Elden Ring Carian Sword Sorcery Build Guide - Warrior Wizard

May. 14, 2024

Elden Ring Carian Sword Sorcery Build Guide – Warrior Wizard

In this Elden Ring Carian Sword Sorcery Guide, I’ll be showing you my Warrior Wizard build. This is an NG+ build that focuses on the use of the Carian Sword Sorceries and weapon-based sorceries. You can play this build as an NG build, as there’s no reason you can’t do it. It’ll take you about halfway through the game in order to get all the equipment for it. I made it into an NG+ build as you’re capping out your Intelligence at the end of NG, as I wanted to see if its damage would be high enough for NG+.

A melee mage build that focuses on destroying enemies up close with weapon spells.

We have over 110Elden Ring Buildsnow, for all classes and playstyles. This build is recommended for level 150.

The staff that we’re going to use for this Carian Sword Sorcery build is theCarian Regal Scepter. This has good sorcery scaling, 373 at 80 Intelligence, which is basically about as good as you can get it if you’re not using Lusat’s Glintstone Staff which increases the FP cost of your spells by 50%. You’ll be using this most of the time when you’re moving around the landscape from checkpoint to checkpoint.

We’ll also be usingLusat’s Glintstone Staffhere which is 413 sorcery scaling, 40 higher than the Carian Regal Scepter, which we’ll be using as our alternative weapon. You can use this for tough fights or bosses. I like to use this in fights where the amount of FP I have is not the issue, it’s dealing damage as quickly as possible. If you use this between checkpoints, you’re going to run through FP management problems. However, in boss fights, you want to deal as much damage as possible in a short time, which is what Lusat’s Glintstone Staff is used for.

On my offhand is theCarian Glintstone Staff. I have this upgraded to +25, and I’ll explain why a bit later. Essentially, what we’re mainly using this for is because it boostsCarian Sword Sorceries. You only have to hold this out when you’re casting these spells in order to get its buff. When we’re casting with Carian Regal Scepter or Lusat’s Glintstone Staff, this will still going to get that damage increase from this staff when using Carian Sword Sorceries.

I am also using theCarian Knight’s Shield. This gives you an option to block attacks, although you can’t do block counters as you don’t have a true melee weapon. You can put Carian Retaliation here if you want, or you can leave it with no skill to use Spinning Weapon while using Carian Regal Scepter. You could also put Barricade Shield if you want to be able to block attacks better. All these things are up to you, depending on what you want to do with that shield. You don’t even have to use the shield for this build, it’s just another option because you already have enough damage with this in your build. You don’t have to keep the Carian Glintstone Staff on your offhand to one-shot enemies.

For the armor, I’m using theBeast Champion Setwith theGreathelm. The reason for that is that it has good protection and Poise. You can use any armor set here that has these things if you want, but I just prefer the way this armor looks. If you change it from the altered version back to the regular one, this has an amazing flowing cape in the back. This is my favorite armor piece in the whole game, as it just looks amazing. It sort of gives you this Enchanted Knight Mage feel to it, and I think it really looks cool.

The talismans for this Carian Sword Sorcery build are:Magic Scorpion Charm,Graven-Mass Talisman,Radagon Icon, andDragoncrest Greatshield Talisman.

Magic Scorpion Charmis going to increase the damage of all your spells here, as they’re all magic damage. You’re getting 100% efficacy out of that which is fantastic.Graven-Mass Talismanhas a similar effect with it, as it’s going to increase the damage of your sorceries.

We also have theDragoncrest Greatshield Talismanto give us even further protection. It’s probably a little overkill, as you can swap this out withRitual Sword Talismanif you want to get more damage. I just find that because you’re playing as a melee build, you’re going to get hit more than other ranged-style Mage. If you mix in spells that have range, it could be a better option. However, for this build, almost all of the spells I have are for melee.

Lastly, we haveRadagon Icon. This is going to speed up the rate at which you cast spells likeCarian Slicer,Carian Greatsword, andAdula’s Moonblade. These will get triggered faster, especially when you’re chaining them back-to-back. We don’t have any points in Dexterity, so this will be beneficial for faster cast time.

First up isTerra Magica. When you put this on the ground, you’re going to get a huge boost to your magic damage, which is all your spells. Ideally, you would drop this at the beginning of a boss fight, after walking through the boss fog. Try to stay inside it while you’re fighting, which will be relatively easier than other builds since you’re a melee build with good protection. Getting it dropped at the right spot will be a challenge for other people.

The only range spell we have here isLoretta’s Greatbow. I was going with the theme of this weapon, like a mage that summons weapons and only using summoned weapons. You’re summoning aGreatbowfor this build, which is awesome. It has very long range, and you can charge it up for extra damage. It could get a lot of enemies killed before they get to you, putting you in a much better situation because you’re playing like 90% melee. There are situations where you would just be completely outnumbered if you didn’t use this. You can use Terra Magica with this to boost its damage while sniping down enemies from afar.

