Elden Ring Runes

As the largest Souls-like game currently available, Elden Ring boasts an enormous arsenal of weapons. However, many of them can be considered mere "toys"—their weapon arts may be flashy, but their damage can be lower than a standard attack from another weapon.

With the release of Shadow of the Erdtree, some incredibly overpowered weapons have emerged, capable of making the game feel like easy mode. So, which weapons can truly revolutionize your PvE experience?

Commonly Used Top Weapons

• Dark Moon Great Sword
• Blasphemous Blade
• Moonveil Katana
• Executioner's Sword

These Elden Ring items have been proven by numerous players to be extremely powerful. They deal high damage or can easily knock enemies off balance and down. If they suit your character's attributes, you can use them to complete the game.

However, one more weapon deserves special mention: Sacred Relic Sword. This sword is obtained by defeating the main game's final boss and exchanging it for the sword. Its weapon art has a large range, extremely long distance, and deals very high damage.

Besides allowing you to farm Elden Ring Runes in Mohgwyn Dynasty, it becomes exceptionally useful after entering the DLC, and you can try using its Weapon Art to attack Ghostflame Dragon from a distance.

Moghwyn's Sacred Spear

Moghwyn's Sacred Spear is a classic, easy-to-play weapon. It's well-designed and incredibly powerful. Its main damage comes from its Weapon Art, which inflicts three instances of blood loss and has a chance to instantly unbalance enemies.

Furthermore, its Weapon Art deals AoE damage, allowing you to kill enemies even through walls. Even after all the updates and patches, it remains a top-tier weapon. It's a weapon obtainable only through complex side quests, a perfect example of a powerful weapon.

Rivers Of Blood And Eleonora's Poleblade

Both of these weapons inflict accumulated blood loss on opponents, and as you know, blood loss is the most powerful status ailment in Elden Ring.

Eleonora's Poleblade is better against humanoid enemies with low poise, allowing you to apply a Stagger Lock. Rivers of Blood is better against large enemies; simply spamming Weapon Art from a distance can easily defeat most bosses, provided you have enough FP.

Bloodfiend's Arm

Bloodfiend's Arm was incredibly overpowered when the DLC was first released, and although it has been nerfed, it's still a monster. Its unique charged heavy attack splashes twice, allowing for double stacking of status effects like poison and frost. Even without considering status effects, its charged heavy attack excels at breaking stances.

Backhand Blades

Backhand Blades are one of the strongest DLC weapons. Lightweight and highly versatile, they are agile and fluid to use, and suitable for almost any build. Whether it's dexterity blood loss, flame art infusion, or cold affinity triggering frost, it's a viable side weapon choice.

Fire Knight's Great Sword

Also from DLC, Fire Knight's Great Sword features unique light attacks and a charged, heavy attack. Its Flame Art infusion provides the highest damage boost, making it one of the strongest Pyro and Faith weapons. Any enemy prone to Bleed or Stagger is easily defeated.

Nagakiba

Nagakiba is considered the true king of katanas. It boasts an extremely long attack range and can be paired with many builds. Simply enchant it with Lightning or Bloodflame Blade, then use its Weapon Art to return Spinning Strikes, and you can easily complete the entire game.

Antspur Rapier

Antspur Rapier excels at rapidly applying status effects and can apply Scarlet Rot. Combined with the blood loss effect, these two negative effects quickly reduce enemy health. Its power stance move set, especially the second rapid three-hit combo, can trigger status effects extremely quickly.

Great Stars

Great Stars is one of the best weapons in its class. Besides its built-in blood loss effect, it restores 1% health with each hit. It synergizes perfectly with various Ash of War builds, such as Wild Strikes, Stormaller, and Savage Lion's Claw, and becomes even more devastating after being enchanted with Bloodflame Blade.

Star Fist

Star Fist's charged heavy attack is incredibly powerful, easily knocking down enemies. Its light attack move set excels at successful hits and quickly triggers Blood Loss. It combines rapid bleed attacks with powerful heavy bombs, excelling in both aspects. Its only drawback is the relatively short attack range of the gauntlets.

Pota

Pota, as a gauntlet weapon, is a severely underrated secret weapon. Its power is almost equivalent to Star Fist, but its attack range is closer to a throwing sword, breaking the balance of short range common to gauntlet weapons. It is extremely powerful in both PvP and PvE.

