Misericorde for main weapon
Yes you read that correctly, I am not asking for a main weapon "for" the misericorde, I am preaching to you the gospel of the two handed London Handshake distributer.
Disclaimer: I am well aware the optimal use of the objectively best stabbing instrument in the lands between is as an off hand for crit purposes only. But we aren't looking for optimal here, we are looking for stupid, funny and most importantly: fun. So let's sit down and discuss how a build around the swiss cheese maker would look like.
Did you know that the Misericorde has a special heavy attack? I most definitely didn't for the longest time because when do you ever use a charged attack with a dagger, let alone one you wield with two hands? In short: it's good, like reeaaalllyy good. It's essentially a thrusting sword heavy attack with a way faster animation in exchange for lower damage. This also means it does piercing damage, the best physical damage type in the game by far (counterhit yada yada etc.). Now, most people would look at the 17.6 stance damage of a dagger's R2 and would clock out there. But I doubt people realize just how crazy fast that attack is. You know when Malenia starts her attack chain with a spinning kick? If you walk backwards to dodge that kick you have enough time for a fully charged heavy with a dagger to interrupt most things she would do as a follow up.
If an opening a boss gives you is long enough for one roll attack with a colossal weapon, it's long enough for a fully charged dagger heavy (it's about the same stance damage). If it's long enough for a full greatsword R2 it's long enough for 2 dagger heavies. And suddenly in one opening you have done 35.4 stance damage, which doesn't seem so bad anymore, does it?
But is that alone enough to warrant a crit build focused around the stagger damage of a dagger? God I wish, but we can't have nice things without a little effort. Enter "Glintblade Phalanx", an ash of war whose stance damage was cut in half with the release of the SOTE DLC. While not as incredibly broken as it used to be, 20 stance damage which you can essentially do whenever you normally wouldn't do anything but wait for the boss to attack is still pretty damn nice. It also quintuples the amount of knives in your vicinity, making you a true resident of the Frankfurt central station. Having access to the cold infusion for 20% more damage on everything after the frost proc is obiously also nice.
With the Misericorde's R2s and a few Phalanxes woven in you can easily stagger even the 120 Stance bosses within 3-4 interactions.
Another nice thing is that light rolling basically comes free with this build, as your only other weight is a metal toothpick and some shiny trinkets. And how about we talk about those trinkets. The dagger talisman is a given and since we basically only use charged heavies, the Greatsword and Axe Talisman are also obvious contenders. For the last slot I usually prefer the Ritual Sword Talisman because I recently found out that bosses actually die faster if you do more damage. Same goes for any piece of the Rakshasa Set that you can fit.
Thank you for listening to this heretical TED talk, so far I managed to no hit Malenia, Mogh, Messmer and Bayle using this build and I'm setting my sights on Midra next.