Elden Ring Maliketh’s Black Blade Build Guide (NG+ Guide)

Maliketh’s Black Blade Build – Equipment

So first up, let’s delve into Maliketh’s Black Blade, which is obviously the weapon we’re using for this build, and it’s a Strength-Faith weapon. It needs a bit of Strength and Faith in order to wield.

It’s got B scaling and Faith and Strength, which are almost exactly identical, at least up to 50. So it doesn’t really matter which one you prioritize. If you prioritize Strength, you’re going to get more physical damage. If you prioritize Faith, you’re going to get more holy damage. However, because we need 46 Faith in order to use the Black Blade incantation, you minimally need 46 Faith for this build. So what I’ve done here is I have 45 Strength and 46 Faith in order to meet the requirements of that incantation, but also to hit the soft caps for the Clawmark Seal.

The Clawmark Seal soft caps at 45, and obviously we need that extra point for that incantation, but that will allow you to cast incantations like Black Blade more effectively because you’ll have a very optimal stat spread for that. Something interesting is I actually tested cranking Strength sky high to get more physical damage because holy damage is not a great damage type in this game, particularly the end game, but Destined Death did less damage, and you’re going to get worse scaling with the Clawmark Seal because of those soft caps that I mentioned. So you’re better off sticking with a split stat spread for this build. As you go into NG+, as you progress through NG+, you’re going to want to keep increasing these together going up to 50 together and then going up maybe to 60 together, 70 together, something like that, keeping them fairly close to get the most out of them, and then into NG++, probably 80.

You probably want to stop right around there or you can keep going if you have nothing else to put attribute points into. One of the major, major pros of using Maliketh’s Black Blade is the attack rating of this weapon is absolutely insane. It’s one of the highest attack-rating weapons in the game at this point. I don’t know if that’ll remain true all the way up to 99 because I haven’t compared it against all other weapons at 99, but at this point in the game, the attack rating is about as high or higher than just about any other weapon that I have seen. This allows you to just use jump attacks and R1 attacks or R2 attacks effectively with this weapon as well, in addition to using Destined Death and Black Blade.

So let’s talk about Destined Death for a second. This is a really interesting weapon skill. It’s very expensive at 40 FP, so it’s not something you’re going to want to use all the time, but luckily it’s not something you need to use all the time. The damage of Destined Death is not particularly amazing compared to an R2 or charged R2 of this weapon. Charged R2 actually outperforms this in terms of damage, but what this weapon skill is really good for is reducing the max health.

So if you’re fighting a boss, you’re going to rip off 10% of their health just by hitting with the attacks, and that 10% health is gone. Even when the debuff expires after 18 seconds, that 10% of health is going to remain gone. It will not come back unless that enemy can heal. If they can’t heal, it’s gone. So it doesn’t just reduce their max health for 18 seconds, it actually reduces their max health, and then when their health goes back up, they don’t regain that health.

What’s really interesting is that Blade of Death on the Black Knife Dagger does a similar thing as this. It does it at range, so it’s a little bit easier to use in general. But if you actually have these two debuffs up on the target at the same time, it’ll reduce their max health by 20%, and again when that expires, their health will not come back. However, if you don’t overlap these at the same time or within that 18-second window, you’re only going to do 10%, and if that 10% is already gone from something like Destined Death, then it’s not going to do anything. I want to reiterate that you want to try and put these debuffs on the target as close together as possible, or at least in that 18-second window so that you get that 20% debuff and 20% of their health is immediately gone.

Now, I don’t use the Black Knife for this Maliketh’s Black Blade Build, and that’s because we’re using Black Blade, which has the exact same effect. And you’re like, well, wait a minute, why can’t you stack all three of these? The game does not allow you to stack three of these same debuffs on an enemy or boss. It allows you to stack two. So you could use Black Knife and Maliketh’s Black Blade using Destined Death, or you could use Black Blade and Destined Death, which is what we’re doing here, the incantation and the weapon skill because we don’t really need the dagger. We’re set up stat-wise ideally for that two-handed weapon. We’re not set up ideally for the dagger because the dagger uses Dexterity and Faith. We’re using Strength and Faith for that Clawmark Seal, and also to get more damage out of Black Blade because it’s an incantation and your incantation scaling is going to impact the damage of that, and no seal scales with Dexterity, and Faith.

The strategy then is you go into a boss fight, you buff up, and then you use Black Blade in order to rip off that first 10% health from range, because Black Blade has range, and you can spam it back-to-back to get even more damage out of it because it does a little bit of damage. It’s not like the strongest incantation ever. You really want that max HP debuff, and as soon as that’s done, then you’re going to try and use Destined Death on the boss to get in that window to get that max 20% health removed.

