Elden Ring is a brand new action RPG from From Software and Bandai Namco. It brings back the satisfying action combat that Souls fans will be familiar with, and also features a large open-world with plenty of mini-dungeons to explore and optional bosses to fight. If you want to keep up with the game’s challenges, you’ll also need to make sure that your armaments are up to date. Here’s everything you need to know about how the weapons upgrade system works in Elden Ring.
Upgrading Weapons in Elden Ring
- Early on in the game, you’ll find the Church of Elleh Site of Grace. There’s an anvil there that you can use.
Press the Triangle or Y button to interact with the anvil to start upgrading your weapons.
- Select the armament you want to upgrade, and press X or the A button to confirm your selection.
Do note that you will need Smithing Stones for regular weapons, and Somber Smithing Stones for special weapons. These can be obtained as item pickups in the open-world, and you’ll find them in dungeons as well.
- To get your armament level past +2, you’ll need the help of Smith Master Hewg.
By using the anvil, you can only get your armaments up to +2. To go beyond that, head to the Roundtable Hold and speak with Smith Master Hewg to get to +3 and beyond. Do note that the Roundtable Hold only becomes available to you after you’ve beaten the first story boss at Stormveil Castle.
Weapon Arts
In addition to just strengthening the stats and attributes on an armament, you can also attach Ashes of War to them to give them new Weapon Arts.
Ashes of War can be obtained via item pickups in the open-world, but are more commonly obtained by slaying tougher enemies, bosses, and even scarabs that wander the level.
Once you have a few Ashes of War, you can speak with Smith Master Hewg and choose the Ashes of War option to add some new Weapon Arts to your gear.
Affinities
Smith Master Hewg can also help you with changing the Affinity of a weapon in Elden Ring. This can be especially handy if you’re a Dex/Int build, for instance, and want to use a straight sword. Affinities will change the stat scaling of a weapon to suit whatever stats you’re focusing on with your build, adding more diversity to your play style.
Listed below are all of the Affinities available in the game:
- Heavy: Enhances Strength scaling.
- Quality: Enhances and balances Strength and Dexterity scaling.
- Keen: Enhances Dexterity scaling.
- Magic: Adds Intelligence scaling, and changes to split physical and magical damage type.
- Fire: Changes to split physical and fire damage type.
- Sacred: Adds Faith scaling, and changes to split physical and holy damage type.
- Lightning: Enhances Dexterity scaling, and changes to split physical and lightning damage type.
- Poison: Enhances Strength, Dexterity, and Arcane scaling, and adds poison build-up.
- Cold: Enhances Intelligence scaling, and adds frostbite build-up.
- Blood: Adds Arcane scaling, and adds bleed build-up.
- Occult: Adds Arcane scaling, and prevents auto-revival of undead enemies
That’s all you need to know about how the weapons upgrade system work in Elden Ring, and what the upgrade system can offer you. Be sure to search for Twinfinite or check our guide wiki for more tips and information on the game.
