Due to Elden Ring's open-world nature, players with foreknowledge of where to go can find that there is a wealth of powerful weapons that can be acquired early in the game.
- Caelid is a very high level area, with giant monsters, water tainted with scarlet rot, and random bosses just walking around. It is also extremely easy to go to at the start of the game (just head east) as all you really need is Torrent to get over the wall (or use teleporter trap in the Dragon Burnt Ruins) . Having Torrent also negates many of the problems an early player might have in Caelid as he is fast enough to out-speed most bosses, and he is immune to Scarlet Rot completely. This means getting your hands on powerful midgame gear is rather simple if you know where to look. Dragonbarrow, the northern half of Caelid, is also meant to be visited late in the game, judging by the Rune rewards of the local bosses, but can be accessed very early despite the dragons that are supposed to dissuade the adventurous.
- The Meteorite Staff and Rock Sling are both found in the Street of Sages Ruins in the Swamp of Aeonia. The Meteorite Staff can't be upgraded, but it doesn't need to be, because it natively has S scaling in Intelligence. Other staves will require many upgrades before it can catch up to this beast. It also boosts the damage of gravity spells, which Rock Sling is. Rock Sling is fairly slow to cast, but does a lot of damage should all three rocks connect, fakes out enemies that reflexively roll in response to ranged attacks, and more importantly, does a lot of poise damage, staggering big enemies and bosses after a few casts. Just use a tanky summon like Godrick's Soldiers to keep the aggro off of you so you can actually cast it. As an added bonus for anyone going full sorcerer, Queen Rennala is extremely resistant to Magic damage, but Rock Sling deals a combination of Magic and Physical damage, making it more effective against her than other sorceries.
- The Sword of St. Trina is one of the only ways in the entire game that one can inflict the Sleep status ailment, and for good reason- as covered on the Game-Breaker subpage, the ailment can stunlock a number of powerful foes. While one might think such a strong weapon should be locked behind a difficult challenge, it can be found seconds from the eastern entrance to Caelid, and is only guarded by a single Stonesword Key lock. Even though the weapon is mediocre on its own, one can easily use it as an offhand weapon and then swap to a more powerful secondary once the Sleep effect goes off. This strategy can last through pretty much the entire game.
- If you find the warp gate behind the Third Church of Marika in Limgrave, you'll be brought to the Bestial Sanctum in the northeast corner of Dragonbarrow. On the way down and out, you will find several Vulgar Militia who hit hard, but are easy to stagger, and give a generous 1094 runes. And there's a lot of them. Just be careful not to provoke the Black Blade Kindred before getting to the Farum Greatbridge site of grace, or get too greedy with the rune farming. This Site of Grace also gives you quick access to the rest of Dragonbarrow, including Greyoll, Fort Faroth, and the Night's Cavalry spot.
- Rotten Stray Ashes are one of the weakest summon options in terms of attack damage and HP, but they're also able to inflict Scarlet Rot on enemies, which lasts 180 seconds and which none of early to midgame bosses can resist very well. As long as it can get 2-3 hits in before dying, it will melt bosses HP, leaving the player to just dodge and wait.
- One major exploit that almost anyone can do early on involves killing Elder Dragon Greyoll, a Stationary Boss with tens of thousands of HP. Normally, you can only beat her by killing the red-eyed dragons surrounding her, dealing over 10,000 damage to her every time you kill one. It turns out, however, that you can rush past her kids to a site of grace right behind her, and this gives you the perfect position to hack away at her tail without fear of retaliation. It would normally take loads of time, but using a Bleed weapon speeds this up significantly, as bleed deals percentage damage whenever it procs, which in Greyoll's case is around 13,000. If you didn't pick Bandit or Samurai as your starting class, both of which start with innate Bleed weapons, then you can easily pick up the Morning Star for free at the entrance to the Weeping Peninsula (every class starts with enough Strength to two-hand it), or you can defeat the miniboss of Fort Haight to acquire the Bloody Slash Ash of War, letting you infuse any bladed weapon with Bleed (preferably a Dagger for its fast swing speed). Defeating this enemy gives you over 50,000 runes, even more if you pop a Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot right before you kill her, a massive economic boon that can get you enough level-ups to steamroll the early dungeons, and as a bonus, you get five Dragon Hearts out of the deal, giving you access to some slow but damaging incantations.
