The Ultimate Cragblade Ash Of War Location Guide Where To Find This Hidden Weapon In Elden Ring

Finding the Cragblade Ash of War

The Cragblade Ash of War sits in the Lands Between near Lake of Rot, and honestly it's easy to miss if you're just running past. You pick it up from a corpse on a dead branch hanging over a cliff in the southwest area of the lake. The branch itself is suspended above the scarlet rot waters, and the moment you step off it you start taking rot damage. You'll need some form of protection or you'll be sprinting back to the site of grace before you even get the weapon. Here's the exact route. From the Western Lake of Rot Site of Grace, head south along the shoreline. You'll see a large broken bridge structure ahead - don't go over it. Instead, look to your right at the cliff face. There's a ledge you can drop down to, then another ledge to the left. Follow that narrow path and you'll reach a gap where a fallen branch spans across to a small platform. The corpse is there. The Cragblade itself is an axe that applies the Ash of War on the first hit to inflict blood loss buildup, then the follow-up attack deals higher physical damage. It scales with strength and dexterity. That makes it viable for bleed builds but also usable on pure strength characters who just want something heavier than a normal axe.

I ran into a specific problem on my first attempt. The path to the branch has several enemies patrolling near the ledges - mostly flying dragonmen and a soldiers uniformed enemy. If you aggro them, they can knock you off the ledges into the rot below. What worked for me was using a flashpot from a distance to pull one away, then sprinting past the rest. You only have maybe three seconds before the second enemy spots you. Took me about five tries to get the timing right. Eventually I just used an ambush token and dropped down from above, which bypassed the whole encounter. One thing beginners consistently get wrong about this ash is the active skill timing. The skill "Bloodflame Blade" variant on this weapon has a slightly longer windup than the standard version because the axe swing is heavier. If you're trying to use it in PvP, you're going to get punished on the recovery frames if you whiff. This isn't a fast application tool. It's a deliberate commitment. In PvE it doesn't matter nearly as much, but it's worth knowing before you invest runs of SR. Another nuance people miss: the Cragblade can be modified with different ash of war applications after you pick it up. So finding the default one doesn't lock you in. You can replace it later with any ash of war you find, including the cheaper ones like Kick or Spinning Slash. The weapon itself remains the same - only the skill changes. That matters because the base stats of the axe are what determine your damage output, not the ash.

The main drawback of this weapon is its weight and speed. It's a heavy axe and heavy attacks are slow. Against fast opponents in multi-hit situations, you'll often be standing still swinging while they're already three hits in. If you're playing a nimble build, this weapon fights against your playstyle. A better alternative for bleed on lighter weapons would be the Rivers of Blood katana, though that's significantly harder to obtain and requires defeating Rykard. There's also the rot exposure issue. Even with immune or high resistance, you can't linger here long. My workaround was equipping the Mottled Necklace for extra resist and the Dragoncrest Shield Talisman for poise, then using the Spirit Summon Jellyfish as a buffer while I grabbed the item. The jellyfish draws aggro and its poison resistance helps you avoid dying if you get knocked into the water. The item description mentions the blade's edge is shaped like a crag or cliff face, which is just flavor text but it does explain the name. Don't bother trying to farm this ash repeatedly - there's only one copy in the entire game. If you die and the item drops from you, you'll need to return to where you died to reclaim it. Standard Elden Ring stuff.

Once you have it, upgrading the axe to +10 is straightforward through regular smithing stones. The upgrade path is standard. Fusion materials are the problem - you need a Gravelling Strike somber smithing stone plus a regular smithing stone for each level. That's a bit of a grind but nothing extreme. The Cragblade is solid mid-game. It won't carry you through Malenia or Messmer without investment, but for the early to mid areas it handles most encounters adequately. Just don't expect it to be a game-changing discovery. It's a decent axe with a workable passive, found in a location that's more annoying than dangerous if you know what you're doing.