Elden Ring Lightning Spear Build Guide (PvE) (2024)

A complete Elden Ring Lightning Spear PvE Build and Guide. Designed to help you create a powerful, mid-range shield-and-spear-wielding character on your first playthrough, detailing everything you need to know for the mid and late-game!

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.10

Introduction to Lightning Spear

This guide is oriented towardPvEand will coverrecommended melee weapons, talismans, Physick mixtures, armor, stats, and Incantationsas well aswhere you’ll need to goto find all this stuff!

The core of the build is the Bolt of Gransax spear and a greatshield with AoE supplemented by lightning incantations. You’ll focus on primarily improving Dexterity while obtaining enough Strength and Faith to wield everything.

My recommendations are focused on what you should be working towards in themid to late gameon your first playthrough and what you should have for NG+. In your first playthrough, you’ll only have enough stats to upgrade either the greatshield or your lightning incantations, but in NG+, you’ll have enough to have both.

What Makes Lightning Spear Unique

There aren’t a whole lot of lightning weapons in the game and only a few Ashes of War that actually provide lightning skills. Despite having its own damage type, it’s more of a sub-archetype compared to other damage types like magic and holy.

The entire build is quite versatile while offering a ton of survivability. You’ll be able to take out both singular enemies with your spear and larger groups with incantations from the safety of range or behind your greatshield.

Right Hand Armaments: Melee Weapons

You’ll be using melee weapons in your right hand, namely, a spear called the Bolt of Gransax for most of your damage output, and a dagger called the Miséricorde for critical hits.

Bolt of Gransax

The Bolt of Gransax is a spear that deals about a third of its damage as lightning and the rest as physical damage (pierce). It has a powerful unique skill called Ancient Lightning Spear, so it cannot have its affinity altered or be buffed by a grease or spell.

Spears are more specialized than some of the other weapon types; that is, they have more consequential benefits and drawbacks. The biggest benefits offered by spears are their long range and capacity to deal damage while blocking, meaning it’s often possible for you to deal damage to your opponent while they can’t damage you.

In exchange for all this security, spears struggle to take out multiple enemies at the same time, so it will take longer to take out larger groups and you will need to depend on your shield since you can’t reliably interrupt secondary targets with hitstun.

Don’t get me wrong, it is possible to skewer 2-3 enemies with a single hit since the hitbox is a bit larger than it appears, but those opportunities are rare. This issue is also mitigated by combining it with lightning incantations which greatly expand your AoE (area of effect) capabilities.

The Ancient Lightning Spear weapon skill (Ash of War) is ridiculously strong and can one-shot most enemies, even some of the stronger ones like Knights. It also has an incredibly long range and travels ludicrously fast, so most enemies fail to dodge it.

Ancient Lightning Spear isn’t without weaknesses. Like spears, it can only hit 1 target at a time, and the long attack animation makes it impractical and to use at close range while the high FP cost makes it inefficient to spam.

In boss fights, I find it’s best to only use Ancient Lightning Spear when you’re naturally at range or they’re vulnerable. There is limited benefit in backing up to a safe range just to use it because you are giving up DPS while backing away from them.

All bosses have pretty clear instances to use it though. If the boss backs away, gets knocked down, or is guard-broken, you typically have enough time to send a fully-charged spear that way. If the boss didn’t attempt to dodge it, they may even get knocked down, in which case you can spam it at them to keep knocking them down, though that feels a little too cheap to me, so don’t feel obligated to use it.

Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that earlier, Ancient Lightning Spear knocks most enemies down, allowing for follow-up activations if they somehow live through it. Enemies that attempt to dodge it will not get knocked down though and the skill doesn’t seem to contribute much, if anything, to guard breaking.

In contrast, the (non-skill) strong attack can guard break in about 3 hits depending on charging and the guard counter is similar in potential. You definitely want to use the strong attack when you can for that extra stamina drain, but you do rely more on the critical hit for damage since the actual charged attack doesn’t do that much more than a regular hit.

