Whetblades in Elden Ring are Key Items which allows the use of Ashes of War at Sites of Grace to bestow Skills and Affinities. This page covers their names, affinities they unlock, and Locations.
Whetblades are kept in New Game+. They are also unique, meaning that they cannot be found in subsequent Journeys.
Elden Ring Whetblades
Whetblades Table for Elden Ring
Quick Search of All Whetblades
| Name | Usage | Location |
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Can add new battle arts and affinities to weapons. |
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Grants choice of affinity upgrade to weapon: Quality, Keen, Heavy |
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Grants choice of affinity upgrade to weapon: Magic, Cold |
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Grants choice of affinity upgrade to weapon: Fire, Flame Art |
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Grants choice of affinity upgrade to weapon: Lightning, Sacred |
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Grants choice of affinity upgrade to weapon: Poison, Blood, Occult |
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All Whetblades in Elden Ring
Whetstone Knife
Whetstone with a cipher inscription, made to look like a small knifeblade.
Allows the use of ashes of war at a site of grace to bestow new battle arts and affinities to armaments as skills.
The battle arts and affinities will depend on the ashes of war used.
Glintstone Whetblade
Glintstone whetblade with a cipher engraved. Can be used as a whetstone knife.
When applying an affinity using physical or magic-type ashes of war, an additional affinity of magic or frost can be chosen.
Iron Whetblade
Iron whetblade with a cipher engraved. Can be used as a whetstone knife.
When applying an affinity using ashes of war, an additional affinity of heavy, keen, or quality can be chosen.
Red-Hot Whetblade
Red-hot whetblade with a cipher engraved. Can be used as a whetstone knife.
When applying an affinity using physical or flame-type ashes of war, an additional affinity of fire or flame art can be chosen
Black Whetblade
Black whetblade with a cipher engraved. Can be used as a whetstone knife.
When applying an affinity using physical or occult-type ashes of war, an additional affinity of poison, blood, or occult can be chosen
Sanctified Whetblade
Sanctified whetblade with a cipher engraved. Can be used as a whetstone knife.
When applying an affinity using physical or golden-type ashes of war, an additional affinity of sacred or lightning can be chosen
Affinities in Elden Ring determine an armament's attribute scaling, attack power, guard boost, guarded damage negation, and passives. Affinities are represented by both an icon in the inventory and as a prefix to the armament's name.
- See Damage Types to identify the best sources and resistances for all damage types.
- See Status Effects for all status buildups and other effects applied to your character.
- See Equipment with Special Effects for special stat-increasing or effect-granting weapons and armor.
- See Buffs & Debuffs for useful information regarding the stacking or overwriting of effects on your character.
Choosing an Affinity in Elden Ring
Affinities can be granted to compatible armaments while selecting an Ash of War. This can be done at Sites of Grace after obtaining the Whetstone Knife or by speaking to a Smithing Master. You can expand your selection of affinities by obtaining Whetblades.
Ashes of War are defined by type, determining which other affinities can be granted:
- Physical - Standard, Heavy, Keen, Quality
- Magic - Magic, Frost
- Flame - Fire, Flame Art
- Golden - Lightning, Sacred
- Occult - Poison, Blood, Occult
Example:
- Ash of War: Thunderbolt has the Lightning affinity, which makes it a golden-type ash of war.
- Sanctified Whetblade: "When applying an affinity using physical or golden-type ashes of war, an additional affinity of sacred or lightning can be chosen."
- Iron Whetblade: "When applying an affinity using ashes of war, an additional affinity of heavy, keen, or quality can be chosen."
Any applicable armament with any affinity can be buffed by Skills (e.g., Flaming Strike), but only armaments with Physical Affinities can be buffed with Sorceries, Incantations, or Greases (e.g., Scholar's Armament, Order's Blade or Drawstring Magic Grease). However, remember that certain armaments cannot be buffed, regardless of their affinity (e.g., Sacred Seals, Glintstone Staves, Bows, etc.).
