In this Messmer Fire Incantations Build, I'll be showcasing my Messmer's Flame build. This build combines the Ash of War: Flame Spear with the Fire Giant's Greatsword and incorporates a few of the Messmer Fire Incantations from the DLC. This build was highly requested and is coming in second in our poll for the next build to be featured. Let's dive into the details.
Elden Ring Fire Knight's Greatsword Build - Messmer's Flame
In this Elden Ring Build Guide, I’ll be showing you my Messmer's Flame build. This is a Shadow of the Erdtree build that takes place after level 150. If you’ve been looking for a Messmer Fire Incantation build that does amazing damage then you might want to check this build-out.
- Class: Any
- Flask Spread: Equal Charges
- Main Weapon: Fire Knight's Greatsword,
- Off-Hand Weapon: Fire Knight's Seal, Erdtree Seal
- Shield: N/A
- Armor: Messmer's Helm, Fire Knight Armor, Fire Knight Gauntlets, Fire Knight Greaves
- Alternate Armor: Winged Serpent Helm
- Talismans: Bull-Goat's Talisman, Fire Scorpion Charm, Godfrey Icon, Shard of Alexander
- Alternate Talismans: Crusade Insignia, Flock's Canvas Talisman
- Primary Stats: Faith, Vigor
- Secondary Stats: Mind, Endurance
- Spells: Golden Vow, Flame, Grant Me Strength
- Other Spells: Fire Serpent, Messmer's Orb
- Crystal Tear: Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Oil-Soaked Tear
- Great Runes: Radahn's Great Rune, or Godrick’s Great Rune
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Elden Ring Fire Knight's Greatsword Build - Equipment and Spells
So first things first, let's talk about the Fire Knight's Greatsword. This is actually a Colossal Sword, despite its name, and it has a very high attack rating. It's infusible, so what we've done here is we've put the Ash of War: Flame Spear on it and set it to the Flame Art Infusion. This setup makes the fire damage of this weapon about 2 to 1 to the physical damage, giving it a lot of fire damage. It has fantastic Faith scaling, allowing us to crank up Faith to cast Messmer Fire Incantations effectively and use buffs like Golden Vow and Flame, Grant Me Strength.
The Flame Spear Ash of War is also pretty good, with decent range and extra damage when charged. When you hit with both the weapon and projectile, it does even more damage. In my testing, it has significant stance damage, somewhere between 30 to 40 stance damage if you hit with both the weapon and the projectile. This also buffs the weapon for 40 seconds with 95 extra fire damage, so you want to try and get one of these off every so often in fights to keep buffing your weapon.
In my offhand, I'm using the Fire Knight's Seal, which is great because it boosts Messmer Fire Incantations by 15%. The two damaging spells we're using in this build are both Messmer Fire Incantations incantations, so they get bonus damage from that. When compared to the Erdtree Seal with high Faith, it isn't that far behind.
You could cast with the Erdtree Seal in your right hand while holding the Fire Knight's Seal in your left hand for more damage if you're min-maxing. However, I prefer holding the Fire Knight's Seal in my offhand and my sword in my right hand so I can use the weapon skill, attack, or cast spells without swapping back and forth. The incantation scaling being slightly lower doesn't matter much to me.
For spells, we have Golden Vow to boost attack and defense, including spells, weapon attacks, and weapon skills. Flame, Grant Me Strength is also included for boss fights, as it boosts fire and physical damage, which applies to our spells, weapon attacks, and weapon skill. The two new spells we're using are Fire Serpent and Mesmer's Orb. Messmer's Orb is obtainable by defeating Messmer the Impaler and exchanging his remembrance at the Roundtable Hold.
Fire Serpent is really good. You can charge it for extra damage or spam it for high damage. If you're methodically picking off enemies, you'll probably want to charge it to conserve FP, but in boss fights, where bosses put a lot of pressure on you, it's hard to charge it each time, so you'll likely spam it.
One of the great things about Fire Serpent is that it gives us a spell to use on horseback with excellent tracking. When you're on horseback, it doesn't matter which direction you're pointed when casting; it will still track the target. You just need to get good spacing so it doesn't fly past them. You can ride directly away from your target and cast it, and it will fly behind your head to hit the target. Not many spells, if any, will do that, making it excellent for horseback combat.
Messmer's Orb is fantastic. It raises you into the air before you charge down and detonate a fiery explosion, similar to what Messmer does during his boss fight. You can charge it for extra damage and hang in the air longer, but you don't have hyper armor while using this spell, so you need to time it properly and have decent poise to avoid being knocked out of it.
I like using this spell as an AOE when there are lots of enemies. It's great for quickly dealing with many enemies and can also be used to jump over attacks and punish enemies. If you get good with this spell, it has a lot of utility, but it requires practice.
