Dark Souls 3 Weapon Infusion Guide
The Coals and Gems sections of this guide is intended to be used for reference and contains minor spoilers (the locations of where the item can be found); the real content of this guide can be found under Best Scaling Weapon Infusions.
Coals
Coals are required to unlock certain weapon infusions from Andre the Blacksmith.
| Coal | Unlocks | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Farron Coal | Heavy, Sharp, Poison | Road of Sacrifices, behind the black knight in the first swamp. |
| Sage's Coal | Crystal, Blessed, Deep | Farron Keep, left side from the bonfire, inside a circular building guarded by a dark wraith. |
| Profaned Coal | Dark, Bleed, Hollow | Irithyll Dungeon, before the dragon shortcut near the room with six jailers (and Kayla). |
| Giant's Coal | Lightning, Simple, Chaos | Anor Londo, giant blacksmith corpse, left side of large gate near bonfire |
Gems
| Gem | Resin/Buff? | Effect | Farm Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shriving Stone | - | Removes infusion | Road of Sacrifices and Farron Keep, dropped from harpies (feathered enemies) |
| Refined Gem | Yes | Improves strength and dex scaling, lowers base damage | High Wall of Lothric, red-eyed knight outside of the Dancer bonfire. |
| Heavy Gem | Yes | Improves strength scaling, lowers base damage | High Wall of Lothric, most common hollows. Farron Keep, slugs and tall swamp mosters in the poison swamp. |
| Sharp Gem | Yes | Improves dexterity scaling, lowers base damage | Catacombs of Carthus, red-eyed skeletons |
| Raw Gem | Yes | Increases base damage, removes scaling | High Wall of Lothric, most common hollows. |
| Fire Gem | No | Adds fire damage, lowers base damage, removes scaling | Undead Settlement, scarecrows. Smouldering Lake, lava/red slugs. |
| Deep Gem | No | Adds dark damage, lowers base damage, removes scaling | Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, deacons. Cathedral of the Deep, thralls. |
| Poison Gem | No | Adds poison aux, lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | Farron Keep, giant demon dogs. Farron Keep, slugs in the poison swamp. |
| Blood Gem | No | Adds bleed aux, lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | LOC?, enchanted blade Irithyllian Slaves |
| Crystal Gem | No | Adds magic damage (FAI/INT scaling), lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | Road of Sacrifices, sorcerer hollows in Crucifixion Woods (near the Crystal Sage boss) |
| Simple Gem | No | Adds INT scaling, adds passive FP regeneration, lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | Irithyll Dungeon, jailers. |
| Lightning Gem | No | Adds lightning damage (FAI/INT scaling), lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | Archdragon Peak, larger enemies near the Nameless King boss. Archdragon Peak, most enemies. |
| Blessed Gem | Yes | Adds FAI scaling, adds passive HP regeneration, lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | High Wall of Lothric, winged knight before the courtyard. Undead Settlement, evangelist (AKA pilgrim, or Dorhys) Lothric Castle, Lothric Priests and Lothric Knights. Farron Keep, Corvian Storyteller. Grand Archives, golden winged knights. |
| Chaos Gem | No | Adds fire damage (FAI/INT scaling), lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | Smouldering Lake, goat demons. |
| Dark Gem | No | Adds dark damage (FAI/INT scaling), lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | Highwall of Lothric, mutated undead. Lothric Castle, mutated undead. |
| Hollow Gem | Yes | Increases luck scaling, adds luck when hollow (based on weapon level), lowers base damage, lowers STR/DEX scaling | Road of Sacrifices, staff wielding corvians (harpies) |
Note: Gems from all farmable locations are rare drops.
Bows, crossbows, tailisman, charms, staves, pyromancy flame, or anything that upgrades with Twinkling Titanite or Titanite Scale cannot be infused.
Best Scaling Weapon Infusions
Don't freak out if your favorite weapon isn't on any of the lists below, the weapons listed are not necessarily mean the best weapons in the game (they just scale extremely well with certain infusions). A weapon's moveset and range has a huge impact on a weapon's viability and this does not take that into account. Also, since boss weapons cannot be infused, you will not see any of those weapons either.
General Scaling
Any Scaling Infusions
The following weapons are considered the best scaling weapons in Dark Souls 3. Most will scale A in STR or DEX when heavy or sharp infused, B/B when refined, S in INT or FAI when crystal or lightning, and A/A in INT/FAI when dark or chaos infused.
Note: Dark Sword, Lothric Knight Sword, and Painting Guardian's Curved Sword scale B/B when dark or chaos infused.
Astora Greatsword (16/18/0/0)
The staple weapon for Dark Souls 3 scaling weapons, the Astora Greatsword has reasonable strength and dexterity requirements and a decent moveset. Although you might want to consider a slightly worse scaling Dark Sword for a slightly faster moveset, this greatsword is still a really good option (especially for the 3 extra points in DEX, that can be made up by using the Carthus Milkring in most builds).
Winged Spear (12/15/0/0)
From a purely data standpoint, Winged Spear makes a solid case for being one of the weapons in Dark Souls 3. It scales extremely well regardless of infusion, has extremely low stat requirements, has a weapon art that cannot be interrupted (also known as hyper armor), and can be used with the Leo Ring.
Murakumo (20/18/0/0)
The Murakumo is a little bit of a disappointment in Dark Souls 3, it has a questionable moveset and requires a heavy investment into strength and dexterity. I'd pass on using it, but it's still listed in this section because of how well it scales.