The Bolt of Gransax can be picked up from the larger version that’s been plunged into a building in Lyndell, Royal Capital. Once you have obtained the Rune of Death, you can no longer loot this weapon.

Obtaining the Bolt of Gransax is part of the Legendary Armaments achievement. If you would like more information on how to obtain this weapon or that achievement, check out this guide: All Legendary Weapons Locations in Elden Ring.

Miséricorde (Lightning Affinity)

I only recommend using the Miséricorde with the lightning affinity in order to deal more damage with critical hits (backstabs and front stabs against guard-broken enemies). The Miséricorde deals the most critical damage out of any of the weapons, and when imbued with the Lightning affinity, it has similar scaling and synergy to the Bolt of Gransax and the rest of your build.

Critical hits are only a small part of the overall build though, so the Miséricorde is by no means required. It’s just a way to get the most damage out of the moments when your enemy is most vulnerable.

The Miséricorde can be looted off a corpse in the armory room with 2 Exiled in Stormveil Castle.

Left Hand Armaments: Greatshield and Seal

For your left hand, you’ll swap between a greatshield for defense and sacred seal that will let you cast some lightning Incantations mostly for AoE. In your first playthrough, you’ll need to make some concessions that only let you get the best out of one of these.

Unless you want to give up some survivability, you must choose if you want access to the strongest lightning Incantations or a better greatshield. By the end of NG+, you’ll have enough stats to get access to the best of both and have enough FP to cast more.

Greatshields

I recommend using a greatshield primarily because they offer the highest Guard Boost stats. Guard Boost is a multiplier that reduces the stamina drained by blocking an attack. The higher your Guard Boost, the less stamina it costs to block an attack, meaning you can block more damage before running out of stamina and block heavier hits without having your guard broken.

However, greatshields have much higher strength requirements and you can’t parry with them, so they aren’t necessarily worth using unless you can gain some other benefit.

As it turns out, the higher Guard Boost stat is valuable because you’re using a spear as your main weapon. You can poke with thrusting weapons (including spears) while having your shield raised, allowing you to attack and block at the same time.

In exchange for being in such an advantageous position, you don’t deal as much damage because your poke speed is slower and each hit is a bit weaker than that of a regular attack. You’ll also drain stamina faster because you’ll be spending it on both offense and defense at the same time, so I only recommend doing it if you’re uncertain if you’ll get hit during an attack.

I’d also like to note that my rationale for recommending greatshields is based on the following factors:

• 100% physical damage negation
• Capability to have no skill equipped (I find it tedious to swap between one and two-handing my weapon)
• Achievable stat requirements
• Gold color

If you’re okay with having to juggle skills, you have a few more options like the Erdtree Greatshield and Dragonclaw Shield.

Golden Beast Crest Shield

The Golden Beast Crest Shield has one of the lowest Strength requirements for a shield that has 100% physical damage negation. Its ornate design and gold color match both armor sets super well.

It’s available pretty early into the game too, so you’ll be using it regardless of which specialization you choose for at least some portion of the game. If you choose to upgrade your Faith to boost the power of your lightning incantations, you’ll be using the Golden Beast Crest Shield for the remainder of the game.

The Golden Beast Crest Shield drops from defeating the Grafted Scion you likely were defeated by at the Chapel of Anticipation at the very beginning of the game.

Golden Greatshield

The Golden Greatshield is substantially better than the Golden Beat Crest Shield in practically every regard, though it comes at the cost of requiring 10 more Strength, which provides limited benefit to the rest of your build.

The main benefit of this shield is that it has a considerably higher Guard Boost stat. It may not look like it on paper, but you can easily feel the difference. The holy and lightning mitigation are also considerably stronger, which is incredibly valuable for most of the late game.

The Golden Greatshield has a chance to drop from Lyndell Knights that wield it. You’ll see them patrolling around on the Altus Plateau with them being more common the closer you get to Lyndell, Royal Capital.

Sacred Seals

Sacred Seals are items that enable you to cast incantations. All of them scale strongly with Faith and most of them boost a specific category (religion) of incantations.

