Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone | Elden Ring Wiki

While I agree that there's no real need for having more Ancient Dragon (Somber) Smithing Stones than you're given, that's actually a big reason why I think people should be allowed to acquire more. 8 stones is enough that even if you basically exclusively use somber weapons, you'll likely be able to upgrade all the ones you actually use with any frequency to +10. This means that having more than 8 probably wouldn't actually do anything in terms of your combat effectiveness. Especially because using that many weapons in a single fight is going to be very difficult and probably only marginally beneficial, and +9 are generally good enough. This is why I think the argument that having a limited number means you need to be cautious with your resources is flawed, you don't even have to be careful with these as these currently are. The fact that there's no real reason to need more than this means that the people that want more aren't asking for more to gain some kind of advantage, because the people that really want to be OP already upgraded their favorite murdersticks to +10/+25 and are currently beating the crap out of the people that just want more upgrade stones because they think having 30 maxed somber weapons that they can switch between every day of the month sounds hilarious.

Submit

back in my day we only had 3 max level upgrade materials per NG cycle, and one was a quest reward!

Submit

Throughout the entire game, invaders will enter worlds with hosts (and phantoms) who likely have higher weapon upgrade levels and character levels, and win a 1v2 or 1v3. Yet these comments are filled with people who will lose 100% of their pvp matches if they are forced to use a +9 instead of a +10. Lol

Submit

I actually can't believe people complain about the number of max stones in the game. 14 regular and 8 somber is plenty; even if you miss the quest-related ones it's still 11 regular and 6 somber.
Like literally, unless you're a cringe max level build with every combat style or changed your build 3 or more times in one playthrough, the amount given is more than enough. Just because FromSoft wants you to be cautious with a limited resource doesn't mean you get to cry about it; this is like people killing NPCs, then being surprised they can't get the rewards for said quests. Are you slow or something?
This isn't other games. It's Elden Ring.. yes you could grind your nuts off farming for them in DS1, 2 and Bloodborne for 60 ****ing insight, but 20 maxed weapons is more than enough, yes even for PvP. I have separate builds for PvP and actually specialize, like you're supposed to. Not cry about not being about to have 30 maxed weapons on a level 350 overlevelled build with no diversity or weaknesses. Meta is 125-150 for a reason.

-TitNinja

Submit

i'd love this game a bit more if you could get an unlimited amount if this and the regular ancient stones, noboby would mind if they were either really expensive of hard to farm

Submit

8 per playthrough is absurd when you realize there's over 300 weapons in this game.

Submit

Why even bother adding so many weapons but limiting their upgrade materials so much? Most of the hybrid melee builds have way more that 8 somber weapon options, and you just can't use them all without beating the game twice. And that's without taking powerstancing into account, god forbid you want to powerstance somber weapons

Submit

Only the Latenna one is missable. Make sure you talk to her before you go to the Haligtree.

Submit

Tbh, It's kinda stupid that in bloodborne you can get all your stuff to plus 10 eventually, even if it'll take forever, you can farm the recorces needed to get the last upgrade, yet, in elden ring, there's no chance other than New-gaming forever
They should just make it so you can buy them from the twin maddens after you defeat placidusax, or the elden beast! Just make them 100,000 runes or something a piece

Submit

LOL sell value 2000. This should not be able to sell.

Submit

so all placidusax has to do is aggressively rub up on elden beast to kill it

Submit

One of these stones is MISSABLE! Don't make the same mistake I did! I neglected to use the needle Millicent gives you at the end of her questline on Malenia's scarlet rot bloom before going to fight Dragonlord Placidusax, and now I have the Miquella's needle WITHOUT getting the stone. You only get the stone from using the needle on the bloom after the Malenia fight. Don't go to or return to the storm outside of time until you get the stone. I'm not 100% on what causes this interaction, but my exact sequence of events were: finished Millicent's questline; got the needle (checked my inventory, it was there in my key items); killed Malenia; killed Placidusax. Nothing happened in between. At the end of this sequence, I was missing the somber stone and I somehow had the magic needle.

