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Most Elden Ring fans are currently (or are about to start) playing through the game again to prepare for the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. While we don’t yet know everything you’ll want and need to enjoy that DLC, we do know that you’ll want to enter the DLC with the best build possible if you’re hoping to survive.
That’s where things get interesting. Since its release, Elden Ring has enjoyed a series of updates that effectively buffed numerous strategies, skills, and items. At the moment, there are quite a few builds in the game that are incredibly powerful and possibly broken. While we don’t yet know if some of those builds will be nerfed by the upcoming DLC, these are some of the most powerful strategies in the current game you will definitely want to try ahead of Shadow of the Erdtree.
Thunder and Lightning Faith Build
Primary Stat: Faith
Secondary Stats: Strength, Vigor (Optional)
Essential Gear: Gravel Stone Seal, Lightning Scorpion Charm, Godfrey Icon, Flock’s Canvas Talisman, Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear, and Faith-Knot Crystal Tear
Part of the reason Lightning builds are so powerful right now is that there are very few enemies in Elden Ring (especially bosses) that have any notable resistance to Lightning spells. While that could change in Shadow of the Erdtree, this Lightning build should offer a strong way to start your DLC journey.
The basic idea here is to get your Faith as high as possible (70+) and acquire your main items that will boost your Lightning and Faith damage even further. In this case, those are Gravel Stone Seal, Lightning Scorpion Charm, Godfrey Icon, Flock’s Canvas Talisman, Lightning Shrouding Cracked Tear, and Faith-Knot Crystal Tear. When combined with the proper stats, those items will ensure you can maximize the damage of already powerful Lightning incantations.
Said Incantations are Lightning Spear, Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike, and Fortissax’s Lightning Spear. They are not only individually powerful abilities, but they offer you a fantastic combination of range, single-target, and AoE spells. that allow you to adapt to a variety of situations. Again, though the real draw here is the way those spells scale with Faith and how powerful they are on their own in most encounters. Use Lightning Spear as an opener, Ancient Dragons’ for AoE, and Fortissax’s when a powerful single target looks at you the wrong way. Even the handful of enemies with some Lightning resistance won’t stand up to that onslaught for long.
Because those abilities are so powerful, you’ve got a ton of flexibility when it comes to the rest of this build. However, you can’t go wrong with making Strength and Vigor your primary secondary stats. That’s what YouTuber Elite CarlosN did to create a Thor build that is both thematically satisfying and capable of unleashing devastating pure Strength damage between Lightning strikes.
Gargoyle’s Twinblades Bleed Build
Primary Stat: Strength
Secondary Stats: Vigor, Faith
Essential Gear: Gargoyle’s Twinblade (x2), Cragblade Ash of War, Millicent’s Prosthesis, Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, Claw Talisman, Thorny Cracked Tear, Raptor Black Feathers
Bleed builds have been popular and powerful in Elden Ring for quite some time. Much like Lightning, there aren’t many Elden Ring enemies that can properly prevent Bleed damage and the ways that Status Effect makes chunks of a health bar disappear after a quick build-up period. Yes, some of the most powerful enemies in the game will shrug off the Bleed effect, but the best Bleed builds usually do so much raw damage that it tends not to matter.
What has changed quite a bit over the years (and several Elden Ring patches) is the argument over which Bleed build is the absolute best. More often than not, Rivers of Blood has been the star of the game’s most popular Bleed builds. If you have that weapon and love to use it, it’s certainly more than viable to this day.
However, the best overall Bleed build at the moment revolves around dual-wielding Gargoyle’s Twinblade. That means you’ll need to enter New Game+ to acquire two of these by defeating the Valiant Gargoyle boss twice (or by getting one from a visiting player). Once you have those weapons, you’ll need to infuse both of them with the Cragblade Blade Ash of War. That not only grants them the necessary Bleed effect that is obviously crucial to this build but effectively buffs their raw damage output by quite a bit.
