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Runes are the single currency Elden Ring runs on: kill something, loot something, or beat a boss, and you get runes. Spend them at any Site of Grace to level up your stats, or hand them to a merchant to buy items, upgrade materials, and weapon upgrades. There’s no separate leveling currency and no separate shop currency the way older FromSoftware games sometimes split things — it’s all runes, all the time, which is exactly why farming them well matters so much. FromSoftware developed the game and Bandai Namco published it, and the rune system sits next to two related mechanics worth knowing: Great Runes, which major bosses drop and which passively boost your stats once activated, and Rune Arcs, a consumable that turns a Great Rune on and buffs multiplayer sessions.
TL;DR
- There’s no single “best” rune farm — the right one depends on whether you’re before Leyndell, after it, or running Shadow of the Erdtree.
- Mohgwyn Palace is still the strongest sustained farm in the base game, but you can’t reach it early without Varre’s questline shortcut.
- Most of the truly broken glitches (cliff dives, infinite bird drops) were removed around the 1.08 patch — check a video’s age before trusting it.
- Past a certain point, extra levels give tiny returns; runes are better spent on weapon upgrades and, in the DLC, Scadutree Fragments.
- Rune multipliers like the Golden Scarab talisman and Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot help, but only one of them is worth any real setup effort.
| Type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Runes | Base currency dropped by every kill; spent at Sites of Grace to level stats or with merchants for goods and upgrades |
| Golden Runes | Consumable Items in Elden Ring that grant Runes upon use, and can be looted from corpses across the Lands Between, though these will not respawn until the next New Game. |
| Great Runes | Dropped by remembrance-tier bosses; once activated, passively boosts the stats tied to that specific rune |
| Rune Arcs | Consumable that activates your equipped Great Rune and applies bonus effects for online play |
Where to Get Runes in Elden Ring
Early on, runes just come from playing normally — overworld enemies, minor dungeons, and field bosses in Limgrave and Liurnia. The jump happens once you’re strong enough to fight in rune-dense areas like Caelid and Dragonbarrow, where single kills pay far more than anything in the starting zones. Golden Rune items add a passive trickle on top of combat income since they’re scattered as loot and drop from specific enemy types across the map. Later, a handful of concentrated enemy camps become the real engine for leveling, and reaching them is the actual bottleneck most guides don’t spell out clearly.
| Source | What you get | Requirement | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overworld kills | Small, steady trickle | None | Brand-new characters |
| Golden Rune pickups | One-time lump per item | None, but non-renewing per save | Everyone, passively |
| Fort Faroth dragon | 50,000 Rune per kill, roughly 2 minutes per run | A bleed weapon and access to the Ancient Ruins area | Early-to-mid game, catching up fast |
| Mohgwyn Palace Albinaurics | Very large per clear, scales with build | Varre's questline shortcut, or reaching the area normally, plus an AoE weapon | Mid game onward, weapon upgrading |
Best Rune Farming Methods at Every Stage
This is where most guides fall apart: they hand you the single “best” spot without checking whether you can actually get there. The best rune farming spot in Elden Ring is Mohgwyn Palace, located beneath Caelid near the Palace Approach Ledge-Road site of grace, but reaching it takes some doing since it sends you underground into a pretty tough area. If you’re ten hours into a fresh save, that advice is close to useless until you unlock the shortcut.
Warning
Most of the rune farm glitches that were previously very efficient and simple got fixed around the 1.08 update. If a video shows someone diving off a cliff onto crows for endless runes, that trick is long gone — check the upload date before you build a session plan around it.
| Game stage | Method | Access requirement | Payout tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early game (before Leyndell) | Fort Faroth dragon farm | Bleed weapon, reach the Ancient Ruins area | High per kill, low overall risk |
| Early skip | Mohgwyn Palace via Varre | Complete Varre's questline in Liurnia's Rose Church until he gives you the Pureblood Knight's Medal | Very high, but you're still under-leveled for the area |
| Mid to late game (normal route) | Mohgwyn Palace Albinaurics with an AoE weapon | Reach the area through normal progression plus an area-damage weapon or incantation | Highest sustained base-game farm |
| New Game Plus / endgame | Same spot, scaled enemies | NG+ enemy scaling, established AoE build | Six-figure hauls per short session, per community reports |
| With Shadow of the Erdtree active | Base-game farm still functions for raw runes | Same as above; DLC doesn't lock it out | Priority should shift toward Scadutree Fragments, not pure rune levels |
| Method | Speed | Effort | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overworld exploration + Golden Runes | Slow | None | Brand-new characters |
| Fort Faroth dragon farm | Fast | Low, needs a bleed weapon | Early-mid catch-up leveling |
| Mohgwyn Palace (Varre skip) | Very fast | Medium, questline plus risk of being under-leveled | Rushing ahead of the curve |
| Mohgwyn Palace (normal, AoE build) | Very fast | Medium, needs an AoE weapon | Mid-to-late game weapon leveling |
| NG+ high-level AoE farm | Fastest | High, requires an established build | Twinking gear, funding respecs |
What Runes Buy You: Levels, Weapon Upgrades and Diminishing Returns
Where Leveling Stops Paying Off
The community recommends reaching at least 40 Vigor, but going no higher than 60, since after 60 the diminishing returns become too small to be worth it. Damage stats follow a similar curve: Strength and Dexterity typically soft cap around levels 20, 60, and 80 depending on the weapon. Past those breakpoints, another 10 runes-worth of levels buys almost nothing.