Rain of Fire is another Messmer Fire Incantation, but we don't use it here because its damage is pitiful and it's hard to hit a moving target. Even if the damage was increased, it would still be difficult to land. Charging it for extra damage is usually not worth it.
For armor, we have Messmer's Helm and the rest of the pieces from the Fire Knight armor set. Messmer's Helm increases Messmer's Flame incantations by 3% and Fire Knight skills by 8%, giving a double dip in benefits. You could also use the Winged Serpent Helm to further increase Fire Knight skill damage by 10%, but since I wanted a balance between Fire Knight skills and spells, I chose Messmer's Helm.
The Fire Knight Armor increases Messmer Fire Incantations damage by 5%, so you're getting incantation damage boosts from the chest, helm, and seal. However, this armor setup doesn't naturally give you over 51 poise, so you'll either need to use the Bull-Goat's Talisman to reach 51 poise or swap gauntlets and legs to achieve it natively. I sacrificed a talisman slot for fashion, but you can adjust based on your preferences.
Elden Ring Fire Knight's Greatsword Build - Talismans
Other talismans that I use as go-to items for this build include the Fire Scorpion Charm and Shard of Alexander. I almost never unequip these two. The Fire Scorpion Charm boosts the damage of most of your weapon attacks because they predominantly deal fire damage. It also enhances both of your spells and weapon skill damage. Although it increases the damage you take, the trade-off is worth it due to the significant fire damage output.
The Shard of Alexander further boosts weapon skill damage, which is crucial given the high damage of our weapon skills.
Beyond this, the Godfrey Icon is useful because you can charge up your weapon skill and both spells, making it a versatile option.
The Flock's Canvas Talisman is another good choice, further boosting incantation damage. Sometimes I swap this with the Godfrey Icon if I find I can't charge my spells in a particular boss fight and end up spamming them instead.
The Crusade Insignia is not a bad option for general exploration. You might swap it for the Shard of Alexander if you're regularly killing enemies with spells or melee attacks without using your weapon skill. This provides flexibility based on the situation you're facing.
Elden Ring Fire Knight's Greatsword Build - Attributes Distribution
For attributes for this build, I have 50 Vigor, 30 Mind, 25 Endurance, 22 Strength, 18 Dexterity, 16 Intelligence, 74 Faith, and 9 Arcane at level 165. You don't need any Intelligence or Arcane for this build.
Vigor is a bit lower than what I would like, but since we're already at level 165, I haven't put more points here. However, you'll eventually want to get this to 60.
Mind is at 30, which I think is the minimum you'll want for this build because you use Golden Vow, your spells, and your weapon skill regularly, requiring lots of FP. You'll probably want to take this up to 35 or 38 later on.
Endurance is at 25, allowing you to medium roll with what we're using. You could get more, but it's not super necessary.
Strength is at 22 to use this weapon one-handed. I find that using the Sacred Seal in one hand and the sword in the other to cast or attack is beneficial. If you don't mind two-handing the weapon, you can drop this down to 15 Strength.
18 Dexterity is needed to meet the weapon requirements.
74 Faith is crucial because we're using the Flame Art infusion and want hard-hitting incantations. Eventually, I'll take this up to 80 and likely higher as well.
Elden Ring Fire Knight's Greatsword Build - Final Tips
When it comes to the Flask of Wondrous Physick, we use the Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear. This is because we have so much fire damage in this build. The spells deal fire damage, the weapon is mostly fire damage, and the weapon skills have a lot of fire damage. The theme of this build is fire, so it’s a no-brainer.
Additionally, we use the Oil-Soaked Tear. This debuffs enemies to take increased fire damage, similar to oil pots, when they remain near you. So your melee attacks, weapon skill, and even if you use Messmer's Orb and you're close enough, will benefit from this debuff, increasing your fire damage. This is great for a build that stays close to enemies.
If you’re far away and casting fire spells at range all the time, you won’t get much out of it. But for a melee build that deals a lot of fire damage like this one, it’s highly effective. Honestly, this should have been included in my Fire Knight and Impaler build as well, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time. It’s a really good one to have and I highly recommend slotting it in that build as well.
Regarding Great Runes for this build, there are two I’d recommend. Radahn’s Great Rune is good for stamina, FP, and health, all of which are beneficial for this build. Alternatively, you could use Godrick’s Great Rune since you're using six of the eight stats, requiring a good amount of attributes, and this can help alleviate that.
That wraps up my Messmer's Flame build. I hope you enjoyed this one; it was a ton of fun to put together. I really enjoy this weapon; the Fire Knight's Greatsword is absolutely fantastic. It has a bit of a weird moveset, but once you learn it, it’s not bad at all.
As always, let us know if you have questions or other tips in the comments below. We have a ton more builds coming for Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree so stay tuned for those. If you need help finding the spells, items, or equipment in this build, and securing some personal objectives, make sure to check the Elden Ring Map.