Elden Ring 1.08 Best Tank Build | Elden Ring Best PvE & PvP Solo Build After 1.08 Patch

Read our Elden Ring 1.08 Best Tank Build Guide to check out how to set up the build that not only can solo any enemy but also works amazingly well in Co-Op mode. 

Elden Ring 1.08 Best PvE & PvP Solo Tank Build

In this guide, we are going to be doing an updated version of the best tank build you can use. As usual, it's got no problems taking out the toughest bosses in the game while throwing out some good damage, it's like a support build that can still solo any enemy, even though it works amazingly well in co-op mode, as you can just face tank all the damage while your teammates get free hits off. But anyways let's actually dive into the build now.

Weapons for the Best Tank Build

We'll start off with the best weapons to use:

Offhand: Fingerprint Stone Shield, Ash of War: No Skill

Having the highest guard boost of 86 at max level, just means it's going to consume less stamina when we are blocking hits with it. Now the defensive stats on it are also phenomenal fully blocking physical hits and heavily reducing the damage of Elemental attacks, hence we don't need to roll out of the way for a majority of the attacks thrown at us because it'll either be heavily reduced or just have no effect at all. 

Furthermore, the Ash of War doesn't matter a whole lot yet, we do prefer to use No Skill just so we don't have to two-hand our spear in any given situation when we want to use that Ash of War instead. 

Right Hand: Occult Cross-Naginata+25, Ash of War: Seppuku

We still need something for the offensive part of this build and what we found to be the best option is the Cross-Naginata. Hence with the Cross-Naginata, we're going to be using the Occult variation because this makes the weapons physical damage skill with Arcane while increasing the passive bleed build up and the Ash of Wars bleed buildup. It just benefits this weapon in so many ways. On top of the weapon having good damage and bleed build-up, it works astonishingly well with shields allowing us to poke at enemies while being fully protected from the front, so it only makes sense to use the spear Talisman that increases the damage of thrusting weapons when counter-attacking, the exact meaning of this Talisman isn't increased damage when you counter-attack using the heavy input but rather when you poke at an enemy while they're attacking you at the same time. Basically, when you trade hits with an enemy while you're blocking, you're going to do more damage. 

Now something we can add to increase this damage, even more, is the Ash of War we can use on the spear that being Seppuku. Your character loses a bit of Health to place extra bleed buildup on the spear which is also increased even more because we're using the occult Affinity on it. 

Or Right Hand: Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear

Finally for the weapons regarding Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear and why it's not the better option, even though you can still use it instead if you choose to because, with the way we have the stats set up, it'll still do some really good damage while being able to fast roll and not having to change anything at all in this build but to just equip it. So with Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear, it has a higher attack power by 169, except some of that is fire damage which gets negated separately from physical meaning it's going to do less.

Secondly the Ash of War on it is amazing, we can all agree that it destroys bosses and regular enemies fairly quickly, however it leaves you completely exposed and in a tank build that's the last thing you would need, you want to be in the front blocking and absorbing all of the damage possible at all times but this leaves you completely open to attacks. Whereas Seppuku on the Cross-Naginata just buffs the weapons, so you can stay behind your Shield fully protected while throwing out tons of damage finally the Cross-Naginata has a higher bleed buildup including the Ash of War Seppuku on it, and it appears to swing much faster than Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear just allowing us to get out more damage and bleed buildups even faster. 

Again by all means, you can still equip Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear with no problems at all not having to change absolutely anything in this setup, but the Cross-Naginata is still going to be the better option.

Talismans for the Best Tank Build

The talismans we use to benefit this build all around which is really nice:

Greatshield Talisman

In addition, to make this Shield even better, we are using the Greatshield Talisman that increases our guard boost by 10% again just making us lose even less stamina now when absorbing those hits, it's actually really clutch especially for boss fights because they can usually throw out some really big shots that would normally drain our entire stamina bar. However, with this setup that's never an issue that comes to us. 

