Elden Ring Dragon Communion: Every Spell and Heart Cost

Greyoll's Roar costs three Dragon Hearts. Elder Dragon Greyoll, the immobile matriarch of Caelid's Dragonbarrow, drops five. So far, so generous.

The rest of the ledger is tighter. Both major wikis count 23 Dragon Hearts in the base game and price its 13 Dragon Communion incantations at 20 in total. Three spare sounds comfortable until you see where six of the 23 are: on the Moonlight Altar, a plateau that stays shut until you are deep into Ranni's questline. Skip Ranni and you can collect 17 hearts, three short of the full set.

Here are all three altars, all 16 spells, all 23 base-game hearts, and the arithmetic for spending them.

Three altars, and what each one sells

You do not buy Dragon Communion spells from a merchant. You consume a heart at an altar, and the three altars carry different stock.

The Church is the one you can reach in your first hours. It sits on a small island off Limgrave's west coast, and the way over runs through the Coastal Cave and its two Demi-Human Chiefs. Kill the dragon over Agheel Lake and Bloody Finger Hunter Yura gives you directions: his dialogue, as Fextralife records it, sends you to "the decrepit church, on the little island off the western coast."

The Cathedral is the full shop. Fextralife lists six spells on its altar from the start (Dragonfire, Dragonclaw, Dragonmaw, Glintstone Breath, Rotten Breath and Dragonice) and seven more that unlock once you kill the creature each is named after. Magma Breath is the odd one out: its key is an unnamed Magma Wyrm on Mt. Gelmir. The walk in passes Decaying Ekzykes, whom the Fandom wiki places in the field northwest of the Cathedral, near the Caelid Highway South grace, guarding the way to the altar. Banished Knights hold the ruins themselves.

The Grand Altar adds one new spell: Ghostflame Breath, for three hearts. It stands beside the corpse of a colossal dragon on the Southern Shore, and you get there through the Dragon's Pit and past the Ancient Dragon-Man. The wikis disagree on whether Ghostflame Breath needs a kill first. Fextralife says no Ghostflame Dragon has to die. Fandom's Ghostflame Dragon page says killing one unlocks it. Either way it costs three hearts, and the three Ghostflame Dragons supply three of the DLC's hearts. The wikis also differ on the rest of its stock: Fandom's pages for Dragonfire, Dragonclaw, Dragonmaw and several other base-game spells list the Grand Altar as a place to buy them, while Fextralife's Grand Altar page lists Ghostflame Breath as the only spell sold there for Dragon Hearts.

The Grand Altar is also where you trade the Heart of Bayle for Bayle's Flame Lightning or Bayle's Tyranny. That trade spends the Heart of Bayle, not Dragon Hearts, and Fextralife says you get only one of the two per playthrough. The Remembrance rewards guide explains why that choice is final.

All 16 Dragon Communion incantations

Fextralife and Fandom both list 16: 13 from the base game and three from Shadow of the Erdtree. Placidusax's Ruin looks like a 17th, but neither wiki counts it as one.

FP in brackets is the cost of each extra tick when you hold a breath. FP, requirements and slots match between Fextralife's and Fandom's individual spell pages for all 16. Fandom's summary table has two slips: it lists Smarag's Glintstone Breath at 35 FP, where both wikis' spell pages say 36, and it gets one heart cost wrong. That cost is Greyoll's Roar. Fandom's summary table prices it at two hearts, but Fandom's own Greyoll's Roar page, Fextralife's spell page and Fextralife's Cathedral table all say three. Three is also the only figure that makes the 20-heart total both wikis quote add up.

Two things fall out of that table:

• 28 Faith and 17 Arcane casts every spell a Dragon Heart can buy. Greyoll's Roar sets both maximums. Bayle's pair want no Faith at all and 49 or 53 Arcane instead. All 14 heart spells need both stats, so this is a Faith and Arcane split build, and if your character is not one yet, Rebirth at Rennala is how it becomes one.
• Only three take more than one memory slot. Greyoll's Roar and both Bayle spells cost two, which is why they turn up in the memory slot guide. Every breath is a one-slot spell.

Where the 23 hearts are

Every heart comes off a dragon or a Magma Wyrm. Both wikis give the same 13 sources:

That is 23. Fextralife's Dragon Heart page adds that the hearts cannot be sold, so there is no way to turn a spare one into runes.

Greyoll is a quarter of the bill

Five of the 20 hearts the base-game spells cost come from one dragon, and both wikis say she cannot move. She lies in Greyoll's Dragonbarrow with a brood of smaller dragons around her, and Fandom lists 50,000 runes on top of the hearts. If you are building toward Dragon Communion, no other kill on the map pays out more hearts.

