In this Elden Ring Mage Class Builds guide, we will provide you with all the information about the best builds offered by the Mage class, from their stats, armor, and weapons to the best skills that can be used with the Mage Builds
Elden Ring Sorcery/Mage Builds
Sorcerers and Mages in Elden Ring need a couple of things to be fully functional. They require sufficient Intelligence, Arcane and Mind stats and access to powerful sorceries and staffs.
Gaining the aforementioned stats is a matter of leveling up but obtaining more powerful sorceries and staffs requires you to find sorcery teachers, scrolls and merchants.
Below, we’ve outlined some mage builds in Elden Ring that require a few key spells to get started and form a good base to work towards your powerful sorcerer
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Astrologer Mage Build
Flask: Mostly stack into FP with a couple of HP potions
Weapon: Demi-Human Queen’s Staff
Shield: Scripture Wooden Shield (Basic)
Armor: Astrologer’s Armor Set
Stats: Intelligence (Primary), Mind (Primary), Vigor (Secondary), Dexterity (Secondary).
Skills: Ash of War: Gravitas, Ash of War: Loretta’s Slash
Spells: Glintstone Arc, Glintstone Pebble
Pure Mage Build
Class: Astrologer
Spread: Mostly stack into FP
Weapon: Meteorite Staff, Lazuli Glintstone Sword, Carian Greatsword
Shield: Scripture Wooden Shield (Basic)
Armor: Raya Lucarian Sorcerer, Alberich’s Set, Snow Witch Set
Stats: Intelligence (Primary), Vigor (Secondary), Dexterity (Secondary), Mind (Secondary).
Skills: Spirit Summon: Lone Wolf Ashes
Spells: Rock Sling, Loretta’s Greatbow, Carian Slicer
Best Stats for Mage Builds
For the Astrologer Mage Build, you’ll focus on magic being a wizard tarnished. We’ll start off with character creation. We’re picking the Astrologer here, and the Astrologer’s main two stats are Mind to increase your FP and Intelligence.
For your Flask choice, here you want to stack mostly into FP. Probably have a couple of health potions because if you run out of FP, you’re probably going to die anyway. So, I would lead towards FP over health.
A little bit of Vigor will go a long way here as well. Just in case you do miss a dodge because we will primarily be dodging any of the damage coming towards us.
If you want to have a little bit of vigor so that you can take a hit or two without getting one shot, it’s well worth putting a couple of those early points into vigor just to help your survivability.
- Vigor: 9
- Mind: 15
- Dexterity: 12
- Intelligence: 16
For the Pure Mage build, you’ll be primarily investing as many points into Intelligence as possible. Ultimately you want to get it all the way till 70 at least so you can cast all the sorceries in the game.
For the keepsake, you can have Crimson Amber Medallion (Talisman) and Golden Seeds. Crimson Amber Medallion is for a bit more HP, while the golden seat gives you an extra flask at the start and can be very useful as it means you get more FP for sorceries
For your secondary stats, you want to spend it on Mind and Vigor, so you have more FP and more HP, meaning more sorceries you can cast before running out of FP and more survivability.
- Vigor: 9
- Mind: 15
- Dexterity: 12
- Intelligence: 16
- Arcane: 9
Best Weapons for Mage Builds
For the Astrologer Mage build, we have opted for the Demi-Human Queen’s Staff as the primary weapon for this build. It mainly scales with Strength and Intelligence and is a great weapon for hitting and striking enemies in a range with Glintstone.
This weapon compliments the Astrologer class the most as it’s also great to cast Sorceries, and that is what we’re going to be focusing on more than melee attacks in the build.
Whereas for your shield, we recommend you go with the Scripture Wooden Shield.
Although it is a basic shield, it still is great in terms of parrying and works out perfectly for those who prefer a piece of lighter equipment in the field.
You can pick Meteorite Staff pretty much at the start of the game for the Pure Mage Build. You can find the Meteorite Staff in the swamp near Celia Crystal tunnel.
Rock Sling will melt the HP bars of your enemies. It is really close to the staff. The spell does insane damage, doesn’t cost too much FP, and also can function as an AoE spell at the same time.
Meteorite Staff also boosts gravity spells, and the rock fling spell is a gravity spell, so these two go perfectly together.
Another good addition to the weapons for the Pure Mage Build is the Lazuli Glintstone Sword and Carian Greatsword; where Lazuli Glintstone Sword primarily focuses on Strength and is used mainly for performing heavy attacks on the opponent, dealing a tremendous amount of damage.
On the other hand, we have the Carian Greatsword, this Greatsword is created via magic and, once created, will slice the opponent in half from the side.
