This Elden Ring Prisoner Build Guide takes you through a fun beginner build fit for people with a tendency to lean more towards being magic swordsmen or mystic knight archetypes wherein you enhance your own attacks with magic. This build features magically-enhanced weapons, and conjured weapons to swiftly deal with your enemies.

Elden Ring Spellblade Prisoner Build for Beginners

The Spellblade leans toward being a Dexterity-based build that really emphasizes being quick and empowering yourself with your Spells. It’s a dual-wield build that will have you mainly wielding a staff and a thrusting sword.

• Class: Prisoner or Astrologer
• Flask Spread: Slightly leaning more into FP but still a balanced number of HP
• Weapon: Demi-Human Queen’s Staff, Estoc or Rapier
• Shield: Any or none, depending on Preference.
• Armor: The most defensive armor you can find that would still allow you to Medium Roll
• Primary Stats:  Intelligence, Dexterity, Vigor
• Secondary Stats: None needed
• Skills: None needed
• Spells: Glinstone Pebble, Scholar’s Armament, Carian Slicer

We have over 110 Elden Ring Builds now, for all classes and playstyles. This Spellblade build is recommended for beginner players.

Beginner Builds	Level 50 Builds	Level 100 Builds	Level 150 Builds	Level 150-200 Builds
Spellblade	Magus Enchanted Knight Sword Sage	Darkmoon Spellblade Battlemage Deathblade Frost Knight	Dark Knight Freezing Battlemage Royal Knight Death Knight Carian Spellknight Moonlight Crusader Nebula Knight	Soul Samurai Drake Knight Sanguine Spellblade Crucible Knight Silent Spearcaller Warrior Wizard

The Prisoner Class for Beginners

For this build, you’ll mainly use the Prisoner class. You can also use the Astrologer class as well if you’ve already started with it, but you’ll essentially be picking between one of these two classes for this build. I prefer the Prisoner class because it starts the game with an Estoc, which is a Dexterity-scaling weapon, although you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. However, it also does come with a staff and a really good spell early on. You’re going to replace this spell just a short while later but it’s not bad to have at the very start of the game.

Elden Ring Spellblade Build Main Spells

The first thing that you’re going to want to do, once you kind of get out into the world and get to the Church of Elleh and all that, is you’re going to want to go get some more Sorceries. In the Waypoint Ruins, there is the Sorcerer Trainer there, Sorcerer Sellen, who sells some Spells there. The Royal House Scroll can also be found just a little bit down the road from her, up on a hill that’s being guarded by a group of enemies. You can actually just run up on top of one of the buildings there – it’s kind of like a broken down building, pick it up, and then take it to her to unlock some more spells. You want to do this because you’re going to need one of them from her.

The spells that you want to pick up from her are Glintstone Pebble, Scholar’s Armament, and Carian Slicer. These are the three spells that are going to be kind of your bread and butter in the early game. You can obviously supplement them with other spells later on but these are the three that you’re going to want to have.

Now, you’re only going to have two slots until you get that third slot, so I suggest either getting Glintstone Pebble and Scholar’s Armament or Glintstone Pebble and Carien Slicer first – get one of those two combinations at the beginning. The best way to go about getting a third slot real fast is to go to Oridy’s Rise which is in the Weeping Peninsula. It’s the tower there and there’s a little sort of puzzle you have to do to find the hidden turtles. The information for it is on the wiki, if you need to know where they are exactly. After you clear it, you’ll get a Memory Stone, which is going to give you that third slot. You don’t even have to kill anything to do this really, so it’s going to be real real fast for you and then you can equip all three of those spells

ER Prisoner Build Recommended Equipment

Spellblade Recommended Weapons:

• Demi-Human Queen’s Staff
• Estoc or Rapier

You’ll also want to replace your Staff while you’re down there in the Weeping Peninsula. You can get the Demi-Human Queen’s Staff from the ruins that are just west of there. There are Demi-Human Queen enemies in there so quickly pick one and kill it so that you’ll be able to switch out your staff. From that point forward you’re going to want to upgrade the Demi-Human Queen’s Staff in order to deal increased damage.

