In this Elden Ring Golden Order Incantations Build Guide, I’m going to be showing you my Golden Sword Sage build. This is sort of a spin-off of the Sword Sage build using Golden Order Incantations, and this is an NG+ build.
Elden Ring Golden Order Incantations Build Guide -Golden Sword Sage
A Faith/Intelligence Build that focuses on the use of Holy Damage and Golden Order Incantations.
- Class: Any
- Flask Spread: Split between HP and FP
- Weapon: Coded Sword, Sword of Night and Flame, and Golden Order Seal
- Shield: Blue-Gold Kite Shield
- Armor: Radiant Gold Mask, and any Armor with high Poise.
- Talismans: Sacred Scorpion Charm, Ritual Sword Talisman, Ritual Shield Talisman, & Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman
- Primary Stats: Faith & Intelligence
- Secondary Stats: Vigor & Mind
- Skills: Unblockable Blade & Barricade Shield
- Spells: Golden Vow, Blessing of the Erdtree, Discus of Light, Triple Rings of Light, Radagon’s Rings of Light, Elden Stars & Litany of Proper Death.
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Elden Ring Golden Order Incantations Build Guide – Equipment
First up, the weapons that I use for this build. And the first one is the Coded Sword. Now the Coded Sword is an interesting weapon because it’s one of two weapons in the game that does 100% holy damage.
![The Coded Sword scales exclusively with Faith and is a potent Weapon for dealing Holy damage.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_build_equipment_coded_sword.webp)
![The Golden Order Seal scales primarily with Intelligence and Faith.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_order_seal_equipment_golden_sword_sage.png)
![The Sword of Night and Flame scales primarily with Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Faith and has a powerful Unique Skill, Night-and-Flame Stance, which allows the user to hold the sword level and follow up with a normal attack to cast the Comet Azur sorcery or a strong attack to sweep forward with a burst of flame causing Fire Damage.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_build_equipment_sword_of_night_and_flame.webp)
As mentioned in previous guides, holy damage is not one of the best types of damage in the game because most of the end-game bosses like Malenia, Elden Beast, Godfrey, and Maliketh, all these enemies resist holy damage. So this build, one of the reasons that it’s NG+ is that it’ll actually perform much better at the beginning of a playthrough rather than the end of a playthrough. So as you begin NG+, you should be fine with this build, but we also have some options to take care of holy resistant enemies, and I’ll get into that as well. So let’s talk about the positives of being 100% holy damage.
First of all, this weapon only scales with Faith. It only has Faith requirements. So you absolutely have to put no points in Strength or Dexterity in order to make this build. And you can boost holy damage very effectively with the Sacred Scorpion Charm. Also with the Holy-Shrouding Cracked Tear, you’re going to get 100% efficacy out of those items or those equipments because this weapon deals only holy damage, which is fantastic. There are a couple of really other unique things with this weapon as well.
The fact that it does not rebuff off shields and can actually hit through shields with Unblockable Blade makes it a very effective straight sword against tanky enemies, and enemies that use big shields. Typically that is a problem for straight swords, but not with this build.
Additionally, Unblockable Blade has an insane range. It’s very good for a hitbox, a 120-degree arc or so. It has very, very good range making it usable in situations where you know an enemy is going to do an attack and you can stay just outside their hitbox while connecting with them with Unblockable Blade. So our backup weapon for this build is actually the Sword of Night and Flame. And that’s one of the reasons I sort of named it the Golden Sword Sage because that’s the weapon we used in that build.
But what’s really great about the Sword of Night and Flame is that it scales both with intelligence and Faith. We have a good amount of both of those in this build because Golden Order incantations require intelligence and Faith in order to use. And we’re also using the Golden Order Seal, which gives scaling, you know, incantation scaling by increasing intelligence and Faith.
