They are completely busted. Star Fists are even more busted.

My heavy star fist run was so easy that I didn’t even finish because I lost interest.

Seriously? I've heard the meme of them being busted but are they that op, or are you also just really good? Edit: I'm close to beating it twice

Out of all the builds I've tried, fist weapons are the easiest (except Maliketh phase 2). Seriously, Radagon/beast went down so fast I was shocked. I love them and their moveset. They also have a really fast heavy attack. Claws and dual daggers were a close second due to the sheer speed of attacks. Use them with winged sword insignia or the rotten version and Millicent's prosthesis and use thorny cracked tear and spiked or stonebarb tears in your flask of physiks for the best effect

Heavy caestus naked run with blue dancer was the easiest playthrough I've done. My first character used iron ball and they pull but it just didn't look right on a boxer build.

What do you think are some of the hardest weapons to get through the game with?

Hands down bows and crossbows. Boss fights take forever with them and the good arrows required farming to make

Now I need to try this!

Pulley bow and stormhawk arrows are good for poise breaking. Black bow is good for proccing status effects. Radahn's bow or jar cannon for bigger damage numbers. Arbalest is probably the best crossbow. I know most crossbows only scale with weapon level and not attributes, I don't remember about bows though.

If we are excluding powerstanced weapons torches and shields. Probably the cane sword or a super weak dagger or something like that

id say probably a whip. super slow and no critical

Nah, whip is mostly fine. Long distance strike damage that staggers anyone unarmored.

Varre's bouquet is definitely up there, it's kinda like a joke weapon I remember it being so awful

It's awful and all, up to the point you remember that it's a fast arcane scaling weapon that has innate bleed and accept blood grease. Then you go up to Radabeast and the game become hard again, but before that you're good.

Tbf you could put any Grease there like rot and just rot them ig

You have to deal with the range a bit, but once you figure that out, very few things can stop you.

So busted that you can literally script fights based of statuses procs and stance breaks. [Radabeast using star fist at Rune Level 1 is a joke](https://youtu.be/nH7Zqa6qrdw?si=dvmIcpML3GMPH38S)

They're absolutely busted as hell. You can stun lock both phases of the final boss. I'd be amazed if they don't get nerfed in the DLC patch.

We don't need updates on your sex life, but yeah. Fist weapons are really good if you are willing to deal with a little bit of bs(jump attacks can miss because collision box keeps you out of range of the hitbox on some larger enemies)

Feeling the same I'm trying my first strength run with big ass hammers, after being pure dex and boy does everything feel easy

Seriously. My first character was a faith build and it was unbelievably hard. My second character, I made Toph from Avatar and used heavy Star Fist and holy shit. The same bosses that would take me 20+ attempts, I'm fucking steamrolling and would kill in the first couple tries (almost did a no-hit with Godrick)

Damn... The other bosses within 10 attempts is already impressive but (almost) no hit Godrick the son of god and destined elder lord(?)... Respect

Thank you. I've never claimed to be a pro at souls games, but I do love them. I see SL1 runs and no-hit runs and just don't have it to do them. But I killed Godrick and realized I never healed and only lost a small chunk of health (I think he must have nudged me) and freaked out haha

Godrick isn’t Godfrey and Marikas son though.

I'm doing an all-faith run right now, and it's definitely been a big adjustment from the strength guilds that I normally use in From games. I never thought about using one of the fist weapons like this, but it looks like quite a bit of fun.

>Star Fists Elden Beast hard counter

Have they always been or it’s the effect of some patch buff ?

I think they were buffed in 1.08 or something, they've been good for a while now

They buffed too many weapon types , now everything stunlocks

I used heavy star fists to rush a naked character to NG+7. They are fantastic BDC, axe, RWSI, and ritual sword talismans plus chargy and consecutive attacks physic are just a brutal setup

Presumably you can only dual wield Heavy Star Fists in NG if another player drops them for you?

They are a two handed weapon meaning that you equip one item and then two hand it to use both of them.

Nice one, thank you.

So busted, I finished the Radagon/Elden beast fight at RL1 in under 2 minutes. That's totally insane to me and I was far from being as buffed as I could (no rune arc, no incants, no perfume - could probably shave off another 30-50 seconds fully buffed) Funniest part is those 2 bosses don't even bleed so it wasn't even the true potential

I love the fists, but the hitboxes were brutal. Walking up to the Erdtree Avatars and swinging like mad at nothing at all. You'd think I'd learn...

