Elden Ring’s newest expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, lures players back into the game with the promise of a number of new weapons to wield, armors to wear, areas to explore, and bosses to kill. Among the new arsenal, the Light Greatsword weapon type stands out the most for many players.

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With these weapon animations, weapon arts, and damage, players can claim victory in both PvE and PvP with style. The Light Greatswords vary from being infusible, having multiple elemental damages — and a unique weapon with an exclusive (and fast) buff-purging Ash of War.

Spoilder Warning: some entries on this list reveal some narrative and boss spoilers for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

3 Milady

Physically Damaging Light Greatsword With Huge Potential

Milady
How to Get Castle Ensis, the Milady Light Greatsword can be found inside a chest. The chest is located at the top of a watchtower.
Weapon Type Light Greatsword
Damage Inflicted 116 Physical
Scaling Str D, Dex D
Requirements Str 12, Dex 17
Weight 6.5

The length and speed of the weapon makes it wonderful to use. Plus, the big step forward in each attack makes its reach even farther. The heavy attack is quick on startup and cooldown. It's good for thrusting ashes, slashing ashes, making it solid for any infusion. Milady was designed to be used with some status effects like cold or bleed, and it works great with the Winged Sword Insignia Talisman. At 55 Strength and 55 Dexterity quality infusion — with Rotten Winged Sword Insignia Talisman, Millicent's Prosthesis Talisman, and Thorny Cracked Tear — the player can reach around 900 AR with zero buffs. Strong alternative options include the Carian Filgreed Crest Talisman, Shard of Alexander Talisman, Blessed Blue Dew Talisman, and Rellana's Cameo Talisman. The Talisman combos will let the player basically throw out the Ash of War as much as they want, and it hits like a truck.

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Milady is overall a great weapon and showcases the strength of the Light Greatsword very well with its high damage and fast movement — although the weapon has a very low Poise damage for PvP. During PvP, players can use the Wing Stance Ash of War for massive damage, and the opponent won’t expect the range the heavy AoW has with it, making a follow-up heavy attack an easy roll catch. It has some inbuilt animation cancels, making it a great weapon for comboing different attacks to get the most out of it — most notable is any R2 (jump, run, neutral) into R1. All 3 hits have the same speed, as it is one part of the whole combo, greatly increasing the weapon's burst damage.

Milady's normal attack to charged attack has a shorter animation, so if the player needs to start a quick attack against an unarmored enemy, hitstunning with a normal attack gives the player enough time to pull off a very fast charged attack. The running charged attack has a transition animation into another charged attack, so players can do two very fast heavy attacks in succession with 4 hits total — and a player can do it all in quick succession if they have stamina.

2 Leda’s Sword

Mixture Of Physical And Holy Damage With High Quantity

Leda Sword
How to Get Found on Needle Knight Leda's corpse in Enir-Ilim along with Leda's Armor after she and the rest of Miquella's followers are defeated.
Weapon Type Unique Light Greatsword
Damage Inflicted 101 Physical 65 Holy
Scaling Strength E Dexterity C Faith D
Requirements Strength 11 Dexterity 22 Faith 19
Weight 7.5

Found very late in the game, Leda's Sword has the potential to be the defining weapon for a build. The weapon's built-in Ash of War, Needle Piercer, scales off the player's AR rather than their Faith stat, and the needles themselves deal Piercing damage (and can be buffed by the Spear Talisman).

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Moreover, the weapon skill can remove all buffs, functioning basically as the Law of Regression Incantation while also dealing damage. The weapon is much more heavily weighted to Dex scaling than Faith, but it holds its own quite well against DLC content at +10 even without an optimized build. Its Ash of War has a hitbox on the sword swing as well and does pretty great damage for how fast and lenient it is. Its mini-Law of Regression effect comes into play against enemies who use buffs such as Messmer Soldiers, and it can be quite potent in PVP.

1 Rellana’s Twin Blades

Stylish Paired Twin Light Greatsword With Fire And Magic Infusion

Rellana Twin Blades

How to Get

Trade Remembrance of the Twin Moon Knight with Enia at the Roundtable Hold, to receive this weapon

Weapon Type

Unique Twin Light Greatsword

Damage Inflicted

Physical (103), Magic (66), Fire (66)

Scaling

Strength D, Dexterity D, Intelligence D, Faith D

Requirements

Strength 13, Dexterity 16, Intelligence 16, Faith 16

Weight

8.0

Rellana’s Twin Blades is a paired weapon, meaning the player only needs to have one copy in order to dual wield them. The sword use depends on the hand it is wielded in. This allows dedicated Int or Faith builds to use only the sword that suits their build, and potentially pair it with an infused Milady on the other hand. However, this also means that it cannot be dual wielded to use a pair of the Int swords. The left-hand weapon will always be the Fire (Faith) blade, even if two sets of Rellana's Twin Blades are equipped. Thanks to its stats, the weapon is at its most useful during PvE, as the fire stance can obliterate even the Scadutree Avatar if a player manages to time it just right on its head. A player can potentially almost one-shot an enemy with only 50 Faith and at the 10th level.

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The Magic stance of the weapon is decent for PvE, as it can stagger most enemies and works as a good crowd control tool or for finishing an enemy from mid-distance. The weapon gets C scaling in all four stats, but it doesn't get much scaling from Int and Faith outside the Ash of War. Overall, it is a stylish weapon that can be very useful for PvE scenarios that might be too difficult to handle for the downloadable content, as both new players and veterans alike are still exploring the content of the game's expansion.

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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
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Released
June 21, 2024
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
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