So this works out nicely for this build and gives you a good option for those holy resistant enemies that, you know, you can still take care of rather easily. I would say that this build can take out enemies or bosses that have about 40% holy resistance or less if you’re using the coded sword and holy incantations. So if you go to the wiki and you see that a boss is holy resistant or you go into a boss fight and you see that you’re doing almost no damage, change over to this weapon, switch on talismans that increase the weapon skills of this weapon and go to town with that and then swap back afterward.
You can also two-hand both of these weapons at the same time if you want to do a dual-wield straight sword setup. It’s not generally how I play because the talismans needed for that don’t generally benefit each other. Sacred Scorpion Charm isn’t going to benefit Sword of Night and Flame, but it benefits Coded Sword well, etc. So I don’t recommend doing that, but it’s possible to do.
Talking a bit about the Golden Order Seal, this is probably one of the best seals in the game in terms of overall incantation scaling. It has very high potential because it scales with two stats very effectively. But the sweet spot for this is 45 Intelligence and 45 Faith. If you look at our stats, you’ll notice that it’s slightly higher on the Faith at 50 and there are a couple of reasons for that.
This is because the coded sword scales really well up to 50 Faith and then doesn’t do as well after that. It’s going to do OK to 80 and then really badly after 80. But between 50 and 80, you only get about 50 damage, whereas up to 50, you get a lot more damage. So we want that Faith to be a bit higher to increase our melee damage. But also because Elden Stars, the incantation, requires 50 Faith to use. So you need 50 Faith to cast that spell.
Moving forward, though, you’ll probably increase Faith before you increase intelligence because you don’t need any more intelligence for the spells in terms of requirements for what they’re doing. And you’ll still get incantation scaling about the same regardless of which stat you use at this point for the Golden Order Seal. And that will also increase your melee damage. So you’ll take Faith from this point probably up to 80 and then you’ll bring intelligence up. That’s not including your other stats. But if you’re just talking about those two stats, you’re going to want to increase Faith first and then increase intelligence afterward.
The other shield I’m using for this build is the Blue-Gold Kite Shield. And that’s because we already meet the requirements for it. I have 12 Strength with my class. If you don’t have 12 Strength with a different class, I suggest taking the shield, and getting up to 12 Strength to use it.
![The Blue-Gold Kite Shield is a Shield that scales primarily with Strength.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_build_equipment_blue-gold_kite_shield.webp)
If you want to take this build-up to 16 Strength to use something like the Brass Shield and get a little more guard boost out of it, you absolutely can. But the guard boost on this is almost as good as the brass shield requires for less Strength. So it’s a really good option if you want to save points. And this is a very stat-hungry build. And usually what I do with this shield is I put Barricade Shield on it to give you almost no stamina damage in terms of when you’re blocking. You’ll take a little bit. And also enemies tend to rebuff it, giving you block counter opportunities. You can play with no skill if you want, but it really makes blocking with this shield difficult in tough boss fights where they’re hitting really hard. But if you have Barricade Shield on there, you can block just about anything.
If you just take a look at this build, knowing that you have two different swords that deal with different damage types, you have a shield that has Barricade Shield on it or parry if you want, and you have a seal that can cast buffs and offensive spells, you start to see that this is a very jack-of-all-trades build. It’s tanky, and it has decent damage, but not the best. It has good buffs, but maybe not the best. It has offensive spells, but maybe not the best. It’s not S tier in every category, but it’s kind of B plus in every category. So if you’re someone who likes to mix up their styles of play or likes to have something in their toolkit for every scenario, maybe you like to do block counters now and then, maybe you want to cast spells on this enemy because it’s easier to kill them from range, or maybe you just want to go and do a wielding on one enemy, etc. There are a lot of different things you can do, and it really makes this build a ton of fun to play.
Moving on to armor, I have Radiant Gold Mask on, and that’s because it increases your Golden Order Incantation damage by 10%.
