Deflecting Hardtear

deflecting hardtear crystal tear elden ring shadow of the erdtree dlc wiki guide 200px
Type Crystal Tear
item effects icon elden ring wiki guide 55px 18pxEffect
Enhances spontaneous guard in mixed physick

Deflecting Hardtear is a Crystal Tear in Elden Ring. Deflecting Hardtear is a Crystal Tear introduced in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLCCrystal Tears can be mixed in the Flask of Wondrous Physick to enhance its effect.

 

A crystal tear formed slowly over the ages, where the scattered sap of the Scadutree pools deep within the furnace golems. Can be mixed in the Flask of Wondrous Physick. The resulting concoction temporarily enhances spontaneous guard.

Damage negation and guard poise will be heightened in the moment immediately after assuming a guarding stance. Successfully executing a spontaneous guard will also strengthen guard counters.

 

Where to find Deflecting Hardtear in Elden Ring

 

Elden Ring Deflecting Hardtear Notes & Tips

  • Duration: 5 minutes
  • Multiple "deflections" (spontaneous guards as described in the item description) stack the increase to guard counter damage up to 4 times; each deflection increases the damage dealt by the follow-up guard counter by 20%, up to a maximum of 80%. Stacks reset after ~5 seconds of not deflecting.
    • Each stack also seems to increase the stance damage of guard counters.
    • Deflecting multiple hits with one block does not count as multiple stacks, only 1.
    • Heavier attacks (the ones meant to drain your stamina) seem to grant 2 stacks instead of 1.
  • Successfully executing a spontaneous guard against an attack while the effect of this tear is active will considerably increase your guard boost and your damage negation. It will also increase the damage of your next guard counter, as stated above.
    • Spontaneous guards performed successfully will negate any status buildup the attack has, if any.
    • Guard boost decreases stamina damage received on block. The higher the better.
    • Damage negation on a spontaneous guard is set to 100% reduction for physical damage, and 75% reduction for elemental damage.
      • If the block value of the elemental damage is higher than 75%, it will use that value instead.

 

Elden Ring Deflecting Hardtear Videos

 

 

 




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    • Anonymous

      After finishing Sekiro many times, I always thought "I wish there was a medieval themed game like Sekiro, with a similar fighting style and reward/punishment system, where we could use different types of swords and axes". You know, the kind of games where metals clash, sparks and blood fly, and curved swords. Then Ring came out exactly a year after the game, I played it for a long time, it felt like I had imagined it, BUT this game lacked the fighting aesthetics, the fights didn't flow like water, because your only options were to stupidly dodge, keep your shield still, or fight with battle ash with extremely stup"t animations that made the game too easy. In a game with very beautiful landscapes and almost perfect atmosphere, it lacked the simplest thing in the world, TIMING BLOCK MECHANICS. YES, damn it, because either Miyazaki doesn't like making similar games bla bla or they didn't add timing blocks etc. because this game had PVP bullshit, but they eventually added that bulls"t in the dlc. But of course they missed the most important thing. ANIMATION! They couldn’t even put a simple spark effect on this mechanic. There were tons of mods that used the perfect Sekiro animation before this **** was officially released. And it worked perfectly. It’s crazy how these guys couldn’t do it. ER is a great game but there are so many incredibly wrong things about this game, it’s like someone didn’t want this game to be this good. Even the P lies figured out this mechanic and immediately adapted it into their game. Miyazaki you are fired!

      • Anonymous

        Almost makes shields redundant, at least on strength builds where the hardest hitting weapons also often have respectable guard boost and reduction. Just get directly in the bosses' face, mash l1 and guard counter punish every combo. I wish it didn't work that way but it does

        • Anonymous

          just make this last until you die and then this mid base game/dlc nobody wants to admit is mid will be improved somewhat

          • Anonymous

            So I did some testing on Crucible Knight in limgrave. He has 80 stance, and my straight sword deals 30 on a guard counter without this. After popping it, after 1 stack of the buff I now do 40 stance damage. 2, 3 and 4 stacks did not increase the stance damage, only the HP damage. Tested it on a few other weapon categories and the results were more or less the same. It looks like as long as you have 1 stack of this buff, you get a 33% stance damage increase.

            • Anonymous

              yeah i really hope they remove this or heavily nerf it. im not using it myself, but the fact that other people are is bothering me

              • Anonymous

                Combine this with the Backhand Blades incredible 4-hit guard counter, and throw a Curved Sword Talisman on top, for some insane counter damage gameplay.

