If your Mimic Tear is getting one-shot in Shadow of the Erdtree while your own damage feels fine, you are missing the summoner half of the DLC's hidden level system. Revered Spirit Ash is the upgrade material that powers the Revered Spirit Ash Blessing — a separate scaling track that makes your Spirit Ash summons and your mount Torrent hit harder and survive longer inside the Realm of Shadow. It is the exact counterpart to the Scadutree Blessing that scales you, and if you only level one of the two, half your power is sitting on the table.
This guide covers what Revered Spirit Ash does, the full upgrade chart with exact multipliers, how many exist (the number matters more than you think), where the earliest ones are, and how high to level before each DLC wall. Every figure here is verified against the live Elden Ring Wiki and cross-checked against Game8 and Rock Paper Shotgun. It applies to the base game on Version 1.17 with the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion installed.
Quick answer: Revered Spirit Ash in 30 seconds
- What it is: an optional upgrade material found only in the Realm of Shadow (the Shadow of the Erdtree map).
- What it does: raises your Revered Spirit Ash Blessing, which buffs the damage dealt and damage negated by your summoned Spirit Ashes and by Torrent — nothing else.
- Where it works: inside the Realm of Shadow only. It does nothing back in the Lands Between (the base game).
- How to use it: rest at any Site of Grace in the DLC and pick the Revered Spirit Ash Blessing option.
- Max level: +10, which costs 25 Revered Spirit Ashes total.
- The catch: there are exactly 25 in the entire DLC. No spares. Miss one and you cannot reach +10 on that playthrough.
If you summon at all in the DLC — and against fights like Rellana, Messmer and Promised Consort Radahn, most players do — Revered Spirit Ash is not optional. It is the difference between a summon that tanks a boss and one that dies in the opening combo.
What is the Revered Spirit Ash Blessing?
Shadow of the Erdtree does not use your character level to gate difficulty. Instead it layers two DLC-only scaling systems on top of your build, both upgraded by resting at a Site of Grace:
- Scadutree Blessing, fed by Scadutree Fragments — raises your damage dealt and damage negated.
- Revered Spirit Ash Blessing, fed by Revered Spirit Ash — raises your summons' and Torrent's damage dealt and damage negated.
The in-game item description is explicit about the split: "The Revered Spirit Ash Blessing bolsters both summoned spirits' and spectral steed's abilities to deal and negate damage but has no influence outside the realm of shadow." So a fully-leveled Scadutree Blessing makes you strong, but if your Revered Spirit Ash Blessing is still at 0, your Mimic Tear, Black Knife Tiche or any other Spirit Ash is fighting the DLC's bosses at base power — which is why summon-reliant players hit a wall that pure-melee players do not.
Crucially, this is the only way to scale summons in the DLC. Upgrading a Spirit Ash with Grave Glovewort in the base game still matters, but inside the Realm of Shadow the Revered Spirit Ash Blessing is the dominant multiplier. Leaving it at 0 while your Scadutree Blessing climbs is the single most common summoner mistake in Shadow of the Erdtree.
Revered Spirit Ash upgrade chart (exact multipliers)
Here is the full level table, verified from the live Elden Ring Wiki (data as of Patch 1.12 and unchanged since). "Damage Dealt" and "Damage Taken" apply to your summons and Torrent, not to you.
| Blessing Level | Ashes for this level | Melee damage dealt | Magic damage dealt | Damage taken | Total ashes used |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 1.000x | 1.000x | 1.000x | 0 |
| 1 | 1 | 1.075x | 1.075x | 0.932x | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | 1.150x | 1.150x | 0.875x | 2 |
| 3 | 1 | 1.225x | 1.225x | 0.827x | 3 |
| 4 | 2 | 1.300x | 1.300x | 0.786x | 5 |
| 5 | 2 | 1.400x | 1.375x | 0.730x | 7 |
| 6 | 3 | 1.566x | 1.450x | 0.661x | 10 |
| 7 | 3 | 1.647x | 1.525x | 0.636x | 13 |
| 8 | 3 | 1.728x | 1.600x | 0.613x | 16 |
| 9 | 4 | 1.809x | 1.675x | 0.593x | 20 |
| 10 | 5 | 1.890x | 1.750x | 0.575x | 25 |
Two things jump out. First, at +10 your summons deal roughly 1.89x melee damage and take only 0.575x damage — nearly double the output and almost half the damage taken. That is an enormous swing for a mechanic many players ignore. Second, the cost ramps hard at the top: the last level alone costs 5 ashes, and levels 6 through 10 together cost 18 of the 25. The early levels are cheap and high-impact; the final few are a completionist tax.
How many Revered Spirit Ashes are there? (The number that bites people)
There are exactly 25 Revered Spirit Ashes in Shadow of the Erdtree, and reaching +10 costs all 25. There is no surplus whatsoever. This is different from Scadutree Fragments, where the DLC hands you extras. With Revered Spirit Ash, every single one you walk past is a level you will not get back on that save.
That makes the collection route itself a priority if you summon. Unlike a boss you can retry, a missed statue in a one-way area can lock you out of +10 for the rest of the run. Because they are scattered off the beaten path and some drop from enemies rather than sitting on altars, a blind playthrough will usually finish the DLC somewhere around +6 to +8 — enough, but not maxed.
