In Elden Ring, your character’s stats are the backbone of your entire build. Whether you’re swinging colossal weapons, casting powerful magic, or bleeding enemies dry with twin katanas, your stats define how you fight, survive, and look while doing it. But you can’t simply pour points into a favorite stat and call it a day. Every attribute in the game from Strength to Arcane opens doors to unique weapons, spells, and scaling effects. With the release of Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, there is more room for what’s possible and what you can do with your build.
Our guide has listed down the best Elden Ring builds by primary stat focus including Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane. If you’re a seasoned Tarnished or still struggling against Margit, we’ve got you covered.
Best Elden Ring Strength Build
These are the powerhouse builds for colossal weapons and maximum stagger. If you enjoy hearing the crack of a Greatsword smashing down on an enemy’s skull, the Strength build is for you. They offer raw, brutal force and don’t rely on spells, dodges, or bleed gimmicks but rather trust in two things: a giant weapon and the ability to swing it with earth-shaking impact.
A good example of a pure Strength build is the Colossal Knight, a heavy-hitting juggernaut wielding deadly weapons like the Greatsword or the Ruins Greatsword, which even fires off gravitational energy with its skill. These weapons are slow, sure, but every hit can delete a chunk of a boss’s health bar or flatten mobs in one swing.
To set this build properly, you need to start as the Hero or Vagabond class. The Hero gives you a high base Strength, while the Vagabond is better for early tankiness and gear. As you level up, focus heavily on Strength for around 55–60 for top-tier scaling, and don’t neglect Vigor and Endurance. You’ll need the HP to trade hits and the stamina to keep going and rolling in full armor.
What makes Strength builds so satisfying is the sheer control you exert in fights. When a boss charges at you, you can time a jump attack and stagger them mid-animation. If mob groups are running your way, one overhead smash clears the path. Even in PvP, these builds excel by baiting rolls and punishing with hyperarmor especially if you’re using Ashes of War like Lion’s Claw, which front-flips into enemies with surprising speed and power.
Heavy armor is the best inclusion in this build. Sets like Bull-Goat, Lionel’s, or Veteran’s allow you to tank through attacks and fight your way. With a colossal weapon in hand, Erdtree’s Favor increases equipment load and stamina, and the Green Turtle Talisman helps recover stamina faster after every commitment.
Bloodfiend’s Arm build can put a twist on this setup, it’s a great hybrid that merges Strength with Arcane to trigger rapid bleed procs. It takes longer to set up, but can tear through even the hard bosses with massive percentage-based health loss. Dual-wielding Bloodfiend’s Arms, buffed with Seppuku or Bloodflame Blade adds a savage layer to an already overwhelming melee toolkit. Strength builds are good for players who want to control space, ignore enemy poise, and make every hit count.
Best Elden Ring Dexterity Build
Dexterity builds in Elden Ring are lightning-fast, stylish, and lethal when played right. These builds emphasize agility, precision, and critical timing, offer a sharp comparison to the lumbering strength archetypes. They’re amazing for players who prefer speed over tank strength and enjoy outmaneuvering enemies rather than tanking blows.
One of the most iconic Dex builds is the Bleed-focused Samurai, a fan-favorite since day one. By dual-wielding katanas such as Uchigatana, Nagakiba, or Rivers of Blood, you can stack bleed quickly and tear through bosses and PvP opponents alike. Infusing your weapons with Blood affinities and using Seppuku Ash of War cranks up Hemorrhage buildup to dangerous levels and when paired with talismans like Lord of Blood’s Exultation, your damage skyrockets each time blood is drawn.
The starting class Samurai is a strong pick here, with excellent Dexterity and stamina to support fast, relentless attacks. You’ll want to level Dexterity for weapon scaling, Vigor to avoid being one-shot, and Endurance to help manage stamina and equip load (since you’ll be rolling a lot). This build thrives in both PvE and PvP due to its versatility — light enough to encounter boss combos, but strong enough to end fights quickly when bleed procs stack.
A variation on the classic is the Lightning Samurai build, which mixes Dexterity with Faith for extra elemental effect. Instead of relying entirely on bleed, this version best works on weapons like the Dragonscale Blade or Bolt of Gransax, and uses lightning incantations such as Lightning Spear, Honed Bolt, or Electrify Armament. The advantage here is flexibility, you receive solid melee pressure with Dexterity scaling even having access to ranged, high-impact spells that scale with Faith. If you want to play aggressively but with more utility tools in your kit, consider this Elden Ring build.
Dex builds reward smart, reactive play. Jump attacks with twin katanas deal a huge sum of damage and can be spammed mid-combat for momentum. In PvP, you’ll often win trades simply by staying out of reach, punishing laggy attacks, and forcing opponents to make mistakes. Bleed is still dominant post-patch, but even a non-bleed Dex build including spears or curved swords can perform exceptionally well with the right spacing and awareness.
