Standard vs Quality Affinity Elden Ring

The Elden Ring Standard vs Quality Affinity “debate” has been causing some confusion among the player base. For the most part, this is because people have trouble understanding what the word “Quality” actually means in this context. You see it, you expect that it makes your weapon better, but it tanks your base damage. How does that make sense? Well, let’s find out.

Elden Ring Standard vs Quality Affinity

When it comes to the Standard vs Quality Affinity in Elden Ring, I think the only solution is to explain what these words mean in this context and then let you decide. There’s a lot of people that are understandably confused with the word “quality,” because it doesn’t mean what you’d think it means.

Standard Affinity is the default “state” of the weapon. In other words, it scales with whichever stats it was originally meant to. Quality Affinity (bestowed by certain Ashes of War, like Storm Stomp) changes this so that the weapon scales with Strength and Dexterity equally. This is very useful for characters that lean into both Dexterity and Strength. However, it comes at a cost – the weapon’s base damage will be lower.

Whether or not the Elden Ring Standard vs Quality Affinity is a worthwhile trade-off, that’s for you to decide. Be sure to look at the scaling part of the weapon in the inventory. While balanced scaling between Strength and Dexterity can be advantageous, that’s not always the case.

Elden Ring Affinities – How Affinities Work

While on the subject of Standard vs Quality Affinity in Elden Ring, we might as well explain how affinities work. You mostly get them by applying Ashes of War to your armaments. For more info on those, check out our How to Use Ashes of War guide. Applying Affinities to armaments changes their properties in different ways, and here’s how.

• Standard – Default state.
• Heavy – Boosts Strength scaling at the cost of all other attributes.
• Keen – Boosts Dexterity scaling at the cost of all other attributes.
• Quality – Equalizes Strength and Dexterity scaling at the cost of all other attributes.
• Sacred – Adds Faith scaling but weakens default scaling. Splits damage type to Physical and Holy.
• Magic – Adds Intelligence scaling but weakens default scaling. Splits damage type to Physical and Magic.
• Blood – Adds Arcane scaling but weakens default scaling. Also adds Bleed build-up to your attacks.
• Cold – Adds Intelligence scaling but weakens default scaling. Also adds Frostbite build-up to your attacks.
• Fire – Weakens default scaling, splits damage into Physical and Fire.
• Lightning – Enhances Dexterity scaling but weakens default scaling. Splits damage into Physical and Lightning.
• Occult – Adds Arcane scaling but weakens default scaling. Stops undead enemies from reviving automatically.
• Poison – Enhances Dexterity, Strength and Arcane scaling. Also adds Poison build-up to your attacks.

Very early in your exploration of Elden Ring world you will find out that you need to prepare your character for different tasks. You'll need to learn how to use Ashes of War, how to two-hand weapons, or use magic spells during the course of your adventures. Many secrets are also waiting for you, such as, a hostile NPC Sellen that doesn't let you see her shop, an invisible man in a bush, or a huge turtle with a bell that lets you duplicate some very important items.