If you have hit a wall in Elden Ring and keep reading "just use the Mimic Tear," there is a reason every guide says it: the Mimic Tear Ashes summon a full AI copy of you — your weapon, your armor, your talismans, your spells — to fight at your side. This guide covers exactly how to get the Mimic Tear in Elden Ring, the boss you must beat to open the path, the 660 HP it costs to summon, the one trick that makes it hit twice as hard, and how to upgrade it. Every detail below is verified against the Fextralife and Eldenpedia (wiki.gg) wikis on the current base game, patch 1.17.
Quick answer: The Mimic Tear Ashes are in a Stonesword Key–locked chest in Night's Sacred Ground, inside Nokron, Eternal City. You reach Nokron only after defeating Starscourge Radahn at Redmane Castle, which drops a star that opens a crater near Fort Haight in Limgrave. Summoning the Mimic costs 660 HP, not FP, so you need healthy Vigor. The spirit copies whatever gear, spells and consumables you have equipped the moment you summon it — so swap to your strongest setup first. Upgrade it with Ghost Glovewort via Roderika at Roundtable Hold; at +10 it has 3.3× the HP of the base version.
Key takeaways
- Where it is: a treasure chest behind a Stonesword Key imp statue in Night's Sacred Ground, Nokron, Eternal City (the underground city beneath Limgrave).
- How to reach it: defeat Starscourge Radahn first — his death drops a falling star that opens a crater near Fort Haight, which descends into Nokron.
- Summon cost: 660 HP, not FP. The item description reads "Summoning consumes HP rather than FP." Low-Vigor builds can die just from summoning.
- What it copies: your current loadout at the moment of summon — weapons (it can power-stance dual wields), armor, shields, talismans, spells/incantations, arrows and consumables. Change gear before you summon.
- Upgrade: Ghost Glovewort (the legendary/"renowned" ash material), tuned by Roderika at Roundtable Hold. +10 = 3.3× base HP.
- It is not cheese: it is an intended game mechanic, and even FromSoftware built the fight around it existing.
Where do you find the Mimic Tear in Elden Ring?
The Mimic Tear Ashes sit in a treasure chest in Night's Sacred Ground, a landmark area inside Nokron, Eternal City — one of the hidden underground cities beneath the Lands Between. The chest is sealed behind an imp statue fog door, so you will need one Stonesword Key to open it. That is the whole acquisition on paper. The hard part is getting to Nokron in the first place, because the city is locked behind a story boss.
Two things to keep straight before you go:
- Night's Sacred Ground is part of Nokron. Fextralife files the chest under Night's Sacred Ground; Eldenpedia files it under Nokron, Eternal City. They are the same place — Night's Sacred Ground is the inner district of Nokron — so do not waste time looking for two separate zones.
- The "Mimic Tear" boss is not the same thing as the Ashes. Nokron also contains a Mimic Tear boss fight (it drops the Silver Tear Mask, not the summon). Beating that boss does not give you the Spirit Ash, and the Ash does not require beating it. If a guide tells you to kill the Mimic boss to get the summon, it is wrong.
How do you unlock the path to Nokron?
You must defeat Starscourge Radahn. Radahn is the Demigod festival boss at Redmane Castle in southern Caelid (reached via the Impassable Greatbridge or the Site of Grace teleport inside the Radahn Festival). Per the wiki, the route to Nokron "is only opened after Starscourge Radahn is defeated" — his death triggers a falling star that crashes into Limgrave.
That impact opens a deep crater near Fort Haight, on the eastern edge of Limgrave. Drop into the chasm and follow it down and you will descend into Nokron, Eternal City. From there you work through the city to Night's Sacred Ground, which is also where the famous Fingerslayer Blade (part of Ranni's questline) lives — so many players grab the Mimic Tear and the Fingerslayer Blade on the same trip.
A few practical notes on the descent:
- The fall into Nokron is a long series of ledges and ruined rooftops. Take it slow; fall damage here is real, and there are Silver Tear enemies that mimic items and attack when you get close.
- You do not need to finish Ranni's questline to reach the Mimic Tear — you only need Radahn dead and the crater open.
- Bring at least one Stonesword Key (two if you also plan to open other imp doors nearby). They are sold by the Twin Maiden Husks at Roundtable Hold and found throughout the world.
What does it cost to summon the Mimic Tear?
This is the single most-missed detail. Summoning the Mimic Tear consumes 660 HP instead of FP. The in-game description states it plainly: "Legendary ashen remains. Use to summon the spirit of a mimic tear. Summoning consumes HP rather than FP."
That has two consequences:
- You need enough Vigor to survive the summon. On a low-Vigor glass-cannon build early on, 660 HP is a huge chunk of your bar — this is exactly why how much Vigor you need matters more than players expect — summon at a bad moment and you can hand a boss a free opening, or even die to a follow-up hit. Top off your health, then summon the instant a boss fog closes, before the fight starts.
- It frees up your FP entirely. Because the Mimic does not touch your FP pool, a caster can summon it and still have every spell point available. That is part of why it pairs so well with sorcery and incantation builds.
Like most Spirit Ashes, you also need to be near a Rebirth monument (a summoning pool — the white tombstone marker that appears in boss arenas and many open-world areas) for the option to light up. If the summon icon is greyed out, you are simply out of a summoning zone.
How to use the Mimic Tear the right way
The Mimic Tear does one thing no other Spirit Ash does: it copies your exact loadout at the moment you summon it. According to both wikis, it spawns as "an exact, AI-controlled copy of the player that uses their current equipment, including armor, talismans, spells, weapons, and consumable items." That single rule drives the entire strategy.
