Elden Ring’s Incantations consist of a lot of unique projectiles, as well as plenty of heals, buffs, and weapon infusions. The different schools of Incantations inElden Ringare Bestial, Dragon Cult, Dragon Communion, Erdtree, Fire Monk, Frenzied Flame, Fundamentalist, Giant’s Flame, Godslayer, Servant of Rot, and Two Fingers. Unlike Sorceries, a handful of Incantations can apply to nearby allies.
Maximum damage alone had limited influence in each Incantation’s strength, considering how subjective damage can be due to combinations of skill scaling, various buff sources, and individual enemy resistances. Instead, the Incantations are best evaluated on their “effectiveness” including range, Status Effect application, FP efficiency, side effects, and comparison to alternatives. Two of the factors that hold some of the Incantations back are how easily their effects can be replicated and whether their buffs apply to nearby allies. Given their variety, Incantation builds can be extremely powerful for solo players and equally powerful forcooperative multiplayer inElden Ring.
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S-Tier Incantations
A majority ofElden Ring’s Dragon Communion Incantationspack powerful punches with incredible range and unmatched Status Effect applications. Their slow cast speeds have extremely high damage and/or Status Effect application tradeoffs. The Dragon Cult and Dragon Communion Incantations ofElden Ringaccount for a large amount of the S-tier Incantations for these reasons.
Other than the Dragon schools of Incantations, the most efficient healing, support, and offensive spells belong to the S-tier category. Dedicated Incantationbuilds inElden Ringshould be utilizing a few spells from this tier of Incantations. In addition to the best support spells, these Incantations are some of the best ways to apply Status Effects to enemies.
Blessing of the Erdtree
Unendurable Frenzy
A-Tier Incantations
Except for a few unique Ashes of War, the Black Flame Status Effect is otherwise exclusive to Godslayer Incantations. The exclusivity of Black Flame highlights how easily some of the effects of most other Incantations can be replicated, either by Talismans, crafted consumables, theFlask of Wondrous Physick, Ashes of War, or Sorceries. Unlike some of the other inventory items mentioned, spells require players to rest at a Site of Grace to make different selections, making unequipped spells unavailable within combat.
The A-tier consists of slightly less efficient healing and damage options compared to the S-tier. Most of the support Incantations that are rated this high are due to applying to nearby allies, which very few of their alternative sources are capable of. The Incantations from the namedDragons inElden Ringare rated lower than their standard variants of the Incantations because their higher FP doesn’t balance out their other tradeoffs, except for the Magma Dragon Incantations.
Protection of the Erdtree
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B-Tier Incantations
The B-Tier is where most of the Fire schools of Incantations rank. Since Fire damage doesn’t behave as a damage-over-time Status Effect, these Incantations aren’t quite as effective as the other Status Effects available through Incantations. Even the Incantations from the mightyFire Giant endgame bosscan be outperformed by other Incantations. This isn’t to say that Fire Incantations are ineffective, though to compete with the heavy hitters these Incantations will likely need to utilize Fire-specific buffs.
The rest of the Incantations that make up the B-tier are there because they start to decrease in their efficiency of applyingStatus Effects inElden Ring. Some of the offensive Incantations in this rank simply don’t have a related Status Effect, while others have too poor range or tracking to consistently hit targets. At this rank and lower, the Incantations start to become more of a stylized choice that isn’t quite as effective as others.
Whirl, O Flame!
C-Tier Incantations
The Incantations in the C-Tier are the landmark of style preferences that have more effective alternatives. The offensive Incantations in this rank often have more FP-efficient variants viapowerful Ashes of War. The support Incantations in this rank are rated so because of how easily they can be replicated by other sources, given that the support Incantations here don’t apply to nearby allies.
DespiteElden Ringgiving players a generous amount of Memory Slots to equip different spells, most support Incantations are often far too specific for their own good. With how diverse the sources of buffs and support bonuses can be, stopping at a Site of Grace to equip different spells is a luxury that isn’t always available. Especially since items in the player’s inventory that aren’t equipped don’t count toward their weight, there’s nothing stopping players from hoarding a ridiculous amount ofElden Ring’s best consumable items.
Vyke’s Dragonbolt
Wrath of Gold
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D-Tier Incantations
Given how restrictiveElden RIngis concerning infusing weapons with additional Elements, and how many methods there are for this, the infusion/enchantments make up a majority of the lowest rank for Incantations. If not for the limited availability, the damage bonuses and Status Effects from weapon infusions are otherwise quite effective. In the case of weapon Incantations, it is far more efficient to instead have a weapon that is permanently infused with an element, like the overpoweredBleed weapons inElden Ring.
The low end of the offensive Incantations, as well as the easily replaceable support Incantations for solo players, are ranked in the D-tier. The Elemental resistance support Incantations in this rank simply can’t compete with how easily players can equip any ofElden Ring’s best Talismans, without needing a safe place to do so. Once again, the remainder of the Status Effect removal support Incantations all have less expensive alternatives via crafted consumables.
Rejection
Shadow Bait
Elden Ringis available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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