Elden Ring Death Knight Build Guide

In this Elden Ring Sword of Night and Flame Guide, I’ll be showing you my Death Knight build. This is a level 150 version of the Deathblade build that sort of carries it even further. It shows how well the Sword of Night and Flame can be used throughout the course of the game.

Elden Ring Death Knight Build Guide

An Intelligence Build that uses the Sword of Night and Flame and Shield as well as some Death Sorceries

Class: Any
Flask Spread: Mostly HP some FP
Weapon: Sword of Night and Flame, Carian Regal Scepter & Frenzied Flame Seal
Shield: Carian Knight’s Shield
Armor: Night’s Cavalry Helm, Night’s Cavalry Armor, Lionel’s Greaves, & Lionel’s Gauntlets
Talismans: Magic Scorpion Charm, Great-Jar’s Arsenal, Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger & Shard of Alexander
Primary Stats: Intelligence
Secondary Stats: Vigor & Mind
Skills: Night-and-Flame-Stance
Spells: Rancor, Ancient Death Rancor, Golden Vow, & Terra Magica

We have over 110 Elden Ring Builds now, for all classes and playstyles. This build is recommended for level 150.

Beginner Builds	Level 50 Builds	Level 100 Builds	Level 150 Builds	Level 150-200	All Game 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	Ghostblade Haima Hoplite Spellsword Carian Cleaver Vanquisher

Elden Ring Death Knight Build – Equipment

As I mentioned in my Deathblade Build Guide, the fire damage of Sword of Night and Flame scales with Faith, while the magic damage scales with Intelligence. Physical damage scales with Strength and Dexterity, although very poorly. I’ll be focusing on the magic damage using the weapon skill, Night-and-Flame Stance, then using the R1 pull instead of the R2 for the fire. You can still do reasonable damage with the fire ability in this set-up; however, you’re going to do far more damage with the magic ability. We’re skewed very heavily towards the magic side, and the reason that is I chose this ability because it has a better range and it’s more reliable.

There are scenarios where the fire one works very well. I’m not saying it doesn’t work well at all, however, I like Comet Azur ability of this cast, as it’s more viable in a lot of places, especially when you’re using Ancient Death Rancor to stagger enemies, which gives you a good opening to channel that into them. I set my attributes in a way that’s going to benefit the magic damage ability of this weapon more than the fire damage. The actual scaling of the weapon isn’t great to begin with. When you compare the damage at 80 Intelligence against 25 Faith, I’m only getting 60 more magic damage than I am getting fire damage on the weapon. That isn’t a lot for 55 points.

When it comes to the staff, I’ve changed it to the Carian Regal Scepter. We have 80 Intelligence here, and the sorcery scaling is better with high Intelligence and low Faith compared to the Prince of Death’s Staff. I have tested the two staves, and the Carian Regal Scepter is much better, even if you’re using Death Sorceries. You’re still doing more damage with Carian Regal Scepter when using Ancient Death Rancor.

As for the seal, I’m using the Frenzied Flame Seal. I don’t have it upgraded, since I only use it to cast Golden Vow. It weighs nothing at all, which is why I’m using this wone. You could use the Golden Order Seal if you want, as it scales off of Intelligence and Faith. However, since we have low Faith, we’re not going to have access to a lot of spells and your incantation scaling will be a bit less than if you had split your attributes between Intelligence and Faith.

Besides that, I’m using the Carian Knight’s Shield to do block counters and be able to block enemies. It’s very light, and this build meets the requirements for using it. It fits the Knight theme and has relatively decent guard boost when fully upgrades.

When it comes to armor, I’m using a mix of the Night’s Cavalry Set and Lionel’s Set. The reason for that is I really like the way Night’s Cavalry fits for this build. However, it doesn’t have enough Poise. I used Lionel’s Greaves and Lionel’s Gloves to be able to have more Poise. When you’re using the Comet Azur ability, you can get hit a lot, which will interrupt it. We’re going to need Poise from our armor so that you can power through the attacks and still be able to cast it. Since you’re using the Sword of Night and Flame, it’s one of the things you have to deal with, so having high Poise will help us do that.

A helmet you can use is the Imp Head (Cat). It doesn’t look good, but if you’re trying to min-max, it can be something you could wear. It gives you +2 in Intelligence and has relatively good Poise.

Elden Ring Death Knight Build – Talismans

When it comes to the talismans for this build, I’m using: Shard of Alexander, Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger, Magic Scorpion Charm, and Great-Jar’s Arsenal.

