Small dexterity weapons advice seeked

I'm working on a new build that is using the small, fast dexterity based weapons, minus the katanas (because I have used them before). I am mostly using the falchion, painting guardian sword, and shotel.

Aside from movesets, in the long term which weapons scale the best? Right now, at +10, the falchion and painting sword are nearly identical except for the bleed. The short range of the painting guardian sword offsets the benefit of bleed, IMO, so I use it for certain enemies but otherwise keep it on the backburner.

Thoughts? Secrets? Opinions? Hilarious unrelated stories?

PGS is my pick.

Then again, that's just me.

The PGS i good but suffers in range compared to other curved swords

The gold Tracer is a very effective curved sword because of its comination of range, speed, bleed and a good moveset

The BSS is another good small Dex weapon that has amazing range and can do alot of damage with its R2 thrusts

^ Yeah I was about to recommend the Tracer also. I was just going through this same thing not long ago and that ended up being what I went with. I think out of the weapons you listed the Falchion ends up doing the most straight damage, but like you said that's offset by not having bleed. If the Tracer is out, and you're choosing from only what you listed, I prefer the Shotel. It's less powerful than the Falchion, but I think the benefit of shield negating outweighs that. The Falchion is a monster in other ways too though. For one thing it rips through poise, I think a lot faster than the Shotel does. I'm not a huge fan of the PGS in general, especially now that the Tracer is out there. I think the Tracer just buries it.

What are your other stats like? The DEX build I just completed was INT/DEX and I ended up experimenting with Velka's Rapier a bit. I was REALLY impressed by it. If you're doing INT also I'd recommend at least trying it out.

The PGS is the strongest curved sword. but it's also the shortest. Some people still love it though. But it'll probably take a while to get used to it.
Personally i prefer QFS. It's one of the weaker curved swords, but it's the longest. And that makes up for the damage IMO.

You should also try the estoc, the BSS, the winged spear (this one is very underrated IMO)

Plasticandrage
Yeah that and the fact that dual weilding Gold Tracers looks so badass and is quite effective too

PlasticandRage wrote:

What are your other stats like? The DEX build I just completed was INT/DEX and I ended up experimenting with Velka's Rapier a bit. I was REALLY impressed by it. If you're doing INT also I'd recommend at least trying it out.

Thanks for the advice, one and all. I am headed for the DLC areas now to grab the gold/silver tracers.

I also noticed, like you said, that the falchion tends to break poise pretty well. For that reason it is my go-to weapon right now. Once you get a hit or two if they stagger you can just keep on going. I am having trouble getting used to the shotel. It just seems kind of slow to me.

I don't do intelligence, I'm just a dummy. My stats for this character are an even spread across VIT, END, and DEX.

I've noticed when fighting Falchion users it seems like it gets crazy phantom reach too. I fought this one guy in the forest at low SL, and I was wearing all heavy armor, and he was wearing light stuff and had a lightning Falchion, and he just completely took me apart. Kept hitting me with quick combo's when I thought he was out of range and he killed my poise so fast I couldn't really even complete my swings. That fight alone is pretty much what sold me on the weapon.

PlasticandRage wrote:I've noticed when fighting Falchion users it seems like it gets crazy phantom reach too. I fought this one guy in the forest at low SL, and I was wearing all heavy armor, and he was wearing light stuff and had a lightning Falchion, and he just completely took me apart. Kept hitting me with quick combo's when I thought he was out of range and he killed my poise so fast I couldn't really even complete my swings. That fight alone is pretty much what sold me on the weapon.

Sounds like that was mostly a lag advantage, but you are right, this weapon is a hidden gem. It makes easy work of most PVE enemies. For instance, the Sen's Fortress snakemen usually require a heavy weapon to stun or I either backstab or parry them, but with the falchion I just attack after they swing and once I get three hits they are stunned, then I can get a few more and I can usually kill them in one attack like this.

I also just tore apart the sanctuary guardian, who up until now I thought to do solo pretty much required ranged weapons.

A downside though, against armored opponets, like the meccha boar, or Artorias, its damage gets nerfed quite a bit. As it says in the description, it is no good against heavy armor or thick scales.

Maybe try making an elemental one too to carry in your inventory for situations like that? Or you could just carry some kind of thrusting weapon. I generally carry a spear around unequipped just as a utility for situations like that. But yeah I've been nothing but impressed with the Falchion. The poor old Scimitar seems pretty much useless in its shadow.

I started the game with a scimitar and was getting destroyed. I am also only using a target shield, but still I just couldn't get used to that weapon.

It could be that I got used to the new style by the time I got to the falchion in Blighttown (though I mostly used a spear until then), but I have no doubt that it is superior. It's the reach and it almost seems a little faster too.

I'm pretty sure by the time they're both upgraded fully the Falchion does more damage too.

Right now my gold tracer is vastly outperforming the falchion, though fully upgrading the gold tracer was easy. I'm still in need of a few chunkies to top off the falchion, then we will see how they compare. I think the falchion will be doing more base damage but without the bleed. The bleed destroys!

The gold tracers strong attack has a really good range and width as well. As awesome as it is, I want a reason to go back to the falchion. I made this build pretty much for the falchion, but right now it just can't compare.

yea the gold tracers bleed is pretty amazing, and unlike the chaos blade it is a lot faster so it is more difficult to roll dodge it.

This build is a ton of fun.

I plus 15'd the falchion and now it is carrying its own weight. I keep them both equipped, and when I fight a bleeder I switch to the Gold Tracer, otherwise the falchion is a bit more powerful, and as mentioned above it tears through poise pretty well.