Elden Ring: 15 Best Talismans, Ranked

Highlights

• Don’t overlook Talismans in Elden Ring – they offer crucial bonuses to enhance your build and play style.
• Look out for specific Talismans like Godfrey Icon or Shard of Alexander to optimize your character’s power.
• Some Talismans like Carian Filigreed Crest or Dragoncrest Greatshield can significantly impact your survivability in tough battles.

As you journey across the Lands Between in Elden Ring, battling bizarre creatures and hunting down the Great Runes, you’ll come across many powerful weapons, armors, and trinkets. Among these will be an incredibly useful accessory known as Talismans.

Much like magic rings in the Dark Souls series and Caryll Runes in Bloodborne, Talismans offer powerful bonuses to different attributes and abilities. Plus, with the ability to (eventually) have 4 talismans equipped, you can mix and match quite a few options.

Some of these Talismans offer only a minor boon, but others can be crucial in the effectiveness of your build or play style. So, if you’re on the hunt for a new Talisman to refine your build and become a tank of a Tarnished, then you need to check out these awesome options!

Updated on 12th August 2024 by Callum Marshall: “This list has been updated to reflect the impact of the Talismans that were added to the game courtesy of the Shadow of the Ertdtree DLC expansion. The piece has also been updated with new tags, links, and helpful info that will appeal to Elden Ring players looking to optimize their respective builds.”

Verdigris Discus

We kick things off with a talisman that will suit players who don’t mind working with a build that sees you fat-rolling around to dodge attacks. In older games like Dark Souls, fat-rolling would be seen as a deathwish, but thanks to Elden Ring’s plethora of cool items that support heavy builds, you can make these tank-builds rather effective.

A great example of one of these heavy-build friendly items is the

Verdigris Discus

Talisman, which adds a buff to your overall defense depending on your weight class, and in this case, the heavier, the better as, if you reach the ‘overloaded’ equip load status, you’ll gain a 20% defense buff, which is not to be sniffed at.

This can then be combined with items like the

Ironjar Aromatic

or weapons with mobile Ashes of War like the

Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword

to create a bulky, burly build that can withstand any barrage of attacks.

Gold Scarab

The Gold Scarab grants a bonus increase to Rune collection. All kills grant 20% additional Runes. This item is a bit of a classic throwback to the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring from Dark Souls, offering a similar bonus to Soul acquisition.

The

Gold Scarab

Talisman isn’t an entirely necessary Talisman — it isn’t crucial to any specific build type — but especially for the lower levels, increasing how quickly you can level up can feel like an incredible boon.

Carian Filigreed Crest

Carian Filigreed Crest

can be found fairly early in the game, in northern Liurnia of the Lakes, from War Counselor Iji. This Talisman offers a boon for Skill usage: it lowers the FP cost of all skills by 25%.

Being able to cast your weapon skill more times before needing to recharge your FP can make a huge difference, both in a heated boss battle and for general use while exploring the open world. This Talisman is especially crucial if you’re pursuing a build centered around frequent skill use.

Shard Of Alexander

Another Talisman focused on Skill usage,

Shard of Alexander

offers a great boost to the attack power of skills, granting +15% damage to all skills.

For a build focusing more on Sorceries or Incantations, this Talisman might not offer much, but for a build centered around skill use — or even just for players who have a favorite weapon skill — this Talisman is fantastic for increasing your skill’s effectiveness.

You can obtain the Shard of Alexander fairly late in the game after completing Iron Fist Alexander’s questline. Pair the Shard of Alexander with the

Carian Filigreed Crest

to optimize frequent and powerful skill usage. You can instead obtain the Warrior Jar Shard earlier in the game, but it offers a weaker bonus (+10% damage to skills), and it locks you out of obtaining Shard of Alexander.

Beloved Stardust

If you’re someone who gets a kick out of using insanely powerful spells or spamming Ashes of War in quick succession, then the

Beloved Stardust

Talisman will be right up your alley.

This talisman has the ability to shorten the cast time of all of your spells, allowing you to use devastating arcane attacks with elevated DPS, and lay waste to any boss or mob enemy that dare try and take you on.

There is a slight drawback to this one, as this will also increase the damage that you take from attacks, making you into a bit of a glass cannon, but the trade-off is worth it to have access to quicker spells.

Flock’s Canvas Talisman

Offering a flat +8% increase to Incantation damage,

Flock’s Canvas Talisman

a must-have for any Incantation build. This Talisman shouldn’t be on someone’s radar if they’re not focused on Incantations, but it earns a place on this list due to its essential place in Incantation builds.

You will be unable to acquire this Talisman until fairly late into Millicent’s questline, but it’s well worth acquiring for endgame, PVP, and NG+ activities.

You might also consider acquiring

Faithful’s Canvas Talisman

earlier in the game, which offers +4% increase to Incantation damage. Faithful’s Canvas Talisman can actually be used simultaneously with Flock’s Canvas Talisman, allowing for a whopping +12% Incantation damage.

Graven-Mass Talisman

This Talisman is the sorcery equivalent of the

Flock’s Canvas Talisman

. Graven-Mass Talisman offers a flat +8% increase to all sorcery damage. If you’re putting together your all-powerful sorcery build,

Graven-Mass Talisman

should absolutely be one of your choices.

