Elden Ring Guide | Best Light Greatsword Build

Here's a guide on how to make the best Light Greatsword Build in Elden Ring.

Game Guide by Ragib Rawnak on Aug 28, 2025

This guide focuses on the Light Greatswords' poise mechanics, damage values, and optimal build configurations to help you master this versatile weapon type in Elden Ring.

Two-Handed Moveset Analysis

When wielding your Light Greatsword with both hands, you gain access to powerful poise-breaking capabilities.

Your standard light attack now delivers 157 poise damage, which completely breaks through Full Bull Goat armor without difficulty.

You no longer need to worry about passive poise resistance when using this attack in Elden Ring.

Elden Ring Guide, Best Light Greatsword Build

Your running light attack and crouch attack maintain identical poise damage values to the standard light attack.

This consistency ensures that opponents cannot tank these mobility-based strikes regardless of their armor choice.

Similarly, both your jumping light attack and jumping heavy attack generate substantial poise damage, making them reliable options against heavily armored enemies in Elden Ring.

However, you should exercise caution with your two-handed heavy attack when facing opponents in Full Bull Goat armor. This attack deals approximately 133 poise damage, which falls just short of breaking the maximum poise threshold.

The Bull Goat Armor provides enough resistance to absorb the initial strike, though the margin remains extremely narrow. Your running heavy attack faces the same limitation against maximum poise builds in Elden Ring.

Against opponents wearing 132 poise or less, your heavy attacks will successfully break poise on the first hit.

When confronting Full Bull Goat users, consider alternative opening moves since both the running heavy and neutral heavy may not provide the immediate advantage you expect.

One-Handed Moveset Characteristics

The one-handed stance offers smoother animation flow and improved combo potential. However, it sacrifices some poise-breaking power in Elden Ring.

Elden Ring Guide, Best Light Greatsword Build

Your one-handed light attack, running light attack, and crouch light attack each deliver 121 poise damage.

While this remains substantial, opponents wearing the heaviest armor sets in the game can persist these attacks through passive poise.

Your jumping light attack serves as the exception to this limitation, generating 181 poise damage and ensuring reliable poise breaks against any opponent.

This makes it your most dependable option for initiating combat when using the one-handed stance in Elden Ring.

Both your neutral heavy attack and running heavy attack deal 121 poise damage per hit. Opponents may absorb the initial strike through passive poise, but the follow-up attack will guarantee a poise break.

Your jump heavy attack delivers an impressive 302 poise damage per swing, making it capable of breaking through any passive poise resistance in the game.

Build Optimization

A pure Strength build offers the most balanced performance across both move sets in Elden Ring.

Dexterity variant produces only nine fewer attack rating when one-handing the weapon, which represents the dexterity build's specialty.

However, the strength build gains about 30 higher attack rating when using two hands, which makes it better for utilizing both stances effectively.

Elden Ring Guide, Best Light Greatsword Build

Talisman Configuration

You can organize your Talismans in various ways, depending on your preferred play style. The Shard of Alexander and the Two-Handed Sword Talisman go nicely together if you primarily use the two-handed posture.

Suppose you keep running into aggressive enemies who keep walking into your assaults. In that case, you should switch to a multi-hit setup with the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia and Millicent's Prosthesis to get the most damage out of each blow in Elden Ring.

Also, check our Elden Ring Review, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review, and other guides below: