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How to Cure and Prevent Scarlet Rot in Elden Ring

How to Cure and Prevent Scarlet Rot in Elden Ring

Picture this – you enter the Swamp of Aeonia, ready to take on the world with your tried and tested Sword of Night and Flame, only to be met with a cruel fate as you succumb to Scarlet Rot. While death must feel like a norm by now, it certainly can feel quite annoying to start dying to status effects instead of a valiant battle against a monster five times your size.

Currently, there are three ways to cure the Scarlet Rot and Poison in Elden Ring: Preserving Blouses, Casting the Cleanse Me Incantation, and Using Quick Travel.

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That said, there’s more to the Scarlet Rot than meets the eye. Therefore, we’ve put up this detailed guide as a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the status effect alongside all the known methods in the game to rid yourself of the ailment.

What Is Scarlet Rot In Elden Ring?

The Scarlet Rot is a status effect in the game that can be incurred to both enemies and you as a player. Like any other effect, repeated ticks will eventually cause you to get the status effect. Just like Poison, Scarlet Rot deals damage to its target over time.

This damage scales based on your health. The primary difference between Scarlet Rot and Poison is that Poison deals damage at a slower rate but lasts longer, while Scarlet Rot deals more damage faster but lasts for a relatively shorter period.

How To Build Poison / Scarlet Rot Resistance In Elden Ring?

In true Elden Ring fashion, there’s no real way to gain complete immunity from Poison and the Scarlet Rot. However, you can raise your Immunity stat, which can be done by adding points to Vigor whenever you level up.

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While leveling up Immunity increases the number of attacks needed to cause the debuff on your character, they will not reduce the overall damage you take once you have the ailment. Therefore, when frequenting areas that are likely to inflict you with either of the two status effects, you’ll need to have some sort of counter in your mind. Otherwise, you’ll end up succumbing to the status effect eventually.

How To Remove The Scarlet Rot Status Effect In Elden Ring

As mentioned earlier, you can apply three distinct methods to rid yourself of your woes. We’ll also be mentioning our personal favorites as we move along. However, one integral factor to note is that all these methods remove the status effect.

In essence, Scarlet Rot will be inflicted upon you no matter what items/gear you have. With the help of these methods, though, you’ll be able to rid yourself of the ailment until you get caught in shambles again.

Quick Travel

This is the easiest way to rid yourself of the Scarlet Rot status effect. However, it carries its disadvantages. Firstly, you won’t be able to quick travel when in combat. So, if you have the status effect and need to get rid of it instantly while fighting, quick travel won’t help much.

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However, once you do quick travel, you’ll reset the map. Therefore, use this wisely!

Preserving Boluses

Made up of cave moss, Preserving Boluses alleviate Scarlet Rot buildup and entirely rid you of the ailment. You can get Preserving Boluses in the Elden Ring in three distinct ways. You can either craft them, purchase them in limited quantity or find 7 scattered throughout the map.

How To Find Preserving Boluses

You’ll be able to find a total of 7 Boluses without the need to do any sort of crafting or trading. Here’s how:

  • Head to the Shack of the Rotting in Caelid. You’ll be able to find 5x Preserving Boluses in the left-most shack.
  • Right after you get down from the lift in the Leyndell Rotal Capital, head towards the room, and you’ll be able to find 1x Preserving Boluses there.
  • After you take the second lift in the Siofra River Well, you’ll be able to find a corpse that contains 1x Preserving Boluses.

How To Buy Preserving Boluses?

If you’ve run out of options, you can purchase Preserving Boluses from a single NPC in the game. That NPC, the Nomadic Merchant, is located near the Aeonia Swamp Shore in Caelid.

However, you can only purchase 3x Preserving Boluses from the merchant, with each costing about 2500.

How to Craft Preserving Boluses?

With the number of times, you’ll be affected by the Scarlet Rot throughout your playthrough; it is wise to think of a more practical and permanent solution. While not the most convenient, gaining the ability to craft Preserving Boluses can get rid of all your toxic troubles.

First and foremost, you’ll need to get Armorer’s Cookbook [6]; here’s how you can do so:

  • Head to the Siofra River Bank located inside the Siofra River Well (You’ll need to take both elevators)
  • After taking the second elevator, keep moving Eastwards until you find a Site of Grace.
  • Once you do, jump up and move Westwards until you find the Armorers Cookbook [6]

Fun Fact: You can ‘only’ hold 99 Preserving Boluses at any given point!

After you’ve gotten your Armorer’s Cookbook [6], here are the ingredients/crafting materials you’ll require:

Item NameQuantity
Dewkissed Herba2
Crystal Cave Moss1
Sacramental Bud 1

If you aren’t sure where to find these materials, here are some quick tips:

  • Crystal Cave Moss: You can find Crystal Cave Moss in the Academy, Lakeside Crystal and Stillwater Caves.
  • Sacramental Bud: Sacramental Buds are primarily found near the Nomadic Merchant on Mt. Gelmir
  • Dewkissed Herba: Found inside and around the outskirts of the Eternal City, quite easy to find!

With all these ingredients at your disposal, you can craft as many preserving Boluses as you like!

Using The Flame, Cleanse Me Incantation

The third and perhaps the easiest and most effective way to eliminate Scarlet Rot is to use the Flames, Cleanse Me Incantation. Getting your hands on it is easy, even in the Early Game. Here’s what you need to do:

  • Travel to the North-West of the Artist’s Shack
  • From here, travel to the North and cross the Stone Bridge till you find an encampment near a large tree.
  • Once you do, take down all the Flame Sorcerers.
  • After you take them, you’ll be able to find the Flame, Cleanse Me Incantation near the edge of the encampment.

Meeting All The Requirements

Once you’ve got the Incantation, you’ll need 12 Faith. While that isn’t a big deal, you will also need a Seal before you activate it. Seals are quite hard to come by in the Early Game. Therefore, here’s a quick way for you to get your hands on a Seal without much trouble:

  • Head to the Roundtable Hold
  • Go towards the Northern Alleyway
  • Talk to the Twin Sisters and purchase the Finger Seal for 800

While 800 may seem pricey at first, we feel like it’s a worthy sacrifice as compared to the amount of annoyance you’ll have to go through trying to traverse the entire map to either find Preserving GBoluses or spend ages gathering all the requirements needed to craft them.

Activating The Spell

Once you’ve all the requirements, now is the time for the moment of truth! Firstly, you’ll need to Memorize your spell at a Site of Grace. Once you do so, equip your Seal in one of your hands, left or right. To get rid of Scarlet Rot, here’s what you need to do:

  • Once affected by the Status Effect, take out your Seal
  • Equip your Incantation: Flame Cleanse Me
  • Activate the hand which has your Seal equipped.
  • Your character will now slam his hand into his fist, and you will receive minor damage, but the negative status effect will be gone!
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If you see the slider building up after you cast your Incantation, your armor is to blame, as it still has some of the Scarlet Rot left. However, you’ll see the build-up going down over time.

As a general rule of thumb, if you had no armor, you’d build up the status effect much faster but would also be able to get rid of it much quicker.