A Madness-centric build in Elden Ring has a few options but, in this guide, we’ll focus on the highlights that make the build tick in PvE and PvP.
Best equipment for Madness in Elden Ring
Our perfect Madness build for Elden Ring is a Dexterity and Faith build, with a focus on the Vyke’s War Spear Great Spear. This build is slightly more optimized for damage over applying large amounts of Madness but will still inflict Madness on most enemies.
Sadly, Madness doesn’t do much to non-humanoid enemies in PvE, making focusing on the status effect more of a PvP deal. This build will instead be a middle ground by making a Madness-oriented build that deals great damage while still inflicting Madness in a few hits.
Recommended stats for a Madness build
We recommend the following stats for a Madness build:
- Vigor: 60
- Mind: 25
- Endurance: 15
- Strength: 18
- Dexterity: 60
- Intelligence: 9
- Faith: 60
- Arcane: 9
Priorities for leveling stats should be Vigor to 40, Dexterity to 40, Faith to around 40, and Mind to 25. These stats let you utilize your powerful Frenzied Flame magic without worrying about stat prerequisites or dodged spells. But durability can be a legitimate problem for this archetype—if you’re not prepared, it’s easy to run into a situation where you are interrupted during a cast and take a lot of damage. For this reason, we highly recommend reaching the minimum stats for your weapon of choice before buffing your Vigor significantly.
Best Madness-based weapon
If you want a weapon that pumps out Madness, none do as well as Vyke’s War Spear, a Great Spear that scales off Dexterity, Faith, and a bit of Strength. This spear is one of the few ways to apply Madness on every attack without buffs or spells, making it a viable option for dealing consistent damage.
Vyke’s War Spear is on the corpse of Festing Fingerprint Vyke, who invades by the Church of Inhibition. This spear has stat minimums of 16 Strength, 20 Dexterity, and 18 Faith. Its Skill, Frenzyflame Thrust, is a relatively slow leaping attack that explodes into a large explosion of Madness.
But it is technically not the best way to apply Madness in Elden Ring. The Fingerprint Stone Shield, found in the Cathedral of the Forsaken after killing Morgott, is a gigantic lump of stone that applies a high amount of base Madness buildup. But with a base Strength requirement of 48, it can be difficult to use it optimally and Vyke’s War Spear simultaneously.
We recommend the War Spear since it has quicker attacks and a more impressive Skill. A high Strength build can use the Fingerprint Stone Shield—alongside a Blood, Poison, or Occult infusion—to pump the Madness buildup dramatically with their Arcane stat. For off-hands, we suggest quicker weapons that utilize Faith, like the Black Knife, in case enemies can effectively avoid your stabs. But, especially for PvE, focusing on your Dexterity and Faith for the Vyke’s War Spear should be enough.
Alternatively, with the new Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, you can use the Frenzyflame Perfume Bottle. This weapon spreads Frenzy around you, letting you control space while inflicting plenty of Madness. Dual-wielding lets you spread other statuses, too.
Also, wield the Frenzied Flame Seal, a seal received from completing Hyetta’s questline below Leyndell, Royal Capital. The seal boosts the damage of the Madness-inflicting spells by 20 percent, which is massive. The seal has no other stat requirement, so don’t worry about needing 40 Faith right out of the gate.
Best armor for Madness
While most builds can go for light, medium, or heavy armor and do fine, the Madness build has one specific piece of armor it must grab if it wants to succeed: The Black Dumpling. This helm, farmed from the First Generation Albinaurics in Volcano Manor or near the Church of the Eclipse Sight of Grace, boosts your damage if you become inflicted with Madness.
This helm is a chore to farm. We recommend going to the Guest Hall Site of Grace and farming the lumpy-headed Albinaurics. They have a puny chance to drop the hat, so be sure to pop items to boost Item Discovery, like the Silver-Pickled Fowl Foot.
But it’s worth it. Whenever you become afflicted by Madness, you’ll gain 10 percent damage—of all types—for a full minute. You can even take the helmet off and keep the buff, but it’s not a horrifyingly bad piece of equipment either way.
Realistically, that’s up to you. We prefer wearing Medium Armor for our playthrough, so gear like the Ronin set made a lot of sense. But we don’t want to invest in much Endurance—lighter armor for easier rolls is a good idea.
Best spells for Madness
Your primary damaging spell options for a Madness build are Frenzied Burst, the Flame of Frenzy, and Unendurable Frenzy. These Frenzied Flame Incantations have synergy with the Frenzied Flame Seal but also have another great quirk: they deal Fire damage. This lets them combo with items like the Fire Scorpion Charm or Physick buffs like the Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear. Alongside these damage options, we recommend buff Incantations like Blessing of the Erdtree, Dragonbolt Blessing, Flame, Grant me Strength, and Golden Vow.
That isn’t to say that Howl of Shabiri or Inescapable Frenzy are bad. Howl of Shabiri is a huge area of effect worth running but lacks the Fire damage of your other options. Inescapable Frenzy has Fire damage, but it’s a grapple, so it requires close range, and most enemies are immune to it. It can be quite funny against humanoids and deals absurd damage in PvP, but few enemies will let you land this hit for free.
As a result, use Unendurable Frenzy for group clear or spooking enemy players into rolls, Flame of Frenzy for a big nuke, and Frenzied Burst for sniping is your normal setup—alongside Howl for big rooms or forcing enemies to roll.
Shadow of the Erdtree strikes back with Midra’s Flame of Frenzy. This spell, despite a long cast time, controls a wild amount of area with Midra’s head. Since you can cast while moving, you’re far from defenseless. And Midra’s explosions can rip through larger foes if you can find the time to incant.
Best Talismans for Madness
We recommend the following Talismans for optimizing a Madness build:
- Fire Scorpion Charm, Fort Laiedd: Buffs the damage of most Madness spells and your War Spear’s Skill by 12 percent.
- Flock’s Canvas Talisman, Gowry (after he begins to mourn Millicent): Buffs the damage of all Incantations by eight percent.
- Shard of Alexander, Alexander Questline: Buffs Skill Power by 15 percent.
- Erdtree’s Favor +2, Leyndell, Ashen Capital: All-around buff to HP, Stamina, and Equip Load.
The Erdtree’s Favor +2 can be swapped for any defensive Talisman, such as the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman or the Drake Talismans. You can also freely replace the Shard of Alexander if you don’t like the Frenzyflame Thrust Skill, instead going for an item like Radagon’s Soreseal, Claw Talisman, or the Faithful’s Canvas Talisman.
Alternatively, if you have the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, a new Talisman is a must-get for a risky setup build.
- Aged One’s Exultation: This Talisman buffs damage by 20 percent when Madness is inflicted, or 12 percent in PvP. This is dropped by the Untouchable enemy closest to the Abandoned Church in Abyssal Woods. You need to inflict madness on yourself to make this work well in PvE. Otherwise, you can bank on inflicting it on humanoid enemies to get your massive damage boost, and a wide opening, making it a key way to execute a foe in PvP before they can realistically recover.
