If the idea of enemies bleeding to death after being stuck by your fast-swinging melee weapon sounds fun, you have to try out the Dex/Arcane build in Elden Ring.
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This is an out-and-out offensive build where you’ll inflict blood loss on your foes and decimate even the toughest bosses of The Land Between. Here’s the best way to put it all together so you’re carving up enemies in no time.
Best stats for Dex/Arcane build in Elden Ring
For getting the bleed build running, you’ll want to focus on Dexterity, Arcane, and Vigor. The following are my recommended stats on a level 150 Elden Ring character:
- Vigor: 50
- Mind: 20
- Endurance: 23
- Strength: 12
- Dexterity: 60
- Intelligence: Nine
- Faith: 15
- Arcane: 40
While you can keep Vigor at its first soft cap of 40 and pump levels into Dex and Arcane, I found Level 50 to be the sweet spot for survivability, especially for certain boss fights.
During leveling, focus on Vigor and Dexterity in the early game then transition into a fairly even split among Vigor, Dex, and Arcane later on. Every five levels or so, you can put points into Endurance, which supports the melee playstyle.
Starting class
Bandit and Samurai are the two ideal starting classes for this Dex/Arcane build. Between the two, the choice is essentially between whether you want the best stat spread or an amazing starting weapon for the build.
Bandit starts with the most points in Arcane and Dex. So, you’ll have less wasted levels for the unneeded stats for this build. Samurai, on the other hand, spawns you in the Lands Between with the Uchigatana, which means you will have a build-ready weapon from the get-go.
That being said, if you have chosen any of the other classes, it’s not the end of the world. You can always use Larval Tears to respec in the mid to lategame.
Best weapons for Dex/Arcane build in Elden Ring
With points in Dex and Arcane, this build gets the very most out of Elden Ring’s best bleed weapons. You will need a Sacred Seal to cast Incantations, even though you won’t be using a ton of Incantations in this build; they’re still useful in a battle. When not using Incantations, you can switch to dual-wielding.
Eleonara’s Poleblade
The Eleonara’s Poleblade dishes out a serious amount of damage with its whirlwind-like attacks and passive Bleed build-up of 72. A single heavy attack combo with this weapon inflicts blood loss. You can get this weapon by defeating Eleonora, Violet Bloody Finger at the Second Church of Murika in Altus Plateau. It has D scaling on Dex and Arcane and E on Strength. The stat requirement is 12 Strength, 21 Dex, and Arcane 19, which you will easily have by the time you acquire this weapon in your Elden Ring playthrough. However, keep in mind you can’t infuse any Ashes of War on Eleonara’s Poleblade.
Other weapons for the Dex/Arcane build include Blood Nagakiba, Godskin Peeler, Blood Uchigatana, Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear, Rivers of Blood (although it’s not as overpowered as it was before Patch 1.06), and Serpent-God’s Blood Curved Sword.
Uchigatana and Scaenger’s Curved Sword are also great options before you get your hands on more mid to late-game weapons with better stat-scaling.
Best talismans for Dex/Arcane build in Elden Ring
Talismans are a great way to round up your build. For this bleed-focused build, Lord of Blood’s Exultation is a no-brainer. For the other three slots, experiment with a multitude of other talismans depending on your playstyle.
Lord of Blood’s Exultation
This talisman increases your attack power by a whopping 20 percent for 20 seconds whenever you inflict a nearby enemy with Bleed. With this build, you will have this buff running almost always. Lord of Blood’s Exultation also has good synergy with the White Mask of Varre, which is an armor piece we will be utilizing for this build. You can get this by slaying Esgar, Priest of Blood in Leyndell Catacombs.
Rotten Winged Sword Insignia
Rotten Winged Sword Insignia raises your attack power with successive attacks up to 13 percent. You get this by helping Millicent and defeating her sisters.
Shard of Alexander
Shard of Alexander boosts the attack power of Skills by 15 percent. Naturally, this talisman pairs up incredibly well with your unique weapon skills or Ashes of War. You have to finish Iron Fist Alexander’s questline to get your hands on this.
Fire Scorpion Charm
The Fire Scorpion Charm talisman raises your fire damage by 12 percent but increases the physical damage you take by 10 percent. This boosts Eleonara’s Poleblade’s damage significantly due to its fire damage component. The extra damage taken is manageable since you have access to plenty of HP flasks. You can find this one on the ramparts on a wooden platform to the west in Fort Laiedd in Mt. Gelmir.
Milicent’s Prosthesis
Milicent’s Prosthesis boosts your Dexterity by five and raises attack power with successive attacks up to 11 percent. However, you get this one by killing Millicent. So you’ll have to choose between this and Rotten Winged Sword Insignia.
As for other talismans, you can play around with Claw Talisman if you are a fan of jump attacks.
Best armor for Dex/Arcane build in Elden Ring
For most parts, you can choose armor as per your aesthetic liking. However, the White Mask of Varre is one piece of armor you’d absolutely want for your Bleed build. Quite to the Lord of Blood’s Exultation talisman, this headpiece increases your attack power when you inflict blood loss and stacks with the one from the talisman. You can get it by killing one of three Nameless White Mask invaders in Mohgwyn Palace.
This build guide was written on Elden Ring patch 1.10.
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