                • Anonymous

                  Deflecting Hardtear glazers on their way to play their favorite game, Sekiro, for the first time in their lives

                  • Anonymous

                    My only complaint with this item is it doesn’t make the “twang!” sound when you perfect deflect. It was so satisfying to hear in Sekiro!

                    • Anonymous

                      I gave up trying to parry Romina and Gaius and almost summoned a mimic. Then I drank this + poise lowering tear, then the fights became much more bearable and actually fun!

                      • Anonymous

                        People say this is easier than parry. I tried so far and it's still hard, I suuucked at parry. Or it's just Blackgaol knight that is nonsense

                        • Anonymous

                          Why is this a tear buff instead of a regular guarding mechanic like a timely guard or Royal Guard? Oh yeah, this is From Shovelware game, never expect remotely decent combat system from these clowns, they're leagues below Team Ninja, Capcom, etc...

                          • Anonymous

                            Question does the shield of nights skill revenge of the night count as a guard counter since it is triggered by guard countering, if so would the damage bonus of this skill apply?

                            • Anonymous

                              this is the correct way to implement op items. if only the rest of the game abided by this design philosophy.

                              • Anonymous

                                I started off hating this, then somewhere down the road found the timing out and saw that great spears had a long time before you cannot guard counter, and now here I am, laughing at metyr feebly trying to crush me with her hands, only to receive around 15% of her health. I cannot live without it now :D

                                • Anonymous

                                  Urgh base game should've had a feature like this with guard counters, perfect block should've negated some damage and given the character significant poise and guard boost.

                                  • Anonymous

                                    Spacefiddle is wrong in saying that this tear is worthless with a greatshield.
                                    Perfect guard doesn't remove all stamina damage, but does lower it by around 60%. Using a greatshield will act as a failsafe against failed deflects. There is also a small visual and audio cue for when you have successfully deflected an attack.

                                    • JFC

                                      OK look people, gather round and listen up

                                      THIS IS POINTLESS TO USE WITH A GREATSHIELD. It gives ANY weapon 100% physblock and ZERO stamina drain on deflect. Your portable vault doors already HAVE the former and most of the latter. So like half of you can't even tell you aren't actually deflecting.

                                      Pop this tear and use a weapon with crap defenses: twinblades, claws, fists. Time your block about the way you'd time a normal parry, except HOLD the button for an instant longer, don't tap it.

                                      If you have deflected correctly, you will, no matter the weapon, take ZERO physical damage AND LOSE ZERO STAMINA.

                                      This is sadly the only way to tell you've done it right - total dropped ball on From not giving it a unique visual and/or audio cue when successful - and then, within 4-5 seconds, your next Guard Counter will be boosted by 20% per defelection.

                                      You do NOT hold block and try turtling for three days, that is NOT a deflection and yes of course you will get broken you nutter. To build stacks you must use multiple activations (as if parrying multiple attacks in a row, except you hold the button down an instant longer than a parry).

                                      Go practice on physdamage enemies until the light dawns.

                                      • Anonymous

                                        I don't really understand why deflecting boosts your damage, especially by so much. Temporarily turning your two-handed weapon into a greatshield is already powerful enough. The way it's balanced right now, this tear heavily encourages you to stack deflects and mostly ignore other defensive techniques like strafing, rolling or jumping.

                                        • Anonymous

                                          i can see why they didnt add this to the base game. yes this is fun, but it completely trivializes every boss encounter in the entire game, way more than any other option you can use in your build. there is also no way to nerf this in a way that keeps it fun and makes it balanced. deflecting in this game is just simply too strong as a concept alone

                                          • Anonymous

                                            Honestly kinda wish this was a base game mechanic rather than a tear. It really makes playing defensive feel far more proactive then just turtling behind a massive dinner plate and poking people with a toothpick. But hey I gotta admit these dlc tears are honestly a lot more interesting in comparison to the vanilla game.

                                            • Anonymous

                                              Jump Attacks are ez mode, greatshields are noob carriers, magic is even more ez mode, perfect block is noob tool, blood builds are for noobs. Drop the mimic tears you beta. You should play as miyazaki "intended". Roll -> R1 -> roll 11 times -> r1. Rince repeat with the occasional R2.

