There are many great Elden Ring builds out there. From Samurai builds to Intelligence builds which utilize powerful spells like Comet Azur. There is a build for almost any playstyle. But what if you want a build in which you can go in guns (sword) blazing? A build, in which you get rewarded for each kill and strike that you make? Well for that, we have the Elden Ring Vampire build.
The Elden Ring Vampire build is based on the concept that your attacks get stronger with each successive strike. All the while you restore health with every enemy defeated whilst leveraging the bleed effect. All these factors, if used correctly, can ultimately make you un-killable. Thus, the name, Vampire build.
Key Highlights
- Vampire build is based around the traits of Vampires, which are, healing after defeating enemies and getting stronger on every successful hit.
- The primary weapon required for Vampire build is Rivers of blood, which can be found near Church of Repose in Mountaintops of the Giants.
- The secondary weapon required for Vampire build is Blasphemous Blade, which can be acquired after defeating Rykard in Volcano Manor.
- The talisman recommended for Vampire build is Taker’s Cameo Talisman. This talisman helps with HP restoration after killing enemies and can be acquired by completing Lady Tanith’s questline.
- The second talisman that goes well with Vampire build is Millicent’s Prosthesis. It aids the players by boosting dexterity and successive hits damage. Millicent’s Prosthesis can be acquired after completing Millicent’s questline.
- The third talisman necessary for Vampire build is Godskin Swaddling Cloth. This talisman also aids us by boosting successive hits damage and can be found after defeating the Spiritcaller Cave’s dungeon boss.
- For the runes slot, it is recommended to have Rykard’s Great rune equipped, as it further helps in restoring the player’s HP on each kill.
- Lord of Blood Exultation is an optional talisman that can be used with Vampire build as well. It further boosts the damage caused by blood loss and is found in Leyndell Catacombs.
- Lastly, the “summon” recommended for Vampire build is Mimic Tear as it summons your copycat to aid you on the battlefield. Mimic Tear can be acquired by progressing Ranni the Witch’s questline.
All of this sounds great but there are quite the items that you will have to hunt down to complete the Vampire build, so let’s get started!
Elden Ring Vampire Build Gear
The Elden Ring Vampire Build’s power lies all in the gear that you use with it. Of course, the stats that you invest in also matter but it is mostly the weapons and the talisman that you utilize which make the build so OP. Therefore, without wasting any time, let’s dive into the gear that is required.
You will be needing the following:
- Rivers of Blood – our primary weapon will induce blood loss and will help with quick successive attacks.
- Blasphemous Blade – our second weapon that needs to be equipped (left hand) in order to help us regenerate health as we defeat enemies.
- Taker’s Cameo Talisman – will aid in HP restoration as we kill enemies.
- Millicent’s Prosthesis – will help us increase our dexterity and attack power with successive attacks.
- Godskin Swaddling Cloth – will help us restore HP with quick successive attacks.
- Lord of Blood’s Exultation (optional) – will further aid in increasing attack power with Blood loss.
- Rykard Great Rune – will aid in restoring HP as we kill enemies.
- Mimic Summon – generally a great summon to have. Will create a copy of us to aid in battle.
That is a lot of gear to be gathered and it definitely is a grind. But trust us as it will be worth it. There are certain items that you can skip initially like the Lord of Blood’s Exultation Talisman. But ultimately, they all tie in nicely such that as you are attacking, your attacks are getting stronger, and you are regaining health. This makes it easy for you to just go in there without worrying about your health all that much.
Rivers of Blood
Rivers of Blood is the main weapon that we will be utilizing for the Elden Ring Vampire build. Its long slashes make it a great medium-ranged melee weapon and a great fit with the Samurai class.
How To Get Rivers of Blood
Besides the extremely tedious journey towards the area, acquiring the Rivers of Blood Katana is not a difficult task. Make your way over to the Church of Repose as shown on the map. It is found in the Eastern region of the Mountaintops of the Giants. You will definitely be needing your Torrent Horse for the long journey ahead. Near the Church of Repose, an invader NPC, Bloody Finger Okina will spawn. You need to take him out. He will drop you the Rivers of Blood Katana.
