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Stormveil Castle is likely the first legacy dungeon you'll face in Elden Ring. It's the key to progressing further into the game and exploring more of the map, as it sits between Limgrave and Liurnia of The Lakes. A legacy dungeon is the most challenging dungeon in the area. It's one of the largest, and it harbors some of the strongest bosses.

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The boss in this area will allow you to kill your first demi-God and shardbearer, giving you access to a Great Rune. Lots of interesting loot and items can be found along the way, and you may want to bring a friend along for the ride. Killing Margit, The Fell Omen is necessary to access Stormveil Castle. Here is a thorough guide on how to beat him.

Updated December 2, 2023, by Sean Murray: Stormveil Castle can be a maze, but this walkthrough will help you get from the castle entrance to Godrick the Grafted in no time. That's why we've updated it with improved formatting, more breakout tips, and links to other helpful Elden Ring topics.

Entering Stormveil Castle

Elden Ring Stormveil Main Gate

After beating Margit and walking up the stairs, the first thing you want to do is decide if you wish to go through the main gate or the side entrance. Entering the room on your left, an NPC will suggest you go along the cliffside to take everyone by surprise instead of opening the front gate. To open the front gate, you must tell this NPC you would rather use the front entrance instead.

If you have him open the gate, you can still go through the cliffside should you change your mind.

We recommend not going in via the main gate. It is the most difficult route. By entering through here, you're instantly met with multiple projectile bolts that will two-shot you and shoot from enemies up above with speed. While this is happening, there's an army of enemies up the road, at least three blockades. The items you see past the gate are Golden Runes and Bolts.

The NPC who tells you to go along the cliffside is Gatekeeper Gostoc, and he is a liar. Every time you die on this route, he will take a portion of your runes. It's completely fine to murder him - he will drop a bell that you can give to the Twink Husks at the Roundtable Hold. This will let you buy his items even after he's dead.

If you rather go along the cliffside, skip this next portion and head to The Side Entrance section of the guide.

The Main Gate

Elden Ring Stormveil Castle shrouded in fog against a dark sky in Elden Ring.

If you do choose this route, the first thing you want to do is run up to the enemies shooting the bolts. You'll have to run inside while timing your dodges and then head left, going up the stone stairs. Keep going all the way up until you find the guilty party. Once they're taken care of, you can take your time getting rid of the many enemies below. Patience is key, only because there are enough enemies here to overwhelm you if you're not careful.

We recommend accessing the site of grace in this location. If you go back down the stone steps, an indoor area with this site of grace known as Gateside Chamber should be to your right.

It's best to slowly walk up to the enemies and lure a couple out one by one instead of running in guns blazing. Once all those enemies are taken care of, the madness isn't over. Down the road to the right, there seems to be another area to enter. The big space to the right of the road harbors a large and strong enemy, a lion-like creature. If you walk this way, be prepared to lose more health and flasks.

Past the lion is a site of grace and a large bridge that you won't need to access until after killing Godrick. The bridge holds three giant sentinels that will all attack you at once.

Directly up the road, upon entering through the main gate, there are more projectiles and dodging. Enemies above will be launching fire at you with great speed, so you must run and dodge up the stairs until you can access them and kill them first and foremost. After doing so, you'll notice you're in a courtyard full of many, many enemies. You can either sprint past everyone so that you can reach the site of grace way above them, or you can take your time.

As you can see, going through the main gate is risky because there are no breaks between all the enemies you have to face. You'll have to use your flasks sparingly. By the time you reach this courtyard, you may have no flasks left, and one mistake will have you starting all over again.

Entering through the main gate is harder but skips a couple of steps that the side entrance would have you do. The main gate entrance allows you to access the courtyard faster.

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The Side Entrance

Stormveil Castle cliffside 1

As soon as you walk out to the cliffside, there's a summoning pool statue. To your left, you can drop to find some minor loot. You can't jump back up, but by going through the large hole in the wall, you can reach Margit's site of grace and walk back up again. You can also just fast-travel out of the area. You want to go right and walk up along the small ledge from the summoning pool. It's time for parkour.