![Radiant Gold Mask is a Lightweight head protection that boosts Focus and Vitality resistances.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_build_equipment_radiant_gold_mask.webp)
![The Veteran's Set and is an old worn armor set, but still effective for the wearer's protection.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_build_equipment_veterans_set.webp)
If I didn’t mention this earlier, the golden order seal does the same thing. Not only does it have very good incantation scaling, but it increases your golden order damage by 10%. So you’re going to get the two boosts to Golden Order damage from these and it doesn’t have great protection, but we want that extra 10% damage because Golden Order incantations don’t deal the most damage anyway. But if you want to use them, these are something you really want to use. And then for the rest of my armor, I’m using the Veteran’s set, and that’s to give me very high protection as also very high poise, which will allow me to tank through hits and continue attacking with my Unblockable Blade or to get off spells when I’m taking a hit, etc. So it’s really good to have that extra protection and poise to allow you to do these things. You can use whatever armor set you want, but the veterans is very, very good.
Elden Ring Golden Order Incantations Build Guide – Talismans and Gameplay
When it comes to talismans for this build, they’re going to change up depending on whether you’re using Sword of Night and Flame or if you’re using the Coded Sword. And sometimes they’ll change a bit depending on how you’re facing. Again, this is a kind of jack-of-all-trades build. So sometimes you may want to lean into Unblockable Blade because it just works really well for a certain boss and you want to put something like Shard of Alexander on to boost that damage. But the ones that I normally use that is for the way I normally play, I’ve got Sacred Scorpion Charm, and Ritual Sword Talisman in order to boost my damage with spells and attacks because my attacks are 100% holy damage, and my weapon skills are 100% holy damage, my spells are 100% holy damage.
![Sacred Scorpion Charm increases Holy Damage by 12%, but increases Physical Damage taken by 10%.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_talismans_sacred_scorpion_charm.webp)
![Ritual Sword Talisman raises attack power by 10% when HP is at maximum.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_build_talisman_ritual_sword_talisman.webp)
![Ritual Shield Talisman reduces damage taken by 30% when HP is at maximum.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_build_talisman_ritual_shield_talisman.webp)
![Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman enormously reduces Physical Damage taken, by 20%.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_golden_sword_sage_build_talismans_dragoncrest_greatshield_talisman.webp)
when you’re at full health, you’re getting a boost to all those as well. And the Ritual Shield Talisman here gives you extra protection when you’re at max health because you’re stacking so much defense.
This means that when you get hit at full health, you take very little damage or much less damage than you would, which means if you have a heal over time up like Blessing of the Erdtree or something similar, it will get you back up to full more quickly because you didn’t take as much damage, to begin with. T
hen you’ll get that defensive boost again and you also get the ritual sword talisman buff again. And we also have the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman here for the same reason. Gives you extra physical damage, which then reduces the damage you take between Golden Vow. Those two talismans and the armor set you’re wearing, you have very, very high protection. But again, you can swap in other things like the Flock’s Canvas Talisman or the talismans that increase your incantation damage are not bad options here. If you plan on spellcasting in a fight, Shard of Alexander is good.
If you find yourself using Unblockable Blade a little bit more, it depends on how much you get hit, what style of play you like to use, and what style of play you’re using at the moment. You can really swap in different ones of these depending on what you’re doing. Another thing that I’m using for this build that you actually get from trading in Morgott’s Remembrance is the Regal Omen Bairn. I don’t usually use a lot of consumable type items in my builds, hardly ever actually. But this one’s fantastic. What it does is it unleashes a bunch of projectiles that are homing and deal 100% holy damage. And these scale with Intelligence and Faith, which fits perfectly for our build because we have both of these things.
The FP cost is extremely high for these, but it’s a very good range. You can use it when you’re opening a boss fight before they close the distance to just rip off a chunk of health. Or maybe you’re fighting a tough enemy on the landscape and you want to get anywhere near it. Just pop this a couple of times and they’re dead. Deals very, very good damage. You can hit about 3000 damage with one of these, assuming all the projectiles connect if you’re fully buffed, which is absolutely phenomenal at this point in the game. And that should obviously continue to go up as your Intelligence and Faith increase throughout NG+.
