In this Elden Ring Cold Sorceries Build Guide, I’ll be showing you my Freezing Battlemage build. This is a level 150 version of the Battlemage build that incorporates some frost spells into its repertoire. I will show you how to play this build effectively at level 150 to get the most possible damage.
Elden Ring Cold Sorceries Build Guide – Freezing Battlemage
A melee mage build that uses Carian Slicer and other Carian Sword Sorceries to their fullest!
We have over 110 Elden Ring Builds now, for all classes and playstyles. This build is recommended for level 150.
Elden Ring Cold Sorceries Build – Equipment
If you remember, the Battlemage focused on using sorceries like the Carian Sword Sorceries: Carian Piercer, Carian Slicer, and Carian Greatsword. We used most of these spells in this build, as well with a couple of variations.
The staff that we use for this Elden Ring Cold Sorceries build is Lusat’s Glintstone Staff and the reason for that is it’s going to give us the maximum damage that we can deal with a Staff for this set-up. The amount of FP that it adds, which is 50%, is insignificant for Carian Slicer, which is our primary spell for this build. It only costs 6 FP, so raising that to 9 FP is not substantial. You want to get the maximum damage per swing with this, so that you can just melt enemies and bosses. FP shouldn’t be that much of an issue for you at this point, as you’ll probably have 30-35 Mind and 3-5 FP flasks to get you through from checkpoint to checkpoint.
Additionally, you can use a second staff in your offhand. Carian Glintstone Staff further boosts the damage of Carian Sword Sorceries. You don’t have to upgrade it or cast the spell with it to get the boost, you just need to be holding it on your offhand. You’re going to get the damage increase from the Staff for Carian Slicer, Carian Piercer, and Carian Greatsword, which is phenomenal.
The other alternative would be the Jellyfish Shield. This boosts your damages by 20%, a bit more than Carian Glintstone Staff. However, it requires 20 Strength and 14 Dexterity. You also have to use Contagious Fury in order to buff your overall damage. You can use it for blocking, as it has an acceptable block, and it also boosts the other spells that we use for this build aside from Carian Sword Sorceries. If you’re using ranged spells, then this is a good option. You can use Carian Glintstone Staff and Jellyfish Shield, swapping them back and forth, so that you don’t have to keep buffing. It’s up to you, as you can use either one of them or both.
When it comes to helmet, I like to use the Snow Witch Hat because it increases the damage of cold sorceries by 10%. I use Adula’s Moonblade, Freezing Mist and Glintstone Icecrag, so it’s going to boost the damage of those spells. For the other armor slots, what you want to wear is completely up to you. I try to get as much protection as possible as this build has a good amount of Endurance because you’re spamming Carian Slicer. If you find yourself not using the cold sorceries with this build, you could switch out the helmet for something that increases Intelligence. Just make sure that you don’t go too much higher than 80 Intelligence, as the damage you get from it isn’t going to be substantial enough to invest in it.
Elden Ring Cold Sorceries Build – Talismans
The talismans we’ll be using for this Cold Sorceries build are: Graven-School Talisman, Graven-Mass Talisman, Ritual Sword Talisman, and Magic Scorpion Charm.
Both the Graven-School Talisman and Graven-Mass Talisman increase your sorcery damage. You can stack these two together.It’s going to boost basically all the spells you use which is great. Ritual Sword Talisman boosts your overall damage by 10% as long as you’re at full health. This will boost all of our spells as well, just like the two talismans I mentioned earlier. Magic Scorpion Charm boosts your magic damage by 12% but increases the physical damage you take by 10%. These are really good talismans that will help you get the most damage you could deal.
You could use some talismans like Rotten Winged Sword Insignia or Winged Sword Insignia as their buff triggers from spamming Carian Slicer. However, I do find that by the time you do five or six hits to trigger the buff, the enemy is usually dead. If you’re fighting a boss, you don’t have time to attack much longer than that, so you’re not going to activate its buff. These two talismans, however, boosts your overall damage. You could use these, but it won’t be as effective as you think it would be.
