Elden Ring Stats, Attributes & Max Level Explained

Given that we’re a website about role-playing games, it perhaps isn’t all that surprising that we love stats. Elden Ring has character stats, also known as attributes, in spades. And that’s a damn good thing.

Part of the beauty of the style of action RPG that Elden Ring developer FromSoftware popularized is that it’s very open-ended. That’s true in story and quests, which are so obtuse we advise you keep play-through notes, but also in the stats system, which gives you freedom to create whatever style of character build you like.

You’ll be guided a little by your choice of starting class, which will give you a steer to a specific gameplay style. If you spec in a way you don’t enjoy, you’ll also unlock the option to reset and respec your character later in the game. But, you won’t have to do that if you make informed decisions - which is what this page is about, explaining the Attribute Stats & Max Level in Elden Ring. 

The character information screen in Elden Ring, displaying the current level of all stats and character attributes.

Elden Ring Stats Explained: What each Level Up Attribute governs

In Elden Ring, your main character is made up of eight different character attributes, or stats - and these eight govern every other stat you have, dealing with things like your attack, defense, your health, susceptibility to certain status effects, and even what gear you can equip.

Each attribute impacts a different part of your character - so, for instance, Vigor governs your HP, aka your Health. It gets quite complicated, though, so let’s quickly run down each of the stats and what they do:

Vigor

  • Determines how much HP you have.
  • Raises your Immunity, which determines your resistance to Poison and Rot.
  • Also raises resistance to Fire.

Mind

  • Determines your FP, the blue meter which is used to cast magic, incantations, and Spirit Ashes of War summons.
  • Also impacts Focus, which determines your resistance to Sleep and Madness.

Endurance

  • Determines how much Stamina you have, which is used by attacking, sprinting, and so on.
  • Allows you to carry more equipment and use heavier gear by raising your maximum equipment load
  • Additionally determines Robustness, which helps to give you resistance to Frostbite and Blood Loss status effects.

Strength

  • Many heavier weapons require a specific defense stat to even equip. 
  • Several types of weapons have their attack power scaled by your Strength stat.
  • Also raises your Physical Defense properties.

Dexterity

  • More advanced weaponry requires certain Dexterity stats to equip and use. 
  • Additionally, some of these weapons will have attack power boosted by your dexterity stat.
  • For Mages, Dexterity reduces Spell cast time.
  • This also makes you a little more survivable, by lowering fall damage and making it harder for you to be unseated from Torrent, your horse.

Intelligence

  • A magic-based stat for the most part; many Glintstone Sorcery items can only be equipped with a requisite Intelligence Stat.
  • Intelligence also raises the magic power of many related sorceries.
  • And as a master of magic, Intelligence stat also raises Magic Defenses and Resistance.

Faith

  • The god-fearing attribute, Faith is a counterpart to Intelligence that is all about Incantations, another kind of magic.
  • Many incantations have their power scale in relation to your Faith stat.

Arcane

  • A fairly vague stat, Arcane raises your defense against Holy element attacks and your resistance to Death - the instant-kill status ailment, not the concept.
  • It also can boost the power of certain Sorceries and Incantations, as the last of the magic-focused stats.

Exactly what stats you choose to level up is ultimately up to you - but you’ll want to consider the equipment you have right now and think ahead to what you want your character to play like in the feature.

While you can be a jack of all trades, for the best results in Elden Ring, you should seriously consider focusing on specific areas of your character growth. If you’re all about melee attacks, for instance, you will likely want lots of points in Vigor, to give you lots of HP, and Strength, Endurance, or Dexterity, depending on what weapons you use. Magic users will always want lots of FP, which means many points pumped into Mind - and so on.

There is no wrong answer; experiment and have fun. You can also augment your chosen character build with the use of Great Runes and Rune Arcs - significantly boosting your stats in the process. Remember, if it all goes wrong - you can just go and grab a respec!

What is the Max Level in Elden Ring?

Melina helps you level up in Elden Ring - but there's no limit to how high you can go.

One stat you can’t choose or reset is your character level; this starts out at one number during the game’s opening and increments up, one by one, as you spend runes to level up the eight main stats listed above. 

Many RPGs have a Maximum Level, which is presumably why some of you have been asking what Elden Ring’s max character level is - but this game isn’t really like that. While Elden Ring has a maximum level, it's so high it's improbable to be ever reached without cheating.

With that said, here's the deal: Elden Ring's max level is 712. The excact number  - it's determined by the max attribute level, which is level 99.

Each of your attribute stats - like Vigor, Strength, and Intelligence as described above - can be leveled up to a maximum of 99. That is in itself impossible to reach in more than a couple of stats without a huge amount of grinding. However, the level at which all attribute points can reach level 99 at their earliest is level 712. At this point, you can't spend any more attribute points - which basically means your character is at maximum level, maxed out. 

Meanwhile, the maximum level for Spirit Ashes Summons is upgrade level 10. For weapons, the maximum upgrade level is 25, except for boss and other specific weapons, where it's level 10.

We're sure some dedicated players will grind out the hundreds of levels and millions of runes needed to do this - but it's not something you should be striving for. In real terms, you can finish Elden Ring comfortably, beating all bosses and reaching one of the Elden Ring Endings, within the first 120-140 levels of your first play-through. Or, at least, that's been our experience.

Beyond that, however, there’s no maximum character level, or ‘soul’ level, as it’s been called in past games. That number can keep on going up - presumably forever. In our play-throughs, we’re well into the triple figures - and that’s without starting New Game Plus!