Elden Ring Two Handing Guide

Simple things can, for some odd reason, end up being somewhat hidden in Elden Ring, with two-handed use being perhaps the most obvious case. When new players first enter the game and see how to wield large weapons in melee, many players notice that their damage output feels somewhat off.

The bright side is that once a player understands how to input for two-handed wielding, it’s quite simple. Unfortunately, the game is not very clear on the input requirement to start with.

The remainder of this guide will explain input on each of the platforms, the exact differences two-handing will have, the type of weapons that benefit most from it, and the best times to drop your shield in order to apply more pressure to enemies.

Guide to Two-Handing Weapons in Elden Ring

To two-hand a weapon on a controller, hold down the Interact/Use function while pushing the attack button for the side of the weapon being held in your hand. On computer, hold down E on the keyboard, and click either the left or right mouse button, depending on which weapon slot your weapon is assigned to.

On controller, to two-hand your right-hand weapon, hold the Interact/Use function and that will subsequently set your weapon for two-handed use. If you wish to two-hand your left-hand weapon (such as a seal, staff, or off-hand weapons), you can do that also, as long as the Interact/Use function is held down while you press the attack button for the left-hand side of your character. Once a correct input is registered, the two-handed weapon will be set immediately, along with the new holding position and the appropriate HUD will also be updated. Check out your equipment menu before continuing (especially when swapping weapons frequently). Elden Ring allows for up to three weapons to be carried in a single hand and can swap between them mid-fight. If you activate the wrong slot, you will use that weapon instead of the intended weapon (this sets up a lot of confusion).

Two-Hand Control by Console Type

Console Type will determine the control scheme you will use to two-hand your weapons. You would be amazed at how many players complain about issues with two-handing weapons when in fact they just didn't perform the following combination correctly.

To two-hand your weapon on PlayStation, you want to press Triangle first (this button is also used to interact with objects such as Opening doors, climbing ladders or picking up items), then either press R1 (to two-hand the right hand weapon) or L1 (to two-hand the left hand weapon). If you are already in a two-handed stance and perform the combo again, you will return to your original stance.

To two-hand your weapon on Xbox, you will use the same combination of button presses (Y + LB or Y + RB). A lot of players seem to be surprised at the effect of timing on their input. If you need to quickly use your weapon by tapping Y to instantiate a weapon swap (weapon swapping is not the same as performing an actual replace), it can often register as a normal interact when you go ahead and hold Y down long enough so that you can't register any other button you can use with your left thumb (like RB or LB) instantly.

On PC you can normally have this set up as E for your right hand weapon (when pressing left mouse button at the same time) and E for your left hand weapon (when pressing right mouse button at the same time). However, if you change your key bindings from the defaults or use a different keyboard, double check to see if your interact and attack inputs have been remapped as this causes issues with many PC players.

Importance of Two Handing in Elden Ring

Knowing the combo itself is the first step; knowing why two handing is useful will be the next major change in how you approach combat in the game, especially with strength builds. To put it simply: two handing any weapon gives you a massive increase to your stagger and damage output.

The to making you hit your stagger & scaling requirements for weapons is the 1.5x effective strength multiplier. When you two hand a weapon, your strength is counted as 1.5 times for both scaling and requirement purposes. For example, if you had 40 strength, when you two hand that weapon, the game will count it as 60 strength. This is huge! You get to hit certain important scaling thresholds earlier than you normally would and you are able to use higher tier weapons before you would normally be able to based on simply looking at the raw strength stat on your character sheet. A character with 27 strength is effectively going to hit tier 40 when they are two handing.

Another thing to note about two handing your weapons and its effect on how you are going to damage and stagger players is how the moveset changes & the poise damage is much higher in PvE environments. Most weapons that have been set up to be effectively used in both hands have an aggressive moveset that won't be used as an option in PvE. Particularly, charged heavy attacks will hit a lot harder against an enemy's stance; if you're trying to break their posture and set up a critical hit, then one of the best methods available is two-handing. For example, Giant-Crusher is an absolute monster in this capacity when you can use charged R2s.

However, there is a drawback. The way that guarding and Ashes of War function when you use two hands to wield one weapon are different from how they would if you had your shield on your back and only your right hand engaged with the weapon. The downside is that you will lose active shield-blocking capabilities. Your Ash of War will work as normal, but weapons with physical weapon skills will indirectly benefit from two-handing because the overall attack rating will be high. However, for skills that primarily scale with Intelligence, Faith or Arcane when two-handed, the scaling won't directly affect those skills so you will see much higher benefits from two-handing, overall, for heavy physical skills more than light magical skills.

