u/Geralt_Romalion

Hello everyone! Today I want to talk about something that every Revenant instinctively likes: Bleed! More precisely, our bleeding stat! How low can it be, how high can it go, what effects it and what doesn’t, is there any sense in adding additional bleeding, and more!

#What does bleeding do again? Your bleed stat determines how much ichor your drain attack will get you when you hit a target. Or, when you get a bit technical: Your strikes inflict bleed build-up. The higher the number of that build-up is, the more ichor you get. You inflict that build-up with your weapon attacks, so more strikes means more bleed, means more ichor for you (up to a cap)!

#How can I affect it? There are salves, food, active buffs, boosters ánd weapon transformations that can all enhance your bleed ór the ichor you get from draining. #Does my level affect it? Nope! Your level is completely irrelevant!

#Does my Jail affect it? Nope. At least, not significantly. Jails are pretty close in drain output, differences are less than 2 ichor at 10+ strikes of bleeding build-up. So if you are looking at more bleed build-up, the Jail is not really a highly relevant factor.

#Does my weapon affect it? It totally does! Every weapon has a basic drain stat attached to it, so your final stat starts from that base.

The weapon with the weakest bleed capability in the game is the Wandering Specter Blade with a base 22. Meanwhile the highest bleed capability comes from the Lost Broadsword with a base 85.
Every other weapon in the game sits between those two outliers!

Both of the above weapons are one-handed swords.

The outliers for the other weapontypes are as follows:

Forma Mech Arma Tajikaro (25) and Stealth Blades (72) for Runeblades.

Glutton Bells (39) and Jade Curved Blades (68) for Twinblades.

Burning Disaster (25) and Lost Bayonet (75) for Bayonets.

Argent Wolf Poleaxe (32) and Ancient Retainers Ring Spear (83) for Halberds.

Old Engraved Hammer (24) and Lost Heavy Axe (74) for Hammers.

Iron Mass (28) and Ancient Retainers Great Falchion (81) for Greatswords.

Keep in mind that a high base bleed does not automatically mean it also actually is the best at applying bleed and hitting the bleed cap. Simply because the above only takes into account the amount of bleed inflicted per hit, but does not look at attackspeeds. Weapons with a bit lower bleed stat but higher attack speed can outperform slower weapons with more bleed. Just like how DPS works for damage!

#Does my bloodcode affect it? YES! There is actually a very notable amount of variation between bloodcodes when it comes to the bonus they give out to your basic bleed stat, with the difference being close to a hundred points in said stat. This is also why when you equip any of the weapons mentioned earlier, your ingame stats will show a higher bleed stat than the number I mentioned. The bloodcode with the highest bleed bonus in the game is [Holly (Condemned)](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Luxuria+Bloodline:+Holly+(Condemned\)), the one with the lowest is Craig 2. I guess Craig thinks blood tastes bad.

#How high can you push your bleed stat? If you take [Holly (Condemned)](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Luxuria+Bloodline:+Holly+(Condemned\)), add Cup Noodles or Junk Noodles, add Bloodsucking Blades and Hunting Feast, a Hemorrhaging Weaponsalve, Iris as a companion, a Bleed transformation on a Lost Broadsword, use the Hemorrhaging Weaponboost and Ichor Absorber boosters, you can push your bleed stat to at least 540 and possibly a little higher.

#Is there a point? Not really no. The higher you push your bleeding stat, the more effective the bleeding you inflict gets in terms of how much ichor you gain when you drain it.
So a higher bleed stat basically does two things:

##A: ######You hit the maximum bleed cap on your target (how many hits needed to drain the maximum possible ichor from your target. The Bleed Tracker booster shows this on your target. Once that cap is reached, there is no point in stacking more bleed because it will not translate into more ichor upon draining)

##B:

######Pushes the maximum ichor you can drain higher (the cap for maximizing bleeding with attacks does not seem to change, instead it seems to become ‘worth more’, where hitting the bleed cap with a bleed stat of X drains less than hitting the bleed cap with a stat of X+1.(

Investing in a higher bleed stat essentially does both of these things at once, it’s not like you have to choose. But it changes ’A’ a lot quicker than B. In fact, B hits diminishing returns where you need to pump more and more into your bleed stat for a smaller and smaller effect on your maximum ichor drain amount. There is a point where your opponent is maxed out in how much bleeding you have stacked on them (the Bleed Tracker booster makes this visible above their head). You cannot add additional bleeding once you hit the cap (so for ichor purposes, any attack past this point is pointless). And you hit severe diminishing returns on higher bleed stat levels. There does not appear to be a true hard cap, but it gets harder and harder to make your inflicted bleeding return more ichor.

The highest I was able to push it, using everything mentioned earlier together, was 17 ichor with a single hit, and maxing out the bleed cap on my opponent with 2 hits, which drained 32 ichor. Right now, that means 32 ichor is probably the most you can drain at once (maybe 1-2 ichor more), but if the DLC adds superior bleed or drain boosts that number might get pushed further (it's not so much a true hard cap and more a cap limited by our current means). Most of the time you will never see such a number, if only because without anything but your base bleed, you would have to push over 25 hits to see it (and without boost it will return less ichor than the theoretical maximum anyway).

Going back to a comparison between the lowest and highest basic bleed weapon in the game: Where an unbuffed by anything Lost Broadsword can hit 26 ichor as soon as after 7 hits, the other end of the spectrum, the Wandering Specter Blade, will only drain 14 ichor after 7 hits and does not reach 26 ichor until it smacked its opponent 13 times. But be honest: How often do you need that much ichor and how often are you patient enough to hit such a high amount of strikes that high drain numbers like these become possible? Isn’t it more likely you will drain after 3-5 hits? Which will net you anywhere on a scale of 9 (wandering specter) to 15 (lost broadsword) unboosted.

And do not forget: All the bleed boosting mentioned under ‘How high can you push your bleed stat’ pushed maxing out the cap (A) from 7 hits to 2 hits and how much you can drain from that cap (B) from 26 to 32. A lot of work for arguably irrelevant gain. #So should I invest in bleeding or ichor boosts and if so how many?

Well…how much ichor do you need, truly? Invest as little as possible. A single active forma and/or booster as a way of utility is perfectly defendable, and it is up to you if you want that to take the shape of Ichor Regeneration on for example Mage Builds, or Bloodsucking Blades/Hunting Feast on a fast attacking melee build, or Gain Ichor On Overheal (any build you manage to fit it in) or even Dodge Drainer (some people like this over the Ichor On Overheal Engine) or any of the other ichor management options in the game.

Raw ichor gains are almost always better than bleeding stat buffs unless you attack fast enough that you reliably cap out on bleeding (or close to). I am not a fan of adding a bleeding transformation to your weapon. Because you will not just take the stat hit to your base damage, but also lose any damage potential an offensive transformation would have given you. Because of that you can eat as much as a 15% or even higher damage loss compared to your most optimal DPS option. That is not worth a 50% base bleed increase (look back at the previous paragraph for the difference between no boosts and the application of the entire boost kitchen sink).

In the same vein, don’t waste a booster on making bleed more effective or giving a bleed bonus/bleed bonus to a weapon attack. It’s not worth it to spend a precious booster slot on.

And that is without taking into account that pretty much everything having to do with boosting your bleed stat stacks with each other for diminishing returns, making each bleed buff thrown on top of another less effective.

Leave the bloodsucking to Joseé and do something more effective with your build options everyone!

Hello everyone, today I want to take a closer look at the Jails we can use in Code Vein 2. Obviously, Jails follow the ‘rule of cool’, but how powerful are they really? Is their damage worth building for? And if so, what works with them and what doesnt? Is it possible to build a ‘Drain build’ like we somewhat could in Code Vein 1, if only for fun and giggles?

#The Basics We currently have six Jails in the game, with Mask of Idris promising to add a few more.
These Jails are Reaper, Hound, Ogre, Stinger, Bat and Ivy.

Ogre and Stinger deal their damage in a single blow.
Reaper, Hound, Ivy and Bat do it often in two blows.

This means these last four calculate their damage against enemy defense twice, once for each strike. While this is a negative for pure damage numbers, it is a positive for boosters and effects that activate on hit, since they will trigger twice.

Jails share the exact same scaling, being C in Vitality and B in fortitude.
But while their scaling is the same, their damage, utility and burdens are not.

Bat and Ivy have the smallest burdens per individual stat, but they divide them over 4 stats in total. ######Bat: 2 Mind, 4 Willpower, 2 Vitality, 2 Fortitude.
######Ivy: 4 Mind, 2 Willpower, 2 Vitality, 2 Fortitude.

The other 4 Jails only have Vitality and Fortitude burdens, but those burdens are higher. ######Stinger: 6 Vitality, 4 Fortitude.
######Ogre: 10 Vitality, 4 Fortitude.
######Reaper: 2 Vitality, 8 Fortitude.
######Hound: 12 Vitality, 6 Fortitude.

#Utilitywise:
Reaper has parry frames during start-up.
Hound has the highest defense and balance bonus.
Bats can be used from range, but has a slow start-up animation.
Ivy activates extremely fast and the charged drain can be manually placed from range.
Ogre has a gap-closer/forward mobility.
Stinger has the highest special drain damage (backstab/cinematic attack when enemy balance breaks).

#Drain power: When the game released there was a big difference between the Jails when it came to how much ichor they could drain from a target. But, a few patches later, this has been changed, making the current situation as follows:

Under equal circumstances they all drain close to the same amount of ichor.
Reaper can drain 1 ichor more at times,
Bats will drain 2 less ichor instantly and then gets the last 2 ichor over time from the bat swarm surrounding its target.
The minimum amount you will drain appears to be 2 ichor; with the maximum ichor a single drain can get you appears to be 32 (but you will NEVER see this during normal gameplay).

#The bloodcode Now that we know what Jails scale with, being Vitality and Fortitude, it was time to search for the bloodcode with the best stats in the Vitality and Fortitude departments, leading to the following results:

######Tier 1: [Josee (Blind)](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Gula+Bloodline:+Josee+(Blind\))
######Tier 2: Craig 2
######Tier 3: Noah 4
######Tier 4: Lou 5 (mainly because of her built-in bonus)

#The damage results With the best code established, how do our Jails perform damagewise?

######The Quick Drain Bat and Ivy are surprisingly tied for the highest quick drain damage (quickly tapping your drain attack), while Stinger did the least. In the space between those outliers, Reaper ended up in the higher half, while Ogre and Hounds were in the lower half of damage.

######The Charged Drain Ivy has the most powerful Charged Drain damage (when you hold your drain attack button) while Stinger did the least. In the space between those outliers, Bat ended up in the higher half followed by Ogre, while Hounds and Reaper stranded in the lower half.

######The Special Drain/Cinematic Drain Stinger did however have the strongest special drain attack (backstab attack/cinematic drain attack when enemy balance is broken) by far, while Hounds did the least. In the space between those two outliers, Ivy took the 2nd spot after Stinger, with Bat followed by Reaper in the higher half, and Ogre sitting in the lower half.

That means that unless almost all you do is Special Drains, Ivy is your best raw DPS option (the question is if you want to give up Reaper’s parry utility. Normally I would say no. But since this is a thought experiment centered around Jails, perhaps the better damage becomes very enticing) and Hound often the lowest.

#So…can we DPS with our Jails then? Unfortunately, Jails as a DPS option still suck.
The damage is not high enough, the animations take too long, and the after cast is annoying. You will outDPS your Jail with your weaponry. Always. Jail spam just isn’t good enough, at least not when building anything remotely serious.

On lower damage Jails, the normal drain attack damage is comparable to the weaker swords and twinblade light attacks, but with a much lower attackspeed. The higher end ones can reach lower halberd light attack numbers, but again with lower attackspeeds and after casts/animation locks. Even Ivy or Ogre cannot keep up. Charged Drains lose in comparison to the heavy attacks of pretty much all weapons out there. Again because of the aftercast and the precious time charging takes, in which a weapon can do two or more heavies.

The Special/Cinematic/Backstab drains are a decent burst option when compared to a charged heavy weapon attack. Stinger and Ivy’s Special Drain is close to twice that of the Charged Heavy of the strongest two-handers, but the animation also takes over twice as long to execute, meaning in terms of final damage and DPS they once again lose (and they cannot take advantage of several buffs and boosters that a weapon cán). That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it when presented with the opportunity during a bossfight, or that you shouldnt take that backstab opportunity, because it is also about ichor gain and being invulnerable as the animation plays out. But you are likely to lose more DPS by constantly fishing for something to trigger this attack than if you would just have shrugged and attacked the target by other means.

The gap of other Jails with other weapons is even bigger. It might be possible that on the highest damaging Jails the Charged Drain is more powerful than spamming charged heavy attacks on the weakest swords or twinblades in the same timeframe, but it would be extremely close (and at this point you are stacking the deck heavily in favour of Jails).

If you then add the buff and booster restrictions (see the next section, several things do not play nice with Jails) and not being able to use Attack Forma using Jails, the conclusion unfortunately hás to be that Jails should be treated as Utility and Draining tool, but not as a DPS one. I don’t think this will surprise anybody, but being able to run a full-on Jail build that isn’t a complete meme might have been a fun addition to possible playstyles. Still, let's just see what works with Jails buffwise so we can at least have some open world fun!

#Attack Forma that work with Jails None. It is that simple. None. Attack Forma are tied to weapons. A Jail doesn't count as a weapon.

#Buffs that work with Jails

You really have to read the fine print on your buffs. If the buff talks about attack power or attacks, it will generally work with your Jail (so things like Thirsting Blade, Adrenaline, Overdrive, Double Down, Offensive Order, Warrior Spirit: Might, Bridge to Glory, etc all work).

But if the buff talks about weapon attacks specifically, it won’t work (so stuff like Elemental Weapon buffs won’t do anything). This also goes for buffs that do not necessarily specify they only work with a weapon, yet only do (like Flashing Fang).