Submit

Man the fact that a single scale from Placidusax’s hide can make a weapon able to kill a god really shows how powerful he was

Submit

The fact that you can't farm equipment to max level is kind of sickening, considering its been possible since ds1.

Submit

"After completing the Millicent questline and defeating Malenia, it can be obtained by inserting the gold needle into Malenia's scarlet flower to receive Miquella's Needle."

This is wrong, you need the unalloyed gold needle, not the regular gold needle. Can someone please fix it?

Submit

Waiting for them to add a "re-spec weapon" option and get back the smithing stones you used.

Submit

I appreciate the game Bethesda and FromSoftware, from here I will continue and hack the game to take away souls and give myself +25 and +10 Stones as if I bought them.

Submit

At least in DS1 and 2 you could farm Titanite Slabs. Wish it was possible here.

Submit

You can hold up to 999 Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone.
You can store up to 999 Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone.

only have to complete 250 games to do so, assuming you don't use them.

Submit

If you think you need more than 8 weapons you're an idiot. If you want to make a pvp build you can plus 10 a weapon in 4 hours or less. Your choices mattering is not bad game design.

Submit

People complaining about number of stones, simply make a backup save once you've acquired all.

Submit

8 Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones
13 Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones
18 Larvel Tears
I want to try different builds for PvP, and almost finishing another NG cycle after I run out of stones is not fun at all. Please make a shop with an endgame currency so PvP players can try new weapons, stats, armor, and playstyles.

Submit

Imo there should be a shop where you can buy these for a special currency done by participating with endgame content (invasions or bossfights as summons).

Submit

After many playthroughs I can safely say somber weapons are much better than normal ones in that you can upgrade them so much faster, easier and earlier.

Submit

The one at Mohgywn palace, the chest was empty for mine in NG+

Submit

as much as i would like more of these either in the dlc or in a bell bearing, realistically speaking who needs more than half of these in one character

Submit

so if you are ocd person and want all wepons maxed out you need to do ng+36... not impossible but screw it...

Submit

i wish it had avaliable at least 5 on the shop after slaying Elden Beast

Submit

The official strategy guide says they can be farmed from the Battlemages in the Haligtree area.

Submit

Yall are complaining so much it seems that you wanna weild 8 weapons at once for every NG instance. Theres a reason there are so few. Make your decision, same as you do with some quests

Submit

comments sounds like problem isn't the amount of Sombers but getiing to them :D getting into Snowfield needs you to kill 4 bosses. you can find only one in Leyndel after killing 2 bosses and one dragonrider. another 1 are in area that needs you to kill 4 bosses, dragonrider and Nial. and another 3 needs you to do all that and runnung from Blacknife assasins.. So people are mad the can't kill first boss with one shot, I guess

Submit

hmm.. if you start as bandit, you can use Reduvia on lvl 1 and Yura will kill Nerius for you so you're op now. find all NPCs in limgrave, just one ride on torrent, Roderika, Bernahl, Alexander, D, Keneth, get aow/dectus/dagger/knighthood. Find siofra in mistwood, find blaid/kale/blaid, find Dariwil and let Blaid kill him. now you got op weapon Bloodhouns fang. find waygate behind church to Dragonbarow and find Greyol, kill her and lvl up to get requirements for bloodhound ( use can run fast to grace after killing her to save her and torture her endlessly until you f up and lose her for ng). Now you can laugh to Marge by letting Rogier to fight while you spaming reduvia aow or fangs aow. find Rogier find Nephelli and let her fight Picklerick while you standing in safety while spamming reduvia aow. CG first great rune now run to Iji, find Rani after glitching or killing Loreta find blaid in siofra, speak with Seluvis, find sellen in Limgrave, speak with Blaid. get traped in cave in sellia and get out fo find gowrys invitation in front of selia city, go to gowry, go kill Oneil, go to Gowry, respawn, go to gowry, find milicent and stab her, respawn, speak with her and go to gowry, speak with milicent, respawn and go to gowry, now finally go to redmane castle and let others kill Radan. Find Mimic, now you don't have to fight (fun fact: spirits have infinite FP). Now Renala, Volcano Mannor and Leyndell..

