Elden Ring Player Beats Game Using Only a Butt Stomp

An Elden Ring player has added yet another interesting playthrough to the growing list of unorthodox ways to beat the game by clearing its numerous bosses using the “Ground Slam” weapon ability. This move is the one that allows the player to leap up into the air and come crashing back down to deal damage, though because of how they land, it’s more often called “butt stomp” or something similar by those who use it.

The player who accomplished this is unsurprisingly a seasoned Elden Ring player themselves. Elden Ring player and speedrunner Distortion2 who’s already beaten the game in under 10 minutes shared a video this week that showed their butt stomping experience starting first with the quest to get the ability itself and then a montage of the major bosses players will come across in Elden Ring.

The video above opens with some narration about the experience and the speedrunner’s setup before diving right into all the Ground Slams. It runs for around two hours to show off all of the major bosses players will have to face off against in Elden Ring including some of the ones that are optional like Malenia, so even though it’s not a showcase of every single boss, it’s a fair representation of what someone’s journey might look like sans butt slams. If you want to see that Malenia fight in action, you can head to the 1:23:40 mark to see how the boss so many people struggle with was defeated by nothing more than butt stomps. It went about as well as one might expect. 

In truth, the player wasn’t technically using only butt stomps and nothing more throughout their Elden Ring playthrough. There’s of course the first bit of the game where you have to actually acquire the weapon art which takes a bit of non-slamming combat, but you’ll notice after that how the player has a Sacred Seal equipped to perform Incantations. Ones such as Flame, Grant Me Strength and Black Flame’s Protection were used throughout the battles to buff up the slam’s damage while also protecting the user. Couple that with some substantial sets of armor and you’re at least able to mitigate some of the damage you’d take. The player also shifted to the Erdtree Slam ability partway through which is a stronger, holier version of the Ground Slam move, so it compliments Faith investments nicely.

That’s a pretty necessary part of the build, too, considering how much of a windup the slam ability has and how punishing it can be if it misses. One advantage of the attack is that it’s finishing animation does put the player on the ground which makes them too low to get hit by some attacks, but that’s a small consolation for an already difficult run.