- Right after killing Greyoll for a huge jump in early game levels, you can visit Fort Faroth right behind her and pick up Radagon's Soreseal in a room only accessible from the roof of the fort. The Soreseal grants a 5 stat bonus for Vigor, Endurance, Strength and Dexterity at the cost of taking increased damage. The increased damage is offset a bit by the increased Vigor granting extra health and the increased Endurance allowing you to wear heavier armor, effectively granting another 20 extra stats worth of levels, particularly useful for a Strength/Dexterity build, or even for any build that wants to equip a weapon where some investment in Strength or Dexterity is necessary. The Soreseal can last you until the very end of the game, only dropping off in usefulness once you reach the soft-caps of its corresponding stats, and at that point you'd have other talismans that provide similar boosts without the increased damage penalty.
- Another easy boss encounter that will net you 42000 runes is the Night's Calvary who patrols the bridge just north of Lenne's Rise (only at night though). Normally an extremely difficult foe not to be tussled with lightly, but a Good Bad Bug makes him trivially easy to beat by anyone. Simply ride up the hill on the other side of the bridge and let him chase you. Like all field bosses, he will disappear and reset back to his spawn location once you get far enough away. However, it seems the developers goofed and, instead of setting him to respawn on the bridge, accidentally set him to respawn above the canyon instead, causing him to fall to his death. Unfortunately, this eventually got patched, but he can still be tricked into jumping off the cliff into the canyon with some effort.
- Moonveil is a unique katana that possesses a skill called "Transient Moonlight". Essentially, it functions like the Uchigatana's Unsheathe skill but the swipes will unleash a Sword Beam. The kicker is that it's also a massive A.I. Breaker, as enemies will walk headfirst into the beam and eat a ton of magic damage. Said beams also have stellar range, making it very easy to whiff punish bosses, and deal decent posture damage when using the vertical beam since it counts as a heavy attack. Couple this with its high scaling in both Dexterity and Intelligence, a solid moveset, native bleed, and fairly efficient FP usage, and you get one hell of a strong weapon. You can get it from Gael Tunnel in Caelid by defeating the area boss, which is a Magma Wyrm who hits hard but has a slow, plodding moveset.
- The Meteoric Ore Blade is another Intelligence-scaling katana, with the twist of being the only katana with a higher affinity for Strength. It also deals magic damage to everything it hits, which for the first half of the game, the majority of enemies have no resistance to. Its weapon art, Gravitas, can cause an AOE shockwave that pulls in and damages all enemies in its range. Sekiro players should be delighted to know that the weapon straight-up borrows Double Ichimonji for its R2 attack, and it's arguably even more powerful here, dealing monstrous poise damage and is especially lethal as a follow-up to Gravitas. The weapon is in the Caelid Waypoint Ruins, and unlike the Moonveil, there's no boss to worry about, though the enemies in Caelid may make it difficult to get to to begin with.
- The Bloodhound's Fang, a Curved Greatsword with innate Bleed buildup, can be found very early on from the Forlorn Hound Evergaol south of the starting area. It hits extremely hard for a weapon available in Limgrave, and the Bleed effect makes it devastating against bosses. It also has a very useful weapon art, "Bloodhound's Finesse", which is a powerful upward swing followed by a backflip, essentially allowing the player to get a strong hit in and immediately dodge out of the way of the enemy's follow-up/counter. It also upgrades with Somber Smithing Stones, meaning it can be upgraded to nearly max level early if you know where to find all the relevant stones. On top of all that, it is one of the very rare Somber Smithing Stone weapons which can be buffed (if not the only one period), meaning you can apply Blood Grease or Bloodflame Blade to it for even faster Bleed. The only issue is getting it from its owner, Bloodhound Knight Darriwil, who will not surrender it without a fight... except, if you take a little time to explore the Mistwood first, hear the howl of a wolf, ask Kalé about it, and follow his instructions to meet Blaidd, you can bring Blaidd along, who can easily solo the fight.