The spells I use for this build are Golden Vow and Elden Stars. When it comes to the Golden Order Incantations, I use Discus of Light, Litany of Proper Death, Triple Rings of Light, and Radagon’s Rings of Light. So Golden Vow increases defense and attack, which is great. And why we use Elden Stars here is it gives you a good long-range option in terms of spells. What I really like about this spell is it’ll actually shoot up above you so it can go over things if you’re behind an obstacle and still hit enemies that might be trying to range you down, which is great. And once you throw it up, you can just attack while that thing is going off, which is good.
Moving along to the Golden Order incantations. The first one is discus of light. This is really your bread and butter in terms of your range with this build. It actually hits fairly hard because we’re using the Golden Order Seal and because we’re using the special helmet. It does about five to six hundred damage usually when it connects and then five or six hundred damage when it comes back.
So it’s about eleven, twelve hundred damage, which is about the same damage as something like a Lightning Spear or Black Flame, you know, in terms of the damage that they deal. So it’s really not that bad. And what I really like is that you can chain cast it, spam it real fast and it can do a lot of damage in a hurry. Litany of Proper Death is very situational. You’re only going to use this really on undead, prevents them from resurrecting.
It’s got a huge hundred-and-eighty-degree arch that will just absolutely wipe out most undead enemies. You’re not going to keep this slotted very often. I don’t even keep it slotted on my bar until I know I’m going to be facing undead. Then I put it on and then I take it off again. That way I don’t have to cycle through it because I don’t use it that often.
Triple Rings of Light essentially throws out three rings that then come back to you. It’s good with dealing AOE, except that we have Radagon’s Ring of Light. So really what I use this for is for enemies that dodge around a lot like Black Knife or Godskin Apostle that are going to dodge your initial discus of light toss, but they can’t dodge Triple Rings of Light. Again, very situational. I don’t even keep it on my bar most of the time and then put it on when I know we need it for a specific boss or something and then take it off again.
Radagon’s Rings of Light is very, very good. It’s an AOE that you can cast from horseback and if you hold it down, it increases its range. And this thing has a good range too. And what I like about it too is it knocks down enemies. So even if you don’t kill enemies, you typically knock them down, and then you can just cast it again while they’re getting up and finish them off in two casts.
The damage is pretty good. It’s not amazing, but for an AOE, it’s substantial. And it just gives you a really good option you can do from horseback or on the ground and just wipe out packs of enemies very, very easily. We don’t use any other Golden Order Incantations for this build. Immutable shield just has too short of a duration. Law of Causality is an interesting one that’ll allow you to, you know, explode after a certain amount of damage or hits. It’s one you could use in this build. I don’t really need it. But if you want to put it in, you could. But Order’s Blade is one that is, you know, used for buffing weapons and we can’t buff our weapons with this build. So that’s kind of useless.
Elden Ring Golden Order Incantations Build – Recommended Attributes Distribution
Moving on to stats for this build. I have 50 Vigor, 33 Mind, 27 Endurance, 12 Strength, 12 Dexterity, 45 Intelligence, 50 Faith, and 9 Arcane. This is at level 159.
![](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-71-640x360.png)
Obviously, as you move through NG+, this is going to increase. But 50 Vigor is there to give you a lot of health to survive hits. You have tons of protection with this build. So you really don’t need more Vigor. But if you feel uncomfortable with that, you can increase that number a bit. Or maybe you feel overly comfortable, you can reduce it a bit to get some more points. Again, this is a very stat-hungry build. So you want all the stats you can get. Mind is at 33 here. You really cannot get enough Mind with this build.
