In this Elden Ring Samurai Build Guide, I’m introducing the Supreme Samurai build. This is a versatile, all-game build that works from the very beginning of Elden Ring and remains effective through New Game and New Game Plus. It primarily focuses on dexterity, emphasizing traditional samurai combat. A common question for those starting with a samurai build is what to do if you’re not interested in following the typical Moonveil path or the Bloodflame Bushido approach.
This guide is designed to offer an alternative route, showing how to create a successful samurai build without relying on the more popular options. The Supreme Samurai build is ideal for players who want to stick with a pure-dexterity approach or even incorporate some strength elements into their samurai playstyle. I’ll explain the best way to build and play this type of samurai, focusing on skillful swordplay, quick attacks, and adaptability throughout all stages of the game.
Elden Ring Samurai Build Guide – Supreme Samurai
A pure DEX Build that uses the Nagakiba and Grease to have the best damage for any situation, coupled with extremely high mobility.
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Elden Ring DEX Samurai Build Guide – Equipment & Talismans
Let’s start with the weapon choice for this Dexterity Samurai build—the Nagakiba. It’s one of my top five weapons in the game, thanks to its exceptional reach and manageable stat requirements, especially if you two-hand it. While the Uchigatana is a popular alternative, the Nagakiba generally outperforms it, offering a longer reach without sacrificing much in terms of damage output. The Uchigatana might have lower attribute requirements, but if you’re already focusing on Dexterity, the requirements for the Nagakiba are easily met, making it an excellent choice for a dexterity-based build.
In this build, I’ve opted for the Keen version of the Nagakiba, paired with the Unsheathe Ash of War. Unsheathe is the default weapon skill on the Uchigatana, familiar to those who start as a Samurai. It allows you to hold L2 and choose between two types of attacks: R1 for a quick slash or R2 for a more powerful overhead slash that deals greater stance damage. If you’re targeting stagger effects, the R2 is your best bet, while the R1 is ideal for quicker responses when you need to act fast without knowing exactly what your enemy will do.
The playstyle for this build can be both aggressive and reactionary. When you’re facing bosses and want to stagger them, you might use the R2 stance repeatedly, akin to the Moonveil strategy, to break their poise. If you’ve applied Blood Grease, you might go all out with R1 attacks to trigger Hemorrhage and deal burst damage. However, if you’re uncertain about an enemy’s moves or they’re highly aggressive, you can play more defensively, holding L2 and waiting to react with R1 or R2 depending on the situation.
The versatility of Unsheathe allows you to adapt your combat approach, whether you’re going on the offensive, buffing your weapon, or playing defensively. This flexibility makes it a fantastic choice for a Samurai build, providing a wide range of options for engaging with enemies.
Another advantage of keeping your weapon with pure physical damage is the ability to buff it with Greases, adding versatility to your attacks. If you’re aware of enemies’ weaknesses—whether through experience or by referencing the wiki—you can craft and apply the appropriate Greases to exploit those weaknesses. This is particularly useful in New Game Plus, where you often have a better understanding of boss vulnerabilities and a large supply of crafting materials.
Early on, Lightning Grease is effective since many enemies and bosses are vulnerable to lightning. Blood Grease helps trigger Hemorrhage faster, giving you an edge in combat. Magic Grease adds magic damage, and Dragon Grease boosts your damage against dragons like Agheel. This flexibility is a significant advantage over builds focused solely on Bleed, like Bloodflame Bushido, allowing you to adapt to different scenarios and boss fights.
In New Game Plus, you’ll have plenty of crafting materials, making it easy to create these Greases as needed. If you’re playing through New Game, you might need to collect recipe books to craft them, which can be a bit challenging early on, but it’s not overly difficult. Overall, the ability to switch damage types with Greases adds a strategic layer to this build, letting you tailor your approach depending on the enemies you’re facing.
So when it comes to armor for this DEX Samurai build, this is all about fashion for me. I’m trying to get that Samurai look or that Ronin look. So I really went and mixed and matched pieces to try and give me that, and also make it a little bit different than the other Samurai builds I’ve done. I have the Nox Swordstress Armor for the chest. I have the White Reed Gauntlets for my arms. And then I have the two pieces of the Ronin’s set for my helmet and legs. That kind of gives us the look that we’re going for here. It’s not min-maxed in terms of protection and things like that, but it’ll give you that appearance. I feel like if you’re trying to play a Samurai in this game, you want to look like a Samurai, you want to feel like a Samurai when you’re playing. You don’t want to just be like the tankiest knight ever with a katana.
By combining specific armor pieces with the Bull-Goat’s Talisman and Great-Jar’s Arsenal, this build achieves a light equip load, allowing you to perform longer dodge-rolls. This complements a Samurai build, providing excellent mobility and versatility in combat. Despite the light equip load, you still reach the critical 51 poise breakpoint, which means you can tank through a hit without being interrupted. This is crucial when facing smaller enemies like rats, as it ensures your attack isn’t disrupted, which can be particularly frustrating with light builds. Thus, this setup offers the best of both worlds—light rolling with enough poise to withstand a hit.
Additionally, this build uses the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman for increased protection, which is important given the lighter armor. It helps mitigate some of the damage when you’re trading hits. The Shard of Alexander is also included to boost damage from Unsheathe attacks, which is a central aspect of this build. Since Unsheathe is used frequently, enhancing its damage is a significant advantage.
