Elden Ring: 11 Best Tips For A Fast Speedrun

Key Takeaways

• Choose Samurai class for best speedrun kit: Uchigatana, bow, shield for fast times.
• Master movement techniques: dash on Torrent, jump uphill for quicker navigation.
• Plan route, use glitches, quit & load to save time in Elden Ring speedruns.

From Software’s Soulsborne games have always been popular within the speedrunning community. The amount of freedom combined with the expansiveness of their games has allowed for many strategies and tactics to emerge over the years.

Elden Ring proved to be no different when it launched in 2022, with speedrunners immediately converging to discover the fastest ways to beat the game. While Elden Ring is FromSoft’s biggest game so far and takes a long time to beat, it has also, paradoxically, yielded the fastest speedruns in the developer’s history. Of course, with a multitude of categories, and the game itself being extremely expansive, there are many ways to achieve a fast completion time. Some of these tips can be as simple as repeatedly learning an epic boss fight, or as complex as executing physics-defying glitches.

Updated August 26th, 2024 by Jacob Buchalter: Elden Ring’s speedrunning community is incredibly active, even more so now that the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is out. This game, while gigantic, has been so thoroughly explored and the speedrun routes so streamlined that anyone who wants to get into speedrunning Elden Ring has a seemingly infinite amount of resources to do so. Not only are there randomizers for speedrunning Elden Ring, but there are all sorts of tools and mods for monitoring a speedrun, modifying one, or keeping track of one. But, why don’t we take some time to go over some of the more ‘core’ sides of speedrunning this game? Here are some of the best tips we could think of for new players wanting to speedrun this game.

12 Pick Samurai As A Starting Class

A Starting Class With The Best Utilities

With a multitude of classes to choose from, one had to emerge as the best choice available. Despite all the starting options being viable in gameplay, Samurai is the best pick for a speedrun.

Samurai comes with the best kit for picking up fast times, as they have access to the Uchigatana – a very powerful weapon with a strong Ash of War and an inherent Blood Loss status effect – a solid spread of starting stats, a bow for allowing longer falls without damage, and, most importantly, a shield that can both parry and allow block cancels.

11 Various Movement Techniques

Some Ways To Navigate Will Create Faster Speedruns

Obviously, navigating through The Lands Between needs to be done quickly in a speedrun. The acquisition of Torrent from Melina is the main way to travel throughout the map, but there are times the player is forced to embark on foot, and movement tips will be needed there as well.

Mainly, intermittent dashing while riding Torrent will result in a faster speed rather than just letting him sprint. Pressing the dash button every time Torrent starts to slow down will make traveling distances shorter. While on foot, repeatedly jumping when going up an incline will help the player achieve a faster speed rather than just running.

10 Know The Map

Understanding The Locations Of Items And Shortcuts Will Make For A Faster Time

While this can be more of a difficult feat to begin with, given how large the world is and how many items reside in it, knowing where the important key items are will save time in a speedrun. Immediately knowing where an item is and heading for it will be faster than searching for it, such as the need for the strongest Talismans, for example.

There are also various shortcuts and skips that can be utilized that will save some time. Some of the more well-known examples are the skips that can be performed in Leyndell, which will allow players to bypass entire sections instead of slogging through them. Some examples exist in the open world as well, where Torrent can be used to climb up cliff faces to avoid sections of the game.

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8 Plan A Route

Knowing Your Flowchart & Overall Path Helps Keep You Focused

When speedrunning, especially in a gigantic open-world game like Elden Ring, planning the route is a surefire way to make sure a run doesn’t go off the rails or get sidetracked. What this means is that, once a player gets enough practice in a speedrun and knows the general series of events from start to finish, make sure to sort of ‘route it out’ in advance, so that at any point one can check where they are, check their route, and know what they need to do next.

After enough runs, speedrunners likely don’t rely on these planned routes quite as much and can sort of freely adapt as the situation requires, but at least for the first big chunk of practice, having a written-out route is incredibly helpful.

7 Learn The Big Skips

Stuff Like the Raya Lucaria Academy Jump Skip, Radahn Arena Skip, & so on

Additionally, and this sort of ties into another entry later on about using glitches and exploits, players looking to speedrun Elden Ring should absolutely take some time to learn the most well-known skips. The best thing about speedrunning communities is the collaborative way fellow speedrunners will add new skips to a route, build upon skips other players have discovered, and more.

With Elden Ring specifically, there are a ton of well-known skips in the speedrunning community that a new speedrunner is going to want to at least know about while they learn all the tricks for this game. To just name a few examples, there’s the jump skip in Raya Lucaria academy that circumvents a lot of the exploration of this area, a precise place the Tarnished can fall to their death to Caelid to respawn in Radahn’s arena, and a precise series of jumps and falls in Leyndell that skips most of the tedious parts of this area.

