Bloodhound’s Fang. Blasphemous Blade. Rivers of Blood. Moonveil. You know them, I know them, and so does every third co-op summon standing outside a boss fog gate. They’re famous for a reason – they’re strong, they’re accessible, and they’ll carry you to Elden Lord without much fuss.
But here’s the thing, fellow Tarnished: strong and interesting aren’t the same word.
Scattered across the Lands Between are weapons that no chest will ever hand you and no boss will politely drop on death. You have to earn these the ugly way, by killing the same enemy over and over until the RNG finally takes pity on you.
Are they optimal? Sometimes. Easy to get? Absolutely not. But they’ll make a playthrough feel like yours, and that’s the whole point. Here are ten base-game enemy drops worth the grind, grouped by family rather than ranked.
A quick word on the percentages below: they assume a Discovery stat of 100, which is where every Tarnished starts. You can push that to 225 with the Silver Scarab talisman and a Silver-Pickled Fowl Foot, and you absolutely should before farming anything on this list. Don’t bother respeccing into Arcane for it – the returns are miserable and you’ll want that Larval Tear back.
Bandit’s Curved Sword
Curved Sword ยท 1.5% drop ยท Weeping Peninsula
Curved swords trade damage per hit for speed, and they’re one of the few classes that can feint – dodge while charging a heavy attack and you cancel into a quick slash and a backward flip, which gives you a completely different way to bait an aggressive enemy. Charged heavies hit twice. And if you dual-wield them, paired jump attacks and running attacks land four hits apiece, which means four bleed applications and four triggers for multi-hit talismans like the Winged Sword Insignia.
That’s the loop, and the Bandit’s Curved Sword is the best ticket into it. At Heavy +25 it carries 265 physical, the highest base damage of any curved sword in the game. It also takes standard Smithing Stones, any affinity, any Ash of War, and any grease you like, so Blood plus Seppuku is sitting right there whenever you want it.
You don’t have to take that road, though. I ran a pair of these through a build that never once leaned on bleed, and it held up better than I expected – here’s how that went. The flexibility is half the appeal.
Kill the skeleton in the graveyard outside the Church of Pilgrimage – face the church door and look left.
Magma Blade
Curved Sword ยท 1% drop ยท Volcano Manor
Same swift curved-sword moveset, wildly different personality. The Man-Serpents of Volcano Manor carry a blade forged from Mt. Gelmir’s lava, and it comes welded to Magma Shower: you spin through a twirling slash while scattering magma across the floor, with an additional input for a follow-up. Anything standing in the puddle keeps burning. Against a big, slow boss that can’t reposition quickly, it’s just filthy.
Know what you’re buying, though. This one’s Somber, so it caps at +10, the Ash of War can’t be swapped, and greases and weapon buffs do nothing at all. If you’re farming two for the power stance, note that the skill itself only ever uses one blade.
Two Man-Serpents sit near the wooden elevator north of the Temple of Eiglay grace, though the lift is locked until you work your way around the manor.
Grave Scythe
Reaper ยท 2% drop ยท Liurnia of the Lakes
Reapers are the most underused class in the game. There are only five of them, every one carries innate bleed, and they have a trick that rarely comes up in build guides: they cut straight through guards. Light attacks ignore around half of a blocking enemy’s damage negation, and heavy attacks ignore more. Turtling knights simply stop being a problem, and the wide sweeping arcs handle crowds while you’re at it.
The Grave Scythe is the heavy hitter of the family, putting up 324 physical at Heavy +25, the highest of any reaper, with 55 bleed buildup riding along. It’s also the heaviest at 9.5 and leans harder on Strength than its cousins, which makes it the best two-handing reaper in the game. Standard Smithing Stones, any affinity, any Ash of War.
Head west from the Lake-Facing Cliffs grace to a graveyard with three scythe skeletons; another graveyard west of the Church of Irith holds two more.
Halo Scythe
Reaper ยท 2% drop ยท Caelid
Everything above about shield-bypassing and innate bleed applies here too, with a twist: the Cleanrot Knights who served Malenia carried a scythe that deals holy damage alongside physical. Its skill, Miquella’s Ring of Light, releases a horizontal wheel of holy energy that hangs in the air for a beat before firing forward – real ranged pressure on a melee weapon, which is not something reapers usually get.
It’s Somber and locked to that skill, so there’s no infusing or buffing it. What you get in exchange is a weapon that handles bleed, holy damage, crowds, blockers and range straight out of the box. For a hybrid Faith build that’s an unusually complete package.