This Talisman can be found in

Map (Consecrated Snowfield)

, a fairly late-game area. For a similar but earlier version, seek out the Graven-School Talisman, which can be found in Raya Lucaria Academy. Surprisingly,

Graven-School Talisman

and Graven-Mass Talisman can both be wielded at once, granting an impressive +12% increase to sorcery damage.

Retaliatory Crossed Tree

If you’ve ensured even a handful of Elden Ring’s bosses, you’ll know that you spend a lot of the time in these encounters rolling around to avoid the onslaught of attacks these enemies come at you with. Which, until recently, was necessary just to survive and nothing more, but with the addition of the

Retaliatory Crossed-Tree

Talisman, you now have a way to use those dodge rolls to your advantage.

With this Talisman equipped, you gain a buff to your attacks, which are executed immediately after dodging or backstepping, which essentially allows you to become a master of counter-attacking and make the bosses pay for having the audacity to take you on. As they say, if you come for the king, you had better not miss.

Godfrey Icon

The Godfrey Icon Talisman offers a boost towards both skills and spells — it raises charged attack power of Incantations, skills, and Sorceries by 15%. While some skills and spells aren’t able to benefit from this bonus, a large number of skills and spells can be charged.

This bonus, especially combined with other flat increases (like

Flock’s Canvas Talisman

for Incantations,

Graven-Mass Talisman

for Sorceries, or

Shard of Alexander

for skills) can substantially increase your character’s power.

Radagon Icon

Radagon Icon

is another powerful Talisman for spellcasting, granting a noticeable decrease in casting time for all spells. A faster casting time might not sound exciting, but it can make a massive difference in a battle with an aggressive boss.

Being able to get off a powerful spell and having time to dodge away before getting hit can change the dynamic of a battle dramatically in your favor.

Radagon’s Icon can be found fairly early in the game, in

Raya Lucaria Academy

, and is one of the best Talismans you can use for a Sorcery or Incantation build. This Talisman can be paired with

Godfrey Icon

with devastating results — faster and more powerful, charged spells.

Erdtree’s Favor +2

Erdtree’s Favor +2

is one of the best all-rounder Talismans in the game, offering a nice spread of bonuses across HP, Stamina, and Equip Load. Another Dark Souls throwback (similar to the Ring of Favor and Protection), Erdtree’s Favor +2 can be the icing on top of an already solid build.

It can grant you that extra HP to survive one more blow, an extra bit of Stamina to dodge that final attack, and give you just enough bonus Equip Load to avoid heavy rolling. You’ll also be able to acquire several versions during the game, allowing you to improve the Talisman as you increase in power throughout the game.

Two-Headed Turtle Talisman

If you’re someone who likes to hide behind their shield and tank hits, or alternatively, likes to roll around frequently with careless abandon to make use of those sweet I-frames, then the

Two-Headed Turtle Talisman

will definitely appeal to you, as this talisman grants a very welcome buff to your stamina.

You don’t get more stamina to work with here, but what you do get is a huge increase in your stamina recovery rate, so it will feel like you have a lot more stamina to work with at all times.

This natural upgrade to the

Green Turtle Talisman

provides a 22.5% buff to your stamina regeneration, and this can be used to defend your position for longer, or land more hits without running out of energy. No matter how you use it, the fact is that this is a must-have Talisman you need to obtain.

Two-Handed Sword Talisman

As someone who adores going shieldless and wielding a giant bonk-stick with two-hands, it always felt quite irritating that Elden Ring didn’t provide a helpful buff to make this more viable. Well, Shadow of the Erdtree was quick to right this wrong and bestowed upon us the

Two-Handed Sword Talisman

This Talisman found in the Ancient Ruins of Rauh offers players who choose to two-hand wield a weapon a 15% damage buff, which makes stowing away your shield and playing with a more aggressive style much more lucrative and viable.

Plus, this has great synergy with Talismans like the

Shard of Alexander

and the

Axe Talisman

. So, if you fancy becoming a melee-master, these Talismans will help you do just that.

Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman +2

This incredible Talisman offers an enormous boost to physical damage negation. In previous Soulsborne games, bonuses like this one were fairly minor and didn’t make much of a difference, but you can really feel an increase in durability while using the

Dragoncrest Shield Talisman +2

. It can help you survive several more blows, drawing out how frequently you’ll need to drink from your Crimson Flask.

It can be used during general exploration, but it’s most effective when taking on a tough boss fight — those are the situations where you might be hoping for any advantage you can find.

You don’t have the option to equip the strongest version of this talisman until rather late in the game, but weaker iterations serve as a suitable replacement until you reach Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree.

Pearldrake Talisman +3

Similar to the

Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman

, the

Pearldrake Talisman +3

offers a substantial boost to elemental damage reduction. Elemental damage includes Fire, Holy, Lightning, and Magic damage types. This can offer a great catch-all against any elemental attacks and is most effective during particularly difficult boss fights.

The Pearldrake Talisman’s damage reduction will also stack with specific elemental damage reductions, so you might consider pairing it with

Spelldrake Talisman +3

(magic damage negation), the

Flamedrake Talisman +3

(fire damage negation), the

Boltdrake Talisman +3

(lightning damage negation), or the

Haligdrake Talisman +2

(holy damage negation)