6 Formidable Elden Ring Class Builds You Must Try!

Elden Ring‘s class system innovates on previous “Soulsborne” entries by allowing more interaction between different character stats through both weaponry, accessories and skills. This has led to the community creating new and exciting hybrid class builds that provide more varied gameplay in a single character. Elden Ring lets you play the game the way you want to.

Below are some of the custom classes that the community has created. Do note that these are generally late-game builds and that the videos may have minor spoilers. However, the videos will have more details such as stat distribution. Also note, you will gain more talisman slots as you progress through the game.

Special thanks to Fextralife, Peeve, Varsona Vyzelta and FightinCowboy for all the information!

Table of Contents

• Heavy Defense Builds
  • Berserker
  • Paladin Lord
  • Dragoon
• Lightweight High Damage Builds
  • Moonveil Sorcerer
  • Dragonblood Arcanist
  • Santōryu Samurai (Three Sword Style Samurai)

Heavy Defense Builds

Berserker

Starting Class: Vagabond/Hero.
Main stats: Vigor, Strength and Endurance.

Pros: Has high damage, high health and supports an aggressive playstyle. The build is simple to play and is decently mobile with high defenses. It also has some ranged capability with incantations.

Cons: High risk as you will be in range of most attacks. In addition, your tactics are limited and this build is relatively easy to fight against, in player-versus-player (PvP).

Important Items:

• Clawmark Seal; boosts Beast Incantations and uses the Strength stat when calculating damage. This seal gives you access to quick ranged attacks in the form of Beast Claw and Bestial Sling.
• Radagon’s Scarseal or Radagon Soreseal; raises attributes, but also increases damage taken. As you have high defenses, the negatives of this talisman are insignificant.
• Starscourge Greatsword; a colossal greatsword that has the unique trait of becoming a dual-wield weapon when two-handed. I recommend aiming for this weapon because it essentially allows you to dual-wield two weapons of equal attack power, doubling your returns when investing in upgrades.
• Arsenal Charm or Great Jar’s Arsenal; further raises equipment weight. As you will be carrying two heavy swords and heavy armour, this is a must-have or you will incur a severe penalty on your dodge.
• Green Turtle Talisman; raises stamina recovery speed. This is useful because using dual weapons tends to have a high stamina cost.
• Claw Talisman; boosts jumping attack damage. Jump attacks allow you to attack with a weapon in each hand simultaneously and so will be your main form of attack.

Playstyle: Use jumping attacks (L1/LB) to initiate combat. Jumping attacks have a higher chance to stagger enemies and deal two swings worth of damage in a single shot.

For humanoid enemies, your jump attacks will stagger them so try to be more aggressive to lock them in place. Be advised, that repeatedly using jump attacks in PvP will make you very predictable, so don’t forget to mix in running and dodge attacks.

Use Beast Claw or Bestial Sling to attack enemies that gain distance from you and cover your approach. Consider picking up Ash of War: Beast’s Roar for its fast projectile speed, long range and strength scaling.

Paladin Lord

Starting Class: Confessor
Main stats: Faith, Vigor, Endurance and Strength (for equipment requirements).

Pros: Capable of both melee and ranged combat. In particular, your spells will have massive areas of effect with high damage output. Plus, the build has good survivability via high defenses and self-regeneration options. In the early game, you may choose to take healing spells and the Ash of War: Barricade Shield as a defensive tool.

Cons: Lacks mobility and is prone to interruptions during long spell casts. Furthermore, it is heavily reliant on FP (Force Points) for damage output. Generally unfit for PvP and is weak against aggression.

Important Items:

• Gravel Stone Seal; boost Dragon Cult incantations. The main benefit of this seal is the S rank Faith stat scaling, which means each point in Faith will yield more bonus spell damage.
• Arsenal Charm or Great Jar’s Arsenal; raises equipment weight. You need to use heavy armour to offset your vulnerability when casting spells. This talisman will ensure that you do not become over-weight and suffer a dodge penalty.
• Old Lord’s Talisman; extends spell effect duration. This improves the efficiency of buffing spells such as Blessing of the Erdtree, Golden Vow (Spell), and Flame, Grant me Strength.
• Radagon Icon; shortens spell casting time. This talisman reduces the amount of time you stand still and increases the amount of spells you can cast within openings.
• Godfrey Icon; increases charged spell and skill damage by an estimated 30%. Charged spells are good for capitalizing on large openings or if the targets attention is drawn by another player or summon.

Playstyle: Whenever possible, prepare for encounters by buffing yourself with Blessing of the Erdtree, Golden Vow (Spell) and Flame, Grant me Strength. Your main source of damage will be The Flame of Frenzy spell.

The Flame of Frenzy will inflict the Madness status effect on yourself when used too much. Therefore, it is advised to use other spells now and again to prevent damaging yourself whilst still attacking.

