Crafting The Perfect Build: Mastering Stats & Soft Caps in Elden Ring

Explaining attributes, stats, and soft caps, so you can level your character in the best way possible.
Weapon Scaling Video: • Understanding Weapon M...
Resources:
Stat Scaling Charts: / helpful_charts_for_off...
Weapon Calculator Spreadsheet: / elden_ring_weapon_calc...
AR Calculator/Build Planner: negator13-eldenring.azurewebs...
Datamined Resources: / elden_ring_datamined_r...
VIDEO CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:15 Level
02:30 Attributes
06:13 Base Stats
06:27 Equip Load
08:58 Poise
12:30 Discovery
12:54 Memory Slots
13:36 Attack Power
13:59 Defense/Dmg Negation
15:15 Resistances
16:12 Best way to increase defense/resistance
17:55 Part 2: Soft Caps
19:29 Vigor
21:09 Mind
21:21 Endurance (Stamina)
22:26 Endurance (Equip Load)
22:59 Creating a unique build
24:59 SKIP HERE AFTER THE WEAPONS VIDEO
26:28 Physical AP No Infusion/Unique Weapons
27:54 Hitting Soft Caps Example Walkthrough
32:06 Physical AP Heavy/Keen/Occult
32:46 Physical AP Quality
32:56 Non-Physical AP Magic/Fire/Lightning/Holy
33:40 Spell Power Pure Frontloaded Catalyst
35:38 Spell Power Pure Backloaded Catalyst
36:03 List of Pure Catalysts
36:49 Spell Power Hybrid Catalyst
36:59 List of Hybrid Catalysts
37:52 Buildup Poison/Bleed/Madness/Sleep
39:40 Do you need to hit the soft caps?
42:36 FULL SOFT CAP CHEAT SHEET
43:48 SIMPLIFIED SOFT CAP CHEAT SHEET
47:25 Comparing both Cheat Sheets example
48:51 Cost of leveling up
50:10 Outro
If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up and hit the subscribe button if you want to see more!
● Twitch: / ghostinitiative
● Twitter: / ghostcxvii
●Discord: / discord

[@iNinjaaz99]

I’ve spent literal days studying how stats and scalings work in this game and I’ve never once seen someone explain it as clearly as you have, things are actually making some sense

[@Dasgewt1]

In the early levels, scaling on any weapon will be a very small % of your damage, it really only starts to pick up around +16. On the other hand, going hard on vigor early will get you huge returns. Priority early on should be enough offensive stats to equip whatever you are going to be using (using talismans to hit these numbers is also a great idea), then Vigor to 40, then going back and increasing your damage and end/mind.

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Exactly

[@iRunKids]

I put enough into other stats to equip gear and then bring vigor to at least 50

[@Anchor-Supreme]

I’ve noticed this too. I’m just about to start a playthrough using exclusively the Zwei, and my plan is to get the required 19/11 to wield it, then pump Vigor to 40 or so.

[@HitPointPersonal]

Direct quote from onlywaifu lol

[@Erdbeer_Klumpen]

you are 100% right, but even 2y after release ppl. dont invest into vigor 8 out 10 times. as an invader i just love the dumbness of those dude‘s. it just seems that nobody is able to do math these days - perfect.

[@CasperTheGhost64]

Everybody focuses on the finish line, but not how they get there. Very informative video. I learned a good bit from this.

[@wolfiemuse]

Small but important note: Dexterity has a side effect that allows you to cast spells and shoot bows and arrows faster the higher it goes. Caps out at 70 where you’ll basically cast spells/incants instantly.

[@TheRealJohnHooper]

Nice 😮

[@justhair17]

Also, I believe if you use the talisman that increases casting speed, it caps around 40. Could be wrong tho

[@wolfiemuse]

@@justhair17 You’re probably right. 40 is lower than I thought, though. Is the talisman that good that it makes up for 30 levels in Dex? Even though each level doesn’t increase the casting speed much, I’d think it would be like 50 or something. But you may be right.

[@TheGhostInitiative]

That’s correct. The talisman essentially adds 30 dexterity levels worth of casting speed, so at 40 dexterity it would get you to the cap at 70. Azur’s staff adds 40, so if you use that and the talisman, you can actually hit the casting speed cap without leveling dexterity at all

[@justhair17]

@@wolfiemuse yeah, its great, because you can basically stop dex at 40 and level int higher for dex/int builds.

