5 best ways to obtain plenty of runes early in Elden Ring

Runes are the primary currency in Elden Ring that can be used to get practically anything. This includes buying weapons, armor, and equipment and leveling up the character.

However, the issue with runes is that while in the end-game, killing bosses and other enemies drop enough runes, early-game players often find it difficult. This leads to tiresome rune farming that can take several hours without any fruitful results.

Fortunately, there are a few spots where players can go to obtain many runes to level up enough before fighting the major bosses within the game. This includes both rune farming spots and a few easy cheese methods.

Note: All the methods are perfectly functional as of patch 1.04

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Every way players can farm/cheese runes early in Elden Ring

1) Elder Dragon

The Elder Dragon in Elden Ring is one of the best ways to obtain 50000 runes in an instant (Image via Elden Ring)

There is an Elder Dragon in Elden Ring that sits on a cliff very close to Fort Faroth in Caelid. This dragon is simply seated in one place and does not move under any circumstances.

All players need to do is just walk up to it and start hitting it with a bleed weapon. The bleed weapon is kind of mandatory as the dragon has a lot of health, and without the bleed status effect proc, it will take ages to kill it.

Once the dragon dies, it drops around 50000 runes for players right away. To reach the dragon, players must first teleport to Bestial Sanctum from the Third Church of Marika in Limgrave.

Then they should cross the Farum Greatbridge, take a right, use the cloudlift for Torrent, and the dragon should be right in front. It is important to remember that this is a cheese and can only be done once.

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2) Rolling Ball Farm

Players can use the rolling ball method to obtain over 100,000 runes in around 30 minutes (Image via Elden Ring)

This is a method that players can perform consistently to obtain 2000 runes every minute. The spot can be found right outside Lenne's Rise in Caelid.

Right in front of Lenne's Rise, there is a path that goes all the way downhill. If players walk up a little bit, a rolling ball spawns behind their back like an ambush. However, players should take a 90-degree turn while dodging the ball as soon as it spawns.

The ball rolls off the cliff, and players will get 2000 runes immediately. Fortunately, the site of grace is near this spot, which means players can continue to do this repeatedly and obtain around 100,000 runes in 30 minutes.

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3) Bird Farm

The bird rune farm method is still the most efficient in Elden Ring (Image via Arekkz Gaming/YouTube)

This is a rune farm spot that players will find in the Moghwyn Palace area, just outside the "Place Approach Ledge Road" site of grace. To reach this place early, players must complete a small side quest that can be obtained from White Mask Varre in Limgrave.

Either way, once players reach that aforementioned site of grace, they will see a cliff to the left. On the other side of the cliff, there is an area where players will get to see a bird walking around.

Simply shooting this bird with an arrow triggers it to run towards players while falling down the cliff and dropping 13200 runes. Players can keep doing this repeatedly to obtain several thousand runes in a matter of minutes.

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4) Normal Mob farm

The mobs right near the bird farm spot are also dropping sufficient runes as of Elden Ring's patch 1.04 (Image via Arekkz Gaming/YouTube)

As mentioned above, this rune farm location exists right near the same area where players will be farming the bird. Instead of looking down the cliff, if players walk up a little bit from the site of grace, they will see a bunch of enemies sleeping and doing nothing.

All players need to do is bring an area of effect spell or something like the rock sling sorcery and start killing all these enemies. They are pretty harmless and drop many runes. This location is one of the prime areas for rune farming as players can kill the bird and these mobs all in one run.

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5) Troll Rune Farm

The Troll rune farm spot is not the most efficient, but it still works quite well (Image via Elden Ring)

The last rune farm location that players should consider is the trolls in Stormhill. This area is one of the easiest to reach, even though it is not as efficient as the ones mentioned earlier.

Right near the Warmaster's Shack site of grace, players will find five of those giant trolls roaming in a large area. Killing each drops 1000 runes at a time, and players can obtain around 5000 runes in one run. It takes a bit of time, but these many runes are not bad early in the game.