We recommend Elden Stars to provide covering fire when approaching enemies, and then Lansseax’s Glaive for its large attack arc or Fortissax’s Lightning Spear for its high, close ranged damage.

Dragoon (Paladin Variant)

Starting Class: Confessor/Prophet
Main stats: Faith, Strength, Vigor, Endurance

Pros: Similar to Paladin Lord with high magic damage and range, but utilizes more melee attacks and spells with shorter cast times. In comparison, this playstyle is more mobile and less prone to being interrupted during offense. It is also easier to play this build in the early game and is more suited to PvP.

Cons: Lower damage in comparison to Paladin Lord and has slightly less range.

Important Items:

• Gravel Stone Seal; boost Dragon Cult incantations. The main benefit of this seal is the S rank Faith stat scaling, which means each point in Faith will yield more bonus spell damage.
• Primal Glintstone Blade; gives a 25% reduction in FP cost when casting spells. Replace with Flock’s Canvas Talisman if you wish to avoid the maximum health penalty and instead increase incantation damage by 8%.
• Arsenal Charm or Great Jar’s Arsenal; raises equipment weight. Halberds and armour are heavy, so use these charms to ensure you maintain medium equipment load and dodge normally.
• Sacred Scorpion Charm; boosts holy weapon damage by 12% or Lightning Scorpion Charm to boost lightning damage by 12% for both weapons and incantations.
• Sacred Blade ash of war; use this skill in early game to give weapons Faith damage scaling and to imbue your weapon with 85 holy damage. I recommend the Guardian’s Swordspear for its good moveset and scaling.
• Gargoyle’s Black Halberd or Golden Halberd; use these weapons at late game as these weapons will scale favourably with your high Faith stat.

Playstyle: Inspired by Final Fantasy XIV’s Dragoon, this variant focuses on using the power of dragons to enhance your physical attacks. Similar to the Paladin Lord, try to buff yourself with Blessing of the Erdtree, Golden Vow (Spell), and Flame, Grant me Strength before encounters if possible.

Unlike the Paladin Lord however, you will be predominantly using weapon skills and melee attacks, casting spells only during large openings or if the enemy is out of range.

For spells, we recommend Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Spear for its moderate cast time, respectable damage and ability to knock-back opponents. We also recommend Honed Bolt or Lightning Spear. The former is excellent for damage-per-second as it can be rapidly casted in succession making it difficult to dodge in PvP, whilst the latter does more damage per cast is therefore more FP efficient.

Lightweight High Damage Builds

Moonveil Sorceror

Starting Class: Prisoner/Astrologer/Warrior,
Main Stats: Intelligence, Dexterity, Vigor and Mind.

Pros: Glintstone Sorcery has long ranges, fast cast times, fast projectile speeds and decent homing capabilities, allowing you to pressure opponents in PvP and attack enemies at a distance in Player-versus-Environment (PvE).

Excellent melee to mid-range damage with Moonveil’s weapon skill, Transient Moonlight. It is also capable of countering other sorcery users with Eternal Darkness.

Cons: Offense is too FP dependent and so resource management is important. The build is also very frail with its low damage negation and health pool.

Also, Loretta’s Greatbow requires some manual aiming in PvP to be fully effective. Furthermore, your best buff skill, Terra Magicus, requires you to be more stationary to reach maximum damage potential.

Important Items:

• Radagon Icon; shortens spell casting time. This talisman is important here because your offense is almost entirely centered around spellcasting. The quicker you fire off spells, the less time you spend being immobile and the more spell casts you can do within openings.
• Godfrey Icon; increases charged spell and skill damage by an estimated 30%. This specifically aids the Loretta’s Greatbow spell, as you will be trying to fully charge it as much as possible. This will also be useful for any other chargeable spells that you wish to use, so it’s a generally good talisman to have.
• Moonveil; a katana that scales with intelligence and can fire quick waves of light with its weapon skill. This weapon is infamous for its deceptive range and high damage output. It is both a deadly primary and secondary combat option. You may also choose to use the Wing of Astel as a backup melee weapon as its heavy attack also shoots a magic wave but at no FP cost and in addition, scales with intelligence.
• Primal Glintstone Blade; gives a 25% reduction in FP cost when casting spells.
• Graven-Mass Talisman; greatly raises potency of sorceries.

Playstyle: Open encounters by casting Terra Magicus. If you’re fighting another player, set up defensive spells with either Carian Phalanx or Magic Glintblade. Use Eternal Darkness if you’re fighting a sorcerer. Once you are set up, begin sniping with Loretta’s Greatbow.

Ensure Moonveil is on your right hand so that you can use immediately use Transient Moonlight to strike any opponents that enter into close quarters. In PvP, your defensive spells should force opponents to mis-time their dodges; take advantage of this.

Dragonblood Arcanist

Starting Class: Bandit/Confessor
Main Stats: Arcane, Faith, Vigor and Mind

Pros: Blood spells have long range and large area of effects, allowing you to deny enemy assaults and maintain your threat in fights.

