Weapons for a strength build

I've completed DS once on the PS3, with a mostly sorcery-focused build. Int 50, and I believe an enchanted zweihander as my main weapon at the end. I was tempted to do a NG+ run, but I'd put close to 70 hours into the game by that point and other games called.

Now I'm starting to noodle around with a new game on the PC in hopes of seeing the DLC and am far enough in that I should probably start thinking about what type of character I'm playing. I think I'd like to do a strength build this time. It's been long enough since my last game that I've completely forgotten where all the good stuff is.

So: What's a good early-game strength weapon that isn't the Drake Sword? I've got the zweihander already (although I don't quite have the strength to wield it yet), but something that I didn't spend half the last game with would be nice.

Also, what are the good early-game weapon upgrades? Last time, I stuck with the Drake Sword until I emerged (dripping and covered in poisonous slime) from Blighttown, so I didn't really get a sense for what's available near the start.

For a strength build, any of the big weapons will outdo the drake sword after only 3 or 4 upgrades. So go ahead & upgrade that zwei to +4, and you already have your drake sword replacement.

Another good early game weapon for strength is the claymore. (Actually, the claymore's requirements are low enough that it's an excellent weapon for damn near anyone.)

But if you're looking for strength-specific weapons, there's the greataxe in the depths which does a *ton* of damage. Shame about its range & moveset.

Then in blighttown you have my favorite weapon in the game: the large club. It's a rare drop fron the infested barbarians, so it's really hard to get, but that thing is surprisingly fantastic: great range, great damage, and one of the best movesets in the game. There's also the Great Club, which is considerably easier to get: it's in a treasure chest. But it's not nearly as good as the Large Club... it's just OK.

Most of the super high strength requirement weapons that I tried out were disappointments; they all kinda seem to suck. The Demon Great Machete... the Dragon Greatsword... bleh. I didn't care for most of them. There was one exception, though: I really took to Dragon's Tooth, which is a giant club you find in a treasure chest in Anor Londo. When fully upgraded, it's one of the highest damage weapons in the game. Its swing times & moveset is pretty good. On top of all that, it increases your fire & magic resist when equipped. So yeah... I'm a big fan.

I hear the Large Club is great but it's a really damn stingy drop so I haven't gotten a chance to use it myself. Best strength weapons otherwise are Black Knight Halberd and Black Knight Greataxe imo. I like to use the former to drive through levels and the latter to take down bosses. Both have outstanding movesets and just dish out ludicrous amounts of damage.

Well the best thing of all is to get lucky and get an early Black Knight weapon drop. But apart from that really anything you feel like upgrading will be good: Claymore, Halberd, Gargoyle's Halberd, Zweihander... it all works. Just pick one you like the feel of and start upgrading it. They aren't all suited for a strength build really, but it's going to be a little while before you have really high strength anyway, so it's fine to use an elemental weapon in the meantime.

The thing about the black knight weapons is that they require 18 dex. If I'm going to pump dex up to 18 on a beginning character, I figure I might as well just use the washing pole instead. It has the same prohibitive (for early game) stat requirements, but it actually has decent speed and <gasp> a good moveset. Unlike the damn black knight weapons.

I've had pretty consistent luck getting the Basin knight to drop a BK halberd, which then proved so good that it's really hard not to re-orient your character around it. Another thing: look at what you have available to you and the movesets you like and the level you're willing to go to more than the damage output per se. Most physical weapons are within range of each other and there are some hidden factors there that are not well understood (like why BK weapons typically match or exceed higher rated on paper weapons). The moveset can really only be established in combat, as the heavier weapons move differently when they are connecting rather than when you miss. For my money, the BK Greataxe, Halberd are not to be missed.

Also intriguing is the Golem Axe and its versatile R2 attack, but that's more of a specialist weapon once you have a good feel across heavy weapons, simply because it has relatively low damage, weighs a ton, and is impractical to upgrade just for kicks (demon titanite). The server has regeneration of 7 hp per hit, which is kind of weird but might be interesting for a power within/lingering dragon ring build. The gravelord sword is an easy to access flat damage weapon, and it's great for someone looking to stop at 24 until they can get the obsidian sword and switch between them to taste.

