Giants' Mountaintop Catacombs - Elden Ring Guide - IGN (2024)

Giants' Mountaintop Catacombs is one of the Minor Dungeons found in the Mountaintops of the Giants Region in Elden Ring. It is an optional dungeon that is home to a few treasure items and a miniboss Foe. This page contains information on the location, walkthrough, and guide to traverse this dungeon, locate all of its treasure, and tips to defeat the enemies within.

How to Get to Giants' Mountaintop Catacombs

On the path through the Mountaintops of the Giants, head east from Zamor Ruins, and as you approach the large bridge, loop around the right-hand side just before the bridge to see a path sloping down to some double doors buried in the rock face.

Through the doors, around the corner to the right, you'll find a Site of Grace.

Giants' Mountaintop Catacombs

Beyond the Site of Grace, down the two flights of stairs, you'll enter a room lined with statues of Erdtree Burial Watchdogs. A Fanged Imp with a two-handed sword will drop from the ceiling across the room. The small room to the west has two more Fanged Imps; one directly ahead in view, and one waiting to ambush you from the right as soon as you enter. There is a Grave Glovewort (7) against the back wall.

In the previous room, to the north, head down the next flight of stairs is another room with two Fanged Imps, one on the opposite end and one that will drop from the ceiling in the center of the room. As you turn the corner at the end of the corridor you'll arrive at a lift. Before riding it down, grab the Grave Violet tucked in the left-hand corner.

At the bottom of the lift, you'll see the locked doors ahead. Pass down the stairs to the left and defeat the Fanged Imp patrolling the corridor, as well as two additional Fanged Imps in the central alcoves of the next room who will bombard you with blue flame bombs. Ahead is another lift to ride down.

At the bottom of this lift, you'll see a statue at the far end of the corridor, but in the room in front of you are two small Living Jars.

Dealing with those and continuing towards the statue, a Giant Living Jar will ambush you as you enter the main room. Around the outskirts of the room are three small Living Jars, and a Grave Violet can be found to the left of the statue. Along the west wall of the room is a staircase leading up. In the corridor up there, a pressure plate is in the center of the walkway, so skirt around it and pass up the steps to the left to find a room with three dropping blades and flaming Living Jars.

These flaming Jars will charge you and explode, so be careful and try to bait them out into jumping and exploding as you dodge/run away, all the while avoiding the dropping blades.

Past that room, there is a fork in the path. To the south is a small room with one small Living Jar, and nothing else. To the east, up the stairs are a number of Land Squirts, which will also explode after being attacked.

Carefully clearing them out, avoiding their poisonous clouds, head up the stairs around the corner and eliminate the two small Living Jars. Avoid the pressure plate on the floor (for now) and head towards the room to the north. A Giant Living Jar will be in this room, and can be easily defeated by luring it out and triggering the pressure plate, causing the projectiles to eliminate it after a couple of triggers. At the back of this room is a Ritual Pot.

In the room with this pressure plate, in the middle alcove on the left side of the room is a corpse holding Stimulating Boluses. There is also a small archway where you can drop down and grab the Nascent Butterfly off the corpse on the left.

Drop down and deal with the 3 flaming Living Jars, then choose from two paths. a path to the north leading to a lift, or a path to the west leading up some stairs.

Up the lift, you'll pass through another room with three Fanged Imps; two in the various alcoves, and one on the ceiling at the back of the room that won't drop down till after you head up the stairs and defeat the Erdtree Burial Watchdog in the small room. It is guarding a Grave Glovewort (9) and a corpse holding Root Resin x4. Backtrack down the lift, and then trigger it to rise again but step off of it. You'll note beneath the lift is a drop in front of a Giant Living Jar.

Be careful dropping down as the Jar's spin attack can easily knock you into the various chasms in this room, so try to immediately lure it into the corridor to the south. Through that corridor, around the other side of this upper platform, is the lever, alongside a couple of small Living Jars to deal with and ensure you grab the Golden Rune (10) off of the dangling corpse before dropping down and backtracking to the boss doors.

Boss Fight - Ulcerated Tree Spirit

An enemy you will be overtly familiar with at this stage in the game, the Ulcerated Tree Spirit is identical to other versions you have faced in the past, both in other Dungeons and in the open world.

This Tree Spirit, like the others, is a highly aggressive, incredibly fast-moving enemy and due to its size, it can be very easy to have the game's camera turn on you, particularly if lock-on is used.

The Tree Spirit often has long wind-ups to its attacks but executes them very quickly so can take you by surprise. An example would be the chain of lunging bites that it performs, where it retreats to the opposite side of the arena, and will swing its mouth left and right 3 times, each time requiring a well-placed dodge. As a rule of thumb, you'll want to try and stick to the sides of the boss, rather than the back, as this is the most effective place to dodge-roll out of many of its attacks, including 180-degree spins with its tail.

The Spirit can also perform a number of fire attacks, be it breathing fire in front of itself as it moves in a line across the arena, or a grab attack where it rears back and quickly lunges forward to grab you with its mouth, subsequently breathing fire on you as you're there, before slamming you to the ground. A major fire-based attack to be extremely cautious of is when the Spirit begins to emanate flames all over its body in a yellow aura before exploding out in a large sphere. If you see the Spirit begin this animation, sprint or dodge-roll as far away as possible to avoid being blown off your feet and taking extensive damage.

Swipes with its arms are often followed up immediately with tail swings, so be ready for quick follow-up attacks throughout this encounter. As you're sticking to the sides of the Boss, the main attack to watch out for is stomps it performs with its arms.

Upon defeating this Ulcerated Tree Spirit, you'll earn a Golden Seed and the Glovewort Picker's Bell Bearing 2. There will also be a chest in this arena that contains a Deathroot.