Sharp Gem is an Upgrade Material in Dark Souls 3.
Sharp Gem Effect
- Used in Infusion to make Sharp weapons.
- Lowers the base damage on weapons, but gives them a higher Dexterity scaling.
- Does not prevent resins/buffing the infused weapon.
- Farron Coal must be given to Blacksmith Andre to unlock sharp infusions.
Where to Find Sharp Gem
- Most commonly drops from both talon and rapier crows in Painted World of Ariandel DLC. To farm the most effective way just warp to Corvian Settlement bonfire and jump down to the river where the talon crow ambushes you by dropping down from the ceiling. You can kill him twice before rusted coin buff runs out if you are fast enough. Uncommon drop ().
- Drops from Red-Eyed curved sword wielding Skeletons at Catacombs of Carthus bonfire (Turn left after the skeleton ball, these enemies are after the rats). Ultra-Rare drop.
- Drops from Red-Eyed curved sword+shield Skeletons just before Catacombs of Carthus bonfire. (From the bonfire, turn RIGHT, kill the two skeletons, repeat cycle.) Ultra-Rare drop.
- Also drops from shotel wielding Carthus Skeletons. Rare drop
- 1x found at Catacombs of Carthus ().
- 1x from a Crystal Lizard, near the Dilapidated Bridge bonfire (where the invader spawns), in Undead Settlement. Note: Lizard may escape as you spawn, instead try coming from Undead Settlement bonfire (video location).
- 1x from a Crystal Lizard on the rooftops in The Grand Archives (the spot where there are two lizards and giant gargoyles in the area)
Videos:
Ashes of Ariandel DLC - ultimate end game farming guide
Notes
- Sharp infusions are worse for the weapon's base damage than Heavy infusions, but less severe than Refined infusions.
- Infusing degrades Strength scaling, but doesn't nullify it.
- most sharp infusable weapons have a 4 components slope regarding return on investment in dexterity : steep positive slope up to 40; slow positive slope between 40 and 60; very steep positive slope between 60 and 83-84; very slow positive until 99.
Trivia
- The function of this gem is similar to the Bladestone in Demon's Souls.
- Anonymous
Just did close to 20 runs farming the 4 skeletons near the bonfire. On the very last run, when I was calling it quits, it finally dropped. Thank you Miyazaki for finally giving me an ability to use 3 weapons instead of 2, but screw you for such terrible drop rates, these gems shouldn't be as rare as they are.
- Anonymous
Shame on you Miyazaki for forcing the player to grind if they want to try more than 3 weapons on a dex build.
- Anonymous
Why is the Undead settlement crystal lizard sharp gem not on here?
tbh i think if you are doing a dex build, esp for low or mid level pvp/co-op, the carthus bonfire -> 2 red eye shield skellies is pretty viable and somewhat chill for farming these. you will get plenty of souls to just buy more rusted coins from patches (or other consumables), plenty of titanite to +6 all your weapons, and some vertebrae shackles and gems here and there. even some embers. granted, not everyone needs these items, but on a freshly made, lower level character they are pretty useful to have extra of (so just get all the sharp gems you need here right away).
i was casually farming for like an hour, hour and thirty earlier, doing 2-4 runs between other tasks, using rusted coins with symbol of avarice, crystal rapier and +3 gold serpent. got like 4 sharp gems and 3-4 shackles. you can also just stagger them to death with anything, or crit them, and they die fast. farming the other enemies in cathus or corvian settlement is a nightmare because you have to either actually fight them; or cheese them and stand around waiting for them to die, but still actively pay attention to crack the coin at the right time not to waste it. i'd rather kill more mobs, faster, and at least get the extra titanite and souls out of it.
- Anonymous
Go to Undead Settlement, get this. Go to Road of Sacrifices, get Sellsword Winblades. Slap them together. Congratulations, you just unlocked Dark Souls 3: Prepare to Easy Mode
Best farm strategy I found so far (requires toxic mist, story teller staff, hidden body spell, lingering dragon crest ring, and preferably spook and any item discovery improvements you got). Start at Corvion settlement bonfire, toxic mist the crow hanging from the bridge from the ledge, it will fall, then while still locked on poison mist it with the story teller staff WA. Then run up the hill and turn invisible and preferably silent and do the same to the crow that jumps down in your path, then head to the left side church building past the fence and do the same to the one in the back and the other will come join him in the two poison+toxic clouds. Then run out and take a rusted coin and wait till they die. Simply doing one kind of poison isn't enough for them to die they need to be poisoned+toxic. Then backtrack and collect all the items and hopefully one out of the 4 of them dropped a sharp gem. I get like one every two cycles, 210 discovery. If not well at least you are getting large shards and tons of souls.