Submit

"A scale of the Ancient Dragonlord" why doesn't placidusax drop any then? He should drop at least one, since his current rewards are...mediocre

Submit

I honestly think that sertant dragon bosses should drop these cause it's a win win situation because players can get more ancient stones and it gives and dexterity an strength biulds have a reason to fight dragons instead of just torenting away

Submit

why are so many peoplee complaining if you manage to waste 8 in one run thats literally your fault

Submit

why are you all *****ing about it titanite slabs were always limited

Submit

Also, they really should've made Placidusax drop at least 2 SADSS upon defeat because they are his scales, as the previous guy pointed out. So there will be actual reason to fight him on NG+ and beyond

Submit

I strongly believe that froms will let us farm these and ADSSs in upcoming DLC. Pay 2 win, so to speak. But the possibility of infinitely purchasing them from merchants shouldn't be an option, even if their price will be astronomically high. This was never the option. Titanite slabs always were probably the most valuable resources that NORMALLY could be obtained only through hard work. Having a signle endless source of them will just completely devalue all those that are scattered across the game. Me thyncth that there may be the merchant in the late part of DLC who will sell like 3 titanite slabs, but not more. Anyways, no matter how many sops devs will make for their playerbase, some people, especially those engaged in PvP, will always cheat/dupe items, because it's simplier and faster than going through the game to make a particular build (it applies to all souls games that have PvP, not only elden ring with its vast open world and long running sections).

Submit

"Hidden treasure of Farum Azula"

>3 in the Haligtree
>2 in Consecrated Snowfield
>1 in Moghwyn Palace, Leyndell and Farum Azula
>NONE from defeating Placidusax. They're literally his scales. And he lives in Farum Azula.

Yeah, someone at From missed a memo here. Kinda looks like the Haligtree was supposed to be Farum Azula and vice-versa originally, in terms of who / what lives where in the world.

Submit

Hilariously dumb that From doesn't let us buy or farm those. It's not 2011 anymore

Submit

For those of you wanting to use a wide variety of max upgrade weapons for PvP/Co-Op purposes in base NG, annoyed at the limit: Get all the weapons, talismans, armor, etc, as well as at least one Somber and one normal Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. Go into the files and copy your save file elsewhere. Whenever you want to use a different weapon, you can swap out the save data for the saved copy.

Submit

I get wanting to change a build or wasting a somber dragon, but if you change your build or wasted 8 sombers thats on you and I don't feel bad about you needing an infinite source.

Submit

O boy, i cant wait to redo all of these quests and bosses i ng+ so i can have max upgraded weapons for the new build i rebirthed for!

Submit

Only 8 per play through:
You can hold up to 999 Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone.
You can store up to 999 Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone.

I don't think anyone will ever obtain 2000 of these without cheating.

Submit

Damn, I wish you could turn normal ADSS into these, with a limit of 1-3 per NG cycle.

Maybe in the same place you use Miquella's Needle?

Submit

where the **** are these!!!

Submit

From software teasing us with all these cool weapons.

Submit

Can't max upgrade all 308 weapons that can be found in the game without going to NG+, man this is so unfair.

Submit

As someone who did Millicent's questline on my PvP character 7 times in a row only to get eighth Somber Slab, now I regret it. You have to fight multiple optional bosses, visit Shaded Castle, talk to Gowry (which is very annoying because you have to reload the game several times to progress his dialogue, I have nothing against Gowry as a character) and fight Millicent's sisters. Don't understand what I was thinking before. But speedrunning NG+++ is far from difficult and not boring, as it gives you the opportunity to test many different builds.

