I’m going to be telling you why claws are the best weapon in Elden Ring. We go through all the different weapons in a weapon category and go through their pros and cons.
In order to help you make better decisions about why you might use them or not in your build, before we get into the weapons themselves.
In addition, in order to enhance the power of the weapons you own, you can recharge Elden Ring Runes to make the combat effect more satisfying to you.
First, let’s go through the pros and cons of this weapon group.
1. Claws Pros
So first pros, the attack speed of claws is extremely fast. They might even be the fastest attacking weapons in the game. They are exceptionally fast and this allows you to hit rapidly, building up attack power with like Rotten Winged Sword Insignia or set Status Effects more easily even after Status Effect Nerf from several patches ago.
Another major plus point of this weapon is that they’re always paired, meaning that you can actually use two of these even though you only have one equipped.
This allows you to have a lighter equipment load when using this and also allows you to buff your offhand weapon at the same time if you buff your right-hand weapon. So if you buff with something like Bloodflame Blade or lightning Armament or Scholar’s Armament, etc.
You’re going to buff both weapons simultaneously and both will benefit from the increased attack rating. They’re also an extremely lightweight weapon, the lowest weighing 1.5 and the highest weighing 3. So they do not weigh hardly anything at all.
Additionally, they have a very good dual wield move set, allowing them to strike rapidly with it. And they also have good critical rating, all the claws except one have 110 critical rating. So that’s better than most weapons in the game and all four claws have Status Effects natively on them. So you’re going to be able to set Status Effects with this weapon group.
2. Claws Cons
The negatives of this weapon group are that they have low attack rating in general. Although it’s not as low as some weapons, also the Dual will Status Effects have been nerfed.
You know in previous patches so you don’t set up status effect will dual wielding as much as you used to, which still applies. To the paired weapons of Claws and this weapon group has short reach compared to a lot of other weapons.
In the game, this weapon type has relatively low stance damage, so you’re not really going to get stance breaks easily with this weapon type.
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3. Claws Playstyle
In terms of playstyles, I think the vast majority of people who are using claws are simply going to use them in some sort of hybrid build where they spell cast and then do a wield while they buff their claws with something.
Cast spells when they want, but generally speaking, most people are going to lean into the paired nature of claws, dual wield them and attack rapidly with them, trying to set Status Effects or build up their attack power in that way.
So those things being said, let’s get into the claws of themselves. There are no unique claws in Elden Ring all four claws are infusible. So let’s get into the infusible claws.
The first up is the Hookclaws. The Hookclaws shares the default move set of most other Claws and Deals physical damage. It’s one of the lightest claws in Elden Ring weighing 2 and requires 8 strength and 14 dexterity.
In order to use effectively, the Hookclaws have a lot of things going for them. They are the longest claws in Elden Ring. They’re the second lightest.
They have native bleed buildup on hit and you can find them pretty early on in Stormveil Castle. Their only downside is that they deal less damage than all but the Raptor’s Talons. Infusion wise fire and lightning comes in first at 532 attack rating with magic just behind at 527 and sacred and Flame Art pulling up third at 505.
3. Scorpion’s Stinger
Key out performs heavy with cold, being virtually tied with key. I like to use this weapon with Flaming Strikes, set to Flame art in order to buff both weapons with fire, further boosting their attack rating. This also allows you to cast incantations effectively, due to high faith and you can reach over 1,000 attack power when fully buffed with this setup.
The bleed is just a bonus. Use Talisman like rotten winged sword insignia, Fire Scorpion Charm, Shard of Alexander to further boost damage. Make sure you have 51 points you can trade damage without interruption.
4. Bloodhound Claws
Next up are Bloodhound Claws. Bloodhound Claws share the default move set of most other Claws and deal with physical damage. It’s the heaviest claw in Elden Ring weighing 3and requires 10 strength and 15 dexterity in order to use effectively.
Bloodhound Claws are the go-to option for those wanting to play a strength-based claws build with native bleed buildup on hit. Some of their damage slips through Shields and they have the second highest attack rating of all claws.
However, they are the shortest claws by a lot and they have the lowest critical rating of all Claws. And you really feel the short reach of this weapon compared to others. It is really very noticeable, infusion wise magic and fire and lightning are virtually tied at 576 and 575 with sacred and Flame Art coming in second at 545. Keen outperforms heavy 504 to 498.
I like to play these weapons with the blood infusion. Since Arcane scaling will also impact the poison buildup on the weapon, and bleed is typically more useful than poison.
Even if it is the deadly variant, use Endure to tank hits and continue to spam attacks on bosses setting both Status Effects and use Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, Lord of Blood’s Exaltation and Kindred of Rot’s Exaltation for increased attack power.
5. Raptor Talons
And lastly, we come to Raptor Talons. Raptor Talons have a unique heavy attack that jumps and deal physical damage. It’s the lightest claw Elden Ring weighing 1.5 and requires 6 strength and 14 dexterity in order to use effectively.
Raptor Talons are the only claws with an alternate move set and their jump attack damage is about 10% higher than other claws. Assuming the attack ratings are the same. They also have native bleed buildup like other claws, but they have the lowest attack rating of all claws in Elden Ring. Infusion wise fire and lightning comes in first at 518 with magic, in second at 511 and sacred and Flame Art in third at 478 attack rating.
Keen outperforms heavy 469 to 444. Howerver, cold is under Keen. I like to use these weapons in a jump attack build to take advantage of the unique properties of the weapon not unlike my Cold-Blooded Raptor build where you use the Claw Talisman, Royal Knight’s resolve, to buff jump attacks.
You can also use Sacrificial Axe in your offhand to refund FP when you kill enemies if you want. Additionally, Ritual Sword Talisman is not bad for this build since you tend to not get hit that often when jump attacking enemies this way.
So that wraps up our passage on why claws are the best weapon in Elden Ring. This is actually an exceptionally good weapon group. You can hit very high attack ratings and I feel like this native status effect buildup of these weapons is just a bonus a lot of the time. And you can really make a deadly build using these and I look forward to putting out another one very soon.