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Elden Ring Patch 1.04 has now had a few days to marinate, which means that some well-deserved changes and rebalances have affected the PvP metagame. Except, of course, for anyone wielding the superpowered Moonveil or Rivers of Blood katanas into combat, as they are just as powerful as ever. At least until they get nerfed in a future update. That said, the Rivers of Blood katana gives its wielder a special skill called Corpse Piler which can theoretically allow them to take on any boss (including Malenia) and with the press of a button, can usually eviscerate other players–just as long as they manage to get the first strike advantage.
Getting the first strike isn’t always an option, and since Corpse Piler can sap your resources and leave you vulnerable, you may still find yourself at the mercy of experienced opponents in PvP. That said, we’ve come up with the perfect Rivers of Blood PvP build that–in the right hands–can contend against any enemy, in any circumstance.
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Preferred Attributes:
In the following order, you’ll want to focus on allocating your attribute points into Arcane, Endurance, Vigor, and Dexterity. It’s important to keep them almost equally high, but–ignoring what the Rivers of Blood item description says–your main DPS stats are Arcane and then Dexterity in that order. You probably won’t want to put many points into Strength, which contributes the least amount toward Rivers of Blood’s damage output. Regarding the other three attributes, you only really need to cap your Mind at 20 or at most, 25. Further, you don’t need any points in Faith or Intelligence at all, but if you increase your four main stats to at least 50 apiece and then subsequently choose to branch into magic later on (once you’ve reached level 175+ or thereabouts) you might find some use in investing into Faith, which allows the use of powerful dragon roar abilities and other incantations that can provide added attack power, such as Golden Vow or Flame, Grant Me Strength.
Equipment (and how to get it):
Right Hand Armament: Rivers of Blood +10
Left Hand Armament: none, or Dragon Communion Seal +10 (after reaching level 175+)
Head: Black Knife Hood
Chest: Black Knife Armor
Arms: Black Knife Gauntlets
Legs: Black Knife Greaves
Talisman 1: Green Turtle Talisman
Talisman 2: Carian Filigreed Crest
Talisman 3: Millicent’s Prosthesis
Talisman 4: Dragoncrest Shield Talisman +2
Rivers of Blood itself can be found on the corpse of Bloody Finger Okina, an NPC invader who appears when you first visit the Church of Repose, located in the Mountaintops of the Giants area made accessible in the latter half of the game. We have plenty more details on how to find Rivers of Blood in Elden Ring.
The Dragon Communion Seal, which becomes viable once you reach level 175+ and can begin to comfortably allocate points into Faith, can be found in the Fringefolk Hero’s Grave. This seal is accessible via the Stranded Graveyard point of grace, which is the second one you found in the very first starting area dungeon before reaching the First Step. All you need is two Stonesword Keys to deactivate the fog wall, and then you’ll find the Dragon Communion Seal in a chest at the very bottom of the dungeon–past the chariot and each of the guards.
Our Rivers of Blood PvP build is ideally focused on keeping a light load. That way, it allows you the freedom to dodge roll hard and often. The Black Knife armor set is simultaneously light and protective enough to keep you relatively safe in most battles. Additionally, this armor set silences your movement, making it very easy to sneak up on unsuspecting opponents.
You can find the set on a corpse underneath a bridge in Ordina, Liturgical Town, but the tricky part is finding the town on the map. Ordina is located in the uppermost part of the Consecrated Snowfield, a hidden zone located above the Mountaintops of the Giants, and it’s only unlocked by finding both halves of the Haligtree Secret Medallion. The right half of the Secret Medallion is in the Village of the Albinaurics in Liurnia, and the left half is dropped by Commander Niall in Castle Sol, which itself is located in the Mountaintops of the Giants. Once both halves are secured, you can return to the Grand Lift of Rold and show the Haligtree Secret Medallion to the statues, unlocking the Consecrated Snowfield zone and, by extension, Ordina, where you’ll find the Black Knife armor and complete your build.
The Green Turtle Talisman enhances recovery speed and can be found early on, in Summonwater Village, which is situated on the eastern outskirts of Limgrave. Summonwater lies directly in the middle of the only land route between Limgrave and Caelid, and it is the site of a Tibia Mariner battle.
Carian Filigreed Crest decreases the FP cost of Rivers of Blood’s devastatingly potent special ability, Corpse Piler, and can be purchased from War Counselor Iji for 5000 runes outside of Caria Manor in Liurnia, which is the same dungeon where you can find the powerful Sword of Night and Flame.
Millicent’s Prosthesis adds +5 Dexterity and increases the damage of subsequent attacks. It’s not particularly useful for Corpse Piler, which doesn’t scale with any items or bonuses that increase the power of successive attacks, but the successive damage increase does noticeably help when using basic attacks or thrown weapons in quick succession, which is a viable last resort once your FP pool runs dry or if you don’t have time to power up your next Corpse Piler attack before being hit. Take note that Millicent’s Prosthesis is a trickier talisman to acquire since you’ll need to assist Millicent in her questline all the way up through the end of the Elphael area in the Haligtree zone. If you don’t manage to get to it, you could alternatively get away with using the Fire Scorpion Charm, which is located in Mt. Gelmir at Fort Laiedd.
The Dragoncrest Shield Talisman +2 vastly improves physical damage reduction, and you can find it on a corpse between the Dragon Temple Lift and Dragon Temple Rooftop points of grace in Crumbling Farum Azula, toward the very end of the main story questline.
Quick Items:
This build works well when equipped with Arc-scaling thrown items such as kukris and poisonbone darts for latch-ditch attempts at whittling an opponent’s health down at medium range. Throwing daggers and fan daggers can also be useful to the same end. If you’re going to use any pots, you should equip fire pots which scale in damage with the Fire Scorpion Charm and the Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear mentioned at different points in this guide. In general, your flask allotment should stick to a ratio of five Flasks of Crimson Tears to two Flasks of Cerulean Tears. The Flask of Wondrous Physick works best when you combine the Opaline Hardtear (for added physical damage negation) with the Cerulean Hidden Tear, which negates all FP consumption for a short time. Alternatively, you can use the Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear, which boosts your fire damage output and is useful both when paired with your main Corpse Piler special attack and also when paired with fire pots and Faith-based fire incantations or bloodflame incantations.
Combat Strategy:
Most of the strategy involved in this Rivers of Blood PvP build already took place in the planning phase. It’s a lightweight build with one core gimmick: The Rivers of Blood katana’s special skill, Corpse Piler, which unleashes a series of whip-fast slashes that cut through enemies in a massive wave in front of you. These slashes also imbue fire damage and blood loss damage, which can rapidly trigger the deadly blood loss proc effect on your foes–this notorious status effect immediately causes potentially thousands of points of damage each time it activates, making it a surefire way to win most PvP battles.
As long as you’ve coordinated your loadout to keep your overall equipment weight low, you should be able to keep the upper hand over your enemies in most battles. In many cases, all you’ll need to do is walk up to the enemy and begin using Corpse Piler. If that doesn’t work at first, you should be able to dodge roll your way to safety, pop a flask, and dive right back in for the kill. Is it a cheap play? Absolutely! But it’s still highly effective as of patch 1.04, and that’s the part that counts.
If you end up mixing Faith magic into your build as we suggested for higher-level Rivers of Blood wielders, try bolstering yourself with incantations such as Flame, Grant Me Strength, Dragonfire, and Swarm of Flies. There are many different incantations to experiment with, and you certainly don’t need magic to make this build work well in PvP battles, but there’s some space to experiment here if you’d like to switch up your playstyle. Breath attacks work well when flushing opponents out of cover or picking them off from afar, and it’s nice to be able to quickly whip out a breath attack such as Dragonfire or Rotten Breath on an unsuspecting foe. If you manage to pop it off early enough, any breath attack can work well as a finishing move if your opponent is attempting to back out of range of your Corpse Piler ability with the expectation that they’ve secured a window of safety to heal or recoup their stamina at a medium distance.
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