Elden Ring: How to upgrade weapons and get Smithing Stones

Elden Ring, much like the Dark Souls games before it, features an upgrade system that allows players to significantly improve their weapon’s damage with special upgrade materials they can find throughout the game’s numerous different locations. Without weapon upgrades, players will struggle to do effective damage against enemies and bosses located outside of Elden Ring’s early game areas. Therefore, it’s very important to keep your weapon upgraded as much as possible while progressing through the Lands Between.

To help you accomplish this, we’ve put together a detailed guide that goes over everything you need to know about upgrading weapons in Elden Ring. This includes where and how you can upgrade your weapons, the different types of Smithing Stones you’ll need to do so, and information about how you can get more Smithing Stones so that you can continue upgrading weapons you find during your journey.

To upgrade your weapons, you’ll need to visit and speak with Blacksmith Hewg. He’s located in the right wing of the Roundtable Hold hub area, which players get access to shortly after starting a new Elden Ring playthrough. Provided you bring him a sufficient number of Smithing Stones and enough runes, he’ll upgrade any weapon you bring him.

Note that you can also change your weapon’s Ash of War by speaking with Hewg. Ashes of War are special types of modifiers that change your weapon’s Weapon Art (for example, a ground slam) as well as how well it scales with different types of stats. For example, you could turn a regular Longsword into a Heavy Longsword with an Ash of War, removing its Dexterity scaling but boosting its Strength scaling.

Elden Ring: All Smithing Stone tiers

There are several different tiers of Smithing Stone available for players to find throughout the Lands Between, with higher tier Smithing Stones required for more powerful upgrades. Note that each weapon upgrade will increase the number of Smithing Stones you need for the next upgrade until you eventually require the next tier of Smithing Stone, at which point the number of Smithing Stones you need to perform a new upgrade will “reset” back to one. The table below shows which Smithing Stone tiers correspond to each upgrade level.

In addition to regular Smithing Stones, there are also Somber Smithing Stones that are necessary for upgrading special weapons, such as those obtained from defeating bosses or finding treasure chests in dungeons. Somber Smithing Stones are rarer than normal ones, but also require fewer upgrades to fully max out a weapon’s effectiveness. Like regular Smithing Stones, there are several tiers of Somber Smithing Stones. Each one, as well as the upgrade level they correspond to, is listed below.

Smithing Stone upgrade materials are considerably rarer than Titanite Shards from the Dark Souls series, but you can still find lots of them if you know where to look. Overall, the best place to find Smithing Stones is in mines that you can find in most of Elden Ring’s major regions. These locations are typically labelled as “tunnels” (for example, the Limgrave Tunnels) and almost always have a large number of Smithing Stones or Somber Smithing Stones in them, represented by orange or silver crystals, respectively. Generally, you’ll find more advanced types of Smithing Stones in higher level regions.

In addition to finding them in mines and caves, you can also come across Smithing Stones throughout your journey in other ways as well. These include:

• Finding them scattered throughout the open world
• Finding them in treasure chests
• Finding them as a drop from defeated enemies

To get a permanent supply of Smithing Stones, you’ll need to thoroughly search the Lands Between for Bell Bearings. These exceedingly rare items are typically either dropped by minibosses at the end of dungeons or found in treasure chests within enemy-controlled ruins. Once you’ve got one, take it to the Twin Maiden Husks in Roundtable Hold’s left wing. Once you give it to them, they’ll begin selling an infinite supply of a few tiers of Smithing Stone or Somber Smithing Stone.

Elden Ring is finally here, and it’s available for $60 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC. It’s one of the best Xbox games you can play right now if you’re a fan of challenging RPGs, and we strongly recommend it.