Summary
Elden Ring’s Death Sorceries are somewhat unique in that they rely on both Faith and Intelligence, a feature that puts them in an awkward spot. The best of them require extremely high stat investments to be effective, and the worst rank among the most useless spells FromSoftware has ever made.
Even so, if you are willing to invest your time into making some of these spells work, they actually become fairly powerful. This list will help you decide which are actually worth considering, and which would be better if they had never been created in the first place.
The Prince of Death’s Staff boosts the damage of all Death Sorceries (with the exception of Fia’s Mist) by ten percent.
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Effect
Summon a trio of spectral skeletons that attack enemies before disappearing.
Every aspect of theTibia’s SummonsSorcery feels like it needed another round of edits before being put in the game. The way its skeletons appear makes it really difficult to actually hit anything with them; they spawn far away and don’t hit fast enough, allowing most enemies to just walk out of their range. And they don’t deal nearly enough damage to make the awkwardness worth it.
Worse still, you’re able to find a version of this spell attached as a Weapon Skill to Rosus’ Axe. That weapon is still far from good, but it’s at least usable, which is more than can be said for the Sorcery. FromSoftware seemed to recognize this problem, and Tibia Summons has actually received significant buffs since Elden Ring’s release, but it just didn’t do enough to overcome the Spell’s fundamental problems.
If you want to have some fun with skeletons in spite of the spell’s flaws, it’s dropped by the Tibia Mariner in the Altus Plateau’s Wyndham Ruins.
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Create mist that inflicts Death Blight.
The Death Blight status effect is often regarded as something of a failed mechanic. It will instantly kill Tarnished characters (a list that almost exclusivelyincludes PvP opponents) when it builds up, but it only works on them. As a result, it does absolutely nothing in most scenarios, and basically nothing in many others.
The case ofFia’s Mistis worse than most, since something like Death Lightning at least deals some damage to go along with the Death Blight buildup, while Fia’s Mist is just fancy fog. This problem is only exacerbated by the fact that the Mist is easy for any Tarnished with a brain to avoid, making its only semi-viable function even harder to use. If you do want this Sorcery for whatever reason, you can get your hands on it by defeating Fia’s Champions in the Deeproot Depths.
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Summon spectral skulls that chase your foes.
you’re able to getRancorcallfairly early on in your playthrough; it’s dropped by a Teardrop Scarab located beneath Stormveil Castle, on the path to where you fight the Ulcerated Tree Spirit. However, while its actual stat requirements are relatively low compared to some of the other Sorceries on this list, you still need to invest a lot of levels into both Intelligence and Faith for it to start performing at a reasonable level.
Unfortunately, by that point you should have found the significantly more effective Ancient Death Rancor. As a result, you likely won’t get much use out of Rancorcall, even if you’re playing a Death Sorcery build.
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Create an explosion that causes Frostbite buildup.
Explosive Ghostflamehas some qualities that make it an appealing option. It deals decent damage and can trigger Frostbite quite quickly. Those features alone make it better than the Sorceries lower on this list, but there are two main problems that keep it from taking the top spot.
The first is actually getting it to hit. The explosion it creates is fairly large, but the casting time is so long that you’ll need the predictive abilities of an actual prophet to land it consistently. But while that can be worked around, the bigger issue with Explosive Ghostflame is the absurd requirements required to cast it. 42 Intelligence is already a steep price, ranking among the highest for any Sorcery, and you need to reach 30 Faith on top of that.
As a result, you probably won’t get to the stage where you can actually use Explosive Ghostflame until the game’s last few bosses, and many players won’t really get to take advantage of it until New Game Plus. On the plus side, you can’t get it in the early game anyway, since it drops from theDeath Rite Birdin the Consecrated Snowfield.
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Summon a horde of spectral skulls that chase your foes.
We’ve finally reached the first (and really only) Death Sorcery that might legitimately be considered good. Like the other spells on this list,Ancient Death Rancorrequirements are steep, but are at least somewhat reasonable. And once you meet them, the Sorcery is actually strong enough that you won’t be disappointed by its performance.
It gets more powerful the later in the game you go, both because multi-hit spells get better (for complicated reasons), and because the Prince of Death’s Staff, which boosts the damage of most Death Sorceries, is actuallyElden Ring’s best Staffonce you reach high levels in both Faith and Intelligence.
Weirdly, despite clearly being intended for the endgame, Ancient Death Rancor can actually be accessed extremely early in the game, by killing the Death Rite Bird in Liurnia of the Lakes.
