Great, well informed list as always, I do think you underrated Piercing fang a bit though. For instance, let's compare it to Giant's Hunt. If on a Nightrider Glaive, both do the exact same stance damage, PF has more range, is easier to hit, has faster recovery frames and only does slightly less damage than GH. Now I get Giants Hunt can toss enemies, but that doesn't come into play against most bosses and enemies. Most enemies die in one shot from either move and most bosses aren't sent flying from GH so you benefit more from the range and faster recovery frames of PF. Now I get the argument of Impaling Thrust over over PF (faster, same stance damage, less FP), but I still think you're underestimating just how useful that extra range is. As you know, in ER it is much safer to keep your space from most enemies and especially Bosses. PF almost has the same range as something like Ice Spear allowing you to hit and run. Also PF can be used to get a strong hit off while distancing yourself from an enemy. If used while in an enemies face it's easy to hit the enemy while sliding past them to safety. So it's positioning utility is huge. And I haven't even mentioned yet it ignores shields! That's not a small deal, shielded enemies are some of the strongest and most annoying enemies in the game, especially the shielded Crucible Knights which PF makes short work of. Honestly, I find Giants Hunt to be the overrated AoW on your list. No matter the scenario it's outclassed by something else. If an enemy can be thrown, then Lions claw can pancake them and outclasses it with its hyper armor and tracking (LC can also be put on the Giant Crusher which hits harder and does more poise damage). If an enemy can't be thrown or will just die in one hit (majority of cases), then Piercing Fang or Impaling Thrust are just better as they do the same poise damage and in the case of PF has more range and less recovery frames and in ITs case is much less FP and faster with much less recovery Frames. I get this is all nit picky as your list is good. But for the aforementioned reasons I think I feel Giants Hunt should be ranked more where Piercing Fang is and Piercing Fang should maybe be where Impaling Thrust is moving up Impaling Thrust a few spots (though I personally would put PF the highest due the range, positioning utility and guard penetration). If you read this Youwy, ty for reading and hopefully being open minded about this.
Another person underrating stamp sweep... it's a crowd control tool. It's the ultimate "oh shit I'm surrounded" button since it hits all around you and knocks enemies down. That's why you pick it over uppercut.
Was doing another fist run today and found that lifesteal fist is actually good on Crucible Knights, not so much for the damage of the skill itself, but for the fact it momentarily stuns them and allows you to get in 1-2 charged R2s.
Maybe the wiki is wrong (unheard of, I know) but Storm Wall seems to only lose to Retaliation and Golden Parry in terms of active frames, with buckler parry just coming out slightly faster than all of those so it's way better than regular parry, especially for medium shields I tend to use it a fair amount, honestly. It basically always gets replaced once I reach Altus and can pick up GP (which you might not want to immediately do if, say, you want to collect the stuff at redmane castle early, etc...) but because you can immediately ride to and pick it up in Limgrave, it's always a solid stepping stone for those situations in which you do want the option to parry (various knights, etc...). If you want to just have a parry tool, I usually pair it with the shield of the guilty which is equally immediately available and is just super light (plus it looks good) If you haven't started as a bandit, and thus, have the buckler, I feel like this is the best early game parrying option so I feel it being this low is a bit unfair ALSO: "No Skill" is probably the best Ash in the game. If only we could put it in ALL of the torches...
The difference in where you can get storm wall and where you can get the carian parry is just too small. I agree on a first playthrough storm wall is quite helpful, but that is a very limited usecase.
@@jankbunky4279 I actually think Carian Reataliation is a bit out of the way with it being all the way past Loretta in Carian Manor. Usually I just hold on to Storm Wall until I do the rounds on Altus which I even end up doing before Caria Manor a lot of the time. Since these days I'm more into Golden Parry than Carian Retaliation, it ends up working out in that sense too
Damn Flame of the Redmanes carried me for most of the game back in the days, seeing it nerfed so much is so sad, I was counting on abusing that in DLC ;_;
Golden Land has several damage ticks from when you initially slam the weapon in the ground from the weapon itself, but not the circle. If an enemy is struck, they'll be staggered repeatedly until the explosion which will knock them down (unless it's a larger enemy, of course). It's a trading tool, so i like to use it with Holy Ground active for either PvE or PvP. Also, unless they've changed it (i didn't check since I used Sacred infusion), the projectiles could apply buff effects--most notably bleed or poison. But that's a more niche ranged use since I'd rather just amplify the holy scaling since I like to be at melee range when using this ash... and also because I don't like the Great Club in this game, sadly. I think it's underrated and probably the best of the hammer slam ashes--way better than waves of darkness imo.
