Elden Ring is now FromSoftware’s best-selling game to date and is primed to win several Game of the Year awards for its take on open-world exploration combined with Souls-like combat fans of the genre have come to love. The first mainstream offering by FromSoftware has made fans all over the world who keep coming back to the game to try out different builds as patches keep modifying the game with various buffs and nerfs to their favorites.
Making these builds, however, requires progressing through this behemoth of a game and fresh runs take quite a while. If you have completed the game, running through New Game+ modes is relatively easier because you get to carry your gear and levels over, but what if you started a fresh run? For some players, it would get quite aggravating to do everything all over again just to get enough levels to progress through the game. For that, we have you covered.
There are several spots around the Lands Between that are filled with enemies that drop a large number of runes when killed. Depending on your level and gear at the time, these locations can house enemies that either take forever to kill or you should be able to one-shot them. Because of the various difficulty spikes at different points in the game, we have divided these locations into early-game, mid-game, and late-game farming spots.
Before we start to farm the runes, however, we need to make certain preparations first.
Rune farming preparation
To optimize the rune farming experience, it’s best we get as many runes as possible for the effort we put into the whole experience. To do this, there is one key piece of equipment that you will need: the Golden Scarab. This ring effectively increases rune acquisition from killed enemies by 20 percent, making it the best item to wear before going to any of these spots.
Now given that you can only gain this ring by defeating the Cleanrot Knight duo boss in the Abandoned Cave, which is around mid-game, it’s best to save the real rune farming for after you get this ring. It can also be combined with a Gold-Pickled Fowl’s Foot consumable item to further increase your rune acquisition rate to 56 percent, although this effect is temporary. It’s best to save these consumables for when you reach the late-game farming spots.
There are also other pieces of equipment that increase rune acquisition, such as the Celebrant weapons. Each weapon grants runes as a reward for every hit of damage that you do, so these weapons would be best used with a faster hit rate.
- Celebrant’s Cleaver: Grants 10 runes per hit on an enemy.
- Celebrant’s Rib-Rake: Grants 10 runes per hit on an enemy.
- Celebrant’s Sickle: Grants 10 runes per hit on an enemy.
- Celebrant’s Skull: Grants 20 runes per hit on an enemy.
While the number of runes gained from these weapons is pretty minuscule, killing several enemies in a row makes them add up pretty quickly. Although, in the grand scheme of things, when enemies drop thousands of runes upon death late in the game, these weapons quickly become obsolete. This is especially noticeable because the runes dropped by these weapons are a fixed amount and aren’t affected by rune acquisition multipliers.
To summarize, for best results, equip the Golden Scarab and keep some Gold-Pickled Fowl’s Foot items ready before farming. Here are the best spots to do so.
Early-game rune farming spots
A good number of runes are mostly gained by defeating bosses in the early game. When it comes to farming, there is one decent spot you can reliably get runes from.
Stormgate
Limgrave is the starting area where your character starts off in. This area is big enough to be divided into three sub-regions.
- West Limgrave: Your starting location with relatively easy enemies to get you used to the game.
- East Limgrave: Not much of a difficulty spike here, although make sure to turn back for now when you enter the red landscape of Caelid.
- South Limgrave: Probably the area with a noticeable difficulty spike, this is where Castle Morne is and you can get your first big Legendary strength weapon, the Grafted Blade Greatsword.
Each of these locations poses a good early-game challenge, but you will notice that the runes dropped here are pretty minuscule as you level up your character. To amend this, once you finish with these sub-regions, cross the big gate to the northwest of Limgrave to enter the Stormgate region. Directly to the northeast of this area, you should notice a grassy open patch with a distinct lack of enemies, this is where you will find the trolls.
While they look pretty intimidating, these enemies are pretty easy to defeat once you gain access to your horse Torrent. Their attacks are heavy but rather slow, so you can run circles around them with Torrent while nipping at their ankles. Depending on the damage output, you can kill them relatively easily, netting you 1000 runes per troll killed. For best results, separate them and kill them one at a time to avoid getting overwhelmed.
Mid-game rune farming spots
By the time the mid game rolls in, you will notice enemies drop more runes, but there are still two optimal areas to farm these in.
Redmane Castle
Now that we’re in the mid game, you should have acquired the Golden Scarab ring from the Abandoned Cave. Wearing this, we now head off to the home of the ruler of Caelid: General Radahn’s Redmane Castle. While you trudge through the castle, you should notice factions of enemies fighting each other at different points around the castle itself. They are all here for the Radahn festival and before you join in yourself, make a stop in the courtyard region.
Near the Impassable Greatbridge Site of Grace, you should notice groups of enemies fighting each other close by. You can either choose to wait while they kill each other and gain runes passively or take a more active approach and join the battle, wiping them all out in the process. The active approach is definitely faster, so we recommend you kill them yourself whenever possible.
Each run here will easily give you around 4000-5000 runes with the increased rune acquisition.
Dominula, Windmill Village
This area contains a host of enemies that seem to be enjoying themselves by dancing. These enemies are not hostile to you at first, that is unless you go on the offensive. There are a lot of enemies grouped up close together here, so it is recommended you come equipped with a weapon that can kill groups of enemies or AoE-damage spells.
Clearing all of the enemies in this area will easily net you over 5000 runes per run. If you factor in the increased acquisition rate, gaining 7000 to 8000 runes per farming run is not out of the question. If you need the runes to upgrade your gear or prepare for Leyndell, this is an ideal spot.
Late-game rune farming spots
You have a lot more choices when it comes to the late game but there are effectively three main locations you can choose to farm runes in.
Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree
This is where the real rune-farming action begins. You can use your Gold-Pickled Fowl’s Foot here, but we recommend saving those for the next area in the game. Before you attempt to take on Malenia, this is the best stop to farm for those late-game upgrades. There are several Cleanrot Knights that you can take down for over 3000 runes per enemy, netting you 10s of thousands of runes per farming run.
Running from one Site of Grace to the other, clearing all the enemies in between is the way to go. The difficulty spike here is pretty noticeable though, you might feel like your weapons are not doing as much damage as you would have hoped. Due to this fact, Elphael is an ideal spot to farm more runes to upgrade your gear for the toughest boss battle yet to come.
Mohgwyn Palace – part one
The final couple of locations take place in the same area, except there are two different farming spots here. Mohgwyn Palace has a bunch of enemies called Albinaurics that can give you several thousand runes per kill. Depending on how early or late you find this secret area, the number of runes you gain here can power-level you, trivializing the rest of your journey through the lands between.
The first rune farming spot lies on the edge of a cliff with several Albinaurics sitting by idly. There are a lot of them so using massive AoE spells is the way to go here for the sake of efficiency. You can also choose to cut them down one by one, but that takes a while longer than the previous method. Beware of the guards that patrol this region, because they will stop you if you enter their aggro range.
Mohgwyn Palace – part two
The second location in Mohgwyn Palace is a lot riskier than the first one, but it also involves killing groups of Albinaurics. Right before you take the elevator heading to the Mohg boss room, you will notice a group of Albinaurics praying. Taking them all out with a massive AoE spell is the ideal approach because the entire group quickly turns hostile if any of them is attacked.
Their counterattack can be devastating at any point in the game. No matter what level you are, once the mob starts spinning toward you, rest assured, you will die a quick death. The reward for killing these Albinaurics is roughly the same as with the previous area, with each run netting you a total of roughly 50000 runes in total. It is only a matter of choice regarding which location you choose to farm.
As a final note, these two locations are the best in the game to use the Gold-Pickled Fowl’s Foot items, so if you have been saving up, now is your time to let loose.