Stormveil Castle cliffside 2

Soon you'll find a more open field you can jump down to, ending the nervous ledge climbing. If you listen closely, you can hear strange enemies. These are birds with swords attached to their feet. Slowly go to the left, and you'll notice a large bird perched on a rock. Ranged damage is best here, as you can almost kill them before they get too close. Otherwise, you'll have to get close enough to aggro him and then lure him into the more open field. There are two more birds below the short cliff and rocks.

You could kill all the sword birds in this area, but it's unnecessary because there is a site of grace directly to the right upon entering this area. If you go to the left, kill the birds, and continue going around, there are at least three more birds to deal with. One is on the ground at the base of a tree. If you use target lock, you'll find two more birds hiding in the tree branches.

Ranged attacks are a good way to lure one out at a time and do damage without them doing damage first.

Stormveil Cliffside Site of Grace

At this next site of grace, the Stormveil Cliffside, you will continue upward, where you'll visibly see an enemy standing at the top of the stairs. As soon as he sees you, he will blow a horn and attract two more of his kind. These guys run fast and can easily make you panic while you're on the cliffside stairs, resulting in your death. You can either make your way up as he turns around and stealth-kill him or slowly lure everyone out.

If you walk around the entrance inside, there's a corpse with some minor loot, and an enemy above will see you and take aim with a bow. If you have ranged, it's helpful to take him out from this distance now. Two smaller enemies are sitting down inside the building that will get up as you walk in. Up the wooden stairs is imminent death if you're not careful. You'll want to dash and roll through the barrels before they blow up in your face.

There are two enemies farther up that throw fireballs at you, and all the barrels in front of you are explosive. The best thing to do here is to rush them, weaving through their projectiles. They'll fall to one or two strikes.

The second platform here has a locked door. You'll get the key to this as you progress through this area. A bigger enemy is patrolling behind the stairs if you go back down to the first floor. He is guarding a weapon, the Hookclaw. The Hookclaw is reminiscent of Wolverine's claws and causes bleed, making it a powerful weapon.

Going back up the stairs and past the locked door, there will be more barrels and a guy further from them, ready to explode them. To your right is an item and access to the location of the previous archers - you can drop safely from that ledge to find more loot. Otherwise, you can attack the guy down the hall or bait him to explode the barrels and then rush him.

Stormveil Cliffside hitting knight through door

After that, break all the boxes in the way of the stairs upward. One resting enemy will get up as you walk up to him. The room is empty, but there's a door. Behind the door is a very strong knight. As you open the door, you'll black screen and load into a fight. You'll be stuck in a pitch-black room with this enemy. You won't be able to see a thing, and there are tons of breakable objects in everyone's way.

If you can't beat him on the first try, we recommend luring him out into the well-lit area since the door won't be shut behind you the second time, and he can't leave the room. You can pelt him with ranged attacks from here. You'll want to take advantage of this if you're having a hard time.

After defeating the knight, check the rest of the room for the Rusty Key. This item will let you unlock the wooden door at the lower level.

Behind the door is a ladder going up. To your right are some enemies and platforms that you can jump across to get some loot, including the Brick Hammer. There will be a smaller enemy that will surprise you to your left. Onward, you'll go up some steps and find another weak enemy you can backstab. Go left and walk up the spiral staircase, but blindly rush ahead.

Another knight is patrolling inside this next area, and he's a tough one with a spear. All you have to do is wait for him to walk up to the entrance and turn around. Then you can sneak past him and up the stairs.

If you want to fight, though, he will turn his back to the entrance a lot - backstab city!

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Stormveil Rooftops, Rampart Tower Grace

Once up the stairs, you'll see the next site of grace in a room in front of you. Continuing up the stairs, you'll find minor enemies and some loot. There is a lift to the right on the second floor that the grace is on that you'll gain access to later for a shortcut.

Starting from the Rampart Tower site of grace, you must exit to the rooftops of the castle. There is a summoning pool statue there. Your next enemies, or victims, are three sword birds that will attempt to carry explosive barrels toward you. Ranged attacks are the best for this foe again but beware of explosions.

You can kill one bird at a time as they aren't that close together.

Then you'll continue down the path, walking on the rooftops. There will be a large hole connecting the two rooftops you can walk on. Dropping down the hole is safe, and a friendly NPC is to the right.

This is Sorcerer Rogier, and he can sell you some Ashes of War. Once you've beaten Godrick, he'll be at the Roundtable Hold, where you can talk to him to get a nice Rogier's Rapier +8.

