Elden Ring: Top 10 Best Ashes of War and Where to Find Them

The 10 most powerful Ashes of War found in Elden Ring.

Game Guide by Nine_toes on Jul 02, 2024

With Elden Ring’s Shadow of The Erdtree expansion released, many of us have decided to pick the game up in preparation. Whether you are playing this game for the first time, or you are a veteran picking it back up because you are excited for the DLC, this Ashes of War round-up is sure to have something useful for you!

Ashes of War are unique items that can be equipped on a weapon or shield to modify its skill. The use of these require FP, the blue bar below your health bar on your screen. There are 91 Ashes of War in Elden Ring as of patch 1.10, of which none are absolutely worthless, but some do stand out from the rest. We’ve rounded up a list of which Ashes of War are worth your while based on their damage output, FP cost and utility.

Hoarfrost Stomp

Even though the Hoarfrost Stomp has been nerfed, it’s still extremely good in clearing waves of enemies and dealing devastating damage to bosses. For just 10FP, your character stomps on the ground and unleashes an arc of frost that gets wider as it travels a remarkable distance. It is nearly guaranteed to proc frostbite to enemies vulnerable to it with just one hit. Players can use this skill and then pick off foes that are staggered by the shockwave. Because of its low FP cost and high damage, you can slap this on any melee weapon and spam it to your heart’s content.

Where to Find: In a shallow body of water southeast of Caria Manor, it is dropped by an invisible Teardrop Scarab.

Hoarah Loux’s Earthshaker

Hoarah Loux’s Earthshaker is an extremely strong Ash with heavy affinity. When used for 16FP, your character charges up and strikes the ground, dealing damage in a small circle around you while ignoring shields with the option of doing another as a follow-up attack with an additional input. During your initial charge-up, you have considerable hyper-armor, so you don’t have to worry about getting staggered as long as your HP can tank the hits you receive during it. Your follow-up attack doesn’t have as much stagger resistance, but if your first hit connects, chances are your enemy has been staggered so that’s not really an issue. This is a very good choice if you don’t like your current weapon art and you want something to go with a beefier weapon.

Where to Find: At the Roundtable Hold, talk to Enia and trade Remembrance of Hoarah Loux with Enia after defeating the Godfrey.

Seppuku

Seppuku is one of those “equivalent exchange” Ashes where you, quite literally, commit seppuku to buff your current weapon and gain the ability to proc bleed on your foes. The act of committing seppuku procs a bleed effect on you for a fixed 100 + 15% of your max health, consumes 4FP and empowers your weapon. It can be equipped on any sword and thrustable spear.

You can make this Ash work with just about any fast weapon, but it goes thematically the best in a samurai run with a katana. One thing of note is that, if you have a bleed gauge on you and you use this Ash, the accumulated bleed will be overridden, and you will take off the fixed 15% of your HP rather than the amount that was stacked on you. This tidbit is useful especially in PvP considering how popular bleed builds are. The bleed procced by this weapon is no different from other sources: it scales on Arc.

Where to Find: An invisible Scarab found on the frozen lake that is east of the Freezing Lake site of grace.

Golden Land

The Golden Land is an Ash that can only be equipped on Colossals and Warhammers with some considerable damage output. With your weapon you slam it onto the ground, doing a burst of damage in a small arc in front of you, and then six golden beams shoot out from above your shoulder at whoever you are locked on to. For just 16FP, the damage and utility it provides is incredible, plus the projectiles are nigh unmissable against bosses and even enemies in general. This skill is a fantastic addition to heavy or Strength builds because of its high damage, decent AoE and its ability to be used at range.

Where to Find: In Deeproot Depths, near the Great Waterfall Crest site of grace, a scarab drops it.

Waves of Darkness

This is another skill meant for heavier weapons. The Waves of Darkness, as the name suggests, unleashes three waves of darkness that deal considerable damage in AoE in a circle around you. You can get great use out of this clearing out camps or hordes of enemies by slamming this on the ground and slashing away at the enemies that come chase you. Just like Golden Land, this costs 16FP and in our testing, Waves of Darkness does more damage than its counterpart, Golden Land.

Where to Find: After killing Astel, trade Remembrance of the Naturalborn with Enia in the Roundtable Hold.

Golden Parry

This one’s purely a utility Ash that supercharges your parry and can be equipped to small and medium shields. You gain almost thrice as many active frames (at 60fps) as your default parry and increased range at the expense of 4FP for each attempt. Because of how much easier this makes parrying, this definitely deserves a mention on this list. For those who don’t want to deal with managing FP for each parry attempt, Carian Retaliation(costs FP against spells) or a Buckler shield are strong options also, but neither of those are Ashes.

Where to Find: A teardrop Scarab near Capital Outskirts.

Blood Blade

The Blood Blade is in the same vein as the Seppuku with how it uses some of your character’s HP to damage your opponents. For 3FP and 45HP, your character slashes themself and throws blood projectiles that apply bleed with only Arc scaling and can proc hemorrhage. Additionally, if your enemy happens to be inside the hitbox of your weapon as you throw your blood, they will take 50% of the damage of your R1 alongside the skill damage.

What’s nice about this Ash is that you can apply bleed from a safe distance. One use case for this can be to keep adding to the bleed gauge of a boss after dodging with the use of this skill. This Ash can only be equipped on small and medium swords.

Where to Find: Northeast of Erdtree Gazing Hill in Atlus Plateau, above a pond, kill a Teardrop Scarab.

Black Flame Tornado

Black Flame Tornado is one popular Ash that summons, as suggested by its name, a vortex right in front of the user if cast and summons another vortex around the user if held during the wind up. The FP cost is 30 and it does not change when the skill is charged up. Usable on polearms and twinblades, this ash does a crazy amount of damage if you can back your enemy against a wall or against a large boss. Even in general, this Ash provides decent AoE and excellent damage.

The damage done scales on Fai and the Black Flame debuff it applies scales on the enemies max HP, meaning it is more effective against tankier enemies.

Where to Find: Kill the Godskin Duo inside the Dragon Temple are in Crumbling Farum Azula.

Carian Grandeur

Carian Grandeur is a chargeable skill that, when used for 26FP, makes your character hold up their sword in the air and slam it onto the ground with increased range and impressive magic damage. While this skill is found by default on the Carian Greatsword, but the Ash of it is a little unique as it charges up a little quicker. The damage dealt scales on weapon level, Int and type of infusion and is best paired with magic infused weapons.

Where to Find: High on top of a stone structure in Caria Manor. You can get there by dropping down from the graveyard from the manor’s upper level.

Bloodhound’s Step

Bloodhound’s Step is infamous for being busted because of the amount of maneuverability it provides regardless of armor weight, granting an easy escape after doing a risky attack. When used, you consume 5FP and the same amount of Stamina as a dodge to turn invisible and do a quicker dash. The amount increased invulnerability frames and how spammable this skill really makes almost any PvE situation a cakewalk.

Where to Find: At the bridge in front of Lenne’s Rise tower in Dragonbarrow, kill a Night’s Cavalry.

Also, check out our Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree review and other guides below: