Why is Shadow of the Erdtree so difficult compared to Elden Ring?

Were you, too, worried about whether the new Shadow of the Erdtree DLC would scale properly with our top-tier characters? As Elden Ring came out years ago, it's a given that many of us have already had high-level avatars ready to kick, punch, slash, and pierce their way through any old boss FromSoftware could throw at us in the expansion pack!

Ah, but this isn't actually the case. As many have already found out, Shadow of the Erdtree is no pushover at all: as soon as you jump into the Realm of Shadow, you'll notice that all the enemies hit extremely hard and are exceedingly resistant to damage by default! Are you under-leveled so much? Well, no. There's a trick, instead.

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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Difficulty Spike explained

As we've mentioned a few times before, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree features a unique balancing system that is applied on top of your character's stats and level. If you find that you're simply too out-paced in the Realm of Shadow, over-leveling isn't the way to go. Instead, you need load and loads of Scadutree Fragments!

We highlighted how and where to find your first Scadutree Fragments in our rapid-fire starter guide for the Shadow of the Erdtree, and the gist of it is that you need to keep finding more of them to keep up with the DLC's difficulty curve - there's simply no other way to do so.

Scadutree Fragments increase your Scadutree Blessing level: each of these increases your character's Attack Power and Damage Negation by 4% and 2%, respectively. As you can imagine, this stacks up quite heavily, so finding Scadutree Fragments should be one of your primary objectives in this DLC!

Similarly, you should also be on the lookout for Revered Spirit Ashes, which boost your Revered Spirit Blessing level. Each level ups your Ashes and your Spectral Steed's Attack Power and Damage Negation by what appears to be the same values, so this will allow your summons to stay relevant in the Realm of Shadow.

So, in summary, absolutely make sure that you're finding as many Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes as possible. Otherwise, you will not be able to compete with the DLC's powerful foes and bosses at all, and it all might end up feeling quite unfair.

Get a copy of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC right here at 2Game!