Elden Ring has a huge array of weapons that you can find throughout the game that offer a bunch of different effects and stats. The game will throw a literal mountain of both enemies and new gear at you to mess around with. The game also tosses plenty of upgrades and a variety of playstyle options at you. The truly astounding this is, that this game just never seems to end.
And as a new player, there’s a daunting amount to learn. One of the many things that new players learn is that there’s no right way to play the game. You can make pretty much any build and have fun with it. And that’s why learning the basics is so important. Because once you learn how to fight off the baddies, this game really opens up in terms of fun. The multitude of options for customization alone is a huge appeal for some players. You can also further modify them with something called Ashes of War. Keep reading to learn more about these unique addons for your character.
Ashes of War Explained
Ashes of War also come in a few different varietals. In Elden Ring, Ashes of War are essentially a reshash of the Weapon Arts system in Dark Souls 3. Although it’s important to note that things are a bit more complicated this time. You can find them all over the map, you just have to know what to look for. You can use them to boost certain stats, at the cost of others. Beyond that, you may also find that builds work best with certain scaling types being augmented. The most basic forms you can find give you new weapon skills that add more variety to combat movesets.
Types of Ashes
There are many different Ashes of War, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, but every one of these Ashes falls into a particular type. You can see a list of the different types below:
- Blood Ashes of War: Adds Bleed Build-up, +Arcane Scaling, -Other Scalings
- Cold Ashes of War: Adds Frostbite Build-up, +Intelligence Scaling, -Other Scalings
- Fire Ashes of War: Adds Fire Damage, +Strength Scaling, -Dexterity Scaling, -Physical Damage
- Flame Ashes of War: Adds Fire Damage, +Faith Scaling, -Other Scalings
- Heavy Ashes of War: +Strength Scaling -Other Scalings, -Base Damage
- Keen Ashes of War: +Dexterity Scaling, -Strength Scaling, -Base Damage
- Lightning Ashes of War: Adds Lightning Damage, +Dexterity Scaling, -Strength Scaling, -Physical Damage
- Magic Ashes of War: Adds Magic Damage, +Intelligence Scaling, -Dexterity/Strength Scaling, -Physical Damage
- Occult Ashes of War: +Arcane Scaling, -Other Scalings
- Poison Ashes of War: Adds Poison Build-up, +Strength Scaling, +Dexterity Scaling, +Arcane Scaling
- Quality Ashes of War: Equal Dexterity/Strength Scaling, -Base Damage
- Sacred Ashes of War: Adds Holy Damage, +Faith Scaling, -Physical Damage, -Damage Negation
- Standard Ashes of War: Only applies Weapon Skills
When you claim a new Ash, you need to check it via the inventory menu first. Each Ash will come with modifiers that allow it to be used with certain weapon types or styles. For example, some AShes of War only work with items of the Katana class.
How to get Ashes of War
You can find new Ashes of War in Elden Ring at points all over the game. In the early game, apart from buying them, you can get them as drops from White Teardrop Scarabs. If you see the white beetles rolling balls around chase them down and destroy the balls rolling around. Their fast and pretty durable, so be quick. Each of these balls can give you Flask charges, or even Ashes and other upgrades. If you miss them the first time, hit up a Site of Grace and reload the area to try again.
Early on, you can also head to the Warmaster’s Shack in Limgrave. This NPC will sell you many new Ashes for your brand new undead hero.
Ashes of War can also be found on very specific bosses and unique enemies as well, although that’s a much more challenging endeavor.
How to use Ashes of War in Elden Ring
The Ashes of War do come in many different types, but they’re used all the same way. To unlock the feature, you need to find the Whetstone Knife. You will need to find this first before you can change weapon skills as well, so focus on finding it first before you go hunting weapon skills.
To find it, you will need to look in the first area of the game, as the basic Whetstone Knife is in a chest at the Gatefront Ruins. This will allow you to swap weapon skills for basic Ashes. Beyond that, you need Whetbaldes of different types.
There are five types of Whetblade for each affinity. You need to use the Whetblade to apply that Skill or effect to the weapon, assuming the destination weapon is a different affinity to the Ash. There are two exceptions: You can apply any Ashes of War to Standard weapons without a whetblade, and you can apply Ashes of War to the matching type of weapon without a Whetblade. You will need a weapon with the matching Affinity, so a Ash with Magic affinity applies to a weapon with Magic Affinity for free.
