Elden Ring Bleed Build Guide for Shadow of the Erdtree (PvE) (2024)

A complete guide to a PvE-focused Elden Ring Bleed Build, designed to help you create a cohesive, versatile, and aggressive character on a fresh playthrough using items that aren’t too far off the beaten path to the Realm of Shadow.

This guide is up-to-date for Elden Ring Update 1.12.2

Introduction to Bleed in Elden Ring

This guide is oriented towardPvEand will coverrecommended melee weapons, talismans, Physick mixtures, armor, stats, and Incantationsas well aswhere you’ll need to goto find all this stuff!

The core of this build is Eleonora’s Poleblade (twinsword) and Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear (greatspear), supplemented by the Reduvia (dagger), and a bunch of Blood and Dragon Incantations.

You’ll focus on improving both Arcane and Dexterity, with minor additions to Strength and Faith in order to meet the wielding requirements.

My recommendations are focused on assembling synergistic items you can pick up on the way to the Land of Shadow, so it will be functional throughout your entire playthrough.

What is Bleed and How Does It Work

Bleeding is a status effect that you build up on enemies by dealing damage with attacks that apply it. When you fill up an enemy’s bleeding meter completely, the enemy hemorrhages, causing them to take an often-lethal spike of damage and interrupt their current action as blood bursts from their body.

An enemy’s beed buildup meter is invisible to you, but it functions the same way as your personal meter does and decays slowly over time, so sustained offense is important.

The idea here is “death by a thousand cuts”, as status effect buildup scales with your Arcane stat, seperately from damage output. Weapons with faster attack speeds that land frequent hits are far better suited to apply bleed and other status effects.

The blood burst itself deals damage equal to 10-15% of an enemy’s max HP + 100-200 additional damage. Regular enemies take 15%, bosses take 10%, and you don’t have to worry about the 100-200 damage for the purposes of this guide.

This status effect builds up normally, even against enemies that are blocking, though like all other attacks, some enemies are more vulnerable or resistant to it, and a few are even immune.

Any enemy that could theoretically bleed will be vulnerable to the status effect will do so, but you can’t squeeze (or rather, cut) blood from a stone, so enemies made of inorganic material will typically be immune. Unfortunately, this includes the final boss of the game, but you won’t need to fight them before traveling to the Land of Shadow.

What Makes This Bleed Build Unique

Hemmorhaging is flashy on its own, but the weapons you’ll be using dial it up to eleven. Eleonora’s Poleblade is the famed Darth Maul sword and has a Unique Skill that’s graceful and acrobatic.

Likewise, Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear’s Unique Skill lets you conduct Mohg’s Bloodboon Ritual by repeatedly piercing the Formless Mother to deal significant damage in a wide area around you.

Each weapon excels at fighting a different type of enemy, so you will need to switch, but the rules are pretty straightforward, and it’s pretty obivious when your current weapon is ill-suited to your current enemy.

Bleed builds are hardly new, but the goal of this one is to be capable in the Land of Shadow while being something can gather efficiently as you complete the other requirements to unlock the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion.

It’s capable and fun, and doesn’t require you to go too far out of your way as you prepare for the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. You won’t waste time going to the far reaches of the Lands Between to assemble something viable and will end up having a more enjoyable experience in the Land of Shadow.

Right Hand Armaments: Melee Weapons

You’ll be using melee weapons in your right hand, namely Eleonora’s Poleblade, Reduvia, and Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear.

Eleonora’s Poleblade

Eleonora’s Poleblade is a twinsword that deals about 60% of its damage as Physical, and the other 40% as Fire (depicted as Bloodflame). It scales with Dexterity (C), Arcane (D), and Strength (E). However, the Arcane scaling is underrepresented, as Arcane also governs the rate of status effect build up directly.

Don’t forget to two-hand the twinblade! Two-handed attacks are faster, cause each hit to deal more damage, allow you to block (if needed), and make it less likely that you’ll recoil from hitting a shield or other hard object.

Twinswords are well-suited to taking on multiple enemies at a time, as both blades will deal damage and often interrupt enemy attacks if they make contact. The weapon class is also effective against many single enemies, including bosses, though it’s really dependent on their attack speed and your level of aggression.

If the boss has fast attacks or you’re too cautious, you will have trouble getting off a full attack sequence/combo, in which case you should try using Bloodblade Dance, the Unique Skill for Eleonora’s Poleblade.

Bloodblade Dance effectively combines your light and heavy attacks into a single sequence that has all of the benefits of each without any of the drawbacks. Each slice hits as hard as a heavy, but is just as fast as a light, and the duration of the sequence is somewhere in the middle.

If necessary, you can press the button again at the end of the main Bloodblade Dance to lunge forward for a final slice and then dash back to safety. Speaking of safety, the acrobatics you’ll be performing will allow you to avoid getting hit some attacks.