Also, I strongly recommend the gargoyle halberd as a secondary divine weapon for the catacombs and perhaps Nito. It's just so good in terms of base damage that you'll feel a drop in power, but it won't be soul-crushingly bleak.

The Large Club is worth farming for. Potentially the best strength-based weapon in the game.

BK weapons? Bad moveset? Why, whatever do you mean?

Ok, each BK weapon has one (or two in the case of the BKGA) move that totally sucks. But the rest of the moves are notably awesome; the BKH has the standard halberd R1s (i.e. the ones that match the Gargoyle's Halberd, not the Halberd) which are awesome and the 2hR2 is fantastic once you get the hang of it. And yes, the BKGA has garbage R2s, but come on, that 1hR1? No weapon attacks that fast with that good horizontal range and does that much damage. None but the BKGA.

18 dex, yeah, it's kind of a pain, but I do see all of the BK weapons besides maybe the sword as long-term goals to aspire to, not early-game solutions. Six or eight levels spent in dex seems like a lot at level 30, not so much at level 120.

As for the Washing Pole, it's fine but the question was about strength builds, not what the best early game weapon with an unreasonable stat requirement is.

I beelined to the BKHalberd's requirements with a pyromancer, with only like 4 or 5 points in endurance along the way, and it was by far one of my most powerful <50 builds.

I can't get it to drop on anything but dexterity characters. What is the farming route you use?

I went backwards from the bonfire up in the rafters (near the Iaito) to the entrance to Blighttown. There's 3 barbs that way. You have to fight some of the ghouls but it's overall faster than going from Firelink down through the back entrance.

You are objectively wrong, and therefore a terrible person.

Of course not. I have taste. The butcher knife is just *so* last year.

(Seriously though... the butcher knife? Its moveset blows. Short range attacks, and none of them are useful. They all just have you act like the butcher. You know... the guy I easily outmaneuvered & backstabbed repeatedly? Yeah, him.)

The Butcher Knife moveset is tricky, but it's a completely different weapon in a 25% or even well-managed 50% build. It's not for me, and it's definitely not the (overrated but still exceptional) meat cleaver from DS1, but it's a solid weapon.

That's one I haven't taken the time to try out in depth. It does have a following, I know that much. Definitely shouldn't be written off.

I'm switching between a nearly maxed out Fire Zwei (the flattening R2 does NOT get old, ever) and a +15 Great Club (ok and does great damage but it's not my favorite moveset). I just got the DEX for a BK GreatAxe and am messing around with that - the one hand swing is FAST but does very little damage, relatively speaking. The overhand whammo is fun and the leap range is pretty tremendous - does take getting used to for the windup, though.

Sounds like I should go farm the LC just for curiosity's sake. Does it drop from the boulder wielding ones near Queelag's entrance too? I'm guessing no, but not sure.

Well, I'm going to try out Server now, as a shortstop until I can be bothered to use my Black Knight Halberd. Shortstop? Is that even a word? Oh well, I probably meant stopgap. Also, a DS forum? But whyyy?

I have no idea how you could describe the BKGA as doing very little damage.

Nope. They do drop the Pickaxe though, if that's something you'd like to try.

Mostly it means more testing is required; it's just that seeing only double digits on a giant thing like that is a little surprising. I realize it's only +3 and that it has to do that because of how fast that swing is, but the initial takeaway is that its damage is less. Probably all perception - therefore, more testing is needed. :D

Double digits? Yeah, something's definitely wrong. That's what I'd expect to see if I didn't meet the minimum strength requirement.

Just a couple more unit tests on this entity and then it's off ... to the DS testing chamber, because I agree.

Ah, the claymore. I think that must have been what my sorcerer was using, not a zwei. That makes me feel better about going with the zwei if I can't scare up a dark knight weapon. Dark knight halberd might be fun; I never really played with polearms in my last game.

On my STR character, I wound up going back to the zweihander constantly. There was a lot of haranguing from better players than me, because it's ostensibly an early-to-mid-game weapon that doesn't scale really well, so I tried just a TON of the other strength pieces. What I found was the other high-end tools didn't either fire off as quickly or have the much-loved faceplant ancillary effect.