[@KhaosDCrab]

Today I learned light roll doesnt have extra I frames

[@mave2431]

Completely underrated videos. I just watched both and I thought they had like hundreds of thousands of views. The pace at which you explained was great. Thanks for your work, really appreciate it!

[@landoncamara93]

how are the only 2 videos of eldenring on your aocount the most useful guides ive seen like XD id been trying to find this shit for ages and you made it sound so simple

[@TroyButtsoupBarnes42]

Fr

[@Lyscha23]

You're really good at going in depth in your guides I can easily see your channel getting loads of success if you keep maintaining this quality and type of content.

[@dadj3681]

Complete. Comprehensive. Clear and Concise. Great job buddy you’re a master of your craft ! 🙏🏽

[@TheLoneSpartan1128]

I am on ng7, but between your voice and straightforward info, I stayed for the whole video. Amazing qork

[@bippy515]

This video has helped me out a ton. You explained everything very well and it easy to understand even for someone who’s only a few hours in the game to get ready for that insane looking DLC. Definitely will be coming back to this video to help on my journey to become the Elden Lord

[@Zeppie32]

There is another soft cap for mind which is 38. This is the point where you have 221 mana and a fully upgraded flask gives you 220 mana. So before level 38 you get a total mana increase of the base increase + the base increase × the amount of flask you have. While after 38 your total mana pool will only go up by the base increase

[@xyzavenger]

I would still say to get around 40 because this assumes you’re going to be using spells that completely drain your FP (you’ll have some FP left over unless you use continuous spells like comet azure)

[@markforsey547]

By the way you are amazing at making videos for us stat nerds who love to see the numerical value associated with leveling your attributes. Very detailed and easy to understand with all information concisely yet meticulously explained. You should do more of these definitely got yourself a new subscriber.

[@kibido7373]

so simple and straight to the point in a cohesive manner. great video

[@zrevival3818]

The fact it takes 50 minutes to start understanding how a stats system works is both amazing and annoying at the same time lol

[@Deniz_50]

I was just thinking the exact same thing lol

[@Audio041194]

Making a system that looks so simple but is actually incredibly complex is an artform FromSoftware has down to a science, I really think other rpg's even the MMORPG's could learn a thing or two from Miyazaki and his team.

[@markojovanovic9651]

I find the leveling system pretty easy, no xp and picking skills or such, but I have been playing ds1 since I was like 12 since my older brother played it a lot. I remember that for a good chunk of time I didnt even know I should level up or how to do it hahahah

[@TheBfutgreg]

Even then, understanding the stat system to this amount of depth is kinda incongruent with the idea that the ethos of the game is about being "good" at the game (GIT GUD), most of this is just chopped liver in the grand scheme of things, when choosing a level just do what you need as you go Larval tear complete resets are a bit different if you want to do a build 180 I guess NG+ and onward is also its own cup of tea, things get harder and optimization is more important

[@smitty215able]

It's by design. The series is meant to be challenging. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the same in that regard

[@RedCrusader-ph2vk]

My Intro to Analytics class is paying off! I can understand these stat charts perfectly! See!? College isn't useless!

[@aenionaenion9079]

You have wonderful guides my friend! Accurate information, no diddling, good and clear audio coupled with concise speech, ery noice

[@CrimsonxBlades]

Excellent video. Thanks for the graphs. I love to theory craft builds with people. Finding out what they want to do and pull off. This helped me immensely.

[@falsebeliever8079]

While listening to this I realized that the Knight Set gives exactly 51 poise

[@Probe97]

Fantastic guide, thank you for the easy to follow explanations in one video! I've played Elden Ring since release and I still forget about all the numbers like poise threshold 😂😂

[@argonaught]

This video is great! You did a fantastic job explaining everything even as complex as it all is. Well done!

[@daladams]

Thank you for making this video possible, it was very helpful and easy to understand. For some reason, my brain struggles to comprehend the more nuanced and heady aspects behind certain gameplay mechanics and this helped me a lot.

[@HanzsKlopek]

I clicked because of the thumbnail, I stayed because it was informative (even if I completed Elden Ring 7-8 times...) and I subscribed because of the Cowboy Bebop banner on your page. See you space cowboy !

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Stepped in all 3 traps I laid. Too easy 😏

[@aaronpatterson2582]

Your ability to explain everything in detail, while also being easy to follow are top notch! You deserve way more subs! Thank you for the hard work, time, and research you put in to your videos. I hope you are blessed by the algorithm! You deserve it.

