Elden Ring: 14 Best Weapons And Shields With Passive Effects (2024)

There are some items in Elden Ring that have abilities that go beyond just the damage they deal or how fancy their Weapon Skill is. And I’m not talking about status buildup, which does come innately on certain items. Rather, these are passive effects, ones that will still be active even if you aren’t using the item directly.

You can keep them in your off-hand while two-handing something else, and you don’t even need to meet their stat requirements for the effect to be active. You’re likely most familiar with this sort of ability on Sacred Seals or Staves, which often boost a specific type of spell. However, we already have lists discussing those items in depth, so this list will focus on the weapons and Shields that do something without you needing to do anything.

Updated by Lucas Ellinas on July 29, 2024: Most players rightfully focus on their main weapons when creating a build, but you shouldn’t ignore the advantages you can get from some of the passive effects on this list. There was only one added from the DLC, but it’s good enough to include here, alongside several other options from the base game.

14 Beast-Repellent Torch

The Beast-Repellent Torch ’s description says that it “pacifies wild beasts,” which is just vague enough that most players probably ignored it entirely. It keeps many enemies from attacking you on sight, requiring you to really encroach on their space before they become aggressive.

The enemies in question are mostly common animals, like bears and wolves, but also include some of the giant dogs in Caelid and, most importantly, basilisks, which can instantly kill you with Death Blight. If you want to make exploring areas infested with these creatures easier, you can buy the Beast-Repellant Torch from the Isolated Merchant at his shack in Dragonbarrow.

13 Icon Shield

The Icon Shield has relatively mediocre stats for a Greatshield, not even blocking 100 percent of physical damage when fully upgraded. However, it does heal you for three HP per second. You can combine that with the Blessed Dew Talisman to create five HP of passive regeneration without using any FP (although it does cost you a Talisman slot and a significant amount of Equip Load).

That can be helpful in preserving your Flasks while exploring the lands between, and can even be enough to allow you to survive an extra attack over the course of a boss fight, pushing you over the edge to victory. To get your own Icon Shield, head to the Altus Plataeu and find a chest beneath the Woodfolk Ruins.

12 Ant’s Skull Plate

You might not think that the mutated head of a giant ant would be an effective shield, but the Ant's Skull Plate could surprise you. It has relatively poor Guard Boost, but better Hardness than other shields, causing more attacks to bounce off of it, and also causes Poison buildup when you attack with it.

But we aren’t here for those effects; it raises your Immunity by 60, reducing the rate at which you are afflicted with Poison and Scarlet Rot. You can find this unique shield in a chest in Nokstella, Eternal City, near the Eternal City Site of Grace.

11 Pillory Shield

While not great at blocking damage, the Pillory Shield increases your Vitality by 50 while equipped. To avoid confusion, that doesn’t mean it increases your Health (that’s Vigor). Instead, Vitality improves your resistance to Death Blight buildup, a status effect that will instantly kill you. Death Blight is only inflicted by a limited number of enemies, such as the Wormfaces or Basilisks.

However, while you won’t meet them often, trying to avoid getting killed out of nowhere while also dodging enemy attacks can be extremely frustrating. As a result, while the Pillory Shield has fairly niche usage, it could save your life. It’s located within Caelid’s Gaol Cave, locked behind an Imp Statue Seal that requires two Stonesword Keys to get inside. You might have better things to use your Keys on early in the game, but once you’ve found enough spares, it might be worth the investment.

10 Sword Of Milos/Sacrificial Axe

The Sword of Milos and the Sacrificial Axe have the same effect: they give you a small amount of FP whenever an enemy dies near you. The Sword of Milos is better as a weapon, with higher damage and a fun Weapon Skill. It also gives you five FP per kill, compared to the Sacrificial Axe’s four. If you want to actually use one of these weapons in combat, it’s the better option.

However, it also weighs almost twice as much as the Sacrificial Axe, at 10 compared to 5.5. So, if you are planning on using one of these weapons exclusively for their effect, it might be worth keeping the Sacrificial Axe on your hip instead. To get it, you’ll need to kill the Deathbird that spawns at night north of Castle Morne on the Weeping Peninsula. Meanwhile, the Sword of Milos is the signature weapon of the Dung Eater, and drops after you defeat his invading phantom in Leyndell, Royal Capital (or you kill him beforehand).

9 Lion Greatbow

The Lion Greatbow isn’t the highest-damage Greatbow under normal circ*mstances, but its passive pushes it into relevancy. It increases the damage dealt by the Radahn’s Spears Great Arrows by a remarkable 20 percent.

You can hold it and use a different Greatbow in your main hand, either for a different Weapon Skill than Radahn’s Rain, or just to use a Greatbow with more damage, but the real power comes when you move on to New Game Plus and grab a second Lion’s Greatbow, stacking their effects together and turning yourself into a walking artillery cannon. All you need to do to get one is defeat Starscourge Radahn and trade his Remembrance with Enia at the Roundtable Hold.

