The War-Dead Catacombs | Elden Ring Wiki

This is a place where we are supposed to kill all enemies on road one by one (except whom fighting each other). Recklessly going past any enemies may get you surrounded by several strong foes.

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The person who designed this place was an actual sadist. Only a sadist would put a Cleanrot Knight spawn there.

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this place is the worst

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A feast for strength users. Any great hammer + cragblade guard breaks these enemies and the boss easily. It helps that Radahn's armor has a good bit of immunity, which you get right before this. UNGA BUNGA

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I updated the guide to try to be more specific than whatever the last one was (a mess), hopefully this one is clear for you guys.

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Im working on a fix to walkthrough cause this is by far the most barebones one ive seen on this page

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What use is a walkthrough that doesn't mention any items?

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There are no good catacomb dungeons, but this one is at least memorable because of the gimmick of the specters fighting each other and it's actually pretty short. I disliked the leyendel catacombs way more.

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If you camouflage yourself as a houseplant in the corner it's a best passive rune farm I think :P

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This place is ****ed up

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Dude. I'm lvl 175, seriously armored up, and this place is no joke. The archers are a real pain in the ass. There are much better places to farm runes.....and I'd only recommend this place if you're practicing hand to hand battle

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For anyone wondering, the spirits in the main room respawn a finite amount of times. Im guessing it's around 10 times or so. The other spirits do not respawn.

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The bossfight is fun if you like having your camera shoved up your rectum while a giant slug tap dances on your face.

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Do yourself a favor, and if you absolutely need to clear this place, come here at high level. Lvl 80 +17 and it was rough. Boss killed me at almost full health with a bs explosion move, @50 vig, almost 50 physical negation. ****ing crazy man

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I absolutely love this place. Can't believe there are so many haters in the comments.

Just jump down and slash around in the rot baby. Its a party 24/7 down there....(lots of runes too)

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A place where my rl 1 character went hollow

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You know this is a batshit level crazy dungeon when the page doesn't even mentioned the Knight who put 4 meter arrows in you.
This dungeon is crawling with hero level knights haha

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So you're telling me that killing ghosts can make their weapon suddenly become real?

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Radahn fight is no big deal these days, I've been activating it through the Blaidd questline before even going to Altus recently, not even clearing the Academy. Catacombs can be run through without even fighting anything because they are all fighting each other so I'm just passing through to grab stuff (just need to dodge like 2 archers, nothing else will keep up with you if you keep running). Boss is permanently stuck in NG+7 mode by comparison. If you do Radahn "early" you can run this catacomb for the goods and come back way later for the boss, that's what I suggest, and only for the ashes which are pretty good actually in the right scenario. Reminds me of that tunnel in Caelid where the cave part is normal but it ends with 3 rot-infused Crystalians for some reason.

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I beat the Elden beast at lvl 160 and returned to this dungeon before NG+ and still the archer guys two-shot me?! I can’t even dodge them. Frustrating.

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Abyss Watchers first fight PTSD was strong on this one…

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There has to be some trick to this place or it's just broke. I've been here several times and while it's not great usually runes drop. Today I'm sitting here, have been for over 30 minutes and not one spirit has died (so haven't got a single rune). Not only that, they're all at full health.

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This place sucks, only worth the effort if you REALLY need the Collapsing Stars spell. Otherwise skip till well over level 100 and come back if you're a completionist that just has to do it.

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I observed this catacomb out of curiosity with AI fighting AI a few times. Without the archer, Cleanrot will typically win. Archer-Knight seems to only shoot Cleanrot - shield vs non-shield and team members won't fight each other. An archer and shielders will wipe out Cleanrot depending on how long the Archer is shooting (and not melee, shooting into a wall, or stuck in the corner near the tunnel you enter from). You can get Archer to initially engage by coming up thru the window and booting his butt down to the first floor. Often he will teleport and fall down if you keep him near the edge. Can unstuck a cornered Archer by popping him and running back upstairs out of LOS. Archer will decimate with the bow (600). Melee hits from everyone are less than 100). There are limited respawns and the count is ~ 4 Shield, 3 Cleanrot. Safespots from melee are the lever platform (after booting Archer off platform) and past the locking boss door. You won't draw aggro past the 1st corner in the tunnel that keeps turning left. Each entity has a dedicated spawn spot. You can lure a soldier to the second floor and draw him to the last couple of turns (escape out the window) and he'll get trapped there in the dead end room if you want to change the odds in the fight downstairs. Only the 1st floor enemies respawn. Fight takes around 60 minutes and over 50k runes with gold scarab after you finish off the remaining. Exiting the game and re-entering the game will respawn the respawners even if you've cleared it out (but no archer if he's dead).