- Anonymous
Anyone having troubles farming these, Use the pyromancy “Rapport” on the talon guy before you drop off the ledge to the right exiting corivan settlement bonfire.
It's so annoying that you get the ashes that let you buy refined gems from the handmaiden but not sharp gems. Even these crows have a miserable drop rate, it's on par with trying to farm bladestone in demon's souls
- Anonymous
You can easily farm those without ever having to fight the crow knights. Go to the bonfire right after you kill Vilhelm and backtrack to the building with the 2 crow knights. Climb the ladder and drop onto the wooden beams. Approach the claw-wielding crow from behind without alerting him by just walking slowly and throw 4 dung pies at him. That will inflict toxic and kill him without you needing to land a single hit. Do the same to the rapier-wielding crow bellow you and just wait. Getting hit by dung pies does not alert enemies, and you can effectively cheese them with the crappiest item in the game.
- Anonymous
I may have considered getting a dex weapon if i could get at least two. And no way in hell am I farming those f**king crows. Why are these so rare?
- Anonymous
I am inconsolable right now about how much of my time this game has wasted. I don’t have that much time to farm for a upgrade mat for hours and not get it. It’s unforgivable how you can’t play this game without looking **** up or you ruin your build because you waste all the upgrade mats. ****
- Anonymous
I’m always so confused with these farming guides saying you can kill 2 before the rusted coin runs out, however elsewhere on the site says the coin is 100% over with as soon as you reset at bonfire… Anyone care to explain or clear this up??
- Anonymous
The best spot to farm these safely is the bonfire after Vilhelm, the two Corvian Knights in the church like structure with the Miracle, stay the roof and use Rapport to turn them against each other and pacify the survivor long enough for you to kill it. This isn't efficient by any means, but with how awful they are to fight this is the safest way by far.
- Anonymous
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- Anonymous
Why can’t you just buy these from the handmaiden after getting the gravewarden ashes, or any of the other infusion gems for that matter? I sure hope if infusion returns in Elden Ring we’ll just be able to ****ing buy them.
- Anonymous
The
"Drops from Red-Eyed curved sword+shield Skeletons just before Catacombs of Carthus bonfire. (From the bonfire, turn RIGHT, kill the two skeletons, repeat cycle.) Ultra-Rare drop." makes it seem a lot less viable than it really is.
I got 2 sharp gems from those 2 skeletons in less than 20 runs while wearing the CoA(varice).
So if you are farming these for the first time, just put on a short podcast and you will get several by the time it finishes.
Farming
- Anonymous
If you have the ashes of ariandel DLC, go there with gold serpent ring and a mace (or any weapon w/ perseverance) and travel to the corvian settlement and fight the corvian knight you fight before the bonfire, and use perseverance to make it a cakewalk. Drops large and sharp gems somewhat commonly.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
took me nearly 2 hours to farm the 2 sharp gems i needed from the skellys to the right of the catacombs bonfire. (360 item discovery)
in that time i also got:
15 swords
10 shields
5 shackles
160 small shards
29 large shards
and ~12 embers
why tf cant you just buy them
- Anonymous
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Got one on the Catacombs skels after 7- 8 respawn with 269 Item Discovery
- Anonymous
Drops aren't always great.. rng is bs.. I reload after a nothing spree... Recommend all item discovery equipment
- Anonymous
Crystal lizard next to the Dilapidated Bridge bonfire in the Undead Settlement
- Anonymous
So, i just got one from an enemy drop in undead settlement.
