Dark Souls 3 Build of the Week: Sleepy Hollow
Aug. 9, 2017Dark Souls 3 Build of the Week: Sleepy Hollow
Welcome to our weekly series that features a community submittedDark Souls 3build.Dark Souls 3 build craftingis one of the most enjoyable parts of the game and a big reason for its longevity. Who better to turn to when in need of a new idea than your fellow players? To have your build featured on the blog, you may submit your best setups on ourforum threadand every week we will select one at random to be featured here. Feel free to discuss and debate the build’s strengths and weaknesses but as always be constructive with your fellow Dark Souls players. This week’s build, “Sleepy Hollow” comes from community member announakis and is a Quality/Luck focused build.
This build is designed to tackle both PvE and PvP seamlessly and gives you the versatility to choose from a variety of different weaponry.
You can play all weapons like a Quality build only better because you actually have status build up. Thanks to this you instantly turn 95% bosses into jokes (Dragon Slayer Armor might be the only exception…for this one, switch to frost weapon and revert to facerolling as if nothing happened)
For PvP, you just play normally. Do not try to build up bleed, only switch to Frayed Blade weapon art if you want to finish someone you happened to hit a few times in a row to proc bleed (Frayed Blade build up at 40 luck on a WA R2 is ridiculous) or if you really need to play the running poke game. If someone tries hiding behind a shield you can smile: either you bleed them with the Frayed Blade WA or you revert to Notched Whip WA, your choice.
When you win, you gesture “sleep” just to justify the very bad wordplay on the title.
Objectively, I cannot find any better stat distribution for a quality build that eclectic at this level with such potential for average damage and such insanely advantageous status build up.
Thoughts on this Dark Souls 3 build? Get the discussion going in the comments. Have a Dark Souls 3 build that you think is grossly incandescent? Show us what you’ve got by submitting itin this thread!
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Emergence
Editor at Fextralife. I look for the substantial in gaming and I try to connect video games to the emotions and stories they elicit. I love all things culture and history and have an odd fondness for the planet Jupiter. I think my dogs are pretty awesome too.
It’s indeedworthy!
I’ll bring these builds back I have let them slide xD
well look at this!although the comments are all pretty much negative…ah the souls community…the dream ^_-
your build was shared by the official twitter account for dark souls!
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First of all, I like the thought process that went behind this. I also find that Blood infusion seems to work better with Strength (2H) weapons, though I haven’t tried Hollow on Dex scaling weapons. (I use the Notched Whip. Mostly as an unparriable set-up for combos with a left handed weapon. Lately it’s been the Painting Guardian’s Curved Sword.)
firelink helmetgundyr’s armorgundyr’s gauntletsblack leather leggings
33,66 and it looks pretty damn cool too…
the problem with letting any slot empty in your armor is that you take and extra 20% damage iirc despite this not showing up on the stats screen.
also since then I thought that using the blood warden twinblades would be much better to bleed out people than any other weapon…
If I may, I found a set of armor that reaches 33 poise with the two RH weapons equipped, and the claw and bow as well.
Head: NakedChest: Gundyr’s ArmorHands: Shadow GauntlettsLegs: Leggings of Favor
Nearly pure strength weapons are typically going to be the worst case scenarios for this build.Axes, Hammers, but worth looking at case by case.
Eyeballing the Scaling Factor & Base AR makes it pretty obvious.
Hollow Warpick @ 26 Strength, 40 Dexterity, 40 Luck, 2-handed AR: 406Strength Scaling Factor: 82.6Dex Scaling Factor 15.4Luck Scaling Factor: 22.5Base AR: 129
Loss of like 20% AR
But yeah, otherwise, serviceable quality style build that can also do conditions.
hmmm…I see…it is regrettable but a detail in the grander scheme of things: the fact still holds that with this build you lose very little AR compared to much more specialized builds while gaining a little more build up on bleed form innate bleed weapons + rouge and still having the available option of switching for a blood infused weapon where the benefit of luck is actually considerable.
I maintain that this build is extremely versatile and balanced compared to Strength focused and Dexterity focused builds ^_-
Nope, frost is totally non-scaling. That’s why its base values are so high.
all your points are absolutely valid. I thought about this after you answered my questions in the bleed values thread and in the end, I am actually quite amazed at how well balanced and versatile it all is:
depending on the weapons used, hollow scaling is actually pretty damn decent and comes very close to much more specialized infusions and builds:
exile CGS 66 strength heavy AR=658 vs AR=608 on this buildstill pretty damn decent considering a 26/40 grants 574 AR and 609 AR @ 40/40 on refined infusions.
astora GS 16/70 dex sharp AR=608 vs AR=580 on this buildstill much better than any alternative refined with 530 AR
the hollow infusion is totally good on katanas as everybody knows too:sharp Washing pole on 16/70 dex is 442 vs 437 on this build.
apart from several weapons (like flamberge for example) that perform extremely poorly (as in worse than refined or sharp on same stats), hollow gives you slightly less AR than super specialized build but still a better AR than the refined equivalent PLUS the slight boost in status build-up.
I find it very well balanced to be honest.
now I wonder: does luck affect frost build up as well? because if so, this is an additional advantage to consider and to add to the versatility of the build.
Carthus Greatsword at 10 Luck has ~36 Bleed for all infusions other than Blood at ~73. At 40 Luck: Hollow rises to ~46, other physical infusions ~43, and Blood ~99. Understand that the bleed buildup gains from Luck are not very good other than for Blood infusion.
The 26/40 array in general is efficient, but presumptuous that one should always two-hand for the 1.5x Strength modifier -> 40 Strength soft cap.
Point for point, even with the ‘free’ 10 Luck from hollowing, investing in Str/Dex is always better at gaining AR/damage than going Hollow/Luck (until max level). In the set of patches that tuned many of the infusions, there were no longer any clear outliers like Onikiri that were a superior optimization with a Hollow infusion. Understand that the Hollow infusion will also reduce the scaling factor for Strength, in turn the two handed damage increase will also be less pronounced.
Bleed buildup in PvP works well in a healing fight, and with a partner (team Londor), but is often not enough in a single health bar duel. The Frayed Blade finisher is a good idea, as is also a Blood sidearm that you are confident roll catching with. Many opponents go on the defensive once realizing their bleed bar is filling, and it’s a great opportunity to finish with bleed proc burst.
The Notched Whip vs. shield turtles should notably make use of Impact as well, taking advantage of its stamina debuff which can quickly lead to a guard break.
A high point of this array setup, like standard 40/40 quality, is how well it can use a very wide variety of infusable weapons while including conditions, without too much AR/damage loss vs. their optimal array. It’s quite suitable for someone who likes to carry multiple arms, and/or quickly menu swap to counter or unbalance an opponent. The downside is that uninfusable/twinkling/boss weapons lose a lot of damage efficiency in this setup, as few have conditions or take advantage of Luck.
