In Dark Souls 3 you can infuse many different Weapons and Shields with Gems that change the properties, damage type or Scaling. In order to infuse a Weapon or Shield to your chosen type you must:
- have found and give the appropriate Coal to Blacksmith Andre,
- have a Gem of the chosen type, and
- have the required Souls.
The exceptions here are Refined, Raw or Fire which require no Coal to be given. You can use a Shriving Stone if you wish to remove the Infusion from your Weapon or Shield (this must also be done at Blacksmith Andre). Again, not all Weapons and Shields can be Infused so check the Weapons pages to verify which can and can't.
These weapons CANNOT be infused:Bows, Greatbows, Crossbows, Chimes, Talismans, Staves, Pyromancy Flames and any weapon that upgrades with Twinkling Titanite or Titanite Scale
Name & Icon |
Effect |
Coal Required |
Buffable |
| Removes Infusion | None | Yes | |
| Reduces Base Damage |
Yes | ||
| Increases Base Damage Removes Scaling |
Yes | ||
| Reduces Base Damage Removes Scaling Adds Fire Damage |
No | ||
| Reduces Base Damage Adds Strength Scaling |
|
Yes |
|
| Reduces Base Damage Adds Dexterity Scaling |
Yes | ||
| Reduces Base Damage Reduces Strength & Dexterity Scaling Adds Poison Aux |
No | ||
| Reduces Base Damage Reduces Strength & Dexterity Scaling Adds Intelligence Scaling Adds Magic Damage |
|
No |
|
| Reduces Base Damage Reduces Strength & Dexterity Scaling Adds Faith Scaling Adds HP recovery |
No | ||
| Removes Scaling Reduces Base Damage Adds Dark Damage |
No | ||
| Reduces Base Damage Reduces Strength & Dexterity Scaling Adds Faith & Intelligence Scaling Adds Dark Damage |
|
No |
|
| Reduces Base Damage Reduces Strength & Dexterity Scaling Adds Bleed Aux |
No | ||
| Reduces Base Damage |
Yes | ||
| Reduces Base Damage Reduces Strength & Dexterity Scaling Adds Faith Scaling Adds Lightning Damage |
|
No |
|
| Reduces Base Damage Reduces Strength & Dexterity Scaling Adds Intelligence Scaling Adds Magic Damage Adds FP Recovery |
No | ||
| Reduces Base Damage Reduces Strength & Dexterity Scaling Adds Faith & Intelligence Scaling Adds Fire Damage |
No |
AnonymousThis may just be me but before playing the game again recently I was 100% confident “serrated” was an infusion, to the point where I was confused when I couldn’t put It on my sword. Curse you Mandela, I hope collision screws you over and you die of fall damage from a very survivable fall
- Anonymous
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To put it simple: stick with physical infusions. If you want elemental damage to your weapon, use resins, buffs or boss weapons. And if you're a caster that wants a backup sword, use a raw gem.
It ain't only about split damage, it's also because elemental weakness is too niche. Like, you have 150 base magic damage on your weapon but oh! An entire area have enemies resistant to magic. Your minuscule physical ar from that crystal infusion is what you have left in these situations.
- Anonymous
When you infuse a weapon with a gem that has a passive ability like the simple gem with the FP regen does its passive get stronger with the weapon reinforcement
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the real question is, why they didn't put a gem vendor? if those were sold you could just cut thorough farming, even if those may be expensive, just think at the pices of titanite...
- Anonymous
do infusions affect pvp? like if i have an infused weapon will i only be able to invade players with infused weapons and vice-versa?
- Anonymous
Seems like in elden ring, weapon arts varies depending of infusions. What a nice change. Idk if there are status effects regarding elemental damage types, but it's quite possible.
- Anonymous
I'm no coder, or game dev, but why are infusions so unimaginative? Game would be more diverse if it wasn't just different flavors of ice cream. The meta would be more exciting & definitely wouldn't be stuck in Quality limbo if they did. Shield infusions are whack too, need balancing & extra effects to make them interesting. Some ideas off the top of my head;
Heavy increases weight but also STR scaling, stamina damage on blocked attacks with strikes, & stability (esp. shields).
Sharp reduces weight & base AR, but increases DEX scaling, increases damage slightly with consecutive attacks, & slightly improves bleed & poison on slashes.
Refined slightly increases weight, balances STR/DEX, increases counter thrusts slightly & riposte damage, & improves physical block on shields.
Fire/Chaos causes slight fire DOT, like Sekiro. Fire build up causes DOT to damage equipment, while Chaos build up reduces AR. Fire shields cause DOT to attackers
Poison/Toxic cause poison DOT. Poison build up reduces elemental resist, while Toxic build up stacks another poison DOT. Poison shields cause Poison build up to attacks
Bleed reduces stamina regen. Bleed build up deals 1/4 HP damage. Bleed shields increase stamina regen slightly.
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If i have an sl1 knight class , what infusion my weapon should have beteween fire,deep and raw?
