The best builds in Elden Ring for every stat
Discover the best builds in Elden Ring for every attribute
Looking for the best Elden Ring build? Elden Ring uses five key stats to determine effectiveness in combat. These are Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane. Whether you want to wield a greatsword, katana or use the power of spells, you'll need to know which stats to prioritise and the best weapons for each build.
Since its launch back in 2022, different builds have risen and fallen in popularity post-patch content updates. Luckily, we've taken this into account and devised a list of the top ten Elden Ring builds, separated by core stats. Besides making it easier to know which key spirit ashes, items and talismans you'll need on your journey through the Lands Between, it will also help you best prepare your Tarnished for the launch of the upcoming Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC.
On this page:
- Best Strength & Faith build
- Best Strength & Intelligence build
- Best Faith & Dexterity build
- Best bleed build
- Best Strength build
- Best Dexterity build
- Best Intelligence build
- Best Faith build
- Best Arcane build
- Best PvP build
Best builds in Elden Ring
If you want to kill every boss in Elden Ring, you'll want an unstoppable build. While there are countless possibilities that you could try, we've scoured the Lands Between to find some of the best Elden Ring builds around. Below, you'll find 10 builds that each excel in different areas. We've got builds for each of the 5 main damage-based attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane), as well as some outstanding combo builds that combine certain stats.
For each build, we break down the required weapons and stats that you'll need, as well as the main stats to focus on as you continue to level up. We also recommend a starting class, but this isn't too much of a problem. Classes are more of a starting guideline in Elden Ring, so they're all malleable enough bend into your preferred playstyle - it might just take a few extra levels to get there.
We'll then go on to explain what makes the build so strong, explaining the key tactics, skills, and items that you can use to destroy your enemies and forge your path to becoming Elden Lord.
If one of the builds below takes your fancy and you haven't put levels into the required stat, don't fear! With our handy guide on how to respec in Elden Ring, you can try out any of the builds on this list.
Strength & Faith build: Blasphemous Blade
- Recommended starting class: Confessor
- Required attributes: 22 Strength, 15 Dexterity, and 21 Faith
- Key attributes: Faith, Endurance, Mind
- Weapon: Blasphemous Blade
- Weapon location: Trade in the Rembrance of the Blasphemous with Enia at the Rountable Hold.
The Blasphemous Blade greatsword continues to wreak havoc thanks to its weapon skill, Taker's Flame, which has only improved post-launch. As per the Elden Ring 1.07 patch, Taker's Flame has an added hitbox for weapon damage. This essentially means that the blade itself will deliver damage simultaneously with the flame effect. When you use Taker's Flame, it allows you to regain health with each hit, ensuring that you can always bounce back during a fight. Whether you're in a gruelling boss encounter or clearing mobs in a dungeon, Taker's Flame will get you back to full health with ease and deal plenty of damage to surrounding enemies.
To make Taker's Flame even stronger, we'd recommend focusing on increasing your Faith stat. Strength will increase the damage of your physical attacks, but we'd recommend using Taker's Flame as often as possible to get through fights with ease. To get a headstart on this build, we recommend using the Confessor, as they start with a good spread of points between Strength and Faith.
Of course, you'll also want to raise your Endurance so that you can wield the Blasphemous Blade and any armor that you require without getting a heavy load. You should also pump some points into Mind, so that you can raise your maximum FP to cast Taker's Flame more before needing to chug a Flask.
Since this build is based on the Taker's Flame skill, we recommend using the Carian Filigreed Crest and Shard of Alexander to lower the FP cost of Taker's Flame and make it do more damage.
Check out more about this build with our dedicated Blasphemous Blade build guide.
Strength & Intelligence build: Dark Moon Greatsword
- Recommended starting class: Astrologer
- Required attributes: 16 Strength, 11 Dexterity, and 38 Intelligence
- Key attributes: Strength and Intelligence
- Weapon: Dark Moon Greatsword
- Weapon location: Progress Ranni's questline.
