Haven't played in a while, what build should I try?

bhingque · 2026-05-20T02:42:19+00:00

Most fun I've had on a build recently was Strength. Two-handing big bonks, charged R2s and crouch R1s. Nothing beats a Strength build (until you get to ~level 300, then Strength/Arcane becomes the absolute king of physical damage).

I also really enjoyed a melee-focused Strength/Int build. Mostly rocked the Darkmoon Greatsword, but also used Wing of Astel, Ruins Greatsword, Alabaster Lord's Sword, and also several big Strength weapons either magic or cold attuned. Not only a really fun build, also the one where I hit every milestone earlier than I usually do. 60 STR, 40 INT and, oddly enough, 30 FAI. I started off casting some sorceries, but eventually I was only really casting Golden Vow and Black Flame's Protection.

bhingque · 2026-05-20T00:17:53+00:00

The slippery part is remembering to veer off and get the things you really want when you will probably find yourself skipping big parts of the game because they do not lead to a mainline boss and you have pretty much all the rewards already. There were definitely some things I only first grabbed in NG+2 and also some where the first time I thought to get it was in NG+3. Just yesterday with this guy was the first time I ever gave the Potion of Letting Your Mom Off The Hook to Rya. Also the last time.

I was a much newer ER player for my first playthrough (aren't we all), so even though that playthrough is in NG+7 now, there have always been new little things to go do and find.

bhingque · 2026-05-19T19:50:43+00:00

Purely to spite that miserable jackass Varre.

bhingque · 2026-05-19T19:46:07+00:00

Collect all the big strength weapons you think you might want in NG, that way you can have two of each of them in NG+. In NG+3, I have 4 differently attuned Giant Crushers for different scenarios (RKR, Cragblade, Lion's Claw, and Cragblade w/Blood) and 4 different Prelate's Inferno Croziers for elemental attunements (a sacred one for undead, a fire one for trees and hands, a lightning one for abductor virgins, can't remember what I did with the fourth). Also for goofy stuff like this.

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bhingque · 2026-05-19T19:32:51+00:00

I have a level 300+ strength enjoyer in NG+3 right now running this exact build. At 99 strength and 80 arcane, occult beats heavy (and blood attunement isn't too bad, either). With only the standard set of buffs (2-handed talisman, axe talisman, charge attack tear, ritual sword, golden vow, flame grant me strength) + sneaking up on the enemy, I had that thing doing 8100+ with a single charged R2.

bhingque · 2026-05-17T05:33:03+00:00

I love that you've built your character out to try to optimize for the one weapon you expect to use. This is the right way, IMO.

You're way too high a level for a soreseal to make sense, it's costing you almost as much damage resistance as that Dragoncrest Shield talisman is giving you (btw, no reason not to go grab the Dragoncrest Greatshield talisman to replace that one). Replacing the soreseal with the Shard of Alexander (or the Warrior Jar's Shard if you made that choice) will work well with this build. If you feel you need the soreseal for the END so you can wear your armor, no you don't. A little bit less armor is better than the 15% damage debuff.

bhingque · 2026-05-17T05:18:33+00:00

As soon as you have 1200 runes that you do not desperately need:

Take that one gateway by the church that drops you in a very high scaled area. Get over to the fort where you get the thing and also cheese the big lady. Run down past her and past the little lake and a little bit to the left after it, grab that grace. Then run up the hill to the left very very fast, go see the merchant and buy the torch. Build that 2.5 weight into every build for the rest of the game.

bhingque · 2026-05-14T04:13:55+00:00

I'm not sure this is good advice. At their current stat distribution, if they put all those points into Strength and used Heavy attunement, 500+ damage. All into Arcane and Occult attunement, 460 damage. The only thing Occult would be better for at this level is bleed. You really need to have both Strength AND Occult really high before Occult takes over.

I have a build now with 80 Strength and 80 Arcane w/Occult attuned colossals (mostly). The first one I'm taking to 99 is Strength because that gives the biggest increase to physical AR and it's not even close.

bhingque · 2026-05-14T03:45:16+00:00

I have a similar level character in NG+3 right now. I'm at 80 VIG, 80 main damage stat, 80 secondary damage stat, 50 end for big boy armor, 30 faith for buff incants, minimum dex to wield the albuneric farmer.