You also have Bladedance, which sits in the middle: A Jail cannot build up stacks of it, but if you use your weapon to build up stacks, the Jail DOES benefit from the damage increase.

Generally, if you work with a basic buff group 1-4 setup ( for example Thirsting Blade or Double Down + Offensive Order + Warrior Spirit: Might + Bridge to Glory (Lou)/another buff mentioned that works) you will do okay.

#Boosters that work with Jails Things that work with everything like Overheat or Survival Instinct will work with Jails.

Stuff specific to a weapon attack or weapontype like Ceaseless Assault (despite only saying attacks and not specifying weapon attacks) or Weapon Mastery will not.

Persistence – Animus behaves the same as Bladedance: You cannot build up stacks with your Jail, but can take advantage of stacks built-up with your weapon.

And then you have a few specific boosters for drain attacks you can do with your Jail:

######Blood Boost: For 3-4 seconds after your last drain attack of any kind, deal + 12% damage. There are ways you can bug this out to stack multiple versions of this on top of each other, but with the low duration you can wonder if it is worth the sweaty play needed for this to pay off. This also requires 6 Mind ánd the Superbia bloodline, so you are almost forced to pair this with Bloodline Agnostic. How far do you want to go to make this work?

######Blood Fueled Strike: Your next attack after any drain attack deals + 25% damage. Duration seems close to infinite on the applied buff, said buff also applies to your next drain (while also refreshing itself). As far as drain specific boosters go, this isn't that bad.

######Heavy Drain: Your Charged Drain attacks deal + 20% damage. If only the Charged Drain wasn’t by far the worst part of your Jail moveset…

######Special Drain Increase:
Your backstab/cinematic Drain attacks deal 20% more damage. If you can get this off in the open world through backstabs or otherwise, I suppose why not.

######LP Drain Recovery: When you perform a drain attack, restore some LP. This is normally 6%, but the Jails that hit twice also trigger this booster twice, recovering 12% LP instead. A little bit of added longevity I suppose.

Lastly you have some bleed build-up boosting boosters (but you should have ichor for years when you spam the Jail, so they seem unneeded) and slow build-up on drain attacks (one can wonder how effective slow is on its own, especially on non-Lou codes. And Lou gets this effect for free. Which does not stack with said booster anyway).

So, if you would really want to make a themed build around your Jail, there are options.
But like I said earlier, because Jails just are not meant to be a damage or DPS tool, this is something you run for the fun of it, not because you expect serious performance from such a build.

#The weapons of choice: Technically you would want something fast so you could ‘cheat’ your way into a bit of higher jail damage through stacking Bladedance + Persistence Animus. That means picking up a fast light-chain Twinblade set like for example the VK Dual Blades, or a one-handed sword with a fast light attack like the Black Saber, possibly paired with fast multi hit attacks like Circulating Pulse, depending how much you want to do that aren't Jail attacks. Grabbing a Halberd with Drill Breaker could also work very well if you decide on the Bladedance route.

You can also make use of whatever code you picked under Bloodcodes and just grab whatever you fancy and works well with its innate stats (you can check the respective guides for these weapons for some ideas) and just go to town on things.

Joseé (Blind) will likely prefer 50/50 STR/DEX quality scaling weapons with Vigor, so several Halberds could then do the job (but you can just as happily run a full Strength or Dexterity weapon with it for a bit lower damage).

Craig will prefer things that scale with Strength, Noah will want Dexterity weapons, and Lou will take anything that can make use of her Mind stat, possibly with Strength.

#The Offensive Forma: Your call. Joseé Blind will probably prefer Bloodreaver Blade. That will probably do more than whatever your Jail does, but spamming this will turn your Jail build into a Bloodreaver Blade one (and Hero Valentin is better at that). Craig will probably want Absolute Executioner, Noah probably Bloodreaver Blade again, with Lou being able to make do with either of those two or even Idris’ Conceit.

#The Defensive Forma: It doesn't matter. Your call. Go Wild.

#The Companions: Technically either Iris or Craig, since they boost Vitality, one of the stats your Jail damage scales from. But if you like another companion, it’s not like you will miss that 2,5% damage.

#The food: Sukiyaki/Consomme Soup will boost your Strength/Dexterity weapon, but give absolutely nothing for your Jail damage.

If you really, REALLY, want to focus on that Jail and on NOTHING else…then use Munchies. Munchies add 10% damage to all Jail attacks. Idris knows your poor Jail needs every boost it can get.

#Consumables: The majority of damage buffing consumables like for example Salves, do NOT work with your Jail (because they do not add an effect to your attack or attack stat, but specifically to your weapon).

Attack Injections (both normal and S variants) however do. Since those also work with all your other damage sources, they are probably your best bet.

#And that was all there is to say! Jails look cool and menacing, but as a DPS option, they absolutely and without a doubt completely suck. Your weapons will outDPS them. Your Spells will outDPS them. Your Offensive Forma will probably outDPS them (and Bloodreaver Blade certainly will outDPS them). As such, I would never consider to run anything focused around Jails or Drain Attacks for serious gameplay. Only do this for ‘shits and giggles’ because you are running out of ideas for challenge runs. It will work in the open world. Probably. But that doesn't mean it isn't fun or that you won't look cool for trying it anyway!

Hello! Today I return to you all to talk about something that isn’t maximizing damage and squeezing the last possible percent of it out of your build! No, this time I want to explore the complete opposite: What is a reasonable defensive investment for your build, what minimal changes will result in the biggest effect and of course, how far can we push our innate tank fantasies?

#Is it viable? Why wouldn’t it be? Obviously, it won’t be as fast as a glass cannon build would be, but it will also be a lot less risky. It worked in the first game after all. Because while glass cannons were in the majority in the first Code Vein game as well, you could also build to become insanely tanky if you wanted to, to the point of being unkillable (literally. The ‘Immortal Breath’ build in Code Vein 1 would make you take 0 damage from all sources using an approach I think the devs probably never anticipated. Or how you could build versus one specific type of damage to the point you could not just take no damage, but actually heal yourself).

Soulslikes have always had access to some sort of easymode/carry build. Dark Souls had the ‘Giant Dad’ and ‘Havel’ builds, Code vein 1 had the ‘Zweihander 100% block tank’ and ‘Immortal Breath’ builds, so it is not like I am here committing some sort of blasphemy.

#How does damage calculation in Code Vein 2 work? The way I have come to understand it, damage in Code Vein 2 passes two different checks before any HP or LP damage is applied to your character.

######The first check is your defense stat and guarding stat.

If you are not guarding, and get hit while just doing whatever you were doing, damage taken gets reduced by your defense stat. If you were guarding, it will use your guard stat instead. This will result in a damagenumber.

######The second check subtracts any percentual damage reduction buffs from that first number. This second checks the incoming damage after it interacted with your defense/guard defense versus any damage reducing buffs you have on you that do not add a flat percentage to your defense stat but are their own percentual reduction.

Example: incoming hit is 100 slash. Your base defensive against slash is 20%. So that damage gets reduced to 100 * 0.8 = 80. You then also have a buff on you that reduces incoming damage by 25% (so let’s say Iron Will). The final damage you now take is 80 – (80*0.25) = 60. If you then happen to have another percentual buff, let’s say one that reduces by 10%, you then get 60 – (60 *0,10) = 54.

What this means is that percentual damage buffs become less relevant the more you stack them and that the best first line of defense is pushing your first check, your actual defense stat value, as high as you can, because that is where not just the first, but also the biggest damage reduction happens. Naturally in the early and midgame you just grab what you can, but ideally this is what you should push for in the end.

#What defense value in Code Vein 2 should you target: 100? 240? 150? 160? You can stack your defense values in Code Vein 2 insanely high if you want to. It is possible to push your physical resistances over 150 and I did not have a lot of trouble to find combinations to push my elemental guarding resistance over 240.

And do you know what is fun about that? There is no point in pushing any defensive stat past 100.

Code Vein 2’s defense stat shows you a percentage, not just a number. So if for example your crush defense is 31.77, it means you take 31.77% less damage from crush attacks. Now guess what it means if that defense is 100. Exactly, 100% less damage, better known as 0 damage.
This value is for both physical ánd elemental damage, so just keep the following rule in mind:

If my resistance for damage type X is 100, I will take 0 damage from that type of damage.

#But how? Cool, we have now established that the ideal defense stat is 100. But how do we reach it? It is not overly hard luckily.

Example: the combination of Elemental Wall + Ablative Blood will often push you past 100 elemental defense so full elemental immunity.

Juggernaut + Ablative Blood will push you past 100 physical defense, so full physical immunity (sometimes just Juggernaut + food/companion is enough).

And if you like blocking, you can use Bleeding Shield or Blood Soaked Shield variants, with either an elemental defense or physical transform with Prismatic Veil or Steady Bulwark to obtain full immunity to everything in the world while guarding.

######However, there are a few catches.

Juggernaut for example massively lowers your elemental defense and gives you the slowest mobility/dodge in return for + 70% physical resistance.. If all you encounter is physical damage there is no reason to care. But if your enemy pulls an elemental attack out of nowhere to throw into your face…you won’t be there to tell the tale. Juggernaut will actually push your elemental defense into double digit negatives. When used right this gift is insanely tanky. But when you don’t know the fight and enemy well enough, that stray elemental attack WILL turn you into red paste.

Ablative Blood is great, but only as long as you have ichor. Every hit you take drains ichor from you. In return it adds + 50% to all your defenses. But when you are out of ichor… Running Ablative Blood will require you to aggressively drain to keep your ichor reserves at healthy levels, possibly with drain buffs like Hunting Feast, Bloodsucking Blades or possibly even both to get the most of your drain moments possible.

Elemental Wall adds + 24% to all of your elemental defenses…except blood. For blood it only adds 4%.

And while the shields can block all damagetypes, remember that blocking takes stamina. And if you run out of it, the damage is going to come through. So you have to be very selective about what to block (and not just keep that guard button down the entire fight) and if possible have access to stamina cost reduction (like Guard Stability) or stamina restoration (Serene Stance/Morale Boost) to make the most out of it.

#What defensive gift options do I have in Code Vein 2? Let’s just check them one by one.

######Juggernaut Like discussed earlier, one of the premium physical damage reducers, but also one with notable drawbacks. Still, if all you encounter is physical damage, this is a massive tanking boost that adds + 70% to your base physical defense values.

######Ablative Blood +50% to all your defense values, but lose ichor every time you take a hit. Keep your ichor up!

######Elemental Wall
A great generalist buff to boost all your elemental defenses by 24% except blood, which only gets a 4% boost. So if you are facing multiple attacks of different elements, this is a good forma to bring (or bring it on top of the specific Elemental protection forma to stack them together).

######Flame Protection/Blood Protection/Ice Protection/Lightning Protection These add + 30% to your base defense value for their particular element. That means they are not as interesting as elemental wall when facing multiple types of elemental damage, but they are the better tool when only facing a single type.

######Defensive Order I want to put a big massive Neon Sign near this forma that reads “NOOB TRAP!”
Because you should avoid this at all costs. It interacts with the base defensive stat, but not like other gifts do. Other gifts basically add + X % on top of that stat. Defensive Order, technically adds 20% defense, but it does not do ‘base defense + 20’. Instead, it takes Base Defense stat + (Base Defense Stat 0.2) and does that separately for each damagetype. So if you for example have 20% slash defense, Defensive Order turns that into ( 20 + (200.2) 24%. Technically correct, but a let down when the usual behaviour would have been base 20 + 20 = 40%. On top of that, this then also reduces your damage output by a nasty 40%. Just…skip this. This can never be worth it. Never.

######Steady Bulwark Adds a flat + 5 to your physical defense while guarding. When using Blood Soaked Shields this can be enough to hit 100% physical damage reduction.

######Prismatic Veil Adds a flat + 5 to your elemental defense while guarding. Depending on your setup you will either not need this or it can be just enough to push you into 100% elemental damage reduction.

######Iron Will Iron Will is a 25% damage reduction, but the reduction gets applied to the damage after it has been calculated against your defense or guard defense. That makes it less interesting and not as powerful as it was in the first game. Still, in the earlygame I could people grab this.

######Foulblood Barrier It is a 50% damage reduction, but again only after damage has already been calculated against your defense or guard defense ánd only for a single hit. And unlike Code Vein 1, there is no Yakumo around to stack Foulbloods into a single 100% damage reduction.

######Warrior Spirit: Rigor This sucks. It gives damage reduction based on how close you are to your enemy. If you are practically inside of their hitbox it is 23%. But it falls off extremely fast. On top of that, this applies to damage AFTER that damage has already passed your defense or guarding defense check. This is basically a worse and more conditional Iron Will (which itself is already less than stellar for pure defensive purposes).

######Panaceas Essence Basically this is Code Vein 2’s version of Penicillin. It cures any debuff you have on you and also cures all possible debuff build-up you have. It is a catch-all solution for everything debuff related and the only reason you would bring a specialized debuff removal is because it puts less burden on your weapon. Just don’t forget this also cures debuffs that are normally incurable.

######Inhibit/Stall/Stun/Venom/Leak Removal What Panaceas Essence does, but then specialized.

######Antibody generation Makes it so debuffs have to build up longer on you before being applied. This might have a niche if you find yourself in a situation where you take a massive amount of build-up in under a few seconds (like when you get spammed with Luna Rapacis), but otherwise there is no reason to bring this in a world where Panaceas Essence exists.

######Guard Stability This reduces the stamina it costs you when you guard an incoming attack. Since no stamina = shield broken = take damage, this can be useful if you have decided to rely on blocking shield forma.

######Circular Guard When you guard, automatically guard against all directions (and not just the one you face). This is mostly interesting with the Bleeding Shield if you opted for that, because something like Blood Soaked Shield variants already block from all directions by default.

