5 Things to Do Before Starting Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Shadow of the Erdtree is the first major expansion for Elden Ring, and it’s going to be an exciting one. You’ll want to make sure you’re well-prepared, though, so here are five things you need to do before starting Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

Beat Radahn and Mohg

In order to access the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, you’ll need to progress quite a decent bit in the base game of Elden Ring. The unlock requirements include starting the Radahn Festival at Redmane Castle and beating Radahn himself, as well as beating Mohg, Lord of Blood.

Mohg, in particular, is the boss you need to make sure to beat as you can only access the new DLC area in his arena. Once you’ve beaten both bosses, then you’re pretty much good to go as soon as Shadow of the Erdtree goes live.

Farm Runes and Level Up

Generally speaking, most players should reach around level 140 by the time they’ve cleared the main story of Elden Ring, and this is the level range you should aim for as well before starting Shadow of the Erdtree.

If you happen to be starting a completely new run, the good news is that there’s a pretty quick way to level up, as long as you know where to look. You’ll want to head to Mohgwyn Palace, which is where you’ll need to go to beat Mohg anyway. There are two ways to get here: by using the waygate teleporter just northwest of the Yelough Anix Ruins in the Consecrated Snowfield, or by progressing through Varre’s questline.

The former option is actually rather difficult, as it requires you to progress very far into the game and enter one of the tougher areas of Elden Ring. It’s easier to just follow Varre’s questline, as he’ll give you earlier access to Mohgwyn Palace by doing a few invasions for him.

Once you’re in Mohgwyn Palace, you can farm runes pretty easily by killing the Albinaurics in the path leading to the Palace proper, and you can get around 30,000 runes per run.

Get Your Larval Tears

We’re all expecting Shadow of the Erdtree to give us a whole host of exciting new weapons, which means even more fun builds to experiment with. Of course, in order to use some of these new weapons, you may need to respec so that you have the right stats to use them. And to do that, you need Larval Tears.

In the base game of Elden Ring, you can only get Larval Tears with the following methods:

• By killing the Lesser Runebear standing east of the Agheel Lake South Site of Grace.
• Picking it up in the Village of the Albinaurics.
• Killing the Grafted Scion disguised as a Giant Crayfish near Rose Church and Boilprawn Shack.
• Purchasing it from Pidia after killing Royal Knight Loretta at Caria Manor, then jumping down the cliffs on the southeastern side of Three Sisters.
• Killing the Troll just south of the Caelid Highway South Site of Grace.
• Killing the Lion Guardian in the ruins just southeast of Windmill Village.
• Purchasing it from the Nomadic Merchant in Siofra River.

There are a few others to be found in Nokstella, but Larval Tears are quite limited in the base game, so grab as many as you can before starting the DLC. Hopefully there’ll be more to find in Shadow of the Erdtree, but either way, once you have a Larval Tear, you can respec by talking to Rennala.

Gather Smithing Stones

With so many new weapons to check out, you’ll also need to upgrade them with Smithing Stones. You can start by collecting all of the Bell Bearings in the game, as this will unlock more Smithing Stones for purchase at the Twin Maiden statue back at Roundtable Hold. Hit up the following locations for the relevant Bell Bearings:

• Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel
• Sealed Tunnel in Altus Plateau
• Zamor Ruins
• Faram Azula, after defeating the Godskin Duo
• Sellia Crystal Tunnel
• Altus Tunnel
• First Church of Marika
• Tempest-Facing Balcony in Faram Azula

Farm Your Gloveworts

Finally, this isn’t really a priority if you don’t like using Spirit Ashes. But if you do, then it’s worth getting Gloveworts to upgrade existing ones, or save them for new ones in Shadow of the Erdtree. Just like with the Smithing Stones, you can also purchase Gloveworts from the Twin Maiden statue by collecting Bell Bearings.

Here’s where to get the relevant Bell Bearings:

• Wyndham Catacombs, after defeating the Burial Watchdog
• Giants’ Mountaintop Catacombs, after defeating Ulcerated Tree Spirit
• Crumbling Beast Grave Depths
• Giant-Conquering Hero’s Grave
• Drainage Channel in Miquella’s Haligtree
• Nokron, Eternal City, at the main gazebo
• Nokstella, Eternal City

And there you have it. Once you’ve got your build sorted, and you’ve farmed up enough runes, Smithing Stones, and Gloveworts, you should be ready to take on Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.