Elden Ring Bolt of Gransax Build - Lightning Dragoon Guide
Apr. 4, 2024Elden Ring Bolt of Gransax Build – Lightning Dragoon Guide
In thisElden Ring Bolt of Gransax Build Guide, I’m going to be showing you myLightning Dragoonbuild. This is a level 150 version of theLightning Lancerbuild that uses a similar weapon and shield setup, but changes its stat spread around a little bit. So if you remember in theLightning Lancerbuild, we focused a lot on blocking with a great shield.
A Quality (Strength/Dexterity) melee build that uses the Bolt of Gransax and a Greatshield to electrifying effect
We have over 110Elden Ring Buildsnow, for all classes and playstyles. This build is recommended forLevel 150.
We used a spear and we used lightning-type spells in order to deal damage at range when necessary. The theme and the style of this gameplay are very similar, except instead of using incantations to deal damage here, we’re actually usingAncient Lightning Spear, which is the weapon ability ofBolt of Gransax.
The reason that we swapped to this is that this weapon ability hits much, much harder thanLightning Speardoes with a similar setup. It has much further range and it’ll allow you to have the same exact play style with a better stat spread and to be more effective in general playing that way. Let’s talk aboutBolt of Gransax first.
The shield I’m using for this build is theGolden Greatshield. I really love this shield. This is the same one we used in theLightning Lancerbuild. I love the way it looks. It has a good hitbox protection area, like it’s not likely enemy attacks are going to slip under or over accidentally very easily.
Enemies rebuff off of it when they attack, allowing you to do Block Counters more easily than with a regular shield. And the guard boost is crazy at 78. This actually allows us to get away without usingBarricade Shieldbecause of the nerf toBarricade Shieldnow. It’s just really not that easy to use and it’s kind of a bit overkill with this build because you have such a high guard boost. And this allows you to use theAncient Lightning Speareasily without having to swap to two-hand to cast it.
And the seal that I’m using for this build is theFrenzied Flame Seal. You can use whatever seal you want. I don’t even have it upgraded here.
I’m really only using the seal forGolden VowandFlame, Grant Me Strength. I don’t really need it for anything else or maybeBlack Flame’s Protection. We’re not trying to focus on incantations with this build necessarily because we replaced that withAncient Lightning Spear. However, you could upgrade this one and still have some decent incantation scaling because you’ll have a lot of points and strength andDexterityand you will have some points inFaith. When it comes to armor for this build, I’m using theConsort’s Mask. This gives me plus one dexterity. I kind of like the look of it with this build. I didn’t like the armor, but I liked the headpiece.
Otherwise, we’re using theLeyndell Knight Armor Set, which is the same armor set that we were using for theLightning Lancerbuild. I’ve just replaced the headpiece to get extra dexterity. You could actually use anOkina Maskas well here to get even moreDexterityif you want.
When it comes to talismans for this build, I’m usingCarian Filigreed Crest,Ritual Sword Talisman,Shard of Alexander,andRadagon’s Soreseal.
Carian Filigreed Crestis there to reduce the cost ofAncient Lightning Spear, putting it in a range where you can use it regularly, but maybe not on every single enemy. You don’t need to use it on regular enemies because you have such a high block you have good Block Counter damage and you can attack safely while blocking with this build, taking out regular enemies. Although it might be a little bit slower than some builds, isn’t dangerous. And you really only need to use thatAncient Lightning Spearlike on difficult enemies that are trying to range you down. I also have theRitual Sword Talismanto help boost not only myAncient Lightning Speardamage but also my regular attacks.
One of the things about this build is your regular attack damage isn’t super high. This spear doesn’t have a ton of damage because it’s split between physical and a little bit of lightning. It doesn’t deal a lot of melee damage in general. It’s still pretty good when you get off a critical attack or when you do aBlock Counter, etc. But this helps to boost that damage. And I feel like if you add theLightning Scorpion Charmhere to boostAncient Lightning Spearand to boost the lightning damage, you don’t get as much damage on the regular attacks and you also get the negative of taking more damage. And we already have Radagon’s Soreseal in this build. So then you’d be taking a lot more damage, which is why I’m not using that here. But you could do that if you wanted.Shard of Alexanderis there to increase the damage with theAncient Lightning Spear.
