Elden Ring: The Best Tips, Secrets, and Guides to Help You Survive
Our review of Elden Ring revealed an incredible open-world game filled with monsters,
Magic, and a dark yet addictive atmosphere. It also details some incredibly difficult boss fights and, like any FromSoftware game, plenty of frustrating deaths. The realm of the In-betweenlands is huge, and there are many things that Elden Ring doesn’t tell you about from the start. Whether you’re diving into the game for the first time or just looking for Elden Ring tips to help you not die so often, we’ve got you covered with plenty of helpful guides.
Get the Summoner’s Bell and Spirit Ashes
One of the main things to do in Elden Ring first is to get the summoner’s bell and some spirit ash. This is a huge advantage in boss fights as well as regular fights that give you trouble. With these two items, you will be able to learn how to summon spirits to help you in combat. If you’ve been fighting an enemy, having ghost friends who can help take some of the heat off of you can be a real game-changer.
All you have to do to get the Spirit Call for free is to quickly head to Elle’s Church shortly after you get the Torrent and learn how to level up your character. There should be a witch in the church surrounded by mist when you arrive to give you a bell. However, if it’s not there, you’ve probably moved too far in the story and missed your chance to get it for free. If so, you can buy a bell and wolf ash from the Round Table hold.
Once you’ve obtained the bell, you can start your quest for spiritual ashes, including the spiritual jellyfish, which is an amazingly resilient teammate in boss fights.
Level up fast with runic farming
Despite some very difficult boss fights, this game is an RPG that allows you to gain strength elsewhere. Just because you can’t beat an enemy or one of the many Elden Ring bosses right now doesn’t mean you have to keep banging your head against the wall, you just have to move on to another area and keep developing your character. . However, if you don’t want to waste your time on aimless research, this is where rune farming comes into play.
You can check out our guide on how to level up fast in Elden Ring which details the best place to farm runes early in the game. This includes going through a secret portal and fighting fairly easy enemies that will net you 1,000 runes apiece.
Upgrade your weapons with blacksmith stones
Leveling up your character is the best way to increase your overall combat ability, but it’s not the only way. If you have enough smithing stones and runes, you can also increase the power of your weapons in Elden Ring.
If you’re looking for an easy way to collect these useful items, you can take a look at our guide on where to find blacksmithing stones in the lands in between. They can be found on random humanoid bodies in the open world, as well as in a few select locations. If you have enough runes, you can also check out our guide on how to buy unlimited blacksmithing stones, which details where to find specific merchants who sell these sought-after stones.
Unraveling the secrets of paintings
If you’re tired of just fighting and want to be rewarded for a little exploration, Elden Ring’s open world is a great way to do just that. Paintings are one of the many secrets the game has to offer, and every item you find will offer you a scavenger hunt that will lead you to armor and gear, as well as various other nice rewards.
We’ve put together a guide detailing paint locations and solutions to help you get started. If you just want to know where these paintings are without ruining your scavenger hunt, just make sure you don’t look at the solutions in our guide.
Upgrade your sacred flasks
You start the game with a limited number of Sacred Flask uses, but this is not required. Whether you’re looking to add more charges or boost your flask’s power, all you have to do is find the right items. To do this, you need to go out and find Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears.
Once you have collected any of them, simply go to the nearest Grace Site, select the Flasks option, and choose which one you want to upgrade. Golden Seeds will be used to increase the charge of each flask, and Sacred Tears will be used to increase their overall strength.
Customize your Miraculous Medicine Vial
You start the game with two flasks that will help you recover HP and FP when you need it. However, you can collect a third vial called “Vial of Miraculous Medicine”, which offers customization options. You can find this item at the Third Church of Marika, located in East Limgrave.
Once you have the third vial, you just need to collect Crystal Tears to be able to customize it. If you’re wondering where to find them, we’ve put together guides for Crimson Crystal Tear, Azure Crystal Tear, Greenspill’s Crystal Tear, and Ripped Crystal Tear.
Fight easier bosses first
While encountering a boss in other games requires one or more attempts, Elden Ring bosses, especially the main bosses and dungeon bosses, can require nearly countless attempts and strategies to defeat. If you’re stuck and need a win to keep moving forward, we recommend that you look for easier fights elsewhere to level up your gear and level up.
Some of the less challenging fights take place with bosses scattered throughout the open world. If you’re still in the Limgrave area, some of the easiest boss fights you can take on are Sailor Tibia or Nejirus Bloodfinger. You will also be able to fight the Tree Sentinel from the very beginning of the game if you stay mounted throughout the fight.
You can check out our guide to all world bosses to find their location and potential rewards.
Completely bypass Stormvale Castle
If you find yourself struggling to get past Stormvale Castle, we don’t blame you. Both Margit the Fell Omen and Godrick the Grafted are difficult bosses that are hard to beat even with all these tips and tricks at your disposal. If you find yourself already exploring most of Limgrave West but still can’t get past the boss fights that the first major dungeon has to offer, then you can bypass it entirely.
To bypass Stormvale Castle, start in the direction north of Stormhill Hut just past Stormgate. Keep to the right instead of following the road where it turns sharply to the left. This should lead you to a broken bridge that ends on a rocky path on the eastern edge of Stormvale Castle. In the end, you will reach the Rock overlooking Lake of Grace, which is the starting point for exploring East Liurnia without having to conquer the dungeon.
Change your character
While you can choose your character class in Elden Ring, whatever you choose quickly becomes irrelevant as you level up. However, no matter how you shape your character, there is a good chance that you will regret your choice later. Luckily, you don’t have to be stuck with your chosen build forever if you don’t want to.
You can take a look at our guide on how to change your character’s stats if you really want to make changes for the better. However, just in case, you need to first defeat Renala, the Full Moon Queen at Lukaria’s Paradise Academy, before you can actually take advantage of this.
Activate your great runes
If you’ve managed to defeat one or more of the Shardbearing Demigods in Elden Ring, then you’ll find that you have a Greater Rune that can be very useful for future boss fights. Unfortunately, just because you have a Greater Rune doesn’t mean you can use it right away. Here it would be helpful to take a look at our guide on how to activate the Greater Runes. In order to activate your Greater Runes, you need to travel to the Divine Tower first. However, after the Greater Rune is restored, you will also need to find and use consumables called Runic Arcs to harness their power.
Looking for other helpful guides for this game? You can check out our guide to the Elden Ring Wiki for all the help you need, including an interactive Elden Ring map that makes navigating the Lands Between much easier.