These aren’t the only talismans you can use, though. The Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger is a great early-game option. It helps restore FP when landing critical hits, allowing you to use Unsheathe more frequently without worrying about FP cost. This is especially useful in New Game, where weapons aren’t fully upgraded, leading to more staggered enemies rather than one-shots. As you progress and your attack power increases, you might find you no longer need this talisman, and you can replace it with another option to further boost your damage or protection.
The Ritual Sword Talisman can be a good option if you play cautiously and keep your health full. It provides a damage boost when your health is at maximum, which suits a methodical playstyle. This talisman may be more useful in the early stages of New Game, where you have fewer flasks and need to be more careful about taking damage. For those who play aggressively, it might be less practical, but for a careful approach, it’s a solid choice.
Millicent’s Prosthesis is also a decent option for this build, offering extra dexterity and increased damage with repeated attacks. This can be great for aggressive players who frequently spam attacks. The additional 5 dexterity contributes to your damage output even when the talisman’s secondary effect isn’t active. I find it slightly more useful than the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia because of the consistent boost from the dexterity bonus, which makes it beneficial in a wider range of situations.
Elden Ring DEX Samurai Build Guide – Recommended Attributes Distribution
For this DEX Samurai build, the stat distribution is as follows: 50 Vigor, 25 Mind, 38 Endurance, 18 Strength, 80 Dexterity, 16 Intelligence, 7 Faith, and 9 Arcane. Note that Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane aren’t necessary for this build, as it doesn’t use any spells. The values in those stats are due to starting as an Astrologer, so your numbers might vary depending on your starting class. If you start as a Samurai, these stats will likely be lower, which is perfectly fine.
50 Vigor is probably the bare minimum you want at the start of New Game Plus, which is where I am in this footage. So you’ll probably want to get this up to 60 throughout New Game Plus, in order to give yourself, you know, enough health that you’re not one-shot by later-game bosses.
25 Mind just gives us enough FP to play around with Unsheathe. This is plenty, in my opinion; you can probably drop this down to 20 if you don’t mind drinking a blue flask every now and then. You don’t need much Mind for this build. All you’re really using it for is Unsheathe, and you can still use it liberally with 25.
When it comes to Endurance, we have 38 here, which seems like a lot for this build, and it is, but the Nagakiba is a stamina hog. It absolutely uses a ton of stamina, whether you’re R1 spamming, L2 Unsheathing, or Dodge Rolling. It just uses a ton of stamina. Also, this helps us get to the light equip load, so that you can maximize your dodge distance and still be under that weight threshold.
So you’d need a lot of Endurance, plus the Great-Jar’s Arsenal with the armor set we’re wearing, to get that light equip load. If you don’t care about light equip load, you can drop this down and replace Great-Jar’s Arsenal with one of the other talismans that I mentioned. But if you want that light equip load, you’re going to have to get somewhere around 38 Endurance.
Strength at 18 allows you to one-hand the weapon, but it’s not necessary for this build since it’s primarily two-handed. For a more optimized setup, especially at the beginning of a new game, you can drop Strength to 12, which is the requirement for two-handing, and allocate the extra points to Dexterity or Vigor for increased damage or health.
This is a better approach if you’re focusing on two-handed combat. I initially had 18 because I was considering one-handing but switched to two-handing without changing the stat. If you’re sticking to two-handing, 12 Strength is sufficient, and you can use those extra points elsewhere.
Dexterity is at 80, which is where the damage scaling starts to taper off for this build. This setup works well for New Game and New Game Plus, but it might not hold up as effectively in New Game Plus Plus. If you’re aiming for higher damage beyond New Game Plus, you’d need to switch to a Quality build with 65 Strength and 65 Dexterity, which eventually could reach 80/80 for better results. However, this requires a lot of stat investment.
For those using Millicent’s Prosthesis, you could set Dexterity to 75, allowing the talisman to boost it to 80, freeing up five points for other stats. This approach is especially useful during your first playthrough, where your level might be lower. Overall, this build is best for New Game and New Game Plus, with some adjustments required for New Game Plus Plus or later stages.
Elden Ring DEX Samurai Build Guide – Final Tips
Here are some final tips before we wrap up this guide. For the Flask of Wondrous Physick, I recommend the Greenburst Crystal Tear, which boosts stamina recovery speed—crucial for this build, especially if you’re playing aggressively. I also suggest the Crystal Tear that increases stance damage, perfect for those who rely on the L2-R2 attack strategy. This makes it easier to stagger bosses, allowing for critical hits and continuous attacks while they’re down.
If your focus is rapid R1 attacks with Blood Grease, the Crystal Tear that boosts damage with successive attacks is an excellent choice. It enhances your damage with each hit, giving you an edge in combat. For first-time players, the Crystal Tear that increases Dexterity is a solid choice, providing a general boost to your damage output.
Regarding Great Runes, Radahn’s Great Rune is a strong recommendation. It increases health, stamina, and FP, which are all beneficial for this build. Another great option is Malenia’s Great Rune, as it restores health with every attack, fitting an aggressive playstyle. This is particularly useful towards the end of your first playthrough and in New Game Plus. Godrick’s Great Rune can also work, especially early on, since it boosts all stats by 5. However, this build doesn’t require much Strength, so Godrick’s Great Rune might become less useful over time, making it less suitable for the long term.
And that wraps up our Supreme Samurai build guide. I hope you guys enjoyed this build. We do have more builds coming, along with more weapon videos. You can stay tuned for those. 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.
