Early Elden Ring Players may remember the dominance of a summon called Swarm of Flies, which was once capable of dealing absurd amounts of bleed and stagger damage. Well, there is a new sorcery in Shadow of the Earth Tree This makes Swarm of Flies seem harmless before the nerf. Intelligence And Both Faith builds can use it, and I really can’t believe it wasn’t nerfed in the first patch of the DLC. which actually made the DLC easier, with a buff for early Scadutree levels. This spell is downright oppressive and has practically turned me into a door-to-door salesman. Friends, you need impenetrable thorns in your life.
The following are minor boss and area spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree.
I discovered Impenetrable Thorns last night and it’s made short work of everything I’ve come across since, from giant prawns to bears to bear bosses. It does good base damage from long range, staggers enemies fairly quickly, and triggers bleeds so frequently that it’s probably illegal. Melting bosses with this thing feels absolutely filthy; I needed an extra shower after recording one of the clips below. The only caveat is that Impenetrable Thorns does a little damage and causes bleeds on you, but not enough to pose a huge risk.
You need 24 Faith to use this spell even though it is a sorcery, but honestly I would recommend almost any high-level build to get at least 27 Faith to get buffs like Golden Vow and elemental counters like Lord’s Divine Fortification. You can find Impenetrable Thorns in the DLC’s Shadow Keep legacy dungeon across from a Site of Grace on the seventh floor, not far from the entrance to Messmer’s Chamber. Here’s a handy video of ConCon shows exactly where it is.
If you’re more of a Faith build than an Intel wizard, you’ll still need a staff to cast this spell since it’s a sorcery. Look no further than the Staff of the Guilty, which drops from Fire Thorn wizards found throughout the Elden Ring. This staff scales sorcery with Faith instead of Intelligence, allowing Faith builds to do solid damage with the entire arsenal of spells, assuming they have the stats to actually use those spells. Since Impenetrable Thorns only requires Faith, this is an easy task. You could also consider the Albinauric Staff, though I haven’t tested that one myself.
This is one of those spells that deals extra damage to large enemies through clustered, repeated hits. Since it grants Bleeding status and triggers the Bleeding effect, it is also best used against enemies that are prone to bleeding. They don’t have to be particularly weak to bleed; they just have to have blood in their veins. If it bleeds, this spell can kill it, and fast.
Just to show against normal enemies, here I take out a Black Knight with little to no effort in a non-optimized setup. I didn’t set Arcane at level 1 on my character at all and it’s entirely possible that the blood loss effect scales with Arcane, although the spell description doesn’t mention it. In all of the clips below, I’m using 30 Faith and 80 Intel with a maxed Carian Regal Scepter staff on a New Game+ run.
Here I deal 30,000 damage to a sleeping Rune Bear in no time:
And finally there is Impenetrable Thorns, who completely destroys one of the optional red bear bosses in the Land of Shadows. see on the bleeding procedures that increase the damage stack to 14,000 in seconds. Half of this boss’s health bar disappears in one fell swoop! I absolutely cannot wait to destroy a certain spiky beast boss in NG++ with this spell.
If this spell doesn’t get adjusted in the next few weeks or months, I’ll be eating a Scadutree fragment live on stream, using it while it’s obscene and hoping it survives the inevitable nerf without being knocked into the dirt.
Here are some more general Tips for Shadow of the Erdtree to help you survive the Elden Ring DLC.