Lord of Blood's Exultation

An extra 30 flat damage and a 30 damage buff because of another two items we use, the White Mask that gives us a 10 damage increase whenever a blood loss happens near us, and the Lord of Blood's Exultation for a 20% damage increase both of these lasting for 20 seconds. 

Erdtree's Favor

It's going to increase our maximum health by 4%, stamina by 9.6%, and max equip load by 7.5%. This talisman's not absolutely needed so if you do have something else in mind it's not going to ruin this build or anything. 

Incantations for the Best Tank Build

Latenna The Albinauric

Fingerprint Stone Shield pairs extremely well with Latenna The Albinauric spirit ashes. Normally we tend to use the mimic tear in pretty much every build because of how strong it is, but in spite of that Latenna can actually keep up with the mimic tears damage and even survive for longer periods of time because of this styled build. For those who don't know, Latenna is an Archer spirit that fires a three round burst of magical arrows very rapidly and only cost 74 Mana to sum. The downside to it is she barely moves at all and doesn't have a lot of health either, thus when a boss jumps on her she usually dies pretty quickly, except since this build is tank focused we can get all the attention constantly focused on us while our spirit summon shoots magical arrows non-stop just adding to our damage, it really suits the whole support role having a high damage Spirit summon while you block everything.

Armor for the Best Tank Build

We still have the armor to take a look at which does benefit this build:

Helmet: White Mask

Increase our damage by 10% whenever blood loss happens near us, which is usually a must-have item whenever there is some kind of bleed buildup involved. 

Legs: Duelist Greaves

These have a passive buff on them making enemies more aggressive towards you which is exactly what we want, we can use these to help make targets more focused on ourselves while your spirit summon or teammates can get easy hits off on bosses or strong enemies. It's not a must-have item yet it does go hand in hand with this kind of setup.

Chest: Knight Armor

Gloves: Knight Gauntlets

Using the night set to give us more protection since there isn't anything else that's going to really benefit us a whole lot and this gives us a good amount of damage negation, so if you do get hit somehow you're not going to get too shotted.

Flask of Wondrous Physicks for the Best Tank Build

So that covers about everything for the weapons yet, we still have a few ways of making this setup stronger, with one of them being the flask of wondrous physic:

Greenburst Crystal Tear - Increases our stamina recovery speed by 33% for three minutes this is very helpful for tank builds because after blocking a huge hit you'll usually lower your shield down to increase your stamina recovery speed to block and throw out more damage afterwards

Greenspill Crystal Tear - Increases our maximum stamina by 15% for three minutes as well, again just giving us more room to block in counter-attack for longer periods of time

Or

Opaline Hardtear - Raises our physical damage negation by 15% for another three minutes again, now the only time we would use this one is if you plan on using the second buff - the Bloodboil Aromatic which if you don't to worry we do have an alternative to this option. What Bloodboil Aromatic does is it adds another 30% increased damage and 20% increased stamina for 60 seconds which is absolutely perfect for this setup, however the negative to this is it will make you take 25% increased damage as well. Hence the reason why we would use the Opaline Hardtear to help reduce the negative effect of this buff.

If you don't like using consumables not to worry because we get that, farming for crafting supplies can always feel annoying even though it's an extremely powerful item for this setup, but anyways a substitute buff you could use would be to grab a dagger and throw on the Ash of War Golden Vow, this isn't going to be as strong giving you an 11.5% damage increase and a 7.5% damage negation bonus for 40 seconds. Yet there aren't any negative side effects to it and you can constantly reuse this without having to worry about farming.

Now because we have so much bleed buildup, we can constantly procure that and keep these buffs going during boss fights with no problems whatsoever, that's pretty much how we're going to use this spear. Stay behind your shield and constantly drain your opponent's health bar with a mix of physical damage and bleed buildups and they're not going to be able to get to you either.