Every From Software player knows: magic has always been a strong tool to fight the sometimes overpowered enemies. In Elden Ring, you can play through the game to the end with the right magic build. Which items you need, how you have to distribute your attributes, and which spells are particularly strong, we explain in our guide.
This is what it's all about: Magic builds in Elden Ring are super strong. Shortly after the release of Elden Ring, the term “Easy Mode” even appeared in the community. This meant that with the help of spells and magic, the game could be played through quite easily. Magic builds are very powerful, because with magic you can deal great damage to your enemies from a distance. Our guide explains how to build the best magic and what is important.
The Best Magic Build in Elden Ring
Elden Ring builds are complex and you need to take into account a few things to get the most out of them. For a magic build that will defeat even the strongest bosses, you need to think about the following categories:
Class choice and attribute distribution.
Which bottles and talismans should you use?
What weapons and staffs should you equip?
What armor items can you wear?
Which spells are the most powerful?
Elden Ring Magic Build: Choosing the Astrologer Class and Distributing Attributes Correctly
Probably the best class for a strong magic build is the Astrologer because he already starts with 15 points in Mind and with 16 points in Intelligence. Even in Dexterity, you get 12 points right at the beginning of the game.
To play a strong magic build in Elden Ring, you need to properly distribute your attribute points that you get when you level up. The main attributes of wizards and mages are Intelligence and Mind.
Intelligence: The main attribute for a strong magic build is Intelligence. It increases your magic resistance and the damage of spells that scale with Intelligence. Intelligence is also required to cast Shimmerstone spells. In total, you can pump up to 80 points into Intelligence. At level 80, you reach the hard cap and further points in this attribute will not give you any more improvement. Starting at level 60, the gain per level already decreases significantly.
Mind: The second most important attribute is Mind. Your Mind value determines the amount of FP you have and with that the length of your blue bar, which is needed for spells, invocations, spirit summoning, and ashes of war. Overall, you should level Mind to the Soft Cap, which is level 40.
Vigor: Your build should always have a certain level in Vigor, as you will get hit sooner or later. With enough points in Vigor, you won't fall apart the first time you get hit, so you can move away from the enemy and keep fighting. You can also invest 40 points in Vigor, but Intelligence and Mind have priority.
Dexterity and Endurance: You should also invest a few points in Dexterity, because it reduces the casting time and also the fall damage. Endurance increases your equipable weight, so a point or two won't hurt here either. How much you invest here is up to you, but Dexterity is probably a bit more important than Endurance.
Elden Ring Magic Build: Bottles and Talismans
Besides the normal bottles for your red and blue bar, the following three tears are recommended for your Flask of Wondrous Physick:
Magic-Shrouding Crystal Tear: Increases the strength of your magic attacks by 20 percent for three minutes.
Intelligence-Knot Crystal Tear: Increases your Intelligence by 10 points for 3 minutes.
Cerulean Hidden Tear: Cancels all FP costs for 7 seconds.
With the right talismans, you can cast spells faster and deal more damage. There are many talismans suitable for magic builds, so you'll be spoiled for choice. We recommend the following talismans:
Radagon's Icon: Shortens casting time for spells and invocations.
Shard of Alexander: Increases the damage of talents by 15 %. This talisman does not strengthen your spells, but the talents of weapons (we'll get to weapons in the next point).
Carian Filigreed Crest: Reduces FP consumption of talents by 25%.
Graven Mass Talisman: Increases the damage of spells by 8 percent.
Dragoncrest Greatshield: Reduces damage received from physical attacks by 20 percent. This talisman also does not affect your magic but boosts your defense, which can't hurt an unarmored character.
Moon of Nokstella: Gives you two additional storage slots for spells and invocations.
Which talismans you equip is up to you, of course. If you're not so good at dodging, it can't hurt to invest a bit more in defense with the Dragoncrest Greatshield. You can of course also focus fully on the damage.
Meteorite Staff and Moonveil Sword as Weapons for a Strong Magic Build in Elden Ring
To cast your spells, you need a staff. A very good staff is the meteorite staff. This has an S-scaling with Intelligence, so the best possible one there is. In addition, the meteor staff enhances gravity spells. You can get the staff very early in the game by using the fast travel portal located in a chest in the Burned Dragon Ruins.
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Later in the game, you can switch to Lusat's Glintstone Staff or the Carian Regal Scepter.
Since you can never completely avoid enemy contact in Elden Ring, you should equip a melee weapon in addition to your staff. Especially because it can be quite entertaining to cut down your opponents in melee combat. Since you have invested a lot of points in Intelligence for your spells, the Moonveil Katana is a very good weapon for a magic build, because it also scales with Intelligence.
Plus, you can deal decent physical and magic damage with it, and it even has a passive bleeding effect.
Elden Ring Magic Build: Armor Items
Unfortunately, you are quite limited when it comes to your equipment. But that's not too bad, because as a Spell-Caster you shouldn't get too close to the enemies anyway.
The only thing you should invest a little time in is choosing your headgear, as it can have quite an impact on a magic build. Depending on what spells you use, your helmet, hat, or mask can provide additional damage:
Preceptor's Big Hat: A good item for traveling through the lands between. It increases your spirit by three points. In return, your stamina deteriorates minimally.
Lusat's Glintstone Crown: A powerful crown that boosts your primal spells at the cost of fine FP.
Azur's Glintstone Crown: Great against bosses. The crown increases the damage of Azur's comet.
You decide whatever armor items you want. Just make sure your dodge rolls are still at least moderately fast.
Elden Ring Magic Build: Which Spells are the Best?
Now it gets real. Elden Ring offers you over 70 spells and charms to pick from for your magic build. Depending on where you are or which boss you are facing, some spells are stronger than others. Of course, it's also important which spells you enjoy the most. We have put together a small selection of spells for you, which are good in any part of the game:
Stars of Ruin
Fires twelve dark shooting stars at enemies.
Intelligence required: 43
FP Cost: 38
Location: Sellia's Lair dungeon in eastern Caelid. You must complete Sellen's quest to break the seal to Lusat's Dungeon. We'll show you how to complete Sellen's quest in our guide.
Strength: Effective against enemies and bosses that move a lot and fast.
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Markus has been part of our Guided.news team since June 2022 and writes about many topics as a dedicated gamer. But he is especially fond of Path of Exile and other ARPGs.
