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Poison is a more niche type of damage players can use to great effect, but it requires a bit more skill and strategy than other damage types that are a bit more user-friendly and have immediate effectiveness. From bows to swords and everything in-between, Elden Ring has more than a handful of poisoning weapons players should know about.
8 Land Squirt Ashes
Some might argue that spirit ashes in Elden Ring aren’t exactly weapons, but being able to unleash than in specific instances makes their casting no different than activating or swinging a weapon. The Land Squirt Ashes are a bit more passive, but this grouping of festering blobs poison anything foreign standing in close proximity to them.
The neat thing about these ashes is players will need to use their health to summon them instead of depleting the FP bar. Close quarters are where these ashes can really make the most of their casting, but players need to be careful as they could end up trapping themselves in a corner, resulting in possibly getting stun-locked by an enemy.
7 Fetid Pot
A common strategy in Elden Ring and other FromSoftware titles is the use of throwable consumables as a way to hit enemies from a distance and/or attract the aggro of a specific enemy and pull them away from a group for a more approachable combat scenario. Fetid pots are throwable pots players can use to inflict deadly poison on any living thing it hits.
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They’re craftable as well, so players who have cracked pots, mushrooms, and gold-tinged excrement can make a heaping ton of them if properly prepared. By the time the enemy starts pursuing the players it’s likely their health bar has been greatly reduced thanks to the deadly poison from a perfectly landed Fetid Pot throw.
6 Serpentbone Blade
The Serpentbone Blade in Elden Ring is a weapon that sounds and looks much cooler than it actually is. Sure, this katana does good critical and physical damage, but its built-in poison leaves a bit to be desired. The way it works is that once an enemy is poisoned by a landed strike, the player will deal double the damage for every tick of poison that is inflicted.
Unfortunately, it lasts only a third as long as poison inflicted by other means in Elden Ring. That being said, it looks the part, and players who have a build centered on dexterity and strength will find the weapon scaling on the Serpentbone Blade to be rather fulfilling.
5 Serpent Bow
Bows in Elden Ring aren’t exactly the most popular or talked about weapon type, but they often come in handy even for players who primarily used a melee weapon of some sort. The Serpent Bow is clear and away the most powerful poison-related bow and scales best with dexterity-based player builds.
The bow itself adds a poison build-up of 15 to all arrows, regardless of type, so pairing it with Serpent arrows allows players to inflict poison on enemies in the blink of an eye. In terms of poison efficiency, it’s pretty standard, and the fact that its skill called Mighty Shot has nothing to do with poison damage or infliction feels like a missed opportunity.
4 Coil Shield
It might be shocking to see a shield appear here, but the Coil Shield for a variety of reasons is unlike many other shields in Elden Ring. At first glance, it looks to be a stone shield carved to resemble a coiled-up snake, but that design choice wasn’t simply an aesthetic one.
The shield skill on the Coil Shield is called Viper Bite and when activated the player thrusts the shield forward, and as that’s happening the shield uncoils itself and the snake lunges at the enemy. It scales with strength and upon landing does both physical damage and produces deadly poison build-up. It also happens to look incredibly cool, which is aided by the fact that it’s rather effective and not just for show.
3 Miranda Sprout Ashes
Elden Ring likes to troll and messes with its players and one way it effectively does that is by presenting an obstacle that feels weaker or easy to deal with than catching the player off guard. Miranda Sprouts are these large flowers that shoot out poison at incoming threats.
On their own, they feel easy to deal with, but the build-up they inflict can quickly become overwhelming in the blink of an eye. Players who obtain the Miranda Sprout Ashes can unleash the same mental warfare on unsuspecting enemies and have them dealing with crippling poison damage. The ashes are found behind a crafty illusionary wall in the Caelid Catacombs.
2 Spirit Jellyfish Ashes
Most Elden Ring players will gush about the Spirit Jellyfish ashes coming in the clutch as a great distraction for enemies and bosses, but it also happens to inflict a solid amount of poison build-up as well. By talking to a woman named Roderika in Stormhill Shack several times players will be handed these ashes to use as they see fit.
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Since the summoned jellyfish has a lot of health, that means that it can effectively inflict the target with poison, while also allowing its summoner to stack a ton of damage on an enemy that’s easily distracted.
1 Venomous Fang
The truth of the matter is that most poison-related weapons and items in Elden Ring simply aren’t worth it. That’s evident in the fact that the ‘best’ poison weapon in all of Elden Ring is a clawing item called the Venomous Fang. Found in Caelid in an abandoned cave, this pointy stone hand weapon causes poison build-up at a base of 72 with each successfully landed attack.
In addition to being upgraded with smithing stones, it can also be infused with Ashes of War. Though its skill called Quickstep doesn’t provide anything to the poison damage side of things, it’s a quick dodge that’s super useful when using a weapon like the Venomous Fang that requires the player to maintain a close distance with its target, meaning that the player is in the line of fire and could take massive amounts of damage if they don’t dodge incoming attacks.
Elden Ring is available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.
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