You want this to hit as hard as it possibly can to one-shot enemies when you attack them on the landscape, or maybe two-shot them if they’re difficult and to deal as much damage as possible during boss fights.Radagon’s Soresealis a good choice for this build because you need strength and dexterity for damage scaling of the weapon as well as its requirements. You need more stamina in order to block.
You need equip weight because you’re using a great shield. And you need HP because you’re usingRadagon’s Soreseal. So you’re going to take more damage. So you want to have a high FP pool. One thing I want to note here too before I move on to the next bit is that I do swap out my spear sometimes. If you’re fighting an enemy that’s highly lightning-resistant, you’re going to want to have a backup spear.
Cleanrot Spearis a pretty good choice. This also has some faith scaling on it and you have someFaithso it’s not completely wasted. And this does holy damage and it does a good AoE in front of you as well. So it’s good at AoEing enemies and facing enemies that are big tends to hit them multiple times, which is good. So that’s an option or you can stick with a tree spear. It’s also not a bad option if you’re using that from the previous build. You’re kind of going to swap back and forth between these as necessary if you’re fighting lightning-resistant enemies. That shouldn’t be very often. So it’s not something you need to do all the time. But having a backup spear like theTreespearorCleanrot Spearwill hold you in good stead for those instances where they are lightning resistant.
So the three spells I use with this build areGolden Vow,Blessing’s Boon, andFlame, Grant Me Strength.
Golden Vowself-explanatory increases your damage by 15% and reduces the damage that you take. Really good all around for any build. We meet the requirements here with it with 25 faith so it’s good to have.Blessing’s Boonis there to keep you topped off healthwise that way Ritual Sword Talisman will stay active and give you that 10% boost. You shouldn’t take a ton of damage with this build. You’re going to be blocking a lot. You won’t get hit all that often.
Sometimes you’ll need to use a potion but this can stay there to help top you off. Maybe the potion doesn’t get you to 100% maybe gets you to 90-95. This will carry the rest of the way to re-trigger that which is good.Flame, Grant Me Strengthalthough it won’t give any more fire damage to you because you’re not using anything that uses fire damage here it will give you more physical damage which is good in boss fights or tough enemy fights where you’re going to be in melee range.
Again your spear doesn’t deal a ton of damage so boosting as much physical damage as you can will be good. So the general strategy of this build is a lot more defensive than something likethe Crusader.The Crusaderuses sword dance or some other weapon ability likeDouble Slashto be aggressive against enemies attacking them before they attack.
This build is more reactionary meaning you’re waiting for enemies to attack into your shield so then you canBlock Counteragainst them to stagger them and critically strike them or attack with R1 while you’re blocking in order to protect yourself while dealing damage and since you have really high guard boost and a good protection area with aGreatshieldyou can get away without usingBarricade Shieldhere like we were using in the past.
One thing I want to focus on is that because you’re using a great shield a lot of attacks will rebuff off your shield giving you a much easier timeBlock Counteringcompared to if you’re using a medium shield because the attacks rebuff so you get like a window to attack and it’s not every attack that happens but a lot of regular attacks this makes doingBlock Countersa lot easier even if you’re using a slower counter weapon which the spear isn’t. Spears have really good range too forBlock Counteringwhich makes them hit more often so that’s good.
And then you’re going to useAncient Lightning Spearto take out dangerous threats from range or you’re going to use them to take out ranged enemies that you can’t get to very easily. It’s basically going to have to replace Lightning Spear in your repertoire except it has way longer range and it can deal even more damage if you charge it up. You could actually useGodfrey Iconwith this build to increase the damage it does when you charge it up. I didn’t put it here because I feel like what I have is a good blend between usingAncient Lightning Spearwhen you need it and playing a meleeBlock Counterplaystyle.