Those pieces alone (and the right stats) cause something pretty amazing to happen. Rather than rely on the quick basic strikes that most Bleed builds depend on to maximize Bleed buildup, this build utilizes the Twinblades’ powerful jump attack. Why? Well, that attack effectively unleashes multiple strikes (5+) during its animation. By spamming that attack, you not only quickly build up the Bleed effect on most enemies but you deal more raw damage per second than you will get out of most other Bleed weapons.
The rest of this build is largely designed to enhance the power of your jumping attacks and raw Strength. You’ll want to use Golden Vow and Flame Grant Me Strength (assuming you have enough Faith) and drink from your flask to maximize your damage buffs before a fight. From there, just keep unleashing jump attacks until you simply can not use them any longer. Again, even if you’re battling an enemy that shrugs off Bleed (including late-game bosses and potential DLC foes) the pure power of this strategy will still deal more damage than many other top-tier builds in the game.
If you’d rather not enter New Game+ before the DLC, though, definitely take a look at some of the Rivers of Blood-based builds out there for nice Bleed build options. Alternatively, you can make a variation of this build work with a single Twinblade (though it’s not quite as effective and requires some gear tweaking).
Night Comet Sorcery Build
Primary Stat: Intelligence
Secondary Stats: Vigor, Endurance/Mind
Essential Gear: Staff of Loss (x2), Magic Scorpion Charm, Graven Mass Talisman, Godfrey Icon, Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Cerulean Hiden Tear
Technically, there are quite a few viable Sorcery caster builds in Elden Ring that allow you to explore the game’s wide collection of Arcane arts. Realistically, though, there is Night Comet and there is everything else.
Night Comet is described as a semi-invisible spell by the game, which may not mean much at the outset. However, that essentially means that enemies will rarely dodge this spell because they cannot easily detect it. Evasions are theoretically possible but few enemies will be able to consistently pull them off. On top of that, Night Comet can either be spammed or charged up from a distance for a powerful cast that can be used to open most world fights and some boss encounters.
Technically, Night Comet’s casts are not meant to be as powerful as some of the other spells in the game. However, you can easily ignore that bit of balancing by using several pieces of gear and buffs that greatly enhance the power of those individual casts and charged shots.
The basic strategy is simple. Once you’ve raised your Intelligence as high as possible (80+ or, ideally, 90+), equip two Staffs of Loss and upgrade them to +25. Those weapons increase the damage of Invisibility sorceries by a whopping 30% each. Yes, Night Comet becomes 30% more powerful the moment you equip even one of these Staffs.
However, we’re not settling for a 30% or even a 60% damage buff. You will also drink from your Flask when possible before major fights and cast Golden Shroud and Howl of Shabiri for their damage buffs. Terra Magika will also be used when you can stand in its area of effect for a devastating charged shot. Even if that stationary setup is not possible, the various other buffs you’ll be getting from your spells and items will allow you to spam lesser Night Comet shots that are roughly 100% more powerful than they would otherwise be.
Believe it or not, you can push the damage of that strategy even further if you’d like. For instance, this particular build from YouTuber Cell is designed to intentionally lower your HP so that you can take advantage of a damage buff from the Red-Feathered Branchsowrd Talisman. If you’d rather not live that dangerously, though, the gear you see recommended above will offer significant damage buffs at full HP.
Unless the Elden Ring team decides to nerf Staff of Loss ahead of Shadow of the Erdtree, this build offers one of the best ways to deal consistent incredible damage from relatively safe distances in pretty much every situation. It can one-shot a lot of open-world enemies when properly prepped, and you can pepper bosses with it while staying relatively mobile and at safe distances.
Darkmoon Greatsword Build
Primary Stat: Intelligence
Secondary Stats: Vigor, Mind
Essential Gear: Darkmoon Greatsword, Carian Regal Scepter, Spellblade Armor, Shard of Alexander, Godfrey Icon, Magic Scorpion Charm, Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear
When Elden Ring was released, the Dark Moon Greatsword was largely considered to be a fun weapon that was probably not worth the considerable effort required to acquire it. Well, things have changed quite a bit since then.