Why Weapon Upgrades and Scadutree Fragments Matter More Later
Once you’ve cleared the soft caps that matter for your build, runes stop being the efficient lever. Smithing Stone upgrades scale weapon damage in bigger visible jumps than another handful of levels. In Shadow of the Erdtree, this gets even more pronounced: the DLC adds an entirely separate progression system called Scadutree Blessings, with its own soft cap at Blessing Level 12, and your main stats aren’t boosted by Scadutree Blessings — only your secondary offensive and defensive stats get a small percentage bump per activation. Practically: once your core stats are near their soft caps, stop pouring runes into levels and start funneling effort into weapon upgrades and Scadutree Fragments instead.
| Reward | How you get it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Stat levels | Spend runes at any Site of Grace | Raises HP, stamina, and scaling for your build |
| Weapon and armor upgrades | Runes plus Smithing Stones at a Blacksmith | Directly raises damage output, often more efficiently than raw levels late-game |
| Respec | Larval Tears spent with Rennala | Lets you redirect wasted stat points into a working build |
Rune Multipliers: Are They Worth the Setup?
A couple of items genuinely increase rune income, but they’re not equally worth chasing. The consumable Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot gives a rune boost and can be purchased from Patches, or from the Twin Maiden Husks after you’ve given them Patches’ bell bearing, and once you get the Missionary’s Cookbook [2], also sold by Patches, you can craft them yourself. The Golden Scarab talisman is the other big multiplier: it’s described plainly as an item that increases runes obtained from defeated enemies, and one player’s informal test on early-game enemies clocked it at roughly a 20 percent bump — treat that figure as a ballpark from player testing rather than an official number.
Tip
Farming crafting ingredients in batches ahead of time lets you keep a consistent boost running instead of interrupting a session to restock. Do that prep before you sit down to farm, not during.
| Item | Effect | Worth the setup? |
|---|---|---|
| Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot | Temporary rune boost, consumed on use | Only if you're already committing to a long session — crafting or buying stacks takes prep |
| Golden Scarab talisman | Passive rune boost while equipped | Yes — one-time find, permanent uptime, no session cost |
Step-by-Step: Mohgwyn Palace Rune Farm Walkthrough
Follow this sequence to get it done fast.
-
1
Get there early or normally
either finish Varre's questline in Liurnia's Rose Church until he hands you the shortcut item, or reach the area through the standard late-game route.
-
2
Rest at the Palace Approach Ledge-Road grace
this site of grace sits right next to the enemy cluster you're farming.
-
3
Equip your rune multipliers
Golden Scarab talisman on permanently, Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot stacked right before you engage.
-
4
Clear the Albinauric group with an area-damage weapon or
community reports describe single wide sweeps netting tens of thousands of runes at once.
-
5
Bank runes periodically
rest at grace or use a bonfire-adjacent item to lock in progress so a death doesn't erase the session.
-
6
Repeat and reassess
once your stats near their soft caps, redirect the runes toward weapon upgrades instead of more levels.
Common Misconceptions About Elden Ring Rune Farming
“Mohgwyn Palace Is the Best Spot for Everyone”
It’s the strongest sustained farm once you can reach it, but it’s genuinely gated. Without the Varre shortcut, you don’t see this area until deep into a normal playthrough — recommending it to someone in Limgrave is just bad advice dressed up as a tier list.
“Old YouTube Glitches Still Work”
A lot of the videos still floating around predate the 1.08 patch, which closed off most of the previously simple exploits. Some newer workarounds get found afterward, but the specific jump-off-a-cliff and infinite-crow tricks people remember are gone.
“More Levels Always Beat Better Gear”
Once your key stats clear their soft caps, the same runes buy far more damage through weapon upgrades than through additional levels. This flips even harder in Shadow of the Erdtree, where Scadutree Blessings — not raw character level — do most of the heavy lifting against DLC enemies.
Our Take: Is Rune Farming Worth It?
Our Take
Worth it in short, targeted sessions — not as a background grind you do forever.
Farming pays off when it’s solving a specific problem: you’re under-leveled for the next boss, or you want to fully upgrade a new weapon without draining your bank. Treated that way, an hour or two at Mohgwyn Palace or Fort Faroth solves the problem cleanly. Treated as a default activity, it stops being useful fast, because past the soft caps covered above, extra levels barely move the needle. The smarter move is farming with intent, then spending on upgrades once your stats are where they need to be.
If you’re also dipping into the roguelite spinoff Nightreign between sessions, keep in mind its run structure and progression work nothing like base-game rune farming — worth checking a dedicated Nightreign Nightlord guide before assuming the same habits carry over.