However, be careful as if you go ahead of the Church of Repose, you can engage in battle with the Fire Giant. If you end up killing him before you encounter the NPC invader, then the invader will not spawn. No matter what you do, even if you travel out and back, the invader will not spawn back if you kill the Fire Giant. Meaning you will not be able to get the Rivers of Blood weapon. Therefore, if you want to get the blade, make sure you go to the Church of Repose first.
Churches are great spots for NPC encounters and loot that can help you in the game. In fact, all Sacred Tears are found in churches. You can find out more here: Elden Ring All Sacred Tears and Churches Locations.
Stats And Requirements
Rivers of blood has the following requirements before it can be equipped:
Although Strength and dexterity may not be an issue, Arcane is quite high for Rivers of Blood and you will need to invest some initial points into it.
The weapon scales off Strength, Dexterity, and Arcane. Strength has an initial E scale whilst Dex and Arc have a D. Our main focus will be scaling it with Strength and Dexterity anyways so we can ignore Arcane. However, there is one major issue as of now with the blade. Although it is quite strong on its own, its scaling is bugged and broken.
Meaning, increasing any of the mentioned scaling stats does not result in improvement of the blade’s stats. As it is just a bug it will most likely be fixed soon. And even without the scaling, the weapon is extremely powerful and worth utilizing.
But if you are still bothered by the scaling then you can consider sticking to the Uchigatana that comes with the Samurai class. It also has the bleed effect and is capable of landing successive strikes with ease, making it a good substitute. If that still does not satisfy you, you can consider picking a weapon from: Top 8 Best Katanas In Elden Ring. You just need to make sure that the weapon you utilize is as fast as a katana and induces a bleed effect.
Regardless, Rivers of blood is a great weapon with its mid-ranged capabilities of inflicting Slash and Pierce attacks. That is why we will be considering it for the Elden Ring Vampire build.
Taker’s Cameo Talisman
Now before you get the other blade on the list, you should get the Taker’s Cameo Talisman as it is related to the same questline. Not only that but once you get the blade, you will not be able to come back to get Taker’s Cameo Talisman.
Make your way over to Volcano Manor and talk to the woman NPC, Tanith, over there. It will be quite an extensive dialogue but go through it and you will eventually get a key. In the corridor behind her, the key can lead you to the second door to the left. As you enter inside, you will encounter two more NPCs that you can talk to. But more importantly, on the table, there will be a letter, “Letter from Volcano Manor”, which you need to pick up. Once you open the letter, you will be able to see on your map a red dot.
Teleport near about the red dot. The red dot is essentially an NPC invader mission where you will be invading a boss. These so-called bosses are not too difficult and beating them will award you with some great loot. But you are not done here as you need to go back to the manor, talk to the NPC, pick another letter, and repeat.
There are in total 3 NPCs that you will need to invade, and they will be in different locations each time. Their difficulty does increase, so be prepared for the final boss as he moves fast. But if you have the Rivers of Blood blade, you should be able to handle him easily.
Finally, after defeating all the bosses, you can head over to Tanith in Volcano Manor, and she will grant you the Taker’s Cameo Talisman.
As mentioned before, Taker’s Cameo Talisman will help us in recovering our HP as we defeat enemies. This makes it a great weapon for our aggressive Elden Ring Vampire build. Of course, in the middle of battle, you may also need to use your flasks to regain HP. For that, you will be needing more Golden Seeds so consider reading: Elden Ring Golden Seeds Locations to maximize your regen abilities.
Blasphemous Blade and Rykard Great Rune
Now both of these items can be found together by following the Volcano Manor questline and defeating the “champion” at the end. The champion is none other than the God-devouring Serpent, Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy.
He has two phases but if you’ve made it this far into the game, you should be able to handle him. He will be dropping 130k Runes which you can further utilize in your levels to improve your Elden Ring Vampire build.
How To Get Rykard’s Blade and Rune?
