Elden Ring’s faith stat is pretty flexible to build, especially since developer FromSoftware built a lot of spells and enchantments into the game. Still, it tends to get very little use at high levels, as YouTuber Your Average Gamer put it in an email to Kotaku Dot Com, with people claiming it’s not as good as other stats in the game like the defining Stamina health. In an effort to prove the masses wrong, Your Average Gamer took their fervent belief in faith and put it to the test. Not only did they take on the hardest possible difficulty, but they absolutely took down multiple bosses, including the likes of Radagon and the Elden Beast, in one hit. It’s crazy!
Matthew “Your Average Gamer” Farnkopf is a YouTuber dedicated to creating “crazy Elden Ring builds”. They have a video on destroying Malenia in 90 seconds, another on the effectiveness of Godrick’s Great Ax grafting, and another on building the end state effect. In short, Matt has spent a lot of time with Elden Ring since it launched on February 25th. However, it’s still remarkable that they were able to find a one-shot build powerful enough to take out two of the toughest bosses in the game, Radagon of the Golden Order and the Elden Beast, with an assortment of gear and enchantments in New Game Plus Seven, the highest difficulty option Elden Ring currently offers. Each new game round plus retains all of your gear and stats while increasing the overall damage output and health pool of the enemies around you, meaning your average player’s career is some seriously grumpy shit.
From the software
It looks like Matt is just throwing stuff for the sake of throwing stuff during the fight, but there’s actually an order to the madness. As they explained in a short video detailing what they’ve dubbed the “ultimate PvE build,” Matt first cast the Howl of Shabriri and Golden Vow spells for some early status effects, like stacking insanity for to the power of attack and denial of attack, respectively. They are then poisoned to increase their intelligence stat and temporarily increase their lightning strike damage, the latter being especially important when combined with the unique attack spell Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike, an ability endgame you’ll find in the labyrinthine legacy dungeon Crumbling Farum Azula. After a quick buffing session, Matt turns to his gear for even more benefits: the Gravel Stone Seal to increase the damage of Dragon Cult and Lightning-related enchantments, the Jellyfish Shield to increase 20% damage for 30 seconds and the Kindred of Rot. Exultation Talisman to increase attack power by 20% for 20 seconds when poison or rot is nearby, among others, before entering the battle arena to show the final bosses what’s up.
It was curtains once Matt stood in front of Radagon. They threw the ancient dragons’ lightning, a multi-hit attack that sends multiple bolts of lightning to hit a certain area, and watched as the hammer god’s health bar melted away in seconds. Same thing happened to the colossal Elden Beast, and everyone, I’m gagging RN.
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Matt told Kotaku via email that they wanted to dispel the myth that pervades the gaming community that “faith [builds aren’t] almost as good as magic.” It took them “nearly 20 hours of trial and error” to find the right combination of equipment and enchantments to do the damage necessary to kill Radagon and the Elden Beast in one shot, and the results were amazing.
“I was mostly inspired to show that something that many said couldn’t really be done… even on the hardest difficulty,” said Matt. “When I got this in Journey Three, it gave me hope that it was technically possible. Once again to prove how powerful faith can be!”
Matt, to put it bluntly, loves faith. It’s one of his favorite stats for character building and a central theme of the game in general. Still, getting things right to achieve this feat was a headache, forcing them to “abandon two separate hits” due to the weather that was turning. Regardless of the frustrations, Matt said they were “happy [to have] stuck him” at the end.
“So I’m physically disabled,” Matt said. “I have ongoing daily stomach problems that can sometimes become severe. I just got over a bout of colitis that I had to go to the ER for. After failing so many times for several hours, I found myself possibly coming back to another eruption. So I relaxed and calmed down and wasted my time. From then on I put in hours that I would do it and took the pressure off completely. The moment I said “D’ okay, if someone else does, that’s fine,” I was able to relax. Soon after, I was able to get it anyway!”
From the software
Getting a one-shot kill in Elden Ring is impressive, but not entirely new. There was a Redditor in April who killed the infamous Tree Sentinel in one hit and another speedrunner who created a glass cannon construct to take down bosses with a single swing of his hammer in May. While it may not be as fresh, killing FromSoftware’s infamous enemy challenges in one shot is still a pretty cool sight. I wish I had enough patience to do this.
Although Matt has beaten the Elden Ring several times now, he is not done with the game. They expect FromSoftware to add new content in the form of “very challenging bosses, like the DLC from Dark Souls 3” or “another endpoint of the game that would test us once again.” Until then, Matt is walking the Lands between once again looking for new builds to experiment with.
“I’ve retired the lightning build/character,” Matt said. “It’s kind of a legacy for me now. I’m starting a brand new build and I’m going to focus on exploring and the next awesome build that I can come up with. Elden Ring is a great game and the community is amazing! And remember ‘Find Lightning !’”
It’s worth noting that even though FromSoftware dropped patch 1.06 for the game, Matt said that his ultimate PvE build is still effective against the game’s bosses. If you want to try Matt’s full version for yourself, here it is:
- Gravel stone seal or Gold Order seal
- Jellyfish Shield
- Mushroom crown
- Stinky pots
- Neutralizing bowls
- Blood Sword for health damage
- Godfrey icon
- Lightning Scorpion Charm
- Relative of Roy’s exultation
- Branch sword with red feathers
- Ancient Prayer Book (for Spell)
- Broken tear that surrounds lightning
- Intelligence Knot Crystal Tear
- Howl of Shabriri’s enchantment
- Golden Vow Spell