Elden Ring has some of the best buffs, and it could be difficult to decide which ones you want to include in your build. From Ashes of war to incantations or consumables, here are the 15 best buffs we think you should consider trying out.
Key Highlights
- Elden Ring has four types of buffs: Ashes of War, Consumables, Incantations, and spells.
- These buffs include both beneficial buffs for your character and negative buffs or debuffs for your enemies (players or monsters alike).
- Buffs are rated based on their power, usefulness, and versatility.
- Not every buff is usable on every build; some of the best spells or incantations have specific stat requirements.
- Consider using the Old Lord’s Talisman to increase the duration of incantations or spells.
| Buff | Effect | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Ash of War: Rallying Standard | +20% damage +20% damage negation | 30 seconds |
| Consumable: Crimsonburst Crystal Tear | +7 health per second | 180 seconds |
| Consumable: Crimson Bubbletear | 30% health regenerated upon dropping below 21% | 180 |
| Art of War: Barbaric Roar | +7.5% physical damage +5 strength scaling Changes heavy attack | 20 seconds |
| Ash of War: Barricade Shield | +40% guard boost Tier 4 Hardness | 5 seconds |
| Ash of War: Endure | Prevents stagger 45% damage negation | 5 seconds |
| Ash of War: Cragblade | +15% physical damage +20% stance damage | 60 seconds |
| Ash of War: Sacred Order | +10% damage +100% damage to undead | 60 seconds |
| Consumable: Exalted Flesh | +20% physical damage | 30 seconds |
| Ash of War: Royal Knight's Resolve | +80% damage +300% stance damage | one attack |
| Ash of War: Seppuku | +30 physical damage +84 bleed buildup | 20 seconds |
| Incantation: Flame, Grant me Strength | +20% physical damage +20% fire damage +11% stamina regen | 30 seconds |
| Incantation: Golden Vow | +15% damage +10% damage negation | 80 seconds |
| Sorcery: Terra Magica | +35% magic damage | 30 seconds |
| Incantation: Barrier of Gold | +60% magic damage negation | 70 seconds |
Ashes Of War
These Ashes of War are incredible for enhancing your build or granting you special effects.
Rallying Standard
Starting off with one of the most well-known buffs in the game, the Rallying Standard is a unique skill to the Commander’s Standard weapon. It provides a massive 20% increased damage dealt and negated.
The only issue here is that the buff is much weaker against players, coming in at only 2.5% more damage dealt and 5% damage negated. Combined with the short duration of only 30 seconds, this buff is good when trying to do a lot of damage in a short amount of damage. However, it lacks a lot when it’s put up against players, unlike many of the similar but more powerful buffs we’ll see later.
Barricade Shield
Barricade Shield is hands down the best non-parry Ash of War to use on your shield. What makes it this strong isn’t just the base buff of 40% increased guard boost for 5 seconds. It also gives you tier-4 hardness, meaning most weapons will bounce off your shield.
This buff is incredibly powerful against players. More so if combined with other guard-boosting items like the Greatshield Talisman, making you an immovable wall.
Barbaric Roar
Although there are many roar-type buffs in Elden Ring, we think Barbaric Roar is the best. Along with providing a 7.5% increase in physical damage, it increases your strength by scaling by 5 points for 20 seconds.
Like the other similar Ashes of War, this buff has your character do a menacing roar, changing your weapon’s heavy attack. In particular, it makes it, so you do a flurry of rapid attacks. This is a great synergy with heavier strength-based weapons, which have trouble repeatedly attacking in a short period of time.
Endure
One of the most underrated buffs in the game comes in the form of the Endure Ash of War. This skill has your character assume a powerful stance. It grants a 5-second buff that completely prevents stagger or stun (doesn’t apply to knockdown). It also increases all damage absorption by 45%. This allows you to safely trade attacks with most enemies or players and come out on top.
Cragblade
Next, we have the Cragblade Ash of War. This skill has your character thrust their sword into the floor and pull it out covered in rocks. Granting a 15% physical damage boost to the weapon, along with a 20% stance damage boost. This buff allows you to break your opponent’s poise or get them to drop their shield faster.
- This buff lasts 60 seconds.
Sacred Order
While less useful for player vs player content, the Sacred Order ash of war is extremely powerful in other situations. This skill utilizes the power of the golden order to buff your weapon with holy essence for 60 seconds.
Other than the 10% increase in damage (which is reduced to 2.5% against players). This skill grants a massive 100% increase in damage against undead creatures. Consequently doubling your damage against them. It also prevents skeletons from rising again when slain—leading you to breeze through dungeons with many undead enemies.
Royal Knight’s Resolve
One of the most important skills for creating a powerful single-strike build is the Royal Knight’s Resolve ash of war. The skill has your character hold up their weapon to their face and pledge resolve to the Elden Lord.
