One of the biggest new features in Elden Ring is the ashes. The Mimic Tear in particular makes every boss a piece of cake. MeinMMO tells you where to find it and what makes it so powerful.
Update from June 1: We have updated the links in the article.
Update from March 29: The headline and teaser text have been adjusted so that the name Mimic Tear is mentioned instead of the German name Imitatorträne, as the English name is more common in the community.
Although Elden Ring is generally known for a highly debated difficulty level, there are many mechanics that can make the gaming experience significantly easier, especially for beginners.
The perhaps most important and popular mechanic is the ashes, which came with Elden Ring to the Souls games. Very early in the game, you receive the Spiritcalling Bell – provided you don’t miss an important NPC.
With this bell and the appropriate ash, you can summon NPC characters as spirits. These are very helpful in any tough situation. But especially one ash is so good that it completely overshadows all other summons.
When you use the best weapons in the game, so does the Mimic Tear. Which ones those are, you can find out here:
How to find the ashes of the Mimic Tear, the best item in Elden Ring against bosses
Why is this ash so good? With the ashes of the Mimic Tear, you not only summon a normal enemy into the game world. The Mimic Tear is an exact copy of your character and your build. This copy of you uses your weapons, your skills, and can also heal itself independently.
With this summon, you essentially clone yourself on the battlefield. Thanks to the Mimic Tear, both you and an NPC-controlled, nearly equally strong version of yourself can hit a boss.
This is incredibly powerful even after a damage nerf in patch 1.03 and trivializes every difficult situation in the game.
Additionally, this summon uses HP instead of FP. 660 HP, to be exact. Therefore, this ash is also usable for builds where you don’t put many points into the spirit attribute.
Where can I find the ashes of the Mimic Tear? As good as this summon is, you unfortunately don’t get it early in the game.
The ashes are in Nokron, the Eternal City. This is located underground in the Lands Between and only becomes accessible once you defeat the boss Radahn in Caelid. You also need to visit Nokron as part of Ranni’s quest. In our guide to the quest we explain in detail how to defeat Radahn and then get to Nokron.
When you are in Nokron, you can find the ashes as follows:
- On the map screen, you can press R3 (Playstation controller) / RS (Xbox controller) to switch to the regions underground in the Lands Between.
- Go to the Site of Grace at the Forest of the Ancestors in Nokron (this is located pretty much exactly in the middle of the region’s map).
- From there, jump onto the roof right in front of you, and jump straight ahead at the end of the roof onto a small path along the next building.
- Follow this path to the right and jump onto a balcony. Continue straight here, jump onto the next building, and from there onto a round roof.
- Jump from the round roof to the next floor and turn left there. You should see a small light at a balustrade. Walk straight through the alley from there.
- Follow the alley and jump over a broken wall through a window. On the left, you should see an altar.
- Walk through the entrance to the right of the altar. Here you will see a milky mist wall that you need to open with a stone sword key.
- Behind the wall, an enemy awaits you, as well as a large chest. The ashes are in the chest.
If you prefer to see these steps, you can also watch them in this YouTube video:
So you can find the best ash in the game, the spirit of the Mimic Tear.
You can also upgrade this in the Roundtable Hold. The appropriate character for this sits opposite the blacksmith. Up to level 10, you can bring this summon if you talk to Roderika.
If Roderika is not sitting at the blacksmith and you still need to complete her quest, you can find out here what steps you are missing to upgrade your ash in the game:
