Elden Ring allows players great freedom to choose their builds. While most builds are either purely physical or magical, hybrid builds bring out the best of both worlds. One of the best hybrid builds in Elden Ring is the Spellblade build.
Elden Ring: What is the Spellblade build?
The Elden Ring Spellblade build is a powerful combination of magical and physical damage. This is facilitated through the use of imbuing your physical damage melee weapon, be it light or heavy, with elemental magical damage through a staff or seal. The resulting mixed damage should be able to take out all kinds of enemies, provided you exploit their weaknesses well.
Spellblade builds focus on either Strength or Dexterity as their primary stat for physical damage and either Intelligence or Faith for their magical damage and buffs to their weapon. If you’re a Glintstone Sorcery user, staves will be your weapon of choice. If you prefer Incantations, you might want to find an appropriate sacred seal.
For this build, we bring out a couple of the best weapons and some of the best Sorceries that Elden Ring has to offer.
Best Spellblade build in Elden Ring
With so many good Spellblade builds out there, picking one can be daunting. Our Spellblade build involves two major components: the Moonveil Katana and the Spellblade Set of armor. Since this build is a hybrid, utilizing a staff to perform Sorceries is also required.
This build starts ramping up in power from level 100 onwards. Because of this, playing as a regular Dexterity or Intelligence user until that point is recommended. Once you hit the required level and have enough points to spend, respec your character into this endgame build.
| Build parameters | Requirements |
| Recommended level | 100 to 150+ |
| Primary stats | Intelligence, Dexterity |
| Secondary stats | Vigor, Mind |
| Weapons | Moonveil, Uchigatana, Carian Glintstone Staff/Carian Glintblade Staff |
| Armor | Spellblade Set |
| Talismans | Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger, Carian Filigreed Crest, Graven-Mass Talisman, Magic Scorpion Charm |
| Weapon skills | Transient Moonlight, Glintblade Phalanx |
| Additional spells | Adula’s Moonblade, Carian Phalanx, Loretta’s Greatbow, Scholar’s Armament, Terra Magica |
The equipment for this build is simple enough to acquire, with some only available in endgame areas (Miquella’s Haligtree) after defeating specific bosses. Knowing how to play the build is the key to your success as a Spellblade because it meshes two playstyles together. The first thing of note is knowing how to distribute your stats and your weapon skills.
Stat and Skill breakdown
As mentioned above, the primary stats for this build are Dexterity and Intelligence. Raise both of these stats to around 30-40 before shifting your focus onto Vigor for an increased health pool and Mind for an increased FP pool to cast Sorceries. Maintaining a balance between dealing enough damage and surviving the dangers of the endgame is the true challenge here.
The Spellblade build also uses two spells by default, functioning as weapon arts. The Moonveil’s Transient Moonlight fires off two different magic slashes depending on whether you triggered the skill with your light attack or heavy attack.
Infusing your Uchigatana with Glintblade Phalanx is a great setup skill before switching back to your Moonveil to attack. This skill creates several Glintblades that automatically attack nearby foes, granting you a chance to stagger them with your attacks.
The rest of your Sorceries are all high-damage spells based on your Intelligence. Adula’s Moonblade fires magic damage slashes toward your opponents, which is great for close to mid-ranged battles. Loretta’s Greatbow unleashes a long-range magic shot after a short charge-up time, dealing AOE damage in the explosion, faring better against distant targets.
Carian Phalanx is an amazing offensive and defensive Sorcery, creating magical blades that fire at nearby opponents, dealing magic damage and staggering them. Finally, Terra Magica boosts all of your magic damage as long as you stand in the spell’s AOE.
Weapon breakdown
Now that you know how the weapon arts of the main weapons function, you will need to have one more weapon in your arsenal to channel your array of Sorceries. There are several staves you can pick up for this purpose, but our recommendations would be either the Carian Glintstone Staff or the Carian Glintblade Staff.
Both of these staves boost different types of Sorceries. The Carian Glintstone Staff will buff Carian Sword Sorceries like Adula’s Moonblade, while the Carian Glintblade Staff will buff Glinstone Sorceries like Glintblade Phalanx. Either weapon works well for this build and scales primarily off your Intelligence stat.
These staves can also be used to buff your Uchigatana with Scholar’s Armament in the early stages of the game to keep your magic damage topped up. Both Katanas also have a high chance of causing blood loss inherently, inflicting more damage to unprepared opponents in PvP as well.
Armor breakdown
Since you are a Spellblade, equipping the namesake Spellblade Set of armor is a no-brainer for this build. Not only is the armor relatively lighter than most sets, but it also inherently boosts the effectiveness of Glintstone Sorceries. The four pieces of this set are the Spellblade’s Pointed Hat, Spellblade’s Traveling Attire, Spellblade’s Gloves, and the Spellblade’s Trousers.
All four pieces can be found as a drop from Sorcerer Rogier after you progress through enough of his questline. As you progress through most of Elden Ring‘s main storyline, Rogier’s questline will also automatically progress, provided he is alive. Note that the Glinstone Sorceries boosted by this armor set only affect Ashes of War/weapon arts and not Sorceries cast through your staff.
As is with most builds, the armor sets are the least important part of the build and can be changed as per your needs and the enemies you’re facing. Just remember to keep your equipment load under heavy load at all times.
Talisman breakdown
The final part of this build involves getting the perfect Talismans to boost your survival and endgame damage potential.
The Carian Filigreed Crest is an absolute must in any Sorcery-based build because it reduces the FP cost of all of your spells, be it weapon arts or casted Sorceries. A high Mind stat with a few charges allocated to the Flask of Cerulean Tears should sort out all of your FP needs.
The Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger is an interesting choice because this build relies on magic damage. Since your primary weapon is the Moonveil Katana, landing critical hits after staggers is not too difficult. Restoring your FP by dealing critical damage is a handy mechanic for a Spellblade.
The Magic Scorpion Charm is a perfect mid-game damage booster, with the Talisman providing a flat increase in all of your magic damage output. The only downside of this Talisman is that you also take more incoming physical damage, so keep a safe distance at all times.
Finally, the Graven-Mass Talisman is the ultimate endgame damage boost for any Sorcery build, greatly increasing the potency of all Sorceries. Getting this Talisman will be a little tricky, but including it in your final build will prepare you well for the endgame and New Game Plus.
