Elden Ring grants players several different weapons to shred enemies with. Sometimes you want to forego all of them and turn your own body into a weapon instead. For players that enjoy this type of playstyle, our Martial Arts build might be just for you.
The best Martial Arts build in Elden Ring
For this Martial Arts build, your main weapon will be Dane’s Footwork, which is a new Hand-to-Hand Art weapon introduced in Shadow of the Erdtree. Hand-to-Hand Arts are unlike other weapons in Elden Ring, emphasizing close-quarters battle with quick attacks that cause Stance damage. Combining this with a powerful Ash of War pushes this build’s power over the edge.
Imbuing Dane’s Footwork with the new DLC Ash of War, The Poison Flower Blooms Twice, ensures consistent damage with bonus damage from your Poison effects. This build works as a Quality build so if you’re currently running a different build, a character respec may be in order.
| Build parameters | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Recommended level | 150 or more |
| Primary stats | Strength, Dexterity |
| Secondary stats | Arcane |
| Weapons | Dane’s Footwork |
| Armor | Dane’s Set |
| Talismans | Kindred of Rot’s Exultation Shard of Alexander Rotten Winged Sword Insignia Two-headed Turtle Talisman |
| Weapon skills | The Poison Flower Blooms Twice |
| Additional spells | N/A |
Stat distribution
Since this build starts as a Quality build, get both your Strength and Dexterity to 40 first. Then get your Vigor to 50 to give you enough HP to survive. Getting your Endurance to 25 should be enough because you aren’t wearing heavy armor or gear. A few points in Mind will give you enough FP to use your weapon skill. Finally, invest some points into Arcane to proc your Poison.
This is what your endgame stats should look like:
- Vigor: 50
- Mind: 15
- Endurance: 25
- Strength: 40
- Dexterity: 40
- Intelligence: Base level
- Faith: Base level
- Arcane: 30
Keeping your Arcane at the 30 soft cap should be enough to hasten your Poison procs. You won’t need too much Arcane because your attacks should be fast enough to quickly poison your enemy. If you need more survivability, invest more points into Vigor. If not, keep raising your Strength and Dexterity equally to improve your damage.
Crystal Tear concoction
The best Tear for any build is the new Bloodsucking Cracked Tear introduced in the DLC. All of your outgoing damage is buffed by 20 percent at the cost of suffering a health drain that ticks every second. Ensuring you have enough HP sustain to power through the health loss is essential.
For your other Crystal Tear, a great option is the Crimson-Sapping Cracked Tear. This effect restores your health every time you deal damage, which is great for this build since you will be constantly on the offensive. This Crystal Tear will offset the health drain from the Bloodsucking Cracked Tear as well, so you won’t need to use as many healing flasks.
Gear breakdown
The one and only weapon for this build is Dane’s Footwork. This weapon’s damage scales with Strength and Dexterity by default, but with the Poison upgrade, it also gains a minor scaling with Arcane. The quick attacks made with this weapon will rapidly inflict poisoning on enemies without needing a high Arcane stat.
The main part of this build is having The Poison Flower Blooms Twice on your weapon. This weapon skill launches a dive kick which deals high damage and causes a buildup of Scarlet Rot. If you successfully inflict poisoning or rot on an enemy, this weapon skill will deal bonus damage and purge the debuff. With enough casts, you can make short work of high-HP enemies.
To keep your movements as quick as possible, we pair this weapon with Dane’s Set. This armor set is quite light and fits in well with the Martial Arts aesthetic of this build. You could use other gear if you feel like you need more defense, just ensure that you can maintain a medium equip load at all times.
Talisman breakdown
Four talismans work perfectly with this build:
- The Kindred of Rot’s Exultation grants you a 20 percent damage boost whenever you inflict poisoning or rot. This damage boost will also amplify the bonus damage from your weapon skill and stack fully with the next talisman.
- The Shard of Alexander boosts your skill damage, directly increasing the damage output of The Poison Flower Blooms Twice by 15 percent. The damage boost from both of these talismans stacks multiplicatively.
- The Rotten Winged Sword Insignia increases your damage output with consecutive attacks. The damage boost from this talisman is at its maximum after three successive attacks.
- The Two-headed Turtle Talisman is a new DLC talisman. Having this equipped increases your stamina regeneration by 22 percent, ensuring that you always have the stamina to keep attacking or roll out of harm’s way.
