Elden Ring: What is Focus?

Alongside the main attributes, there are also some secondary properties in Elden Ring that you can consider in your build. However, the game is sparse with explanations, which leads many to wonder what focus actually provides. MeinMMO explains it to you in this short guide.

This is how attributes and values work: In Elden Ring, you have 8 different attributes that you can mainly increase through level-ups.

Additionally, there are your defensive status values, the resistances. One of these is the “Focus” value, which can be influenced by increasing certain main attributes, talismans, and your equipment.

Here you will find an overview of the properties of focus and how you can easily find out in Elden Ring which value influences your build.

Focus keeps you awake and protects against Madness

What does increasing focus do for you? The value has exactly two properties:

• On one hand, increased focus raises your resistance against sleep. Thus, enemies that use this type of damage will have a harder time putting you to sleep.
• On the other hand, focus strengthens your resistance against madness. Some enemies use attacks that can induce madness. Once you succumb to madness, you suffer a significant reduction in your health points. The effect is similar to bleed damage, for example.

Is it worth it? Generally, you can do without increasing the focus value. There are only a few enemies that use sleep attacks, and they are rarely truly dangerous.

Madness looks a little different, as there are some stronger enemies that can literally drive you insane.

Additionally, there are some summons that can induce madness in you. These are often quite powerful, which is why madness effectively functions as a kind of balancing tool.

However, if you increase your focus, you can use such summons more frequently thanks to the additional resistance against madness.

This is how to increase your focus: You can significantly boost your resistance with the right means. However, you should keep a few things in mind.

• In general, it seems that light armors have higher focus values. You should simply compare your found armor pieces; the menu will display the level of additional resistance.
• With horn talismans, you can specifically raise your focus.
• Additionally, there is the X talisman, which increases all resistances and thus also gives a slight bonus to focus.

There is a simple trick to find more info in the game

How does this work? Besides the descriptions for the status values and attributes, you can find additional information in the game’s menu. However, this information is a bit hidden.

• Go to your status menu and press the share button on your controller, or G on the keyboard. A window with explanations will then be shown.
• Select the middle option and you can now select the attributes individually and read their descriptions.

This way, you can easily and quickly look up what effect each has.

What other resistances are there? Besides focus, you can also increase several other defensive attributes.

• Vitality increases your resistance against death plague, which some enemies use against you. This black fog can kill you directly if you linger in it too long.
• Immunity increases your protection against poison and rot. Both have similar effects and deal damage over time. Rot is often more lethal than poison.
• Robustness increases your resistance against frost and bleeding. Frost can take away some health points after enough hits, and it also reduces your stamina regeneration for a period. Bleeding works like madness and takes away a significant chunk of health points if you take too many hits.

Additionally, there are resistances against elements like fire, magic, or holy. You also have your physical resistance against blunt, thrust, and slash damage types.

What weapons you can use yourself and which are among the best can be found in our comprehensive guide: Elden Ring Tier List – All 309 Weapons Ranked