I hate to break DS down into DPS calculations because the game is so much more than that, but all the way to the end the zwei hit a really sweet spot for me of reasonable weight, good damage, decent speed and reload, and enemy incapacitation. I'd recommend it highly at +15 and 40 strength.

A quick note on this is that I love love love the dragon's tooth too. It's just prohibitively heavy unless you have a gazillion endurance or are going for a mostly-naked-guy-with-big-weapon look. I also didn't get to try the two black knight accessories I wanted: neither the halberd nor the axe dropped for that character. :(

I'm sorry, but this is an objectively terrible idea. If you like the Zweihander that much the thing to do is to just leave your strength at 24. At +15 with 40 strength you're spending sixteen extra levels in strength and still dealing less damage than if it were elemental.

I must be the luckiest STR SOB around. Have the BK sword, halberd and great ax, and not a single lord soul. Dunno who drops the greatsword other than the guy(s) in the kiln, but I'm OK missing that.

The one in Undead Parish has it. Don't recall offhand which other ones do, if any.

Ah, well, he's dead. Guess a guy hollow can only be so lucky.

I believe the one in the Catacombs also has it.

That one has the axe, actually. According to this the only one with the greatsword is the Undead Parish one.

Speaking of axes, I took the great ax I got in the depths and turned it into a divine weapon. I didn't know if it would make a good one or not, I couldn't be arsed to check the calculators but in this build a divine weapon has one purpose only, catacomb skeletons. Previously all my characters, save the faith dude, had puny faith and terrible divine weapons. With my sorcerer I had to do this two weapon dance of striking first with the moonlight sword, then follow up with a divine claymore for the coup de grace. My thinking, therefore, was to go as large as I can and hope the meager faith would do the rest. Mission accomplished! I smote those skeletons in one blow. The best part was sometimes it felt like I didn't even have to hit them, just be in the general vicinity. Thankfully skeletons are slow and have to assemble themselves, cause while it's a great ax, it's slow.

For some reason I thought he was asking about the axe, reading comprehension fail!!

After a rough bit against the bell gargoyles, I've been digging my +5 zweihander. Moonlight butterfly, hydra, Havel, capra demon, and now the gaping dragon. Oh, and the titanite demon next to the blacksmith--first time I've taken one of them in melee. It took a while to get used to the slow swing speed--the gargoyles were a pain because I just couldn't seem to connect with them--but the R2 overhead smash is endless fun.

I'll have to check out the large club and butcher knife once I get ahold of them. That should be my next step, now that the gaping dragon is down. Not one Black Knight weapon drop so far, so no BKH for me.

The BKH is amazing. I've gotten lucky on this run; I have both the BK greatsword and the halberd so far. The halberd, though? That thing is brilliant!

For my Strength build I have NO magic whatsoever, I only use a bow to get the bastuds close so I can hit them. Sadly, no BKH drop, only the BKS which has the worst R2 attack I've seen. So I'm dedicated to try out ALL the other Big Boys here. I took my Greataxe through Quelaag, Ceaseless Discharge, made it Divine for the Catacombs, turned it into Fire +5 and used it all the way up through Sen's. Perfectly servicable for PvE, hilariously bad for PvP. If you like to get in the face of the enemy and really, really crush them, Greataxe works fine. That range is really really short though.

I believe I'll alternate between my Greatsword (really good moveset imo) that I'll probably make Lightning and the Man-Serpent Greatsword which seems to have good Str scaling. I'm currently on my way down to buy a Demon Great Machete from Shiva and see how that works.

I started my new strength build the other day and the BKH is as great as I remembered if not better. I'm looking forward to finally taking the Large Club for a spin too, though.

I hit SL 75 last night and with it hit STR 50. This unlocked the the dragon ax and dragon greatsword (gaping and everlasting tail chops, respectively). Certainly not the best weapons damage wise for STR build, but I tell you what, smashing things with the ax is satisfying. It feels more like a giant club. Nice big thwack and driving it into the ground. This reminds me to try out the dragon's tooth. My goal is 58 and to one hand Smough's hammer. Sure, I doubt it would be worth it in the end, but it'll be neat.

I have a Large Club. And 84 dung pies. If hitting them with the stick doesn't work, maybe they'll just keel over from the stench.