Incantation Scaling or Incant Scaling is a type of increased damage that Elden Ring players can deal in specific situations. How much damage you can deal to your enemies in combat depends on your equipment, skills and temporary buffs.
How the Incantation Scaling system works in Elden Ring
Incantations alone don’t scale with anything. In other words, Dragon Spells by themselves won’t scale with Arcane or other attributes. You need a special seal to activate Incantation Scaling.
Spell scaling is based on your Sacred Seal stats. The Dragon Communion Seal will scale all your incantations (including Dragon Spells) with both Faith and Arcane.
You can use Smithing Stones to improve your Sacred Seal scaling and spell damage.
Additionally, you can also scale your incantations with Strength by using the ClawMark Seal. To make a Strength caster, you can use:
- Lightning Spear with ClawMark Seal +0, 16 Strength and 41 Faith, which results in 423 Damage
- Lightning Spear with ClawMark Seal +0, 26 Strength and 41 Faith resulting in 471 Damage
⇒ Learn more: Sorceries vs Incantations in Elden Ring
Investing in Arcane is a good idea
Arcane provides increased damage compared to Faith. For example, 10 Arcane points (scaling rank C) can help you deal more damage than 10 Faith points (scaling rank D). Faith and Strength have similar scaling.
Investing in Arcane is a good idea if you want to learn more Dragon Spells or use the Dragon Seal. When using the Dragon Seal and Dragon Spells, most of your Incant Scaling will come from Arcane.
Strength and Incantation Scaling
The Finger Seal will boost incantation scaling with Faith. While the Finger Seal should theoretically scale a bit with Strength as well, players noticed that 10 Strength points won’t significantly increase lighting spear damage.
That’s because Strength scaling doesn’t apply to spells unless you’re using a special tool such as the ClawMark Seal. Strength scaling on Sacred Seals activates when you swing the Sacred Seal as a physical weapon. That’s why all the GlintStone Staffs have Strength scaling.
The Golden Order Seal and Dragon Seal are not physical seals, therefore they don’t have Strength scaling. They’re formless seals. In other words, there’s no weapon to swing. If you look carefully at their description, you’ll notice that both have zero weight.
Players also noticed that the Dragon Seal +2 outperforms the Finger Seal +4 even on Fireball.
What Seals to use with specific stats
Keep in mind that each Seal scales off of specific stats. Here’s what seals to use to boost your incantations based on the stats you’re using:
- Faith: Use Finger Seal, Godslayer Seal, Erdtree Seal, and Gravel Stone Seal
- Faith & Arcane: Use Dragon Communion Seal
- Faith & Intelligence: Use the Golden Order Seal
Additionally, depending on your stat level, you may want to use the following seals:
- Faith under 60: Use the Godslayer Seal
- Faith between 60s to 80: Use the Erdtree Seal
- Arcane and Faith up to 45: Use the Dragon Communion seal
- Faith and Int up to 45: Use the Golden Order
Have you noticed any other Incantation Scaling patterns in the game? Share your findings in the comments below.
⇒ Learn more about casting spells in Elden Ring:
- Elden Ring: List of spells to increase damage negation
- List of Healing spells to recover health in Elden Ring:
- Elden Ring: Spell damage varies depending on weather
⇒ Hungry for more Elden Ring stories? Check out our Elden Ring hub.
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