Rashtor The Aged Knight | Dark Souls 3 Wiki

This is a player-created Build for Dark souls 3.

Created by Rashtor Nemarck

Build Information

• Build Name: Rashtor The Aged Knight
• Build Level: 120+ (Depends of how much Vitality and Vigor you pump)
• Build Focus: PvE. If you feel like trying it on PvP, you may need a different setup.
• Age: Aged/Old.
  • Voice: Mature voice.
• Burial Gift: Life Ring (It doesn't actually matter, since burial gifts can be obtained later, so you can actually choose whatever you want.)
• Starting Class: Assassin (Yes, Assassin. I'll explain in build strategy)
  • If you want to optimize your stats (possibly for PvP), choose Knight class instead.
• Build Main Stat: Strength and Dexterity (Quality Build, basically)

Personal Preference (More like, how i edit my face. Replace it with whatever you like.)

Hair: Slot number nine (starting from top, from left to right)
Hair Color: White
Beard: Slot number ten (starting from top, from left to right)
Beard Color: Gray
Eye Color: Deep Blue

Build Equipment

Weapons

Right Hand:

• Heavy Claymore. You will be probably be 2-handing it most of the time too, benefiting even more from the infusion.
  • This has been my weapon of choice since the beginning (when Refined infusion was better), but you actually can use mostly any non-magical weapon with this build. Matter of preference, really.

Alternative weapons for the Claymore (Since not all will like it):

• Refined Long Sword/ Sharp (or refined) Lothric Knight Sword
  • These straight swords not only are lighter than the claymore and faster, but they also scale really well with both Dexterity (Dex) and Strength (Str). They also consume very low stamina.

Bear in mind that a lot of weapons fare better on a specific infusion than most, due how stat scaling works. This build is meant to have enough STR/DEX so that you can try out a weapon by yourself, and see how it performs, how did you like it, and such. It's better to find a weapon that has a scaling of C/C on STR/DEX before infusions.

Left Hand:

• Grass Crest Shield (Or Shield of Want)
• Simple-infused Target Shield

Either Hand:

• Sorcerer Staff (Explanation below)
• Longbow (On whatever hand it's free). Later on, Dragonrider Bow. Needless to say, you need to buy arrows.

Spells:

• Any Utility Spell (Chameleon, Hidden Body, Spook, Aural Decoy, etc.). I mostly use Spook or Hidden Body.
• Magic Weapon/Great Magic Weapon
  
  • Great Magic Weapon is a nice weapon buff to have, is relatively cheap, and lasts a decent time, useful for exploring areas. Since we do not have a need for our FP to use Weapon Arts, it's a straight-up damage boost for our weapons.
    • Bear in mind that since weapon buffs scale on the catalyst's spellbuff, we will never get the most out of this spell, as we would need high Intelligence and a upgraded staff to make it better.

Armor

Note: I use this armor out of Fashion Souls. Then again, it does give you decent protection.

• Head: None (To show my face, something that almost no one does.) Alternatively, use any piece of gear that you like.
  • Having no head piece means less defense absorption, but also means you have less equip load on you. In general it's better to have all your body pieces covered, even if it's with light armor, to have a decent physical absorption.
• Chest: Fallen Knight Armor
• Hands: Gundyr's Gauntlets
• Legs: Nameless Knight Trousers

Click here to see the complete Fallen Knight Set!
Click here to see the complete Nameless Knight Set!

Alternative Armor Set: Elite Knight Set (Consider adding a bit more of Vit to compensate weight gain)

Rings and Items:

Possible rings compatible with this build. Please see their respective page and check their proper effects to see if they suit your playstyle:

• Chloranty Ring (If you use the Claymore, you'll need this ring more than anything. It also stacks with the Grass Crest Shied!). You can even get a +3 version in the DLC!
• Hornet Ring for backstab and ripostes. (This ring is... God, this ring is hideous. 30% Boost in Critical Atacks is just insane. Useless in most boss fights though)
• Aldrich's Sapphire (Every Critical Atack gives you some FP. Useful if you find yourself using the utility spells very often, or your weapon art. Again, useless in most boss fights).
• Carthus Bloodring (This ring boosts your rolling invincibility frames, but reduces your absorption. Useful, since this build is not based on taking hits anyway). You can NOT use this ring, but that would be assuming you know exactly when and how to roll.
  • You can also pair it with the Steel Protection Ring to make up for the absorption loss. However that would occupy two ring slots.
    • Alternative for Carthus Bloodring: Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring (Use this along with the spell hidden body. It will trivialize almost all the game combining these two rings.)
• Leo Ring is another ring and it can boost your damage for your claymore, given it has a moveset that allows thrust attacks (I like this ring, though it has more use in PvP than anything, and it can be hard to pull a counter-damage thrust with the claymore)
• Ring of Steel Protection for tankiness. (It makes you not die in one melee hit, which helps a lot when paired with Carthus Bloodring. Mostly useless in pvp tho)
• Lloyd Sword Ring has it's uses, specially since it's a damage % boost. Not getting hit ever? Why not boost your damage while you are at it!
  • Can be paired with Estus Ring for better optimization. However, both rings are situational, and lloyd sword ring really depends a lot of mantaining yourself at full hp. It's better used on boss fights (and even then, depends of which) instead of exploration.

Items:

• The obvious Estus and Ashen Estus Flasks
• Green Blossom (Yeah, even more Stamina Recovery)
• Elemental Bundles and Resins. Bundles for Ripostes or quick finishes, and Resins for longer fights such as bosses or a crowd of enemies.
  • Since we do not have access to advanced spells for buffing our weapons (aside from Magic Weapon/Great Magic Weapon), this will be our main source of non-magic elemental damage.
    • Having Carthus Rouge available is also nice for those enemies weak to bleed. Pair it with a fast weapon and you're good to go.
• Firebombs. They work great in the early game, and lategame you can use them for some cheesy mob baiting. Exploding barrels are also fun.
  • Throwing Knives have less range, but are fast, and can be comboed after a swing, meaning they can be used as a finisher. This can actually save you some stamina and is less punishable. Very specific situation to be in though.

Build Background (Unless you're very bored, don't read this and skip to next section)

(In case that you are indeed reading this, search "Assassin's Creed II OST - Sanctuary" on youtube for some BGM)

"After a long time, He came back.

He was a knight, but not a normal one.

The knight who linked the flame in a different time and place. He who confronted the abyss. He who defeated Four Powerful Souls. He who battled against the Black Dragon. The one with undying will. And also... The one who killed the Lord of Sunlight.

But... there was something different. He wasn't the same.

He had more experience, but his skill in practice became rusted. He had more wisdom, but less insight. He had more resolution to fight, but less to none reasons to battle. He could kill anyone if he wanted to, but had no motives to do so. What happened to him?

The answer was simple. He... was tired. He aged, like any normal person. As powerful as he could be, he couldn't defy the natural course of his body. He, who did all kind of feats, was getting old and weary. And as such, his capability started to get rusted.

 But once again, he had a mission to do. It was indeed a different time, and a different place, but his mission and resolution to fight didn't change.

And for that purpose, he raised his sword once again. Determined to fight once more, until his body lasts. Yes...

His one and only objetive was, again, the same since the beginning: Succeed where others have failed"

Build Strategy

 Before we Start:

You have to take in mind some things before actually going in to the guide.                                                                                                                                 ^{https://bit.ly/31MJsAI}