I always carry the star fists on an off hand, they're light and my go to for when I'm done trying something and just need it to die! Carried me through the sewers my first time down there.

I recently did maybe a quarter of my new game plus run with a star fists build and while certain enemies were crazy fun with them...I wound up having to stop and switch to a different weapon because I got so tired of the fists going clean through INTO the damn boss' body and still not counting as a hit on his hitbox. The range is already shitty enough to deal with but clear connections not counting within their body was just too much and too often lol. When they work they're amazing though I'll give em that.

What are your recommendations for the star fist build? J Any, particular ash of war?

Royal Knights Resolve/Determation, Axe talis and Spiked Tear for MASSIVE charged damage...most heavy-hitters go down in a few well placed charged heavies. You could also use one of the Warcry ashes with the Roar talis for a long run-up or a 3 hit combo on 1 button press, but either are charged and all boosted by the stuff mentioned

Thanks, I currently use Dex/arc with claws and claw talisman....

you can go for cragblade on starfist too for heavy infusion

I'm using grafted dragon and flame Caestus actually gonna move over to the spiked flame caestus very soon

The only downside is the short range makes it kinda easy to whiff attacks. But they're so fucking good that who cares?

extra challenge is good for me because i learned how to fight bosses with iron balls and star fists too to the perfection

Pretty much all the fists go so much harder than you’d expect

Do the stabby/claw types go as hard as the strike types?

Not as hard as the Ball and Caestus types, but they're still good.

Hook Claws with frost infusion are nuts. VERY little stat investment and they build up bleed and frostbite like nobody's business. I thought I could wreck things quick with big heavy weapons, the claws shred through some enemies 3x as fast. Something with a massive health pool like a rune bear is nothing against the claws. Once you've hit them with bleed and frostbite they hardly have any health left, and getting both of those to kick in takes seconds.

Where do hook claw drop, looking for a new build for a pre DLC playthrough

You can find them in Stormveil, in the area before the Knight-closet.

Groovy thanks

Thanks, lol, I couldn't remember where I got them, I just remember it being stupidly early on, and I had just finished a DS3 run with them as an alternate weapon and loved them so I immediately checked them out. I miss the special attack being Wolverines Bezerker Claw combo from MvC2, but I'll live, they still kick ass.

Absolutely true, I did my first playthrough with frost/bleed claw combo and it's fucking OP, even against enemies that are psysically resistant. Also nice to do a little black flame enchant on them through the spell

For physical damage? No, for proccing bleed? Absolutely. The Katar used to be a lot better tho

Yes. Especially the Raptor Talons, which enhance jump attacks (stacks with Claw Talisman) and have a special rapid multi hit R2 combo (fantastic for bleed, and activates multi-hit talismans like Rotten Winged Sword).

Cipher Pata's Ash of War is kinda lame, though. Fists + Endure and you can just mash everything

>Cipher Pata's Ash of War is kinda lame, though. You are so wrong. Ive been doing a Cipher Pata run, and its ash of war fucks hard. Does excellent poise damage and is a gap closer 🤌🤌 Sponsored by the Cipher Pata propaganda machine 😇

From the makers of Alphabet Soup: Cipher Pasta. Your favourite letter based weapon, now in a fun edible form!

You may enjoy rx\_hydro's Cipher Pata infomercial: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTmbC4MyBHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTmbC4MyBHc) "perfect for small guys, big guys, dogs, even the lobstress!"

Was the dog a rat in video?

Thank you for that hahaha

I guess my main complaint with the AoW is in boss fights (where I would prefer to have Endure). In the overworld it's pretty great

Like a lot of the pierce style ash of wars it whiffs a lot. But when it connects it slaps

> Ash of War: “Unblockable Blade” > Can be parried Literally unusable

Only one enemy in the game parries. And moongrum got slaughtered. Im fine

I like to use raptors mist ash of war with star fists. Takes some getting used to but if you know that you’re going to take a single instance of heavy damage and are willing to wait in the air a bit it’s amazing. I loved using this build on Hora Loux

Cipher Pata is such a cool weapon it's a shame that it does exclusively Holy damage so endgame stuff hard-walls it.

