While the Sword of Night and Flame was nerfed in an early patch Elden Ring, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer worth building around. This weapon is very powerful for a mixed caster build, and it’s a must-consider for casters in general. Let’s talk about the best build for it.
Best stats for Sword of Night and Flame in Elden Ring
The following stats are calculated for a level 120 build. We start as a Confessor, Elden Ring‘s all-rounder with an emphasis on Faith.
- Vigor: 40
- Mind: 20
- Endurance: 16
- Strength: 12
- Dexterity: 12
- Intelligence: 45
- Faith: 45
- Arcane: Nine
Of these stats, we recommend prioritizing Vigor to 40, and then Intelligence and Faith as much as possible. The Sword of Night and Flame scales quite well off of both of these stats, so improving them evenly is optimal. This puts a heavy strain on your levels, so keeping your Strength and Dexterity at the minimum of 12 is a good idea. You could even start as a class with less Strength if you want to only two-hand the Sword, but we like the extra flexibility.
The only other two stats that matter are Mind and Endurance. Mind lets you cast weapon skills and spells more often, as it gives you more FP, while Endurance is great for stamina and armor. We only recommend bumping these up a tiny bit if you want to hit hard. There is some wiggle-room—getting Intelligence and Faith to 40, then Mind to 25 and Endurance to 21, can allow for some more interesting armor choices.
Best gear for a Sword of Night and Flame build in Elden Ring
The Sword of Night and Flame is an accessible blade that can carry a build, even after its early nerf. Supporting gear includes Great Turtle Shell, Golden Order Seal, and the Prince of Death’s Staff. These tools support the user’s stamina and casting potential.
Since your weapon of choice is the Sword itself, let’s talk about it really quick. The Sword of Night and Flame is an Int/Faith longsword that upgrades with Somber Smithing Stones and deals physical, magic, and fire damage. Its Weapon Skill, the Night-and-Flame Stance, allows the user to use a light attack to fire a Comet Azur—a massive, powerful laser—or a heavy to launch a sweeping flame that, surprisingly, comes out faster. Using this skill effectively can replace some, but not all, magic usage.
All other equipment you need is window dressing. The Great Turtle Shell goes on your back while you two-hand the Sword of Night and Flame. The Golden Order Seal and Prince of Death’s Staff are both used to cast spells, since they each scale off of both mental stats. Alternatively, the Sword of Milos or Sacrificial Axe can recoup some FP whenever you kill enemies.
Best armor for a Sword of Night and Flame build in Elden Ring
The best armor for the Sword of Night and Flame is the Spellblade Set, which improves the damage for the Night stance’s Comet. You’ll likely want to wear Intelligence-boosting headpieces or the Ash-of-War Scarab.
The Spellblade Set improves the magic damage of weapon skills, which sadly only improves the Night’s laser. However, at a solid eight percent bonus damage, this is some of the highest damage an armor set can provide. You can use more efficient armor if you need to, but this extra damage is very nice.
It helps to wear an Intelligence or Faith-improving armor piece, specifically for the head slot. The Twinsage Glinstone Crown lets you invest a bit less into Intelligence while retaining your good scaling. The Greathood provides a smaller bonus to both Faith and Intelligence. These helms both reduce max health, though, making them a bit risky. If you want less of a downside, the Queen’s Crescent Crown or Haligtree Knight Helm boost mental stats without reducing anything. Or, if you want a unique downside, the Ash-of-War Scarab reduces skill FP costs by around 15 percent, at the cost of around five percent bonus damage taken.
Best spells for a Sword of Night and Flame build in Elden Ring
For a well-rounded Sword of Night and Flame build, you want a mixture of Magic damage, Fire damage, and body-applying buffs. This combos with the Sword of Night and Flame’s bonus damage as well as the talismans we want to equip for the build.
While your weapon doesn’t accept support effects, your body can. Flame, Grant Me Strength is a traditionally powerful buff for this build, boosting your Fire damage and Physical damage quite significantly. As a result, you really want to use fire attacks that have good range to slowly chip away at enemies. Frenzied Flame Incantations can be very helpful there.
You can also use the Prince of Death’s Staff to access most significant Sorceries. Spells that deal magic damage are perfect for this role: Glintstones can be a nice long-ranged option, as well as something to annoy enemies, while more powerful Magic spells like Carian Phalanx can help put enemies down quickly. This all takes quite a significant amount of FP, so be sure your Wondrous Physick can help you out.
Best talismans for a Sword of Night and Flame build in Elden Ring
Depending on how much damage you want to deal, you can make a very competent Weapon Skill build through talismans. Here are the options we recommend:
- Shard of Alexander: The reward for completing the Alexander questline. This boosts your Weapon Skill damage by a whopping 15 percent, some of the best damage you can get from a talisman.
- Magic Scorpion Charm: This charm, rewarded by completing a small part of Preceptor Seluvis’s quest, boosts magic damage by 12 percent in general—including the basic damage of your sword swings. However, you’ll take more physical damage in return.
- Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman: Located near the bottom of the Haligtree, this talisman provides a flat 20 percent physical damage reduction. Perfect for bumping back the penalties for the Magic Scorpion Charm.
- Carian Filigreed Crest: This talisman lowers the FP cost for Night-and-Flame Stance. And you just have to do some of Ranni’s quest for it, making it very useful considering your lower Mind stat.
If you prefer the Fire variant of Night-and-Flame stance, you can simply replace the Magic Scorpion Charm with the Fire Scorpion Charm. You can also slot this in over the Filigreed Crest, if you decide to invest some more points into Mind. We never really found that necessary, thanks to the power of Cerulean Tear Flasks. For quick fights where you can’t get the time to use the Weapon Skill—like Malenia—replace the Shard of Alexander and Carian Filigreed Crest with Erdtree’s Favor plus-two and the second Scorpion Charm.
