Do you find Elden Ring a bigger challenge than you bargained for? Maybe the challenges of the From Soft hit are spoiling your enjoyment of the open-world wonder? Or maybe you are the type of player to enjoy games on the easy difficulty. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. This Elden Ring Ultimate Beginners Guide was made to make you the strongest you can possibly be in the first 30 minutes, without any difficult combat. And without any game-breaking speedrun strategies.
Before we jump into it, consider checking out Elden Ring requirements if you game on a PC, as the game can be a little hard to handle!
Video Version Of This Exact Guide
How To Prepare For My Elden Ring Beginners Guide
Quick little disclaimer guys. I will not talk about anything that is included in the tutorial of the game. If you are new and have no idea how to do basic things like attacking and how to use stealth, you should boot up the game, play through the intro and finish the basic tutorial.
The combat basics and such will be clearly explained to you. If you have any further questions about the basic combat I strongly urge you to watch VaatiVidya’s Elden Ring Beginner’s Guide and then come back here.
My guide is instead focused on things beyond that tutorial section. Mainly which items you should pick up, and what areas to visit to make Elden Ring’s beginning as easy as possible for you. And on that note very light spoilers. If you consider me telling you what is in certain areas of the map a spoiler that could ruin your playthrough then click off now. The rest of you folk who want to power up as soon as possible to make your first Elden Ring playthrough as stress-free as possible, tune in and enjoy.
First Steps, Crafting Kit, And Weapon Upgrade Anvil
Right off the bat, you should light up the site of grace in front of the tutorial cave and head to the church ruins on the horizon. Just be careful not to attract the attention of the golden-armored Tree Sentinel on your way there. As this guy is serious. And we will come back for him later.
You can pick up a rune right in front of the church. For anyone unaware, this is your currency and experience combined. You use runes to level up, upgrade weapons and buy items. So just picking them off the ground means you are powering up. Without killing a single enemy. Which is significant.
Enter the Church of Elleh and light up the site of grace here. This will be important in a second so be sure to do it. Sites of Grace allow for free fast travel from your map screen.
Talk to Kale sitting in the corner of said ruins. Anytime you find someone dressed like Kale it means they are a merchant. So keep an eye out for them on your journey.
You should immediately grab the crafting kit from his wares. This unlocks the crafting menu which later in the game allows you to create temporary buffs for your weapons and foods which up your defense or offense capabilities.
To get more crafting recipes you have to buy them off merchants like Kale. If you hit square or X while hovering over a recipe, you can see what it allows you to craft. Just go with your gut when deciding what recipes you want to buy.
To the immediate left, you can see an anvil. Grab the item on top of it. You can use the smithing tools here to upgrade your weapons. This will become obsolete when you unlock Roundtable hold, the hub area of Elden Ring. Because then you will have an actual blacksmith to work with.
But until then, remember this anvil and come back when you gather more smithing stones.
And listen, at this point, it might be tempting to go run into the wilderness and explore. Please, do not do that. The next tip is for getting you a mount, and the mount makes exploring so much faster. Running around on foot is really a waste of time. So please, at least do the next step for sure before you drop off this guide.
How To Get The Horse Mount In Elden Ring
As soon as you are settled with Kale and the smithing table, you should pop open your map. And quick little tip coming in hot. I heard a lot of people saying they are frustrated with the lack of direction the game gives you. But you actually do get directions!
Your map shows little golden rays coming off some sites of grace. They act as arrows. One after another they point you in the direction of another site of grace. If you follow those directions you will eventually arrive at mandatory boss fights and “story bits” which you need to complete in order to beat Elden Ring. So when you are unsure what to do, pop open the map and let the rays of grace guide you.
Also, another tip on me fellas and gals. This little marking on your map is where you will find the map of the local area. You get bits of the whole map piece by piece until you fill it all in. So every time you enter a completely new area just ride around a bit, make the fog of war go away, and at some point, you will see the marking at which you can find the map of the local area.
Follow the rays of grace until you arrive at the site of grace under a huge gate. And do not go anywhere, sit down at this site of grace. A cutscene will activate. And full disclaimer, if the cutscene doesn’t activate for you, it means you missed a site of grace. This cutscene activates as soon as you activate any 3 sites of grace in the overworld.
After the cutscene ends you will be given an item called a spectral steed whistle. From this point onwards you can also level up at sites of grace. Open your equipment menu and go to the section on the right. Replace one of the spots under Pouch with the said item.
