Best Milady build in Shadow of the Erdtree

✓ at a glance

• Weapons – Keen Milady, Wolf Crest Shield, Glintstone Staff.
• Stats – Dex and Vigour.
• Sorceries – Scholar’s Armament (optional).
• Talismans – Shard of Alexander, Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, Two-Handed Sword Talisman, Spear Talisman.
• Mixed Physick – Opaline Bubbletear, Cerulean Crystal Tear.

Milady will most likely be the first Light Greatsword you pick up in Shadow of the Erdtree, and it’s not a weapon you should sleep on. In particular, this weapon will shine when taken down the Keen path thanks to its powerful Dexterity scaling, further letting you benefit from several Ashes of War. Milady can also be enchanted, so keep this in mind. Here’s the best Milady build you should try in Shadow of the Erdtree.

Stats and attributes

Milady naturally scales with Dex and Strength, but it’s much better to take the weapon down the Keen route and double down on your Dex investment. Since your main focus is Dex, you have a lot of freedom with where you put your excess stats. For the sake of this build, we suggest putting points into Arcane to synergise with the Blood Tax Ash of War on Milady.

Attribute	Level
Vigor	70
Mind	30
Endurance	40
Strength	15
Dexterity	85
Intelligence	13
Faith	8
Arcane	32

While not entirely optimal to invest in Arcane and not make the weapon Bleed, you’ll see better returns thanks to the Dex scaling. If you want, you can completely forgo the Arcane stat investment and use an Ash of War that doesn’t have anything to do with bleed. That’s the beauty of Milady and this build, you have a ton of freedom to make it your own.

Weapons

• Keen Milady +25
• Glintstone Staff / Maternal Staff

Using Keen Milady, you’ll want to upgrade this weapon to +25 as soon as possible. Once you get to the first area in the DLC, you’ll find this weapon in the Gravesite Plain. To reach the Land of Shadow, you’ll need to get past Mohg and start the DLC. Since we’ve suggested taking a few points into Int, you’ll be able to use some staves to cast buffs on yourself. We suggest the Maternal Staff since you’ll have the Int and Arc to use it, but the Glintstone Staff should suffice.

These are the stat requirements for Milady:

• Strength – 12
• Dexterity – 17

You can use the Maternal Staff with these stats:

• Strength – 7
• Intelligence – 11
• Arcane – 16

The good thing about Milady is it can be buffed. This means you’ll be able to use magic to enchant your weapon by using spells such as Scholar’s Armament. This is optional, however, and you can rely on grease for this if you don’t want to spend any points on Int. You can take a shield with this build with no skill to help you with survivability.

Ash of War

As a regular weapon, Milady’s Ash of War can be changed along with its type. As mentioned, you’ll want to take Milday down the Keen route, simply because the Dex scaling from this weapon is fantastic. When it comes to your Ash of War, you can choose anything you like.

• Keen Milady – Blood Tax.
• Glintstone Staff / Maternal Staff – No skill.

We’ve opted for Blood Tax because it’s a fast-hitting Ash of War with very little wind-up animation that suits the weapon’s speed and attack animations. Blood Tax will give your special attack a way to build bleed on foes, which can only be beneficial when looking for more damage. If you want, you can forget the Bleed skill and opt for something else.

Sorceries

As mentioned, using sorceries with this build is entirely optional, so don’t worry about this too much. The only improvement you’ll see is if you use Scholar’s Armament to infuse your weapon with magic. This will help you deal more damage, but you can also use Grease items to provide the same effect. If you want, you can take ranged abilities as well, but your Int investment won’t be high enough for anything super useful. If you don’t take Int, use Grease. Blood Grease is especially powerful on Milady, so feel free to give that a try.

Talismans

For the Talismans, you’ll want to focus on DPS. As such, we recommend using a mixture of the following five: Shard of Alexander, Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, Two-Handed Sword Talisman, Spear Talisman, and the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman. If you don’t use the Greatshield, slot in the Spear or the Rotten Winged Sword.

Talisman	Effect
Shard of Alexander	Greatly raises the power of weapon skills.
Rotten Winged Sword Insignia	Greatly raises attack power after successive hits.
Two-Handed Sword Talisman	Raises attack power when holding your weapon in two hands.
Spear Talisman	Enhances counterattacks unique to thrusting weapons.

If you want, you can slot in the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman to help with survivability. This will be on a case-by-case basis. You should use a shield with this build and that should help you out more than any Talisman will but if you want to be tankier, go for it. Thanks to the thrusting attacks in Milady’s combos, you can benefit from the extra counter damage from the Spear Talisman, especially with the Blood Tax Ash of War.

Armor and gear

It’s entirely up to you what kind of armour you want to rock for this build. For some inspiration, we’ve chosen a set that gives off some cool paladin vibes. We aren’t really taking damage negation into account for these, so feel free to slot in amour you want to wear.

• Winged Serpent Helm
• Twinned Armor
• Rellana’s Gloves
• Blaidd’s Greaves

This armor is fairly light on the equip load and won’t offer you a ton of damage negation. You will get to 54 poise, which will help you keep attacking without being interrupted. Switch out for heavy armour if you find you’re dying a lot.

Mixed Physick and Great Rune

Your Mixed Physick won’t do a ton to help out this build, so we prefer to pick two buffs that will improve your overall utility and survivability. As such, you should opt for the Opaline Bubbletear and the Cerulean Crystal Tear. The first one will help you tank tough hits while the second Tear will act as a way to restore your FP, meaning you can have more healing flasks. If you want to mix these around to be more geared for offence, you can’t go wrong with the Thorny Cracked Tear or the Stonebarb Cracked Tear.

For the Great Rune, you should go for Godricks Rune if you’re taking on a boss. If you’re exploring, choose Rykard’s Great Rune to help keep your HP high without using your Flasks.

General combat tips

Depending on how you’ve tweaked this build, you can opt to skip using any sorceries. Instead of magic, you should use a Grease item to buff your weapon and help you deal more damage.

• Cast Scholar’s Armament / use Blood Grease or whichever buff you’d prefer.
• Go in with your shield up and use your Ash of War.
• Two-hand your weapon and use the charge attack combo into your normal attack combo.
• Always start attacking using your Ash of War or the charge attack.
• Prevail.

The key to using Milady efficiently is to always start attacks with your charged hit. All your charged attacks blend into the weapon’s normal attacks seamlessly and let you keep a strong combo going. Starting with the charge attack also lets you skip the weak and short-range stab that usually begins the combo with a normal attack. This lets you chain together attacks that keep you moving forward.

Mix in some Blood Tax to stun the opponent and trigger blood loss. When you’re at about half FP or low on health, chug your Physick to restore FP, protect you from one hit, and then drink a flask to top up if you’re low on health. Reapply Grease or magic weapon as needed.