In this Elden Ring Watchdog’s Staff Build Guide, I’ll be showing you my Sorcery Sentinel build. This is a level 150 Quality build that actually does tons of physical damage because of Strength and Dexterity. It also has a weapon ability that allows us to do tons of magic damage at range.
Elden Ring Watchdog’s Staff Build Guide – Sorcery Sentinel
A Watchdog’s Staff Build (Strength/Dexterity) that deals solid melee damage, and can eliminate enemies at range with magic damage.
We have over 110 Elden Ring Builds now, for all classes and playstyles. This Build is recommended for Level 150.
Elden Ring Watchdog’s Staff Build – Equipment
The weapon that I use for this build is the Watchdog’s Staff. I’ve been testing out a lot of different unique weapons to try and see what you can play around with. There are so many different weapons in this game with many different abilities, so it’s going to take me a while to build for them all. However, the reason I chose this weapon is because it has a unique ability, Sorcery of the Crozier. It is a tracking projectile spell at range that deals pretty good damage. I wouldn’t say it’s full-on caster damage, but you’re also using a colossal weapon at the same time with heavy Strength and Dexterity. It’s amazing, as you can get decent magic damage while having no almost no points in Intelligence and Faith.
What’s really great about this Watchdog’s Staff Build is that we have a colossal weapon, so we could use the stagger build-up from the projectiles and do a jump attack to stagger enemies. It’s not as easy compared to when we’re using Glintblade Phalanx, but we’re doing much more damage with the projectiles from Sorcery of the Crozier.
Some people might recommend using Glintblade Phalanx, but it doesn’t do that much damage. It also has much shorter range, which is what makes Sorcery of the Crozier good. You can queue it up as soon as you raise your staff, which you can do over and over again until the enemy is dead, which is something you can’t do with Glintblade Phalanx.
A few nuances with this weapon skill is that it doesn’t scale with anything. You’re getting the damage of the weapon upgraded, so there’s no Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or any attribute that increases the damage of this ability. You could use talismans to increase the damage of the damage of the ability, but the Shard of Alexander doesn’t increase the damage of the ability. It also locks onto the target, and it’ll track them, but you can’t target specific body parts. For instance, if you’re fighting the fire giant and you target its leg, the projectiles will still go to its chest. There are weird scenarios with this skill, but for the most part, it works very well.
You’re going to be doing mostly jump attacks or regular R1 attacks. The R1 combo with this is pretty much the same as other great hammers. You’ll be familiar with this weapon combo if you’re already doing that with other builds. It has incredible damage, around 1200 attack rating if you’re buffed up. It’s not the highest damage you’ll get in the game, but it’s pretty good at this point. Despite having C-Strength and D-Dexterity scaling that this weapon has at +10. you can get a fairly good amount of damage out of it because it’s all physical damage. If you buff with Flame, Grant Me Strength and Golden Vow, it increases your physical damage more, which will make you hit really hard.
I also have a seal for this build in order to cast Flame, Grant Me Strength and Golden Vow. We don’t use it for any other reason. You could use the Clawmark Seal and cast incantations, as you have high Strength and a few points on Faith. You could potentially add more points to Faith in order to use these more effectively. I was getting about 250 incantation scaling in my testing, but I don’t feel like that’s high enough to deal this sort of damage you need to deal with at this point in the game. However, I use the Frenzied Flame Seal because it weights nothing. I don’t need to upgrade it, as I’ll only be using it whenever I’m casting these two incantations for buffs.
When it comes to armor, I have the Omensmirk Mask to increase Strength by +2. You could also use the Okina Mask for Dexterity, but it’s a bit heavier so you’ll have to put some points in Endurance, which you’ll pull out from either Strength or Dexterity. I don’t know if that’s a good trade-off, so it will be up to you.
I also wear Raptor’s Black Feathers to increase our jump attack damage by 10%. You don’t have to use this, as you can use something more protective if you want. The other two pieces aren’t super important, as long as they’re giving you decent protection.
Elden Ring Watchdog’s Staff Build – Talismans
For talismans, I have: Carian Filigreed Crest, Magic Scorpion Charm, Ancestral Spirit’s Horn, and Claw Talisman.
Carian Filigreed Crest reduces the cost of our weapon ability down from 15 FP to 12 FP, which allows you to use it more frequently. It’s really good at taking out enemies from range if you need to thin out enemies before you go in, or stay away from some hyper-aggressive dangerous bosses until they get in melee range. Keep in mind that you’re building up their stagger bar as they’re approaching you. It’s not going to go down if they keep getting hit by projectiles, so when they get up to you, you should be able to stagger them rather quickly. As I mentioned, Sorcery of the Crozier has a long range, so you can start casting it much earlier.