######Regenerator When you heal, you heal 25% more. It’s something…I guess? Perhaps this is more valuable when you do not yet have a lot of heals or heals that aren’t upgraded.

######Life Conversion Spend ~9% of your LP to heal your HP. I suppose you can toy with this to meet certain thresholds like the one from Last Guard or the bonus from Craig’s code. I can see some uses for this, if only because the heal is pretty decent and the LP lost isn’t much, but there are probably better options.

######Cleansing Light This was so extremely powerful in the first game…unfortunately it is now a shadow of its former self. It does not trigger on your own health sacrifice anymore. Using it on its own is not enough. You need to use a forma after this to get the effect. And it heals slow. If you are truly desperate for some sort of healing go ahead. Personally? I don’t think it’s worth jumping through the hoops for.

######Forma Extension Your buffs last 50% longer. Depending on ichor management this could alleviate some strain on your ichor economy so you do not have to recast buffs as often (leaving more for something like Ablative Blood to use).

######Feral Tenacity This is…pretty good. If your health is above a certain amount, and you take damage, you will survive that hit with 1 HP if it would otherwise have killed you. The threshold for this to trigger seems extremely low. I am not sure how low, but I seemed to be able to trigger it at 10% HP and 0 LP. If anything you better hope that if you survive with 1 HP you don’t immediately get smacked by a follow-up attack.

######Last Guard If you take damage from a hit, and your LP is above a certain amount, you will always survive that hit with 1 LP left. The threshold seems to be 35% LP for this to trigger. If you know there is a fight coming that has a few specific hard-hitting attacks you have trouble with, I could see this doing in work. Remember this is LP we are talking about, so this can trigger while at full health, potentially softening a massive killing blow.

######Sturdy Body Lower your forma damage, but get a higher amount of LP in return. I mean a bigger LP bar means more LP for the enemy to chew through, and it might help to give you a cushion if your build absolutely NEEDS your partner for their benefits and/or stat boosts (meaning you always need LP). But this is very niche.

######Serene Stance/Morale Boost One of these can potentially be very good because both fully restore stamina (and stamina is valuable in especially blocking builds). Serene stance is cheaper and quicker to cast, Morale Boost also gives a bit of bonus max stamina after using it.

######Ichor Regeneration If you truly run out of ichor you can use this. It is a bit slow, but over time (and it has a generous duration) it will pay back its own cost in ichor multiple times over. I can see a synergy here with something like Ablative Blood that makes you lose ichor with every hit you take. Do keep in mind that Ichor Regeneration not just lowers your damage by weapon (magic doesn’t count) 30%, but also your defenses by a whopping 50%, which, for someone who is reading this to become tankier, is a very steep drawback (because it now means a significantly harder puzzle to hit high damage resistances).

######Bloodsucking Blades/Hunting Feast This might be a better option than ichor regeneration to help you manage ichor, but you need to actively use drain attacks to get value. These two gifts stack.

#Tanky Bloodcodes Some bloodcodes are tankier than others. If you are after the highest physical defense values, Iris 3 is the code you want. A good runner up is Craig 2. When it comes to Elemental defense, the picture becomes slightly more varied. Craig 2 holds the crown for the highest basic lightning defense, Lou 5 for the highest Blood defense, with the highest fire and ice defense being the territory of Zenon 2. Honestly I was a bit surprised how much of an all-rounder Zenon is. It is not the highest for every possible defense stat, but it does not really lack in any of them either. Iris has a bit higher physical defense than Craig or Zenon, but both Zenon and Craig have better elemental defenses.

######Great physical defense specialist but weaker elemental defenses: Iris 3 ######Strong physical defense + okay elemental defense : Craig 2 ######Okay physical defense + great elemental defense : Zenon 2.

None of these three are terribly wrong when looking at their basic stats. But what about their code specific bonuses?

Iris clearly focuses on buffing your balance, meaning she is the solid choice if you find yourself staggered out of attacks during a fight often.

Craig focuses on reducing that one nasty big hit that usually gives you trouble (but only if that hit depletes LP. Once LP is gone is does nothing, so it really is for that single hit. It does trigger again if you restore LP and it happens again, but it might be hard to time reliably). Craig is also the code that has the biggest focus on blocking, while Iris her balance bonuses are more meant to keep you swinging through whatever an enemy throws at you (or keep you standing in place if you do decide blocking is the correct action).

Zenon is basically a ‘quality tank’ option for the lack of a better description, because it focuses on keeping your options open. In a bind? Zenon reduces ichor costs. Weather is nice? Attack and Defense bonuses (you might be able to manipulate the weather being sunny through continuous resetting at a mistle), and ofcourse him redistributing burdens equally. Also don’t forget that Zenon has the highest basic Mind stat of these three codes, making it easier to reach the key threshold of 16 Mind for certain utility boosters should you want them (Zenon is 13 base).

#Tanky Jail Quite simply put: if you are really going for that tanky build option, Hounds is your premium choice. It comes not just with the highest base defenses, it also has the highest bonus by a notable margin for your balance stat.

#Tanky Defensive Forma Obviously the shields. The Bloodsoaked Shields/[Bloodsoaked Shields (Heavy)](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Bloodsoaked+Shields+(Heavy\)) are the tankiest things around, especially with a Rigor transformation (but you might not even need that). You will not have any issues building for 100% guard defense against everything. Do note that they come with hefty burdens, so especially on lower Mind codes like Craig you will need to find ways to boost your base stats in order to avoid Overburdening ( food/companions/booster can all help).

If you run Iris 3 you also have the easiest time hitting 100% guard defense with Bleeding Shield variants or even the rarely used Shield of Stupor (but you will have to find at least 6 Willpower somewhere with Iris). All of these come with burden demands on their own, especially when using the Rigor transformation on them (but if you use Iris as a companion you might not need this specific transformation depending on how you decide to build). As always, you might need to do some stat puzzling/juggling, but its doable.

#Tanky Boosters Honestly there aren’t a lot of boosters that directly help a tank build, but the selection below are probably the best options you can pick from (and which ones fit depend on your chosen bloodcode).

######Augmented Regeneration (no Overburden) Very simple and to the point: Get 2 additional heal charges. Could be worth considering if you often find yourself to be out of healing as a bossfight progresses (and often lose because of that).

######Regeneration Shift (no Overburden) You have 1 less healing charge, but all charges heal 25% more. That’s decent if you are not a panic healer who overheals ( like smashing heal at 80-90% health).

######Revamped Regeneration (16 Willpower requirement) Your regeneration heals for more. But at 16 Willpower, good luck using it. Technically Zenon 2 could, provided you bring a + 5 Willpower booster or both + Willpower food ánd a + Willpower companion.

######Extended Recovery (no Overburden) When you pick up the haze from when you died, restore 2 regeneration charges. Not much of a point to this unless there is a gauntlet of foes between you and your place of death. It does stack with the innate effect on the bloodcode it comes from (Lycoris), meaning with that and this you could potentially restore 4 charges…but then you are using Lycoris. And assuming you will die a lot. Let’s be more…positive.

######Forma Extender (no Overburden, 8 Mind requirement) Buff forma last 20% longer. Make your good stuff last longer is never bad. And this stacks with the active variant as well. Not that bad if you have a free booster slot.

######Resistance Booster Additional resistance against all debuffs at once, including the ones that don't have a specific counter booster, but less than if you used a specialised resistance booster (if available).

######Blood/Curse/Disease/Wound Resistance For when you find a specific status to be VERY scary and even Revenant Penicillin (Panaceas Essence) just does not dispel your nightmares.

######Shield of Devotion (6 Mind requirement) This is essentially Craig’s innate bloodcode effect but in a booster. On Craig you get it for free, which is appreciated. But here it takes up a booster slot. We don’t like situational things to take up a valuable booster slot. Taking less damage when the damaging hit depletes LP is fun when you get it for free, but it is only that one hit that makes LP go ‘poof’ and then doesn’t work anymore until you restore your LP (and then it can trigger again). We can do better than this.

######Steadfast Stance If your health is above the threshold, survive a fatal attack with 1 HP. Said threshold seems to be 35% (and as such seems like a 1:1 copy of the signature gift from Code Vein 1’s Atlas Bloodcode). Not overly bad, but do keep in mind that this and Feral Tenacity can trigger for the same hit if you bring both, potentially wasting one of them. I think Feral is better, but if you just want to ‘throw something to prevent a KO at the build and stop overthinking it’ you could do worse.

######Steady Guard (18 Vitality requirement) “Reduces the amount of stamina consumed when using defensive formae and successfully guarding against parryable formae attacks.” Conserving stamina can be quite important, so this can definitely help. Shame it isn’t a universal decrease in stamina usage, but you can’t have everything.

######Victory LP Restores LP when an enemy is defeated. Useless for bossfights, but it might help to lengthen the time between heal uses in the open world as you move between thrash mobs and groups.

######+2/+5 Mind/Willpower/Dexterity/Strength If you need these stats (and this will often be the case for either Mind or Willpower), you can slot in one of these, and if needed boost the desired stat even further through companions or food.

######Glutton (15 Mind requirement) For if you want double food buffs.

#Tanky Weapons The weapon as in the physical object has no impact on your defense ratings, only the forma you decide to put on said weapon do. So depending on how tanky you want to go and what defensive forma you wish to bring, grab a buff-stick that supports your needs and fits within the burden of your chosen code.

For DPS buff-sticks, the golden formula was to always search for 6 handling and 9-10 conversion. For a tanky buff-stick, it’s a little more complicated, if only because it heavily depends on how many and what type of defensive buffs you are going to bring. You can however disregard the Handling stat for it. None of the typical tanky forma require it so even something as low as 4 or 5 Handling should support the occasional niche gift. What you do want?

You look for 4-8 reliability, 8-16 conversion (yeah…tanky gifts LOVE the conversion stat) and 0-5 Conductivity (this shouldn’t be much of a problem).

######Some options could for example be:

Garnet Splitter and Thorn of Devotion hit a decent amount in the stats we want, but the high Mind burden might prove challenging. Zealots Ceremonial Sword is slightly easier on the Mind, but has less Conversion. Argent Wolf Kingsblade could work. Iron Mass Of Dawn frees you of the mind requirement, but with the low conversion you will need to spread tanky buffs across two weapons. I could even see Burning Disaster work depending on your forma picks, same for Rubbelite Piercer. These are NOT your only options. Depending on the forma you decide to take, PLENTY of other weapons become viable (or can be viable with a bit of stat boost juggling, something you should be prepared to do!).

#Tanky Food >Oh, this? It’s called “onigiri.” It’s a kind of food that’s easy to carry around. Not that there’s any point in eating food for a revenant. Although we may thirst for blood, we never grow hungry. ...Still, I think that makes eating all the more meaningful for us. We fight, we drink blood, we revive, we fight some more... Our lives are pretty much one endless loop. But every time you go around, you almost forget... that we were all human once. If I completely lost the memory of my human past, I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d just be... something in the shape of me. I’d look like a revenant, but on the inside I’d be no different to the Lost. What’s the point of living like that? I served in the army, back before I became a revenant. We always used to eat these things when we were out on missions. I guess... it helps me remember. It was a miserable time, but I made some good friends that I shouldn’t let myself forget. This stuff doesn’t really taste that great, but eating it always reminds me of those friends. So, I guess you could say it helps me stay me. It’s been an important companion in my life!

Yes, the Code Vein 1 lovers guessed it: Yakumo’s favourite food, Onigiri (and also Grilled Onigiri) are the tankiest food, providing a 4.5% boost to your defense stats. If you combine both Onigiri variants through the use of Glutton it becomes 9% (you need 15 Mind for this. That is attainable for Zenon, but can be a challenge on Craig or Iris).

if you value health instead, Oden Bread is a 10% Max HP boost.

If you need to hit specific stat thresholds: Meatloaf adds + 2 Mind, Sukiyaki + 2 Strength, Consomme Soup + 2 Dexterity, and Omelet Rice + 2 Willpower.

#Tanky Companions Iris is probably the top choice, because Iris gives + 10% in all defense categories across the board, both normal ánd guarding. That means Iris can experiment with other shield options, you are not necessarily bound to a Bloodsoaked Shield variant (and, if you applied a Rigor transform, probably need some specific stat boost to avoid overburdening). Iris can reach 100% Guard with ány shield, including the Bleeding and even the Stupor Shield you get from beating Franz. It might be a bit of a stat puzzle here and there, but it is possible. For this purpose, Iris is absolutely S tier. And she also comes with a bit of bonus Vitality!

Next up is Craig. Craig has a +5% bonus to your guard defense (which is completely inferior to the flat 10% Iris adds everywhere), but he has another ace up his sleeve: Autoguard. Autoguard means that if something would have hit you, and you were not in the middle of something (casting or attacking etc) it will automatically BLOCK FOR YOU. That’s huge. This is Craig playing a bit of the defense game for you out of the goodness of his heart (and can come in clutch surprisingly often).

If you don’t need defense help, but hate how often your buffs run out, bring Lise. Because Lise comes with a bonus towards forma duration.

Joseé gives you reduced incoming damage after she revived you (so a bit like how in Code Vein 1 White Mia functioned).

If none of this interests you, but you need a companion for a specific stat boost:

######Craig/Iris add + 2 Vitality.

######Lise adds + 2 Dexterity/Mind

######Valentin adds + 2 Willpower/Dexterity/Strength

######Josee adds + 2 Strength

######Lyle/Noah add + 2 Dexterity

######Lou adds + 2 Mind

######Lavinia/Holly add + 2 Willpower

######Zenon adds + 2 Strength/Dexterity

#Tanky Consumables Code Vein 2 showers you with a huge amount of consumables that can be useful to you if you want to boost your defenses.

You can bring Supressants to cure status (if you don’t want to devote a weapon forma slot to Panacea) or Vaccines to boost your resistance to them (but I would rather cure everything that osn’t something super debilitating like Luna Rapacis).

