The Ash of War is a new feature in Elden Ring, which allows you to give your weapons new abilities and attributes. The Ash of War “Bloody Slash” has developed into a hidden gem within the community, many even find it OP. MeinMMO tells you how to find it.
What is Ash of War? While playing Elden Ring, you regularly collect new Ashes of War. You receive these as drops from specific bosses or from white-glowing scarabs.
With an Ash of War, you can equip your standard weapons with new, detached skills and change their attribute scaling. Standard weapons include all weapons that you can upgrade with ordinary smithing stones. Weapons that use dark smithing stones cannot use Ash of War.
How to use a weapon talent: Every weapon has a talent by default. For standard weapons, you can also swap this out with the Ash of War.
To use a weapon talent, you have 2 options:
- Equip your weapon two-handed and then press L2 (PlayStation), LT (Xbox) or Shift + Right Mouse Button (PC)
- Use a shield with the talent “No Talent” and press L2 (PlayStation), LT (Xbox) or Shift + Right Mouse Button (PC)
However, not every Ash of War can be equipped for every weapon type. Ashes of War that belong to the affinity “Heavy” only work with swords, axes, and hammers; Ashes with the affinity “Solid” only work with swords and spears.
Which Ash of War is the best? Clearly, among the best Ashes of War in the game is the Ash “Bloody Slash” – many also believe that it is far too strong and needs a nerf.
We tell you where to find it and why it’s so powerful.
Elden Ring: Finding the Ash of War Bloody Slash
Where to find the Ash of War? You can find Bloody Slash in the Haight Fortress. This is located at the eastern end of Limgrave. Thus, you can pick up this powerful Ash of War quite early.
In the Height Fortress, you must make your way to the top of the fortress wall. There a knight awaits you. Once you have defeated him, the Ash of War will be yours.
The Haight Fortress is not an exceptionally difficult task, so you should be able to handle the knight early in the game. Dodge his slow attacks and try to get behind him. This way, you can perform a very strong backstab attack and win the fight quickly.
However, you should still find the grace point near the fortress before venturing in. This is slightly hidden, located just west of the fortress. You can see the exact location on the map above.
Elden Ring: What makes the Ash of War Bloody Slash so strong
Why is the Ash of War so good? As long as you use a sword, the Ash of War: Bloody Slash is an absolute top choice thanks to its weapon talent.
With this weapon talent, you injure yourself a little to execute a wide-reaching blood slasher. This has 6 great strengths:
- The blood slasher is a relatively fast attack, with which you can exploit small gaps in your opponents’ defenses well.
- Opponents are briefly staggered after being hit by the blood slasher. You can also take advantage of this.
- The attack deals a lot of damage, even to bosses.
- You significantly increase the range of your weapon with this slasher, making it easier to hit distant or flying opponents.
- Because the attack angle is diagonal, you also hit many opponents next to each other.
- The FP consumption of this attack is very low.
How the talent looks in motion, you can see in the video:
What is the downside of the talent? The only real downside of the Bloody Slash is that you lose some HP when you use the attack. If you are not careful, you could end up killing yourself.
So you need to be more cautious, not to be too greedy with the high damage of the attack, and therefore risk too much.
However, with a strong talisman that you can also pick up very early in the game, this downside can be well compensated. This talisman passively heals you, allowing you to regain lost health points without using a potion.
Here’s how to obtain the talisman:
Community finds the Ash of War too strong
What does the community think about the Ash of War? Whether on YouTube, reddit, or Twitter: Most users think that the Bloody Slash is too strong. However, not everyone necessarily has a problem with it.
In numerous posts on reddit and in the titles of many YouTube videos, fans say that this Ash of War is OP.
- The reddit user NicolasCageDouble states that with it, most bosses would “melt away”.
- In a YouTube comment, one says: “The Bloody Slash is the only reason I was able to defeat most bosses.”
- Red_Blast says on reddit, therefore: “Just be quiet and let me enjoy my OP weapon talent.”
Whether FromSoftware sees it that way, and whether the Ash of War will get a nerf, is currently unclear. In the past, however, the developers have already toned down OP builds and combos in Dark Souls games.
If you want to take advantage of this power in time, you should quickly head to the Haight Fortress. How to properly use the map to find this location and every other one in the Lands Between, we will tell you here:
Elden Ring: All info about the map and how to uncover it – With interactive map
