Impenetrable Thorns

Type

Sorcery

FP cost

15

Memory slots

1

Stamina cost

22

Damage types

magic

Requires

24Fai

Spell school

Thorn sorceries

Effects

Sorcery of those who abandoned the practice of incantations after devout faith rewarded them with only despair.

The caster wounds their own flesh using impenetrable thorns grown from the Scadutree, which then sprout from the earth.

This sorcery can be used repeatedly.

The image of the twisted Scadutree is an edict:

Denounce their ways. Do them harm.

For they have abandoned us.

Balcony below Dark Chamber Entrance

Scadu Altus

Starting Site of Grace: Dark Chamber Entrance

Before you go

• To enter the Realm of Shadow, defeat Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood, then touch the withered arm in Mohg's arena at Mohgwyn Palace.

1. Enter the Realm of Shadow after defeating Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood, by touching the withered arm in Mohg's arena.
2. From Highroad Cross in Scadu Altus, follow the main road north to Shadow Keep's southern gate. Ride the entrance lift and activate Shadow Keep Main Gate grace.
3. Defeat Golden Hippopotamus in the plaza. This is the front-door route; the flooded Church District provides a different way into the keep.
4. From Main Gate Plaza, leave through the west-northwest doorway, pass through the armory and climb the stairs. Continue up the wooden steps to the dining hall, where two Black Knights guard the route.
5. Leave the dining hall through its southeastern exit to the upper rampart. Follow the rampart past the burning boats and watch for the small Shadow Militiamen hiding beside them.
6. Take the stairs leading north-northeast toward the large lift, passing the Fire Knight in front of it. Ride up and activate Storehouse, First Floor grace.
7. Inside the storehouse, use the stairs behind the central specimen to climb through the book-lined galleries. Stay on the ascending route rather than taking the side lift toward West Rampart.
8. On the third-floor walkway, get past the Fire Knight and the small ambushers. Jump onto the feet of the large hanging specimen, climb along its body and jump from the head to the balcony with Storehouse, Fourth Floor grace.
9. Leave the fourth-floor room through its open window-door, turn left and climb the outside stairs. Follow the balcony past the bats and go back inside through the next doorway.
10. Follow the inner gallery around the bookshelves and climb the stairs past the Fire Knights and shadow scholars to Storehouse, Seventh Floor grace, in the room where Freyja can appear.
11. Leave that grace room and cross the northeastern wooden bridge. Follow the walkway to the hanging bull, then reach the lower gallery beside it and pull the lever that moves the central specimens.
12. From the balcony near the lever, jump onto the newly positioned wooden beam. Follow it inward, cross the raised specimen platforms and climb the next specimen's tail and back to jump from its head onto the upper balcony.
13. Go through the small room and back outside. Turn right, climb the stairs and cross the outer bridge toward the large closed doors. Defeat Fire Knight Kood, who guards this approach and awards Winged Serpent Helm and Flame Spear.
14. Collect Kood's helm and Flame Spear after the fight, then open the doors and climb to Dark Chamber Entrance grace. Messmer beyond the next doors is optional for these two rewards.
15. From Dark Chamber Entrance, turn around and go back out across the short bridge. Take the descending stairs on the right, then look below the edge for the lower balcony with a bat.
16. Drop carefully onto that balcony, clear the bat and loot the corpse for Impenetrable Thorns. This is a short controlled drop from the outer approach, not a jump into the distant courtyard. Messmer does not need to be defeated.

Notes

• Requires 24 Faith and one memory slot and uses a glintstone staff. The spell deals magic damage using your casting staff's sorcery scaling. Intelligence, Faith or a hybrid can strengthen that damage depending on the staff; the spell's Faith requirement alone does not choose the scaling.
• Every cast costs 15 FP and 50 HP and adds 25 blood loss buildup to you. You can repeat the cast, but repeatedly wounding yourself can fill your own bleed bar as well as spending health directly.
• Creates three trails of thorns that track enemies along the ground. Several can meet a large target at close range, while a small or moving target may be hit by fewer. Do not judge the spell by assuming every trail always connects.
• Each individual current thorn hit has 17 base blood loss buildup before casting-staff status scaling. Multiple contacts can contribute, but this is not the much higher per-hit buildup shown in early videos from the expansion's release.
• The delayed ground eruption makes it easier to use against an enemy finishing an attack or distracted by an ally. Do not expect the slow preparation to stop a close enemy before it can hit you.
• The spell cannot be charged. Godfrey Icon does not strengthen it, even if you hold the input. Blood loss also does not work on immune targets, so bring a direct-damage option for those fights.
• Staff of the Guilty increases the direct damage by 20%, including when held in your other active hand while a different staff casts. Two copies multiply to 44%. This bonus does not increase blood loss buildup.
• Alberich's Pointed Hat, either version of that hat, the unaltered robe and the bracers each give a 6% damage bonus. The trousers and altered robe do not. These are damage bonuses rather than extra bleed buildup.
• An Arcane-scaling casting staff, such as Albinauric Staff or Maternal Staff, can increase the spell's blood loss buildup with Arcane. Merely carrying one in your other hand does not lend that status scaling to a spell cast through a different staff.