Elden Ring, best build, stats and weapons of the perfumer

Shadow of the Erdtree finally allows you to set up a viable project Elden Ring Perfumer Build, and you have a lot of flexibility to decide how you want it to work. You can opt for elemental builds – assuming you have the stats for them – use perfume bottles as secondary weapons to augment another build, or ignore all other weapons and just throw sparks at enemies. A particularly powerful Ash of War, unique to perfumers, makes the latter option a stronger possibility than you might think.

Our Elden Ring Perfumer build details what stats you need to make this work and which weapons and talismans work best.

Elden Ring Perfumer Build

Elden Ring Perfumer's Build: Weapons

There are several Perfumer weapons to choose from, and you should choose more than one. The selections are:

• Firespark perfume bottle (fire damage)
• Glacial Perfume Bottle (freeze damage, creates frostbite)
• Lightning Perfume Bottle (Lightning damage)
• Frenzyflame Perfume Bottle (fire damage, builds madness meter)
• Perfume Bottle of Deadly Poison (physical damage, builds poison counter)

Perfume Bottles are light enough that even builds with low stamina and gear charges can carry two of them and maybe even a light melee weapon, staff of sorcery, or faith-based sigil.

Our pick for the best perfume bottle that works well in almost all situations is the Deadly Poison perfume bottle, which you can get early in the expansion after meeting and speaking with Thiollier for the first time. It allows you to purchase poison-themed items after the conversation is over, and the bottle set is one of them. This set deals physical damage, so you can reduce some of an enemy's HP even if they have poison resistance.

The downside is that you need an investment in Arcane for the poison set, which you probably don't have unless you're running an Elden Ring bleed build or using incantations dragon. This limits your choice of secondary bottle to draw from, unless you are at a very high level with stat points to spare. You may want to consider supplementing the poison set with a katana or, for a lighter gear load, a handgun from the martial arts category.

If you're going for a second bottle, our top picks are Lightning Perfume or Chilling Perfume. Chilling is great for inflicting frostbite, a condition that many enemies and even bosses are prone to in Shadow of the Erdtree, and relatively few enemies in the base game or DLC have lightning resistance. You can't go wrong with either choice.

Another thing to note is that you can use two perfume bottles and using the left attack button will project a stream from each bottle. There is a quirk related to dual wielding, however, where this dual attack deals less damage than using either bottle separately, so keep that in mind.

Elden Ring Perfumer Build: Best Stats and Class

You'll need to change your stats depending on which perfume bottle you choose, but dexterity is the common stat for all.

• Dexterity: Dexterity helps you cast spells and skills faster and generally makes you more agile. Each Perfume Bottle scales with Dexterity as its primary stat, so this is the area you want to invest a good amount of skill points into. While you'd ideally want to aim for the soft stat cap of 50-60, every Perfume Bottle with a secondary stat – that's all except Firespark – scales higher with its secondary start.

• Secondary statistics: So unless you're using Firespark, focus on your bottle's secondary stat – Faith for Lightning, Arcane for Poison, and Intelligence for Chilling Bottles. Frenzyflame also requires strength and intelligence, but since the scaling is low, you get lower returns at higher levels. This set is primarily useful as a secondary weapon for a build that prioritizes strength.
• Vigor: You won't last long in Shadow of the Erdtree without a lot of Stamina, the stat that governs your HP, so make sure you have at least 50 invested.
• Class: Your starting class doesn't really matter at this point, so don't worry.

• Vigor: 50
• Spirit: 30
• Stamina: 30
• Strength: 15
• Dexterity: 40
• Intelligence: 9 (45-50 if it's your secondary stat)
• Faith: 9 (45-50 if that's your secondary stat)
• Arcana: 9 (45-50 if that's your secondary stat)

These are just general guidelines to follow, but if you start Shadow of the Erdtree at level 150 or higher as FromSoftware recommends, you can handle a good portion of it before you even set foot in the Land of Shadow. Make adjustments that work for you, based on how it fits your playstyle. For example, if you're not using any spells, you can lower the Spirit stat a bit, because Perfume Vials and their Ash skills of War use very little FP.

