How To Get Rotten Staff In Elden Ring

The most special thing about the Rotten Staff is its ability called the Erdtree Slam, which might be the best Groundslam Skill in Elden Ring.

The Rotten Staff is one of the heavy, Colossal Weapons in Elden Ring. Like the Devourer’s Scepter, it focuses on crushing enemies with its heavy weight and huge size.

Since this is a huge weapon, you require a lot of Strength and Dexterity to use it efficiently. Although the attacks with this sort of weapon may be slow, just a few hits can make quick work of your enemies.

Other special features of the Rotten Staff include its weapon skill – the Erdtree Slam, which makes this a great melee weapon in Elden Ring for dealing with a large amount of AoE damage.

Rotten Staff location in Elden Ring

The Elden Ring’s Rotten Staff is obtained by defeating the Putrid Avatar, which is a tree-like enemy found patrolling the eastern ring walkway at Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree.

This location is way on the northmost end of the map and requires a few prerequisites to access since this is an endgame area. To gain access to the Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree region, you must first have passed through the secret entrance of the Grand Lift of Rold.

Secondly, you must have solved the puzzle of the Ordina, Liturgical Town, which is to the north of the Grand Lift of Rold. Once you’ve got the prerequisites down, you can make your way over to the Haligtree Canopy to access the Brace of the Haligtree Region.

Find and defeat the Putrid Avatar

Once you have reached the Brace of the Haligtree Region, you must first head over to the Prayer Room Site of Grace, which is just north of the Haligtree Site of Grace.

From the Prayer Room Site of Grace, leave through the door that leads north. You will find some enemies on the path that lies ahead, but those will be easy to get rid of compared to what we’re about to fight next. Or, if you’re not in the mood to fight, just sprint past them.

Just a bit ahead of the path you will see that the railing on your right has been broken down next to the birdbath. You should see a beam connecting your platform to a pillar below on your right.

Jump onto the beam and walk down towards the pillar. As you reach the end, you must drop down onto the ledge you see below. Using the ledge, move to the other end of the pillar and jump down onto the platform overlooking the sea below. On this platform, you shall find the Putrid Avatar – to your right, specifically.

The next step is to defeat the Putrid Avatar. This giant deals heavy melee damage and will be troublesome to defeat if you don’t pack enough melee damage.

The platform is narrow as well, so you won’t have many chances to get behind and attack from the rear. Your main resource will be Fire, as the Putrid Avatar is weak to it.

There is an easy way to cheese this Putrid Avatar though. For that, you must lead it to the back end of this platform to a small room. This room isn’t big enough for the Putrid Avatar to enter, and you will have the ranged advantage here where you can just fire projectiles at it until it dies. You can even coat your blade with Fire and buff up to move in to do some melee damage as well.

One thing to keep in mind is that the room behind you holds a Crystallian that may attack you. It’s better to get rid of it first before you pick a fight with the Putrid Avatar itself.

Once you defeat the Putrid Avatar, you will automatically receive the Rotten Staff as a drop reward.

Rotten Staff upgrades and stats

The Rotten Staff, as you would have guessed from the name, is a Rot weapon that holds the ability to build up Scarlet Rot as you keep attacking your enemies constantly.

The Rotten Staff mainly scales with Strength and Dexterity, which makes a Strength and Dexterity hybrid sort of build the best build for it. There are certain requirements that you first have to meet for you to wield it, which are as follows (along with scaling):

  • Strength: 34 (D)
  • Dexterity: 8 (E)

The weapon mainly starts off with a 165 Physical Damage stat and a 100 Critical stat. The Rotten Staff can be upgraded with Somber Smithing Stones though to improve those stats and make it more efficient.

  • Level: +10
  • Physical Damage: 404
  • Strength: B
  • Dexterity: D

What’s most special about the Rotten Staff is its Unique Weapon ability called the Erdtree Slam, which might be the best Groundslam Skill yet. It costs 20 FP to use, where Tarnished will jump with the weapon and slam it down on the ground, dealing AoE damage to multiple enemies within the vicinity.

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