The Dark Moon Greatsword is Elden Ring's version of a classic FromSoftware weapon: the Moonlight Greatsword. It's a remarkable Strength and Intelligence-based weapon thanks to its signature skill, also titled Moonlight Greatsword. When you use this skill, the weapon is coated in glistening moonlight, and sends out beams of moonlight with each heavy swing. Surprisingly since launch, the Dark Moon Greatsword hasn't received any notable buffs or nerfs, cementing it as a reliable and popular choice amongst the fanbase.
If you're looking for another melee build that blends with magic, focusing on Strength and Intelligence will allow you to unlock the powerful potential of the Sword of Night and Flame. This is a weapon that you can use to cast two spells: Comet Azur and Flame Sweep. While Flame Sweep is strong, Comet Azur is where the Sword of Night and Flame really excels. It blasts cosmic energy out of the tip of the blade, which will effortlessly blitz through most bosses.
To use this weapon, you need to reach 12 with Strength and Dexterity and 24 with Intelligence and Faith. However, after reaching these minimum requirements, we recommend focusing solely on Strength and Intelligence, as this will increase your physical attack damage and the magic damage dealt with the Comet Azur spell.
When you pair the Sword of Night and Flame's Comet Azur with the Carian Filigreed Crest, a talisman that decreases the FP cost of weapon skills, you can use the spell consistently without rapidly burning through your mana pool. This means you can deal plenty of damage before needing to chug an FP potion and proves devastating against almost every boss.
You can learn more about this with our dedicated Sword of Night and Flame build guide.
Faith & Dexterity build: Sacred Relic Sword
- Recommended starting class: Confessor
- Required attributes: 14 Strength, 24 Dexterity, and 22 Faith
- Key attributes: Dexterity, Faith
- Weapon: Sacred Relic Sword
- Weapon location: Trade in the Elden Rembrance with Enia at the Rountable Hold.
The final boss in Elden Ring is tough, but it also grants an incredible reward. If you take the Elden Remembrance to Enia at the Roundtable Hold, you can exchange it for the Sacred Relic Sword. This is a strong greatsword that comes with an exceptional weapon skill: Wave of Gold.
When you use Wave of Gold, it unleashes a huge wave of holy light that deals massive damage to any enemies in front of your player. As this wave travels, it expands to catch more enemies, so it will rip through groups of enemies with ease. This skill got even better in patch 1.04, as it now has a lower FP cost and casts faster. The skill did see a decrease in damage and poise damage in patch 1.09. This is only for PvP however, as such the Sacred Relic Sword is still currently one of the best weapons in Elden Ring.
Focusing on Dexterity and Faith will increase the damage of your sword attacks and Wave of Gold, but you can make this build even better with certain items. The Carian Filigreed Crest talisman and Ash-of-War Scarab helmet will lower the FP cost of Wave of Gold even further, making it incredibly cheap to cast. Combine these with the Shard of Alexander talisman, which increases the damage of weapon skills, to create a dominant Dexterity/Faith build that effortlessly shreds even the toughest enemies in the Lands Between.
Arcane & Dexterity build: Rivers of Blood
- Recommended starting class: Bandit
- Required attributes: 12 Strength, 18 Dexterity, and 20 Arcane
- Key attributes: Dexterity and Arcane
- Weapon: Rivers of Blood
- Weapon location: Defeat Bloody Finger Okina at the Mountaintops of the Giants (near the Church of Repose).
Rivers of Blood is undoubtedly the best weapon in Elden Ring as the weapon skill, Corpse Piler, allows you to unleash a flurry of slashes that rapidly inflict the bleed effect on an enemy. With the huge damage potential of this skill, Rivers of Blood has become an infamous weapon that pops up in almost every PvP duel. Whilst this skill was slightly nerfed in the 1.06 patch, the attack power was later increased in patch 1.07 so it remains a powerful weapon choice.