It's also worth noting that some players had fantastic success with far from optimized builds, where their primary stats were often 10 points below the soft cap.

Regardless, make sure you prioritize Stamina, Dexterity, and your secondary stat before anything else. If you're using another weapon alongside it, choose your melee weapon based on your primary bottle's secondary stat – Darkmoon Greatsword for Chilling Bottles, for example, or Blasphemous Sword for Lightning Bottles. You can also invest a little more in dexterity and run Dryleaf Arts from Dryleaf Dane alongside the perfume bottles.

Elden Ring Perfumer Build: Ashes of War

Perfumers have a small but useful selection of Ashes of War to choose from, but if you want to maximize your damage, just one will do.

• Rolling Spark: Rolling Spark creates a cone of perfume sparks that explode, dealing damage aligned with the element in your bottle. The damage is high and the cone's range is deep enough that you can hit enemies even from a distance. This is a great choice in general, but especially if you're using a lightweight build without heavy-duty armor.
• Mist Raptor: Raptor of the Mists is useful for a quick getaway, as it sees you briefly disappear into the mist if a melee attack comes your way. The downside is that you sacrifice damage dealt and will have to rely on powerful attacks to make your bottles go further.
• Wall of Sparks: It is All right. He sees you spinning in a full circle and creating, well, a wall of sparks. It looks fancy and neat, but it's only useful if you're surrounded by enemy mobs. Sparks only deal damage once, so it's best to avoid rolling to safety.
• The Horah Loux earthquake: This version of Earthshaker works with any weaponry, and is useful for staggering enemies and keeping them at bay. However, it won't deal exceptional damage, so consider only using it if the Perfume Bottle is your secondary weapon.

Elden Ring Perfumer's Build: Best Talismans

Perfumers only get one Elden Ring Talisman specific to them, but there are a few others that also make your build more powerful.

• Perfumer's Talisman: This one is essential, as it increases the damage of all Perfumer's attacks by 20 percent. This is an easy buff to obtain without any conditions.
• Alexander's brilliance: Alexander's Shard boosts the power of all your skills – that's your Ash of War skills and weapons – by 15%, making it an essential choice if you're using Rolling Spark.
• Favor of Erdtree +2: Erdtree's Favor increases your stamina, stamina, and gear load, which is a handy set of upgrades that allows you to invest stat points elsewhere.
• Charm of the Blue Dancer: If your build doesn't have much stamina, this is a good choice, as it increases your attack power when your equipment charge is low.
• Dragoncrest Greatshield: Dragoncrest reduces physical damage you take by 20 percent, making it a must-have if you're using medium or light armor and have a low gear load.

Elden Ring Perfumer's Build: Incantations and Sorceries

You can do magic with Perfume without much problem, since Perfumers must invest in Intelligence or Faith. Most of these are alternative attack methods, as Elden Ring doesn't have many elemental buff spells to rely on. Consider equipping spells that cover your elemental weaknesses – Glintstone Icecrag if you're using the Firespark bottles, for example, or Frozen Lightning Spear to complement the Poison bottles.

Elden Ring Perfumer's Build: Best Armor

Elden Ring does have a Perfumer armor set, but it's really just there for looks and roleplay. The set has absolutely nothing to offer a Perfume build—or anything else, for that matter. That said, it's a light set, so if your gear loadout is low, consider wearing it.

Most stat-boosting helmets come at a cost, except for those you can occasionally steal from dead enemies and some items exclusive to Shadow of the Erdtree.

• Imp Head (Cat): Faith +2
• Imp's Head (Ancient): Arcane +2
• Queen's Crescent Crown: Intelligence +3
• Mask of Thiollier: Arcane +3
• High Priest Hat: Arcane and Intelligence +2

Consider picking one up if you need a little extra help increasing your non-Dexterity stats. However, they are not essential, so you are free to wear what best suits your figure and needs.

For more help on Elden Ring, check out our guides on where to find all the map fragments, how to complete Leda's quest, and how to access Rabbath's Rise for more secrets.