In this Elden Ring Bolt of Gransax Build Guide, I’m going to be showing you my Lightning Dragoon build. This is a level 150 version of the Lightning Lancer build that uses a similar weapon and shield setup, but changes its stat spread around a little bit. So if you remember in the Lightning Lancer build, we focused a lot on blocking with a great shield.
- Elden Ring Bolt of Gransax Build: Lightning Dragoon Guide
- Elden Ring Lightning Dragoon Build: Equipment
- Lightning Dragoon: Talismans
- Lightning Dragoon: Recommended Attributes
Elden Ring Bolt of Gransax Build: Lightning Dragoon Guide
A Quality (Strength/Dexterity) melee build that uses the Bolt of Gransax and a Greatshield to electrifying effect
- Class: Any
- Flask Spread:Mostly HP some FP
- Weapon:Bolt of Gransax&Cleanrot SpearorTreespear
- Shield:Golden Greatshield
- Armor:Consort’s Mask&Leyndell Knight Set
- Talismans:Shard of Alexander,Radagon’s Soreseal,Ritual Sword Talisman&Carian Filigreed Crest
- Primary Stats:Dexterity&Vigor
- Secondary Stats:Strength&Endurance
- Skills:Ancient Lightning Spear&Sacred Phalanx
- Spells:Golden Vow,Blessing of the Erdtree, &Flame, Grant Me Strength
We have over 110Elden Ring Buildsnow, for all classes and playstyles. This build is recommended for Level 150.
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Elden Ring Lightning Dragoon Build: Equipment
We used a spear and we used lightning-type spells in order to deal damage at range when necessary. The theme and the style of this gameplay are very similar, except instead of using incantations to deal damage here, we’re actually using Ancient Lightning Spear, which is the weapon ability of Bolt of Gransax.
The reason that we swapped to this is that this weapon ability hits much, much harder than Lightning Spear does with a similar setup. It has much further range and it’ll allow you to have the same exact play style with a better stat spread and to be more effective in general playing that way. Let’s talk about Bolt of Gransax first.
This is the weapon that we’re using. It’s a spear that does physical and lightning damage. It scales up to D in strength and C in dexterity scaling, and it does predominantly physical damage with a little bit of lightning damage. The reason we use it again is because you can block and attack at the same time by holding block and pressing R1, even though this does reduce damage over a regular attack and allows you to protect yourself while still attacking. Its weapon ability, Ancient Lightning Spear, does a red lightning toss that can be charged up for extra damage and has incredible range. This was actually buffed in the patch 1.04, and the animation for it is much faster now and the cost of it, the FP cost, was reduced, making it a lot easier to use regularly.
The shield I’m using for this build is the Golden Greatshield. I really love this shield. This is the same one we used in the Lightning Lancer build. I love the way it looks. It has a good hitbox protection area, like it’s not likely enemy attacks are going to slip under or over accidentally very easily.
Enemies rebuff off of it when they attack, allowing you to do Block Counters more easily than with a regular shield. And the guard boost is crazy at 78. This actually allows us to get away without using Barricade Shield because of the nerf to Barricade Shield now. It’s just really not that easy to use and it’s kind of a bit overkill with this build because you have such a high guard boost. And this allows you to use the Ancient Lightning Spear easily without having to swap to two-hand to cast it.
And the seal that I’m using for this build is the Frenzied Flame Seal. You can use whatever seal you want. I don’t even have it upgraded here.
I’m really only using the seal for Golden Vow and Flame, Grant Me Strength. I don’t really need it for anything else or maybe Black Flame’s Protection. We’re not trying to focus on incantations with this build necessarily because we replaced that with Ancient Lightning Spear. However, you could upgrade this one and still have some decent incantation scaling because you’ll have a lot of points and strength and Dexterity and you will have some points in Faith. When it comes to armor for this build, I’m using the Consort’s Mask. This gives me plus one dexterity. I kind of like the look of it with this build. I didn’t like the armor, but I liked the headpiece.
Otherwise, we’re using the Leyndell Knight Armor Set, which is the same armor set that we were using for the Lightning Lancer build. I’ve just replaced the headpiece to get extra dexterity. You could actually use an Okina Mask as well here to get even more Dexterity if you want.
Lightning Dragoon: Talismans
When it comes to talismans for this build, I’m using Carian Filigreed Crest, Ritual Sword Talisman, Shard of Alexander, and Radagon’s Soreseal.