6 Use Powerful Weapons & Ashes Of War

Dealing Damage Will Be Crucial To Defeating Bosses Quickly

Some of the tips so far are only applicable depending on what category of Elden Ring speedrun has been undertaken. Dealing damage to bosses is one such example of a glitchless run, as speedrunning the game under the Any% Unrestricted category doesn’t require players to fight a boss the normal way.

Being able to beat a boss as fast as possible will rely on the best weapons available. Some of the easier but stronger weapons to obtain include Bloodhound’s Fang, Golden Halberd, Serpent Hunter, and the Uchigatana, the aforementioned starting Samurai sword. Using these in tangent with a good build can destroy bosses very quickly.

While Sorceries and Incantations can be absurdly powerful, obtaining weapons is much easier to achieve, with some of the inherent Ashes of War being more than enough in place of using magic. And don’t forget buff-stacking, of course, as this can exponentially increase the damage of an already overpowered weapon or build.

5 Know How To Fight Bosses

Bosses Will Have Certain Weaknesses And Strategies

Something of an obvious tip, but one that is crucial nonetheless. Learning the moveset of a boss is a key strategy, and will make for a faster and easier time when fighting them. Among the numerous bosses, all of them have weaknesses that can be exploited, such as Morgott, The Omen King being weak to Lightning damage, or some bosses with weaknesses related to the lore, such as Starscourge Radahn and his weakness to Scarlet Rot.

The most important part of fighting a boss while speedrunning is if they have another phase that could impact the time of the run, such as Godrick The Grafted’s second phase resetting him to the middle of the arena. For bosses such as this, it is crucial to defeat them before they enter their second phase by timing when their poise will be broken right before the phase change. Through this, and by dealing high damage percentages via powerful sources such as Blood Loss, time will be saved by skipping their phase change.

4 Save As Much Time As Possible

Only Do Certain Actions When Time Allows

While leveling-up is a crucial process in Elden Ring, it can impact how fast a speedrun will end up being. Spending time in the level-up menu will create a longer runtime that can be mitigated instead. Simply level up when it is required to progress the game, such as when Melina appears in Leyndell and gives the Rold Medallion. As players need to complete this step to progress, simply hold onto any runes and level up at that moment instead, and/or any others like it.

Another way to save time is by using any consumables needed when riding an elevator. If a player is hurt and needs to use a Crimson Flask, use it when riding an elevator to save time. Additionally, jump off elevators before they reach the bottom to save a little bit of time. Also, another way to save time is by opening chests. A well-timed jump towards the chest while hitting the ‘use’ button will open it very quickly.

3 Utilize Glitches & Exploits

Glitches & Exploits Will Net The Fastest Speedruns Possible

A multitude of glitches and exploits have been discovered, with many finding a place in speedrunning that can have a very noticeable effect on time saved. One of the most well-known exploits is cheesing a boss, an umbrella term for multiple exploits. The Draconic Tree Sentinel outside Leyndell has a prominent cheese mechanic; players can knock the boss off the cliff and be rewarded with an instant kill.

Another exploit is done via block canceling, which the player must block before executing certain actions, such as jumping. This can maintain the player’s speed via jumping instead of receiving a drop-off as would usually happen, or can be used to instantly turn around.

Glitches can also be used in categories that allow them to achieve extremely fast times. Some, such as the ‘Zip’ and ‘Pegasus’ glitch, aren’t used anymore, but others, such as the ‘Wrong Warp’ glitch, still are. While some of these glitches have been targeted by patches, players are always able to downgrade updates to execute any glitches that are no longer available.

2 Quitting & Loading Back In

A Premier Tactic For Achieving Fast Speedruns

In an Elden Ring speedrun, the time of the run will only count the time spent when in control of a created character, not any time spent in the main menu. As a result, quitting out and loading back in can bypass some mechanics while creating a faster time.

For example, quitting when opening a door and loading back in will open the door without having to waste time waiting during the animation. Time will be saved in the main menu and the door will be opened as a result of already having been in the process of opening it prior to quitting. This can also work with Sites of Lost Grace, as an animation will play out before unlocking it. Essentially, this strategy works with anything that requires an animation to unlock. It can work to save a death via falling damage as well. If a player has accidentally fallen off something and will die from falling damage, quitting and loading back in will put them where they were before they fell, saving them and any time lost to respawning.

1 Practice Speedrunning

Speedrunning Elden Ring Can Take A While

While not an answer most people would want, practice makes perfect. Elden Ring is a large game, with many things needing memorization. Speedrunning, with its vast number of strategies, will need to be practiced and then repeated to make sure it’s being done correctly.

On top of continuously playing the game, there are a multitude of helpful resources and community figures that can help with speedrunning. From YouTube channels, Twitch streamers, and websites, Elden Ring, thankfully, has a lot of information on it that will help with practicing fast times.