5 Best Daggers in Elden Ring, Ranked

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Human Made

Drew has been a fan of games since he could hold a GameCube controller. Nowadays, he plays everything from mobile and PC games, to PS5 and Switch.

Reviewed by Ashley Johnson

A surprisingly versatile class of weapons in Elden Ring, daggers offer players a fast way to get hits on enemies, dish out damage, and inflict a variety of status effects. Typically thought of as the weapon of the thief or assassin archetype, daggers in Elden Ring are diverse enough to find a home on many types of builds, including Strength-oriented ones.

There are a lot of daggers to choose from, each suited to a different style of build. To help you find the best dagger for your build, we’re looking at the five best daggers in Elden Ring, where to find them, and how they can find a place in your loadout.

5 Best Daggers in Elden Ring

Let’s slice into our list of the five best daggers in Elden Ring, ranked from solid to sinister!

5/5

Scorpion’s Stinger

While at a glance, the Scorpion’s Stinger may look unimpressive. But in the right build, it has the potential to deal out tons of damage by inflicting Scarlet Rot upon your foes.

Stats

The Scorpion’s Stinger is pretty middle-of-the-road stat-wise. Its base Physical attack stat comes in at 79. This dagger falls into the Dexterity weapon category, and its attribute requirements reflect that. It needs only 6 Strength and 12 Dexterity to wield. Such low barriers to entry help with the dual-wielding potential daggers have.

It scales best with Dexterity, with a base C grade that reaches B by upgrade +4. It has reduced scaling in Strength, with a base D grade, and maintains that grade throughout its upgrades.

Where to Find It

This dagger is a bit trickier to find, since you have to cross an optional area to reach it. It’s located in the Lake of Rot, an underground region that can be accessed through the Ainsel River. If you’re following Ranni’s questline, you’ll eventually make your way to the Lake of Rot.

Once there, cross the lake and head between the two statues to find the Grand Cloister site of grace. Drop down the ledges to the bottom and head west past a group of enemies to find a chest containing the Scorpion’s Stinger.

How to Use the Scorpion’s Stinger

After traversing the rot-filled lake to find this weapon, you now have the ability to deal that rot damage back at enemies. The main appeal of this dagger is its ability to build up Scarlet Rot damage quickly. Building the rot meter causes the enemy to take damage over time once the meter is full. This is an incredibly useful status effect to deal with more difficult enemies.

The Scorpion’s Stinger’s Weapon Skill, Repeating Thrust, allows you to build up the Scarlet Rot meter quickly by performing multiple, quick thrusting attacks.

To add insult to injury, try using the Kindred of Rot’s Exultation talisman with this dagger. This talisman increases your attack power by 20% for 20 seconds when you’re near an enemy that takes poison or rot damage. Use the fast attacks of the Scorpion’s Stinger to quickly build up Scarlet Rot, then boost your damage output with Kindred of Rot’s Exultation for an incredibly powerful combo!

4/5

Bloodstained Dagger

The Bloodstained Dagger is a great, well-rounded weapon that works best in a Strength build. You wouldn’t typically think of a dagger as a Strength weapon, so incorporating the Bloodstained Dagger can offer some close combat versatility to your build.

Stats

For a Strength weapon, it doesn’t have the highest base Physical attack stat, coming in with only 81. But for a Dagger, this is on the higher end of its class. Interestingly, the requirements to wield favor Dexterity, needing 12 points, while only needing 9 Strength.

When it comes to damage scaling, Strength is the clear winner with a base C grade that reaches B by max upgrade. Dexterity has reduced damage scaling, with a base E grade that reaches a D by max upgrade.

Where to Find It

The Bloodstained Dagger is a rare drop from the Lesser Demi-Human Chief enemies found in various locations around Elden Ring’s map. The earliest place you will find one is near the bridge leading to the Minor Erdtree in the Weeping Peninsula.