You can get to Rykard immediately after you have acquired the Taker’s Cameo Talisman. So, we suggest you do that first, especially if you do not want to miss that Talisman. After you have invaded the 3 NPC bosses in the Volcano Manor Questline, you can talk to Tanith who will ask you whether you want to challenge the champion. If you say yes, which you should, you will be teleported to a cave immediately. Inside the cave, behind where you spawn, there will be the Audience Pathway Site of Grace which you should take to respawn back in easily.
The battle will be intense but worth it as after you defeat the boss, you will be given the Rykard Great Rune. But now we also want the Blasphemous Blade, so we will go back to Tanith.
Make sure to drain her of all her dialogue before proceeding. Once you have done that, you want to head over to the Roundtable Hold where you can talk to the Finger Reader Enia. Ask her about receiving power and you should be able to use the Remembrance of the Blasphemous. Doing so will give you the Blasphemous Blade in return.
Blasphemous Blade Stats And Requirements
Although we will not be using the blade in combat, we will still need to have the required stats to be able to equip it. Its requirements are as follows:
- Strength 22
- Dexterity 15
- Faith 21
Considering the Runes that you get from beating Rykard and the skill level required to challenge him, you most likely would already meet the criteria. If, however, you did somehow manage to skip everything and ran straight for the boss, then just invest the Runes you got into the missing stats. The weapon does also scale in Strength, Dexterity, and Faith, starting with a D scale. But as mentioned, we only need the blade for its ability to restore health to us.
One additional feature of the blade is that you are able to recover health even when enemies around you are simply dying on their own. Meaning if you’re fighting a bigger boss who happens to crush smaller enemies nearby him as he attacks, their deaths will aid in your HP’s recovery.
Furthermore, Rykard’s Great Rune restores 185 HP upon defeating enemies. Combining both of these together will give a huge boost to HP restoration.
More from eXputer: Best Melee Weapons In Elden Ring
Millicent’s Prosthesis
Millicent’s Prosthesis is yet another Talisman that we will be needing for the Elden Ring Vampire Build. You will need to go through a long questline to finally get the Talisman, but it will be worth it.
To begin the Questline, go to Gowry’s Shack in Caelid and speak to the NPC sitting inside. This will initiate the questline and will have you travel around the map quite a lot, talking to Millicent in the process. Continue onwards with the questline until you eventually get an option, near the end, to either challenge and attack Millicent or aid her in battle.
If you want one of the secret Elden Ring endings, then helping her in battle would be your best call. However, as the guide is about the Elden Ring Vampire build, you need to actually challenge her and defeat her in battle. Doing so will allow you to get Millicent’s Prosthesis.
If you feel bad about killing Millicent or want the secret ending, you can consider any of the other Talismans on the list. Additionally, you can check out the other best Talismans in the game to pick a replacement: 10 Best Elden Ring Talismans With Locations.
Regardless, Millicent’s prosthesis will increase your dexterity by 5 and will increase attack power with each successive hit. This makes it great with our Vampire build which is essentially a dexterity build and needs all the strength attributes it can get.
Godskin Swaddling Cloth
Perhaps one of the simpler Talisman for the Elden Ring Vampire build to acquire is the Godskin Swaddling Cloth. You can acquire it by defeating the boss in Spirircaller’s cave, The Godskin Noble. He is not as hard as Rykard so you should be able to manage the fight.
The Godskin Swaddling Cloth grants a heal of 4.5 – 5% of health. It is triggered after successive attacks, but the number of attacks is random. It can range from 3 to 7 hits. But due to the nature of the Elden Ring Vampire build, getting these many hits with the Rivers of Blood blade or any other Katana should not be too difficult. You just need to be careful about timing them correctly. Additionally, one advantage is that you do not need to attack the same enemy 3 to 7 times but can actually hit other enemies and it will still count.
Mimic Summon
The Mimic Summon is also part of another questline. You will need to proceed with the Renna/Ranni questline to reach the area. The quest does include one of the toughest bosses in the game Radahn. If you are struggling with him, consider reading this guide to deal with him more easily: Best Elden Ring Radahn Cheese Method.
