Elden Ring Spear and Shield Build Guide - Haima Hoplite

In this Elden Ring Spear and Shield Guide, I’ll be showing you my Haima Hoplite build. This is an all-game build that you can use from the very beginning of the game all the way to NG+.

Elden Ring Spear and Shield Build Guide – Haima Hoplite

Haima Hoplite is based on Strength and Intelligence stat attributes to utilize the Clayman’s Harpoon’s Physical and Magic damage. Paired with the Impaling Thrust and Repeating Thrust Ashes of War, this build can stance-break targets or even burst down bosses with highly damaging repeating thrusts.

Class: Any
Flask Spread: Mostly HP, some FP
Weapon: Clayman’s Harpoon, Academy Glintstone Staff
Shield: Cuckoo Greatshield
Armor: Cuckoo Knight Helm, Blaidd’s Armor, Cuckoo Knight Gauntlets, Cuckoo Knight Greaves or any armor with high protection and 51+ Poise
Talismans: Shard of Alexander, Curved Sword Talisman, Spear Talisman, Rotten Winged Sword Insignia & more suggested talismans in the video.
Primary Stats: Vigor, Strength & Intelligence
Secondary Stats: Endurance & Mind
Skills: Repeating Thrust, Impaling Thrust
Spells: Terra Magica, Scholar’s Armament

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

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 Spear and Shield Build – Equipment and Gameplay

The weapon that we’re using for this Spear and Shield build is the Clayman’s Harpoon. This is a weapon you can find relatively early in the game. If you go to Siofra River Well and farm the Claymen there, you can get this weapon as a drop. You can use this from probably the first 5% of the game.

What makes this weapon interesting is that this weapon deals both physical and magic damage, while still being able to infuse it. I recommend leaving it on the standard fusion as you’re still going to get scaling out of Strength and Intelligence, allowing you to increase the physical and magic damage of it while still being able to buff it with spells like Scholar’s Armament. If you put it on the heavy infusion, you can still buff it but you will have no Intelligence scaling, so any points in Intelligence wouldn’t go towards the damage of the weapon. You’ll be 10-15 points behind heavy if you go this way, and you do more magic damage with it then buff it, getting even more magic damage. When you make use of Terra Magica, Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear, or even Magic Scorpion Charm, you’re going to get more damage from the weapon.

When it comes to the Ash of War for this Spear and Shield build, there are two that I actually like to use. If you have two Clayman’s Harpoon, you can put them both on your main hand, then switch it depending on what Ash of War you want to use. It’s difficult to draw early on in the game, but it’s a lot easier once you reach NG+.

The first Ash of War is Repeating Thrust. I like this because the extra damage from Scholar’s Armament is going to be applied to each hit. You hit four times with this, making you get more damage out of Scholar’s Armament’s buff. You could also use a talisman like Rotten Winged Sword Insignia to further boost your damage when you hit the enemies repeatedly. With the talisman, item buffs, and Terra Magica, you can hit over 1200 attack rating. The reason why I have another Ash of War instead of one is because I find this very situational with this build. It can be hard to use in boss fights, as it doesn’t have a lot of Poise damage.

The other Ash of War is Impaling Thrust. What I like about this is that it has very good reach. It goes through shields, which is the weakness of spears. It staggers just about anything in one hit, if it’s not a tough enemy or a boss. I like using Impaling Thrust on bosses for the Poise damage, which allows you to take them down very quickly then keep attacking them or doing a critical strike. It’s really strong in boss fights, which is why I recommend using these two in this build. You can swap on the fly, as these two Ashes of War cover each other’s weaknesses.

You can do the Moonveil strategy of block countering then doing a critical attack to get FP back with Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger. Impaling Thrust only costs 9 FP, while Repeating Thrust only costs 7 FP, so these two are very cheap to use.

What’s great is that Impaling Thrust is that it is found at the Warmaster’s Shack, while Repeating Thrust is found by defeating the first Night’s Cavalry along the main road just below the Gatefront Ruins. You can obtain these two very quickly in the game, so you can put this build together very quickly.

When it comes to the shield, I’m using the Cuckoo Greatshield here because I feel like it fits the style of my armor. I’m using three pieces of the Cuckoo Knight Set with Blaidd’s Armor, so that’s the kind of style I’m going for. You can use any Greatshield you want here, as I just wanted this for the look of my character.

When it comes to our staff, we are using the Academy Glintstone Staff because it’s the best staff you can use at around 50 Intelligence. This is going to give you the best sorcery scaling, which is going to make Scholar’s Armament as strong as possible. For early game, I would recommend using Meteorite Staff, which you can get in Caelid.

As I mentioned earlier, the armor that I’m using is three pieces of the Cuckoo Knight Set with Blaidd’s Armor. You can use whatever you want here, as long as you have 55 Poise. That’s the number you’re going for so that you aren’t going to get interrupted when you use Repeating Thrust or Impaling Thrust. 55 Poise lets you use Impaling Thrust repeatedly to stagger a boss quickly.

