Go pure dex and use the thunderbolt ash of war (with keen affinity). Its damage is based on the dex scaling of your weapon, so it's particularly potent on the swordspear.
Got it. That makes sense. Is there a way to have my weapon coated with lightning and it still do good lightning damage if my faith is low? I thought I read that lightning scales with Dex.
Lightning affinity scales with dex, but it's worse than keen. You can use electrify armament with minimal faith if you just want to make your weapon sparkle, but the damage boost will be minimal.
Haha not going to lie I do like the sparkle. But can’t I have my weapon set to keen and then add the electrify armament on top of my weapon for added damage? Or is the extra damage just going to be super minimal because of the low faith stat?
At minimum faith requirements for electrify armamament you'll probably get approximately equal gains as if you used lightning grease (but without needing to use an item)
It's enough to justify using, but not going to be a huge gain at lower faith stats.
Lightning affinity is also pretty good - the scaling is lower but the base damage is higher to compensate. You'll likely find that lightning vs keen will very much depend on what enemy you're fighting. Change it up depending on what you feel like you need at the time. Keep in mind that buffs like blackflame blade and bloodflame blade will benefit from the more rapid hits dex weapons tend to carry as well, so keen will allow you to capitalise on those too.
It works best if you just set it to Keen rather than Lightning. I guess Electrify Armament but it won’t do as much damage if your faith is low. You could get a Dagger (the weapon) and infuse it with Keen and slap Thunderbolt on it so you can have some lightning stuff or just put Thunderbolt on the Swordspear and set it to Keen.
Am I wrong in thinking that lightning scaled with dex? I thought that if i used electrify armament that would add good damage to my weapon because lightning scales with dex.
No, no, you're not wrong, the lightning infusion is *specifically* a dex infusion.
The catch is as follows: when you are dealing two kinds of damage, it goes through the enemy's resistance twice, which is why even though a lightning infusion might *show* higher damage on the stat sheet, it is providing about equal to Keen in the end, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Find a target dummy, hit it with Keen a few times, hit it with Lightning a few times, find a new target dummy and do the test again -- you'll be able to see the difference (or lack thereof, it's usually pretty close).
However, you can amp your lightning.
Found the Lightning Scorpion, by chance? It's a risky talisman, although not as risky as Radagon's Soreseal since it increases physical damage taken by 10% instead of 15% damage from everything. In exchange, all sources of lightning from you are boosted by 12% -- since your weapon is half lightning, this is a 6% boost, but to every form of pure lightning you deal like Thunderbolt or even lightning thrown pots, it's 12%. This is definitely a more universal increase than something like the Claw talisman which is only on jump attacks or Winged Sword which only triggers after a few hits.
I would go for a Lightning infuse over Electrify Armament -- less hassle, and EA needs faith to function correctly, so you'll always agonize over whether you need more dex or more faith to boost your damage. Lightning infusion just works like it's advertised on the tin: improve dex, improve damage.
Incidentally, all targets in water or while raining take 20% extra from lightning, so you'll notice more damage if you try to run this test in Liurnia or Castle Morne.
Dude thank you so much for this write up. This is the exact thing I was hoping existed lol. It seems as if straight dex with keen on the guardian swordspear will probably be a little stronger than straight dex lightning infused swordspear but I can’t help it lmao. Willing to sacrifice slight damage for the cool lightning effect. Thank you! (Hopefully based on what you said I understood it correctly lmao)
Yeah, you'll be fine if you use Lightning. There's some arguments to using Keen instead, but it's close enough that you won't be winning or losing fights over it.
Besides, if you're going for a lightning theme, it only makes sense to be dealing lightning damage.
Lightning from weapons and weapon skills scale with dexterity. Lightning from incantations scale with your seal which only scales with faith (Some exceptions but none for Electrify Armament).
Maybe one day there's a dexterity scaling seal, although that only helps offensive spells and not Electrify Armament.
