How do you equip spells, sorcery, and magic in Elden Ring?

In Elden Ring, it’s impossible to simply equip and use a spell once it’s found. Spells like sorceries and incantations must be memorized before they can be used, and Spells can only be memorized at sites of grace. Each spell also has a stat requirement.

To equip spells, first rest at any site of grace and then select ‘Memorize spell’ in the list of options. At the top of the screen, there will be a number of memory slots available for spells. These memory slots determine the number of spells each Tarnished can carry. The number of memory slots can be increased by picking up Memory Stones. These rare stones can be found at towers like Testu’s Rise in Lake Liurnia and Oridy’s Rise in the Weeping Peninsula of Limgrave. Each memory stone increases the number of spells the Tarnished can equip by one.

In order to cast spells, Tarnished also needs a sorcery catalyst: either a Glintstone Staff, for sorceries, or a Sacred Seal, for incantations. Generally speaking, Glintstone Staffs can only cast sorceries and Sacred Seals can only cast incantations, so read the spell description carefully to see if it’s the correct type. 

There are also stat requirements for each spell. For example, the incantation Urgent Heal requires eight Faith. Tarnished with seven faith or below doesn’t meet the requirements cannot equip the spell to a memory slot. Glintstone sorceries work the same way but have an Intelligence requirement instead of a Faith requirement. High-level spells can require upwards of 50 Intelligence, while simpler sorceries and incantations tend to have requirements below 20.

Sorceries and incantations also scale with Intelligence and Faith, and those requirements are just the bare minimum stats to use those spells. That means they do more damage the more points each Tarnished has put into those stats. The spell Glintstone Pebble will do much more damage with a character who has 60 Intelligence than the Glintstone Pebble from the staff of a Tarnished with 20 Intelligence. If spells seem ineffective even after they’re properly equipped, try leveling Intelligence or Faith to boost them.

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