Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Guides

Fastest way to farm runes in Elden Ring

By

If there’s one thing FromSoftware is known for, whether it’s completely accurate or not, is that its games are difficult. Just calling them hard is a bit of a misleading statement, however, since many arguments can be made that the games allow for multiple ways to reduce that difficulty. In Elden Ring, all the usual ways of mitigating difficulty exist that were present in the previous Souls games, plus the added benefit of being in an open world where you are never forced to fight one boss again and again until you beat it before you could make any kind of progress. Leveling up your character, though, is the key to keeping up with the game’s challenges.

Your XP and currency in Elden Ring is called runes this time around. They work exactly as souls did in past games, in which you earn them from slaying enemies — the tougher they are the more you get — and you can use them to level up your character and improve its stats. Each level costs more and more runes, though, and you only get one point to spend across all your stats every time you level up, making each decision more and more important since it will take progressively longer before you hit the next level. You can grind runes from just about anywhere in Elden Ring, but we’ve found the fastest and easiest way to grind up tons of XP if you need to beef up your character in a hurry.

Recommended Videos

Further reading

The fastest way to grind runes

Lenne's Rise location on a map.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

There are plenty of other guides out there that will show you places you can fight enemies quickly and near a Site of Grace that can earn you a good stack of runes in Elden Ring, but no matter how many runes those routes give you, there’s still some risk involved. They also are dependent on how fast you can fight those enemies, and if you’re too low a level you might not even be able to do it, defeating the entire purpose of being a good farming spot.

Related

Our method involves no combat at all, and you only have to have Torrent, your mount, and to travel to a specific Site of Grace. The spot in question is in the top east corner of the map of the Dragonbarrow area. Be warned, this is a high-level zone, so just ride straight to the Site of Grace or you’re likely to be stomped by the random mobs. Just past the Erdtree icon on the map, where the landmass begins to taper off into a peninsula, you can find the Lenne’s Rise Site of Grace. This will be your spot.

Once here, look directly west from the Site to a slope downward under a stone bridge. Mount Torrent and start riding down the hill. A giant metal ball will appear behind you and roll after you, Indiana Jones style. What you want to do is ride along the edge of the cliff and make a hard turn once the ball starts chasing you, causing it to fall off the edge. This ball, as it turns out, is an enemy and will give you just short of 2,000 runes. From there you’re mere seconds away from riding back to the Site of Grace, resting, and repeating the process. Once you get the hang of it, you can earn thousands of runes per minute with basically no risk at all.

Some estimate you could earn as much as 600,000 runes in an hour this way, though we wouldn’t recommend trying since it would be pretty boring after that long and you probably don’t need that many runes.

Rune farming items

If you wanted to further maximize your time farming runes, there are a couple of items you can get that increase how many you earn passively. First is the more common Gold-Pickled Fowled Foot item. This is a consumable, so you will need to spend resources crafting them, making them not ideal for the long term, but do increase how many runes you earn for a set amount of time.

The best item you can get to boost your rune acquisition is the Gold Scarab Talisman, which will increase how many runes you get by a nice 20% so long as you have it equipped. The downside is that this is much harder to obtain than the consumable chicken feet. This item is in the Caelid region, which is decently high-level, in which you’ll find the Smoldering Wall Site of Grace. From this point, you will need to travel toward the minor Erdtree not too far off from there, make your way down, and find a cave hidden in the cliff. Make your way through this cave to the boss, or rather pair of bosses. If you can overcome these two knights, one wielding a spear and the other a sickle, they will drop the Gold Scarab Talisman. Wearing this while using the method above will net you almost 400 more runes per run.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox loves writing, games, and complaining about not having time to write and play games. He knows the names of more…
Every FromSoftware Soulsborne game, ranked
A dragon in Elden Ring.

It could be said that FromSoftware's ever-expanding collection of punishing but rewarding role-playing games – lovingly referred to as the Soulsborne series – has been among the most influential of all time. In fact, the cultural impact of Soulsborne games has been so powerful that it's led to an entirely new subgenre of role-playing games known as "Soulslikes." But while many studios have tried to mimic the famed Japanese developer's game design philosophy to varying results, few have come close to offering the same breathtaking experiences.

Granted, as the grandfather of Soulslikes, FromSoftware simply knows its way around the genre like no other. And by maintaining extremely similar gameplay mechanics, controls, and UI elements across each game, the studio ensures that its games, though not directly connected, remain familiar to fans who have played previous entries in the series. The most consistent thing of all, though, is the consistently challenging combat and exploration, which has defined the series since the beginning and is often the most-cited reason players flock to the games.

Read more
The best traits in Hogwarts Legacy
A teacher teaches students in Hogwarts Legacy.

For the first time ever, you can not only create your own witch or wizard and enroll as a student of the titular academy in Hogwarts Legacy, but you can also customize them with tons of clothing and gear options. As with most RPGs, the gear you collect from various chests and as quest rewards will have their own stats associated with them, but you also have the ability to further improve your equipment with traits.

This is a fairly in-depth system, so if you've been slacking on your studies, we'll walk you through everything you need to know about traits and which ones are the best in Hogwarts Legacy. And don't forget to consider the best talents in Hogwarts Legacy as well.
How to get traits

Read more
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon follows up Elden Ring in August
A mecha fights a giant mechanical worm in Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon.

FromSoftware and Bandai Namco Entertainment revealed when we can expect Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon to release at the end of a new trailer. After getting a first look at some of the game's bombastic mecha fights, we learned that Armored Core VI will come out on August 25.
Before Demon's Souls and Dark Souls became popular and increased FromSoftware's notoriety exponentially, Armored Core was the series the Japanese developer was best known for. This series of intense mecha shooters haven't seen a new entry since September 2013, though. That's why it was a nice surprise to see Armored Core VI announced at The Game Awards last year. It not only revived a long-dormant series but provided a nice change of pace for FromSoftware after it had perfected the Souls formula with Elden Ring.
ARMORED CORE VI FIRES OF RUBICON — Gameplay Trailer
As for the gameplay trailer, it begins with a massive rocket making planetfall by the command of a "Handler Walter". After that, we see some environmental shots of many of the levels players will be able to explore before hearing that augmented human C4-621, presumably the player, has awakened. The trailer is a non-stop action fest after that, as we see mecha boosting around levels fighting each other with powerful gunfire, rockets, and other weaponry from the ground and air. It certainly looks nothing like Elden Ring, but that makes us all the more excited.
A press release following the trailer also revealed more information about the game's story. It takes place on a planet called Rubicon 3, where an energy source called Coral was discovered but ultimately caused a planet-wide catastrophe. Armored Core VI takes place almost fifty years after that and follows a mercenary in the middle of corporations and resistance groups fighting over what remains of Coral.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on August 25.

Read more