For Elemental defense you have the various elemental Resistax and Resistax S consumables (the normal version is + 12%, the S variant + 24%), while for physical defense you have Attack Resistax and Attack Resistax S (again the normal variant is + 12% and the S version + 24%). Obviously these are all temporary, but they might help to hit key stat thresholds at the right moment.

I also think it is a great idea to bring both Cyclian Kernel and Giant Cyclian Kernel on your consumable bar. Both allow a short period of limitless stamina usage (the Giant version allows it for longer), which can be key to tanking through a devasting barrage of enemy attacks or combo’s that would otherwise leave you without stamina and thus vulnerable. Using one of these at the right time can turn the tide of a fight!

In a similar vein you have the Energy Tablet and Energy Tablet S, which reduce stamina consumption, but I feel the Cyclian Kernels are the superior items if you have to choose or prefer to bring just one stamina supporting item.

#Famous last words Once again, you have reached the end of what has turned into quite an essay. If you found this because you wanted some defensive help, I hope this was what you were looking for. If you were reading this and went: “I know another way to boost someone’s survivability that is not mentioned here” then let me and the rest of the world know in the comments! Thank you for reading.

#Introduction Hello! Today I want to take a deep dive into Code Vein 2 greatswords. Are they fun, are they good and ofcourse ‘is Titan’s Arm worth using?’. They are certainly fun, they are at least good enough, and about Titan’s Arm… #Advantages and disadvantages

Let’s be honest: Greatswords absolutely have the ‘cool factor’. They always had. Who doesn’t know a character from fantasy or anime swinging this huge chunk of metal around like it weighs nothing? And who doesn’t know the typical trade-offs at this point? With huge power comes slow swing speed. With great reach comes long animations. With sheer intimidation because of its size comes the problem of high weight (or in Code Vein 2, Burden). But you know what other weapontype is known for these things? The Hammer. Hammer is all these advantages and disadvantages too. But you know what hammer also has? Stagger. Guess what Greatsword doesn’t have as much…

Greatsword is not necessarily worse, but essentially you have two weapons competing for the same role (with, like the first game, Halberds at times happily laughing at both because Halberds are busted). Hammer’s identity is also clear as a highly damaging stagger/crowd controller. But now Greatsword is a highly damaging…less stagger inflicting crowd controller.

I never thought I would say this, but I feel the Code Vein 2 Greatsword could really use something to help it carve out a unique role for itself a little better.

#Before the tiering: let's discuss Titan’s Arm, the elephant in the greatsword locker-room Titan’s arm is both a booster and the unique defining trait of the [Artificial Arm Lyle bloodcode](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Patientia+Bloodline:+Lyle+(Artificial+Arm\)). What it does (if you meet the requirements), is allowing you to wield your two-handed sword as if it is a one-handed sword instead. This will replace the moveset of your twohander (including your special charged heavy attacks if your weapon had one) with that of a one-hander, including the increased swing speed one-handers have.

######Before continuing, I feel like I need to point out a few things where the fextralife wiki appears to be wrong:

• Fextra claims that equipping Titan’s Arm will reduce your damage by 35%. That is not the case (at least not in my testing) and I am not sure how they came up with that figure. The amount of damage you lose depends on the attack used (light/heavy/charged) and also differs between weapons. It can be a mere 6% loss, but it can also be 22% (or even 38%) for example. The average is something like 16%, but it fluctuates quite a bit.

• What Fextra also doesn’t mention is that is not a loss for everything. Because the black box that is the math behind Titan’s Arm, will actually boost the damage of jump attacks (jump/airborne + light attack), plunge attacks (heavy attack while in the air) and also of attack forma (by a mere 0,2%-0,5%).

• Lastly, Fextra also claims that using Titan’s Arm will allow you to slot either one-handed sword mastery OR two-handed sword mastery boosters, and that either will work but NOT both. Guess what? BOTH work and stack together. That of course is interesting when min-maxing because it represents an additional 10% damage boost to toy with that you can’t get on other setups.

######The optimizing attempt: Optimizing for Titan’s arm is a pain. Needing a margin of 24 Strength (for the version that comes baked in on the Bloodcode) does not leave you with a lot of room and the low Mind stat hampers your ability to pack all the DPS boosters you would love to grab. Eventually I had a setup that worked, but it had one tiny problem: It only allowed for the use of a single weapon. Obviously, that was a no go, because that means you cannot bring a buff-stick weapon, so that’s 4 DPS buff forma you miss out on.

So, what now? Ironically, the answer turned out to be: On the code that has an innate Titan’s Arm effect…equip the Titan’s Arm booster. Why? Because they have different requirements.

The innate effect demands a 24 Strength Margin (read: with base 40 Strength, you can only use 16 of it). But the booster only has a 12 Strength Burden. And that allowed me to slot in a massive buff-stick in Iron Mass of Dawn (which only has a Strength Burden, meaning I did not have to worry about my low Mind or Willpower values), being able to pair it with several DPS options, and together with boosters, hit exactly 40 Strength, exactly 8 Mind, and the ability to use the best jail in Reaper Jail (The only Jail that would work without overburdening the base stats actually, but let’s pretend this was fully intended).

Woohoo, we did it! And while staying within the base stats/burdens as well. Meaning you can theoretically try to make other options that are júst out of range work through a combination of stat bonuses from food, companions or map-specific shrine effects.

######But was it worth it? It's complicated. Theoretically you could pull a tiny bit ahead. But you have to pull out all possible stops to make it work, you absolutely NEED to play with Survival Instinct ( 22% bonus damage below 50% health) to pump the numbers (which probably means needing something to sacrifice health like Blood Sacrifice), you have pretty much zero booster freedom AND you are arguably worse at your job than non-Titan’s Arm variants unless playing in one very specific manner.

You see, with Titan’s Arm you get a very clear result when it comes to your numbers: You do less damage per hit (Burst), but on average do more damage over time (DPS). Eventually. Unfortunately, Greatsword is a burst weapon and you are rarely if ever going to find yourself in a situation where you can smash away at things for long enough that DPS becomes fully superior over burst. If you can reliably squeeze in more hits of the same type than you could without Titan’s arm (like 3 lights/heavies/charged with Titans versus only 2 without) you might get a small bonus. But that is not just on a per enemy basis, but really on an attack window basis. And your very minor advantage will be gone as soon as you would get a few attack windows where you miscalculate and put an equal amount of hits out.

Granted, there are a few weapons that lose surprisingly little (sometimes as little as 6%) OR have a crap move set that gets fixed by overwriting it with the Titan’s Arm version where you have a little more wiggle-room for mistakes before it becomes a damage-loss. But for the majority of the time I would pick burst over DPS.

Should you want to build for Titan’s arm anyway, the Nameless Greatsword (Brawn) gave me the best results (with Iron Mass of Dawn as the buff-stick and a rigid booster setup of one-handed-sword mastery, two-handed-sword-mastery, Titan’s Arm, Ceaseless Assault, Survival Instinct and Boosted Technique OR +5 Strength (Strength Booster Overload). Boosted Technique is stronger (and ichor hungrier!), but + 5 Strength gives some additional weapon options).

If you don’t want Boosted Technique (+20% on attack forma but ups their cost) you can try fitting in Overheat (an unconditional 15%), but it means also having to fit in Bloodline Agnostic and eating all your Willpower burden (all 8 points of it).

Iron Mass was the runner up weapon (But it needs to find 3 Strength somewhere to avoid Overburdening, which shuts off most of your boosters, Titan’s Arm included). You can opt for the + 5 Strength Booster over Boosted Technique or one of the other not Survival Instinct boosters, or use a combination of Sukiyaki food (gives a + 2 Strength bonus amongst other things) with a companion that boosts Strength (Valentin/Joseé/Zenon all give a +2 Strength bonus).

Other decent options were Judgement Blade Gregory and Cultist’s Ritual Blade (less damage than the two options mentioned earlier, but still acceptable while having easier Burden requirements). It is not like Titan’s Arm setups are bad. Far from it even. But they are heavily restrictive and leave zero room for flexibility. And unless you are able to play a fight flawlessly and perfectly take advantage of every single attack window you get, a normal Lyle setup will win out sooner or later. And when you compare Titan’s Arm + One-handed-sword-mastery versus Bloodline Agnostic + Overheat (non-titan’s arm), the latter will win out by 3.5% for Forma damage, so you NEED to be perfect (so you get that theoretical occasional extra hit in EVERY SINGLE TIME).

When played right the differences are small and human error will be a much bigger factor. But Titan’s Arm will punish mistakes or ‘using bad attacks in the moveset’ a lot harder for at best questionable and debatable theoretical gain under perfect circumstances when all stars align. My advice? Go play a ‘normal’ Artificial Arm Lyle build. Takes 1% of the effort and breaks your brain a lot less concerning your setups and probably coming out ahead (And burst will typically prove to be more valuable to you than sustained DPS).

HOWEVER…keep Titan’s Arm in the back of your head for when the Mask of Idris DLC drops.
Because the Titan’s Arm variant is one single advantage away (be it a super light buff-stick weapon/buff-stick with a burden in not-used stats, a buff or booster that it disproportionally benefits from etc) of flying to the top, who knows if the DLC will give it such an advantage!

######And how about using Titan’s Arm on other codes? Personally I do not think it is worth it to try anything with Titan’s Arm in a code that is not Artificial Arm Lyle. You just lose too much base damage (because of the drastically lower Strength) and the flexibility gain of a more balanced stat spread on Resurgence Core/Josee 4/Soul Saviour Valentin (more freedom with Dex/Will/Mind values for boosters or buff stick weapons/weapons in general) unfortunately does not make up for it from a min-maxed DPS perspective (and it also eats two booster slots due to needing Bloodline Agnostic on every not-Lyle code bar Soul Saviour Valentin.

But ‘SSV’ only has a mere 30 Strength (do not forget Titan’s Arm coming with 12 Strength Burden, so you only have 18 Strength left for equipment to use before factoring in boosters/food/companions). Thing is, with enough fiddling around you can make all of those codes function with Titan’s Arm. But they will all perform worse than the Artificial Arm version. So, if you just want to have fun that way: Go ahead. If you are after DPS/min-maxing/Efficiency: Not recommended. #Bloodcodes and weapons

Greatswords truly are a Strength based world. Titan’s Arm or not, [Artificial Arm Lyle](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Patientia+Bloodline:+Lyle+(Artificial+Arm\)) reigns supreme as the premium tier 1 code. If you don’t mind a minor DPS loss you can go with [Resurgence Core](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Resurgence+Core+(Blood+Code\)) (which has a bit more flexibility with its stat spread for secondary weapons, booster selection and also burden).

Some weapons prefer a more balanced statspread and as such should be ran with [Hero Valentin](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Hero+Valentin+(Blood+Code\)) instead.

######Tier 1: The (in my opinion) list of the best of the best DPS two-handers starts with the Nameless Greatsword (Brawn). The damage values itself are average to above average, but for a two-hander the moveset is relatively fast, it sweeps wide and it has the highest forma damage out of all two-handed swords (and after activating buffs, dumping our ichor into strong attack forma as often as we can is usually the best thing to do).

You never see anyone talk about this particular weapon, so it seems like it is getting slept upon. Huge mistake. Use this and be amazed. It works the best with Artificial Arm Lyle.

Another superb weapon is the Iron Mass (Brawn). It’s a heavy piece of iron, perfect for Guts cosplays and dishes out the highest heavy and charged heavy attacks (and after Nameless does the highest forma damage). It technically does not have the highest light attack damage, but the weapons with higher light attack damage almost always have way worse heavies, charged heavies and forma damage.

So if you look for a weapon that has no real weaknesses in the moveset damagewise and is always consistently in the top 3 when not the best, this is a super solid pick that can be grabbed in the early stages of the midgame in the Corroded Scar. Note the funny charged heavy attack (it shares this with Iron Mass Of Dawn and Idris'Talon) where you somersault yourself towards your enemy. It works the best with Artificial Arm Lyle.

The third tier 1 weapon is the Grotesque Skullblade (Vigor) paired with [Hero Valentin](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Hero+Valentin+(Blood+Code\)). The light attack on this thing hits the hardest out of all two-handed swords in the game, you can chain it forever and ever as long as you have stamina, it comes with free venom build-up (most stuff will be dead before you inflict it, but that rare time you do it’s free damage) and…you can get it already at the tutorial island when you meet Noah. And while not the best, it still comes with a top 3 heavy attack and an acceptable (5th place) charged heavy.

You do lose a bit of forma damage compared to the other two tier 1 weapons, but this is honestly a beast of an early and midgame weapon that can still hold its own in the endgame (in case you grow to love it so much you cannot say goodbye to it).

######Tier 2: The first occupant of this tier is the Iron Mass Of Dawn, the sword used by Craig. It is basically Iron Mass except heavier and a tiny bit worse at everything (with the exception of being a very good buff stick that only has a Strength Burden). Being a companion weapon means it is a pain to grind out, and it being Craigs weapon means you have some planning to do if you want this ánd the Artificial Arm Lyle code in the same playthrough, but having access to this weapon really is a boon. It works the best with Artificial Arm Lyle.

Next up is the Judgement Blade Gregory (Brawn). Not as good as the weapons above in pure numbers, but still highly solid, for a two-hander quite fast (the light attack is deceptively quick) and a moveset that feels a bit like a piercing lance (and has a lightning damage component). Do note that there are only a select few enemies in the game where this can drop from, so I hope you like farming. It works the best with Artificial Arm Lyle.

Cultist Ritual Blade (Brawn) is the third weapon in this tier. Slightly worse than the top hitters for pure damage, but still solid enough and it comes with a relatively low burden (it has 3 burdens, but two of them are in stats rarely used) making it easier to slot into your build, even more so when you are still playing through the game and are working with not yet maxed bloodcodes.It works the best with Artificial Arm Lyle.