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A great place for rune farming. Get close enough to activate the barnstorming melee, find a quiet spot to rest and earn interest on your runes. They drop 1200-3500 runes each on NG, and there are about 15 of them. Great place to level up

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I hate this place with a vengeance. I've completed the game at level 155 and I still hate this area when coming back to get the damn ashes so I can get the trophy.

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Why do I always come back to this place??? Why???

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At 50% helth the Boss explodes and one shots me even if I run away.
Great game

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I don't know why people have problem with this catacomb. The area is very small and don't have any illusory wall. Also the enemies mostly take care of themselves. I guess there's the boss but that's it. I come here fully decked with Radahn gears and have fun trying to kill Cleanrot Knights only.

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They don't actually respawn infinitely, each of the combatants respawns I believe 4 times (5 if you count their original spawn) but then don't come back (until you sit at a grace or fast travel or something, of course)

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I wonder why this guide doesn’t mention the collapsing stars spell that is in the basement? It’s a great spell that’s not mentioned under the magic/equipment. Don’t miss it!

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This is an extremely good place to farm runes once you've gotten to Mountain Top of the Giants, I highly suggest using Beast Claw Great Hammer or Blasphemous blade for the wide area of effect Ashes of war. any AoW, Sorcery, or Incantation that covers a large area is going to be very helpful here for farming.

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I think it’s cool that they put a simulation of Chicago in one of the dungeons.

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Let out an audible groan when the boss revealed itself

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Without a doubt the most cancer dungeon in the entire game. Followed up by a cancerous boss in a tiny room. Amazing game design.

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This dungeon is horrible

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Did this get changed? I've never rune farmed here but it is a well known afk farming spot. I just went here for 15 minutes and not a single rune or item has dropped. Yes I'm close enough to the enemies

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If you leave your guy here and just re-load the area every so often, you can get pretty much infinite runes

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I swear everything i do in Caelid makes me hate it more and more,this zone makes Blighttown,Black Gulch and Farron keep look like haven,I also hate Malenia with the fury of a million suns for this damn zone and i haven't even gotten to fight her,she should have been the big bad of the game cause my god they are doing a great job of making me despise her.

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I found enemies dont respawn if you are able to kill the archers first. So what you can do is let the melee enemies fall down the basement and let them fight while you focus your attention on the archer. But take what I say with a grain of salt

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I thought after reading all this…no way it’s that bad. It’s that bad lololol.

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welcome to hell
welcome to hell

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mmmm Runes

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Probably the funnest way to play with your friends in elden ring. Lots of fun with the groups and boss. Easy farm area.

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sometimes, not fighting is the best option. you can ignore most of the enemies here. they mostly fight each other besides the path to the lever, and those can be fought 1 at a time.

if it's too hard, come back later. its a side dungeon- you get ashes and MAYBE something you can use.

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Just pop the cracked tear and do suicide runs until complete. Unless you really want the Ogha ashes, there is no need to fight the boss. You can get all the golden seeds you need elsewhere.

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Walk away
Come back later

As easy as that

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Well, my character is lvl 120+ and still does no damage at all against those mobs.
That's why I love Bloodborne, you have dungeons where you literally die in ONE HIT but you'll also cause some damage and the only thing you need to rely is on your own skill.... but this dungeon is non-sense.

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could be the Seamless Co-op mod I am using with friends, but the mobs are attacking me when I sit at the top of the stairs, and even when they are not, I appear to be either out of range or in the wrong position to gather runes

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My favorite farming and honing skill place. 3-way battle is the way to go in the main hall, keeps the adrenaline pumping.

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Enemies in this place are actually Crumbling Farum Azula level scaling-wise, It's pretty insane.

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Pretty str8 forward dungeon if you look for windows to jump through.

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really nice and helpful map, thanks!

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Quite possible that the game mistakenly considers this Catacomb to be in Dragonbarrow for enemy scaling purposes, it's almost directly under Lenne's Rise.

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Good place to get some runes if you're patient enough and don't have access to the main spots. The "regular" warrior-type enemies can stance broken quite easily. The CR knights and the big Radahn knights usually fight off the side and get stuck in the rot for a bit. If you time it right, you'll be able to guard, counter, and get in a big hit. At decent levels/build it's usually down in two shots (counter, big hit). CR and Radahn knights just aren't worth it unless you know one's "shiny".