Carian Filigreed Crest is there to reduce the cost of Ancient Lightning Spear, putting it in a range where you can use it regularly, but maybe not on every single enemy. You don’t need to use it on regular enemies because you have such a high block you have good Block Counter damage and you can attack safely while blocking with this build, taking out regular enemies. Although it might be a little bit slower than some builds, isn’t dangerous. And you really only need to use that Ancient Lightning Spear like on difficult enemies that are trying to range you down. I also have the Ritual Sword Talisman to help boost not only my Ancient Lightning Spear damage but also my regular attacks.
One of the things about this build is your regular attack damage isn’t super high. This spear doesn’t have a ton of damage because it’s split between physical and a little bit of lightning. It doesn’t deal a lot of melee damage in general. It’s still pretty good when you get off a critical attack or when you do a Block Counter, etc. But this helps to boost that damage. And I feel like if you add the Lightning Scorpion Charm here to boost Ancient Lightning Spear and to boost the lightning damage, you don’t get as much damage on the regular attacks and you also get the negative of taking more damage. And we already have Radagon’s Soreseal in this build. So then you’d be taking a lot more damage, which is why I’m not using that here. But you could do that if you wanted. Shard of Alexander is there to increase the damage with the Ancient Lightning Spear.
You want this to hit as hard as it possibly can to one-shot enemies when you attack them on the landscape, or maybe two-shot them if they’re difficult and to deal as much damage as possible during boss fights. Radagon’s Soreseal is a good choice for this build because you need strength and dexterity for damage scaling of the weapon as well as its requirements. You need more stamina in order to block.
You need equip weight because you’re using a great shield. And you need HP because you’re using Radagon’s Soreseal. So you’re going to take more damage. So you want to have a high FP pool. One thing I want to note here too before I move on to the next bit is that I do swap out my spear sometimes. If you’re fighting an enemy that’s highly lightning-resistant, you’re going to want to have a backup spear.
Cleanrot Spear is a pretty good choice. This also has some faith scaling on it and you have some Faith so it’s not completely wasted. And this does holy damage and it does a good AoE in front of you as well. So it’s good at AoEing enemies and facing enemies that are big tends to hit them multiple times, which is good. So that’s an option or you can stick with a tree spear. It’s also not a bad option if you’re using that from the previous build. You’re kind of going to swap back and forth between these as necessary if you’re fighting lightning-resistant enemies. That shouldn’t be very often. So it’s not something you need to do all the time. But having a backup spear like the Treespear or Cleanrot Spear will hold you in good stead for those instances where they are lightning resistant.
Lightning Dragoon: Spells & Gameplay
So the three spells I use with this build are Golden Vow, Blessing’s Boon, and Flame, Grant Me Strength.
Golden Vow self-explanatory increases your damage by 15% and reduces the damage that you take. Really good all around for any build. We meet the requirements here with it with 25 faith so it’s good to have. Blessing’s Boon is there to keep you topped off healthwise that way Ritual Sword Talisman will stay active and give you that 10% boost. You shouldn’t take a ton of damage with this build. You’re going to be blocking a lot. You won’t get hit all that often.
Sometimes you’ll need to use a potion but this can stay there to help top you off. Maybe the potion doesn’t get you to 100% maybe gets you to 90-95. This will carry the rest of the way to re-trigger that which is good. Flame, Grant Me Strength although it won’t give any more fire damage to you because you’re not using anything that uses fire damage here it will give you more physical damage which is good in boss fights or tough enemy fights where you’re going to be in melee range.
Again your spear doesn’t deal a ton of damage so boosting as much physical damage as you can will be good. So the general strategy of this build is a lot more defensive than something like the Crusader. The Crusader uses sword dance or some other weapon ability like Double Slash to be aggressive against enemies attacking them before they attack.
This build is more reactionary meaning you’re waiting for enemies to attack into your shield so then you can Block Counter against them to stagger them and critically strike them or attack with R1 while you’re blocking in order to protect yourself while dealing damage and since you have really high guard boost and a good protection area with a Greatshield you can get away without using Barricade Shield here like we were using in the past.
One thing I want to focus on is that because you’re using a great shield a lot of attacks will rebuff off your shield giving you a much easier time Block Countering compared to if you’re using a medium shield because the attacks rebuff so you get like a window to attack and it’s not every attack that happens but a lot of regular attacks this makes doing Block Counters a lot easier even if you’re using a slower counter weapon which the spear isn’t. Spears have really good range too for Block Countering which makes them hit more often so that’s good.
