Elden Ring Tips & Tricks
A beginner's guide to mastering Elden Ring's combat fundamentals, covering stamina management, super armor, mounted combat, flask upgrades, spirit summons, and early progression choices to help new players overcome the game's hardest obstacles.
29 Tips · 4 categories
16 tipsCombat
Drop Shield Between Attacks to Regenerate Stamina
Blocking with your shield drains your stamina bar. After blocking a hit, lower your shield briefly before the next attack lands so your stamina begins recovering. Keeping it raised continuously will leave you guard-broken.
Stay Below 70% Equipment Load for Fast Rolls
Equip the heaviest armor you can find, but keep your total equipment load below 70% to maintain fast, effective rolls with full invincibility frames. Rolling above that threshold produces a slow, shorter roll that is much harder to time.
Block Fast Attacks and Roll Through Slow Ones
Fast attacks are difficult to dodge on reaction, so blocking them is the safer option. Slow attacks can be anticipated and rolled through, which costs less stamina than blocking and leaves you with more stamina to counterattack.
Use Guard Counters to Retaliate After Blocking
Immediately after successfully blocking an attack, press R2 to perform a Guard Counter. These counters deal heavy damage and often break the Super Armor of weaker enemies in a single hit, opening them up for a critical strike with R1.
Use R2 Attacks to Break Enemy Super Armor
All R2 attacks deal more Super Armor damage than R1 attacks. Jumping R2 hits deal a large amount, running R2 is also strong, but fully charged R2 attacks deal the most Super Armor damage of any input. Use them when an enemy is close to breaking.
Keep Attacking Before Super Armor Regenerates
Enemy Super Armor refills passively over time. If you sense a boss is close to breaking point, stay aggressive with R2 attacks to push through before the meter recovers. Backing off at that moment wastes all the posture damage you built up.
Two-Hand Your Weapon to Maximize Damage Output
Hold Triangle or Y and tap R1 to two-hand your right-hand weapon. Two-handing grants a new moveset, increased Strength scaling, higher Super Armor damage, and often lets you push through enemy shields without recoil. Use it when defense is less of a concern.
Use Jumping Attacks to Close Distance Instantly
Jumping attacks let you cover ground and queue an attack at the same time, making them excellent gap closers. Jumping R1 is better against flying or mounted enemies, while jumping R2 deals more posture damage to grounded targets.
Shortcut Crimson Flask to First Quick-Select Slot
Place your Flask of Crimson Tears in the first slot of your quick-select bar. Holding down on the D-pad will always jump directly to that slot, giving you instant access to healing in the middle of a fight without cycling through items.
Use Torrent for Hit-and-Run on Large Enemies
Large and mounted enemies struggle against a mounted player using hit-and-run tactics. Torrent's speed lets you land attacks and immediately disengage before the enemy can retaliate, making fights that would otherwise be dangerous much more manageable.
Heal Torrent With Crimson Flasks or Rowa Raisins
Torrent has his own health pool separate from yours. You can heal him by using a Flask of Crimson Tears while mounted, or by feeding him craftable Rowa Raisins. If Torrent dies before you, you must spend a flask charge to revive him.
Dismount Before Losing Posture on Horseback
Taking enough hits while mounted causes you to lose posture and get knocked down for an extended period, leaving you completely exposed. If you are taking consistent damage on Torrent, dismount voluntarily before that happens and fight on foot.
Dismount With Jumping Attacks for Immediate Advantage
Press L3 to dismount and simultaneously press L1, R1, or R2 to launch a jumping attack as you land. The distance this covers is significant and puts you into melee range instantly, giving you the first strike in a ground engagement.
Use Ranged Weapons to Lure and Status-Apply Enemies
Bows and crossbows are excellent utility tools even if you are not a ranged build. You can use them to pull single enemies out of groups, or to apply poison and sleep from a safe distance before closing in.