You’ll also have more Poise with Bloodblade Dance, meaning you won’t get interrupted as easily and can finish your combo. Landing every possible hit will be enough to break the posture/stance of many enemies that have enough HP.

Still, some enemies are too fast, and that’s okay. If you can’t reliably land the first sequence of Bloodblade Dance, you should switch to the Reduvia(s).

You can loot Eleonora’s Poleblade from the Violet Bloody Finger herself, Eleonora, at the Second Church of Marika in Altus Plateau, alongside the Purifying Crystal Tear you’ll need to drink in your Flask of Wondrous Physick before fighting Mohg.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit far from any Site of Grace. For more information on how to get here, check out Step 7 in our Shadow of the Erdtree Preparation Guide.

Early-Game Precursor: Twinblade

Eleonora’s Poleblade is second of the 3 main weapons you acquire if you’re starting fresh. In the early game, use the Twinblade instead. It’s just the base version of the twinblade weapon class.

You can loot from a semi-hidden chest at Dragon-Burnt Ruins in Agheel Lake in Limgrave. You’ll need to use a double-jump with Torrent to get over the walls. The other chest at the ruins is a teleportation trap that leads to Aeonia and Sellia in Caelid.

Adjust its scaling to Keen, Quality, or Standard; whichever gives better numbers, and equip it with a Bleed Ash of War if you find one. Otherwise, apply the Bloodflame Blade Incantation to it as needed when you get it (more on that later). Don’t forget to two-hand the twinblades!

Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear

Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear is a greatspear that deals about a third of its damage as Fire and the rest as Physical. When you activate its Unique Skill, Bloodboon Ritual, the greatspear ignites with Bloodflame, which just makes it deal a tiny bit more Fire damage for ~20s. Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear it scales with Strength (C), Dexterity (D), and Arcane (C).

As the name suggests, greatspears are the slower, heavier(-hitting) cousins of regular spears, and offer the same distinguishing features, like being able to poke at enemies while blocking with a shield, possessing longer range, and dealing more damage against enemies that are mid-attack, often interrupting them in the process.

In exchange for all this security, greatspears struggle to take out multiple enemies at the same time, so it will take longer to take out larger groups, though they can far more reliably interrupt enemies than regular spears.

Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear gets around these limitations with its Unique Skill: Bloodboon Ritual, where you stab your trident (not a game term) into the Formless Mother, causing all enemies nearby to take significant damage and build up some Bleed.

After you finish your skyward plunging, Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear will be coated in blood for ~20s (buff timer starts at the beginning of the cast). The damage buff is pretty irrelevant, and does not increase with the number of consecutive uses, so don’t worry about it.

The real benefit is the AoE damage from the ritual itself. A single thrust into the Formless Mother (ew) will usually be enough to defeat regular enemies. Stronger enemies barely take two hits, and bosses will take at least 3. It seems that Bleed is intended to be filled up from 0 during the 2nd or 3rd thrust on most enemies, acting as your reward for completing the ritual.

The AoE is 360^o and goes through walls (and roofs), so you want to use it in the center of multiple enemies, but be far enough away that they won’t land too many hits before receiving the Bloodboon. Here’s are a couple of depictions of the horizontal range using the blood zombies at Mohgwyn Palace:

It’s a bit hard to tell the range at first, but it’s roughly where the black bloodsmoke rings and particles are. It’s pretty generous, and goes up high enough to hit enemies through most regular ceilings in the game.

After defeating Mohg, Lord of Blood, you can purchase Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear from Finger Reader Enya at the Roundtable Hold in exchange for Remembrance of the Blood Lord.

You will need to duplicate this Remembrance at one of the Wandering Mausoleums with a bell on their belly in order to obtain both Bloodboon and Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear. If you are unable to do so, purchase Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear, not Bloodboon.

Mid-Game Precursor: Bloody Helice

You won’t have enough carrying capacity in the early game to wield a third weapon. Since the biggest contribution from Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear is the Unique Skill, there isn’t a direct precursor like there is for Eleonora’s Poleblade.

Still, there is a heavy thrusting sword called the Bloody Helice that allows you to be stabby, like the Mohgwyn Sacred Spear, and acrobatic, like Eleonora’s Poleblade. It’s a fun and edgy weapon in its own right that you could keep using in lieu of one of the others if you wanted.

You loot it from the chest guarded by a Sanguine Noble at Writhblood Ruins on the Altus Plateau. You’ll be heading to the exact same ruins complete part of White Mask Varré’s quest, so just pick it up while you’re there.

Reduvia

The Reduvia is a dagger, and it’s the only one game that has innate Arcane damage scaling that also applies Bleed. Its overall scaling is Strength (E), Dexterity (C), and Arcane (B). Unlike Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear and Eleonora’s Poleblade, Reduvia only deals Physical damage, and there’s no Fire damage component or Bloodflame.

