Elden Ring Earthbore Cave Guide: How to Beat the Runebear
You'd think that the Runebear might drop more Runes.
Welcome to The Lands Between, where for every hour you spend playing Elden Ring, there'll likely be a dungeon for you to traverse. There are so many dungeons that you'll likely still find some tucked away long after becoming Elden Lord.
Earthbore Cave is one of those that is easily missed, but for those of us who utilise crafting in Elden Ring, it's a must visit. The cave is home to various crafting materials, a shiny new talisman, and the Runebear.
The Runebear is much like the other bears that can be found roaming around The Lands Between, and despite the name, they don't drop as many Runes as you'd think. In this guide, we've explained how to make your way through Earthbore Cave without missing out on any loot, and how to beat the Runebear.
Earthbore Cave Items
- Pickled Turtle Neck
- Silver Fireflies
- Cave Moss
- Smoldering Butterfly
- Trina's Lily
- Glowstone
- Rainbow Stone
- Kukri
- Spelldrake Talisman
How to make your way through Earthbore Cave
Earthbore Cave can be found along the northern coast of Weeping Peninsula, to the east of Demi-Human Forest Ruins. Fortunately, once you reach the cave itself, it's rather straight-forward to navigate.
Grab the Grace and advance ahead, but be cautious of the floor in the next room. In front of the chest, the floor is trapped and you will fall into a pit of rats. Navigate around the hole shown below and pick up the Cave Moss here (you'll find a lot of this), and open the chest to loot 3x Pickled Turtle Neck. Continue following the tunnel to the right.
You'll eventually come to a corpse that you can loot a Golden Rune from, but also take caution of the rats that are going to be bothering you from here onwards.
Continue through the tunnel. You'll soon reach an area with multiple rats, including a giant one. You can clear these and continue, or run past through the cavern and the next tunnel until you reach another small area with rats and corpses. Loot the corpses of 5x Glowstone and 8x Kukri, and once again, continue onwards through the tunnel.
You'll soon reach a large hole in the ground, and thus, what appears to be a dead end. Look down, and you'll see that there is a platform along the inside of the hole. Make your way down and hop to the bottom carefully.
At the bottom, there are multiple Silver Fireflies and more Cave Moss. Continue on through the caves here, and you'll soon arrive at the yellow misted gate which takes you to the Runebear.
How to beat the Runebear
As you traverse the yellow mist, take a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet as the Runebear sleeps away. He seems so peaceful. That is up until you take a few stops closer to him and he realises that Tarnished are disturbing him from his slumber.
For fighting a bear, the arena you find yourself in is rather small. Be prepared to do a lot of running, and there is a small platform on one side of the arena for you to position yourself on. The bear can still attack you here, however.
Like with most early fights in Elden Ring, your best bet for the Runebear if you're struggling is to recruit those trusty Spirit Ashes. This way, a summon can take some of the aggro for a short while, so you can attempt to land some attacks on the Runebear.
That being said, the bear is big, and the arena is quite small in comparison. Due to this, it's likely that you're not going to be able to avoid every hit, so have some health flasks to hand and be prepared to trade HP here and there.
The best way to counter the Runebear is using melee, as attacking at range can prove difficult given the size restrictions of the room.
At a mid-range distance, you can comfortably dodge the Runebear's attacks when you're prepared, and can then use a weapon skill or Ash of War with a relatively good AoE to attack. As I was running and Intelligence build, most of my spells were useless here, so I managed this with the Rivers of Blood katana and its Corpse Piler weapon skill. However, a spell like Carian Piercer could work well here.
On the other hand, you can keep at a close range to the Runebear and simply dodge through their attacks for the most part. If you learn the attack pattern - which isn't that complicated - you can simply dodge through his attacks and then go in for an attack of your own.
Additionally, if you can attack the Runebear multiple times in quick succession, he can be staggered so that you can deal additional damage. Take advantage of this if you're planning on rolling through attacks. If you're confident you can time it right, this is arguably the quicker way to take Runebear down.
With the Runebear felled, you'll acquire the Spelldrake Talisman, and unfortunately, a relatively measly amount of Runes.
That's all there is when it comes to felling the Runebear of Earthbore Cave. For more dungeons across The Lands Between, I recommend Sellia Crystal Tunnels and Sage's Cave for some sweet loot. In the meantime, take a look at our guide to Elden Ring for more.