- Anonymous
Just killed like 20-25 crows in ariandel without a single drop, BS info.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Can confirm that they still drop from the Red-eyed skellies in Catacombs, albeit with an incredibly low drop rate. Took 40 runs killing all 8 skellies to get my first gem. Ironically I got two sharp gems in the same run. Don't forget to stock up on rusted coins.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Whether we like it or not it's the most useful gem.. great ar on most weps and won't need the 2 hand to amp up DMG... So I co sign having to earn them
- Anonymous
Say what you want about dks2, but at least they were generous with infusion materials with the option to buy more if you want. Farming these without the dlc is near impossible
- Anonymous
Just got 1 in 3 tries only with a rusted coin right before catacombs of carthus bonfire, I think my item discovery was 159
- Anonymous
I see people complaining about how many heavy gems you have in dark souls 3 while you only have 3 guaranteed sharp gems and the farmable drops are all ultra-rare until you reach painted world of ariandel and if you dont have DLC (believe me, many people dont have it) you won't even get past the ultra-rare... *sigh* i guess even miyazaki hates the dexterity builds :(
- Anonymous
Ik im late to this but if you use a +10 dragonslayers axe from Creighton and use a lightning buff on it you can melt through the corvian knights HP
Edit: Right after posting I forgot to add I am also wearing Symbol of Avarice. Right after posting the previous comment I got 3 in a row. Drops are definitely inconsistent.
With 99 luck and 515 Item discovery (99 luck, crystal sage rapier, gold serpent +3, and rusted coin) the drop rate for Sharp Gems seems to be about 1/6. I'd say roughly around 15% - 20%.
- Anonymous
At 99/99 str/dex it doesn’t descale any damage. It does more damage than heavy infusion, and refined.
- Anonymous
Look at the drop rates on this and tell me that the blood gem system wasn't miles ahead of this goofery
- Anonymous
Farm these from the first Corvian Knight in AoA, the one a stone's throw away from the Settlement bonfire. You can farm them at low soul-level if you're good at parrying. Three ripostes with a deep or fire infused +3 dagger will kill them (or almost kill them) WITHOUT the hornet ring. I got 9 gems in an hour of farming without even using the Symbol of Avarice (210 item discovery). I pity people that had to farm these gems in the Catacombs before AoA's release.
- Anonymous
"1x from a Crystal Lizard on the rooftops in The Grand Archives (the spot where there are two lizards and giant gargoyles in the area" This is wrong. The lizard up the stairs from the first Sage encounter drops the crystal gem. The rooftop ones drop a Sharp and Heavy Gem
- Anonymous
If you don't want to fight the Talon Crow head-on during your farming of the sharp gem, pyromancy is one way to go. Be sure to attune Toxic Mist and a powerful fire spell (like Great Chaos Fire Orb or Chaos Bed Vestiges). Use Toxic Mist while the crow is still hanging upside down, then follow up with a fire spell. Don't drop down into the river but keep the high ground. The crow can't reach you there, but you can reach it with your fire. Just make sure not to stand too close to the edge when casting, you might accidentally fall off and become Talon Crow's *****. It may not be the fastest method, but it's relatively safe.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
ok folks. Here’s the the deal: farm the crow with the claws that is hanging upside down from the bridge. you will see it directly to your right when you exit the house from the corvian settlement bonfire (i.e. DO WHAT THE WIKI SAYS). Do NOT try to farm the rapier crow. he is a *****. farm the claw crow ONLY, then run back the the bonfire. Repeat ad nauseam. I got 9, NINE sharp gems in 1 hour. 9 in One. with only 168 item find. So easy, feels good. Rapier crow is the rapiest crow. he will rape you with his crow cock. Claw crow will have you crawlin’ back for more. More Sharp Gem to be precise. Just the sharpest. you can even see in the picture. they are pointy. #MeTooRapierCrows
- Anonymous
NICE, got 3 on 3 tries at Corvian settlement, farming with rusted coin, crystal sage´s rapier and corvetus golden serpent ring +3 :D I am set for life.
- Anonymous
In the beginning you said "a upgrade material" when it should've been "an upgrade material"
Ultra rare drop , got 2 in 1 hour and 20 mins at Catacombs. Dont have the ariandel DLC so no other option. ☹️
- Anonymous
Drop is so inconsistent. I got one out of maybe 50 attempts over the weekend then tonight I got large shards twice, a chunk, then 2 sharp gems in a row, another l shard and then a 3rd sharp gem in 10-15 minutes with only gold ring+3 and rusted coins
- Anonymous
I would like to have words with the idiot at FromSoft who input these drop rates. Those words will have plenty of expletives.
- Anonymous
with 325 item discovery, i got 0 sharp gems from 20 minutes of farming the corvian rapier crows. feels sad
- Anonymous
It is ridiculous, some weapons when sharp infused gain 1 or 2 more AR per level even after 80
- Anonymous
Want decent drop rates?...buy now at the low low cost of 25 buckos
- Anonymous
Undead Settlement right after the 2nd fat caster sitting on an archway above the middle of the street after you grab the titinite shard from his area and you go down and to the roof tops on the right you have to be fast there is 1x small crystal lizard that starts to scurry as soon as you jump on to the rooftops.
When farming in corvian village, parry them and it will go much easier. They spam R1 and can be punished for it.
- Anonymous
sharp infused causes adding dex from 60-75 to add around 2-3 ar per dex for most if not all infusable pure quality weapons such as the longsword,lothric knight greatsword,greatsword,greatlance,lucerene,halberd and caestus
In testing this I have found for many of these weapons leveling minimum str and going 40 dex actually strangely provides more AR than 40/40 refined
- Anonymous
It dropt from red-eyed skeleton mobs BUT only after 15 mins of farming with 290 item discovery ( seal of avarice + 40 luck + golden serpeant ring ). It is an ultra rare drop indeed.
- Anonymous
those greataxe wielding undead in High Wall of Lothric dropped a raw gem, not sure about a sharp.. soo far nothing.
- Anonymous
Can someone add that you can use hidden body + Slumbercrest ring/Spook to just walk up to the crystal lizard and spawn at it from Dilapitated bridge?
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Sharp is actually better than refined or strength in a lot of cases now like if you have minimum requirements for strength to weird the zwiehander but 75 dex and sharp infuse it gets 30+ ar when the reverse is done but with a heavy infusion also a broadsword at 20/75 str/dex with sharp infusion it gets 478 ar
- Anonymous
So, the corvian settlement is by far the better place to farm these gems than the catacombs. I got 3 gems in the catacombs after about 30 min farming there. In corvian settlement I killed the corvian knight with the rapier, who is near the bonfire. I got 6/14 gems, it cost me about 15 min. It's harder, but a lot faster. I equipped a sharp ifused lothric knight sword +10 and stacked as much poise as I could. I had in both places an item discovery of 423. Good luck farming.
- Anonymous
another good place to farm sharp gems is in the corvian settlement. corvian knights drop them. knights are normally a pain, but are affected by rapport so use this on them and have your way with 'em.
- Anonymous
Drop from red eyed assassin guarding the giant bolt canon defending smouldering lake.
- Anonymous
Something to think about: For dex builds using two-handed weapons, you may be better off stacking a bit of strength and infusing refined. Strength scaling increases by 50% when two-handing. I found early on when I was trying to decide between sharp and refined on the great scythe, if I was two handing it the AR was better if I used refined scaling over sharp, even with much more dex than str.
- Anonymous
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To anybody that wants to know, you can use Rapport on the Corvian Knights, which makes the farming process incredibly easier since they'll just stand there and let you backstab them until the effect runs out.
- Anonymous
Whenever I infuse a weapon it always says that sharp is the best at 40/40 str/dex. Did they get buffed or is sharp better than refined?
- Anonymous
Just farmed these from the crow knight with the claws under the bridge right in front of the corvian settlement, in around 20 mins he dropped 4 sharp gems, large titanite shards and chunks. I dont know the drop rate of the crow quills´s knight but this is fast and safer way to farm these gems.
- Anonymous
You can update the place to get the Sharp Gem, I luckily got a Sharp Gem on the dancing/jumping Skeletons in the Catacombs of Carthus next to the Skeleton that shoots fire arrows. That's the place I farm large tartanite too
~Shendo
- Anonymous
If a weapon with a high strength requirement and a low dex requirement would The weapon scale better with strength or dex
- Anonymous
Don't even bother farming these if you don't have the dlc. It's so impossible to get them to drop from the carthus skeletons that it isn't worth it. Once you can farm the corvian knights just do it there. I have like 10 gold coins and I know they drop like rain drops from those suckas
- Anonymous
If farming the rapier Knight gives you trouble you can always farm the Claw guy in the river and bone back to the Corvian Settlement bonfire right next to him
- Anonymous
I found a new spot for farming which is better then the carthus one (imo). Just go to the Crowdemon-Settlementbonfire in the dlc and kill the big rapier crow a buch of times.