Even on an INT build, I prefer Ice Spear over Glintstone Icecrag. Ever since release I preferred it. Just so much more damage and it actually deals posture damage. Also, before watching this, I was thinking about which build to do next for the DLC and it was going to be between bleed, pure INT and the Greatsword + FTH. Jumping attacks, or Lion's Claw with the Greatsword just feels too good.
How do you determine if an ash of war scales off AR or a stat? I know you can do the obvious thing and test it but is there some types of ash of war that always scale off AR? A pure physical ash of war like Lion's Claw, do you just know off the bat what it scales off of or do you test it each time?
91 Regular Ash of Wars Casters only get a total of 2 on this list and neither can be Infused for Seals/Staves. Seals only have access to 1 of them as a default option. No Skill: An AoW that's only useful for non-Caster builds. Spinning Weapon; An AoW that's somewhat useful on anything that can take it excluding Staves. Thanks FromSoft, especially because you're too lazy to improve Caster gameplay beyond the 'Cast a Spell' button.
Love how you actually show it vs malenia or a real boss, not against Margit like most idiots. Like cool you could do good damage on the first boss of the game lol.
Call me a nerd but I love the meta deconstruction and detailed list with numbers for video games. As long as the game is made well and actually has a certain level of complexity to it then it just becomes interesting to me and I love learning the stats and testing them out for my self while experimenting.
"No Skill" should have been S Tier honestly. Name a single build that uses a shield without maining a shield that DOESN'T use "No Skill". It's that OP, a simple skill but does it perfectly.
Beast Roar is so stupid. Why does it scale solely with dex? Especially when every other ‘roar’ AoW follows strength infusion. Beast Roar is even given to you by a str/fth npc who gives you other str/fth items!
Carian Retaliation only uses FP when you parry spells with it. Normal parries are free. So its just a better version of golden parry. It should be at least A tier imo
@nebelamoebe1047 well not necessarily so, when using golden parry. It allows you to be out of range of an attack and still parry it. I've done it many times. Plenty of attacks have a long enough windup allowing you to run or roll away, and then parry the attack from a safe distance with golden parry.
@@robertwalton434I seen someone called DestinedDeath187 and he only parried Maliketh instead of using weapons he used a blasphemous claw 😳 Smash’4’Cash inc I think his YT name is.
Also @youwy said storm wall is worse than a regular party which isn’t true. When used on a medium shield it makes them parry like A small shield making a parry capable medium shield actually viable
Carian Retaliation was nerfed in the first or second patch of the game. It used to be like every offensive Ash of War where the item level would increase the damage of the projectiles + the Scaling of the shield if it was Magic infused. This made so that a single deflect of of Wraith calling bell would deal 2000 damage.
There seems to be a damage “cap” in the 2000’s. I was fucking around with stars of ruin because it’s so mediocre but should do great damage if you buff the hell out if it. I got it to around 2500 when the new buffs started glitching out and lowering the damage instead of raising it like they should. I tried everything and the only time that buff glitched out was when I was already going to deal near 2500 damage without the buff. So I’m basically saying Godfrey icon starts working again when I find a way to deal less damage by removing other buffs
I miss that pre DLC optimism but I’m pretty sure as far as I recall most of the new ashes of war especially baked on skills for somber weapons have been mediocre. At least the weapons themselves have been mostly ok even if also not really much stronger than base game. The spell and incant situation was tragic, guess I just blindly assumed they’d all be powerful as hell because they’re super late game items but they didn’t want to mess with the balancing I guess
Sword Dance has another advantage over double slash, which is the travel distance. While double slash only works right in the enemy’s face, sword dance covers insane ground.
I know this is probably intentional to get more watchtime but I wish there were timestamps for each AoW because I keep coming back to this video whenever I wanna hear your thoughts on a particular AoW.
