An Elden Ring wiki

Affinities

All 13 Elden Ring affinities: what each scales with and adds, which whetblade unlocks it, and how Blood, Poison and Occult interact with status buildup.

Affinities are the extra property a weapon picks up when you apply an Ash of War to it, and Elden Ring has 13 of them, from Standard and Heavy to Blood and Occult. An affinity changes which stats the weapon scales with, its base attack power, its guard boost and how well it blocks each damage type, so choosing the right one is one of the easiest ways to make a weapon fit your build.

How affinities work

You pick an affinity at the same moment you apply an Ash of War, either at any Site of Grace or by talking to Smithing Master Hewg in the Roundtable Hold. The affinity shows up both as an icon in your inventory and as a prefix on the weapon’s name, so a Keen Zweihander is simply a Zweihander with the Keen affinity.

Which affinities you can choose depends on two things: the type of the Ash of War you’re applying, and which whetblades you own. Without any whetblades you’re limited to the affinity the ash itself grants.

Ash of War types and whetblades

Every Ash of War belongs to one of five types, and each type has its own pool of affinities. A whetblade unlocks the extra affinities of its pool:

Ash of War type Affinities in the pool Whetblade needed for the extras
Physical Standard, Heavy, Keen, Quality Iron Whetblade (Heavy, Keen, Quality)
Magic Magic, Cold Glintstone Whetblade
Flame Fire, Flame Art Red-Hot Whetblade
Golden Lightning, Sacred Sanctified Whetblade
Occult Poison, Blood, Occult Black Whetblade

Two whetblades reach across the types. The Iron Whetblade lets you choose Heavy, Keen or Quality with any Ash of War, whatever its type. The Sanctified Whetblade lets you pick Lightning or Sacred when the ash is Physical or Golden. So with both in hand, Thunderbolt (a Lightning ash) can still go on as Sacred, Heavy, Keen or Quality.

All 13 affinities at a glance

Affinity Scales with Adds Notes
Standard The weapon’s own scaling Nothing; base stats Buffable with greases and spells. Good when your stats are too low to benefit from the others
Heavy Strength Extra Strength scaling Buffable. Lower base attack, guard boost and other scaling
Keen Dexterity Extra Dexterity scaling Buffable. Lower base attack, guard boost and other scaling
Quality Strength and Dexterity, evened out Balanced Str/Dex scaling Buffable. Lower base attack, guard boost and other scaling
Magic Intelligence Magic damage Not buffable. Better guarded Magic and Holy negation, worse against everything else
Cold Intelligence, plus Strength/Dexterity that grows with upgrades Magic damage and Frostbite buildup Not buffable. Better guarded Magic negation
Fire Strength Fire damage Not buffable. Better guarded Fire and Lightning negation
Flame Art Faith Fire damage Not buffable. Better guarded Fire and Lightning negation
Lightning Dexterity Lightning damage Not buffable. Better guarded Lightning and Fire negation
Sacred Faith Holy damage Not buffable. Better guarded Holy and Magic negation; the Butchering Knife is Sacred by default
Poison Arcane, plus Strength/Dexterity that grows with upgrades Poison buildup that scales with Arcane Not buffable. Replaces any poison the weapon already had
Blood Arcane, plus Strength/Dexterity that grows with upgrades Blood Loss buildup that scales with Arcane Not buffable. Replaces any bleed the weapon already had
Occult Arcane Arcane scaling on the weapon’s built-in Blood Loss, Poison, Madness and Sleep Not buffable. Usually the highest attack power for Arcane builds

The pattern behind the table: every affinity other than Standard strengthens one thing and weakens the rest. Base attack power drops, the guard boost drops, and scaling in stats the affinity doesn’t favour shrinks. The elemental ones also lower your guarded negation against every damage type except their own pair.

Which affinity to pick

  • Stats still low, or you love greases? Standard keeps the weapon as designed.
  • One physical stat clearly highest? Heavy for Strength, Keen for Dexterity, Quality if the two are about level.
  • Intelligence build? Magic. If Strength or Dexterity is also decent and you want frost, Cold.
  • Faith build? Flame Art for fire, Sacred for holy.
  • Strength build that wants fire? Fire. A Dexterity build that wants lightning gets Lightning.
  • Arcane build? Occult, Blood or Poison, depending on the weapon (see below).

Cold, Poison and Blood: why upgrades matter more

These three start with lower Strength and Dexterity scaling than Standard, but that scaling climbs faster with each upgrade. Fully upgraded, they can catch up or even pull ahead: a Standard Zweihander +25 sits at D/C in Strength/Dexterity, while a Cold Zweihander +25 is C/C. Don’t judge these affinities on an unupgraded weapon.

Occult-type affinities and status effects

The three affinities from the Black Whetblade interact with status effects in ways that aren’t obvious:

  • All three lower any status buildup the weapon has natively, but let that buildup scale with Arcane.
  • The Blood affinity’s bleed replaces a weapon’s native bleed rather than stacking with it. The same goes for the Poison affinity and native poison.
  • Blood does not replace native poison, and Poison does not replace native bleed. A Blood Venomous Fang inflicts both bleed and poison on every hit, both scaling with Arcane.
  • Native Madness, Scarlet Rot and Sleep are never overwritten by any of them.
  • Occult trades a little buildup for noticeably more attack power on Arcane-heavy builds, and on most weapons that trade is worth it.

The rule of thumb that falls out of this: a weapon that bleeds natively wants Occult, while a weapon with no status (or a status other than bleed) gains more from Blood. For a curved sword powerstance, an Occult Scavenger’s Curved Sword paired with a Blood Bandit’s Curved Sword gets you both high damage and plenty of bleed.

Buffing and affinities

Only the four Physical-type affinities (Standard, Heavy, Keen, Quality) accept greases and buff spells such as Scholar’s Armament or Order’s Blade. Every affinity still works with buffs that come from a skill, like Flaming Strike. Some armaments, such as sacred seals, staves and bows, can’t be buffed at all, whatever their affinity.

Physical vs non-physical scaling

Under the hood, the stat curve behind your scaling depends on which family the affinity belongs to:

  • Physical affinities (Standard, Heavy, Keen, Quality, Occult) gain their biggest jump between 10 and 20 in a stat, then taper off bit by bit and slow to a crawl past 80.
  • Non-physical affinities (Magic, Cold, Fire, Flame Art, Lightning, Sacred, Poison, Blood) grow more evenly, hitting by 50 roughly what the physical curve only reaches near 70, before slowing down afterwards.

In plain terms: the non-physical affinities reward pushing their stat to around 50, while physical ones front-load their gains. Each stat page covers where its soft caps sit, and Weapon Scaling explains the letter grades.

Which Ashes of War give which affinity

Ashes of War come with their own affinity. Here are the ones our sources pin down:

Weapons you can’t re-infuse

A handful of weapons use regular Smithing Stones yet are stuck on Standard: the Crystal Knife, Ivory Sickle, Ripple Blade, Troll’s Hammer, Treespear and Ripple Crescent Halberd.

Tips

  • An affinity changes base damage as well as scaling, so always compare the final attack power on the weapon screen before you commit. Damage Types explains how physical and elemental damage are resisted.
  • If you block a lot, remember that every affinity except Standard lowers guard boost, and the elemental ones weaken your guard against other damage types.
  • Upgrading raises scaling too, and matters even more for Cold, Poison and Blood. See Upgrading Weapons.