Defeating dragons and becoming an all-powerful Scarlet Rot machine.
As noted everywhere, magic can be very powerful in Elden Ring. And you don’t even have to get far into the game to become an unstoppable magical powerhouse. Before fighting Margit and raiding Stormveil Castle, you can unlock an extremely powerful spell that can literally carry you through the rest of the game. To do this method, you’ll need to delve deep into the dangers of Caelid, and we’ll explain every step to unlock incredibly powerful tools of destruction without that much effort. Seriously, if you want to make bosses trivial, this is a good place to start.
This method was shared by u/OneRelief763 and after trying it ourselves, we’re here to explain all the details — including a few more to make yourself even stronger. Once we were magical novices, but with this starter build, we’ve become completely unstoppable PVE monsters, spreading the Scarlet Rot to bosses and chipping away at their health while dancing around far out of their weapon range.
It helps to have summons with any magical build, so I recommend grabbing yourself some very good Spirit Ashes.
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Dragon Communion Guide | Getting Powerful PVE Magic Right Away
To make yourself an unstoppable magic-slinging machine, you’ll need to build your Faith and Arcane stats early — and to acquire four spells. These three spells form the core of this build. Once you’ve got these spells, you’re basically set for the rest of the game. Keep increasing your stats for more damage and more FP.
For this build, we’re going to get three spells from the Dragon Communion Altar in Limgrave and Caelid.
- Dragonclaw: Purchase from the Limgrave Church of Dragon Communion for 1 Dragon Heart or in the Cathedral of Dragon Communion in Caelid.
- Dragonice: Purchase from the Caelid Cathedral of Dragon Communion for 1 Dragon Heart.
- Rotten Breath: Purchase from the Caelid Cathedral of Dragon Communion for 1 Dragon Heart.
- Ekzyke’s Decay: Acquire by defeating the boss outside the Cathedral of Dragon Communion, Caelid. Once this spell is acquired, ditch Rotten Breath — this is a straight upgrade to Rotten Breath.
Dragonclaw can be acquired from the Church of Dragon Communion on the island to the south of Limgrave. Go down to the beach near the Stranged Graveyard and use the underground cave to reach the church — here you can trade a Dragon Heart for spells. Same goes for the Dragon Communion Altar in Caelid, The Church of Dragon Communion in Caelid is located in the southwest of Caelid. Check the map locations below to find both. You can grab all the spells from the Caelid Dragon Altar after we get +5 Dragon Hearts.
How To Get +5 Dragon Hearts
We won’t be able to acquire any spells until we get Dragon Hearts. To do that, travel to the Third Church of Marika and use the portal in the stream to the north to reach the beasti*al Sanctum in Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow. To acquire easy hearts, we’re going to defeat Greyoll — a truly massive dragon to the south. This enormous dragon is impossible to miss and is surrounded by smaller dragons. To easily kill it, use any weapon that has bleed buildup (Bloodhound’s Fang is basically required) and attack it from behind its head. The other dragons won’t be able to reach you, and it won’t be able to attack you. Really, any weapon will work for this. Kill it to gain +5 Dragon Hearts and +50,000 runes.
Bloodhound’s Fang is located at the Forlorn Knight Evergaol, near the path to the Weeping Peninsula in southern Limgrave. You’ll see the circle on your map. Defeat the boss here to gain the sword — then you can (very slowly) bleed the ancient dragon to death.
Getting The Spells
With the +5 Dragon Hearts, we can now purchase the spells we need.
- Dragonclaw: Purchase this from the Limgrave Church of Dragon Communion. A very useful, simple spell that can be chained into two attacks. Very good for minor enemies or dealing extra damage to bosses.
- Dragonice: Purchase from the Caelid Church of Dragon Communion. A frost breath attack that deals huge damage once frost buildup reaches max. Very good against any enemy.
- Rotten Breath: Purchase from the Caelid Church of Dragon Communion. A Scarlet Rot breath attack. Applies Scarlet Rot, dealing high damage-over-time, even against bosses.
These spells require a lot of FP, so make sure to unlock more FP healing charges from churches and distribute them to keep your FP stocked up. To really complete this build, we’ll want to get a killer upgrade for Rotten Breath called Ekzyke’s Decay.
- Ekzyke’s Decay: Purchase at the Caelid Church of Dragon Communion for 2 Dragon Hearts. Only becomes available after defeating the gross Ekzyke dragon in front of the church. Defeat it to gain +1 Dragon Heart. Use Rotten Breath to apply Scarlet Rot, then finish it off when you can with Dragonice / Dragonclaw.
The hardest part of dealing with Ekzyke is having enough FP to defeat him. Make sure you’ve got plenty of FP healing before going in for the fight. You can also apply Rotten Breath and just wait for him to die, but that’s going to take time. Use your other spells to end the fight faster.
After that you’re free to build up on your Faith / Arcane and become an unstoppable dragon magic powerhouse. There are plenty more dragons to hunt all over the Lands Between, and the more of them you take out, the more magic you can play around with. The Dragon Altars have some incredibly powerful magic spells for you to experiment with, but even if you don’t want to, these spells alone will keep you going all the way into the late-game.
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