- A miniboss at the end of Fort Haight drops the Ashes of War for "Bloody Slash", a powerful skill that can be attached to several weapon types that allows for a Bleed effect to be applied with enough hits, as well as a powerful strike in itself.
- While the early-game Weeping Peninsula contains a number of nice rewards, one of the best is Radagon's Scarseal, a talisman that increases the player's Vigor, Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity by three points each. That's 12 free levels for one talisman slot, and the only drawback is a boost to damage taken, which isn't too apparent thanks to the extra points in Vigor. So long as the player can defeat the Ancient Hero of Zamor early enough (while tricky, it's not considered one of the harder early evergaol bosses), it's an amazing accessory for a good chunk of the game, and is likely to stay on until one gets the aforementioned Soreseal, its upgrade. Magic builds can find their own version, Marika's Scarseal, in the Siofra River, which boosts the other four stats and has a lower damage penalty since it doesn't increase health.
- Nothing stops the player from tackling several Tunnels or Catacombs dungeons early, which allows them to stock up on Smithing Stones, Somber Smithing Stones, and Ghost Glovewort, allowing them to upgrade weapons and Spirits.
- Right from the beginning of the game, you can skip straight to Liurnia without even fighting Margit simply by going around the right side of Stormveil Castle. Once there, head straight for the Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel and defeat the boss, a single Crystalian, who should fall very easily to any Strike damage weapon. This gets you the Smithing Stone Miner's Bell Bearing [1], which allows you to buy infinite amounts of Smithing Stone [1] and [2] at the Roundtable Hold, allowing you to upgrade any normal weapon to +6. Still not enough for you? Head to Fort Haight and Fort Faroth to grab both halves of the Dectus Medallion (the latter will require a suicide run), take the Grand Lift of Dectus to the Altus Plateau, and head for the Capital Outskirts. In the Sealed Tunnel, you will find the Smithing Stone Miner's Bell Bearing [2], which lets you buy infinite amounts of Smithing Stone [3] and [4], allowing any normal weapon to be upgraded to +12. You don't even have to kill the boss to get it, it's just sitting there in a chest at the beginning of the dungeon. Again, this is before killing any story progression bosses whatsoever, and only one minor dungeon boss. Even better, the miner enemies in the Sealed Tunnel where you find the second bell bearing sometimes drop Smithing Stone [5], so with a bit of grinding you can get your weapon up to +15 for even more power.
- Several recipes and farming spots available early allow the player to infinitely craft their own Fire Grease or Blood Grease as a damage buff to their weapon.
- The "Lone Wolf", "Spirit Jellyfish", "Skeleton Militia", and "Godrick Soldiers" Spirits are all available early in the game, and while their main value is more in their ability to aggro enemies, they serve that purpose well even into the mid to late game. Skeleton Militia are particularly notable, for they can infinitely resurrect as long as the enemy doesn't accidentally hit their bodies while they are reviving.
- The Barricade Shield Ash of War that can be gained from the Night's Cavalry as early as Weeping Peninsula. In essence this is a cheap skill that can be put in almost any shield that DRASTICALLY (+35% to be exact) increases its blocking capability for a fairly decent period of time (about 20 seconds) through which you can just block attacks that would previously end you. You'll still take scratch damage from elemental attacks and some others can't be blocked (like grabs) but overall this makes a lot of bosses trivial as long as you keep an eye out on your stamina. This goes double since having patience allows you to pull off guard counter after just about each attack your enemy finishes thus not only dealing decent damage back but also breaking their posture quickly. This also works for regular enemies as enhancing your guard boost causes their attacks to bounce from your shield more often thus ending their combo early and giving you a prime guard counter opportunity - which can be further improved with the Curved Sword Talisman. Combine this with the lucky Brass Shield drop from any of the basic, shield-wielding knights (56 shield boost for a decent weight) or later with any of the greatshields and long combo attacks become a joke. Even after the 1.03 patch reduced its duration time, it's still a powerful defensive tool as long as you remember to re-apply it when an attack would hit you and since it can stop combos dead in their tracks it means that its duration isn't a big deal.