Arcane and Dexterity are the most important stats here, and leveling these really allows you to unlock the full potential of this build. As your melee damage increases, you will find that Rivers of Blood slices through foes with incredible ease. The only downside to this build is the location of Rivers of Blood, as it is found in the Church of Repose, an area in the late-game Mountaintops of the Giants region.
Since Corpse Piler deals a string of melee hits, you can use the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia talisman to make this build ridiculously powerful. This makes each hit with Corpse Piler deal more damage, ensuring an easy kill on most enemies.
You can learn more about this build with our dedicated Rivers of Blood build guide.
Best Elden Ring Strength build: Giant-Crusher
- Recommended starting class: Hero
- Required attributes: 60 Strength, 60 Endurance, 15 Faith
- Key attributes: Strength, Endurance
- Weapon: Giant-Crusher
- Weapon location: Pick it up from a carriage south of the Outer Wall Phantom Tree Site of Grace in Leyndell.
The Giant-Crusher is a big colossal weapon that does big damage. It's an excellent pick for any Strength build and, with a range of buffs available from incantations and other abilities, you'll find that it can easily kill most enemies in just a few hits. Oh, and you can dual wield it in new game plus. Double the damage, double the giant-crushing potential.
The Giant-Crusher requires a Strength of 60, but you'll also need high Endurance since it has a weight of 26.5. Unless you're going for a Barbarian-style unarmored build, you'll need to boost Endurance enough to be able to use the Giant-Crusher and armor together. You can only find one Giant-Crusher on your first run, but dual-wielding becomes an option when it respawns in new game plus.
The buffs are the most important part of this build, as they allow you to massively increase your melee damage and equip load. The Flame Grant Me Strength incantation is an Elden Ring classic that boosts physical attack power, so it’s an obvious starting point for boosting damage. This does mean you’ll need a seal in your off-hand temporarily. If you're using two Giant-Crushers, quickly use a seal to cast the incantation and then swap back to your weapons.
Royal Knight’s Resolve is another key buff that’ll make this Giant-Crusher build excel. This is an Ash of War that you can attach to both Giant-Crushers that, when activated, boosts the damage of your next hit by a whopping 80%. This is crucial in tough boss fights, as you can use Royal Knight’s Resolve and then unleash a powerful jump attack to deal huge damage. It is worth noting that if you're thinking of using this build for PvP, as per the 1.09 patch, Royal Knight’s Resolve received a slight nerf in effectiveness.
Since this build is all about maximising physical damage, you can also use Godrick’s Great Rune and a range of talismans to raise your Strength even further. When all of these boosts come together, you’ll have an unstoppable Strength build that unleashes hell with every hit. Even better, the Giant-Crusher is great at staggering enemies, making them vulnerable to easy follow-up attacks that'll give you a significant advantage.
You can learn more with our dedicated Elden Ring Strength build guide.
Best Elden Ring Dexterity build: Bloodhound
- Recommended starting class: Samurai
- Required attributes: 18 Strength, 17 Dexterity
- Key attributes: Dexterity
- Weapon: Bloodhound’s Fang and Bloodhound's Claw
- Weapon location: Defeat Bloodhound Knight Darriwil in Limgrave and the Lesser Bloodhound Knight in Volcano Manor.
Like the Strength build above, this Bloodhound build focuses on raising your key attribute, Dexterity, and applying a range of buffs from talismans and spells to deal ridiculous damage with every hit. For this build, you should dual-wield the Bloodhound’s Fang blade with the Bloodhound Claws so that you have a balance between fast and powerful attacks. While these weapons both require some Strength to wield, we recommend focusing on Dexterity after meeting the requirements stated above, as they scale better and will deal more damage with Dexterity.
To buff this build even further, you should equip the Claw Talisman and Rotten Winged Sword Insignia. These talismans will increase your jump attack and consecutive hit damage respectively, which really makes this build excel. You’ll also want to track down Flame Grant Me Strength so that you can quickly cast it from your offhand to boost physical damage before swapping to your Bloodhound's Claws.
