Crystalians are an imposing bunch of recurring bosses in Elden Ring. They are crystal-encased humanoids with extremely resilient skin. In this guide, we’ll show you how to beat the Crystalian Bosses in Elden Ring.
Elden Ring Crystalian Locations
Crystalians are an optional boss fight to face in Elden Ring, which means you do not have to defeat them in order to progress to the next region. Taking up the fight though will earn you some useful rewards to make your main journey much easier.
There are three types of Crystalian Bosses in Elden Ring:
- Spear Crystalian
- Staff Crystalian
- Ringblade Crystalian
One thing they all have in common is their extremely tough crystal bodies, which is useful to know because you can adopt a similar offensive approach against all three of them.
There are a total of four places in Elden Ring where you can find Crystalian:
Simply go to one of the locations and progress through the dungeon; you’ll eventually meet Crystalian there, and the battle will begin.
At Academy Crystal Cave, you will encounter two Crystalian; Spear and the Staff one. The location of Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel is marked with red in the picture below:
At Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel, you will encounter only one Crystalian and that is the Ringblade Crystalian. The location of Academy Crystal Cave is marked with red in the picture below:
At Sellia Hideaway, you will encounter all three Crystalians; Staff, Ringblade and Spear. The location of Sellia Hideaway is marked with red in the picture below:
At Altus Tunnel, you will encounter Spear Crystalian and Ringblade Crystalian. The location of Altus Tunnel is marked with red in the picture below:
Crystalian Recommended Level and Weaknesses
For the Crystalian found at Academy Crystal Cave, the recommended level is 35 while for the one found at Altus Tunnel, the recommended level is 50. Similarly, for the Crystalian found at Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel, the recommended level is 30 while for the one found at Sellia Hideaway, the recommended level is 60.
The Crystalians are all immune to bleed and they resist slash and thrust damage. This is bad news for anyone running a bleed build that utilizes a slash weapon (basically everyone).
Strike weapons against Crystalians are recommended for this reason. The Crystalian bosses are especially vulnerable if you’re utilizing a strike weapon that can quickly break their stances.
Crystalian Attacks and Counters
All of their attacks have been explained below for players to not only dodge but also counter. All melee attacks of Crystalians are parriable.
Spear Crystalian: Crystalian will try to land a hit on you with the top of the spear making 3 to 5 jumps in the Spear Combo move. This is a slow attack, and you’ll realize it coming, so move back to a safe distance to avoid being hit.
Staff Crystalian: Crystalian will project a cone-shaped beam of crystals in front of you. To avoid being hit, you can roll to either side. Don’t try to block it as it will likely chew through all your stamina easily.
Ringblade Crystalian: Crystalian will launch small ring blades from a distance. It will also flip at you the large ring blades. Roll or block the small ring blades while moving will avoid the large ones.
How to Defeat Crystalians in Elden Ring
If the proper strategy is used, defeating the Crystalian boss fight will not be too difficult. As a general rule, you should cast spells to distract Crystalian, and then take it down with aggro.
The crystal armor layer of a Crystalian is the key to success. Simply breaking through the crystal armor layer will end the fight because you will be able to overwhelm Crystalian with ease after that.
Backstabbing Ringblade Crystalian is the best way to break its armor. Backstab it and shatter its armor whenever you see an opening.
As soon as its armor breaks, stunlock Crystalian and aggro it to death. Crystalian will take significant damage from each hit once the armor is shattered. Make the hits count and bring the battle to a close.
Magic and Ranged style players can use Glintstone Pebble. It can do enough damage to cause Crystalian to tumble. Following that, your magical strikes will deal substantial damage.
To make Crystalian combat even easier, use the Mist spell to reduce Crystalian health while remaining at a safe distance. Fire attacks also deal a ton of damage to these Crystalians.
Defeating the Crystalian at Sellia Hideaway
At Sellia Hideaway, you will encounter all three Crystalians; Staff Crystalian, Ringblade Crystalian and Spear Crystalian. Fighting all three Crystalians at the same time is pretty annoying.
Staff Crystalian will cast all manner of spells and these spells increase your Scarlet Rot meter considerably and very quickly. Each attack that you get peppered with will increase the meter
Ringblade Crystalian is not too difficult to worry about. It mostly stays to itself but it does throw tiny little Ringblades which are very hard to see.
Spear Crystalian is really like the gang leader of this trio. Spear Crystalian is the one that’s going to be patrolling the arena, keeping you off of the other two.
The general strategy is to attempt to kite the spear boss to one end of the arena and then rush the Staff Crystalian down. Since these are crystalline enemies, they will not take damage until you crack their outer shell.
It will take a few hits on each boss to crack their shells but once you have the shells cracked, then you can kill it very quickly. They basically lose all poise so, you can just go in on them until they drop and then once they do the fight is over.
