The promised updated progression system in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree revolves around items called Scadutree Fragments, fallen leaves of the large, bent Scadutree that dominates the skyline in the Realm of Shadow. How does the system work? It’s complicated and will need very thorough testing, but we’ll go over the basics in this guide.
How Scadutree Fragment Progression Works in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
At their most basic, spending Scadutree Fragments to increase your Scadutree Blessing provides a flat increase to the attack rating (AR) of all of your weapons, including your fists, and a flat increase to your damage negation or the defenses provided by your armor. Early on, spending Scadutree Fragmes provides larger increases, with diminishing returns as your upgrade level continues to rise. Note that Scadutree Blessing is only ever active in the Realm of Shadow DLC area and has no effect on the base game zones.
I did a lot of testing and math as I played through Shadow of the Erdtree, and eventually settled on the following. As I tracked my Cross-Naginata character leveling up, I gained about 30 AR on my weapons, which was around 640 attack rating at base. That comes out to about 5% with rounding. In other words, every time you upgrade your Scadutree Blessing, you’ll gain 5% of whatever your base stats are in both Attack Power and Damage Negation. The returns are technically front-loaded, as you’ll spend more and more Scadutree Fragments to upgrade your Blessing the higher that Blessing score becomes, but each upgrade appears to be a completely flat upgrade. You can, of course, check your base values by returning to the Lands Between or the Roundtable Hold
With that info in mind, I can also say with 100% certainty that even at 15 Scadutree Blessing, some of the bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree could one-shot me with 60 Vigor, Opaline Hard Tear, Golden Vow, and Boiled Crab all active at once. Don’t take that as an excuse not to have 60 Vigor, though, as plenty of those bosses’ other attacks did not one-shot me, and I was able to actually learn how to deal with the weaker strikes more easily because of it.
Long story short, collecting and spending Scadutree Fragments for more Scadutree Blessing will absolutely make you deal more damage and take less in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. The Blessing won’t make you invincible, nor will it win the game for you, but even a few levels can make a massive difference in your performance in the DLC.
For more on Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree and the game in general, check out the Elden Ring guides hub, where we’ve covered things like the best invasion levels, whether you should kill all NPCs in the DLC, and more.