Solid choices. But the for me the n.1 is ALWAYS gonna be Braggart's Roar. It can be equipped to ANY weapon class, you can choose ANY affinity, it lasts 60 seconds, it counts as a weapon buff so it can stack with all the other aura/body buffs, and if you are dual wielding, you can stack the defense and the stamina regen (not the damage though), for a ridiculous total of 20% damage negation (like having an extra dragon greatshield talisman for all types), 40% increased stamina regen and 10% more physical damage. Also i HEAVILY disagree (and always will) with your blood blade opinion vs Reduvia. Reduvia has a much faster animation, does not cost HP, and even though in lower levels it will be doing less damage, in higher levels it will out damage ANY other weapon, even with 99 arcane, and since it is a dagger and weighs nothing, you can have it in your off hand to cast the ash of war, when in need of projectile, and then switch to your main weapon that has another ash of war.
No disagreeing with the kick placement but I'll forever love it because it can immediately stance break shielding Crucible Knights and Grafted Scions. No ash of war does that.
Maaaaan finally the Ash of war rating came out!! Was waiting with bated breath for this. Easily the most reliable opinion/option on YT for souls content.
Doesn't bloodhound step cancel recovery animations? It's my favorite ash in the entire game, I use it for repositioning because I'm a INT/FAI caster, with seal/staff in the left hand and dagger/whip with BHS in the right hand. I'm sad it's so low, but okay 😢
When Banished Knights use Storm Stomp, they have a heavy follow up with additional damage that backs them off and it's a CRIME that this is not present in the player version of this skill, that would be super cool
@@seanxyzs I don't play PvP so I can't empathise, sorry. Just add specific tweaks to the pile like they have for half of the things already, whatever =P
@@seanxyzs OIC, TIL For me the PvE experience is it's always a bit underwhelming. It doesn't seem to stagger nearly as well as when Banished Knights just stunlock you with it and the range ends up being a bit underwhelming under those circumstances so it just ends up lacking some crucial detail in every area to make it actually find a use case
Nice list Youwy! May I suggest possibly adding a new tier outside the standard structure just called 'utility' or something like that. This way, you can put stuff like different parries, no skill, that alluring skill skill, quickstep/bh step, etc here and not worry about ranking them against the other skills. As they really are more subjective depending on situaition and build as opposed to more damaging AoWs that are easier to compare.
Carian Retaliation below Parry was unexpected. Carian Retaliation gives you Golden Parry frames without consuming FP when parrying melee attacks. Arguably the best melee parry in the game for that reason. Still though, given how you were evaluatiing Carian Retaliation, it totally makes sense why you ranked it that way.
I think the purpose of Poison Moth Flight is more for activating the poison medallion multiple times. Poison your enemy -> Get the damage buff from talisman -> (Once the buff wears out) use the AOW and remove the poison -> repeat. Also, good job Steven!
HAIL! You've done it! I merely asked for a "best ashes for each weapon type." But you went the extra mile. Thank you soooo much! Thy dedication befits a crown... 👑
Gravitas has a good use for crowd control. It does 26 stance damage, so a hit from gravitas and an R1 from a large weapon like a greatsword (as in the weapon type) is enough to stance break alot of smaller enemies. So you can equip the crimson/cereleun dagger taliamans and chain stance breaks against groups of smaller enemies. Try it with a one-handed greatsword against the Mohgwyn Palace albinurics, it's the best strategy I've found for them that isn't Wave of Gold. Gravitas is also amazing for killing invisible scarabs. Personally, I'm bringing Gravitas on a Claymore into the DLC.
Finally a content creator that acknowledge how powerful Square Off is, and not put it at the bottom of the list, cough cough. Although you kind put the wrong image for Square Off at 59:27 there
Really good list, I can barely fault it on anything. The only things I'd change are moving up carian retaliation and sword dance, and moving down white shadows lure. The top 10 is pretty much spot on to how I'd order it, and I hope more people take reference to this video. Very good job
#62 Don't forget you can save the FP/Spell Slot and just use the Mimic Graces to lure enemies as well. #57 If you Infuse the Spiked Palisade Shield with a poison-infused Shield Crash, then buff yourself with Golden Vow, Howl of Shabriri, Stonebarb/Thorny Cracked Physick, the Godfrey Icon, Shard of Alexander, Curved Sword Talisman, Blue Dancer Charm and the Commander's Standard, not only does it clap cheeks and bully people like it owes you money, the poison proc not only gives it Arcane scaling, but the poison proc resets the bleed proc and vice versa so you're squeezing out a couple more bleed procs per fight, then if you do what I do and pair it with the Sword of Milos for the debuff that makes the enemies hit by it's Weapon Art take more damage the Spiked Shield actually kinda slaps in NG. Struggles against high mobility/high stagger res type enemies obviously, but aside from those this thing does work. Oh and I chose the Blue Dancer Charm over the Ritual Sword Talisman or the Wing Talismans because since the Spiked Shield doesn't have 100% physical defense, every time you go in the enemy breaks your Ritual Sword buff, making it basically useless. And I haven't gotten to Melenia yet on my Spiked Shield guy to see if the bounce hits from Shield Crash counts as "successive attacks" for the Winged Talismans. If they do indeed work with it though, then I'd replace the Blue Dancer Charm with the Rotted Winged Sword Insignia. Unless I'm doing Light armor, at which point I think BDC takes the lead. But that's only by like 2% at Light equip load so Rotted is probably over-all better.