Defeating the Crystalian at Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel
At Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel, you will encounter only one Crystalian and that is the Ringblade Crystalian. It’s really not that hard fight as it doesn’t deal a ton of damage to you.
Because it’s a crystal enemy, you do need to two-hand your weapon if your one-handed version is bouncing off of her. The boss can’t really walk, it just bounces around and throws its Rings at you.
It can also do very big deliberate swings. If you are at a big distance from it, it will throw the little ring at you. Once the crystals around its body are broken, it will start taking damage like a normal enemy. Every single hit is now going to stagger it.
Defeating the Crystalian at Academy Crystal Cave
At Academy Crystal Cave, you will encounter two Crystalian; Spear and the Staff one. Main thing you have to do at first is to dodge the blades attack from the Staff Crystalian.
You can use the statues to avoid the blades. Then, you have to focus on Spear Crystalian. You can use a Summon to distract the Crystalians. While dodging the Spear attacks from the Spear Crystalian and the blades from the Staff Crystalian, try to break the crystal armor of the Spear Crystalian first. Eliminate it first and then turn your focus on the Staff Crystalian.
Defeating the Crystalian at Altus Tunnel
At Altus Tunnel Crystalian, you will encounter Spear Crystalian and Ringblade Crystalian. For this fight, you should summon spirit to distract one Crystalian while you focus on the other one.
Generally, I would suggest you focus on the Ringblade Crystalian fist and try to break the crystal armor of the Ringblade Crystalian using your swords or some other weapon. After eliminating the Ringblade Crystalian, do the same with the Spear Crystalian.
Elden Ring Crystalian Drops
You will receive the following rewards for defeating the Crystalian boss depending on where the boss was defeated
- Academy Crystal Cave: 3300 runes
- Altus Tunnel: 1800 runes, Somber-stone Miner’s Bell Bearing (x2)
- Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel: 3000 runes, Smithing-Stone Miner’s Bell Bearing (x1)
- Sellia Hideaway: Crystal Torrent, 7100 Runes
How to Cheese Crystalians
Academy Crystal Cave Crystalian
At Academy Crystal Cave, you will encounter two Crystalian; Spear and the Staff one. It takes a few tries to get it right but you’re not going to get hit even once. Head into the arena and throw out your summon that can take a lot of damage because it’s going to take a little while to get into this position.
Head in there and immediately pull off to the left and then run up and jump onto the little stairway platform. Then jump from there to the window ledge and then jump on top of the little cage.
Now, once you’re on top of the cage, start pushing toward the wall. Begin jumping and slowly inch your way to the right. Eventually you’ll jump on top of the little cage to the right here and then do another small jump onto the top of the little metal thing that is holding the cage. That’s the ideal location to be because the Crystalian with the spear cannot hit you at all from this location.
Once you’re up there, go ahead and throw out the poison gas or the poison mist to affect the Spear Crystalian. The Staff Crystalian can’t hit you except with one move and that’s where they throw the little crystal ball up in the air and shoot little crystals out.
For the Spear Crystalian, take out your bow and arrow and just continually shoot arrows at its head to knock it. That interrupts it from ever doing any attacks.
Once the Spear Crystalian is dead, just continually throw out poison gas at the Spear Crystalian and then eventually he will be killed as well, just by eating its health away from the poison gas or the poison mist.
Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel
At Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel, you will encounter only one Crystalian and that is the Ringblade Crystalian. For this cheese to work, you will need Heavy Greatsword and Starlight Shards. As soon as you enter the battle arena, summon the Spirit Jellyfish.
Spirit Jellyfish will help to engage the enemy while you can hit it with your Heavy Greatsword. Keep dodging the Crystalians attacks and hit it back until he dies.
Altus Tunnel Crystalian
At Altus Tunnel Crystalian, you will encounter Spear Crystalian and Ringblade Crystalian. As soon as you enter into the boss arena, throw out a summon to distract the Crystalians while you turn left and head over to the first candle on the wall.
At this candle, you just simply start jumping up onto the rock wall until you get to a little platform. Once you’re up, they can’t hit you with any of the attacks except for the one where the Ringblade Crystalian throws two rings out at you. You can just put your shield up for that particular one.
Get out your Fireball or Rock Sling and begin to fire at them until they die. Make sure you have enough magic to do your spells and bring some arrows to finish them off.
Sellia Hideaway
At Sellia Hideaway, you will encounter all three Crystalians; Staff, Ringblade and Spear. For this cheese to work, you will need Meteorite Staff along with Night Maiden’s Mist spell.
Night Maiden’s Mist spell literally destroys them. It’s not instantly, but over time, it’s crazy good. The moment you get in, have your Night Maiden’s Mist spell ready because you have to hold it to make it strong. You have to do this over and over while dodging all the attacks until they die.