Cursed Blackblade Killer (Vigor), best paired with [Hero Valentin](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Hero+Valentin+(Blood+Code\)) is the last weapon in tier 2. I dislike the heavy and charged heavy attack this weapon has (strikes twice, with the first attack merely tickling but animation locking you through the entire thing. I accept it on hammers because the damage is evenly distributed amongst the strikes and all strikes having notable stagger chances because of it. Less so for Greatsword multi-strike movesets…), but it dishes out high enough damage that not mentioning it feels unfair.

######Tier 3: This tier holds the two-handers that aren’t necessarily bad, but have the misfortune that weapons in higher tiers can do everything they do but better. As such this is the home for weapons like Idris Talon with Hero Valentin (note this shares the Iron Mass moveset but has the looks of a club of sorts. So if you ever want to do a cave man run...) and Warped Blade (comes with a blood damage component) Artificial Arm Lyle.

That said, the premium entity in this tier is the Argent Wolf Blade (Vigor) paired with [Hero Valentin](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Hero+Valentin+(Blood+Code\)). It has a similar story to the Cursed Blackblade Killer in that I do not like the double tap heavy or charged heavy, but that it dishes out the pain to the point that not mentioning it would be doing everyone a disservice. It is mainly in tier 3 because Blackblade does everything this does but better. If Blackblade didn’t exist it would have made tier 2.

######Buff sticks: As long as you pick a weapon that does not overburden you and has at least 6 handling and 9-10 conversion, anything works. But, if you want a greatsword…

Iron Mass Of Dawn is a very unique weapon to use buffs with because it only has a Strength burden, which allows you to dodge the game of having to puzzle with low secondary burdens in order to fit things together. Do note that its Strength burden IS on the heavy side, so it might not fit with every possible DPS weapon depending on your code.

Argent Wolf King’s Blade is another solid buffstick as far as greatswords go. Do note that it comes with a Mind burden, so this is mostly an option if you use a different code than Artificial Arm Lyle (or give up one of your DPS boosters that take up your Mind burden allocation. Not ideal in my opinion as a DPS monkey, but in theory you can).

Glutton’s Heavyblade can work in theory, but if you can equip this you can also equip the Argent Wolf King’s Blade, which is more lenient with the Mind burden.

Primordial Greatsword is another option, with burdens spread between strength, dexterity and mind. None of those burdens exceed 8, so this is solid for if you want a more evenly spread burden to keep your options open (especially on something like Hero Valentin). #Attack Forma:

Greatsword attack forma have a notable overlap with both Halberd and Hammer forma, so this section might read familiar at times if you happened to come across my breakdowns for those two weapontypes. It can’t be helped, sorry!

Boosted Blade (single target).

The activation time is long, and the charged one even longer. I would not bother with the charged bit. I wonder how reliably you can get this off against a boss, but at least you can channel your inner Saber with it. The damage is GOOD, but getting it off is the entire problem, especially because the balance/hyper-armor on this feels very low.

Boosted Blade Horizon

This can solve a problem for you if you have issues dealing with groups or picked a greatsword that prefers to poke or overhead slash instead of sweeping. Like its single target variant I would not bother with the charged version unless you are 100% sure the enemy group moves so incredibly slow that you can hit them right as they get into melee range. 9 out of 10 times you shouldnt attempt that however.

Doomfall

This is something you could use, but since it only works when you are airborne you are limited in how often you can fire it off. And for a cost of 6 ichor I feel there are better forma to spend it on with a Greatsword. That said, this thing does do a ton of stagger when it lands, so I could see this being valuable to control groupfights.

Dive Bomb

Personally I preferred Dive Bomb over Doomfall. Yes the damage is ~7% or so lower. But you don’t have to be in the air to use it ánd it activates deceptively fast (and comes with nice stagger values as well, which is not an automatic given on greatswords. Compared to Doomfall the stagger radius is TINY, so make sure your position is 100% on point).

Fortress Stance

Fortress Stance is another interesting option. It consists of two parts, where the first bit gives you fast activating parry frames, and a secondary input allowing for an attack. Considering how slow greatswords usually are, every option to turn a defensive action almost immediately into an offensive one is valuable. Do not sleep on this forma, once you get used to it you will find yourself parrying left and right and feel like an untouchable God, even on glasscannon builds. Do keep in mind that if you run Boosted Technique, the increased ichor cost applies to both the first AND secondary input.

Backdraft

Backdraft can be considered if you find yourself surrounded a lot and wishing for a way to create some breathing room (so consider it for the possible utility, not for DPS purposes).

Severing Abyss

Severing Abyss can be used to hit certain weakspots a bit easier or to take advantage of the lifted player hitbox as pseudo evadeframes (Evasion options on Greatswords are very rare. As such you could almost call this utility).

Wraith’s Fury and Wraith’s Fury – Swift cán do a lot of damage, but it means performing all of their chainable actions, which lock you into the animation and cost ichor each time. That is very costly and time consuming. There might be a situation where you want to combo something to death but...

Unquenchable Flame

“MUH DEEPS!” “MUH DEEPS!” “NOW WITH FIRE!” It hits everything and it hits hard. I was expecting it to have some sort of drawback or condition that had to be met to make it work, but it really is as simple as ‘Press button -> pretty numbers go boom’. It costs the same as for example Doomfall costs, but it does almost double the damage. If you want a cool burst attack, look no further than this.

But… the first problem is that the only way to get it is cozying up with Joseé, and building enough affinity takes a while. The second is that this is a channeled attack, and all the while that the animation plays out, you are unable to do anything. And that animation is LONG. Meaning that while it can hit everyone and their Moon Envoy, everyone and their Moon Envoy can also slap you silly if you fire this off at the wrong moment.

As much as I love this attack, that pretty much lands it in the same category as Absolute Executioner. It hits hard, but it locks you in a long animation, so the amount of times you can use this safely will be somewhat limited. Great when it works though! No wonder Joseé happily solo clears dungeon rooms with it.

#Buffs: The same old story applies once again: This game has hidden groups for its buff formae. And if buffs sit in the same group they interact additive, but if they are in a different group they interact multiplicative, which is better for your damage. More buffs are better obviously, but I would, assuming you bring one weapon purely for buffs like I do, to throw 3-4 buffs on that weapon from different groups. See below for what I think is probably the best or at least a solid buff setup

######Group 1: Double Down You simply are too slow to effectively use BladeDance, with a slow weapon might have issues evading unless already used to it (meaning Overdrive is probably out) and depending on your ichor economy solution you might dislike the bleed build-up penalty from Thirsting Blade. So Double Down (20% damage boost in exchange for losing a bit of Shield/LP, like 9% or so) seems like a fair option for a DPS buff from Group 1. You can run another Group 1 buff here if you wish, I just feel Double Down is your best option.

######Group 2: Offensive Order A strong boost, but also makes you take a lot more damage. If you feel highly uncomfortable with this you can eat a modest DPS loss and add another group 1 buff like Overdrive, Thirsting Blade(mind the reduced bleed build-up trade-off!) or an Elemental Weapon.

######Group 3: Warrior Spirit: Might This requires you to be in melee range for the best effect and if you hug your target can scale a bit beyond 20% as a buff. Because it sits in its own buff group, this is also worth it if you have a tiny bit of distance to your target (you only need 13% for this to be better than an extra group 1 buff). Do note that the buff percentage goes down HARD when not in melee. But you will be in melee whenever you do damage anyway, so this is a drawback that essentially does not exist for you.

######Group 4: Open Buff Slot You can run any additional buff from group 1 here. Overdrive if you are greedy and confident in your dodge/block/evasion skills, but any of the group 1 buffs mentioned earlier can fill this slot. You can also put some utility here if you wish. Personally I just like to have 4 buffs on me as a minimum (more is always better, but not everyone likes the idea of 5/6/7/8 buffs spread over their weapons).

######Utility: Sacrificial Edge can be used as another melee buff. Forma Extension can be extremely powerful to keep your buffs up longer. Ichor Regeneration is another thing to try as it will regain ichor for you while you are busy doing other things. It is no “ICHOR! NOW!” option, but it is a considerable positive flow over time that together with the occasional drain attack should be enough for most people. You can also put in some defensive forma here, or perhaps something that can boost your stagger potential if you are worried about it. If stamina is a problem, tinker with some stamina enhancing or regaining options like for example Serene Stance. If you run the Survival Instinct booster you might see a use for Blood Sacrifice.

Keep in mind that fitting all buffs and attacks/spells together might require some tinkering depending on your choices.

#Boosters:

Two-handed-sword Mastery is very obvious. And then you stack as many DPS boosters as you feel comfortable with. If you can reliably get and stay below 50% health then Survival Instinct is a premium boost of over 22%. Overheat is another strong boost (this needs Bloodline Agnostic, the Titan’s arm variant skips this forma because of that) but make sure to check how much slower it makes your chosen Attack Forma. Glutton is another if you like to max out on food (Artificial Arm Lyle cannot reasonably fit this in, thank the low Mind burden for that).

You can also slot one-handed-sword mastery in Titan’s Arm variants because the game will apply it to your two-hander.

Titan’s Arm, as has been discussed in the opening sections, cán work, but it needs a very precise setup. When building 100% optimal it barely loses out to the normal Lyle build most of the time, but the difference is (on average) small enough that I am willing to accept this as a playable variant.

Gain ichor on overheal can help with ichor management and is probably the most reliable ichor engine, but you need both Bloodline Agnostic ánd run Resurgence Core over Artificial Arm Lyle to use it (Lyle cannot reach the Mind requirement without sacrificing a load of booster and forma slots). Ofcourse regular draining will also do the job.

Ceaseless Assault ( 20% additional damage while you have LP but lose LP with every hit) can be ran as well, but be prepared to often use your heals just to fully recover your LP in that case. That might get irritating when fights drag on, but when you are bursting or can rest in the open world between foes this can be a reliable DPS booster worth considering.

Normally another very powerful option would be Persistence Animus, giving you a 2% damage bonus every time you hit, but resets to 0 if you miss. I do say that you need to be very confident with greatswords because of that, considering how slow the weapon is (meaning a miss that causes you to lose all those stacks is hard to recover from). On Artificial Lyle running Titan’s Arm this booster typically competes with Ceaseless Assault (due to the limited amount of Dexterity Burden you have and both one-handed and two-handed sword mastery already eating into it). Ceaseless consumes LP but gives its boost upfront, Animus needs to build up stacks but has a higher cap (but loses all stacks if you miss).

Another option is Boosted Technique if you spam your attack forma (makes them cost 2 additional ichor, but deal 20% more damage. Good for bursting, less if the fight draws out (and be prepared to drain more often). Considering most Greatsword forma (the ones that are good anyway) are single hits, I think this is a defendable option for more burst oriented players ( unless you run any of the Wraith’s Fury variants. That will simply eat through all your ichor in one go. So don’t use it with this booster). Note that this will eat your entire Mind Burden on Artificial Arm Lyle by itself. Should you decide against bringing this in favour of something else, you can use the freed up Mind Burden for something like Argent Wolf Kingsblade in the buff-stick position (or tinker around and see if you can now find the room to slot Agnostic + Overheat in. Overheat will eat all of your Willpower burden, but it SHOULD fit).

For those going ‘off-meta’, are experimenting or otherwise happily making builds of their own, should you run into burden issues, see if stuff like Weapon Rack or Shrugged Burden (will need Bloodline Agnostic) helps to get you where you want to be.

#Jail: The answer is the same as always: Reaper if it doesn’t overburden you, because having built-in parry frames is insane utility. If Reaper overburdens you, go with something else, it won’t break your build.

#Defensive Forma: It is truly your call. Mutinous Bracer if you could not use Reaper and still want parry, or an Evasive Forma of your choice like Vanishing Hollow/Vanishing Hollow Light, or something that helps with mobility like maybe Dodge Spin/[Dodge Spin Light](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Dodge+Spin+(Light\)).

Dodge Spin variants are the best in case you settle on a pseudo-hammer playstyle of Doomfall spamming. For pure evasion Umbral Shift is as reliable as ever.

#Offensive Forma: Absolute Executioner is strong on paper, but also takes very long to execute, meaning you are not getting this off unless the boss is stunned/staggered or otherwise rooted in place. Honestly it does not matter a lot for Two-handers, so if you dislike Absolute Executioner, bring something that makes you or your waifu smile.

#Food: It is a Sukiyaki world for DPS, no exceptions.

If you are experimenting and finding yourself hitting a burden that is júst above what your code allows ( like 1-2 stat points), and you don’t want to fix it with a booster, keep in mind that a lot of food gives a + 2 statboost. Sukiyaki gives bonus Strength, Consomme Soup gives a bonus in Dexterity, Meatloaf gives bonus Mind, etc.

#Consumables: For direct damage the elemental salve of your choice will fare the best and is the biggest boost when comparing everything you can eat or ingest.

Attack Injection would be the next option (it has a low duration, so save it for when you get the most out of it or when you really need a bit more oomph).

Stat enhancers like Strength/Dexterity/Willpower Enhancer S can be used, but do not respect them to add more than 2-3% damage at best.

#TL;DR:

######Best Bloodcodes:

Tier 1: Artificial Arm Lyle, Resurgence Core (slightly less damage, more flexibility).
Tier 2: Hero Valentin.

While leveling, you can use Josee's and Craig's codes for Strength codes and normal Valentin or Zenon for more quality/equalish scaling options.

