Black Knight Sword woes

So I want to make a decent strength-based build, and I started my Warrior, and played all the way through the Undead Parish up until the part where you get to Andre, and then farmed up 10 Humanity, and....

None of the stupid knights would drop the sword! Arrrrrgh, two hours wasted. Since those are the ONLY three chances to get the sword before the Kiln of the First Flame, I literally have to delete my save file and start all over again.

I don't know why they decided to only let you have 3 chances to get this weapon... this is so frustrating. With 10 Humanity, that thing SHOULD have freaking dropped. Arrrgh. It doesn't help that there aren't many decent weapons around until way later game, especially since the Drake Sword really starts to fall off in usefulness due to its non-scaling property.

Just felt like ranting a little, because it takes some work to get a character up high enough and ready that they can kill those 3 knights just hoping one will drop the sword and it ends up not dropping.....

http://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls/

May I see the build you were intending on trying for with the Black Knight Sword? I'm sure there are many alternatives out there you have just not considered.

go to the asylum and they should drop it with only 10 humanity, you can always trade for it though. also, you can farm al the weapons in the are before the last boss, it sucks that you cant even make a bk copay right away since you also find the bk armor there.

Black Knight Halberd > Black Knight Sword.

Idc what the AR says. It just does more damage. And it's faster. And it has farther reach.

Halberd, eh? Only one chance per play to get it, I might try going after that.

I already killed the 2 Asylum knights with 10 Humanity AND I also killed the one in the Burg, it didn't drop it either.

As for the person who asked about my "build", I'm starting a new game and my character is a freshly-made one; I don't know if I'm going to use the BKS the entire game or not, I do know that it is a *very* solid and strong weapon through at least Anor Londo.

I have another character that is SL50-ish using the BKS+5 and O's armor, but I'm trying to keep that character leveled about recommended levels and I kinda got bored playing that character and wanted something a little different for now.

This new character I'm doing, I'm planning on going solo the whole way, and/or inflating the SL a bit just to have a little fun. Having the BKS in very early game I imagine would be kinda fun, and then when I get to places like Sen's or Anor Londo, it'd sure make those places a heck of a lot easier since I've not found another weapon that does anywhere near that kind of damage. Though, as someone mentioned the Halberd above, I might see if I can get that to drop instead and see how good it works.

I'm looking for a good weapon that scales good with strength, but yet doesn't weigh _too_ much and isn't _too_ slow. Since I'm looking for a weapon that has a pretty decent damage output early-game, it'd have to be a weapon that does some good damage right out of the gate without needing to upgrade it to +10 or higher (as large shards are not easy to get pre-Anor Londo).

Pretty sure the dude in the tomb has a halberd, halberd has a pretty high str requirement. I used the bk weapons but once i got my strength to a decent level, i stopped using them, too slow for my liking and the stat modifiers aren't the greatest. They're grand early on. If you're looking for a str weapon with decent damage early on, get green titanite and take a trip down to vamos and make a fire+5 or move beyond queelag and get the fire and chaos ember and farm the worms for red titanite(the knights in asylum also drop red). Big knight in the church sometimes drops the great sword plus you've the zwei in the graveyard. Could also farms the serpents for the serpent sword.

well like its been said the BKH damage is rediculous and even then it doesnt drop very often it does take but 10 minutes to get the the BK that drops it, so if it doesnt drop its not that big of a deal to try again. plus there are i think 3 crystal lizards easily accessable shortly after getting the weapon and they always drop twink titanite so you can upgrade your hally a few times almost immediately after getting it. it is heavy though, and like all BK weapons have pretty high requirements, but if you red tearstone that think will kill most bosses in a couple hits.

the BK Halberd requires 22 Str to two hand it which is only, what, 2 higher than what the BK Sword needs to one hand it?

but good luck getting the thing though, the drop rate is miserable (or Dark Souls hates me) and you only get two chances to find it before the Kiln.

The black knight sword is amazing, especially if you get it in the burg. It's not the best strength weapon, but it has 500 attack rating at 40 strength, so it's decent.

The Dragon King Great Axe is found in the Depths. if you pump up your strength early you can use it 2 handed when you first get it. http://mmdks.com/1ex4 You'll probably be higher then level 25 when you get to him.

There are good strength weapons all over the place. The bastard sword. THE greatsword. Any halberd. Dragon King Greataxe. Dragon greatsword. Any great hammer.

oddly enough i've had the bk sword equal and occasionally out damage the bk great axe. this was two handed r1's on both weapons, and as far as i can tell none of the hits were counters. also there are 2 chances for the halberd, the knight in the basin and one in the tomb of the giants. also if you want a str weapon with a greatsword moveset like the bk sword, go kill the sens manserpents for their swords.

My str builds get the Great club first thing. With the master key you rest at firelink, run down to btown, sprint in and grab club, get killed by giants, revive in firelink. 5 minutes.

AnCapaillMor wrote:Pretty sure the dude in the tomb has a halberd, halberd has a pretty high str requirement. I used the bk weapons but once i got my strength to a decent level, i stopped using them, too slow for my liking and the stat modifiers aren't the greatest. They're grand early on. If you're looking for a str weapon with decent damage early on, get green titanite and take a trip down to vamos and make a fire+5 or move beyond queelag and get the fire and chaos ember and farm the worms for red titanite(the knights in asylum also drop red). Big knight in the church sometimes drops the great sword plus you've the zwei in the graveyard. Could also farms the serpents for the serpent sword.

