In this Elden Ring Best Colossal Sword and Ranking Guide, we’ll be taking a look at the 11 Colossal Swords in Elden Ring, and discussing why you might use them in combat. We’ll take a look at attack power, damage type, length, Weapon Skills, and other factors such as how long it takes you to acquire them, to determine if they are best suited for you. We are doing a guide for all Weapon types in Elden Ring, and these will be updated to reflect those added with Shadow of the Erdtree as well.
Colossal Swords in Elden Ring:
Colossal Swords are one of the 31 Weapon types in Elden Ring, soon to be 39 when Shadow of the Erdtree releases on June 21st. There are a lot of reasons why Colossal Swords might not be used by players. Colossal Swords have extremely high weight, which will require you to balance it with light or medium armor. It’s also a demanding weapon in terms of attributes, as you will need a lot of Strength to use it. You’ll also be needing Endurance, due to the high weight. Your attacks will also be slower compared to other weapons, so it’s going to be hard to hit mobile enemies.
However, there are great things Colossal Swords have that other weapons cannot offer. They have incredible damage per swing, one of the highest in the game. They tend to flinch and stagger enemies very easily, giving you more time to attack with them. Colossal Swords also give a substantial amount of Poise, so you could tank through attacks to trade damage. They also have exceptional Guard Boost, so you can use it as a defensive weapon.
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The Grafted Blade Greatsword shares the default attack of most Colossal Swords, and deals Physical Damage. It has a very heavy weight for a Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 21, and requires a lot of points in Strength and some Dexterity in order to wield.
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CONS
Attack Rating: 812
Conclusion: The Grafted Blade Greatsword has fairly high Attack Rating and can be found very early on in the game in Weeping Peninsula, making it a decent choice for players wanting to use a Colossal Sword early on. However, it is rather short compared to other Colossal Swords, and its weapon skill: Oath of Vengeance which increases all your Attributes by 5 for 60 seconds, is not particularly useful unless you are playing some sort of hybrid Build, but you cannot buff the Grafted Blade Greatsword with spells, making it a bad pairing for this. For all intents and purposes, you’d be better off picking up the Greatsword, since it has higher damage, length, and can be outfitted with numerous Ashes of War.
However, if you wish to use this weapon the sweet spot is about 50 STR, with minimal points in DEX, though it scales very well up to 80 STR. DEX doesn’t have the best scaling, but you would invest here after STR to increase damage, likely in NG+.
I recommend using this Weapon two-handed, buffing with Oath of Vengeance regularly to increase your stats by 5, and using Flame, Grant Me Strength and Golden Vow for Boss fights where you need a bit more damage, since Oath of Vengeance can save you some points in Faith.
The Troll Knight’s Sword shares a unique R2 thrust with the Zweihander, and deals Physical and Magic Damage. It has an average weight for a Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 18, and requires some points in Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence in order to wield.
PROS
CONS
Attack Rating: 777
Conclusion: The Troll Knight’s Sword deals okay damage for a Colossal Sword and can be found relatively earl yon in Caria Manor, but it is also one of the shortest Colossal Swords and it’s Weapon Skill: Troll’s Roar doesn’t take advantage of its Magic Damage with the Shout portion, which makes up about 1/3 of the damage the weapon does. This means Troll’s Roar would be more effective on a purely Physical Damage weapon, like the Giant Crusher or Greatsword.
The upside though is that it deals Strike Damage, while the weapon itself deals Standard and Pierce, giving you another damage type that’s good against enemies weak to Strike like the Crystalian enemies. Having all three damage types on one weapon because of its R2 thrust allows the Troll Knight’s Sword to be effective in just about any scenario. Additionally, Troll’s Roar was also buffed in Patch 1.07 to increase its damage as well as the timing of its Poise, making it easier to pull off uninterrupted.
The weapon scales about the same with STR and DEX, so you’ll want to keep these values roughly the same up to 50, at which point INT will perform about the same up to 50, and then you can take STR and DEX to 80. This makes this weapon good for a first playthrough, and also fine in New Game Plus.
Because the weapon scales poorly with Intelligence, it doesn’t lend itself well to a Spellblade sort of Build, and I’d highly recommend leaning into weapon skill for staggering enemies, and following up with Critical Attacks. You can use the Roar Medallion to further boost shout damage and the follow up attack damage, and the Highland Axe doe the same thing, so I recommend holding this in your off-hand. If you slot the Assassin’s Cerulean and Crimson Dagger with this as well, then you can heal and refund FP with each Critical Attack, similarly to my Colossal Crusher Build, but less effective since Colossal Swords don’t trigger these Talismans twice the way Colossal Weapons do. The Axe Talisman is also not a bad choice, since the Charge R2s of this weapon have phenomenal range.