Farm the scythe-wielding Cleanrot Knights south of the Heart of Aeonia, or the pair outside Commander O’Neil’s boss room where a grace lets you reset endlessly. The spear-wielders never drop it.
Banished Knight’s Greatsword
Greatsword ยท 4% drop ยท Caelid, Stormveil, Castle Sol
Start with the moveset, because that’s the real reason to farm it. This greatsword doesn’t swing like the rest of its class. It shares an alternate animation set with the Inseparable Sword and the Knight’s Greatsword, including two-handed R1 attacks that land on a completely different rhythm. If greatswords have ever felt sluggish to you, this is the one that changes your mind.
It backs that up with the highest base physical damage of any greatsword in the class: 321 at Heavy +25. It needs 17 Strength and only 9 Dexterity, so it drops straight into a Strength build without contortions, and it takes any affinity you care to put on it. I carried mine all the way to Malenia and came out the other side – that fight got its own write-up, because of course it did.
A lone sword-and-shield Banished Knight patrols outside the southwestern exit of the Cathedral of Dragon Communion in Caelid, and he’s reachable absurdly early if you’re brave with Torrent. Only the sword-and-shield knights drop it; the halberd ones are a waste of your time.
Iron Greatsword
Greatsword ยท 4% drop ยท Miquella’s Haligtree, Leyndell
A slab of unpolished steel hauled around by the red-maned Misbegotten Warriors, and the numbers make a very specific case for it. At Heavy +25 it lands 316 physical with A-rank Strength scaling. It’s the only greatsword in the game that pairs A scaling with 300-plus base damage. Every rival either scales worse or hits softer.
Then there’s stance damage, a stat most players never bother reading. The Iron Greatsword sits at 162, comfortably the highest in its class, with the Bastard Sword a distant second at 145 and the Claymore trailing at 132. That’s the whole identity here. This isn’t a damage weapon that happens to be heavy. It’s the greatsword you bring specifically to break poise and open enemies up for a critical.
The Misbegotten Warrior north of the Haligtree Town Plaza grace is the ideal target, since you can rest a few steps away and pull him with a ranged attack. Two more walk the ash path toward the Forbidden Lands in Leyndell near the Avenue Balcony grace, but they disappear once you push past Crumbling Farum Azula.
Executioner’s Greataxe
Greataxe ยท 4% drop ยท Liurnia, Caelid, Farum Azula
The item description says this cleaver was used to fell defeated soldiers like timber, and that this is why it excels at critical hits. The stat sheet backs that up. The Executioner’s Greataxe carries a 115 critical modifier where the overwhelming majority of weapons sit at 100, so every riposte and backstab lands roughly fifteen percent harder than it has any right to.
Pair that with 319 physical, A Strength scaling, and 202 stance damage at Heavy +25, and the job description is obvious: batter something until its poise breaks, then cash in a critical that hits far above its weight. Its default skill, War Cry, temporarily raises attack power and converts your strong attacks into charging attacks. It demands 34 Strength, so this is a commitment rather than a pickup.
Go west from the Church of Irith in Liurnia until a skeleton hauling the axe spawns, or drop into the Dragon’s Pit in Caelid, kill the big skeleton below the first ledge, and jog back up the ramp.
Guardian’s Swordspear
Halberd ยท 2% drop ยท Weeping Peninsula, Leyndell, Altus Plateau
The Erdtree Guardians’ weapon is the most single-minded Dexterity halberd in the game. At +25 on Standard it hits B in Dexterity against a limp E in Strength, and Keen pushes it further still. You get halberd reach with both Standard and Pierce damage, so you can hold enemies at arm’s length and punish predictable patterns with thrusts.
And now the absurd part. At Heavy +25 it puts up 312 physical, the highest base damage of any halberd in the game. A weapon everyone builds as a pure Dex poking tool is quietly sitting on the best raw numbers in its class. Nobody uses it that way. Maybe you should.
Farm the Guardians south of the Tombsward Catacombs in the Weeping Peninsula, the pack on the roots below the Erdtree Sanctuary in Leyndell, or the six clustered around the Minor Erdtree Church in Altus.
Noble’s Slender Sword
Straight Sword ยท 0.5% drop ยท Limgrave, Raya Lucaria, Caelid
The longest straight sword in Elden Ring, and one of only two in the entire class with an elevated critical rating – 110 instead of the usual 100. Long reach plus better critical damage makes it a parry-and-riposte specialist, and at 3.5 weight with A Strength scaling on Heavy it asks almost nothing of your build in return.