With all of the above, you can run into any fight and close the distance with a powerful jump attack from the Bloodhound’s Fang, following up shortly after with a few quick strikes from the Bloodhound’s Claws. If these attacks don’t bring down the enemy straight away, they’ll build up the bleed effect and deal an incredible amount of extra damage to secure the kill.
You can learn more with our dedicated Elden Ring Dexterity build guide.
Best Elden Ring Intelligence build: Battlemage
- Recommended starting class: Astrologer
- Required attributes: 10 Strength, 17 Dexterity, 52 Intelligence
- Key attributes: Intelligence, Mind
- Weapon: Wing of Astel, Lusat’s Glintstone Staff
- Weapon location: The wing can be found within a chest in the Uhl Palace Ruins (Ainsel River). Lusat’s Glintstone Staff is within Sellia, Town of Sorcery.
When you think magic, you probably think of the glass-cannon wizard who dies in just a few hits. In Elden Ring, that doesn’t have to be the case. With this Elden Ring battlemage build, we’ll offer a heavy-Intelligence build that dual wields Lusat’s Glintstone Staff with the incredible Wing of Astel sword to deal devastating amounts of damage at any range.
With this build, the Intelligence stat will be your main focus, but you’ll need 10 points in Strength and 17 in Dexterity to wield the weapons mentioned above. After this, you can dump points into Intelligence and increase damage with both weapons.
Since both weapons deal magic damage, you can then apply a range of magic buffs to substantially improve both your melee and ranged options. These include the Terra Magica sorcery, which places a rune on the floor that you can stand in to increase magic damage, and the Marika’s Soreseal, which raises your Intelligence by 5 levels (as well as Faith, Mind, and Arcane). You can boost your spells further with the Graven-Mass Talisman and Radagon Icon, which increase sorcery damage and shorten spell casting time respectively.
For the actual spells that you should equip, there are countless options available. Adula's Moonblade is an excellent melee spell that inflicts frostbite, while Comet Azur and Rock Sling are both strong ranged options. Comet Azur is especially good for tearing through bosses, while Rock Sling deals strike damage that will stagger most enemies. Check out our list of the best spells in Elden Ring for more options.
You can learn more with our Elden Ring Intelligence build guide.
Best Elden Ring Faith build: Lord of Lightning
- Recommended starting class: Prophet
- Required attributes: 40 Faith, 40 Dexterity, 20 Strength
- Key attributes: Faith, Dexterity, Vigor
- Weapon: Inseparable Sword, Bolt of Gransax
- Weapon location: The Inseparable Sword is a quest reward which requires you to follow both D and Fia's questline. The Bolt of Gransax is located within Leyndell.
If you want to use a Faith build, then Lightning incantations are the way to go. Many of the best incantations in Elden Ring will deal lightning damage, and combining them all into one build is sure to make you unstoppable. Of course, spells aren't going to keep you alive alone, so we also have a couple of melee weapons that you can rely on in a close-quarters situation, along with some Faith buffs that are crucial in almost any build.
Let's start with the spells, since that's why we're all here. Your best spell for this lightning build is the Ancient Dragon Lightning Strike, which will absolutely decimate bosses. It won't prove effective against single enemies as it takes a while to charge up, but those pesky Erdtree Avatars scattered around the map won't know what hit 'em. For focusing on the smaller enemies, Lightning Spear is a strong ranged option that you can use to close the distance, that's where your melee weapon comes in. Additionally, as per the 1.07 update, the Lightning Spear now has increased attack power when charged and decreased FP consumption when attacking guarded enemies.
For this build, we recommend using the Inseparable Sword in your main hand and the Bolt of Gransax in your offhand. You can swap between the Bolt of Gransax and your Seal when you need to cast incantations, but the Inseparable Sword is an excellent melee option that scales with Strength, Faith, and Dexterity. If you want to add an extra lightning flair, you can use the Vyke's Dragonbolt incantation to coat your weapon and body with lightning too.
