Melee build with spells or incantations?

[Volatility]

I played through 3-4 times back in 2022, but haven't touch the game in almost 18 months. I'm starting up another playthrough, and can't remember as a melee build if it's worth it to be casting incantations or spells? I remember trying it out in 2022 and feeling that the incantations and spells were very underwhelming - perhaps cause I had relatively few points in them for my level compared to the other stats. But I don't remember the details.

I played 1 caster, but the other characters were full melee. Am I missing out if I don't build in some stat points for magic even with primary melee character?

[Turt]

Elden Ring has so much build variety, that you're always going to be missing out on something during each playthrough. If you want a good mix of both melee and magic, I would do a faith build. Infuse your weapons with Flame Art for faith scaling fire damage which is generally superior too holy. You also will have access to various buffs and attacks with faith that will always have some use regardless if your fighting close quarters or from afar.
Stat wise, for a typical faith build, I would steadily level vigor to 45 at the bare minimum (60 max) and faith up to 50-60. Endurance for however much you prefer (25 is good), str and dex for the minimum requirements to wield the weapons you want. Then 20-25 att for your spells. Could go higher if you prefer. Don't touch int or arc.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

Depends if you're going dex (increases casting speed) or str (doesn't do that). I'd generally say no, without a ton of investment you're not going to do more damage than just running up and smacking things, and there are only a tiny number of encounters in the game that warrant doing anything other than charging in (and a single cast of wraith calling bell can usually break those).

In terms of fun factor, by all means go for it. Sometimes I'll pick a random incant and clear out a side-dungeon with it.

[Xengre]

Depends on what you are attempting to achieve.

Are you just attempting to see if you can get a flexible paladin knight who can use supporting buffs, healing, and utility magic? If so, yes, you can do this with fairly minimal investment. There are a lot of buffs and spells that have no scaling at all based on character attribute points, instead having either a fixed effect, special mechanic (like invisible, no noise from feet, etc.), or are percentage scaling of another stat like defense / offense. A few like the element weapon buffs may scale but you hardly need to worry about investing as the main benefit is their elemental modifier. Prayers for healing don't need a ton of faith to be effective, either. More important for prayers is having enough FP so you don't excessively waste over healing FP (ex a flask that could heal 180 fp but you got 100 fp...).

Even just obtaining some of the lower stats like +16 int / +15 faith gives you access to quite a bit, especially if you toss on a talisman / headgear or use a mixed physicks to boost it further as necessary. That said, some of the buffs and healing prayers for going up a bit higher into the 20s and 30s range are incredibly overpowered like Barrier buffs, Blackflame Protection, and such in PvE.

You can collect the spells and if you feel the need reset your stats at the academy legacy dungeon in the Lakes (boss room, can do it like 20x or whatever per playthrough with a semirare limited item).

[LuckyCheshire]

Those can be extremely effective builds. Less so at low levels though. If your main source of damage is coming from melee weapons still, buffs are very much your friends.

If you use Faith, there are a lot of good options for buffs. Golden Vow, Erdtree Blessing, Flame Grant me Strength, Bestial Vitality at lower levels, etc. Run a build with a seal in your offhand and those memorized, add on the Old Lord's Talisman, and you'll be absolutely shredding bosses in no time. Toss in Lord's Heal or Erdtree Heal and with enough Faith you don't even need crimson flasks anymore, it will be more efficient to just cast healing spells and recover your focus.

If you want to try Int, you can do that too, but your options will be a lot more limited. Int is... a lot more focused around having as many variations on Magic Missile as the devs could think of, and has very few decent support options. You can still make it work though with some stuff like Scholar's Armament and the shield counterpart.

[Senki]

i mean buffs are very useful if you can spare some faith points, at least 25 for golden vow

But you can have your cake and eat it too if you use a melee weapon that scales with faith primarily. Then you get to put as many points in faith as you want and have access to both powerful spells and melee. Same with int

[Velber]

personally i always liked using incantations with my melee builds

[Cobalt]

I use Flame, clease me only on meele builds, based on dex or str.
With faith or int u got some more options and sadly it feels much stronger (flexible) even meele focused.

[Urist Microcline]

27 Faith with Godslayer's Seal to use Lord's Heal and Golden Vow is very effective. You can ditch red flasks entirely with 110 mind or more with that. You can use Flame Grant Me Strength and Flame Cleanse Me if you want too.

[cybercybercybercyber4]

using some spells is a good "excuse" to get some points into mind, which will also make you more flexible in item usage (as some need FP) and with your ash of war.

just go for bestial sling and swift glintstone shard, those are good enough as options.
demihuman staff and frenzy flame seal

so yeah my opinion is, you will miss out

[Yal]

Elemental ashes of war generally outdamage spells a lot, scaling mainly with your weapon (which you're gonna use a lot anyway as a melee build) and there's some really good ones:
- Flaming Strike is awesome on basically all builds but especially STR (when you're using heavy weapons it helps offset their slow speed). Fast combo starter, decent crowd control, and adds a damage buff with the element most things are weak to. And it looks cool.
- Glintblade Phalanx (or whatever the spectral swords one you get from Rogier's Rapier is called) doesn't do a lot of damage but it does WAY more poise damage than you'd think. You'll stagger enemies left and right if you take the time to cast it.
- Golden Land (from the Giant Club) absolutely shreds things with the initial shockwave and then gives you a whole lot of projectiles (more than any spell except Founding Rain of Stars and Elden Stars, I believe?)
- The Dragon Halberd (secret boss in the first underground river's upper floor) has an upgraded version of Spinning Slash with an ice electricity buff, it's a great crowd control option AND gives you two elemental effects at once, it's risky but amazingly fun to use and works wonders against knights, aquatic lifeforms (the final hit creates an extra shockwave if you stand in water!) and dragons.


Even with minimal stat investment you can also get a lot of mileage out of the triple stone spell that comes with the Meteor Staff, the delayed glintstone sword, the rot and ice dragon breaths and most support spells (shoutouts to Flame Cleanse Me making Scarlet Rot a nonissue)

[impuretrash2878]

its fun to do more than just wack enemies with a pointy stick. and isnt that the point of playing a game, to have fun? And its not as if you can't use weapons too. Plenty of them have low stat requirements. Just put magic scaling on them.