The Troll’s Golden Sword shares the default attack of most Colossal Swords, and deals Physical Damage. It has an average weight for a Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 19, and requires a lot of points in Strength and some Dexterity in order to wield.
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Conclusion: The Troll’s Golden Sword has lower damage than the majority of Colossal Swords, it’s one the shorter ones, and it’s not found until Altus Plateau, making it likely that you’ll already have a Colossal Sword and upgraded it by the time you even get to this one. However, it does seem to do more damage with Troll’s Roar than other Colossal Swords even though it has lower Attack Rating, making it a good choice if you really like that Weapon Skill.
The Fire infusion deals the most damage, followed closely by Magic and then Sacred/Flame Art. Heavy and Cold are roughly the same damage, so it comes down to a choice of the status effect or whether you want to use buffs on your blade.
I highly recommend leaning into Troll’s Roar if you use this weapon, and use it to stagger enemies easily. Use Shard of Alexander and Roar Medallion to further boost damage, with Highland Axe in your offhand as well. The Assassin’s Talismans are also a good addition.
The Zweihander shares a unique R2 thrust with the Troll Knight’s Sword, and deals Physical Damage. It is the lightest Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 15.5, and requires some points in Strength and Dexterity in order to wield.
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Conclusion: The Zweihander has the lowest Attack Rating of all Colossal Swords, but it’s also the lightest, has the second longest reach, and has the lowest requirements needing only 13 STR to two hand. In addition, it has a thrusting R2 attack that has great range, and it can be found extremely early on in Elden Ring.
The Fire infusion deals the most damage, followed by Magic and then Sacred/Flame Art pulling up a close third. Heavy and Cold are roughly the same damage, so it comes down to a choice of the status effect or whether you want to use buffs on your blade if you go those routes.
The Zweihander makes a great choice for early game Colossal Sword users since they can procure it and wield it almost immediately. It’s also lighter than a lot of Colossal Swords, allowing you to medium roll with less investment in Endurance. Use this one until you’re ready to upgrade to another Colossal Sword. Stamp Uppercut is also a fantastic Weapon Skill that works well throughout the game, and you can purchase this from the Warmaster’s Shack if you want to change infusions but still keep it. Don’t forget to use the Axe Talisman as well, to boost your charged R2 poke damage.
The Godslayer’s Greatsword shares the default attack of most Colossal Swords, and deals Physical and Fire Damage. It has an light weight for a Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 17.5, and requires some points in Strength, Dexterity and Faith in order to wield.
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Attack Rating: 782
Conclusion: Godslayer’s Greatsword is an interesting weapon because it deals Physical and Fire damage, it’s very light weight for a Colossal Sword, and it’s one of the longer Colossal Swords. However, it’s just above the Troll Knight’s Sword in terms of damage, meaning it has the second lowest damage of all unique Colossal Swords, and you have to defeat a rather difficult Boss in order to obtain it.
The Queen’s Black Flame does solid damage though, and inflicts the Black Flame status with its strikes, sapping HP from the target over time. It has a rather long wind up, making the timing of it crucial, and this gives the weapon skill a bit of a learning curve. It also makes Poise important so that you can swing uninterrupted, since you typically get hit while trading with this weapon.
The sweet spot for this weapon is at 50 DEX and min requirements for both STR and FTH. However, if you two-hand this weapon you get roughly the same damage out of pumping STR as you do from DEX, making it a better option if you wish to cast Incantations with the Clawmark Seal while using this weapon. You can get quite a bit of damage from this weapon via all 3 stats, making it a great choice for a second or third playthrough.
Because you can two-hand this weapon with decent STR and FTH and get nearly the same damage as if you pumped DEX, I highly recommend you go this route and cast some Incantations with the Clawmark Seal. However, if you don’t wish to do this, then simply pump DEX and make sure to get FTH to 25 for Golden Vow, to further boost your damage when facing Bosses or tough enemies, while two-handing the rest of the time. Flame, Grant Me Strength is also amazing in this Build, so make sure you have it slotted too!
The Watchdog’s Greatsword shares the default attack of most Colossal Swords, and deals Physical Damage. It has a very heavy weight for a Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 22, and requires a lot of points in Strength and some Dexterity in order to wield.