Six hearts sit behind Ranni

The bottom two rows are the catch. The three Glintstone Dragons on the Moonlight Altar give one heart each, and Glintstone Dragon Adula gives three at the Cathedral of Manus Celes. You meet Adula earlier, at the Three Sisters, but both wikis say she leaves after a short fight and reappears at Manus Celes, and the hearts only drop there. Both wikis say the Moonlight Altar only opens well into Ranni's questline. You have to beat Astel, Naturalborn of the Void, and the lift up stays sealed without the Dark Moon Ring from the chest in Rennala's library. The endings guide walks that chain step by step.

Take those six away and the base game gives you 17. The arithmetic for that run is unusually clean. Greyoll's Roar costs three, and the other 12 spells cost exactly 17 between them. Leave out Greyoll's Roar and you can buy every other base-game spell.

Shadow of the Erdtree adds four to six

The wikis count the DLC's hearts differently. Both include the three Ghostflame Dragons, one each in Gravesite Plain, Scadu Altus and on the Cerulean Coast, plus the Magma Wyrm inside the Dragon's Pit. Fandom's Dragon Heart page stops there, at four. Fextralife also counts the Jagged Peak Drakes, one at the foothills and one further up the mountain, for six and a running total of 29. Fandom's own Jagged Peak Drake page lists a Dragon Heart among their drops, so Fextralife's count looks like the complete one. Either way, the DLC pays for its one new heart spell: Ghostflame Breath costs three.

Which spells are worth a heart

The breath ladder

Four of the base game's one-heart breaths have a two-heart version named after a dragon, and the item descriptions call those superior incantations. Here is what the extra heart buys per hit. The percentages are Fandom's per-hit damage multipliers, expressed as a share of your seal's incantation scaling. Each breath can land up to three hits, and holding the cast releases a second breath.

Fextralife's notes put the gap at about 18% for each pair, so the two wikis agree on the shape. Three details matter more than the percentage:

• The status buildup does not go up. Ekzykes's Decay applies the same 65 Scarlet Rot per hit as Rotten Breath, and Borealis's Mist the same 110 Frostbite as Dragonice. The extra heart buys damage, not faster procs. Ghostflame Breath goes the other way: the wikis put it 5 to 6% above Borealis's Mist, with half the Frostbite. What those procs do once they land is in the status effects guide.
• The opening breath costs 29 to 33% more FP. That is 36 instead of 28 for the fire and magic pairs, and 48 instead of 36 for the rot and frost pairs. In all four pairs the damage gain is smaller than the FP increase, so the one-heart breaths do more damage per point of FP.
• They are not the same tool. Both wikis agree the one-heart breaths can be cast from Torrent's back but not mid-jump. The named breaths are the reverse: you can cast them while jumping, but not on horseback. Ghostflame Breath works like the named ones. If you fight from the saddle, the cheap version is the better spell.

Smarag's Glintstone Breath has the biggest per-hit number on the list, and Fandom ranks it the strongest of the named breaths.

The magma pair

Magma Breath and Theodorix's Magma both spit a glob that leaves a burning pool, and both allow one follow-up. Both wikis put Theodorix's Magma at about 40% more damage, for 45 FP against Magma Breath's 30. The catch is geography. Theodorix lives in the Consecrated Snowfield, a late-game region, and his spell costs two hearts to Magma Breath's one. Both wikis say Magma Breath works on Torrent. For Theodorix's Magma they disagree: Fextralife says it can be cast on horseback, and Fandom says it cannot.

Claw, maw and roar

Dragonclaw is the cheapest spell on the list at 24 FP: a physical claw slam with one follow-up. Fextralife puts each slam at 30 stance damage.

Dragonmaw is a single slow bite. Fextralife has it landing about 2.2 seconds into the cast. It is also a serious stance-breaking spell: 45 stance damage by Fextralife's count, 55 by Fandom's. The stance-break guide covers what that does to a boss's stance bar. Neither Dragonclaw nor Dragonmaw gets the Roar Medallion bonus below.

Greyoll's Roar is the expensive one: three hearts, two slots and 50 FP. It is a roar that hits all the way around you for physical damage and, per both wikis, cuts enemy attack by 15% and defence by 10%. Fextralife gives the debuff a 60-second duration. It belongs to the Power Shred debuff category, so it replaces Soul Stifler rather than stacking with it, as the buff stacking guide explains. Fextralife adds that it is the only Dragon Communion spell whose cast gets faster with Dexterity.

