This page is part of IGN's Elden Ring Wiki guide and details everything you need to know about all the different Weapon Skills and abilities that can be utilized with different weapons, as well as collectible Ashes of War that can be found or bought, and can further customize your Elden Ring weapons with new skills and attribute scaling.

How Do Skills Work in Elden Ring

Each weapon you acquire in Elden Ring will have a default Weapon Skill, and can be utilized in combat by pressing L2/LT. This will default to whichever item is currently equipped in your left hand (like a shield's Parry ability), unless you are wielding a weapon in two hands, unequip your shield, or have an off-hand weapon that lists "No Skill". Most skills (excluding a shield's Parry) will cost FP to use, and the cost may differ slightly depending on which if it is used in a single hand or two.

There are around 100 different skills in total, and in addition to a weapon's default skill, more can be found as items called Ashes of War - which can be discovered through a variety of ways that include exploration, defeating enemies and tracking down Teardrop Scarabs, as well as purchasing them from NPCs.

Equipping Ashes of War Weapon Skills

Using Ashes of War will allow you to have free reign to interchange skills between a large variety of weapons - though certain powerful weapons will have unique skills that cannot be swapped out. Once you have collected an Ash of War and the Whetstone Knife from the Gatefront Ruins, you use the menu when resting at a Site of Grace to view each of your melee armaments, ranged weapons, and shields.

From this menu, you can see the weapon's default skill, and replace it with one of the Ashes of War if it is the right type. You can choose to replace just the Weapon Skill, or you can also choose to adjust it's attribute scaling. This can make the weapon more effective if your character has higher Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Faith - or give your weapon the ability to deal magical or elemental damage.

As you find more types of Whetstones, you'll be able to choose different types of scaling than the weapon's default scaling type:

• Iron Whetblade - Allows additional affinities of Heavy, Keen, or Quality
• Glintstone Whetblade - Allows additional affinities of Magic or Cold
• Red-Hot Whetblade - Allows additional affinities of Fire or Flame Art
• Black Whetblade - Allows additional affinities of Poison, Blood, or Occult

List of Ashes of War

Below is a list of the different Ashes of War that you can find and collect in your adventures. Click on an individual one to learn more about it, and where it can be found.

List of Weapon Skills

The list below includes all known weapon skills, the description of their ability, and which weapon they can be found on by default. Skills in bold are unique to certain weapons and cannot be swapped out nor do they have an associated Ash of War.