The heart of the Darkmoon Greatsword is actually its Weapon Skill that essentially converts it into the legendary Moonlight Greatsword. That Moonlight Greatsword ability allows you to unleash powerful magical projectiles. Both that Skill and the base Greatsword also quickly build up the Frost effect which functions similarly to Bleed but comes with the bonus of lowering the target’s overall damage resistance and stamina recovery. Finally, The Greatsword scales very well with Intelligence as it is essentially a magical weapon.
When properly utilized, that combination of attributes allows you to use the Darkmoon Greatsword to enable a unique and powerful playstyle. This build effectively functions as a sorcerer who is more than capable of utilizing powerful melee strikes when the situation calls for it. More often than not, though, you’ll be able to rely on that Moonlight Greatsword skill to trivialize most fights by spamming it like a spell. It not only deals incredible damage from a distance but ensures a healthy (depending on your perspective) amount of Frost buildup all the while.
This particular build from YouTuber Ashen One takes things a step further by utilizing Ranni’s Darkmoon spell. That spell not only lowers an enemy’s magical defenses and grants additional freeze build-up (which makes it an effective extension of Moonlight Greatsword), but it can often hit even the fastest-moving bosses and leave them vulnerable to a follow-up blast from Moonlight Greatsword.
When properly buffed with the correct incantations and items (your Flask, Golden Vow, and when possible, Terra Magicka), you can open most fights with Darkmoon, unleash a projectile strike from Moonlight Greatsword, and either kill the enemy outright or deplete most of their HP bar. That’s because of the incredible synergy between the Moonlight Greatsword ability, Darkmoon, and the buffs that enhance the damage of both abilities.
If you’re able to unleash buffed Moonlight Greatsword projectiles while staying in Terra Magicka’s range of effect, you’ll just delete whatever is in your way. Even if you’re not able to remain stationary, the synergy between the high-damage abilities this build utilizes will allow you to end many fights with a few casts of a pretty simple skill rotation. At the moment, this may very well be the best build in Elden Ring.
Star Fist Melee Build
Primary Stat: Strength
Secondary Stats: Vigor, Faith/Endurance
Essential Gear: Star Fist, Ritual Sword Talisman, Axe Talisman, Rotten Winged Insignia, Millicent’s Prosthesis, Strength-Knot Tear, Stonebarb Cracked Tear, Cragblade Ash of War
You’re not alone if you’ve largely ignored Elden Ring’s fist weapons. They can seem largely gimmicky and outright dangerous since they effectively only work from the closest possible distances. However, Elden Ring players have quickly discovered that Star Fist may just be the most powerful weapon in Elden Ring at the moment.
On paper, there is nothing too special about Star Fist, but that is exactly what makes them so special. They don’t rely on many gimmicks, tricks, or possible bugs. They just scale incredibly well with Strength, deal a ton of Bleed damage, and can be reliably used to either unleash a series of quick attacks or devastating charged strikes.
Some enemies are tougher than others, but there isn’t a single enemy in the game that can actually do much about this kind of pure Strength weapon. It’s just raw physical damage, and the Star Fists are capable of dealing hundreds of points of damage with every quick strike and thousands of points of damage with its charged power strikes. Perhaps more importantly, these weapons are capable of destroying enemy Poise as few other things in the game can.
If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. Get a Star Fist, imbue it with Crag Blade Ash of War, dual-wield it, beef up your Strength, get your Talismans, and use your Flask, Golden Vow, and Howl of Shabiri to buff yourself before a fight. From there, you just use quick attacks and heavy strikes as you normally would while enjoying the absurd damage that YouTuber Jazza97 showcases in their version of this build.
Yes, you have to get in close to use these weapons, and yes, that means putting yourself in harm’s way. However, everything that this Star Fist build relies on works against every enemy in the game. It deals massive damage, it stuns bosses, and it doesn’t even require an absurd amount of items, stats, or other unlockables. Unless Shadow of the Erdtree makes serious changes to the way Elden Ring works, this Star Fist build will likely be incredibly powerful on day one.
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