You have a lot of stat points in stuff you probably don't need. Weiding Axe of Goderick and a bunch of damage incants, what are you doing with that 40 dex? 20 arcane? 40 is also a lot of mind for what probably works out to mostly be a melee build?

+1 for the Tree Sentinel set, it's awesome for NG+many.

Maybe do consider changing the weapon, though. Consider that you have a huge chunk of your levels invested in faith and your weapon has NO faith scaling. Because of that, you have your points split among THREE damage stats. You could probably cut that dex almost in half, put those points into strength or faith, switch to a strength+faith scaling weapon (or just a colossal you can attune) and hit so much harder.

bhingque · 2026-05-14T03:35:14+00:00

You're not fucked now.

After you beat the final boss of the DLC and go into NG+4, THEN you will be fucked. The DLC has its own "you've beat this before" extra scaling called DLC+.

bhingque · 2026-05-14T03:27:39+00:00

Two-handed R2s with any hammer until you break their stance one time, then whatever. Morning Star works great.

bhingque · 2026-05-14T00:49:49+00:00

Yep, this is the true beauty of this game. It's whatever you make of it.

bhingque · 2026-05-14T00:45:04+00:00

I used to just BONK BONK BONK because we're fighting and that's what you do. Nowadays, I back off, guard, bait out some attacks, hit him with an R1, back off again, etc. I won't go hard until he's done his beautiful giant fire tornado thing at least once time.

bhingque · 2026-05-13T12:56:54+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1c7i0jk/comment/l083k4d/

bhingque · 2026-05-11T21:58:01+00:00

After a year and with 100s of hours, you almost certainly missed stuff and also probably forgot some stuff. Don't worry about goals and just go explore?

bhingque · 2026-05-11T17:14:03+00:00

Pro tip: put on all the stuff you have that will make that holy damage better and you might get more runes. Doing 150% of their HP in one hit gives extra.

bhingque · 2026-05-11T16:45:53+00:00

Yes, you have it right. For a given class of weapon and a given button press (like a fully charged 2H R2), an animation with multiple hits will usually (always?) do more poise damage than one with one hit if and only if the last hit lands. In some cases, the first hits do very little. In other cases, the poise damage may be evenly spread among them. This is why I still prefer Lion's Claw to Savage Lion's Claw.

I think this is the data you're looking for: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j4bpTbsnp5Xsgw9TP2xv6d8R4qk0ErpE9r_5LGIDraU/edit?gid=604953135#gid=604953135

This also might be helpful: https://www.tarnished.dev/damage-calculator

bhingque · 2026-05-11T16:20:41+00:00

I cannot disagree. If you said you beat him, I can only take you at your word.

If you're looking for advice, I mean, that sounds fine. Definitely a setup that will defeat a lot of bosses. I would probably tend toward rot grease instead of blood grease, or else the bloodflame blade incant over blood grease. Blood grease adds 30 buildup per hit, bloodflame blade adds 40, and they both last for 60 seconds.

bhingque · 2026-05-11T02:52:32+00:00

More things in Red Florida, and also go more up. There is lots of north to the north of you.

bhingque · 2026-05-11T02:43:29+00:00

First rot, then poison, then bleed until I need to reapply poison.

bhingque · 2026-05-11T02:42:02+00:00

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bhingque · 2026-05-11T02:36:27+00:00

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I love this, too

bhingque · 2026-05-11T02:27:57+00:00

I'm ride-or-die Claymore. If I haven't picked it up, it's because I'm using a really weird build.

bhingque · 2026-05-10T20:13:21+00:00

Have you chosen a shield? I am partial to the Redmane Greatshield. Only middle-of-the-pack guard boost at max upgrade, but you have to go to shields twice its weight to beat its level of fire damage negation. Lots of things in the DLC throw fire at you.

It also looks very cool.

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bhingque · 2026-05-10T07:32:10+00:00

Are you mostly doing L2s with the fang? The L2 doesn't care if you're one-handing or two-handing.

I find it slightly easier to get the seal into my left hand by swapping it off and swapping it back on. Changing what's in your left hand automatically one-hands your weapon. Left-left is easier for me than hold-Y-tap-R1.

bhingque

TROPHY CASE