Carthus Curved Greatsword (22/18/0/0)
One of the few solid scaling weapons with an auxillery effect, the Carthus Curved Greatsword has a few notable drawbacks: (1) high stat requirements if you're not using a quality build, (2) subpar weapon art, (3) slow and heavy, and (4) heavy.
Even though this weapon scales well, you should only really consider using it for high vitality, quality builds.
Dark Sword (16/15/0/0)
Along with the Estoc and Washing Pole, the Dark Sword is regarded as one of the best weapons in Dark Souls 3. The same argument can be made for this weapon that was made for the Winged Spear, it just has Stomp as it's weapon art (which is normally reserved for greatswords) instead of charge.
Lothric Knight Sword (11/18/0/0)
It's the Balder Side Sword (BSS) from Dark Souls and if you know anything about that game, you'll know about the BSS. A slightly less stat intensive weapon than the Astora Greatsword, you'll miss out on some of the sweeping attacks for thrust attacks (not always abad thing).
Painting Guardian's Curved Sword (7/19/0/0)
The Painting Guardian's Curved Sword (PGCS) is one if, if not, the best scaling weapon in the game. It attacks really fast, but has almost no range. Extremely similar to the Bandit's Knife, it's not really a viable weapon because you'll never hit anything with it.
Physical Scaling
Heavy, Sharp, Refined
The following weapons scale best for strength, dexterity, or quality builds.
Drang Hammers (18/16/0/0)
In addition to the fact that Drang Hammers are great for any strength and/or dex build, they also have one of the best movesets in the game. Dual-wielding (two-handing) this weapons has a nice stun/knockdown on its second attack.
Gothhard Twinswords (12/18/0/0)
Gothhard Twinswords are the speed counterpart to the Drang Hammers. A dex style weapon that works well for strength builds as well, the twinswords are extremely fast (especially when using the rolling attack).
Zweihander (19/11/0/0)
The Zweihander is another classic Dark Souls weapon and great for strength builds. It's a little slow, but its moveset is solid and the weapon art, Stomp, is very good.
Long Sword (10/10/0/0)
The long sword is simple but effective; it's one of the rare early game weapons that can make it through the entire game and still be extremely useful.
The broadsword is pretty much the same weapon, with longer range and just a little slower; a refined-infused one scales C/C instead of B/B (and sharp is C/C instead of C/B).
Great Club (28/0/0/0)
Another classic Dark Souls weapon, the Great Club sees a few improvements in this installment of the game. The Great Club scales both for strength and dexterity builds (I'm not sure why it scales well when sharp-infused, but whatever, it does). The Warcry weapon art is a strong attack rating (AR) buff and improves the moveset during its duration.
Exile Greatsword (24/16/0/0)
Similar to the Great Club, the Exile Greatsword has some odd weapon infusions; it's another strength-type weapon that scales better as a dex weapon (sharp-infusion).
Reinforced Club (12/0/0/0)
The reinforced club lacks sufficient range for a lot of strength and quality builds, but makes up for it with its bleed effect (it's one of the only weapons that scales well and has a bleed effect). It's extremely useful against bosses for this reason.
Note: The scales identical to the reinforced club, requires 10 STR, but has no bleed auxillery effect.
Elemental Scaling
Crystal, Lightning, Chaos, and Dark
Remember that Astora Greatsword, Winged Spear, Murakumo, Dark Sword, Lothric Knight Sword, and the Painting Guardian's Curved Sword from the General Scaling section scale S in crystal and lightining, and scale well here.
Great Corvian Scythe (16/18/0/0)
The Great Corvian Scythe scales S for crystal and lightning infusions and A/A for chaos and dark infusions. It also has a bleed auxillery effect and somewhat low stat requirements. However, it's moveset is kind of bad for PvP.
Special Effect Scaling
Simple and Blessed
Simple and blessed weapons (and shields) are normally used for their other effects, not really for their damage. That being said, most weapons that have good elemental scaling (see the previous section) also scale well for simple and blessed infusions; weapons that normally scale S as crystal, lightning, chaos, or dark scale A with simple or blessed infusions.
Great Corvian Scythe (16/18/0/0)
The Great Corvian Scythe is the only weapon in the game that scales S in INT or FAI depending on the simple or blesssed scaling. See the elemental scaling section for more information.
Auxillery Infusions
Blood and Poison
For the most part, any weapon that already has an auxillery effect benefits from blood or poison infusions. Infusing a weapon with blood or poison adds or increases the auxillery effect of that item, but at a slightly lower value than buffing the weapon using a buff/resin. That being said, it's still better to use Carthus Rouge or Human Pine Resin instead.
Bandit's Knife (6/12/0/0)
Due to the speed of the Bandit's Knife, it is arguably the highest damage weapon in the game; like the Painting Guardian's Curved Sword, it's range is way too short to be a great weapon. A poison or blood infused Bandit's Knife can come in handy during specific situations, like PvP against Greatshield or in boss fights.
Washing Pole (18/20/0/0) & Uchigatana (11/16/0/0)
The Washing Pole and the Uchigatana are lumped together since they are pretty much the same weapon, there's just a trade-off of weight and stats for range (and you're probably better off going with the Washing Pole). Both of these weapons also make great quality build weapons (40 STR/40 DEX) and work well when refined but scale slightly worse that the weapons mentioned in the above section.
Other Notable Weapons
Crystal Saint Bident (12/12/0/16, scales E/E/C/C)
While E/E/C/C isn't anything all that special, the unique thing about the Saint Bident is that it maintains its faith (FAI) scaling even when crystal infused.
References
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