The Dark Souls series is known for allowing players to fully customize and tweak their character builds. One of the most popular and versatile builds is the quality build, which balances strength and dexterity.
In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about creating an optimized quality build in Dark Souls 3, including:
- What is a quality build?
- Starting class and stats
- Weapons and upgrades
- Spells and pyromancies
- Armor sets
- Rings and items
- Tips for success
So whether you‘re just starting out or looking to respec your character, read on for the best quality build!
What is a Quality Build in Dark Souls 3?
A quality build refers to leveling up both strength and dexterity as your main offensive stats, allowing you to wield a wide variety of weapons effectively.
Instead of focusing on a pure strength or pure dexterity build, you put points into both. This gives you excellent weapon flexibility while still dealing great damage with proper upgrades and buffs.
Quality builds shine when you infuse weapons with a refined gem, which scales the weapon with both strength and dexterity. This infusion is perfect for weapons with C/C scaling or higher in both stats.
The tradeoff is that quality builds deal less damage with individual weapons compared to pure strength or dexterity builds. However, your arsenal of viable weapons is far more extensive.
Starting Class and Progression
For this quality build, the Knight starting class is ideal because it has:
- High strength and dexterity
- Decent vigor and endurance
- Low luck and magic stats
When leveling up your stats, I recommend aiming for:
- Vigor: 35-40
- Attunement: At least 10
- Endurance: 30-35
- Vitality: Enough to stay under 70% equip load
- Strength: 40
- Dexterity: 40
With those stats, you‘ll have a quality build powerhouse ready to wield most non-magic weapons effectively! Make sure to focus on vigor, endurance, strength and dexterity when leveling.
Weapons and Upgrades
Thanks to balanced strength and dexterity, quality builds can utilize a vast selection of weapons. Here are some of the best refined weapons to use:
- Lothric Knight Sword – Excellent straight sword with versatile moveset.
- Claymore – Iconic greatsword with high damage and range.
- Pontiff Knight Curved Sword – Dangerous curved sword that inflicts bleed.
- Astora Greatsword – Ultra greatsword with surprisingly fast moveset.
- Murakumo – Hard-hitting curved greatsword with spinning attacks.
Once you collect the weapons you want to use, make sure to take them down the standard upgrade path to at least +10. After that, infuse them with a refined gem to take advantage of your dual offensive stats.
This will unlock their full damage potential for your quality build. Don‘t forget to reinforce your equipped shield as well for increased stability.
Spells and Pyromancies
While quality builds focus mostly on melee combat, it helps to have a few supplemental spells:
- Carthus Flame Arc – Excellent fire buff for temporary damage boost.
- Blessed Weapon – Boosts physical attack and passive HP regeneration.
- Tears of Denial – Survive fatal blow with 1 HP (very useful).
I recommend having at least 10 attunement to unlock one spell slot. Carthus Flame Arc paired with a fast weapon like the Lothric Knight Sword melts bosses.
You can also utilize weapon buff items like Gold Pine Resin instead of spells if needed. Having some form of enchantment helps a lot since most enemies are weak to lightning or fire.
Armor Sets
Since rolling and stamina management are crucial, I suggest medium armor sets that keep your equip load under 70%:
- Lothric Knight Set – High fire defense and poise.
- Black Knight Set – Excellent physical and fire defense.
- Gundyr‘s Set – Solid all-around protection and poise.
- Alva Set – Lightweight with decent resistances.
Mix and match pieces from any sets until you find your desired poise, defense and equip load values. Staying under 70% is essential for quality builds reliant on swift dodging.
Prioritize high physical defense along with decent poise so you can withstand hits without being staggered. Fire and dark resistance also helps a lot for many enemies and bosses.
Rings and Items
These are the best rings to boost your melee combat as a quality build:
- Chloranthy Ring – Increases stamina recovery speed.
- Ring of Favor – Improves health, stamina and equip load.
- Havel‘s Ring – Greatly increases maximum equip load.
- Pontiff‘s Right Eye – Restores HP on successive attacks.
- Knight‘s Ring/Hunter‘s Ring – Increases strength or dexterity by 5 points.
I also recommend carrying these useful items:
- Ember – Retain human form and summon allies after dying.
- Green Blossom – Temporarily boosts stamina recovery speed.
- Gold Pine Resin – Imbues weapon with lightning damage.
- Red Bug Pellet – Negates frenzy buildup from enemies.
- Throwing Knives – Pull and damage enemies from range.
Tips for Success
Here are some key tips to excel with your Dark Souls 3 quality build:
- Infuse weapons that scale well in both strength and dexterity for maximum damage.
- Reinforce your favorite weapon(s) to at least +10 before infusing refined.
- Level vigor early so you can survive more hits. No sense in damage if you keep dying!
- Manage your equip load to stay below 70% for faster rolling.
- Learn enemy patterns patiently and outspace their attacks. Wait for openings to strike rather than attacking relentlessly.
- Keep multiple upgraded weapons on hand so you can swap between movesets as needed.
- Carthus Flame Arc and lightning resins add substantial extra damage against difficult enemies.
- Co-op if you are really struggling! Quality builds thrive with allies.
Conclusion
The quality build grants you versatility and excellent melee combat potential in Dark Souls 3. By evenly leveling strength and dexterity, infusing refined weapons, and proper stat/stamina management, you‘ll have access to devastating arms while remaining quick on your feet.
Experiment, find your favorites among the vast weapon selection, and remember to time your dodges well in combat. A quality build truly lets you tailor the experience to your own personal playstyle.
Whether tackling PvE or PvP, this guide has everything you need to assemble a powerful quality build. Now get out there, skeleton, and put your skills to the test against the formidable foes of Lothric!
