Hollow Knight | Dark Souls 3

The Hollow Knight
120	30	11	30	25
15	40	10	8	40

This is a player-created Build for Dark souls 3.

• Build Name: The Hollow Knight
• Build Level: 63-120
• Build Focus: PvE
• Build Main Stat: Luck and Dex
• Link to Dark Souls 3 Calculator

Build Equipment

• Right Hand: Anri's Straight Sword +5 // Great Scythe +10 with Hollow infustion
• Left Hand: Shield or weapon of choice (perfeably one that can be infused)
• Armor: Most Mid tier armor e.g. The Brass Set. More Vit can be added if needed
• Rings: Recomended but optional rings
  • the Chloranthy Ring
  • the Hunter's Ring
  • the Carthus Milkring

Build Strategy

This build is ment to utalize Hollow weapons and their "hidden" Luck scaling. Anri's Straight Sword is by far the best, if not only special weapon that has scales with luck. Additonally it also has elements of Blessed weapons with an E scaling in Faith and bonus damage against reanimated enemies on top of a D in strength so this build can be quite flexible.

First off you want a starting Class that has points in Luck and Dex to start out. The obvious choice would be the Thief but the Herald could also be considered if you wanted to persue Miracles and take advantage of the Faith scaling. Early game you will want primarally focus on Dex as your primary offensive stat, possibly using the Rapier or the Scimitar untill you find your backup weapon, The Great Scythe in the Undead Settlement. Alternatively the Uchigatana could be found early of you kill the Sword Master but the scythe will work best for what we're going for.

Right around Irithyll is where you should start leveling more heavily in Luck. To be able to use Hollow infusions, you'll need the Profained Coal in the Irithyll Dungeon. It'll be in the large cell with 2 of the baby faced monsters sleeping and 3 of them standing. Next you'll need to find at least 2 Hollow gems: one for your Scythe or which ever weapon you stuck with, and one for a weapon or shield on your off hand. One can be found near the Farron Keep Parimeter while the other can be farmed from the Crow monsters that spew poison and fire on the Road of Sacrifices.

Becomming Hollowed is the next step in fully optomizing this build but is not eccential and will mostly add a few more points in your AR. To become Hollow you must recrute Yoel of Londor who is found on the edge of the broken bridge in the very beginning of Unded Settlement. Find him again at Firelink Shrin and ask to "Draw Out True Strength". You'll only need to do this once but can be done a total of 5 time for free levels. After that, everytime you die you gain points in a new Hollow stat. Hollowing will lead to turning your character into a shriveled husk so if you don't want to ruin hours in character creation, you could skip this step or purchase the Untrue Dark Ring from Yuria of Londor. She will only appear if you take the whole 5 levels from Yoel, though, and be sure to do it BEFORE beating the Abyss Watchers boss fight. Then again if you don't care or use a face covering helmet that's fine, too. Please note though, that curing your hollowing in any way will cancel out the bonus.

At 20 Hollowing you gain bonus points in Luck from any Hollow gear you have OUT, either in either hand or on your back. Fully upgraded weapons will give 5 extra points so it's worth having somthing with a hollow infusion in your off hand even if your never going to use it.

As for Anri's sword, you have to make a decision. Kill Anridurring any of your enconters with them to make them drop their sword. Attacking them will also agro Horace though so be wary of a 1v2. Though if you kill Horace first, Anri will surrender to you, or you could wait untill they are separated in the Catacombs to kill them while they're alone. Though be mindful that killing Anri at any point will fail their Questline which involves Hollows which is fitting in a way, but it's up to you. If you do wait to finish their Questline, the soonest you can get their sword is after Pontiff Sulyvahn in Anor Lando where you last saw them after reloading.

Once you have the sword you'll need Twinkling Titanite to upgrade it which you'll find in certain Crystal Lizards or traded by PickelPum the Crow for a Prism Stone or a Large Leather Shield. When fullied upgraded at 40 Luck and 40 Dex will net you nearly 440 AR while still being able to be buffed. It's fast, consumes little stamina and handles exactly like a regular Straight Sword. And as mentioned before does 10% more damage vs. reanimated and stops skeletons from respawning which is handy for the catacombs. Your Scythe, on the other hand, while slightly weaker, has less DPS than the sword and takes up a bit more stamina; has better range and a devistating bleed effect (which is boosted by Luck) that has saved my life on multiple occasions. The only negative to the sword is that it does NOT give the bonus 5 to luck like other Hollow weapons but even with this it's still stronger than the Scythe and can be negated by your off hand weapon.

And like I stated earlier, this can posiblly be converted in to a hybrid Luck/Faith build if you're willing to give up some AR from your Dex for Miracles but i have yet to test this out properly. If you would like to test that out yourself please tell me how it goes.

Last but not least I would like to clarifiy that Vigor, Endurance, Vitality and Strength can be adjusted for personal prefrence. Feel free to customize as you wish and give Feedback.