######Best weapons:

Tier 1: Nameless Greatsword, Iron Mass, Grotesque Skullblade

Tier 2: Iron Mass Of Dawn, Judgment Blade Gregory, Cultist Ritual Blade, Cursed Blackblade Killer

Tier 3: Idris Talon, Warped Blade, Argent Wolf Blade

Buff sticks: Iron Mass Of Dawn, Argent Wolf Kingsblade, Glutton’s Heavyblade, Primordial Greatsword

######Boosters: Titan’s Arm, One-handed-sword Mastery (Titan’s Arm only), Two-handed-sword mastery, Survival Instinct, Ceaseless Assault, Boosted Technique, Persistence Animus (competes with Ceaseless), Bloodline Agnostic (make certain combinations possible), Overheat (non-Titan’s Arm builds), Gain Ichor On Overheal (non-Lyle and you need the ichor), Glutton (Mind requirement!), Weapon Rack and/or Shrugged Burden to solve problems with Overburdening.

######Buffs: Double Down, Offensive Order, Warrior Spirit Might, additionally (depending how many buffs you want), Thirsting Blade, Overdrive, an Elemental Attack, Highlander (anti-synergy with Ceaseless Assault), Sacrificial Edge (potential synergy with Survival Instinct).

######Utility: Forma Extension, Serene Stance and Ichor Regeneration mainly, but this category can fit any utility type you like between healing/defense/ichor regeneration/stamina (and how many you bring is up to you).

######Attacks: Boosted Blade for your Saber cosplays (it can hit hard, but getting it off is hard), Boosted Blade Horizon versus groups (again, Saber cosplay levels are high, but getting the charged version off is not very practical), Dive Bomb because it is fast, Doomfall if you need damage and stagger in one, Severing Abyss for certain weak spots and the semi invulnerability frames, Unquenchable Flame for the highest hitting burst option at your disposal, Fortress Stance to have an on-demand parry button with damage on the second activation, possibly Backdraft if you really need ‘get me out of here’ utility.

######Jail: Reaper if it does not overburden you, any other jail if it does.

######Offensive Forma: I would say Absolute Executioner if you seek something hard hitting but more occasional. If you don’t like this one, go with whatever makes you feel good.

######Defensive Forma: Mutinous Bracer if you want to parry, Dodge Spin variants for offensive evasion combo’s, Umbral Shift for pure defensive evasion.

######Consumables and food:

Elemental Salves are fine DPS boosts. Attack Injection is solid, but has a low duration so save it on your hotbar for burst windows. You can use Enhancers that boost the stats your weapon scales with, but expect below 3% damage boosts.

#And now you have reached the end! Thank you for reading, I hope gave you some ideas. If your favourite greatsword was not mentioned in this write-up, remember: You do not need the best of the best to play through the game! If your attack makes the enemy health bar move, you can kill it. Now get out there and give those Moon Envoys and Mecha Cats a taste of your best Guts interpretation!

​

Bandai Namco has officially announced Mask of Idris, the first DLC for Code Vein II, during Hiroshi Yoshimura's Famitsu 40th Anniversary LIVE interview.

The announcement confirms a Summer 2026 (Between July and September) release window and ends with the message:

«"Please look forward to it!"»

More details are expected soon.

---

From what we've seen so far, Mask of Idris isn't just a small DLC. It's described as a separate story from the main campaign, set in the Temporal Rift, where we'll explore a new realm alongside new companions, uncover its hidden history, and face new powerful enemies.

#Introduction Runeblades are one of the new additions to Code Vein and arguably the most unique one as well. They are your best in slot option for mage builds and I think everyone automatically thinks about Magic when they see Runeblades.

But…what if we kicked Magic to the curb? Runeblades aren’t staves or wands, they are complete weapons, so why wouldn’t we try to build them that way and see where we end up? Just to see if we can? It is honestly not that difficult to do, considering how the best weapons and codes already overlap with mage builds. Just add the right melee buffs, some good attacks and go for it! If anything this write-up is for those who like to delve into the small details and prefer to have as much information as possible before delving into a new build.

#Advantages and disadvantages When not taking Magic into account, Runeblades sit a bit in a Jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none situation. It was clear that Runeblades were designed to be paired with magic, or at the very least with spellblades. Why?

Because pretty much all of them have a noticeable magic stat (Mind or Willpower) scaling, they typically have higher Conductivity than other weapons (spells more often than not have conductivity requirements), their Reliability and Handling stats are low (weapon attacks have these requirements. Having low values here makes it harder to load up all the attack combinations you want), they have no shared weapon forma with other weapons and only have 6 runeblade specific ones (as if they expected you to fill slots with spells) and half of those leave you unarmed ( leaving you to your fists. Which is somewhat acceptable if you then cast some spells until your weapon returns, but less ideal when you rely on that weapon to do damage).

Runeblades also have some significant aftercasts in their movesets, making attacks not always fluidly flow into each other, making it harder to build up stacks for buffs that generate bonus damage on hit. Several runeblades have a charged jump attack that hits four times to alleviate this somewhat, but this also locks you in place for some time.

But in return, the weapontype does come with above average staggerchances and charged heavies that can trade blows with the lower to middle pack greatswords and hammers (while coming out notably faster).

#The bloodcodes and weapons You overlap completely with magic and spellblade builds. Your best DPS options are Holly 3, Lou 5 and [Soul Saviour Valentin](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Soul+Savior+Valentin+(Blood+Code\)).

Holly 3 wants the Stealthblades, Lou 5 wants the Glutton Eyes and Soul Saviour Valentin wants the Mech Arms Tajikiro.

That last one is a somewhat niche usecase. Because of how low the Reliability and Handling stats are on most Runeblades, both Glutton Eyes and Stealthblades can run into scenarios where they cannot slot all the attacks they want. This is especially true if you like playing with four (a full lay-out) weapon attacks. The Mech Arms Tajikiro is the only runeblade that can fit any combination of four runeblade attacks without running into a stat problem and also keeping workable melee damage (other options will have worse values).

So if you want to play a Strength/Mind Spellblade, play Lou 5 with Glutton Eyes. Provided you make use of Bridge to Glory (see buffs) you will have the strongest heavy and charged heavy attacks (On Glutton these consume ichor, so plan out your ichor economy!), but in return suffer from the the weakest light attack damage and worse attack forma damage. But you get the Lou+Glutton combination very early, so this makes it that you do not have to wait until NG+ to have fun with a good runeblade combination.

If you want to play a Dexterity/Willpower Runeblades build, play Holly 3 with Stealthblades (fire transform). You will have the best attack forma damage and the best light attack damage. It also has the advantage of not being a unique one-off weapon, so you can farm multiple of these for multiple different transformations (if you really want to go that far. You don’t have to, but you can). But this is also a lategame option.

Both of the options above might have some trouble if you want to fit an attack forma in every possible slot. If that is not a problem, (because you were fine with 2-3 attacks and 1-2 slots for utility on your DPS set) go you! If it is a problem for you however, and you want 4 attacks on your DPS set without having to worry about the stats for your specific combination, go for the Soul Saviour Valentin option with Mech Arms Tajikarao. It will do less damage than the other two, but you will have zero attack forma worries (several not mentioned runeblades might do more than this one, but none of those are able to slot any weapon forma combination you wish like Tajikarao can). Soul Saviour Valentin also comes with Bloodline Agnostic baked in, meaning you can throw any booster you want at it and not having to worry about restrictions. This is also a code you do not get until you clear the second ending, so keep that in mind if you consider this build option.

For offensive transformations, an elemental one works the best because those boost magic stats (Willpower/Mind), which is the primary scaling stat of the mentioned runeblades (in case of Glutton Eyes you can forget this because it cannot be transformed). Honestly, just go with fire. Always reliable, always works, not often heavily resisted.

Buffstick: Personally, I believe in one weapon for the fun things and numbers (your DPS weapon), with another as a buff stick (here we dump all our buffing gifts on, so we can cast them all prior to battle and then swap to our DPS weapon and go wild). Work within your burden limit (not being overburdened is key). If you want to use a Runeblades weapon for this (you don’t have to, anything with high enough Handling and Conversion works, aim for 6 handling and 9-10 Conversion) you can use Bloodrune. If the combination of Bloodrune + your DPS weapon causes overburden, feel free to use a Courage transformation on it. It’s there for buffing, not to fight with.

#Attack Forma: When it comes down to Runeblade attack Forma you need to make the distinction between armed and un-armed. Armed means the weapon stays with you and you can keep attacking after. Un-armed means the weapon leaves you as it performs the attack and the animation plays out, leaving you with just your fists. For a full melee Runeblades setup, this is not ideal. You can sometimes find a usecase for it in the open world, but typically you should prefer Forma that leave you armed.

Armed options:

Your highest DPS option is Guillotine Kick. I would definitely bring it. Good offensive utility is Unshakable, which functions similarly to Fortress Stance: The first activation is a block/parry, the second activation does an attack. Note that this has the same cost as Guillotine Kick but lower damage, so use this to break up enemy combo’s and not as a main DPS tool. Slicing Vortex is okay to hit multiple targets in melee range (since every hit builds up bladedance stacks if you bring that), but not really great against a single target.

Unarmed options:

I would advice against Stalking Sabre especially. It leaves you unarmed, the animation takes ages, and the damage is not even that great. Orbital Blade can be used in the open world in fights where you are surrounded by thrashmobs OR if you can reliably predict enemy pathing to keep them within the effect. It can do very high damage, but the learningcurve can be a little steep.

Whirling Shredder requires you to reliably predict enemy pathing and also reliably estimate your distance to them, the damage wildly varies based on distance and how many times it will hit enemies along its trajectory. Take from your unarmed options what you need depending on your situation, more often than not you will be better off with an attack that does not leave you with your mere fists. If anything, un-armed attacks feel more suited for Spellblades where you dump a bunch of spells on your target during the time your weapon is off to Narnia doing its own thing.

#Buffs:

I would take advantage of the buff weapon and put buffs in all four slots, ideally from different buff groups (different buff groups scale multiplicative, buffs from the same group scale additive). You can take more buffs if you wish, more is always better, but I personally find 3-4 to be a healthy starting point.

######Group 1: Bladedance I think Runeblades are a borderline case for this buff. Not as fast as you want them, but still fast enough to get at least some use out of this. Keep in mind that several runeblades have jump attacks in the moveset that rapidly strike four times, which can help to build up the stacks (every attack under bladedance adds +5% damage for a maximum of 75% or 15 hits. When it runs out you go back to 0 however, so consider pairing it with gift extending options). I really would not replace this, Bladedance allows you to at least somewhat compete with other weapons.

######Group 2: Offensive Order A strong boost, but also makes you take a lot more damage. If you feel highly uncomfortable with this you can eat a modest DPS loss and add another group 1 buff like Overdrive, [Thirsting Blade](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Thirsting+Blade,[Double Down](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Double+Down) or an Elemental Weapon.

######Group 3: Warrior Spirit: Might This requires you to be in melee range for the best effect and if you hug your target can scale a bit beyond 20% as a buff. Because it sits in its own buff group, this is also worth it if you have a tiny bit of distance to your target (you only need 13% for this to be better than an extra group 1 buff). Do note that the buff percentage goes down HARD when not in melee. So if you are often outside of melee range (not sure how, considering Runeblades are not really ranged), you can consider using an additional group 1 buff.

######Group 4: Bridge to Glory (Mind Runeblades only) Only worth it for Lou 5 builds. Holly 3 and Soul Saviour Valentin builds can either add another group 1 buff here or some utility, depending on preferences.

######Utility: Sacrificial Edge can be used as another melee buff. Forma Extension can be extremely powerful to keep your buffs up longer, especially because without it Bladedance only has a medium duration at best (and you want to avoid it falling off and having to rebuild stacks as much as you can. Some might consider this one vital!). Ichor Regeneration is another thing to try as it will regain ichor for you while you are busy doing other things. It is no “ICHOR! NOW!” option, but it is a considerable positive flow over time.

Keep in mind that fitting all buffs and attacks/spells together might require some tinkering depending on your choices.

#Boosters: Runeblade Mastery is very obvious. And then you stack as many DPS boosters as you feel comfortable with. If you can reliably get and stay below 50% health then Survival Instinct is a premium boost of over 22%. Overheat is another strong boost ( this needs Bloodline Agnostic on Lou 5) but make sure to check how much slower it makes your chosen Attack Forma. Glutton is another if you like to max out on food. Melee fever can also work depending on how aggressive you are and how high the defense on your enemy is.

Gain ichor on overheal (needs Bloodline Agnostic on Lou 5) can help with ichor management and is probably the most reliable ichor engine. Ofcourse regular draining will also do the job.

Another very powerful option is Persistence Animus (needs Bloodline Agnostic on Holly 3), giving you a 2% damage bonus every time you hit, but resets to 0 if you miss. I recommend this one personally.

Two other options are Boosted Technique if you spam your attack forma (makes them cost 2 additional ichor, but deal 20% more damage. Good for bursting, less if the fight draws out. So be aggressive and try to end fights quickly! Also keep in mind the extra 2 ichor applies to every additional buttonpress within a Forma. So if you have a Forma that has a ‘press button again to do X action’ clause, you pay 2 ichor for the first cast, but an additional 2 ichor every time you press that button, adding up quickly for multi-activation gifts like Unshakable) or Ceaseless Assault ( 20% additional damage while you have LP but lose LP with every hit. Make sure to keep your LP in healthy ranges and keep in mind that if an attack or forma hits multiple times, you also lose LP multiple times. This needs Bloodline Agnostic on Lou 5 and Holly 3).

#Jail: The answer is the same as always: Reaper if it doesn’t overburden you, because having built-in parry frames is insane utility. If Reaper overburdens you, go with something else, it won’t break your build.

#Defensive Forma: It is truly your call. Mutinous Bracer if you could not use Reaper and still want parry, or an Evasive Forma of your choice like Vanishing Hollow/Vanishing Hollow Light, or something that helps with mobility like maybe Dodge Spin/[Dodge Spin Light](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Dodge+Spin+(Light\)). For pure evasion Umbral Shift is as reliable as ever. Hell, if you prefer blocking bring [Bleeding Shield](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Bleeding+Shield+(Light\)).

