Look, fellow Tarnished, I know we’re down to the wire here, but there’s no way I’m ending this month without doing this blog justice with some proper Elden Ring content: Elden Ring’s crafting system often goes underutilized, but knowing which consumables to create can transform your journey through the Lands Between.
While you’ll stumble across various items during your exploration, certain craftable consumables offer benefits that can tip challenging encounters in your favor. Let’s break down the eleven most valuable items you should be crafting throughout your adventure – including one game-changing addition from Shadow of the Erdtree.
Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot: Your Rune-Farming Essential
If there’s one craftable item that deserves a permanent spot in your quick menu, it’s the Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot. This peculiar consumable provides a thirty percent increase to all runes acquired for three minutes—and that’s before considering additional bonuses from equipment like the Golden Scarab talisman.
The recipe comes from Missionary’s Cookbook [2], which you can purchase from Patches at Murkwater Cave for 800 runes. You’ll need three Rowa Fruit, one Four-Toed Fowl Foot, and a single Gold Firefly per craft. While Rowa Fruit grows abundantly throughout Limgrave and beyond, the Fowl Foot requires hunting the penguin-like Guillemots found along coastlines, and Gold Fireflies spawn near ponds close to Minor Erdtrees – particularly plentiful around the Weeping Peninsula.
The mathematics work beautifully in your favor here. Stacking this consumable with the Golden Scarab doesn’t create a simple fifty percent increase—through how the multipliers interact, you actually gain fifty-six percent more runes. That means significantly faster leveling, especially when paired with efficient farming routes.
Sleep Pot: The Godskin Duo’s Worst Nightmare
Few craftable items have achieved the legendary status of Sleep Pots, primarily because of their effectiveness against one of Elden Ring’s most notorious boss encounters. The Godskin Duo becomes remarkably manageable when you can put one enemy into a deep slumber while focusing on the other.
Fevor’s Cookbook [1] contains the recipe and sits on a corpse in a graveyard plateau south of Summonwater Village Outskirts in Limgrave. Each pot requires a Cracked Pot, one Mushroom, and one Trina’s Lily. The recipe scales with your Arcane stat, meaning higher Arcane builds can apply the sleep status with fewer throws.
Beyond the Godskin Duo, these pots excel against Magma Wyrms and other sleep-vulnerable enemies. The purple mist creates a buildup effect over several seconds, and vulnerable targets will remain unconscious long enough for you to deal substantial damage. Just remember that Trina’s Lily doesn’t respawn after harvesting, making these pots a limited resource – though you’ll typically find enough to carry you through the encounters where they matter most.
Freezing Pot: Instant Frostbite Without the Build Investment
Unlike most status-inflicting items, Freezing Pots deliver instant frostbite buildup regardless of your stats. This makes them universally powerful across all character builds, providing the same benefit to a strength-focused warrior as they would to an intelligence-based mage.
The recipe appears in Glintstone Craftsman’s Cookbook [6], and each pot requires a Ritual Pot, one Rimed Crystal Bud, two Freezing Greases, and one Starlight Shard. What makes these particularly valuable is their ability to reset enemy defenses through the frostbite proc, allowing you to deal increased damage immediately after landing one.
The tactical applications extend beyond raw damage. Throwing a Freezing Pot at Malenia during her Waterfowl Dance can interrupt the devastating attack if timed correctly. The instant application means you don’t need to worry about gradual buildup – the effect triggers on contact, providing both damage and a substantial defense reduction to capitalize on.
Crystal Dart: Turning Constructs Against Themselves
One of the most entertaining items in your crafting arsenal, Crystal Darts cause construct-type enemies to attack everything nearby – including their allies and even you if you’re not careful. The magic damage is negligible, but the chaos these create makes them invaluable for certain encounters.
Nomadic Warrior’s Cookbook [11] unlocks the recipe, requiring one Crystal Cave Moss and one Glintstone Scrap per craft. The real magic happens when you land enough darts on golems, imps, or Erdtree Burial Watchdogs. After absorbing several hits, they’ll freeze momentarily before going berserk and attacking indiscriminately.