The Magic Scorpion Charm is there to increase the damage of the weapon ability.
Claw Talisman is there to increase your jump attack damage further, so that you can get the most possible damage when doing jump attacks.
Ancestral Spirit’s Horn is just there to increase your FP as you kill enemies. Sometimes, you kill enemies in one jump attack, so this is a good way to get some FP back. You can keep using the weapon ability with this and not having to worry too much about your FP. We don’t have very high Mind, and this talisman makes FP management easy.
There isn’t too many talismans that can the increase the damage of our ability. The Ritual Sword Talisman is a good choice. However, you tend to get hit when you’re using a melee build. You’re trading damage because of the aggressive jump attacks we’ll be doing with this build. Sometimes, this talisman isn’t a good choice. You can swap this one out during a boss fight.
Green Turtle Talisman is a good option to swap in here for boss fights because the weapon ability consumes a lot of stamina, as does using a colossal weapon. It’s good to have stamina regeneration during those fights.
Elden Ring Watchdog’s Staff Build – Spells
Generally, the way I play this build is that I run around doing jump attacks on regular enemies. When I get to more challenging or aggressive enemies, I will cast the Sorcery of the Crozier and wait for them to come at me. While the projectiles are hitting them, I’ll go in for jump attacks, hopefully staggering or maybe even killing them.
I would like to mention again that the projectiles can be kind of weird with this ability. Sometimes, you need to watch and see how effective it is with the boss you’re fighting. It works most of the time, but sometimes the enemies’ movements sort of confuses the projectiles, and it might not be effective for that. You have to pay attention to see if the projectiles are connecting before you spam it.
Elden Ring Watchdog’s Staff Build – Attributes
When it comes to stats for this build, I have: 45 Vigor, 23 Mind, 19 Endurance, 57 Strength, 44 Dexterity, 9 Intelligence, 25 Faith, and 9 Arcane.
45 Vigor is there to give you a bunch of health. You’re going to get hit and trade damage with this build because it’s pretty aggressive. Having 45 Vigor will help keep you alive. Also, if you’re wearing the Omensmirk Mask and Raptor’s Black Feathers, you’re not going to have a lot of protection, even though you still get some from Golden Vow. You’re going to want to have a large health pool with this build.
23 Mind is there to give you enough FP so you can cast your ability regularly without consuming too much FP flasks. This build also gives you a chance to replenish your FP with Ancestral Spirit’s Horn, so the Mind attribute is there for you to just play around with enough FP for your spells, while also skewing your flasks more heavily towards HP.
19 Endurance is there in order for your character to be able to do a medium roll with this set-up. If you’re wearing heavier armor, you’re going to need more Endurance. Again, this is going to vary depending on what you’re wearing, so 19 Endurance is exactly enough to meet the threshold for medium rolling with my armor set-up.
57 Strength and 44 Dexterity are there to increase the damage of the weapon. This weapon actually gets 4-5 points of damage from Strength, all the way up to 50. I noticed something while I was doing my testing in terms of damage to see how much I could pump up with the scaling. As you started to get above 55 in Dexterity, it started to match what I was getting from Strength. So from this point forward, you can keep putting points in both Strength and Dexterity equally to get the same amount of damage, until you get to 80 Strength.
25 Faith is there for the two buffs. If you’re playing a different starting class, you might have less Faith starting up. I used the Confessor class, so I already have 14 Faith. Putting 11 points towards Faith wasn’t too bad for me, so I just added it. Keep in mind that Golden Vow buffs your weapon ability, although it’s not really necessary. It will be up to you if it’s worth it, as adding a lot of points towards Faith could be put in Strength or Dexterity.
Elden Ring Watchdog’s Staff Build – Final Tips
When it comes to the Flask of Wondrous Physick, I like using the Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear here. It gives us increased magic damage, so it buffs our ability significantly. I love spamming this in some boss fights, like Godskin Duo. I spammed the crap out of this ability, and it just melted them. There are good scenarios where this works, particularly on bosses you don’t want to get too close to. It’s very useful to have a ranged option instead of just trying to go in for jump attacks and trade damage.
I also like using the Greenburst Crystal Tear on my flask, as using the weapon ability costs like half of your Endurance per cast. You need to have your stamina replenish quickly, and having the Greenburst Crystal Tear along with Green Turtle Talisman would give you incredible stamina recovery.
Watchdog’s Staff is a colossal weapon. It has a very slow attack animation, and I’m sure you’ve experienced that using these types of weapons on fast-moving enemies would be pretty difficult. Having Sorcery of the Crozier relieves some of the stress from that, as it gives you an option that can handle enemies in those situations.
That’s it for our Sorcery Sentinel 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!