                                              • Anonymous

                                                I still find rolling easier, I'd imagine this thing is broken on great shields, but I throw it on with a rapier or katana and just have fun.

                                                • Anonymous

                                                  The real evolution to souls combat right here, people who are salty about adding perfect block are just ds1 fanboys who can't let go of the past. Would've preferred if this was actually in the base game as a real mechanic and we would've gotten combat similar to that of lies of p but with actual fromsoft polish and includes actual jumping for ground sweeps, while not being stuck with a default character or a single katana like sekiro.

                                                  • Anonymous

                                                    People saying it trivializes the game must have insane amounts of stamina if they're not using it with the brass sheild or greatsheilds.
                                                    When doing my Sekiro run, Uchigatana, and deflecting hardtear in ng+ and dlc+ bosses would guard break me when deflecting full combos at 25 endurance.
                                                    Meaning to actually utilize this effectively you have to weave dodges and deflecting mostly deflecting the last two-three hits of combos to get the guard counter.

                                                    Also the parry window is 6 frames with 1 frame startup giving you just one more active frame than small shield and parry dagger parries. Sure they have more startup, but they also completely interrupt the boss attack. And I'm not really seeing people say that using parries is Ez mode and trivializes all bosses. It just adds one more tool
                                                    Dodging has 13-iframes with 8 recovery frames. But will consume just a tad more stamina than deflecting with a lighter weapon. So in many cases, jumping or dodging are still the best defensive options. While in other cases deflecting is better. All bosses have strong attacks that knock you back even when deflecting, so deflecting them is pointless as it sometimes leaves you open for other attacks. The animation is slow. Deflecting only Gives the player more defensive options, which will of course make the game slightly easier. But its also more to manage. And is a great option for making a fight with a boss both feel and look more engaging, as you jump a sweep, and deflect two hits to weave a guard counter inn before you dodge the slower but stronger final hit of the bosses combo. It feels awesome when it all comes together.

                                                    I do however agree that the guard counter boost is a bit crazy. Guard counters are already very strong attacks. And with the curved sword talisman and two handed talisman, they can get a bit crazy. So I wish the guard counter boost was heavily nerfed or removed completely.
                                                    If that was done, they could just make the tear permanent and put it in Limgrave so we could use it for fresh runs.

                                                    But creating a narrative that the game is completely trivialized now, and getting butthurt over it is both weird, wrong and elitist. My first run of the base game and dlc I did solo without deflecting. And now I'm doing the same (granted with a lighter weapon) with deflecting. And its still very challenging at 150.

                                                    • Anonymous

                                                      I wish this was just a mechanic.

                                                      This is the single most overrated item in the entirety of elden ring. The "deflect" window is laughably large. There's very little skill involved in the so called "perfect guard"

                                                      I saw this thing and got excited because parrying and properly counter attacking are some of my favorite play styles in games. Lawbringer, anyone?? But this isn't parrying. You can literally stand still and proc this effect. Your "perfect guard" lasts like three ****ing seconds. And I'm sorry, but the best way to use this is to deflect with a greatshield.

                                                      Very cool and fun but feels more brainless than skillful. Easily trivializes the game without offering much of a challenge.

                                                      Think I'm crazy? There's a reason this is the most popular tear, in the biggest souls game ever. This is a noob tool.

                                                      • Anonymous

                                                        Yeah this thing is built for trash players.

                                                        The deflect is completely unintuitive and activates the SECOND you press l1, trivializing any and all bosses in the entire game!!! This tear turns your dagger into a greatshield for FREE

                                                        The worse you are at the game, the better you find this tear. The "deflect" is INSTANT and has several frames of forgiveness. You literally just get a free greatshield. For tapping the button.

                                                        Cheesed the base game and dlc with this. Deflect plus greatshield turns radahn consort into a legit joke. I wish this was a much weaker version of itself that didn't need the physick. This is cheese incarnate.

                                                        • Anonymous

                                                          I believe that you specifically only take 35% stamina damage when perfect blocking. In other words, stamina damage is reduced by 65%. For comparison, the Greatshield Talisman reduces stamina damage by 20%, and Barricade Shield by 50% for small/medium shields, 30% for greatshields.
                                                          Source: regulation.bin file -> SpEffectParam -> 102001 (Deflecting Hardtear) -> guardStaminaMult: 0.350.

