Elden Ring: A Guide to Upgrading Weapons and Spirit Ash for beginners

We've seen a lot of people struggling about how to upgrade Elden Ring items in the game, so LOLGA brings you a small guide for it today.

Weapons:

Weapon types:

There are 2 types of weapons in the game, normal weapons and special weapons. Normal weapons are (mostly) your everyday real life inspired weapons, like short sword, mace, flail, long bow, stuff you usually find the regular mobs using and are found as world loot or in chests. Special weapons are mostly unique, so they usually come from a chest, Stone Key fog gates, drop from a boss or are crafted from boss remembrances.

Each of the two types use a different material for upgrade. Normal weapons take Smithing Stones and special weapons take Somber Smithing Stones.

Stone Tiers and Upgrade Levels:

Smithing stones:

There are 9 tiers of Smithing Stones, the tier is indicated by the number between the brackets, i.e. Smithing Stone [1] is the tier 1 stone, each tier offers 3 levels of upgrades and each level takes + 2 stones compared to the previous, this logic remains the same up to tier 8 (+24 upgrade level). The last level of upgrade (+25) takes a single Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. So the upgrade progression is as follows:

(list number = upgrade level)

  1. • Smithing Stone [1] x2

  2. • Smithing Stone [1] x4

  3. • Smithing Stone [1] x6

  4. • Smithing Stone [2] x2

  5. • Smithing Stone [2] x4

  6. • Smithing Stone [2] x6

  7. • Smithing Stone [3] x2

  8. • Smithing Stone [3] x4

  9. • Smithing Stone [3] x6

  10. • Smithing Stone [4] x2

  11. • Smithing Stone [4] x4

  12. • Smithing Stone [4] x6

  13. • Smithing Stone [5] x2

  14. • Smithing Stone [5] x4

  15. • Smithing Stone [5] x6

  16. • Smithing Stone [6] x2

  17. • Smithing Stone [6] x4

  18. • Smithing Stone [6] x6

  19. • Smithing Stone [7] x2

  20. • Smithing Stone [7] x4

  21. • Smithing Stone [7] x6

  22. • Smithing Stone [8] x2

  23. • Smithing Stone [8] x4

  24. • Smithing Stone [8] x6

  25. • Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone x1

In short, it takes 12 stones of every tier + 1 ancient dragon stone to upgrade a normal weapon to +25.

Somber Smithing Stones:

These are a lot simpler. There are 10 tiers of somber stones, each tier upgrades a special weapon once, the last upgrade (+10) takes a Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. The upgrade progression is:

  1. • Somber Smithing Stone [1] x1

  2. • Somber Smithing Stone [2] x1

  3. • Somber Smithing Stone [3] x1

  4. • Somber Smithing Stone [4] x1

  5. • Somber Smithing Stone [5] x1

  6. • Somber Smithing Stone [6] x1

  7. • Somber Smithing Stone [7] x1

  8. • Somber Smithing Stone [8] x1

  9. • Somber Smithing Stone [9] x1

  10. • Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone x1

But why upgrade?

Weapon upgrades will improve their base damage and also their attribute scaling. As for which weapons are worth upgrading, well that's a whole other complex subject I'm not discussing here, the good thing is that all smithing stones except for ancient ones (which are unique loot/quest rewards) can be bought from the Twin Husks at Roundtable hold after you offer them the respective Bell Bearings, so the game allows for experimentation as long as you have the Elden ring runes to keep buying more stones.

Where do I upgrade?

If you just started out you can upgrade your normal weapons yourself up to +3 at the upgrade table/anvil in Church of Elleh, but a smith is what you need to upgrade weapons further. AFAIK there are 2 in the game, Hewg in Roundtable Hold and Iji in northwest Liurnia.

Spirit Ashes:

First things first, you need Roderika to upgrade your spirits. She has a short quest line to complete before she's able to provide that service though.

Spirit types:

There are 2 types of spirit ashes, normal and renowned. Normal ashes take Grave Gloveworts to upgrade while renowned ashes take Ghost Gloveworts, these are plants and can be found inside catacombs and other underground areas. They can also be bought (up to tier 9) from the Husks by offering them the proper Bell Bearings once you find them. The last level comes from unique Great Grave/Ghost Gloveworts which can't be bought.

Grave Gloveworts:

There are 10 tiers of this material, fortunately much like Somber Smithing Stones each spirit ash upgrade level requires 1 unit from each tier. The last level (+10) takes a Great Grave Glovewort. So the upgrade path is:

  1. • Grave Glovewort [1] x1

  2. • Grave Glovewort [2] x1

  3. • Grave Glovewort [3] x1

  4. • Grave Glovewort [4] x1

  5. • Grave Glovewort [5] x1

  6. • Grave Glovewort [6] x1

  7. • Grave Glovewort [7] x1

  8. • Grave Glovewort [8] x1

  9. • Grave Glovewort [9] x1

  10. • Great Grave Glovewort x1

Ghost Gloveworts:

Exactly the same thing as Grave Gloveworts, just swap Grave for Ghost. The only real difference is that these are rarer.

What's the difference between normal and renowned spirits?

Normal spirits are mostly mobs you find in the world, like wolves, skeletons, soldiers, etc.. They can keep enemies busy leaving you free to do the real damage.

Renowned spirits however usually have special abilities that help you, like buffs or healing, and deal a lot more damage by using special weapons or having a strong move set (including the use of weapon skills).

But why upgrade?

Spirits are a way to have help in game if you don't/can't play coop, so the better your spirits are the more they can help. Even if the spirits can't deal much damage, having someone else to take a beating while you heal can go a long way.

I hope this guide will help you in game!

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Jan 9, 2023