For a more physical approach, check out our best Elden Ring strength weapons guide.
What Are Elden Ring Incantations?
Incantations are one of 2 spell types in Elden Ring, the other spell type being Sorceries. They’re a combination of the Pyromancies and Miracles that the Dark Souls series have and are usually very powerful. They require Faith to cast and having said Incantation on your Hotbar. In terms of lore, well, it’s a bit complicated. A lot of the game’s incantations seem to be a bit… random or have several origins. This is intentional, as the Erdtree isn’t the only place Incantations come from. Think of it like this: The Lands Between had different religions before the Erdtree came along, and each religion has its unique Incantations. Examples of this include the Dragon Cult which allows you to breathe dragonfire using their incantations and the Frenzied Flame which… Yeah, we’ll let you discover what those incantations do. Of course, just because you want to use specific incantations doesn’t mean you can’t use others. The Erdtree Incantations have their usages and various effects that can benefit the player quite a bit. However, enough of that for now. Let’s talk about how to use said incantations in Elden Ring.
How To Use Incantations In Elden Ring
Just like in previous Souls games, to use things like Spells and Incantations you need to have the specific weapon equipped. In this case, you need to have a Sacred Seal equipped on either your left or right hand. Usually, this is on the left hand as you always have a weapon on your right. However, there are also builds where you equip the Sacred Seal in your right hand to have a shield on your left. After that, though, you also need to have the appropriate amount of Faith to even use the Sacred Seal, never mind the Incantation. Elden Ring is playable on the PS4/5, Xbox One/Series X & S, and PC. Thus, the buttons for using incantations will vary depending on what you’re using for inputs. We’ll talk about those below, starting for the PS4/5, then the Xbox One/Series X & S, and lastly, for PC. We’ll assume that you’ve already equipped the Incantations in question as well as the Sacred Seal equipped on either your man or offhand.
PS4/5
A lot of Elden Ring players play on the PlayStation, which makes sense as it plays like a dream on that console. Well, it’s pretty much the same whether you play on Xbox or the PlayStation but we digress. Anyhow, casting Incantations is straightforward in the game. Here’s how:
Xbox One/Series X and S
For those that use an Xbox as their console of choice, here’s how to cast Incantations:
PC
For PC players, using Incantations is pretty simple. Here’s how:
What Do Incantations Do?
Incantations have many different usages. Some can heal the player, like Blessing of the Erdtree. Some Incantations can add a specific damage type to your currently held weapon, like Electrify Armament. If you want to buff yourself, there’s Golden Vow or Flame, Grant me Strength. Damage Incantations? The game’s got you covered. You got things like Bestial Sling, Ekzykes’s Decay, and Ancient Dragon’s Lightning Spike. Some Incantations have utility usage as well. Lord’s Aid, for example, cures Poison, Blood Loss, and Sleep buildup for the player character. Flame, Cleanse Me cures Poison and Scarlet Rot. Lord’s Divine Fortification increases holy damage negation, while Litany of Proper Death eradicates undead. Don’t use the last one, it’s very situational and near useless in normal circumstances. Anyhow, each Incantation has a unique effect that players can take advantage of to complete their quest to become Elden Lord. However, we do have a question: What do we consider when choosing an Incantation to use?
What to Consider When Selecting An Incantation
Now, we know how to use an Incantation. We also know what an Incantation does. Now? We need to talk about what you need to consider when choosing what Incantation to use. We’ll go over what effects said incantation does, the FP Cost it has, the Level Requirements, and if your Build will fit the Incantation chosen. Let’s begin.
Effects
The first thing you need to take into consideration when choosing what Incantations to use is what it does to you, and your enemies. Let’s give an example: Your Tarnished is a mixed Dexterity/Faith build (Work with me here). You have a Godskin Peeler as your main weapon. Your next enemy/boss is weak to Lightning. However, your Godskin Peeler doesn’t have Lightning damage in-built in the said weapon. You have the option to use a Sanctified Whetblade to give it in-built Lightning damage. However, your total damage will suffer as it reduces the Dexterity scaling from B at max level, all the way down to C. Are you going to despair at the fact that you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of your enemy’s Lightning weakness? Hell no. You infuse your weapon with lightning damage using Electrify Armament. Through this Incantation, you can inflict more damage to your enemy while also keeping your awesome Dexterity B weapon scaling. Sure, you need to reapply the buff every few minutes when it runs out. But it’s still way better than gimping your entire kit. Some incantations are straight-up overpowered when used properly. For example, incantations like Golden Vow and Flame, Grant me Strength gives players a hefty attack buff for a few minutes. With proper buffing and the right amount of levels, you can 3, 2, or even 1 hit bosses in the game. Still, Elden Ring is a FromSoftware game, and if you’re not leveraging every advantage you can get, you’re not playing it right.
