Elden Ring is full of “tough” enemies (I’m lookin’ at you, Revenant), but you’d probably be surprised to find out that Elden Ring’s toughest foe is actually one that can’t really hurt you back.
In VaatiVidya’s latest video discussing Elden Ring secrets, he talks about the game’s hidden “hardness” stat which dictates whether your attack does damage or simply bounces off an opponent. You might have noticed that enemies like the Glintstone Miners, Crystalians, and even the humble tortoises will cause a one-handed weapon to bounce if you perform just a regular attack. That’s because these enemies have a certain hardness that must be overcome by two-handing your weapon or performing heavy attacks.
The hardness stat applies tiers to both enemies and weapons, with enemies only taking damage if they’re struck one-handed by a weapon of a matching or higher tier. Glintstone Miners, for example, have tier-two hardness requiring great sword or great axe to defeat (more details can be found on Fextralife). However, there is one enemy that has the highest hardness in the game, making it impervious to one-handed strikes from any weapon.
Introducing the Crystaline Crab of Raya Lucaria. These crabs can be found around the Academy and in the surrounding Glintstone caverns, and no matter how hard you try, no one-handed weapon can damage them. You’ll need to use two hands to crack their diamond-hard shells. There’s also one particular crab that drops the Lazuli Glintstone Crown.
Elsewhere in Vaati’s video, you can find out about the secret way to kill Melina in Elden Ring’s opening act, the real-life army that inspired the Mausoleum Knight’s feathery back bling, and the Overkill mechanic that can increase your rune farming by 20 percent so long as you deal 150 percent of an enemy’s HP in damage.
And did you ever wonder why there are coffin elevators in Siofra and Ainsel Rivers? There’s some debate on the subject, but the consensus among Tarnished is that the Nox used these coffins to transport their dead throughout their underground realm. And since they had to do it a lot, they enchanted those coffins to even go back up waterfalls once they’d deposited their cargo.