YOUWY sacred order should AT LEAST be top 15. You did not mention how this can also boost ALL ashes of war if used on left hand. ALL OF THEM. It ALSO is amazing with powertstance weapons because sacred order and cragblade is better than dual crag. Just correcting your mistake 😇
I feel like one of the core issues with ER PvE Tier Lists is that ER is not a boss rush game but people seem to almost exclusively put the things they're rating up against bosses. Some things are just really good while traversing an area but not great against a singular high-poise enemy with multiple thousand HP. Something like Gravitas, for example, isn't great in general but spamming it against a boss is just making it look way worse than it is. It's perfect against flying enemies and groups, especially when you have horizontal attacks to follow it up with. Storm Assault is great because of its poise damage but bosses have too much poise to be staggered by it, normal enemies do not. Holy Ground is terrible for boss fights for the things mentioned in the video and it requires too much FP to be worth it in general but why was there no mention of it being a method of regaining health while going through a level without needing any points in Faith? Sure it gets outclasses by Bestial Vitality (Holy Ground has the same amount of healing and faster but is limited to a small area and less FP efficient) but it's still a heal that's not connected to your Crimson Flask and you can use it with the Astrologer Starting class if need be (lowest Faith at 7, Bestial Vitality requires 12). None of this really makes them good Ashes of War but not mentioning these points makes them look a lot worse than they really are.
I don't see why you would have the regular parry over Carian retaliation. Carian has faster startup and more parry frames than regular parry, and doesn't cost anything unless you parry a spell which is just a plus. No real reason to put parry on rapiers or daggers either, unless you just wanna flex, cause then you have like 2 parry frames instead lol.
I've seen peple doing around 4-6k damage consistanly to bosses with Golden Land.. And even around 2.7-3k damage against high holy resistant bosses. Also the projectiles fly further than even frenzied burst, so it's a very good sniper option for 16fp.. And with great stars every projectile heals hp.. So with a full use of Golden land you can recorver 10% hp and against a group you can recover 10-16% health which can make trading viable against groups. I think you should test Golden land a bit more and let us know your opinion.. It's might be one of the things that can make a holy damage build actually viable..
Alright, so im running a faith build with the grave scythe and i want the stormcaller, shoulf i go for the bleed type or keen so i can use the bloodflame blade on it?
Holy shit you actually do playthroughs with every one of those things? That's some amazing dedication to research, it's amazing I still feel like you're giving outclassed ashes of war way too hard of a time for being outclassed personally tho but idk, nobody probably dived into it deeper than you so
I think the no skill ash should definitely be higher up. Yeah obviously the skill itself is quite literally useless but it allows you to use the better ash in your main weapon. Imagine all shields had some kind of ash like parry or otherwise and that always took priority over your weapon. That would be horrible
I like using poison moth flight on a katana. I already have regular bleed, but with this one I have bleed on command and ability to reset the amulet effect. Two poisoned katanas do so much percent damage that it just doesn't matter how fat the boss is. There's not so many bosses in the game that immune to both bleed and poison.
Carian retaliation has the same parry frames as golden parry but it costs more (i think) the thing is that you only use fp if you parry a spell. So if you want to use it as a "normal" parry then its 100% better then the basic one (0 fp but more frames) Also i disagree with poison moth flight's rank cuz its cool and i killed mogh with it on my rl1 (random flex) and its now my favorite aow Also nice video my favorite australian
