Elden Ring Katana Build 1.08 - Best Katana Build in Elden Ring After Patch

Let’s take a look at the best Katana build in Elden Ring after Patch 1.08, with all of the weapons and items you could use, covering the Katana Ash of War, useful items, talismans, armor, required stats, etc. 

Related Read: Elden Ring Best Dex Builds & Weapons

Elden Ring Katana Build 1.08 - Best Katana Build in Elden Ring After Patch

This Elden Ring 1.08 Katana build by divine_games can take out the most challenging bosses in the game extremely quickly, with even no difficulties. It is even more effective than a Moonveil or Rivers of Blood-focused setup.

1. Stats & Starting Class

It’s recommended to put most of your points into Arcane to increase your damage, bleed buildup, and Ash of War damage, then you could put points into dexterity as that will increase basic attack damage on both of Katanas, you don’t need to put any levels into mind. Then the starting character for this Katana build, you’ll want to use Hero or Samurai since that comes with some items used in this build. 

- Vigor 50

- Mind 9

- Endurance 12

- Strength 18

- Dexterity 50 

- Intelligence 7

- Faith 8

- Arcane 80

2. Build Setup, Weapons, Ash of War, Talismans & More Items

Offhand

Starting it off with the katanas to use, the best one we can use in our offhand is the Nagakiba, regarding the affinity to place on it, the cold version and the bleed version both work amazingly well. With either one, you’ll have a good amount of buildup, 105 for frost and 115 for blood loss. It's still going to take quite a few hits for us to proc either one of those effects, this is where the Ash of War Repeating Thrust comes into play. Then the difference between the two is very subtle and mainly depends on what kind of playstyle you like to use, with the cool affinity placed on it after we proc a freeze build-up, it takes a chunk of the target's health away, not as much as bleed though and makes that enemy take 20 increased damage for 30 seconds. 

We have another weapon that can do a lot more damage with the bleed affinity, we can proc a blood loss with the same amount of attacks since they have roughly the same build up, the activation of it does more damage while giving us a 30 damage bonus for 20 seconds, it sounds like a no-brainer going with the bleed option, however, the weapon in our main hand can also proc a blood loss very quickly, getting us the same buff. The bleed Affinity gives us a 30 attack boost much sooner with more initial damage whereas the cold Affinity gives everyone 20 percent increased power, and lasts 10 seconds longer, all while being able to stock the 30 boosts on top for a total of 50 increased damage.

Furthermore that 30 damage buff actually comes from two other Elden Ring items we use, the White Mask giving us a 10 increased attack power whenever a blood loss happens near us and the Lord of Blood’s Exultation doing the exact same thing with a 20 buff instead, both lasting for 20 seconds. The benefit is that you can use the cold variation when dealing with enemies immune to bleed builds and the same can be said for enemies resistant to freeze buildups.

Cold Nagakiba

Bleed Nagakiba

Ash of War: Repeating Thrust

White Mask

Lord of Blood’s Exultation

Main Hand

For our main hand, we can use the Uchigatana with the Occult Affinity placed on it. With this one we only get a little passive bleed build up, it's more of a nice bonus with its physical damage skill with Arcane, and the Ash of War we can use on this Katana is Blood Blade, your character sacrifices a tiny bit of health to shoot out blades of blood that not only do good damage alone but also apply a bleed build up that stacks exceptionally quickly and it only costs a tiny bit of health on the first cast, afterward it only consumes three Mana to chain cast it.

With the help of the Shard of Alexander, increasing our Ashes of War damage by an extra 15 percent, this also applies to repeating thrust, it's a good Talisman all around and highly recommended, the way we use this build is straightforward, with regular to strong enemies, the katana's basic attacks should be more than enough to take them down and even so the ashes of war don't consume a whole lot of Mana, so you can use those more freely without worrying about them running out. Another talisman you can use is Millicent’s Prosthesis, it increases our dexterity by five levels and attack power with successive attacks, it gives us extra damage because of the ash of or repeating thrust hitting our target four times, it's not anything extraordinary.

When it comes to bosses, the best combo to use is first procing either a frost or bleed buildup with the Ash of War Repeating Thrust, it should only take one to three uses to get this off, and then you'll get a huge damage buff. Next, use the Ash of War Blood Blade to melt them down exceptionally quickly, you can also use the katana's basic attacks because your character will be buffed up after procing one of these status effects.

Uchigatana

Ash of War Blood Blade

Shard of Alexander

Armor

The Land of Reeds armor does offer a decent amount of protection, there are some better options, especially for the chess piece, for example, you could throw on the Raptor’s Black Feathers, increasing your jumping attack damage by 10 percent, or the Black Knife Armor that silences your character's movement when running and jumping.

Land of Reeds Set

Raptor’s Black Feathers

Black Knife Armor

More Items

There are two things we can use to increase our character's overall damage and protection, the first one is the Ash of War Golden Vow, with this we can just throw it on the lightest weapon you can find like a dagger, because it doesn't make any difference at all whether you place it on the biggest weapons in the game or the smallest one, but it increases our overall damage by 11.5 percent and damage negation by 7.5 percent, lasting for 45 seconds. so it's perfect for being infinitely reusable and a very early-game item.

For the second one, with the Flask of Wondrous Physick, the best tear to is the Dexterity-Knot Crystal Tear, increasing our dexterity by 10 levels, in turn giving us more damage since whether we use the cold or bleed affinity, it will have a B scaling for dexterity and even the occult Katana gets a bit more as well.

Ash of War Golden Vow

Flask of Wondrous Physick

Another handy item to this build is the Erdtree’s Favor plus 2, this increases our maximum health by four percent, stamina by 9.6, and max equipped load by five, it's excellent all around and helps if you change your armor for something heavier as usual. This is more of a late-game item, but like The Shard of Alexander, it's worth it being used in tons of builds.