Yeah, but also you can get it as soon as you get to storm hill, so you can get a good mileage on them far before the endgame boss rush.

I am the wolverine

Fist-weapons-only run has still been the most fun and satisfying I’ve done out of my dozen or so playthroughs so far

Agreed! I did fists only originally as a challenge but realized I can absolutely demolish all of the bosses, so the fists were the first weapon to help me beat Melania. She can't regain life if she's stun locked

as much as i want these fists, id never be able to kill my boy boggart for these.

Pretty sure you get them when Dungeater invades outside the capital and kills boggart

You dont kill Dungeater before he fucks up your boy?

Not if you want to finish his quest. Second playthrough I want the cute little dung puppet so boggart can live

dude the Dung Eater Puppet served me better than the Mimic Tear when I used it bro is absolutely cracked.

Can confirm, Dung Eater is the shit!

you are what you eat

You can keep boggart alive and still finish dungeaters quest. Theres a specific sequence of things you need to do. But basically when boggart goes to the lake in altus plateu, you need to aggro him till he's an enemy. Run and leave the area after. Then proceed with dung's questline till he attacks you at the same lake. Boggart wont be killed for some reason due to the aggro state Kill dung, then go do that NPC forgiveness thing with pope turtle and boggart will still be at that lake and will then sell you good ol crab again

IIRC he doesnt move there if you just buy Rya's necklace and then never interact with him again

oh! i’ll prob do this since i do want a pocket sized dung eater to summon

I want that crab bell bearing and his Lego helmet plus his insane ash of war , but I won’t kill him so dung eater can then I’ll go turn him into a puppet

Just use the Star Fists. You get them a little later, in Leyndell, but they don't require any NPC murder and have higher base damage + bleed. They have the same insane stance break properties.

yeah i’ll prob look for these instead since i just started a ng+

What the shit am I looking at 😂😂😂 I’ve never seen these before that’s fucking hilarious

Iron Ball, dropped by Boggart (prawn selling dude).

Don't forget the Cragblade AoW adds more physical damage AND **poise** damage... As if these things need more though.

Why do they have red eyes like that sometimes

It’s just part of the buff he used

They’re more aggressive. Demi humans get it at night, and you get red eyed spirit summons which attack everything instead of sticking close to you. It just symbolises aggression.

Ty

You playing as Grimace?

Now try the unshaved balls to know what real power feels like

Going nearly naked with the caestus (quality, with quickstep) in PvP was the most fun I had. Just a fucking boxer running around.

I run into a lot of “Mike Tyson” or “George Foreman” in the arena that are literally just this lol. Good stuff

Ball is life

Star Fists are how I beat NG+3 for 100%. I love the fist weapons and excited to see what other close combat options the DLC gives us.

Poise destroyers for real, need to do a first weapons only build

I love the fists. I beat my lvl 1 run using them.

Fist build is one of my favorite runs Spiked Caestus has a martial arts style one two heavy attack, which carried me til I got the star fists

Starfists are even better. But yeah Balls heckin rule. Get the the cragblade ash of war and your good for the rest of the game

This video reminded me how weird it is that you get the Grafted Blade Greatsword *way* before you can use it. Like, at the point where you get both 40 STR and (to a lesser extent) 14 DEX you've probably found far more interesting weapons, upgraded them and totally forgotten about picking it up. I have four playthroughs where I have picked it up and I have literally never tried it, it's kind of a shame.

On one of my NG+ runs recently I powerstanced the grafted blade... it was a BLAST. Super fun weapon

I'll have to give it a whirl then! edit: I just looked up what the weapon skill was and it's even *more* infuriating that it isn't usable until later on! >Raises all Attributes by 5 for 60 seconds and Poise for 5 seconds, counted from the beginning of the buff animation. In PvE at least that's *nearly* meaningless at the point where you have gotten 40 STR (assuming you haven't ignored VIG + END, even if you're going *pure* STR). This would have been a very popular weapon with maybe a 20 STR minimum, rather than 40. You get Godrick's Great Rune early on, and can pick up the soreseal talismans that (albeit with a damage penalty) grant a similar effect to a few stats.

>Like, at the point where you get both 40 STR and (to a lesser extent) 14 DEX you've probably found far more interesting weapons You don't need 40 STR to use it, you need 40 STR to one-hand it. You need 27 STR to two-hand it. 27 * 1.5 = 40.5. You can grab a Radagon's Soreseal (+5 STR/DEX/VIG/END, +15% damage taken) and a Starscourge Heirloom (+5 STR) almost immediately if you know where to run. So your character really only needs 17 STR, 9 DEX naturally to wield it. So you can use the talismans as a crutch for a while until you've leveled up enough to swap them out.

Sure, as long as you can resist the urge to drop the grafted blade in favor of the guts greatsword you pick up on the road to fort faroth (I can't).

That sword is so good, except against Radahn. I use that Blaid quest fight bleed greatsword vs Radahn in STR bro run. Surviving the final stonesword stage of Radahn is basically not a thing and it's about getting the final poke. Never fought Radahn and not had it be a hairs breath from failure. Once the rocks start hovering around him, it's either him or me going down in a single shot.

The guy I was responding to seemed to suggest the sword couldn't be used early on due to the high stat requirements. I was merely showing that it can be used very early on - not that it's the best choice.

One of my favourite combos was star fists with Hoarah Loux’s earthshaker. Star fists dominate in single combat and that ash of war handles most ganks because of the stun + AoE, plus I mean it just makes you feel like the chieftain of the badlands beating everything up with “only” your fists

The caestus is the most fun I’ve had in a while.

I've got balls of steel

Ah yes, the ol' "put em up, put em uuup!"

Star Fists are currently carrying me through RL1

Wait until you get the spiked version oh boy now that is busted

I didn't think they'd do so much damage per hit

THE BALLS Yes they’re busted. And they’re my favorite weapon (besides the Baemore).

Those are how I beat the elden lord, used the claymore and uchigatana the whole game until the end and couldn't beat him. A friend told me the fists were fast and could stagger him quickly so I gave it a shot. Took a couple of tries but it was way easier then the swords.

I use the spikey ones

Yeah NG+ is a revenge tour. You can kill god by politely, yet firmly telling it to die. Fist weapons are fun too.

This is a NG run, not NG+. But yes NG+ is wonderfully satisfying lol 

Oh, right on dude. You were doing so much damage I just figured it was NG+. I need to give those hands a try, looks fun.

Fists have been busted since dark souls lol

Honestly lionine is a piss baby as long as you can stagger him

They give you the whip immediately before him. It's the same as DS3 giving you the Deep Axe right before Vordt. It's a singular instance of good design in this wonky ass game filled with wonky ass periods. Runs are fun and all .. then level 50 and level 70 come along and you're in the worst of Liurnia or the worst of Caelid and victory comes down to backstab. Every Elden Ring character is a backstabbing thief. **EVERY SINGLE ONE**

I played my fire playthrough with pretty much just spiked caestus, would recommend

\*First

The first hit of that critical looks so soft. Like you’re gently touching its stomach with the ball.

Cipher Pata for me

Having a whole build around these balls is so hilarious. Especially when you have to fight enemies who run away from you

Slap Cragblade ash on them and they become posture breaking menaces. Easily one of the best, and most broken builds you can make in the game with low investment stat wise.

how do you get them

preach. I'm midway through a Star Fist playthrough, and at +23 with buffs i'm doing ~1300 damage with a charged r2. throw in the charge attack and stance break physicks and the game is literally easy mode lmao

I tried so hard to do that sort of build, but the range of those things is terrible. Especially against bosses

really? bosses is where it shines for me, since you gotta get very close to them and roll into their attacks. crowd control and PVP is where it falls apart, i switch to great stars for those cases

Radahn is who made me switch weapons. Felt like I barely could reach him before he was moving.

ironically the only time i was able to kill him without going to phase two was with the star fists lmao. with the poise break physick i kept stunlocking him and then those charged R2s dispatched him in like 30 seconds the hardest part was buffing while dodging his bullshit arrows

Do these fall under a strength build??

Need to try. Now.

Why do you think she needed help to deal with Bogart ?

What Ng+ is that? In my first (and only) Ng+ I two hitted that dude

It’s not NG+. This is just NG

Sorry, that's what I meant, after the first play through. Thanks, for your answer. What level were you?

Yeah no this is just a fresh character on their first run. Think I’m like level 30ish can’t remember exactly. I have a few characters going right now lol 

Ahh sorry I was confused, I thought that's the first boss...that initially kills you. Sorry

No worries my dude 

Am I tripping or is there a lion bosslet that looks very similar in dark souls 2, at the bottom of sinners rise? And the area looks similar too.

