Mad Lightning Perfumer Broken Damage Build – Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Ever get tired of mashing your head against the same boss, only to have them defeat you when you have a sliver of health remaining? Ever wish you could just… make them disappear? Now you can; thanks to several of the new talismans and items in the Shadow Realm, you can deal tens of thousands of points of damage in seconds, eliminating even the heartiest bosses in less time than it takes to apply your buffs. This in-depth guide will explain the build in question, how to acquire all the gear for it, and how to use it to eliminate any boss instantly.

NOTE: The glitch on the Perfume Bottles that enabled this build to be as powerful as it was was nerfed as part of Patch 1.12.3. If you want to see it in action, you will need to find a way to “downpatch” to a previous patch before 1.12.3.

Starting Class

Due to their high Faith, starting with the Confessor is your best bet, though due to being a late-game build, you will be able to get the stats required to nuke bosses with any starting class.

Purpose of the Build

This build serves 1 purpose: to instantly destroy any boss before they can kill you. However, due to the lackluster weapons, long set-up time, and increased damage to yourself, this build is not especially viable for regular combat or overworld exploration. Even within bosses, faster ones can still evade your insane damage and, due to your health debuffs, can still kill you. With all that said, though, against nearly all bosses in the game, this build will instantly kill them, with the most agile of them simply requiring a few rolls first.

Weapon + Best Seal

This build works with one specific weapon: the Lightning Perfume Bottle. You can get this off of a corpse southeast of the Ellac River Downstream Grace and northeast from the Cerulean Coast Grace. There is a pool of water near some lightning rams, with the body and Lightning Perfume Bottle being in the middle of it.

• Lightning Perfume Bottle.

To make this work, you’ll also need to equip it with the Rolling Sparks Ash of War. You can find this near the camp just south of the Shadow Keep, on a hill to the east where the perfumer’s have made camp. Hovering above a ridge, you’ll find a flying scarab that you can knock out of the sky with a ranged attack.

• Ash of War: Rolling Sparks

Talismans

There is a very specific set of Talismans that will maximize the damage of this build. While other talismans can be used, especially if you are making a build more viable for the core game, these Talismans are what enable you to become a nuke.

Best Talismans for This Build:

• Lightning Scorpion Charm: Increases Lightning Damage, while lowering Damage Negation
  • In the Wyndham Catacombs, in a room requiring a Stonesword Key.
• Shard of Alexander: Increases the damage of Weapon Arts, like Rolling Sparks.
  • Given after defeating Iron Fist Alexander in Crumbling Farum Azula.
• Perfumer’s Talisman: Increases the damage of Perfume Arts, like the Lightning Perfume Bottle.
  • In the Perfumer’s Ruins in the Altus Plateau, you need to break some planks on the ground in the ruins to open the entrance.
• Aged One’s Exultation: Increases damage for 30 seconds after Madness has been activated.
  • Given when you kill the Winter Lantern northwest of the Abandoned Church in the Abyssal Woods. To kill it, you need to parry its grab.

Incantations

There are 2 required Incantations you need in order to make this build work:

• Howl of Shabriri: Before you start a fight, sit outside the fog wall to proc madness on yourself, activating the Aged One’s Exultation talisman buff.
• Golden Vow: The increased damage you get provides even more stopping power to your insane attacks.

Armor

In order to maximize damage, you should equip Rakshasa’s full armor set, which you can obtain by killing Rakshasa in the Eastern Nameless Mausoleum in the Scadu Altus region in the Realm of Shadow, downstream from the Ruins of Unte.

• Rakshasa Helm
• Rakshasa Armor
• Rakshasa Gauntlets
• Rakshasa Greaves

Using This Build

The Mad Lightning Perfumer build is useful for exactly 1 thing: immediately destroying anything with a big pool of health, dealing tens of thousands of points of damage at a time. To accomplish this, you simply need to follow this order of events:

• First, cast Howl of Shabriri repeatedly, mashing the casting button to increase amount of madness gained, until you activate madness, damaging yourself. This will activate the buff from Aged One’s Exultation. You will have 30 seconds from activating madness to finish off the boss.
• Then, before going through the fog wall, activate Golden Vow.
• Head into the boss arena, walk up to the boss, and then free aim at the floor in front of them. Spam your Rolling Sparks weapon art at their feet. When this detonates, it will deal thousands of damage per use, piling up to essentially-limitless damage.

Hopefully, you have fun with the knowledge that you are not the supreme insane lightning perfumer capable of decimating anything in the Lands Between or Shadow Realm with a thought. If you want a less broken build, or one suitable for average use, see our other Elden Ring Builds.