So the general setup for this build is you’re going to carry your Estoc in your right hand, or another Dexterity-based weapon. You don’t have to use Estoc but it’s what the Prisoner class comes with and it’s fun to use. It has a really good skill in Impaling Thrust, which has very good range and very high damage. Therefore, I highly recommend using the Estoc but you can use any other Dexterity-based weapon that you want. You can technically choose any other weapon that you meet the requirements for, but you don’t want to go crazy pumping up your Strength or something just to meet the requirements of a weapon, but any other weapon that you like can be used to supplement your build. Should you choose it, you’ll also want to upgrade the Estoc because it doesn’t have very good scaling in general at its base form. The Rapier is also in this same boat.

You can actually get a Rapier later on in the game. The only real difference between the Rapier and the Estoc, at least that I can see, is that the Rapier has a better critical rating. This means that if you parry someone and stab them, backstab them, or if you stagger an enemy and then knock them down and thrust them, it’s going to do more damage. You don’t tend to do that very much with this build, so it’s not super crucial. If you find that you’re doing these things you might want to make a different build altogether. The Estoc and the Rapier don’t really stagger enemies, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. If, for example, you already upgraded the Estoc and then you think to yourself, “I wish I had the extra crit,” it’s not that big of a deal so just stick with whatever you’re already upgrading.

Weapon Upgrade Prioritization

You’re going to want to prioritize upgrading your staff over your melee weapon because it’s going to increase the damage of your Scholar’s Armament, Carian Slicer, and your Glenstone Pebble. It’s going to affect all three of these things that will translate to more melee damage, so you want to prioritize upgrading your staff first. After you’ve upgraded your staff a bit you can focus on upgrading your melee weapon as well.

After you complete Stormveil Castle, you can actually get a Rogier’s Rapier +8. Sorcerer Rogier himself will just give you one, so you can switch to that if you want. I don’t particularly like the ability on it – it doesn’t seem to do any more damage than just poking something twice, and I really like the range of Impaling Thrust. However, if you want a weapon that’s got more upgrades from the get-go, you can use it and just swap out the ability on it for something else.

Spellblade Talismans of Choice

• Blessed Dew Talisman
• Green Turtle Talisman

Lastly, for Talismans I like to use the Blessed Dew Talisman and the Green Turtle Talisman. The first one allows you to regenerate HP, which allows you to focus a bit more on FP for flasks and not waste flasks in between fights to heal up because you know you’re going to regenerate naturally. You’ll spend a lot of time exploring where you can just heal up naturally with the Blessed Dew Talisman, and it’s just really good in a lot of builds in general.

The Green Turtle Talisman is there to increase your stamina recovery. You burn through your stamina spamming Carian Slicer with this build because you want to attack as fast as you can and kill things quickly. Recovering that stamina faster means that you can go on the offensive faster, so I like to equip both of these once I get a second Talisman slot. You’ll get that second Talisman slot once you beat Margit near the Stormveil Castle, so if you want a second one real quick you can just go kill him and get that if that’s something you feel comfortable doing.

How to Be a Spellblade in Elden Ring

So, you’ve got your staff in your left hand and you’ve got your weapon in your right hand. You’re going to be buffing your weapon with Scholar’s Armament while you’re making your way through zones. you have to have both of these out at the same time in order to do this. This is going to double or triple your damage in some cases and it’s just really strong. It outperforms actually putting a magic Ashes of War on your weapon. The buff lasts for abuot two or three minutes, which is a very good time compared to some of the other Souls games. It’s going to get you through levels, or even through harder enemies where you’ll instead attack with Carian Slicer in order to finish them off. It’s also just the best way to save mana with this build – just use Scholar’s Armament to buff your weapon, so you’re not using Carian Slicer on everything. You can actually use Carian Slicer on everything if you go with all-FP flasks or something like that but, because you’re going to be in melee range you will get hit sometimes and then you won’t have a way to heal so I don’t advise that.

Carian Slicer is extremely deadly. This spell does so much damage – it’s a boss killer and it’s a tough enemy killer. All you need to do is read their attacks, dodge until their last swing in the combo, run in, and then just start spamming. I trade damage very very often with this setup in order to just burn bosses faster and then heal up and go rest afterward. You can be also be more cautious and roll away if you want, but you can just melt bosses by spamming this as fast as you can. Keep in mind, however that it still consumes stamina whenever you use it, so you’re only going to be able to spam it for as long as you have stamina. You’re going to want to try and not block or roll too much before you get in there so you can just spam away. It doesn’t really stagger enemies so you need to be ready to roll away when they start retaliating. Another really great thing about the Carian Slicer is that its FP cost is only four, compared to Glintstone Pebble’s seven, which means that you actually save FP by using this ability. So, if you can take enemies down with it you’re going to conserve a lot more FP than if you’re using Glintstone Pebble.