                                                          • Anonymous

                                                            I hope it's just Fromsoft testing the ground (and community response) around how this mechanic works in the open world of ER, and maybe it'll be a basic mechanic (or at least a talisman) in ER 2. It's just plain old fun to use.

                                                            • Anonymous

                                                              This may get nerfed eventually, the deflects are exceptionally strong but the damage boost to counters is monstrous. It stacks with all other buffs, talismans, and using something like the anchor with the right strategy lets you obliterate anything in the game basically. I bet most people don't realize how broken this is, but if you know what you are doing and can deflect bosses ~3 times then you can reach stupid numbers with pierce damage and unfathomable counter damage.

                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                If you deflect flurry type attacks at the beginning, you can suck up pretty much the whole sequence. Tested on a gugs while enduring your typical WFD sweatlord.

                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                  Still don't understand how this works. Everytime I tried it, it didn't deflect anything even tho I did the exact same thing than many other players I watched.

                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                    I love this but hate that they introduced this so late when guard encounters was a mechanic in the game from day one. Maybe Lies of P showed them how they can take it further. I’m glad it’s 5 minutes too instead of their usual maximum 3 minutes. Works great on some bosses and not so much on others, the type that attacks then runs away before they’re punished. But I love the satisfying clink, and the way my naked Tarnished counters colossal enemies or tumbles back without breaking stance.

                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                      If they made this into a talisman, even if it had a 10% total damage decrease I would still use it, this is just that good

                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                        Are there even any graces in the game that are 5 minutes away from another one? The fact this is a tear makes no sense…

                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                          The fact that this can also deflect spells is insane. The amount of buffs you get from deflects makes this one of (if not) the best tear in game.

                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                            Major **** up to not make this a talisman and just take 15% more damage or something, tying specific play styles to a time limited potion is so ****ing stupid

                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                              what weapons does this pair best with? I used the greatsword colossal sword and, while it's fine if I'm not attacking, the down time on attacks means that I still get hit a lot bc I can't block yet

                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                "I am Malenia Blade of ---."

                                                                                Drinks potion.

                                                                                "Oh, I know who you are, lady. And now it's my turn to have fun."

                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                  This makes the game so much more fun for me. I just fought Rellana on my NG+ run and the fight was so much more engaging. My only wish is that there was a talisman version so this combat wasn't restricted to five minutes at a time.

                                                                                  Maybe a talisman version could either decrease i-frames in your dodges or decrease your physical damage negation.

                                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                                    This tear is fantastic for numerous builds. At first, you may think to use this on shield builds only. However, the guard bonus is such that you can turn other builds INTO block builds (if you're confident in your timing). For example, fighting Radahn in phase 1 with martial arts fists (which have awful natural guard), this tear allows me to block every single attack (if timed correctly) and come out with only a slight scratch on me. It actually helped me learn his attacks better, too, and makes a satisfying sound when timed correctly.

                                                                                    The fact that it doesn't require a shield to be super effective makes it wonderful for promoting build diversity, and the fact that it still requires timing similar to the kinds of timing you'd need to have anyways to perform a dodge makes it feel fair.

                                                                                    It allows lighter, faster builds to block. And if you're a heavy build that already uses a shield, your guard counters will be devastating as a reward for not just holding your shield up 24/7. Although it's only a physick, it does last 5 minutes, which is perfect for an entire boss fight and what you usually save your physick for anyways.

                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                      So I just tried this out for the first time and I was amazed by how natural it felt. I was like: "wow, did I pick this up at start using it this effectively so quickly? I never played Sekiro!"
                                                                                      And then about ten minutes later my brain is like "You played Lies of P, you idiot."

                                                                                      • Interesting. Could be used with the ant head shield as long as you switch off whenever you want to use an AoW. That item's deflection is decent. Or just brass shield and barricade for more deflects.

                                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                                          FROM SOFTWARE!!!! ADD DEFLECTING HARDTEAR AND BLOODHOUND'S STEP BY DEFAULT FOR THE GAMEPLAY OF THE NEXT GAME AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!!!!

                                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                                            why does it say "enhances spontaneous guard" as if we already have spontaneous guard and its just making it better

                                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                                              Does this work with parry? I mean when you "fail parry" or try to parry a non-parriable attack, do you still get the dmg negation/guard boost?

                                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                                Personally, this screws up my parry muscle memory. Why not just have this as a core mechanic from the beginning? I guess you could parry for trash mobs and then save the physic for bosses.

