Alright, so I wanted to talk about this big katana setup I’ve been messing with lately. It kinda started by accident, really. I picked up one of those massive katanas, you know the ones, huge things. Thought it looked pretty badass.
First thing I did, obviously, was just equip the darn thing. Felt super slow at first. Like swinging a telephone pole. My character just wasn’t built for it. I was using more of a quick, dodgy setup before this.
So, step one, had to respec. Dumped a whole load of points into Strength, thinking, ‘Big sword needs big muscles, right?’. Yeah, kinda worked, hit hard, but still felt… clumsy. Dodging was a pain, timing felt off. Wasn’t feeling the flow, you know?
Back to the drawing board.
I respecced again. This time, I thought about how katanas usually work, even the big ones. Decided to put more into Dexterity, see if that helped the feel. Still needed some Strength just to wield the thing properly, couldn’t ignore that. But leaning more into Dex definitely made the swings feel a bit smoother, less like I was dragging anchor.
Then came the gear part. I tried some heavy armor sets. Looked cool, very tanky, but the fat rolling? Nah, couldn’t deal with it. Especially with a weapon that already had a bit of a wind-up. Got smacked around way too much waiting for my roll animation to finish.
- Tried heavy stuff – too slow.
- Tried really light stuff – too squishy, died if a boss sneezed on me.
- Settled on some medium armor. Stuff that gave decent protection but kept me in the medium roll category. Finding that balance took a while, mixing and matching pieces.
Getting the Vibe Right
I started calling it the ‘Rakshasa’ build in my head. Sounds cool, right? Kinda demonic, aggressive. So I wanted the playstyle to match. Fast, lots of pressure, maybe some bleed effect if I could swing it.
So I looked into weapon arts, or ashes of war, whatever they’re called. Tried a bunch. Some were super flashy but took ages to pull off, leaving me wide open. Found one that was a quick upward slash, another that was sort of a lunging thrust. Those felt better. More aggressive, less waiting around.
Stamina was a huge issue early on. Swinging that giant blade eats up stamina like crazy. Had to pump a lot of points into Endurance. Seriously, way more than I initially thought. Needed enough to swing a few times and still have enough left to dodge away. That took a lot of trial and error, running around fighting basic enemies near a grace point, checking my bar.
Finding the extras…
Then I started hunting for talismans to really make it click.
- Found one that boosted attack power with consecutive hits. Perfect for an aggressive style.
- Grabbed another one that gave me more equipment load. Let me wear slightly better medium armor without getting slowed down.
- Thought about using one that boosted damage at low health, kinda fit the ‘Rakshasa’ vibe, living on the edge. Tried it for a bit, died a lot. Maybe I’m not ready for that kinda stress, haha. Swapped it for more stamina recovery for now.
It actually took me a while to get this sorted. I remember being stuck on this one particular boss, just getting wrecked over and over with my old build. Couldn’t make progress. That’s when I really sat down and committed to making this big katana thing work. Spent maybe two whole evenings just respeccing, testing moves on random mobs near the beginning area, tweaking stats point by point. Felt kinda dumb doing it, but I was determined.
Now? It feels pretty good! It hits like a truck, the moveset feels decent once you learn the timings, and it looks awesome. Still gotta be careful, can’t just spam attacks wildly, ’cause you’ll run out of stamina or get caught in recovery frames. But when it connects, it really connects. It’s not perfect, still tinkering with it here and there, but it’s been a fun project getting it to this point.
