One of the best Katanas introduced in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, the Star-Lined Sword , is the perfect weapon to use if you’re planning on building a Dexterity-focused Tarnished who also wants to benefit from a modest investment into Intelligence. Plus, bashing enemies with a sword made of stellar bodies just looks awesome.
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If you’ve recently picked up this sword, or if you’re still planning how to create an entire build around it, the Star-Lined Sword is fairly straightforward to build around. Its high dex scaling, fast katana moveset, and unique Ash of War lend themselves to lean into buffs that will reward you for attacking quickly with your Ash of War. For those unsure, here’s what to consider when creating a Star-Lined Sword build in Elden Ring.
Pros & Cons Of The Star-Lined Sword In Elden Ring
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Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
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+ Onze’s Line of Stars has amazing reach |
– Short reach |
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+ Better for one-handed builds |
– Low strength scaling makes it bad for two-handing |
|
+ Builds up blood loss |
– Most bosses won’t give you the chance to finish Onze’s Line of Stars |
|
+ Deals magic damage |
– Onze’s Line of Stars isn’t a true combo against enemy Tarnished |
|
+ Onze’s Line of Stars is great for roll catching |
|
|
+ Katana moveset |
The Star-lined Sword is a katana that does magical damage, builds bleed, and has a fairly powerful Ash of War. Its main scaling is Dexterity, with a secondary scaling in Strength and Intelligence.
However, its Ash of War, Onze’s Line of Stars, is what makes this weapon unique. Once activated, this Ash of War will attack twice in large swipes in front of the player. This Ash of War can be activated two more times, with each attack dealing more damage until the final strike where the player teleports into the air and does an overhead swing.
In PvP, Onze’s Line of Stars isn’t a true combo on Tarnished. However, its wide arc and massive hitbox will make most opponents panic roll if they get caught in it. Since you control when to perform the second set of swings, you can hit your opponent with the first set of attacks, wait for them to panic roll, then punish them with the second set of attacks.
While the Star-lined Sword is an aesthetically pleasing sword with a solid moveset to back it up, this weapon still suffers from a few weaknesses. Its reach is on the shorter side even among katanas, and its low strength scaling makes it a poor choice if you want to two-hand the weapon. Additionally, Onze’s Line of Stars takes a long time to fully complete a combo, which makes it great against humanoid enemies with low poise but bad against bosses who may not give you a chance to finish the combo. More often than naught, you’ll be using the first two activations of Onze’s Line of Stars and rarely using the final two hits unless you’re given a long damage window for it.
All of these signs point toward running the Star-Lined Sword as a one-handed weapon. This way, you can bring another weapon to help make up for the Star-Lined Sword’s weaknesses. The question to ask yourself now is what to put in your off-hand?
Best Shields To Use With The Star-Lined Sword In Elden Ring
A shield is rarely ever the wrong choice to use with a one-handed weapon. Shields like the 
Brass Shield or the 
Wolf Crest Shield have close to 100% physical resistance on their blocks and high Guard Boost, so they can block all physical attacks for a long period of time and prevent any damage that your Tarnished can take while they’re blocking.
Since you already have a high intelligence stat to equip the Star-Lined Sword, you can swap to a staff in your main hand to cast 
Scholar’s Shield to increase the effectiveness of your shield and then swap back to the Star-Lined Sword.
Best Staves To Use With The Star-Lined Sword In Elden Ring
Any staff can work here since, at your core, you’re still a Dexterity-heavy build first. As a result, the spells you cast are mostly used to poke enemies at long range and for utility, like Scholar’s Shield. This makes the 
Carian Regal Scepter and the 
Carian Glintstone Staff your best choices since they both have good intelligence scaling. The Carian Glintstone Staff is a good choice if you plan on using more blade sorceries like Carian Piercer.
The 
Carian Sorcery Sword also has a decent argument to be included in your build if your Intelligence is around 40 and below 50. While you may not use the sword part of it, its scaling at that Intelligence level is good enough to come out ahead of the other staff options.
However, if you wanted to go over level 150, you can put 70 points into both Dexterity and Intelligence and add a few more points into Mind to help your casting. In that scenario, 
Lusat’s Glintstone Staff and 
Academy Glintstone Staff will be the best options for damage. These staves will also increase the FP cost of your spells, so make sure you have enough of an investment into Mind to comfortably cast your spells and use the Star-Lined Sword’s Ash of War for its damage.
Best Katanas To Use WIth The Star-Lined Sword In Elden Ring
Another decent option is to use a second katana in your offhand. This way, you have access to a stronger moveset that hits multiple times up close. With a stat spread of 70 Dexterity and 40 Intelligence, your best off-hand options will be the 
Moonveil and 
Sword of Night katanas.