Clawmark Seal

The Clawmark Seal has the unique trait that it scales with Faith and Strength, though the Faith scaling is a bit weaker than most of the other options. However, it’s the best option for the first playthrough because you need to take a fair bit of both stats for other parts of the build. It also boosts the Bestial incantations given to you by Gurranq, though they aren’t a part of this build.

The Clawmark Seal is given to you by the Gurranq, Beast Clergyman, after feeding him Deathroot for the first time. Deathroot is dropped by defeating Tibia Mariners and found in some Catacombs.

Gravel Stone Seal

The Gravel Stone Seal scales exclusively with Faith and boosts the effectiveness of the Dragon Cult incantations (including the lighting incantations you’ll be using) by 15%, though this boost isn’t always sufficient to compensate for the single-stat scaling compared to the Clawmark Seal.

Only use the Gravel Stone seal with this build when you see its Incant Scaling surpass 208, which will not happen in the first playthrough unless you choose to allocate more stat to Faith instead of Strength.

The Gravel Stone Seal is dropped by defeating a specific greatbow-wielding Lyndell Knight at Lyndell, Royal Capital located outside the main entrance to the physical location of the Roundtable Hold.

Incantations

I recommend using many of the lightning incantations, referred to in-game as Dragon Cult incantations. They come in 2 sets depending on how many stats you want to allocate to Faith. The first set of Core Incantations only requires 34 Faith while the second set requires 47 Faith.

Core Incantations

These are the lightning incantations you’ll have access to in your first playthrough if you choose to upgrade your Strength to be able to obtain a better greatshield. You need 34 Faith to access them all.

Honed Bolt

Casting Honed Bolt causes you to summon a single bolt of lightning down on your target. It is your most basic (mostly) single-target lightning attack. Its key advantages are that it’s spammable, cheap, and doesn’t take very long to cast. If you can’t benefit from at least 2 of those advantages, you’re better off using the Ancient Lightning Spear from Bolt of Gransax instead. I do want to note that while Honed Bolts is mostly only helpful in single-target situations, you can hit multiple enemies with a single case if they are super close together.

Honed Bolt can be purchased from either Brother Corhyn or Miriel, Pastor of Vows after giving them the Dragon Cult Prayerbook that drops from a lone Lyndell Knight wandering around near the Carian Study Hall and Artist’s Shack on the eastern ridge of Liurnia of the Lakes.

Lightning Strike

Casting Lightning Strike causes you to summon multiple strikes of lightning in a narrow cone in front of you or at your target. It is spammable and costs about the same as Ancient Lightning Spear from the Bolt of Gransax, though it deals about of a third of the damage per activation, so it’s only worth using if you can hit at least 4 targets with each use.

Lightning Strike drops from a dung beetle on the Weeping Peninsula on a ledge near Morne Tunnel (the mine) by jumping down some headstones that are sticking out of the side of the plateau with the Erdtree.

Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike

Casting Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike summons down red lightning bolts that strike in lines radiating out from you in all directions. Each lightning bolt deals individual damage and hits pretty hard, making this Inantation exceptionally powerful against large enemies.

Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike can also be charged, which increases the number of bolts summoned, the damage dealt per bolt, and area of effect. However, as an AoE, it’s less useful because it’s expensive and you’re unlikely to hit everything unless you’re standing in water.

Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike can be purchased from either Brother Corhyn or Miriel, Pastor of Vows after giving them the Ancient Dragon Prayerbook, which can be found in the first large temple in Crumbling Farum Azula.

Frozen Lightning Spear

Frozen Lightning Spear stabs a blue lightning spear into the ground that causes a wave of lightning to strike in a narrow cone in front of where the spear hits the ground. The spear deals its own damage, but it’s harder to land because the cast time is long and can only be done from point-blank range.

The cone is slightly wider than that of Lightning Strike, deals more damage per hit, and applies frost buildup. It also costs more FP and isn’t spammable. Large enemies can get hit by multiple ticks of the wave, making it a strong single-target option against foes like dragons.

