Infusion Paths in Dark Souls 2 (DKS2) are services exclusively provided by the blacksmith Steady Hand McDuff. Prior to utilizing his expertise, McDuff insists on obtaining a Dull Ember.
Infusing a shield enhances its damage reduction for a specific element, with the extent varying based on the shield. However, this comes at the cost of reduced defenses against other elements. A select few shields can be infused to achieve 100% damage reduction against specific elements. It's important to note that armor pieces cannot undergo infusion.
All Dark Souls 2 Infusion Paths
Dark Souls 2 Infusion Paths Comparison Table
You can search by Name, Ore Type,and Smith Availability.... Just type into the search box what you are looking for.
Quick Search of all Infusion Paths in Dark Souls 2
Name |
Smith Availability |
Ore Type |
Notes |
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Normal |
Blacksmith Lenigrast, Steady Hand McDuff, Weaponsmith Ornifex |
+1 to +3 Titanite Shard +4 to +6 L. Titanite Shard +7 to +9 Titanite Chunk +10 Titanite Slab |
Upgrades weapon Physical base power by 10% of initial value per level, increases stat scaling, and can be enchanted with temporary weapon effects. |
Boss Weapons& Armor |
Blacksmith Lenigrast, Steady Hand McDuff, Weaponsmith Ornifex |
Boss Weapon +5 Petrified Dragon Bone |
Upgrades weapon Physical base power by 30% of initial value per level, increases stat scaling. |
Special Weapons& Armor |
Blacksmith Lenigrast, Steady Hand McDuff, Weaponsmith Ornifex |
Special Armor +5 Twinkling Titanite | Upgrades weapon Physical base power by 10% of initial value per level, increases stat scaling. |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Faintstone | Reduces Physical damage, as well as Strength and Dexterity scaling, but improves Magic scaling and adds Magic damage. Reduces base Physical damage by 30.5%, adds base Magic damage, adds initial C Magic scaling to previously un-infused, un-upgraded, and scalable weapons, and reduces Strength and Dexterity scaling down by 1-2 letters. If added to a weapon that does additional non-Physical damage (other than Magic) without having been infused, reduces all other base damage types by a smaller percentage and adds less base Magic damage. If added to a weapon that does Magic damage without having been infused, reduces all other base damage types by a smaller percentage and adds more base Magic damage. |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Firedrake Stone | Reduces Physical damage, as well as Strength and Dexterity scaling, but improves Fire scaling and adds Fire damage. Reduces base Physical damage by 30.5%, adds base Fire damage, adds initial C Fire scaling to previously un-infused, un-upgraded, and scalable weapons, and reduces Strength and Dexterity scaling down by 1-2 letters. If added to a weapon that does additional non-Physical damage (other than Fire) without having been infused, reduces all other base damage types by a smaller percentage and adds less base Fire damage. If added to a weapon that does Fire damage without having been infused, reduces all other base damage types by a smaller percentage and adds more base Fire damage. |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Boltstone | Reduces Physical damage, as well as Strength and Dexterity scaling, but improves Lightning scaling and adds Lightning damage. Reduces base Physical damage by 30.5%, adds base Lightning damage, adds initial C Lightning scaling to previously un-infused, un-upgraded, and scalable weapons, and reduces Strength and Dexterity scaling down by 1-2 letters. If added to a weapon that does additional non-Physical damage (other than Lightning) without having been infused, reduces all other base damage types by a smaller percentage and adds less base Lightning damage. If added to a weapon that does Lightning damage without having been infused, reduces all other base damage types by a smaller percentage and adds more base Lightning damage. |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Darknight Stone | Reduces Physical damage, as well as Strength and Dexterity scaling, but improves Dark scaling and adds Dark damage. Reduces base Physical damage by 30.5%, adds base Dark damage, adds initial C Dark scaling to previously un-infused, un-upgraded, and scalable weapons, and reduces Strength and Dexterity scaling down by 1-2 letters. If added to a weapon that does additional non-Physical damage (other than Dark) without having been infused, reduces all other base damage types by a smaller percentage and adds less base Dark damage. If added to a weapon that does Dark damage without having been infused, reduces all other base damage types by a smaller percentage and adds more base Dark damage. |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Poison Stone | Reduces base damage and scaling but adds a Poison effect. Most effective on weapons that either already have a Poison effect, as this infusion will enhance the effect, or on weapons with fast attack speed, to build up Poison quickly. Reduces base Physical damage by 30.5%, adds 112 to the Poison effect of a previously un-infused, un-upgraded weapon, and reduces Strength and Dexterity scaling down by 1-2 letters. If added to a weapon that does additional non-Physical damage without having been infused (such as the Crescent Axe), it adds 96 to the Poison effect and reduces all base damage types by 11%. |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Bleed Stone | Reduces base damage and scaling but adds a bleed effect. Most effective on weapons that either already have a bleed effect, as this infusion will enhance the effect, or on weapons with fast attack speed, to build up Bleed quickly. Reduces base Physical damage by 30.5%, adds 112 to the Bleed effect of a previously un-infused, un-upgraded weapon, and reduces Strength and Dexterity scaling down by 1-2 letters. If added to a weapon that does additional non-Physical damage without having been infused (such as the Crescent Axe), it adds 96 to the Bleed effect and reduces all base