And then you’re going to use Ancient Lightning Spear to take out dangerous threats from range or you’re going to use them to take out ranged enemies that you can’t get to very easily. It’s basically going to have to replace Lightning Spear in your repertoire except it has way longer range and it can deal even more damage if you charge it up. You could actually use Godfrey Icon with this build to increase the damage it does when you charge it up. I didn’t put it here because I feel like what I have is a good blend between using Ancient Lightning Spear when you need it and playing a melee Block Counterplay style.
If you want to lean all the way into just using Ancient Lightning Spear you could probably set up a build that’s just 100% maximize the effectiveness of that but I don’t feel like you would do anything but cast Lightning Spear the whole time and some people have criticized me for doing builds where you just press one button and this build is a bit more dynamic this way I think.
Lightning Dragoon: Recommended Attributes
When it comes to stats for this build I have 45 Vigor, 30 Mind, 32 Endurance, 35 Strength, 65 Dexterity, 9 Intelligence, 25 Faith, and 9 Arcane. Keep in mind that Radagon Icon is affecting these stats so there are five more points into Vigor, Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity than would be there without that equipped.
5 Vigor is there so that you can take a hit and keep on swinging. You do have Radagon Icon equipped so you’re going to take more damage than you would otherwise. You are going to be using Golden Vow which will offset some of that and you are going to be blocking a lot so you shouldn’t be getting hit that often. That’s why I didn’t go all the way up to 50 or higher with it but you do want a decent amount because you are going to be playing melee a lot of the time. 30 Mind is there in order to allow you to use all the buffs you need with this build regularly and to cast Ancient Lightning Spear while keeping three to four Blue Flasks.
Ancient Lightning Spear is like the fun of this build, being able to just shred an enemy at distance and then go back to meleeing something else and you want to be able to do it every time you want to do it. You don’t want to constantly have to manage your FP or not use it on that guy because you’re not going to have it for another guy and with 30 you have plenty of FP and you can use it basically whenever you want. 32 Endurance is there because you’re wearing medium to heavy-ish armor you’re wearing a Greatshield and that allows you to still medium roll. Also, you want the extra stamina as well because you are blocking you’re not using Barricade Shield so you are going to lose stamina when you block that will give you a substantial stamina pool to block with that will still allow you to attack with R1.
35 Strength is there because you need 34 Strength in order to use the great shield that we’re using I just rounded it up to a nice 35. It also increases the damage of your weapon so that’s good too. It’s not as effective as Dexterity in terms of overall damage but you definitely need 34 minimally for the shield so it’s not wasted completely to just go into that shield it is increasing your damage as well.
65 Dexterity is our primary stat here because you want to increase the damage of your attacks the most and Dexterity does that the best. Also, Ancient Lightning Spear only scales off points and Dexterity points and Strength don’t affect Ancient Lightning Spear’s damage so you want to go heavily into Dexterity if you can. It actually scales really well very very high so moving forward with this build you’ll probably want to take this up to 80 to get even more damage with Ancient Lightning Spear and your melee attacks.
We don’t need Intelligence for this build which is why I have 9 and 25 Faith is there to meet the requirements for Golden Vow and to be able to use Blessing’s Boon so that’s really why we have it. Those help to increase our damage and defenses there’s really no reason not to have those particularly if you start as a confessor like I did with this build because you already have 14 points into Faith so 11 points is not a huge investment and we have zero points in Arcane because we don’t need that stat.
Lastly, when you’re going into boss fights with this or fighting tough stretches of enemies you’re going to use the Flask of Wondrous Physick and you’re going to use the lightning shrouded cracked here in order to increase your lightning damage or if you’re using one of the other spears the ones that deal holy damage like Treespear or Cleanrot Spear you’ll swap this to holy damage instead to boost your holy damage with their attacks and their weapon skills so that’s really good to do and then also the one the Greenburst one that increases your stamina recovery is good.
I really love the Green Turtle Talisman I like to put it in my block builds, there isn’t really room for it in this build, this is a good way to get you through boss fights and still recover your stamina quickly. That’s it for the Lightning Dragoon guide. 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 andShadow of the Erdtreeso 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 theElden Ring Map.