1. Originally, this build was the one I used in my gameplay for Dark Souls 1 (In Dark Souls 2 i used a different kind of character). And as such, some of the things here are for nostalgia purposes (mostly, the Claymore weapon). And because Fashion Souls is best Souls, our armor can vary.
2. This is, like is said in the beggining of the page, a quality build. DON'T expect to use your shield to block things (unless you use the Shield of Want or the sorcery Great Magic Shield, or both), and don't try to tank any hits. It will not end well. You'll be rolling a lot of the time, and wait for a opening to strike your enemy. Carthus Bloodring helps you to accomplish this, since more Iframes while rolling means you can roll earlier than you meant to and still be safe.
3. The Rings have different purposes. The Chloranty ring is probably a must, since if you don't choose the grass crest shield, you'll still have stamina regeneration (and if you do have the shield, even better). The Aldrich's sapphire and the Hornet Ring are for Critical Atacks. Be it that you either do backstab or get a riposte, you'll do tons of damage and also regain some fp. And last, the Carthus Bloodring (see point 2).
4. If you really suck at parrying or getting backstabs, then replace the backstab/riposte specific rings, and the target shield as well for things that give you a better edge on combat. There is no point to have them if you can't use them to the full potential (don't feel bad about this. I do suggest tough, that you master the art of Parrying.). For the two rings, you could either use the Ring of Havel, or the Ring of favor and Protection (or both) if you can't roll normally because of weight, and the Ring of Steel Protection.
5. This build is done for PvE. You can use it in PvP, but do so at your own risk. This is actually quite obvious if you look at the starting class.
6. If  you don't want to use the sorcery spells, you can alternatively level up faith (change to another class (like herald) if you plan to do so). 15 of Faith should be enough to have Medium Heal and Replenishment, or even Tears of Denial. If you do so, you could consider replacing one of the rings. Useful if you aren't of the kind of dodge that much, suck at it, or trade hits.
   • Bear in mind that using healing miracles in boss fights is very dangerous, since they consume your stamina too. They are better used out of combat, and since they scale on spellbuff, you need to upgrade the catalyst you're using. Your low attunement also means your FP will be quite low, which means you get less Heal uses per FP bar than caster builds.
7. Since patch changes, the Claymore now sacles better with Heavy infusion (Str-based scaling infusion). This means it's better used for a Str-focused build. This build guide will still be Str/Dex based since the purpose is to let people try all the melee weapons they want before sticking to a choice. I simply provide some of the options to try out, while making a statline made for that purpose.

Random things that you may want to know (optional, don't read if you don't want):

• This is my first time making a Build, so yeah, if I suck, that's probably it.
  • Also, English is not my main language, so bear with me.
• Dark Souls 3 has more features than the previous games, which makes some players wonder "What kind of approach should I take now?"
  So yeah, I tought: "Well, Dark Souls main feature isn't PvP anyway, so i'll make a Character that focuses more on PvE. But what kind of character should i make? Sorcerer's where way too easy and overpowered, Using miracles to heal doesn't suit me, and focusing on leveling defensive stats (Health and Equipment Load) late on the game would make it too hard. Ok, I will make a Str and Dex build, and see what happens".
  • And surprise! It ended actually pretty well. Thus, I decided to share it with everyone.

Now, to the actual Build Guide:

Stats and Explaining things:

The reason why I choose the Assassin Class is simple, actually. You start with Two Attunement Slots, decent Dex, a useful spell (Spook), you get a Target Shield (the best parrying shield in terms of damage reduction and stability), and it's stats are very balanced. You can even focus in being a Sorcerer starting from this class (which we won't), and its actually ok. Also, you get the Estoc weapon, a fearsome Thrusting Sword that can Stunlock most of enemies.

The first Objetive of this Build is reaching the Minimal requierements for Wielding the Claymore (or weapon of choice) one handed. Which means, leveling Str to 16 (and since the Assasin starts with 14 of Dex, you don't need to level Dex for the meanwhile). Or, if you're going to use other weapons, check what stats you need to level up to wield properly.  Do mind tough, that if you go for the Lothric Knight Sword, you'll need 11 Str and 18 Dex, so do be careful in which points you're going to invest in early game, since you don't get to level up that much.

Either way, whatever weapon you choose, once you meet the minimum requierements of the weapon you're going to use, we're going to level up the Defensive stats. "Why?" you  may ask. Well, most of the Early game can be played fairly well by only reinforcing your weapon, and having a bit of skill for dodging atacks. So, in case you do mess up, you can have some window of error and still be alive. Handy, isn't it?

The "Defensive Stats" determine your survival. To be more specific,  Vigor, Endurance and Vitality are those main stats. Since this is a Quality build, we'll level them up to their respective softcaps and that's it. (Except vitality, because you're going to wear some heavy stuff. You will want to end with 30 vitality by the end of this build.) You may want to level Vigor past 27 if you plan to tackle the DLCs or NG+ tho.

Even so, it doesn't mean that you have to put ALL of your level ups in these stats from the beggining. That's actually a bad idea. You need to find a balance of knowing how much you need those defensive stats, considering by how much you actually get killed. An useful "gauge" that tells you that you pumped too many points in health (Vigor), is by the simple fact of how much estus do you need to fully heal yourself. If you need more than two estus flasks, you have overdone it.