Big knights are annoying in the "puzzle-solving" path, but again stance-breaking them is key. You can also skirt around them on their distance-punishing moves and get in a backstab, but a ton of health regardless. Carian Phalanx (Weapon) helps save time if you have the FP for it.

Putrid Spirit is awful, though. Have no regrets cheesing him.

Overall, once you "get" the catacombs, not a bad spot to top off 10-20k runes quickly if you're close to leveling or short on supplies.

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Undoubtedly the most incorrectly scaled zone in the entire game, 10000000% shouldn't be scaled as high as it is given its location. Don't understand at all why this was scaled as an end game area, being behind radahn is nowhere near justification for that.

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first time playing with a bleed build and it really does make this dungeon harder and its already not very fun

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Probably the worst catacomb besides the one in Consecrated Snowfield. Outrageous scaling for no particular reason. Enemies and the boss here literally hit harder than anything until Consecrated Snowfield.

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There's a rune arc west of the minor erd tree in caelid. There a cliff that you can reach by jumping down the roots from the end tree. At the bottom there's a big knight and the rune arc is under him. It's the same area where the painting activates.

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FromSoft development team:
"You know what would be fun? Let's make a catacomb and scale every enemy to level 100-120 while the player is probably around 50 when he arrives"
" Woow dude, such a cool idea! Not unfair and annoying at all, totally balanced! Damn, we should've thought about this sooner, sadly we don't have time to re-make every other catacomb with this mentality"

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Honestly, if you've made it to this dungeon, you might as well just go do Varre's quest to obtain the Mogh warp. Warp, then go make the giant bird next to the cliff grace suicide himself, and repeat. Like 11k+ runes every 10 seconds.

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For sorcerers suffering with this dungeon: night maiden's mist.

First go to the pillar left of the entrance, and crouch behind it as if you were about to get your ass whooped to kingdom come (because if they do find you, you surelly will). By then, they should probably have beaten each other until they fall to the rot level. Go down the stairs carefully, and you should spawn the first cleanrot knight that doesn`t respawn when killed. Wait until he agro the redmanes that fell, and go straight ahead hugging the wall. You should spawn the second cleanrot in the opposite side (you're left on the treasure chest, the cr knight will spawn to the right).

As soon as you spawn the second CR Knight, go straight back to the entrance in the upper level, and this time follow the wall to the right. You should now summon the archer redmane in the upper floor, and he will probably aggro the CRs on the lower level. Use your night maiden's mist on him and night night the mf (you can launch it from the first floor to the second). If he drops down to your level, repeat the first step until he aggro's with the cr knights bellow.

If you do this correctly, all you need to do now is spam night maiden's mist from the first floor to the floor bellow, and everytime one of them respawns, run back to the grace to de-aggro, or just kill them 1 by 1.

I didn't had the mimicry thing to use, but I suppose it would make things way easier once they start respawning. Lvled up from 45 to 80 just by doing this.

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Just bloodhounds step through everything

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You know the dungeon is bad when the wiki skips like 50% of the walkthrough lol

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And then there's me, attempting to somehow brute force the path shown by the Rosus statue, trying to jump down the cliff. Thanks wiki for keeping me from staying stupid any longer.

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For inept players like me, you can don your mimic’s veil and golden scarab and then just park somewhere out of the way to get those sweet, sweet runes. It’s kinda fun to watch them beat the tar out of each other when you’re not running for your life.

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This place is incredibly difficult even at level 90. Seems to be the hardest place in Caelid even harder than Divine tower. At least as a sorc.

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This dungeon is all about fire, gold-pickled fowl feet and runes. If you’re an incantation type, memorize Dragonfire, Flame Grant me strength and maybe Black Flame. Eat a gold fowl foot, cast flame grant me strength and descend to watch the show.

When you get the opportunity with lots of spirits grouped up (particularly on a lower floor when they can’t get you easily), burn your entire flask on Dragonfire to speed up the death cycle. Rinse, later, repeat.

If they come after you you can retreat and beat them with black flame. If a bunch of them come at you, bait them into the tunnel and the Dragonfire the lot.