Glintstone Pebble is really there to thin out enemies in situations where if you ran in you’d be outnumbered. You can maybe take one out right away but then you still have two or three enemies that are ganging up on you. This build doesn’t do really well when you’re completely surrounded, so you want to avoid that scenario. Glintstone Pebble is really there to thin out enemies in those scenarios where you know you can’t get to the enemy quick enough to kill a few before getting surround, they’re across a gap, or they’re flying in the air. It’s really nice as a Spellblade to have that flexibility. However, if you find yourself using Ginstone Pebble far more than Carian Slicer or far more than Scholar’s Armament, I highly suggest making a mage build instead and go follow our Mage build guide, because that’s kind of more of your playstyle.

Best Attributes for Spellblade Build in Elden Ring

Stats-wise I basically pump Intelligence and Vigor early on in the game. Anytime you’re playing a melee character, you need Vigor and the Prisoner Class does not start out with a lot of it so I like to get that to 15 or 20 pretty quickly, and also get intelligence to 20 as quickly as I can. So, get those two things to 20 and then you can start to increase Dexterity to increase the damage of your weapon. Again, without upgrading them, neither the Estoc or the Rapier have good Dexterity-scaling at base form, so balance out and plan your upgrades accordingly. Using Carian Slicer does take up Stamina, but increasing Endurance doesn’t give you a significant amount of Stamina that it’s worth slowing down your damage, so I don’t recommend it for this build.

Spellblade Build Core Attributes:

• Get Intelligence up to 20 for spell requirements and magic damage
• Get Vigor up to 20 for survivability
• Pump up Dexterity for maximum damage

Another really important thing about Dexterity as well is that it actually reduces cast speed. So, not only is it going to increase the damage with your melee weapon but if you’re using Carian Slicer for instance, it’ll speed up how fast you use that ability which will just make it even deadlier. So by pumping Dexterity, you’re going to increase your regular damage with your your sword or whatever and you’re also going to increase the speed that Carian Slicer is used. I don’t know the exact numbers on this – I haven’t done enough testing, but Dexterity definitely benefits these two things at the same time.

Elden Ring Advanced Tips for Using the Spellblade Build

The first tip is an important note that bears repeating: if you put a magic-based Ash of War on your Estoc or whatever weapon you end up choosing, you won’t be able to buff it with Scholar’s Armament. Without Scholar’s Armament, you actually deal less damage. Admittedly, you don’t have to buff your weapon every time but you should have plenty of FP flasks and you will hit harder Scholar’s Armaments. This is another reason not to trade out the Impaling Thrust from the Estoc. Again, I really like that ability better than some of the other abilities I’ve tested and you also do more damage at the same time.

Switching Gears

You can actually use a Shield with this build for your offhand, and the staff on the right hand, if you want to play more of an Enchanted Knight build. It’s kind of like a variant that allows you to block and then spam Carian Slicer. It’s very effective in some cases. Again however, blocking drains stamina which you then can’t use to spam Carian Slicer, so it’s a little counter-intuitive but it does work in some situations.

The Spellblade on Horseback

One last thing I want to mention too is that mounted combat is a little wonky with this build, because you can’t cast spells from mounted combat unless you have the staff in the right hand. You’re going to have the Estoc on the right hand which means you’re only gonna be able to melee. The Estoc is also terrible at mounted combat, in my opinion. It’s really hard to hit anything so if you plan on doing, for instance, the dragon fight and you’re just melee-ing in on horseback, swap the staff to your right hand before you do that fight and then just swap it back when you’re done.

And so, that’s pretty much it for this Spellblade build! I hope you found it helpful. If you’re someone who wants to get up close personal and melt bosses in melee range as more of a magic knight archetype, then this is the build for you. As always, let us know if you have questions or other tips in the comments below. We have a ton more builds coming for Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree so stay tuned for those. If you need help finding items, and securing some personal objectives, make sure to check the Elden Ring Map.