Remember that powerstancing is not to be confused with two-handing either; they use different methods. Powerstancing is using two weapons that are the same weapon class (i.e., two swords or two axes) in two hands for a dual-wield style, while two-handing is to apply both hands to one weapon to gain better scaling in Strength types. You use one or the other but never both at once.

Best Weapons to Two-Hand in Elden Ring.

Some weapons are good enough to use one-handed, while others are designed to be used as two-handed. In general, though, strengthbased weapons are the primary winners by virtue of good scaling and high stance (posture) damage.

Colossal Swords/Colossal Weapons are the stand-out category of weapons for two-handing in Elden Ring. At the Caelid’s Caelem ruins, you can find a greatsword. This is one of the best pure strength options available today. A giant-crusher located on the outer wall of the Altus plateau is yet another excellent weapon, capable of breaking the poise of most targets with extreme efficacy. With both of these weapons, you can stagger typical enemies almost effortlessly and can cause most bosses to be placed into a critical state with only two to three charged swings. Given that it has a unique dual colossal weapon setup, the starscourge greatsword is also noteworthy due to its strong area-of-effect (AoE) weapon art.

The next tier down consists of greatswords, greataxes, and hammers. Although they still greatly benefit from being two-handed, their ability to do so is not quite as pronounced as weapons from the colossal class. As one of the more dependable weapons available in the game, the claymore can be relied upon because it possesses an amazing moveset, reasonable stat requirements, and a heavily charged two-handed attack with decent stance damage. Weapons such as the executioner’s greataxe and the great club can be explained through the same reasoning as the claymore: strong scaling for strength stats, big hits, and aggressive play style yielding large rewards.

Halberds are another underrated selection. Because the halberd has an impressive two-handed moveset, it usually possesses a wide horizontal range and is therefore good at controlling crowds of enemies. The halberd’s additional reach is particularly beneficial for maintaining an adequate distance between you and a boss during a fight and for punishing the boss when you are just outside of his attack range.

If you’re starting early on your adventure, the claymore found in castle morne would be a very good choice. The Grafted Blade Greatsword is a great deal at the start because it has a very low minimum requirement of only 16 str and 13 dex but remains useful throughout the entire game (if you can keep finding it). If you want something meatier sooner, the Grafted Blade Greatsword is also a strong early colossal weapon from the Miscellaneous section of the dungeon.

Proper weakening and breaking of a target's stance with a two-handed build has always been the most important factor within the two-handed weapons meta in January 2026. That is where two-handed builds are separated from strong medium two-handed build variations. In PvE, colossal weapons capable of breaking an enemy's stance in two full-charged attacks before resetting create an obscene amount of valuable riposte windows, sometimes doing 25-50% of the total boss's health in one riposte trigger. Therefore, if you want to run the best possible strength build in PvE, you should focus on poise damage efficiency, i.e. Giant-crusher and/or Greatsword with the Two-Handed Talisman for an extra 10% damage boosts versus all enemies.

When To Two-Hand In Elden Ring

Knowing how to enter into two-handed mode and become proficient in "two-handing" is not the same. Like with all combat skills, you have to memorize when/how often to enter into two-handed mode to increase your chances of being successful; therefore, you should focus on gaining as much knowledge as possible.

The most direct method to entering into two-handed mode within Elden Ring is to always look for a boss's stagger window. Almost all bosses in Elden Ring have a hidden (or true) stance meter, and when the inflated value of the stance meter fills up, kills them and/or creates an opportunity for them to be attacked by the player (a.k.a. a target for an attack). In addition, using two-handed charged attack(s) is always the quickest method of filling up the boss's hidden stance meter than with normal attacks. For example, against Elden Ring any boss that has a high hidden stance meter will be able to be forced into a stagger state or had its staircase filled by using two-handed charged attack multiple times while attacking them during safe punishment windows, particularly against the three bosses listed (Margit, Godrick, and other late-game acts in the campaign include the additional disabled states of the enemy after breaking them and when breaking them versus using two-handed charged attacks and using the chance-based two-handed/performance times). Additional Benefits of Two-Handing

Another big advantage of two-handing weapons is that you will be able to meet early Strength requirements for certain weapons. If you have a weapon that requires 30 Strength but only have 20, you can use two hands to provide an effective 30 Strength for that weapon allowing you to use it effectively. This allows you to enjoy using heavier weapons much sooner and can save you a lot of time during the first several levels.

