Highlights

  • Furnace Golems in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree are weak to fire.
  • Contrary to RPG genre conventions, these fire enemies are susceptible to their matching elemental damage whenever they are ablaze.
  • Hefty Furnace Pot, a new type of throwable introduced in Shadow of the Erdtree, is particularly effective against Furnace Golems.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree's Furnace Golems have a weird weakness in that they are surprisingly vulnerable to one of the things they're made of: fire. However, taking advantage of this weakness during one's adventures in the newly released Elden Ring expansion can be a bit tricky.

Furnace Golems are a horrifying new type of enemy introduced in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. This will be the first field boss that most players will encounter in the Land of Shadow, as one is located in the Gravesite Plain, extremely close to the starting area. Similar to the first Tree Sentinel from the base game, the stats and placement of this monster are both meant to encourage players to explore before tackling it, as Furnace Golem is capable of two-shotting even many characters with 60 Vigor or more, depending on their exact equipment loadout.

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree logo Tarnished on torrent red sky sunset
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Shadow of the Erdtree's Furnace Golems Are Susceptible To Fire When They Are Ablaze

And while it didn't take long for the fandom to devise some reliable strategies for beating Furnace Golems in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, it turns out that one of the most effective ways of dealing damage to these monstrosities is to just hit them with fire. Not many players would necessarily think to try that on their own, as using fire against a fire enemy would seem a bit counterintuitive to anyone who's used to playing RPGs. But Shadow of the Erdtree defies this genre convention by making Furnace Golems weak to fire while they are ablaze.

Whenever that happens, players will want to target their head baskets with either an arrow, fire spell, or a bomb. Reddit user _-Ambi-_ demonstrated this strategy in a recently shared video that saw them use Hefty Furnace Pots, a new type of consumable introduced in the DLC, to completely obliterate a Furnace Golem in just two hits.

The player did not reveal how many Scadutree Fragments they had collected in Shadow of the Erdtree prior to tackling the monster, but each Scadutree level should significantly boost the damage of this and every other throwable in the game for as long as the Tarnished remains in the Land of Shadow. The tricky part of the strategy is actually landing a hit on the Furnace Golem's basket, as doing so requires the player to be on high ground.

While attacking a fire monster with fire may seem counterintuitive, the game actually hints at this being a viable approach by way of Furnace Keeper's Note, which can be found in Scadu Altus, near the Shadow Keep's main entrance. And though crafting a bunch of Elden Ring fire bombs is hence a surprisingly effective way of preparing for Furnace Golem fights, players wanting to experience more conventional combat can still be successful by merely hopping on Torrent and chipping away at these field bosses' ankles until they fall down and can get hit in the face for huge damage.