Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Best Builds for Messmer and Radahn
Gear and stat setups for beating Messmer the Impaler and Promised Consort Radahn in the DLC.
Messmer the Impaler and Promised Consort Radahn are the two walls of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. One sets his whole arena on fire and pokes you with a flaming spear. The other is faster than he has any right to be and hits like a freight train made of light. Gear that carried you through the base game tends to fall flat here, because both fights punish slow weapons and lazy spacing.
So what follows is built around what actually sticks to them. Bleed and frostbite, stance pressure, and the new kit the DLC hands you. There are honest caveats along the way, too. Fire damage gets resisted by both bosses (even though Messmer is basically made of it), and sleep does nothing to either one. The builds lean on what lands, and they stay honest wherever a setup is more fun than it is effective for these two specifically.
Bleed Build with Rivers of Blood Successor
Quick note on the name, because it trips people up. There is no weapon literally called a "Rivers of Blood successor." Rivers of Blood itself, with the Corpse Piler ash, still bleeds just fine after its nerfs, and plenty of players keep using it. What the DLC actually gave you is a set of faster and harder-hitting bleed options, so treat this section as the bleed build for the DLC era. Arcane does the heavy lifting across all of them.
The stats to aim for
Push Arcane high, around 60, since bleed buildup scales with it. Add 40 to 50 Dexterity for the faster weapons and cast speed, keep Vigor at 40 or above (these bosses hit hard), and carry enough Endurance to wear decent armor without fat-rolling. A spread like 40 Vigor / 40 Endurance / 50 Dexterity / 60 Arcane is a solid landing spot. Use Blood affinity on weapons that have innate bleed, or Occult on ones that scale off Arcane natively.
The weapons worth carrying
| Weapon | Class | Affinity for bleed | Why it fits | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Bloodfiend's Arm | Colossal | Occult (Arcane A at +25, 319 physical) | Highest per-hit bleed in the game; blood splash adds 7.5 stance damage | | Backhand Blade | Backhand | Blood or Occult | Fast multi-hits, Swift Backhand Strike dashes you around | | Great Katana | Great Katana | Blood | Katana feel, closest to Rivers of Blood; easy early grab |
The Bloodfiend's Arm is the per-hit bleed king. It is a colossal weapon that scales Strength, Dexterity, and Arcane, found in Prospect Town in the Gravesite Plain. Its heavy attacks spray stored blood, and that splash deals fire plus extra status buildup on top of the normal hit. Patch 1.12.3 trimmed its Arcane scaling and its heavy-attack status a bit, so it is not quite as silly as launch, but it still sits at the top of the pile.
The Backhand Blade is the fast, mobile pick. Its default ash, Swift Backhand Strike, repositions you mid-combo, which matters a lot when DLC bosses move this quickly. It hits many times in a short window, so the bleed stacks up fast even though each hit is small. It likes a Dexterity and Arcane split.
The Great Katana is the closest thing to the old Rivers of Blood rhythm, katana moveset and all. A Blood Great Katana is a strong early bleed pick if you want that familiar flow.
How it performs on the two bosses
On Messmer, bleed is one of his top weaknesses, so this setup shreds him. Frostbite works great too, and a lot of players run a Cold off-hand or a Frostbreath option to land the frostbite chunk first, then pile bleed on top.
On Radahn, it is more of a fight. He is weak to bleed on paper, but his hemorrhage resistance for that first proc is enormous, so you need genuinely high Arcane to make bleeds go off at all. Frostbite is usually the more reliable status on him because it also drops his damage absorption. Bleed and frostbite together, with a big Arcane investment, is the version of this build that actually carries you through the final fight.
Fire Build Around Messmer's Kindling Weapons
Here is the honest part up front. "Messmer's kindling" maps onto Messmer's flame, and the kit built around it is the Spear of the Impaler, the Fire Knight's Greatsword, and the Messmer's Flame incantations. It is a fantastic build for clearing the rest of the Land of Shadow. The catch is that both Messmer and Radahn resist fire damage, so against the two named bosses you are leaning on the physical half of these weapons and on stance pressure rather than raw fire. Still very playable, just set your expectations.
Spear of the Impaler
This is Messmer's greatspear, traded from the Remembrance of the Impaler at the Roundtable Hold. The requirements are steep: Strength 14, Dexterity 35, Faith 18. That 35 Dexterity is one of the higher weapon requirements in the whole game, which makes the spear awkward to fit on a build below around rune level 150.
Base numbers sit at 85 physical and 102 fire, with scaling of Strength E, Dexterity C, Faith D. As you upgrade it, the faith line climbs faster than the dexterity line, and at +7 it hits Strength E, Dexterity B, Faith C. At +10 it lands at 208 physical and 249 fire. Because fire is the bigger chunk of its damage, Faith actually does more for this spear than Dexterity does, even though Dexterity is the higher requirement. It weighs 9.5, has 100 crit, and its skill Messmer's Assault costs 15 FP.
