Elden Ring has jaw-dropping build diversity, letting you build the character of your dreams with a playstyle you can call your own. If you fancy yourself playing a Spell Spartan throwing powerful sorceries and smacking enemies with colossal blades, Strength Intelligence is the way to go.
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While not the most usual combination in Elden Ring (unlike Dex Arcane or Strength Faith), the Strength Intelligence build is fun in its own right. For your encounters in the Lands Between (and now the Shadow Realm), you have no shortage of weapons and magic to draw from.
Stats for the best Strength Intelligence build in Elden Ring
With the Strength Intelligence build, you can do multiple variations. If you want to prioritize dealing damage through your weapon Ash of Wars, Strength is your top priority. However, if you fancy a more spellcaster playstyle, your go-to stat would be Intelligence.
For a level 150 character, I’d recommend the following stat distribution as it’ll let you use almost all the sorceries Elden Ring has to offer and have enough points in Strength to boost your armament damage.
- Vigor: 50
- Mind: 20
- Endurance: 25
- Strength: 55
- Dexterity: 18
- Intelligence: 45
- Faith: Nine
- Arcane: Seven
Weapons for the best Strength Intelligence build in Elden Ring
Most Elden Ring players first think of going with the Strength Int build when they first get their hands on the Starscourge Greatsword after beating Radahn in Caelid. Starcaller Cry is an incredibly fine weapon skill as you can pull distant enemies with it, and that can oftentimes result in some hilarious kills. Even without that gimmick, the paired Colossal Sword is a great weapon especially when you consider it’s doing the damage of two weapons while only weighing for one.
Other weapons that benefit most from Strength and Intelligence scaling are Dark Moon Greatsword and Fallingstar Beast Jaw. Found through Ranni’s questline, the Dark Moon Greatsword is a fantastic option for the build with its high Int scaling and innate Frostbite buildup. The Fallingstar Beast Jaw also has favorable scaling for the build, and I found its Gravity Bolt weapon skill especially helpful in long-range encounters.
Here are a few other weapons that fit the Strength Intelligence build:
- Troll Knight Greatsword
- Royal Greatsword
- Ruins Greatsword
- Helphen’s Steeple
In my testing, Cold Infusion dealt the most consistent damage, except in specific scenarios where certain enemies (for example, Rennala) are immune to magic. In those cases, Heavy is the next best affinity.
Staves
If you fancy wielding a staff in your off-hand along with your main weapon in the right hand, you can’t go wrong with the Academy Glintstone Staff. With no FP-cost downside, this is the perfect staff for our build with our starved Mind stat.
Meteorite Staff is also a fine choice very early on in your playthrough. But you’d eventually want to switch it out since you can’t upgrade it.
Talismans for the best Strength Intelligence build in Elden Ring
For Talismans, you have a lot of options for the Strength Intelligence build. If you are mostly using Ash of Wars to deal damage, Shard of Alexander (15 percent boost to attack power of skills) or its slightly weaker counterpart Warrior Jar Shard (10 percent boost) remains the best choice for increasing DPS. You can get the latter by killing Alexander while you need to complete his whole questline to get the former.
The other three slots are highly customizable. I’d suggest Talismans like Erdtree Favor +2, Great Jar’s Arsenal, and Bull-Goat’s Talisman to cover up your defenses. Since we don’t have a lot of points to spare for Endurance, we can make good use of the extra equipment load these Talismans provide (extra Poise in Bull-Goat’s Talisman’s case).
If you want your Sorceries to deal the lion’s share of damage though, you can equip Graven-Mass Talisman and Magic Scorpion Charm that increase your Sorcery damage by eight and 12 percent respectively.
If you are using Dark Moon Greatsword, the Godfrey Icon Talisman deserves a special mention. It raises the attack power of charged spells and skills by 15 percent, which synergizes really well with Dark Moon Greatsword’s unique skill.
Sorceries for the best Strength Intelligence build in Elden Ring
With our moderately high Int investment in the build, you have access to most Sorceries in Elden Ring. While you are not a pure mage throwing out spells constantly (mostly due to a low FP pool), the Spellblade playstyle is fun on its own.
Night Comet is a value choice with its low FP cost. You can find this in Sellia, Town of Sorcery behind a dispellable barrier after lighting a brazier.
For AoE damage, Shattering Crystal is a great choice similarly due to its low FP cost. You can find this Sorcery in the Church of the Cuckoo in Raya Lucaria Academy after a little bit of parkouring through the rooftops.
If you want a Sorcery with better tracking (for dealing with foes who seem to dodge most projectiles), you can’t go wrong with Stars of Ruin. You need to progress Sorceress Sellen’s questline a fair bit to acquire this, though.
Other Sorceries I’d recommend using with this build are Terra Magicka for buffing other Sorceries, Bestial Vitality to sustain your HP, and Carian Retaliation for fighting against mages.
Flask of Wondrous Physick for the best Strength Intelligence build in Elden Ring
Stats are spread thin with the Strength Intelligence build. This is where Flask of Wondrous Physick comes in with its buffs to compensate for that factor. Here are the Tears to consider for your build:
Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear: This buffs up your Magic damage by 20 percent for three minutes. When stacked with Magic Scorpion Charm Talisman, your Sorceries become a force to reckon with even for the strongest enemies.
Cerulean Hidden Tear: This Tear can make FP management rather trivial as it grants you infinite FP for 15 seconds upon usage. Use this at the start of your encounters to spam your most expensive Sorceries.
Other options include the Strength and Intelligence-Knot Crystal Tears to boost up the corresponding stats by 10.
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