Submit

As a souls players that’s 100% all but demon souls [no PS5 :(], I find it a little disappointing that the max upgrades aren’t obtainable outside their fixed drops, but only because there’s absolutely no new content come ng+. No talismans or items, just upgrade mats.
That being said, builds that are capable of using more weapons than what the Max upgrades can allow, I believe, have overplayed that save file. I think it’s rather telling when the devs make levels past 180~ ridiculously expensive.

Submit

Dark Souls:
Oh boy i screwd siegmeyers quest so i got one slab got my main weapon
Ng+ it is

Elden Ring:
Whaaaaaaas ONLY Eight Somber smithing stones???
How am I SUPPOZED to beat the game wizz only eight fully upgraded weaponssz??
From u arr unfairrr!!

Submit

Only eight? So many Int weapons are Somber :(

Submit

You can get the one in Moghwyn Palace pretty easily if you have the Cannon of Haima spell. From the mid-point grace site (the one at the exit of the caverns full of Sanguine Nobles), just ignore the mob guarding the chest and send yourself up with the lift. From there you can manually launch cannon shells down onto the mob - it takes a bit of trial and error (old-school artillery style), but there's nothing any of them can do about it besides get annoyed, run around for a bit, lose interest and return to their original locations. You will need several cerulean flasks and a bit of luck, but with the grace site so close to it, you have infinite attempts as well - the hardest bit is getting to + activating the grace.

Submit

You can hold up to 999 Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone.
You can store up to 999 Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone.

Must be a punishment from Heavens to farm 999 stones )

Submit

It's a bit amusing that if you choose to skip Snowfields, Morbin Palace and Haligtree, which are all completely optional locations, you can gain only two out of eight Ancient Dragon Slabs per playthrough (one in Farum Azula and another in Ashen Capital). But knowing this, 99% of people will still visit them to grab as many as possible, even if they don't want to fight local bosses. Well, playing DS1 for the first time without guides you probably won't acquire a single Titanite Slab.

Submit

Grabbing all 8 in a run is pretty easy as long as you don't skip Latenna

Submit

I've probably said this tip before, but on ps4 there is an exploit you can do with a friend to essentially have infinite of these. You need PS PLUS, but obviously if you're playing with a friend you'd have it. So what you do is upload your save before using any of them, upgrade any weapons you want to max, hand only those to your friend, and then download your save file, and keep doing this until you've given your friend every weapon you want maxed, then reset again and then ask for the weapons to be handed back to you.

Submit

The location in Farum azula is wrong:
The Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone is found in a small temple after the described dragon.
The Dragon only drops a ancient dragon smithing stone.

Submit

I don't feel particularly hard done by knowing there are eight of these +10 somber stones available in each playthrough. But having one of those eight locked behind Malenia is just wrong and it's hard to see it as anything other than a big "f**k you buddy!" from the devs. I just about beat her in my first playthrough but it isn't an exaggeration on my part in saying my deaths to her got close, if not into triple figures before I beat her.
The only reason I stuck at it was to get the needle and not be forced to have the three fingers ending.
Only the top tier of players are going to have access to all eight +10 somber stones past the first playthrough.

Submit

you can get 1 by killing Gurranq Beast Clergyman aswell

Submit

someone below commented griping that you can't get any of the somber ancient dragon smithing stones until late game on a ng+

just want to point out you can get the one before the elevator to mohg pretty much as soon as you get to liurnia if you do varre's quest. in fact, even on a new game, you can do varre and rya's questlines, rush the dectus medallion, go to writheblood ruins for the npc invasion sign if you prefer/play offline, and you'll have access to a level 10 somber weapon fairly quickly. a 6 is in mt gelmir, 7 in volcano manor, 8 and 9 are in dragonbarrow, and 10 is in the chest in front of mohg's boss fog. you don't really need to do any under-levelled fighting to grab these stones.

