Elden Ring Sorcerer Build Guide (PvE) (2024)

A complete Elden Ring Sorcerer PvE Build and Guide to the class. Designed to help you create a versatile, powerful, ranged caster character on your first playthrough, detailing everything you need to know throughout the game!

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.10

Sorcerer Build Summary

Main and Late Game

• 40 Vigor
• 50 Mind
• 15-20 Endurance
• 12 Strength
• 18 Dexterity
• 60 Intelligence

Full Playthrough

• 60 Vigor (hard)
• 50+ Mind (soft)
• 30+ Endurance (soft)
• 12 Strength (soft)
• 18 Dexterity (soft)
• 80 Intelligence (hard)

NG+

• 60 Vigor
• 60 Mind
• 50 Endurance
• 7+ Strength
• 18++ Dexterity
• 99 Intelligence

Introduction

Sorcerers leverage their intelligence to harness the forces of life and the cosmos to obliterate their enemies from afar. These fundamental forces include Glintstone, the Moon and the Stars, the Primeval Current, and Gravity.

This guide is oriented towards PvE and will cover recommended sorceries, catalysts, melee weapons, talismans, Physick mixtures, armor, and stats, as well as where you’ll need to go to find all this stuff!

My recommendations are focused on what you be working toward in the mid to late game on your first playthrough, basically when it’s finally time to throw out the Meteorite Staff, and what you should have for NG+. However, I will include early-game precursors, like said Meteorite Staff, so you can make use of this guide from the moment you open the doors in the Chapel of Anticipation.

All of your stats and Flask allocations are designed to boost the power of your ranged attacks (sorceries) and allow you to play the entire game at range. You’ll only swing your melee weapon if you want to.

In exchange for exceptional ranged performance, you will struggle a bit with prolonged melee combat. Don’t get me wrong, you can still take down regular enemies with your melee weapon just fine, but you’re meant to be fighting tougher enemies with your sorceries, and you don’t have enough spare Crimson Flasks or stamina to swing your melee weapon for such long periods of time.

Many boss fights feel quite different as a ranged build, they tend to feel a bit more like you’re doing a dance-off. Since you’re at a distance, it’s easier to see the full attack, so you might get the impression that attacks feel less cheap because you can see them coming and fully appreciate their style and grace.

Sorcery is a fair bit more complicated than other classes and builds too, even compared to other Faith and Arcane-based casters. Overall, Sorcery just offers an extremely different experience than you’re probably used to, especially if you’ve only done melee-focused builds.

The Complexity of Magic

As you may have noticed from the tiny scroll bar, this is a pretty long guide. Part of that is because I wanted to go into greater detail about my favorite playstyle, but it has more to do with the fact that Sorcery is just a lot more complicated than the rest of the classes, particularly compared to the melee ones.

By the end of the game, you’ll have over 50 sorceries to choose from with each offering different strengths and weaknesses. If you haven’t experienced magic in a From Software game before, take it from me, magic is complicated enough to be its own dedicated game.

PvE vs PvP Sorceries

In From Software games, Elden Ring included, sorceries are generally balanced for PvP or PvE, usually not both. When the same spell is useful for both PvP and PvE, it’s typically not for the same reason.

PvP-oriented spells are designed to be used against a highly opportunistic, variable, and more reactive opponent that prioritizes (or at least strongly considers) their own survival. As a result, PvP-oriented spells tend to offer greater reliability and may have some controlling or pressuring components that are often irrelevant in PvE.

Meanwhile, PvE spells are designed to be used against opponents that don’t consider their own survival and have predictable movesets. As a result, PvE-oriented spells tend to deal significantly more damage but can be less reliable or completely ineffective against most player (or NPC invader) opponents.

I don’t have too much experience with PvP in From Software games and have opted to play Elden Ring in offline mode, so my recommendations in this guide will be tailored primarily to PvE and the single-player experience.

Sorceries

In the Dark Souls series, maximizing efficiency was the most important consideration with Sorcery builds. You’d constantly be asking yourself, “How do I take down these enemies while minimizing the amount of resources consumed?”

Elden Ring has moved pretty far away from that idea by diversifying enemy behavior and spell functionality. From Software has carefully balanced the capabilities of each spell to where nothing is good against every single enemy. Sorceries now differ significantly and consequentially in the following ways:

• Casting Time / Spammability
• Range
• Multi-Target / AoE
• Reliability
• Damage Output
• Bonus Effects
• FP Efficiency

Deciding which spells to memorize is all about maximizing your capabilities, while picking a spell to cast is about what works and what is most effective against a given enemy. To use an analogy, memorizing spells at a Lost Grace is akin to putting tools in your toolbelt, while casting spells is more about using the right tool for the job.

Default Sorceries to use with this Build

This build assumes you’ve managed to locate at least 7 of the 8 Memory Stones scattered throughout the Lands Between, thereby having at least 9 Memory Slots available. I haven’t been able to figure out a consistently useful sorcery for the 10th slot, but there are a ton of options, so I’ve decided not to offer a recommendation for the final slot so you have a bit more flexibility.

Comet Azur

Comet Azur is your most damaging and FP-efficient sorcery, but it has some major drawbacks that prevent it from being used regularly.

• It has a ridiculously long cast time, so unless you haven’t engaged yet or know you have a ton of time before the enemy can respond, you may end up getting attacked or be forced to dodge before the initial cast even finishes.
• There’s no tracking beyond the initial lock-on; so speedy and evasive targets will typically only get hit by the first tick or two before dodging out of the way.
• You can’t aim it very well, and it likely won’t hit if the target is at a different elevation or there’s anything blocking the way.
• Range is pretty standard. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t have nearly as long a range as its cousins from the Dark Souls series. If you want longer range, you’ll need to use a sorcery that specifically offers that.
• It costs 3 Memory Slots!

Thanks to all these drawbacks, Comet Azur is probably the least essential part of the build, but I still refuse to give it up because the blue magic laser beam goes brrr. Typically, Comet Azur should only get used against very large and/or slow enemies with a bunch of health. It can be useful against bosses too, especially after big attacks with a ton of end lag like Malenia, Goddess of Rot’s Scarlet Aeonia.

Make sure you have a nearly full FP bar, or at least enough that you can be sure you’ll defeat the enemy before running out. You don’t want to run out of mana when your enemy has just a sliver of health left.

If you really want to go bananas when activating this spell, take Terra Magica as the 7th spell slot, mix the Cerulean Hidden Tear and Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear into your Flask of Wondrous Physick, and equip Lusat’s Glintstone Staff and Azur’s Glintstone Crown. Activate everything and just watch your enemy evaporate into the primeval current. Bonus points if you’re able to use it against an enemy that also has frostbite and full moon sorcery debuffs.

Comet Azur is given to you by Primeval Sorcerer Azur on Mt. Gelmir on the Atlus Plateau.

For more detailed information on how to obtain Comet Azur, check out my guide on All Legendary Sorceries and Incantations Locations.

Early Game Precursors to Comet Azur

• Gavel of Haima
• Meteorite
• Meteorite of Astel

Comet

Comet is the strongest version of the Glintstone Shard series of sorceries. It’s basically the same as the Crystal Soul Spear from the Dark Souls Series, but unlike Dark Souls, you don’t really need to use weaker versions alongside it because FP efficiency is just less of a thing in Elden Ring. I have tried using Glintstone Cometshard alongside Comet to save on FP, but it’s really just not necessary.

Comet will be the sorcery that you use most often by far because it just doesn’t have that many weaknesses against the enemies you encounter in PvE. It deals strong damage, has good range, can pierce through enemies, has a pretty short casting time, and can be spammed.

That spammability, where you can chain it multiple times in a row without recasting, is what makes it competitive with other spells in terms of DPS because there are lots of sorceries that can surpass it in damage dealt by a singular cast.

The biggest limitation of Comet is that it doesn’t home towards enemies very well, so it’s extremely unreliable against enemies that move quickly or dodge. In addition, while it is strong in many areas, it’s not the best at any given thing. Comet is very much a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.

Comet can be found at the Academy of Raya Lucaria in a chest behind an illusory wall. The paintings of Rennala guide the way.

If you want more information on how to find Comet, check out my guide on All Item Locations at the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

Early Game Precursors to Comet

• Glintstone Pebble
• Great Glintstone Shard
• Glintstone Cometshard
• Night Comet

Stars of Ruin

The Stars of Ruin covers the biggest weaknesses of Comet. If you keep missing your shots because the enemy is too evasive or speedy, Stars of Ruin will almost certainly be able to hit them thanks to its homing properties. Assuming that all projectiles hit, Stars of Ruin also does slightly more damage per use than Comet. However, it can’t be chained together like Comet, so its damage output is only relevant when that extra damage enables you to take down a target in a single cast, or you can’t spam anyway.

Stars of Ruin should only be used against super evasive enemies that you can’t hit with Comet or when you need the small amount of extra damage from Stars of Ruin to be able to defeat an in a single hit in order to save FP.

Stars of Ruin is given to you by Primeval Sorcerer Lusat, who is confined at the back of a hidden cave in eastern Caelid called Sellia Hideaway. In order to gain access to Lusat, you must progress through Sorceress Sellen’s questline until she gives you the Sellian Sealbreaker.

If you want more information on obtaining the Stars of Ruin, check out my guide on All Legendary Sorceries and Incantations.

Early Game Precursors to Stars of Ruin

• Glintstone Stars
• Star Shower
• Rock Sling
• Gravity Well
• Night Comet

Phalanx Sorceries

The Phalanx sorceries are pretty similar to one another, and now all have their niche thanks to some rebalancing from update 1.07, but I’ll get to differentiating them in a moment. First, I want to go over why one of them deserves to be part of your arsenal.

Compared to other spells at your disposal, all of the Phalanx sorceries are relatively weak. The unique benefit of these spells comes from the fact that you can pre-cast them, essentially getting a second opening’s worth of damage for free (+FP cost, of course). Pre-casting can take place both before an enemy encounter begins or when an enemy is temporarily out of range, which tends to happen a lot with giant bosses that move around frequently, like dragons.

I don’t find it worthwhile to constantly reapply my Phalanxes between regular groups of enemies because I find it a bit tedious, but the game doesn’t really penalize you for doing beyond the fact that the blades will disappear if they make contact with an object.

Still, there are still instances where you want to leverage the auto-firing nature of these sorceries. The Phalanx sorceries are really nice to have if you’re going through a dark area or one where enemies are hiding because they will lock onto enemies you don’t always see. Even if they don’t actually hit the enemy in question, they’ll still warn you that an enemy is present.

It’s also really nice to have them active if you really want to make sure you’re defeating enemies as fast as possible, like when you’re in a difficult area or super low on Flasks.

Now that you appreciate the Phalanx sorceries, we can talk about which one you should pick. There’s no need to have more than 1 because they aren’t all that different from each other, but they do differ in terms of damage dealt, cost, and reliability.

I’ll be covering each of them in greater detail, but there is a clear use case for each one. Use Carian Phalanx if you want to deal maximum damage at all costs. Use Glintblade Phalanx if FP cost is your top priority. Use Greatblade Phalanx if you don’t want to sacrifice reliability for damage output.

Carian Phalanx

Carian Phalanx summons a ton of little daggers. If almost all of them hit, Carian Phalanx offers slightly higher damage while costing slightly less than Greatblade Phalanx. Carian Phlanx’s damage dealt is less reliable, though because all of the many swords need to hit in order for it to surpass Greatblade Phalanx, and it’s easier to lose some if you walk through a doorway.

Carian Phalanx is taught exclusively by Preceptor Seluvis after you complete his first quest (giving Seluvis’s Potion to Nepheli Loux, Gideon Ofnir, or the Dung Eater). Preceptor Seluvis is located inside Seluvis’s Rise, west of Caria Manor in northern Liurnia.

Greatblade Phalanx

Greatblade Phalanx deals median damage but costs the most FP, though this damage is concentrated into 3 larger Greatblades. Since there are only 3 blades and they are larger, Greatblade Phalanx offers the greatest reliability out of the Phalanx Sorceries, and that’s really what you’re paying for with the higher FP cost.

The Greatblade Phalanx drops from defeating Bols, the Carian Knight, at the Cuckoo’s Evergaol in western Liurnia.

Glintblade Phalanx

Glintblade Phalanx fires 5 swords. Its greatest advantage compared to the other 2 is efficiency. You’re spending 25-40% less FP for 80-86% of the damage and average reliability.

Glintblade Phalanx can be learned by obtaining the Royal House Scroll and giving it to someone who can teach you sorceries, such as Sorceress Sellen, Miriel, Pastor of Vows (turtle pope), or Preceptor Seluvis, and then purchasing the sorcery from them.

The Royal House Scroll is located atop a ruined building in southern Limgrave, where a couple of pesky aristocrats are sniping you with Glintstone Pebbles.

Ranni’s Dark Moon

Ranni’s Dark Moon is strong in 3 areas: damage per hit, AoE, and range. It also offers a few unique effects including the ability to block incoming spells and applies a couple of valuable debuffs that help us to deal even more damage. The magic damage debuff works by lowering the enemy’s specific magic negation by 10%, so the effect is more impactful the more magic-resistant an enemy is.

The biggest drawback of Ranni’s Dark Moon is its incredibly long cast time, making it impractical to use very often in the heat of battle. Most of the time, you’ll be using it as your first 1-2 casts when the enemy is far away and/or not paying much attention to you. Once the debuffs have been applied, you’re better off switching to another spell with higher DPS (damage per second).

There is some debate about whether Ranni’s Dark Moon or Rennala’s Full Moon is better, but I think Ranni’s Dark Moon is a far better option because it only deals a tiny bit less damage (100), which typically isn’t relevant in AoE situations and can quickly be made up if you manage to make the enemy get frostbite.

Ranni’s Dark Moon is located in a chest atop Chelona’s Rise on the Moonlight Altar plateau in southwest Liurnia. Gaining access to the Moonlight Altar only becomes accessible at the very end of Ranni the Witch’s questline.

If you want more information on how to solve the Chelona’s Rise puzzle and obtain Ranni’s Dark Moon, check out my guide on All Legendary Sorceries and Incantations.

Early Game Precursors to Ranni’s Dark Moon

• Cannon of Haima
• Eternal Darkness
• Loretta’s Greatbow

Adula’s Moonblade

Thanks to its gigantic area of effect, Adula’s Moonblade excels at dealing with large groups of enemies and hitting massive bosses where it can be difficult to get a target lock without your camera going crazy.

It deals a pretty good amount of damage too, and can even be spammed, but its shorter range often makes it less practical to use frequently, while its cast time makes it a bit riskier to pull off against smaller and faster targets. It’s not quite as strong as Comet in terms of single-target damage either, so it often takes more than one hit to defeat a lot of regular enemies.

Adula’s Moonblade also applies frost and can be a great option to use against bosses when you don’t have enough time to cast Ranni’s Dark Moon multiple times but still want to make sure they get frostbitten.

Overall, I recommend using Adula’s Moonblade when you can but don’t get too greedy. Switch to a sorcery with a longer range (and get back to that range) if you’re not confident that you’ll be able to actually finish the cast without getting hit.

Adula’s Moonblade drops from defeating Glintstone Dragon Adula on the Moonlight Altar in southwest Liurnia. She’ll be guarding the entrance to the Cathedral of Manus Celes.

If you want more information on reaching the Moonlight Altar, check out my guide on Ranni the Witch’s questline and the Age of Stars ending.

Early Game Precursors to Adula’s Moonblade

• Glintstone Arc
• Carian Greatsword
• Carian Slicer
• Cannon of Haima

Alternative Sorceries for the Build

Update 1.07 offered major rebalancing to sorceries, so there aren’t really any objectively bad options anymore besides the weaker precursors you get earlier in the game like Glintstone Pebble, Glintstone Stars, and Glintstone Arc.

Almost all late-game sorceries now deal damage that is commensurate with their FP cost, activation time, and overall usefulness. In other words, those factors are trade-offs for damage output. More situational sorceries tend to deal more damage. The more FP a sorcery costs, the more damage it tends to be capable of dealing.

That said, there are a ton of sorceries out there, and some are still better than others, so I have included a list of sorceries that I feel are excellent contenders for the remaining memory slots for your Sorcerer:

• Meteorite (of Astel) or Founding Rain of Stars (for gigantic enemies)
• Glintstone Cometshard, Glintstone Icecrag, or Shard Spiral (for FP efficiency)
• Loretta’s Greatbow or Loretta’s Mastery (for longer range)
• Rock Sling (for Physical damage)
• Night Comet (instead of Stars of Ruin)
• Cannon of Haima (bigger AoE)
• Terra Magica (for additional pre-cast damage)
• Unseen Form (makes the game easier)
• Crystal Sorceries (for more Memory Slots)
• Magma Sorceries (for FIRE, requires a bit of Faith)

If you’re having trouble deciding on a final spell out of all these alternatives, I have a few notes:

Magma Sorceries
The Magma sorceries of Mt. Gelmir are quite powerful and definitely competitive with, if not sometimes superior to, the Glintstone and Glintblade sorceries created by scholars at the Academy of Raya Lucaria and Caria Manor. They tend to cost less FP while dealing equal or greater damage.

The key trade-off of the Magma sorceries is that they require a bit of Faith to cast, so in your first playthrough, you’ll have to give up some other stat to take them, and it’s difficult to justify giving up stats that will only be useful for a small portion of your abilities before you hit the diminishing returns caps.

I recommend focusing on leveling Faith towards the beginning of NG+ so you can play around with these sorceries.

Crystalian Sorceries
The Crystalian sorceries are akin to “store brand” versions of the Glintstone and Primeval Current sorceries that I recommend in this guide. They deal less damage but don’t cost nearly as much FP, nor do they ever require more than 1 memory slot compared to the 2-3 for many of the sorceries I recommend.

If you prefer to have access to a lot of sorceries at the same time, consider incorporating the Crystalian sorceries instead. Crystal Torrent is very similar to Comet Azur, Crystal Release is similar to Founding Rain of Stars, and Shattering Crystal isn’t too different from Adula’s Moonblade in terms of functionality.

Make sure to use the (Rotten) Crystal Staff if you plan to use Crystalian sorceries.