This becomes particularly useful in Elden Ring’s various catacombs where imp ambushes occur. Rather than fighting multiple enemies simultaneously, a few well-placed darts transform them into your temporary – if unreliable – allies. The technique also works on the Watchdog bosses, though the effect duration is shorter against these tougher variants.
Preserving Boluses: Your Lake of Rot Survival Kit
Scarlet Rot represents one of Elden Ring’s most punishing status effects, dealing significant damage over time while limiting your mobility options. Preserving Boluses provide both cure and prevention, making them essential for specific areas – most notably the Lake of Rot in the underground regions.
Armorer’s Cookbook [6] contains the recipe and can be found on a corpse in Siofra River, sitting by a cliff edge near the Siofra River Bank Site of Grace. Each bolus requires one Dewkissed Herba, one Crystal Cave Moss, and one Sacramental Bud. The Sacramental Bud proves the limiting factor, as these don’t respawn after collection.
While you can purchase a limited number of these boluses from merchants, crafting becomes necessary for extended forays into rot-heavy areas. The prevention aspect is particularly valuable – using one before entering dangerous zones provides temporary immunity to buildup, allowing you to navigate without constantly monitoring your status bar.
Exalted Flesh: Pure Damage Amplification
For a flat twenty percent increase to physical attack power lasting thirty seconds, Exalted Flesh provides one of the game’s most straightforward damage buffs. Unlike many consumables that require specific stat investments or situational uses, this simply makes your physical attacks hit harder.
The recipe comes from Armorer’s Cookbook [3], which certain merchants sell for 2,000 runes – seemingly expensive for a single recipe until you realize how much that damage boost matters during critical moments. Each craft requires one Lump of Flesh. The materials are reasonably common, making this a sustainable buff for boss encounters.
What makes Exalted Flesh particularly valuable is its simplicity. You don’t need to meet stat requirements or worry about complex interactions. Pop one before engaging a boss, and your damage output increases immediately. This stacks with weapon buffs and other enhancement effects, creating multiplicative gains that can shorten fights substantially.
Silver-Pickled Fowl Foot: The Item Hunter’s Best Friend
Where Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot enhances rune acquisition, its silver counterpart focuses on item discovery. A fifty-point boost to your Discovery stat for three minutes dramatically increases drop rates from enemies, making these essential when farming for specific weapons or materials.
Missionary’s Cookbook [3] contains the recipe and rests on a corpse at the Smoldering Church near the Caelid-Limgrave border. Each craft requires three Rowa Fruit, one Four-Toed Fowl Foot, and one Silver Firefly. The materials largely overlap with the gold variant, making it efficient to farm both simultaneously.
The Discovery boost effectively grants you fifty levels worth of Arcane investment toward item drops without actual stat allocation. For rare weapon drops or crafting materials needed in bulk, these consumables can save hours of grinding. Just remember the effect persists when resting at Sites of Grace but disappears upon death or fast travel.
Fire Pot: The Reliable Damage Option
Sometimes the best tools are the simplest ones. Fire Pots offer straightforward fire damage with modest scaling from Strength and Dexterity, providing ranged elemental damage without requiring FP or stat-intensive builds. They’re accessible early and remain useful throughout the entire game.
Various Nomadic Warrior’s Cookbooks contain fire pot recipes, with the basic version appearing quite early. Each requires a Cracked Pot and readily available materials like Smoldering Butterflies. The area-of-effect explosion hits multiple enemies when they cluster together, and the fire damage proves effective against many early and mid-game foes.
What separates Fire Pots from spells is their lack of FP cost beyond the initial 0 point consumption. This makes them ideal for melee-focused characters who haven’t invested in Mind but still need ranged options. The damage won’t match dedicated pyromancy builds, but the convenience and accessibility make them worthwhile additions to any inventory.
