In this Elden Ring Zamor Curved Sword Build guide, I’m going to be showing you my Frost Paladin build, which is an NG+ build that focuses on the use of very specific incantations, as well as setting the Frostbite status effect.
Elden Ring Zamor Curved Sword Build Guide – Frost Paladin
A quality build that uses the Zamor Curved Sword to deal both Physical and Magic Damage, as well as trigger Frostbite on enemies.
- Class: Any
- Flask Spread: Mostly HP, some FP
- Weapon: Zamor Curved Sword & Clawmark Seal
- Shield: Kite Shield or any Shield
- Armor: Fingerprint Set
- Talismans: Shard of Alexander, Magic Scorpion Charm, Curved Sword Talisman & Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger
- Primary Stats: Vigor & Mind
- Secondary Stats: Strength & Dexterity
- Skills: Zamor Ice Storm
- Spells: Golden Vow, Blessing’s Boon, Heal & any other buffs you like
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Elden Ring Zamor Curved Sword Build Guide – Equipment
So first up, let’s focus on the weapon I’m using for this build. It’s the Zamor Curved Sword. So there are a few really interesting things about this weapon. First is the fact that it has Frostbite built up on it natively, which is great. Not a lot of weapons in this game have Frostbite built up, so that’s cool. Has a unique R1 moveset where you kind of spin in between each attack, which I like. It’s not part of the build necessarily, but I do like that fluid moveset. But more specifically, this weapon scales with Strength and Dexterity.
![The Zamor Curved Sword scales primarily with Dexterity, with reduced scaling in Strength.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_frost_paladin_build_equipment_zamor_curved_sword.webp)
It’s kind of a quality weapon, but its weapon skill, Zamor Ice Storm, does actually magic damage. So the weapon itself does 100% physical damage, but its weapon skill does 100% magic damage. There are very, very few weapons in this game that have that sort of polarizing dichotomy, where they deal a completely different damage type than what the weapon does itself. Something very interesting is Morgott’s Cursed Sword does this as well.
The weapon itself does pure physical damage, but its weapon skill does physical and fire. But it still does some physical. In this case, the Zamor Ice Storm does 100% magic. This is a double-edged sword for this weapon because the magic damage that Zamor Ice Storm doesn’t scale with any attribute, meaning Strength and Dexterity don’t increase the damage of Zamor Ice Storm. So the only way to increase the damage of this weapon skill is through items and through upgrading the weapon itself.
What this means is that if you found a way to get this weapon very early in the game, which would be very difficult to do naturally, because you have to defeat a boss at one of the endgame dungeons, essentially, in Giant-Conquering Hero‘s Grave. But if someone dropped you one and you just met the base requirements for it and then upgraded it to +7 or +8 early on in the game, which isn’t hard to do, you would be dealing crazy damage even at minimum requirements at 16 Strength and 18 Dexterity, if you used this weapon at +7 or +8 upgrade, you would throttle bosses.
But on the flip side of that, because this weapon skill doesn’t have any scaling, the further you progress into NG+ and NG++, or Journey 2 and Journey 3, the less effective this weapon skill is going to be because there’s no way to increase it beyond the items that we use already in this build. So the damage is going to stay the same as you go into these NG+, and bosses and enemies are going to get more and more health. So you’re going to have a harder time as you go further and further. But because you get this weapon at the end of the first playthrough, effectively, you can use it in NG+ just fine, and I’ve been playing in NG++ just fine with it. But I don’t think I would recommend going too much past Journey 3, if not going all the way through a Journey 3 playthrough.
So moving along to the other equipment I use for this build, in my left hand I have the Kite Shield and the Clawmark Seal.
![The Kite Shield is a Shield that scales primarily with Strength. Medium Shields feature a good balance between defense and weight, which is great for most situations in combat.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_frost_paladin_build_equipment_kite_shield.webp)
![The Clawmark Seal is a Weapon for characters that wish to use beast Incantations without investing in faith](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_frosted_paladin_build_equipment_clawmark_seal.webp)
The reason I have the Kite Shield here is I wanted a shield that sort of matched the armor I’m using for this build. I’m using the Fingerprint Armor. Kind of gave me this dark silverish, knight-looking thing. But the Kite Shield is not the best shield for this. You would probably be better off with a light greatshield, as it has more hardness, allowing enemies to rebuff off your shield more easily, making block counters a bit easier. Or you could even use, you know, a different sort of Heater Shield or the Brass Shield or something a little bit more effective in terms of guard boost. But I was going for fashion, so that’s what I used here. You can use any one of those you want. There are probably better shields for this build.