- Anonymous
I miss how Ds2 did infusions, it was a balance of losing attack power for the tradeoff of no split damage, and gaining split damage for more attack power. Now in Ds3 elemental infusions are gutted because you can't buff them, so why risk ALWAYS having split damage when you could get more damage by buffing a physical infused weapon? Not to mention how quick and easy bundles are to use too, it's a damn shame, really.
- Anonymous
I've done every infusion but didn't get the achievement. Any suggestions?
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If you have a +3 weapon and then get it infused by refined gem, can you contribute to reinforce it to level 10?
Thanks!
- Anonymous
Just wondering, if split damage gets crippled by damage reduction and defense values, why go for them in the 1st place?
- Anonymous
On my first playtrough, when would be the best moment to infuse my weapons and which gem is the best?
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if you upgrade a weapon to say plus 4 for example and infuse it will it go back to plus zero or will it be say dark +4
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does infusing a weapon affect who you can summon, like your soul level or weapon upgrade level
if i’m SL12 with a +0 and i infuse will that change who i can summon/invade
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i would like to input that the bleed infusion makes it unbuffable
- Anonymous
If I have 150 base damage and 150 fire damage does that I do 300 damage in total?
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miyazaki keeps changing dark souls. Why is the chaos upgrade path related to the giant? He's the typical artist never satisfied with his work.
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I'm on a sl1 challenge and I'm stuck in lothric and lorian. Should I replace my fire +10 Millwood with a simple infusion? I know lothric is weak to magic but is it worth it? I also have a lightning gem of I should do that.
- Anonymous
Should I infuse mu weapons with Dark and Chaos ? I heard they are really good in PvP, or should I use refined, heavy or sharp gem ? And why does everyone use the dagger + Chaos infusion ? I use the Lothric Knight Straightsword, Claymore, Spitleaf, Estoc, Rapier, Zweihänder, Astora Greatsword, Carthus curved sword, with what should I infuse them ? My stats are: 25 strength 25 dex 15 faith 14 intelligence
- Anonymous
About some of the earlier posts about the heavy gem infusions (which is only to ever be used if you are and plan to always be a strength build), note that this information is not completely accurate, as while sharp gems do reduce strength scaling while increasing dex, heavy gems completely removes dex scaling entirely. I'm not sure if this was due to a patch since the time of this post, but heavy gems completely eliminate all other scaling. This is as of 2019, so things could have been very different at the time of this posting. So as always, be sure to run the numbers before any infusion, making sure to take into account where you are with your current build and perhaps more importantly, where you plan to ultimately end up stat wise. While these infusions can always be switched later if you alter or respec your character, but early in the game, where gems are scarce, this is definitely something to take into consideration.
- Anonymous
Adding Sharp/Heavy/Refined was just overcomplicating for no reason and making things counterintuitive.
- Anonymous
The elemental infusions to shields really does not give you much additional protection at all to that element, considering you can easily find shields through natural progress that addresses all your concerns, however, I will say that infusing a small parry shield, like the small leather or target shield with a blessed gem, that constantly recovers health while equipped is very useful, especially if you have the sun princess ring equipped. It is not advisable to do this with a shield that has a 100% physical block as it reduces the shield to only 95% physical block, except for the very unique oak shield in Ashes. The simple gem can be used on a parry shield as well to regain FP, although very, very, slowly. So if you have any skills at all with parrying, which is not very important for PvE but but critical for PvP, this is the way to go. Otherwise, do not infusion shields, does more harm than good.
- Anonymous
Ya know, after NG and NG +1, now on NG+2, I still do not think I fully understand how to get the most bang for my buck in designing weapons for PvP using infusions. I'm now at 70/70/70/70 down the board. I was doing great from SL88-350, with about an 80% success rate against any invader to my world. However, not realizing what it meant to go past SL 350, being summoned to other worlds to help players is very difficult considering I'm matched against players at max SL 802, to my SL 351. So maybe it's a bit off topic, but I was wondering if anyone has any really serious knowledge on infusions at high level PvP. Obviously if you are 70 in str, dex, int, faith, you're going with either chaos, dark, or refined, and sometimes sharp. The Lothric knight sword scales incredibly well with chaos and dark infusions, at C-C-A-A. They are light and fast, the DPS is insane if you back someone into a corner. However, the refined millwood battle axe (best weapon in the game for any build in my opinion) buffed with lightning damage, (as even high SLs are weak too as raising your stamina over 40 is just silly unless you are at 99 with everything else except luck) seems to be very good. I was wondering, do any highly experienced PvP players had any thoughts on this matter? For someone that's rocking straight 70s (only 7 luck) down the board, what infusion do you use? Basically, if you're fighting someone whose stats are unknown to you, except that they are powerful, do you use elemental infusions, or do you believe that just straight physical damage (with buffs) is the way to go? And I am asking in general as well, it does not have to be a discussion based only on very high SLs. What do you do?
