In this Elden Ring Dexterity Build guide, I’m going to be showing you my Thundering SwordSpear build. This is a level 100 build that focuses on a very high attack rating and the use of lightning. This is actually a Dexterity-based build and probably one of the few Dexterity builds I’ve done, because the weapon that we chose here scales excellently with Dexterity, as does the Ash of War.

Elden Ring Dexterity Build – Thundering Swordspear Guide

A melee focused build that uses Lighting to strike enemies at range, and to boost damage in melee.

• Class: Any
• Flask Spread: Split HP and FP
• Weapon: Guardian’s Swordspear & Finger Seal
• Shield: Banished Knight’s Shield or Jellyfish Shield
• Armor: Great Helm, Tree Coat, Chain Gloves, Chain Greaves
• Talismans: Lightning Scorpion Charm, Radagon’s Soreseal, Green Turtle Talisman & Dragoncrest Shield Talisman +1
• Primary Stats: Dexterity
• Secondary Stats: Vigor
• Skills: Thunderbolt
• Spells: Golden Vow, Flame, Grant Me Strength, Electrify Armament, and Blessing’s Boon

We have over 110 Elden Ring Builds now, for all classes and playstyles. This build is recommended for Level 100.

Beginner Builds	Level 50 Builds	Level 100 Builds	Level 150 Builds	Level 150-200 Builds	All Game Builds
Paladin	Templar	Lightning Lancer Thundering Swordspear	Crusader Lightning Dragoon Golden Champion Black Knife Assassin Moonlight Crusader Flame Dancer	Black Blade Golden Sword Sage Godslayer Sword Saint Drake Knight Frost Paladin	Perfect Paladin Coldstorm Cleric Warrior of Waves Tower Knight

Thundering Swordspear Build: Equipment

The weapon that I chose for this build is the Guardian Sword Spear. This is actually a Halberd-class weapon that does predominantly slash damage. However, the running R1 is actually pierce damage, so you can get pierce damage from doing that attack. The reason that I chose this weapon is that I was trying to make a build revolving around the Thunderbolt Ash of War, and this Ash of War scales off base damage and Dexterity scaling. So I needed to find a weapon that had high base damage as well as very good Dexterity scaling, and you get that in the Guardian Sword Spear. 

This weapon has 340 base damage using the Keen Affinity, which outclasses every single weapon in the game, except Colossal weapons. And Colossal weapons need a huge investment in strength to use, while this weapon only needs 17 Strength. And if you two-handed it, you would only need 12. Additionally, it also has A scaling in Dexterity, so all those points we invest in Dexterity are going to be very well used to add damage not only to Thunderbolt, but to our regular attacks as well.

You can actually buff this weapon well over a thousand attack rating with the buffs that we use for this build at plus 20, which means that you’re going to get even higher when you’re max rank. I also really like the moveset of this weapon. It has sort of a 45 degree angle slash over and over, which is good for hitting enemies horizontally and vertically at the same time. A lot of enemies have strange shapes, and I find that this attack animation tends to hit the vast majority of them. 

When it comes to shields for this build, I’m using the Banished Knight’s Shield. I like the look of it with the armor that I’m using for this build, but it’s going to be a little bit less guard boost than the Brass Shield.

So if you want a little bit more guard boost, you can use that. However, the weight is one less, so you can actually take a point out of endurance in order to use this shield, which is the reason, another reason that I use it here. I’m also using the Finger Seal here in order to cast some incantations. It doesn’t really matter which seal you use too much for this build. The only incantation that we’re using that’s going to be majorly affected is Electrify Armament by your incantation scaling. Finger Seal is really good for this, as is the Godslayer’s Seal. Either one of these would be good for this, but I have the upgraded, so I just use that. 

When it comes to armor for this build, I’m using the Greathelm, the Tree Surcoat, and Chainmail for the Gloves and Legs.

This kind of keeps your weight down and gives you kind of a knightly look. This is more of a cosplay on my part than anything, but it does keep your weight down, which allows you to not put too many points into endurance. That way, you can crank Dexterity and really get the most out of Thunderbolt.

Thundering Swordspear Build: Talismans

When it comes to talismans for this build, I’m using the Dragoncrest Shield Talisman, the Lightning Scorpion Charm, the Green Turtle Talisman, and Radagon’s Soreseal.

