Adventure, magic, swash buckling, punishing difficulty, and numerous teeth-grinding deaths. Yes, it’s the FROM SOFT formula, and yes, it was perfected with their latest foray into the RPG genre with Hidetaka Miyazaki’s Elden Ring. A game that many believe to be the crown jewel of Souls-like games. Elden ring is possibly the best soul game ever made in a genre steeped with multiple souls and soul likes. It’s filled with secrets, classes, and systems that may confound a newbie just venturing into the LANDS Between. But we are here to make that journey easy for you (alright a bit easy). One of the ways to make the grind easier is to cast Incantations.
What are Incantations in the Elden Ring?
If you are new to the SOULS Genre, then it’s worth noting that the concept of incantations is not new to the series. In previous games, players used “miracles” to buff, support, heal or damage undead. In Elden rings, however, Incantations have replaced miracles and vary much more than just healing spells. These include lightning, building up rot and pyromancy spells, and ultimately offering many more options tailored to your build or style of play. Unlike typical magic, which uses staff, you require a “seal catalyst”. Incantations are based on faith stats and occasionally arcane and intelligence, each with a specific requirement to use them. To use incantations, you require a “seal weapon.”
How to Use Incantations in Elden ring?
You have learned what incantations are and want to use them to decimate your enemies. Here is how to use them:
- Rest at the Site of Grace
- Select whichever spell you have “memorized”.
- Lastly, equip incantations in your memory slots (Memory slots is a base stat required for learning sorcery and incantations).
- Equip the seal in either your main hand or offhand, and press the light attack button for that hand. Note that you can cycle through your equipment in either hand by pressing right or left on your D pad.
- With seals equipped, you can press the right or left attack button to cast incantations. You can also hold down buttons to charge some incantations to increase the potency of damage or the effect of spells.
- Casting Incantations consume FP so manage FP (Focus Points).
- Some incantations require higher Faith Stat, so faith-boosting gear comes in handy. It may help with faster charging, increasing the effectiveness of a specific element, and quicker casting.
Best Incantations in Elden Rings
Unlike their predecessor, Miracles with limited uses like healing or pyromancy, Incantations vary significantly in use, depending upon the situation, character builds, and elements that place enemies under different status effects such as burning, rot, and melting enemies. In addition to damage dealing, incantations can buff defense, reflect damage, or increase firepower, thus making incantations a worthy addition to your arsenal of tricks. Here are some of the best incantations in Elden Ring that can elevate your game to another level.
Offensive Incantations
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Giantsflame Take Thee
It shoots a massive fireball toward enemies that explodes on impact, providing enormous damage, and has a massive area of effect and increased burst power. This power can be buffed using stat-boosting seals such as Giant’s seal. The best part of the incantation is the huge knockback effect that can throw enemies over ledges.
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Pest threads
An incantation that shoots homing threads towards enemies. Its effectiveness comes from the fact that the threads mostly hit all enemies and are a boon to bosses and slower enemies. These threads can be the same enemy multiple times, which is nothing to be scoffed at.
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Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike
Who does not like significant screen-filling lightning strikes? We sure do, and if you fancy melting enemies with big thunderbolts, then you can go no wrong with this incantation. It can be charged massively, melting enemies, especially bosses. Increased dexterity, coupled with faster casting speed and this incantation will hit multiple enemies, decimating their ranks with cruel efficiency.
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Black Blade
A black blade is an incantation that sends a dark wave toward enemies, reducing their maximum hp and doing damage over time. It’s advantageous against tackier bosses that have a large amount of HP that can dispose of you well before you manage to finish them off. The best part is that the reduced HP does not return; the more significant the HP pool, the higher the damage. All in all, a powerful ability to use against strong enemies.
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Honed Bolt
Honed Bolt is an offensive incantation in Elden Ring, which can be cast repeatedly to cast lightning wrath from above on enemies. Its usefulness lies in the low consumption of FP. It’s a good weapon if you prefer damage over time instead of a massive AoE spell that may take time to cast, allowing enemies to close down quickly on you, resulting in a game over screen.
Defensive & Healing Incantations
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Blessing of the Erdtree
In a punishing game like Elden Ring, healing is pivotal in surviving challenging encounters. A valuable option for healing is Blessing of the Erdtree, which heals casters and allies over time as it works on co-op, making it a vital cog for ensuring survival.
