Elden Ring features several types of weapon and combat mechanics, most of which you do not require to understand in the early game.
However, the more your character evolves, it will become mandatory that you know how weapon scaling works in Elden Ring. That is how you ensure your weapons do the most amount of damage in the game.
Each weapon in Elden Ring has a few stat requirements, with a whole scaling section to its left which is never mentioned in the tutorial. You can think of Weapon Scaling as an added bonus to your weapon. It basically determines the extent of bonus damage you can deal with a single hit.
To use a weapon efficiently and bump it up to maximum performance mode, you have to keep in mind its weapon scaling. In the late stages of the game where you face difficult enemies, this becomes very helpful. Hence, it becomes essential to understand how weapon scaling works in Elden Ring.
How Weapon Scaling works in Elden Ring
When you first start Elden Ring, you are instructed to choose a class where each one has a certain number of varying attribute stats. In the later stages of the game, you will be making builds around certain attributes that you work best with.
These stats that you choose aren’t only limited to your character, but also to your weapons. If you inspect a weapon and look closely, you will be able to see an “Attribute Scaling” section – right below the “Attack Power” section and to the left of the “Attributes Required” section.
In this “Attribute Scaling” section, you see a couple of attributes mentioned, with a letter assigned to it on its right. The extent to which the weapon scales with a particular attribute, i.e. its grading, is determined by this letter.
What the attributes mean
Some weapons scale mainly with the “Strength” attribute, some with “Dexterity”, and so on, even with Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane in some cases. That is one part of how weapon scaling works in Elden Ring.
Note that while not all of your stats will have scaling associated with it, in some cases, scaling can also affect more than one attribute.
This mainly depends upon the type of weapon you have. Heavier weapons like Greatswords mainly scale with Strength and Dexterity, while weapons dealing Magic often scale with the Faith attribute.
What the letters mean
The letters that indicate how well your weapon scales with a particular attribute can be classified into a hierarchy. The “S” letter signifies the best scaling in Elden Ring, the “A” letter falls slightly lower, and so on with the levels ”B”, “C”, “D”, and finally “E”.
A higher grade letter assigned to a particular attribute indicates better scaling with it, which in turn indicates higher bonus damage with that weapon. This bonus damage is stacked on top of the weapon’s base physical damage.
If you head on over to the “Attack Power” section of the weapon and look at the first stat, the Physical stat, you can see two different numbers with it. The first number that you see is your base physical damage stat.
The number after the “+” symbol indicates the bonus damage your weapon will deal depending on its scaling with a particular attribute – and how high that particular attribute of yours is.
If you want your weapon to deal the maximum amount of damage it can, which includes the bonus damage, you have to either:
- Improve the weapon’s scaling with that particular stat.
- Improve your attributes that the scaling depends on by investing attribute points.
As we mentioned before, if you want to make a build revolving around a particular stat, you have to choose a weapon that scales mainly with that stat, which is often your strongest. If your attribute stats are high, better scaling with it will help your weapon deal more damage.
This means that if you have a tank build focused on Strength, you must choose a weapon that has a good rating of S, A, or B attribute scaling with that stat.
Enhancing and Modifying Weapon Scaling in Elden Ring
If you are proficient with a particular weapon and want to use it with your build but it doesn’t scale well with your strongest stat, you can upgrade or modify your weapon to change that.
Modifying your weapon using Whetblades or infusing them with Ashes of War allows you to change which attributes your weapon scales with – along with a few other added benefits. The Cold-type affinity you get with the Ghost Whetblade allows your weapon to scale solely with Intelligence but also allows it to use Frostbite.
If you cannot modify your weapon, then you can go for a basic weapon upgrade. You can use Somber Smithing Stones or Smithing Stones to upgrade your weapon, which can do two main things.
Firstly, your weapon level will be upgraded, which improves all of its stats. Secondly, the scaling of your weapon with a particular attribute can also be improved. What this means is that a particular upgrade can improve the scaling to a B grade from a C grade.
That’s about it on what is weapon scaling in Elden Ring. To sum things up, we’ll conclude with an example to finish off the explanation. For that, we’ll use the example of the Short Sword, which is one of the starting weapons of the Astrologer Class.
At the basic level, the Short Sword has a physical damage output of 102 + 10 and scales with Strength (D), and Dexterity (D). This means that the base damage that it deals has a value of 102, but also deals +10 damage if you have good stats in Strength and Dexterity.
If you invest your attribute points in Strength and Dexterity and bump them up to 22 and 36 respectively, the bonus damage that you can deal with it jumps from 10 to 35, dealing a total of 137 physical damage.
Lastly, upgrading the Short Sword can also improve its scaling with a particular stat, boosting the bonus as well.
If you upgrade this weapon to level +12, you can bump up its Dexterity scaling from grade D to grade C, which is slightly better.
A particular weapon will have the best bonus if it has a Dex scaling of S and you have the appropriate attribute stats to go along with it.
