Master Elden Ring: Your Ultimate Guide to the Lands Between

From Your First Step In Limgrave To Beating Malenia, Know The Ins and Outs Of Elden Ring

From the moment when you step into Limgrave, Elden Ring will bombard you with mechanics, weapons, spells, and loads more right up until the end. You’ll easily lose hundreds of hours traversing the Lands Between, and it’ll be a tough time without having a manual for the basics and some tips and tricks to help you along the way. 

If you’re looking to get up to speed with the story and questlines, our Elden Ring guide will steer you in the right direction.This page also serves as a hub for all of Finalboss’ Elden Ring guides, so you can come back here at any time during your playthrough.

Learning The Ropes

There is much you’ll discover as you venture further into Elden Ring, but here’s an overview of the essentials:

Character Creation

As soon as you start a new game you’ll be greeted with the character creation menu. It offers you to choose a Class such as Samurai, Bandit, or Hero. Just scratch all of that since none of that matters past the first 3 hours. You’ll have abundant skill points to pursue any build you want, and as for cosmetics and appearance, everything is changeable from Elden Ring’s hub area, the Roundtable Hold. 

Related Guides:

• How To Level Up In Elden Ring
• Max Level Character Level In Elden Ring

Locations

The virtually endless map of Elden Ring is divided into at least 10 to 14 main areas depending upon how you look at it, and this includes the giant underground regions. Here are some of them you’ll spend most of your time in:

• Limgrave
• Weeping Peninsula (Limgrave)
• Caelid
• Liurna of the Lakes
• Altus Plateau
• Mountaintops of the Giants
• Consecrated Snowfield
• Crumbling Farum Azula

If you’re not getting a grasp of the setting in Elden Ring, then refer to this guide that explains where exactly Elden Ring takes place. Alternatively, if you don’t know about the Elden Ring Haligtree secret area yet, use this guide to fast-track your progress.

Sites of Grace

There are over 300 “Site of Grace” rest points in the world which are the equivalents of the Bonfires in the Dark Souls series or the Lamps in Bloodborne. Unlike previous Souls games, you can fast travel to any already visited Site of Grace from anywhere, so getting around has never been easier.

Stats And Builds 

Elden Ring features a set of 8 unique attributes that affect your character. The stats are Vigor, Mind, Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane. Each of them impacts an aspect of gameplay. Adding skill points to Vigor increases your total health while leveling up Strength and Faith would allow you to use stronger weapons, incantations, or a mix of things that require both.

By investing in any specific stat, you can aim to make different builds such as becoming a wizard who uses sorceries or an assassin whose bread and butter is backstabs. The possibilities are countless, and if you ever want to reset your character, you can reallocate all your skill points later in the game, so go nuts.

In comparison, armor pieces in Elden Ring primarily affect your defense but some come imbued with passive effects such as increased health or focus points. And lastly, Talismans are equipable items scattered throughout the world that also provide amazing passive bonuses. These bonuses range from increasing Strength by a factor of 10 to doubling your stamina.  

Related Guides:

• How To Respec In Elden Ring

Weapons, Sorceries, And Incantations

Brace yourselves as Elden Ring comes loaded with a whopping 308 weapons, 70 sorceries, and 101 incantations. None of the spells or armaments play alike, and because of that, there’s absolutely no way you’ll be able to handle the sheer amount of content packed in this game.

The funny thing is, somehow, FromSoftware decided creating over 450 combat tools wasn’t enough. They decided to add special skills called “Ashes of War” to each weapon too, so don’t get surprised if you end up on playthrough number 14 and still find weapons you haven’t seen before.

Speaking of weapons, you should be aware that you’ll need Smithing Stones to upgrade weapons. Smithing Stones exist with different ranks, and the higher you want to upgrade your weapon, the higher ranked Smithing Stones you’ll need to own. But they’re easy to find so I wouldn’t worry too much.

Related Guides:

• How To Parry Attacks
• How To Two–hand Weapons
• Best Weapons In Elden Ring
• Best Spells In Elden Ring
• Best Dexterity Weapons In Elden Ring
• Where To Get Bloodhound Step

Spirit Ashes

Spirit Ashes are NPCs you can summon during battles to assist you. Once you obtain the Spirit Calling Bell from the Church of Elleh in Limgrave, you can use it to summon any NPC provided you have obtained their Spirit Ashes. Spirit Ashes are littered everywhere in the game: chests, boss rewards, open-world, etc.