[@kylekramer7290]

Hey man I truly appreciate this video! This is my first souls game and I am getting near the end of the game, but I have never truly understood the scaling. This is a truly remarkable breakdown and you deserve so many more people to see this video and subscribe to your channel. I can't wait for the next video!

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Thank you for the kind words, glad it helped!

[@corv6005]

i watched the entire video and got so much useful information explained clearly with no bs in between. keep making stuff like this and im sure you'll blow up.

[@Waterprooftoaster1]

Just picked up the game and you made this complicated aspect of the game easy. Thanks!

[@CJM-ri7fp]

Excellent video, extremely informative and with a nice touch of humor. Well done!

[@CourierSixGaming]

Okay, that actually gave me a better understanding of building a character, thanks.

[@native21rogue6]

129 hours into the game and I feel like I don't know anything, hints why I'm here. This video definitely breaks it down the way I can understand how the stats work. I thought Vitality was to increase HP, time to replace that Vitality Boosting Talisman.

[@maikerukazukii]

This video is so detailed and great

[@matterinthehatter]

This is brilliant! I've been a fairly casual player up to this point, but I want to get a better understanding of these kinds of details ahead of the DLC. I'm definitely saving this video and my screenshots.

[@shinobi_1978]

Nice info ,dude. Thanks a lot!

[@Myskae_]

I'm new on elden ring. It was very informative and nice to understand more about this. Thank you for this excellent video 👍

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

Excellent guide sir!

[@CliffyDoesDallas]

I really love your explanation. Going to add this video to my channel's Elden Ring playlist for my viewers. You got my sub. Great work and i now understand it a lot more. Going to be sending people with questions to this vid.

[@OnixDDixon]

i am so ready for this

[@BlackFlameMonk]

Best explanation on YT. 👍

[@gunjinrieper4062]

A very helpful guide indeed

[@andereperson5059]

Thank you Sir, both videos are not only informative and without any bs inbetween. They're giving me the strength to attempt this game once more, maybe this time with success =)

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Best of luck

[@CrzYbaDmutha2245]

I began watching this bc it seemed interesting. Come to find out this information is extremely beneficial to my level 260 character with 99 Vigor, and 90 Endurance. Meaning I have so many runes to play with to really make my character a pvp monster. Definitely subscribed.

[@solcerer0006]

You can only pvp with people similar level to you meaning you would have to find someone who is also 260… There are “pvp metas” in the souls games usually capping from 125-150 anything past that just causes builds to blur together because you have too much stat investment

[@jamesn0va]

​@solcerer0006 eldenring is so popular you can just ignore the prescribed metas and still fine people easily. It's not dark souls 3 you don't have to play that way. Some builds require level 200 easily as well. They don't start losing there uniqueness by then at all. Especially wizards who want 80 int can easily go to 200. This is a very dark souks 3 mindset and things change.

[@CrzYbaDmutha2245]

@@jamesn0va I agree. Pvp arena is intense! I enjoy seeing all the crazy builds people come up with. My pvp build is purely strength and intelligence. Both capped at 80. I have 3 weapons to hot swap with. It's the b@$t@r& sword. Great sword. And the collosal one with wolfs assault. 113 poise. A Glintstone staff. And it's extremely good with spam builds. Mostly I just stick to a my sword for a fair fight. But the amount of chaos I can unleash upon someone trying to spam is ridiculous. I'm so excited for dlc. The rumors are we should hear something about it this month. But another online source says we won't see anything until the year 2025.

[@sneaky5141]

​@@jamesn0valiterally not a dks3 mindset at all its a 2 chromosomes mindset dks3 is 90-120 and elden ring is 120-180 anything over that you are not part of the community literally so you dont need to communicate here.😊

[@ChuckFinelyForever]

@@solcerer0006Is that true? My buddy was level 300 with a +3 normal weapon and we got invaded but a seemingly low level player, he had little health and was doing like 70-100 dmg per hit, this was yesterday.

[@1siege]

This video is so good btw W guide

[@mkoneuk2012]

Fantastic video!❤

[@lukefrost6907]

thanks! very informative

[@SteveBowman-ng9eb]

Really well explained ,should have 100k subs

[@lol_histicall4289]

For those wondering if black flame has scaling it scales on max HP for some reason and faith if you’re casting it as an incantation

[@TheGhostInitiative]

I might just be misinterpreting the way you phrased this, but I think you might be slightly off. Black flame initial hit damage scales with faith but it does have a damage over time effect that does a percentage of the target’s max hp. The community consensus is that the damage over time does 2-5% of the max health, but I honestly have no idea what determines exactly where in that range the damage will be because the DoT itself doesn’t seem to scale with anything. My bad if I read the comment wrong and you already knew that.