Level and Stat Requirements
If you want to use spells Elden Ring, hell, on any Souls game, you need to have the prerequisite stats. Incantations are no exception. From the base Heal, Agheel’s Flame, and Bestial Sling, all the way to the Wrath of Gold, and Placidusax’s Ruin: They always require 2 Stats: Faith and Mind. Faith, of course, is the stat that allows you to use Incantations in the first place. It’s also where your incantations scale. The higher your Faith, the more damage your spells will do, up to a cap of course. In this case, a 60 Faith Soft Cap. You’ll deal the most amount of damage that way. Of course, other stats like Dexterity/Strength for your main weapon is also needed, especially if you’re using Incantations like Poison Armament or Order’s Blade. Incantations that buff your right-hand weapon for a damage boost. In addition to that though, leveling up your Mind stat is also a requirement. After all, if your Mind stat is low, you can’t cast spells. Ever. Each spell, and yes, this includes Incantations, has an FP (Focus Points) requirement before you can cast them. And if you have a low FP gauge, you ain’t gonna be able to cast that Incantation. Either that, or you’ll always use your Cerulean Flask until you run out. This is especially important to spellcasting builds, as lots of FP = more spells. 40 Mind is probably a good baseline for this, as it’s the soft cap for the Mind stat.
FP Cost
Relating to the Level and Stat requirements, FP Cost is yet another thing to keep in mind if you’re choosing an Incantation. After all, if you don’t have enough Focus Points, you can’t cast any spell. Thus, always make sure that your Mind Stat is at the soft cap of 40. If you don’t have the time to level that up, use Marika’s Scarseal and Soreseal to get your Mind stat up 8 levels. If that’s not enough, equip Godrick’s Great Rune as well, which increases all stats by 5. In the case of Great Runes, always make sure to have Rune Arcs available to top up just in case you die. After all, if you die, the Great Rune buff goes away. This should make it so that you would need fewer levels to get your Mind Stat up to the soft cap.
Is It Fitting For Your Build?
Last but not least, you need to take into account if your build even needs said Incantation in the first place. After all, not all builds require the use of Incantations. Of course, they’re useful to use and have their unique quirks. However, a great Elden Ring Tarnished should know when you use Incantations to take advantage of your enemy’s weaknesses. A lot of incantations are straight-up buffs to your main weapon that can be used to change their damage type. We’ve talked about this in the Effects subsection of the article. Each Incantation has a unique effect on what they can do and influence the world. Order’s Blade for example gives your right-hand weapon the ability to deal Holy Damage even if it doesn’t usually deal that damage type. Same thing with Electrify Armament but for Lightning Damage. Other Incantations like Blessing of the Erdtree can heal the user, while Divine Fortification increases Holy Damage resistance. However, the last thing you need to think about is if the Incantation you’re going to use fits your build. Not from a meta, or gameplay standpoint, but from a roleplay standpoint. After all, if you’re not having fun with your character, you’re not gonna enjoy using said character. A golden rule on Elden Ring, hell, on any RPG in general? Make a build that you’ll have fun playing with. It’ll make the gameplay experience much more enjoyable.
Best Elden Ring Incantations
We now know how to use Incantations and what to consider when choosing one for use. Thus, let’s go over the best ones to use in Elden Ring. We’ll start with Catch Flame. Followed by Bestial Sling, Flame, Grant me Strength, Beast Claw, and lastly, Golden Vow.