The Equipment load, indicating how much burden you have, has a %. This is another gauge of sorts. You absolutely need to have under 70%, or you're going to fat roll, and that's bad. Really bad. But also, you shouldn't pump too many points into Vitality early, since most of the equipment you get in this guide is progresive, so leveling up Vitality according to the equipment that you're obtaining is a good choice.

Now, for the spells and one of the rings. Why Aldrich Sapphire? The answer to that is: Spook. This spell negates both the noise from your footsteps and any fall damage for a period of time. This spell is perfect for landing backstabs on a lot of enemies. But everytime you use a spell, it consumes your FP. That's why we have Aldrich's sapphire. Literally with one backstab, you regain the cost of the spell, allowing you to cast it again. Rinse and repeat.

• Enemies can still see you though, so make sure to not face them directly.
  
  • Or you can just use the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring instead of Spook, and cast Hidden Body. Now, Aldrich's Sapphire won't offset completely the cost of this spell... for one critical hit. The spell lasts 15 seconds, and if your backstabs deal enough damage to kill an enemy immediately, you can just go to the next one and do the same, regaining the cost of the spell enterely. This synergy works great in PvE to clear the place of mobs, specially if you're heading to a boss fight with enemies in the middle.
  • Alas, I don't suggest abusing it. One can become too complacient to kill everything like this, and you won't get any better at playing the game and learn from it's mechanics. Just take it as an alternative for when you absolutely don't want to bother with an area.

Beggining of the Game

You start your game, "Yes indeed" and all that, you make your character, and wake up in a grave. If you're not accustomed to parrying, you could try to do it in the mobs that are there. Remember that parrying is a bit different with small shield made for parries, than with medium shields. Is still achievable though, so don't fret over it.

If you want a quick way to get to your desired stats for wielding your weapon, you'll have to do 2 things:

1. Kill the Ravenous Crystal Lizard that there is in the beggining, close from the first bonfire.
2. With the souls obtained from the lizard, procure to not die, and kill your first boss: Iudex Gundyr.

If you manage to do it, you'll get (for example) the exact amount of souls to level Str to 16 and by it, wield the Claymore.

Now, there's one question that you may have been pondering:
Why should I use the weapons in your build and not the alternate weapons choices mentioned above, or even another ones?

Quite simple, you literally encounter them in the second area of the game, the High Wall of Lothric. Also, to get other weapons, you either need to farm them (like Lothric Knight Sword), or need heavy investment in Str and Dex (like the Long Sword) to be actually useful (another example, Vordt's Great Hammer which is a great pure Str alternative, needs 30 str to wield one-handed, and weighs a lot). Getting and using a weapon early will allow you to familiarize with it, it's moveset, range, recovery, stamina cost, and all that stuff.
The Claymore has an amazing moveset, having thrust and standard damage (respectively done by it's strong atacks and normal atacks). One handed, it does sweeping atacks and thrust atacks, and two handed does vertical slashes and a thrust atack with slightly less range, but more damage.

Let's start with getting the weapons.

Here is the way to get our early core weapons for the build.

Target Shield and Sorcerer Staff: Starting Equipment

Longbow: From the First bonfire of the High Wall of Lothric, go to the right. You should see some undead dogs. Kill them, and go straight. Now you'll encounter an undead with a Halberd. Dispatch it, and follow the stairs. Look to your right, and you'll find an undead sniper with his crossbow. Before you kill him, look to his left (your right) and you'll se a hollow. Run and kill it fast, because it can become a threat if you set free the parasite inside it (If you want to kill it though, use Firebombs, or fire atacks). Dispatch the sniper, and you'll see corpse. There lies the Longbow.

Claymore: On the path where the dragon that spews fire is perched. You'll need to wait for it to do his fire breath, and then run to the left (if facing from the stairs) to a little stairway and run straight to the other side. You should see a corpse. It contains the Claymore. Then run like a bich, since the fire hurts.