I also had immense luck with the normal soldiers running straight at them and using the special attack of the ornamental sword which also staggers them and also for a crit or you can back up and wait for them to rush you again. Repeat. Uses a lot less FP than the incantations

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yeah so I did some experimenting, the "main hall" knights will battle each other to a point, then you have waves of knights scaling up at you.
1st the Brass shield knights, they respawn 3 time so you'll fight 6. Then the Redmane Greatshield guys 3, then lastly the Cleanrot Spear knights 4. I had alot of success with Rotten Breath for multiple kills. but if you attempt to clear the whole dungeon you'll run out of flasks. I was able to get to a point where I killed nearly everything but I had no flasks and there were a few Cleanrot spears left, which was irritating. but it did make it easier to explore. I was actually happy to see imps as I have them down 100% after farming them for their heads. So once you've collected the items just dodge down the halls and grab the ashes and the spell and pull the lever. you can die with a twig or run back to the grace. then run across to fight the boss. which is challenging but I killed him first try. have anti rot boluses, and resist flask. boom you're done forever. I took this dungeon as a metaphor to the futility of war... There is a point where you have to avoid combat and evade the enemies. I didn't really like this dungeon, but I didn't hate it either.

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This dungeon has a similar difficulty scale to Greyoll's Dragonbarrow. If you can comfortably clear this dungeon without much effort, you're ready for the Dragonbarrow.

Also: It appears that the enemies within the main room of this dungeon reappear shortly after being defeated, allowing you to reap runes from them multiple times without resting at a site of Grace. I do not currently know if these enemies can reappear indefinitely.
It also appears that after some time, the Cleanrot Knights and Radahn-aligned soldiers will eventually deal zero damage to one another with their attacks.
— Courh the Explorer

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another catacomb thats hard and annoying, how suprising

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Almost comical how much harder and more rune-rewarding the enemies in this catacomb are than Radahn himself lmao

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so disappointing to do all that work pulling the lever and it's just another one of these tree spirit guys.

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I had a way easier time beating the putrid tree spirit than I did trying to pull the lever to open the door lol

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The "farming" lesson for this dungeon was learned while traveling north from the Purified Ruins (or the Liurnia Highway North site of grace) in Eastern Liurnia. Walking down the hill, you come across a bunch of living soldiers fighting against spirits. Move further down, more spirits appear. Further still, a spectral troll appears. Now, you could go in swords-a-swinging and take them all on...
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... or, you could hang back, let the soldiers deal with the spirits, and as they defeat each group out sneak down so the next group appears. They'll clear out all the little spirits and drain a bit of the troll's health (a fair bit if you time it right), before you ever have to fight anything.
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And you get the runes for every downed enemy on BOTH sides. (About 1.5-2k total, which isn't much, but it's practically effortless.)
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Do that again here. Just find a spot to hang out of the way, let them fight each other, and collect the runes. Not the fastest farming spot, true, but practically effortless.

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Looks like the enemies don't deal damage to each other anymore...

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Magma wyrm sword is very good against the boss

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Amazing dungeon. I think I farmed like 200k runes in it. The ghosts stop respawning if you kill them too many times, so you have to go back and rest. I wish I knew what the knights' weaknesses are, though. I was backstabbing everyone because I couldn't find another way to kill them fast. They seem to be immune to all status effects unfortunately, but feel free to correct me.

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Kind of sucks how the reward you get for exploring Radahn's huge arena is overpowered enemies and a boss that gets recycled way too much. Sad thing is that this dungeon had a lot of potential with the ghost phantoms fighting each other. I think this could be fixed with a patch adjusting enemies damage/HP and changing the boss.

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Decent place to farm runes as you can let everything fight. Enemies seem to stop respawning after a while.

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I like this dungeon. There isn't actually much else thats really a challenge at this point in the game.

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This place blows. Strong infinitely respawning soldiers, greatbow nukes from downtown, and scarlet rot all over the floor. My advice is to run past everything, pick up any items you want, and find that lever asap. The boss sucks, too, but at least you've seen these BS worms reused several times by this point and know what to expect.

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I'm with everyone else. This dungeon is BS. Can't believe it hasn't been balanced by patch yet. If you're having trouble, don't think you're under leveled. I'm at 250 and the enemies are brutal.

Unless you really need the Redmane Spirit Ashes, move on.

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Whoever designed this dungeon needs to change his weedman.