If you want to lean all the way into just usingAncient Lightning Spearyou could probably set up a build that’s just 100% maximize the effectiveness of that but I don’t feel like you would do anything but cast Lightning Spear the whole time and some people have criticized me for doing builds where you just press one button and this build is a bit more dynamic this way I think.
When it comes to stats for this build I have 45Vigor, 30Mind, 32Endurance, 35Strength, 65Dexterity, 9Intelligence, 25Faith, and 9Arcane. Keep in mind thatRadagon Iconis affecting these stats so there are five more points intoVigor,Endurance,Strength, andDexteritythan would be there without that equipped.
5Vigoris there so that you can take a hit and keep on swinging. You do haveRadagon Iconequipped so you’re going to take more damage than you would otherwise. You are going to be usingGolden Vowwhich will offset some of that and you are going to be blocking a lot so you shouldn’t be getting hit that often. That’s why I didn’t go all the way up to 50 or higher with it but you do want a decent amount because you are going to be playing melee a lot of the time. 30Mindis there in order to allow you to use all the buffs you need with this build regularly and to castAncient Lightning Spearwhile keeping three to fourBlue Flasks.
Ancient Lightning Spearis like the fun of this build, being able to just shred an enemy at distance and then go back to meleeing something else and you want to be able to do it every time you want to do it. You don’t want to constantly have to manage your FP or not use it on that guy because you’re not going to have it for another guy and with 30 you have plenty of FP and you can use it basically whenever you want. 32 Endurance is there because you’re wearing medium to heavy-ish armor you’re wearing a Greatshield and that allows you to still medium roll. Also, you want the extra stamina as well because you are blocking you’re not usingBarricade Shieldso you are going to lose stamina when you block that will give you a substantial stamina pool to block with that will still allow you to attack with R1.
35Strengthis there because you need 34Strengthin order to use the great shield that we’re using I just rounded it up to a nice 35. It also increases the damage of your weapon so that’s good too. It’s not as effective asDexterityin terms of overall damage but you definitely need 34 minimally for the shield so it’s not wasted completely to just go into that shield it is increasing your damage as well.
65Dexterityis our primary stat here because you want to increase the damage of your attacks the most andDexteritydoes that the best. Also,Ancient Lightning Spearonly scales off points andDexteritypoints andStrengthdon’t affectAncient Lightning Spear’sdamage so you want to go heavily intoDexterityif you can. It actually scales really well very very high so moving forward with this build you’ll probably want to take this up to 80 to get even more damage withAncient Lightning Spearand your melee attacks.
We don’t needIntelligencefor this build which is why I have 9 and 25Faithis there to meet the requirements forGolden Vowand to be able to useBlessing’s Boonso that’s really why we have it. Those help to increase our damage and defenses there’s really no reason not to have those particularly if you start as a confessor like I did with this build because you already have 14 points intoFaithso 11 points is not a huge investment and we have zero points inArcanebecause we don’t need that stat.
Lastly, when you’re going into boss fights with this or fighting tough stretches of enemies you’re going to use theFlask of Wondrous Physickand you’re going to use the lightning shrouded cracked here in order to increase your lightning damage or if you’re using one of the other spears the ones that deal holy damage likeTreespearorCleanrot Spearyou’ll swap this to holy damage instead to boost your holy damage with their attacks and their weapon skills so that’s really good to do and then also the one theGreenburstone that increases your stamina recovery is good.
I really love theGreen Turtle TalismanI like to put it in my block builds, there isn’t really room for it in this build, this is a good way to get you through boss fights and still recover your stamina quickly. That’s it for theLightning Dragoonguide. As always, let us know if you have questions or other tips in the comments below.
We have a ton more builds coming forElden RingandShadow of the Erdtreeso stay tuned for those. If you need help finding the spells, items, or equipment in this build, and securing some personal objectives, make sure to check theElden Ring Map.
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