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Flame, Grant Me Strength
This buff increases strength and firepower. In a closely contested fight, it could be between taking away the last sliver of the boss’s health or dying endlessly close to finishing the enemy. It’s the best body buff in the game, and it can be boosted further by stacking equipment.
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Erdtree Greatshield
Not a fan of absorbing hits and striking back? You can use this excellent utility incantation to reflect the damage to those pesky enemies. Erdtree Greatshield demonstrates the magic and those annoying projectiles back at the enemies that keep getting the better of you from afar. It turns the enemy spells against them, which is efficient and immensely satisfying.
Utility & Support Incantations
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Golden Vow
It’s a buff incantation that greatly increases attack and defense for you and your allies. If you have some spare stat points, it can be a good investment for buffing up damage and negating damage.
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Law of Regression
Law of Regression dispels most Sorcery and Incantation effects, standard Status Effects, and unique effects (such as Death Flare). It impacts from Consumables and other items from all nearby friendly and hostile targets. It’s a great utility incantation that can relieve pressure and reveal secret corridors.
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Beastial Vitality
It’s a great buff that heals caster hp over time. In a long and challenging boss fight where flasks are at a premium for healing, bestial vitality can allow the caster much-needed breathing space to survive and ultimately beat the opponent.
Where to Get Incantations in Elden Ring
In Elden Ring, there are multiple methods to acquire Incantations. Incantations can be acquired from merchants, dragon shrines, prayerbooks, and boss rewards. Here’s where to get the best of them.
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Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike
You can obtain it by giving the Ancient Dragon Prayerbook – which can be found near the Crumbling Beast Grave Depths site of grace in Crumbling Farum Azula in the middle of the building – to any incantation teacher in the Lands Between, either Brother Corhyn or Miriel.
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Giantsflame Take Thee
It can be found at the top of the Guardians’ Garrison in East Mountaintop of the Giants. After it is given to Brother Corhyn or Miriel, Pastor of Vows, an incantation can be purchased for 13,000 Runes.
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Black Blade
It can be obtained by besting the Maliketh and exchanging remembrance of Black Blade at Round Table Hold with Finger Reader Enia.
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Blessing of the Erdtree
This incantation can be obtained in Leyendell, the royal capital. It is the legacy dungeon of Atlus Plateau. It is located nearby ErdTree Sanctuary on the path to the last dungeon of the area.
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Ekzykes’s Decay
This fantastic incantation can be obtained by defeating Decaying Ekzykes at Caelid Highway South Site of Grace and then turning in two dragon hearts at the Cathedral of Dragon Communion south of the Caelid Region.
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Conclusion
Elden ring is undoubtedly one of the most excellent RPG’S of the modern generation. It has lore, secrets, challenging enemies, and mouth-watering loot. While you can swing your way through many hideous monstrosities, you need a solid array of weapons to overcome its many challenges. Thankfully, incantations provide fantastic ways to alter how you approach battles and ultimately triumph over enemies that may seem undefeatable at the first few ( hundred) attempts. With hundreds of incantations and their various uses such as buffs, healing, increasing attack, and decreasing incoming damage, incantations are the way to go if you want to conquer the menacing world of the LANDS BETWEEN.
FAQ’s
Q1. How to Equip Incantations?
Sit at the site of grace, then memorize any incantations you want for active use. You have to equip the sacred seal either in the right or left hand, in game you see in the bottom left corner the icons for the active weapons, item and spells. You can cycle through spells with the “up” D-pad or arrow key.
Q2. Which is the best Class for incantations?
The Prophet class is the best incantation caster class in the game with the highest faith stat. At the start of the game, they may be hard to use due to lower endurance and dexterity but persisting with this class in the long run grants access to a multitude of spells, such as lightning fire incantations as well as self-healing to make you a nightmare for many horrors dwelling in the cursed land.
Q3. What is the difference between Sorcery and Incantations?
Sorcery is based on the intelligence stat, and the spells are cast with a staff. It scales mostly with intelligence stats, and it has an arsenal of offensive spells. In contrast, Incantations are elemental spells that provide a variety of bonuses with longer cast times.
Q4. What are the best options for long range and mid-range combat?
Sorcery has some long-range spells that you can chain cast, has better AOE and can track enemies. Whereas Incantations have better mid-range spells that can damage enemies as they try to close in on you.