Since this dagger has a 4% drop rate from these enemies, you may need to spend some time farming before one drops. You can rest at the nearby South of the Lookout Tower site of grace to reset the enemy. Then just follow the path west to the bridge and defeat the enemy, repeating until it drops the Bloodstained Dagger.

How to Use the Bloodstained Dagger

By default, the Bloodstained Dagger inflicts Blood Loss build up. This makes it a great Strength-based alternative to other weapons that deal Blood Loss build up, like katanas. Its default Weapon Skill, Quickstep, is rather unspectacular. It allows the user to quickly side-step around an enemy that you’re locked on to. We can do a lot better than this.

To fully take advantage of this dagger, we can equip it with an ash of war that deals an additional status effect. We recommend the Poisonous Mist ash of war. This gives the weapon the Poison affinity, allowing it to deal Poison build up in addition to Blood Loss build up. It also allows the user to perform the Weapon Skill Poisonous Mist.

This skill creates a cloud of — you guessed it — poisonous mist in front of the user dealing poison damage. It also coats the weapon in poison, dealing additional poison damage for a period of time afterward.

The combination of Poison build up and Blood Loss build up is incredibly useful for quickly wearing down an enemy’s HP. This combo also favors the close range play style of a dagger with Poisonous Mist enveloping enemies at a close range!

3/5

Misericorde

Its name may be difficult to pronounce, but don’t let that stop you from using it. The Misericorde has a few tricks up its sleeve, giving it a unique advantage over other daggers in its class.

Stats

At a 92 base Physical attack, the Misericorde has one of the highest base attack stats of any dagger. Like most other daggers, it doesn’t require much to wield. It only needs 7 Strength and 12 Dexterity, once again making it a great candidate for dual-wielding. In terms of damage scaling, it scales best with Dexterity, having a base D grade that reaches C by max upgrade.

It has reduced scaling in Strength, with a base E grade that’s maintained throughout each upgrade. An additional stat to take note of is the 140 Crit stat the Misericorde has. This is the highest Crit stat of any dagger, making this an excellent choice for a weapon with a high damage ceiling!

Where to Find It

An added bonus of the Misericorde is how early in the game you can find it. It is located within Stormveil Castle in the armory near the room with the Grafted Scion enemy. You will need a Stonesword key to bypass the fog wall that blocks the entrance to this room.

Be careful of the enemies in this room, as they may catch you by surprise. Once you’ve dealt with the enemies, you’ll find the Misericorde on a corpse on the floor of this room.

How to Use the Misericorde

Not only does the Misericorde have a high Crit stat, it also has the longest reach of any dagger. This makes it a great alternative to a katana if you want a lighter weapon with a similar reach. Its default Weapon Skill is nothing special. Like many daggers, it has the Quick Step Weapon Skill.

In this case, Quick Step might be somewhat useful, since its high Crit stat makes the Misericorde a great weapon for getting behind an enemy and going for a backstab. However, a better option for accomplishing this job is the Bloodhound’s Step ash of war. This ash of war gives the equipped weapon the Keen affinity, giving the Misericorde a B grade in Dexterity scaling.

It also allows the user to perform the Bloodhound’s Step skill, which has the user turn temporarily invisible and perform a dodge with an increased range. This is great for trying to get behind an enemy to perform a souped-up backstab!

2/5

Black Knife

The signature weapon of the infamous Black Knife Assassin enemies, the Black Knife really shows off the diversity of daggers in Elden Ring with its high Faith damage scaling and unique weapon skill.

Stats

With a base 66 Physical attack stat and a base 65 Holy attack stat, this dagger is deceptively powerful. As such, it requires a bit of investment in Faith in order to use. You’ll need 8 Strength, 12 Dexterity, and 18 Faith in order to properly wield it. This makes it a great weapon for a Dexterity/Faith hybrid build.

Its damage scaling reflects this, as it has a base D grade in Dexterity that reaches B by upgrade +8, and a base D grade in Faith that reaches C by upgrade +9. It also has reduced scaling in Strength, with a base E grade that it maintains throughout each upgrade level.