With other daggers and Ashes of War, you have to choose between the ability to apply Bleed or have Arcane scaling with Occult. This combo on the Reduvia allows it to benefit from your stats and deal more damage with each attack than would otherwise be possible.

In general, daggers distinguish themselves by their extremely fast and weak slashes, as well as their potential to deal greater critical damage (usually). You deal critical damage whenever you do the special stab (or whack) animation by backstabbing an enemy or using a light attack against an enemy with its stance broken.

The higher base damage from the Arcane scaling mostly compensates for its average critical multiplier of +10%, as opposed to the regular Dagger (+30%) or the Misericordé (+40%), with the added benefit of bleed damage. Please note that you don’t build up any status effect with critical hits, though they’re absolutely still worth doing.

Speaking of things worth doing, this dagger has a really nifty Unique Skill called Reduvia Blood Blade, which is more damaging and has a much faster initial cast than the Ash of War version. After the initial cast, you can spam it just as you can with some Sorceries.

It’s annoying that you’re locked into a single Skill that’s not totally unique, but it’s nice to have a quick mid-range option, especially considering that it builds up a significant amount of Bleed. It only takes 2-3 hits to build up Bleed on the target, allowing you to interrupt their action wihtout being in melee range.

There is no early-game precursor to the Reduvia because you can get it almost immediately. You can loot the Reduvia from Bloody Finger Nerijus, an NPC invader right outside of Patches’ Mistwood Cave along in Limgrave.

Bloody Finger Hunter Yura will assist you, though one of you will probably be dead by the time he arrives. I recommend doing Yura’s questline, as it also pertains to Eleonora’s Poleblade and Mohg.

Left-Hand Armaments: Support

You don’t have too much of a need for left-hand armaments with this build. The main one is the Dragon Communion Seal so that you can cast Incantations of the Blood, and optionally, Dragon varieties.

Dragon Communion Seal

Seals are what you be use to cast Incantations. Most scale with Faith and buff a specific category of Incantations. The Dragon Communion seal is the only one that scales with Arcane (none really scale with Dexterity), so it’s the only viable option for this build.

The its name would suggest, the Dragon Communion Seal buffs Dragon Incantations only, so your Blood spells won’t get an additional buff from any Seal. Still, it gives your hand an appropriate red glow, and you can absolutely incorporate Dragon Incantations with this build. That’s what Eleonora did.

You can loot the Dragon Communion Seal from the ghost of a Banished Knight at the Fringefolk Hero’s Grave.

The Fringefolk Hero’s Grave is located behind the double Stonewall Key fog in the building you first come out of in Limgrave, right next to the Stranded Graveyard Site of Grace.

Follow the main “road” downhill until you get to a fork where you can turn right to go uphill. The Banished Knight ghost will be at the top of that “hill”.

Second Dagger (Optional)

I recommend equipping a second dagger to dual-wield alongside the Reduvia. You have several notable options:

• A second Reduvia (NG+ only)
• Scorpion’s Stinger
• Misericordé (Blood affinity) in the right hand, Reduvia in the left
• Erdtree Dagger (Blood affinity)
• Black Knife

The Erdtree Dagger, Black Knife, and second Reduvia require the least deviation from your path to the Land of Shadow, though the Scorpion’s Stinger and Misericordé expand your capabilities.

Greatshield (Optional)

You can pair Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear (and Bloody Helice) with a Greatshield in order to leverage their ability to poke at enemies while blocking. I don’t think a shield fits as well with such an aggressive playstyle and don’t personally use one with this build, but the synergy is pretty strong, so you might want to give it a try.

The Golden Beast Crest Shield has the same Strength requirement (24) as Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear, matches the gold color on your weapons, and features 100% physical damage negation.

I talk about Greatshields and their interactions with thrusting weapons like greatspears and heavy thrusting swords in detail in my Lightning Spear Build Guide. You’ll also see some other Greatshield recommendations that would be realistic in NG+.

You can loot the Golden Beast Crest Shield drops the Grafted Scion you likely were defeated by at the Chapel of Anticipation at the very beginning of the game.

Incantations

Incantations are one of the terms for spells in Elden Ring. They consume FP (the blue bar) and can be replenished by taking a sip from your Flask of Cerulean Tears.

They differentiate themselves from Sorceries by primarily requiring some amount of Faith instead of Intelligence, emphasize support and AoE over focused damage, and are more likely to be channelable rather than chargeable or chainable.

The Incantations you’ll be using with this build come in 2 categories: Blood(Flame) and Dragonbreath. Both categories require a minor investment in Faith and allow you to leverage the Arcane you’re already using for your melee weapons thanks to the Dragon Communion Seal.