Between buffing with Golden Vow and Erdtree’s Blessing, using the Regal Omen Baron, using Elden Stars, and Discus of Light, you’re just going to tear an Unblockable Blade or a Barricade Shield. You use FP constantly. So you’re probably going to want to increase Mind up to 40 or 50 throughout the course of NG+, and NG++. Just so that you have tons of FP, and you don’t have to worry about FP as much. Endurance here is at 27. This gives you just enough weight to medium role when you’re using either the Sword of Night and Flame, or the Coded Sword, a shield, the Golden Order Seal, and this armor setup in these talismans. You want to be able to medium roll if you can. You can fat roll and reduce this if you want. But stamina is also good for block countering. So it’s kind of up to you.
If you want to remove some points and fat roll, you can. But I honestly don’t recommend it. Strength and Dexterity are both 12. This is from my starting class. These will vary a bit depending on what you’re doing. Strength is good for the shield that we’re using. You don’t need Dexterity at all. So you want to keep these as low as you can, except for that shield.
As I mentioned, the Golden Order Seal scales with Intelligence and Faith, which is why we have 45 Intelligence and 50 Faith. That’s the sweet spot. It starts dropping off in terms of scaling after that. You’ll still get scaling, but you get 330 incantation scaling at 45-45. And I think it maxes out at 400 or so, roughly. So from 45-45 to 99-99, you only get another 70 or 80 incantation scaling. So that’s why that’s the sweet spot. And again, 50 Faith is there because we need Elden Stars. We need 50 for that. And also to reach the maximum potential, well not potential, but best optimal spot for Coded Sword. And then obviously you’ll increase Faith up to 80 after that, and then bring Intelligence up as well. You do not need any Arcane for this build.
Elden Ring Golden Order Incantations Build – Final Tips
A couple of tips before we wrap up this build. If you’re going to use a Great Rune for this build, Godrick’s Great Rune is probably the ideal one. Because this is a very stat-hungry build, and getting those extra stats and all those points is good. You need Faith, you need Intelligence, you need Mind, you need Vigor, you need Endurance. Getting points and all those is absolutely fantastic.
Also, if you want to use the Omen Armor set, which is much, much heavier than what we’re using, but has very, very good protection and fat roll, or just increase your Endurance over time and then eventually wear this, it’s not a bad idea if you don’t care about fashion. Because each piece of this you wear increases the Regal Omen Bairn‘s damage by 5%. So if you wear the full set, or three pieces of it, and then keep the helmet, you’re going to have a 15% bonus to that. And that, again, could reach about 3,000 damage where we’re at now. That’ll put it somewhere closer to 3,300, 3,500 damage, which is really good. And that’s a great way to, you know, kind of future-proof your build into NG+. When enemies start getting more and more health.
Lastly, if you’re using the Flask of Wondrous Physick, you want the Holy-Shrouding Cracked Tear. Use this all the time. If you know you can make it to the next checkpoint before three minutes is up or close to it, pop it in between checkpoints and use it. And that’ll keep your damage a lot higher with the Coded Sword. And also another good option to add on here is Faith as well. Add Faith with the Holy to get you even more damage. That will help with your spell damage. That will help with your melee damage and your weapon skill damage. So those two are really, really good. If you’re fighting a Holy-resistant enemy or boss, what you want to do is you want to put Magic and Fire inside there instead. And that will boost the damage of your Night and Flame, as well as the weapon skills of Night and Flame significantly, making it a lot more potent. Also, if you’re doing the Night and Flame setup, you’ll want to do something like replace Scorpion Charm with Magic Scorpion Charm or Flame Scorpion Charm, whichever one of those you like. And then put in Shard of Alexander somewhere in there to make the most out of the damage of that. So that wraps up my Golden Sword Sage build.
That’s another NG+ build. As always, let us know if you have questions or other tips in the comments below. We have a ton more builds coming for Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree so stay tuned for those. If you need help finding the spells, items, or equipment in this build, and securing some personal objectives, make sure to check the Elden Ring Map.
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