Best Elden Ring Intelligence Build
Intelligence builds are for those who want to destroy enemies from a distance with powerful sorceries because it’s all magic here and there. These magic-focused setups scale mainly with Intelligence and when optimized, they can turn even the toughest bosses into glass statues in case you know when to cast and when to run.
The go-to setup for pure spellcasters is the Glass Cannon Mage, typically built around the Astrologer class. By investing heavily in Intelligence, Mind, and enough Vigor to survive one or two hits, this build is designed to give overwhelming damage with minimum interaction. Spells like Comet Azur, Stars of Ruin, and Loretta’s Greatbow are core tools in your arsenal, with Terra Magicus providing a massive power boost for high-risk spellcasting.
What makes this build dangerous is the synergy between high Intelligence scaling and top-tier staves such as Lusat’s Glintstone Staff. Although it increases FP consumption, it levels up the hardest and is ideal for burst-focused encounters. Players usually equip this with armor like the Azur Glintstone Set to increase magic damage at the cost of defense.
For something more tactical, consider a Frost Mage Hybrid. It combines offensive sorceries with status buildup using Zamor Ice Storm, Freezing Mist, and Adula’s Moonblade spells to freeze enemies and lower their defenses. Frostbite deals a chunk of damage on procs and reduces enemy stamina recovery and resistance.
Considering playstyle, your positioning and timing must be on a high standard to play with an Intelligence build. You’ll often set up fights with Terra Magicus or Magic Grease, then cast your high-damage spells from a safe location while your spirit ashes or co-op partners draw aggro. Managing FP is critical as overcasting can leave you empty and vulnerable. So, use the Cerulean Hidden Tear in your Wondrous Physick to mitigate the risk during long battles.
Best Elden Ring Faith Build
Faith builds in Elden Ring are wonderfully diverse, they let you cast offensive incantations, heal yourself or your allies, and even imbue weapons with heavy elemental power. Unlike Intelligence builds, which rely on pure ranged damage, Faith offers a mix of utility, close-quarters aggression, and powerful AoE spells.
One of the best Faith-based options is the Blasphemous Blade Build, which centers around the Blasphemous Blade — a powerful greatsword that heals you for every enemy killed and whenever its special skill lands. This makes it good for solo players or those adventuring through tough DLC content, since you can survive through long boss fights without many flasks. The build pairs best with high Faith, moderate Vigor, and a good Endurance for heavier armor and swing economy.
The weapon’s skill, Taker’s Flames sends out a fiery damage wave that scales directly with Faith, it gives you a chance to stay at a safe distance and put heavy pressure. Further combine this with talismans like the Shard of Alexander (to increase skill damage) and Erdtree’s Favor (for general survivability), you will have one of the most well-rounded builds in the game. For spells, keep it simple — Flame, Grant Me Strength and Blessing of the Erdtree will go a long way.
Another build to consider is the Lightning Perfumer Prophet, which uses throwable lightning-infused perfumes and lightning-based incantations. This one works its best in both PvP and crowd-control PvE thanks to the best Elden Ring weapons like Lightning Perfume Bottles or Vyke’s War Spear to deliver mid-range elemental damage with poise-disrupting properties. You’ll have to balance Faith and Dexterity to maximize casting speed and weapon powers, and bring incantations such as Honed Bolt or Lightning Strike to attack enemies from above.
Best Elden Ring Arcane Build
Arcane may have been overlooked once, but it’s now one of the most powerful and dynamic stats in Elden Ring. Originally used mostly for item discovery, Arcane has exploded in popularity thanks to its impact on status effects, especially Bleed, Poison, and Deathblight. If you’re thinking to play a flashy, high-risk-high-reward build, there is no better choice than the Arcane build in Elden Ring.
Possibly the most special build here is the Bleeding Thorns Mage with the use of the Impenetrable Thorns spell, one of the best Arcane-scaling sorceries in the game. This spell sends spiked projectiles toward enemies which deal damage and instantly builds up Hemorrhage. It’s suitable for those players who want to lean into a spellcaster-meets-assassin fantasy. Pair it with a Dragon Communion Seal for scaling, and cast a few Blood-based incantations like Bloodflame Talons or Swarm of Flies to overwhelm foes.
Another powerful and fun-to-play setup is the Vampire/Bloodfiend Build, it combines Arcane with Strength or Dexterity to create a devastating melee-blood hybrid. You have the options to use weapons including the Rivers of Blood katana, Morgott’s Cursed Sword, or the Bloodflame Blade-buffed Greatsword to fast proc bleed and shred enemies in moments. Arcane increases the bleed buildup rate massively, so every strike you land is that much more threatening.
This is where Arcane build is great:
- Enemies with massive health bars (like in the Shadows of the Erdtree or New Game+) fall quickly due to bleed’s percentage-based damage.
