In Elden Ring runes are a central part of character progression. That’s why many players are interested in locations where they can farm them. A particularly good spot can be found in the east of the game world, near a gigantic dragon. However, you must not kill it.
Runes are the experience points and currency in Elden Ring. You can use them to improve your attributes or purchase all kinds of items from NPCs. Therefore, they are especially important and many players are looking for places where they can effectively farm runes.
A particularly effective spot is located east of the starting area Limgrave, in the neighboring region Caelid. There you can collect thousands of runes in a short time.
Sparing the giant dragon and killing its minions brings around quite a few runes
This is how you can farm runes there: Sooner or later you will encounter a gigantic dragon that has probably crashed. It lies motionless in the world and at first glance appears to be dead.
It has surely seen better days, but as soon as you approach, the dragon awakens. It can only move its head. The dragon then emits a roar that inflicts a debuff on your attack and defense.
In addition, several smaller dragon zombies awaken around it. These dragons are your actual targets. Because to kill the gigantic dragon, you must first eliminate its minions.
- Each dragon has a lot of hit points but only a limited selection of attacks. However, these are particularly strong, so you must definitely block or evade them.
- Otherwise, the dragons are not a big challenge, and each one gives you a few thousand runes.
- Always leave the last dragon alive and return to the Site of Grace.
- Now the dragons respawn, and you can start the whole thing over again.
If you kill all except for the last zombie dragon, you should collect a good amount of runes.
What happens if I kill them all? Then the giant dragon also dies and does not return in this playthrough. So you can only farm runes there again in New Game Plus.
It’s hard to say whether killing the dragon has any further impact. But currently, it doesn’t seem like the dragon has any connection to a possible quest or NPC.
If you kill it, you additionally receive around 25,000 runes. In total, there are over 100,000 runes to be obtained, especially if you also use the item Golden Finger. However, the death of the giant dragon “kills” this farming method as well.
If you have trouble with the smaller dragons, here are a few quick tips for the fight:
- Avoid getting hit if possible, especially when you have few hit points left. Also, use a shield in case of emergency to block a hit.
- Land heavy charged attacks. Sooner or later, you can provoke the moment for a critical attack. You’ll notice this when the dragons fall over and one of their eyes reveals a weak spot by glowing orange.
- Pull the dragons slowly and individually away from the others. You don’t want to fight multiple at the same time. Fortunately, the dragons don’t seem to have particularly good eyesight or hearing, so it shouldn’t be a problem to take them out one by one.
- Preferably fight on foot, as you cannot block attacks while on your horse.
- Watch out for its stomp attacks when you should be attacking its legs.
You can of course also attack from ranged combat and not take the risk in melee. However, some just prefer huge, brutal weapons. There is even one, that resembles a pizza cutter and looks quite strange.
The farming route is located in the east of Caelid
Where can I find the dragon? There are two possible routes. The first and easiest is to travel directly north of Caelid through a teleporter and ride south from there.
You will find the dragon southwest of the large tree that can be seen on the map:
The dragon is gigantic and cannot be missed. Right behind the dragon is also the Fort Faroth.
There you will find a Site of Grace on the other side at the edge of the chasm. This way, you don’t have to go far to repeatedly run the route.
In Caelid, you will encounter many annoying enemies against which one item can be useful:
If you still have trouble with this method, we have a more relaxing method for you in our guide to rune farming.
The spot is also located in Caelid, but all the way to the north. There you can simply work through a series of smaller enemies with your horse. However, this is not quite as effective.
What do you think of this method? Have you discovered it as well? Do you use something like this, or do you prefer to level up “normally”?
Besides rune farming, players are also concerned with another major topic: They argue about the “right” playstyle in Elden Ring: “Magic is Easy Mode”