Bloody Helice

Bloody Helice is the longest thrusting sword and a quintessential Arcane build. Its weapon art is both vicious and elegant, allowing for a quick return to safety after an attack. While perhaps less effective in cities, it's highly effective against bosses. Its combat art, along with the DLC weapon Obsidian Scythe, inflicts a total of 55 stance damage, making it very effective against breaking stances.

These are some of the most powerful weapons currently available in PvE, but the order is not ranked. Which weapon you choose depends on your preferred playstyle and your character's attributes.

As a wildly popular game that sparked countless discussions among players, Elden Ring offers a rich and open-world adventure. Players can experience a robust adventure mechanic, challenging gameplay, and a remarkably engaging setting and visual presentation.

This is why so many players dedicate their time and effort to exploring the game, earning it a large and dedicated fanbase.

The earlier announcement of Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition's upcoming release on Switch 2 caused a frenzy among players, meaning they could play anytime, anywhere.

However, disappointingly, the official release date for Switch 2 has recently been delayed. If you're curious why, read on.

Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition

At Nintendo Direct presentation on April 2nd, Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition was announced for Switch 2. During the presentation, a trailer showcased classic game scenes and visuals that players had experienced, including but not limited to battles with Radahn and exploration of Shadow of the Erdtree.

These trailers evince that Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition offers players new content and features on top of the original game and Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.

These new features include, but are not limited to, exclusive Armor Sets, new weapons, Torrent customization options, and new classes. All of this has captured players' attention and fueled their anticipation for its release on Switch 2 platform.

However, the core gameplay remains unchanged. Players still take on the role of Tarnished, exploring the game world. Where to explore and how to explore is entirely up to you.

Classic areas appear in Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition, including Limgrave, Caelid, and Liurnia, etc. Furthermore, many more new features await players' discovery.

Gamescom, held from August 20th to 24th, also showcased trailers for Tarnished Edition, with the most exciting aspect being the opportunity for players to experience the new classes firsthand.

Heavy Knight, clad in a black, heavy-plated armor set and wielding a curved greatsword, showcases the game's ongoing improvements and efforts to bring new content and exciting features.

Disappointing Results

While the news of Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition's release on Switch 2 delighted loyal fans, it doesn't mean players are indifferent to the game's quality.

Players anticipated a gaming experience on Switch 2 comparable to PC and other platforms, but player demonstrations clearly show that the current game's performance falls short of their expectations.

Videos of players playing Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition on Switch 2 can be found on various platforms, revealing that smooth gameplay is somewhat strained.

It doesn't offer the smooth combat performance players expected. Frame rate drops and stuttering occur in almost every action except when the player's character is stationary.

Furthermore, when there are many elements in the scene, they appear more like flat textures than three-dimensional objects.

These points to one fact: the game's performance is unstable.

For a large-scale open-world adventure game, these are almost fatal problems. During the adventure, you need to constantly pay attention to your surroundings, be wary of potential enemies and bosses, and game lag can make it impossible to detect enemy attacks during adventures and battles.

An even more absurd situation is that you see a boss attack, but because of game lag, you can't use your chosen skill in time. In such cases, your character can only take hits and damage.

Both situations can lead to character death, and the consequence of death is the loss of all Elden Ring Runes. Although you have the opportunity to return to the death location to retrieve these runes, you would certainly prefer to avoid this situation if possible.

Besides performance issues, Switch 2's reliance on buttons to control character movement is uncomfortable for many players accustomed to the keyboard and mouse combination on PCs.

The cumbersome button layout makes unfamiliar players feel overwhelmed in combat, not only failing to provide enjoyment but also turning exploration into a burden.

If the release is still in this state, it's easy to imagine how many negative reviews Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition will receive from players.

Looking Forward To The Release

To address the technical issues raised by players, on October 23rd, the official announcement was made that the release of Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition would be delayed.

This is a correct decision for both players and the game developers.

While the delayed release will disappoint players, it's acceptable to play a more satisfactory game a little later than to keep failing in a half-finished game and even lose all resources and runes.

For a game, it's better to carefully polish it and strive for excellence in every aspect than to rush out a buggy game and disappoint the audience. A well-made game will always have its audience.

With the immense popularity of Elden Ring IP, players will probably have high expectations for this game that blends the original game and Shadow of the Erdtree.

In short, the release of Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition on Switch 2 has been fraught with difficulties. Although it's still uncertain when it will be released in 2026, we all look forward to its return with a brand new look, living up to the expectations of players.