Mechanics

Elden Ring explains almost nothing. The tutorial cave teaches you to roll and swing, and then the game hands you a horse, a crafting kit, a summoning bell, a dozen status bars and a stat screen, and trusts you to work the rest out. Most of what makes the game feel unfair in the first ten hours is a system you were never told about: poise, stance damage, equip load thresholds, the fact that a stagger opens a critical hit, or that a Great Rune does nothing until you climb a tower and drink a Rune Arc.

This guide walks through those systems in the order they matter, from the combat you use every minute to the secrets you only need once. Each section explains how the mechanic works and links to the full page on our wiki, which carries the controls for every platform, the numbers and the edge cases. Read the first three sections before your first boss; the rest can wait until the game throws the problem at you.

Combat: attacks, criticals and defence

Every fight in Elden Ring is a stamina argument. Attacks, blocks and dodges all draw from the same green bar, and an empty bar means a stagger or a broken guard. The basic movement kit is the first thing to nail: sprinting and dodging share a button, which is why new players find themselves rolling when they meant to run, and roll speed depends on how much of your equip load you are using, with the fast light roll below 30 percent and a slow, dangerous heavy roll above 70. Weapons can be held in one hand or two, or paired with a twin for power stancing, and each grip changes the moveset and the effective Strength, as How To Two-Hand Weapons And Power Stance explains. You can even sheathe a weapon to fight bare-handed.

Damage multiplies through critical hits. Attack an enemy from behind and you backstab them; deflect a swing with a shield's Parry skill and you open a riposte, as covered in How To Parry; and every enemy, bosses included, has a hidden stance meter that your heavy and jumping attacks drain until it breaks and they drop to a knee. How To Stagger And Break Poise ranks the weapons and Ashes of War that do it fastest, and How To Perform A Critical Hit ties the three routes together. The safer alternative to a parry is the guard counter, a heavy attack pressed the moment a block lands, which deals heavy stance damage with any shield.

Defence has its own numbers. Poise is the armour stat that decides whether a hit interrupts your swing, and our page explains why players aim past 70. Damage Types ranks the eight kinds of damage, four physical and four elemental, and explains why a mace beats a sword against armour and why holy damage barely touches the undead. The Finger Snap gesture is the odd one out in this group: it is how you call Blaidd out of the Mistwood Ruins, and Gestures covers the other forty-five. For PvP specifically, the Taunter's Tongue taken from Mad Tongue Alberich invites invaders into your world without co-op.

Character progression: levels, stats and the route through the game

Runes are experience and currency at once. Spend them with Melina at any Site of Grace and one attribute rises a point; How to Level Up covers the early priorities, Vigor and Endurance first, and the farming spots that make it quick. How To Get More Health explains the three levers on your health bar: Vigor, Golden Seeds for extra flask charges, and Sacred Tears for stronger ones. What each attribute does for a weapon is the subject of Attribute Scaling and Bonus Weapon Damage, and the thirteen Affinities are how an Ash of War rewrites that scaling to match your build. Casters have one more ceiling: Memory Slots, two at the start and twelve at most.

Nothing is permanent. Once Rennala falls, How To Respec Stats shows how a Larval Tear resets every point, with around eighteen tears in a playthrough. Torrent, the horse from How To Get And Use Torrent, arrives at the Gatefront Ruins and turns the open world from a hike into a ride, with double jumps off Spiritsprings and mounted combat against dragons. How To Open The Map is the first question every console player asks, and the map only fills in as you collect fragments.

The route is the part the game hides most carefully. Progression Route lays out the whole journey from West Limgrave to Leyndell with recommended levels; Where To Go After Stormveil and What To Do After Defeating Godrick handle the first real fork, where Liurnia, Caelid and Caria Manor all open at once. How To Activate Radahn Festival and How To Get Into South Raya Lucaria Gate unblock the two mid-game gates that stall the most runs. And the six Endings are decided by choices made across the whole game, the darkest of them by finding the Three Fingers beneath the capital, a descent through Mohg the Omen's arena that How to Reach the Flame of Frenzy walks step by step. Finishing once unlocks New Game Plus, where everything you own carries into a harder, richer second journey. Two smaller pages sit in this group: Family Heads is a flail claimed from Necromancer Garris in Sage's Cave, and Seek Three Wise Beasts solves the turtle riddle that seals the sorcerers' towers.

Upgrading: weapons, staves, summons and the armor you cannot upgrade

Reinforcement is where most of your damage comes from, and it happens at a blacksmith with stones. How To Upgrade Weapons explains the two tracks, regular Smithing Stones to +25 for standard weapons and Somber Smithing Stones to +10 for unique ones, and where Hewg and Iji sit. How to Get an Early Max Level Weapon is the speedrun version, listing every stone and Bell Bearing you need to hit the cap long before the endgame. Staves upgrade the same way and it matters more than players expect, since a staff's sorcery scaling is the multiplier on every spell; How To Upgrade Staves also explains why the Meteorite Staff is the one that cannot be touched. Spirit Ashes level with Gloveworts through Roderika, covered in How To Upgrade Summons. Armor is the exception to all of this: Can You Upgrade Armor answers no, and points at talismans and Vigor instead.