                                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                                  Honestly i think people are wasting some of the potential of this thing in pvp. Why deflect with a katana when theyll just roll away? Deflect with a greatshield, cause even greatswords to bounce off and land a guaranteed powered up gc instead.

                                                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                                                    Makes me wish timed blocks was an actual base mechanic. Not as strong, maybe just decrease stamina damage. Wouldve made small shields and two handed blocks more useful.

                                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                                      Amazing how bad the description is. I've never used during the entire DLC thinking it was useless. At least i have NG+ now to use.

                                                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                                                        This made Radahn so much easier. I was having a hard time dodging all his 2nd phase attacks but using this on the wolf crest shield with carian retaliation was a game changer. Probably would've been better on a greatshield but I also wanted to be able to parry.

                                                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                                                          they really need to change the description cause i picked this up and assumed it was pointless. no other tear effect lasts for 5 minutes and "spontaneous guard" is completely new to me as a term. if it said "enables short blocks to become parries for a long duration" i'd have gone "oh, it's sekiro L1" but no, i picked it up and went "huh, wonder what this does. probably pointless like everything else you pick up in elden ring" and carried on playing without even using it. why put sekiro parries behind a random tear from a boring furnace reskin boss?

                                                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                                                            People will say this is so good on two handed weapons but honestly, this is a flat buff and best used on greatshields. Because they also like to guard counter naturally, block damage without stamina loss or chip damage and if you miss the deflect window, at worst you just get the normal guard which is already best in class.

                                                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                                                              Hands down best part of the dlc. Using it w/ two handing weapons is the best. You get punished bad for mistiming that way, but it’s super rewarding that way, especially when you beat a boss solo w parries. Only way it’s “broken” is using a shield.

                                                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                                                So if i'm per say blocking an attack with very quick hits in succession like a Waterfowl Dance, is holding down the block button still gonna get me out with no damage or will I have to time the blocks to every hit?

                                                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                                                  This also increases the stance damage of your guard counters. From testing, it looks to be about a 15% increase per stack.

                                                                                                                  With a colossal hammer (42 base stance damage on guard counters), two-handing (1.1x), cragblade (1.1x), and stonebarb tear (1.3x), a guard counter should deal about 66 stance damage. Testing on Margit (80 stance), if I had more than 1 stack, I could stagger him in a single hit. With 1 stack, I could stagger him with 1 guard counter and 4 throwing daggers, which would seems to check out with about a 15% increase.

                                                                                                                  Keep in mind like half of Margit's attacks grant more than 1 stack when blocked, even without sending your character tumbling back from blocking. I imagine on most bosses it should be pretty easy to get off guard counters with 2+ stacks very consistently.

                                                                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                                                                    This thing is spiritually like the ninja flip ring to me. Its broken, objectively, but its also just so fun you can't really question why everybody uses it and loves it

                                                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                                                      nah its broken as hell, you can deflect basically any actual attack in the entire game (radhan pillars of light/meteor, elemental damage hits, waterfowl, everythign) and it gives you THE most powerful strength of braindead greatshields on literally anything.

                                                                                                                      Making all attacks ineffective and easily avoided for multiple mins allows for easy punishments and especially takes away any risk or threat during a fight.
                                                                                                                      You cannot be punished for misrolling because you will be deflecting everything, yes it is timed similarly in concept to rolling but its much simpler and much more generous than rolling both in timing and actual risk, on top of the insane recovery difference between the 2. It seems some people don't understand this...you mistime roll = you are hit full damage, whereas you mistime deflect = you freaking block which was already objectively cheese with shield builds. Shield builds were already in every souls game (probably one for ds3), but this tear takes it to a galaxy level.

                                                                                                                      I feel like a nerf to its duration would make it less egregious but it would still be disgusting, even just a minute of invincibility compared to the 5 MINUTES you get, hilarious. This and impenetrable thorns, proof that they only looked at these things in the development stage conceptually, not after they had actually implemented them. I'm not even going to talk about the 80% damage boost to counters either.

                                                                                                                      Pair it with an actual greatshield build to be legitimately invincible and to do almost double damage with your guard counters for the entirety of any fight. Crazy that they made this tear so game-breaking and were so afraid for the countless other tears with low duration/awful effects like the lifesteal one.

                                                                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                                                                        Wish this had a way to have it permanently, looks sick to pull off and allows you to 2 hand weapons wich usually have cooler animations when doing so.

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