This buffs your next attack that you land against an enemy, making it deal an increased 80% damage. And on top of that, a massive 300% increase in stamina damage. Therefore, allowing you to break through any enemy’s guard with ease. This skill is extremely helpful for those that prefer larger weapons.
Seppuku
One of the most powerful ashes of war, given the right build, Seppuku has your character thrust your choice of the weapon into their stomach, staining it with blood for 20 seconds.
Firstly, this adds a base 30 damage increase to the weapon. It also makes your attacks cause bleed buildup, which scales with your arcane stat.
The ash of war is incredible for bleed builds and can be used utilized with two dual-wielded weapons that feature inherent bleed. You would have to use the skill while two-handing your left-hand weapon. After that’s complete, you would dual-wield but not two-hand the right one and use the skill again. This leaves you with two fully bleed-buffed weapons capable of causing an almost instant bleed on most enemies.
Best Buff Consumables
In terms of consumables, most buffs can be implemented into your build for almost no cost. However, these are the main ones that make the largest impact.
Crimsonburst Crystal Tear
The Crimsonburst buff is one that can be obtained by using the similarly named Crystal Tear in your Flask of Wonderous Physick. It provides 180 seconds of steady +7 health per second, totaling 1260 total health restored over the whole duration.
While not seeming incredible at first glance, this is the longest-lasting health regeneration buff in Elden Ring. Because of that, the healing will make a massive difference over the duration of any fight.
Crimson Bubbletear
Similar to the previous entry, the Crimson Bubbletear is also a crystal tear and can be used in conjunction with Crimson Burst.
This crystal tear provides a unique buff lasting 180 seconds. This buff doesn’t actually do anything until you take enough damage to drop below 21% health. Once you do, the buff will fade, and you will have 30% of your health restored back.
This buff is incredibly useful when used prior to a duel against another player or before entering a boss fight. It grants a safety net allowing you to recover from mistakes better.
Exalted Flesh
Unlike every other buff on this list, the Exalted Flesh is a consumable item, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s less powerful. In fact, it has one of the highest physical damage increases, coming in at a bonus of 20% for 30 seconds. However, it reduced to 15% against players.
Being a craft-able consumable means you can use it with any build without requiring specific stats or ashes of war. There for giving it very high versatility to be used with many builds.
Incantations
Here are the best incantations you can use to enhance your build.
Flame, Grant Me Strength
A forbidden fire monk incantation, although only lasting 30 seconds, “Flame, grant me strength” is a powerful self-buff that grants the caster a 20% increase for all physical and fire damage dealt (both reduced to a 15% buff against players). There for, it makes for a great addition to any pyromancy build.
If that wasn’t enough, it also buffs your stamina regeneration rate by 11%. Furthermore, this spell stacks multiplicatively with the next one on this list, making for a very powerful combination.
Golden Vow
Not to be confused with the Ash of War version of Golden Vow, this incantation is one of the most useful all-rounder buffs in the game to all nearby players.
It grants a 15% overall damage increase (reduced to 7.5% against players), which stacks with the previous effects of “Flame, grant me strength.” For this reason, this spell is one of the most useful ones to have in your arsenal, especially considering its relatively low requirement of 25 faith.
Moreover, it also grants a 10% reduction to all damage taken (reduced to 5% against players). Many players use this spell as a buff before dueling.
And if all of that wasn’t enough, the buff lasts a whopping 80 seconds by default, going up to 104 with the old lord’s talisman.
Barrier of Gold
Barrier of Gold is a defensive Erdtree incantation, powerful against magic. It places a protective buff on all nearby players, reducing magic damage taken by a massive 60% for 70 seconds.
This is an incredibly helpful tool to have, especially since it only requires 24 points in faith. Thus allowing you to almost completely counter any magic casters, heavily reducing their potency on the battlefield.
Spells
Although only one, this is hands down the best magic-based buff in Elden Ring.
Terra Magica
One of the keystones spells for any intelligence build, Terra Magica places a magical sigil on the ground. The sigil raises the potency of all spells cast while standing on it by a huge 35%.
We recommend using this spell along with long-range high-damage spells such as Cannon of Haima or Loretta’s Mastery. Hence granting you the ability to demolish your enemies from a safe distance or assist your allies in dealing with enemy players without being an easy target.
Conclusion
Overall, Elden Ring has an incredible number of buffs in the form of spells and weapon skills. It’s important to remember that you should experiment and try out different ones for your builds.
Check out our list of the best Elden Ring builds for examples if you’re not sure where to start. Alternatively, if you’re completely new and unsure where to start, check out our starting classes guide for a point of reference on how to begin your journey.
Next:
- Elden Ring Spells Tier List
- Elden Ring Weapons Tier List
- Elden Ring Incantation Vs Sorcery
- Elden Ring BEST Ashes of War
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