Frozen Lightning Spear drops from defeating the Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella in the upper part of Ainsel River accessible through the Ainsel River Well in eastern Liurnia of the Lakes.

Additional Incantations

These are the incantations you’ll be able to afford to use in NG+ or in your first playthrough if you choose to upgrade your Faith and Mind instead of Strength. You must have 47 Faith to be able to cast all of these.

Lansseax’s Glaive

Casting Lannseax’s Glaive causes you to swing a massive glaive of lightning followed by a wave of lightning on the ground. Its cone is considerably wider than that of Frozen Lightning Spear and Lightning Strike, but it deals less damage, so it should only be used to hit a lot of enemies that aren’t grouped up well enough where they’d all get hit with one of the alternatives.

Lansseax’s Glaive drops from defeating Ancient Dragon Lansseax on the plateau the wall that protects Lyndell, Royal Capital on the Altus Plateau.

Fortissax’s Lightning Spear

Casting Fortissax’s Lightning Spear causes you to conjure 2 red lightning spears and slam them at your feet, causing lightning to radiate out as if water was present. The incantation deals a lot of damage but is only worth using if you can get a direct hit, which is difficult because the cast time is long and the range is short. I only recommend using it after performing a critical hit since the enemy will be nearby and incapacitated for a decent and predictable amount of time.

This version is basically just a flat upgrade over Ancient Dragon’s Lightning Spear, but it’s worth using because it deals more damage than Ancient Lightning Spear from the Bolt of Gransax.

Fortissax’s Lightning Spear can be purchased from Finger Reader Enia at the Roundtable Hold in exchange for the Remembrance of the Lichdragon.

Death Lightning

Casting Death Lightning summons down a bunch of lightning bolts around you similar to Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike. Death Lightning is different because each strike causes Death buildup against other players, strikes more densely around you (making for better AoE), but deals less damage per bolt. It can be charged as well.

Death Lightning is meant more for PvP and as an AoE while Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike is better used against single large targets. The Death buildup does not apply to NPCs.

Death Lightning can be purchased from Finger Reader Enia at the Roundtable Hold in exchange for the Remembrance of the Lichdragon. You’ll need to duplicate this Remembrance at a walking mausoleum to get both Death Lightning and Fortissax’s Lightning Spear in a single playthrough

Talismans

I recommend using the Lightning Scorpion Charm, Carian Filigreed Crest, and Shard of Alexander.

I don’t believe there is a clear, consistent, or decisive winner for the final talisman slot, though there are a lot of options that provide a minor benefit, so I’ll be listing those and you can play around with them to see what you prefer.

Default Talismans

These are the 3 talismans I definitely recommend taking. They consistently maximize the damage dealt by your Ancient Lightning Spear weapon skill and offer the most consistent benefit for this specific build.

Lightning Scorpion Charm

This talisman provides a 12% damage boost to all lightning damage at the cost of you taking 10% more physical damage, so it’s just a flat boost to your skill and incantations while being a constant increase to a portion of the damage dealt by your weapon.

The Lightning Scorpion Charm is locked in a Stonesword Key room in Wyndham Catacombs in central Altus Plateau.

Carian Filigreed Crest

This talisman reduces the FP cost of your weapon skill by 25%, effectively giving you access to an additional activation of Ancient Lightning Spear per bar of mana.

The Carian Filigreed Crest can be purchased from War Counselor Iji for 5,000 Runes after informing him that Blaidd sent you.

Shard of Alexander

The Shard of Alexander boosts the damage dealt by your weapon skills (Ancient Lightning Spear) by 15%, making an already beefy attack even beefier.

The Shard of Alexander drops after defeating Iron Fist Alexander at Crumbling Farum Azula while the Warrior Jar Shard drops instead if you defeat him at any point before that.

Good Options for the 4th Slot

As I mentioned before, there is no clear and specific winner for the 4th slot in my opinion. All of the options either provide too situational or too small of a benefit or are more generic boosts that any build could use.