8 Spiralhorn Shield/Eclipse Crest Greatshield

Both the Eclipse Crest Greatshield and the Spiralhorn Shield increase your Immunity, Robustness, and Focus stats by 50. Those terms might not mean much to you, but in practice, these stats increase your resistance to Poison, Rot, Frostbite, Bleed, Sleep, and Madness. There are individual Shields that protect you from these status effects, but the Eclipse Crest Greatshield and Spiralhorn Shield protect you from all of them at once.

Of the two, the Spiralhorn Shield has the advantage of being extremely light; at just two Weight, it’s almost eight times lighter than the Eclipse Crest Greatshield. However, it fails in the defense department, whereas its Greatshield counterpart is one of the better options in the game. You can find both Shields in roughly the same area: the Spiralhorn Shield is in the Uhl Palace Ruins, a short walk northwest from the Ruined Labyrinth Site of Grace, while the Eclipse Crest Greatshield drops from the Mausoleum Knights that appear in many areas, but are particularly common in Liurnia of the Lakes and the Deeproot Depths.

7 Great Turtle Shell

Having the Great Turtle Shell equipped speeds up your Stamina regeneration by three seconds. Those who have played earlier From Software games will be reminded of similar Shields, like the Grass Crest Shields in Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3.

And like in those games, wearing the Great Turtle Shell on your back gives your character a bit of extra juice, allowing you to do more, more often. Plus, you’ll look like a Ninja Turtle. If you want to acquire this peak fashion statement, you can find it in the Weeping Peninsula, on the roof of a tower above the Castle Morne Rampart Site of Grace.

6 Blasphemous Blade/Serpent-God’s Curved Sword

Rykard's Remembrance weapon, the Blasphemous Blade , has so many good effects that it almost seems unfair. It’s one of the best weapons in the game already, so the fact that it heals you for a significant amount whenever an enemy dies in your vicinity really feels like an advantage it didn’t actually need. While this ability does little against most bosses, it can be extremely helpful while exploring the Lands Between. It really makes the Greathorn Hammer , which has a weaker version of the same passive and is a just worse weapon overall, look bad.

The Serpent-God's Curved Sword , on the other hand, which is located behind a Giant Land Octopus on the Ruin-Strewn Precipice, also has a weaker passive effect, but at just four Weight, it is more than three times lighter than the Blasphemous Blade. If you only want the effect, it’s arguably the better choice.

5 Sentry’s Torch

Having the Sentry's Torch out allows you to see invisible enemies. The uses for this effect are admittedly limited, but it’s more applicable than you might expect. The most well-known use is for revealing the invisible Black Knife Assassins, both the boss and the ones you fight in Ordina Liturgical Town.

It’s ability to make one of the most frustrating areas of the game significantly easier is a massive point in its favor. This handy torch can be purchased from the Hermit Merchant at his Shack in the Capital Outskirts.

4 Twinbird Kite Shield

Unlike some of the other Shields on this list, the Twinbird Kite Shield is a decent Shield if you want to use it as one, blocking 100 percent of physical damage. Of course, what we’re looking for here is the passive, and it’s a good one: it increases your attack by five percent and defense by ten percent when you are below 20 percent health.

This sort of effect can be useful in a variety of scenarios, from true glass-cannon builds that intentionally damage themselves before a boss fight in an attempt to deal as much damage as possible, to PvP, where it can give you an edge in close fights. It’s dropped by the Deathbird you can encounter east of the Hermit Merchant’s Shack in Leyndell at night.

3 Freyja’s Greatsword

Freyja's Greatsword is a DLC weapon that buffs the damage of the Redmane Weapon Skills, namely Flame of the Redmanes, Lion’s Claw, and Savage Lion’s Claw. Flame of the Redmanes is far from the powerhouse it used to be, but the other two options can be exceptionally powerful.

Most people will use Freyja’s Greatsword as a primary weapon with one of those Ashes of War equipped to it, but you could always equip them to a different weapon instead and keep Freyja’s Greatsword in your off-hand, although it’s pretty heavy for that purpose. You can get this weapon by finishing Freyja’s questline.

2 Cinquedea

This list might not include Sacred Seals or Staves, but that doesn’t mean none of the items on it buff a specific Spell school. In the case of the Cinquedea Dagger, it boosts the damage of Bestial Incantations by ten percent, stacking with the Clawmark Seal.

Most Spell types in Elden Ring don’t have a weapon like this associated with them, which might be because Bestial Incantations deal Physical damage and lack easy access to buffs when compared to Elemental damage. If you are going to be using Bestial Incantations regularly, the Cinquedea is a worthwhile inclusion. As you would probably expect, you can find it near the Bestial Sanctum, although it’s well hidden; you’ll have to scale down the cliffs to the west.

1 Highland Axe

There are many useful passive effects on this list, but none are so crucial to an entire build as the Highland Axe . While equipped, it increases the damage of Roar abilities, like Troll’s Roar or the heavy attacks from Barbaric Roar or War Cry, by ten percent. And this effect will stack with the 15 percent from the Roar Medallion Talisman.

Combined, these Weapon Skills go from kind of interesting to extremely viable, allowing you to basically scream enemies to death. Unfortunately, you can't stack Highland Axes, so there’s no benefit to dual-wielding them in New Game Plus. You can find your first copy extremely early in the game, though; it’s in Stormveil Castle, in the large hall with the Grafted Scion (Stormveil Castle) .