Elden Ring | What are Dragon Hearts for?

Elden Ring is chock full of secrets and surprises, and yet another thing that isn’t explained is Dragon Hearts. What are they for, how do you get them; and then what do you do with them? All will be explained in our handy guide, which is going to be especially useful to you if you’re a magic build.

You’ll likely see a fire-breathing dragon very early on in Elden Ring. Whether you can take it on or not is the key to finding the Elden Ring Dragon Hearts, but the truth is, you’re probably going to have to come back at a later point when you’ve become stronger.

Elden Ring: How do I get Dragon Hearts?

Roaming the Lands Between you’ll find dragons pretty organically. The first is likely the fire one that guards the lake. Grunt enemies are worshiping at the lake, and if you ride or walk near enough, the dragon will swoop down and burn them to a crisp. Then, it’ll turn its attention to you and you have to fight or run. Guess how you get it’s heart? That’s right, you have to beat it. The arena here is massive but this won’t be an easy fight unless you’re high level with some serious magic skills.

There are at least three dragons in Elden Ring, one is further to the East of the map and will fire lightning at you. One way or another these are formidable enemies, but to get the Dragon Hearts in Elden Ring, you’ll need to face them all, and come out on top.

Follow our guide to defeat the first dragon, Flying Dragon Agheel.

What are Dragon Hearts for?

Surprisingly, for something so apparently rare, Elden Ring dragon hearts are a tradeable item. There is a dilapidated church hidden after an optional boss fight that you’ll need to go through, and then, instead of using the “return to entrance” teleporter that appears after the boss fight, you should push through to the other side, whereby you’ll end up on a tiny island that houses this church. Inside are statues of dragons and an alter you can interact with, allowing you to trade dragon hearts for decent fire-based spells.

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Where is the entrance to this island?

You can see the location of the cave you’ll need to find, Coastal Cave, in the image below. Make sure you have a torch as it’s very dark inside. You’ll face multiple enemies that are pretty easy to beat, and then you can summon both an NPC supporter, but also a spirit bell summon, to help you defeat the duo Demi-Human Chief. They’re barely more than standard enemies with a larger health pool, so you should make short work of them. If you stay near the entrance to the fight, you won’t even aggro the second boss, so you can deal with the minions and the first Demi-Human before even touching the second.

It’s important to do this side-quest anyway, because you’ll get the tools required to alter your clothing’s appearance. Also you’ll get a NPC quest item. You can do this boss almost immediately at a low level (9-10) so just get this one done. Remember to exit via the back, and not the cave you came from, and you’ll end up on the island.

Elden Ring Dragon Hearts: What can I trade them for?

At the alter you’ll see the list, but for the impatient, here’s what you can trade for.

• Dragonfire. Channels dragon to spew flame breath. Attributes required are 15 faith, 12 arcane.
• Dragonclaw. Channels dragon to rend foes with dragon claws. Attributes required are 17 faith, 13 arcane.
• Dragonmaw. Channels dragon to bite foes before caster. Attributes required are 24 faith, 16 arcane.