Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC introduced new battle mechanics and just as many older mechanics from the Dark Souls series, one of which has stood out—the Bloodsucking Cracked Tear, which is reminiscent of the old Power Within spell.
As powerful as the Cracked Tear is, you’ll need to know how to build around it.
The best Bloodsucking Cracked Tear build in Elden Ring
The Bloodsucking Cracked Tear build of our choosing is more of a caster-centric build in Elden Ring. If you have been running a melee build, you might want to use a Larval Tear to respec your character before getting started here.
| Build parameters | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Recommended level | 150 or more |
| Primary stats | Faith |
| Secondary stats | Vigor, Mind |
| Weapons | Coded Sword Giant’s Seal |
| Armor | Ruler’s Set |
| Talismans | Blessed Dew Talisman Fire Scorpion Charm Flock’s Canvas Talisman Godfrey Icon |
| Weapon skills | Unblockable Blade |
| Additional spells | Flame, Grant Me Strength Golden Vow Flame of the Fell God Burn, O Flame Flame, Fall Upon Them Giantsflame Take Thee |
Stat distribution
Since this build relies on boosting Incantations, Faith is the main stat. Invest up to 40 points before switching to Vigor for survivability. 50 Vigor should be enough to tank most attacks, while 30 Endurance is enough to maintain a medium load with armor. Once meeting these marks, invest more points into Faith until it hits the 80 soft cap.
This is what your Elden Ring endgame stats should look like:
- Vigor: 50
- Mind: 30
- Endurance: 30
- Strength: Base level
- Dexterity: Base level
- Intelligence: Base level
- Faith: 80
- Arcane: Base level
The power of the build caps out at around level 180. Your character’s starting stats cover the stat requirements for your weapons. If more damage is what you need, you can pump your Faith up all the way to 99 eventually.
Flask of Wondrous Physick concoction
The centerpiece of this build is the Bloodsucking Cracked Tear. This new Cracked Tear was introduced in Shadow of the Erdtree and works very similarly to the Power Within spell in Dark Souls. With this buff active, you gain a 20 percent boost to all of your damage at the cost of losing some of your health per second for three minutes.
To even this health drain effect out, you can mix it with the Crimsonburst Crystal Tear, a buff that gradually restores your health per second for three minutes. The health drain will be somewhat mitigated but not entirely.
This is a minor consequence, however, since the increased damage boost will be more than enough to defeat most enemies before they can get in range.
Gear breakdown
The two main weapons of this build are the Coded Sword and the Giant’s Seal. The Giant’s Seal is our Sacred Seal of choice for this build for two reasons. This Seal has an S-tier Faith scaling at its max upgrade level and it increases the power of all Flame Incantations in this build by an additional 20 percent. This buff is permanently active as long as the Seal is equipped.
For enemies resistant to fire damage, we have the Coded Sword. This weapon scales entirely through Faith and has an A-tier scaling. The Coded Sword also deals a mix of physical and Holy damage, making it great against fire-resistant enemies. Its weapon skill, Unblockable Blade, cuts through the enemies’ stance and deals Holy damage.
For armor, take the Ruler’s Set for its innate Faith bonus. Equipping this set will increase your Faith while boosting your Focus and Vitality. For the rest, you can equip any other set pieces so long as you maintain a medium equip load.
Incantation breakdown
This build uses six main Incantations.
- Flame, Grant Me Strength boosts your physical and fire damage.
- Golden Vow grants you an offensive and defensive buff.
- Flame of the Fell God launches an orb of flame that explodes and sets enemies aflame.
- Burn, O Flame creates pillars of flame to wipe out surrounding enemies.
- Flame, Fall Upon Them launches several fireballs onto your enemies.
- Giantsflame Take Thee tosses a giant fireball of Fell flame onto nearby enemies.
Talisman breakdown
Four talismans work perfectly for this build.
- The Blessed Dew Talisman is a defensive option for this build. Equipping it will slowly regenerate your health, negating the health drain from your Cracked Tear.
- The Fire Scorpion Talisman is a classic choice for any build that uses fire damage. This talisman boosts your fire damage output by 12 percent, granting a flat damage buff to all of your Incantations at the cost of taking 10 percent increased incoming damage.
- The Flock’s Canvas Talisman boosts the power of your Incantations by eight percent. Since most of your firepower comes from Incantations, this is a must-have for the build.
- Godfrey Icon shortens the casting time for all of your spells. Since you won’t be investing points into Dexterity, have this talisman to boost your cast speed.