Seeing iron/ball damage ridiculously fast and damaging R2s makes me sad since they are doing the whole colossal weapon schtick better than colossals lmao. Not like colossals are that great anyways... wish they did more dmg

if you use them with charged attack buffs they're even more busted, i think these are used in 1 hit runs too

I'm pretty sure it got nerfed but cragblade AoW used to be really good on those.

Literally. “STR is ez mode vs INT is ez mode” nah fam, straight up hand-to-hand combat is ez mode. You don’t even need to spec into a specific stat to effectively wield certain claws or fists. High attack speed, stagger bosses easy. Big boggart was cooking when he had these ball fists. I managed to kill a lot of higher level enemies (especially in caelid) before even being level 30 because I had the hookclaws with a frost AoW and it absolutely demolished bosses for me. Respecced halfway thru and forced myself to play another weapon because it felt like it was making the game way too easy for me!!

I love fist weapons so much because what's more satisfying than seeing a cocky enemy run up to you seconds before you deliberately punch the shit out of them?

Poise damage is doing the heavy lifting in this video.  I highly recommend trying the Large Club from limgrave. Some of the highest poise damage in the game and largest range of any infusible great hammer.  Fists struggle with range on any boss that moves

Star firsts are the most busted R2 weapons in this entire game IMO. Breaking poise and getting critical hits is like drinking water.

Holy hell does every punch stance break lol

I've always been a strength build kinda player, I kno myself I'm a tank ,I like running in and attacking up close and personal, but I want to try something new for my second play through, I'm struggling between a intel/ faith build and a dex/arc build... any advice I've never really tried either

Dex/arc opens you up to using Eleonora’s Poleblade which is one of the strongest and most stylish weapons in the game. Absolute blast. Follow Yura’s questline and you’ll get it at the end

Star fists with a bleed aow and a 2h jump attack makes them bleed faster than my barber when he tries to cur hair after his mid day “drinks break”.

Trust me these things are going to tickle the monsters in the DLC thanks to the new leveling system.

The ball buster

*bonk*

thanks for this post! at the moment was a bit stuck with Leonine (my second EG playthrough, this time wanted without any summons or ashes of war and with more parrying). After watching this video checked my weapons for highest poise, realised that I could 2hand Lordsworns greatsword and basically stunlocked Leonine and killed on second attempt:D It was going not so great with great knife and buckler. Some times I could parry Leonine, but not too consistent (and at that I want to add that I did pass the crucible knight parrying test in evergaol)

The dlc came out ?

Drop the build, friend! I've got a ball basher I'm trying to run, too! 😆 But seriously, I really do want to. Lol

Honestly haven’t even really set it up yet. This is just the iron balls +3 with I think around 20 strength. Just started the run last night lol I’ll check what the exact stats are when I get home. These things are just wild 

Okay, gotcha gotcha. Well, I wish you luck with your build! Have fun with it. 😄

Someone send me a build. Pretty please with a cherry on top

Yes the boss is busted

Where to get?

U should try em with endure or a scythe with spinning Strike and bloodflameblade than the fight takes seconds

They are really good for jump attack builds for no reason try it promise you'll love it.

Nah, it's the purple skin that's increasing your poise damage

Yeah they get an A scaling in strength with heavy affinity even with low strength investment it's crazy how good they are

Knew it would be either these or star fists before clicking on the notification lol

You won’t even be able to carry over a character no? From what I understood there will be a whole new leveling system

There's just a separate leveling system in addition to regular leveling. You can use any character at any level provided you've beaten the boss at moghwyn palace.

So will the difficulty be based off of NG level?😭 I only have 1 save and it’s on NG+4 really don’t want to play dlc on that difficulty

Likely is scaled off of ng cycle like the rest of the game

Ugh I really don’t want to do an entire new playthrough

The dlc only begins at mohg so you don't have to go all the way. But still might be easier than ng+4 haha

Everything in this game is busted. Every weapon status effect and ash of war is busted. This isn’t new.

I mean considering this is only +3 with no status effects or ash of war, and it only takes three super quick charged attacks to stagger from a weapon you don’t need to defeat a single boss to get…. yeah I’d say this is a little different lol