I’m using Radagon’s Soreseal here because we need points and strength to meet the requirements for the weapon. Every point in dexterity increases our damage. We need Endurance to meet the equip load, and we don’t want any more than we need, and we get a little extra HP. We do take more damage from using this, and probably as you approach 150 with this build, you’ll pull this out of your build, but at this point, it’s almost necessary or we don’t get our damage high enough with Thunderbolt in order to one-shot enemies. Lightning Scorpion Charm is there to increase the damage that you deal with Thunderbolt, as well as the damage you deal when you have Electrify Armament up. Thunderbolt is 100% lightning damage, so this benefits this really well.

Green Turtle Talisman is there to help you regenerate stamina more quickly. You need to regenerate stamina quickly with this build because you do block, and that eats away a lot of stamina. You don’t have a lot of endurance for this build, so you don’t have a huge stamina pool, so you need to gain that back quickly. Depending on the fight, though, you could swap this out for the Ritual Sword Talisman if you plan to play predominantly ranged just using Thunderbolt.

It really depends on what’s going on. This will give you 10% extra damage with your attacks when you’re at full health, as well as Thunderbolt. This is good if you’re co-opping or in a scenario where you know you can stay at range from the boss most of the time to get that extra damage when you’ve cast out. Lastly, the Dragon Crest Shield Talisman is there in order to increase your physical mitigation. Because you’re using the Lightning Scorpion Charm and Radagon’s Soreseal, you have very poor physical mitigation. Without this, you’re going to take 100% damage or more in a lot of cases, and this usually gets it up to about 25% when you’re buffed with Golden Vow.

Thundering Swordspear Build: Spells and Gameplay

So the spells that I use for this build are Flame, Grant Me Strength, Golden Vow, Electrify Armament, and Blessing’s Boon. Flame, Grant Me Strength is there to boost your physical damage by another 20%. It doesn’t affect Thunderbolt at all, as I mentioned, that’s 100% lightning damage, but you deal tons of physical damage with this build, so boosting it by 20% is substantial.

Golden Vow not only increases your damage by 15%, but it also increases your defenses by about 10%. This is definitely necessary for this build, because as I mentioned, you have the Lightning Scorpion Charm and Radagon Soreseal, you know, taking away from those defenses. So getting that defense from this, as well as the increased damage to Thunderbolt in your attacks, is fantastic.

Electrify Armament is there when you need extra damage, and because the weapon is Keen Scaling, it’s completely physical, meaning that you can buff it with this. You could also buff it with Bloodflame Blade if you had one extra, and Arcane if you wanted to use that. I don’t have that in this build, but Electrify Armament is going to give you a lot of extra damage to your attack because Thunderbolt doesn’t buff your damage when you use it like some other lightning actual wards do. And lastly, we have Blessing’s Boon here. This is a good heal-over-time, and there’s no reason not to take advantage of it because we meet the requirements. Especially if you’re using the Ritual Sword Talisman, this will help keep your health up at full in order to keep giving you that extra 10% increase in damage.

You can add other spells to this build, but these are the ones I feel are the focal point in order to get you the most possible damage. So the way this build plays is that you’re usually going to run around the landscape buffed picking off trash enemies with Thunderbolt as necessary, or just taking them on if they’re one at a time. And it’s very good at thinning out big packs. So if there are three or four enemies, you can single out one or two, get rid of them real quick, and then take on the other couple ones, which is good. Your damage is so high with this build that you usually one-shot most regular enemies, and you’re able to block with this build as well when you’re facing tough enemies.

But one thing I do want to mention is that Block Counters don’t work very well with the sword spear. The sword spear has a very slow Block Counter. So what’ll happen a lot of times is when you go to do the Block Counter, even though the thing hits like a truck, very often you’ll get interrupted or hit during that Block Counter, and it’s not worth the trade. So I don’t recommend focusing on Block Counters for this build, although the shield is very good at blocking hits, allowing you to move in and spam R1. This is where you’re going to get a lot of damage during boss fights, using that shield to move in close to an enemy and then spam R1. Again, you’ll use Electrify Armament during tough boss fights, and you’ll use Flame, Grant Me Strength for the same thing. You’ll buff up during boss fights with this. I like to rebuff with Golden Vow during boss fights or Electrify Armament if things are going on too long, but I don’t necessarily recommend buffing with Flame, Grant Me Strength again because it has a very short duration. But still, if you want to get max damage, you can do that as well.

