Instead of using venom in a traditional way, Elden Ring allows a different way of making a Poison build.
Traditionally, poisoning enemies is a strategy that relies on venoms’ capacity to deal small amounts of damage during a long period of time. Although this is how poison works in Elden Ring, it’s possible to exploit this effect to cause more explosive damage.
In order to prepare your character as a master of the poisoning arts, we’ve prepared this guide covering the best Poison build, explaining the best stats, weapons, armour sets, and talismans to run with it.
On this page:
- How to play with the Poison build
- Best Poison build stats
- Best Poison build weapon
- Best Poison build armor
- Best Poison build talismans
How to play with the Poison build in Elden Ring
Like most games, in Elden Ring, Poison is a detrimental effect that, once an enemy is inflicted with it, they start losing a little bit of health for a period of time. Among the effects present in the game, Poison is one of the easiest to build up. However, while we won’t complain about the damage over time this effect causes, this build focuses on inflicting Poison to trigger the response of the Poison Moth Flight Ash of war and cause lots of damage.
To acquire this Ash of War, you need to defeat the Night’s Cavalry found in Caelid. There are many of these field bosses patrolling main roads in the game. You usually find the one you need on the road that takes to Castle Redman during the night.
If you’re not familiar with the Poison Moth Flight skill, it’s pretty simple. Using it momentarily imbues your weapon with Poison and performs a slash that damages enemies and causes Poison buildup. But, in case the enemy is already poisoned, the skill removes the effect and deals damage based on the enemy’s maximum HP. Since the enemy stops being poisoned, you can reapply it to repeat the process. With a simple concept, this build is capable of depleting the enemy's health bar fairly quickly.
Based on this gameplay loop, the Poison build puts together tools that synergize with detrimental effects. In Elden Ring, there are a few pieces of equipment that buff you when certain effects are triggered. By using them in this build, poisoning not only becomes your main source of damage but also raises it as the fight goes on. Alongside these pieces of equipment, you can also run weapons with secondary effects, such as Bleed, which receive the buffs as well.
To make this build work, however, you need to play aggressively and pressure enemies. Detrimental effects are triggered after enemies are hit a certain number of times with attacks of that specific type. Because of that, it’s more likely that Poison and Bleed to proc by using quick sequences of attacks. So, in most fights, you want to take every opportunity you have to land as many hits as you can. This more aggressive – and consequently more dangerous – play style pays off since it’s capable of killing enemies before you have to worry too much about dodging their most complicated sequence of attacks.
Elden Ring best Poison build stats
Different from builds centred around only one stat, the Poison build has two to three primary stats depending on what’s your goal. For the idea we are working with here, most of our points will be split between Arcane, Dexterity, and Vigor.
The best starting class in Elden Ring for this build, considering the initial distribution of stats, is the Bandit. In case you want to follow this suggestion, you can do so without worrying too much, because it’s always possible to respec your character later in the game.
Below, you find the ideal distribution of stats in a character at level 150:
- Vigor: 55
- Mind: 15
- Endurance: 20
- Strength: 20
- Dexterity: 51
- Intelligence: 16
- Faith: 7
- Arcane: 55
It’s possible to allocate a few points from the main stats to secondary ones such as Faith in case you want to use a couple of incantations to buff your attacks and defence. Even if you do so, it’s important to maintain Arcane with high figures since this is the attribute that determines how fast detrimental effects build up.
Elden Ring best Poison build weapon
When it comes to weapons, you can basically run whatever medium sword – curved, thrusting, or katanas are also included – or dagger you may want. We’re narrowing the options to only these two types of weapons because these are the only ones to which you can infuse the Poison Moth Flight Ash of War. Another aspect that you should take into consideration when choosing your weapon is how quick they are. To add Poison buildup fast, hitting enemies multiple times is the best strategy.
Because you can’t acquire the Poison Moth Flight Ash of War early in the game, the initial weapons you use until you reach Caelid are not that important. Consider running a few Bleed weapons, such as the Uchigatana or the Nagakiba katanas. The former you find at the Deahtouched Catacombs in Limgrave, while the latter is given as the reward for completing the Bloody Finger Yura’s quest. You can choose to kill Yura if you’re interested in following his questline.
In case you want to keep using Blood alongside the Poison effect, then you should consider getting the Scavenger’s Curved Sword near the site of grace called "First Mt. Gelmir Campsite". This is not only a great sword to inflict Bleed but you can also infuse it with the Ash of War.
Later in the game, you can acquire the Serpentbone Blade, a katana that you earn by completing the quests given by Tanith in Volcano Manor. Besides being thematically compatible with this build, the Serpentbone Blade has a decent rate of Poison buildup. However, by picking this weapon, you inevitably are forced to use another one at the same time with the Poison Moth Flight Ash of War, since you can’t infuse Serpentbone Blade with skills.
Elden Ring best Poison build armor
Since you won’t spend too many points in Endurance, we will need to travel light when playing the Poison build. There is only one mandatory piece of armour that you need to use, but you can’t get it before reaching the late regions in the game. So, you have room to pick the others according to your liking.
In case you’ve followed our suggestion and started the game as the Bandit, you already have a few pieces of a good set called Raptor’s Set. To find the main helm and chest pieces, you need to explore the Sage’s Cave located in Altus Plateau.
Now, the only piece you need to have by the end of the game is the Mushroom Crown. This quite peculiar helm has the effect of buffing your attack power whenever Poison or Rot is triggered in the vicinity. In other words, you have a constant buff which you naturally activate by simply keeping the gameplay loop for which this build was designed.
Our last suggestion is to consider running the Coil Shield with this build. This is a quite fun shield to use since it has a skill called Viper Bite that can hit enemies distant from you and inflict them with Deadly Poison, which is a slightly more potent type of Poison. Using this shield to apply Poison is a solid opener in fights as well as a strategy to maintain the up-time of your buffs during periods where you can’t directly hit enemies. You can find the Coil Shield in the Volcano Cave in Mt. Gelmir.
Elden Ring best Poison build talismans
For this build, we are looking for very specific ones to make your damage skyrocket. Most of them are late-game talismans, so you have to play a large portion of the game without them.
One of the most important talismans in this build is the Kindred of Rot’s Exultation. To acquire this item, you need to explore the Seethewater Cave in Mt. Gelmir and defeat the Kindred of Rot boss. It might seem too much work for only a talisman, but it’s totally worth it. Kindred of Rot’s Exultation buffs your attack power when Poison or Rot effects are triggered in the vicinity, which is the same effect as the Mushroom Crown. By having these two items with you, the effects stack, so the buffs become more potent and your damage output even more significant.
The second talisman that you definitely want for this build is the Shard of Alexander, which increases the damage of your skills. Since the Poison Moth Flight Ash of War plays a central role in our build, this talisman is extremely important. You can only get this talisman by completing Iron Fist Alexander’s questline. After finishing it, you will have one of the best talismans in the game.
If you end up keeping weapons that inflict Bleed, you might want to consider using the Lord of Blood’s Exultation. This talisman raises the attack power of your attacks when blood loss is triggered in the vicinity. A similar effect to the Kindred of Rot’s Exultation. With this talisman, you make sure there is always at least one buff activated. You receive this talisman as the reward for defeating Esgar, Priest of Blood in Leyndell Catacombs, a dungeon in the underground of the capital.
Next build: Elden Ring Scarlet Rot build
Need more help? Jump back to our list of Elden Ring builds or our Elden Ring walkthrough.