[@wolfiemuse]

@@TheGhostInitiativeI believe you are correct.

[@markforsey547]

I love this video just because I know this shit can get complicated so for some people it’s confusing and frustrating even though I know all the information within it’s still nice to see actual numbers in relation to caps and your build.

[@TheRealJohnHooper]

What an amazing guide 😮

[@tofermartinez4114]

As a new player this helps TREMENDOUSLY, thank you so much

[@yazan80]

Just found a new content creator to follow. Great vid.

[@syed22]

Great video keep it up bro

[@BU66E]

Hey thx bro 4 a great video! ♥️🤝🏽

[@pat_mcooterski]

Thanks for taking time out from banging super models to make this vid

[@TheGhostInitiative]

No problem man, and you can keep borrowing my lambo for as long as you need it

[@prestigeproductions2551]

fantastic video 👍

[@Dude357]

Very good video

[@joeyjones9041]

Early game I always prioritize Vigor and Endurance over damage. I don't put any levels into damage stats until I get Vigor to 35 or 40 and Endurance to 25 or 30, the damage I get from upgrade materials will get me by until I can start putting points into damage stats. I honestly don't worry about meta levels, I just naturally level through the entire game and see where I end up. In Elden Ring 180 seemed to be the sweet spot, 60 Vigor, 80 Damage Stat, 50/50 for a split build. Weapon requirements, and enough Mind and Endurance to be comfortable melee builds will have roughly 25 Mind and 35 Endurance, Caster builds will be the reverse 35 Mind and 25 Endurance, or if a hybrid build it might be an even 30/30. Quite a few levels will be in weapon requirements because I like to have a good variety of options on a build. I have 10 builds/characters and for all of them 180 seemed to be the sweet spot. I still get plenty of action with pvp. The soft caps are much higher in Elden Ring than Dark Souls 3 and it's a much larger game so I think doing New Game, New Game Plus and whatever DLCs at 180 is fine. I can always delete my builds and make 150 meta builds if needed, but I honestly ain't worried about it. All my Dark Souls 3 builds were at 150 and I still get plenty of action in pvp with them as well. Bloodborne same thing, 150 is where I stopped but could have probably stopped at 125, it's not a very stat hungry game.

[@UndefeatedEagle]

Im level 300+

[@Mc_Jordan2000]

My base is to always go for 40 Vigor, 20 Mind & 20 endurance first for any build, if you wanna use alot of weapons I'd go for at least 20 strength and dex to get a high variety of weapon choices if not u dont need to bother with this, with 2 hand u can get wield 30 strength weapons too, from there I go from where I need, am I power stancing, two handing, using spells, incantation.

[@Mc_Jordan2000]

20 strength and Dex would be high priority for a newer player as I'm assuming they want to use as many weapons as possible, but for expirenced players u will know what u need off the bat.

[@dklien6443]

​@@Mc_Jordan2000Facts

[@Chefwayurk]

Omg thank you for your hard work brother. I couldn’t figure out the defense stats. I love the game but it feels like work sometimes 😂

[@nastytechniquez9685]

I played a bunch of Elden Ring when it was brand new on Xbox series x. It was my first ever souls like game and I never beat the story. About a year ago I got a pc and waited for a sale to get Elden Ring again, holiday sale I got it again on steam. Looking for a refresher on the mechanics and found this. Damn dude this is the most in depth breakdown of stats and mechanics I’ve seen for any game potentially. Mad props for the time you must’ve taken to do videos like this. They’ll help tons of new and players like me returning to the game. You’re clearly very dedicated to what you do. You got my sub 100%

[@yamo511]

thanks man parts of this were a good refresher course after not playing the game for a few months

[@Journey1968]

Seriously… that helped so much. Thank you for caring enough to put out this Elden Ring content. This game is deep.

[@hedon89]

The Mike Tyson part from out of left field took me the fuck out ngl lmao.

[@BastianUllr]

What do you do for a living good sir? This level of detail and organization of ideas... quite the talent. Thanks for your time. Very valuable.

[@TheGhostInitiative]

I’m a grad student studying mechanical engineering and industrial design

[@eatgreencrayons]

Hey man, love the amount of research you did for this-. Any chance you can post a video with just the stat scaling graphs? Or link to them if they're posted somewhere else?

