I dunno about the best, but arcane is feeling very strong. Cleared out over half the bosses RL125 with 50vig/16str/20dex/15fth/57arc.

Mostly wapping between Venomous Fangs with bleed infusion and the Great Katana with poison infusion. Doing it this way gives me both bleed/poison on both weapons.

Both weapons using the new ash of war Poison Blooms Twice. Alternatively you could buff the Great Katana and put either Seppuku or Poison Mist with Bloodflame blade. I also like to dual wield the Hoslow whips using the occult affinity but I might just make them both poison.

After trying forever to learn Radahn 2.0 moveset while using DMGS..I decided to just try the ice perfume bomb strategy.

It works and is probably the best int weapon for burst damage with a certain (probably broken) ash of war. RL125 no summons only spells were Terra Magica and Miriam's Vanishing. 50vigor, 67int, 23mnd/end.

Swap to relevant talismans, drink physic with bonus magic damage and extra defense, boiled crab, drop Terra Magica outside the fog gate, drink ironjar aromatic, walk thru and dodge the spiral dive bomb or re-cast Terra Magica and drink fp. Blast the floor repeatedly.

Phase 2 walk forward while casting Terra Magica heal hp/fp while eating the holy aoe, blast the floor a couple times but be ready to reapply ironjar aromatic and heal immediately, then just drop more bombs might have to heal more. He never had time to do the meteor attack.

I kinda feel your pain OP. I wanted to use a new weapon on my INT build, but DMGS really just still owns everything imo. Iron Cleaver with the latest axe updates tho has been a very impressive addition to the aresenal. Swings very fast and the R2 is still hilariously strong. My int build only runs with 13dex so I don't use a bunch of weapons like Moonveil, Wing of Astel, etc. The new fist martial weapons are kinda fun and of course the ice perfume.

The new spells are very strong tho and have good range.

I think it was a fair nerf to be honest cus it was kinda OP just L2 everything for very little fp. I actually do swing the weapon and the buff still helps increase damage of the weapon strikes. If you're only relying on the L2 then yea I get how this weapon is not as good for people anymore.

I have other weapons like multiple Knights Greatsword's, Clayman's Harpoon, Iron Cleaver, a couple of the new fist martial weapons, the ice perfume, etc. They all have their pros/cons, but only the knight's greatsword beats DMGS on AR and just barely. I like to swap out weapons depending on what I'm fighting and to try out other ashes of war, but for actual boss fights its DMGS like 99% of the time.

The moonveil got hit with the nerf bat on the last patch transient moonlight is worse now too.

I think it depends on your playstyle cus DMGS just kills everything for me at rl125.

Meanwhile I've killed every boss with it with no problems at rl 125 and and I'm still missing a couple levels of scadu fragments. It's still the best int weapon imo.

My int build at rl125 has been wrecking shop so far. But I'm still not done with the dlc yet. I think I have 3 more bosses to kill. Not many new weapons tho for int builds, but there are a couple hybrid int weapons for dex and for fth.

I've been using the Darkmoon Greatsword, new fist weapon with frost and the new frost perfume. Some of the new spells are very strong.

There's a lot of int/fth stuff I want to try out so that will probably be my next run or maybe str/fth.

Try using phantom slash it uses a similar play style and it's a very low cost ash of war. Just buff and L2 everything to death.

I actually used this skill on a certain mounted boss to dodge some attacks. And on another optional boss that has a tough to dodge aoe.

Haven't tried it in the colosseum but invasions had a couple funny surprise moments hah

Fire knight great sword. It's broken so use it now cus it will 100% be nerfed soon

You're friend is a moron. Str/int is just as viable as dex/int. Iykyk. People sorta like to hate moonveil builds tho cus they were kinda everywhere at one point for most PVP int builds even tho like 75% of them or more didn't really know how to use it in a real fight.

Doesn't matter that your build is. If you can beat the game at rl125 then your build is a valid one. If you need to go over 150 to make your build work then you're playing on easy mode or your build is broken or you're relying too much on summons... Or skill issue.

Facts don't care about feelings. Imagine Miyazaki making an easy mode for any game lol. Will never happen.