Elden Ring Cold Sorceries Build – Gameplay
The way this Elden Ring Cold Sorceries build generally plays is that you’re going to run around on the landscape, use Glintstone Icecrag to pick off enemies at range. You could use other spells like Great Glintstone Shard if you prefer a spell with longer range. The upside of Glintstone Icecrag is that it can help build up the Frostbite status effect, which reduces an enemy’s damage absorption, allowing you to deal more damage. This is only applicable to tough enemies, as you’ll usually kill trash mobs before you even trigger Frostbite with this spell or other ice spells, unless you’re using Freezing Mist. It’s not imporant for trahs mobs, but it’s really good for boss fights.
What you want to primarily do is to use Carian Slicer regularly, since you’ll kill enemies in one or two hits. It’s going to cost about 18 FP to do that, which isn’t a ton. You could use a talisman like Ancestral Spirit’s Horn instead of Ritual Sword Talisman if you want to conserve a little FP. However, it wouldn’t really be an issue as you have 35 Mind. When you get to tough enemies, you’re going to use the Flask of Wondrous Physick and just go to town spamming Carian Slicer, or ranging them down with Glintstone Icecrag.
Adula’s Moonblade is good in AoE situations where you’re outnumbered, or when you’re fighting big enemies that are difficult to hit with Carian Slicer. This does well against dragons and other enemies that are hard to lock on to, as this hardly ever misses. One thing I noticed while comparing Adula’s Moonblade and Carian Greatsword is that Carian Greatsword does more damage if you’re not using the Snow Witch Hat. If you’re not using Snow Witch Hat, I recommend using Carian Greatsword if you’re trying to get max damage. An upside of Adula’s Moonblade is that it shoots out a wave so it has a longer range, and it also builds up some of that Frostbite status effect, which is what you want to use. It’s up to you to weigh each spell’s pros and cons and see which one will be beneficial for you. You can also use other spells such as Loretta’s Greatbow if you need a spell that has a really long range.
The focus of this Elden Ring Cold Sorceries build is trying to get in close melee range and use Carian Slicer as your primary melee attack. Carian Piercer is just there mostly for NPC or regular invaders in general. You could also use it on horseback, as it has incredible range. You could start the wind-up before enemies get into range, and they’ll usually run right into it. It’s not FP-efficient, so it’s not something that you can really use as a default attack.
Elden Ring Cold Sorceries Build – Attributes
When it comes to the attributes for this Cold Sorceries build, I have: 40 Vigor, 30 Mind, 22 Endurance, 20 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 80 Intelligence, 14 Faith, and 9 Arcane. Faith and Arcane are simply there because of the class I chose at the beginning. You don’t need any Faith or Arcane for this build, but you could use Golden Vow to increase your damage if you started out as a Confessor like I did. It’s not a bad way to increase your damage, but you don’t really want to put more points in there.
40 Vigor is there because you’re going to be in melee range and you’re going to get hit. You’re wearing decent armor with this build, so you’re not going to die in one hit, which is why you can get away with a lower amount of Vigor than other melee builds. You can invest the points instead towards Intelligence in order to get the maximum damage possible.
You need 30 Mind because Lusat’s Glintstone Staff increases your FP cost by 50%. Getting less than 30 Mind is really non-negotiable with this build.
22 Endurance is there to give you not only more stamina, but in order to use the Greatshield and equip two Staves at the same time. If you’re not going to use the Jellyfish Shield, you can drom some points here as that will reduce your equip load a lot. I do like having good armor for this build because you’re playing melee, so having points in Endurance doesn’t hurt.
20 Strength and 14 Dexterity are simply there to meet the requirements for the Jellyfish Shield. If you decide to not use it, you’re going to disregard these two attributes. You could save at least ten points from these two attributes if you’re not going to use the Jellyfish Shield. You can put those points into Mind to have more FP, or into Vigor for more health. It’s up to you where you want to put those extra points.
80 Intelligence is really the breakpoint for Intelligence. It doesn’t add much damage after this point, but it will still increase damage. If you really want to keep increasing it, maybe in NG+, you’ll probably put points here. I think that at this point, you should invest the next 10-20 levels towards Vigor, Mind, or Endurance.
Elden Ring Cold Sorceries Build – Final Tips
If you’re going to use the Flask of Wondrous Physick, you want to use the Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear to increase your magic damage for three minutes. Everything you do with this build is basically magic damage, so that’s good. You should also use Greenburst Crystal Tear to increase your stamina recovery. You don’t have a lot of stamina with this build, so you want to get it to replenish quickly so that you could spam Carian Slicer.
That’s it for our Freezing Battlemage 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!