Making fire weapons is a stupid idea for a Str build, it's not hard to level up your Str to 27 and 2h either the Man-serpent Greatsword or Great Club which will even do good damage at +5, let alone +10 or 15. In fact, Strength is much easier than Dex or Q earlygame because you only need 27 to get max scaling damage.

sparkly-twinkly-lizard wrote:oddly enough i've had the bk sword equal and occasionally out damage the bk great axe. this was two handed r1's on both weapons, and as far as i can tell none of the hits were counters. also there are 2 chances for the halberd, the knight in the basin and one in the tomb of the giants. also if you want a str weapon with a greatsword moveset like the bk sword, go kill the sens manserpents for their swords.

BKGA got a 20-25% invisible damage (not AR) nerf as of patch 1.06. It only does as much damage as if it had ~500-540 AR

Ghadis_God wrote:

AnCapaillMor wrote:Pretty sure the dude in the tomb has a halberd, halberd has a pretty high str requirement. I used the bk weapons but once i got my strength to a decent level, i stopped using them, too slow for my liking and the stat modifiers aren't the greatest. They're grand early on. If you're looking for a str weapon with decent damage early on, get green titanite and take a trip down to vamos and make a fire+5 or move beyond queelag and get the fire and chaos ember and farm the worms for red titanite(the knights in asylum also drop red). Big knight in the church sometimes drops the great sword plus you've the zwei in the graveyard. Could also farms the serpents for the serpent sword.

Making fire weapons is a stupid idea for a Str build, it's not hard to level up your Str to 27 and 2h either the Man-serpent Greatsword or Great Club which will even do good damage at +5, let alone +10 or 15. In fact, Strength is much easier than Dex or Q earlygame because you only need 27 to get max scaling damage.

It is once you get str over 20 but all you do then is modify the sword back to normal+5, below 20 str fire will do more damage unless you're using buffs.

After reading some of the other replies here, I want to clarify a few things:

First, I appreciate all of the suggestions!

Second, I'm looking more for a power-hitter early-game that doesn't weigh very much. The BKS only weighs 8 pounds, has a decent (albeit slightly slow) swing speed, and hits like a Mack Truck through much of the early-game. Its damage out-does everything else I've ever seen Pre-Anor Londo, Easily. Except for maybe the Dragon King Axe; but then the Dragon King Axe is also a whopping 24lbs by itself, which makes it nearly impossible to wear any sort of armor beyond clothes or maybe thief-type armor and have an equip load <50% and still use a shield and a bow at the same time.

The Drake Sword is OK but kinda 'meh', it does decent damage and is faster, but yet the BKS+2 (easily gotten with the two titanite you get from the lizard in the burg) hits for over twice the damage per swing and is just slightly slower and has a reaching thrust attack (though I wish it wasn't so stupidly slow) that does easily 3x what the Drake Sword does.

Other suggestions were made: The Man-Blade Serpent sword? I have to get clear to Sen's to get it and looking at the numbers, it isn't anywhere near as good anyways; its got at least 100 less damage even at +10.

Fire swords? Doesn't the scaling removal hurt pretty bad? And getting to Blacksmith Vamos isn't exactly the easiest thing to do; I'm still somewhat new to this. I've only been in the Catacombs once on my "main" game. And I'd need a holy sword in there of some sort.

I did, however, realize that I started a Faith-based character a week ago... and I'm pretty sure she got a BKS to drop and she should be similar Soul-Level so I might ask a friend if they got any characters about the same SL and I can get them to help me mule the sword, since the BKS is of no use to someone who's based on Faith.

have you thought about getting the gravelord greatsword?

its a guaranteed item for joining the Gravelord Cov. which would take 5 minutes from the start of the Firelink Shrine and it does more damage than the BK Sword at minimum stats (24/13), plus it inflicts toxic status. you can get it to +3 before beating a single boss, +4 once in Sens and +5 upon arriving in Anor Londo.

Gravelord Sword? *looks it up*

.......wait, what? It is an Ultra-Great Sword, but yet it only weighs 10lbs and only requires 24 Str and 13 Dex?

Hmmmmmm.

I suppose it couldn't be that hard to dump a couple extra points into Faith and get the sword of Astora and try to get down to it.

I might try that.

Oooh, and it does Toxic too haha.

you can get to the Gravelord Cov. naked with a level one character if you really want to … so many awesome shortcuts to use in the Catacombs, you don't need to even fight a single mob.

That's right I do remember a shortcut video link in the Wiki about how to get down to that without fighting anything. Thanks for reminding me, I'll have to check that out.

I can just drop my souls on something and give it a go.

Xaelai wrote:Gravelord Sword? *looks it up*

.......wait, what? It is an Ultra-Great Sword...

Your source isn't completely correct. The Gravelord Sword is a great curved sword.

Oh, right.

Haha. My bad, I looked at the wrong part of the table. Yeah.

Either way.

Just watched a video on how to do it, will probably die a couple times trying it, but it doesn't look That hard to do.

Thanks again!

it is a curved great sword, but it's also a powerful starting weapon and the stats needed to use it can be molded into a good Black Knight build without any wasted points.

It also has a very useful thrust attack. I used it for most of the game first time round.

Black Knight Weapon locations for those interested:

Black Knight Sword: Burg, Asylum (twice)
Black Knight Greatsword: Parish
Black Knight Halberd: Darkroot Basin, Tomb of the Giants
Black Knight Greataxe: Catacombs

Might be missing one or two. I feel for ya on the 10 Humanity not working though - with that I got jack from the Asylum. Meanwhile, with 3 humanity my Dex-based cleric got one from both asylum dudes. Pff.

Fortunately, my main str/dex build got a shield first time round, which was very nice... always worth killing them for that at least.

WandererReece wrote: The Gravelord Sword is a great curved sword.

Nybbles wrote:it is a curved great sword.

If you want to be technical, then it's actually a "Curved Greatsword.", so we're both wrong.