You can get Carian Greatsword at Church of Vows for 10k Runes from the giant turtle. This Greatsword is like an upgraded Carian Slicer, but its range is way bigger.
You can run away with it while casting it, and it will still hit enemies due to its radius, so it’s much easier to attack enemies with it than the Carian Slicer. Its damage output is also crazy good.
As for the shield, same as the above build, we recommend using Scripture Wooden Shield.
Again, it is a bare shield with enough protection; however, it works great for some parrying action on the field, and since you will be playing with magic mostly, it’s enough to have as a piece of equipment that gives just enough protection.
Best Armor for Mage Class Builds
For the Astrologer Mage build, you start with the Astrologer’s armor, which is just relatively decent light gear to wear. It’s excellent to increase your Vitality and Focus Resistance and provide you with Magical defense protection in the field.
We’ve chosen Raya Lucarian Sorcerer, Alberich’s Set, and Snow Witch Set for the armor for the Pure Mage Build.
Raya Lucarian Sorcerer is great for physical and adequate Magical defense. It’s also lightweight and scales with Strength, making it a great choice if you have mobility concerns.
Alberich’s Set and Snow Witch Set are also excellent choices if you’re looking for armor that compliments magic classes.
Best Spells for Mage Class Builds in Elden Ring
For the Astrologer Mage build, it’s always best to stay at range, basically just spamming the Glintstone Pebbles until you get better spells. The spirit summons is an absolute must to take away aggro from you so that you can keep raining down those spells, especially in fights when there are a lot of enemies around.
You want to have the spirit summons active so you can prevent them from just all attacking you and so you can keep dodging as well as casting those spells.
If a weak enemy has like a tiny little bit of health left, and you don’t want to waste the last bit of FP, switch to the shorts or just hit them once and then continue on the way.
It’s also worth pointing out that you need to be facing the enemy when you’re casting your spell, so if you’re riding Torrent, for example, and you’re moving away, you will need to turn around and face the enemy and then line up the shot.
This can sometimes be difficult when you are mounted on Torrent. Occasionally, switch the short sword in some of these scenarios and just use hit and run tactics and sprint past them after having a quick swing.
It makes it a little bit simpler because it can be difficult to cast spells while on the mount, but it is well worth doing regardless of whether you’re mounted or on the ground for your attributes.
For the Pure Mage build, Carian Slicer is a really good spell as it only costs 4 FP, and it does insane damage in return. It’s melee range and has a very fast attack that prevents enemies from attacking at all while you kill them with fast, powerful attacks, and if you’re mounted, you can kill mobs relatively safely.
You can pick Meteorite Staff pretty much at the start of the game. You can find the Meteorite Staff in the swamp near Celia Crystal tunnel.
Rock Sling will melt the HP bars of your enemies. It is really close to the staff. The spell does insane damage, doesn’t cost too much FP, and it also can function as an AoE spell at the same time.
Meteorite Staff also boosts gravity spells, and the rock fling spell is a gravity spell, so these two go perfectly together.
Kill Loretta to get Loretta’s Greatbow. You can easily kill her with Rock Sling. Loretta’s Greatbow is a great opener for his bosses and has an insane distance.
You can even charge it to make it deal more damage. This will also one-shot a lot of mobs with it and have a very efficient way to kill annoying rangers and other mages in the game.
Increase your memory slots by getting the Memory Stones so that you can use all your spells.
Best Skills for Mage Builds
For the Astrologer Mage build, we’ve provided you with the two best options for the Ashes of War. Our first recommendation is the Ash of War: Gravitas.
Suppose you’re gravitating towards some melee action on the field. In that case, it will grant some Magic Affinity to your weapons and double your magical damage output while also swelling up your intelligence scaling.
For the second option, we recommend Ash of War: Loretta’s Slash. It has an almost identical function as Ash of War: Gravitas by granting Magic Affinity and increasing Intelligence scaling; however, your weapon’s base damage will decrease.
Apart from these two benefits, as the name suggests, it also allows players to perform uninterrupted sweeping slashes, which will significantly damage the enemies! So whatever skill you choose to go with, it’s a win-win situation.
For the Pure Mage build, you should select Spirit Summon: Lone Wolf Ashes. Using this skill, you can summon up to three wolves at a time that possesses their own max HP and can even perform ranged melee attacks.
The wolves you summons are really fast and can chase the opponent with ease considering how much stamina they possess, which blends perfectly with their max health bars. On top of it, they come in a pack, making it almost impossible to over-run them.
This skill can surely be an amazing addition to your arsenal when facing larger opponents in Elden Ring.
