Best Elden Ring Blasphemous Blade build: stats, weapon, armor and talismans
Deal huge damage with the Blasphemous Blade while keeping your own health topped up
The best Blasphemous Blade build in Elden Ring harnesses the power of Rykard’s greatsword and its Taker's Flames skill to dish out enormous amounts of fire damage while also healing your character. By speccing your character into a powerhouse of Faith, you’ll scale the weapon’s already formidable power to even greater boss-crushing levels.
The Blasphemous Blade build in Elden Ring is one of the game’s more straightforward character concepts. Focused on levelling your character to the point they can wield the titular weapon, the build then simply concentrates on amplifying its destructive might through its scaling and buffing it even further with helpful incantations by investing points into Faith.
In this guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about the best Blasphemous Blade build in Elden Ring, including the best stats, weapons, armour and talismans you need to wield it.
On this page:
- How to play with the Blasphemous Blade build
- Best Blasphemous Blade stats
- Best Blasphemous Blade weapons
- Best Blasphemous Blade armor
- Best Blasphemous Blade talismans
How to play with the Blasphemous Blade build
As its name suggests, the Blasphemous Blade build in Elden Ring is all about using the Blasphemous Blade greatsword. Obtained by defeating Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy in Volcano Manor and trading in his Remembrance of the Blasphemous with Finger Reader Enia the Roundtable Hold, the Blasphemous Blade is especially powerful due to its weapon skill, Taker's Flames.
Taker's Flames sees the wielder lift the sword into the air and set it on fire, before slamming it down into the ground to send a blast of flames forward. The flames don’t just cause serious harm to most enemies, but they will siphon a good portion of health back to the player, healing them for any hits they land with the ability.
As such, the best Blasphemous Blade build looks to strengthen this already potent combination of attack power and healing by scaling the damage that Taker's Flames inflicts, while also maximising the player’s ability to use the skill as often as possible.
Its focus on Faith also means you can easily adapt it for other Faith builds, using some of Elden Ring's best incantations to buff your character even further (though we’d suggest that the Blasphemous Blade build is already the best Elden Ring Faith build around).
Best Blasphemous Blade stats
As the Blasphemous Blade build focuses on using the greatsword, the best Blasphemous Blade stats to aim for line up with the minimum requirements for wielding the weapon. You will need at least 22 Strength, 15 Dexterity and 21 Faith to use the Blasphemous Blade.
Given the mixture of Strength and Faith required, we’d recommend the Confessor as the best Elden Ring starting class for those looking to achieve a Blasphemous Blade build as quickly as possible, thanks to its high Faith stat and solid Strength and Dexterity values. That said, since the Blasphemous Blade can’t be acquired until a fair way into the game, you’re likely to have the required stats in plenty of time no matter which class you choose.
Once you have the minimum stats required to wield the Blasphemous Blade, we’d suggest investing additional points into Faith, Vigor, Mind and Endurance. While the sword’s base damage technically scales equally with Strength, Dexterity and Faith, focusing just on Faith will help increase damage of its Taker's Flames skill, as well as having the additional benefit of making your helpful Incantations stronger.
Vigor is essential for ensuring you have enough health to survive hits from later enemies, while Endurance is required to provide both stamina and equip load - helpful given that the Blasphemous Blade is fairly hefty with a weight of 13.5. We’d also recommend putting points into your Mind stat, to ensure you have enough FP to use Taker's Flames without needing to use your Flasks of Cerulean Tears too often.
Taking the above into account, we’d suggest that the best stats for an optimised Blasphemous Blade build might look something like this at level 150:
- Vigor: 55
- Mind: 29
- Endurance: 30
- Strength: 22
- Dexterity: 15
- Intelligence: 9
- Faith: 60
- Arcane: 9
Of course, if during the process of leveling up your character, you decide this is not the right build for your play style, you can easily change it to something else by using the Elden Ring’s respecing system.
Best Blasphemous Blade build weapons
Along with the Blasphemous Blade, there are several Incantations we’d recommend including in your build - and for those, you'll need one of Elden Ring's best Sacred Seal weapons in your other hand.