Bloodboil Aromatic: High Risk, High Reward
For players willing to embrace glass cannon strategies, Bloodboil Aromatic offers massive offensive gains at the cost of increased vulnerability. This perfume increases your maximum attack power and stamina while making you receive more damage – a tradeoff that favors aggressive playstyles and confident players.
Perfumer’s Cookbook [2] sits on a rooftop corpse at the Shaded Castle in Altus Plateau. The recipe demands two Altus Blooms, one Budding Cave Moss, one Land Octopus Ovary, one Arteria Leaf, and a Perfume Bottle. The materials prove more exotic than basic pots, but the performance boost justifies the investment.
The sixty-second duration provides enough time to capitalize on the enhanced damage output during boss phases or critical moments. Pairing this with defensive buffs like Golden Vow effectively negates the increased damage vulnerability, leaving you with the offensive benefits. The key is recognizing when the extra damage will end fights faster than the defensive penalty becomes problematic.
Warming Stone: Sustained Healing Without Flask Pressure
When your Crimson Tears run dry but the fight continues, Warming Stones provide crucial healing through area-of-effect regeneration. Unlike one-time consumables, these create persistent healing zones that benefit you and your summons—though be mindful they also heal enemies within range.
The recipe appears in Nomadic Warrior’s Cookbook [14] and requires one Erdleaf Flower, one Smoldering Butterfly, and one Sanctuary Stone per craft. The healing effect regenerates twenty-five HP per second for thirty seconds to anyone standing in the stone’s radius. Multiple stones can’t stack, but strategic placement during longer encounters provides significant healing over time.
These shine during boss fights where healing opportunities are scarce. Drop one in a safe corner, retreat there between attack phases, and let the regeneration top off your health bar without consuming precious flask charges. The Blessed Dew Talisman enhances the healing rate, making these even more effective for builds incorporating that equipment.
Hefty Rot Pot: The DLC’s Ultimate Boss Killer
If you’re venturing into Shadow of the Erdtree, the Hefty Rot Pot stands as perhaps the single most powerful craftable consumable in the entire game. This enhanced version of the standard Rot Pot delivers devastating results that make even the toughest DLC bosses manageable.
The numbers tell the story: 400 Scarlet Rot buildup that triggers the strongest version of the status effect, dealing approximately thirty percent of an enemy’s maximum health plus 1,170 damage over ninety seconds. Because the damage scales with boss health, this becomes increasingly valuable against high-HP targets like Consort Radahn.
Greater Potentate’s Cookbook [9] contains the recipe, found in the Rauh Ancient Ruins area after navigating through a scarlet rot swamp. Each pot requires two Fly Mold and two Scarlet Buds – materials that respawn in the Realm of Shadow, making these infinitely farmable unlike many base game consumables.
What elevates this above rot-inflicting incantations is accessibility and safety. You don’t need Faith investment, FP management, or lengthy casting animations. Any build can throw these, and most bosses will succumb to rot after just one or two successful hits. Players consistently report proccing rot twice per major boss fight, effectively removing sixty percent of the health bar through status damage alone.
Making the Most of Crafting
Understanding which consumables provide the best returns on your material investment transforms Elden Ring’s crafting from an overlooked system into a powerful toolkit. Focus on gathering cookbook locations early – many are accessible from the game’s opening hours – and pay attention to material spawns during your exploration.
The real advantage comes from preparation. Craft Gold-Pickled Fowl Feet before farming sessions, stock up on Preserving Boluses before heading to Caelid, keep a few Freezing Pots ready for tough boss encounters, and if you’re tackling the DLC, make sure you’ve got Hefty Rot Pots in your arsenal. These items won’t play the game for you, but they provide meaningful edges that can turn challenging fights into manageable ones.
Remember that Cracked Pots and Ritual Pots are limited resources until you find more, so prioritize which throwable items matter most for your current objectives. The system rewards players who take time to gather materials and plan ahead, offering advantages that complement any build or playstyle.
… and by the way: we’re also having other Guides & Tips you may want to check out.
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