- Anonymous
New to the game, could someone explain to me what weapon or equipment scaling is?
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Infusion on a Shield seems like a minor thing, what? use one of my resources to make something absorb one thing better, but make the rest weaker?
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How does infusing shields benefit you? say poison or lightning for example
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Does the -A- scaling you get from the heavy gem only happen if you infuse it @+10 wep, or will it upgrade to a-scale as you improve the wep to +10?
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Can I infuse a weapon during +1. Then slowly upgrade the infused weapon to +2 and go on?
- Anonymous
im a new player and i dont know how the infusion works. i already googled it but still i didnt get the clear picture. if my stat is 50 str and dex 25.. what gem should i use? from what i observe from the smith..refined gem seems better than sharp and heavy..
- Anonymous
Quick questions- After I infuse can I still reinforce a weapon? Also, can you put multiple gems on one sword or is that not possible?
- Anonymous
I don't really understand what it means when it says: example Increases Base Damage Removes Scaling: what does removes scaling mean and how does it effect me and the weapon ?? plz help
- Anonymous
Lets suppose I no longer need a Fire Gem infused Battle Axe... If I use the needed Gem to remove the Fire Gem, the Fire Gem become unusable or does it become available for a later Infusion?
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Because it's not listed here, weapons infused with heavy, sharp, refined or raw gems can still be buffed with resins and spells. All other infusions preclude buffing of any kind. Heavy and sharp gems also reduce or outright remove scaling of the inverse of the scaling it increases, i.e. heavy gems reduce dex scaling and sharp gems reduce strength scaling.
- Anonymous
To all the people who don't understand why they didn't get the achievement, make sure you've really done the infusion. I was in the same situation when I suddenly realized the Deep Battle Axe in my inventory was looted from a Mimic, not infused by myself.
- Anonymous
Is it possible to trade these infusion stones? I'm doing a sorcery only run and want to get simple gen before Irithyll dungeons
- Anonymous
Something i found is that it can't infuse executioners greatsword. It scales with normal titonite. Anyone know why it can't infuse.
- Anonymous
Dev's got LAZY with this aspect of the game. Most infusions hurt my base damage. Unless I'm keeping a D&D monster manual of every enemy and their weakness (this particularly applies to elemental dmg, scaling or no) I'm better off with straight upgrades and MAYBE a heavy/sharp/refined infuse. LAAAAME
- Anonymous
Ok next dlc needs to add a frost gem no if ands or buts, they have every other infusion except a frost gem
- Anonymous
When I infused my offhand shield with a blessed gem, the HP recovery continued when I two-handed my mainhand weapon. If I were to do the same with a caestus, would I continue to get the bonus, when two-handing my main weapon?
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So I was about to infuse my uchigatana with a sharp gem for it ot get better dex scaling but I noticed that the C scaling it has does not go up to a B scaling in dex even if I infuse. The C in dex does become blue indicating it is getting some scaling but does not become a B. So is it even worth it, or is it better to wait and just upgrade the weapon normally until the scaling goes up and then use the gem? Or are there different levels of scaling even within the same letter? Like you have a high C scaling and a low C scaling in dex and I am just making the C scaling better with the sharp gem. Kinda confusing.
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Should I infuse and then level up, or level up and then infuse a weapon?
- Anonymous
Which infusions can I do that still allows me to use spells similar to Magic Weapon? I've noticed that it works on some, but not others.
- Anonymous
I did all the infusions listed and my achievement didn't pop up, is there another requirement here? I used the shriving stone to see if that would work.
- Anonymous
do infusions themselves have levels to them I.E. if I have a fire weapon and want to add another fire gem to it is that a thing? I'm a noob so sorry for the noobish question
- Anonymous
Where is the Mage's Coal? its needed for crystal, blessed, and deep infusions, and no one, online has found it! There's even an achievement for getting all infusions that needs it! I get the feeling its in NG+ or NG++. T-T
- Anonymous
You can use pine resins on weapons that only affect your base damage and scaling (sharp, raw, etc).But not on weapons that add aux bonuses or different damage types.
the reason why split damage is generally undesirable in this game, is because say that you have 2 hypothetical longswords that have 100 ar, but the first only does physical damage, and the second does 50 physical and 50 in any element. In DS3, unlike it's predecessors, you have 2 different stats that reduce the damage you take when hit: Defense and Absorption. In this context, we can think of Defense as a "flat" damage reducer (it's more complicated than that), and Absorption as a % based reducer. When you attack, your damage first goes through this flat defense, so that it can be reduced by a percentage by absorption, and since every damage type has a different defense stat, when you attack with a split damage weapon, your damage has to go through defense twice, once for the physical damage, and once for the elemental damage, which will lower your attack damage more than if it only had to go through defense once. That's why, when we think back to the two hypothetical longswords, even though they have the same AR, the pure physical one will always outperform the one with split damage, since all of it's damage only goes through defense once, which by this logic will increase the damage taken.
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