Looking for some Elden Ring building ideas? The sheer number of weapons, Ashes of War, and how you can combine them offers much more building possibilities than any previous FromSoftware game. Since Ashes of War and its related it does not rely on upgrading gems, you can have more fun with the way you build your character, switching it up and modifying your weapon scope on a whim.
When you also consider the ridiculous number of Elden Ring armor set in the game, there is a lot of potential in terms of character building, role playing whatever kind of distortion you want. You may start by building what you have in mind from the beginning, or prefer to craft as you progress, and level to use the awesome Elden Ring weapons that you discover on your travels in the Lands Between.
Either way, in this guide, I’ll go over some basic tips for building your character, why the Wretch class is still the best, review our favorite Elden Ring designs, and what you’ll need to use yourself.
personality bulding
How to create an Elden Ring building for your character
The first thing to consider when constructing a building is what you find interesting, and how you can push that toward dealing with damage. Usually it’s best to start with a Wretch class if you’re not sure what you want, as this will give you a blank slate that you can place in either direction. Since Wretch is also the first level, buying those initial levels will be much cheaper than it would have been otherwise. This makes it the most flexible of the Elden Ring ranks.
The second thing to consider is the stats. One of the best things about Elden Ring is that you can breathe easier than any other Souls game. As you can see in our Elden Ring Respec guide, you can get grub rips and redistribute your traits based on your starting class – another reason why Wretches’ balanced starting streak is so great. This means that you can quickly change your design once you beat Rennala.
If you want to be a pure combatant, stats distribution isn’t difficult, as it depends entirely on the gauge of your weapon you want. However, if you want to be a melee/hybrid, go for a weapon that has a really good gauge and fits into your desired stat distribution. For example, the Darkmoon Greatsword matches well with intelligence, but does not have high strength or dex requirements, which makes it a great choice for a wizard.
If you’re more interested in spells, the Staff of the Avatar is amazing in terms of the magnitude of faith and power. For something faster, Cipher Pata or Coded Sword requires nothing but faith to use it, and it has a great deal of faith as well. If you’re doing purely spells, rather than weapons, you’ll want to base them on a wand or sacred seal. Magic is much easier to build in Elden Ring because most of the better casting items strengthen a certain type of spell. There are many forms of magic and sorcery: Carian Sword, Glintstone, Stonedigger, Death, Crystalian, Fundamentalist, Godslayer and Bestial. Your best bet is to experiment and discover your favorite magical traditions.
Our favorite structures
However, here are some fun thematic fixtures we’ve come up with that show how they work, and might give you some ideas of your own:
Best Recognized Building Elden Ring
Captain Crucible Knight
- Chapter start: the confessor
- Weapon: Siluria Tree, Golden Halberd, Staff of the Avatar, Golden Epitaph, Ordovis’s Greatsword, Gargoyle’s Blackblade
- Pour: Clawmark stamp
- shield: Crucible tree set or Crucible ax
- Attribute priority: Strength/Faith/Endurance/Mind
- ashes of war: Holy Blade, Golden Swear, Indomitable Vow (if using a shield)
- spells: Crucible sides: tail, Crucible sides: trumpets, Crucible sides: breath, beast claw, beast lever
The Crucible Knights are one of the coolest little bosses on the Elden Ring. They are loyal warriors who can use the sides of Crucible spells to spew giant tails and strike opponents with them, fly through the air, or over the shoulder of enemies from a distance. This version focuses on the Crucible Knight Siluria, found in the Deeproot Depths, but there are plenty of options available in the early game that will work here, such as the Golden Halberd, or Treespear if you decide to focus on skill.
The most important thing is that you choose a weapon that is also consistent with faith. In terms of casting, the Clawmark seal scales with strength and faith, and spells strengthen monsters. These cause physical damage, and are generally good for attacking enemies so you can deliver a fatal blow. This is definitely a later game, as the first Crucible armor set that we know of is located in the tomb of the Auriza Hero outside of Leyndell. However, you can get sides from the Crucible much earlier, with the tail spell found at Stormhill Evergaol.
Best Elden Ring POW build
Carian Battlemage
- Chapter start: prisoner
- Weapon: Darkmoon Greatsword, Moonveil, Troll Knight’s Sword, Night and Flame, Crystal Sword
- Pour: Meteorite crew, Carian Glintstone crew
- shield: Battlemage group
- Attribute priority: Strength / Intelligence / Mind / Dexterity
- spells: Carian Piercer, Carian Greatsword, Glintstone Pebble
This is your own sword and sorcery builder, very similar to the Crucible Knight above, but with wit scaling and a bit more focus on casting. There are plenty of excellent intelligence scaling weapons in Elden Ring, and they are among the best in the game. The Moonveil katana, for example, can release a spell of magic, while the Sword of Night and Flame has become famous for its beam attack.