Elden Ring can become a walk in the park when you use Spirit Ashes since several of them are surprisingly stronger than you! Anyhow, follow the guides underneath to know about the best ones to get first and how to upgrade them.

Related Guides:

• How To Upgrade Spirit Ashes
• Best Spirit Ashes In Elden Ring

Summoning Your Horse

Calling the Lands Between gargantuous would be a huge understatement. It takes hours to go from one end of the map to the other. Fortunately, the light of the Golden Order shines bright upon our Tarnished as early on in the game, we’re gifted Torrent, our best friend and trusty steed. Whenever you want to reach a far-off destination, summon Torrent and you’ll be there in no time. Here’s how to get Torrent if you still don’t have him yet:

• How To Summon Horse In Elden Ring

Multiplayer

Multiplayer was an aspect FromSoftware had yet to implement heavily in their games, but thankfully, with Elden Ring they’ve innovated on that as well. Elden Ring does include a wide variety of multiplayer options ranging from PvP duels to helping other players beat the game’s hardest bosses. A guide on the how-tos of multiplayer and overall queries about Elden Ring can be found below:

• Is Elden Ring Multiplayer?
• Best Mods For Elden Ring
• Is Elden Ring Cross Platform?

Open-world Collectibles

Generally speaking, everything from weapons to bosses in Elden Ring can be found in the open-world. This part of the guide specifically mentions collectible items that are important, but may not be immediately obvious if you’re new to the game.

Map Fragments

When you first view the map screen, it’ll be all blank. You’ll only see a handful of markers hinting at something, and those are map fragments. Whenever you enter a new region, always be sure to collect its map fragment as it will reveal the region’s entire layout, allowing you to discover points of interest and much more.

Great Runes

Great Runes are temporary power-ups that last until your character dies, however, they can be reactivated provided you have an expendable Rune Arc in your inventory. In order to obtain a Great Runes, you must defeat Demigods such as Rennala or Godrick who are typically found in Legacy Dungeons in the world.

Golden Seeds

Golden Seeds are upgrade materials required to increase the uses of your health (Crimson) and focus points (Cerulean) flasks. You’ll always find Golden Seeds lying near golden branches of the Erdtree. They’re pretty hard to miss but it’s safer to keep an eye out.

Crystal And Sacred Tears

Crystal Tears are items that are added to the Flask Of Wondrous Physick which can be acquired from the Third Church of Marika in Limgrave. In contrast to the Crimson, and Cerulean Flasks which can have over 10 uses per rest, it only has a single use but the status effects are totally customizable. 

Every Crystal Tear has a unique buff such as an increase in strength or health regeneration. They can be found by defeating bosses or in random parts of the open-world. In order to change what the Flask Of Wondrous Physick does, you simply need to rest at a Site of Grace and add any two Crystal Tears you want to it.

As for Sacred Tears, they are also permanent upgrades. They, on the other hand, increase the amount of health and focus points the Flasks of Cerulean, and Crimson Tears replenish.

The To-do List

This part of our Elden Ring guide highlights the progression aspects of the game. Everything from the story to the NPC questlines, you’ll find all about them below with their walkthroughs.

Completing The Main Story

Akin to other FromSoftware games, Elden Ring doesn’t feature proper story progression pages or even mission markers as a matter of fact. You have to figure out everything for yourself which may be a daunting task for first-time Souls players. Luckily, if you follow our boss order guide, you’ll have an easier time understanding the objectives needed to complete the main story.

The boss order guide for the story along with related queries is listed below: 

• How Long To Beat Elden Ring
• Elden Ring Boss Order
• How To Beat Malenia
• Hardest Bosses In Elden Ring

Legacy Dungeons

Legacy Dungeons are the largest and toughest areas within a region in Elden Ring. They’re home to the strongest bosses in the game and offer significant rewards as well as story and lore progression. There are 6 Legacy Dungeons in Elden Ring:

• Stormveil Castle
• Raya Lucaria Academy
• Leyndell, Royal Capital
• Volcano Manor (Optional)
• Miquella’s Haligtree (Optional)
• Crumbling Farum Azula

NPC Questlines

Various NPCs can be interacted with in Elden Ring and each of them has a special questline that can be explored. Here are a couple of fun ones that you shouldn’t miss out on:

• Ranni Questline Guide
• Millicent Questline Guide
• Alexander Questline Guide
• Sellen Questline Guide

Multiple Endings

Like all FromSoftware Soulslikes, Elden Ring features multiple endings as well. There are a total of 6 endings in the game, and if you’re interested in getting all of them, here’s a complete step-by-step guide.