Blood (Flame) Incantations

There are only 4 Blood Incantations in the base game, and they’re all pretty supplemental, though combining them can be quite debilitating. I’m also lumping together Flame, Grant Me Strength with this group because it applies to Bloodflame.

I recommend memorizing them at a Site of Grace in this order. It puts the buffs you can precast at the beginning, and then goes in order of descending range for the Blood Incantations, followed by all of the Dragon Incantations. This way, you’ll minimize the amount of time spent cycling to an earlier Incantation.

Flame, Grant Me Strength

Flame, Grant Me Strength boosts both your Fire and Physical damage dealt by 20% and Stamina regeneration by 5/s for 30s. It’s a flat 20% damage boost for your melee weapons, as Bloodflame is considered Fire damage, and the stamina regen is helpful against the stronger enemies.

It will be profitable to maintain 100% uptime on this effect, but I only recommend precasting it before a major fight or during downtime, as it breaks the flow of combat too much in my opinion.

You can loot Flame, Grant Me Strength from a corpse behind Fort Gael. Be careful because there are multiple fire-spewing chariots that look like green heads, and a pile of flaming zombies back there

You’ll need to use a portal at the top of Fort Gael to teleport across Caelid to Redmane Castle in order to reach Starscourge Radahn, who is one of the 2 bosses required to access Shadow of the Erdtree.

Bloodflame Blade

Bloodflame Blade gives the weapon the same sort of trait as you’ll have with Eleonara’s Poleblade, and Bloodbooned Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear. It’s only useful while you’re still gathering your core weapons or can’t change a weapon affinity to Bleed.

You can loot it from a dung beetle that’s at the northern shore of the Rose Church island where you meet White Mask Varré in Liurnia of the Lakes. The nearest Site of Grace is to the east, Fallen Ruins of the Lake.

In NG+, you can spare the Faith to upgrade to the higher tier of Dragon Incantations and I recommend swapping this one out for one of the other Dragon Incantations. Alternatively, Golden Vow only requires 25 Faith, so you might want to use that if you like getting all the buffs, but feel free to use whatever you like!

Swarm of Flies

Swarm of Flies is your main long-range option. It’s extremely weak, and only really deals damage by triggering Bleed on the target, but if something is far away that you can’t reach, I find it far less cumbersome to use than a Bow or Crossbow.

You can cast it and then sprint in an the flies will reach the target at roughly the same time you do, causing them to bleed sooner and make it easier to interrupt their attacks or stance-break their stance.

You can loot Incantation: Swarm of Flies from a corpse in the smallest of the coves on the eastern edge of the blood lake in front of Mohgwyn Palace.

It’s the middle cove on the right as you’re leaving Ol’ Alby’s Rune Farm^TM, “We’re family-owned and operated. Our livestock are 100% cage-free!“

Bloodboon

Bloodboon makes you throw an asymmetrical arc of flaming blood that deals some initial contact damage and ticks to build up Bleed, kind of like how Bloodboon Ritual works. It applies a light staggering effect that will halt some enemies with low poise.

You can combine Bloodboon with a few Swarms of Flies or Reduvia Blood Blades to trigger bleed on a lot of enemies in quick succession. Bloodboon also works well as a barrier while you cast one of the Dragonbreath Incantations or even Bloodboon Ritual if you don’t have enough Poise.

After defeating Mohg, Lord of Blood, you can purchase Bloodboon from Finger Reader Enya at the Roundtable Hold in exchange for Remembrance of the Blood Lord. You will need to duplicate this Remembrance at one of the Wandering Mausoleums with a bell on their belly in order to obtain both Bloodboon and Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear.

If you are unable to do so, purchase Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear, not Bloodboon.

Bloodflame Talons

Bloodflame Talons is basically just a fancy melee attack. You scratch the Formless Mother and a Bloodflame explosion follows shortly thereafter. The attack is chainable, so you can scratch multiple times in a row with a shorter delay than the initial cast.

Each scratch from Bloodflame Talons is slower than Reduvia’s swing, but the explosions are substantially more powerful, so it’s really a matter of whether you have enough time or FP to cast it.

You also need to consider your targets resistance to Fire damage, as that’s all Bloodflame Talons does, while the Reduvia deals physical damage. It’s worth noting that Bloodflame also burns for a few seconds, continuing to build up Bleed.

You can loot Bloodflame Talons from Mohg, the Omen, (the illusion one) at the Cathedral of the Forsaken beneath Lyndell and connected to the Subterranean Shunning Grounds.

If you’re trying to minimize the time it takes to reach the Land of Shadow, I think this Incantation is too far out of the way to be worth getting. However, if you want more information on how to reach the Church of the Forsaken, I recommend you check out our Three Fingers and Lord of Frenzied Flame Ending Guide.

