Opinions on upgrade path for dex weapons

I have a new build I'm working toward, and my goal is to hit 50 faith and 40 Dex. I'm mostly doing this to try out the faster cast times, but I'm curious about a few weapons, three in particular: Estoc, Balder Side Sword, and Bandit Knife. I can either make these Divine to get the scaling of both Faith and Dex, or just go with +15 for the Dex scaling. I assume that going the Dex route also depends on using miracles to buff the blade. Typically, I don't do a lot of buffing, since people will just wait until it dies out. Which upgrade path do you prefer for this type of build?

+15 would be better even without buff.

TehInfamousAmos wrote:+15 would be better even without buff.

Because you're only going through one set of defenses?

It seems like Stockpile said it best "Split damage is crap" or something like that lol. I have a lot of magic weapons and basically the game lies to you . It will say your divine weapon has 40 more AR than your +15 regular weapon. But when you test them , the +15 almost always does more damage , the only time this is not true is if an enemy is very weak to a specific type of damage. Like skeles and Divine. But then you need to know all weaknesses and have to constantly switch weapons based on area. So as Infamous said +15 is going to be much more consistant and give you better damage most of the time and yes because it is only applying to Phys Def instead of Phys Def and Mag Def.

I'm with Amos, definitely +15. And if you're having a hard time allocating your stat points and debating whether to cut in Dex or Fth, cut in Fth! Go 40 Dex, and potentially 30 Fth. Also: try the Painting Guardian Sword--awesome weapon! That, and the Bandit's Knife, are my favorite weapons.

unless you where going with the minimum required stats to weild the weapon, like i did with my soliare char(12 str and 12 dex) then reg wins out. my accult sunlight straite sword is by far the strongest weapon i have on him but i have only 12 str and 12 dex, but 50 faith.

Try the Gargoyle's Tail Axe, it's pretty damn strong and has a good moveset, great Dex weapon and it looks really cool!

Are you looking for PvE or PvP?

Dono how relevant this is here, but if you go down the Int route instead Enchanted weps scale a crazy amount!!!

The +15 route is always better if you have buffs so my suggestion is use that. The partizan is a rather nice weapon to use as is the balder side sword. The bandit knife would be for critical hits only which would limit a buffs usefulness. The scimitar/falchion also work well.
In short: use and quick weapon as that will get the most use out of your buff.

The strongest weapon upgrade is +15 (not including crystal). It is stronger than any other upgrade path (assuming a Dex and/or Str is at 40). And, you can buff them. You can't look at AR. You have to look at actual damage output.

Now, critical attacks are different. Chaos and Lightning paths can often have higher crit damage than the +15. It may be because split damage isn't calculated into the critical bonus.

Thanks for the info, everyone. That helps a lot.