Special Sorceries for Gigantic Enemies
There are a few sorceries that are really only good against gigantic enemies, which you don’t encounter too often. These sorceries include Founding Rain of Stars, Meteorite (of Astel), and technically also Zamor Ice Storm.

These sorceries are good against gigantic enemies because their damage is balanced around the fact that they’re more difficult to aim, so they hit harder when you do manage to hit someone with the full duration of the effect, which is really only possible with giant enemies that move slowly like dragons.

Since giant enemies aren’t that common and Comet Azur usually does a good enough job, I don’t think they’re super worthwhile to use all the time, but you can deal ludicrous amounts of damage to giant enemies with one of these spells.

Greatbow Sorceries
Loretta’s Greatbow and Loretta’s Mastery offer significantly greater range than any of your other sorceries, though the Full Moon sorceries also have extremely long range, so there aren’t too many opportunities where you need the Greatbow sorceries, though it’s definitely worth equipping one of these whenever you find the Full Moon sorcery to be insufficient.

In particular, using one of these Greatbow sorceries is pretty essential for the final boss fight.

Buff Effects
I’m not a huge fan of buff effects because I don’t like reapplying them, but they technically exist. I want to point out Unseen Form in particular, though it makes the game a whole lot easier as most enemies just won’t notice you until you attack or stand right next to them.

When should you charge spells in Elden Ring

Charging spells is a new feature in Elden Ring where you can hold down R1/RB for longer to boost the damage output of a spell or skill at no additional FP cost. The damage boost isn’t huge, but it is enough to take out some enemies in a single shot when it wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Unless stated specifically, spells only deal any additional damage once they are fully charged; there’s almost never any benefit to just half-charging a spell.

Charging never results in a sustained damage (DPS) increase over chaining a spell back to back unless the spell gains additional functionality like lasting longer. Most of the time, the only real benefit of charging comes from being more efficient with your FP when that damage increase would enable you to take down an enemy in 1 less hit than it would have taken if you were to use an uncharged version instead.

Catalysts

Carian Regal Scepter

The Carian Regal Scepter offers the highest overall Sorcery Scaling without any drawbacks, resulting in it being the second most damaging staff. It also boosts the damage dealt by Rennala’s Full Moon and Ranni’s Dark Moon.

I think the Carian Regal Scepter is the best staff in PvE for this build, though there are some alternatives that you might want to consider, especially if you can stomach the significant trade-offs.

The Carian Regal Scepter can be purchased from Finger Reader Enia at the Roundtable Hold in exchange for the Remembrance of the Full Moon Queen.

Meteorite Staff (Early to Mid-Game)

In the early and mid-game, you’ll want to use the Meteorite Staff. It doesn’t need to be upgraded and comes with S-tier Intelligence Scaling, though its actual Sorcery Scaling is weaker than that of all other staves as you begin to head into the late game.

Spend your Smithing Stones on upgrading your main melee weapon and Carian Regal Staff (or alternative). Keep using the Meteorite Staff until you see better Sorcery Scaling The changeover should happen after you pass the +7 upgrade threshold once you have enough Intelligence.

You can loot the Meteorite Staff from a corpse at the southern edge of the Street of Sages Ruins in the Swamp of Aeonia in central Caelid. You’ll also find the invaluable Rock Sling sorcery nearby.

You can easily warp to the Sellia Crystal Tunnel on the northern edge of the Swamp of Aeonia very early in the game using a transporter trap chest in the Dragonburnt Ruins at Agheel Lake in the heart of Limgrave.

Lusat’s Glintstone Staff

Lusat’s Glintstone Staff offers about 10% more damage over the Carian Regal Scepter at the cost of 50% (!) more FP consumption, making it the most damaging staff in the game. This works mechanically by the staff just having better Sorcery Scaling compared to other staves, and the only effect of the staff is the cost increase.

It’s a popular pick because it offers the most damage per cast, but I think that the increased cost mostly negates the value, especially against bosses. The only times you’ll be able to truly benefit from the extra damage are when FP doesn’t matter, which can be the case in PvP if you’re able to defeat your opponent before running out of mana or outside of dungeons where you’re getting frequent refreshes to your Flasks.

You can reduce the cost associated with Lusat’s Glintstone Staff by equipping the Primal Glintstone Blade talisman or using the Cerulean Hidden Tear in your Flask of Wondrous Physick and then only use Lusat’s Glintatone Staff while you don’t consume any FP, but both of those options come with their own trade-offs too, so I just don’t think it’s worth messing around with in PvE.

Lusat’s Glintstone Staff can be found in a chest in Sellia, Town of Sorcery, in Caelid. In order to access the chest, you must defeat the Nox Swordstress and Nox Priest mini-boss.

Azur’s Glintstone Staff

Azur’s Glintstone Staff offers ever so slightly less Sorcery Scaling than the Carian Regal Scepter but offers reduced casting time at the cost of increasing FP consumption by 25%. The reduced casting time comes from the staff granting 40 Dexterity exclusively towards casting speed. When paired with the Radagon Icon talisman, you can be maxed out on casting speed without having to invest a single point in Dexterity.

Just like with Lusat’s Glintstone Staff, you can equip the Primal Glintstone Blade talisman to mitigate the increased FP costs, but the benefit of the talisman is diminished because the FP consumption effect is weaker for this staff.

As I’ve said before, trade-offs aren’t my cup of tea, but I think this staff is worth considering if you want to have the fastest possible casting time or don’t have the fastest reaction time. In general, faster casting can help to make the game easier, especially when fighting enemies with a lot of health, like bosses, because it means you’ll be spending less time vulnerable during each opening or still manage to get the cast off and evade your opponent’s next attack if you’re a bit slow to realize you have an opening.

Azur’s Glintstone Staff is located at the end of a roof-hopping escapade at the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

If you want more info on how to find Azur’s Glintstone Staff, I recommend checking out my guide All Item Locations at the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

Crystal Staff and Rotten Crystal Staff

The Crystal Staff and Rotten Crystal Staff are effectively identical except that the Rotten Crystal Staff can inflict Scarlet Rot with its melee attack, meaning the only consequential difference between the two is cosmetic. These Crystal Staves offer almost the exact same Sorcery Scaling as the Carian Regal Scepter (367 vs 373 at +10), making them a great alternative if you can’t or don’t want to spend the Rememberance to buy the Carian Regal Scepter.

