Elden Ring: Everything You Need To Do Before Shadow Of The Erdtree

With Elden Ring dropping its long-awaited Shadow Of The Erdtree expansion on June 21, players should be looking to round out their characters to enter The Land of Shadow at peak performance. FromSoftware has stated that the DLC will be as hard as the late game, giving players plenty of reason to prepare for quite the challenge. While the expansion will undoubtedly contain a plethora of interesting weapons, armor, and spells, there are plenty of quality-of-life items that will help your character’s journey through this exciting new land.

The expansion can’t even be accessed until making headway into the latter parts of Elden Ring, as the entrance to the Land of Shadow is blocked by Mohg, Lord of Blood. By this point, many Tarnished will have already fleshed out their builds and allocated their runes, as Mohg is one of the late-game bosses. However, The Lands Between are incredibly large, and valuable items often go uncollected by even the most avid of players.

Smithing Stones and Bell Bearings

Throughout the journey through The Lands Between, there are dozens of smithing stones scattered throughout the world that can be used to upgrade your armaments. While scouring the world for these is valuable in the early game, at some point in the journey, players will find themselves in need of additional stones as they encounter new weapons.

The solution to this problem is to find their corresponding bell bearings, which can be turned in to the Twin Maiden Husks to use runes to purchase an infinite amount of these stones.

You cannot use bell bearings to purchase ancient smithing stones to max out your weapons, as there are meant to be a finite number of these per playthrough.

Name of Item	Location	How to Find
Smithing Stone Miner’s Bell Bearings	Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel	Defeat the Crystalian
	Sealed Tunnel	Inside a chest after entering the first area
	Zamor Ruins	Inside a chest at the bottom of the stairs
	Crumbling Farum Azula	Defeat the Godskin Duo
Somberstone Miner’s Bell Bearings	Sellia Crystal Tunnel	Defeat the Fallingstar Beast
	Altus Tunnel	Defeat the Crystalian Spear and Ringblade
	First Church of Marika	On a body in front of the Church
	Crumbling Farum Azula	Next to the Tempest-Facing Balcony
	Crumbling Farum Azula	In the temple before the Great Bridge

There are also bell bearings that contain gloveworts and ghost-gloveworts which can be used to upgrade any spirit ashes you have found. Glovewort bell bearings contain grave glovewort, which can be used to upgrade standard spirit ashes. Ghost-glovewort bell bearings contain ghost glovewort, which is used to upgrade legendary spirit ashes.

Name of Item	Location	How to Find
Glovewort Picker’s Bell Bearings	Wyndham Catacombs	Defeat the Erdtree Burial Watchdog
	Giants’ Mountaintop Catacombs	Defeat the Ulcerated Tree Spirit
	Crumbling Farum Azula	In the lake to the south near wormfaces
Ghost-Glovewort Picker’s Bell Bearings	Nokron, Eternal City	In a gazebo after entering the city
	Nokstella, Eternal City	In a chest guarded by silver tears
	Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree	In a graveyard above Haligtree Roots

Side Quests and Powerful Talismans

Dozens of talismans are often avoided by players, as many of them are tied to challenging side quests. One such questline is for Millicent, in which the player aids her in the search for Malenia, the hardest boss in the game. There are multiple endings to her questline, one granting the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia and the other Millicent’s Prosthesis. However, there is an additional step to this quest which involves returning to Gowry and slaying him. This will drop the Flock’s Canvas Talisman, which is fantastic for incantation builds.

Another side quest that rewards an obscure talisman is to become the apprentice of Seluvis. Fully completing his side quest is not advised, as he is disgustingly evil. However, playing along with him for long enough will reward the player with the Magic Scorpion Charm, which is essential for all sorcery builds.

Once Seluvis has given you the Magic Scorpion Charm, do not use the Amber Draught for his scheme.

Talisman	Effect
Rotten Winged Sword Insignia	Greatly raises attack power with successive attacks (6%/8%/13%)
Millicent’s Prosthesis	Boosts dexterity by 5, raises attack power with successive attacks (4%/6%/11%)
Flock’s Canvas Talisman	Greatly raises potency of incantations (8%)
Magic Scorpion Charm	Increases magic damage by 12%, but increases physical damage taken by 10%

Maxing Out Your Crimson and Cerulean Flasks

As you progress in Elden Ring, there are items littered across the world that can bolster your healing and restorative potential. Golden seeds upgrade your flask count, which is incredibly important as this allows you to allocate your HP/FP restoration however you see fit. Golden seeds are typically found resting alongside Erdtree saplings, but some can be found by defeating bosses.

There are extra golden seeds throughout the game, ensuring you do not have to collect them all to fully upgrade your flasks.

In order to increase the potency of your flasks, you must acquire sacred tears. These items can be found within the various churches found throughout the world, so make sure to stop at any churches you see. Unlike golden seeds, there are just enough sacred tears to max out your flasks’ effectiveness, so make sure you collect them all.

The Considerations of Rune Farming

While some might consider farming runes to be a controversial way to play Elden Ring, there’s no harm in rounding out certain stats in order to access your kit of tools. The great thing about the upcoming expansion is that it contains its own level scaling system, meaning that even over-leveled characters will face challenges in the Land of Shadow. So, feel free to hit those soft and hard caps in your chosen stats by using the Sacred Relic Sword at the Palace Approach Ledge-Road site of grace.

Stat	Soft Caps	Hard Cap
Vigor	40	60
Mind	50	60
Endurance	15/30	50
Endurance (Equip Load)	25	60
Strength	18/50/60	80
Dexterity	18/50/60	80
Intelligence (Attack)	20/50	80
Intelligence (Sorcery)	60	80
Faith (Attack)	20/50	80
Faith (Incantations)	60	80
Arcane (Attack)	20/60	80
Arcane (Incantations)	30	45
Arcane (Status Effects)	40/45	60

By hitting soft caps on your vigor and damage stats, you drastically shorten the time it takes to defeat a boss, which will lower the chances of mistakes. By hitting soft caps on your endurance and mind stats, you become able to use as many tools as you can with little to no downside.

With so many new items to experiment with, allocating your stat points effectively will allow you to experience as much of the expansion’s content as possible in Elden Ring.