[@TheGhostInitiative]

All in the description

[@Kryptnyt]

The bit about the rolling I frames and recovery frames makes me think that for the purpose of rolling and queueing up a drink or an attack, the roll is using two different animations for the roll (or three? you can definitely skip the last chunk of recovery frames with some actions) and that's why when I roll and push the button to drink he doesn't always drink. It gets more annoying if I want to drink twice and think "Ok I'll roll and push the drink button twice that makes sense" only for the game to eat some or all of the inputs seemingly at random, and it seems like attacking after rolling always follows different rules. If I gain a more concrete understanding of when I've gotta push the button I think I can control the character better, of course. It's also nice to confirm that Vitality isn't as important early as it might seem from the urge to "make red bar bigger." As your durability from damage block and damage resistance goes up, increasing your hp becomes more valuable. This means that in the very early levels Vitality won't be giving you as big of a return as something that gets you to your next intended weapon and also increases your level defenses. Even leveling endurance early could increase your early durability more than leveling vitality early would if you can then slip on some heavier armor without fatrolling; and then as your hardness increases those vitality levels become more attractive.

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Yeah the older dark souls games were really bad about letting you queue up a ton of inputs and would really punish you if you were panic spamming roll/heal. I feel like it has gotten better over time and your character’s actions are a little bit more predictable in Elden Ring if you queued up multiple actions, but that could just be me being more conscious of not spamming the buttons when possible. It would definitely be interesting to see exactly what the timings are for all those animations.

[@wolfiemuse]

Vigor*

[@thethridking6432]

This is really good content wish a guide like this was around when i ft irst started now i play these really complex build in pvp some times i get smoked but when i come on top its awesome i pvp at 125 and 150 since shields are kinda bad athe moment i actually use like 40 endurance and about 50 str 57 vigor 14 dex 17 intelligence on my vagabond the only reason for 17 intel is so can get a little more damge out of the phalanx ash of war because i love that thing on the pike

[@conqueeftador4021]

Thanks

[@dredge1879]

Really helpful video man. Gonna make me build craft like how I do in Destiny lol😂😂😂

[@pieceofwax5828]

For anyone curious the tiny defence bonuses from specific attributes appear to have a soft cap at 32 and another somewhere between 50 and 60 This is useful for me because of my level 365 character on ng+8 that I’m currently trying to get every weapon and armour piece on the game on (and then fully upgrade those weapons) and I want to know what to level with the rune gain from bosses (I need 1.4million per level atm so it takes like half the early story bosses for 1 level (and 2-3 late game ones))

[@ysryashraj]

Yeah I’m sharing this video to anyone who starts playing Elden Ring. Wish this video was out before. Would’ve helped me out a lot

[@RoninBlade-ls5ex]

Dudeeeeeee I just need to say thank you ur tip about 51 poise literally just helped me beat malenia on my second play through rn. I was able to trade and deal the final blow Bc her hit didn’t stagger me

[@TheGhostInitiative]

That’s sick haha

[@twrecks4598]

Thanks again for your help! I hope when DLC comes out you'll do much more. I'm fuzzy on loot drop: does the drop chance percent occur when the opponent is killed, or when you loot it? Like if I'm farming for example and am running around with several opponents at once, is the loot that is dropped decided at the time they are killed, or when I come back afterwards and open the loot cache? I'm asking bc if I used the silver fowlfoot... i'm not sure if i should use it before killing everything, or before I start looting everything. Thanks in advance, keep up the great work!

[@TheGhostInitiative]

I am admittedly not positive about this, but I am fairly certain it is calculated on the kill, not the pickup. In my opinion, the way the description of discovery is worded in game implies that it simply increases the chance of finding an item at all, not finding more rare items, therefore you would want to boost your discovery stat before you kill the enemy.

[@asiadmajeed]

Firat timme here. Great video easy to follow and understand. I see myself as a noob:) so this is helpful

[@erasmus_locke]

99 intelligence and Azure's glintstone staff? Understood.

[@mwperk02]

I havent seen anyone mention it yet but you can skip out on your strength stat to some extent if your only interested in the 2 handed moveset. By 2 handing a weapon your strength gains a 1.5x virtual increase allowing you to meet the requirements to use it as well as increasing your strength saturation. This effect will always apply to bows since you need to 2 hand them to even attack with them and at 66 strength or higher 2 handing will effectively grant you 99 strength for your weapon damage this does make 66 strength something of a secret softcap for 2 handing as you really do start getting big diminishing returns from 2 handing beyond that point as even virtual strength will never go above 99 total strength. At 99 strength you won't see any total ar increase at all from 2 handing. A weapons 2h attacks will still probably do more damage but thats due to an invisible value built into each individual attack a weapon can do which accounts for things like heavy attacks doing more damage than light attacks and stuff.