#Offensive Forma: You are going to get more damage out of your attack forma and weapon attacks, so bring anything you like. In theory magic scaling Forma like Idris Conceit or Manus Rapacis will perform very well here, but this really is a flavour option.

#Food:

Lou 5 builds with Glutton Eyes get the most melee damage out of Meatloaf. You then have a huge range of options for a 2nd place buff food (this is relevant if you use Glutton as a booster). Personally I would either use Pot Au Feu for the stamina bonus or Soup Dumpling for the +2 ichor (the damage bonus of Pot and Dumpling is the same).

Holly 3 builds with Stealth Blades does not have a clear number one food for melee damage, but has a wide range of foods giving the exact same damagebonus, meaning it is the secondary bonus that becomes important. And that means Pot Au Feu and Soup Dumpling again.

Soul Saviour Valentin with Tajikarao was a lot clearer: The best food on that setup is Sukiyaki, with the number two food being Steak.

#Consumables: Attack Injection S was the most notable consumable for all three build options (it has a low duration, so be opportunistic and put it on your hotbar for when you see an opportunity to burst). If you really want you can use a Willpower Enhancer S (Holly 3, Soul Saviour Valentin), Mind Enhancer S (Lou 5) and/or Strength Enhancer S (Soul Saviour Valentin), but their contribution to your damage is pretty low.

The Elemental salves performed pretty well, especially the high-tier variants. If you only want to use a single thing from your hotbar to add to your damage, it should be one of these. Make sure that the elemental salve you use is DIFFERENT from the element you have transformed your weapon with. A differing element will boost your damage higher than a matching element.

Optionally, you can also opt to use Solar Salve to inflict Sunblight if you strike fast and often enough. Reliably triggering Sunblight is always a notable DPS increase. But on Runeblades this will be harder than it would be on swords or twinblades.

#TL;DR:

######Best Bloodcodes:
Holly 3 (willpower), Lou 5 (mind), Soul Saviour Valentin as a niche.

######Best weapons: Stealth Blades (fire) for Holly 3, Glutton Eyes for Lou 5, Mech Arms Tajikarao (fire) for Soul Saviour Valentin (niche option for if you want to always run 4 attack forma no matter the combination).

Any weapon will do for buffing as long as it has 6 handling and 9-10 conversion. If you insist on a Runeblade weapon for the buffing role, use Bloodrune. If Bloodrune overburden you a little, use a Courage Transformation on it.

######Boosters: Runeblade Mastery ,Survival Instinct, Overheat, Bloodline Agnostic, Glutton, Melee fever, Gain ichor on overheal, Persistence Animus, Boosted Technique, Ceaseless Assault

######Buffs: Bladedance, Offensive Order, Warrior Spirit: Might, Bridge to Glory (Lou 5 only), Double Down, Thirsting Blade, Sacrificial Edge, etc.

######Utility: Forma Extension, Ichor Regeneration, etc.

######Attacks: Your prefs, but I recommend both Guillotine Kick and Unshakable as a start.

######Jail: Reaper if it does not overburden you, any other jail if it does.

######Offensive Forma: Any but expect magic stat scaling ones to perform better.

######Defensive Forma: Mutinous Bracer if you want to parry, Bleeding Shield if you want to block, any of the evasive forma if you want to evade (Umbral Shift is the best option here in my opinion).

######Consumables and food:

Meatloaf for Lou with Soup Dumpling/Pot-au-feu as 2nd best options (and these last two are also the best options for Holly 3), Sukiyaki for Soul Saviour Valentin (with Steak as the 2nd option).

An elemental salve of the highest tier is your best non-food consumable (make sure it differs from the element you transformed your weapon with), followed by an Attack Injection S.

Willpower/Mind/Strength Enhancer S can be used, but add such little value they are optional unless you are trying to set a record.

#And now you have reached the end! Thanks a lot for taking the time to read what comes down to "grab a magic build and magic runeblade weapon, delete the spells and add melee buffs and proceed to have fun." In the end I feel that is what Runeblades come down to. The way to get the best melee damage out of them simply has a massive overlap with magic builds. Still, I hope this has helped at least someone out there!

#Introduction Hello everyone! After going a bit overboard with my magic research last time, this time I want to delve into Spellblades! Since it is pretty magic adjacent it seemed like a logical next thing to dive into. Please note that everything you are about to read, every find and recommendation, will only apply to the Spellblade archetypes tested unless stated otherwise. As such, what is best for a Spellblade may not automatically be the best for a different type of build and some cited percentages or numbers can differ!

#Defining the Spellblade fantasy and its weaponry For the definition of Spellblade (or Spellsword, depending on what you like more) I am just going with the most straightforward interpretation possible: A build that uses both melee weapons and spells somewhat equally (with the actual balance depending on the player).

Testing was done with runeblades, twinblades, one-handed swords and two-handed swords. Not included are Halberds, Bayonets and Hammers, mainly because I feel those are not necessarily part of the Spellblade fantasy (and are a better fit for their own categories).

If I had to make a guess, (if you like any of these weapontypes more), stuff like Snowdrop/Resurgence Flame Bayonet would probably work for Bayonet, Halberd probably has not much choice beyond Resurgence Flame Halberd/Lance of the Moon King/Solomonal Halberd and maybe Resurgence Flame Hammer for Hammer.

#Advantages and disadvantages of the weapontype you picked Statwise, all the tested weapons were selected on a basis of having at least one decently scaling magic stat (Mind or Willpower), combined with at least one decent melee stat (Strength or Dexterity). Because of this the best Spellblade weapons will not always overlap with the best melee weapons in general, because it was not about pure melee/magic damage but about a compromise.

######Runeblades These will always net you the highest magic damage in spellblade setups. This should not really come as a surprise, considering Runeblades are already the default weapon on pure mage builds anyway (and also the weapon with the best magic scalings for Willpower or Mind). They generally also come with solid light attack numbers and solid stagger values.

The trade-off for Runeblades is that they have some significant aftercasts in their movesets, making attacks not always fluidly flow into each other, making it harder to build up stacks for buffs that generate bonus damage on hit. Several runeblades have a charged jump attack that hits four times to alleviate this somewhat, but this also locks you in place for some time. Another thing to take into consideration is that Runeblade weapon attacks like to leave you unarmed as the attack forma is executing, meaning you cannot continue attacking but either do nothing or cast spells. It is a bit of an annoying limitation, considering the lengthy animation most Runeblade formae have. So if this is the way you want to go, you are better off building buffing stacks first, throw out the weapon attack, and then proceed to dump as many of your spells of choice as you can while you sit in the ‘unarmed window’.

######Twinblades These have the advantage of having the fastest attackspeed in the game , making them excellent for stacking on-hit buffs (the exact thing we are actually gonna do!). And they are no slouches for damage either. You would think that the highest attack speed in the game would be offset by the lowest damage per hit. But that is not the case. They also have very competitive spelldamage values, only outdone by Runeblades and several Bayonets.

I would say that the biggest disadvantage of Twinblades is that there is a massive lack of gap closers. Other weapon archetypes will typically either have attacks you can throw at your foes from range or a mobility attack to get them back in the fray should the enemy back off. Twinblades are starved for that type of utility, so better hope you are not fighting something that likes to create distance often.

######Swords

This archetype probably fits the whole fantasy of a spellblade the most out of all weapons. Swords also have the best attack forma in terms of what they can pick from. They have raw damage, multi-hit attacks to rack up the buffs, evasion, gap closers, all on top of decent attack speeds. They pay for this by (minus a few exceptions) having the worst light attack damage out of all archetypes and some disappointing raw spelldamage.

######Greatswords (the meme option) Then, lastly, greatswords. Now greatswords I would personally consider as the ‘meme or cosplay option’, at least for spellblades. And that is mainly because of the slow attackspeed. Yes it has the highest damage per swing and at least one of them is not a complete failure for firing off spells, but if you cannot properly build up stacks of Bladedance or Persistence Animus (see buffs and boosters), then why are you doing this aside from fun? At that point you can better stack up a more traditional build and the usual buff lay-out. You can do it, and I tested it for you down below, but only play this for fun or because you cosplay a character from your favourite anime that combines a greatsword with spells.

#Making Spellblade work specifically Since we are split between melee and magic, we are going to also be a bit split when it comes to our boosters, since what boosts magic will not always boost melee and vice versa. To make this work we will take things that boost their specific archetype, boosts both, ánd take advantages of stacking buffs to boost both. While we can go into the whole buffing thing later, the core (in my eyes) to make spellblade work is using Bladedance (every hit you do is a +5% damage bonus for melee and spelldamage that stacks up to 75% or 15 hits) and/or Persistence Animus (every hit adds a stacking + 2% damage boost that resets if you miss). Able to hit fast and often really is the key component to making this work, with slower weapons you are better off running normal buff configurations (that will typically perform better if you don’t add magic to them). Sword and Twinblade users are probably no stranger to this specific approach (but you most likely use other codes in order to get the most out of your melee damage as possible, instead of mixing them with magic like we try to do here).

#Spellblade bloodcodes: For the Strength/Mind combination, Lou 5 and Josee 4 are your strongest options, where Lou 5 consistently pulled ahead over Joseé 4. It seems the Mind was more important than the Strength. But honestly, both are viable.

For the Dexterity/Willpower combination, Holly 3 and Jadwiga 3 are your best bets. Holly 3 typically outclasses Jadwiga 3 UNLESS you use a very tiny amount of magic boosters. Then Jadwiga can do a tiny bit more spelldamage (if you hit the margin requirement). But once again both are viable. To give weapons with equalish scalings across the board a fair chance,[Soul Saviour Valentin](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Soul+Savior+Valentin+(Blood+Code\)) was also included (but only came out on top for the lower-tier Greatsword Spellblade archetype).

#Best Spellblade weapons from each weapontype for each bloodcode: Lou 5 (Strength/Mind):

######Runeblades: Glutton Eyes Before any buffs, transformations or boosters, Glutton Eyes makes a sweep in all categories, no matter spell damage or melee damage. If you want to play a Lou spellblade with Runeblades, then Glutton Eyes is the way to go. Do keep in mind that Glutton Eyes is ichor hungry if you spam the charged heavy and has a harder time building up bladedance stacks.

######Twinblades: Twin Fangs of the Lone Wolf/ Swift Thunder/ Twinfang Blades Twin Fangs of the Lone Wolf will provide you with the highest spelldamage along twinblades. So if you are a spellblade with a high magic focus and want to just quickly ramp up the bladedance boosts, followed by throwing out a high damaging spell, this is your best bet. We are talking about over 38% more spelldamage compared to the number two. In return, you have one the lowest light attack damage values possible (but then you do get the highest damaging charged heavy and 2nd best heavy attacks).

Your best light attack damage values come from Swift Thunder. Swift Thunder also takes the 2nd place for spell damage and respectable 3rd places for heavy and charged heavies. So if most of your twinblade play consists of light attack spam, this is the way to go. Do note that Swift Thunder has a very low Conductivity value (a mere 6), so do not expect to carry more than a single big spell or maybe 2 smaller spells on it.

If you want something in between you could try Twinfang Blades. It sits between Lone Wolf and Swift Thunder for light attacks (it is very close to Swift Thunder here) and spell damage values, has the 2nd best charged heavy damage value, but its normal heavy is one of the weaker ones.

######Onehanded swords: Zealots Ceremonial Sword / Thorn of Devotion The best light and charged heavy attacks come from the Zealots Ceremonial Sword, while Thorn of Devotion (Lou’s sword) produces the best spell damage and heavy attacks (her lights are middle of the pack). The spell damage between them is ~ 13% in favour of Thorn. Note that both of these swords suffers from a low conductivity stat of 6, meaning you can probably only bring 1 big spell or maybe 2 smaller ones.

A slightly surprising wildcard is the Flame Blade. It does not have great lights, heavies or spelldamage. But it has a charged heavy and heavy jump attack (fire explosion!) that will deal more damage than anything else in the sword category, getting close to the spelldamage from Thorn of Devotion!

Josee 4 (Strength/Mind):

Joseé 4 has the exact same winners and losers per category as Lou 5 does, but everything does less damage on Joseé 4 in comparison. Even on Spellblade weapon candidates with more Strength than Mind scaling, Joseé loses out with the exception of Twinblades of Hunger light attacks, which are stronger than any other light attack of any spellblade weapon on Lou, but you trade that for the other attacks in the moveset doing less impressive numbers and noticeably weaker spell damage. But Joseé might serve you better if you decide to use a pure melee scaling weapon in your second weaponslot.

Holly 3 (Dexterity/Willpower):

######Runeblades: Stealthblades/Mech Arms Lycoris The Stealthblades are (to the surprise of nobody) a big winner. The strongest light attacks, charged heavy attacks ánd heavy jump attacks (which hits 4x, relevant for bladedance stacks) make this a very enticing pick if you want to play a Dexterity/Willpower Spellblade with Runeblades. The only categories where it got outmatched was in unbuffed Spelldamage and normal heavy attacks, where it sometimes ended up in second place ( with Mech Arms Lycoris snatching the number one position by an absolutely tiny amount for some spells). Do keep in mind that Lycoris has worse damage values in every other category, so if this is worth using over the Stealthblades completely depends on the type of attacks you use the most).

######Twinblades: Twinfang Blades/Twin Fangs Of The Lone Wolf For melee damage the Twinfang Blades dominated almost every possible category by a noticeable margin, while ending up in the 2nd spot for spell damage. The number one spot for spells is still held by Twin Fangs Of The Lone Wolf (just like in the Strength/Mind variants) with the same drawbacks (the lowest light attack damage out of the relevant twinblades, but 2nd place behind Twinfang for heavy, charged heavy and jumping attacks).