Dragonbreath Incantations

There are 10 Dragon Incantations split into 2 tiers that function very similar to each other in that each one manifests a dragon’s head that spews a breath attack with a different damage type. The first tier of Dragonbreath Incantations requires 15 Faith and 12 Arcane, while the second tier requires 23 Faith and 15 Arcane.

You unlock these Incantations by defeating the associated dragons scattered across the Lands Between, and then purchasing them by consuming (spending) 1-3 Dragon Hearts at the Cathedral of Dragon Communion, near the southwest edge of Caelid.

These Incantations have pretty long cast times and cost a bunch of FP, but they are mighty, as you will be hitting the cap on Arcane scaling of the Dragon Communion Seal, which also increases the damage dealt by all of these Incantations by 15%.

The upgraded tier named after specific dragons each cost about 25% more FP, but deal more damage and are usable while jumping in the air, giving you a better view of the carnage you unleash and making the Dragonbreath easier to aim.

There are other Dragon Incantations as well, but they tend to have higher Faith requirements, and you can’t spare the points until like NG+2 with this build. All of the Dragon Incantations are buffed by the Dragon Communion Seal.

Talismans

I recommend using Millicent’s Prosthesis, (Rotten) Winged Sword Insignia, Lord of Blood’s Exultation, and Radagon’s Soreseal for this build.

Typically, one of the talismans is weaker or less essential than the others, and that’s somewhat the case for the (Rotten) Winged Sword Insignia, but not nearly to the same degree as I have found with most builds.

Millicent’s Prosthesis

Millicent’s Prosthesis gives you 5 Dexterity and boosts your attack power by 4% ▶ 6% ▶ 11% when you continue to land attacks in quick succession. The damage boost drops to the lower tier every 1.5s, so you really have to keep hitting things.

Both effects can be found on dedicated talismans and are quite useful with this build, making it a no-brainer to use the combined version.

You can loot Millicent’s Prosthesis from Millicent herself after you see her wearing it. The first time this happens is when she appears at Dominula, Windmill Village atop the northern edge of the Altus Plateau.

You are unable to obtain both the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia and Millicent’s Prosthesis in the same playthrough. I recommend getting Millicent’s Prosthesis first for this build. Check out our guide on Millicent’s Quest for more information.

(Rotten) Winged Sword Insignia

The Winged Sword Insignia and and its upgraded Rotten version both have the same damage-boosting effect triggering from successive hits as Millicent’s Prosthesis. The regular Winged Sword Insignia boosts your damage by 3% ▶ 5% ▶ 10%, while the Rotten version boosts your damage by 6% ▶ 8% ▶ 13% with a 1.5s decay rate.

You can only equip one of these at a time, but either can be equipped alongside Millicent’s Prosthesis. Unfortunately, none of these successive hit effects trigger from the Bloodboon Ritual on the Mohgwyn Sacred Spear, though the Unique Skill can benefit from the boost if it is still active.

You can loot the Winged Sword Insignia from a Cleanrot Knight miniboss at the end of Stillwater Cave whose entrance is at the southernmost corner of the Lakes in Liurnia.

The Rotten Winged Sword Insignia is given to you by Millicent at the end of her quest right before the Drainage Channel Site of Grace at Miquella’s Haligtree.

You cannot obtain both Millicent’s Prosthesis and the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia in the same playthrough. I recommend obtaining Millicent’s Prosthesis first. Check out our Millicent Quest guide for more information.

Lord of Blood’s Exultation

The Lord of Blood’s Exultation boosts all of your damage dealt by 20% for 20s whenever anyone takes Bleed damage (from the Bleed meter filling up all the way). It can either be you or an enemy, but they have to be close enough to you for it to work.

A 20% generic damage boost is exceptionally strong for a talisman, and the fact that you can have such high uptime on it because you can apply bleed with most of your attacks is fantastic.

You can loot the Lord of Blood’s Exultation from Esgar, Priest of Blood, the boss of the Lyndell Catacombs in the Subterranean Shunning Grounds beneath the city.

Radagon’s Soreseal and Scarseal

Radagon’s Scarseal and Soreseal both give you additional points in Vigor, Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity in exchange for taking more damage. The Scarseal is the weaker version that gives +3 of each, but makes you take 10% more damage, while the Soreseal gives you +5 of each and makes you take 15% more damage.

This build can make use of all 20 levels worth of points, so it’s a worthwhile trade to take a bit more damage from each attack. Most of the time, it doesn’t have a significant effect on your survival.

You can loot Radagon’s Soreseal from a corpse at Fort Faroth in Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow in Caelid by climbing down to the lower level from the ladder on the roof. It’s quite the gauntlet of dangerous enemies, so you’ll need to pick it up when you go to fight Startscourge Radahn.