I did this for 30min with full lootequip (goldserpentring, mimichelm, chrystal rapierin off hand and i used a coin every second time) and got 6 shards. Thats only 5min/shard!!!!! Also keep in mind that i also died multiple times during these 30min. But after i got the hang of it it became quite easy.
I started with the ceastus and tried to stunlock them with l1. But he seem quite resistant to something like that so i ended up using a sharp dagger, circling to their
left (where they hold their knifes) and backstab him. This worked a lot better for me although you had to stay very close for the attcks to miss.
A bleed dagger could also work but i didnt try that just me guessing. I hope this helps all those struggling to get shards form these carthus skellies.
- Anonymous
Fastest way to get it is to start a new charachter and get to undead settlement
- Anonymous
The crystal lizard in the Undead Settlement drops one. Near the bonfire where you fight Hodrick.
- Anonymous
FromSoft seems to have a history of making us have to farm absurdly long for dex scaling gems by killing annoying skeletons...
- Anonymous
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While farming I was killing any skeleton I could find, and I got one from the carthus archer skeleton that shoots explody arrows.
- Anonymous
Is there any weapon that actually benefits from this infusion? If having 18 STR in a dex build makes it worse than refined then this infusion is broken.Really hope this DLC adds a bunch of dex and faith weapons...
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
i got a sharp gem from one of the skeletons holding a carthus curved sword near the catacombs bonefire. I wasn't even farming for the gem, didn't even know i could get one off of them.
- Anonymous
Its complete horse***** you can't buy these. I already used my 2 on weapons I don't use anymore cause I figured there'd be more than 2 in the game. No I can only get them as super rare drop. *****
- Anonymous
So I have 50 dex and 21 str, and it looks like most of the weapon has less AR if you infuse them with sharp gems than refined!?for example Carthus Curved Greatsword+10without infusion: AR is 440 (244+196)sharp infusion: AR is 437 (225+212)refined infusion: AR is 450 (219+231)here is another, Astora Greatsword+10without infusion: AR is 469 (264+205)sharp infusion: AR is 460 (244+216)refined infusion: AR is 487 (237+250)Ok, I kinda understand refined path is superior but at least sharp version should have more AR than regular not infuse ones... That's pretty stupid if you asked me.
- Anonymous
page seems correct, they do drop from those skeletons, but apparently you need some item discovery or you will try for hours...be sure to kill all 3 red-eyes if you take the right path after the bonfire. there are two skeletons with curved sword + shield patrolling and another one standing behind a corner a little farther with a curved greatsword (revives, has to be killed twice), that one just dropped a sharp gem for me.
- Anonymous
It would be really helpful if there was a video for the dilapidated bridge spawn
- Anonymous
Pretty sure this is just an elaborate troll: I've been farming for two hours now with an item find rate of 210 but nothing. I've got 3 carthus shotels, 5 vertebrae shackles, 50 odd fire arrows and god knows how many pieces of titanite. I've had better luck farming concord proofs or sword grass. To everyone, don't bother I think this page needs correcting.
- Anonymous
Took me 5 tries to get it, but didn't take that long. No coin, had serpent ring. Worth the grind.
- Anonymous
To farm this, start from catacomb bonfire and then head pass the boulder. Kill few rats and then the annoying assasin skeleton. Then go upstair and kill another one, then another one, then the firebow skeleton. Both assassin and firebow redeyed skeleton have confirmed dropped by me.
- Anonymous
Magic, Faith, and Dexterity sure took some heavy hits in this game. This one being more of an inconvenience, but still, just two sharp gems in the entire game?!
- Anonymous
Can someone confirm the drop from Tall red eyed skeletons ? I farm those since around 30min (115 of treasury finding) and no loot of any gem :/
- Anonymous
you can spawn at delapidated bridge kill the great machete guy then quit and reload and the lizard will be there
- Anonymous
Someone needs to edit the listed effect of both this and the heavy gem to say that they reduce the opposite scaling based stat on the upgrades screen
- Anonymous
For the undead settlement, I just obtained from Dilapidated Bridge bonfire, simply "walk" along the right edge until you've cleared the broken overpass.
ds3 players will call Luck a 'useless stat' and then cry about being 'forced to grind'
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