- Speaking of Barricade Shield, one such shield that comes with it by default is the Great Tortoise Shell. It's not too heavy and has only a low Strength requirement so it's usable by most builds, it doesn't require defeating a miniboss to obtain, and best of all, it's this game's version of everyone's favourite Stat Stick, the Grass Crest Shield, so it increases your stamina regeneration speed as long as it's in your hand or on your back. The aforementioned patch reduced its physical damage reduction from 100% to 87% to make this shield less universally powerful.
- If you have enough Stonesword Keys, you can find Crepus's Black-Key Crossbow as soon as you get to Roundtable Hold. Besides being a unique crossbow, it has the highest starting damage of any crossbow, has a zoom-in effect, and has low stat requirements that most physical classes can use. If you get it, you get a cheap, easy-to-use ranged weapon that can greatly help ensure the player has a ranged weapon to kill enemies or pull them away. It remains useful for a long time, and only can fall off if you don't upgrade it or upgrade the generic options, which are harder to find. In addition, by the time the player can get it, you'll likely have some bolts picked up from enemies on the way to Stormveil Castle, so you don't even need to purchase extra bolts initially.
- For any Faith build the Cipher Pata is an indispensable weapon with good damage, rapid combo, pure faith scaling (making dipping into Str and Dex unnecessary), and a powerful skill 'unblockable blade' which is exactly what it sounds like. The price to obtain such a weapon? Aside from the 30 Faith needed to wield it, there is no cost. Simply drop off the balcony in Roundtable Hold and head left. You don't even need to beat the invader guarding the item, since you can reach it before he even spawns if you run fast enough. It does fall off in usefulness in the late game as a primary weapon due to it being pure Holy damage (where most lategame bosses have a high resistance to holy), but it's light enough that it still remains a useful secondary weapon, particularly due to it's weapon art.
- Also for Faith builds is the Sacred Blade Ash of War, which can be acquired almost immediately if you journey to the Third Church of Marika and go a bit northeast to kill the scarab holding it. Not only does it add holy damage and adds faith scaling to any weapon, the Sacred Blade art it grants gives a very powerful Sword Beam attack that also adds temporary extra holy damage to your weapon. It can turn a number of difficult early-game fights into a breeze, especially on a dedicated Faith build. It can be especially deadly when added to the Erdsteel Dagger, which is a Faith-scaling dagger that can be acquired by doing Kenneth Haight's sidequest in the same area.
- Various people have discovered you can get a Legendary Weapon and upgrade it to +5, then +9 without ever beating any major story bosses or engaging in PVP, and up to its maximum of +10 after beating a single shardbearer and engaging in the PVP-related sidequest (but victory is not necessary, merely the item usage). A +10 legendary weapon is meant to have endgame level damage scaling and most can be wielded effectively as early as level 30+ with the right starting class and stats, meaning you can one-shot most enemies and even minibosses in the starting area, and kill most other things in 2-3 hits. Said PvP sidequest also got an update making it doable offline, meaning actual PvP is no longer necessary.
- For heavy armor players, there's the Banished Knight set, which you get from the Banished Knights (duh) in Stormveil castle. While the knights themselves are Demonic Spiders that early in the game, it's well worth farming them for the armor, as it has very high resistances across the board and will carry you through most of the game, or at least until you kill Radahn and can buy his armor. The one problem it has is its weight, but that can be negated with the Arsenal Charm you can get immediately after killing Godrick.
