As more and more players reach the end of Elden Ring and wait for more content to arrive, FromSoftware should look at the types of builds people are making for how to rebalance new locations and gear. One important place where this balancing and enhancing could use a second look by the developer is in the status effects like blood loss that players can be inflicted with or use to their own advantage.
Most notably, the current way to improve these status builds only allows players to slightly increase their own attack after successfully inflicting these effects on enemies. However, there aren't many ways for Elden Ring players to improve the effects themselves or their ability to inflict these abilities, beyond using specific weapons.
Status Infliction Improvements
There are items that can increase a player's attack power when using bleed or poison, such as Elden Ring's White Mask that activates whenever near someone affected by blood loss. There's also the Lord of Blood's Exultation talisman that has the same ability, giving players improved damage if they build themselves to inflict the status effect as often as possible. This can also be abused when combined with Ashes of War like Seppuku, which sacrifices some health to immediately activate the damage increase.
In this case, there are some ways that players can get the most out of a build like bleed, as well as poison and scarlet rot that have similar helmets and talismans. However, while there is some depth in increasing raw damage, there's no real way to improve the status build-up or the overall damage done by the effect itself, aside from swapping out to a weapon like Elden Ring's River of Blood. Bleed and frost will always do the same amount of damage whenever it activates, and no talismans, armor, or spells can increase that damage or the build-up.
One major way that a new item added in the DLC could improve these builds that have already become the preferred meta for players is to give players the same glass-canon abilities that elemental and magic builds get. Not only do elements get scorpion talismans that increase damage in exchange for reduced defense, but Elden Ring's Crystal Tears can also improve elemental damage for a short time. So, the easy option when it comes to adding new pieces of content is to give status effects the same treatment as elemental damage to give players equipment or limited ways to improve buildup and overall damage.
Scarlet Rot is Underutilized for Players
Of the status effects available for players to combat enemies with, scarlet rot stands out as one that doesn't really get the chance to be the star build it could be. To start, scarlet rot can only really be accessed by players with either very specific builds or towards the very end of the game. With the exception of the Antspur Rapier, the majority of weapons that come with scarlet rot as a standard ability are all housed in and beyond the optional endgame area the Consecrated Snowfields. In contrast, the first major bleed weapon, Elden Ring's Reduvia dagger, is available only a short trip away from the tutorial area.
On top of there not being many weapons that give players the ability to use scarlet rot for themselves, there is also a severe lack of skills that can unlock the status on regular weapons. There is no scarlet rot ash of war, and there are no spells that will place scarlet rot onto a weapon in the way that bleed and fire can be attached through incantations like Bloodflame Blade or Elden Ring's underrated sorcery Frozen Armament. So, the only way to apply scarlet rot to any weapon that doesn't already come with the status is to apply rot grease, a rare item that can only be infinitely farmed in the later areas of the game.
This same trend of scarlet rot being difficult to inflict on enemies continues through to the other ways that players can access the status effect. The best and earliest way to access scarlet rot comes from the Dragon Communion incantation Rotten Breath, which can be obtained fairly easily, but also requires a high commitment of levels unless playing as the Prophet class. Beyond Rotten Breath, the only other option early on is to find vendors that sell rot grease or hunt down limited crafting materials to make rot pots, a problem that persists with quite a few status effects.
Craftable Items Need More Accessible Farming
One impressive new feature that FromSoftware brought to Elden Ring is the crafting system, which goes a long way to give players a reason to pick up every random item they can find. Even if the only thing these materials placed around the world does is create new raisins to feed Torrent, they can still have some use to different players. However, when it comes to giving players access to certain builds, the necessary materials can be difficult to find or limited to end-game areas if players want a consistent amount of them.
To look back at the scarlet rot example, the two consumable items that can be crafted for this status require one of Elden Ring's rarer crafting materials, the Aeonian Butterfly. Additionally, there are the items required to make frost pots and grease, both of which need Rimed Crystal Buds, which can only really be farmed in late-game areas. The result is that while these items can work well for builds in the game's endgame, it doesn't let players progress through the majority of Elden Ring with free use of its mechanics.
So, as FromSoftware continues to bring new content to Elden Ring through DLC or even in rebalancing patches, making sure that players have access to builds without an RNG grind would be a good place to move next. The crafting system adds a level of depth to Elden Ring that previous games from the developer haven't had available to them. For that reason, crafting should be deeper explored in upcoming content and given the chance to be a more impactful part of the average player experience.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