Summons and multiplayer

Spirit Ashes are the single biggest difficulty lever in the game. Renna hands you the Spirit Calling Bell at the Church of Elleh, and from then on any arena with a summon icon lets you call a ghostly ally that draws aggro and deals real damage. How To Summon Spirits covers the bell, the FP costs and where the first ashes are; How To Summon Jellyfish gets you Roderika's tanky jellyfish before you leave Limgrave; and How to Unlock Spirit Tuning follows Roderika to the Roundtable Hold so those ashes can be upgraded. Our Spirit Ashes guide compares the summons themselves.

Human help works differently. How To Summon Friends and How to Summon explain the Furlcalling Finger Remedy, summon signs, passwords and the pools, and why calling a friend also opens you to invasion. If you would rather not be invaded, How To Stop Invasions covers offline play and the White Cipher Ring, and notes that the game's own NPC invaders, all thirty-seven of them, cannot be switched off. Two of those invasions happen inside the Roundtable Hold: Ensha attacks once you carry a certain item and drops the Royal Remains set, and Mad Tongue Alberich waits below the balcony. Multiplayer also enables trading, as How To Trade Items and How To Drop Items explain, with the limits on what can change hands. Maiden Blood is the item Varre's questline demands before it hands you the invasion tools and, eventually, the road to Mohgwyn Palace.

Status effects and how to survive them

Status effects work as build-up bars that fill with each hit and trigger when full, and they cut both ways. How To Cure Poison covers the slow drain and the Neutralizing Boluses that stop it; How To Cure Scarlet Rot covers the fast, lethal version that soaks Caelid and the Lake of Rot, where Preserving Boluses and the Flame, Cleanse Me incantation are the only answers; How To Stop Blood Loss covers Robustness and Stanching Boluses; and How To Cure Madness explains the frenzy that drains health and FP together, which only the Frenzied Flame Village and a few enemies inflict. The same effects are your best offence, and the builds guide covers bleed, frost, rot and madness setups.

Farming runes and materials

Levels come faster if you know where to stand. Rune Farming runs from the trolls at the Warmaster's Shack in the first hour to the late-game spots that pay six figures a minute, and the Bird Farm at Mohgwyn Palace, where a giant crow throws itself off a cliff for 11,000 runes a time, is the one every guide eventually recommends. How To Farm Gold Fireflies supplies the ingredient for the Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot that adds 30 percent to every drop, and How To Get String covers the rope that half the useful greases need.

Exploration and secrets

The map lies to you on purpose. Illusory Walls lists every false wall that a hit reveals, from the Sage's Cave to the Academy bookcase hiding a talisman. How to Unlock Magic Doors gathers the sealed towers and their puzzles: the three wise beast turtles, the Erudition gesture, the Mirage Rise crests and the Sellia braziers. Invisible Enemies explains the two kinds of hidden foe and how the Sentry's Torch reveals them. Paintings are the scavenger hunts that start when you find a canvas and end at the spot it depicts, with a reward on the ghost of the painter. The Hallowhorn Ground Puzzle is the eight pillars you light to summon the Regal Ancestor Spirit in Nokron, and the South Raya Lucaria Gate is the barrier that blocks the Academy until you find its key. Our Secret Areas roundup and the dungeons guide cover where these tricks lead.

Items, menus and the things the interface hides

Crafting is new to the series and the game barely mentions it. Crafting covers the kit from Kale, how cookbooks add recipes, and which consumables are worth making. The pouch holds four items you can use without opening the quick bar, which is where the Spirit Calling Bell and your Physick flask belong; How To Switch Arrows covers the two ammunition slots. There is no pause button, but Can You Pause explains the menu trick that freezes the game anyway. Shops will not let you compare items before buying, so that page lists the workarounds. And the messages on the ground are a system of their own: How To Praise Messages explains how rating one, or having yours rated, refills a flask charge mid-dungeon.

Gear tweaks: altering, hiding and duplicating

Armor can be cut down. The Tailoring Tools and Sewing Needle from Coastal Cave let you alter armor at a grace, usually stripping a cape or a hood for a slight stat change; How to Alter Garments covers the fashion side and How To Hide Helmet the ways to see your own face. Ashes of War are never consumed, so How To Remove Ashes Of War shows how to take one off without losing it, and Lost Ashes of War Locations shows how Hewg copies one so two weapons can share a skill. Weapons can be copied too: How To Duplicate Weapons covers the co-op drop trick for standard weapons and the Walking Mausoleums that duplicate a Remembrance for a second boss weapon.

Where to start

Elden Ring mechanics FAQ

Is Elden Ring hard for beginners?

It is demanding but far more flexible than its reputation. Spirit Ashes, over-levelling through exploration, a shield with guard counters and a bleed weapon each remove most of the difficulty on their own, and the open world means almost any wall can be walked around and returned to later.

What is the most important mechanic to learn?

Stance damage. Once you understand that heavy and jumping attacks knock a boss down for a critical hit, every fight becomes a rhythm rather than a health race.

Can I pause the game?

Not with a button, but opening the map or the menu explanation screen freezes the action, and our page walks through the trick step by step.

Why is my roll so slow?

Equip load. Past 70 percent of your capacity the roll becomes heavy and short. Drop a piece of armor or level Endurance until you are back under the line.

Do I lose anything when I die?

Only your unspent runes, which lie where you fell until you die again. The Twiggy Cracked Tear and the Sacrificial Twig protect them if you are carrying a fortune into a dangerous area.