In Elden Ring, players will have to contend with the Lands Between's countless dangers, and make use of a variety of tools to do so. These come in many forms, including weapons, armor, and spells. One valuable tool in any player's arsenal, regardless of their preferred build, is the Physik Flask.
Elden Ring's Physik Flask is a special potion that is refilled whenever players rest at a Site of Grace, but unlike the Flasks of Crimson and Cerulean Tears, this flask's effect is not set in stone. The Physik Flask instead allows players to customize its effects by placing up to two "Crystal Tears" inside it. Each of these Tears offers a different effect, allowing players to create a flask that suits their playstyle and provides whatever benefits they find most valuable.
The Physik Flask and Crimson Crystal Tears
The Physik Flask itself can be found alongside the Crimson Crystal Tear at the Third Church of Marika, in Limgrave. The Crimson Crystal Tear restores 50% of the player's HP when the Physik is used, making it a potent healing option. A second Crimson Crystal Tear can be acquired in the Capital Outskirts, guarded by some enemies beneath a Minor Erdtree.
The Crimson Crystal Tears stack, and can be used to create a Physik Flask that always fully heals the player when used, if desired. This makes for a fantastic panic button if players are venturing into particularly dangerous locales.
Greenspill Crystal Tear and Spiked Cracked Tear
This pair of Crystal Tears can be acquired by heading south from the Third Church of Marika in Limgrave, into the Mistwood region. A Minor Erdtree towers here, and a basin at the foot of the tree will yield both Tears when found.
The Greenspill Crystal Tear boosts the player's maximum stamina, which is incredibly useful for stamina-hungry builds, such as builds using heavy weapons. The Greenspill Crystal Tear is also useful to provide some extra wiggle room for players who find themselves overextending and burning through their stamina too quickly.
The Spiked Cracked Tear is a fantastically powerful tool that enhances the potency of charged attacks. Since Charged Attacks are nearly universally beneficial when fighting strong foes, allowing players to stagger enemies and open them up to critical attacks, this Tear can prove tremendously helpful. It is particularly useful when using heavy weapons to give them extra kick.
Crimsonburst Crystal Tear and Opaline Bubbletear
This pair of Crystal Tears is found by traveling to the Minor Erdtree in the Weeping Peninsula and slaying the Erdtree Avatar that guards it. Erdtree Avatars are incredibly vulnerable to fire, which can be used to tear through their health at incredible speed. As such, players with the requisite faith might want to use incantations like Catch Flame to defeat the Erdtree Avatar more easily.
The Crimsonburst Crystal Tear provides the player with a health regen effect, restoring 7HP per second for 3 minutes. While this sounds like a small amount, it can make a huge difference during longer combat encounters and also helps to reactivate the Ritual Sword and Ritual Shield Talismans after taking a hit.
The Opaline Bubbletear is another excellent tool for enhancing player survivability, creating a protective shield that will absorb a single hit before breaking. The bubble won't break if the attack was blocked with a shield that has 100% damage negation, allowing players to use guard counters without risking their emergency shield.
Cerulean Crystal Tears
The Cerulean Crystal Tear is the FP restoring equivalent of the Crimson Crystal Tear, instantly restoring 50% of the Player's FP when the Physik Flask is used. Two Cerulean Crystal Tears can be found in the game, allowing players to mix a 100% FP restoring Physik Flask if desired.
The first is acquired from the Erdtree Avatar in the southwest of Liurnia of the Lakes, guarding the Minor Erdtree. Once again players should make use of fire to defeat this boss quickly and easily. The second Cerulean Crystal Tear can be found in the Mountaintops of the Giants, dropped by another Erdtree Avatar guarding a Minor Erdtree in the Eastern Mountaintops.
Ruptured Crystal Tears
The Ruptured Crystal Tears cause an explosion of Holy Damage moments after the Flask is used, damaging everything in proximity including the player. A single Ruptured Crystal Tear has a base damage of 800, a range of 2 meters, and deals 300 damage to the player. Putting two Ruptured Crystal Tears in the flask creates an explosion with a base damage of 1750, a range of 4 meters, and which deals 700 damage to the player.