You can loot the weaker Scarseal version from the Ancient Hero of Zamor, locked at away behind a Stonesword Key at the Weeping Evergaol on the Weeping Peninsula in Limgrave.

Flask of Wondrous Physick Mixture

There are several approaches to concocting a mixture for yourFlask of Wondrous Physickdepending 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 Thorny Cracked Tear in conjunction with the Greenburst Crystal Tear because I favor long-lasting buffs that improve offense and have strong synergies with this specific build.

Thorny Cracked Tear

The Thorny Cracked Tear boosts your damage dealt by 9% ▶ 13% ▶ 20% as you continue to land attacks in quick succession, and those stacks decay one at a time every 1.5s. It’s just like Millicent’s Prosthesis and the (Rotten) Winged Sword Insignia talismans, and they stack together!

You can loot the Thorny Cracked Tear from the Putrid Avatar at the Minor Erdtree in the Consecrated Snowfield.

This is a super late-game Crystal Tear, so you will probably need to pick a different one. I don’t recommend going so far out of your way for this item if you want to reach the Land of Shadow efficiently.

Greenburst Crystal Tear

The Greenburst Crystal Tear boosts the rate at which your Stamina (green bar) refills by 15/s. Since Stamina is used both offensively (on attacks) and defensively (on rolling and shielding), this is a potent and versatile boost that synergizes with the capabilities of the build.

The Greenburst Crystal Tear is dropped by defeating the Putrid Avatar at the base of the Minor Erdtree in northwest Caelid near the Rotview Balcony and Smouldering Church.

This Putrid Avatar also drops the Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear, which is a decent damage-boosting alternative if you don’t have the Thorny Cracked Tear.

Armor

This build can make great use of a powerful buff provided by a specific helmet, so you’ll need to wear that alongside your armor. The rest of your armor is really up to individual preference and exactly how much weight you can carry, which is determined by your Endurance stat.

White Mask

The White Mask headpiece boosts all of your damage dealt by 10% for 20s whenever anyone takes Bleed damage (from the Bleed meter filling up all the way). It can either be you or an enemy, but they have to be close enough to you for it to work.

It’s the same effect that’s granted by the Lord of Blood’s Exultation talisman, though at half strength. When combined, you’ll get a 30% damage boost whenever blood loss is triggered in your immediate vicinity.

You can loot the White Mask along with the War Surgeon armor set, the same one worn by White Mask Varré, from 1 of the 3 Nameless White Mask invaders in the southern part of the blood lake at Mohgwyn Palace.

These Nameless White Mask NPCs will only invade you while both Mohg, Lord of Blood, and White Mask Varré are still alive. For more information, check out our Shadow of the Erdtree Preparation Guide.

Armor Sets

Our weapons and helmet feature white, gold, black, and red. I think the following armor sets best match those colors and don’t look ridiculous with the headscarf.

We want to shoot for light or medium Equip Loads with this build, so I’ll be showing off a few examples that can get you close to 30% or 70% with 50 Endurance.

I recommend using 50 Endurance because that’s the hard cap for Stamina, and you want a lot of it with this build. It’s really difficult to reach Light Equip Load with 50 Endurance alongside all of the armaments you have equipped.

I recommend shooting for Medium Equip Load in a fresh playthrough, and consider going up to 60 Endurance in NG+ for the heaviest armor at Medium Equip Load or Light Equip Load where you aren’t forced to remove weapons or not equip pieces of gear.

Sanguine Noble

The Sanguine Noble armor set is and Vulkk’s personal favorite for this build and the clear option if you want a Light Equip Load . All of Mohg’s important subjects wear them, and you are a Pureblood Knight after all.

Unfortunately, you gotta hit 60 Endurance and finnagle with your equipment to get everything to work, and the set doesn’t even come with gloves! I find that the Queen’s Bracelets, Errant Sorcerer’s Manchettes, and Bloodsoaked Manchettes look the best.

You can get the Sanguine Noble’s armor set from a Sanguine Noble NPC invader in the Consecrated Snowfield, near all the Runebears and the portal to Mohgwyn Palace.

Raging Wolf

The Raging Wolf armor set is my personal favorite for this build and requires less than 50 Endurance with all of your equipment, and in my opinion, has the least visible blending with the hood from the White Mask into the cape. The rest of the colors look fantastic too.

I highly recommend using the Drake Knight Gauntlets instead, as you get a draconic glove for your left hand with the Dragon Communion Seal, and a tough leather one for your right and melee weapon.

You receive Raging Wolf armor set after teaming up with Recusant Bernahl at the Volcano Manor to invade and defeat Vargram the Raging Wolf and Errant Sorcerer Wilhelm at the physical location of the Roundtable Hold in Lyndell, Royal Capital.

Alberich’s armor set is also in this room, pictured as the loot in that shot. You must complete the Volcano Manor missions before defeating Rykard or Maliketh.