- Arcane allows mixing weapon types while keeping consistent status procs.
- You can play as a dark cleric, blood assassin, or even an infested rot-wielder — all through Arcane’s weird but wonderful toolkit.
If you want to make your enemies panic in PvP or watch bosses bleed out when you dodge gracefully at mid-range, Arcane builds give you the flexibility and power to do just that.
Best Elden Ring Hybrid/Status Build
Rather than focusing on a single stat, these builds combine two or three attributes to unlock special synergies between weapons, spells, or status effects. If you like to do experiments and don’t mind off-meta strategies, hybrid builds let you break the mold and create something that’s truly your own.
One excellent example is the Spinning Reaper Bleed Build. This uses a Reaper-class weapon like the Scythe or Halo Scythe, combined with the Spinning Weapon Ash of War to create a vortex of bleed buildup. The Scythe’s innate bleed and wide arc make it the right choice to control space, and when infused with Blood affinity and paired with Seppuku, it becomes a terror in both PvE and PvP. With the addition of Dexterity and Arcane, you will get a well-balanced build that punishes groups and bosses alike.
Moreover, there is the Black Flame Hybrid, which merges Faith with Strength or Dexterity. The weapons choices here are the Godslayer’s Greatsword or casting Black Flame incantations, this build applies percentage-based burn damage that melts through high-HP enemies. It’s particularly effective in the DLC where bosses often have resistances to physical damage but are vulnerable to elemental or percent-based effects. The key here is applying consistent DoT (damage over time) through a combo of spell pressure and melee finishers.
Hybrid builds require more planning than mono-stat builds, since your gear and level spread is more demanding. But the payoff is huge as you’re no longer bound by one playstyle. You can throw fireballs, deal status damage, heal, and still hold your own in melee combat. For adaptability and counter-picking strategies, hybrid builds are among the most rewarding in Elden Ring. You might not always hit as hard as a pure Strength or Intelligence build, but you’ll always have an answer and sometimes, that flexibility is what wins the fight.
Best Elden Ring PvP Build
PvP in Elden Ring is different from PvE. PvP builds thrive not only on stats but on adaptability, weapon choice, and how well you know your opponent’s next move. Here are two popular PvP builds that have earned their place in the meta.
The Dexterity Duelist is a standard of competitive PvP. It relies on high mobility, quick weapon recovery, and punishing counterattacks. Weapons such as Uchigatana, Rapier, or Cleanrot Spear are great in this setup thanks to their thrusting and poking power, and equip an Ash of War like Quickstep or Bloodhound’s Step to the package, and you become a slippery, hard-to-hit threat.
Stat-wise, you’ll need to prefer Dexterity (for damage and fast casting), Endurance (for poise and stamina), and Vigor (because of trade hits), and use the Erdtree’s Favor, Radagon Icon (if using quick-cast incantations), and Green Turtle Talisman to have a great baseline PvP loadout. This build’s strength is in being hard to predict — a roll, a stab, a step away — all while putting pressure on the opponent.
To get something tankier, try the Strength-Faith Paladin build as it’s a bruiser with healing capabilities and fantastic trade potential, along with Blasphemous Blade or Coded Sword in hand, there is solid melee damage and strong incantation support. With Lightning Spear and Urgent Heal, you can keep opponents guessing if they rush you or wait for you to heal.
Tips for Builds in Elden Ring
Now you understand how each stat unlocks different playstyles, weapons, and spell types but these stats are not enough to have in mind to make a powerful build. To make the most of your investment, you’ll need to understand a few core mechanics that connect everything together.
- Know Your Soft Caps: Every stat has diminishing returns at specific thresholds (e.g. Strength scales well up to 60, but poorly beyond that). Don’t dump points endlessly into one stat but plan around 40–60 depending on your build, and leave room for Vigor and Endurance.
- Respec with Rennala: You can completely reset your stat points after defeating Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon in Raya Lucaria. This gives you the freedom to try new builds without restarting your character; all you need are Larval Tears scattered all over the Lands Between.
- Weapon Scaling > Base Damage: Always prioritize weapons that scale strongly with your chosen stat. A low base damage weapon with high scaling usually outperforms a strong-looking weapon that doesn’t fit your build.
- Balance Offense and Survivability: Even the most powerful caster needs Vigor. In late-game and PvP, 40+ Vigor is recommended no matter your class, it’s because too many players fall into the “glass cannon” trap and regret it when bosses two-shot them.
- Don’t Sleep on Ashes of War: These customizable weapon skills can completely change how a weapon behaves. Infusing the right Ash of War and matching it with a stat-boosting affinity like Keen, Heavy, or Cold is most often what makes or breaks a build.
- Use the Flask of Wondrous Physick: Your custom potion can provide game-changing effects depending on the tear combination. Whether you want FP-free casting, infinite stamina, or guaranteed stagger, there’s a mix for every build.
Read Next:
