Elden Ring: Anvil Hammer Build Guide (2024)

The Anvil Hammer is one of the most powerful weapons added to Elden Ring in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. As a Colossal Weapon, it has a relatively slow moveset but makes up for it in terms of sheer damage, stance break, and decent AoE.

Using the Anvil Hammer requires heavy investment in Strength to bring out its full potential, making it a natural evolution to an early-game Strength/Faith build. This guide delves deep into which talismans, items, and stats players need in order to get the most out of this weapon. Here’s the breakdown.

Pros and Cons of Anvil Hammer

The power of the Anvil Hammer lies in its ability to dish out a ton of damage combined with incredibly high poise damage that can break the stance of almost any boss in 2-3 regular hits. Every swing of the hammer regardless if it is a light swing, heavy attack, charged attack, or even a weapon skill, is meant to stance break. Some of the most annoying enemies in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, like the Curseblades or the Fire Knights, can be stun-locked if players manage to catch them with the hammer.

Best Stat Distribution for Anvil Hammer Build (Level 150)

Strength and Faith are the two main stats for the Anvil Hammer, with Strength being of overall more importance than Faith in terms of priority. Equipping the weapon requires a little bit of investment in Intelligence and Dexterity, but increasing these two stats has almost no bearing on the damage output of the weapon. Other than STR and FAI, all remaining stats should either go to Vigor for an increased health pool or Endurance for more stamina and carry weight. Getting Mind to 25 is more than enough to get a lot of value out of the weapon skill, Smithing Art Spears, as it only costs 18 FP to cast.

Past level 150, focus on getting Strength to 80, Faith to 60, and Vigor to 60 to round out the build. If the equipment load becomes a problem, prioritizing Endurance is not a bad idea either until you get to a comfortable spot with your armor of choice.

Best Talismans for Anvil Hammer

Two-handing the Anvil Hammer triggers the Two-Handed Sword Talisman, buffing the damage dealt by a solid 15%. Shard of Alexander’s +15% buff to skills can allow the Ash of War: Smithing Art Spears to one-shot regular mobs with little issue. The Two-Headed Turtle Talisman is a quality-of-life addition, allowing players to recover stamina at an absurd rate, which, considering how much stamina each swing of the hammer requires, can help a lot.

Erdtree’s Favor buffs are a comprehensive increase in HP, Stamina, and Equip Load. Depending on the situation, it can be swapped with the Spelldrake, Flamedrake, Boltdrake, Pearldrake +3 Talismans, the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, or the Golden Braid . Other situational options include:

• Crimson Seed Talisman +1 increases the amount of healing received from Flasks by 30%. This mainly comes in handy when Vigor gets above 60.
• Verdigris Discus can turn the high equipment load into an advantage by turning it into a defensive boon.
• Great-Jar's Arsenal can serve as a stopgap solution for any equipment load problems you’re having because of low Endurance or heavy armor.
• Curved Sword Talisman is a must-have if you’re planning on pairing the Anvil Hammer with a shield for Guard Counters.

Best Seals and Incantations With Anvil Hammer

Considering the natural investment into Faith encouraged by the Anvil Hammer, players would be remiss not to take advantage of the powerful incantations they meet the stat requirements for.

Best Incantations

To start, the Golden Vow and Flame, Grant me Strength are no-brainers to directly buff damage output and resistances. The cherry on top is that the Anvil Hammer is one of the very few weapons in Elden Ring with inherent Fire damage, allowing it to take full advantage of the fire damage increase when buffed.

Other options include Electrocharge to passively buff the players while they’re two-handing the Anvil Hammer, Pest-Thread Spears to provide a near-unmissable long-range option, or the Fire Serpent for a cheap way to deal with nimble enemies.

Best Seal

The choice of which Seal to use with the Anvil Hammer depends on which incantations they are to be paired with. If in doubt, the Clawmark Seal is a great option as it is meant to be used in a Strength/Faith build like this one.

Best Crystal Tears With Anvil Hammer

The Flask of Wondrous Physick is mostly used in hard boss fights to tilt the odds in the players’ favor. With this in mind, the best combination of Crystal Tears to use with the Anvil Hammer are:

The star here is the Deflecting Hardtear, which is Elden Ring’s version of a timed block, allowing players to deal increased damage with their guard counters if they manage to put up their guard just before the enemy hits them. Players don’t need to use a shield with the Anvil Hammer to make this work (though it does help); simply pressing guard while two-handing this weapon to block incoming attacks is the way to go. Anvil Hammer has 80.0 physical damage negation when used as a shield, which is more than enough for this purpose.

The Greenspill Crystal Tear is replaceable with anything players prefer in its place, though the +15% to base stamina is very useful for retaining enough stamina to perform guard counters after being hit.

Elden Ring

RPG

Action

Systems

OpenCritic Reviews

Top Critic Rating:95/100 Critics Recommend:98%

Platform(s)

PS5 , Xbox One , PS4 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , PC

Released

February 25, 2022

Developer(s)

From Software

Publisher(s)

Bandai Namco Entertainment , From Software