There is a very useful Katana in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree called Star-Lined Sword, and it is also the perfect weapon for you to build around Dexterity attribute. If you put a small amount of Intelligence into it, you will benefit a lot.

If you already have this sword, but can’t think of a build around it. But don’t worry, its high dex scaling, fast Katana moveset, and unique Ash of War will make it very easy to choose the best build for it.

This guide will detail all aspects of how to choose the best build around Star-Lined Sword, and what problems you will encounter when choosing it and how to solve them.

Pros and Cons

Star-Lined Sword is a Katana that can cause both magical damage and bleed accumulation. And because it has a powerful Ash of War - Onze’s Line of Stars, its most important attribute is Dexterity, followed by Strength and Intelligence.

Its Ash of War, Onze’s Line of Stars, deserves a special mention. When you activate it, this Star-Lined Sword will perform two wide-area attacks in front of you to protect you. Don’t get too excited, it can be activated twice! Each attack will deal more damage, until the last attack, which will teleport you into the air and swing overhead at the enemy.

In PVP, Onze’s Line of Stars is not the best combination of Tarnished in the game. But its wide arc and massive hitbox will make many enemy players feel helpless when they are caught in it. Plus, you can control the timing of the second set of swings yourself, so you can shorten the time between the two swings to make them more panicked and you can complete PVP more easily.

Even such a powerful sword still has its own shortcomings. In Katanas, its attack range is relatively short, and its low strength scaling makes it less competitive than other two-hand weapons.

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In addition, although Onze’s Line of Stars has so many advantages, it should be noted that you need to wait a long time to complete the combo. If you are fighting against humanoid enemies, it is enough; but if you are facing some very powerful bosses, they will not give you the opportunity to wait at all.

Usually, you can only use the first two activation opportunities of Onze’s Line of Stars, and rarely use the last two activations unless you can get a very long damage gap by dodging. All these advantages and disadvantages show that Star-Lined Sword is more suitable for one-handed use. In this way, you can add another weapon to the battle to make up for all the weaknesses of Star-Lined Sword. So which one should you choose?

Best Matching Shields

When you use a one-handed weapon, you can never go wrong with a shield to protect you. So when you use Star-Lined Sword, you can choose a shield like Brass Shield or Wolf Crest Shield, which can resist 100% physical damage and even increase your defense value.

If you have already increased the intelligence stat of Star-Lined Sword to the maximum value, then you can put the staff on the main hand first, and then put Scholar’s Shield to enhance the effectiveness of the shield, and then switch back to Star-Lined Sword.

Best Matching Staves

In fact, all staffs can work perfectly with Star-Lined Sword. Because when you use Star-Lined Sword, the main build is based on Dexterity. So you just need to use the staff to add a little icing on the cake in terms of long-range attacks and practicality.

You can choose Carian Regal Scepter and Carian Glintstone Staff because they both perform very well in intelligence scaling. If you want to use blade sorceries like Carian Piercer, you can try Carian Glintstone Staff.

If your Intelligence attribute is only 40-50, you might want to try Carian Sorcery Sword. It’s a sword, and you most likely won’t use it, but it’s definitely better than some staffs in terms of intelligence scaling, so give it a try!

However, it should be noted that these staves will increase the FP cost of your spells, so you must make sure that you have invested enough in the Mind attribute before using them, so that you can cast spells with confidence and use Ash of War of Star-Lined Sword to deal a lot of damage.

Best Matching Katanas

If you still feel that it is better to use two weapons in each hand, then you can choose another Katana and use it with Star-Lined Sword. This will allow you to use some more powerful moves, shorten the attack range and deal with multiple attacks. Because of some fixed attribute data, you can choose Moonveil and Sword of Night Katanas.

Moonveil’s Intelligence and Dexterity attributes work very well together, and you can also rely on the very surprising Ash of War when using it. Compared with Sword of Night Katanas, Moonveil can cause more bleeding and magic damage.

This means that if you want to increase your magic gain, then Moonveil is your best choice. With two powerful Ash of War, Onze’s Line of Stars and Transient Moonlight, you can kill most enemies at any distance and easily get some Elden Ring Runes.

If you are facing enemies with their own shields, you can choose Sword of Night Katanas. Or in PVP, you can use Sword of Night Katanas alone, so that you can burst some unexpected damage.

Best Stats

• Vigor: 55–60
• Mind: 25
• Endurance: 30–34
• Strength: 10
• Dexterity: 60–70
• Intelligence: 21–60
• Faith & Arcane: Not required

Vitality is always important in Shadow of the Erdtree, because everything hits pretty hard and you are using short-range weapons. If you plan to PVP, you will want Vigor closer to 60 than 55 to avoid crazy attacks from other players.

Since you’ll be using your Ash of War quite often, you’ll want to get your Psychic attribute up to around 25 so you have enough FP to invest in buffs, a few spells, or your Ash of War. If you plan on using your Ash of War more sparingly, you can make a small Intelligence investment to get more value out of your Intelligence attribute and spell casting.

While Onze’s Line of Stars doesn’t require much FP, it certainly requires a lot of Stamina when used. Having 30 Stamina points will help you keep swinging this Katana without getting too tired.

Agility and Intelligence are the fundamental ways you increase your damage with this sword, with Agility giving you more of a damage buff than Intelligence does. At higher levels (over 150), it’s not a bad idea to reach the soft cap of 80 for Agility and Intelligence to get the most out of Star-Lined Sword’s expansion. But if you plan on staying around level 150, you’ll want to rely on Agility more to increase your attack power drastically.

That’s all for how to get the most out of Star-Lined Sword in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. If you have questions or ideas about builds, why not come to the community on Discord? You may also receive a pack of Elden Ring Runes from IGGM Discord. Check it out!