Pretty much all the Dark Souls games are known for two things, difficulty and a legion of red phantoms that have spent so long practicing they can wreck your life with nothing but a broken sword and a loin cloth.

While there are many ways players go about making their lives easier, the main way being to ‘Get Good’ as stated in the first commandment of Dark Souls, one method is to optimize your gear. In this list, I’ll be going over ten of the best weapons in Dark Souls 3 and the builds they work best with.

10. Butcher Knife (Strength)

Many people spend their time in Dark Souls 3 trying to give their six pack its own six pack and thus need a weapon to complement how absolutely ripped they get. For these players, there’s the Butcher Knife. Though it has a relatively small base damage, it has one of the best strength scaling in the game, a scaling that improves even more when upgraded to +10. In addition to this, it grants a small amount of health back on every hit, a great bonus in builds that emphasize tanking hits rather than avoiding them. The biggest downside is that despite being the best strength weapon in pve, it is much weaker in pvp due to a fairly predictable move set.

• This weapon drops from the Madwoman in the Road of Sacrifices area

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9. Chaos Blade (Dexterity)

For players trying more to imitate the ninja aspects of a character, nothing fits this build better than a katana. Thankfully, the Chaos Blade is one of the best weapons you can choose when boosting your dexterity to the max. Having a very high base damage to start with, the exceptional dexterity scaling can bring this weapon up to one of the highest damaging dexterity weapons in the game. In addition, it also has the largest bleed effect in the game, making luck a worthwhile stat investment as well. The main downside to this weapon is that it also damages the user for 1% of your hp per strike, though this is countered fairly simply with any of the game’s regen items such as the Sun Princess Ring.

• This weapon is found in the far left corner of the Untended Graves Firelink Shrine area.

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8. Court Sorcerer’s Staff (Intelligence)

While non-physical builds are less common than their more ‘hit-things’ counterparts, intelligence builds have just as much capacity for destruction as any other. For raw, consistent magic damage, the Court Sorcerer’s Staff is always the go-to. While the Sage’s Crystal Staff can outperform with its weapon art active, the Court Sorcerer’s Staff does more damage without the extra cost to use it allowing for more spells to be cast overall. It has the highest spell buff of any staff at 50 intelligence and higher and has the max scaling possible at only a +4 upgrade. While it isn’t as powerful with dark sorceries, it irrefutably outperforms all other options in every other category.

• This weapon drops from a mimic in the toxic swamp area of the Profaned Capitol.

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7. Archdeacon’s Great Staff (Faith)

One of the main downsides of a faith-based build is that many miracles are focused on utility or healing, making progress more difficult. Thankfully, the Archdeacon’s Great Staff has a handy solution for this. The main draw of this staff is that all sorceries cast with it scale with faith rather than intelligence. What this means is that provided you meet the intelligence requirement of the spell; you can cast it just as powerfully as an intelligence build. The main downside of this staff is that it only becomes the most powerful spell casting staff at 90 intelligence, despite always being the best at casting miracles.

• This weapon is obtained at rank 2 with the Deacons of the Deep covenant.

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6. Anri’s Straight Sword (Luck/Hollow)

Sometimes the regular stats just don’t cut it and you’d rather go looking for something a bit more unique. Scaling primarily with luck, Anri’s Straight Sword fits into just the unique build you’re looking for. Scaling massively with luck, despite poor scaling in strength and dexterity, this weapon boasts one of the higher attack ratings in the game at 40 luck, even with only the minimum physical requirements. The miscellaneous effects this sword possesses also make it very useful, dealing an extra 10% damage to hollows and undead, preventing skeletons from respawning, and granting a minor health regeneration effect.

• This weapon is obtained by either killing Anri of Astora or completing their associated questline.

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5. Vordt’s Great Hammer (Frost)

Moving on from builds based around a certain stat, some players like to make their builds around a certain effect. Very few weapons cause frostbite, but Vordt’s Great Hammer is one of them. Being the strongest frostbite weapon, able to trigger the effect in only two or three hits, it also has a very high damage output, making it a deadly weapon for how early in the game it can be acquired. Skillful use of this weapon can decimate players and enemies alike incredibly quickly.

• This weapon is acquired through transposing the Soul of Boreal Valley Vordt.

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4. Manikin Claws (Blood/Poison)

Those looking to create a build around bleed or poison effects are among the most sadistic players in Dark Souls. The manikin claws excel at both these effects and are therefore a perfect choice for torturing those you intend to defeat. This weapon already comes with the ability to cause bleed damage but can be infused further to cause even greater bleed, making it one of the most powerful bleed weapons in the game, or infused with poison as most experience players will try to combine these effects that are usually weak on their own. Though they have a low physical damage output, their speed will allow you to build the effects up quickly enough to counteract this downside.

• This weapon is dropped by both the Londor Pale Shade and the Dark Spirit of Londor.

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3. Mendicant’s Staff (Soul Gain)

Though there are many items that can increase the souls gained from all sources, this is the only weapon with the effect. The Mendicant’s staff is therefore the go-to weapon for any soul farming build. Though fairly weak as a combat weapon, it nevertheless boosts all souls gained by 20%, a very decent amount and made even better when combined with items such as the Silver Serpent Ring as all these bonuses stack. Unfortunately, this weapon is very rare, so it is recommended to boost your item discovery before attempting to get it.

• This weapon drops from the Man-Serpent Summoner’s in Archdragon Peak.

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2. Crystal Sage’s Rapier (Item Discovery)

While certainly not the best damaging weapon in the game, scaling quite well with intelligence, the Crystal Sage’s Rapier is instead sought after for its other effect. This weapon grants its wielder a boost of 50 to their item discovery, making it significantly easier to get items to drop from enemies, including rare items that would otherwise be difficult to acquire. This effect stacks with other items, such as the Gold Serpent Ring, even stacking with its own effect if a second one is wielded at the same time.

• This weapon can be transposed from the Soul of a Crystal Sage.

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1. Millwood Greatbow (Ranged)

Finally, we come to ranged weapons, and thus the greatest among them, the Millwood Greatbow. Ironically, this bow has the shortest range of any bow making it the least ranged range weapon in the game. This is more than made up for in its damage output, however. Even just meeting the stat requirements to wield this bow gives a greater damage output than its closest contender, the Dragonslayer Greatbow.

• This weapon can be found in the Snowfield.

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