To call your horsey now you have to hold triangle or Y, the menu in the left bottom corner will change and you can now press up to summon torrent. Get accustomed to his movements. You can double jump on horseback which is huge. You can also hold a circle or B to start dashing.
How To Get The Map Of Limgrave In Elden Ring
Run into the camp next to the site of grace you are at. And loot the item under a huge stone slab in the middle of the crossroads. Now you have a map of the surrounding area. Do not worry if you die, you shouldn’t have that many runes on you anyway.
And if you do die, respawn at the site of grace here and rinse and repeat until you get that map. Death is just part of the Elden Ring experience. So don’t stress out over it too much.
Elden Ring Beginners Guide – How To Get A Golden Seed Early And Add Charges To Your Healing Flask
Now we will grab an item that allows you to upgrade your flask, allowing for more heals. Super useful stuff right here.
Circle back to the gate we were just resting at. And barge right through the gate on Torrent. This spot is an ambush of sorts. You could try to fight your way through, but if you can’t, don’t worry. Just run past any enemies and try to jump over projectiles. At the end of this “corridor”, you will find a small golden tree. Pick up the item at its base. This is the entire reason we are here.
Remember that to actually use the item, you will need to rest at any given site of grace and go into your Flasks menu. Then you can “use” the Golden Seed from there to increase your flask charges, allowing for more healing.
Elden Ring Beginners Guide – How To Get The Spirit Summoning Bell And The Lone Wolf Ashes
And now I will show you how to get an item that allows the summoning of spirits. This one is oh so annoying to find. I have plenty of hours on my main character, and I spent the majority of them wondering how do you actually summon the spirits. Don’t make the same mistakes.
Pop your map open and teleport back to the church of Elleh. As soon as you load in this shady lady will call you over. Talk to her and confirm that you can summon Torrent. She will give you the spirit calling bell and the lone wolf ashes.
If you never talked to this NPC, but she is not here when you arrive, just sit at the site of grace and select the option to pass the time and wait for nightfall.
How To Find The Warmaster And A 100% Physical Block Shield Early In Elden Ring
So now we are going to get you geared up and leveled up. Starting with an amazing shield that blocks 100% of physical attack damage. Teleport back to the Stormgate. And make your way to the waypoint seen in the screenshot below.
So you will have to run through the gate again. Take a right near the golden tree at the end of the corridor into the open field. And at this point just go forward. Run into the woods at the end of the field. After a short while, you should arrive at a dilapidated shack in the woods. Fire up the site of grace right in front of it.
The Shack belongs to a “Warmaster”. You can talk with him, and quickly find out that he is a vendor. A quite unique one at that. Because he sells Ashes of War. I won’t tutorial you on Ashes of War, that is not why we are here. But just remember that this guy is here for your later adventures. As he might come in handy.
When you are done browsing, jump on Torrent and head towards an enemy encampment nearby. As soon as you get close to it. Go to the left, behind a huge block of stone. You might need to kill a single enemy behind said ruin. You can always run away and reset the camp by resting at the site of grace if you aggro too many enemies.
But if all is good, then crouch down and sneak in. The enemies won’t notice you. Plop open a chest near a campfire with a single enemy sitting at it. And a very important thing to note. You cannot open chests while crouched. So stand up and open it. Loot the content and just smooth criminal out of there.
Get back to the Warmaster Shack and equip the shield. The Beast Crest Heater Shield is indeed a beast. The starting shield of Samurai, for comparison, blocks 58% of physical damage on a successful block. That is quite low. I know that thief and magic-related classes also start with terrible shields. Anything below 90% physical block is quite bad. At that point, you are way better off dodging. But a 100% physical block shield like the Beast Crest shield will protect you from the harms of this world. Just look out for magical attacks.
Elden Ring Beginners Guide – Where To Find Easy Smithing Stone [1] For Weapon Upgrades
Now we will very quickly and easily gather a bunch of ore for upgrading your weapon without fighting a thing. Start at Warmaster Shack. Go behind it. You will find a rocky clearing. Go towards what looks like the edge. You will see a field full of hairy giants.
Near the two first giants to the right, there is a lonely statue. If you approach it, you should see a glow emanating from within. You cannot break it alone, you need some proper help. Just bait a giant here. As soon as you see him telegraphing an attack, move backward. Then you can either bait him away from here. Or just dive right in and grab the items from the devastated statue. They are 5 smithing stones [1]. And this is pretty significant for the early game.