Godfrey Icon

The Godfrey Icon boosts the damage dealt by fully charged weapon skills and incantations (and sorceries) by 15%, so it can boost most of your lightning attacks. This is probably the closest to being essential out of all the 4th slot options, but I don’t think it’s quite on the same level as the others.

You can defeat most enemies without even charging Ancient Lightning Spear, and a full charge is enough for almost everything but two-shotting the strongest soldiers.

The Godfrey Icon is one of theLegendary Talismans in Elden Ring. You need to get it if you want to complete the Legendary Talismans Achievement.

Offensive Talismans

There are several other offensive talismans that are worth considering. I don’t think any of them are individually essential because the boost of each is weak and only applies to a specific situation or type of attack.

• Spear Talisman
• Curved Sword Talisman
• Axe Talisman
• Claw Talisman
• Flock’s Canvas Talisman

One of these may be worth using if you find yourself wanting something specific to be stronger or find yourself using the relevant attack type frequently.

Defensive Talismans

These talismans offer sizable survivability boosts to most builds in the game and are definitely worth considering, but I don’t consider them essential to this build in particular because their effects are generic.

• Dragoncrest (Great)Shield Talismans
• Drake Talismans
• Horn Charms

If you go with a defensive talisman, I strongly recommend optimizing it against your current situation. For example, you don’t need physical damage reduction against a boss that mostly deals non-physical damage.

Stamina Talismans

These talismans offer small boosts to something related to Stamina, which is in fairly short supply and is useful for both offense and defense.

• Erdtree’s Favor
• Green Turtle Talisman
• Greatshield Talisman

Each talisman augments your Stamina in a different way, so I recommend trying out all 3 options. I did not include the Viridian Amber Medallion here because I don’t think it’s worth taking over Erdtree’s Favor.

Flask of Wondrous Physick Mixture

There are several approaches to concocting a mixture for yourFlask of Wondrous Physickdepending on your priorities. Beyond picking something that’s effectively useless, there isn’t really a bad combination of Crystal Tears, so I recommend that you pick 2 that cater best to your preferences.

Recommended Concoction

I use the Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear in conjunction with the Greenburst Crystal Tear because I favor long-lasting buffs that primarily improve offense strong synergy with this specific build.

If you need to, check the guide explaining the Flask of Wondrous Physick in Elden Ring, how to get it, how to mix Crystal Tears in it and where to find and obtain all Crystal Tears in the game!

Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear

The Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear boosts your lightning damage by 20% for 3 minutes. This effect is quite potent and lasts for the majority or entirety of boss fights. It’s the only tear to boost at least some portion of all of your damage. Outside of bosses, it usually lasts long enough to clear out a difficult area and definitely long enough to take down tough enemies.

The Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear is dropped by defeating the Erdree Avatar at the base of the Minor Erdtreee in eastern Liurnia, north of the Church of Vows.

Greenburst Crystal Tear

The Greenburst Crystal Tear boosts the rate at which your green bar refills by 15 Stamina per second. Since Stamina is used both offensively (on attacks) and defensively (on shielding and rolling), this is a potent and versatile boost that synergizes with the capabilities of the build

The Greenburst Crystal Tear is dropped by defeating the Putrid Avatar at the base of the Minor Erdtree in northwest Caelid near the Rotview Balcony and Smouldering Church.

Armor

Armor sets are subject to individual preference and exactly how much weight you can carry, which is determined by your Endurance stat. I think the following sets best match the appearance of your weapons, armor, and incantations. For both sets, I highly recommend having Boc remove the cape since there are some pretty massive clipping issues.

Radahn’s Lion Armor

Radahn’s Lion Armor set requires less than 50 Endurance in order to wear with the other equipment I recommend while maintaining a medium equip load. The gold plate matches your spear and shield while the red mane matches many of your lightning attacks.

Radahn’s Lion Armor armor set can be purchased from Finger Reader Enia at the Roundtable Hold after defeating Starscourge Radahn at Redmane Castle.

Tree Sentinel

The Tree Sentinel Armor set requires a little over 50 Endurance in order to wear with the other equipment I recommend while maintaining a medium equip load. It’s heavier than what I recommend for (almost the entirety of) your first playthrough, but easily accessible in the second playthrough.