Moonveil scales incredibly well with Intelligence and Dexterity, and it has an amazing Ash of War to lean on when you need it. Compared to the Sword of Night, Moonveil deals more bleed and magic damage. This means that, if you wanted to include magic-increasing buffs like the 
Magic Scorpion Charm talisman to buff the Star-lined Sword’s magic damage, Moonveil will be the better off-hand option to build since you’ll get a larger buff for your two katanas. With Onze’s Line of Stars and Transient Moonlight, you’ll have an answer for almost everything at midrange.
In comparison, the Sword of Night is better if you need a counter to shielded enemies or if you need a better PvP weapon. The Sword of Night has a true combo from Witching Hour Slash into a an uncharged heavy attack. If you’re planning to fight other Tarnished, you can two-hand the Sword of Night during the fight and catch them with a sudden burst of damage when they least expect it. The Star-Lined Sword becomes the option to use when you want to catch rolls or attack multiple opponents at once with Onze’s Line of Stars.
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Best Stats For The Star-Lined Sword In Elden Ring
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Vigor |
55–60 |
|---|---|
|
Mind |
25 |
|
Endurance |
30–34 |
|
Strength |
10 |
|
Dexterity |
60–70 |
|
Intelligence |
21–60 |
|
Faith |
X |
|
Arcane |
X |
Vigor is always important to have in Shadow of the Erdtree since everything hits fairly hard, and you’re using a short range weapon. If you’re planning to go into PvP, you’ll want to err closer to 60 vigor rather than 55 to avoid any crazy one-shots from other players.
Since you’ll be using your Ash of War fairly often, you’ll want to get your Mind stat up to about 25 so you have plenty of FP to invest into buffs, a few spells, or your Ash of War. If you plan on using your Ash of War more sparingly, then you can get away with a small Mind investment to get more value out of your Intelligence stat and spellcasting.
While Onze’s Line of Stars doesn’t take too much FP, it certainly takes plenty of stamina to use. Having 30 endurance will help you keep swinging this katana without getting too exhausted.
Dexterity and Intelligence are the main ways you can increase your damage with this sword, with Dexterity giving you more of a damage buff than Intelligence. At higher levels (over 150), it’s not a bad idea to hit the soft cap of 80 in Dexterity and Intelligence to get the most benefit out of how the Star-Lined Sword scales. But if you’re planning on staying around level 150, you’ll want to lean harder into Dexterity for a larger increase in your attack.
Best Talismans For The Star-Lined Sword In Elden Ring
The best talismans for the Star-lined Sword will make the most of its fast attacks, powerful Ash of War, and provide a way to give you more Stamina so you can keep attacking with your Ash of War.
Shard Of Alexander
The 
Shard of Alexander is given to you at the end of Alexander’s Quest, and it’ll be a staple in your build if you plan on using your Ash of War fairly often. This talisman increases the damage of your Ash of War by 15% in both PvE and PvP. Since you’ll be relying on Onze’s Line of Stars as your main vehicle for damage, the Shard of Alexander will be a useful spike for your damage.
Two-Headed Turtle Talisman
Repeatedly using Onze’s Line of Stars or even aggressively swinging the Star-Lined Sword will take a large amount of Stamina. Having the 
Two-Headed Turtle Talisman talisman will help ease the burden of managing your Stamina and make sure that you have the resources to use Onze’s Line of Stars each time you get a damage window.
Greatshield Talisman
If you’re building with a shield in mind, the 
Greatshield Talisman is ideal if you need to block out hyper-aggressive enemies or resist multiple attacks across a long period of time. When combined with a shield that has 100% physical damage negation and Scholar’s Shield, you’ll be able to block through long attack strings, even from bosses like Malenia.
Millicent’s Prosthesis
Millicent’s Prosthesis fits into any build that wants to attack often and hasn’t reached the soft cap for Dexterity. Building around the Star-Lined Sword neatly fits into these categories enough for this talisman to shine.
Since the only time you’ll consistently activate this talisman will be when you use your Ash of War, the +5 Dexterity becomes more useful when you’re just normally attacking with the Star-Lined Sword. Then, when you have a good opportunity to use it, you can use Onze’s Line of Stars for heavy damage that also makes your regular attacks deal more damage for a short time afterward.
You can equip the
Rotten Winged Sword Insignia
to further increase the damage you deal during your Ash of War. Millicent’s Prosthesis should take priority if you haven’t reached the soft cap for Dexterity.
Magic Scorpion Charm
The Magic Scorpion Charm is great if you’re planning on increasing your magic damage. This talisman is best used if you’re powerstancing the Star-Lined Sword with the Moonveil because more than half of the Moonveil’s damage is magic based, while only a third of the damage dealt by the Star-Lined Sword is magic based. In that kind of case, the Magic Scorpion charm will be a large buff to your damage that will also help your spells hit a little bit harder.