######Onehanded swords: Resurgence Flame Sword/Blade of Malice

The Resurgence Flame Sword had the strongest light attacks by almost 33% when compared to its closest competitor, the strongest charged heavies & jump attacks, while also generally securing 2nd place for Spell damage. Blade of Malice prevented it from doing a clean sweep in every category by sporting higher heavy attacks and better spell damage. In a way, Resurgence Flame Sword and Blade of Malice have a similar relationship for Dexterity/Willpower as Twinfang Blades and Twin Fangs Of The Lone Wolf do for Strength/Mind, where one is superior in every category bar two, with the other noticeably better in those last two, but with the drawback of very low value light attacks (Malice had the lowest light attack damage bar one from all tested swords).

A wildcard is once again the Flame Blade. It does not have great lights, heavies or spelldamage. But it has a charged heavy and heavy jump attack (fire explosion!) that will deal more damage than anything else in the sword category, overtaking even the spelldamage from the Blade of Malice with both actions.

Jadwiga 3 (Dexterity/Willpower):

Jadwiga 3 and Holly 3 also show similarities to Lou 5 and Joseé 4 in how they relate to each other, in that Holly 3 is generally superior and Jadwiga needs specific niches. Holly 3 will always have the better melee values. Jadwiga 3 can push a little bit more spell damage, but only if you heavily skew your boosters towards melee damage. The more magic enhancing boosters you have in your build, the faster Holly 3 will surpass it thanks to scalings ( one or two is enough).

Soul Saviour Valentin:

Compared to both the Strength/Mind and Dexterity/Willpower Spellblade variants, Soul Saviour Valentin was inferior for all of the usual weapon categories. No matter if it was runeblades, twinblades or one-handed swords, the top picks would never perform better on Soul Saviour Valentin.

Some individual weapons could do better, for example Formae Mech-Arms Tajikarao had better results, but it would always be outclassed by whatever turned out as the top option for that category on other more specialized codes.

Soul Saviour Valentin however did have a use in the ultra niche usecase of wanting to run two-handed swords on your spellblade. This is not really a min-maxed build, it is mostly for people that really want to play the fantasy of a two-handed magic user (for Code vein 1 players: The Tanky Greatsword Isis/Ymir Mages).

There are not many two-handed swords with magic stat scaling to the point where testing was worth it. Both Argent Wolf Kingsblade and Black Greatsword were out from the start. While obviously they have higher damage per hit, they are not just slow (so bladedance, the biggest argument in favour of spellblades, makes no sense to run), their spell damage was absolutely horrible, consistently hitting lower with spells than if you would have thrown out a charged heavy attack and generally lower than the spells one-handed swords would throw out. These weapons are really just better suited for melee focused builds and codes.

Two options that remained, and had some success for this archetype, were the Resurgence Greatsword and the Dryad Blade Of The Forest Spirit.

Resurgence Greatsword absolutely dominated all melee damage categories, it just was not even a contest. So if it is raw damage you want, no matter the attack, this would be the candidate for a greatsword spellblade. It’s spelldamage however absolutely sucked, being regularly even lower than a normal heavy attack.

So that is where another weapon could shine. Dryad Blade Of The Forest Spirit has the highest spelldamage of all two-handers tested and was able to match the better Twinblades, which is surprisingly good. It’s melee attacks could not ever hope to match those of the Resurgence Greatsword, but in this specific configuration could beat out both the Black Greatsword and Argent Wolf Kingsblade damage values, so I would consider it a case of ‘good enough’.

#Spellblade buffs: Considering buffs sit in different groups, and buffs in the same group scale additively with each other but buffs from different groups scaling multiplicative, we ideally want to use buffs from as many different groups as we can ( and substitute them for another group 1 buff if you cannot live with the drawbacks some buffs come with).

######Group 1: Blade Dance This is the whole thing that makes Spellblades work in my opinion and is not negotiable. Stack up those 5% damage per hit (up to 75%/15 hits). Keep in mind that once the buff falls off, all your racked up boosts go with it (meaning recasting the buff and having to build up towards that 75% from zero again).

######Group 2: Offensive Order If you cannot live with the defense debuff drawback, substitute for another buff from Group 1, like for example Overdrive, an elemental buff if your enemy is weak to it, Thirsting Blade (if you do not feel overly ichor starved during fights), Double Down, etc.

######Group 3: Warrior Spirit – Might You will sit in melee to do damage as it is, so the main drawback of this buff (the damage bonus falling off rapidly if you are not in melee range) is not that harsh here. Still, if you for whatever reason dislike this buff, substitute it for another buff from Group 1.

######Group 4: Bridge to Glory (Mind Spellblades only) Bridge to Glory is an oddity and needs 20 Mind or more to be better than an additional Group 1 buff. That makes it really only worth it for Strength/Mind Spellblades (so Lou 5 and Josee 4). Substitute for another group 1 buff if you run a Dexterity/Willpower variant (or for utility if you feel 3 buffs is enough for you).

######Some other options: Sacrificial Edge can be used as another melee buff (no effect on spells). Dark Shout can be nice to fuel a big boosted spell even further. Forma Extension can be extremely powerful to keep your buffs up longer, especially because without Bladedance only has a medium duration at best (and you want to avoid it falling off and having to rebuild stacks as much as you can. Some might consider this one vital!). Ichor Regeneration is another thing to try as it will regain ichor for you while you are busy doing other things. It is no “ICHOR! NOW!” option, but it is a considerable positive flow over time.

You can stack as many or as little buffs as you want, personally I like to have at least 3, ideally 4, with some slots dedicated to utility options, but that is a choice you have to make for yourself in the end. Keep in mind that fitting all buffs and attacks/spells together will always require some tinkering. Sometimes the option you prefer will not fit all the forma you want, so sometimes you will have to consider spreading forma between weapons, try different forma or consider one DPS weapon and another merely to hold all the buffs.

#Spellblade usual active spell options: Falling Sun,Gatling Gun Organ,Baba Yaga’s Gaze,Blazing Roar,Vorpal Flash,Blaze Shot,Diamond Dust, pretty much the same things you would see on full magic builds. Spelldamage is Spelldamage, if it is good in pure magic builds it is good in Spellblade builds (you will just have to juggle your weapon's Conductivity stat a lot more).

#Spellblade active attacks: Honestly a decent chunk of this comes down on preference and what you want to do. If you for example feel that you need to build up bladedance stacks faster with one-handed swords, you can bring Circulating Pulse (or on top of that Circulating Pulse – Blink, which also helps mobility for Twinblades, Shredding Spin would have a similar use), or Looming Slash/Phantom Assault if you wish to have an evade, Shadow Slayer for a combo while airborne, pick what fits your mood, build or encounter.

#Spellblade boosters: Magic Forma Attack Power Up (for a low but unconditional buff), One-handed-sword/Runeblade/Twinblade Mastery (or two-handed sword if you go down the meme route, all low but unconditional buffs),

Bloodline Agnostic (depending on booster choices), Overheat (if it does not overly slow the forma of your choice, needs Bloodline Agnostic on anything not Holly), Persistence – Animus (if you took Bloodline Agnostic), Survival Instinct (if you dare to play below 50% health, you may want to bring health draining gifts to get there), Glutton (if you want to max out on food buffs with either 2x magic food, 2x melee food, or 1x magic + 1x melee), Gain Ichor On Overheal (if you feel ichor starved. Needs Bloodline Agnostic if not playing Holly 3, potential anti-synergy with Survival Instinct), Melee Fever (if you want that defense debuff and can keep it up. Note the 20 Mind requirement, so Mind spellblades only!). Take your pick with as much or as little risk as you feel comfortable with.

#Spellblade Jail: Ideally the Reaper Jail, simply because it combines several functions into one, giving the most ichor AND having parry frames, allowing you to bring an evasive defensive forma while still having parry ability. This is however also a Jail with a challenging Burden to deal with in some configurations. If you have to use a different Jail that is completely fine, it will not kill the build in any way.

#Spellblade defensive Forma: It is truly your call.

Mutinous Bracer if you could not use Reaper and still want parry, or an Evasive Forma of your choice. On Twinblade variants you might like Vanishing Hollow/[Vanishing Hollow Light](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Vanishing+Hollow+(Light\)) for combo purposes, or something that helps with mobility like maybe Dodge Spin/[Dodge Spin Light](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Dodge+Spin+(Light\)). For pure evasion Umbral Shift is as reliable as ever. Hell, if you prefer blocking bring [Bleeding Shield](https://codevein2.wiki.fextralife.com/Bleeding+Shield+(Light\)).

#Spellblade offensive Forma: Whatever you desire. Our main damage comes from bladedance (and Persistence Animus) boost stacking and then throwing out juiced attacks and spells. We are not spamming the offensive forma slot that much. Bloodreaver blade? Absolute Executioner? Manus Rapacis? Go wild. Just make sure it does not overburden you and that your pick scales with the dominant stats of your Spellblade archetype.

#Spellblade consumables:

######Food: For food, Boiled Egg is your best option for magic damage, giving a 6,8% buff. The second best would be Omelet Rice with 5,7%.

For melee damage, your best option is Steak, giving a 7,45% bonus on Dexterity/Willpower spellblade builds and a 7,65% bonus on Strength/Mind spellblade builds (the food gives a slight Strength buff as well, that is why it is a slightly higher bonus on the Strength Spellblade). In the second place, Strength/Mind users can grab Meatloaf (6,8%) while Dexterity/Willpower users get the most out of Sukiyaki (6,1%).

Depending on if you bring Glutton or not, you can either bring the best magic food, best melee food, best of both for one category, or the best of both for balance in your damage.

######Consumables: The absolute best thing you can do is use an Attack Injection S before a fight. It is easily the most noticeable melee damage consumable I have found during tests. On the Dexterity/Willpower builds I noted a 14,55% increase in damage, on Strength/Mind builds it became a whopping 18,6%. Even while there is a timelimit on this (it does not stay up until you die or rest like food does) that is very noticeable. It also stacks with other consumables like Elemental Salves, Enhancers, etc. This consumable really is surprisingly good.

######Elemental Salves: The normal salves when used on the Spellblade builds tested will give around 2-4% as a melee DPS bonus, the S variants around 4-6%. HOWEVER, if your weapon has the correct elemental damage both innately AND through transformation, the salve bonus becomes bigger, climbing from 4% to 5,6% and from 6% to 9,5% respectively. It is not exactly reasonable or logical, but that does appear to be how it works (I assume that it works off the percentage or stat points worth of damage that gets transformed into elemental and calculates from that). A boost is a boost, but I consider salves optional for most encounters. Nice to have should you be sitting on some that you are willing to burn, but it probably will never be the buff that brute forces that one challenging fight for you.

Optionally, you can also opt to use Solar Salve to inflict Sunblight if you strike fast and often enough. Reliably triggering Sunblight is always a notable DPS increase.

######Enhancers: You can use Strength S or Dexterity S enhancers if you want, but Strength will give you 3-4% at best, Dexterity an even lower 1-2%. These also have pretty low durations, so I would say that it is only worth it if you are in the process of setting a speedkill record and want all the help you can get in chasing DPS numbers.

#TL;DR

BLOODCODES:

######Tier 1: Lou 5 (Strength/Mind), Holly 3 (Dexterity/Willpower) ######Tier 2: Josee 4 (Strength/Mind), Jadwiga 3 (Dexterity/Willpower) ######Tier 3: Soul Saviour Valentin (quality builds with equalish Strength/Dexterity/Willpower values).

WEAPONS:

######Tier 1: Glutton Eyes, Stealth Blades, Twin Fangs of The Lone Wolf, Twinfang Blades, Zealots Ceremonial Sword, Resurgence Flame Sword ######Tier 2: Mech Arms Lycoris, Swift Thunder, Thorn of Devotion, Blade of Malice ######Tier 3: Resurgence Flame Greatsword, Dryad Blade Of The Forest, Flame Blade

WEAPON TRANSFORMATIONS:

Fire transformation seemed to give the highest damage increase in general. Obviously enemy resistance dependent, albeit resistances in CV2 are less of an issue compared to CV1.

BOOSTERS:

Magic Attack Forma Up, One-handed-sword/Runeblade/Twinblade Mastery/Two-handed-sword mastery, Bloodline, Overheat, Persistence – Animus, Survival Instinct, Glutton, Gain Ichor On Overheal, Melee Fever.

BUFFS:

At least 3-4, when possible from different buff groups. Bladedance is a must, Warrior Spirit Might is good, Offensive Order, Bridge to Glory on Mind variants, put another group 1 buff in if you dislike Offensive Order drawbacks/cannot use Bridge (Overdrive/Thirsting Blade/Double Down/Elemental buff etc)

UTILITY:

Forma Extension, Dark Shout, Ichor Regeneration, etc.

ATTACKS:

Depends on if you want high damage, multi-hit for bladedance, mobility, evasion, etc.

SPELLS:

This has a 100% overlap with full mage builds (and also depends on how flexible your weapon of choice is. Often Conductivity is your limiting factor). Falling Sun, Gatling Gun Organ, Baba Yaga’s Gaze, Blazing Roar, Vorpal Flash, Blaze Shot, Diamond Dust…

JAIL:

Ideally Reaper, but pick what fits and doesn’t overburden you.

OFFENSIVE FORMA:

Your call.

DEFENSIVE FORMA:

Mutinous Bracer, Umbral Shift, Vanishing Hollow, Bleeding Shield if you only care for blocking.

CONSUMABLES:

Boiled egg for the best magic food (followed by Omelet Rice), Steak for the best melee food (followed by Meatloaf for Strength/Mind and Sukiyaki for Dexterity/Willpower), Attack Injection S, Elemental Salve synergizing with your weapon transform (but optional) or Solar Salve for Sunblight build-up, Strength/Willpower Enhancer S (optional).

And now you have reached the end. If you were ever interested in trying to play something with magic but felt a full magic build was not right for you, I hope this gives you a few ideas! If this helped you, or if you have any questions/felt I missed out on something vital, please leave a comment!