Destined Death is much harder to use, so sometimes you can start it early and they’ll walk into it, or you can wait for them to do like a long attack animation, dodge it or block it, and then use Destined Death. You just have to judge based on the enemy or boss that you’re fighting which one to do, but you want to make sure you get them both up at once so you get that maximum debuff finished. So once you’ve done Black Blade and then you’ve done Destined Death, after those two things have been accomplished, then you can sort of go to town and do R2s, R1s, and jump attacks.

I prefer jump attacks because they stagger bosses, and they actually do a really good amount of damage because of the high attack rating of this, but from that point forward, you don’t need to use either of those abilities again in a boss fight. However, you may use Black Blade if you need a ranged option. It still deals decent damage at range, so if you find you can’t get to the boss or they leave a big gap between you and they’re kind of coming to you, you can fire off some more Black Blades as they get to you before going back to regular attacking. But I just want to reiterate, that you don’t need to use either of those again after you use each of them once in that fight.

So talking about the armor I’m using for this Maliketh’s Black Blade Build, I’m using Maliketh’s set for the cosplay here. It just looks awesome and matches the style. If you want to kind of cosplay as Maliketh or a Black Blade, it’s a really awesome-looking armor set. It’s probably my favorite armor set in the game. However, when it comes to poise, it doesn’t have a ton of poise. The reason poise is good for this build is because it allows you to get Destined Death and Black Blade off easier, because enemies can close the gap on you when you’re doing it, you get staggered out of it. But the R2s and charged R2s with Maliketh’s Black Blade, have hyper armor, so you don’t need poise to use those very much.

If you were trying to optimize this Maliketh’s Black Blade Build perfectly, you’d try and get higher poise, somewhere closer to 60, and it would make it a little bit easier for you to get Destined Death off more regularly, but you don’t need it for this build. Additionally, if you use jump attacks as much as I do in this build, using the Raptor’s Black Feathers chest piece is good because that’ll increase your jump attack damage by a further 10%, but then you’d have to wear really heavy pieces on your gloves, legs, and head to make up for that in terms of poise.

Maliketh’s Black Blade Build – Talismans

Let’s focus on the talismans I have for this build, I have Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, the Claw Talisman, and the Sacred Scorpion Charm are the three that I pretty much keep equipped the whole time.

And that’s because the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman gives you extra protection. You trade damage a lot with this build because of the long animations and that can just help keep you alive. You are buffing with Golden Vow too, and you’re giving yourself a heal over time with Erdtree’s Blessing. So you do have a lot of protection. A little bit is removed from the Sacred Scorpion Charm, but you want to make sure that you survive and you can keep swinging because it’s a very aggressive build.

The Claw Talisman is there to increase your jump attack damage. I do a lot of jump attacks with this Maliketh’s Black Blade Build. It’s probably my go-to. If you find yourself using more like Charged R2s, you can switch this for the Axe Talisman, or you can even add the Axe Talisman into this build in addition to these if you find yourself doing a mix of Charged R2s and jump attacks. But I find I don’t do as many Charged R2s as I probably should, so I just stick with the Claw Talisman.

And Sacred Scorpion Charm is good because Maliketh’s Black Blade does some holy damage. It’s not 100%, so you don’t get as much damage as you could out of it. But Destined Death also does about 40 to 50% holy damage, so you get some buff there. And as I mentioned, Black Blade is 100% holy damage, so that buffs that significantly.

And then in the last spot, I kind of change it around depending on what’s going on. You can use Shard of Alexander to increase your Destined Death damage. However, as I said before, the damage of that ability isn’t very high even if you optimize specifically for that weapon skill. And because it has such a long animation, it’s very hard to pull off in a lot of cases. So it’s not something you have to use all the time, particularly if you’re only going to use it once in boss fights. Another good option here would be adding the Axe Talisman if you’re using Charged R2s, or Ritual Sword Talisman in order to increase your damage at max health. I want to mention too that Winged Sword Insignia, Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, Millicent’s Prosthesis, and Talismans like that, don’t impact Destined Death. Destined Death does not trigger those Talismans or the Thorny Crack Tear. So it’s not worth using those if you’re doing a build like this, or even if you’re trying to optimize Destined Death, because it’s not going to increase your damage at all.

