Elden Ring Poison Build: Shield, Spells, & Gear

In today’s Elden Ring Poison Build guide, we will talk about the best poison + shield build in Elden Ring that you can also use for PvP fights. It revolves around your shield and poison weapons, including the Poison Antspur Rapier. You will realize that you won’t have to put in much effort to poison the enemies; drink any sort of flasks or incantations for extra damage. In fact, all you need is a giant shield and any poison effect weapon to win any PvP fight in Elden Ring.

So far, this is the best poison + shield build in the entire game, and it will make you insanely invincible in PvP and PvE. However, that will depend on what the other guy does, but it is still powerful. So you’re going to have a greatshield and a spear which are the basics you need. But, we’re going to do a lot more than this though. You may read our Elden Ring Best Builds article for more builds.

Elden Ring Poison Build

The guide will also talk about different weapons that have poison effects on them. Most importantly, the current build requires no additional changes because it is already too overpowered with the shield and the spear. However let’s get on with the tips, best shield, and the most suitable weapon along with a comprehensive detail on how to obtain them.

Related: Confessor Build

Fingerprint Stone shield

So, a Greatshield and a spear will let you attack while simultaneously blocking for about 90% of bosses in this game, which will make you literally invincible right off the bat. But there are a few problems you need to fix; when you block attacks, it burns your Stamina. The amount of Stamina that it burns is based on a stack called Guard Boost. Fingerprint Stone Shield is one of the best Greatshields in Elden Ring. It has 100 Physical Damage negation;

Guard	Physical	Magic	Fire	Light	Holy	Boost
Stat	100	77	81	79	75	81

The Guard Boost is at level one, and you can level it up for more boost. It also scales off Strength as it takes a whopping 48 Strength to weld it correctly, and if you are crazy enough to attack with it, it causes madness build up. The Fingerprint Stone Shield is one heck of a shield. This shield is the best because it has a lot of Guard Boost; if you combine it with a specific Talisman called the Greatshield Talisman, it will block all damage without losing Stamina. That’s how strong this shield is and what’s important to know is that when you level up a shield, it will also level up your Guard Boost. You will not be able to obtain any alternative shield better than this one for any Elden Ring Poison Build with a shield.

Location

To get the shield, you will have to go to the Underground Roadside grace. You need to go down under the sewers at this place and go straight up, taking a few left and rights; basically, this place is like a labyrinth. So, as you’ll be running into some tunnels and at the end of it, you’ll reach a ladder you will climb. After that, open the door in front of you and turn the level to the other side. The lever will be located next to the gate with the steel bars. It would help if you went back to the door you opened and dropdown from here.

Follow the path down the stairs and once you reach a dead end, take a right turn followed by a left turn. An indication of going on the right track will be poisonous flowers either on your left or right side as you walk past the tunnels.

Step 2

Once you cross the second poisonous flower, you need to take the stairs that go down and immediately turn towards the door right next to those stairs. You will find an item lying on the ground called “Preserving Boluses” and take a left turn from there. Light up your lantern as you come across some holes in the tunnels you want to avoid; otherwise, you will have to repeat the steps. Take the first right you get, and you will come across a poisonous monster. Kill or avoid it and continue along the tunnel.

Go straight ahead, and at the end, you will find another ladder and a giant monster roaming in that area. Avoid him and climb the ladder, and retake a right turn. Cross the bridge and open the door in front of you. Take rest at the grace and go back to the door you opened and climb the pipes on your right, and you will find a few Gargoyles along the way. They can be annoying, but you can avoid them as well.

Step 3

Drop down to your left at the end of those pipes and go straight ahead. At the sewage system, instead of dropping down, take a right turn where another enemy is blocking the entrance. Kill him and go straight ahead and take a right turn. Go inside the pipe again, and this time, run directly where the path leads you. Again you want to light a lantern to see in the dark. As you take a left at the end of the pipe, take another immediate left turn in another pipe that leads you to the end, where you have to take a right. There will be rats in this area, so you will know that you are going in the right direction. Kills them and go straight ahead, drop down the first hole that will come across your path.

Step 4

At the end of the path, climb down the ladder and enter the lift to take you to the lower level. You will find a site of grace where you can rest and then continue moving straight. Defeat the mini-boss at the end of the path and hit the altar behind the chest. It will drop down and open a secret passage from where you will drop off the wooden beams to the lower levels. You will need to be very careful while dropping the beams and wooden slabs because you do not want to fall down. At the end of your path, search the area with a lot of bodies lying around, and finally, you will be able to obtain the Fingerprint Stone Shield.

Once you get your Guard Boost up to 100, you will not lose any stamina for whatever attack you are hit with. That is what also makes this shield quite invincible, and the best one in our Poison Build guide.