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Conclusion: The Watchdog’s Greatsword deals fantastic damage, only just behind the Greatsword. However, it isn’t as long as the Greatsword, has lower Guard Boost, can take forever to farm and cannot be found until near the end of the game, making it likely that by the time you get one, by some miracle, you likely won’t need it.
The Fire infusion deals the most damage, followed closely by Magic and then Sacred/Flame Art. Heavy and Cold are roughly the same damage, so it comes down to a choice of the status effect or whether you want to use buffs on your blade.
I recommend using the Greatsword instead of this weapon and saving yourself the frustration of farming, especially since it’s not better than the Greatsword anyway, and you’ll likely have your Greatsword upgraded to max upgrade or near max as well. However, if you do want to use it you will play in a similar manner to the Greatsword.
The Royal Greatsword shares the default attack of most Colossal Swords, and deals Physical and Magic Damage. It has a heavy weight for a Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 20, and requires some points in Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence in order to wield.
PROS
CONS
Attack Rating: 886
Conclusion: The Royal Greatsword has very high Attack Rating for a Unique Colossal Sword, and is fairly long compared to other Colossal Swords. It’s weapon skill Wolf’s Assault can be devastating and is not particularly hard to pull off, often one shotting most enemies, and often nearly killing difficult enemies in one strike. The downside is that you cannot get this weapon until very far into the game by doing Ranni‘s Questline.
Wolf’s Assault’s initial strike can be challenging to land in a frantic fight with anything that’s quick moving, but its follow up AOE almost never misses. This AOE also Builds up Frostbite, though this almost never triggers and really shouldn’t be factored too much into Builds using this weapon too much. Additionally, this weapon does both Physical and Magic Damage, which also applies to Wolf’s Assault, though the majority of the damage is Magic.
The Royal Greatsword scales the best with INT, then STR, and finally DEX. The sweet spot for this weapon is about 50 INT and 50 STR, with minimum DEX. This means using this weapon with a Staff in your offhand for some spell casting isn’t a bad idea, though if you two-hand this weapon with an optimal stat spread you’ll have nearly 1k Attack Rating, meaning Spells won’t really be necessary most of the time.
I recommend either two-handing this weapon, leaning into its weapon skill for difficult and packs of enemies, as well as Bosses, or pairing it with a Staff and cast some spells before charging into melee range. Terra Magica is also a great spell for this build since it does about 60% Magic Damage, and don’t forget to us the Magic- Shrouding Cracked Tear as well to further increase your Magic Damage.
The Maliketh’s Black Blade shares the default attack of most Colossal Swords, and deals Physical and Holy Damage. It has an heavy weight for a Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 22, and requires a lot of points in Strength and some in Faith and Dexterity in order to wield.
PROS
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Attack Rating: 841
Conclusion: Maliketh’s Black Blade has high Attack Rating for a Colossal Sword, it’s one of the longer Colossal Swords in the game, it looks badass, and it has an excellent Weapon Skill in Destined Death, but about 1/3 of its damage is Holy, which is resisted by a lot of Bosses, and you cannot get this weapon until nearly the end of the game. This puts it in an odd place.
Destined Death deals modest damage, but removes 10% Max HP of any target struck by it, and this can stack with Blade of Death or the Black Blade Incantation, but not both. For this reason, it’s highly recommended that you use one of these with this weapon in order to remove 20% HP from Bosses rather quickly. Of the two, Black Blade makes more sense, since you don’t need much Dexterity for this Weapon.
The sweet spot for this weapon is at 50 STR and minimum requirements in both DEX and FTH, but FTH scales fairly well up to 50, and STR scales fairly well up to 80, making this a solid weapon for a second or even third playthrough.
Because you can pump STR and FTH and get nearly the same damage you’d get from pumping STR, I highly recommend doing so and slotting at least the Golden Vow and Black Blade Incantations and using the Clawmark Seal. You can of course add other Incantations, but these two minimally should be used. Of all the unique Colossal Swords, Maliketh’s Black Blade makes the best case for a hybrid sort of build.
The Starscourge Greatsword is actually a paired weapon and cannot be two-handed the way other Colossal Swords can be and deals Physical and Magic Damage. It has an average weight for a Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 20, and requires a lot of points in Strength and some in Dexterity and Intelligence in order to wield.
PROS
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Attack Rating: 808
Conclusion: The Starscourge Greatsword is a truly unique weapon, because it’s one of only two Paired Weapons in Elden Ring, that aren’t Claws or Fists. This allows you to dual wield these rather easily, since Colossal Swords typically weigh too much to dual wield, unless you are setup perfectly. Additionally, the weapon has decent Attack Rating and it deals an extra 30% damage to Gravity type enemies.