The Clawmark Seal is simply because I have a good amount of Strength and some Faith on this build. I wouldn’t consider this a hybrid build necessarily. I don’t think you’re going to go for incantation damage. You can use any seal you want here. But if you did want to add incantations into this build that are offensive to deal damage, besides the sort of defensive ones we have, you would want to use this seal because you’re going to get more damage out of it than you would a pure Faith seal.
![Fingerprint Armor is part of the Fingerprint Set Armor Set, and is an iron armor singed and blistered by fingers.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_frost_paladin_build_equipment_fingerprint_armor.webp)
As I mentioned for the armor, I’m wearing the Fingerprint Armor. This has 51 poise on it natively, which is great. It’s also found very near the end of the game. I like the style of it for a paladin-type build. It kind of has a bluish Paladin look to it, which is kind of what I’m going for with cross Paladin. So that’s why I selected it. You can use any armor you want as long as it has 51 poise. There isn’t any specific one that I think is better than the other, although there are individual pieces that might give you Strength or Faith, which might help meet some of the requirements for some of the spells and things we’re using a bit easier.
Elden Ring Zamor Curved Sword Build Guide – Talismans
When it comes to talismans, this guide uses the Magic Scorpion Charm, Shard of Alexander. I have the Curved Sword Talisman, and I have the Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger.
![Magic Scorpion Charm increases Magic Damage by 12%, but increases Physical Damage taken by 10%.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_frost_paladin_build_talismans_magic_scorpion_charm.webp)
![Shard of Alexander greatly boosts the attack power of Skills by 15%](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_frost_paladin_talismans_shard_of_alexander.webp)
![Curved Sword Talisman increases guard counter damage by 20%.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_frost_paladin_build_talismans_curved_sword_talisman.webp)
![Assassin's Cerulean Dagger causes critical attacks to restore 15 FP.](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/elden_ring_frost_paladin_build_talismans_assassins_cerulean_dagger.webp)
Now Magic Scorpion Charm might seem like an odd choice here because it not only increases the damage you take, but it boosts magic damage and our weapon deals exclusively physical damage. But Zamor Ice Storm does 100% magic damage, as I mentioned, and it hits like a truck. So you get three or 400 damage out of this talisman at max upgrade on this, which is significant in my opinion.
When you combine that with Shard of Alexander to give you even more damage, and when you combine that with the Flask of Wondrous Physick to get more magic damage with the Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear, you get a lot of damage out of Zamor Ice Storm. And you’re going to use Zamor Ice Storm a lot with this build too. It only costs 15 FP, which is not a lot in my opinion for the damage that you get from it. And we do have quite a bit of mind on this build. You have a good-sized FP pool allowing you to use this liberally. But we also have the Assassin’s Cerulean Dagger here, which is going to give you 15 FP back whenever you do a critical strike.
And since we have a shield and we’re going to be doing block counters sometimes with this build, you will often get critical strikes that will then refund the exact cost of Zamor Ice Storm. And lastly, I have the Curved Sword Talisman, which I mentioned, and this is just to increase block counter damage so we get even more damage when we do block counters.
Elden Ring Zamor Curved Sword Build Guide – Spells & Gameplay
So the spells that I use for this build, there are only a couple of important ones and you can add other ones. I’ve got Golden Vow here, which I don’t buff with often. I usually just do this before tough enemies or boss fights. You don’t need to buff regularly on the landscape. Zamor Ice Storm will more than likely kill just about anything you need to in regular R1 attacks if you’re an average player, is going to help finish off enemies as well. So that’s the one you want for this build. But the other one is Fire’s Deadly Sin.
This is not one I’ve included in a build. And I like to use this during boss fights because essentially what it’s going to do is it’s going to remove the Frostbite status effect that the Zamor Ice Storm applies when you’re up on a boss, allowing you to reapply it again. Each time Frostbite triggers on a boss or enemy, it takes off 10% of their max HP. So this allows you to trigger Frostbite three or four times in some cases and that helps boost your damage with this build.
You don’t necessarily have to use it in the build because Zamor Ice Storm is deadly on its own and enemies take increased damage when they’re deep off the Frostbite. So it’s not necessary, but you can use it and it works exceptionally well. Other than that, I have Blessing’s Boon here to give me Heal-Over-Time. This is nice if you’re using Fire’s Deadly Sin to offset the damage you’re going to take from that and just gives you another buff to heal you over time if you’re going into a tough fight.