Regardless, once you get to Night’s Sacred Ground, you will be needing Stonesword keys to break the Imp Statue seal. Once you do that, you will be able to find the Mimic Tear Ashes in a chest.
The Mimic Tear Ashes allows you to summon an exact copy of your own character. The summon will have all of your gear and perks, making it double trouble for any enemy that you face. It also means that your mimic will be able to inflict blood loss damage and kill enemies, granting you health regen. It does cost 660 health to use. Because of that, we need to make sure we invest enough points into Vigor or have enough flasks with us to sustain the usage of the Mimic summon.
If you are looking for some other war of ashes and summons that you can use, consider reading this: 10 Best Elden Ring Ashen Remains With Locations.
Lord of Blood’s Exultation
In the Leyndell Capital, the Lord of Blood’s Exultation Talisman is inside the Leyndell Catacombs. It is a dungeon which you need to explore. You need to beat the main boss, Esgar, Priest of Blood, inside the Catacombs. Upon doing so, you will get the Lord of Blood’s Exultation Talisman. Lord of Blood’s Exultation is an optional Talisman and you do not have to equip it if you have something better. But as we are utilizing the bleed effect quite a lot in the Elden Ring vampire Build, having a Talisman which can leverage off of that will be helpful.
The Lord of Blood’s Exultation Talisman raises your attack power each time there is blood loss in the surrounding. The blood can be your own or of any enemy. Combining the Lord of Blood’s Exultation with your bleed weapons and mimic summon, your attack power can substantially increase in crows of enemies as they get the bleed effect.
Armor
As for armor, there is nothing specific that you need for the Vampire Build. The initial Land of Reed’s armor that comes with that Samurai class is quite good. But in general, what you are aiming towards is a light-medium armor that keeps you in the medium load. The reason for to keep it medium is mainly because we will have both of our hands equipped with weapons. The blasphemous blade on the left, Rivers of blood on the right. Because of this, we do not have any shields for defense so we will mostly be relying on dodging and rolling to get out of danger.
If our load gets too heavy, the time span in which we must perform a successful dodge will decrease significantly. Furthermore, we are heavily relying on the Talisman that we are using to regen most of our health, so we only need to make sure we have enough armor and defense to not die before inflicting the required damage for the regen to kick in.
But, if you are looking to get the best armor with the Elden Ring Vampire build, then consider reading: 10 Best Elden Ring Armor Sets With Locations.
Combining All The Gear Together
Combining the gear together is not tough. Simply equip the summon, Talisman, and the blades. But what is something that you need to be careful about is the placement of the blades. You need to have the blasphemous blade in your left hand and the Rivers of Blood katana in your right hand. Otherwise, the effects of the Blasphemous blade will not kick in. With that, you are ready to rock the Elden Ring Vampire Build.
Elden Ring Vampire Build Playstyle
It is important to note that at its core, the Elden Ring Vampire Build is quite similar to a melee dexterity build. Meaning our defense will be open and we will need to be careful before going heads in. But the Rivers of Blood katana allows you to maintain a fair bit of distance from enemies due to the mid-ranged attacks. This will allow you to keep a defensive stand whilst also managing to land hits on your enemies.
However, where the Vampire Build shines and outperforms a typical Dexterity build is with its regenerative capabilities. We can be a little riskier with our attacks and even take on some incoming damage in the return of getting those extra 1-2 slashes in. This is because of all the Talisman that we have equipped, giving us regen. The Rykard Rune and Godskin Swaddling Cloth contribute the most to regen.
The latter granting health regen per successive hits. Therefore, do not hesitate to be slightly greedy with your strikes. Furthermore, the regen per enemy kill makes it extremely useful for bosses which are surrounded by smaller enemies. If you are getting low on your health, simply step away and take out some of the smaller enemies.
But you will need to change your strategy if you are facing a single enemy and cannot rely on getting regen by killing smaller enemies. In this situation, you should definitely be utilizing your mimic summon. Not only will the Mimic summon help divert attention away from you, but the mimic will have the same sword as you. Meaning, it will also be able to generate the bleed effect on the enemy, inflicting further damage and providing you with more regen.