Elden Ring – How To Easily Get A Lot Of Runes Early
Here’s the thing about smithing stones. They are worthless if you do not have runes to use them. Because upgrading your stuff also requires currency. But I have you covered tarnished brethren. Near the Warmaster Shack, you can get a bunch of runes for completely free. So teleport to the shack and go towards the waypoint seen in the screenshot below.
As you can see, this place is a graveyard of sorts. Rows of stone coffins are neatly bundled together. I call your attention to this fact because there are a bunch of graveyards like this all over the world of Elden Ring. And they give you a bunch of free runes. They always look exactly like this. Grab every single rune in sight.
Elden Ring Beginners Guide – How To Spend Runes
I got 4300 runes out of this simple run. And that number is utterly crazy when considering that I did not engage a single enemy. Remember to immediately spend your runes to avoid losing it upon death. You can either gain some levels at the site of grace. But I opted for the more beneficial thing of upgrading my weapon.
But before you do any of that. Think about your choices. If you level up anything, even the most useless stats, you can at some point in the game redistribute your statistics. But if you upgrade a weapon, and then it turns out you like some other armament better? Those runes and upgrade materials are now stuck in your old weapon and you can’t get them back.
So while I encourage you to upgrade your weapon every time you have the shards to do so. Make sure you are okay with the weapon you are using. It doesn’t matter what weapon that is, as long as you find it fun to use. I promise it will be effective in your hands.
Another Trip To Another Graveyard
So this time I’m taking you for quite the ride. Our goal is to pick up the flask of wonderous Physick and another upgrade to your healing flask. But on the way there, we want to stop by another graveyard. Start at Warmaster Shack. Pop a waypoint in the same spot as the screenshot. And hit the road.
Just ignore all the critters and enemies. If anyone starts gaining on you, press circle or B for a speed boost. Cross the bridge with the pot-head giant. Continue down the road. You will see some tombstones soon. This is not the place I was talking about! We are looking for stone coffins, not a traditional graveyard. So run past all that towards my waypoint. When you see the swamp in front of you, it’s time to stop. Hit that site of grace next to the road.
Now pop open your map again. You will see some fog of war went away. Place another waypoint right at the tippy top of that road you just uncovered, just like in the following screenshot.
Head straight for the waypoint. You will need to descend the cliff to get there. But as soon as you get to the cliff edge. You will see the graveyard. The one I was talking about. Jump down there and loot it. Just do not fall trying to get there!
Elden Ring Beginners Guide – How To Get Flask of Wondrous Physick And A Sacred Tear Early In The Game
When you are done looting the graves, continue towards the waypoint to obtain Flask of Wondrous Physick. Descend the cliffs at locations that are not too high of a fall. At the waypoint location, you will find another ruined church. Pop the site of grace and loot both sacred tear and Flask of Wondrous Physick.
Now sit down at the site of grace. Remember to upgrade your flask charges with the golden seed if you did not yet. And then use the sacred tear to increase the amount of HP your flasks restore.
And last but not least we have the Wondrous Physick. This is essentially a custom potion you can brew.
You get the Crimson Crystal Tear effect for free upon picking up the flask. This makes you restore half of your maximum HP. When you find other effects when exploring the world you can mix them in.
Also, remember to pop all the runes you found and level up too. With all of that, you should be powered up as hell for the beginning of the game.
Where Can You Find A Magic Vendor In Elden Ring?
This tip is aimed at anyone interested in spell casting and using magic. Even if you are not, I advise you to follow this tip to put the option of spell casting on the table. Just plop down a waypoint just like on the attached screenshot. Then teleport as close as you can. I found the Stormgate to be the best starting point for this.
You should arrive at waypoint ruins. Then you have to find the stairs leading underground. And then you need to prepare. For these unaware, golden mist doors mean that a boss fight awaits us on the other side. This one is fairly easy, especially if you powered up with all the steps throughout this guide. After you beat the Mad Pumpin Head boss, you can talk to Sellen. And she will be happy to teach you some nice spells. Just please remember to activate the site of grace in the room where you fight the boss for ease of revisiting.
And this concludes our Elden Ring Beginners Guide. Feel free to roam around the spacious Lands Between and uncover its secrets. For more Elden Ring-related content feel free to check out my Elden Ring section with guides, tips, and the like.