The Crystal Staves also boost the damage dealt by the stronger Crystalian sorceries, including Shattering Crystal, Crystal Torrent, and Crystal Release. It does not boost the damage dealt by Crystal Burst or Crystal Barrage, probably because those aren’t truly Crystalian.

There are a few situations I can think of where you may want to consider using one of the Crystal Staves:

• You have opted to use several Crystalian sorceries, likely instead of Comet Azur. After all, Crystal Torrent is basically just store brand Comet Azur.
• You can’t obtain the Carian Regal Scepter because you are unable to purchase it from Enia and don’t want to deal with the trade-offs of Lusat and Azur’s Glintstone Staves.
• You prefer the appearance of the Crystal Staves. I know some of you will call me a heretic for this, but really, the damage difference between these options is small enough that appearance is a totally valid reason to use one staff over another.

The Crystal Staff can be found in a chest inside the Academy Glintstone Cave beneath the Academy of Raya Lucaria. The path to the chest is behind a hidden wall.

The Rotten Crystal Staff drops from Rotten Crystalians that wield the Rotten Crystal Staff. They can be found in the second half of the Haligtree dungeon, Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree.

Melee Weapons

Weapons (what you use in your right hand) are going to come down more to preference, though you do want to make sure to use a weapon that either already scales with Intelligence or can at least be made to scale with Intelligence by using an Ash of War to change the weapon’s affinity.

In addition, I recommend sticking to weapons that have Strength and Dexterity requirements that are below 20 because you can’t afford to spend more stat than that until you make a fair bit of headway into NG+ when stat requirements start becoming irrelevant. In this section, I’ll only be highlighting some weapons that naturally scale well with Intelligence.

Finally, I want to emphasize that I don’t think the differences in damage output between these weapons are all that consequential. Most of the time, you’re gonna be casting spells anyway, especially against more difficult enemies where damage output matters, so pick the weapon that you find most fun to use or that you think looks the coolest.

Moonveil

Many Sorcerers consider this katana to be the best weapon for Intelligence builds in Elden Ring and a strong weapon even for non-caster builds. It scales well with Intelligence, has a great skill that’s easy to use, and just looks cool.

The Moonveil also inflicts bleed, but I don’t recommend relying on that in PvE since so many different enemies are immune or highly resistant to it, and you’ll probably be using the Transient Moonlight skill most of the time anyway, and that doesn’t apply bleed.

The Moonveil drops from defeating the Magma Wyrm at the end of Gael Tunnel (not Gaol Cave) on the border between Limgrave and Caelid.

Glintstone Kris

If you’re looking for a weapon that’s more reminiscent of the hideous wax candlestick dagger you were strongly incentivized to use in Dark Souls 3, look no further than the Glintstone Kris! It’s a dagger, so it features the same animation set as the Scholar’s Candlestick you’re used to.

The regular slashes are fairly weak, but the Glintstone Kris makes up for this with a unique skill where you fire a powerful short-range Glintstone Shard that you can immediately follow up with your strong attack (R2/RT) for a special lunging stab! This skill seems to be pretty effective at breaking stances and guards too.

Like most daggers, the Glintstone Kris also deals slightly more critical damage than other weapons, so it’s nice to have it on hand exclusively in those situations as a secondary weapon. You deal critical damage whenever you do the special backstab (or frontstab) animation against a vulnerable enemy.

Keep in mind that the critical damage difference between the Glintstone Kris and Moonveil is quite small, and you will need a bit more Endurance to carry both at the same time with the build I recommend.

The Glintstone Kris is given to you by Sorceress Sellen at the end of her questline if you side with her.

Carian Knight’s Sword

I see the Carian Knight’s Sword as being a sort of middle-ground between the Moonveil and Glintstone Kris in just about every regard: range, swing speed, damage per swing, skill, etc. It’s a great option if you prefer something basic and don’t want to deal with anything too fancy or complicated. The skill has 3 charge tiers, with the third having a lot more range.

The Carian Knight Sword is located in a chest carried by a black caravan in western Liurnia that can be found in between the Four Belfries and Kingsrealm Ruins.

Dark Moon Greatsword

The Dark Moon Greatsword is one of the Legendary Weapons in Elden Ring (you need it for the Legendary Armaments Achievement). This is the Elden Ring version of the famed Moonlight Greatsword. This time around, From Software has opted to balance the Strength requirement of the weapon so that it’s actually practical to use as a caster, unlike in past games where the Strength requirement was way too high to use outside of dedicated builds.

Please note that the Dark Moon Greatsword is considerably heavier than all of the options I’ve listed here and is probably one of the heaviest weapons you’ll realistically be able to wield as a Sorcerer in general. If you have barely enough Endurance to wear your current armor, you’ll probably need to level up your Endurance to get back down to your Equip Load ratio.

The Dark Moon Greatsword is your reward for completing Ranni’s questline that ends beneath the Cathedral of Manus Celes on the Moonlight Altar in southwest Liurnia.

If you want more information on how to obtain the Dark Moon Greatsword, check out my guide on how to complete Ranni the Witch’s quest and unlock the Age of the Stars ending.

Wing of Astel (Curved Sword)

The Wing of Astel is a bit unconventional as a weapon since it’s literally the wing of a giant alien space bug, but it’s treated as a curved sword and has the same animation set as falchions, scimitars, and shotels, so it ends up being in between straight swords and daggers in terms of swing speed, range, and damage per swing.

The Wing of Astel really shines when it comes to its rare skill called Nebula where you birth several clouds of stardust that explode after a short time in quick succession. It’s quite a sight to behold, and I highly recommend giving this weapon a try.

It works best in a NG+ playthrough where you shoot for a light equip load with Lusat or Azur’s gear.

The Wing of Astel is located in a chest above the Hermit Merchant in Ainsel River behind a different giant insectoid alien. In order to reach it, you’ll need to have access to the upper area of Ainsel River and Nokstella, Eternal City.

