In this guide, we take a close look at a ONE-SHOT Dark Death Paladin build that is completely meta, or should we better say freezes and then melts enemies with Death's Poker - one of the most interesting early weapons that's also for some reason amazing in the endgame too.

Elden Ring Best Death's Poker Build Guide - Stats, Gear, Talismans, Spells Combat Strategy of Highest DPS Intelligence Build

There are many ways to build a reaper or a god of death in Elden Ring, in this guide, we will go over the intelligence variant - even higher damage dealing one that uses some of the best yet most overlooked weapons in Elden Ring and its does so in style, you're going to be able to bring death upon your foes, lay waste on the battlefield and destroy anything before it even gets a chance to reach you.

This build despite having high levels of intelligence doesn't actually make use of any spells, though you can probably add them in the mix if you want to. Not even using a staff in this case but exclusively relying on melee weapons. To be more specific melee Elden Ring weapons with extremely strong weapon arts that take advantage of our high levels of intelligence and magic damage boost, in this case, Death Poker is the main one. 

Weapons

Main Hand:  Death's Poker

You can set it up in a number of very interesting ways. With the light attack, you can create a trail of ghost flame damage that travels really far away, deals extremely high damage on that path, and also creates a ton of frostbite buildup to the point that almost anything will die - within seconds at the very most each takes deals about 1200 damage, it can quickly stack up in just a matter of seconds. The second ability on it is also the ghost flame explosion with the r2 follow-up this is amazing in close range and also throws enemies on their back if you want to like just humiliate them. 

Left Hand: Sword of Milos

Meanwhile, in the left hand, we're going to be coupling this with the Sword of Milos for a few reasons, the biggest being the shriek ability on it that debuffs enemies' defenses by 15%, so any following attacks will deal way higher damage. But it comes with other advantages too, one of them being the fact that you get more FP to sustain, so every time you defeat enemies while this is equipped you get a portion of FP back. And last but not least, it causes bloodlust buildup and it's also a great sword, so this means you can power stance this with a death poker, do jumping L1 attacks, and provide both frost build up and bleed build up at the same time.

Right Hand: Death Ritual Spear

The third weapon that we're going to add is going to be the Death Ritual Spear, this comes with a Spearcall Ritual skill, basically, it calls forth these spears from the sky that lay waste on the battlefield and completely annihilate anything. The spears also come in very fast, so they are extremely hard to dodge and most importantly they seem to hit the same spot relatively easily compared to other similar skills that get cast from the sky. So this one barely misses and it's also amazing at stunning enemies, especially bosses with large hitboxes.

Armor

Head: Snow Witch Hat

Snow Witch Hat gives us a 10% additional bonus to frost damage, so that's definitely helpful with the build-up that we're creating from the Death's poker

Chest: Elden Lord Armor

Elden Lord Armor looks really nice, also has decent defenses

Arms: Veteran's Gauntlets

Legs: Veteran's Greaves

Making up for the lack of defenses with the two pieces from the Veteran's armor set, between these two we're getting about 45 points into poise, quite some nice defenses but you will need about 27 endurance with this whole setup if you don't want to start fat rolling or getting into high load.

Talismans

Shard of Alexander, Magic Scorpion Charm, Carian Filigreed Crest, Markika's Soreseal

In terms of the Talismans, we want to boost the weapon art damage which is why we're making use of the Shard of Alexander to boost the attack power of that, and also a Magic Scorpion Charm raises magical attacks. We're also making use of the Carian Filigreed Crest to lower the FP consumption by our weapon skills, so totally worth it for more sustain, especially since we also get some FP back from the Sword of Milos. Finally, it kind of depends on you, we suggest using Markika's Soreseal in PVE because you don't have to focus 5-10 maybe even 15 more levels, into certain stats you can just put this for just one slot and it definitely helps, meanwhile you can concentrate some of the other stats on something different.

Attributes

Vigor: 40

Mind: 32

Endurance: 27

Strength: 15

Dexterity: 20

Intelligence: 70

Faith: 11

Arcane: 14

In terms of the attributes, we invest 40 points into Vigor to get as close as possible to the first cap maybe even more with higher levels so as close as possible to 1500 HP, 27 points into Mind plus five coming from the Markika's Soreseal that gives us plenty enough room to pretty much spam our attacks. But you can maybe sacrifice two of those points into endurance instead and reach at least 27 that's the bare minimum that you will need for this exact setup if you don't want to start fast-rolling so maybe going to that maybe even 30 with the same setup. In terms of other stats, intelligence is the only one left with 75 points in this case or 70 depending on how many left you to have, you will definitely want to invest as many of those as possible since this is going to buff the damage of your magic attacks including the ones coming from the weapons.

Spells & Combat Strategy

Skills: Shrick of Milos, Ghostflame Ignition, Spearcall Ritual

Combat Strategy for Fighting Bosss in Corner or Tight Place - Start with Shrike of Milos to debuff enemies and deal more damage with your following attacks, after that lay down a Ghostflame Ignition with a Death's Poker, especially against regular enemies - just leave them to come to you and they won't even make it to the half of the trail before they completely implode, and of course, you also have the huge frostbite build-up that takes only a couple of hits before it even triggers. Every single take from the Ghostflame Ignition deals over 1 000 damage and that quickly adds up to thousands and thousands, and then there's also like the buildup that happens very fast and that's just with one trail. Obviously, you can create a lot more trails and even spam this if you can get a boss in a corner or in a tight space, and usually, this means just melting them within seconds. 

Combat Strategy for Fighting Bosss Melee in Open Place  - If you are close to them or if you have the opening, you can also use the R2 follow-up which is the Ghostflame explosion, this one deals an even higher burst of damage and does not leave a trail of ghost flame and it also throws enemies on their backs, especially against ones like Melania for example. On the other hand, if you don't have any FP left or don't want to cast anything or simply don't have the time window for it, you can always use jumping L1 with the Death's Poker and the Sword of Milos, these are power stands because they are both great swords and you also provide additional bleed or blah loss in this case, definitely helpful and it can totally stun enemies, even though you're not investing points into strength or dexterity they are still very useful at dealing damage in melee range.

Combat Strategy for Fighting Bigger Tougher Bosses  - Now against some of the bigger tougher bosses like the ones with big hitboxes or anything where you have enough room to cast the death right you can definitely go ahead and use the death spear instead of following the Shrick of Milos debuff. Usually, this is going to deal extremely high levels of damage, even higher in this case than a Death's Poker and you can just stun them within just three casts if they're a little bit more resistant but totally worth it. After this point you can have a few options, you can continue spamming Death's Poker at their head which is going to almost double in damage or you can set up another trail of Ghostflame and lay even more damage against them if they don't jump move away or if there are slow kind of bosses. 

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