Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC released June 21, and it offers more of what made the base game of Elden Ring so great. As players prepare to take on the new challenges that they will face, building powerful characters will be important to battle the new enemies in the Land of Shadow. While there are a ton of viable builds to use in Elden Ring, some stand out as extremely powerful, and players should consider using them as Shadow of the Erdtree will likely hold some of the greatest challenges in Elden Ring.
To prepare new characters for Shadow of the Erdtree, there are a few things that players will want to accomplish. Players can create a new character with the explicit purpose of taking that character into the DLC, or they can take a pre-existing character and respec them into a powerful build. Either way, once players have defeated both Radahn and Mohg, they can take their character with a powerful build into Shadow of the Erdtree.
10 Holy Damage Can Be Powerful in the Right Situations
- Holy weapons have a very unique aesthetic.
- Most enemies in the game resist holy damage.
Holy damage is an underutilized damage type by Elden Ring players, although holy weapons are some of the coolest and most unique weapons in the game. The Coded Sword and the Cipher Pata are two weapons with very unique aesthetics, being made of the physical manifestations of the codes and ciphers that the two fingers use as their language. The unfortunate part of using holy damage is that not many enemies are weak to it, and many enemies resist it.
A major part of Elden Ring is exploiting enemies’ weaknesses to certain types of damage, and it is unfortunate that holy damage never gets its chance to shine. The only enemy type that is weak to holy damage is undead enemies, of which there are not many throughout the course of the game. For this reason, holy damage its largely situational, but can still make for a flashy and fun build for those that stick with it.
9 Faith Has Many Versatile Options
- Faith builds can rely solely on incantations for all situations.
- There are many different damage types for different enemies.
Elden Ring, unlike previous games made by FromSoftware, has a lot of options besides spells and incantations for players who want to invest heavily into only faith. In other games, there were rarely weapons that scaled highly with faith that also didn’t require a lot of another stat as well. In Elden Ring, this changes, as there are many weapons that fit nicely into a high-faith build, requiring little to no investment at all into other stats.
Along with high-faith scaling weapons like the Winged Scythe or the Blasphemous Blade, there is a huge variety of incantations in Elden Ring. One of the many reasons why incantations are so good is because incantations have many different damage types. From lightning to madness, incantations cover almost every different type of damage in the game. There are even incantations that do physical damage from the beast incantations, allowing the user to hurl giant rocks at enemies.
8 Dexterity Offers a Hit-and-Run Playstyle
- Dexterity weapons can be used for a variety of in the future.
- Shadow of the Erdtree will add many new weapons for players to try.
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Dexterity builds are fan-favorites in FromSoftware games, and for good reason. Dexterity weapons are often very fast weapons that can hit very hard. The major advantage of having a dexterity weapon is the ability to weave in and out of enemies dealing quick damage while dodging their attacks. Dexterity builds can make use of some items, like the different elemental greases in the game, to coat their weapon to exploit an enemy’s weakness.
There are many different dexterity weapon types in Elden Ring, and it depends on player choice and how they like to play the game. For players who want extremely fast weapons, daggers are a great choice for getting in a lot of quick hits. Spears are a great option for players who want to keep a distance from their enemies and poke them from range. Shadow of the Erdtree will have plenty of new dexterity weapons as well for players to try, so they can fit new weapons into their build.
7 A Sorcery Build Gives Players a Ranged Playstyle
- Sorcery builds allow players to keep a distance from their enemies.
- There are some incredibly powerful sorceries that trivialize boss fights.
Sorcery builds are a classic way in FromSoftware games for players to hang back and shoot spells from a distance at enemies. Elden Ring is no different, and it even has more powerful spells than have ever been seen before in previous games. Sorcery deals magic damage, a great and consistent damage type for the entire game. There are even some sorceries that deal frost damage that can do some large damage to a lot of bosses in the game.
There are many different sorceries in the game, and each one has a unique role in different situations. The glintstone sorceries are a great way to pick off minor enemies from a distance or deal some chip damage to a boss. The full-moon sorceries can cause giant explosions for big crowds. With a high enough intelligence stat, Comet Azur is a satisfying laser beam that will decimate anything in its path.
6 Strength Builds are Loved by the Community
- The Elden Ring community loves using strength builds.
- Strength weapons can deal a lot of damage with only a few hits.
Strength builds are arguably the most popular builds across all of the FromSoftware catalog, because who doesn’t want to wield a giant sword to crush their enemies? Where strength weapons really shine is in their ability to deal massive damage with one swing, as well as breaking down an enemy’s poise for a stagger. By staggering an enemy, they are left open for a big critical attack that can take away a lot of their health.
Strength build weapons can range from colossal swords to giant warhammers. Strength weapons are fairly slow, but skilled players will make the most of an opportunity to make their big swing and land a hit. Players can also benefit from the use of certain talismans. The claw talisman increases the damage of jump attacks, which strength weapons are great for doing. The 
Axe Talisman increases the damage of charge attacks, incentivizing charging up big attacks when the moment arises.
5 Strength and Intelligence Builds Have Very Unique Weapons
- Strength and intelligence weapons are some of the strongest in the game.
- Some weapons are rewards from long NPC questlines.