Shields

I don’t use shields very often in From Software games. It’s completely fine if you want to use one, and it would work as an alternative to a melee weapon, but my expertise on the subject is more limited. At the very least, stay away from greatshields because they almost always require more than 20 Strength to use. You can use the Scholar’s Shield sorcery instead, though you will have to equip it in your left hand and your staff in your right.

Talismans

What Talismans to use with this Build

I recommend using the Graven-School Talisman, Graven-Mass Talisman, Radagon Icon, and Magic Scorpion Charm. These talismans will consistently maximize the damage dealt by all of your Sorceries.

Graven-School Talisman

This talisman provides a 4% damage boost to all sorceries, which is effectively a 4% damage boost. It doesn’t seem like much, but it can be the difference between defeating many enemies in 1 hit instead of 2.

The Graven-School Talisman is located in a secret area at the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

For more info on how to find this talisman, check out my guide on All Item Locations at the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

Graven-Mass Talisman

This talisman provides an 8% damage boost to all sorceries, so it’s literally just a stronger version of the Graven-School Talisman. Unlike most other talismans with upgraded versions, you can equip both Graven talismans at the same time!

The Graven-Mass Talisman can be found atop the Albinauric Rise at the edge of the Consecrated Snowfield on the western side of the Mountaintops of the Giants.

To remove the seal and enter, you’d need to solve a quick puzzle – put two imps to fight each other. You can easily do that by summoning the Fanged Imp ashes.

Radagon Icon

This talisman increases your casting speed by giving you 30 Dexterity which only counts toward increasing your casting speed, which maxes out at 70 Dexterity. The casting speed increase may be subtle at first, but if you wear it for a while and then take it off for a while, you’ll feel slower and start to regret ever taking it off.

The Radagon Icon can be found in a chest on the second floor of the Debate Parlor where you fought the Red Wolf of Radagon at the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

For more info on how to find this talisman, check out my guide on All Item Locations at the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

Radagon Icon is one of the Legendary Talismans in Elden Ring. You need to get it if you want to complete the Legendary Talismans Achievement.

Magic Scorpion Charm

This talisman boosts all magic damage dealt by 12% (as much as the Graven talismans combined) but increases your physical damage taken by 10%. In the Dark Souls series, this was called the Magic Clutch Ring.

The Magic Scorpion Charm is given to you by Preceptor Seluvis after giving him the Amber Starlight Shard near the end of his questline. Do not give Ranni the Fingerslayer Blade until you have received the Magic Scorpion Charm or you will become unable to obtain it from this playthrough!

Alternative Talismans for the Sorcerer PvE Build

These Talismans are strong alternatives to the main ones I recommend. However, you won’t be able to equip every single configuration alongside the Beast Champion Armor (with cape) at 30 Endurance.

Godfrey Icon

This talisman increases the damage dealt by fully charging chargeable sorceries (and skills) by 15%. You are able to access it sooner than the Graven-Mass Talisman, so you will use this one for a significant chunk of your journey, but it’s still a worthwhile alternative later on. You could swap it out for the Magic Scorpion Charm if you dislike taking extra damage, or the Graven-School Talisman if you are okay with giving up a bit of sustained.

Primal Glintstone Blade

This talisman reduces FP consumption by 25% and reduces max HP by 15%. I would definitely use this with Lusat’s Staff, but I don’t think it’s too necessary otherwise.

Moon of Nokstella

This talisman is great if you want access to additional spells but don’t care as much about damage output.

Dragoncrest (Great) Shield Talismans

This series of talismans boosts your physical damage negation from 10-20%, depending on the variant. If you’re after increased survivability, this is a great option.

Erdtree’s Favor

This series of talismans boosts your max HP (by 3-4%), stamina (by 6.75-9.6%), and equip load (by 5-8%), offering a nice improvement to survivability.

Flask of Wondrous Physick Mixtures

There are several approaches to concocting a mixture for your Flask of Wondrous Physick, depending on your priorities. Beyond picking something that’s effectively useless, there isn’t really a bad combination of Crystal Tears, so I recommend that you pick 2 that cater best to your preferences.

Recommended Concoction

I use the Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear in conjunction with the Opaline Bubbletear because I favor long-lasting buffs that improve both offense and defense.

Yes, the Opaline Bubbletear only lasts one hit, but it does last until you get hit. This combo also allows you to “pre-game” your Physick before even entering boss rooms, so you don’t need to waste a precious opening during the actual fight to drink it.

Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear

The Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear boosts your Magic damage by 20% for 3 minutes. This effect is quite potent and lasts for the majority or entirety of boss fights. Outside of bosses, it usually lasts long enough to clear out a difficult room and definitely long enough to take down tough enemies.

Dropped by the Erdree Avatar at the base of the Minor Erdtreee in eastern Liurnia, north of the Church of Vows.

Opaline Bubbletear

The Opaline Bubbletear reduces the damage you take from your next attack by 90%. It isn’t always useful, but it usually ends up mitigating more damage than you’d heal from a single sip of your Crimson Flask, especially during a boss fight. Out of all the defensive Crystal Tears, I think this one offers the best balance between overall defensive effectiveness, reliability, and consistency.

The Opaline Bubbletear is dropped by defeating the Erdtree Avatar at the Minor Erdtree at the center of the Weeping Peninsula in southern Limgrave.

Alternative Crystal Tears

Use one of these in place of the Opaline Bubbletear. I do not recommend giving up the Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear unless you want to make the game harder.

Opaline Hardtear

The Opaline Hardtear reduces all damage you take by 15%, so it’s like a combo of the Dragoncrest Shield +2 and Pearldrake Talisman +2. Previously, this Crystal Tear did not offer a boost to physical damage negation, but now it does.

Cerulean Hidden Tear

The Cerulean Hidden Tear eliminates FP consumption for 7 seconds. This is a popular choice among Sorcerers because it synergizes so well with Comet Azur to give you way more than a free full FP bar, equivalent to several sips from your Cerulean Flask. I personally don’t use it very often because it’s too situational. If I have time to take a sip of Wondrous Physick, I could just take a sip of my Cerulean Flask instead. Furthermore, very few things have enough health and will let you hit them for long enough to where you can completely drain your mana from full anyway.

