Star-Lined Sword is one of the standout katana swords in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, especially for those looking to build a Tarnished with Dexterity as a core attribute and some bonuses from Intelligence. Combat with this sword made of stellar bodies is not only effective but also visually stunning.

If you’ve recently started using this sword, or you’re still planning how to build your character around it, there are a few key points to note. Star-Lined Sword’s high dex scaling, fast katana attack animations, and its unique Ash of War skill all make it faster by giving it additional buffs when using Ash of War attacks quickly.

Here are some tips to help you build your character around Star-Lined Sword in Elden Ring. For new players who are less confident, you can use Elden Ring Runes to improve your equipment and abilities to ensure your character can use this sword to its full potential.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Onze’s Line of Stars has impressive ranged attack capabilities.
• This weapon is more suitable for one-handed builds.
• Build up blood loss.
• Can deal magical damage.
• Excellent in roll catching.
• Incorporates unique moves of the Katana.

Cons

• In close combat, its attack range may be insufficient.
• Because of the low strength gain, it is not recommended to operate it with two hands.
• When facing many bosses, it may be difficult to fully utilize the full potential of Onze’s Line of Stars.
• In battles with Tarnished enemies, Onze’s Line of Stars is not the best choice.

Star-lined Sword is a special Katana that not only deals magical damage and builds bleed, but also has a powerful Ash of War. The key attribute of this sword is Dexterity, followed by Strength and Intelligence.

Ash of War unique to Star-lined Sword is called Onze’s Line of Stars, and it is unique in the way it is activated. Once triggered, this Ash of War will perform two large-scale attacks in front of the player. Furthermore, this skill can be activated twice more, with each attack dealing increasing damage until the ultimate attack teleports the player into the air for a fierce overhead slash.

While Star-lined Sword is aesthetically pleasing and has powerful attack moves, it does have some flaws. It has a relatively short range for a katana, and doesn’t work well as a two-handed weapon because of its low strength scaling.

Additionally, its unique skill, Onze’s Line of Stars, takes a long time to complete a full combo, so while it’s great against poorly balanced humanoid enemies, it’s less useful against bosses that don’t give you enough time to complete your combo. Often, players will use the first two attacks of Onze’s Line of Stars, and rarely use the ultimate attack when there’s not enough safe damage to deal.

Given that Star-lined Sword is more suited to being a one-handed weapon, that means you can equip another weapon to make up for its shortcomings. So, the next question to consider is, what secondary weapon should you choose?

Best Shields To Use With Star-Lined Sword

When considering pairing with a one-handed weapon, choosing to use a shield is usually not the best choice. For example, shields such as Brass Shield or Wolf Crest Shield can block almost all physical attacks when defending, and have extremely high physical resistance, which can effectively prevent Tarnished from taking damage when blocking.

Given that you already have high Intelligence to use Star-Lined Sword, you may consider temporarily replacing your main-hand weapon with a staff to cast Scholar’s Shield to enhance the shield’s effect, and then switch back to Star-Lined Sword to fight.

Best Staves To Use With Star-Lined Sword

You can choose any staff as a secondary tool, because your character build is still mainly centered on Dexterity-heavy. Therefore, the spells you cast are mainly for ranged attacks and some utility purposes, such as Scholar’s Shield. This makes Carian Regal Scepter and Carian Glintstone Staff your best choices, as they both have good intelligence scaling. If you want to use more blade sorceries like Carian Piercer, then Carian Glintstone Staff would be a good choice.

If your Intelligence is around 40, but below 50, then Carian Sorcery Sword is also worth considering for your build. While you probably won’t use the sword as much, it’s good enough to outperform other staff options in Intelligence.

However, if you want to level your character past level 150, you can invest 70 points each in Dexterity and Intelligence, and a few more points in Mind to help with casting spells. Here, Lusat’s Glintstone Staff and Academy Glintstone Staff will be your best options for dealing damage. These staves will also increase FP cost of spells, so make sure you invest enough points in Mind to easily cast spells and deal damage with Ash of War of Star-Lined Sword.

Best Katanas To Use With Star-Lined Sword

It’s also a good idea to have another katana as an off-hand weapon. That way, you can unleash more powerful combos in melee combat. Based on your stat distribution, with 70 Dexterity and 40 Intelligence, your best off-hand katana choices would be Moonveil and Sword of Night.

Moonveil matches Intelligence and Dexterity very well, and it also has a strong Ash of War that can be used when needed. Moonveil can deal more bleed and magic damage than Sword of Night. This means that if you plan to add buffs through magic, such as using Magic Scorpion Charm talisman to buff Star-lined Sword’s magic damage.

Then Moonveil will be a better off-hand choice because it will give both of your katana a significant damage boost. With Onze’s Line of Stars and Transient Moonlight equipped, you will be able to effectively deal with mid-range combat challenges.

If you need to face enemies with shields or need a better weapon in player-versus-player (PvP) combat, Sword of Night will be a more suitable choice. Sword of Night has useful combo attacks, including Witching Hour Slash into an uncharged heavy attack.

When fighting other Tarnished, you can use Sword of Night with both hands and unleash fierce attacks when your opponent least expects it. And when you want to use Onze’s Line of Stars to control the situation or deal with multiple enemies at once, Star-Lined Sword becomes your ideal choice.

After reading all the above, pick up Star-Lined Sword and bravely face the challenge of Elden Ring!