Scaling is a mechanic in Elden Ring. Most weapons possess scaling values, which cause the weapon's effectiveness to increase in accordance with an associated stat. Weapons can scale with Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith or Arcane. Scaling affinity with each stat is signified by a letter icon on the weapon's information.
Attribute scaling impacts:
- Attack Power
- Sorcery Scaling and Incantation Scaling, with the base damage calculated as 100 since the actual damage varies by spell
- Poison, Blood Loss, Sleep, and Madness, if the weapon has Arcane attribute scaling
Scaling doesn't affect poise damage or stamina damage.
Scaling Values[]
The letter grades that are used to represent a weapon's scaling affinity is only a rough guide of a weapon's potential. These grades are derived from a scaling value, which is an invisible number that determines the exact amount of damage you receive from scaling. The scaling values that each letter can represent are:
- E: < 0.25
- D: 0.25 - 0.5999
- C: 0.6 - 0.8999
- B: 0.9 - 1.3999
- A: 1.4 - 1.75
- S: > 1.75
The formula for calculating a weapon's scaling damage is:
Base damage is the damage of the weapon before any scaling is applied, and stat scaling is a value that is gained by increasing the relevant attribute. Increasing both of these values will also increase the bonus damage received from scaling, which means that a weapon with lower base damage but a higher scaling value will not necessarily gain more scaling.
Attribute Requirements[]
Most weapons have a minimum requirement for each attribute they scale with. If that requirement is not met, anything that scales with that attribute receives no scaling, and instead takes a -40% penalty.
For example, the Club has 103 base Physical Attack Power, and Strength scaling with a requirement of 10. A character with only 9 Strength would have 61 Physical Attack Power (103 - 42).
Stat Scaling[]
This value increases as the associated stat increases, varying somewhat depending on if the used affinity is physical (Standard, Heavy, Keen, Quality, or Occult) or non-physical (Fire, Flame Art, Lightning, Sacred, Magic, Cold, Blood, or Poison).
- Physical affinity values
- Stat at 10: 15
- Stat at 20: 35
- Stat at 30: 46.5
- Stat at 40: 57.5
- Stat at 50: 67.5
- Stat at 60: 75
- Stat at 70: 82.5
- Stat at 80: 90
- Stat at 90: 92.5
- Stat at 99: 96
As can be seen, for physical affinities the biggest increase is from increasing a stat from 10 to 20, before falling of bit-by-bit from 20 to 40, then 40 to 50, and then 50 to 80, until it finally slows down to a crawl from 80 to 99.
- Non-physical affinity values
- Stat at 10: 19
- Stat at 20: 40
- Stat at 30: 53
- Stat at 40: 66.5
- Stat at 50: 80
- Stat at 60: 85
- Stat at 70: 90
- Stat at 80: 95
- Stat at 90: 97.5
- Stat at 99: 100
For non-physical affinities, however, the increase is more steady. It still falls of heavily after the 10 to 20 stretch but after that remains steady with the scaling (most notably reaching the same amount of scaling by 50 as physical affinities don't get until almost reaching 70) until reaching 50, where after the scaling slows down to less than half until the stat reaches 80 and halves against for the final stretch to reach 99.
- Spell tools
Spell tools (Staves and Sacred Seals) uses one of three different scaling rates depending on whether or not they scale with only one stat, scales with more than one stat, or if it's the Demi-Human Queen's Staff. The exception to this is the Prince of Death's Staff (PDS) which despite being a Staff that scales with more than one stat uses the more backloaded "one stat" scaling, making it require a large amount of both Intelligence and Faith to attain good results.
More specifically, those that scales with one stat (and the PDS) start strong and gain stronger scaling after reaching 25 in the stat and then again after reaching 60, until finally dropping off hard upon eventually reaching 80 in that stat.
Scaling with more than one stat initially scales rather poorly before skyrocketing to being much, much stronger in scaling for a stat upon getting to 15 in that stat until 30, were after it falls to more normal, "one stat" levels of scaling and then increases become insignificant after reaching 45 in that stat.
The Demi-Human Queen's Staff is effectively the inverse of regular "one stat" scaling with exceptional scaling prior to reaching 20 in Intelligence and then being weaker until it reaches 40 and after that it becomes even weaker.
- Status Effects scaling
Increasing Scaling Values[]
All weapons increase their scaling values by being upgraded. All weapons upgraded with Somber Smithing Stones gain an extra 8% of their base scaling per upgrade level, while other weapons gain 2% by default.
Weapons that can be infused with ashes of war can gain affinities which alter both the base damage and the scaling values, affecting how different stats increase scaling damage. There is no universal formula for how infusion changes the values of a weapon and different weapons are changed by an infusion in different, seemingly arbitrary ways.