Elden Ring Smithing Stones locations

Where to find more Smithing Stones for upgrades in Elden Ring

Elden Ring Smithing Stones are needed to upgrade weapons and help you conquer greater foes, found in hidden areas - especially mines and tunnels. By finding them, you can upgrade weapons to +1 and further, all the way to the unbeatable +25 ranking, though you'll need to find Smithing Stones of various tiers - tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 and so on.

By using Smithing Stones to upgrade weapons can advance them from their usually initial +1 all the way though way to +25. Although you'll need Elden Ring Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones to reach highest levels eventually. While basic Smithing Stones upgrade basic weapons, there are also Elden Ring Somber Smithing Stones which are used to upgrade unique weapons (that usually have a specific name). So check our other guide there for more information on those.

The general recommendation is that you need certain weapon levels for certain areas, and while there's nothing stopping you going anywhere at anytime, if you try your luck in a +10 area with a +3 weapon, you are going to feel it. The good news is that there are places brimming with each level of stone if you know where to look. You can also buy them, and unlock unlimited purchases eventually. Below we'll explain where to find all the Elden Ring Smithing Stones you'll need, including how to farm and buy them.

Once you're through Stormveil Castle and make your way into Liurnia, you can start getting Elden Ring Smithing Stones a lot easier. Take the following steps:

This marks a good starting point for Smithing Stone farming, but you can farm every tier of stone provided you find the corresponding Bell Bearing, including the Somber ones! To get the entire lot, check out the Elden Ring Bell Bearing locations guide we've put together. You'll be very glad you did.

Tier 1 Smithing Stones are quite abundant in the West Limgrave starting area of Elden Ring and nearby places, but only if you know where to look. We've detailed a few good spots already but here's a map with plenty of locations that should easily net you over 40 tier 1 Smithing Stones in total, which is enough to get three weapons reinforced to +3.

If you're knocking about in Stormveil Castle, look out for the warrior Nepheli Loux. You can start the Elden Ring Nepheli Loux questline here, and there's even a Smithing Stone [2] in the same room as her!

Elden Ring tier 2 Smithing Stones are functionally the same as the lesser tier 1 stones except they allow you to upgrade your weapon up to +6. However, you will need the help of a blacksmith to reinforce your weapons from now on. Clearly your Tarnished wasn't given much in the way of smithing lessons before their quest.

Tier 2 Smithing Stones are significantly rarer in Limgrave compared to tier 1 stones, but you can still find a few early on to help you out. They are more common in Liurnia and you'll be able to find a few of them out in gazebos and other spots in the wetlands. We've got 11 areas covering Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula that provide a total of 15 tier 2 Smithing Stones - enough to bring one +3 weapon up to +6, which is more than adequate for early-game bosses.

Elden Ring tier 3 Smithing Stones can be used to reinforce your weapons up to +9 with the help of a blacksmith. You'll be able to tackle some really tough enemies with weapons rated this highly, but you've still got a way to go before they're maxed out.

Tier 3 Smithing Stones are non-existent in West Limgrave, so you will have to venture out to find a few. You can press on with the story path or explore aimlesssly beyond Limgrave, though these stones appear to be commonly found in and around the Raya Lucaria Academy north of Stormveil Castle. Here's where you can find some Tier 3 Smithing Stones:

At this point in the game you should've left Limgrave well behind, and wrapped your head around a lot of Caelid and Liurnia - which is good, because there's enough Tier 4 smithing stones to upgrade at least a couple of weapons to +12 between them. We've homed on on these hotspots if you want to find a Smithing Stone [4] - or more.

Want to take your weapons to +15? You're into the second half of upgrades now and will be escalating towards creating some real superweapons that'll help you master the Altus Plateau and all the areas around it. That's why you need at least 10 Smithing Stones [5] to reach the next phase.

Tier 1 Smithing Stones in Elden Ring will allow you to reinforce your weapons up to +3 with just a Smithing Table, but you'll need the help of a blacksmith and higher tier stones to go beyond. Smithing Master Hewg in the Roundtable Hold, for example, offers such a service. Thankfully, using just a Smithing Table, such as the one next to Kale in the Church of Elleh, to upgrade a weapon to +3 should be enough to see you through a lot of the early game bosses.

But where do you find Elden Ring Smithing Stones, and is their location hard to pin down? And how do you get the rarer Somber Smithing Stones for special weapons? We'll show you how to find Elden Ring Smithing Stones and a way to farm the lower level ones below.

Want a free Somber stone? There's one early in the Elden Ring Blaidd questline by finding him at the Mistwood Ruins!

For those starting out looking for Elden Ring Smithing Stones, we recommend heading straight away to an area called Limgrave Tunnels. It's very close to the beginning of the game, Northwest of the optional boss fight dragon Agheel where the cliffs taper to a point. At the bottom you'll see the entrance to the tunnels itself.

Limgrave Tunnels is a mid-sized dungeon with a boss at the bottom - the Stonedigger Troll - but you don't have to fight him for your valuable Smithing Stones. Instead, the area is full of enemies mining the walls - look for the gold outcroppings and interact with them to get the Smithing Stones you're looking for! They're not unlimited, but you'll find of a decent number of tier 1 Smithing Stones, so you'll be able to upgrade your weapon to +3 at a Smithing Table if you get enough - we've got you covered if you need to know how to strengthen weapons in Elden Ring too.

The miner enemies in the tunnels also have a small chance of dropping level 1 Smithing Stones, so you can farm them to try and get a few more. Although there are plenty of other farming locations that are easily accessible out in Limgrave.

There's a toppled statue on the cliffs directly North of the Stormgate with a light-filled crack running down it. Aggro one of the giant trolls nearby and lure it over - if it hits the statue it'll break, giving you five tier one Elden Ring Smithing Stones and a single tier 2 stone to boot!

Once you're done with that, the best place to find tier 2 Smithing Stones to get your regular armaments up to is inside Stormveil Castle itself. They're lying around everywhere, though not especially common - we actually struggled to find tier 2 Smithing Stones more than any other kind - but once you get through Stormveil Castle you can start getting them a lot easier.

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and raconteur with a Masters from Sussex University, none of which has actually equipped him for anything in real life. As a result he chooses to spend most of his time playing video games, reading old books and ingesting chemically-risky levels of caffeine. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at USgamer, Gfinity, Eurogamer and more besides.

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