The other main reason to use a two-handed weapon is to exchange some defence for enhanced damage if you are familiar enough with an enemy’s attack animations that you can dodge instead of trying to block, holding onto a shield will start to feel like you are wasting an opportunity. In those situations, you are typically better off using a two-handed weapon – not only do you hit harder, but you will also apply pressure to your opponent’s stance quicker.

The attacks that benefit the most from two-handing are the jump attack as well as the charged heavy attack. Since jump attacks already give a bonus to poise damage, adding the two-handed additional AR to a jump attack will increase its effectiveness even more. The charged R2 attacks are certainly slower to execute, but they also have the highest damage value of all strength-based weapon classes. If you can land a two-handed jump attack into a charged heavy attack when a boss is in the middle of a long recovery animation, it will be one of the most damaging burst combinations that you can get with a physical build.

[[FAQ - Two-Handing Issues]]

The most common reason for two-handing not working is because of incorrectly timed buttons; in order for it to work, you must first hold the interact button, then while still holding the interact button, press the attack button. When players perform a tap input instead of a hold input, the game will often register that as a normal interact. Xbox users often experience this with Y button functionality - executing a short press sometimes prevents you from swapping stances.

Another common issue players can run into when attempting to equip a weapon with two hands is an incorrect or empty hand slot. If there is nothing equipped in the hand slot you are attempting to equip two handed weapons, the game has nothing to apply your input towards. The exact same thing would happen if the player was accidentally using the wrong weapon because they had cycled to another hand slot. If you check the equipment screen you should be able to identify any issues quickly.

Furthermore, there are exceptions for paired weapons; some weapons have been created to already have specific handling and will not function like other one-handed weapons. Weapons like the Twinblade or Eleonora's Poleblade can behave oddly when attempting to switch between different ways of holding them, as they were designed to be held in certain manner or share certain animations with other two-handed weapons. In these situations, if you are using the pairing for your weapon and you toggle to use it in a two-handed style, you may not get the outcome you were expecting or see almost no difference in how it functions.

Does two-handing add more Damage

Yes, but only through Strength scaling. Two-handing does not cause all forms of Damage to be magically increased. It increases your effective Strength to be equal to 1.5 times as much, which translates into the amount of additional additional Attack Rating your weapon will receive based on how much your weapon already got from Strength. A weapon with high Strength scaling (such as a Giant-Crusher that has been heavily upgraded) will yield much greater benefits than a weapon that has low Strength scaling.

The special trait of the Ashes of War applies here as well, since most weapon skills that deal primarily physical damage will be improved by holding them in two hands, as your base Attack Rating will be higher when you do so. For example: Lion's Claw is a weapon skill that is more powerful when executed on a Greatsword that is Heavy infused and used in two handed mode. On the other hand, if a skill's damage is based primarily on non-Strength stats (such as magic) the weapon's stance will not directly improve that portion of damage. So, holding a weapon two-handed will not suddenly make the magic component of a spell stronger when executed by changing how you hold that weapon.

So, one handed versus two handed really comes down to the build you are using and what type of fight you are engaged in. If you are fighting against fast hitting opponents with potential to deal significant damage to you then it would be prudent to keep your shield as an option, therefore use one hand for the shield. If you are performing a fully Strength based build with the intent of maximizing stance pressure against a boss that has predictable attacks, using two hands as opposed to one hand will more than likely give you the greatest advantage. Many experienced players will frequently switch between these two hand options during combat (shielding during quick combos followed up by two handed damage once an opportunity for damage occurs).

The first step to using two hands to play Elden Ring is simple: Hold triangle, Y or E then press the matching button for attacking. The second step explains why it is important: Enhanced Effective Strength, increased poise damage and access to a more dangerous move set. For Strength based builds in particular this is not a matter of preference as it has become their default mode of fighting unless the circumstances of the battle mandate that they block with a shield. Furthermore, those using heavy weapons, large swords, great axes and other choices centered upon staggering, benefit the greatest amount from two handed style play.

Good luck hunting, Tarnished.