In terms of casting, you’ll want to cast the Elden Ring Meteorite to scale silly wits, and close-range sorcery like the Carian Greatsword and Piercer. Glintstone Pebble is also a cost effective talisman for longer range. As for the armor, the Battlemage set you can get on the Altus Plateau really matches the aesthetic, and the Haima Glintstone crown increases intelligence and strength for a bit less FP.
Builds the best Elden Ring bandits
black knife killer
- Chapter start: Mugger
- Weapon: Misericorde, Reduvia, Scorpion’s Stinger
- shield: black knife set
- Attribute priority: Dexterity / Strength / Occult / Endurance
- ashes of war: Blood Blade, Bloody Slash, Poisonous Moth Flight, Poison Fog, Rolling Slash, Fast Step, Impaled Thrust, Repeated Thrust, Dodge
This is a classic dex-based dagger build, but with good bleeding as in the Elden Ring, the daggers are very powerful in the early game. You can get Reduvia almost instantly with the dungeon of Murkwater Cave, a great weapon against various Elden Ring bosses. Misericorde is also very good and has a high critical status. You can find it in the Armory of Stormveil Castle.
The best thing about this build is that you can push it however you want in terms of Ashes of War, bleeding preference, poison, pure dex, or even something like crimson rot if you decide to use Scorpion’s Stinger dagger. Either way, the essence is the same – quick attacks that build a niche to do damage. If you prefer dex, bleeding, and poison, there are also plenty of cool katanas you can switch to, like Rivers of Blood and Serpentbone Blade. You can’t get the black knife armor until later in the game, but there are plenty of other lightweight combos to use before then.
ancestor hunter
- Chapter start: Mugger
- Weapon: Long bow, short bow, reel bow, horn bow, serpent bow, Erdtree bow, spear, spear
- shield: Shiny horned headband, fur leotard
- Attribute priority: dexterity/strength/mind
- ashes of war: Powerful blow, barrage
The ability to use bows on horseback has completely changed the game for shooters: it makes them a very good class to take on a lot of bosses in the open world. There are a variety of bows of different sizes, which somewhat compensates for the fact that most Ashes of War cannot be used with them. For example, Erdtree Bow adds a faith scale, while Serpent Bow adds an ambiguous scale. You can even deal magical damage to the bow of the century.
The key to this build is dexterity and strength to increase damage, and brains to increase the number of times you can unleash your skills. You may want to graduate to a great arc later, like Radahn’s Lionbow, but they can’t be used on horseback. There are also some fun options in Jar Cannon and Hand Ballista, although they require a lot of strength to practice.
For the melee option, I recommend using a spear or spear so you can keep your distance. In terms of or armor, anything light would work, but for that hunter-gatherer feel, I went with the Shining Horned Headband and Fur Raiment that you get from Ancestral Warriors in the Siofra River.
lord of blood
- Chapter start: Mugger
- a weapon: Reduvia, Winged Scythe, Bloody Hells, Rivers of Blood, Wheel of Giza, Great Stars
- Pour: Overheating flame seal, finger seal
- shield: Nobel Optimistic Group
- Attribute priority: ingenuity/mysterious/faith/mind
- ashes of war: Blood blade, bloody slash
- spells: Swarm of flies, blood flame claws, blood spoon, blood flame blade
There are plenty of cool bleed weapons in the Elden Ring, whether you want to go hard or fine. Reduvia, Bloody Helice and Rivers of Blood are powerful weapons, but for strength there are also Great Stars and Ghiza’s Wheel, which can’t help but remind you of the Whirligig chainsaw from Bloodborne.
Most bleeding spells aren’t available until later in the game, so your first focus will be on inflicting damage with your weapon. I recommend dex weapons for bleeding as they hit a lot faster and build a faster bleed state than the slow force weapon. Reduvia is a great early game choice, as is Imp’s Forked Tongue, if you’re lucky enough to drop it. You can even get armor that deals with bleeding if you want more defense, like the Marred wooden shield in Stormveil and Spiked Palisade Shield in Caelid.
If you want to cast those bloody spells later in the game, you’ll also need to build some faith. If you do, I recommend the Winged Scythe from Weeping Peninsula, since it’s one of the few weapons in the game. Building faith will also allow you to cast some other spells into your structure, such as healing or treating a condition.