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Yeah absolutely. If you’re ok with not being able to use the weapon with one hand you can definitely go for minimum strength requirements.

[@bogidrums]

apologies if I missed this being said in the video but when it comes to the Cold infusion does it have the same caps as the Keen Heavy and Occult infusions when it comes to the physical aspect of its damage? very well made video btw, super clean and everything was thoroughly explained!

[@TheGhostInitiative]

The physical part of split damage weapons will scale with the no-infusion curve, which will tell you your soft caps for str/dex. The magic damage on cold affinity scales with int, and the frostbite buildup just scales with your weapon level

[@bogidrums]

@@TheGhostInitiative ohhh i see, i was looking at it point by point in a build calculator and was wondering why it didnt seem to line up with 50 or 55 like the other infusions, must have skipped through that section on my first watch. thanks so much!

[@l.l.d.2129]

I could've used this when i started playing. 💀 Great video

[@c4n0]

very good job, the detailed information with graphs in this 50 minute video can save you a week of confusion on google

[@UndefeatedEagle]

Listenening to this during work . But im already lvl 300+

[@KainiusTheGreat]

I think the MOST important part of caps is if you're casual PvE, nearly none of this applies to you. Raise that key stat to 99 (STR goes higher!), it really doesn't matter. Yup, between certain levels your gains will be little -none, but the gains WILL come back, then after a certain point the gains get really slow....but they're still gains. Don't worry about being a sweaty tryhard and just have fun!

[@RecluseBootsy]

Exactly. Builds are so versatile there really is no wrong answer. And all those people who claim pumping vigor before strength is best just have lead feet and need to learn the more important skill: dodging.

[@KainiusTheGreat]

@@RecluseBootsy People get SUPER spooked when they see me at less than 18VIG (like 700HP)..."You don't know what you're doing, look at your VIG! You NEED to...blah blah blah" then they see me no death the entire series, rarely get hit...they get REAAAL quiet. My fav was someone commenting when I was playing Elden Ring, "You leveled INT to 85? Newb...lol. Soft cap is....blah blah blah".....not 5 minutes later, same doofus, "Why are you doing so much damage with Ranni's Dark Moon and the DMGS? You running hacks?"

[@kristofferjohansen2780]

⁠@@KainiusTheGreati wouldn’t even need to dogde vs u, i’d just trade and kill u lmao. pve or not, with that low vigor you are always at a disadvantage, it’s more than fine if you like playing the game this way, but vigor is the single most important stat in the game. anyone can run as a mage back dodging and spamming comet azur to beat the game, do the same on a strenght/dex build in pve and you’d have a really hard time

[@Worldly_Pitfall3]

@@RecluseBootsy parrying is also a good skill set

[@RecluseBootsy]

@KainiusTheGreat Sad times we live in. Folks are so bent on following the meta builds on youtube instead of experimenting and practicing with something they actually enjoy using. Although, you gotta love when they shush themselves by eating crow. 😂

[@slomoking]

Great info and very well explained. You know it's good when my 56yo mind understands it. Thank you!

[@fouriertransformationsucks438]

Nice, the good old engineering style and plots. Very nicely explained, are you an eng?

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Yes

[@churichurinfunflais5269]

Heya Man, that's a lot of information, I just lost it all Do you have any suggestions for video builds that you've done by chance? Thanks I subscribed

[@TheGhostInitiative]

I haven't done any build videos unfortunately, and I haven't really engaged in much Elden Ring content on youtube, so I'm probably the wrong person to ask for recommendations to other channels. It can be hard to find build videos that aren't "SUPER OP GAME-BREAKING ONE-SHOT" type videos, so if you're looking for something more tame, you might have to really dig on youtube sadly. If there is a certain playstyle, type of weapon, type of spell, etc. that you're interested in though, I might be able to give some recommendations and point you in the right direction...or if you do end up finding a build to copy and aren't quite sure why you're leveling certain attributes I might be able to help explain it. I think most of the information in this video will make much more sense once you start trying things out in-game, but it takes some time. Otherwise you could go for a pretty well-rounded quality build where you mostly focus on leveling strength and dexterity equally, with a few points into Faith, Int, and Arcane as needed, with the goal of being able to wield the vast majority of the weapons you come across. That way you can experiment with almost anything you find until you get your hands on a weapon that really interests you. Once you find something you like you can also respec your character to make a more optimized and focused build later. My other video about ashes of war and affinities is pretty similar to this one so it might also be a bit overwhelming information-wise, but, a key takeaway from that video is that any non-unique weapon in the game can pretty much be tailored to your desired playstyle and you can make them scale with almost any stats you want. With that in mind, I definitely think the first step is just figuring out what seems cool or fun to you, and worry about "the build" second. You can make almost anything at least viable in Elden Ring, if not actually pretty strong.