Magic Scorpion Charm is there to boost the damage of Comet Azur, regular attacks, and the spells we’re using for this build because they all deal magic damage.

Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger is there in order to give you a way to replenish FP. You don’t have a ton of Mind with this build. You’re going to be using Night’s Comet often, and it was between this or Carian Filigreed Crest to reduce the cost of your abilities. However, you’re going to be block countering with this build often, so you’ll immediately replenish your FP once you deal damage off of your block counters.

You should use Great-Jar’s Arsenal in order to boost your equip weight so that you can wear heavier are that gives you more protection. This will allow it so that you have access to wearing armor with more Poise, which is one thing we’ll be needing for this build.

Lastly, we have the Shard of Alexander. This increases the damage of the Sword of Night and Flame’s weapon ability. Another honorable mention for this slot would be the Ritual Sword Talisman. This boosts your damage by 10% when you’re at full health. It’s perfect for this build if you’re confident that you can maintain full health most of the time.

Elden Ring Death Knight Build – Gameplay

The way this build generally works is that I’ll buff with Golden Vow to increase my damage by 15% while also giving me extra defense. When I’m running around, my spells and weapon hit harder. I’ll try to block counter regular enemies or use the charged R2 attack, stagger them, then finish them off with a critical attack to get FP back from Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger.

When I get to difficult enemies, I’ll usually cast Ancient Death Rancor if I have time to set-up before I can fight them. If they aren’t aggressive, I’ll be using Terra Magica before using Ancient Death Rancor to significantly increase my damage. When they start coming at me, I’ll wind-up and use Comet Azur with the Sword of Night and Flame to finish them off. You could also use the regular Rancor for trash mobs, so that you wouldn’t consume too much FP.

Ancient Death Rancor will be your bread and butter here because it staggers enemies, does incredible damage, and has good tracking. It moves slowly, which allows you to just cast it then not worry about it missing the target, especially if they’re moving very fast. A lot of people knock the damage of Ancient Death Rancor, but what they don’t understand is that it hardly ever misses. It’s a reliable spell that you can always use on enemies, so you can forget about the spell after you cast it so you can get back to dealing damage to the enemy.

Elden Ring Death Knight Build – Attributes

When it comes to the attributes for this build, I have: 40 Vigor, 30 Mind, 21 Endurance, 12 Strength, 12 Dexterity, 80 Intelligence, 25 Faith, and 9 Arcane. You don’t need any Arcane for this build, so you can disregard its number.

Vigor is at 40, although I would want it to be higher. However, to get max damage out of the spells and weapon ability, we have it at 40. If you took this build further, you might want to increase Vigor up to 50 or 60. I would highly recommend dropping Intelligence down to 75 to get some Vigor if you’re having a hard time.

30 Mind is there because the weapon ability of Sword of Night and Flame is quite expensive, same with Ancient Death Rancor. Golden Vow isn’t cheap, too, so you’re regularly using these spells. You’ll need to have decent FP, or you’re going to be chugging flasks all the time. You don’t want to get just two casts off in combat, then you need to chug a potion. This will allow you to cast a lot in combat while chugging a fewer amount of FP flasks.

21 Endurance is there to meet the requirement for the equip load we need for this build. Keep in mind that we have Great-Jar’s Arsenal to boost our equip load, so that really helps us be able to keep points out of Endurance, which we need for all the other attributes.

12 Strength and Dexterity are needed to meet the requirements of Sword of Night and Flame. These two attributes scale very poorly with it, so I don’t recommend increasing them.

80 Intelligence is there to get the most out of our spells and the Comet Azur ability from Sword of Night and Flame.

25 Faith is not only there to meet the requirements for Sword of Night and Flame which requires 24 Faith, but also to use Golden Vow to boost our damage and defenses.

Elden Ring Death Knight Build – Final Tips

I like using the Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear with the Flask of Wondrous Physick to increase my magic damage for a significant portion of time. That’s going to affect your regular weapon attacks, weapon skill, spells, and it last for a very long time. I also like using the Greenburst Crystal Tear in order to increase my stamina recovery. That way, I can keep spamming spells or I can block and dodge enemies. You could also consider using Intelligence-knot Crystal Tear if you’d like more damage and if you’re not having trouble with stamina.

That’s it for our Death Knight Build Guide! 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. Happy building!