How to beat the Furnace Golems in Shadow of the Erdtree
Furnace Golems in the Elden Ring expansion are huge, optional minibosses
The Shadow of the Erdtree Furnace Golems are giant enemies that look like burning baskets, special minibosses that are incredibly hard to bring down at any level. You'll see one of them very early on, kicking around the Gravesite Plains, throwing fire and rocks at you, but there's eight Furnace Golems located around the map, each of which drop Crystal Tears that you can use to enhance and modify your Flask of Wondrous Physick.
Below, we'll explain where to find all the locations of Furnace Golems across Shadow of the Erdtree, as well as how to beat them, and where to find the unique Hefty Furnace Pots that serve as the weakness of the Furnace Golems.
How to beat Furnace Golems in Shadow of the Erdtree
Furnace Golems have several weaknesses and exploitable strategies you can use to bring them down in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
- Hefty Fire Pots and Hefty Furnace Pots. This is the big weakness: if either of these two Consumables are thrown into the top of the Golem's basket (either by getting to an elevated point or by knocking it over), you can deal massive damage. The Hefty Furnace Pot is by far the more deadly of the two, but requires special Furnace Visages to craft, which are very rare, found in the corpses of Golems. We've marked the Cookbooks that tell you how to make these on the map below.
- The Mask. The metal visage on the front of the Furnace Golem that acts as its face takes far more damage than anything else. Targeting it with ranged attacks is a powerful, if tricky option, as it's high up and not easy reached.
- Staggering the legs. Repeatedly attacking one leg will cause the Golem to eventually fall over. This is your chance to either do a critical hit on the Mask with a melee weapon for massive damage, or throw a Pot into the open the basket. Some Golems have leg armor though - this doesn't mean this strategy can't still work, just that it'll take a lot more hits.
- Torrent. The favourite attack of Golems is to cause waves of fire that ripple out when they stomp the ground. Torrent's double jump can leap over these waves - get used to quickly summoning and desummoning your horse as needed.
Ultimately, Furnace Golems are one of those things you don't need to fight straight away though - if at all. They're entirely optional encounters, and while you'll see on arriving you'll be better off focusing on the nearby Shadow of the Erdtree Divine Beast Dancing Lion and Erdtree Ghostflame Dragon first. That said, when you've boosted your level and found a few Scadutree Fragments to power up it's worth trying your luck as they do drop good rewards - new Crystal Tears to modify your Flask of Wondrous Physick, as well as Furnace Visages to craft the Hefty Furnace Pots.
All Furnace Golem locations in Shadow of the Erdtree
I've found eight separate Furnace Golems across Shadow of the Erdtree, marked on the map above, as well as the two Cookbooks that teach you how to craft the Hefty Pots that are their big weakness.
You might notice two Golems next to each other in Scadu Atlus in the Northeast corner. That's actually a little puzzle - while one of the Golems is aggressive straight away, the other is dormant, blocking off the entrance to the Ruins of Unte. You can wake it up - and fight it - by climbing up the ruins next to it and throwing a Hefty Furnace Pot into its basket, effectively triggering it. This area is also great for getting Furnace Visages generally, as there's lots of dead Golems lying around for you to scavenge.
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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and raconteur with a Masters from Sussex University, none of which has actually equipped him for anything in real life. As a result he chooses to spend most of his time playing video games, reading old books and ingesting chemically-risky levels of caffeine. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at USgamer, Gfinity, Eurogamer and more besides.