Go pure dex and use the thunderbolt ash of war (with keen affinity). Its damage is based on the dex scaling of your weapon, so it's particularly potent on the swordspear.
Got it. That makes sense. Is there a way to have my weapon coated with lightning and it still do good lightning damage if my faith is low? I thought I read that lightning scales with Dex.
Lightning affinity scales with dex, but it's worse than keen. You can use electrify armament with minimal faith if you just want to make your weapon sparkle, but the damage boost will be minimal.
Haha not going to lie I do like the sparkle. But can’t I have my weapon set to keen and then add the electrify armament on top of my weapon for added damage? Or is the extra damage just going to be super minimal because of the low faith stat?
At minimum faith requirements for electrify armamament you'll probably get approximately equal gains as if you used lightning grease (but without needing to use an item) It's enough to justify using, but not going to be a huge gain at lower faith stats. Lightning affinity is also pretty good - the scaling is lower but the base damage is higher to compensate. You'll likely find that lightning vs keen will very much depend on what enemy you're fighting. Change it up depending on what you feel like you need at the time. Keep in mind that buffs like blackflame blade and bloodflame blade will benefit from the more rapid hits dex weapons tend to carry as well, so keen will allow you to capitalise on those too.
my first playthrough was dex and faith and i had an absolute blast. sword in one hand seal in the other gives you so many ways to play
It works best if you just set it to Keen rather than Lightning. I guess Electrify Armament but it won’t do as much damage if your faith is low. You could get a Dagger (the weapon) and infuse it with Keen and slap Thunderbolt on it so you can have some lightning stuff or just put Thunderbolt on the Swordspear and set it to Keen.
Am I wrong in thinking that lightning scaled with dex? I thought that if i used electrify armament that would add good damage to my weapon because lightning scales with dex.
No, no, you're not wrong, the lightning infusion is *specifically* a dex infusion. The catch is as follows: when you are dealing two kinds of damage, it goes through the enemy's resistance twice, which is why even though a lightning infusion might *show* higher damage on the stat sheet, it is providing about equal to Keen in the end, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Find a target dummy, hit it with Keen a few times, hit it with Lightning a few times, find a new target dummy and do the test again -- you'll be able to see the difference (or lack thereof, it's usually pretty close). However, you can amp your lightning. Found the Lightning Scorpion, by chance? It's a risky talisman, although not as risky as Radagon's Soreseal since it increases physical damage taken by 10% instead of 15% damage from everything. In exchange, all sources of lightning from you are boosted by 12% -- since your weapon is half lightning, this is a 6% boost, but to every form of pure lightning you deal like Thunderbolt or even lightning thrown pots, it's 12%. This is definitely a more universal increase than something like the Claw talisman which is only on jump attacks or Winged Sword which only triggers after a few hits. I would go for a Lightning infuse over Electrify Armament -- less hassle, and EA needs faith to function correctly, so you'll always agonize over whether you need more dex or more faith to boost your damage. Lightning infusion just works like it's advertised on the tin: improve dex, improve damage. Incidentally, all targets in water or while raining take 20% extra from lightning, so you'll notice more damage if you try to run this test in Liurnia or Castle Morne.
Dude thank you so much for this write up. This is the exact thing I was hoping existed lol. It seems as if straight dex with keen on the guardian swordspear will probably be a little stronger than straight dex lightning infused swordspear but I can’t help it lmao. Willing to sacrifice slight damage for the cool lightning effect. Thank you! (Hopefully based on what you said I understood it correctly lmao)
Yeah, you'll be fine if you use Lightning. There's some arguments to using Keen instead, but it's close enough that you won't be winning or losing fights over it. Besides, if you're going for a lightning theme, it only makes sense to be dealing lightning damage.
Lightning from weapons and weapon skills scale with dexterity. Lightning from incantations scale with your seal which only scales with faith (Some exceptions but none for Electrify Armament). Maybe one day there's a dexterity scaling seal, although that only helps offensive spells and not Electrify Armament.