Blackflame Monk

The Blackflame Monk is a rare variant of the Fire Monk. It’s a Medium set that’s lighter than the Raging Wolf set. I really like how there’s all sorts of different grays and silvers, which allow the red and gold to really pop.

If you want to use this set, you gotta farm one of the few Blackflame Monks in the game. The best farming spot is located at the Divine Tower of Caelid right next to its Basement Site of Grace.

Bull Goat

The Bull Goat armor set is one of the heaviest in the game You will need 60 Endurance to wear it with a Medium Equip Load, but the colors match really well. The little hints of gold create a uniform look with those in your weapons.

You receive the Bull Goat armor set after invading and defeating Great Horned Tragoth in the boss room at the Ruin-Strewn Precipice that connects Liurnia to the Altus Plateau.

You do Patches’ Volcano Manor assignment for him, and the quest marker on the map doesn’t point to the most accurate location. Fast travel to the Magma Wyrm Makar Site of Grace and you’ll see it.

Lord of Blood’s Robe

The Lord of Blood’s Robe is a fancier, heavier robe, the same one worn by Mohg. It’s clearly part of the same collection as the Sanguine Noble’s robes and works perfectly with the pants from that set.

Based on the Equip Load balancing, it seems that you are meant to wear it without any pants or gloves unless you want to give up most of your weapons to achieve a Light Equip Load, though you can combine it with heavier armor to make the most of a Medium Equip Load as well.

You can alter it to remove the pauldron and cape, creating a more symetrical look. I recommend pairing the Lord of Blood’s Robe, altered or not, with Maliketh’s Gauntlets and Greaves, Alberich’s Bracers, Drake Knight Gauntlets, or Goldmask’s Gold Bracelets. The unaltered version also looks pretty great with the Golden Beast Crest Shield.

You can purchase the Lord of Blood’s Robe from Finger Reader Enya for 10,000 Runes after defeating Mohg, Lord of Blood.

Drake Knight Armor Set

The Drake Knight armor set is what Eleonora, the Violet Bloody Finger, wears. It is another solidly Medium Equip Load set, and while it matches just fine, the whole thing is a little too animalistic for my tastes. Those gloves are fantastic though.

You can loot the Drake Knight set from a chest at Crumbling Farum Azula at the bottom level of the round elevator near the birds and the dragon that calls down lightning everywhere as you approach. The closest Site of Grace is Dragon Temple Rooftop.

You can find all of the above-mentioned armor sets in our complete catalog to all Armor Sets available in Elden Ring.

Attribute Points, Leveling Up, and Flask Allocation

The Bleed build has a core base comprised of the requirements to survive and effectively wield Eleonora’s Poleblade, Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear | Bloody Helice, a Reduvia, and be able cast some Incantations with the Dragon Communion Seal. You will be able to incorporate a Greatshield and/or another Dagger as well.

Attribute Points

Elden Ring does not consistently depict the influence of equipped talismans and armor on the number of attribute points. You see all of the actual effects from your gear (passive effects as well as buffs and debuffs) applied to your stats in the “pause” menu, both the Equipment and Status screens, but not when you level up or respec with Rennala.

I have included the actual stat values you will have in combat with your equipment, and the amount expected to comes from your levels in parentheses, before the appropriate value from Radagon’s Scarseal or Radagon’s Soreseal and Millicent’s Prosthesis are added.

Below is the stat distribution I recommend you strive for as you approach these semi-arbitrary level milestones:

Attribute	lvl 100 ►	lvl 150 ►	lvl 175 ►	lvl 200 ►	lvl 250
Vigor (+3 | +5)	30 (27)	40 (35)	50 (45)	60 (55)	60 (55)
Mind –	15	15	20	20	30+
Endurance (+3 | +5)	30 (27)	45 (40)	40 (35)	50 (45)	50+ (45+)
Strength (+3 | +5)	16 (11)	16 (11)	16 (11)	16 (11)	19+
Dexterity (+3 | +5) (+ 5)	33 (30)	40 (33)	50 (40)	50 (40)	80 (70)
Intelligence –	–	–	–	–	–
Faith –	15	15	15	15	25
Arcane –	40	50	60	60	80

Please note that these stats are rough estimates. They don’t perfectly add up to the nice, round level thresholds. Your values will vary slightly depending on your base class.

I recommend starting with either the Bandit or Wretch if it’s a fresh save file. The Bandit offers a desirable emphasis on Arcane and Dexterity, while the Wretch offers customization. The fact that you start without any gear besides a Club is not impactful for this build because so many of your weapons are easily accessible early on.

Vigor

Vigor primarily increases your HP (red bar) and has a hard cap at 60. Your Vigor should increase by 10 by the time you finish your current continent.