damage types by 11%. . |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Raw Stone | Upgrades weapon Physical base power, decreases stat scaling, and can be enchanted with temporary weapon effects. Best used on weapons that have very low scaling to begin with, as weapons that rely on their scaling for damage will most likely lose damage by choosing this infusion. It can also be effective when a player knows that they won't be getting their stats high enough for the weapon's scaling to truly shine. Adds initial 14.4% to the base Physical/Magic/Fire/Lightning/Dark attack of a previously un-upgraded, un-infused weapon and reduces the Strength/Dexterity/Magic/Fire/Lightning/Dark scaling down to D or E. Extremely useful on weapons without scaling as it'll simply add up the damage. |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Magic Stone | Reduces Strength/Dexterity/Fire/Lightning/Dark scaling down to D or E, adds initial D Magic scaling, does not affect base damages, and makes Physical damage—not Magic damage—scale with Intelligence. Weapons that already include Magic damage and/or have low Magic scaling effectively benefit from the Enchanted infusion; also, the infusion is ideal for builds that only use Magic as their primary means of damage and/or builds that have high Intelligence. If used on a weapon with no scaling, such as the Bluemoon Greatsword or Avelyn, the weapon will gain the same D rank (or C after fully upgraded) Physical-damage Intelligence scaling; also, it will outscale any Raw weapon when Intelligence is at 50 points or above. |
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Steady Hand McDuff | Old Mundane Stone | Upgrades weapon to scale by the player's lowest stat, but decreases weapon base damage by about 50% and decreases the original stat scaling. Useful for builds that have near-equal stats, using fast-attack weapons. With 30 points in every stat, a Mundane weapon gets +200 bonus damage; if the same player continues to level up, a Mundane weapon does not gain damage until all nine stats are equal again (such as leveling up every stat to have 32 points), since the weapon will only scale with the lowest stat, which would still be 30—also, leveling up does not decrease any damage. Extremely useful on weapons with low base damage or without scaling, such as the Handmaid's Ladle, Parrying Dagger, and Broken Straight Sword. |
Upgrade Paths and Weapon Enchantments
Weapon Enchantments, such as Dark Weapon and Sunlight Blade, as well as items that apply an elemental effect on to the weapon, such as Gold Pine Resin and Rotten Pine Resin, will only work on weapons with certain upgrade paths and infusions. Normal and raw weapons can be affected by all weapon enchantments and work with item buffs, while weapons with infusions can be affected by weapon enchantments but not items. When choosing your infusion bear in mind whether your character can/will be using a weapon enchantment as they will work best with weapons infused with the same element. This is due to the fact that not only do weapon enchantments add elemental damage but also increase the damage of their element by 30%. For instance if a player was to cast Sunlight Blade on a weapon with only physical damage, then it would simply add 50 points of lightning damage, however if the player were to cast it on a weapon that already has lightning damage then that damage will be increased by 30% and then on top of that the weapon will receive 50 points of lightning damage resulting in far more damage. Also take into account what stats your character will be using, remember that intelligence increases magic, fire and dark damage while faith increases fire, lightning and dark damage. Therefore it makes little sense to infuse a weapon with magic if the character is using faith as they won't be able to benefit from it as much as if they were using an infusion that scaled with faith.
Everyone! I know the secrets to how the base damage of most infused weapons, I will explain the exception in the end. When you infuse any weapon it's base damage will drop to 70% of its original damage, so a magic +10 falchion and none-upgraded magic falchion will will both have 30% less damage in its physical damage than its none infused counter parts. In addition to this the weapon will also have a 70% of the base damage add to whatever you infused it in (I will cover poison and bleed in a second). So for a none-upgraded magic falchion, whose none-infused counter part has a base damage of 120, it will have 84 in magic and physical damage. When fully upgraded it will have 168 damage in physical and magic compared to its none-infused counterpart's 240 in physical. Now I will move on to poison and bleed which work differently. The base damage is still 70% of what it would regularly be, but rather than getting 70% of its base physical damage in poison it gets a base 112 damage in which ever you infuse it in and every upgrade adds 2.8 damage to to the infused damage. An example would be the utchigatana, when at not upgraded but infused it will have 77 base physical damage and 112 poison damage. When fully upgraded it would have 154 damage and 140 poison damage. One thing you must keep in mind is that this does not apply to all weapons. The weapons that these rules don't apply to would be any weapon that already has damage in anything other than physical. the rules on the minus in 70% is true for all weapons, this also applies to the elemental damage it already has (minusing poison and bleed), but when infusing a weapon with the type of damage it already has, the increase in damage is different to other regular weapons. some weapons this apply to would be the falchion with bleed, heide knight weapons with lightning, black knight weapons with fire. there are some weapons that none of these rules apply for, like the manikin saber whose damages increases when infused rather than decreases. As for defenses, this need more research.
I have no idea how half the stones work
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