The first Ruptured Crystal Tear is found alongside the Cerulean Crystal Tear in the southwest of Liurnia of the lakes, while the second is dropped by the Putrid Avatar in the Consecrated Snowfield alongside the Thorny Cracked Tear, at the Minor Erdtree.
Strength-Knot Crystal Tear
This Crystal Tear, found by heading Northeast from Stormhill Shack in Limgrave and locating a Basin near a troll, provides +10 strength while active. This can be very potent for boosting damage and meeting the stat requirements for heavy weapons, especially early in the game.
This Crystal Tear becomes less useful in the late-game once the strength softcap is reached, but it can still be an effective means of enhancing damage output in strength or quality builds.
Dexterity-Knot Crystal Tear
This Crystal Tear, located atop an island to the southwest of Boilprawn Shack, in Liurnia of the Lakes, functions identically to the Strength-Knot Crystal Tear but boosts the Dexterity Stat instead. Useful for builds that make use of dex weapons, and especially for meeting some of the higher stat requirements earlier in a playthrough, the Dexterity-Knot Crystal Tear can provide tons of extra damage before the softcap is hit.
Intelligence-Knot Crystal Tear
This Crystal Tear is found near the "Road to the Manor" Site of Grace in Liurnia of the Lakes, by heading southeast down a slope and then looping back north along a lower path. This path leads to a basin containing the tear which is guarded by some freaky hands. This Crystal Tear grants +10 Intelligence while active, making it useful for boosting the damage of Sorceries and meeting the requirements for some of the more stat-hungry Sorceries. Since the softcap for intelligence, when determining Sorcery damage, is much higher than the softcaps for strength and dexterity, this Tear remains useful for much more of the game than the previous two tears.
Faith-Knot Crystal Tear
The final stat boost Crystal Tear can be found by heading to the Weeping Peninsula and finding the Demi-Human Forest Ruins, which are down in the forest below (and east from) the Church of Pilgrimage. After finding the ruins players can search north of the ruins to find a bowl containing this Crystal Tear, a short way down the cliff and guarded by poison flowers. Players can use this Tear for Incantations in much the same way the Intelligence-Knot Tear can be used for Sorceries.
Greenburst Crystal Tear and Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear
This pair of Crystal Tears can be acquired by taking down the Putrid Avatar that guards a Minor Erdtree in Caelid. Specifically, the Minor Erdtree found just to the northeast of the Smouldering Church, which can be found by taking the path from Limgrave into Caelid. Fire will ruin their day and make this fight way easier.
The Greenburst Crystal Tear enhances stamina recovery speed, providing players with more efficient stamina recovery during combat encounters and helping players to recover when overextending and using too much stamina.
The Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear is possibly one of the best Tears for boosting offensive power, boosting fire damage by 20% (12.5% in PVP). This makes it a must-have for any build that uses fire damage and makes Erdtree Avatars and their Putrid counterparts even easier to annihilate.
Holy-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear, and Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear
This trio of Crystal Tears is dropped by the Erdtree Avatar guarding the Minor Erdtree in northeast Liurnia, near the Mausoleum Compound Site of Grace. These three respectively boost holy, lightning, and magic damage by 20% for three minutes. These are a fantastic addition to any build utilizing one of these three damage types and are well worth the trouble of hunting down.
Opaline Hardtear and Stonebarb Cracked Tear
These two Crystal Tears are dropped by the Putrid Avatar found at Caelid's easternmost Minor Erdtree (in the Dragonbarrow area.) Much like Erdtree Avatars, Putrid Avatars are tremendously weak to fire and can easily be killed using fire damage. The Opaline Hardtear buffs all damage negation by 15% for three minutes, making it a fantastic survivability boost in the hands of a tanky character. Meanwhile, the Stonebarb Cracked Tear enhances poise damage for 30 seconds while also boosting stamina damage against blocking enemies, allowing players to more effectively stagger their foes and deal with enemies that carry shields.