Where to Find It

As the signature weapon of the Black Knife Assassins, you’ll have to take one on in order to claim it for yourself. Specifically, you’ll have to defeat the Black Knife Assassin waiting for you outside the Sainted Hero’s Grave in the Altus Plateau.

Head to the cliffs just north of the large staircase leading to Leyndell, Royal Capital. On the western edge of these cliffs, you’ll find the entrance to the Sainted Hero’s Grave and the Black Knife Assassin. Defeat this boss and you’ll gain the Black Knife for yourself.

How to Use the Black Knife

Since this dagger thrives in a Faith build, you’ll want to center your play style around dealing the highest amount of Holy damage you can. Thankfully, the Black Knife’s unique Weapon Skill, Blade of Death, is great at doing just that. This skill allows the user to fire a projectile of Holy damage that not only damages the enemy, but reduces their max HP by 10% for 15 seconds and continues to deal damage for 5 seconds afterward. The animation for this skill may be slow, but its effects are worth it.

To boost your Holy damage output even more, we suggest using the Sacred Scorpion Charm talisman. This talisman increases Holy damage done by 12% at the cost of increasing Physical damage taken by 10%.

The trade off is negligible, since you can deal damage from a distance with Blade of Death’s Holy projectile. You also gain hyper-armor during the portion of Blade of Death’s animation when you’re in the air, so you will have a period of invincibility, too.

1/5

Reduvia

An interesting Arcane based weapon, the Reduvia has the potential to deal tons of damage through Blood Loss. One of the only weapons to scale Blood Loss build up with levels, this dagger has crazy build options!

Stats

Judging this weapon by its Physical attack stat alone would be a mistake. It has a mediocre 79 base Physical attack stat. The requirements to wield are overall pretty reasonable, aside from the investment in Arcane. However, if you are intending to create a build around the Reduvia, you’ll want to focus a lot of your level investments in Arcane.

You will need 5 Strength, 13 Dexterity, and 13 Arcane. It scales best with Arcane and Dexterity, with a base D in both, reaching rank B and C respectively by max level. It also has reduced scaling in Strength, with a base E grade that doesn’t change by max upgrade.

Where to Find It

This weapon can be found pretty early in the game. The downside is you have to beat a tricky NPC Invader who wields this blood-letting dagger — Bloody Finger Nerijus. Head towards the entrance to the Murkwater Catacombs in the ravine northeast of Lake Agheel in Limgrave. You’ll be ambushed by this invader just outside the catacombs. He can be a tough fight because he dual-wields Reduvias and deals massive Blood Loss build up.

This can be annoying at this point in the game because you won’t have a lot of protection against Blood Loss. Luckily, Bloody Finger Hunter Yura will automatically be summoned to aid you when you begin this fight. Wait for him to be summoned and let him take most of the hits from Nerijus so you can whittle down his health and claim your prize.

How to Use the Reduvia

Blood Loss build up on the Reduvia scales with Arcane. This means that the higher your Arcane stat, the faster Blood Loss will build up on your enemy. Theoretically, you can reach a level where your enemy will reach Blood Loss status with only a couple hits if your Arcane stat is high enough.

Combine this with the Reduvia’s Weapon Skill, Reduvia Blood Blade, and you can deal Blood Loss build up from close range and a distance. This skill lets the user fire blood projectiles in rapid succession, dealing Blood Loss build up on hit.

The Lord of Blood’s Exultation talisman is an excellent choice to use with the weapon. Since you’ll be inflicting Blood Loss on your enemies a lot, you can take advantage of this talisman’s ability to boost your attack power by 20% for 20 seconds after an enemy takes Blood Loss damage in your vicinity. The twofold combo of Blood Loss and a powered up attack makes this weapon a force to be reckoned with!

Join the High Ground

Ready to slash your way through the Lands Between? Let us know what you thought about our list of the five best daggers in Elden Ring in the comments down below! Feel free to share any tips for dagger builds you might have, too. And be sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss out on any of our Elden Ring guides!

Happy gaming!

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