At 0.5%, this is the worst drop rate on the list by a factor of two. Farm the Wandering Nobles escorting the troll-drawn carriage north of the Agheel Lake South grace, or the larger group north of the Debate Parlor in Raya Lucaria. Only the nobles wearing the Aristocrat Garb carry it – the ones holding a sword and torch will never drop it no matter how many you cut down.
If 0.5% breaks you: the Lordsworn’s Straight Sword is the other holder of that 110 critical rating, and Godrick Soldiers drop it at Gatefront Ruins from your first hour in the game. Damage between the two is close enough not to matter; what you’re giving up is reach. Six Godrick Soldiers near Groveside Cave carry it exclusively – clear them, rest, repeat.
Clayman’s Harpoon
Spear ยท 2% drop ยท Siofra River, Ainsel River
The most build-flexible weapon here, and the strangest. It’s a spear tipped with a sharpened meteorite shard that deals innate magic damage on top of physical. Unlike almost anything else with a built-in element, it keeps every option open. Standard Smithing Stones, any Ash of War, any affinity, plus magic buffs and consumables stacked on top.
Infuse it with Magic and you get B scaling in Intelligence with the scaling weighted toward the magic portion, which makes magic-damage Ashes of War like Glintblade Phalanx and Ice Spear hit noticeably harder than they should. Go Cold instead for 105 frostbite buildup with C in both Strength and Intelligence. It even holds onto 112 magic damage on a Heavy infusion, which is not how that’s supposed to work.
Farm the slow, shuffling Claymen in the ruins near the Siofra River Well Depths, which are lower level than their Ainsel River cousins, or head for the south Uhl Palace Ruins. They telegraph everything and die politely.
The Quick Reference
| Weapon | Class | Drop Rate | Best Farming Spot | Reachable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bandit’s Curved Sword | Curved Sword | 1.5% | Church of Pilgrimage, Weeping Peninsula | Very early |
| Magma Blade | Curved Sword | 1% | Temple of Eiglay, Volcano Manor | Mid |
| Grave Scythe | Reaper | 2% | West of Lake-Facing Cliffs, Liurnia | Early |
| Halo Scythe | Reaper | 2% | Heart of Aeonia, Caelid | Early, if brave |
| Banished Knight’s Greatsword | Greatsword | 4% | Cathedral of Dragon Communion, Caelid | Early, if brave |
| Iron Greatsword | Greatsword | 4% | Haligtree Town Plaza | Late |
| Executioner’s Greataxe | Greataxe | 4% | West of Church of Irith, Liurnia | Early to reach, 34 Str to use |
| Guardian’s Swordspear | Halberd | 2% | Tombsward Catacombs / Erdtree Sanctuary | Early |
| Noble’s Slender Sword | Straight Sword | 0.5% | Agheel Lake South carriage, Limgrave | Very early |
| Clayman’s Harpoon | Spear | 2% | Siofra River Well Depths | Early |
Before You Go Farm
One warning before you commit an evening to this. These percentages are per kill, which means a 2% drop rate does not guarantee you a weapon in fifty kills. It guarantees you nothing. Plenty of players have burned two hours on the Magma Blade and walked away empty-handed, and plenty have had it drop on the third try. That’s the deal.
Stack your Discovery, pick a route you can run on autopilot, put something on in the background, and accept that the grind is the price of admission. The payoff isn’t power – you can get power from a chest. The payoff is running a build almost nobody else in your session is running.
Once you’ve got your new toy, take it somewhere it’ll actually shine: the Boss Weakness Finder will tell you which bosses fold to holy, frost, bleed, or a good old-fashioned slab of iron.
Before anyone asks in the comments: yes, I know about the Warped Axe. Four percent from axe-wielding Omens, S-rank Strength scaling on a Heavy infusion, and one of only two axes in the entire game that reaches S. It’s not on this list because I’m currently running it alongside the Icerind Hatchet on a frostbite build, and it deserves more than a paragraph. That one’s getting its own article.
So: what else did I leave out? This list sticks to base-game enemy drops, which means there’s a whole DLC’s worth of candidates I haven’t touched – and I’ll bet there are base-game ones you’d argue for too. Tell me what belongs on here in the comments.
While you’re down there: which of these have you actually farmed, and how long did it take? I’m working out the running order for a series of full-run articles, and the weapons people shout loudest about go first.
Fair warning: these are casual runs, squeezed in around real life. But then, this whole article is about doing things the slow way.
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