Multiplayer in Elden Ring is confusing at the best of times. It’s also incredibly clunky, and no matter what you’re doing—invading, working cooperatively, or dueling in an arena — your character’s level heavily limits you. That’s why knowing the best levels for invasions, co-op, and duels is so important.
Level Requirements for Invading, Co-op, and Duels in Elden Ring
The first topic you need to review before picking a specific level or area to invade or co-op in is how Elden Ring matchmaking actually works. The full guide we have here goes over it in a lot of additional detail, but the basic rundown is:
- Your character and weapon upgrade level must be within a specific range of the person you want to match with.
- For invasions, you need the Bloody Finger or Recusant’s Festering Finger.
- For co-op, you need to use a Furlcalling Finger Remedy to summon phantoms, and you need to use a Tarnished’s Furled Finger to place your summon sign. These are usually best placed near boss doors or around an easily accessible Site of Grace.
So long as you’re within the matchmaking boundaries of those people you want to play with, you need to decide on two additional things: the level you want to be at and the build you want to play. If you’re playing with friends and don’t intend to stop leveling as your teammates progress, then builds don’t matter, and you can use a multiplayer password to play with them, no matter the disparity between your levels.
However, if you want to also help out random Tarnished wandering the world of Elden Ring, you’ll need a build for each specific level range you want to play at, meaning you need to play through the game multiple times to make characters for each range.
Below I’ll outline five of the best character and weapon upgrade level ranges for play across the entirety of Elden Ring, starting with low level multiplayer and finishing with ultra-high level.
Level 30 with +3 Standard or +1 Somber Weapons: Early Game Multiplayer
Limgrave, the Weeping Peninsula, and Stormveil Castle, the starting zones and Legacy Dungeon, respectively, are most frequently played at no more than level 30 or so. Weapons there are also upgraded no further than +3 with standard Smithing Stones or +1 with Somber Smith Stones. At these levels, you should have easy matchmaking with new players just getting started or those looking for similarly low-level content.
As an invader, you can either be honest, using only weapons and gear you find around these zones or you can be a cruel veteran and use gear you find much later in the game. For instance, you could use the Meteorite Staff and use Talismans and the Wondrous Physick to get your Intelligence super high, then use spells like Comet to one-shot players just starting their adventure.
Level 40/70/90, +8/+12/+20 Standard or +3/+5/+8 Somber: Midgame Multiplayer
The midgame of Elden Ring is probably its best part. You get access to the areas with the strongest narrative and aesthetic, some of the greatest boss fights, and the ability to explore so much of the Lands Between. Depending on where you want to play, you’ll need to choose between levels 40-50 for Liurnia, levels 55-70 for the Altus Plateau, Caelid, Mt. Gelmire, and Leyndell, and 90 for those same areas, plus the Mountaintops of the Giants.
The biggest problem with making a midgame invader build is that you’ll run into stat limitations, forcing you to really focus on a specific type of build rather than having a little bit of everything. That makes it fun, though, finding that perfect middle ground where your build can just about do what you want it to do without being completely overpowering.
Level 100-150, Max Level Weapons: Endgame Multiplayer
Don’t worry, duel fans, your time is coming. For those who want to fight some of the final bosses in Elden Ring — Godfrey, Mohg, Malenia, and others — levels 100-150 are about the right spot you should be. I was about 150 or so when I completed my review playthrough, and invading at that level is the first place where you have easier access to locations like Faram Azula, the Consecrated Snowfield, the Haligtree, and Mountaintops of the Giants.
There are benefits and problems with invading between levels 100 and 150. The most striking is how many 1v1 fights you’ll find. The dueling meta sits right in the middle of that range (I’ll get there in a moment), and while there are dedicated locations in Elden Ring for a duel, official and unofficial, you’ll also find players about the world more broadly, looking to fight in different scenery.
Level 125, Max Level Weapons: Dueling in the Arena or at Specific Locations
The meta for dueling in Souls games has always been either 120 or 125, going all the way back to Demon’s Souls. And in Elden Ring, level 125 with maxed-out weapons is once again where the meta landed. You’re not vastly overpowered, and you have to make sacrifices to maximize your build’s potential, but you can use almost anything in the game within certain limitations.
One thing: 125 is only optimal for dueling, and while you can invade at that level, you’ll get even more invasions across the world with Rune Arc-ed hosts. You might also get pulled to the Main Academy Gate Site of Grace for a fight club you didn’t ask for. As an invader, it’s your prerogative to send that fight club into chaos, but don’t expect to make any friends doing so.
Level 200+, Max Level Weapons: Chaos and New Game Plus
Level 200 multiplayer in Elden Ring is where a lot of the rules go out the window. You have so many stat points you might make a build, and have like 40 of the things left to spend on something. You might also just squeeze out a build that’s really good at a few things but lacking in one or two others.
If you push higher than 200, specifically to level 301+, the rules disappear entirely. Invasions past level 301 scale infinitely upward, meaning you could invade a level 713 host with other max-level phantoms. The big benefit of this high level, on console, anyway, is that you catch a lot of players playing New Game Plus cycles, so the variety of locations is pretty solid.
Those are the five multiplayer level ranges I recommend for invading, co-op, and duels in Elden Ring. Hopefully, you now have some idea of where you want a build to end up. For more Elden Ring content, check out our guides hub.