The heavy attack throws the spear for zero FP, and the throw is boosted by the Smithing Talisman. The throw itself is on the weak side and eats stamina, though, so the real damage comes from Messmer's Assault during openings. It cannot be infused or buffed, which is the main thing holding it back.
Fire Knight's Greatsword and the flame spells
The Fire Knight's Greatsword is the more flexible pick. It is a colossal sword that scales Strength, Dexterity, and Faith, and it is widely considered the best colossal option on a faith build when you put a Flame Art infusion on it, which gets it up to B in Faith. It pairs naturally with Messmer's flame spells and has solid poise-breaking power. Slap Flame Skewer or Flame Spear on it for the ash.
For incantations, the Messmer's Flame line has three spells. Fire Serpent is the workhorse, a homing fire coil you find in Shadow Keep (or off Fire Knight Salza). Messmer's Orb comes from the Remembrance of the Impaler, and Rain of Fire drops from a Fire Knight past the West Rampart grace. Cast all of them through the Fire Knight's Seal, which boosts Messmer's flame incantations.
Making it work on the bosses
Against Messmer and Radahn, lead with Messmer's Assault bursts when you get a clean opening and let the physical portion of the split damage do the work. Save the flame-shrouding cracked tear for the trash mobs around the keep. For the boss fights themselves, swap that flask slot to Stonebarb or Thorny instead, since fire is not doing you favors here. The build still clears most of the DLC faster than almost anything else, which is a fair trade.
Faith Build Using St. Trina Incantations
This one needs a straight answer right away. St. Trina does not actually give you castable incantations. There is no sleep spell line to learn from her. Her toolkit is a set of sleep weapons, a consumable pot, and a couple of talismans and helmets. The flavor text on the Sleep Pot calls it "enchanted by the incantations of St. Trina," which is where the name in this section comes from, but there is no spell you equip from a seal. So a "St. Trina faith build" is really a faith hybrid that carries her sleep gear as a side flavor.
The sleep kit
| Item | What it does | | --- | --- | | Sword of St. Trina | Base game straight sword, inflicts sleep, scales Intelligence / Strength / Dexterity | | Velvet Sword of St. Trina | DLC upgrade, inflicts Eternal Sleep, found in the Stone Coffin Fissure | | St. Trina's Torch | Light-purple flame that builds sleep | | Thiollier's Hidden Needle | Eternal Sleep plus poison, from Thiollier's quest | | Sleep Pot | Crafted consumable that throws a sleep cloud |
The Velvet Sword is the centerpiece of a sleep playstyle. You find it down in the Stone Coffin Fissure, past the Putrescent Knight, in the Garden of Deep Purple where St. Trina herself sits. Progressing her and Thiollier's quest means imbibing her nectar and "dying" to it a handful of times, which is as weird as it sounds. Worth knowing up front so you do not get stuck.
One scaling note that catches people. The Velvet Sword scales Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence. It does not scale with Faith, so on a pure faith character it is more of a sidearm than a main weapon. That is fine, just go in aware of it.
Support pieces and where sleep helps
The two faith-relevant drops here are both solid. St. Trina's Smile is a talisman that raises your attack power whenever sleep gets triggered nearby, which is a nice free damage buff during the parts of the game where sleep works. St. Trina's Blossom is a helmet that gives a small boost to max FP, picked up from her body near the end of the DLC.
Here is the gameplay reality, and it matters for this guide specifically. Sleep is genuinely strong for the journey through the Land of Shadow. It trivializes a lot of the brutal trash mobs and many of the field enemies and lesser bosses that would otherwise chew you up on the way to Messmer and Radahn. Carrying a Velvet Sword or a stack of Sleep Pots makes whole zones much easier.
But both Messmer and Promised Consort Radahn are immune to sleep. So the sleep crowd-control does literally nothing in those two fights. For them, the faith side of the build carries you instead, with heals, Golden Vow, protection spells, and a faith-scaling damage weapon like a Flame Art greatsword or a sacred option. Think of this build as "sleep for the road, faith for the bosses," and it makes sense.
Strength and Colossal Weapon Setup
The stance-break route is one of the most reliable ways to handle both fights, and the DLC's colossal weapons are built for it. The star here is the Bloodfiend's Arm again, but this time for its Strength and stance side rather than just its bleed.