Intelligence-knot Crystal Tear

The Intelligence-knot Crystal Tear increases your Intelligence by 10 for 3 minutes. It is mainly only useful before you hit the 80 Intelligence hard cap but becomes less and less useful as you get closer to 80 as individual points of Intelligence become less impactful.

Cerulean Crystal Tears

The Cerulean Crystal Tears each restore half of your maximum FP and together will completely refill your mana. These tears are likely to be more valuable to you as a Sorcerer since your build is so dependent on casting.

Check out my guide on the Flask of Wondrous Physick and Crystal Tear Locations if you want to learn more!

Armor

Sorceries don’t cost that much stamina to use, and the weapons you wield don’t weigh very much, so the only real benefit you get from extra Endurance is being able to spam cast for longer before needing to take a break. I’d hardly consider that to be essential.

At the same time, it still takes an excessive amount of Endurance in order to lower your Equip Load ratio enough to where you are considered to be carrying a light load while wearing most of the wizard robe outfits. Even then, the benefits of having a light load vs a medium load are pretty insignificant.

In my opinion, being able to wear the full wizard robes in your first playthrough isn’t a good idea. You give up a ton of damage mitigation in return for basically nothing because you can’t afford to spend enough Endurance to reach a light equip load. Some of the helmets do have special effects, but you can just wear those alongside heavier armor. You’re gonna look pretty ridiculous either way.

This puts us Sorcerers in a pretty weird spot where the best course of action seems to be to just wear heavier armor in the first playthrough, even though that doesn’t align with our archetypal garb. In NG+, when you do have spare stat to allocate toward Endurance, you can get the light equip load with the Azur and Lusat robes.

Thankfully, heavy armor sets in Elden Ring tend to look pretty fantastical, so you won’t look super weird in the heavy armor, but given that what armor set is best will vary depending on your priorities, I’m only going to give a couple of brief recommendations on armor sets that I think fit well with this build.

Carian Knight

The Carian Knight armor set is wearable when you have 15 Endurance.

The Carian Knight armor set can be picked up off a corpse in the magic zombie graveyard at the Academy of Raya Lucaria.

Hoslow

Hoslow’s armor set becomes wearable with a medium load when you have 20 Endurance, though by the time you are able to pick it up, you will likely already have more than that. I highly recommend picking this set up before visiting Mohgwyn Palace and using it there, even if you already use Beast Champion.

The Hoslow armor set is dropped by defeating Juno Hoslow as the final assassination of the Volcano Manor. You should see the invasion location marked on your map after picking up the Red Letter at Volcano Manor. You can defeat Rykard and still receive this armor set, but you must pick up the Red Letter first.

Beast Champion

The Beast Champion armor set becomes barely available when you have 30 Endurance and use the exact equipment I recommend. You have less than 0.1 weight left before you’re considered to have a heavy load instead, so you can’t even afford to modify your talismans unless you remove the cape.

The Beast Champion’s Armor Set drops off of Recusant Bernahl at Crumbling Farum Azula.

If you want to check out all the armor sets in Elden Ring, visit my Full Elden Ring Armor Set Catalog and Locations Guide.

Stat Targets and Flask Allocation

Stats in From Software games, including Elden Ring, offer different amounts of stat per point depending on how many points you have previously invested in that stat. They also tend to have soft and hard cutoffs where once you pass a certain threshold, you will get significantly less benefit per each additional point added to that stat.

With soft caps, it can still be valuable to allocate points towards that stat, but it’s typically not as beneficial as increasing a stat that has not yet reached a cap, assuming you can benefit from said stat, of course. With hard caps, there is extremely little benefit in allocating additional stat. The only time you’d want to allocate more is if you’re hard-capped on everything else.

I will denote if you are at a soft or hard cap for the purposes of this build. These are not necessarily absolute soft and hard caps for the stats overall.

Mid and Late Game (>190)

These are the stats you should be shooting for as you work towards the final build and gain access to the Mountaintops of the Giants. They assume you are at a lower level when going into NG+ or otherwise switching to this build where you can’t afford to reach all of the desired soft caps.

• 40 Vigor
• 50 Mind
• 15-20 Endurance
• 12 Strength
• 18 Dexterity
• 60 Intelligence

You may want a bit more Endurance. 15 is barely enough for the Carian Knight set, Moonveil, and Staff. It doesn’t give you enough stamina for encounters with a lot of enemies either. I highly recommend shooting for 30 Endurance before going to 60 Mind.

Full First Playthrough (~190)

If you do everything, you’ll probably be around Level 190 by the time you beat the game. Here are the stats you should shoot for by the end of your first playthrough with this build:

• 60 Vigor (hard)
• 50+ Mind (soft)
• 30+ Endurance (soft)
• 12 Strength (soft)
• 18 Dexterity (soft)
• 80 Intelligence (hard)

The 12 Strength and 18 Dexterity are based on the requirements to wield the Moonveil katana. If you prefer to use a different weapon, reallocate these stats so that you meet the minimum requirements to wield that weapon instead. For example, if you want to use the Dark Moon Greatsword, you’d want to go for 16 Strength and 11 Dexterity.

For this build, I do not recommend using an armament that requires more than 18 Strength or Dexterity; you want to stick with weapons that can be easily one-handed. If you opt for a shield instead of a melee weapon, I’d stay away from Greatshields since almost all of them require way too much Strength to wield.

You will likely need additional Endurance if you wish to modify the build from the defaults I recommend because most alternatives are heavier. If you don’t need the additional Endurance, you can start putting points into Mind after reaching level 190.

NG+ (~260)

These are the hard caps you should be shooting for as you level up in NG+. Increasing your Faith will give you access to additional sorceries, though those are really geared toward a completely different Necromancer build that’s geared for NG+. Instead, these recommendations are focused on equipping Lusat or Azur’s gear and the Wing of Astel.

• 60 Vigor
• 60 Mind
• 50 Endurance
• 7+ Strength
• 18++ Dexterity
• 99 Intelligence

At 60 Mind, you end up with a nice, round 350 FP. That said, the benefits of that extra 50 FP are pretty limited. You’re able to spam the unlimited duration spells like Comet Azur for longer, but in almost all cases, your opponent will have already been defeated, or the channel will have been interrupted. 300 FP at 50 Mind already gives you enough room to fully benefit from a sip from your fully upgraded Cerulean Flask, even if you still have a bit of FP left.