Elden Ring Spear and Shield Build – Talismans

For our talismans, we have Shard of Alexander to boost both of our Ashes of War, Curved Sword Talisman to increase your guard counter damage, and Spear Talisman to increase the amount of counter damage. I also like using Dagger Talisman to give me increased critical damage when you’re doing a follow-up attack. That happens a lot when you’re using Impaling Thrust, and also during block counters, so that’s really good.

Sometimes, I would swap out Dagger Talisman for Rotten Winged Sword Insignia if I’m using Repeating Thrust in order to get my attack power boosted each time I use it.

Early on in the game, I also like using Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger when you don’t have all these talismans, particularly Shard of Alexander if you’re not using Warrior Jar Shard. I like this early on in the game in order to help with FP management, since you’re going to have to put points in Strength, Intelligence, Vigor, and Endurance. You’re not going to have a lot of points in Mind, so you’re not going to have a lot of FP. I would sub it out later in the game when you don’t have FP issues.

Elden Ring Spear and Shield Build – Spells

Besides Scholar’s Armament, I also have Terra Magica slotted into this build. I don’t use this very much, as this is a very aggressive build. You’re not usually sitting inside Terra Magica’s circle while waiting for the boss to approach you. You’re on the offensive with Repeating Thrust and Impaling Thrust. Sometimes, you can put Terra Magica outside a boss fog, then start the fight. You will roll away quickly, landing on it. It’s very situational, as you won’t use it all the time.

You can use other sorceries if you want so that you have a ranged option in a pinch. Having a ranged sorcery will save you even if you’re not hitting with maximum damage, compared to a pure sorcerer build. It’s good to have options, but you will notice that once you get 50 Intelligence with Clayman’s Harpoon, it just drops off incredibly. You’re not going to increase Intelligence higher than 50 when you get to NG+, so your sorceries will become even less effective.

Elden Ring Spear and Shield – Attributes

When it comes to the attributes for this Elden Ring Spear and Shield build, I have: 60 Vigor, 25 Mind, 33 Endurance, 50 Strength, 12 Dexterity, 50 Intelligence, 7 Faith, and 9 Arcane. You don’t really need any Faith, Dexterity, or Arcane for this build, although you would want to increase Faith to 25 by the end of NG+ in order to use Golden Vow. After you hit about 80 Strength, you’re not going to get much more damage out of this weapon, so it would be better to put points in Faith to use Golden Vow and Flame, Grant Me Strength. Clayman’s Harpoon requires 10 Dexterity, so you hardly need Dexterity as long as you have 10.

60 Vigor is here because we trade damage quite regularly with Repeating Thrust and Impaling Thrust. This is a very tanky build, as we don’t really need much more in the way of attack power attribute.

25 Mind is probably too much at this point of the game, as we don’t use a lot of FP. Impaling Thrust costs 9 FP, while Repeating Thrust costs only 7 FP, so these aren’t very high. Scholar’s Armament doesn’t use a lot of FP either, and it has a long-lasting buff, so you don’t go through a lot of FP. You can use your flasks between checkpoints, so you could probably drop this down to 20 early on in the game. You’re going to prioritize Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, and Vigor, so it’s okay to have low Mind at this point.

I have 33 Endurance, the exact number I need in order to medium roll with this set-up. If you’re using other equipment than what we’re using, the exact number will vary. It’s going to be somewhere around this ballpark.

Strength and Intelligence are both at 50 here. Our weapon scales much better with Strength than it does with Intelligence early on, so I would prioritize Strength to meet the requirements for a Greatshield. At some point, once you get to around 50 Strength, you’re going to want to increase Intelligence to give you more magic damage from the sorcery scaling on Scholar’s Armament.

Elden Ring Spear and Shield – Final Tips

When it comes to Flask of Wondrous Physick, I like to use the Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear. We do over 50% magic damage when we’re fully buffed, so we get good use out of this. It’s going to increase your damage by like 150 attack rating, so it’s pretty good in NG+. You can also use Strength-knot Crystal Tear or Intelligence-knot Crystal Tear if you want.

You can also use Stonebarb Cracked Tear to increase your Poise damage to help make Impaling Thrust more viable in boss fights. It doesn’t last very long, but it allows you to stagger bosses more easily. If you’re using Repeating Thrust, it would be a good idea to use Thorny Cracked Tear to increase your damage with repeating strikes against bosses and tough enemies.

When it comes to Great Runes, Godrick’s Great Rune isn’t a bad choice. You need Vigor, Mind, Endurance, Strength, Intelligence, a little bit of Dexterity, and Faith later on to boost attack power through Golden Vow. You get a boost on 5 of the 8 attributes that you really need. Another good choice would be Radahn’s Great Rune in order to get more health, stamina, FP. All these things are good for this build, so I would recommend either of the two Great Runes.

That’s it for our Haima Hoplite 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!