Elden Ring - Gauntlets

Gauntlets weigh the least of any armor slot and deserve the last pick: whatever matches the rest of the set will do, unless a specific passive or an immunity number earns the hand slot.

Combat

Pros

• The whole slot fits inside a rounding error of equip load, from 0.6 (Gold Tattoo) to 8.8 (Bull-Goat Gauntlets), so almost any build can wear the heaviest gauntlets in the game without changing roll class.
• Several gauntlets hit the slot ceiling of 10 poise, among them Bull-Goat Gauntlets (8.8 weight), Gauntlets of Solitude (8.0 weight) and Fire Prelate Gauntlets (8.2 weight).
• The slot carries several flat percentage buffs at near-zero cost: Rakshasa Gauntlets add 2% to all damage, Spellblade's Gloves 2% magic damage on skills at 1.2 weight, Ansbach's Manchettes 3% to Blood Oath and dynastic skills at 1.7 weight, Death Knight Gauntlets 2% to Dragon Cult abilities, and Crucible Gauntlets strengthen Aspects of the Crucible incantations.
• Royal Remains Gauntlets carry a quarter of the set's regeneration on their own, 2 HP per second below 18% HP against 8 HP per second for all four pieces, for 3.5 weight and 4 poise.

Cons

• Gauntlets supply about 10% of a set's poise, and nothing decides a fight on that. Bull-Goat Gauntlets are 10 of the Bull-Goat Set's 100; Knight Gauntlets are 5 of the Knight Set's 51.
• Physical negation spans only 0.6 (Brave's Bracer) to 5.6 (Steel Gauntlets). The entire slot is worth less physical negation than the gap between two mid-tier chest pieces.
• Poise runs from 1 to 10 across the slot: every gauntlet gives some, and none gives enough to reach a stagger breakpoint by itself.
• The unique effects are mostly small. Briar Gauntlets deal roll damage of 18 base and about 2 after negation, a flavor effect rather than a damage source.

Builds

For most builds the honest answer is to wear the gauntlets that match the rest of the set and stop thinking about it, since downgrading saves under 9 points of weight across the whole slot.

• The slot only earns a decision in three cases.
• The first is a build one or two poise short of a breakpoint that can afford Bull-Goat Gauntlets, Gauntlets of Solitude or Fire Prelate Gauntlets at 10 poise.
• The second is a percentage passive that lines up with what the build actually casts or swings: Rakshasa Gauntlets on a glass-cannon build, Spellblade's Gloves on a Cold or magic-infused weapon, Crucible Gauntlets on an Aspects of the Crucible build, or Royal Remains Gauntlets as part of the four-piece regeneration.
• The third is a status resistance problem, where Mushroom Arms' 34 immunity or a high-robustness piece does more than any amount of negation.
• Everything else in the slot is cosmetic.

Best Gauntlets

Piece	Image	Poise	Weight	Physical	Immunity	Robust.	Focus	Vitality
Bull-Goat Gauntlets		10	8.8	5.2	24	28	15	18
Gauntlets of Solitude		10	8	4.7	20	21	33	17
Crucible Gauntlets		7	5.2	4.4	17	24	12	12
Rakshasa Gauntlets		6	4.3	1.3	12	20	9	9
Royal Remains Gauntlets		4	3.5	2.9	12	19	8	4
Spellblade's Gloves		1	1.2	0.9	11	6	19	20

Notes

• Poise is a hidden HP bar equal to the displayed poise. When it empties the character is staggered and the bar resets, and it fully restores after 30 seconds without being hit. Spare poise does not carry over between hits.
• The breakpoints worth aiming for are 51 and 101 poise for the whole character, so a gauntlet only moves a build across one when it was already on the edge.
• Equip load classes are Light at 29.9% or less, Medium 30.0 to 69.9%, Heavy 70.0 to 99.9% and Overloaded at 100% or more. Light and Medium share identical invincibility frames, with only roll distance and backstep recovery differing.
• Elden Ring has no set bonuses, so gauntlets can be mixed freely. The exceptions are passives that stack per piece, which reward wearing more of the same set.
• Gauntlets cannot be altered. Altering, free with Boc the Seamster or 500 runes at a Site of Grace, only works on specific helms and body armor, which is why no gauntlet has an (Altered) variant.

All Gauntlets

The table below lists all Gauntlets in Elden Ring.