Submit

Hey guys you should update this. In crumbling Farum Azula the Dragon infront of the gazebo also drops a Somber Dragon smithing stone

Submit

I don't see eight in a playthough as being a reason to throw my rattle out of the pram but looking at the list of where all eight are located makes me think there should have been a way for anyone doing the NG+ playthroughs to be able to get one or two of them sooner.

Submit

I had two alabaster lord greatswords and was thinking they would be fun to powerstance so I went to upgrade them both up to +9. Didn't realize I had already upgraded one of them so I was clicking the upgrade button quickly and didn't realize I wasted one of these and now have a +10 sword I was only upgrading to play around with for a little bit

Submit

"A scale of the Ancient Dragonlord, and hidden treasure of Farum Azula."

1 found in Crumbling Farum Azula... Miyazaki plz...

Submit

Don’t mind them being to limited since it’s nothing new and 8 is enough for one playthrough I can ng+ for the rest I need; but just saying, bloodborne let you farm them and relatively easily at that.

Submit

These have more value than regular Ancient Stones. It's very counterintuitive making both limited

Submit

8 is too many

Submit

Honestly, in many ways I am learning to appreciate the limited quanitity of these smithing stones per journey. I am compelled to comeback for the next + journey, which is cool considering I normally get bored with repeat play throughs.

Submit

Moaning that eight of these somber dragon stones per playthrough isn't enough and demanding more so that every weapon can be fully upgraded because that's the only way to test them properly is entitled and it's a load of bollocks in the first place, there are plenty of resources to get accurate information on each upgrade step for any given weapon.
Its not like every single weapon is unique anyway so between somber dragon and smithing dragon stones there is plenty of choice there to get +10 on more weapons than anyone is likely to use for their build.
I didn't need to see godslayer's greatsword or blasphemous blade maxed out to know I was going to use a somber dragon stone on them. I did the same with the sword of Milos for innate bleed that doesn't scale to ARC and I've never regretted using a somber dragon stone on any of them.
I'm not sure how drastic my respec for NG+ is going to be and I held back some somber dragon and smithing dragon stones so I can start with fully upgraded weapons. I don't feel all butt hurt for having to be careful what I use a limited resource on.

Submit

Anastasia didn't drop this when I kill her the 3rd time only furcaled finger remedy.

Submit

> hidden treasure of Farum Azula

well thank God you actually visit Farum Azula in the game, surely that means you can farm it there... oh. wait. there's only one of these in the entire area and it's not even exactly hidden.

Submit

Comon, complaining about "just" eight?! You could fill all six of your weapon slots with maxed out weapon and there will be two more to try. So if you feel underequipped ur have to make biiig mistakes

Submit

Lol there are only 8 of these per game cycle, and I got hard locked out of 3 of them…

1. Progressed too far before visiting Latenna
2. Killed Millicent for the talisman
3. NPC invader bugged in Consecrated Snowfields

Cool cool cool.

Submit

Comment section = Home of the Toxic Gigachad. Let people want more stones if they want more stones.
PSA to the GitGuds: You're never as dope as you think you are and nobody would believe you if you were. Relax and calm your t!ts.

Submit

I really wish there were at least a couple more of these in the endgame.

Submit

As for the Anastasia invasion on the frozen lake - I did it after killing putrid avatar, right before maliketh story-wise.

I also did her previous two invasions. Maybe that's why some people aren't getting it?

Submit

can i eat them

Submit

In dark souls 3, u could get infinite titanite slabs by defeating the soul of cinder, and returning to firelink after refusing to NG+.
I hoped this would be the case for Elden Ring. It is not. I have heard rumors that NG+6 will unlock them for infinite purchase, but I highly doubt this.