Mind

Mind primarily increases your FP (blue bar) and has a hard cap at 50, with the most significant gains per Attribute Point occuring between 35-50 Mind. However, you really don’t need more than 15-20 if you’re mainly using Skills and Ashes of War.

The Bleed build has access to a lot of Incantations, but they aren’t super crucial to the build, so you can get away with upgrading this until the end of your playthrough.

Endurance

Endurance increases your Stamina (green bar) and Maximum Equip Load. The former is a resource that gets consumed whenever you do anything beyond walking around (or running outside of combat). You’ll get practically all of the Stamina between 1-50 Endurance and have a lot of flexibility with equipment within that range as well.

I recommend hitting 50 Endurance sooner rather than later. If you can’t finish your attack sequence or defeat the enemy safely, you need more Endurance (or damage). In NG+, or if you’re willing to sacrifice some Mind, go ahead and climb to 60 Endurance for the Bull Goat armor in Medium Equip Load armor or a Light Equip Load with the blood robes.

Strength (Str)

Strength increases your damage dealt with weapons that scale with it, which are typically the heavier weapons. Two-handing a weapon multiplies the amount of Attribute Points for the purposes of damage output and Strength usability requirements (you can lift heavier things because using both hands).

Only Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear features somewhat notable Strength scaling, though it will have a greater impact on Eleonora’s Poleblade than it may seem at first glance because you two-hand that weapon. Still, I recommend sticking close to the base requirements to single-hand the weapons until the late game and NG+.

Only reach for the 50, 60, and 80 Attribute Point diminishing returns thresholds towards the end of NG+, probably after the level economy of Radagon’s Soreseal evaporates.

Dexterity (Dex)

Dexterity increases your damage dealt with weapons that scale with it, which are typically lighter weapons and those that require more precision. Dexterity also reduces casting time for Sorceries and Incantations.

All of your weapons scale pretty strongly with Dexterity, and your Incantations need it to speed up their cast times, especially the Dragon ones. However, it’s less impactful than Arcane, so it will take a backseat during point allocation.

Dexterity has the same 50, 60, and 80 Attribute Point thresholds as Strength, though you will reach them towards the end of your first playthrough and NG+, after you get Arcane where it needs to be.

Intelligence (Int)

Intelligence primarily increases the Sorcery Scaling on Staves, governing the damage you deal with Sorceries and whether you can cast them in the first place, though it can also increase the Magic or Cold damage dealt by a weapon that scales with it.

You have no need for Intelligence with this build.

Faith (Fth)

Faith primarily increases the Incantation Scaling on Seals, governing the damage you deal with Incantations and whether you can cast them in the first place, though it can also increase the (Sacred) Fire and Holy damage dealt by a weapon that scales with it.

Faith is somewhat valuable for our Incantations, but Arcane has better scaling on the Dragon Communion Seal, and it doesn’t affect any of your weapons. I only recommend investing enough Faith to satisfy the requirements to cast these Incantations even through NG+

Arcane (Arc)

Arcane increases your damage dealt and rate of status effect application (Bleed, Poison, etc.) with weapons that scale with it, typically related to those status effects and random weird stuff. It also increases the chance that an enemy will drop something.

Arcane is the most important damage stat for the bleed build because it significantly increases the damage dealt by all of your attacks, including your Incantations, and increases the rate at which you can build up bleed on enemies.

Your main soft and hard caps are 60 and 80 Arcane for this build. You should reach 60 Arcane before you focus too much on Dexterity or Strength.

Leveling Up

Prioritize spending your Attribute Points on what you need right now to satisfy some threshold, alternating between damage and survivability.

You should have just enough damage-boosting stats to defeat most enemies in a whole number of hits. If your final hit overshoots their health bar by 50%, that’s half of a hit wasted.

You should have enough survivability that you can consistently survive 2-3 hits, or maybe not get one-shot by some smackerdoodle with extra beef, like Placidusax’s Sound-Dampening Lightning Spear.

You should have enough HP that you can get the full amount from your Crimson Flask while still being able to survive at least 1 more hit. The same applies to FP and Cerulean Flasks for caster builds.

If one side of this survivability-damage output coin is satisfactory, focus on the other until it’s satisfactory, and then switch back. It doesn’t work to dump everything into one of them because of diminishing returns.

Flask Allocation

Flask allocation depends on how much you use the Dragon Incantations. Your goal is to run out of both types of Flasks at roughly the same time, but because your Dragonbreath is so lethal, the more you successfully cast, the less damage you’ll likely take.

I have found a 10 Red – 4 Blue ratio to work pretty well, but sometimes I have some FP left over and another blue flask when I run out of Reds, so 11 Red – 3 Blue is also a good idea.

If you want to use your casts more liberally out in the world and for NG+, go in the other direction and try 4-5 Cerulean Flasks. Remember, treat the ratio I recommend as a starting point, not as gospel!