Builds

A build in Elden Ring is the sum of a handful of decisions: which attributes you level, which weapon those attributes feed, which Ash of War and affinity sit on it, which four talismans back it up, which spells and Spirit Ashes fill the gaps, and what goes in the Flask of Wondrous Physick. Get them pulling in the same direction and a mid-level character can out-damage a badly planned one fifty levels higher. Get them wrong and the game feels harder than it is.

This guide does two jobs. The first half explains the machinery: what each attribute does, how much class choice matters, how to reset your stats, how to earn the extra talisman slots and memory slots that every build relies on, and how our build pages are laid out. The second half is a directory of all 67 build guides on our wiki, grouped by archetype rather than by name, so a Strength player and a bleed player can each find their shelf. Every entry lists the core stats and the signature weapon the guide is built around.

How character building works

The eight attributes

Levelling happens at any Site of Grace once Melina has offered her services, and each level puts one point into one of eight attributes. Three of them keep you alive: Vigor raises health, Mind raises FP for spells and skills, and Endurance raises stamina and the equip load that decides how heavy your armour can be before your roll slows down. The other five drive damage. Strength and Dexterity govern most melee weapons and bows, Intelligence powers sorceries and the glintstone staves that cast them, Faith powers incantations and sacred seals, and Arcane raises item discovery while scaling blood, poison and dragon-flavoured weapons and spells.

Our How to Level Up guide argues for Vigor and Endurance early on almost every character, then the one or two attributes your weapon scales with, and it lists the rune farms that make the early levels quick. Health specifically is covered in How To Get More Health, and What Is Poise explains the armour stat that decides whether you get interrupted mid-swing. If a weapon's scaling grades are still a mystery, read the weapons guide first; every build here is ultimately a weapon plus the stats that make it scale.

Does the starting class matter?

Less than new players fear and more than veterans admit. Every class can reach every build, because the only permanent difference is where the starting points sit, but a class that already has the right stats saves twenty or thirty levels of catch-up and hands you a fitting weapon on the first screen. Our Best Classes guide puts Vagabond, Samurai, Astrologer and Hero in its top tier, Warrior, Prophet and Confessor next, Bandit and Prisoner below them and Wretch last, and it names the Vagabond the best pick for a first run because a shield that blocks everything is the cheapest way to learn boss patterns. The Best Keepsakes guide pairs each class with a starting gift, and its answer is almost always the Golden Seed or a Stonesword Key.

Respeccing, talisman slots and memory slots

Nothing you level is permanent. Once Rennala falls at Raya Lucaria, she offers Rebirth: hand over a Larval Tear and every point goes back into the pool. There are enough tears for roughly eighteen resets in a single playthrough, so trying a build from this list costs nothing but a trip to the academy. How To Respec Stats covers the prerequisites and where the tears are, and several of our late-game pages, the Comet Azur build among them, assume you will respec at level 150 rather than grind a fresh character.

Talisman slots are the other ceiling. You start with one and can reach four by collecting three Talisman Pouches: Margit drops the first, Enia hands over the second once you hold two Great Runes, and Godfrey the First Elden Lord drops the third. Every build page on the wiki assumes all four slots. Casters face a parallel cap on memory slots: two at the start, ten once all eight Memory Stones are found, and twelve with the Moon of Nokstella talisman on top, all laid out in How To Increase Memory Slots.

The Flask of Wondrous Physick

Picked up at the Third Church of Marika in the first hour, the Flask of Wondrous Physick holds two Crystal Tears of your choice and refills at every grace, which makes it a free pre-fight buff. Around thirty tears exist, dropped by the Erdtree Avatars under Minor Erdtrees or found in the world, and the right pair changes with the build: casters want the tear that makes spells cost no FP for a short window, melee players want the damage-boosting and stance-boosting tears, and everyone fighting Mohg wants the Purifying Crystal Tear. Crystal Tears Locations lists every tear and the Best Flask of Wondrous Physick Mixes page pairs them up. Each build guide below also names its preferred mix.

How our build pages are laid out

Most of the guides linked below follow one shape so you can compare them quickly. They open with an overview of one or two variants, then give a stat table, usually at level 60, 100 and 150 or as a single target spread. After that come the weapon and shield, the Ashes of War to put on them, any spells or incantations, the Spirit Ashes that suit the playstyle, an armour set, the Physick mix and finally the four talismans. Where a build has a PvP variant, it is called out separately, since the game halves several buffs against other players.

Every build by archetype

Builds are grouped by the attribute or effect they revolve around. Core stats are the attributes the guide invests in most heavily; where a page gives a level 60 spread, the numbers below come from it.

Strength and heavy melee

The most forgiving family in the game. High Vigor, high Endurance, a big weapon and a shield or a two-handed grip, and the answer to most problems is a jump attack. These builds care about poise and stance damage, so the Best Poise Armor roundup and the colossal weapon class are their shopping lists.