Where to find the earliest Revered Spirit Ashes
Revered Spirit Ash is most often found resting on Revered Statues — the withered tutelary-deity corpses that decorate villages across the Realm of Shadow — and occasionally as enemy drops. Here are the earliest pickups, so you can start stacking the blessing in your first hour of the DLC:
- Gravesite Plain — on a small altar north-east of the Gravesite Plain Site of Grace, past the white tree hung with bodies. This is usually the first one you can grab.
- Cliffroad Terminus — at an altar east of the Cliffroad Terminus Site of Grace, near the pond with small turtles.
- Scorched Ruins — 1x by a cliff east of the Scorched Ruins (just west across the gap from the Church of Consolation).
- Abandoned Ailing Village — looted from a broken Revered Statue guarded by Man-Fly enemies.
- Temple Town Ruins — on the altar near the edge, to the south.
- Belurat Tower Settlement — 2x on an altar in the Spider-Scorpion room shortly after you enter, plus more scattered inside the settlement.
- Divine Beast Dancing Lion reward area — after the fight, take the lift on the right side of the arena, go through the large door, and the altar nearby holds one.
Because the value is where things are, use the Realm of Shadow interactive map to run a collection loop rather than hunting blind — the early-region statues above alone will push you to roughly +4 or +5, which is where the summon survivability curve starts to feel dramatically better.
How high should you level before each boss?
Exact blessing targets are community consensus, not official, and they matter far more than your character level. But a reliable rule of thumb for summoners:
- Early DLC (Gravesite Plain, Belurat): aim for +3 to +5. The damage-taken drop from 1.0x to ~0.73x is what keeps your summon alive through the opening legacy dungeon.
- Rellana, Twin Moon Knight (Castle Ensis): +5 to +6 pairs well with a Scadutree Blessing around +3–5. Her twin-blade strings shred an under-leveled summon.
- Messmer the Impaler (Shadow Keep): +6 to +8. His phase-2 serpent AoE punishes a fragile Mimic Tear; the lower damage-taken multiplier here is the whole point.
- Promised Consort Radahn (Enir-Ilim, final boss): +8 to +10 if you can get there. His Light of Miquella and holy combos will delete a weak summon instantly, and every point of damage negation buys your Mimic Tear another few seconds of aggro.
Prioritize the blessing over your character stats inside the DLC. A level-150 character at Revered Spirit Ash +2 will watch their summon evaporate; a level-120 character at +8 will have a Mimic Tear that genuinely holds a boss. The blessing is the lever.
Best summons to pair with a high blessing
The multiplier scales whatever you summon, so it rewards the strongest Spirit Ashes most:
- Mimic Tear — copies your gear and estus-free, so a high blessing turns it into a second you that hits for ~1.89x and tanks at ~0.58x. The default pick for most fights.
- Black Knife Tiche — high single-target damage and evasive; the blessing keeps her alive long enough to land her life-steal pokes.
- Redmane Knight Ogha / Dragon Knight Kristoff — durable aggro-holders that benefit enormously from the damage-taken reduction.
Note the chart lists melee and magic damage separately — at +10 melee reaches 1.89x while magic reaches 1.75x — so pure-caster Spirit Ashes gain slightly less than melee ones, but still a large amount. Pairing a high Revered Spirit Ash Blessing with an aggro-magnet summon is the closest thing the DLC has to an easy mode, and it is entirely legitimate.
FAQ
What does Revered Spirit Ash do in Elden Ring? It raises your Revered Spirit Ash Blessing, which increases the damage your summoned Spirit Ashes and your mount Torrent deal, and reduces the damage they take. It only works inside the Realm of Shadow (the Shadow of the Erdtree map) and has no effect in the base game's Lands Between.
What is the max Revered Spirit Ash Blessing level? +10. Reaching it requires 25 Revered Spirit Ashes total, and the cost rises as you level — the final level alone needs 5 ashes.
How many Revered Spirit Ashes are in the DLC? Exactly 25, which is also the exact amount needed for +10. There are no extras, so a missed pickup means you cannot max the blessing on that playthrough.
Is Revered Spirit Ash the same as Scadutree Fragment? No. Scadutree Fragments raise the Scadutree Blessing that scales your damage and defense; Revered Spirit Ash raises the Revered Spirit Ash Blessing that scales your summons and Torrent. They are two separate materials and two separate blessing tracks, both upgraded at a Site of Grace.
Where do I upgrade the Revered Spirit Ash Blessing? At any Site of Grace in the Realm of Shadow. Once you hold enough Revered Spirit Ash, a new option appears in the Grace menu alongside the Scadutree Blessing upgrade. It is entirely optional and can be ignored if you never summon.
Should I level Revered Spirit Ash if I play solo without summons? If you never summon a Spirit Ash and rarely fight from Torrent, the blessing does little for you — put your exploration time into Scadutree Fragments instead. But even "solo" players usually summon a Mimic Tear for the hardest fights, in which case a few early levels are well worth grabbing.
Keep leveling up your Tarnished
Revered Spirit Ash is one half of the Shadow of the Erdtree power curve — your summons' half. Master the other half, and the bosses it carries you through, with these guides:
- How to Beat Rellana, Twin Moon Knight — the DLC's first real skill check, where a leveled summon changes the fight.
- How to Beat Messmer the Impaler — Shadow Keep's final boss and a summon durability test.
- How to Beat Promised Consort Radahn (Phase 2 & the Light of Miquella) — the DLC's final wall, where +10 earns its keep.
- How to Access Shadow of the Erdtree — the Mohg + Radahn requirement to enter the Realm of Shadow in the first place.