The biggest advantage of reaching 60 Mind comes from the Cerulean Amber Medallions and Radhan’s Great Rune, both of which increase your FP by a percentage rather than a flat amount, meaning you’ll get more FP from those boosts because your base FP is higher.

Going beyond 30 Endurance will give you some more stamina and equip load, allowing you to spam even spells to your heart’s content and wear Lusat or Azur’s armor with a light equip load, or wear the heaviest sets in the game with medium equip load.

Increasing Dexterity past 18 will considerably increase your spell-casting speed as well as boost the damage dealt by your Wing of Astel, Moonveil, or other Dex-scaling weapons, allowing you to branch out into other weapons. Stop at the requirement for the weapon or go to 60, which is the soft cap for Dexterity.

There’s little benefit to increasing your Strength unless you have a weapon that has a higher strength requirement or scales well with it, like the Dark Moon Greatsword.

Once you hit all the hard caps listed here, you can start increasing Vigor, Mind, and Endurance, but it will take about 4-5 points to match the benefit you got out of 1 point worth of stat prior to hitting the hard cap.

Crimson and Cerulean Flask Allocation

Since enemies won’t be able to hit you most of the time because you’re too far away, you won’t need nearly as many Crimson Flasks to survive until the next Lost Grace. At the same time, you will need a lot of Cerulean Flasks to have enough FP to enable you to cast the entire time. I recommend starting with a 50:50 split (so 7 of each Flask) and making tweaks as needed.

If you haven’t yet maxed out your Flasks, you can still strive for that 50:50 ratio, and when you can’t have an equal number of each, I recommend having more Cerulean Flasks than Crimson ones. If you’re struggling to find Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears, check out my guide on All Golden Seed and Sacred Tear Locations.

In boss fights, you can typically get away with fewer Cerulean Flasks while you can benefit from more Crimson ones as you’ll take more hits than you normally would when you fight normal enemies. If I recall correctly, I changed my Flask allocation for Malenia and the final boss to something more like 10 Crimson and 4 Cerulean Flasks.

Early Game Summary

I recommend starting as an Astrologer so that you can have a few Sorceries and a catalyst from the get-go. However, I strongly recommend swapping the sword to the right and hand the staff to the left hand. Melee weapons don’t hit as hard unless you equip them to your right hand.

As a Sorcerer, you have a few extra steps to complete in order to set yourself up for success in the rest of the game. First, I recommend procuring a Lordsworn Straight Sword by defeating Godrick Soldiers until one of them drops it and picking up the Ash of War: Gravitas from the Alabaster Lord at the beach near the Seaside Ruins to get early Intelligence scaling on your melee weapon.

You’ll also want to enter into the tutelage of Sorceress Sellen at the Waypoint Ruins in Limgrave. She’s the main Sorcery vendor where you can turn in the scrolls you find to unlock new sorceries to buy. Check out our dedicated guide on how to reach the first sorcery vendor and defeat the Mad Pumpkin Head mini-boss.

Then, you’ll want to head over to those Dragon-Burnt Ruins at Agheel Lake and warp over to the Swamp of Aeonia in Caelid to pick up the Meteorite Staff and Rock Sling sorcery at the Street of Sages Ruins. Riding Torrent will stop you from coming into contact with the rot-laden waters of the Swamp of Aeonia, preventing the buildup of Scarlet Rot.

You should also pick up 2 of the scrolls for Sellen. The first is located south of Agheel Lake and east of the Forlorn Hound Evergaol at the enemy camp with all of the Wandering Nobles that sling endless Glintstone Pebbles at you. The second is located at the graveyard just at the Church of Irith in Liurnia. You can get there even if you haven’t made it to Stormveil Castle yet by going around to the east side of the castle, near the collapsed bridge and Finger Reader Crone.

Don’t forget to stop by every single Graven Rise (gray watchtowers). All of them contain something you want, most of them contain Memory Stones, which you’ll need to equip more sorceries. Most of them are located in Liurnia. In general, you’ll need to explore Liurnia and the Academy of Raya Lucaria thoroughly since you’ll find most upgrades there.

Allocate your stats on an as-needed basis. If you are regenerating more HP and FP than can fit in your bars with each sip from your flasks, upgrade Vigor and Mind. Strength and Dexterity should be at the minimum required by your melee weapon. Try to be roughly 5 points ahead in Endurance for what you need to maintain a medium load, so 15 for Carian Knight + 5 = 20.

You’ll find a ton of late-game sorceries super early in the game, so don’t feel pressured to dump everything into Intelligence right away. I think they want you to use those ugly helmets and the Queen’s Crescent Crown, but the drawbacks are annoying and don’t make you feel pretty. Focus on being able to defeat most normal enemies in 1 hit from the Comet (and precursor). If you can’t, upgrade Intelligence. Many of the main Glintstone Comet precursors map Intelligence stats to enemy health thresholds in specific regions.

Earlier Game Precursor Sorceries

These are the sorceries I recommend using before you have enough Intelligence to equip the final version. The sorceries in italics are the ones I use the most, though you will probably equip all of them, if only for a short period.

• Comet (Main)
  • Night Comet
  • Glintstone Cometshard
  • Great Glintstone Shard
  • Glintstone Pebble
• Stars of Ruin (Homing)
  • Rock Sling
  • Night Comet
  • Star Shower
  • Glintstone Stars
  • Gravity Well
• Adula’s Moonblade (AoE and Melee)
  • Cannon of Haima
  • Carian Greatsword
  • Carian Slicer
  • Glintstone Arc
• Glintblade Phalanx (Pre-Casting and Reactivity)
• Comet Azur (Giant and Stance-Broken Enemies)
  • Meteorite of Astel
  • Meteorite
  • Gavel of Haima
• Ranni’s Dark Moon (Tactical Advantage)
  • Cannon of Haima
  • Loretta’s Greatbow
  • Eternal Darkness
  • Glintstone Icecrag
  • Terra Magica
  • Unseen Form

Next up, check out the Pyromancer Build Guide for Elden Ring. This PvE-focused in-depth guide will show you another fantastic caster ranged build and teach you how to play it and where it excels!