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InElden Ring’sColosseum, there are a number of great builds that stand above the rest as staples in gameplay to both fear and appreciate. Granted, the tried and true ‘what-works-for-you-is-always-best’ stands true for the most part, but in the hands of any capable player, there are certainly a few that put other builds to shame.
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Duel Combat builds in particular prioritize a blend of damage optimization and a skilled mastery of combat mechanics. With no health flasks and only your weapons and strategy to depend upon, the Duel Combat combatant will need to focus their sights on the builds that blend these two worlds together in a way that complements their personal style the best.
Star Brawler
As predicted from the name of this build, the Star Brawler build is afists-based Strength buildthat has short reach but packs a massive punch. For Duel Combat, this build operates exceptionally well, as you won’t have to juggle multiple enemies and can instead focus your attacks to build up as much bleed loss as possible - where this build does its largest percentage of damage.
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Playstyle
The general strategy for a Star Fists build (or any fists build, for that matter) is tobegin a match by casting an incantation or an equivalentto complement your Star-Fists.
Cragblade, the Weapon Art, is a good option for general damage, but the greatest combination appears to be using the incantationBloodflame Blade in conjunction with the Lord of Blood’s Exhaltationto both increase bleed-build up but also use that build-up to further increase your damage. Adding theStorm Stomp Ash of Warto the Star-Fists additionally allows for poise-breaking combinations that allow you to deal more hits, more bleed loss, and greater damage output overall.
The purpose of this build isfast-paced and merciless gameplaythat doesn’t allow your opponent the space or reprieve to counter-attack your onslaught. You want to close the distance as quickly as possible and poise through the hits for trade-offs that won’t leave you at a deficit.
Your Stamina should allow you to both enjoy bulky armor while having enough Stamina to deal consecutive hits without worrying about having enough to dodge or backstep out of enemy attacks when necessary.
to accomplish poising through hits, you’ll want to use both theBull Goat’s Talisman (shown below) in conjunction with high-poise/high-defense armor. Lionel’s armor set is a great choice, but mixing it with the Bull Goat’s set for more poise is also a superb choice if you make your fourth talisman the Great Jar’s Arsenal.
Talismans
For your fourth talisman, you have a choice of a few depending on your playstyle, how confident you are in gaining successive attacks, or how much you feel you’ll need a boost to defenses:
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Glintstone Mage
Magic has long been considered cheesy in the PvE space, regarded as the ‘easy mode’ of Elden Ring. However, in PvP, it can be arisky choice due to the need for ample casting-time for spells.
Against inexperienced users, the mage excels in ranged combat, but it tends to lag behind in the serious competitive scene where smart players know to punish openings in casting animations with little remorse.
That being said,what the mage loses in attack speed it more than makes up for in raw damage output.Many competitive players favor high-defense armor and physical defense talismans rather than that which boosts their magical negation, so you can exploit this opening in order to capitalize on what makes the optimized Glintstone Mage so powerful:finishing matches in a single blow.
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The general strategy here is tokeep distance between you and an opponent and search for an openingthat allows for you to strike andfinish the match within one-to-two large hits- if you can. Don’t be greedy, wait for your moment, and if you can spare a few chipping hits with small Glintstone magics (e.g., Swift Glinstone Shard), great. If not? Don’t sweat it.
Comet will be your workhorsewith this build, dealing the most damage thanks to the benefits of Azur’s Crown and Staff.Should your opponent manage to close the distance and get into your personal space,making it difficult to find opportunities to cast magic safely,switch to your dex-based weapon(s).
Their primary use is not to do damage, but instead to inflict Frostbite and use the Weapon Art: Chilling Mist to create a zoning opportunity for you to retreat. Once you’re able to take a few steps back, you’re able to either use Star Shower to pressure your foe or Comet to deal a great amount of damage.
There is a variation on this build that excels a little more at dealing with melee combatants in exchange for raw damage output. Using the Carian staff in conjunction with the spell Carian Slicer can produce the dangerous “Slicer” build who capitalizes on both catching melee combatants off-guard and on the lack of magic resistant armors.
It was a popular PvP build for a long time, but nerfs to Carian Slicer in patch 1.08 reduced the damage, thereby making it debatable whether the Slicer build is more effective than a pure mage build.
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Dual Naginata
The Dual Naginata build is a staple classic in the PvP meta game, and is as broken as builds come.
It is aDexterity-based buildbut can enjoy a little crossplay into Arcana if you’re wanting to delve into some blood magics, but the 1.07 update to PvP - and the nerfs it introduced to bleeding build-up - means thatinvesting into pure damage(with the Cross Naginata’s innate bleed application) is generally the way to go for the highest success rate.
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There are a variety of good Ashes of War to place on Dual Naginatas, making the above recommendations a debate that should be decided based on your preferred playstyle.Beast’s Roar is a popular choice, but it’s extremely overused and quite expected when you walk into the arena with two Cross Naginatas.
Phantom Slash,for closing distance quickly,and Giant Hunt are both excellent Ashes of Warthat are a little less mainstream but still quite excellent, allowing you to catch your opponent off-guard and deal moderate damage.
Quick Step is a third option, but keep in mind that it is banned in some online tournament circles and very underused in tandem with polearm/spear weapons.
Should you find yourself in a predicament where you often have individuals running away from you, it would be good to have theAntspur Rapier on handwith the Thunderbolt Ash of War to strike foes from a distance. It scales with Dexterity, so it’s an excellent off-hand weapon choice to pair here.
The strategy with the Dual Naginata is best summed as:poke and repeat.Unfortunately, this build suffers from a complete lack of creativity: poke, rinse, and repeat until your foes are dead, dodging when necessary and using your equipped Ash of War to get the upper hand through appropriate openings.
Bestial Vitality is a good incantation to keep on the side for emergencies, and you can choose to add Bloodflame Blade for a faster bleed build-up, but with the raw damage of this build, you shouldn’t need to rely on this.
For talismans, you can include those listed below, but you havefar more leeway to play with talismans herethan you do in other builds thanks to the straightforward nature of this setup.Feel free to experimentand find what works best for you, so long as youprioritize raw damage and poise.
A case can be made here that theRotten Winged Sword Insigniafunctions better in this build than the Millicent’s Prosthesis due to the build already having a phenomenally high Dexterity rating.Removing Millicent’s Prosthesis lowers the raw damage of each weapon by approximately six points in exchange for higher returns per successive hit.
If you’re not confident you candeal successive attacks fast enoughto enjoy the full potential of the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, Millicent’s Prosthesis or another talisman entirely may function better here.