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This place is a mess, way too much damage for the zone it is in. 1080 health and getting almost one-shotted by the archers, finished the rest of Caelid (including dragons and the Godskin apostle at the tower). Yet this catecombs mini dungeon is harder? WTF FS

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This random ass putrid spirit one shot me more than Radahn, a literal demigod. Without spamming flame of the redmanes I definitely wouldn't have managed to beat it rn.

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This and Crumbling farum azula are fromsoft's lowest points

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You can run down the first steps and hang out by the hallway and just soak up the Exp as these lunatics kill each other in some sort of quasi Valhalla pre game.

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If you find this place a challenge you can lead on the soldiers and have them fight each other. The tall spear wielding cleanrot knights will battle it out against the other two types of Radhan soldiers (plus the two archers if they follow you to the main area). The small guys spawn near the opening to the staircase that leads to the boss, but sometimes I’ve had them spawn behind me if I’m up at the elevated platform on the left. The cleanrot knights and the greatshield Radhan soldiers spawn near the center of the main area, though there’s one cleanrot knight that spawns at the end of the stairs leading to the scarlet rot pool on the left the first time you approach the spawn spot.

I find that R2 jump attacks on the smaller guys work great and makes them easy enough to deal with. They have one heavy hitting double strike combo that may require two dodge rolls to avoid but other than that nothing too bad. The greatshield guys are tougher since they tend to teleport dodge quite frequently and they hit very hard. Their moves are fairly easy to pick up on so you can time your attack just after they’ve attacked you. If you have a powerful Ash of War you might want to use it on the guys.

The cleanrots knights have fairly long charge times or tells on their attacks so you know what's coming. Only thing to really watch out is their running & lunging spear attack that’ll cause instant scarlet rot. It can be tough to dodge so use an Ash of War to interrupt it before they hit you.

I’m on my second build atm and doing a battle mage of sorts. Night maidens mist goes through the walls and floors here and it’s easy interrupt the soldiers here from an elevated advantage and watch them try to reach you. Worth noting that the cleanrot knights won’t come at you through the mist but the two Radhan guys will.

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I'm level 150 and mobs still hurt me so bad... 1670 hp, tree sentinel armor. Going here just after Radan must be a pain in the *ss

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so at the beginning of dungeon where there is like a tone of enemy that seem to respawn infinitely well they don't they only respawn 5 to 6 times and after that they stop

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Level 105, build str and dex, using ash of war Ice spear. Have farmed 240.000 runes in two hours. Small soldiers : block and counter, get a critical hit, kill them in two shots. Intermediary soldiers with the big shield: could be tricky, turn around them to find an opening and get a critical. Big soldiers with the spears: spam the L2 Ice spear hash of war, interrupt their attack, get stunned in three hits (a bit more when they block but they still loose HP), you have a critical, dead in matter of seconds. Funny thing is when you kill an ennemy, it respawns and get back to you, providing a continuous stream of the same enemy to practice. Stay in the first tunnel to aggro ennemies so if you die, you just get your runes back. Once you're comfortable with those three types of enemy, make some room then explore the tunnels for loot and open the gate. Careful to some gargouyles in some area further around the big statue.

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Stats for this catacombs personally is to just run through it, get the pull the lever, ignore all enemies on the way, and get any items you cross. Not really worrth clearing given how much damage the enemies deal.

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good spot if you avoid the 2 instant kills from the boss, let you summend from other player to kill the boss, repeat, nearly 100k every 10minutes. recommendet lvl 80-100.

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Nerf the entire place please

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Omg, the 3d map??!!?

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Pretty nice, i always use misericorde with flames of the redmanes as ash of war, also use dagger talisman and assassin's cerulean dagger. pretty easy since 2-3 skill, he staggers and you deal a pretty good damage with crit. the boss wasn't that hard, what's hard are the enemies outside fighting

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fk this ****

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I don't get all of you writing stuff about runes. Have you never played a Fromsoft game? This is literally one of the worst places for rune farming. The enemies are absurdly strong, outside the realm of realistically being able to kill them quickly. One of the main requirements for currency farming in soulslike games is being able to easily kill enemies (Winged knights rapport ds3, giant lord ds2, phalanx farming ds1).

Don't listen to anyone telling you this is a good place to farm runes.

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I already soloed the putrid tree spirit a few times so ive no qualms bringing out the mimic tear for this fight . . **** that boss and **** the dungeon I just let them fight while I collected everything lol . . I can deal with poison but scarlet rot is like toxic from ds3 just ****ed lol I always make sure to have maxed boluses for these places . . The faith incantation works too

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