You don’t need Scadutree Blessings to beat Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, as long as you’re prepared to match this streamer’s 516-death, 16-hour attempt at the final boss

Ever since Elden Ring’s DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, launched last month, one main piece of advice has been shared over and over again – use your dang Scadutree Blessings. However, one streamer has now proven that you don’t need to use any at all, as long as you have an enormous amount of patience.

The expansion-exclusive upgrades make a massive difference when it comes to resisting hits from the Realm of Shadow’s tough foes, as well as dealing damage back to them. They’re so important that developer FromSoftware even went as far as to tell us exactly where one of the early ones is in an official post on how to strengthen your character. However, streamer MissMikkaa clearly took that as a challenge, because she’s now defeated every single DLC boss without upgrading her Blessing level at all. Yep, even that one. Beware, there are spoilers ahead for Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss.

“I finally finished Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree! After 1,135 total deaths we got the zero Scadutree all bosses win,” MissMikkaa writes on Twitter. As if it wasn’t hard enough, the streamer says she was ill for the majority of the run, too, which can’t have made it any easier. 

Of those 1,135 deaths, just under half of them were at the hands of Promised Consort Radahn, the absolutely brutal final boss who’s been bringing a whole world of pain to even the most experienced Elden Ring players, including famous Malenia slayer Let Me Solo Her. In total, defeating Radahn took MissMikkaa 516 attempts across 16 hours, and she concludes that he’s “harder than Malenia.” 

There’s no doubt that Radahn is tough, and after 16 hours of fighting, perhaps no one knows that better than MissMikkaa. However, despite nerfing herself with the lack of Scadutree Blessings, she was still able to rack up damage on him quickly using the Bloodfiend’s Arm weapon, as well as using the Deflecting Hardtear in her Wondrous Physick, allowing her to block attacks with her armament and launch devastating guard counters afterwards. Using this in combination with the Cragblade Ash of War to make breaking stances easier meant that Radahn’s stance was constantly being broken, allowing MissMikkaa to stop his onslaught of attacks and hit him back, hard. It might have taken a while, but she got there in the end with her level 178 Tarnished, no Mimic Tear or NPC summons needed, and absolutely no Scadutree Fragments. 

Of course, this is an extreme way to play, and there’s no shame in using the Scadutree Blessings yourself if you don’t want to put yourself through the same thing as MissMikkaa. Heck, director Hidetaka Miyazaki recently said that when he played through the base game of Elden Ring, he used “every scrap of aid that the game offers” to get through his action RPG. Speaking to GamesRadar+ recently, community legend Let Me Solo Her shared a similar sentiment, and encouraged struggling players to “use everything at your disposal” from summons to Scadutree Blessings to “make the fight easier for you.” There’s no wrong way to play Soulslike games, so just make sure to do whatever you find the most fun and rewarding. 

You can also use our guide on where to find all Scadutree Fragment locations in Shadow of the Erdtree to upgrade your Scadutree Blessing.