Dexterity, katanas and bleed

The largest shelf on the wiki, because blood loss is the strongest status effect in the game and Dexterity weapons apply it fastest. Almost every guide here dual-wields, stacks Arcane for build-up, and reaches for the Lord of Blood's Exultation talisman. Start with Best Bleed Weapons if you want to see why.

Arcane, status effects and dragons

Arcane started as the stat nobody levelled and became the backbone of the game's most feared setups. These guides stack a status effect until it does the killing for you: poison and rot for a slow drain, frost for burst and lowered defences, madness and sleep for control, and Dragon Communion incantations for a caster who breathes fire. The status roundups under weapons list the tools; the pages below show how to wire them together.

Faith and incantations

Faith characters get the best hybrid weapons in the game and a spell list that heals, buffs and burns. Our guides split between holy knights who swing a Blasphemous Blade or Winged Scythe and cast to support it, and black flame casters who let the Godslayer's Seal do the work. For the seals themselves, see Best Sacred Seals, and for the spells, Incantations Locations.

Intelligence and sorcery

Sorcery builds range from a pure glass cannon that deletes bosses with Comet Azur to battle mages who carry an Intelligence greatsword and cast between swings. Mind matters as much as Intelligence here, since FP is the real limit on a caster. The Best Staffs and Best Sorceries roundups cover the tools these pages assume.

Tier lists and endgame overviews

• Best Builds Tier List: every archetype sorted into S, A, B and C tiers, with bleed, Strength and Intelligence at the top.
• Best End Game Builds: six finished builds ranked for the last third of the game, from Strength through Samurai bleed to a Dexterity build at number one.
• Wretch: five survival tips for the class that starts at level 1 with a club, including where to farm early gear and why the Golden Seed keepsake matters most here.

What a build looks like at 60, 100 and 150

Several of our guides give a stat spread at three checkpoints, which is the clearest way to see how a build grows. The pattern is consistent: the damage stat and Vigor climb steadily, Mind and Endurance follow, and the attributes the build ignores stay parked at their starting value. Level 150 is the common ceiling because it is the level our boss pages consider comfortable for Malenia and the Elden Beast.

Two lessons fall out of the table. Vigor lags in the low-level spreads because early bosses hit softly and every point in damage speeds up the run, but no build finishes below 26 Vigor and most sit past 30. And the ignored stats really are ignored: Intelligence stays at 9 across every non-caster spread above, because a point that does not feed the weapon or the spell list is a wasted level.

The pieces every build borrows

A few items appear in our guides regardless of archetype. Among talismans, the Radagon's Soreseal and Marika's Soreseal trade damage taken for five points in four attributes, the Erdtree's Favor raises health, stamina and equip load at once, and the Green Turtle Talisman keeps stamina flowing for anyone swinging something heavy; the full list with locations is in our talismans guide. Among Spirit Ashes, the Mimic Tear copies your own build and appears on more of our pages than any other summon, with Black Knife Tiche the pick when you would rather have a distraction that hits hard; see Spirit Ashes. Armour is mostly fashion in Elden Ring, since it cannot be upgraded, but the armor guide covers the sets our builds reach for when poise or weight matters. And when the plan changes, How To Get Overpowered Early is the shortcut to funding it.

Elden Ring builds FAQ

What is the best build in Elden Ring?

Our tier list puts bleed, Strength and Intelligence builds in the top bracket. Bleed wins on raw damage against almost every boss, Strength is the easiest to play, and a sorcerer trivialises fights that melee players dread. For a first run, a Vagabond following the Sword and Shield or Vagabond build is the safest choice.

Which class should a beginner choose?

The Vagabond. High Vigor, a longsword, a halberd and a shield that blocks every physical attack let you learn boss patterns without dying to every mistake. Samurai is the next best pick if you prefer speed.

How do I change my build?

Defeat Rennala, then bring her a Larval Tear and choose Rebirth to reset every attribute. You can do this around eighteen times in one playthrough, so experimenting is cheap.

How many talisman slots can I have?

Four. You start with one and gain one each from Margit, from Enia after collecting two Great Runes, and from Godfrey, First Elden Lord. The pouches only drop in a first journey, so grab all three before New Game Plus.

What level should I be for the endgame?

Our boss pages recommend 110 for the Fire Giant, 120 for Malenia and 125 to 130 for Radagon, and the build guides target level 150 as a comfortable finished character. Anything past that is for New Game Plus.

Do builds work the same in PvP?

Not quite. Several buffs are halved against players, including the Claw Talisman's jump attack bonus and the Lord of Blood's Exultation, which is why guides such as the Scarlet Rot, Deathblight and Vyke's War Spear builds carry a separate PvP variant.