Strength and intelligence don’t have any inherent synergies as stats, but what they lack in synergy is made up for by the powerful weapons that they have. Magic damage is one of the least resisted stats in Elden Ring, and even enemies that have resistance to magic damage don’t have very high resistances. This makes magic damage a consistent damage source for players against most enemies, so players don’t have to worry about switching damage types.
Weapons that scale with both intelligence and strength are some of the best weapons in the game, offering high damage and unique ashes of war. A lot of these weapons have the ability to build up frostbite on enemies, granting a huge chunk of damage, and making an enemy take more damage for a period of time. Weapons like the Helphen’s Steeple or the Darkmoon Greatsword are some of the very best weapons that Elden Ring has to offer and make the dual stat investment worth it.
4 An Arcane Build Can Make Even the Strongest Enemies Bleed
- Status effects can take down bosses very fast.
- Bleed is the best status effect in the game.
It did not take long for players to come to find out how strong status effect buildup in Elden Ring is. Shortly after the release of the game, the strength of status effects was quickly discovered to tear through boss health bars. While some patches have decreased the potency of status effects, they are still incredibly effective, and bleed is the strongest of all the status effects in the game.
The buildup of the bleed status effect is based on the arcane stat, so players will want to look for weapons that have an arcane scaling along with bleed. There will be some minor strength or dexterity requirements, but having higher levels in these two stats will only increase the physical damage of a weapon. Players will want to ignore these stats if they want to focus on the bleed effect, putting all of their levels into arcane. Weapons like the Rivers of Blood katana or the Reduvia dagger are both great options for a bleed build.
3 Combining Intelligence with Dexterity Makes a Swift Spellcaster
- Dexterity and intelligence weapons have been fan favorites since the game's release.
- The build allows for a melee and ranged hybrid playstyle.
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Intelligence and dexterity fit together in a build in many different ways. A unique interaction with how dexterity works with spellcasting makes the stats go hand-in-hand. Dexterity is a stat that not only helps with dexterity scaling weapons, but also decreases the amount of time it takes to cast a spell. For players that use a lot of spells, increasing dexterity will shorten the cast animation, allowing for faster and safer spell casts during crucial moments.
There are a lot of weapons that scale both off of intelligence and dexterity, giving players a wide range of options for their playstyle. Purely dexterity weapons can be either infused to include intelligence scaling, or they can be buffed with a spell-like magic weapon to give it extra magic damage. For weapons that have a hybrid scaling, intelligence and dexterity weapons are some of the most fan-favorite weapons. The Moonveil katana is an extremely powerful and very fast weapon that has been one of the most popular since Elden Ring’s launch. Another option is the Wing of Astel, which is a curved sword that has an ash of war that spawns an exploding nebula, great for damaging bosses or dealing with crowds of enemies.
2 A Strength and Faith Build Will Delete Enemies
- Strength and faith weapons pair nicely as fire damage scales with strength.
- Faith can buff strength weapons to do even more damage.
Two of the most powerful stats in the game can be used in the same build by combining strength and faith. Focusing on heavy weapons that require high strength, while adding faith incantations makes for a character that can hit extremely hard. Faith offers some incantations that can buff a character, giving their weapons even more damage. While slow, strength weapons can make the most of their opportunities by dealing a lot of damage in short windows.
There are plenty of weapons that can complement a strength and faith build, as well as some powerful incantations. Weapons that use regular smithing stones can be buffed with incantations like bloodflame blade or lightning weapon, giving them more damage for essentially free. Players can use whichever buff they want on their weapon, but the option allows for flexibility when trying to exploit elemental weaknesses. Some extremely powerful legendary weapons like the Blasphemous Blade or the Golden Order Greatsword come with ashes of war that can absolutely decimate enemies.
1 A Quality Build Gives a Perfect Balance
- Quality builds allow for the use of every weapon type.
- Players who want to try all the new DLC weapons will want a quality build.
If players want to experience all of the new items that Elden Ring has to offer, a quality build provides the most flexibility. Named “quality” after build types from Dark Souls, a quality build means that players will want to allocate their stats relatively equally, rather than focusing on one or two main stats. This makes the build more of a jack-of-all-trades, able to use a variety of weapons, spells, and items, instead of going all-in on one playstyle.
Shadow of the Erdtree features a lot of new weapons and weapon types, and depending on a player’s build, they won’t be able to use all of them. A quality build ensures that players can at least try out everything that they want to, without having to completely remake their build. This allows for testing of new weapons before committing entirely to them. As the option to respec is a limited resource, a quality build is the perfect way for players to experience everything the DLC has to offer.
Elden Ring
Once ruled by the immortal Queen Marika, keeper of the Elden Ring, the Lands Between are now divided between several demigods. As the battling demigods fought over the ring, they created the Shattering, granting each of them a shard. As the Tarnished, it is up to the player to confront these demigods, collect their Great Rune pieces, repair the Elden Ring and become the Elden Lord.
- Platform(s)
- PS5 , Xbox One , PS4 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , PC
- Released
- February 25, 2022
- Developer(s)
- From Software
- Publisher(s)
- Bandai Namco Entertainment , From Software
- Genre(s)
- RPG , Action
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op , Online Multiplayer
- Engine
- Proprietary
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- How Long To Beat
- 58 Hours
- Metascore
- 96
- Platforms That Support Crossplay
- PS4 &PS5 and Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- PS Plus Availability
- N/A
