Mimic Tear in Elden Ring: Where to Find It, the 660 HP Cost, and Why It’s Still S-Tier After the 2022 Nerf

Mimic Tear clones your exact build — weapons, armor, talismans, spells, the works — and throws a second copy of your character at whatever is trying to kill you. It costs 660 HP to summon instead of FP, it got nerfed exactly once in March 2022, and four years later it’s still sitting in S-tier alongside every Spirit Ash the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC added. That combination — old, nerfed, still the best — is unusual enough that it’s worth explaining why, not just where to pick it up.

This guide covers the acquisition route (including a real disagreement between guides on how many Stonesword Keys you need), the actual HP and Stamina numbers at every upgrade level, a pre-summon trick most walkthroughs skip, and how it stacks up against its closest rival, Black Knife Tiche.

Quick Start: Getting Mimic Tear in 6 Steps

1. Defeat Starscourge Radahn at Redmane Castle in Caelid — this opens the meteor crater that leads into Nokron, Eternal City.
2. Drop into the crater and reach the Nokron, Eternal City Site of Grace.
3. Push toward the fog wall inside the city and beat the Mimic Tear boss fight — yes, you fight a copy of yourself before you can summon one.
4. From the Site of Grace that unlocks, cross the bridge and follow the cliff edge left to reach Ancestral Woods.
5. Jump the rooftops from Ancestral Woods into Night’s Sacred Ground.
6. Find the chapel with the imp statue door, use a Stonesword Key, and open the chest.

Verified against current Elden Ring (post-Shadow of the Erdtree). Ashes of War and item locations haven’t changed since the DLC launched in 2024.

What Mimic Tear Actually Does

The 660 HP summon cost is the first thing that trips people up — it comes out of your health bar, not your FP, so you’re trading a chunk of your own survivability for a second body on the field. In exchange, the mimic copies almost everything: your currently equipped weapon (it favors the right-hand slot and can even powerstance dual-wielded weapons), your armor and shield, your talismans, your spells or incantations if you’re holding a staff or seal, and an unlimited supply of whatever arrows or bolts you had loaded when you summoned it.

It will not touch two things: Great Runes and pouch items. And it doesn’t get a free pass on stat requirements — if your build doesn’t actually meet the requirements for a weapon or spell, the mimic will still try to use it and fail, the same as you would. Consumables are capped at however many you had equipped, with one exception: Flask of Crimson Tears, which the mimic will drink even without a weapon equipped, unlike other offensive items.

One quirk worth knowing before you fight anything serious: a bug present since patch 1.03 occasionally leaves the mimic swinging at empty air for a few seconds after a boss dies, instead of vanishing immediately. It’s cosmetic, not a threat, but it explains the odd combat log you’ll sometimes see after a kill.

The Stonesword Key Count Guides Disagree On

Here’s a genuine contradiction worth flagging rather than papering over: Elden Ring’s wiki.gg page and Dexerto’s walkthrough both describe a single Stonesword Key opening the imp statue door on the chest itself, which matches how imp statue doors work everywhere else in the game — they’re always a 1-key lock. TheGamer’s guide, on the other hand, states you need two keys for the same chest.

The likely explanation is route-dependent: some paths into Night’s Sacred Ground cross an earlier, optional Stonesword-locked door elsewhere in Nokron before you ever reach the chapel, so a guide describing the full explored route ends up counting two keys spent, not two keys required for this specific chest. Either way, the safe move is to carry two Stonesword Keys into Nokron so a wrong turn doesn’t strand you one key short.

Upgrading Mimic Tear: Real Numbers, Not Just “Use Ghost Glovewort”

Mimic Tear is a Renowned Spirit Ash, which means it upgrades on Ghost Glovewort rather than the Grave Glovewort that powers Standard Ashes. You need Ghost Glovewort [1] through [9] — one of each, one per level — to reach +9, then a single Great Ghost Glovewort for the final push to +10. Ghost Glovewort [1] through [5] all drop in Siofra River, underneath Limgrave, so you can realistically hit +5 before you’ve even left the early game. [6] is in Wyndham Catacombs on the Altus Plateau, and [7] is in Gelmir Hero’s Grave on Mt. Gelmir — both still boss-free.

Levels +8 through +10 are where the route gets expensive: Ghost Glovewort [8], [9], and the Great Ghost Glovewort all require defeating a shardbearer for their Great Rune, plus finishing White Mask Varré’s questline to reach Mohgwyn Palace. Radahn’s Great Rune technically counts, but if you’ve already fought him for the ash itself, guides note it’s usually faster to knock out Godrick or Rennala instead rather than backtrack.

What that grind actually buys you is the part most walkthroughs skip entirely. Mimic Tear’s HP and Stamina scale on flat multipliers off a base of 1, and a flat 50 damage negation bonus applies at every single level regardless of what armor it’s copying:

The jump from +7 to +9 (2.406x to 3.15x HP) is the single biggest spike on the table, and it’s also the exact point where the material cost stops being free and starts requiring a boss kill — which is a reasonable argument for prioritizing your shardbearer fight specifically to unlock that jump, rather than treating +8 through +10 as optional polish.

