What does Dexterity do in Elden Ring?

The in-game explanations of Elden Ring suffice for a lot of players. Though, when it comes to leveling your character, some things can still be confusing. One of the better stats in the game, Dexterity, can be a bit confusing. So, to clear that confusion, we’ll explain what exactly Dexterity does in Elden Ring.

What does Dexterity do in Elden Ring?

Dexterity is a stat that you want to have in almost any build in this game. It’s such a flexible stat that’s present in almost every weapon’s Attribute Scaling. On top of that, the stat also determines spell cast times, reduces fall damage, and makes you less prone to being knocked off your horse.

This means that if you’re going to run a spell build that utilizes incantations like Flame, Grant Me Strength, you might want to have a bit of Dexterity. Many strong spells and incantations in Elden Ring do leave you vulnerable as you cast them. So, with Dexterity, you can lessen your window of vulnerability.

Plus, running a Dexterity build allows you to use multiple weapon types. This is extra helpful if you’re deciding if you want to branch out to a medium or light build.

For example, katanas are very popular weapons to use. Putting several points into your character’s Dexterity stat would increase the overall damage output of katanas. What will make the weapon scale even further in terms of damage output is to pay attention to the letter of the weapon’s Attribute Scaling. The closer to S you are, the better the attack will be.

Dexterity can be applied to heavier weapons too like Greatswords, Great Axes, Colossal Weapons, and so forth. With the right Ash of War, you can make it work. However, for heavier weapons, you do want to compensate for their slow and heavy nature with stats like Strength and Endurance.

Strength does somewhat clash with Dexterity to even out weapon types. However, in some rare cases, heavier weapons like Morgott’s Cursed Sword, the Sacred Relic Sword, and the Blasphemous Blade scale better or just as well with Dexterity. Weapons that can have Ashes of War applied to them can scale better with Dexterity, but you’d still want to put some points into the heavy stats to fully make them work.

Differences between heavy builds versus light and medium builds aside, Dexterity is extremely useful against dragons since you’re most likely going to be fighting them on horseback. The higher your Dexterity, the easier these fights can be. However, most of the dragons’ fire breath attacks will still knock you off Torrent and kill you.

Is Dexterity overpowered?

Despite being a universal stat in Elden Ring, Dexterity isn’t really overpowered. You can run a build without it and get through the game just fine. This isn’t on the levels of Bleed or Frost which can remove chunks of health from tougher enemies. 

Dexterity is just a versatile stat that allows you to play around with the various weapons you acquire in the game. If anything, it helps you hone in on what type of build you want to go for.