gwyn? 3. Was Priscilla spared for personal reasons, or fear of Moan%?
I did not do magic calcs for DS1, as I figured it would be more interesting with melee only (although obviously I ended up using only a couple of weapons anyhow). DS3 will take into account magic (sorceries / pyromancies / miracles). AFAIK it isn't possible to OHKO Gwyn with a riposte in NG+7 based on the numbers. Reason being is the highest Crit modifier with the hornet ring is around 360 with some smaller weapons (I think one of the daggers?). Obviously that's really high, but Dark Bead is (130 + 120) * 7. The damage is a bit tough to put in this comment but it is less with a riposte compared to Dark Bead. Priscilla was spared as I was using Crystal Weapons, so I wanted to face as few bosses as possible.
I kind of want to see how this would look on a NG+7 run with all the player stats at their soft caps - see what kind of weapon setups stand on top when both you and your opponents all have their limits broken
@@zerochan2915 One Shot Builds are focused on maximizing AR, which is fundamentally different from DPS. Not to mention most One Shot Builds end up relying on magic, and these calculations are melee only.
@@Soulessblur The definition of DPS is literally damage per second. If you can one shot a boss, theoretically the DPS will easily surpass any other builds because it will by definition have the highest DPS. If you are to restrict yourself how the DPS is calculated, eg. melee only/non one shot only/no parry etc., the more restriction you have, the less meaningful it becomes. btw if there's one answer I think it would be Darkbead. It's just going to one or two shot every boss in NG+7.
@@zerochan2915 Trev himself does not use damaging or ranged spells in these videos. The melee only is not my restriction, it's his. I'm aware what DPS is, I didn't think that needed to be established. If 2 weapons can one shot a boss, it's still going to be the faster of the two to land it's first attack that has the higher DPS. And the majority of One Shot runs are in NG, because the majority of bosses cannot be one shot in NG+7. If One Shot Builds were the fastest to kill enemies, it would have been the case in this video as well, and the run would have been indistinguishable from a one shot build. One shot Builds DO NOT care about Damage Per Second, they are after a fundamentally different criteria. Even if you can one shot a boss, a two handed R2 on the dragon axe might still take more time than 2 two handed R2's from a knife, for example.
@@Soulessblur well.. no. If you one shot a boss you have the highest DPS possible, end of story. I think it needs to be established because I don't think you understand how DPS works. Let's say a boss have 10000 HP, and you can kill it in the shortest time possible, that will make your DPS 10000. (Theoretically it should be 600k because you deal 10000 within 1 frame, but since the max HP of the boss is capped at 10000 so any number above 10000 would be no difference.) And that's exactly how a one shot build works.
Well… I appreciate all the work put into this. However, and feel free to correct me if I‘m wrong, but: I understand that some attacks, especially spells (including pyromancy, wonders and magic) take longer than a second to cast/carry out (as the one swing of the sword in the Capra Demon fight had a lower DPS value than the actual damage of the full attack). At the same time, especially for late game bosses or generally bosses with huge life pools (like Gaping Dragon) I would think that (for the most part) any attack that one-shots the enemy also has the highest DPS (or at least near that). So, as interesting as this academic project is, isn‘t something like Lemon‘s One-Shot Challenge (where we‘re still waiting for the final video on his channel, sadly) automatically mathematically even more optimized even without all the underlying math? Especially as said challenge had additional restrictions on weapon upgrades and levels, which resulted in absurd damage output with less than optimal stats. Granted, bosses like Four Kings (due to them spawning one after another) and Ceaseless Discharge (due to the 6-hit cheese) were not done with optimized DPS but rather „one button press“ strategies and (if I remember correctly) as far as the published videos go, JK Leeds was the only one who managed to pull the grindy, RNG-heavy one-hit on Manus. Still, that last one was 6.6k damage in one single button press - yes, the whole attack takes about 5 seconds, leaving „only“ about 1.32k DPS but against Manus this is still impressive. Besides, talking about JK, he also put out a video attempting melee one-shots (failing some obvious bosses), which is closer to this project here. Don‘t get me wrong, it‘s highly impressive and the amount of preparation that went into the maths and strategy is - again - highly appreciated. So is there an obvious flaw in my thinking here?
