Elden Ring: What’s the maximum damage you can do at Level 1? Player pushes the limits with 450k+ damage in one hit 

In a recent video, Japanese streamer Koori Soda investigates the limits of what’s possible for a level 1 player in Elden Ring. Attempting to achieve the highest amount of damage possible in one attack, they execute a critical hit worth a staggering 450k+ damage. 

Investigating various popular methods of boosting damage in Elden Ring, Koori Soda initially goes for making use of Hemorrhage, also known as Blood Loss. The Hemorrhage status effect in Elden Ring works with many enemies and many different weapons, and the damage it deals is proportional to the enemy’s HP, making it effective against bosses with high HP. 

That’s why, to maximize the amount of damage they can deal with one blow, Koori Soda chooses the high HP boss Fire Giant as their target. They aim to cash in on both Hemorrhage and Physical damage by aiming for the Fire Giant’s wounded leg, its weak point. They use a dual curved sword build (Blood Grossmessers) infused with Seppuku to perform a Jump attack. With the help of cleverly combined buffs, they deal an impressive 32,838 damage. However, as Koori Soda points out, the drawback of leveraging Hemorrhage is that it gets progressively harder to trigger, and the amount of damage you can deal will never exceed the boss’s HP (as it’s proportional). 

Aiming for even higher damage and hopefully enough to defeat an enemy in one move, Koori Sooda tries to exploit Holy damage next. Holy damage works effectively against “Those Who Live in Death,” aka Undead type enemies, which is why they choose a Death Rite Bird as their next target. Stacking an impressive combination of buffs to boost their attack power, they attack the Death Rite Bird using a Holy Water Pot. This deals a total of 92,325 damage, enough to defeat (and overkill) the boss in one hit. 

However, still not entirely satisfied, Koori Soda aims for an even higher record, which they achieve by exploiting critical hits. Specific bosses such as Land Octopus and Guardian Golem are especially suited for farming critical damage, they explain, as they have high HP but are weak to critical hits. For their experiment, they target a Flame Chariot and equip themselves with the Miséricorde, which has the highest critical stat of all weapons in the game. In Elden Ring, if you execute a plunge attack targeted at the opening at the top of the Flame Chariot, you will trigger a special motion and deal massive damage. In their first attempt, Koori manages to deal out 39k+ damage by exploiting this move using a Magic Miséricorde, even without stacking buffs. 

However, in their second attempt, Koori Sooda takes a series of steps to raise their attack damage to the next level – starting by putting the Flame Chariot to sleep using a Sleep Pot. Next, they apply a concoction of buffs and debuffs, including a Faith-Knot Crystal, Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear, a Golden Vow, Howl of Shabriri and more (they list everything in order from the 5:45 mark in the video), making sure to start from longer-lasting buffs. In a single hit, they annihilated the Flame Chariot by dealing a total of 455,866 damage. The experiment makes for a good demonstration of the versatility of Elden Ring’s buff and debuff system. 

The Elden Ring DLC “Shadow of the Erdtree” is scheduled for release on June 21 for the PC (Steam), PS4/PS5, and Xbox series X|S/Xbox One.