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In this Elden Ring guide, we’ll help you understand the eight stats (or attributes) — Vigor, Mind, Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane — that define your character.
Your character’s starting attributes are determined by the class you choose during character creation. You’ll have the choice to increase any of these stats as you level up by collecting runes.
Character stats
Your character in Elden Ring has eight stats that define what kind of fighter (and person, really) they are.
Elden Ring character attributes
| Name | Description | tl;dr |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Description | tl;dr |
| Vigor | Attribute governing HP. Also affects fire resistance and immunity. | Vigor is your health (HP) stat. |
| Mind | Attribute that determines FP. Also affects focus. | Mind is your Force Points (FP) stat. You’ll use FP to cast Sorceries and Incantations (spells), summon Spirit Ashes, and use Ashes of War (and Weapon Arts). |
| Endurance | Attribute governing stamina. Also affects robustness. This attribute also determines how heavy your equipment can be. | Endurance is your stamina and Equipment Load stat. It controls how much you can swing your weapon, roll, and how heavy your equipment can be. |
| Strength | Attribute required to wield heavy armaments. Also boosts attack power of your strength-scaling armaments and affects your physical defense. | Strength is your punching and Strength-based weapon (like Greatswords and Warhammers) stat. It also affects your physical defense. |
| Dexterity | Attribute required to wield advanced armaments. Also boosts attack power of dexterity-scaling armaments, reduces casting time of spells, softens fall damage, and makes it harder to be knocked off your horse. | Dexterity is the stat for other weapons like Daggers, Katanas, and Longbows. It also influences casting time for spells and reduces fall damage. |
| Intelligence | Attribute required to perform glintstone sorceries. Also boosts magic power of intelligence-scaling sorceries and improves magic resistance. | Intelligence is the stat for casting Sorceries and for increasing your magic resistance. |
| Faith | Attribute required to perform sacred incantations. Also boosts power of faith-scaling incantations. | Faith is the stat for the other kind of magic, Incantations. |
| Arcane | Attribute governing discovery. Also affects holy defense, vitality, and certain sorceries and incantations. | Arcane is a hybrid magic stat that also influences item drop rates (Discovery). Think of it like luck. |
Four stats — Vigor, Mind, Endurance, and, to a lesser extent, Arcane — are useful for any class. Having more health means you’ll die (slightly) less often and a higher equipment load means (generally) better gear.
When it comes to dealing damage — and playing into your character’s class strengths — the other four stats are what’s important. Strength is for heavy weapons, Dexterity is for light weapons, Intelligence is for wizard magic, and Faith is for miracle magic.
Note that all stats have a soft cap, or rather, multiple soft caps, which is where levelling past a certain point makes stat gains less efficient. Our Elden Ring soft cap explainer can explain how this works, and the threshold for each stat.
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