Butcher Knife

For the Dark Souls II variant, see Butcher's Knife.

For the Dark Souls III variant, see Butcher Knife (Dark Souls III).

The Butcher Knife is an axe in Dark Souls.

Availability

Dropped by the red phantom Maneater Mildred, who invades human players near the end of Blighttown provided that Chaos Witch Quelaag is undefeated.

Characteristics

Similarly to Server, the Butcher Knife restores a small amount of HP per hit (five HP). It has the highest scaling of the axes and only scales with Strength, making it the strongest axe for Strength builds for damage per hit. It also has decent range, approximately the same as a Black Knight Greataxe. However, its disadvantages include a slow attack speed, especially for its strong attacks, and heavy weight. Indeed, its attack is slower than the above-mentioned Black Knight Greataxe.

Like all Axes, if an attack doesn't connect with an enemy, the user will stumble and seem to not be able to handle the weight. If the hit connects, the stumble animation does not come into play and the user moves as normal.

Moveset

Attack	Description
One-handed Weak Attack	Right to left swing. Ending lag if target is not struck.
One-handed Strong Attack	Raises the weapon above the head, quickly runs forward and swings the weapon down.
Two-handed Weak Attack	Slightly more powerful right to left swing. Ending lag if nothing is hit.
Two-handed Strong Attack	Takes the weapon horizontally and smashes it into the ground. Low range. Additional input results in an additional smash, which knocks enemies down.
Jump Attack	Smashes the weapon into the ground.
Running Attack	Diagonal left to right swing. Low starting lag, but ending lag if an enemy is not hit.
Rolling Attack	A quick vertical swing.
Kick	Standard kick.
Left-handed Weak Attack	Block.
Left-handed Strong Attack	Left to right swing. Ending lag if it does not connect.

Upgrades

Scaling Percentage Values

The following chart lists the scaling percentages when this weapon is fully upgraded. Be advised that:

• Scaling letters are not an accurate indicator of how a weapon scales, players should look at the percentage scaling of a weapon.
• Magic and Enchanted upgrade paths reduce Physical Damage while adding Magic Damage, splitting damage between two types. Strength and Dexterity scaling is drastically reduced while adding Intelligence scaling.
• Divine and Occult upgrade paths reduce Physical Damage while adding Magic Damage, splitting damage between two types. Strength and Dexterity scaling is drastically reduced while adding Faith scaling. Divine adds Divine Auxiliary and Occult adds Occult Auxiliary secondary damage types.
• Fire, Chaos, and Lightning upgrade paths remove all stat scaling and splits damage between two types. Chaos path adds Humanity Scaling.
• Raw upgrade path caps at Weapon Level 10 while drastically reducing physical damage scaling and adding slightly more base damage.
• Crystal upgrade path dramatically increases the base damage of weapons while rendering them unable to be repaired.
• For PvE purposes all weapons will be better on the Standard Upgrade path to +15. This is because the Split Damage of elementally infused weapons is not added together. The values are reduced separately when going through enemy defenses leading to less damage in practice due to the values of each damage type being smaller.
• To learn more about how damage is calculated visit the Damage Calculation page.

Upgrade Path	Strength	Dexterity	Intelligence	Faith
Standard +15	88%	-	-	-
Raw +5	66%	-	-	-
Crystal +5	88%	-	-	-
Magic +10	25%	-	63%	-
Enchanted +5	18%	-	62%	-
Divine +10	34%	-	-	63%
Occult +5	32%		-	74%
Fire +10	All stat scaling bonuses removed, Fire Damage added
Chaos +5	All stat scaling bonuses removed, Fire Damage added, scales off held Humanity up to 10
Lightning +5	All stat scaling bonuses removed, Lightning Damage added

Gallery

Axes
Battle Axe • Butcher Knife • Crescent Axe • Gargoyle Tail Axe • Golem Axe • Hand Axe