Broken and brain dead? Just go on YouTube and lookup whatever L2 works for your setup and win.

That being said doesn't matter what your build is cus if it's good or bad you're going to find out pretty quick after a few invasions if you're able to kill or not. Just cus your build is more optimized doesn't mean you'll win cus skill is still an issue.. Unless you're using that one sword that's hella broken and will prolly get nerfed very soon. But if you get that sword now you'll win a lot.. But does it matter?

Bad start took 250 to get Anora and Brokkir.

Then got Lucius and Boreas from 10 legendary summon crystals

I got worse. 250 summons to get her and Brokkir right before I went into work. I should've tried AFTER work in case this happened cus I was like WTF all night hah.

Your split damage is kinda holding you back a bit. That and low vigor. All my hybrid type builds run at 50 vigor at rl125 and you'll want 60 if you go to 150.

There's a new staff that scales off int and arcane but as for weapons your going to want to use weapons the have natural bleed on them and then buff them with frost or magic damage. This is if you don't want to respec your stats.

If you're open to respec, drop the int and try to get high arcane and dex. You'll get higher physical damage and get more bleed. Poison also works this way if you want to take advantage of both bleed/poison.

Or drop the arcane and go caster/fighter with the minimum str and dex for whatever weapon you like and pump more into int.

Upgrading gear to level 16 can cost you upwards towards a million so save up

At least you don't have to waste levels into it

There's a couple 1 shot boss kill builds for mages one using Carian Grandeur and the other using the Death Poker. Can modify either of those to your playstyle. Staff of loss with night comet setup is pretty strong too but mostly cus enemies don't dodge this spell.

A fun Astrologer build I like to use is rl125: 50vig, 25end, 24mnd, 14str, 12dex, 63int, fth7, arc9 mainly a Moonlight Greatsword build with Regal Scepter. I use the head piece that gives+2str/int. You can prolly play with the stats a lil to get more int or vig.

Mainly used Carian knight sword for the first half or so of the game. Clayman's Harpoon is a pretty good weapon as well to slap a useful ash of war on. If you want an easier start get a shield and the shield spell buff and guard counter almost everything. Pure casting builds early game can be kinda rough cus of lack of estus and fp.

Desktops are great, but there are times when I need to grab the laptop for whatever work that needs to be done. Plus the footprint is a lot smaller, drawing less power, etc. I treat it more like a console while gaming on it but I don't only game on the laptop.

Gaming laptops have come a long way but you still need to plug in to a wall to play any semi demanding game for longer than 30 mins. So with your logic no one would buy a gaming laptop just get a desktop.

I've always had a desktop at home honestly but I lost everything in a fire almost a year ago and the laptop has helped keep everything convenient and even with the 4060 it plays everything I throw at it well.

I'm the same as you and a lot of others yo I dunno why you got down voted for being honest in your runs.

I disagree. I have a couple faith builds and a couple int builds that are all 125 and are very strong.

Def not impossible far from it

I'm a lil older and have played all the Dark Souls games. The 'meta' level was like 120-125 for them all for a few reasons. All my characters are 125 or lower besides 1 character I brought to 150 in Elden Ring.

Edit: I think some you tube streamers when the game came out introduced the 150 cap.

I laughed at some of these posts saying we probably just ran thru the game and didn't kill all the bosses or explored everything was pretty funny reading how some of you think.

PvP was weird but damn it was fun. If you wanted to be in the largest pool of players you'd stay around 120.

Builds. To have a build you have to make sacrifices. If your 'build' allows you to use every weapon and spell/incantation then it's not a build.. It's just overpowered or playing easy mode. The best part about these games are making new builds for me so I stay mostly at 125 max.

All that said there has always been players who leveled passed 125 in all the games. You can play however you like and now that Elden Ring has reached a ton of players there are probably lots of people in all kinds of level ranges compared to ds1 thru 3.

Not sure yet haven't tried em but I think all axes got buffed last patch

The irony of this comment telling us to touch grass while he's labeling us as leftist to justify people thinking he's a fucking dipshit is just peak Reddit and why I'm here I dunno about you guys