[@1siege]

My first play through I had no idea you could get more Memory Slots and I played through the whole game with like 4 slots lol

[@juicybossfights]

got a question. im hybrid dex/int. so soft caps are 30/45 as you say. im level 150 ish atm. so I have 45 dex and 52 int. (vigor 40, end 30, mind 20) i do some magic casting so im slightly edging to int. i dual wield mostly. moonveil rhw and cold uchigutana lhw. int is my main requirement, but my other hand weapon scales more with dex. Did I level correctly? and how should I level going forward? equally or slightly more in int?

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Yeah you definitely leveled the right way for those weapons. Moonveil and the cold uchigatana have almost identical dex scaling, but moonveil has really good int scaling, you're casting on the side, and you get some magic damage from the cold uchi, so leaning a little more into int makes perfect sense. If you plan to keep leveling for a while I would probably shoot for long term goals of 60 dex and 80 int especially if you plan to use more casting in the future. The frostbite buildup only scales with weapon upgrade level so you don't need to worry about that, and increasing dex is just going to give you a bit more physical damage and casting speed. I would recommend playing around with a damage calculator if you want to cap yourself at a certain level since you'll need to optimize a bit, but you're totally fine with your current strategy otherwise.

[@juicybossfights]

@TheGhostInitiative Awesome. Glad i did it right. Thanks for getting back to me and I'll keep the 60 80 in mind. to be honest, when i start ng+, im considering changing my build to mix things up a but and try other weapons. But your video and comment really helps to make sure I build it properly.. so Thanks again 👍

[@TheGhostInitiative]

@juicybossfights yeah I’ve always thrown builds out the window in ng+ myself. Just level everything so I can use whatever I feel like haha

[@ezcyberpup]

can you do a video explaining how sorcery scaling affects spell damage?

[@spence6195]

Was wondering why the Prince of Death staff started doing much less damage, I didn't know it was backloaded and going from 80 to 60 in both Int & Fai significatly decreased it's power. Thanks for the guide 👍

[@nedbigby9694]

I'm currently doing a bonk build, with the brick hammer, heavy affinity, with cragblade... I either 1 shot most things, or stagger them after 2-3 hits. Almost 60 poise to, so I just can't be stopped.

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Did you write about it in your declassified lands between survival guide?

[@nedbigby9694]

@@TheGhostInitiative I am in the process yes.

[@chrisparkhurst5158]

The Level stat actually does matter a lot. It determines the amount of runes required to upgrade the stats again. I don't know the formula, but after the first few levels it starts getting expensive, and when you're over level 100 it starts getting extremely expensive

[@FlyingFox86]

I'm surprised how little those front loaded catalysts drop off after 80, compared to the backloaded ones. That could have meant that front loaded catalysts are better if you go all the way up to level 99 for your casting stat, but that's not the case. Back loaded catalysts are still much better in that case.

[@JesusRodriguez-56]

You definitely need a lot more views that’s a lot of hard work

[@StarShade0]

It’s worth noting that dexterity also scales with casting speed of spells and incantations. No idea if there are soft caps, but the hard cap is 70 dex for the fastest casting. Azur’s staff has a virtual dex (casting speed dexterity equivalent) of 40, Radagon’s Icon has a virtual dex of 30.

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Yeah, hardcap at 70 and soft cap at 60, so if you’re focusing dex you’ll probably hit it anyway without both of those extra items, but if you do stack azur’s staff and radagon icon you can get away with almost no dexterity which is pretty nice.

[@ayemane2828]

I have a question, so i run twinblades, curved swords, and katanas, and i have both 80dex and 80 arcane, would it be better to run blood or occult on my weapons?