Elden Ring Affinities Guide
| Type | Whetblade | Affinity | Positive Effects | Negative Effects |
Physical |
- |  Standard |
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 Keen |
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 Quality |
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Magic |
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 Magic |
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 Cold |
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Flame |
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 Fire |
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 Flame Art |
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Golden |
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 Lightning |
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 Sacred |
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Occult |
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 Poison |
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 Blood |
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 Occult |
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I wish there was a rot one. Oh well. Atleast we got bleed and poision
- Anonymous
I need someone to explain something for me please, I know asking what I'm about to is showing how clueless I am but it can't be helped because I'm not getting the full picture. The whet-blades found as you progress allow a weapon's affinity to be changed to cold or occult or whatever, but I don't really understand how the scaling for all this works, every AoW I've looked at and used has a pretty drastic impact on base damage, and what I gain from the skill or affinity doesn't come close to the damage I could do without using it, maybe because of how it scales afterwards, this is where I get stuck, I've been wary of using most AoW skills or affinities because of how big a difference I see on Lordsworn's greatsword after I give it cold affinity or whatever, I'm having trouble putting any skill onto the weapons I use most because of this massive reduction I see in its base damage, so I can't help feeling I'm going to be worse off in terms of the damage I can do than I'f I had only used AoW that already have the heavy affinity. So I'm hoping someone will take the time to give me an idea of which affinities and skills scale with which attributes, much appreciated.
- Anonymous
I really think they missed out on the opportunity for making infusions/ashes of war for the other ailments, like yeah Madness and Death Blight only work on humanoid stuff and yeah Death Blight and Sleep don't have their infliction scaled to arcane(or any scaling at all for that matter) but like
Rot would be fair and balanced by just making it a very low amount of infliction and with less arcane scaling and damage, certainly more fair than an Incantation that levitates you above enemy attacks and covers 30 meters in front of you in rot infliction and damage
Death Blight could be balanced exactly how it is on Fia's Mist and the Eclipse Shotel with it just having an absolutely miniscule amount of infliction(and it's not like the not having Arc scaled infliction thing matters seeing as Cold is an infusion and Frostbite infliction has no scaling either)
Sleep has the same situation as Death Blight where as long as they just made it a medium amount of infliction (not too little so it works on PVE enemies and not too much so it isn't broken in PVP) and it'd be great, and once more Cold exists so the lack of arcane scaling wouldn't stop it
And then Madness, which I feel has the biggest case to exist as not only would it have arcane scaling for the madness infliction, but seeing as madness is so exclusively linked to the flame of frenzy(not being inflicted any other way) it would be another avenue of fire element infusion with actual faith and/or arcane scaling which would be useful regardless of madness only working on human enemies since there are only TWO flame(fire + faith scaling) ashes of war in the entire game and both are very late(Prelate's Charge in Mountaintops Of The Giants and Black Flame Tornado in Farum Azula) meaning that the only way to get fire infused weapons with faith scaling instead of strength scaling(for a faith build obviously) is to either grab the Red Hot Whetblade in Redmane Castle or wait that long which is saddening, a couple madness ashes of war and a madness infusion with fire damage and either faith, arcane or faith and arcane scaling would be neat and helpful since it's give slightly earlier access to faith builds to use fire weapons with actual scaling and thereby actual damage returns
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Why isn't there one for madness? It would make sense to have one since there's one for poison and bleed.
- Anonymous
as someone who's reached NG+4 I can vouch for the fact they do carry over
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
i'm more disappointed at no coldflame or deathflame etc. i really feel like that coulda been a cool one.
- Anonymous
That's a pity they didn't make similar item to level weapons instead of smithing stones.
- Anonymous
If they did implement a whetblade for scarlet rot and the others, it would have to be a serious scaling nerf and damage nerf. Like going from B in STR to E and base damage 310 to 210. Otherwise it would be broken in both PVP and PVE. Much like how frost and bleed are currently
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
praying that we get a whetblade that adds sleep buildup in the dlc
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