Lothric Knight Sword (If you want to get it): Every Lothric Knight with a Sword and a shield has a chance to drop it. It can take quite a while, so there are two ways to farm it.
The first one is at the Second bonfire of the area. Go down the stairs, wait a little bit for the knight to leave the room, kill FIRST the bandit with the dagger, and THEN go out and kill the lothric knight. Rinse and repeat.
The second way is on the Vordt of the Boreal Valley Bonfire, in which you have to take down more enemies (I don't suggest this one, but it works too).
Tip: These enemies are quite susceptible to being parried. If you can, bait it's first atack, but don't roll, just retreat a little so it doesn't hit you, and he'll do the second atack. That's your chance. Be careful if they get to a stance with their sword on both hands though, one atack from that is deadly as F**k.

Geting the Refined Gem

Ok, this one can get a little tricky. At some point in the High Wall of Lothric, you'll reach a place with two Lothric Knights. One with Shield and Spear, and another with shield and sword. Then you'll see some kind of... chapel? Church? Whatever is it, on the left of the building, there are some little stairs. You'll see a blue lothric knight facing away. He's the one who drops the Refined Gem. It should be easy, right?
F*** no, is not easy, specially when you're barely starting the game. I still remember the pain of doing everything all over again to kill the bastard Coff 
Anyway, this guy is a hard nut to crack (the conventional way, at least). You can either do the High Risk-High Reward Method (parrying and riposting the hell out of him), or you can play it safe, rolling everytime he atacks and try to go for a backstab (You need to be quick, all lothric knights tend to shield bash you if you try to go behind them, and this one is no exception). You'll be in for a shower of pain if he manages to buff his weapon (quite obvious, he stands and slides his hands over his sword, and it starts to glow). I can only give you two tips.

1. When you see him, don't go running straight at him. Instead, walk slowly to him (or use the spook spell and run up to him, since it silences the noise of your footsteps). When you are close to his back, attack and you should backstab him.
   • Mind that when you get close to ANY enemy's back (while walking), they'll turn around just a little bit before you touch them to see what the f*** is that noise behind them (I would do that too). So if you have quick reflexes, just at the tiny moment you see that they start to turn around, press your atack button, and BAM! Free backstab. This gives you an upper hand, and any advantage against this guy is honestly a blessing. Don't get too far away from him, least you want him to buff.
2. So, you see that he is buffing his weapon, right? Your best option would probably be to run, since at this point it can one-combo kill you unless you have high health. But alas, we aren't a headless chicken, so instead, if you see he's buffing his weapon (you need to be somewhat close to him, but far enough so he does it), quickly run behind him and get another free bacsktab. Who knows, depending on the damage you have already dealt, you might even kill him!

Killing this guy nets you the obligatory drop: The Refined Gem, plus whatever else the knight could drop you (if you're lucky). Good luck, May the sun be with you. 

Early Game

So, you got the weapons, you have put some of your spells of choice to good use, netting you free bacsktabs and such. At this point, things are getting messier. Some enemies come in groups, other just can't be parried and/or backstabbed (or punish you heavily if you fail to do so), so you'll need to roll a lot more, and using your Claymore in a more conservative way only on enemy openings.
Our next "power curve" (though more than "power", it will be "protection", but however you call it is fine), is on the Farron Keep, specifically, the swamp (not the poison one, may god forsake that stupid poison swamp).  On here, we get the Fallen Knight Set, and the Grass Crest Shield, who are as important as our weapons.

Fallen Knight Set: There will be a corpse on solid ground, somewhat near to two hostile NPCs, and a Great Crab. All of the pieces can be looted from a corpse. You don't have to fight, so you can just run, grab them, and run again.

Grass Crest Shield: On the Crucifixion Woods bonfire it's easy to see a crab from there. Drop down to the right of the large crab towards one of the large trees. Loot the corpse on the right side of the tree. Tip: The stamina regen buff is on effect even when using your weapons Two-handed!

The Chloranty Ring (and some spells)

Chloranty Ring: Ok, I'll actually be lazy, just go here and read how to get it. It's more clear than what I could say anyway.
This ring is one of the main core points of the build. The amount of stamina you consume per atack with the Claymore is no joke, and stamina management is always the key to a sure victory. Faster stamina regen can give you some unexpected results (a.k.a saving your ass from getting killed, sneaking an extra hit). Stack it with a grass crest shield, and almost no stamina issues here.

