Elden Ring Grave Scythe Build Guide - Grim Reaper

Apr. 13, 2024

Elden Ring Grave Scythe Build Guide – Grim Reaper

In this Elden Ring Grave Scythe Build Guide, I’m going to be showing you my Grim Reaper build, which is a NG+ build that focuses on the use of a scythe and some incantations.

A Strength/Arcane build that uses a Reaper and the Stormcaller Ash of War to shred enemies in seconds.

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The reason I chose theGrave Scythehere is not only for the visuals, I like the way this weapon looks, but it also has fantastic damage and it outperforms the scythe of the two Reapers that can be infused. So it’s a good choice here, particularly since we’re going to go with heavy scaling and it has phenomenal heavy scaling.

So essentially what I’ve done here is I’ve set theGrave Scytheto heavy and I put theStormcallerAsh of Waron it.Stormcallerwas buffed in patch 1.07. its motion speed increased, its attack power increased, its poise damage increased, and the skill size of it has been increased as well.

So the whole skill has been pretty much buffed from top to bottom, and it absolutely shreds in this build. Originally, when I started playing around withStormcaller, I realized that you hit so rapidly with the weapon so many times that having some sort of status effect on your weapon was the way to go here.

And since theGrave Scytheor scythes in general, have blood loss buildup on them natively, it seemed like a good pairing. And then when you combine it with something likeBloodflame BladeorPoison Blade, you also get additional blood buildup or poison buildup as well. So it’s just a really nice combination.

Because we’re sort of focusing on status effect buildups, we’re using theDragon Communion Sealhere, because giving us Arcane to scale with our seal instead ofFaithis going to increase the effectiveness of the status effect buildup with these spells, withBloodflame Blade, withSwarm of Flies, withPoison Mist, etc.

So it’s more effective than casting it in terms of the status effects than if you were casting it with aFaith seal. This also allows you to cast other spells rather effectively.

We have 277 incantation scaling with 45Arcane. That’s pretty good in my opinion. You can get more if you increaseArcanehigher, and you probably will as you progress through NG++, if you take this build that far. But that’s not a bad incantation scaling for casting spells. It’s not amazing, but it’s not terrible either. So you could add other incantations besides the ones that I’m using for this build.

The armor that I’ve chosen for this build is theRoyal Remains set. This is sort of more for cosplay than anything, sort of making that Reaper sort of look to it. You can use whatever you want here. This is not a must by any means, but I sort of like the aesthetic.

This armor set also gives you HP regeneration if your health drops very low, which is kind of cool. It doesn’t happen very much with this build. You’re usually absolutely decimating things. But it’s just a kind of cool effect on it. If you were probably min-maxing though, you would probably use theWhite Maskhere to get more attack power withBlood Lossbuildup.

So that’s if you’re going for true min-maxing, that’s probably what I’d put. And probably some sort of armor that gives you enough, like 51 poise combined with aWhite Maskis probably how you would min-max it if that’s what you were going for.

When we’re taking a look at the talismans we use for this build, we’ve gotShard of Alexander, which increases the damage ofStormcaller. We use this all the time, so that’s great.

We’ve gotRotten Winged Sword InsigniaandMillicent’s Prosthesishere in order to give us more damage as we hit repeatedly becauseStormcallerhits so many times in a row, particularly if you’re surrounded by enemies, this is going to build up real fast.

And when you combine this withLord of Blood’s Exultationand you trigger that bleeding effect like on a boss, your attack power just skyrockets. Fully buffed withGolden Vow,Flame, Grant Me Strength, and these three talismans, I’ve had over 2300 attack power at one point with this build, which is just insane. It’s just crazy. And that’s without theWhite Mask. So you could probably get 2500 attack power fully buffed with this.

If you don’t have theRotten Winged Sword Insignia, you can just useWinged Sword Insigniainstead. That’s not a bad replacement.

When it comes to the spells we use for this build, we’ve gotGolden Vow, which we actually don’t meet the requirements for at this point of the game, but I’ll explain how we use it in a minute.

We’ve gotFlame, Grant me Strengthto further boost your physical damage. You do almost exclusively physical damage. You do a little fire damage when you’re buffed withBloodflame Blade, but not much because our faith is not very high.

I’ve thrown inBestial Vitalityhere just as a way to give you some healing over time. You have a lot of health and it doesn’t give you a ton of healing, but it’s not a bad way to sort of just like top up your health periodically. You’re going to have a lot of FP with this build. So it’s not a bad thing to have there. You don’t have to have it, but I just find it useful now and then.

We also haveBloodflame BladeandPoison Armament. One of these will give you fire damage,Bloodflame Bladeand further bleed build up adding to your weapon and will also give you theBloodflamesort of ability, meaning like if you hit enemies with it, their bleeding build-up will like continue to go up a little bit in between attacks, which will prevent it from going down, which is really nice.

Combined with the native blood build-up of theGrave Scythe,this workswell on bosses. And then we have Poison Armament here as well. There’s no reason not to have this one. If you’re fighting bosses that are immune to bleeding, like theCrucible Knight, for instance, or other bosses, it’s a good alternative. You can swap out theLord of Blood’s ExultationforKindred of Rot’s Exultationto basically give you the same attack power. Still, you just won’t be triggeringHemorrhage, which will reduce your damage overall against that enemy, but it’s better than them being immune to bleed. So it’s a good way to put Poison on them, which will give you a little bit of extra damage boost you wouldn’t get anyway.

