Elden Ring’s meta has come a long way since launch, although certain builds have been consistently better than others regardless. Plenty of balancing nerfs and buffs to weapons, Ashes of War, and spells have been introduced to the gear and builds of the base game, although the upcoming DLC is expected to once again shake things up, and for a few new reasons. With new gear incoming and the spotlight returning to PvE content, the new meta builds in Elden Ring are expected to stray far from what is currently the best gear in the game.

The era of Bleed weapons, Magic builds, and Colossal bonk weapons in Elden Ring may finally be usurped in the near future. Although there are a few outliers, these Elden Ring builds have been the ones to rule them all in both PvE and PvP. While it’s unlikely that the current underdogs will get a substantial or universal buff in Elden Ring’s first DLC, newly introduced gear from this expansion is expected to give the current meta builds some much-needed healthy competition.

Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion is Expected to Change the Meta

A lot of the content arriving in Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is still unknown at this point, although some general things can still be safely assumed. Beyond speculation, leaks in the community have already revealed that a new weapon type will come to Elden Ring, which is expected to have a huge impact on buildcrafting. Otherwise, the new enemies and gear from the expansion could be a chance for existing weapon types to have more chances for being useful, and perhaps allow them to compete with the meta builds in certain scenarios.

The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC's new weapon type has yet to be revealed, although leaks in the Elden Ring community are fairly confident that this is accurate. A popular theory in the Elden Ring community is that the new weapon type will be “trick weapons” inspired by Bloodborne. Although it hasn’t been mentioned, the new weapon type also paves the way for new Ashes of War for players to look out for in the near future as well.

Beyond the new weapon type, it’s almost inevitable that new versions of the existing weapon types will also arrive in the DLC. One of the many community theories about the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is that it will revive some of Elden Ring’s cut content, which points to more gear with the Sleep status effect becoming available. Regardless, it’s a safe bet that the expansion will add plenty of new gear and items in addition to the highly anticipated new locations, enemies, NPCs, and questlines.

The upcoming Shadow of the Edtree DLC will also turn the focus back on PvE for the time being, as players will likely be more occupied with cooperating to defeat the new bosses and obtaining the new gear instead of rushing back into Elden Ring’s PvP. Since the DLC is expected to take place in a new location with new enemies, the weapons that currently excel at slaying enemies may not be as effective in the new environment.

Certain weapons from the base game, like the Coded Sword, are particularly strong because most of the existing enemies have very little resistance to certain Elements and status effects that these weapons are capable of. Since these weapons have previously had a universal advantage over other weapons that enemies commonly have higher resistance to, new enemies and environments could potentially give underperforming weapons a chance to shine.