Maliketh’s Black Blade Build – Spells

The spells I have for this build are just Golden Vow to keep my damage up, buffing my regular attacks, my spells, and my weapon skills. I use all three of those things. So Golden Vow is a fantastic buff for this. Blessing of the Erdtree is a very good heal over time that allows you to play aggressively, block and do block counters, jump attacks, trade damage with Destined Death, use Black Blade, and sometimes trade damage if you didn’t space correctly. And then obviously Black Blade. I want to mention that you have to go to one of the big walking column things, the mausoleums that drop on the ground, in order to get Maliketh’s Black Blade and Black Blade. So because you only have one Remembrance when you start, you’re going to have to go and duplicate that Remembrance at one of these mausoleums before you can get both of these things. So if you go to NG+, before you do that, you’re going to be screwed because you won’t have that Remembrance to duplicate it. So make sure you duplicate that Remembrance before you go to NG+, or you’ll only be able to get one of these things.

Maliketh’s Black Blade: Attribute Distribution Recommendations

Talking about stats for this build, I have 45 Vigor, 22 Mind, 33 Endurance, 45 Strength, 12 Dexterity, 16 Intelligence, 46 Faith and 9 Arcane.

I would like my Vigor to be higher here. This build is very stat hungry. You need Health because you trade damage, you need Mind because you buff with Golden Vow, Erdtree’s Blessing, you use Black Blade and you use Destined Death. You literally cannot have enough FP with this build, but we don’t have the points here to go higher. But as you go into NG+, and NG++, you’re going to want to keep increasing your Mind because it’ll make playing this build easier. When it comes to Endurance, you need 34 Endurance to use Maliketh’s Armor Set, Maliketh’s Black Blade, the Clawmark Seal, and the Talismans that I suggested. I only have 33 because I muffed it, so I changed the Gauntlets to something slightly lighter to record my footage. But you will want at least 34.

Obviously, if you want a better Armor Set with higher poise and more protection, you’re going to have to increase Endurance. So again, into NG+, and onward, you probably want to take Mind up to like 35, and Endurance probably up to like 40 or 45 if you want to move out of this Armor Set into something with more poise. But if you’re fine with this Armor Set, you can leave it at 34 and you’ll be fine. 12 Dexterity is there to meet the minimum requirements from Maliketh’s Black Blade. You really don’t need any more points here.

After you get to 80 Strength and 80 Faith sometime, probably in NG++, you can increase Dexterity to keep increasing your damage, which is a bonus. Intelligence, you don’t need any for this build. Arcane, you don’t need any for this build. I started this build as an Astrologer, which is why my Intelligence is so high. If you’re playing a different class, your stat spread will look a little bit better. You’ll have all those points of Intelligence, hopefully, into something better like Health or Endurance or Strength, etc. So disregard those.

Again, Faith is at 46 in order to have just enough to use Black Blade, but you want to increase that into NG+, as well as Strength.

Maliketh’s Black Blade Build – Final Tips

A couple of final tips for this build. If you’re using the Flask of Wondrous Physick, you’re definitely going to want to be using the Holy-Shrouding Crack Tear. Your regular attacks deal Holy Damage. Destined Death deals Holy Damage, and Black Blade is 100% Holy Damage. So that’s going to benefit everything you do for three minutes, which is great. I also like the Cerulean Hidden Tear at this point of the game, because we don’t have very much FP. So it’s a great way to allow you to get off Black Blade at the beginning of the fight and then use Destined Death without actually consuming any FP. But if you find that’s not a problem for you, again, you only need to fire one Black Blade off and then hit with Destined Death once. Then you really don’t need FP anymore after that point, because you can just do regular R2s, R1s, and jump attacks. Another really good option here is the Greenburst Crystal Tear in order to increase your Stamina Recovery, because you’re going to be rolling all over the place or blocking, block countering, jumping, jump attacking. So that’s a very good option as well.

Lastly, I just want to talk about the Great Rune I would recommend for this. There are probably two Great Runes that you can consider using for this build. Godrick’s Great Rune is great because it gives you plus five to all attributes. And again, this build is stat-hungry. It needs Strength, it needs Faith, it needs Endurance, it needs Figure, it needs Mind. It needs all five of those things. So getting plus five to each of those is going to make your life a lot easier. Another really good option when you get to the end of NG+, is Malenia’s Great Rune, because this allows you to heal yourself if you attack after getting hit very quickly in exchange for reducing your healing with Flasks. The thing is you’re really aggressive with this build. You don’t want to let up on bosses and enemies. So trading damage is totally fine and being able to heal yourself while you’re trading damage is great because then you don’t have to stop the potion. You just keep on swinging. But you won’t again get that until the end of NG. And you’ll only be able to use a little bit before you go into NG+, at which point you won’t have it anymore. So then you should switch to Godrick’s and maybe at the end of NG+, I would suggest trying that one.

So that wraps up the Black Blade build. 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 the spells, items, or equipment in this build, and securing some personal objectives, make sure to check the Elden Ring Map.