On the other rooftop is a ladder down to a bridge that holds another knight and a lackey. You can range attack the smaller guy from this rooftop and kill him. This triggers the knight to go up the ladder and hunt you down. You can easily avoid him by having him chase you around the outer edges of the hole. He will stop running at you and slowly walk around the hole at a certain point. This is your chance to get in some easy ranged attacks.

The Dining Room Knight

Stormveil Castle sneaking to dining room

Walk down the pathway the knight was on to enter the next area. This is safe until you encounter a dead troll hanging to your left and some sacks piled up to your right. Dead ahead is a dining room with yet another knight. You can take a path to your right that will grant you access to the items you see on a balcony to your left. All you have to do is jump over the sacks, backstab the one weak enemy there, and continue up the stairs where there should be a ladder to the rooftops.

From here, you can jump onto the balcony. This is also a shortcut past the knight, as there's a door you unlock. Don't skip the dining room, though, as there's a treasure chest inside. You can sneak your way to the chest or take on the large foe.

After the knight, there will be a couple of smaller enemies to take care of—one to your left, two near the stairs, and then a couple on the ground floor. After them, there is a big and nasty enemy to take care of. Though it's easy to get overwhelmed, all it takes is some dodging and blocking to beat this enemy.

Down to the left is access to the lift connected to the Rampart Tower site of grace. It's important to enable this lift because you have to walk back through every enemy again once you die in this area. The lift allows you to skip everything and head straight to the courtyard.

Facing the lift, to the left, is where that hanging troll was. Three dogs are in there; take them down and pick up Chrysalid's Memento. Exiting this area and heading straight, you'll find a blocked-off area that requires a Stonesword Key. Inside this area are three enemies and an Iron Whetblade to loot.

Going back to where you took out the large enemy in the middle of the room, head to the top left. This is where you'll gain access to the courtyard full of dozens of enemies.

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The Courtyard

Elden Ring Stormveil Castle side entrance to courtyard

There are two things you can do here: call for help and brute force or run past everyone yourself to get to the site of grace behind them. Ranged attacks through the door won't suffice because many enemies control catapults. The best option is rushing at them and taking them down quickly, one by one, with the aid of some spirits.

Past them is even more trouble, a large troll-like enemy called an Omen. You can get him to break the glowing statue on the ground to access the items inside.

There's a room to the left of this troll that contains a painting. Either way, behind all these enemies, is the next grace to the left inside a room and more enemies to the right, up the stairs. Heading to the grace is safest.

Liftside Chamber Site Of Grace

Elden Ring Stormveil Castle looking toward secluded cell grace

Starting at the Liftside Chamber site of grace, go back outside; you will find a summoning pool statue. Continuing down the cobblestone path leads you to more enemies that can be avoided. There's only a sword bird and one or two smaller enemies.

Near the site of grace, there's a short alleyway where you'll find an item on a corpse. By dropping down, you'll enter a secret area: Stormveil Castle's Underground Crypt. This is a short trip to a mini-boss version of the Ulcerated Tree Spirit. By defeating him, you'll receive a Golden Seed. Down where the boss spawned is a special talisman, Prince of Death's Pustule.

Take the lift down from the grace, and you'll come across a scarab beetle and some pot enemies. You can parkour around the ledges to the right to access more loot. Downward is a summoning pool statue and the next side of grace, Secluded Cell. This is your last stop before the boss. In this hall, there will be the boss fog wall and a troll. You may have been farming trolls for runes, and one troll is no biggy.

There is a Golden Seed in that smaller courtyard if you can take this troll down.

How To Defeat Godrick And Activate His Great Rune

Elden Ring Godrick The Grafted with dragon arm

If you find yourself struggling to kill Godrick, try activating the nearby summoning pool and bringing friends along. Players have to learn Godrick's attacks and use his weaknesses. This guide explains multiple different strategies for different players.

By defeating Godrick, you'll gain access to your first Great Rune. Great Runes must be activated at Divine Towers. Luckily, there's one attached to the castle. That's at the Limgrave Tower Bridge site of grace, where large rock sentinels form on a broken bridge. These enemies are pretty tough to take down. If you rather save them for later, you can always rush towards the very end of the bridge. A portal is at the end, which teleports you to the Divine Tower.

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