We’d recommend using a fully upgraded Erdtree Seal +10, due to its impressive Faith scaling. Helpfully, the Erdtree Seal can also be found while exploring Volcano Manor. Start at the Site of Grace 'Prison Town Church' and head down to the burning bonfire through the gates and search for the seal held by a corpse in a cell guarded by an Omenkiller - you’ll recognise the powerful foe due to its twin serrated blades.
There are several Incantations that work well with the Blasphemous Blade build, but we would recommend two in particular:
- Golden Vow: This boosts your character’s attack and defence by 15% (half that in PvP) for 80 seconds, making it a great way to further buff the Blasphemous Blade’s attack power.
- Flame, Grant Me Strength: This boosts both physical and fire damage by 20% (slightly less in PvP), and stacks with the effect of Golden Vow.
Together, these two Incantations multiply the strength of the Blasphemous Blade and its Taker's Flames attack, maximising the damage dealt with the weapon skill. You can pick up the Golden Vow Incantation on your way to Volcano Manor, in Corpse-Stench Shack at the base of Mt. Gelmir, while Flame, Grant Me Strength is found behind Fort Gael over in Caelid, making both fairly easy to acquire.
Best Blasphemous Blade build armour
Since the Blasphemous Blade build focuses on the weapon itself, there's no fixed requirement for having a certain type of armour here. In general, we’d recommend using a set of armour that is light enough to offset the weight of the sword itself, and allow you to roll quickly and evade attacks, while ideally providing additional Faith to help scale the weapon’s power.
One armour set we’d recommend as among the best for an optimised Blasphemous Blade build is the Haligtree Knight Set, collected by defeating Haligtree Knights as you fight through Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree on the way to infamously tough boss Malenia, Blade of Miquella (though the set’s helmet is found separately near the 'Elphael Inner Wall' Site of Grace).
As well as being a medium set of armour, the Haligtree Knight Set boosts your Faith, further strengthening the scaling of the Blasphemous Blade and your incantations.
Best Blasphemous Blade build talismans
There are a number of talismans that can help boost the power of the Blasphemous Blade build, from buffing the fire damage of its Taker's Flames skill to lowering its FP cost so you can cast it more times without having to refill your magical energy with a Flask of Cerulean Tears.
The number of talismans you can equip may depend on how far you’ve progressed in Elden Ring’s main quest, meaning that you might not be able to equip all four of our recommended Blasphemous Blade build talismans without reaching the very end of the game or venturing into New Game Plus.
Regardless of how many you can equip, the following talismans will help make the Blasphemous Blade build ever better.
- Shard of Alexander: Obtained by completing Iron Fist Alexander’s quest in the late-game area of Crumbling Farum Azula, this talisman increases the attack power of weapon skills by 15% against both normal enemies, bosses and players in PvP. With the Blasphemous Blade build making ample use of the greatsword’s Taker's Flames skill, this talisman is essential for achieving the very strongest loadout with the weapon.
- Fire Scorpion Charm: Found not far from Volcano Manor in Mt. Gelmir’s Fort Laiedd (making it ideal to acquire as you work towards getting the Blasphemous Blade from Rykard), this talisman boosts your fire damage at the cost of suffering increased physical damage. With Taker's Flames excelling in fire damage, the trinket is perfect for making the weapon skill even deadlier.
- Carian Filigreed Crest: This talisman is recommended for any build that relies on weapon skills, as it reduces the cost of using skills by a whopping 25%. In the case of the Blasphemous Blade build, the crest makes Taker's Flames significantly cheaper to use, helping you to use it more times before needing to refill your FP bar. The Carian Filigreed Crest can be bought from War Counselor Iji in the west part of Liurnia of the Lakes after defeating Bloodhound Knight Darriwil during Blaidd's questline.
- Ritual Sword Talisman: This talisman is a little more subjective than the others, but we’d highly recommend it as one of the best talismans for a Blasphemous Blade build. While your health bar is full, this talisman will boost your attack power by 10% - further increasing the damage inflicted by the Blasphemous Blade and its Taker's Flames skill. You can grab it from a chest in the Altus Plateau’s Lux Ruins after defeating the location’s boss, Demi-Human Queen Gilika.
Need more help? Jump back to our list of best Elden Ring builds or our Elden Ring walkthrough.