Lastly, the final edge that the Elden Ring Vampire Build has over a typical Dexterity build is the additional strength. Millicent’s Prosthesis will allow you to increase your attack power with successive hits. With the regen at your side, do not be afraid to go aggressive and know that each attack you perform will contribute to increased damage.
You do need to be aware of the drawback with the Vampire build, which is long-ranged combat. We did not spend much on the spells or incantation part for this build. Just keep that in mind and try to close the distance between your enemies, especially those duo boss fights where one revives the other.
Other Builds: Sword of Night And Flame Build
Vampire Build Starting Class And Stats In Elden Ring
Picking a starting class for the Vampire build can be quite tricky. You need to realize that the Vampire build will take time and is not something that you can start off with as soon as you jump in. If you’re looking for something to get started right off the bat with, consider reading: Best Elden Ring Darth Maul Build. It is quite similar and will set you up nicely to transition into the Vampire build as you level up.
What Class Does The Vampire Build Require?
As the Vampire build takes advantage of successive attacks and the bleed effect, we need to pick a class that best suits that playstyle. Therefore, we’re looking for more of a dexterity-based build that can move quickly. A dexterity build will allow you to jump in for quick successive attacks, building up the bleed effect in the process.
Moreover, we can trade some of our Strength for dexterity early on, after we’ve met the strength requirements. Only because the talisman that we will be utilizing will make up for the lack of strength by increasing attack power with each strike. Meaning, our primary focus will be trying to get in as many slashes as possible and letting the buffs handle the rest for us.
Picking The Samurai Class
Now, which class fits all of the requirements? Well, it is the Samurai class. Many players tend to use the Samurai class as a base for their dexterity-based builds or with any weapon that resembles the katana and has a bleed effect. You could also use Vagabond for the Vampire Build. However, the Samurai comes with a starting weapon that already has the bleed effect. It can be a temporary substitute for the weapon that we will utilize later, Rivers of Blood. If you want to learn more about other Samurai-based builds, consider reading the following: Elden Ring Best Samurai Build: Gear, Stats And Playstyle.
Now that we have picked the Samurai, there are a few stats that we need to focus on. With the Vampire Build specifically, besides the high dexterity stats, we want a higher Vigor so that we can keep regenerating it in midst of battle and also utilize it for our Mimic Summon. But before we can start investing our points towards the other stats, we need to build up the stats that are required to wield our primary weapons, Rivers of Blood and Blasphemous Blade.
Which Stats To Invest Early On
The details as to which weapon requires which stat specifically are in the Vampire Build gear section. But in short, we need to initially primarily pump points into Strength, Arcane, and Faith to meet the requirement. All three of these need to reach about 20-22, with Strength being the most demanding. But once you have reached the requirement, you can forget about Arcane and Faith because we won’t be needing them too much.
You can still upgrade Strength as you see fit. As for dexterity, Samurai already has almost enough Dexterity initially. We will need to pump only three additional points to get started. Lastly, once you have all the requirements, you can begin working on the other stats like endurance and stamina to make your overall defense game strong by making it easier to dodge.
All of these levels may seem overwhelming when starting out but there are plenty of early game methods that you can employ to farm for Runes. If you are looking for some of the best methods, consider reading: Elden Ring Fastest Rune Farming Methods And Exploits.
However, as Vampire Build is more of a mid-game build, you will most likely already have the levels needed to meet the requirement. From there onwards we want to invest as much as we can in dexterity. Mainly because we want to land as many successive hits as possible with the katana to activate the effects of many of the Talisman equipped.
With that, you know everything there is to know about the Elden Ring Vampire build. It is quite an aggressive build with some even naming it the “never die” build. Of course, you need to remain vigilant of your health despite the many regenerative sources. No build is perfect, with each having its own limitations and personal playstyle. So do not be afraid to take elements from the Vampire build and create your own version. If you have any questions, let us know.
Read other Elden Ring Builds
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