Three things that make them hit harder

The Dragon Communion Seal is the one to get first, and it is closer than it looks. A spectral Banished Knight drops it in Fringefolk Hero's Grave, the tomb behind the Stranded Graveyard where you started, and the door takes two Stonesword Keys. The early-game route covers the rest of that dungeon. The seal weighs nothing, needs 10 Faith and 10 Arcane, scales D in Faith and C in Arcane, and upgrades with Somber Smithing Stones. Fandom's seal page works through the split: at +10, 45 Faith and 45 Arcane gives 336 incantation scaling against 333 for 30 Faith and 60 Arcane, so piling extra points into Arcane gains nothing on this seal. Hold one in each hand and Fandom puts the bonus at 32.25%, because the two 15% boosts multiply.

The Roar Medallion weighs 0.7 and costs one of your four talisman slots. Both wikis list the same 12 spells for its 10%. Dragonclaw, Dragonmaw and both Bayle spells are left out.

The Rock Heart is the Shadow of the Erdtree piece. The "Domain of Dragons" Painting from Shadow Keep lets you see a painter spirit on the Jagged Peak, and that spirit gives you the heart. Use it while wearing no armor and it turns you into an ancient dragon until you die. Use it again in that form and, per Fextralife, Dragon Communion incantations deal 20% more for 60 seconds. Both wikis say it stacks with the seal. Two seals and an active Rock Heart come to 1.3225 × 1.2, about 59% more damage on any spell all three cover.

What the patches changed

Several patches have touched these spells. Fandom's copy of the 1.07 notes lists FP cuts for Dragonclaw, Dragonmaw and Greyoll's Roar and a Scarlet Rot reduction for Rotten Breath and Ekzykes's Decay, which Fextralife puts at 110 per hit down to 65. Two later official notes matter for how the spells play now:

• 1.09 (23 March 2023) fixed a bug where the Roar Medallion did not boost some incantations. Fextralife's spell pages date the Medallion's bonus on dragon breaths to this patch.
• 1.17 (27 August 2026) has one Dragon Communion entry, and it applies to PvP only: Rotten Breath and Ekzykes's Decay now keep other players stuck in hit reactions for less time. Nothing else in those notes touches a heart cost, a requirement or an altar.

Fandom's breath pages also record that dragon breaths deal 20% less damage to other players than to enemies, a PvP multiplier that dates back to patch 1.07.

The eyes, and New Game Plus

Dragon Communion leaves a mark. Fextralife records that after your fourth spell bought with hearts, your eyes change: the whites turn black, the irises gold, and the pupils become slits. If White Mask Varré's questline or the Frenzied Flame has already changed your eyes, the dragon eyes wait until your next Journey. Fia's Mirror at the Roundtable Hold removes eye changes. The Magma Breath and Magma Wyrm's Scalesword descriptions warn that partakers end up as wyrms, but Fextralife notes the eyes are as far as the change goes, however many hearts you consume.

New Game Plus strips the eye change and keeps the rest. Fextralife's New Game Plus page lists unspent Dragon Hearts and learned incantations among the things that carry into the next Journey. The full list is in the New Game Plus guide.

Quick Action Checklist

• Kill Agheel and take the heart to the Church. Dragonfire, at 15 Faith and 12 Arcane, has the lowest requirements of the Church's three spells. The Church is through the Coastal Cave.
• Spend two Stonesword Keys on Fringefolk Hero's Grave for the Dragon Communion Seal: +15% to every Dragon Communion spell, and 32.25% with one in each hand.
• Pick up the Roar Medallion from the Stonedigger Troll in the Limgrave Tunnels if you are running breaths. It does nothing for Dragonclaw or Dragonmaw.
• Plan on 28 Faith and 17 Arcane if you want everything Dragon Hearts can buy.
• Kill Greyoll. Five hearts from a dragon that cannot move is a quarter of the base-game bill.
• Do Ranni's questline if you want every spell. Six hearts are on the Moonlight Altar. Without them you have 17, so skip Greyoll's Roar and the other 12 cost exactly that.
• Buy one breath per element, not both. The two-heart version adds about 17 to 18% damage for 29 to 33% more FP. It can be cast mid-jump but not from Torrent.
• Do not count on extra status from the named breaths. Ekzykes's Decay and Borealis's Mist apply the same rot and frost per hit as their one-heart versions.
• Budget three hearts for Ghostflame Breath in Shadow of the Erdtree. The Heart of Bayle trade is separate and one-shot.
• Do not worry about unspent hearts. They carry into New Game Plus along with every spell you learned.