Submit

There’s one in Yelough Anix Tunnel, and it’s definitely Somber, just double checked it and used it to upgrade Lusat’s staff and got God-Slaying Armament for it

Submit

Everyone saying you only need one maxed somber weapon anyway, use the wiki for everything. Their build, the quests, items, bosses, and locations. There's not anything wrong with that, I suppose, as it's one way to play the game. But... for people who actually like to max out weapons to test them first? Somber weapons, far more than Smithing stone weapons, only reach their true potential at +10. A +10 somber weapons is like going from 22-25 smithing stone weapon, but it can also vastly effect weapon art damage of unique weapons. Weapons like Blasphemous Blade go from a High C to a lowish B scaling, which makes a huge difference in the damage of its weapon art.

Before upgrading it to +10, I was thinking about dropping it, because Morgott's cursed blade was doing more damage, but at +10? I went from hitting 2000 damage per weapon art cast to 2840 damage on Malenia. I can hit the tree spirits for around 7000 damage now. You can't fully test weapons when your current weapon is a +10 vs a +9 somber. You can't compare them. You will always think, wow this new weapon sucks! They should allow us to downgrade weapons for a price, that gives us the somber stones back and makes them +9 again. That way, we can just swap to whatever weapon we want, test it, and if we don't like it, then we can downgrade again. Easy fix?

Submit

For the ashen capital one, the body had a Seedbed Curse for me

Submit

Reading the comments made me understand how Gurranq Clergyman's insatiable appetite feels like

Submit

You'd think Placidusax would drop some, since it's his scales and all

Submit

this item is very poj

Submit

Petition for grave ascetics to be added in dlc so you can farm these without going ng+

Submit

Anastasia dropped for me on the first invasion in NG.

Submit

There should be an edit that the one in Leyndell only becomes available after burning the Erdtree. I spent far too much time looking for it before realizing.

Submit

Don't worry people, DLCs always have much more of these

Submit

it's so bizarre that there's the ability to take any weapon you find to +9 and +24 thanks to the bell bearings, but you can't max them out due to a finite number of available dragon stones.

meaning you're not gonna doa lot of experimenting with your build since what's the point in changing weapons if I can't even fully upgrade it, on top of the finite number of larval tears for respecing

So it can feel like you're stuck with gear the later on you go, which is a downside for the weapons locked off in late game areas or even mid game like the Dark moon greatsword

by the time you have access to it you've already got a build set up so what goods a new weapon?

Submit

there should be a way to get more instead of being forced to go to ng+.... especially since one of these are completely missable if you did your first playthrough blind

Submit

there should be a way to get more instead of being forced to go to ng+.... especially since one of these are completely missable if you did your first playthrough blind

Submit

Somber Ancients are more important than regular Ancients because the jump from +9 to +10 is more significant than +24 to +25. +9 to +10 is roughly the same as +22/23 to +25. Some weapons also jump in scaling from one letter to another (ex: C to B) for both +10 and +25

Submit

You can easily get a somber weapon to +10 super early on(pre-rennalla, maybe even pre godrick/margit, idk) by getting 1-4 from Iji, getting 5 and 6 from one of the billion locations, getting 7 from parkour in volcano manor, getting 8 and 9 from dragonbarrow, and 10 from mohgwyn dynasty mausoleum(accessed early from varre's questline)

Submit

Can From Software just let us buy them for a high Runes price?

Submit

I miss the good old days in Dark souls 1 where you could farm slabs and twinkling titanite. You could get all your weapons and armor up to max of you spent enough time grinding. No need to ever see new game+

Submit

anawhosit invaded me on the frozen river straight south from liturgicalville. i few hours earlier i did her corpse stench shack invasion. i did just finish the misbegotten cave near there right before her 3rd invasion.

Submit

hopefully they add a bell bearing for these in a dlc or something

Submit

After completing the Millicent questline and defeating Malenia, it can be obtained by inserting the gold needle into Malenia's scarlet flower ; )

Submit

Dropped from first invasion on frozen river, not killed anything else in area

Submit