Elden Ring 1.09 Intelligence Weapon Tier List - Best Highest Damage Int Weapons in Elden Ring

For patch 1.09 which has changed quite a few things, a bunch of weapon types have been newly improved, and a few have been nerfed so we're taking a look at the best weapons of the intelligence weapon type.

S Tier: Death's Poker, Moonveil, Dark Moon Greatsword, Wing of Astel

• Death's Poker

In PVE, just to see how good it is and yet, we've been truly impressed by just how much burst as well as consistent DPS you can get with the fire Frost that you can do, placing that frost fire under a Target-like boss and then spamming the explosion to combine DPS numbers, you can Skyrocket to say 20K burst pretty damn quick time, that's impressive when we're talking about a weapon, that isn't a bleed weapon, there is some setup required though to really get this kind of damage, but also it's a greatsword so in 1.09 that's been buff for some reason, increasing the speed range and recovery time of different attacks, making the Baseline of this weapon just feels really nice, and it's been good in PvP to suddenly catch people with an attack, they're just not expecting to be that quick, so contextually, and as a weapon type, it is improved and feels a lot better.

• Moonveil

It has improved running attack speed and recovery time though we care most of all about the ash of War which is just slamming and destroying people in PvP to this day and dealing nice magic burst in PVE, perfect for a quick punish window, and a very consistent source of ridiculous damage, it's still insane.

• Dark Moon Greatsword

Dark Moon Greatsword which you just buff up and go to town with a stamina only costing rune arc as it were whether you quit tapping it or full charge in it, you can do a lot of damage and you can deal the most range damage out of any weapon on its unique Ash War aspect, it is still one of the king weapons in the entire game and again as a greatsword that's been buffed in the same way that their smoker was so it's somehow better again another patch in a row, it's ridiculous.

• Wing of Astel

The DPS is higher because it comes out quicker, so you can spam it more and faster then it also has the unique aspect of say the heavy attack with a completely FP free Magic Arc that goes to sort of close medium range, it can combo up to four at once really quickly, making a nightmare and PvP with the Mind Games that that creates, also, it's a curved sword, and those are better than this patch, they increase the running attack speed and reduce the recovery time for various attacks with curved swords, and improve the first attack speed, so these things that were already really lightning quick, and one of the best roll catches for power stance running attacks in the game.

A Tier: Starscourge Greatsword, Death Ritual Spear, Royal Greatsword, Ruins Greatsword, Sword of Night and Flame

• Starscourge Greatsword

Starscourge Greatsword which have been buffed this patch shockingly, it's the ash in particular that has been buffed, you pull people in with the scream to begin with then slam down for the big AOE, the pull in does okay damage, but it's all about the slam down for the main chunker damage, problem was that follow-up came out so slow, now that's coming out faster making it a much more reliable option for dealing that follow-up here, in PvP, that's certainly nice but it is still pretty predictable and rollable, but in PVE, it just means this weapons damage potentially if you are looking to just Spam The Ash is significantly better.

• Death Ritual Spear 

This comes down to the major buff of 1.09 with this weapons Ash in particular spearcall ritual, all they've really done is increase the projectile generation speed, but that means a lot when it comes to the DPS potential, and of course PVP Landing it, you are able to absolutely spam this ash to burst enemies down from really long range, and it's quite a large AOE as well, making it a bit of a nightmare and say free for all when you're spamming it off camera on people fighting or just in PVE, just spamming the ash of war from range stepping back and doing that whenever you can get a quick punish window, the DPS potential is much better because of that, and it's a lot more viable even in joules to catch someone in trade with this or punish them for trying to cast or even if you just get a little bit of space to do it however as this is a Thrust and spear type weapon there's still that negative of 1.07 where the reduced thrusting weapon counter attack damage in PvP, and then of the current patch the spear Nerf where the hitbox size has been reduced a bit undeniably though the DPS potential and general playability of this weapon has gone up thanks to that Ash Improvement.

• Royal Greatsword, Ruins Greatsword

Royal Greatsword and also the Ruins Greatsword which are both fantastic colossal swords, but the problem and we think why people fairly commented about this is that you just need a little bit of intelligence to use these things, and then mostly, you're looking for the physical damage and leveling strength of course you can level intelligence to improve their ink based stuff with their ashes or say the gravity of the ruins, but it is true that most of the damage will come from the strength stat not intelligence.

• Sword of Night and Flame

Sword of Night and Flame which just is slightly better again this patch as a straight sword improved running attack speed, reduced attack recovery time, and the first attack comes out quicker though let's be honest we're mainly using this for its Ash of War which was Buffy in the previous patch of 1.07 they actually improved the attack power in PVE, and they gave you better directional control of the attacks, whether you're using the laser for a point DPS in say PVE against the boss.

B Tier: Clayman's Harpoon, Fallingstar Beast Jaw, Loretta's War Sickle, Sword of St Trina, Helphen's Steeple, Meteoric Ore Blade

• Clayman's Harpoon

and putting it at a very high B, arguably A, and that is because of its great performance in PVE, combined with the pretty much meta pick with this weapon the ice beer Ash, you can make this a magic scaling weapon with good intelligence scaling of that, not requiring any strength or decks really to level its power, meaning you can just full commit to an intelligent spell-based playthrough while having this weapon as a backup, in the case of the IceBear Ash, you Spin and delay sort of Chip damage to anything nearby and then thrust sending a medium-ranged ice ball that will build up the frost buildup if you're looking for that status proc, but also deal as you can see nice pacing damage, the predictability of this ash of War means it's very hard or basically never really gonna land in PvP, the benefit of this weapon though is how it can be changed in so many ways with a variety of pretty viable affinities and scalings and a load of Ashes you could put on a weapon like this as a spear, so it's kind of a universal style weapon for say a varied intelligence build.

• Fallingstar Beast Jaw

Fallingstar Beast Jaw which is down from an A to a B, this is because of the nerves to Poise from the last patch where you can no longer stagger like you see in this footage where you just use the ash over and over, and stagger big bosses like even Final Bosses like Malika you could stagger with this, to be fair, that was kind of crazy and it's a reasonable Nerf and understandable, at this point this is just a reasonable colossal weapon with a usable spammable range dash of War for magic damage DPS, and so it is good, but not as silly.

• Loretta's War Sickle

Loretta's War Sickle which had a previous Ash of war that improved the Poise damage of the first attack, kind of gave you this hyper armor and also better recovery which is really nice, but the problem is this ash War can be placed on other weapons, and it's kind of better to do so because you can get better scaling with that which limits the potential of where we can put this weapon on the list, also there were some Buffs and Nerfs to halberds in general, they improve running attack speed and recovery time for certain attacks, with Alberts, but also nerfed their hitbox size for very attacks as well, so it's both better and worse this patch, it finds itself in a good place, but overshadowed by the universe war that does exist that we can put on better scaling weapons.

• Sword of St Trina

Sword of St Trina which again as a straight sword has been buffed to have slightly improved running attack speed, recovery time, and the first attack of the combo comes out quicker this is nice because it is a great sleep weapon and you can get some really nice DPS when you trigger a sleep, especially in PvP, it can be a bit awkward to do so and with the Poise changes you know lighter weapons like this just don't stagger nearly as much so you must be careful still there is great DPS potential and as a sleep weapon it's a great pick so we like it still in B.

• Helphen's Steeple

Helphen's Steeple have had some nice Buffs this patch for some reason despite them being great already increase the speed range and recovery time of various attacks has hit this weapon type, also this weapon in particular in a previous patch, the ash was buffed to last longer give you more attack power and also better Poise and better recovery, so overall, this weapon since some serious Buffs across the board, it'll never really reach crazy DPS levels, because it's just kind of a nice Blackfire buff it's not got any damage crazy spikes, but it's gonna feel smoother than ever to use.

• Meteoric Ore Blade

Meteoric Ore Blade which as a katana, it's another weapon type buff, they improve the running attack speed and recover every time for katanas, so it's feeling a little bit smoother, and with a running thrust of katanas, that's very nice, the main aspect of course with this weapon is its Ash of War where you slam down and pull people in, it does okay damage that's more about the mini CC that provides opportunities after that this weapon also has a really cool heavy attack where you hold it above you and slam down feeling great damage if you can land that but a lot more likely in PVE.

C Tier: Bastard's Stars, Watchdog's Staff, Carian Knight's Sword, Crystal Sword, Rotten Crystal Sword

• Bastard's Stars

They're just a lot more viable and functional than they used to be which was essential, in the case of Bastard's Stars 1.07 improved the damage of its Azure War, 1.09 changed a bunch of weapon scaling and Stars was one of the ones to benefit from that, it now has an intelligent scaling of a from B because of that buff the flare weapon Buffs of 1.09 increase things like speed of various attacks, reduced attack recovery time, all of this makes it feel a lot better it's a lot more viable instead of it just being a joke, when it comes to the weapon in its base moveset the damage is just fine okay, but there's obviously better picks whereas the ash which was unchanged this patch is reasonable DPS But ultimately does almost the same thing as another weapon on this list but ultimately does less DPS, so contextually, it's just significantly worse.

• Watchdog's Staff

Newly added to our list, this isn't a really fun pit, and this comes down to a bug with shard of Alexander, not actually applying to this weapons Ash of War, Sorcery of Crozier what this does is it creates a bunch of magical sort of bolts that fly at the Target, combine that with any other ranged harass like say star shower here, and you can be incredibly annoying in PvP that's for sure, then you've just got a powerful Magic based colossal weapon which is very reasonable damage of this AR you can get it to, in PVE, it works much the same just spamming the stars at range and relying on the damage that it can do, it's honestly solid and no one really plays it no one really seems to use it I'd really recommend you give it a try because it's in a good place since that patch.

• Carian Knight's Sword

Carian Knight's Sword is just a good pick for early game, intelligence melee fighter builds, a great stepping stone before you find your true build, but it will be fine in a playthrough in general in 1.09, this weapon type has had some improvements, straight sword see better running attack speed, they see reduced recovery attack time on certain attacks, and they've improved the first attack of the whole combo, that's faster too, the ash of war in this case can be channeled and charged up to three times to do extra damage and is as you can see fine certainly in the early to mid game, it's not going to be insane towards the end game and will fall off in power.

• Rotten Crystal Sword, Crystal Sword

Also, straight swords so the same Buffs as we just mentioned improve running attack speed recovery time and the first attack is faster, they're both just fine without crazy AR, power stance you can attack, and really quick build say Scarlet rock with one or double up on just the raw magic of the other much like the carrying sword.