So essentially the strategy during a lot of boss fights is you’re going to kind of read the boss, and what you do is dictated by what the boss does. Unlike a lot of the other builds that I’ve made that just go for stance damage and stagger a boss and then go to town on him, this is a more typical build that you would play in this sort of game where you’re not relying on stance breaks, but you’re reading the boss’s movements, and if he stays at range, you’re going to use thunderbolt, and if he gets in close, you’re going to spam R1 and just rip off huge chunks of health with your high attack rating. So you’re going to have to read what he’s doing and decide what’s the best thing for you to do at the moment. If you can spam Thunderbolt, do it. If not, R1.

Another thing that I want to mention is that even though I’m using the Banished Knight Shield here, you can actually use the Jellyfish Shield with this build to boost your damage further by 20%. This will get your attack rating over 1300 at this point in the game. I don’t know what it’ll be at plus 25. It’ll probably be over 1500 one-handed, which is absolutely insane. I don’t think you can get that on a colossal weapon at the moment unless you did something similar, but this may even outperform that, and that allows you to get huge damage.

The downside to using that shield though is that you’ll have to two-hand in order to use Thunderbolt and that you’ll have less guard boost than you would with something like the Banished Knight Shield or the Brass Shield because I think the Jellyfish Shield caps out at 60, whereas those shields caps out closer to 70 or so. However, if you’re fine with lower guard boost and you’re fine with swapping to two-handed to use Thunderbolt, this is a really really good addition to this build because it just increases your damage so much that you just kill things so fast.

Thundering Swordspear Build: Attribute Recommendations

When it comes to stats for this build, I have 40 Vigor, 25 Mind, 19 Endurance, 17 Strength, 55 Dexterity, 9 Intelligence, 25 Faith, and 9 Arcane. Keep in mind that I have Radagon’s Soreseal equipped for these stats, so they’re all five lower in Vigor, Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity. 40 Vigor is there because you need a ton of health for this build. You are going for an R1 spam-type build, and you will trade damage, so you want to make sure that you, you know, have enough health to survive hits and heal up. 25 Mind is there because you do spam a lot of Thunderbolts with this build. They cost 10 FP each, so that’s kind of a lot of FP when you’re using them regularly, but also the buffs are very expensive.

Golden Vow for instance is 47 FP, so you need a substantial FP pool here in order to cast the majority of your buffs without having to stop in the middle for an FP pot and then recast the rest of them, wasting time of your buffs. 19 Endurance is there because this is the exact amount I need in order to build a medium roll with this build. If you’re using the Jellyfish Shield and store the Brass Shield instead, you’ll probably need a couple more points in endurance, so just keep that in mind. 

17 Strength is there. That is the exact number we need to use the sword spear one-handed, which is why we have it. We don’t gain any points on Thunderbolt from this, and because we’re keen we don’t have any strength scaling, so it’s not super important. You don’t want to go higher than 17. Dexterity is at 55 because the higher we have dexterity, the more damage we’re going to deal with our attacks and the more damage Thunderbolt’s going to do, and you want to get your thunderbolt damage high enough that you can one-shot regular enemies. Otherwise, you’re going to be having to use it twice on them, which is not efficient at all.

We don’t need any intelligence and arcane for those builds, so those are at 9 just because that’s my class and 25 faith there is to meet the requirements for golden vow and also for blessing spoon and to allow you to use Flame, Grant Me Strenght and Electrify Armament, so this is just good in general. It will also increase the damage that your Electrify Armament does, which is just kind of an added bonus.

If you’re using the Flask of Wondrous Physick before a boss fight, you want to make sure you use the one that increases lightning damage. This is going to boost your Thunderbolt and any damage you deal when you’re using Electrify Armament, and you also want to increase the dexterity. The one that increases Dexterity, this is again going to increase your damage as regular attacks and your Thunderbolt damage. These bows last three minutes, which is fantastic, so that should be the vast majority of the duration of your boss fight, if not the whole thing. Stay tuned for more builds, and let me know what you’d like to see in the comments.

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 the spells, items, or equipment in this build, and securing some personal objectives, make sure to check the Elden Ring Map.