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Depends on whether the weapon has blood loss buildup to begin with. If it does have innate bleed, then definitely go with occult. Occult will lower the base bleed buildup a bit, but it adds arcane scaling, which means your arcane level is going to increase the bleed buildup anyway. Since your arcane level is so high, you're going to get plenty of extra bleed buildup to offset that initial decrease from the occult affinity so you should end up with a fairly high amount of bleed buildup in the end. However, occult will really kill your dexterity scaling, so your 80 dex won't be helping the weapon very much, but you’ll get so much physical damage from the arcane scaling at 80 arc anyway so that won’t matter. Now if the weapon doesn't have blood loss on it to begin with, you would either want to go with blood, which will add some blood loss and still leave you with a decent amount of dexterity scaling, or just go keen to get the most out of your 80 dex. If you go with keen you can still use something like the seppuku ash of war to temporarily add some bleed, or blood grease, or any other kind of grease/weapon buff depending on the weakness of whatever you're fighting. Since you use multiple types of weapons, I would just make one occult for high physical damage/bleed as your main weapon, and then pick another weapon with high base dexterity scaling, make it keen, and use it for buffing with other damage types for enemies that are immune to bleed.

[@ayemane2828]

@@TheGhostInitiative thanks dude, very helpful and informative, got yourself a sub

[@msarilyn7677]

Well, your endurance does come into play with poise due to equip load.

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Yes and no. Heavier sets definitely will typically have more poise, but there isn’t a constant correlation between weight and poise. Some sets have much better poise to weight ratios, it’s very inconsistent, so you can get a solid amount of poise without having to level endurance hardly at all, not to mention boosting poise with talismans. Endurance and equip load definitely CAN translate to more poise and often do since you can wear heavier armor, but it mostly depends on what armor you have access to and how efficient its poise to weight ratio is.

[@jefforious2000]

First tip... 0:27 in and mind -> blown

[@ZWOGs]

So… question… is it a “problem” if someone just hit 80 on all stats to reach the soft caps for everything? Ignoring diminished returns? Would that allow you to make any build you want just by swapping gear, instead of using Tears? Or would that cause issues somewhere?

[@TheGhostInitiative]

The only real downside is you will be outside of typical pvp metas, so might have a harder time finding people to invade or maybe even co-op with, but aside from that, no issues. With the exception of wanting to challenge yourself by not leveling up a lot, your overall level really only affects multiplayer. It would just be a super flexible jack of all trades build like you described.

[@ZWOGs]

@@TheGhostInitiative​​⁠okay, good to know. I am in between two builds right now and I don’t feel like having to go to a specific spot to respec each time I want to try the other out. But at the same time, I don’t want to limit my pvp, or be “that guy” who is lvl 640 lol. Things to think about. Thank you! Great video(s) btw!

[@TheGhostInitiative]

@ZWOGs yeah if you seriously want to pvp it’s pretty much always best to have a dedicated character for that. Figure out what level you want to pvp at, and then start crafting builds with that level cap in mind. You can always pvp with any character, but you’ll get a much bigger playerbase if you stick to the meta levels

[@TheRealJohnHooper]

For playing coop there is a level where all players from that level tp max level are in one summoning range. I think it is 300 or 350? There are plenty of coop players in this Max level range.

[@Vaz_G]

What about one handing vs two handing strength weapons?

[@johanteoulle5292]

I try to make my best to understand english. Perhaps i did not understood something and i need you. For caps, for exemple physical arcane with blood build, do we need to stop putting points at 80, or the cap is 80 so we should stop at 79 ? Ty for answer 👍👌

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Stop at 80

[@johanteoulle5292]

@@TheGhostInitiative OK. And should we do the same with other stats ? Vigor 39 instead 40, or real cap is 40, then only after degressive points etc etc ?

[@TheGhostInitiative]

@johanteoulle5292 yes, you can go all the way to the cap for all of the stats

[@suxix7312]

So how do we know for sure that Mike Tysons punch damage is actually a 26?

[@TheGhostInitiative]

It just seems to be slightly weaker than mine

[@user-fk9ur7wi4y]

We want elden ring or sekiro gameplay mannn ive been waiting since your ds3 gp

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Walkthrough is around the corner for Elden Ring and it's not nearly as scripted as this video so it will feel a little more Let's Play-ish. I've also been wanting to go back and finish the achievements for Sekiro so I could probably stream that or something in the future.

[@nachoramitas]

I noticed you placed the Staff of Loss both in the frontloaded category and the backloaded category, but which really is it?

[@TheGhostInitiative]

Backloaded. My mistake.

[@nachoramitas]

@@TheGhostInitiative Np man, thanks for the quick response and awesome video! Really helpful