Equip your strongest setup before you summon. The Mimic locks in whatever you are holding when it appears. So:
- Put your best weapon in your right hand. The copy prioritizes the right-hand weapon when it spawns, and it can power-stance dual-wielded weapons if you have two equipped.
- Wear your heaviest armor and your best talismans — the Mimic copies them too, making it tankier and stronger.
- If you are a caster, carry only one or two damaging spells. The AI struggles to choose between several offensive spells and will waffle; a tight spell list makes it cast reliably.
- It gets infinite consumables. The copy has an unlimited supply of the arrows/bolts and consumable items you had equipped — including, notably, Flask of Crimson Tears in the base game, which is why the Mimic can heal itself mid-fight.
The classic trick players use: equip a bleed or status weapon (River of Blood, a Seppuku-affinity weapon, dual bleed katanas) and summon. Now two of you are stacking hemorrhage on the boss at once, which is exactly how the Malenia and Mohg "cheese" clips you have seen actually work.
There are two real limitations worth knowing:
- The copy deals less raw damage than you would with the same gear, but status buildup and healing are unchanged — another reason bleed/frost/rot builds love it.
- It does not get stat buffs you rely on. The Mimic ignores Great Runes (Godrick's +all-stats does nothing for it) and the Pouch, so it may try skills or spells it technically cannot meet the requirements for. Build it around gear it can simply swing, not stat-gated gimmicks.
One quirk to be aware of: the Mimic is vulnerable to Death Blight and dies instantly if the blight procs on it, so it is a poor pick against Death-bird and Deathblight enemies.
How do you upgrade the Mimic Tear?
The Mimic Tear is a "renowned" (legendary) Spirit Ash, which means it upgrades with Ghost Glovewort, not the Grave Glovewort used for skeletal/human-type spirits. You tune Spirit Ashes at Roderika, the Spirit-Tuning NPC who sets up at Roundtable Hold after you progress her short questline from Stormhill Shack.
What the upgrade actually does:
- Raising the Mimic's level increases its HP and stamina multipliers. At base it has a ×1 HP multiplier; at +10 it reaches roughly 3.3× the base HP (about ×1.49 stamina), plus a flat 50 damage negation on top of whatever armor it copied from you.
- To buy Ghost Glovewort at Roundtable Hold you need the matching Ghost-Glovewort Picker's Bell Bearing, handed to the Twin Maiden Husks; higher tiers (Ghost Glovewort [2], [3]…) unlock higher upgrade levels and come from later bell bearings.
In short: a +10 Mimic with your best gear is one of the strongest summons in the game, tripling its own health on top of mirroring your build.
Is using the Mimic Tear "cheese"?
Short version: no, it is a core mechanic, not an exploit. This comes up constantly in the community, and the consensus is clean. As one player put it, "It's not cheese if it's an intended mechanic in the game." Spirit Ashes — and bleed, and every tool the Mimic combines — were deliberately designed in; FromSoftware tuned bosses knowing summons exist.
A fair distinction some players draw: cheese usually means a bug or exploit (getting a boss stuck in geometry, hitting it where it can't retaliate). The Mimic Tear is neither. It can make a fight dramatically easier, but it does so with intended systems. If you want the "intended challenge," the honest move is to simply not summon — the game leaves that choice to you rather than locking casual players behind a difficulty wall.
FAQ
How do you get the Mimic Tear in Elden Ring? Defeat Starscourge Radahn at Redmane Castle. His death drops a falling star that opens a crater near Fort Haight in Limgrave. Descend into Nokron, Eternal City, reach Night's Sacred Ground, and open the Stonesword Key imp-statue chest to claim the Mimic Tear Ashes.
How much HP does the Mimic Tear cost to summon? 660 HP, not FP. The item states "Summoning consumes HP rather than FP." You need enough Vigor to survive the cost, and you must be near a Rebirth monument (summoning pool) to summon.
Does the Mimic Tear copy your weapons? Yes — it copies your entire loadout at the moment you summon it: right-hand weapon (and power-stances dual wields), armor, shield, talismans, spells and consumables. Always swap to your strongest setup before summoning.
What do you use to upgrade the Mimic Tear? Ghost Glovewort, because it is a renowned/legendary ash (human-type spirits use Grave Glovewort). Tune it at Roderika in Roundtable Hold; at +10 it has about 3.3× its base HP plus flat damage negation.
Is the Mimic Tear the same as the Mimic Tear boss? No. Nokron also has a Mimic Tear boss (it drops the Silver Tear Mask). Beating that boss is not required for the Ashes, and does not give them — the summon is strictly the chest in Night's Sacred Ground.
Can the Mimic Tear heal itself? Yes. It has infinite uses of the consumables you had equipped, and in the base game that includes the Flask of Crimson Tears, so it can heal mid-fight. Its status buildup and healing match yours even though its raw damage is slightly lower.
The bottom line
The Mimic Tear is the most build-defining summon in Elden Ring because it is, functionally, a second you. Pair it with a strong bleed weapon and most walls disappear. Beat Radahn, drop into the Nokron crater near Fort Haight, spend a Stonesword Key on the Night's Sacred Ground chest, and you have it. From there the whole game changes: equip your strongest weapon and talismans before you summon, keep your Vigor high enough to pay the 660 HP tax, upgrade it to +10 with Ghost Glovewort, and you have a tanky, build-mirroring ally that trivializes the fights people hit walls on. It is not a crutch — it is a system the game was built around. Use it.
