Elden Ring Lake Of Rot [Definitive Guide]

The Lake Of Rot in Elden Ring is a location that is primarily accessed via Ranni’s Questline. It is a location composed of, well- Rot, but its notable feature is that it connects to a few other underground areas here, along with an important boss fight linked to the questline. However, be careful while treading through here as your character will be slowed down and inflicted with the Rot status ailment, as well as enemies ambushing you.

Key Highlights

• The Lake Of Rot is one of the key locations in the game, which exists in the underground parts of the Lands Between of Elden Ring.
• Most players can miss venturing to this location at certain times because it is commonly discovered via progressing Ranni’s questline.
• However, players can easily reach the location even without engaging with Ranni’s quest line in the game as long as they follow a specific route.
• In layman’s terms, players will have to defeat Starscourge Radahn in order to open up an underground area near the Mistwood Ruins.
• It will lead players to an area, Nokron, and from there, it is a long but simple task of reaching Lake Of Rot by traversing the Siofra River, through the Deeproot Depths, and then via the Ainsel River.
• It is worth mentioning that the area can be tricky to navigate through as it can slow down the character and apply the Rot status effect, along with ambushing players with enemies.

Method To Reach Lake Of Rot Without Ranni’s Questline

While you can certainly reach the location by simply progressing Ranni’s entire questline, as we have mentioned previously if you are someone who’s not tackling that particular questline or is looking to reach Lake Of Rot as quickly as possible, then simply follow each of the brief steps we have laid out down below in which we will entail the route to reach the location in the simplest way possible.

Defeat Starscourge Radahn In Caelid

As shown in the image above, you can fight Radahn by traveling to the Redmane Castle through a Waygate near the Impassable Greatbridge site of grace.

However, before you even access the waygate teleporter, you will first need to trigger the Radahn Festival at the Castle, which can be done in quite a few ways, the easiest one being that you can activate a site of Grace in the Altus Plateau, which will then instantly trigger the Festival in order for you to fight against Starscourge Radahn. However, keep in mind that doing this will temporarily lock you out of other NPC quest requirements here.

Overcoming the boss fight itself shouldn’t be too taxing, as though Radahn may hit hard using his size and strength. You can easily maneuver around the battlefield using Torrent to your advantage to dodge most of his attacks with ease. Furthermore, you can also call in various NPC summons around the arena in order to make the entire fight a pushover, especially during the first phase.

Travel To Nokron, Eternal City

After you have defeated Starscourge Radahn, the next step is one that often confuses players with the dubious task of ‘where to go next’ in the game. You will need to head back to Limgrave, where Radahn will have formed a massive crater to travel to the game’s underground worlds.

The Falling Star Crater can be found between Fort Haight and the Mistwood Ruins, and it’s huge enough that you won’t be able to miss it. Players can often get confused about how exactly the game points out that you need to head through here to continue on with the game, but thankfully, talking to NPCs such as Iji and Sorceress Sellen will allow you to receive hints of this crater, Nokron and where you can find it in-game.

Head through the Crater via Torrent, carefully traversing down through the floating rocks and boulders in order to reach an opening leading to Nokron, Eternal City. The silver tears enemies here shouldn’t pose too much of a problem as long as you don’t get overcrowded by them. Again, make sure to carefully follow through this area with the rooftops until you eventually reach a crevice with an opening in it.

Eventually, you will reach the main Site of Grace for the opening section of this area. Activate it and rest up if you want to because you will soon be battling a mini-boss in order to progress onwards to the path.

The Mimic Tear Boss Fight

As you head out of the opening from the Site Of Grace, the next stop you should push for is shown in the image above as you need to head down a flight of staircase from the main courtyard in order to reach the Mimic Tear Boss battle. Just be careful of the nearby Nox maiden as you make your way toward the boss battle entrance.

The fight itself is self-explanatory as the mimic tear will directly take shape and form of your character along with their loadout when facing it in battle. It will use all of the equipped sorcery and incantations to make it a proper challenge for you but trivializing the fight is also pretty simple, as one might assume.

Essentially a way to cheese the fight entirely is by unequipping everything from your loadout, including the weapons and armor and then by spawning into the battle like that, the mimic tear will directly take that form into account and will practically spawn as a useless enemy who will barely damage you during the fight. As soon as it spawns, you can then quickly equip everything back on to make the entire boss fight a walk in the park.

Once you have defeated it, rest up at the grace and continue towards the left side into the main Nokron City area, where we now need to reach the Twin Valiant Gargoyle boss fight in order to unlock a Coffin transport to the Deep Root depths.

Reach Siofra Aqueduct

As shown in the image above, you must now make your way across Nokron to reach the ‘Aqueduct – Facing Cliffs’ site of grace. The description to reach it is a little tricky, but you must follow the map in a straight line towards the left of the path. Amidst a few trees, you will notice a couple of harmless Jellyfish wandering about. It is essentially an indication that there is something of interest along the path.

You will know you’re in the right place when you reach a plethora of them, as shown in the image above. Now simply look to the left of them and carefully jump down using torrent or on foot. Continue along the path with more Jellyfish along the way, and you will soon reach a small cliff overlooking the aqueduct with the site of grace.

