Like its predecessors, ELDEN RING's levelling system can seem obtuse for new players.

Your character's stats are mainly governed by a set of attributes that you can choose to increase by 1-point increments at each level-up. However, each attribute has specific breakpoints that you may want to set as milestones or upper limits.


The goal of this guide is to produce visual representations for how attributes increase stats for players to use as a reference when attempting to improve the efficiency of their builds.

As a bonus, I've added a section at the end that lists noteworthy equipment that raises attributes.

For each graph, there will be at least one soft cap and one hard cap:

Δ: denotes the difference between two values.

Soft Cap: a point beyond which there are diminishing returns.
It's usually the last occurrence of the maximal delta (Δ) value, or the last occurrence of a Δ value larger or equal to some threshold value. The latter is be determined a little arbitrarily at times.

Hard Cap: a point beyond which there is no improvement.
It's the last occurrence of a non-zero Δ value.

Other points of interest will be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

A cold-hot color map is used to help visualize Δ values.
Red (hot) points denote the highest gains for levelling to these values.
Blue (cold) points denote the lowest gains for levelling to these values.

38 MND is a breakpoint because the Flask of Cerulean Tears +12 recovers 220 FP, which just so happens to be a character's maximum FP at that point.

Armament scaling is incredibly complex. Scaling growth isn't attribute-specific, but armament-specific. The game maps growth curves to an individual armament's properties for every possible affinity. It's a little scary how flexible this system can be, but I'll do my best to explain the broad strokes and identify some conventions used in-game.

Damage type: Physical or Elemental (Magic, Fire, Lightning, Holy)
Scaling coefficient: represented by a letter indicator, but the actual value is hidden from players.
Affinity: Standard, Heavy, Keen, Quality, Fire, Flame, Lightning, Sacred, Magic, Cold, Poison, Blood, Occult

So, to greatly oversimplify things, there are essentially two main growth curves: one for Physical Damage and one for Elemental Damage.


In general, your physical damage will scale with either Strength or Dexterity.

If your weapon has the Occult affinity, your physical damage will also scale with Arcane. Note that the Ripple Crescent Halberd and the Ripple Blade are treated like Occult armaments.

One notable exception is the Erdtree Dagger, which will also use Faith to further increase physical damage and follow this curve.

The curve here applies to the Standard affinity. However, the Heavy, Keen, Quality, and Occult curves are similar enough. The only major difference is that first soft cap, which will float between 16 to 20, and the minor soft cap will float a little around 58.

In general...

• Magic damage will scale with Intelligence
  
• Fire damage will scale with Strength or Faith (key difference between Fire and Flame affinity)
  
• Lightning damage will scale with Dexterity
  
• Holy damage will scale with Faith

2-handing allows players to wield their armament effectively even if they're below its Strength requirements (so long as you meet 2/3 of the Strength requirement). This is because 2-handedness increases your effective Strength. If your build is focused on 2-handing exclusively, then your Strength soft cap is lower.

I confirmed that this only applies to Strength. 2-Handing does NOT affect attribute requirements and scaling for any other attribute.

2-Handed Physical Damage: Heavy Nightrider Glaive +25

It seems we consistently get a Strength soft cap of 54 for Physical Damage while 2-handing.
I'm assuming that Fire Damage scaling will also have a soft cap around 34 while 2-handing, but I haven't confirmed this yet.

Certain armaments' passive effect buildup will scale with Arcane. This is mostly relevant to Poison and Blood affinities. I haven't confirmed yet whether the physical damage scaling from Arcane with the Occult affinity overrides this or not.

So this is silly. Discovery is calculated easily with the following linear function:
The only exceptions are Arcane levels 8 and 9. I don't know why that is, but it just is.

I'm writing my own Python script, using open source libraries to generate these graphs.

Please note that this guide is a work in progress. It is entirely possible that this guide may contain inaccuracies, formatting issues, or flat-out missing information at this time (notably, for catalysts).

However, in the meantime, let me redirect you to a Reddit thread that covers armament scaling in impressive depth. The author, u/sleepless_sheeple, kindly provides their own visual aids and breakpoints. They also were a great help by sharing their Python code with me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tc3lyy/helpful_charts_for_offensive_stat_scaling/

Another thank you goes to u/TarnishedSpreadsheet, who kindly walked me through some of the nuances at play for armament scaling.