Blood Pike

One of the best spears in the game, the Blood Pike is pure beauty. It is the most extended spear you will obtain in Elden Ring and has moderate damage and range. When you level it up all the way, it can have an increased damage effect, and you can put good Ashes of War on it. 

Location

Go to the Stormveil Castle, run past the Godrick and take a backtrack out to the courtyard. There’s a faster grace, but this is the one that most of you will have no matter what. If you didn’t explore a lot, you did explore the castle, though; there’s one that was a little bit closer. Head over to the place where there are numerous giant barricades and go right past the enemies. Search the bodies on the ground, and one of them will have the Blood Pike.

Stat	Strength	Dexterity	Intelligence	Faith	Arcane
Requirement	20	14	–	–	–
Scaling	D	D	–	–	–

Related: Best Bleed Weapons

Poison Antspur Rapier

For our Poison Build In Elden Ring, you will be using this spear instead of the Blood Pike. Because some enemies take no effect from poison, you need to be aware of what type of boss you are fighting. However, there’s a time and place for having one that does poison buildup or one that does Scarlet Rot buildup. The poison Antspur Rapier lets you make swift attacks that use a significantly lower amount of Stamina, doing more Damage Per Second than the Blood Pike. You’ll want to stick with this Rapier because if the boss lets you stay close to him, you can use this spear’s quick attacks and do poison buildup. The Rapier lets you cause poison, Scarlet Rot, and bleed, all at the same time.

You can use it on bosses that are immune to bleed and vice versa. You get the point. To make it easier, you can put an Ash of War called Seppuku, which will let you do a poison version or a bleed version. Another great thing about the Poison Antspur Rapier is that it has Scarlet Rot.

Scarlet Rot

It is a status effect that continues to linger until the enemy is dead or they cleanse it. For PvP, players can cleanse the effects of Scarlet Rot, but for PvE, not many bosses can cleanse this, and it is a standard passive. It means you can add on other passives, such as the blood loss buildup passive. So not only because you have Scarlet Rot on the enemy, but you can also cause them to bleed, and who doesn’t want that. The only downside is you need 20 Dexterity, but for the most part, we think a lot of people have that anyway.

Stat	Strength	Dexterity	Intelligence	Faith	Arcane
Requirement	10	20	–	–	–
Scaling	D	D	–	–	–

Ekzyke’s Decay

A very powerful incantation that uses the effects of Scarlet Rot and leads to a long lasting effect of poison on the enemy. It is the perfect incantation that you can use as an alternative from the Poison Build guide. By using this incantation, the user can spew Scarlet Rot Breath at a considerably huge range. You can even set the aim of the spell and it has an Area of Effect damage. To obtain the Ekzyke’s Decay you will need to defeat the Decaying Ekzykes Boss. You can spam this spell in PvP, however it consumes a lot of FP and requires 23 Faith and 15 Arcane. 

Stat	FP	Slots	Intelligence	Faith	Arcane
Requirement	48 (6)	1	–	23	15

Elden Ring Poison Build with shield

With the Antspur Rapier, you can do a lot of lingering poison damage to the enemy, whether in a PvP or PvE fight. This build works because you only have to block and continue using the Rapier. For instance, when you are fighting the Radagon of the Golden Order boss, you only have to block his attacks and, at the same time, attack him with the Rapier. Not only will you be able to prevent taking damage, but you will also be inflicting him with the lingering effect of the poison effect on your Rapier.

One thing you need to worry about while using the shield to block is that you will take damage from the Holy Damage Bleed any enemy has on them. Apart from that, the build will look overpowered entirely and broken. One other reason for this build is that you do not require any use of flasks or anything that helps you boost.

Beat The Hardest Boss: Malenia

With this build, you can follow the same pattern of attacks, dodge, use the spear to stab the boss, and take no damage. Aside from the Holy Damage, you are insanely invincible. To further optimize the build, you can use Golden Vow to increase your attack and get both Talismans to boost the damage of consecutive attacks. You can also get a lot of bells and whistles to make it even better, but even at its base, as long as you have enough to where you can block without losing Stamina, then the game is easy mode. It’s just insane how easy the game is, and that is with our Poison Build in Elden Ring with the Fingerprint Stone Shield.

The mechanics of this build are pretty simple, you might get bored in the end by spamming or using the same moves and combos but, you have to admit that it is a pretty solid build. There are other strategies that you can use to further tweak the build. Either use a Poison Armament or a Poison Mist incantation along with skills such as Bloodhound’s Step or Quickstep.  Although, the better option that we recommend you to take is our Elden Ring Poison Build along with an insanely strong shield. Test our build in both PvP and PvE and let us know how it worked out for you guys!