strength | Dark Souls 2 Wiki

Strength
Type	Attribute
Effect	Attribute for wielding heavy, powerful weapons, heavy armor and big shields. Increases the damage you do with strength scaling weapons and boosts physical defense. When two handing a weapon your effective strength is doubled, but this only counts for weapon requirements and not for attack strength. To power stance two weapons you must have 1.5 times the strength requirement of the weapon with the highest strength requirement.

Strength is an Attribute in Dark Souls 2. Strength determines your character's ability to wield weapons, damage with strength scaling weapons, and physical defense. Attributes can be increased by assigning points into them when Leveling Up.

Strength Information

Attribute required to wield heavy, powerful weapons. Also boosts weapon ATK. Also boosts ability to guard break opponents.

• Raises attack: increases attack for weapons that scale with strength.
• Raises physical defense: 1-4 for every 4 combined points spent in strength, dexterity, endurance, and vitality; after further testing, the defense obtained per 4 points spent will start to increase depending on the sum total of your strength, dexterity, endurance, and vitality. The higher your sum total, the greater amount of physical defense you will receive per 4 points spent.
  1. Starting off, receive 1 physical defense for every 4 points spent.
  2. First threshold "W", alternate between receiving 1 & 2 physical defense for every 4 points spent.
  3. Second threshold "X", alternate between receiving 1, 2 & 3 physical defense for every 4 points spent.
  4. Third threshold "Y", alternate between receiving 2 & 3 physical defense for every 4 points spent.
  5. Fourth threshold "Z", alternate between receiving 2, 3 & 4 physical defense for every 4 points spent.
  This pattern set by (2)-(5) should continue at higher sum totals of strength, dexterity, endurance, and vitality, but it hasn't been tested to be certain. Will update the exact thresholds "W", "X", "Y", & "Z" when I obtain a spare soul vessel (so I can reallocate stat points).
• Slightly increases HP for each point: +2 HP (0-20), +1 HP (21-50), +0 HP (51-99)
• The Sorcerer begins with the lowest Strength at 3 and the Warrior starts with the highest Strength at 15.
• Heavy armors (armor with the most defense and poise) and most weapons require a minimum strength level to be wielded properly. In addition, armor pieces now have a scaling factor (either E,D,C,B,A, or S rank like you would see on weapons) that adds additional physical defense based on your "base physical defense", which is the physical defense you have without any equipment plus the total physical defense acquired from leveling up your strength, dexterity, endurance, and vitality.
• Note that two handing a weapon DOUBLES your effective strength (i.e. Two handing with 10 STR nets you effectively 20 STR).
• In order to use a weapon in power stance, your STR and DEX values must be 1.5x the minimum requirements to one hand the weapon. For example, the Greatsword (28 STR, 10 DEX) will require 1.5 x 28 = 42 STR and 1.5 x 10 = 15 DEX to power stance.
  • Note that FTH and INT requirements do not need to be multiplied by 1.5, so one can power stance (for example) the Moonlight Greatsword with 27 STR, 27 DEX, and only 18 INT.
  • Keep in mind that not all weapon combinations will be able to enter power stance, even if you meet the stat requirements.
• The soft cap for attack bonuses appears to be at 40 strength. (After 40 the scaling does drop off but each point will still gives attack bonus up till 50, after which more than one point is required)
• See here for equipment with strength requirements

Strength Data Table