An RPG as big and with as many character options as Elden Ring needs a respec system, a way to reset your character’s stats and make something entirely new. Thankfully, it’s not hard or expensive to respec your stats in Elden Ring, and this guide will run you through the process.
How to Respec in Elden Ring
There are thousands of challenges to overcome in Elden Ring, and learning how to respec is just one of them. It’s not, however, even close to the hardest to do. You do need to beat a boss to unlock the ability, but she’s one of the game’s easiest demigods. In short, to respec in Elden Ring, you need to:
- Beat Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon. You’ll find her at the top of the Academy of Raya Lucaria Legacy Dungeon in the Liurnia of the Lakes region. This also requires you to get the Glintstone Key to get inside the Raya Lucaria Academy. It’s incredibly hard to miss, as you must pass through the zone to reach the Altus Plateau and access the farthest reaches of The Lands Between.
Reaching Rennala is technically harder than the fight (or its first phase, anyway), as you need to navigate through the entire Raya Lucaria Academy to reach her chambers in the Great Library at its top. You’ll need to get past both the Red Wolf of Radagon sub-boss and Moongrum world NPC. I much prefer the Wolf fight, as FromSoftware humanoid NPC fights are always unbalanced.
Moongrum can — and will, if you’re not careful — one-frame parry any attack you throw at him that can be parried. That means katanas, straight swords, single-spear attacks, and anything smaller than a two-handed Ultra Greatsword or a jumping attack will see Moongrum shove his sword through your gut. If he’s got his shield out and you aren’t running the Greatsword, Zweihander, or similar large weapon two-handed, jump attacks and damaging spells will always be your best option. If he two-hands his sword, you still need to watch out, because his Carian Knight Sword has a unique heavy attack where he blocks some of the damage with the weapon, then makes a quick counterattack.
Make it past Moongrum (and you can just run past the idiot and onto the elevator behind him), and you can open the doors at the top of the elevator to enter Rennala’s boss fight.
Related: The 10 Hardest Bosses in Elden Ring
Using Larval Tears to Respec in Elden Ring
Once you beat Rennala, instead of dying, she’ll transform into a vendor who specializes in the respec function, but there’s a catch: you need to spend Larval Tears, consumable Key Items, to undergo rebirth (the in-game name for the respec process). Provided you have at least one Larval Tear, you can spend it with her.
Within the Rebirth menu, all your stats will reset to their default values based on your starting class chosen at character creation. From there, you can spend and redistribute all the Attribute points you’ve gained by leveling up. You won’t be able to exceed your current maximum level, but if you want to put every point you have into Vigor, I won’t stop you.
All Larval Tears Locations in Elden Ring
Unfortunately, there’s no way to farm Larval Tears. There are only 17 of them per playthrough, and if you want them all, you’ll need to explore Liurnia and the areas unlocked as part of Ranni’s questline: the Eternal Cities of Nokron and Nokstella. There are twelve across those three zones alone. For the remaining five, you’ll have to canvas almost every other region in Elden RIng. Here’s where you’ll find them all:
- Limgrave: x1
- Liurnia of the Lakes: x4
- Siofra River: x1
- Nokron, Eternal City: x5
- Nokstella, Eternal City: x3
- Caelid: x1
- Altus Plateau: x1
- Mt. Gelmir: x1
- Consecrated Snowfield: x1
Note that you only spend your Larval Tear if you go through with the respec. If you back out of the Rebirth menu completely and hear Rennala’s dialogue saying, “Be not alarmed or afeared,” you’ll keep that Larval Tear for your next attempt. However, once spent, there’s no way to get more than the 17 you can earn per playthrough, as Larval Tears are key items and thus cannot be dropped by other players, similar to how you need to earn Flask upgrades, Great Runes, and other story-specific items with each new game cycle.
One last consideration: you cannot respec below your class’ starting attributes. If you have a specific build in mind that stops leveling at a certain point and you need a particular stat spread to make it, you will need to ensure you choose the right starting class, or you will need to start your character from scratch.
That’s about everything there is to know about using respec in Elden Ring. Like the requirements for unlocking it, the process is pretty straightforward, but there are some caveats. If you’re looking for more content on FromSoftware’s latest masterpiece, we have guides on the best Strength scaling weapons, where to find all the Legendary Armaments, and more in our Elden Ring guides hub.