Also, you can easily apply the bleed status on enemies which results in great burst damage. Moreover, the build’s skillset synergizes well internally; there are multiple ways to achieve full power in a fight.

Cons: It is somewhat of a “glass cannon” that has below average defenses. There is no poise on spell casts, which means you can be interrupted if you are hit in the middle of casting a spell.

Important Items:

• Radagon Icon; shortens spell casting time. This build relies on you being mobile to avoid damage. This talisman reduces the possibility of you being caught out when casting spells.
• Green Turtle Talisman; raises stamina recovery speed. As this build relies on you making multiple hits to apply the bleed status on enemies, you will be using a lot of stamina. This talisman reduces the delay between your assaults.
• Lord of Blood’s Exultation; blood loss (bleed) in vicinity increases attack power. This is the keystone of this build as you will be constantly activating bleed which will trigger the talisman’s ‘attack power increase’.
• Godskin Swaddling Cloth; successive attacks within a set period of time restore 75 HP. As you are using a multi-hit weapon, the talisman’s effect will be easier to activate, making it a viable form of sustaining your health in a fight.
• Twinblade or Godskin Peeler; dexterity scaling weapons that have great multi-hit attack chains that are good for applying bleed. Bleed is applied on a per-hit basis so we want to focus on maximizing attacks-per-button press.

Playstyle: This build’s playstyle is non-linear; you may choose to cast more dragon spells at a distance for slower enemies and activate the bleed and rot status effects through Ekzyke’s Decay and Swarm of Flies, or choose to use Seppuku to drastically boost your damage and fight in close range, whilst using Bloodboon for extra bleed buildup. Your choice of offense will depend on the situation.

The main aim of this build is to accumulate the bleed status effect through spells and melee attacks, and trigger Lord of Blood’s Exultation‘s attack power bonus. However, be aware of the build’s low defenses compounded by Seppuku’s health cost.

Santōryu Samurai (Three Sword Style Samurai)

Starting Class: Samurai.
Main Stats: Intelligence, Dexterity, Vigor, Endurance.

Pros: Multiple special attacks keep you unpredictable in PvP and will give you options to bypass resistances in PvE.

In addition, this build has access to high damage spells like Loretta’s Greatbow and utility spells like Terra Magicus and Eternal Darkness.

You also have access to bleed status effects and high stagger capabilities in PvE via the katanas. Another benefit of this build is that you have access to your highest damage potential with minimal setup. This build has a highly aggressive playstyle.

Cons: Very fragile since you need to have less armour to be able to wield 3 katanas and a staff with no rolling penalty. Considerably less damage compared to other builds in PvE; this is a mostly PvP build.

Moreover, the low Mind stat of this build means managing FP will be very difficult; you need to be selective of what spells and skills you use.

Important Items:

• 2 Uchigatana and Moonveil; Uchigatanas have the best Dexterity scaling amongst katanas and Moonveil has powerful weapon skill that deals massive burst damage.
• Ash of War: Hoarfrost Stomp; A wide range attack that detonates twice, dealing cold damage and the Frostbite status effect. Frostbite deals damage and places a stamina penalty on affected enemies. Difficult to avoid, deadly and has a cheap FP cost.
• Carian Filigreed Crest; lowers FP consumed by skills by 25%. This is important as it reduces the cost of Moonveil’s weapon skill from 20 to 15 FP, meaning you would get a free 5th use.
• Green Turtle Talisman; raises stamina recovery speed. You will be swinging dual katanas and dodging a lot with this build, so this talisman should alleviate most stamina management issues.
• Radagon’s Scarseal; raises attributes, but also increases damage taken. Since you are already quite fragile, the increase in received damage will not cause any noticeable difference. In addition, this talisman is effective at increasing your damage output.
• Warrior Jar Shard; boosts the attack power of skills. Weapon skills will be your main source of damage and so this talisman will directly benefit your combat effectiveness.

Playstyle: This build has a very free playstyle. You may choose to start fights with Hoarfrost Stomp and Transient Moonlight to force opponents to play more defensively or just run up and do a jumping double slash to lull players into a false sense of security.

Mix up your attack timings with different weapon skills. When attacking with dual katanas, use your running attack (R1/RB) to catch players dodging and your dodge attack (o/B + R1/RB) as it deals good poise damage, which can interrupt most moves.

I personally recommend using the Ash of War: Bloody Slash as it can fool players into dodging incorrectly due to its similar wind-up animation to Moonveil’s skill. Furthermore, it can give the Blood affinity which increases the Uchigatana’s bleed buildup.

These builds are by no means strict and you can make adjustments based on new information or how you prefer to play. We hope this guide gives you ideas on which direction you want to take your character.

Do you think these builds are good or bad? Are there any other builds you would like to see? Go wild with your thoughts down in the comment box! Also, join our Discord and discuss all things gaming and entertainment with the All Maverick team and community!