Use Shields With 100% Physical Block for Reliable Defense
A shield with 100% physical damage mitigation negates all physical damage while blocking. Stability determines how much stamina a blocked hit costs, so a higher stability shield lets you block more hits before your stamina runs out. Reinforce your shield to raise both.
Summon Spirits to Assist With Difficult Encounters
Once you have the Summoning Bell, you can equip Spirit Ashes and summon them at encounters marked with the rebirth monument symbol, as long as you have enough FP. Spirits fight alongside you until they die and are one of the most effective tools for surviving hard bosses.
7 tipsProgression
Upgrade Flasks With Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears
Golden Seeds are found at minor Erdtrees and increase the number of flask charges you can carry. Sacred Tears are found at Churches of Marika and increase how much each charge heals. Both upgrades are applied at any Site of Grace.
Respawn at Stakes of Marika to Shorten Runbacks
When you die near a Stake of Marika statue, you can choose to respawn there instead of at your last Site of Grace. This shortens the run back to your dropped runes considerably and is usually the better choice unless you want to avoid the area entirely.
Buy Crafting Kit From Kale at Church of Elleh
Purchasing the Crafting Kit from the merchant Kale unlocks the crafting tab in your menu. Crafting lets you produce useful consumables from materials you collect while exploring. Recipe Books found in the world expand what you can make.
Grab Torch and Bow From Early Game Merchants
Buy a Torch from Kale to see clearly in dark caves. A nomadic merchant on a beach southwest of the Church of Elleh sells a bow cheaply. Both are worth picking up early since the torch is essential for cave exploration and the bow opens up ranged utility.
Reinforce Weapons at the Church of Elleh Smithing Table
The smithing table at the Church of Elleh lets you upgrade most weapons to +3 using Smithing Stone Shards found around the world. Upgrading is the fastest way to increase your damage output if enemies feel too tanky early on.
Level Vigor, Endurance, and Mind as Safe Early Stats
If you have not committed to a build direction yet, leveling Vigor increases your HP and resistances, Endurance raises your stamina and equipment load, and Mind increases your FP for skills and spells. All three benefit every playstyle and are safe early investments.
Apply Ashes of War to Adjust Weapon Scaling and Skills
Ashes of War can be applied to weapons at any Site of Grace after you find the Whetstone Knife. They let you change a weapon's damage type and scaling affinity to match your stats, and also assign a unique skill activated with L2.
5 tipsExploration
Bind Spectral Steed Whistle to Your Pouch
Assign the Spectral Steed Whistle to one of the four pouch slots in your menu. Accessing the pouch requires holding Triangle or Y and tapping the matching D-pad button, giving you a consistent and fast input for summoning Torrent without searching through your item bar.
Jump Into Spirit Springs to Negate Fall Damage
Spirit Springs launch you to great heights when you ride Torrent through them. You can also land directly into a Spirit Spring from above to cancel all fall damage, making them useful escape routes as well as shortcuts.
Pick Up the Whetstone Knife at Gatefront Ruins
The Whetstone Knife is located in a cellar at the Gatefront Ruins in Limgrave. Picking it up unlocks the ability to apply Ashes of War to your weapons at Sites of Grace, which is essential for build customization throughout the entire game.
Collect Map Fragments at Guide Stele Icons
Map fragments are found at glowing Guide Stele pillars scattered across each region. On your undiscovered map, these steles appear as a distinctive pillar icon, so you can navigate toward them even before the map is revealed.
Follow the Guidance of Grace for Story Direction
Golden rays of light emanating from Sites of Grace point toward your next main story objective. If you are unsure where to go, follow the light. If the main path is too difficult, ignore it and explore in the opposite direction to find easier areas and grow stronger first.
1 tipStealth
Crouch and Pass Time at Grace to Enable Stealth
Crouching with L3 on foot reduces enemy aggro range and makes backstabs easier to land. Enemy aggro range is also reduced at night, so if you need a stealth advantage, rest at a Site of Grace and pass time until nightfall.
Verified: 2026-05-30 · All content is original with full credit to original creators.