The first two Crystalian encounters are found in Liurnia of the Lakes. We advise you take on the solo boss at Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel first, as it’s the easiest of the fights and it drops arguably the most important item of the bunch, allowing you access to buy the first two levels of Smithing Stone at Roundtable Hold.
This Elden Ring boss guide will give you general pointers on defeating these enemies as you stumble across them, outlining their attacks and some strategies to avoid them. We’ll also outline the rewards you receive from each Crystalian encounter.
How to Beat the Crystalians in Elden Ring
Across the four boss fights, there are three variations of Crystalian, each with a different weapon. The Ringblade wielding version is the weakest and the one you will encounter alone in the Crystal Tunnel. The Spear and Staff variations are a bit tougher, but each has its own set of predictable patterns. It’s keeping track of them in tandem that is the trick to these fights.
A couple of crucial things first.
The Crystalians will have extremely high defense until you break their shells. If you have a Greatsword, Halberd, or better yet a powerful two-handed Blunt weapon, this is a perfect fight to use it. With the right build and weapon, it shouldn’t take more than 5 or 6 hits to break a Crystalian’s shell. You will know they are broken when they become staggered, leaving themselves vulnerable to a deadly frontstab.
All of the Crystalians are vulnerable to Bleed as well. If you are using a blood loss build, or have access to weapons or spells that inflict enemies with bleed, such as the Uchigatana, these bosses are particularly vulnerable.
Crystalian (Ringblade) Attacks
The Ringblade Crystalian appears in each of the four encounters but is the most harmless. They only have three moves in total. Two of them involve the boss throwing its ringblade forward. One is a horizontal frisbee-type toss, and the other is an underhanded, bowling-ball-type toss. They will also sometimes slowly swing their ringblade at you; a good time to get behind them and backstab!
The major thing to avoid is the Crystalian’s spinning attack. This is a tornado of devastation where the boss spins forward in a move that can take them most of the way across the room.
Crystalian (Spear) Attacks
The Crystalian encounters at Academy Crystal Cave and Altus Tunnel are virtually identical fights, albeit with stats mixed around and different rewards. They consist of one ringblade version accompanied by one attacking with a spear.
The spear Crystalian will chase after you, and once you get caught in close enough range of its strike, the foe is fast enough to combo a good chunk of your health off. Fortunately, this is basically its only move, occasionally followed by a powerful leaping strike that you should dodge out the way of when you see the boss fly into the air.
The best strategy for these multi-boss encounters is to lure the Spear version away from the others. This one is very easily baited, while the others tend not to run after you when you back away from them. You need to get into a routine of kiting the spear wielder far away from the Ringblade Crystalian and then running in to get hits on the slower enemy.
After a couple cycles of this maneuver, it should just be you and the Spear Crystalian left, at which point their limited move set and damage output makes them much more manageable.
Crystalian (Staff) Attacks
The most difficult Crystalian fight consists of both of the previous variations along with this new one. The staff-wielding foe joins the Putrid Crystalian Trio and on top of having one more enemy to eliminate than before, they all do Scarlet Rot damage now. For tips on how to raise immunity and heal from this status condition, check out our Scarlet Rot guide.
This Crystalian will do a few moves, all variations on tossing magic shards your way. One is a basic sling that is easy enough to dodge sideways. The other starts the same but is more of a wave of magic shards. Avoiding this move is similar to how you would avoid a dragon’s fire in Elden Ring. Dodge out of the way and then take advantage of the long attack, running up and around to get hits on the boss.
The final move the Staff Crystalian will make use of is an umbrella of shards raining down, protecting it from close-range attacks. You will want to dodge back from this attack, as the boss is letting you know you’re too close.
Like we said earlier, the staff and ringblade Crystalians will generally stay in place in the center of the arena. This means you can employ the same strategy of kiting the spear version around and then rushing in to deal melee damage to the others. Just watch out for that umbrella of magic shards.
Crystalian Boss Fight Rewards
Of the four (known) Crystalian fights in Elden Ring, two drop sorcery spells and the others drop Bell Bearings. You’ll need to be focusing on your INT stat to wield these powerful crystal spells, but the Bell Bearings are essential items for any build. These are to be given to the Twin Maiden Husks at Roundtable Hold to get the ability to purchase Smithing Stones, and Somber Smithing Stones, from the merchant.
The Academy Crystal Cave Crystalians: 3,300 Runes and the Crystal Release Sorcery. The Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel Crystalian: 3,000 Runes and the Smithing-Stone Miner’s Ball Bearing. The Atlus Tunnel Crystalian: 1,800 Runes and the Somberstone Miner’s Ball Bearing The Selia Hideaway Crystalians: 7,000 runes and the Crystal Torrent Sorcery
And that’s how to take down the Crystalian bosses in Elden Ring. If you want to know where to find some of the other best spells and incantations, the best weapons, or the Mimic Tear Ash Summons, you can find both in our guides section. We are constantly updating our Elden Ring guides hub, so check back in every day for more tips and walkthroughs.