The Pre-Buff Trick Most Guides Skip

Because the mimic is a snapshot of your character at the moment you summon it, anything active on you when you press the button gets copied into the clone — including buffs. Cast Golden Vow, drink a combat physick mix, or apply a weapon buff before you summon, and the mimic spawns already carrying that same buff, doubling its effective value across two characters instead of one. Summon first and buff after, and only you get the benefit; the mimic fights unbuffed. It’s a one-line rule, but it’s the difference between the mimic tanking hits comfortably and the mimic getting deleted in a boss’s first combo.

Mimic Tear vs. Black Knife Tiche (and the DLC Field)

Black Knife Tiche is the other name that comes up in every “best Spirit Ash” argument, and the comparison actually clarifies what each one is for rather than crowning an outright winner. Tiche has built-in dodges and dashes that let her avoid attacks a static AI copy never will, and her Black Flame-infused knife fires a projectile that temporarily cuts an enemy’s max HP — useful against bosses with huge health pools. The tradeoff is that she’s locked behind finishing Ranni’s questline, she carries the highest FP cost of any Spirit Ash, and she’s a fixed kit — what you see is what you get.

Mimic Tear’s whole pitch is the opposite: it’s only as good as the build you feed it, which means a bad loadout produces a bad mimic, but a strong build gets doubled. It’s also available far earlier — right after Radahn, versus Tiche’s late-game unlock — and it’s the only ash that adapts automatically every time you respec or swap gear.

The DLC muddies this further — Shadow of the Erdtree added over a dozen new Spirit Ashes, and some of them (Jolan, Anna) have earned genuine praise. But per TheGamer’s updated ranking, Mimic Tear and Black Knife Tiche were “set in stone” as the top tier before the DLC ever released, and the new additions compete with each other for the tier below rather than dethroning either one. One DLC-specific wrinkle worth knowing: inside Shadow of the Erdtree, all summoned spirits — mimic included — also scale off a separate currency called Revered Spirit Ash Blessing, capped at level 10, which boosts their damage and survivability only within the Shadow Realm and has zero effect back in the Lands Between.

Which Mimic Tear Build Fits Your Playstyle

Why Mimic Tear Survived the Only Nerf It Ever Got

Mimic Tear has only been directly touched once. Patch 1.03, released March 16, 2022, states plainly: “Decreased the damage of spirit summoned when using the item Mimic Tear Ash and changed the spirit’s behavior pattern.” Community estimates at the time put the damage cut at roughly half. That’s a real nerf, not a token adjustment — and it’s the reason older guides calling Mimic Tear “broken” are describing a version of the ash that hasn’t existed for years.

What kept it relevant afterward wasn’t the raw damage number recovering — it never did — it’s that the nerf only ever touched output, not the mechanic that makes it valuable: a full copy of your build, including everything a fixed-kit ash can’t replicate. FromSoftware never nerfed the versatility, only the damage, which is why a single 2022 patch note still explains the entire shape of the current meta.

FAQ

Do I need to beat Radahn specifically, or will any shardbearer work?

You need Radahn specifically to open the crater into Nokron — that part isn’t optional, since it’s the only entrance. Where the “any shardbearer” flexibility comes in is later, for the +8 through +10 Ghost Glovewort materials, which just require a Great Rune from any shardbearer. If you’ve already got Radahn’s, backtracking for a second boss for materials alone is usually more time than it saves.

Is Mimic Tear still worth using if Black Knife Tiche is arguably better against single bosses?

Yes, because “arguably better against single bosses” is a narrow claim, not a general one. Tiche’s dodging edge matters most in isolated boss fights; Mimic Tear’s build-mirroring matters everywhere, including against enemy groups, where Tiche’s fixed kit doesn’t flex the way a copy of your own AoE-capable build does.

Why does my Mimic Tear keep failing to cast the spell I gave it?

Because it doesn’t get a free pass on stat requirements. If your character’s Intelligence or Faith wouldn’t actually let you cast that spell reliably, the mimic inherits the same shortfall — it’s not a bug, it’s the build-mirroring mechanic working as intended against you instead of for you.

Key Takeaways

Mimic Tear costs 660 HP, tops out at a 3.3x HP multiplier and 50 flat damage negation at +10, and has been running on the same damage formula since a single patch in March 2022. The acquisition route has one genuinely disputed detail — carry two Stonesword Keys to be safe — and the two upgrade decisions that matter most are stopping at +7 if you’re casual, or pushing to +9 (not +10) if you want the real power spike. Pre-buff before you summon, not after, and match your build’s actual strength to how much you expect the clone to carry.

Sources

• Mimic Tear Ashes — Fextralife Elden Ring Wiki
• Mimic Tear Ashes — eldenring.wiki.gg
• Elden Ring Patch Notes Version 1.03 — Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe
• Mimic Tear vs. Black Knife Tiche — Game Rant
• The Best Spirit Ash Summons In Elden Ring — TheGamer (linked above in DLC context)
• Mimic Tear Spirit Ashes Guide — Dexerto
• How To Get The Mimic Tear Ashes — TheGamer
• Upgrades Guide: Weapons, Spirit Ashes, Flasks — Fextralife Elden Ring Wiki
• Revered Spirit Ash — Fextralife Elden Ring Wiki

For the fundamentals of surviving the early game before you’re geared up enough to make full use of Mimic Tear, see our Elden Ring beginner’s guide.

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.