From here, you basically need to reach the Valiant Gargoyle boss fight by heading to the left side of the area. However, an important thing here is that there are a couple of Crucible Knights patrolling the area, so make sure to cautiously navigate past them or fight them if you’re skilled enough. Whichever way you make it past them, get ready because the Twin Valiant Gargoyle fight is no pushover.

The Valiant Gargoyle Duo Boss Fight

The Twin Valiant Gargoyle Boss Fight is quite possibly your biggest hurdle in reaching closer and closer to the Lake of Rot in Elden Ring. By the time we played the game, the fight was pretty much a battle of attrition and survivability because as soon as you bring the first Gargoyle’s health down by 25 or 50 percent, the second one will spawn immediately, making the entire encounter more chaotic than usual.

We strongly advise using the Best Ashen Remains against these two if you’re facing trouble, and if your character isn’t strong enough, then we suggest respec your Tarnished Warrior and customizing them with the Best Builds.

You can also try using a Poison Build which will deal damage over time to them, allowing you to squeeze in extra DPS and making the entire fight a little easier on yourselves. Defeating this gargoyle duo will drop the Gargoyle’s Greatsword and the Gargoyle’s Twinblade weapons. You will now also be able to access the Coffin located at the end of the arena under the Waterfall to teleport you to the Deeproot Depths location.

Traversing The Deeproot Depths

You will now wake up in the Deeproot Depths, and from here, your next step is simply venturing past everything and reaching the next Coffin in order to reach Ainsel River and then, finally, The Lake of Rot.

As soon as you regain control of your character, make sure to unlock and rest up at the nearby grace near where you woke up from the coffin. The next step is pretty simple as you now need to summon Torrent and head to the Nameless Eternal City site of grace, where you can locate the next coffin, as shown in the image above.

The entire area is filled with Ants, Basilisks, and other dangerous creatures, so remain vigilant as you rush to the area we marked for you. The starting path may require you to navigate on these large branches that we have shown in the image above, so caution is advised as you are heading across the area.

There will also be another grace in between the starting one and the one above near the coffin, so feel free to grab it on your way there. Once you arrive in the area, make sure to grab the grace we previously mentioned in the beginning and then hop into the Coffin here to get to the Ainsel River.

River Ainsel To Lake Of Rot

The last part of the Lake Of Rot route in Elden Ring always comes down to crossing the Ainsel River. You will undoubtedly visit this location during Ranni’s quest. Still, even without engaging with her, we have now reached the part where you can steadily get to the site without her involvement.

As shown in the image above, the Ainsel River map is situated right next to the entrance to the Lake of Rot, and although it is tricky to explain, the map we have provided will ensure you get there as efficiently as possible. You will spawn in the Ainsel River Main from the top-right section of the map, and all you have to do is head straight and follow the middle path until you reach Uhl Palace Ruins.

Here you may have to be careful of the Malformed Star enemy, which can launch a constant barrage of attacks that can instantly kill you if you’re not careful enough. Other enemies may also include the dozens of Clayman, but despite their resiliency, the only danger they may provide is staggering you with their numbers.

Now, as shown in the image above, if you continue onwards, as we mentioned, into the Uhl Palace Ruins, you will encounter a couple of Ants but following onwards from that cave, you will eventually reach Nokstella, Eternal City.

The area has quite a few goodies to loot, but since our primary focus is getting to the Lake Of Rot, you can reach an elevator on the other side of the area shown along with the image above to head further downward. Be sure to avoid multiple enemies here, such as the Silver Tears as well as the Ant-riding Nox maidens.

Once you emerge from the elevator, you can rest at another site of grace. But now, the last step essentially involves making a straight bee-line towards the cave, where you will reach the last elevator to the right, as shown in the image, which, when entered, will take you straight down to the Lake Of Rot.

The Lake Of Rot is a dangerous place filled with Basilisks ready to jump from the pool of Rot at you at any given moment, so caution is advised when traveling through here. There are various kinds of platforms nearby that can help you navigate around the giant pool of rot with ease. Most importantly, the location also allows you to access the Astel Naturalborn of the Void boss fight, which is essential to complete Ranni’s questline.

The Wrap-Up

Once again, the ideal way to get Lake Of Rot is through Ranni’s questline, as pointed out by a Subreddit Post, as you will only need to get the Cursemark of Death, located at the top of Divine Tower of Liurnia, to unlock a waygate at Renna’s Rise which will directly teleport you to Ainsel River Main to reach the location.

You can also access the Deeproot Depths via a hidden wall from under the Three Fingers during the endgame, allowing you to use the Coffin method we have listed above to reach Lake of Rot again in a hurry if you missed it. But that aside, if you are indeed heading into the Lake Of Rot, make sure to have your character equipped with the Best Talismans, as you may run into the Dragonkin Soldier of Nosktella Boss fight here too.

The nimble enemies that may ambush you here, such as the Basilisks, may give you slight annoyance, but with the Best Weapons In Elden Ring, their packs will hardly stand a chance against your quick-hitting attacks. There are tons of other bosses that you may encounter later on, such as Melania and The Godskin Duo, but hopefully, with the Best Strength Or Dex Builds, they will go down with ease as long as you focus and remain calm.

However, this wraps up our guide on how to reach the Lake Of Rot in Elden Ring. If you have any questions related to the game, then feel free to ask them in the comments section below, and we will be more than happy to guide you on the correct path, as reaching the Lake of Rot is no easy task for a new player!

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