Elden Ring: 8 Best Dragon Cult Incantations, Ranked (2024)

Elden Ring boasts a wide array of sorceries and incantations that do well in satiating the inner magician within its player base. These range from black flame fireballs and buffing spells to lightning storms and laser beams. Some of the best incantations in the game belong to the category of Dragon Cult Incantations.

These spells are particularly effective against dragons, dealing a large amount of damage, and consist exclusively of lightning-themed attacks. Not only are these attacks very powerful, they also boast some of the best-looking effects in the game. If players haven't tipped their toes in the lightning pool, now's a good time to try it out.

8 Honed Bolt

Single Target Spam

One of the most fun spells to use in the game, Honed Bolt sees the player cast their seal into the sky and call down a singular bolt of lightning onto their targeted enemy. The best thing about it? It can be cast repeatedly. What this effectively means is that players can stunlock small enemies with their spell until their FP or Stamina runs out, and they can deal a lot of damage to larger enemies from far away.

The tracking on Honed Bolt is perhaps the best out of any spell in the entire game. It is extremely hard to avoid, at least for NPCs. That being said, the spell is a little unreliable. It doesn't work as well indoors. Since these lightning bolts fall from the sky, if the enemy is standing underneath any kind of shade, they won't be hit by them.

7 Lightning Strike

Multiple Target Spam

Lightning is an elegant element, one that is associated with elegance and nimbleness. Well, why bother with elegance when players can just spam large AoE attacks at their enemies until they keel over and die? Lightning Strike does exactly that. When cast, it charges up the ground in front of the player in a straight line, calling down multiple strikes of lightning on the path.

The downside of the spell is that it can be a little hard to control at times, missing targets entirely, and not working at all when the target is underneath any kind of shade. The upside is that it can be chained to make sure it deals as much damage as humanely, or inhumanely, possible before the enemy reaches the player. It's a good AoE option for a small FP cost.

6 Fortissax's Lightning Spear

Dual Wielding Dragon Cultist

Fortissax's Lightning Spear is one of the highest damage spells in Elden Ring with the most reasonable FP cost. The spell induces the player to rise up into the sky and slam down two lightning spears into the ground, one after the other. These spears deal separate instances of damage and also cause a small shockwave that travels a short distance from the source, which also does some damage. It also has decent stance damage.

With a proper lightning damage-focused build, this spell can easily deplete the HP of most elite enemies in a single cast, even in the later stages of the game. It does have a somewhat high cast window, and the hyper armor isn't the best, which means that players need to be careful when using this spell against bosses.

5 Lansseax's Glaive

Melee Lightning Slash

Lansseax's Glaive is primarily a close-quarters spell that has the player rise slightly into the sky, summon a large, bright red lightning glaive, and sweep it in front of them. The lightning glaive does most of the damage in the attack, but it also causes a small shockwave in front which deals okay damage, making it suitable for crowd control.

The animation of the attack is quite bombastic, making the player feel like an absolute unit. The hyper armor on the attack is decent as well, letting them tank a couple of hits if needed. Additionally, the attack can knock over many enemies, making it a suitable way to stunlock, and subsequently kill, many elites in the game. This doesn't affect bosses, but it's a good ability in normal gameplay.

4 Frozen Lightning Spear

Versatile and Unassuming

Instead of chucking two massive bright red lightning spears, the Frozen Lightning Spear incantation has the player smash the ground with a single massive bright blue frozen lightning spear that does a decent amount of damage. The thing that separates this spell from the other lightning spears is the fact that it creates a large conical shockwave in front of the player that deals a lot of damage, making it more versatile.

The conical shockwave calls lightning from the skies to deal damage, so it can be stopped by any overhead cover, but it works fine most of the time. The Frozen Lightning Spear takes a lot less time to cast than Fortissax's Lightning Spear, making it better in most situations. Since it has a shockwave, it will hit larger enemies multiple times, inflicting frostbite in the process.

3 Ancient Dragons' Lightning Strike

Boss Delete Button

Perhaps the most infamous of the Dragon Cult Incantations, the Ancient Dragons' Lightning Strike summons a storm of red lightning that can annihilate any enemy that it hits more than once. The spell isn't guaranteed a hit, even if the player is locked onto an enemy. This means that this spell is quite useless against small enemies, but extremely effective against large ones.

The FP cost for this spell is almost negligible compared to the potential damage it can dish out. If the player is buffed properly and has the right setup, they can kill a large-sized boss in a single attack input. It's not cheesing if players are just that powerful.

2 Lightning Spear

Old, Reliable, and Powerful

A quintessential lightning incantation, Lightning Spear is an unassuming and unremarkable spell that is, without a doubt, the best one in the base game. It deals damage consistently, it has incredible tracking, it can be charged to deal even higher damage, and it has very reasonable requirements.

The spell has the player charge a lightning spear in their hand, and throw it at their target at a very fast speed. It can't be cast repeatedly, but the refractory period is short enough that it doesn't matter, especially at the distance that this spell works.

1 Knight's Lightning Spear

Quality and Quantity

A direct upgrade to the humble lightning spear, the Knight's Lightning Spear is a Shadow of the Erdtree specific incantation which adds additional lightning spears that appear around the first one and follow its path. Not only does it look much more visually appealing, but it also deals more damage, with each spear adding to the total number.

It does have a higher FP cost and FAI requirement, but the investment is worth the return. It takes a little more time and feels like it takes longer to cast repeatedly, but it does enough damage to justify its downsides.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Base Game

Elden Ring

Platform(s)

PC , PS4 , PS5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

June 21, 2024

Developer(s)

FromSoftware

Publisher(s)

Bandai Namco Entertainment , FromSoftware