Catch Flame
For those that just want to set the world on fire, they might want to get the Catch Flame Incantation. This incantation is simple but deceptively powerful. It simply fires a burst of fire directly in front of the player. For those that want to spice up their lives, they can charge the spell for extra damage, but more FP cost. The range of Catch Flame is shorter than most incantations or spells. However, The damage output is pretty significant, and the FP cost is negligible. This is one of the cheaper FP cost incantations on this list. The other one is Bestial Sling, and we’ll talk about that one below. Anyhow, get Catch Flame if you’re going for a fire sorcerer/user build. Its FP cost is cheap, it deals good damage, and you can set entire enemy groups on fire with a cast or 5. You can get Catch Flame the moment you start the game if you pick the Prophet Class. For those that didn’t start with the Prophet Class, simply go to Roundtable Hold and look for Brother Corhyn. He sells the Incantation for 600 runes.
Bestial Sling
Bestial Sling is an incredibly powerful Incantation with a windup so fast it’s probably illegal. In addition to that, the FP cost of Bestial Sling is one of the lowest of all spells in the game. This makes Bestial Sling one of, if not the best Bestial Incantation you can find. As for what it does, well, it’s a rock shotgun. The rock pellets spread out after its cast, making it great for dealing with enemy groups in PvE environments. However, its usage doesn’t stop there. After all, if you have a spell with a fast windup with low FP cost, you can pretty much use it to stagger in PvP. The combination of spammable shenanigans and super cheap FP cost makes Bestial Sling a terror in PvP scenarios. With a good combination of Tears and Seals, you can turn Bestial Sling into a terror. The spell can be bought from the Beast Clergyman Gurrang in Dragonbarrow’s Bestial Sanctum accessed by a waygate. You can gain access by feeding the big man a 2nd Deathroot.
Flame, Grant Me Strength
The next incantation on this list is a buffing one. Flame, Grant me Strength. This incantation gives the player a straight-up buff on their physical and fire damage. In addition to this, there are also a few things under the hood that makes this incantation one of the more OP ones. Firstly, the physical damage buff also increases the damage of physical-related spells and incantations. For incantations related to this article, those are the Bestial Sling and Beast Claw. Secondly, Flame, Grant me Strength stacks multiplicatively with a particular incantation named Golden Vow. We’ll talk about that incantation later in this article, but safe to say, this rockets Flame, Grant me Strength as one of the best incantations in-game. You can find the Flame, Grant me Strength incantation on a body behind Fort Gael. You kinda need to kill 2 Flame Chariots to get this incantation though.
Beast Claw
Next on this list is a perennial favorite of many Incantation-using players: The Beast Claw. It’s one of the more popular incantations used by many players due to its low Faith requirements, FP cost, physical damage, and decent casting speed. For those that want even more damage, the incantation can be charged for a few moments, though you have to be careful against reprisals. The waves of the Beast Claw travel in a cone after its released. It starts from the player, then 5 slashes move forward with gaps in between. When charged, the slashes travel further, deal more damage, and travel in a wider cone. Do note that Beast Claw only hits the target enemy once, even if multiple slashes hit the same enemy. A surprising thing about the Beast Claw, however, is the fact that due to its low requirements, it’s used in other builds. This is mostly due to its physical damage scaling, as Incantations like Golden Vow and Flame, Grant me Strength can improve its damage. Just having 25 Faith to use both incantations in question is already enough to do shenanigans. Overall, a great physical damage incantation, and a nice pair to Bestial Sling. You can get this Incantation from Beast Clergyman Gurrang, though you need to feed him his 5th Deathroot before he sells it.
Golden Vow
Last but not least we have Golden Vow, one of, if not the most useful Incantation in Elden Ring, bar none. Why? Because this incantation straight-up buffs your damage and damage mitigation. Yep, that’s a thing and can lead to some pretty nutty shenanigans. This is because Golden Vow and Flame, Grant me Strength, stack multiplicatively with each other, leading to utter decimation. With those 2 incantations, you can almost 4 hit, or even 2 hit some bosses with high enough levels. Overall, if you have Golden Vow on your incantation repertoire, you should use it. If you have Flame, Grant me Strength at the same time, use them both to deal massive damage. You won’t regret it, at all.
Final Word On How To Use Incantations In Elden Ring
Overall, Incantations are another useful tool in a Tarnished warrior’s repertoire. Whether it be to use as a primary means of damage, or just to buff themselves for eventual combat. Incantations have their place in Elden Ring, and hopefully, when a possible DLC will arrive, we’ll see more of them in the future.