Windy Crystal Tear
The Windy Crystal Tear can be found by seeking out the Nomadic Merchant near the Southern Aeonia Swamp Bank Site of Grace. From there, players should head southeast and look for a pit containing the Crystal Tear, with one of Caelid's infamous giant birds watching it. This Crystal Tear boosts the invulnerability duration of dodge rolls, with light and medium rolls receiving a 19% boost and heavy (fat) rolls receiving a 25% boost. This is a massive advantage when dealing with some of the game's most dangerous attacks, but the tear also reduces damage negation by 15%. This means that any attacks the player does take while using this Tear will deal more damage than normal.
Crimsonspill Crystal Tear and Speckled Hardtear
These two are dropped by the Wormface Boss, found at the Minor Erdtree in Altus Plateau (in the woods beneath the broken bridge.) The Crimsonspill Crystal Tear increases maximum health by 10% for three minutes, while the Speckled Hardtear removes Status buildup and grants +90 resistance to all status effects for three minutes.
Purifying Crystal Tear
This Tear is dropped by the invader "Bloody Finger Eleonora" when they invade the player at the Second Church of Marika in Altus Plateau, as part of Yura's questline. This Crystal Tear removes Mohg, Lord of Blood's curse and prevents him from damaging the player with his Nihil attack during the transition into his second phase. It serves no other purpose.
Twiggy Cracked Tear
This Tear is found in a basin beneath the Minor Erdtree on the eastern side of Altus Plateau (the Capital Outskirts), alongside the second Crimson Crystal Tear, and prevents rune loss on death for three minutes. This makes it a useful panic button if the player is going into a situation where they are likely to die.
Winged Crystal Tear
Players seeking this crystal tear should begin at the Hermit Merchant's Shack Site of Grace. Players should then head northeast through the graveyard, looking for a basin near the far side of the graveyard near a cliff (just before the Minor Erdtree mentioned in the previous entry.) The Winged Crystal Tear's effect is worded somewhat confusingly, but what it actually does is raise the characters maximum equip load by 450% for three minutes. This is usually enough to allow the player to carry pretty much anything unless they exclusively equip all the heaviest items in the game at once.
Leaden Hardtear and Cerulean Hidden Tear
These two are dropped by an Ulcerated Tree Spirit, at the Minor Erdtree in Mt. Gelmir. Like Erdtree Avatars and Putrid Avatars, Ulcerated Tree Spirits are especially vulnerable to fire damage. The Leaden Hardtear boosts poise for 10 seconds, functionally granting the player resistance to stagger from nearly all attacks during that time. The Cerulean Hidden Tear, however, reduces all FP consumption to zero for 15 seconds. This allows players to freely cast magic and use weapon skills without expending FP for 15 seconds and is a huge part of many builds designed for maximizing spell damage over a short period (usually by using Comet Azur.)
Crimson Bubbletear
The Crimson Bubbletear is dropped by the Erdtree Avatar guarding the Minor Erdtree in the Mountaintops of the Giants (the same one that drops a Cerulean Crystal Tear.) This Tear causes the player to heal 30% of their maximum HP the next time they drop below 21% HP, within the next three minutes. This won't prevent the player from being killed if they took enough damage to kill them outright, but can be a very useful safety net if an attack deals more damage than expected.
Crimsonwhorl Bubbletear
This very interesting Tear is found in the Mountaintops of the Giants. Players seeking it out should head for the Foot of the Forge Site of Grace and head Northeast, following the cliff edge until they find a path leading to a ledge above the Giant's Gravepost. This Tear will convert all non-physical damage the player takes into healing for the next 15 seconds, making it an effective way of dealing with foes that mostly deal elemental damage and even allowing players to stand in the Magma Pool surrounding Rykard.
Thorny Cracked Tear
The Thorny Cracked Tear can be found at the Minor Erdtree in the Consecrated Snowfield, by defeating the strongest Putrid Avatar in the game. Despite being scaled for the dangerous endgame area where it is found, the Putrid Avatar remains easy to defeat using fire damage. The Thorny Cracked Tear grants a stacking damage bonus on successive attacks, which will deplete if the player does not land an attack for a while. It goes from a 9% damage boost to 13% and then finally to 20%, and stacks with the Winged Sword Insignia and Rotten Winged Sword Insignia (which have a similar effect.)
Elden Ring is available for PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.