The Tree Sentinel Armor Set can be obtained by getting 3 Chariots in the Azuria Hero’s Grave to crash into each other. Azuria Hero’s Grave is located on the Altus Plateau, east of Lyndell, Royal Capital.

Check out the complete Elden Ring Armor Sets Catalog and pick whichever you like the most.

Stat Targets and Flask Allocation

The following level numbers were achieved using the Wretch starting class, which begins at level 1 with 10 of each stat. The Lightning Spear build has a core base comprised of the requirements to survive and effectively wield the Bolt of Gransax, a greatshield, and cast some lightning incantations.

Core Stats Progression: Level 143 ► Level 177

These are the stats I recommend you strive for as you make your way from the mid to late game.

• 40 ► 60 Vigor
• 10 ► 14 Mind
• 50 Endurance
• 24 Strength
• 40 ► 50 Dexterity
• 28 Faith

You really want 40 Vigor as you reach the Altus Plateau just to survive the big hits and going up to 60 gives you enough breathing room to take 2 big hits before dying. There isn’t much value going beyond 60 Vigor.

Going to 10 Mind gives you 91 FP, barely enough to give you 5 casts of your weapon skill with the Carian Filigreed Crest equipped.

50 Endurance lets you carry everything you need while giving a bunch of Stamina, which is super helpful since you can stab while blocking with your greatshield. You want as much stamina as you can get, but there’s less benefit to be gained per point past 50 and better ways to improve stamina efficiency than investing points into Endurance.

24 Strength and 40 Dexterity are required to wield the Golden Beast Crest Shield and Bolt of Gransax respectively. 50 Dexterity is the soft cap for the Bolt of Gransax where getting more doesn’t really reduce the number of hits it takes to defeat most enemies.

28 Faith is enough to let you cast the essential lightning incantations, including Lightning Strike, though the Ancient Dragons’ version only requires 26 Faith and you’ll have a significantly higher level by the time gain access to it.

End of First Playthrough Stat Targets: Level 185+

You have to choose between 2 options for where to allocate your remaining 10-15 Attribute Points:

• 60 Vigor
• 14+ Mind
• 50+ Endurance
• 24 ► 34 Strength
• 50 Dexterity
• 34 ► 47 Faith

Improving your Strength to 34 will give you access to the Golden Greatshield, giving you better overall mitigation against non-physical damage and greatly improving your Guard Boost. After you reach your Strength target, put additional points into Endurance so you can work towards being able to equip the Tree Sentinel armor set and have more Stamina.

Improving your Faith will give you access to all lightning incantations and boost the overall damage dealt by those incantations. After you reach your Faith target, put additional points into Mind so that you can cast more.

End of NG+ Stat Targets: Level 260

• 60 Vigor
• 40 Mind
• 55 Endurance
• 34 Strength
• 50 ► 80 Dexterity
• 47 ► 80 Faith

Your first objective is getting full access to the other specialization you didn’t choose in the first playthrough, so either 34 Strength or 47 Faith depending on what you don’t already have. Then, you want to hit 40 Mind so you get the maximum benefit from each Cerulean Flask.

Finally, you can specialize again into either Dexterity or Faith by bringing either up to 80. Sacred Seals typically scale a lot better than melee weapons, so you’ll get more out of your stats by upgrading Faith, though you’ll have to cast to get that benefit.

Flask Allocation

Flask allocation is a bit more subjective with this build. Your goal is still to run out of both types of Flasks at roughly the same time, but because your casts have long range and deal an incredible amount of damage, the more you cast, the less damage you’ll likely take.

11 Crimson to 3 Cerulean gives you enough to use Ancient Lightning Spear against the strong enemies you need it for, though you may want to switch to a 12:2 ratio for later bosses. If you want to use your casts more liberally out in the world and for NG+, go in the other direction and try 4-5 Cerulean Flasks. Remember, treat the ratio I recommend as a starting point, not as gospel!