Next up isCarian Slicer, which is a staple of any melee mage build. It’s the cheapest of the melee spells, and it deals enough damage to one-shot most enemies at this point in the game. It’s a spell that you’re going to use situationally, although you’ll use it much less throughout NG+ as its damage won’t be able to keep up with basic enemies. However, I use it more on boss fights where I can just spam Carian Slicer fast because we have Radagon Icon. It’s going to go even faster, and it allows you to just chew away a boss’s HP while they’re in some sort of long animation, particularly bosses that have long wind-ups. This also benefits from talismans likeWinged Sword InsigniaorRotten Winged Sword Insignia, so if you’re planning to go with this strategy for a boss fight, you might want to put those on before starting the fight.

We’re going to useCarian Greatsword, which does way more damage and has more reach than Carian Slicer but attacks much slower. You’re definitely not going to get as much DPS with Carian Greatsword than Carian Slicer, so I don’t recommend using this for a boss fight. This is great for packs of enemies, and it is much cheaper to use thanAdula’s Moonbladein terms of FP cost. We have a lot of FP for this build, so that’s not really a huge deal. What I use this for mostly is on horseback, as it’s harder to hit enemies with Carian Slicer in that situation.

Adula’s Moonbladeis a better version of Carian Greatsword. Not only does it deal more damage in general, but it also applies Frostbite. It also has a wave that shoots out, so its range is much farther than Carian Greatsword. If you’re trying to AoE down a pack of enemies, this is a better way to go. I generally use Adula’s Moonblade when I’m out on the landscape, fighting multiple enemies regularly. We have so much FP with this build, and lots of FP flasks, so it’s really easy to just start swinging from a distance, even if it’s only one or two enemies. You could do this with Carian Greatsword if you want since it’s not super expensive, but I just find Adula’s Moonblade easier to deal with. You can spam this on bosses, kind of a similar strategy to the Moonlight Greatsword.

Next up isCarian Piercer, which deals a good amount of damage. It probably deals a little bit more damage than Carian Greatsword. It does a thrusting animation, which kind of has a long wind-up. I like to use it against enemies on horseback, as it can go through obstacles. I also use it against NPC invaders because they run into it over and over. It’s very situational, but it’s nice to have in your repertoire.

The last spell that we’re using for this Carian Sword Sorcery build isGavel of Haima. This was buffed in patch 1.07, as its FP cost and stamina consumption has been reduced. It also has increased stamina attack power against guards, and the power of the hammer portion of the spell has been increased. This spell is great because it summons a big Greathammer that you can attack with once, then follow-up with another attack, with good AoE and Poise damage. With our upgraded Carian Glintstone Staff, you can keep spamming this with R1 and L1 repeatedly, stunlocking some enemies with it. You can stagger some bosses with this because of the high Poise damage, which is kind of fun to do.

The attributes I have for this Carian Sword Sorcery build are: 52Vigor, 41Mind, 34Endurance, 10Strength, 12Dexterity, 80Intelligence, 7Faith, and 9Arcane. You don’t need any Faith or Arcane for this build, so you can set these attributes aside.

When it comes to Strength and Dexterity, you’ll only be needing 10 of each. Carian Regal Scepter requires 10 Dexterity while Lusat’s Glintstone Staff and Carian Knight’s Shield requires 10 Strength, with the shield requiring 10 Dexterity. My starting class started with 12 Dexterity, so I can’t go any lower than this.

52 Vigor is plenty at this point of the game, although you want to gradually increase it to 60. You have decent protection, but you are at melee-range. You’re going to be taking damage sometimes, and it’s going to be unavoidable.

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to take Vigor or Mind up first, so I have 41 Mind. You go through a lot of FP with this build, as every attack consumes FP. Having a lot of Mind is essential, especially since you’re going to use Lusat’s Glintstone Staff for boss fights. You should increase this to 50 throughout the course of NG+.

34 Endurance is just enough to medium roll with this set-up. If you’re not using the shield, you can get away with less Endurance but you will notice that a lot of restrictions for casting spells will be your stamina. If you spam Gavel of Haima, you’re going to run out of stamina really quickly. Having extra stamina isn’t bad for this build, and you really can’t have enough stamina.

Lastly, 80 Intelligence hits the last soft cap for damage in terms of sorcery scaling. At some point, you’ll want to take this up to 99, as that’s the only way to increase your damage with this build aside from shuffling your talismans around.

If you’re using the Flask of Wondrous Physick, you’re going to want to use theMagic-Shrouding Cracked Tearas our damage is 100% magic. That’s going to boost your damage for boss fights and tough enemies, so make sure to use that whenever you need it. If you could do repeated attacks or plan to spam Carian Slicer, you could also useThorny Cracked Tear. If you’re planning on using Gavel of Haima,Stonebarb Cracked Tearcan be used to increase your Poise damage. Otherwise, Greenburst Crystal Tear for stamina recovery is always good.

Lastly, if you’re going to use aGreat Runewith this build, I would recommend usingRadahn’s Great Rune. This gives you additional HP, FP, and stamina for this build. All those things are super useful, as you can’t have enough of those three in this build. You don’t really need any more attributes for this build after a few more levels, soGodrick’s Great Runeisn’t going to do anything for this.

That’s it for our Warrior Wizard Build Guide! As always, let us know if you have questions or other tips in the comments below. We have a ton more builds coming for Elden Ring andShadow of the Erdtreeso stay tuned for those. If you need help finding items, and securing some personal objectives, make sure to check theElden Ring Map. Happy building!

Castielle

Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.