And in addition to that, I’ve gotSwarm of FliesandPoison Misthere as well.Swarm of Fliesyou can cast at the beginning of the fight to help you get that blood build up a lot faster after your buff withBloodflame Blade, which is great. I only use it usually just like the first cast. AndPoison Mist, same thing. You throw this out like right away at the beginning of the boss fight, hopefully, lure the boss into it, and then attack with your Poison Armament weapon and hopefully trigger that Poison right away on him. So it’s just a nice little addition. You don’t use it all the time, usually at the beginning of boss fights for those two spells.

I don’t use any other incantations for this build. I focus heavily on the use of theGrave Scythefor most of my damage. Regular attacks are still usually one shot. Most enemies will two shot them in a lot of cases. But you can add other spells to this build.

As I mentioned, you have decent incantation scaling, and if you prioritizeArcanegoing forward, you’d have even better incantation scaling, making your spells even more deadly.

So the general strategy with this build is basically I just buff withBloodflame Bladeas I’m running around on the landscape. I don’t buff withGolden VoworFlame, Grant me Strengthtypically. And I’ll just R1 attack or running R1, jumping R1. Most enemies, except the difficult enemies, I will use Stormcaller. Or if there’s like a big pack of enemies, I’ll useStormcaller. I’m trying to lure them all together and just mow them down with that real fast.

Otherwise, it’s a pretty straightforward build. You’re just relying onStormcallerfor the difficult hits. We’re using your regular attacks for pretty much everything else.

When it comes to attributes for this build, I have 50Vigor, 30Mind, 25Endurance, 50Strength, 18Dexterity, 16Intelligence, 15Faithand 45Arcane.

So talking aboutVigorfirst, you have 50 here, which is pretty good. You have 30 resistances or so, which isn’t terrible with this build. And when you’re buffed withGolden Vow, it’s a little bit better. You probably want to take this up to 60 at some point, unless you’re wearing heavier armor and you’re not doing the cosplay. You might have better protection. But otherwise, you probably want to take this up a bit.

When it comes toMind, we have 30 here because we do use a lot of spells. We use a lot of buffs and we use Stormcaller quite often. So you’re going to go through FP. You probably don’t need any more than this. A lot of the buffs that you apply are right before boss fights. Otherwise, you’re mostly just usingPoison ArmamentorBloodflame Bladeand maybeFlame, Grant Me Strengthoccasionally. But if you find yourself usingGolden Vowmore often, like if you’re popping yourFlask of Wondrous Physick, then you’ll want to increase this. But generally speaking, 30 is plenty.

When it comes toEndurance, we have 25 here, and this is to allow us to medium roll with everything that we’re using. It’s actually a bit high. You could probably reduce this to about 20 and a half right on the line between medium rolling and heavy rolling if you want. But if you’re using another armor set, like one that has more poise or is heavier and gives you more protection instead of going for the cosplay route, you probably least need 25Enduranceor maybe 30. So 25 is fine. You do use a lot of stamina with this build anyway. So I don’t recommend changing that.

I’ve got 50Strengthhere because we do have a heavy scythe. Eventually, you’ll want to take this up to 80 to further boost your physical damage. This thing scales really well withStrengthand does already a good amount of damage where we’re at at 50Strength. So I didn’t see the need to push it higher. But there are some points in here you could take out and add toStrengthto get even more damage if you want.

When it comes toDexterity, you only need 13Dexterityfor this build. I have 18 on accident here. I’m usingMillicent’s Prosthesis, which added five on top of this when I was playing around. I forgot to readjust my stats afterward. So you can actually pull out five points here and put them in Strength or put them in Arcane, making this a bit more effective in general.

You don’t need anyIntelligencefor this build. Started as anAstrologer, so disregard that. You don’t need any whatsoever for this build.

We have 15Faithhere in order to meet the requirement forFlame, Grant Me Strength. This is a spell you can use out on the landscape when you’re fighting difficult enemies or when you’re you’re obviously want to use this when you’re about to take on a boss. But what 15 Faith allows you to do is use theCracked Tearthat provides youFaithin yourFlask of Wondrous Physick, and then you’ll meet the requirements forGolden Vow. And usually I only useGolden Vowduring boss fights with this build. So it’ll allow you to use it in boss fights or in between checkpoints if you pop your flask, but otherwise you won’t be able to use it.

Moving forward at some point in this build, you’d probably be better off taking Faith up to 25 so you can use it anytime you want. But it’s not really needed at this point.

And lastly, we have 45Arcane, which, as you know, is the soft cap for the Dragon Communion seal and is a good point to get decent damage out of incantations if you add any to this, but also helps to improve the status effect build up ofBloodflame Blade,Poison Armament,Swarm of Flies,Poison Mist. So that’s really what we’re using it for here.

At some point, you’ll want to take this higher to get better incantation scaling, and a better status effect build-up, probably after Strength in my opinion.

Just a couple of final tips. If you’re using theFlask of Wondrous Physick, again, you’re going to use the one that gives Faith here in order to useGolden Vow. And the other one, I like to use theThorny Crackedhere for increased damage when you are doing consecutive attacks, which is kind of the theme of this build. So that is how one of the ways we get up to that 2300 attack power when we’re fully buffed with this build.

And when it comes toGreat Runesfor this build,Godrick’sis the obvious choice here. You needVigor, you needMind, you needEndurance, you needStrength, you need someDexterity, you need someFaith, and you needArcane. That’s like seven of the eight stats that will help be able to alleviate some of your stat pressure and just make you more effective all around.

So that wraps up myGrim Reaperbuild. It is a ton of fun to play and it’s absolutely devastating. 1.07 has opened up so many more builds that were not possible. Previously, I probably would have used like Spinning Slash with this build. And because that only hits three times in a row before you have to restart the sort of Spinning Slash animation, it just wouldn’t be as effective asStormcalleris, andStormcalleris just so much fun to play with.

I have had some of the fastest boss kills I’ve had with this build. So I hope you really enjoy it. 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.