Spells

Remember that you must give Orbeck of Vinheim a magic scroll (two are found in the poison swamp) before killing the Abyss Watchers boss, or he'll leave forever from your playthrough.

Spook/Invisible Body: Aaaaalright. These are your butter and Bread for clearing easily mobs when you're having a bad time. If you use Hidden Body, combine it with either spook, or equip Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring, and Aldrich's Sapphire. If you're only using Spook, only use Aldrich's Saphhire and try to not make "eye contact" with the enemies. Backstab the hell out of them, and there you have it, free fp sustain.

Magic Shield: Don't really feel like dodging attacks, but your shield stability is crappy? Magic shield is the spell for you.

Early-Mid Game

Since now we have (almost) all of our primary items, we'll progress along. Make sure that you stay under 70% equip load (level up your Vit accordingly), and upgrade your weapons. In Farron Keep, you can found the Dreamchaser Ashes, which allows you to buy Titanite Shards from the Handmaid, thus upgrading our weapons (and thus, dealing more damage). Use all of your weapons to your advantage: Longbow to poke from distance and weakening enemies, spells for cheesing or damage bost, Target Shield if an enemy is parryable, Claymore to kill them. You name it.

Getting Some Rings

Aldrich's Sapphire: Found in Cathedral of Deep. On a vast room, with some Thralls (the hooded little guys wih axes), you'll see a Cathedral Knight with a Shield and a Mace. Use your Claymore Weapon's Art to break his guard if he has it's shield up, and riposte him. Once you kill him and the thralls, you'll see a doorway, and another vast room, with an item. Enter, BUT turn around after walking 3 steps and return from where you came. Wait, and you'll see some giant spider mothafacka drop from the celling. Stay out of the doorway, and snipe him with your bow until he drops dead. He'll drop the ring.

Carthus Bloodring: Found in Cathacombs of Carthus. In a room with a lot of rats (and a giant one), on a hallway, there are some skeletons with Wheels. You'll want to snipe them... or not. Look above, and you'll see lots of slimes on the ceiling, awaiting to drop on you. Snipe the hell out of them, and kill them (Tip: Use fire. Firebombs works very well). With most of the slimes killed, now snipe ONE skeleton at a time. When they are somewhat close to you, they'll start to roll upon yourself. Raise your shield, and walk aside. If they miss you, quickly run and hit them with your Claymore. Rinse and repeat for the rest. On the end of the hallway, you'll see a corpse to your left. Look at the ceiling again, slimes, kill with fire, etc. The corpse contains this ring.

Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring (if you plan to use it): Obtained from Orbeck of Vinheim. You have to buy a total of 15 spells, and then use the talk option. Some dialogue, and you'll get another ring (if you haven't talked with him before). Talk again, and he'll give you a Gesture, and the ring. To buy 15 spells, you'll need to search for scrolls and give them to him. You only need the first 2 scrolls in the poison swamp to be able to get this ring.

And with all that done...

Progress the game normally. Upgrade the weapon that you use most, if you haven't choosen one yet. Remember to Level up your Vigor and Endurance to 27 and 26 respectively, no more no less. You may want to start leveling Str and Dex, since upgrading your weapons starts to fall of in damage. Also, it's important to buy Resins for diferent kinds of enemies, giving you some extra damage and versatility. It's actually suggested that if you can cheese enemies with the bow, you should do it. You may not even know, but it could save you some Estus in exchange of arrows, not a bad deal if you ask me. 

If you're using the setup that i said, you'll roll a lot. The Carthus Bloodring can be dangerous for it's damage amplification done to the player. Sometimes you'll want to unequip it, and it's okay. Sometimes the ring is more trouble than worth. If a boss is giving you trouble, you could try to equip it and see how it rolls (both you and the ring lol). Otherwise, you can try to equip another kind of ring if it doesn't work for you. Also take in mind some rings are useless in boss fights, so make sure to switch. 
There are some bosses that can be parried. Sometimes, that will be your best bet, sometimes just smack them and you'll be ok. Go with what suits you best for your playstyle. Being aggresive is good, but don't push it. Being defensive lets you survive, but don't be indecisive. Strike when the proper timing arises.