- The Brass Shield has the highest Guard Boost among Medium Shields, meaning it takes less Stamina to block hits with it. You can find it as early as the Gatefront Ruins by farming the Godrick Soldiers who are carrying Brass Shields. It's only held back by a significant weight and Strength requirement, so depending on your initial build it may take a few levels before you can equip it
- The Altus Plateau, a mid-to-lategame area, can be accessed pretty early on by collecting the two halves of the Dectus Medallion. The first half is at Fort Haight in Limgrave, and can be grabbed relatively easily since most of the enemies can be run past, with the only one that you might need to fight being the Bloody Slash knight who isn't super difficult to defeat. The second is in Fort Faroth in Dragonbarrow (which the player can warp to easily via the method described above), and requires what will likely be a suicide run past high level enemies, but isn't particularly difficult. This allows the player to access a number of useful upgrades and items much earlier than normal.
- The Auriza Hero's Grave is a very challenging area, guarded by moving chariots that can one-shot a player with low Vigor, and a truly brutal boss in the duo Crucible Knights. However, if the player can get past the chariots down into a hidden area and hit a flamethrower switch (or simply using Margit's Shackle in the initial area to trigger it), this can cause a third Chariot to spawn in the beginning of the area, which will lead to the initial two being destroyed and reward the player with the Holy Ground Ash of War and more importantly, the Tree Sentinel Set. While it's very heavy and thusly requires a lot of investment into Endurance in order to maintain a good roll, it boasts some of the highest defense in the game.
- In the far north of Altus Plateau, which you can get to easily by running past all the enemies on Torrent, you will run into Maleigh Marais, Shaded Castle Castellan, a hostile NPC who wields the Antspur Rapier. The fight is challenging but doable, and killing him gets you the aforementioned rapier. Said weapon has relatively modest Dex and Str requirements and is one of only a few that natively inflicts Scarlet Rot, which will make short work of most early- to mid-game enemies and bosses (not to mention PvP opponents), few of whom are resistant to it.
- The Reduvia dagger is obtained by killing Bloody Finger Nerijus, who is located by a watery area northeast of Agheel Lake. If you're fighting him very early, he might prove to be difficult to defeat, but stalling him for a little bit will cause Yura to appear and intervene, giving you good windows of opportunity to fight back and defeat Nerijus. Your reward is a dagger that only requires a few points in Strength, Dexterity, and Arcane to wield, and carries a quick, spammable Ash of War that rapidly inflicts Bleed from a distance for an extremely low FP cost. It's especially devastating for Arcane builds, because its damage and its Bleed effect (both from its normal attack and its Ash of War) scale with Arcane.
- Storm Blade is an Ash of War that can be acquired very early at the Warmaster's Shack and be applied to any sword. It does surprisingly high physical damage (generally equal to a fully charged heavy attack), has range equal to most sorceries, fires quite quickly, does good poise damage, and has low FP cost. It is a powerful early-game tool for melee characters, as it gives them a strong ranged option to deal with large, distant, or flying enemies, and Storm Blade remains powerful enough to be a viable tool through the endgame.
- One of the best examples of a Disk One Nuke in the game is the Dragon Communion Seal. It's one of the best Sacred Seals in the game, and available extremely early (especially if one starts the game with the extra Stonesword Key) from the Fringefolk Hero's Grave, which is a chariot dungeon accessible by activating the imp statue right after coming out of the tutorial area and meeting White Mask Varré. It's a seal with low stat requirements that scales primarily on Arcane before Faith, and boosts Dragon Communion spells, which are both very powerful and the most versatile incantation class in the game. This combination makes it a very strong early game option for non-dedicated Faith builds. Conversely, pure Faith builds would most likely switch it out for a Faith scaling seal by the endgame, like the Erdtree or Golden Order seal, but if one's willing to build around it, it can still reach the second highest incantation scaling in the game, making it more than endgame-viable. For added bonus, it requires Somber Smithing Stones (which can be cheesed with methods described on this page), meaning it can be maxed out very early, leading to absolutely devastating Dragon Claw and Dragon Maw incantations that can one-shot more or less everything short of bosses in the early-to-mid game.
