Withering Rooms – Full-Cursed Lifesteal Build Guide

The one I’m using to speedrun NG+ is a full-cursed lifesteal build with the starry greatsword.

Guide to Full-Cursed Lifesteal Build

Level up stats

• 200 Health.
• At least 200% Melee damage.
• Everything else split between resistances, poise and speed.

Accessories

• Vampire Locket: 20% lifesteal is enough to keep me going.
• Cursed Flesh Ring and Flesh Ring – 30% damage boost and 35% phys/fire resist above 70% cursed.
• Night Mother’s Ring – 25% of physical damage to cursed damage.
• 4th Ring can be Castle Ring, Burnt Ring, Chromatic Ring, etc. Changes based on the enemy.

Equipment

• Punishment Cage: 50% less curse rot damage.
• Christmas Ghost Robe: 50% less curse rot damage.

Artifacts

• Flight & Perception Codex – No downsides since always running around at full curse.
• Lantern Familiar – Can always have a shield even in dark areas.
• Nightingale Doll – Don’t need to worry about looting anymore if it doesn’t bug out and get stuck. She also triggers traps and enemies sometimes target her.
• Second Chance Brooch – Always have this.

Note: Having 100% less curse rot damage doesn’t negate the damage, but makes it low enough that you can lifesteal way more than you take. Use Hearty Rolls to regen 1% health per second for a minute when traveling around areas that don’t have enemies. Also Evasion Codex does not work at full curse.

Most enemies die pretty quick. Big enemies and bosses need curse rot to eat them, which triggers fairly fast. With the burdened book, you can still kill everything but definitely need to keep restocking Hearty Rolls and First Aid kits frequently to deal with the difficulty increase.