Top 5 Talismans in Elden Ring
May. 11, 2023Top 5 Talismans in Elden Ring
Elden Ring is full of great Talismans, and the right combination of Talismans changes depending on the enemy or Boss you’re facing a lot of the time. But in this article I want to explore the best Talismans of Elden Ring, if I could only choose 5. This is very very hard to do, simply because there are SO MANY good choices, but I’ve narrowed it down nonetheless. Without further ado, I present the Top 5 Talismans of Elden Ring.
When selecting a Talisman for this list I factored in things like: a) how soon can you get it, b) how many different builds does it impact, c) how powerful of an effect does it have, and d) is it situational, or does it have broader application. Many Talismans have very situational impact, like Ritual Sword Talisman for example, that is only good when you’re at full Health. That said, one that I do want to mention, though it didn’t make my Top 5 list, is Bull-Goat’s Talisman.
TheBull-Goat’s Talismanreduces the Poise Damage you take by 0.75x, which essentially lowers the Poise value needed to tank one regular attack from an enemy or Boss and not be interrupted to 38, though the game will display this as adding Poise to your character. This might not seem valuable but it indeed is.
The Bull-Goat’s Talisman is arguably the best Talisman in Elden Ring for one reason and one reason only, and that’s because it allows you to choose fashion over equipment when choosing Armor. You can equip 28 more Armor sets and still meet the 51 Poise breakpoint when wearing this Talisman, and many more combinations if you break sets up into various pieces, which many people like to do.
Why is this important? Well many people love Transmog systems in their RPGs, and this Talisman is effectively the closest thing to that. And how important is 51 Poise? Well it can make or break many builds, particularly hyper aggressive builds, and many early game builds or early builds made for Elden Ring were made without knowledge of this Breakpoint, that would be so much better now if this was factored in.
What’s also great about this Talisman is that you can get it rather early if you ride over to Caelid, so you can use the armor you want from near the beginning of the game. This plays a factor in the decision to make it my honorable mention, but fashion trumps all, so it likely would have been there anyway.
Builds that use this Talisman:
Lord of Blood’s Exultation provides you with +20% Attack Power (+12% in PvP) for 20 seconds when either you or a nearby enemy suffers from Blood Loss, refreshing if this happens again before the bonus expires. This is a really strong bonus as this increase in Attack Power affects every type of attack you do, all your weapon skills, as well as any offensive spell you cast. The White Mask also has a similar effect, to a lesser degree (10% in PvE and 6% in PvP), allowing you to use both items, spearheading this concept.
In order for this Talisman to be effective, you have to trigger Blood Loss, which means that you have to play a somewhat Bleed-focused build to really take advantage of this effect. And though Bleed is one of the most popular, if not the most popular style of play in Elden Ring, not every enemy can be affected by it, and usually enemies on the landscape die before triggering this bonus a lot of the time, otherwise it would be much higher on the list.
Builds that use this Talisman:
Rotten Winged Sword Insigniaprovides you with increased Attack Power as you continuously strike enemies over and over. For each tier, Attack Power increases by 6%, 8%, and then 13%, slowly dropping a tier each 1.5 seconds. It takes roughly 3 hits to trigger the first tier, with subsequent tiers taking only one more hit to go up to each tier.
Again what makes this deadly is that Attack Power increases the damage of everything you do: attacks, weapon skills, spells, etc so getting a boost to Attack Power is one of the best things you can accomplish. This allows you to deal more and more damage no matter what your build, as long as you can keep attacking.
This Talisman works effectively with just about every weapon type in the game, particularly if you dual wield, though it triggers much more quickly on faster weapons. If you plan to use faster weapons then this Talisman is almost a no-brainer, and it’s better than Millicent’s Prosthesis because it gives more damage per tier.
On top of that, you can also use theWinged Sword Insignia, which you can receive much earlier in the game in the place of the Rotten version in order to start putting your Build together sooner, before swapping it out when you get this one.
