Great Runes are key items that are dropped after defeating demigods, the major bosses in Elden Ring. These Great Runes offer a passive upgrade when equipped and using a Rune Arc, a consumable that activates the Great Rune’s ability. While most of these Great Runes have major boosts that make the game significantly easier, there are a few that are less optimal in most situations, are not equippable, or even only have use in PVP.
With some of these demigod bosses being optional, some of you may opt to only go after those with the best rune tied to beating them. Regardless of your situation, here is every Great Rune in Elden Ring ranked by usefulness.
8 Phantom Great Rune
While not a traditional Great Rune, the Phantom Great Rune is unlocked after defeating Mohg, Lord of Blood and using the Mohg Great Rune to invade someone in PVP. The difference between this and other runes is that the Phantom Great Rune is only relevant to online play. Your partners during online play gain a damage boost after dealing the bleeding effect. You also gain a health boost every time they defeat an enemy.
Not only is this incredibly situational, being an online only item, but the normal Mohg’s Great Rune functions more effectively for both solo and online play, rendering this almost entirely useless.
7 Great Rune Of The Unborn
The Great Rune of the Unborn is also not a traditional rune, but it is still incredibly useful, and for the sake of detailing everything, it bears mentioning. After defeating Queen Rennala in the Academy of Raya Lucaria, she will drop the rune. While this has no effect in combat and can not be equipped, it permanently unlocks the ability to re-spec your character and completely change your build.
If you’ve spent your points on stats that are not relevant to the build you’ve decided to go with, or just want to experiment with something new, you can return to the location of the boss fight and change it at any time.
6 Rykard’s Great Rune
Rykard’s Great Rune can be found after defeating Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy in Mt. Gelmir. It offers a passive ability that is more suited to running through areas prior to a boss rather than the boss itself. When active, you immediately restore 80hp, and you gain an additional 7% of your total health pool after defeating an enemy.
The major drawback to this is the fact that the item that activates your Great Rune, a Rune Arc, is a limited consumable item. Its 7% health bonus for defeating enemies is really only useful prior to a boss room, and your Great Rune should really only be saved for those more challenging fights. It might be nice to throw it on for an especially challenging dungeon, but it’s clearly a marked step-down from the other options.
5 Malenia’s Great Rune
Dropping from the most difficult boss in the entire game, Malenia’s Great Rune offers you a neutered version of her ability, which restores health based off of your damage dealt. When active, there will be a few second periods where you gain health based on how much damage you have dealt. If you are someone who plays ultra aggressive and gets hit frequently, this can be a major bonus.
Its biggest drawback is the 30% nerf your Flask of Crimson Tears takes while it’s active. Only being able to heal 70% of your normal rate for a rune you will only have late game or new game plus where your health is fairly high is a major drawback, and it prevents Malenia’s Great Rune from seeing any real metagame usage.
4 Radahn’s Great Rune
Radahn’s Great Rune can be found after defeating Starscourge Radahn, who even post-nerf is one of the most frustrating fights in the entire game. When active, Radahn’s Great Rune gives your health, FP, and stamina a healthy 15% boost to their totals. While these are all positive boosts to very important attributes, there are other runes that offer even better boosts to these stats. By the time you have defeated Radahn, you likely already have a better rune sitting in your inventory.
It is still one of the better ways to freely boost your FP, so those of you running builds that only care about that stat may want to run it no matter what.
3 Morgott’s Great Rune
Morgott’s Great Rune can be found after defeating Morgott, the Omen King. Morgott’s rune is similar to Radahn’s but instead focuses purely on health rather than in addition to FP and stamina. The benefit of Morgott’s rune in particular is it is one of a handful that are useful no matter what level you are at. While Morgott is a fairly late game boss, the rune’s 25% health boost when active can be useful no matter what build you are running.
Those that have gone multiple new game pluses through and have raised their vigor stat near the max will see the biggest health boost returns from using this Great Rune.
2 Godrick’s Great Rune
Godrick’s Great Rune can be found after defeating Godrick the Grafted in Stormveil Castle, and it is likely the first Great Rune you obtain in Elden Ring. Its early availability would be enough incentive to recommend it on that alone, but its boost while active sees a +5 bonus to all of your attributes.
While Morgott’s and Radahn’s Great Runes offer a static health boost of 15% and 25% respectively, a +5 bonus to vigor will naturally give you a big hp boost, among all the other benefits to having all of your stats go up five levels.
1 Mohg’s Great Rune
Mohg’s Great Rune offers the same great damage boost and health increase as the Phantom Great Rune, but in solo play. While active, your spirit summons are granted a ‘blessing of blood,’ which gives you a 10% heal for every enemy killed, as well as a damage buff for your spirit when blood loss is inflicted on an enemy.
When paired with a bleeding weapon and a Spirit Ash summon, this can allow your Spirit Ash to solo many of the more challenging enemies in the entire game.
