Mastering Damage Mechanics in Elden Ring

Elden Ring features various damage types: physical, magical, fire, lightning, and holy. Each is effective against different foes. Physical is split further into slash, strike, and pierce, affecting weapon impact on different armors.

Weapons scale with specific stats: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane. Scaling indicates how additional points in these stats increase your damage output. Different weapons scale differently, making stat allocation vital.

Poison, bleed, frost, and sleep are status effects that build up over successive hits. Once the threshold is met, the effect triggers, dealing substantial damage or debilitating foes, a strategy often overlooked.

Armor doesn't simply provide defense stats; it influences damage mitigation differently across damage types. Heavy armor may resist physical attacks but falter against magical or elemental damage, requiring strategic outfitting.

Critical hits occur during backstabs, ripostes, and charged attacks. They deal significantly more damage. The hidden multiplier for these critical hits varies between weapons, often undiscovered by many players.

Weapon Arts (Skills) can turn the tide by inflicting massive damage. Affinities alter a weapon's damage type and scaling, for example, 'Blood' increases bleed buildup, often neglected for standard upgrades.

Terrain and weather subtly affect combat. Fighting in water can increase lightning damage taken or reduce fire damage inflicted. Such environmental impacts are rarely considered during combat but are crucial.