Finally, the buffs. This build already deals plenty of damage, but a little extra won't hurt anyone. Well, it'll hurt your enemies a lot, but that's the point. Golden Vow and Flame, Grant Me Strength are obvious picks here - Golden Vow increases your damage by 15%, and Flame, Grant Me Strength will boost your physical attacks even further. To increase the damage of your lightning spells, the Lightning Scorpion Charm and Flock's Canvas Talisman should do the trick.
To learn more about this Elden Ring Faith build, check out our dedicated Lightning Lord build guide.
Best Elden Ring Arcane build: Blood Lord
- Recommended starting class: Bandit
- Required attributes: 24 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 27 Arcane
- Key attributes: Arcane, Strength, Dexterity
- Weapon: Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear
- Weapon location: Trade in the Remembrance of the Blood Lord with Enia at the Roundtable Hold.
As you can tell from the name, the Elden Ring Blood Lord build once again uses the bleed effect to melt enemies. However, compared to the Dexterity-based Bloodhound and Rivers of Blood builds above, this build focuses almost entirely on Arcane, requiring just 24 Strength and 14 Dexterity. This is because it uses Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear, a weapon that you can get after defeating Mohg, Lord of Blood.
Since Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear scales with Arcane, that should be your main stat for this build. Raising the Arcane stat while using Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear also increases the speed with which it will apply the bleed effect, meaning those with a high Arcane stat will cause an enemy to bleed almost instantly.
However, it’s the Bloodboon Ritual weapon skill that makes this build truly overpowered. It thrusts the spear into the air up to three times, sending out bursts of blood towards enemies and coating the spear with bloodflame. If you use this skill after consuming a Flask of Wondrous Physick that includes the Cerulean Hidden Tear, it won’t cost any FP, allowing you to inflict bleed on any enemies around you and deal massive damage without wasting a single point. As per the 1.07 patch, when using this effect in PvP, the damager remains the same but the range has been reduced.
To learn more about our Blood Lord build, take a look at our dedicated Elden Ring Arcane build guide.
Best PvP build: Elden Ring Mech
- Recommended starting class: Prophet
- Required attributes: 31 Faith
- Key attributes: Faith, Endurance, Vigor
- Weapon: Unendurable Frenzy incantation
- Weapon location: Found in a chest within the Yelough Anix Ruins (west of the Consecrated Snowfield).
While every build above is a viable option for PvP, none are quite as unstoppable as the Elden Ring mech build. With this build, you transform yourself into a metal Mario-style Tarnished and unleash fiery missiles from your eyeballs. It's incredibly intense, and certain to overwhelm your opponent with its relentlessly furious projectiles.
This build require 31 Faith to use the Unendurable Frenzy incantation, but you'll also need to collect a range of items. These include the Cerulean Hidden Tear and Crimsonwhorl Bubbletear, which you can mix in the Flask of Wondrous Physick to temporarily remove all FP costs and absorb any incoming magic damage to turn it back into health. Most importantly, you'll need to craft the Ironjar Aromatic, which requires the Perfumer's Cookbook (3).
When you combine these items, you will become a metallic mech-like beast that can fire endless missiles from your own face. While these items won't last forever, you'll find that this build wreaks havoc on enemy players, so you'll probably win the duel before the mech effects wear off.
If you want to learn where to find these items and see how this build works when it comes together, take a look at our dedicated Elden Ring mech build guide for a full breakdown. Whilst Unendurable Frenzy did receive a power decrease within PvP as per the 1.07 patch, it remains a solid choice, especially if you want to sow maximum chaos.
That covers the 10 best builds in Elden Ring. If you're lost in the Lands Between and aren't sure where to go next, take a look at our Elden Ring walkthrough for a breakdown of each region, main boss, and legacy dungeon. Of course, there's lots more to discover as you explore, so check out our Elden Ring sidequest guide to learn more about every NPC and how to complete their quests. Most of these will involve tough fights, so make sure you come prepared with the best Elden Ring armor.