Elden Ring Death's Poker Build Guide - Ghostblade

May. 14, 2024

Elden Ring Death’s Poker Build Guide – Ghostblade

In this Elden Ring Death’s Poker Build Guide, I’ll be showing you my Ghostblade build. This is an all-game build that focuses on the use of the Death’s Poker Greatsword.

Ghostblade is a quality build that utilizesDeath’s Pokerand its unique weapon skillGhostflame Ignition. This skill primarily scales with intelligence to heavy damage to targets. This build also utilizes Strength and Dexterity to effectively wield the Death Poker when dealing normal attacks to targets.

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

Death’s Pokeris aGreatsword, which is rather light for a Greatsword. It has nativeFrostbitebuild-up on it, which is fantastic. The damage of this weapon isn’t that good for a Greatsword. However, its weapon skill,Ghostflame Ignition, is exceptional. It’s a skill where you thrust your sword forward, then doing a Ghostflame effect that deals magic damage repeatedly. It builds up the Frostbite effect while enemies are getting hit, then the R2 attack does an explosion that does magic damage.

What’s interesting aboutGhostflame Ignitionis that it does 100% magic damage, but the weapon mostly deals physical damage with poor magic scaling. You can increase Intelligence to further boost the damage of this weapon skill, but it won’t add a lot of damage to the melee attacks of this weapon.

I prioritized increasing Dexterity and Strength since these attributes increase the damage of the melee attacks of Death’s Poker, which is rather low to begin with. If you don’t increase these attributes, you’re going to be doing very low melee damage with your regular attacks. You’re not going to be using the weapon skill on every single enemy you face, and it doesn’t really do much damage. It’s probably better to lean towards Strength and Dexterity in order to have a decent melee attack while having a good weapon skill.

For the R1 and R2 attacks, I feel like the R1 is much more potent in terms of using it prematurely against bosses in order to set-up a ground fire effect so that they will walk into it. They’ll fight while standing on it, triggering Frostbite which usually interrupts them to set you up to attack them. You can set this up very well on bosses that tend to walk towards you, which is most of them, so it works fantastically in that scenario. I feel like it does more damage compared to the R2, as some bosses jump backwards out of the R2 when you use it. You’ll even miss with the R2, whereas the R1 will eventually get them with the fire on the ground.

What I love about Death’s Poker is that it’s not too far into the game. You’ll have to defeat aDeath Rite Birdin the lower parts of theSwamp of Aeonia. You could beeline into at the beginning of them game, maybe get summons to help you defeat it. You can defeat it pretty quickly, especially if you have experience. You can play 85-90% of the game with this, which is great.

We’re usingScorpion Kite Shieldfor block counters, as it matches the theme. It has 64 Guard Boost, which is pretty strong for a medium shield. You should aim to do block counters early on in the game, and pair it withAssassin’s Cerulean Daggerto gain FP back. This shield is not optimal, as you would probably be using aGreatshieldfor this build because you have the equip load to use a better shield.

I also have theStaff of Losson my offhand, but you can use any staff you like. I have this equipped so that we’ll be able to useTerra Magicaoccasionally, because this boosts your magic damage by 35% while you’re inside the circle. If you go into a boss fight, you should use this as it will significantly boost Ghostflame Ignition’s damage. You will annihilate bosses with the buff, although it’s not something you can use all the time. Early on in the game, FP management is going to be difficult, but this is a spell you can use to deal a huge amount of damage.

As far as armor goes, I’m usingSanguine Noble Hoodfor my helmet andMaliketh’s Setfor the rest of the pieces. I’m going for that black and gold look, which I think fits the Ghostblade theme. However, this isn’t exactly optimized because the Poise is below 51 or 56, so I have to useBull-Goat’s Talismanfor it. You’re using up a talisman slot for it, but I prioritize fashion in some of these builds. You won’t be getting this set early on in the game, so I suggest using Knight Set. It has 51 Poise by default, giving you enough to not use up a talisman slot.

Two good starter talismans for this Elden Ring Death’s Poker build areWarrior Jar ShardorShard of Alexander. Whichever you have will be good for boosting the damage of Ghostflame Ignition.Magic Scorpion Charmwill also straight up boost the damage of Ghostflame significantly, so I would look out for that.

I like theDragoncrest Greatshield Talismanfor further protection if you’re using the Magic Scorpion Charm.Curved Sword Talisman, which you can get early on in the game, is also really good for this build because it increases guard counter damage by 20%. You could also useCarian Filigreed Crestto get Ghostflame Ignition’s FP cost down from 25 to 19.

The attributes for this Death’s Poker build at level 150 are: 50Vigor, 31Mind, 32Endurance, 35Strength, 45Dexterity, 20Intelligence, 7Faith, and 9Arcane. As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be using Terra Magica for this build, which is the reason why I have 20 Intelligence.

Strength and Dexterity is there to boost the damage of your weapon. Again, its attack rating isn’t that high for a Greatsword. It’s very light and it scales better with Dexterity than Strength. However, if you’re two-handing it, you might get a little bit more out of Strength. Also, if you plan to use a Greatshield, you’ll want to have some Strength. You could go for 55 Dexterity and 25 Strength, which is a pretty good attribute spread in my opinion.

Endurance-wise, you simply need enough to meet your equip load while being able to do a medium roll. I have over the amount that I need here, so you could probably go for heavier armor. Having heavier armor will be optimal, as it’ll allow you to drop Bull-Goat’s Talisman for one of the talismans I mentioned.

For Mind, you’re going to want to increase it more than 31 Mind. Keep in mind that Ghostflame Ignition costs 25 FP in total, 15 FP for the initial then 10 for the follow-up. You should probably get 200 FP in total, which would allow you to cast Ghostflame Ignition eight times before using a flask. It’s not so important later on in the game, but try to hit at least 100 FP early on.

Vigor is at 50 here, which keeps us in a good spot. You have pretty good protection, which keeps you alive.

As you’re going through the game, your priority should be to meet the minimum requirements for the weapon, which isn’t high. You can meet those fairly early on in the game. Strength and Dexterity doesn’t affect the weapon skill damage, so upgrading it is going to give you most of your damage. You don’t need to focus on Strength and Dexterity, so you can focus more on Vigor, Mind, and Endurance.

When it comes to the Flask of Wondrous Physick, I use theMagic-Shrouding Cracked Tearto further boost our magic damage when we’re fighting with this. You can use this in boss fights or in stretches of the game to increase your damage. It’s not going to boost it tremendously because the weapon itself doesn’t have a lot of magic damage, but it will boost your Ghostflame Ignition a lot because it’s pure magic damage.

I’m also using theGreenburst Crystal Tearto increase my stamina recovery. You could also add attribute crystal tears such as Intelligence-knot Crystal Tear to give you more damage.

ForGreat Runes, I would recommend eitherGodrick’s Great RuneorRadahn’s Great Rune. You use 6 of the 8 attributes in this build, so Godrick’s Great Rune is going to be good early on to help meet some of the attribute requirements for this set-up. Radahn’s Great Rune gives you more health, stamina, and FP, which is good in general. You’re going to get Godrick’s Great Rune earlier than Radahn’s Great Rune, so you might consider swapping these two runes.

That’s it for our Ghostblade 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.