It’s Weapon Skill Starcaller Cry has tremendous range, often one shotting trash with its shout, and the follow up attack will finish off nearly anything else that isn’t a Boss. Starcaller Cry is not only buffed by Shard of Alexander, but also Roar Medallion and Highland Axe as well, though only the Shout portion is affected and not the follow up. However, the shout portion will trigger Talismans like Winged Sword Insignia and Millicent’s Prosthesis, boosting the damage of the follow up attack significantly if you can hit multiple enemies with it. The downside is that it’s very expensive FP wise, making it hard to use often.
The sweet spot for this weapon is right around 50 STR and minimum requirements in DEX and INT. However, DEX and STR both scale about the same from this point onward so you should prioritize those, with INT having really bad scaling. This weapon can work well in NG+ because it scales well enough up to 80 STR and 50 DEX, but you will struggle to get damage afterwards, making a third playthrough more challenging.
Because the INT scaling is so pour, and because this weapon is a unique paired weapon, I highly recommend dual wielding the Swords and taking advantage of Starcaller Cry and Jump Attacks. It’s simply way more difficult to dual wield any other Colossal Swords, making it almost a must way to play with these. Just be sure to use the Sacrificial Axe in your off-hand for more FP.
The Ruins Greatsword has a charged R2 attack that sends out a small wave of gravity energy that deals damage separately from the R2, and deals Physical and Magic Damage. It is tied for the heaviest Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 23, and requires a lot of points in Strength and some in Intelligence in order to wield.
PROS
CONS
Attack Rating: 899
Conclusion: The Ruins Greatsword has a lot going for it. It has the highest Attack Rating of all unique Colossal Swords, it can be found not terribly far into the game in Redmane Castle, it has a solid weapon skill in Wave of Destruction, and it has very high Guard Boost for a weapon and decent resistances, making it a defensive tool as well. However, it is the second shortest Colossal Sword and it has almost no Intelligence scaling, making it a poor choice for any Spellblade.
Wave of Destruction might not hit as hard as many other Weapon Skills, but it does stagger enemies, giving you the opportunity to spam this without taking damage. For this reason, using the Ritual Sword Talisman might not be a bad idea, if you find you are not getting hit often, in order to further boost your damage.
The sweet spot for this weapon is 50 STR and minimum INT, but the weapon scales very well until 80 STR, and you should be aiming for about that by the end of your first playthrough. Since you barely get any damage from INT or STR from that point onward, this weapon will not perform as well in New Game Plus, and will fair even worse on a third playthrough.
The best way to use this weapon is two-handed leaning into Wave of Destruction, and boosting this with Shard of Alexander and reducing its cost with Carian Filigreed Crest and Sacrificial Axe in your off hand. Keep your Mind somewhat high, in the 25-30 range to get more uses of this before you need to use an FP flask, and be sure to Block with it often utilizing Block Counters when you want to conserve FP. You can add the Takers Cameo Talisman or Assassin’s Crimson Dagger to offset the chip damage you’ll receive when doing this. The Axe Talisman, while boosting the damage of your charged R2 attacks, does not increase the damage of the gravity spikes that come out with it.
The Greatsword has a unique slashing R2, and deals Physical Damage. It is tied for the heaviest Colossal Sword in Elden Ring, weighing 23, and requires a lot of points in Strength and some Dexterity in order to wield.
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Attack Rating:
Conclusion: The Greatsword is the pound for pound king of infusable Colossal Swords. It wins in Attack Rating in nearly every category over other infusable Colossal Swords. It’s also the longest Colossal Sword, and has the highest Guard Boost and protection, AND, you can acquire it with a 2 minute horse ride over to Caelid without killing a single enemy. The downside is that it’s extremely heavy, making it a bit harder to wield early on and still medium roll.
Just like the Zweihander, the Fire infusion deals the most damage, followed closely by Magic and then Sacred/Flame Art. Heavy and Cold are roughly the same damage, so it comes down to a choice of the status effect or whether you want to use buffs on your blade.
Heavy or Cold are great choices for this weapon early on where the extra Strength scaling from two-handing can play a large roll in increasing your damage, and using the Curved Sword Talisman will increase your Block Counter damage, which you should be doing now and then with this weapon. You can also use the Greatshield Talisman to increase your Guard Boost with this weapon by 10% giving you around 73 Guard Boost if you use the Standard version of this weapon.
If you enjoyed this Colossal Swords Ranked Guide, be sure to check out our other Weapon Guides, and also our article on how to Prepare for Shadow of the Erdtree!
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