Best Elden Ring Spellblade build: stats, weapon, armor and talismans

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How to play with the Spellblade build in Elden Ring

The concept of this Spellblade build is centred around using one of the legendary weapons in Elden Ring, the Dark Moon Greatsword. This iconic weapon is not only extremely beautiful but also fantastic for facing powerful foes in the game. The idea of the build is to take advantage of the massive power of this weapon to inflict Stance Break and Frostbite while combining it with first-rate sorceries. Albeit strong, you can only play this build late game or in a New Game Plus save file.

Frostbite is a detrimental effect that, once triggered, takes a large percentage of the enemy’s life and applies a temporary debuff which increases the damage taken. Even though some enemies are resistant to this effect, in general, it works fairly well since its damage is calculated based on the enemy’s maximum HP.

With this build, you want to start a fight casting whatever support spell you have, from Terra Magica to Greatblade Phalanx, and hit the boss with a few hits of the Dark Moon Greatsword’s skill Moonlight Greatsword. Once you have triggered Frostbite, you can either focus on performing Basic as well as Heavy attacks, casting offensive spells, or using a Fire spell to reset the detrimental effect.

The damage potential of this build is enormous. The Dark Moon Greatsword causes good damage by itself, and, because of the high Intelligence this build requires, you have access to powerful spells, such as Comet Azur. In addition, the projectiles you shoot using the Dark Moon Greatsword also deal considerable damage to the enemy’s Stance, which means you can land a critical hit more often than not.

Elden Ring best Spellblade stats

In Elden Ring, stats govern not only basic features of your character, like the amount of health or equipment load, but they also determine what pieces of equipment you can properly use. To fully utilize a weapon, you must meet its minimum stat requirement.

For this build, you want to allocate your points between the available stats in order to use the Dark Moon Greatsword, which requires 16 Strength, 11 Dexterity, and 38 Intelligence. With these figures in mind, here’s how your stats should look at level 150:

• Vigor: 51
• Mind: 30
• Endurance: 32
• Strength: 16
• Dexterity: 11
• Intelligence: 70
• Faith: 10
• Arcane: 10

We suggest as your starting class the Confessor or Wretch, but, since this is not an early or mid-game build, you have enough time to raise all the stats you need to use the Dark Moon Greatsword by the time you get it. Or, you can always play with another build until then and respec your character once you have put your hands on the sword.

The Dark Moon Greatsword damage is mostly based on Intelligence, so you want to focus on this stat. Vigor and Mind come right after the other two primary stats since you need health to face enemies in melee combat and have enough FP to cast spells and your skill.

You shouldn’t change too much with the secondary stats for this build. In case you want to play with Incantations as well, you might want to consider changing to a different one, such as the Faith build or the Sword of Night and Flame build.

Elden Ring best Spellblade weapons

This build doesn’t work without the Dark Moon Greatsword, which is the best weapon for it. Elden Ring’s version of the FromSoftware classic Moonlight Sword is a late-game weapon that you can acquire if you complete Ranni’s questline. Because this is a long quest, you can’t get the sword early into the game.

The Frozen Needle rapier is a solid option to run while you don’t have the Dark Moon Greatsword. You can find it in a chest in the Kingsrealm Ruins on the northern side of Liurnia of the Lakes region. But only consider using it if you want to have the experience of playing with a weapon capable of causing Frostbite buildup. In case you don’t mind, you can just use the best sword you have and focus on using spells instead.

To cast sorceries, you need a staff and right at the early stages of the game, you can find the best one for this build that you will use even after getting the Dark Moon Greatsword. The Carian Glintblade Staff is the best option for this build because it increases the damage caused by spells such as Carian Phalanx, which you want to use with this build. This staff is found inside the Highway Lookout Tower in the southeast area of Liurna of the Lakes.

Elden Ring best Spellblade armor

Although armour pieces have no direct effect over this build, there are a few good sets that you can rely on at the beginning of the game or mix their pieces to make the combination that better suits you. Fashion is also a legitimate reason to choose a specific armour set. However, it’s important to stay at medium equipment load.

To start, you might want to spend some time killing Godrick Soldiers in front of the Gatefront Ruins in Limgrave. Once you get to Raya Lucaria Academy, you can get the Carian Knight set, which is a solid option for early to mid-game.

Another good armour set for this build is the Spellblade Set, which you can earn considerably early in the game if you complete the Sorcerer Rogier’s questline. This set is interesting since it buffs skills that cause magic damage. Because this passive synergizes really well with the Dark Moon Greatsword, you might want to use the set later in the game. Just keep in mind that it has low Poise and physical damage negation, which means depending on your reflexes to survive.

Elden Ring best Spellblade talismans

Part of the damage caused by this Spellblade build is magical and luckily we have a good number of talismans in Elden Ring to help us improve its overall power. Although you can run this build without them, you will be losing too much damage.

Godfrey Icon is one of the best talismans for this build. Its effect increases the damage caused by charged skills and spells. Since you will be using the Dark Moon Greatsword skill, you can charge it to cause more damage. There are some sorceries that you can also charge and take advantage of this talisman’s effect. To put your hands on this item, you need to defeat Godefroy, the Grafted at the Golden Lineage Evergaol in Altus Plateau.

The second talisman that we suggest for this build is the Shard of Alexander. This late-game talisman is a great addition to this build since it buffs the attack power of skills. Again, considering how many times you need to use the Dark Moon Greatsword’s skill, this talisman is going to help you finish enemies off faster. The Shard of Alexander is given to you as the reward for completing Iron Fist Alexander's quest.

Now, the other talisman that you need for this build is the Magic Scorpion Charm. You can only acquire this talisman if you complete Preceptor Seluvis’s quest before Ranni’s. If you manage to do so, you can have this amazing talisman, which increases your magic damage. Although you also take more damage when using it, the Magic Scorpion Charm is worth it.

Next build: Elden Ring Sorcerer build

Need more help? Jump back to our list of Elden Ring builds or our Elden Ring walkthrough.