What makes this style of play even deadlier, is that you can stackMillicent’s Prosthesis, Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, and Thorny Cracked Tear to really increase your damage as you attack over and over. This allows for hyper aggressive builds, particularly in Boss fights that just destroy them a lot of the time before they can do much.
Builds that use this Talisman:
Magic Scorpion Charmboosts your Magic Damage by 12% (8% in PvP), but at the cost of increasing the Physical Damage you receive by 10% (15% in PvP). This is a fair trade off because the best way to avoid damage in FromSoftware titles is to learn enemy attack patterns, and avoid being hit in the first place. You can also improve your Physical Defense rather easily, making this penalty not as bad as it could be.
The vast majority of Sorceries in Elden Ring deal 100% Magic Damage, making this a must have Talisman for nearly every “Mage” Build in the game. Not only that, but some of the best Weapon Skills deal Magic Damage as well, including: Ice Spear, Carian Grandeur, Glintblade Phalanx, Sorcery of the Crozier, Spearcall Ritual, Nebula, and more.
Many weapons as well deal some Magic Damage allowing you to get some benefit from this Talisman even on Builds that don’t use Sorceries. In short, the Magic Scorpion Charm has more of an impact than any other Scorpion Charm in the game, and it’s only real negative is that it is missable and you don’t get it until a good ways into the main plot line.
TheDragoncrest Greatshield Talismanis one of the best Talismans in Elden Ring simply because it increases your Physical Damage resistance by 20% (5% in PvP). Most enemies deal Physical Damage so this is a very easy way to increase your protection against common damage types, and allows you to get away with lighter Armor sets, or use Scorpion Charm Talismans without as much of a negative impact.
There are of course earlier versions of this Talisman (Dragoncrest Shield Talisman) you can get, and these give lesser protection but still a decent amount of Physical Damage resistance, and this allows you to use some form of this Talisman nearly the entire game. The easiest version is located below Bestial Sanctum, which you can ride to without killing anything and just drop down and pick it up.
What I like most about this Talisman is that there are no conditions to trigger it, and it’s constantly active. This means all Physical Damage you take is going to be reduced just by having it slotted, and frankly that makes it really really strong.
The negative is that this benefit is not additive, meaning if you already have some Physical Damage resistance, which you likely will unless you are naked, you won’t get the full benefit of this Talisman, but instead you’ll get a reduced amount based on how much Physical Damage resistance you already have. The higher you have the less you gain from this Talisman. This makes it much better in a lighter armor Build than a heavy armor Build.
Builds that use this Talisman:
Shard of Alexanderincreases the damage of your Weapon Skills by 15%, which is no small amount. There are so many different Weapon Skills in Elden Ring, and some are much better than others, but just about every single build in Elden Ring uses at least 1 Weapon Skill! This means nearly anyone can get benefit from this Talisman.
Many Elden Ring Builds use their Weapon Skills as much or more than their regular attacks, making this Talisman even more valuable to those Builds that do this, such as with builds that use Corpse Piler, Transient Moonlight, Double Slash, Sword Dance, Impaling Thrust, Repeating Thrust, Unsheathe, Stormblade, and more.
There is another version of this Talisman that you can get calledWarrior Jar Shardthat only increases your Weapon Skill damage by 10%, but the major upside is that this Talisman can be acquired at the very beginning of the game, which is much sooner than Shard of Alexander. This will allow you to use it for 95% of your playthrough, whereas Shard of Alexander is only usable for about 10% of the game. This means if you don’t plan to take your character to NG+, then Warrior Jar Shard is a better choice for you.
Builds that use this Talisman:
That wraps up our Top 5 Talismans of Elden Ring, and there are still manyamazing Talismansout there that play a very important role in many Builds. Stay tuned for moreShadow of the Erdtree DLC news! What did you think of our List? What’s your favorite Talisman in Elden Ring? Let us know in the comments below!
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