 

Mid Game

Get the Dragonrider Bow from the Smouldering Lake, and if you plan to use it for PvP, the Leo Ring from Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. Remember to upgrade your bow accordingly (but priorize your melee weapon first), and you should probably buy some Feather Arrows for cheese sniping. Also, buying some Carthus Rouge is nice if you are using a faster weapon for bleeding purposes. This could help speed up greatly some bleed-vulnerable bosses, provided you know how to be aggresive.

Not a whole lot else to say, really, aside from the fact that the Dragonrider Bow costs more stamina to use than the longbow. The upgrade is great though, completely worth it, and the best bow that scales with both Str and Dex.
If you're having a lot of trouble with the bosses, you can either A) Memorize part of their pattern and roll a lot or B) Use a defensive shield, and/or level up Vigor, and play safely while sneaking in attacks. 

If you reach the milestone of 30/30 str/dex (40/40 is for damage scaling purposes), you can try out now almost any non-magical non-DLC weapon in the game, even more so when 2-handing (making it as if you had 45 STR). Try them out: Check their movesets, their weapon arts, stamina consumption, range, scaling, all that good stuff. Once you narrow down the possible choices, test them out on real enemies and try mixing up your attacks (WAs included) to see if there are any "combos" or "follow ups". The moment you say "this is the one", go upgrade it, infuse it with either Heavy, Sharp or Refined (depends of the weapon, go with the one that gives the highest scaling bonus), and stick with it for the rest of the game.

For all intends and purposes, the ol' Claymore remains a good weapon even late into the game, but there are better options as far as infusions and scaling go, specially the more you invest into Str and Dex. You can ditch it or conserve it as you may, but it shall remain as a useful weapon that went along with you most of the journey.

Late Game

We are almost at the end. There will be probably like three bosses left or so, and this build should be reaching it's final peak point. You can roll a lot, your stamina regens fast, and your atacks can be fast and consistent, or slow and deadly. Your spells provide you a good amount of versatility, and you can have diferent rings for diferent situations.

There's not really much to say in this part. Enemies will go all in at the moment they see you, or will come in groups to make your life a nightmare. You should not take them lightly, never. Your bow may start to fall hard in terms of damage, since it's mostly for cheesing enemies in situations where they can't reach you, but you should still use it if you can. 

Our last piece of equipment is:

Hornet Ring: After killing Champion Stunlock- i mean, Gundyr, you'll reach a veeeery familiar place (those who have reached the untended graves place knows what i'm talking about). The place will have some black knights roaming around. Follow the path to your right, and eventually, you'll come at a crossroad. Go right again, and you'll find a Black Knight with an Axe. Dispatch him, the ring should be on a corpse.

And that's all folks. Only your own experience with this game determines the outcomes of your battles.

The End...

Thank you very much for taking your time in reading this guide. Some may find it good, others just plain bad. It's like that with some builds. Any suggestions or corrections, you can leave a comment in this page comment box. Hope you enjoyed it.

 

"He had nothing. Only his trusty sword as a companion, and his capabilities. He would master all the physical weapons he could find, but none was good enough for him.
Even though his sword wasn't the most powerful.
Or the most versatile.
Or the fastest.
Or the lightest.
Hell, why hide it? Even himself wasn't the best. There had to be someone who could do better than him. Younger people have more room to improve after all.
But even so...
He made a promise after all. And he was determined to fulfill it until the very end, no matter what it took.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              _{https://bit.ly/2ItRHtH}

-Are you sure you want me? You have better choices out there. I'm just a foolish knight who has no name.
+Precisely because of that.
-Seriously. Why?
+...You are interesting, let's leave it at that. So, do you really have no name?
-Not now, at least. I got exilled from my country, and got it stripped along my title.
+Let me guess, got involved in something you shouldn't have to? I bet it somehow involved royalty.
-...
+Bullseye huh?
-It doesn't matter, really. At least it doesn't anymore.
+So? What's your name? Could you please tell me? Saying "you" would get annoying very fast.
-... I'm Rashtor.
+Good, nice to meet you Rash. I hope we get along. Promise me to win this thing, I'm counting on you.
-Hah. My word doesn't mean anything now, but if you insist...

I, Rashtor, former leader of the knights, promise in front of my benefactor:
All enemies shall fall under my blade, and grant the victory you seek"

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