The stance math, from the wiki
The blood splash on the Bloodfiend's Arm heavy attacks adds 7.5 stance damage on top of the hit itself. That bonus snowballs fast. A two-handed charged heavy lands about 53.25 stance damage. Turn on Cragblade and that climbs to 58.6. Add a Stonebarb Cracked Tear to your flask and you hit roughly 76.1 stance damage per charged heavy, which is enough to stance-break a 120-stance boss (the final boss included) in two charged heavies. That is the entire game plan in one paragraph.
The setup
Run the Bloodfiend's Arm on Heavy affinity for a pure Strength build, or Occult if you also want the bleed. Slot Cragblade as the ash, pour a Stonebarb Cracked Tear into your physick, and fill the talisman slots with the Axe Talisman (charged attacks), the Two-Headed Turtle Talisman (stamina recovery), and either Shard of Alexander or Great-Jar's Arsenal. Two-hand the weapon for the stance bonus and swing charged heavies into guard counters. Colossal swings are greedy on stamina, which is exactly why the Two-Headed Turtle Talisman, a direct upgrade to the Green Turtle that adds about 10 stamina per second, earns its slot here.
If you want variety, the Fire Knight's Greatsword does similar work on a Heavy or Flame Art infusion, and any strong base-game colossal like the Greatsword with Cragblade fits the same loop. Keep it simple, charge your heavies, and let the stance breaks set up your critical hits.
Against the two bosses
Radahn is weak to pierce and can be stance-broken, so the colossal charged-heavy loop lands well on him. A popular and very steady strategy is to pair a high-guard-boost shield like the DLC's Black Steel Greatshield with guard counters, poking between his strings. Keep your equip load in the medium band so you still medium-roll, because his combos are fast and a fat-roll gets you killed.
Messmer is stance-breakable too, so the same pressure works on him. His damage is mostly fire, so stack fire-resist armor and bring a Flamedrake Talisman to take the edge off. Either way, the plan is unchanged, charged heavies until he staggers, critical hit, repeat.
Talisman and Ash of War Pairings
The talisman slots are where each build gets tuned, and getting them right is a bigger deal in the DLC than it was in the base game. Here is how to fill them per build, plus the ash pairings that make the weapons sing.
Bleed loadout
The core is Lord of Blood's Exultation, which bumps your attack power by about 20 percent for 20 seconds whenever blood loss happens nearby, which on a bleed build is constantly. Pair it with Rotten Winged Sword Insignia for the consecutive-attack damage ramp, and wear the White Mask helmet for another attack bump on blood loss. Note that you cannot get both Rotten Winged Sword Insignia and Millicent's Prosthesis in a single playthrough, since they are alternate rewards from the same quest, so pick the insignia if you have the choice. Round out the slots with Two-Headed Turtle for stamina and Shard of Alexander for skill damage.
Fire and faith loadout
Run Fire Scorpion Charm for the flame damage, Shard of Alexander because Messmer's Assault does real work, and Fire Knight's Seal effects aside, keep Two-Headed Turtle for stamina. If you are leaning into incantations, swap one slot for the Faith-related charms that fit your spell mix.
Strength and colossal loadout
Two-Headed Turtle for stamina, Axe Talisman for the charged heavies that are your bread and butter, and Shard of Alexander if you run Cragblade or Savage Lion's Claw. If you are jump-attacking with a colossal, the Claw Talisman is a free damage boost on every jump.
Defensive picks for the bosses
Radahn's phase one hits are mostly physical, so Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman earns its place there. His phase two adds a lot of holy damage, so grab a Haligdrake or Pearldrake Talisman for that phase and consider stacking fire resistance for Messmer instead. Two-Headed Turtle or the base Green Turtle is never a wasted slot against bosses this stamina-hungry.
Ash pairings
- Cragblade on the Bloodfiend's Arm and other colossals for the stance bonus that makes the break-in-two-hits math work
- Swift Backhand Strike on the Backhand Blade for mobility plus fast bleed
- Messmer's Assault on the Spear of the Impaler, the actual damage source on that weapon
- Flame Skewer and Flame Spear on the Fire Knight's weapons for a flame-art flavor
- Royal Knight's Resolve when you want one huge burst hit
- Bloodhound's Step when you need extra invincibility frames to survive Radahn's longer strings
Flask cracked tears
Match the tear to the plan. Stonebarb Cracked Tear is the pick for colossal stance runs. Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear amps the fire trash-clearing. Thorny Cracked Tear stacks with the consecutive-attack talismans on bleed and multi-hit builds. And an Opaline Bubbletear is a fine panic button when you are still learning a boss's tells.
The short version across all five builds: bleed and frostbite are what actually chip Messmer and Radahn down, stance pressure from the colossals gives you safe crit windows, and the fire and sleep kits are better for the road than for the two bosses they get associated with. Pick the one that matches your stats, fill the talisman slots to match, and lean on the parts that land.