Dark Souls 3 has a plethora of weapons, spells, and armor sets for players to find throughout their difficult journey. Spells can have a massive impact on your experience, providing ranged damage, buffs, or utility effects that are difficult to find with consumable items.

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Miracles are the king of utility, granting various buffs and effects that negate many of the dangers of Dark Souls 3's PvE content. Even PvP players can take advantage of excellent weapon buffs and lightning skills provided by miracles. If you wish to smite Hollows with the fury of Gwyn himself, this is the school of magic for you. Let's go over how miracles work, how to scale them, and how to unlock most miracles in Dark Souls 3.

Updated July 28th, 2021, by Charles Burgar: Miracles provide some excellent utility for most Dark Souls 3 builds. While they don't outdamage pyromancies or sorceries, the utility provided by miracles more than makes up for this. To help you understand miracles and implement them into your builds, we've updated this guide to clarify a few mechanics, and we've made some small organizational tweaks that should make navigating this guide much easier.

Why Use Miracles?

Miracles sacrifice raw damage for unparalleled utility. Virtually every situation in Dark Souls 3 can be made easier with a miracle or two. Are multiple enemies rushing you? Use Emit Force or Lightning Stake to stun them. Running low on Estus Flasks? Use healing miracles. Dealing with a poison swamp? Cure yourself with Caressing Tears. If you want to inject some utility in your build or plan to play co-op, there's no better discipline of magic than this.

Attuning And Casting Miracles

Casting any miracle will require two things: an attuned miracle and a catalyst. You'll also need enough FP, short for Focus Points, to cast a miracle.

Attuning Miracles

All miracles can be attuned at any bonfire. Select the "Attune Spell" option in any bonfire menu, then select the miracles you wish to use. You can switch miracles as many times as you want. If you want more spell slots for attuning miracles, either increase your Attunement stat or use a ring that increases your spell slot maximum.

Miracle Catalysts

Miracles have three different catalyst types:

1. Talismans
2. Chimes
3. The Rose of Ariandel, a unique whip

Talismans and Chimes function mostly the same, using your Faith to cast miracles at will. The difference between both archetypes is their weapon art:

• Talismans use Unfaltering Prayer, granting a massive poise boost while casting miracles for a moderate duration.
• Chimes use Gentle Prayer, granting a passive HP regen effect for a short time.

Talismans are more suited for PvP, and chimes are more suited for PvE. It's also worth noting that certain chimes can also cast sorceries, making chimes a reasonable option for hybrid builds.

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The Rose of Ariandel is a unique whip that can cast miracles on its heavy attack, allowing you to play as a more aggressive caster. Its weapon art, Awakening, grants a 25% boost to miracle damage for two minutes, making this an excellent weapon to pair with Lightning Spear and other lightning-related miracles.

Managing FP

FP, otherwise known as Focus Points, are required to use any miracle in Dark Souls 3. It functions similarly to Stamina except it doesn't regenerate, meaning you'll need to rely on Ashen Estus Flasks or other FP consumables to recover this resource.

Since you'll need to use Ashen Flasks to get the most out of your miracles, it's recommended that you increase your Attunement to 26. This will allow +10 Ashen Flasks to fully recover your FP bar. You'll also have four spell slots to use for attuning spells.

Unlocking Miracles

Most miracles are purchased from NPCs that accept Braille Tomes, those being Irina of Carim and Karla. Braille Tomes are scattered through the game and unlock numerous miracles for you to buy. A handful of miracles can also be found in the world on corpses, hidden areas, or by transposing a boss soul.

Where To Find Irina Of Carim

Irina can be found at the edge of the Undead Settlement, just before you take the elevator to the Road of Sacrifices. To reach her, you'll need the Grave Key sold by the Shrine Handmaiden. It costs 1,500 souls and requires the Mortician's Ashes to purchase.

With the key purchased, travel to the Dilapidated Bridge in the Undead Settlement. Head right of the bonfire, enter the sewer with all of the rats, then use your key to open a door halfway in the sewer. Clear out the next few rooms with skeletons, then run straight ahead when you are outside. You'll enter a new building with rats spawning continuously. You can either kill or ignore them. Climb up the ladder in this room to reach Irina.

Where To Find Karla

Karla can be found in the Irithyll Dungeon, just before you fight the gargoyle protecting Profaned Capital. After you enter a room with a large group of jailers, enter the second room past the jailers and turn right to find her at the end of the hall.

Related: Dark Souls 3: How To Respec Your Character

To free her, you'll need a Jailer's Key Ring. This can be found in the Profaned Capital. From the main bonfire, slide down the ladder and hang around the tower. That path will lead you to a poison swamp with a building at the center of the pool. Run to the building, climb the ladder next to the wall, then stay to the left of the roof. You'll find a staircase inside a wall. Jump onto the staircase and follow the path to find the key. Return to Karla's cell to free her.

Scaling Miracles

Miracles use Faith as their main stat. Investing in this stat will increase the damage that your miracles deal. You'll start facing diminishing returns past 60 points into the stat—known by most as the "soft cap" for Faith.

Upgrading your catalyst also increases the strength of your miracles by a noticeable amount. Blacksmiths and other vendors that upgrade gear can enhance your catalysts to +5 or +10, increasing the strength of all miracles cast with that catalyst. Be sure you're leveling your Faith and upgrading your catalysts throughout the game to get the most out of your spells.

Every Miracle Braille Tome

There are four Braille Tomes in Dark Souls 3, each unlocking a few miracles for you to mess with. Technically, you can give all four tomes to Irina, but this will have negative effects on her questline. To complete Irina's quest on good terms, give any dark tomes to Karla. She can teach you dark miracles without compromising Irina's quest.

Braille Divine Tome Of Carim

Instead of heading down towards the water, turn around to where you originally came from. The bridge that's guarded by birdmen has a ledge you can drop down to. Hop down, then follow the path into a small cave to find this tome. Beware of the guard dogs protecting the tome!

Londor Braille Divine Tome

This tome is purchased from Yuria of Londor. It costs 50 Souls. To get Yuri to spawn at Firelink Shrine, you must first rescue Yoel of Londor from the Undead Settlement. "Draw out your true strength" five times with Yoel to spawn Yuria at Firelink Shrine.

Deep Braille Divine Tome

When you enter the cathedral proper, you'll eventually enter a room with a lone chest atop a red rug. This chest is a mimic, one of the first mimics you'll stumble across in Dark Souls 3. Kill the mimic or use an Undead Hunter Charm to obtain the tome.

Braille Divine Tome Of Lothric

From the Dragonslayer bonfire, backtrack to the courtyard just before the boss arena. Turn right and run towards the small pile of rubble along a chest-high wall. Equip a Silvercat Ring or remove all of your equipment, then jump off the wall. Land on the railing if you can. Once you land, turn around to find an empty room. Enter the room and run up the set of stairs on your right to find the tome nestled near a corpse.

Every Miracle

Dark Souls 3 has quite a few miracles available, most of which are locked off to the later stages of the game. We've covered every miracle in-depth in our miracle compendium. If you're looking for general advice on miracles, we have guides on the best miracles and great miracles for newer players.

Next: The Best Dark Souls 3 PVE Builds, Ranked