I mean it’s a question of semantics in that case imo, cause if you really get into it the actual damage ‘tick’ takes 1 frame, so by that logic you could argue that it’s just a question of what do we mean by the per second part of dps. I also cannot remember in this video but I did this melee only obviously. Not sure it would be very interesting with magic as you’d just rush down the dlc asap and dark head everything lol. At least for the ds3 magic there was some variety. You could also argue that a true optimized dps build would also involve grinding to max level before fighting the asylum demon! Ultimately I went with a literal definition of dps based on possible damage / attack speed on a ‘normal’ leveling playthrough. I think that makes the most sense (Capra and Gargs notwithstanding) and was the most interesting way to approach it.
Ive just spoken to my girlfriend abt how I like to play dark souls optimizing my builds as fast as I can, AND THIS VIDEO SHOWS UP THATS LIKE HUGE THANKS MATE LOVED T
This is cool. One question that I might’ve just missed the answer to: how did you decide what stats you’d use for each boss? I mean your DPS would be higher if everything was 99, though only a madman would try to get there on NG1.
I think I generally tried to hit some stat breakpoints starting with Dexterity and then strength (up to 25/25), then started to level faith and endurance a little bit here and there. I didn’t really have a strict methodology unfortunately lol, just kind of did what felt right at the time.
@@trevthedev6134Demon's Souls would be very interesting too. I always crescent falchion and dragon longsword 90% of the game (hiltless being the other 10 lol), I wonder just how far off from optimal that it, as convenient as these weapons are to use.
I like playing capped strength and bonk with stick because of the super high damage it ends up having over everything else before you unlock weapon upgrades. I am curious to see what is actually best
I'd have honestly expected the basic Falchion or similar curved sword to be the highest DPS, but I also believe that your calculations assume optimal conditions with no-interruption pure output which of course would make other weapons far superior. That said I still believe in actual fight performance, a curved sword like the falchion might be able to technically outperform other weapons. The running attack and generally quick R1 attacks would allow for fast and reliable strafing/dodging of attacks and would make for slightly better uptime in non optimal conditions.
Yeah they’re up there in terms of dps for sure. I think for r1 spam they generally sit behind the hand axe and dagger, but are better than daggers for enemies that have high elemental resistance. Fwiw I don’t think the rapier is the best weapon in the game or anything, I would generally rather use something like the PGS.
Hmm well if you want to do it to maximize dps, I would probably roll with an int/fth build. Just hit enough states to weld the hand axe (I think most classes probably start with enough) and then shoot for like 30/30 with sunlight blade and crystal magic weapon (or great magic weapon). Allows you to make use of other magic as well if you grab another attunement spot! Could even go a little lower or higher if you want to pump vitality or endurance, or are ok with sacrifice a little bit of those.
@@trevthedev6134 I'd mostly ignore vitality, but I'd like more endurance. So, focusing on Int and magic damage? What other spells should I find and pick asap to make it work?
It is equal in terms of added damage at level 1 in the Blades of the Darkmoon covenant, but DMB adds more damage than SLB if you level the covenant up. The reason I suggest a split build is that getting sunlight blade means you have to kill Gwyndolin, locking you out of using Darkmoon blade in the process. Not a huge deal for the most part, but the hand axe really shines when using buffs and both the Sanctuary Guardian and Gwyndolin are super resistant to lightning damage. If you’re doing hand axe only, using that extra slot for a healing miracle or maybe a stealth spell wouldn’t be a bad idea, as you’ll be getting up close to most enemies as well as bosses, so not having to use your flasks outside of boss combat or sneaking by mobs would probably be a good tactic. I think the thief class starts with fall control and you can pick up aural decoy from Griggs pretty quickly.
The handaxe knowledge is insane already. I see this video as upgrade. But now the question arises: taking time and luck ( all the bell curves :D ) into accunt: what is the optimal run for dps per time per mediocre skill? Does it branch at some point?
Is there any chance you could share the spreadsheet you created for this run (and potentially for future runs)? I would love to try this out myself and see how much variation there is depending on your build
See, now, I'm an arsehole. I see the wonderful time and dedication you spent to plan this out, and I think, "Yeah, that's neat, but big single-hit melee numbers are nice." In all seriousness, and assuming you haven't tried it, I do recommend trying out a playthrough using a Demon Greataxe (uninfused) with power within and any weapon buff. Hits like a freight train, very satisfying. It's my comfort build when I just want to go through PvE for fun. Got a memorized route and everything. Tickles my brain to delete S&O from existence.
I’m gonna do this run too! I played a run doing abusing Sunlight blade with minimum stats and canvas talisman alongside Power Withen and Balder Side Sword and I was just destroying bosses left and right and did every DLC boss first try easy, but this looks like even more damage! Much love!