We also have heal here to give you a spot heal in case you need it. It may or may not, depending on how good a player you are. But there are a lot of other buffs you can use with this build. I have my Faith capped out at 25 in order to meet the requirements for Golden Vow, and I didn’t want to go any higher. But you could take it a little bit higher if you want to meet certain requirements for certain spells, etc. But really, this isn’t like a Faith build necessarily. We just have some Faith in order to round out our buffs and heals to kind of make us more of a paladin, since there’s no reason not to in this build. And Fire’s Deadly Sin and Golden Vow both benefit from this build.
Elden Ring Zamor Curved Sword Build Guide – Attributes
So when it comes to attributes, I have 50 Vigor, 30 Mind, 25 Endurance, 45 Strength, 45 Dexterity, 16 Intelligence, 25 Faith, and 9 Arcane.
![](https://fextralife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-83-640x360.png)
Again, you don’t need any Intelligence or Arcane for this build. Because of my starting class, that’s what the attributes for those are. You’ve probably heard this by now. And there really isn’t a case for Arcane in this build unless you want to meet some incantation requirements. And there isn’t a case for Intelligence, except if maybe you’re playing Journey 3 or something like that, you might want to take this to 20.
That way you could use something like Terra Magica. That would further boost your Zamor Ice Storm damage. That might be another way to increase your Zamor Ice Storm damage because again, there are very few ways. You don’t need to do it. It’s a bit overkill in Journey 1 and Journey 2. But in Journey 3, you might need that to kind of keep your edge.
For Vigor, 50 is enough here at the beginning of NG +. But probably by the end of NG +, you want to get this up to 60 just to have more health. You do take hits and trade hits with this when you’re using Zamor Ice Storm a lot. So it’s good to have more health. When it comes to Mind, we probably have a little too much here. But you do use a lot of spells and buffs with this build.
You use Zamor Ice Storm constantly, so I thought 30 Mind was a good place. You could drop this down to 25 or 20 if you don’t mind taking potions more frequently. Dump those points into Strength or Dexterity. Or maybe put some in Arcane if you want to meet the requirements for some other incantations. Or maybe put them into Faith if you want to get a little more damage from your Clawmark Seal if you want to add offensive incantations into this build.
Mind is in a good spot. But it is a little bit flexible here. I wouldn’t go too much higher than this, honestly. I don’t think you need any more FP. Endurance is at 25 for us to use this equipment in Medium Roll. We’re not right at the threshold here. You could go a bit heavier and still Medium Roll. So if you’re using a heavier shield, you might need a couple more points in Endurance. But it’s not going to be too much more because we’re not riding the line perfectly. Strength and Dexterity are both at 45 for this build.
This is the breakpoint for the Clawmark Seal, which is why I stopped at 45 Strength. Dexterity outperforms Strength by a little bit here. if you went 50 Dexterity to 40 Strength, you’d get two or three more points of damage out of your melee attack because I wanted to add those to the Clawmark Seal in case you want to use offensive abilities. That’s kind of why we did it that way. But moving forward, you’ll take Dexterity up to 50 and Strength up to 50. And then you’ll probably take Dexterity up to 80 and Strength up to 80 to maximize your R1 and R2 attacks, and jump attacks with this weapon.
Again, there isn’t any other way to increase your Zamor Ice Storm damage through attributes. So this is just for your melee attacks. And that’s one of the reasons they’re probably a little bit lower than you’d see in most builds at this point because it’s not super important. And again, Faith is at 25 mostly to meet the requirements for Golden Vow. It also allows us to use all the other spells we have in this build.
This is a bit flexible. You don’t want to go lower than 25 so you can still use Golden Vow. But if you want to use other incantations, this might go up a little bit. So when it comes to the Flask of Wondrous Physick, I have the Greenburst Crystal Tear, and Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear here. Stamina Recovery is always good. There aren’t any other attributes, again, that increase Zamor Ice Storm damage. So putting Strength or Dexterity in here wouldn’t do that. It’d give you more melee damage, but I typically don’t use a lot of melee attacks in boss fights. Although those are options for you if you want.
I do like Stamina Recovery. The Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear increases Zamor Ice Storm‘s damage, which is why we have it. Lastly, if you’re talking about what Great Rune to use for this build, Godrick’s is perfect for this build. You need Vigor, you need Mind, you need Endurance, you need Strength, you need Dexterity, you need Faith. And if you’re in Journey 2 or Journey 3, you might even need some Intelligence to use Terra Magica. So that’s six or seven of the attributes, or maybe even Arcane to meet the requirements for some spells. That way you don’t have to put any points into Arcane. So it might be one of the few builds out there that can make use of the entire Great Rune for every attribute.
So that wraps up our Frost Paladin build. I hope you guys enjoyed it. This is one of my favorite builds to make. Honestly, I enjoyed this. 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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