All legendary armaments elden ring players need to track
There are nine legendary armaments scattered across the Lands Between, and each one comes with a stat gate, a unique skill, and a discovery moment the game never advertises in advance. None of them are required to finish the main story, but together they feed the Legendary Armaments achievement and they also define the upper bound of single-weapon power in the base game. The practical questions are the same for anyone planning a route: where each one drops, what it costs to wield it, whether it accepts Ashes of War, and how it interacts with the rest of a build.
What follows is a working reference rather than a hype piece. It covers every entry on the list, the requirements reported by verified sources, the patterns that connect them as a collectible set, and the design decisions a developer or technical player should understand about how FromSoftware balanced these weapons relative to ordinary armaments. The goal is to leave you able to plan a route, avoid the one missable entry, and decide which legendary armament, if any, is worth slotting into a real build.
How the legendary armaments work as a collectible set
FromSoftware treats the legendary armaments as a curated subset of the weapon roster rather than a hidden tier. Every legendary armament is a unique weapon with its own model, name, and skill, and the game flags them internally so the achievement system can track acquisition. The list is closed: there are exactly nine in the base game, and no update has added to it. That makes the category useful to study because it acts as a controlled sample of how the studio designs signature weapons.
Three structural facts hold for every entry. First, each legendary armament is non-infusable: you cannot apply Ashes of War to them, which removes a major customization path that ordinary weapons rely on. Second, they tend to push toward a specific attribute spread rather than a pure single-stat scaling pattern, which is why some look weak on paper but feel strong in a thematic build. Third, several of them are gated behind exploration rather than boss kills, so route knowledge matters as much as combat ability.
What the set is designed to test
The collection rewards a wide range of play behaviors. Some weapons are tied to side dungeons that most players will only visit if they are doing a thorough clear. Others are dropped by overworld enemies, including early-game bosses that a new character can reach within the first few hours. At least one entry becomes permanently missable if the story moves past a certain point, which is the only real failure state in the category.
For a developer or technical artist, the set is also a useful case study in asset reuse. The legendary armaments share visual language with the wider weapon roster but introduce unique VFX, named skills, and bespoke animation sets, which is a common pattern for signature items in action RPGs. Understanding how that pipeline is structured helps when you are scoping a similar feature in a smaller production.
Verified list of all nine legendary armaments
The table below lists every legendary armament, the attribute spread it asks for, the skill tied to it, and the general location category. Stat requirements are the in-game minimums needed to wield the weapon one-handed; they do not reflect the soft caps that determine actual damage output.
| Legendary armament | Type | Key requirements | Skill | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grafted Dragon | Heavy thrusting sword | 20 STR, 14 DEX, 16 FTH | Last Rites | Guardian Golem, Fringefolk Hero’s Grave |
| Godslayer’s Greatsword | Colossal sword | 20 STR, 22 DEX, 18 FTH | The Queen’s Black Flame | Drop from Godskin Noble, Divine Tower of Caelid (boss rematch) |
| Golden Order Greatsword | Greatsword | 16 STR, 21 DEX, 28 INT, 21 FTH | Establish Order | Cave of the Golden Order, Mountaintops of the Giants |
| Dark Moon Greatsword | Greatsword | 16 STR, 11 DEX, 38 INT | Moonlight Greatsword | Swap a remembrance with Enia at the Roundtable Hold |
| Marais Executioner’s Sword | Greatsword | 24 STR, 14 DEX, 23 ARC | Brotherhood’s Contemplation | Shaded Castle, Elemer of the Briar boss drop |
| Sword of Night and Flame | Straight sword | 12 STR, 12 DEX, 24 INT, 24 FTH | Night and Flame Stance | Caria Manor, accessible after Patches’ questline progression |
| Ruins Greatsword | Greatsword | 50 STR, 16 INT | Graves’ Pick | Redmane Castle plaza after the Starscourge Radahn festival |
| Bolt of Gransax | Spear (thrusting) | 20 STR, 40 DEX | Ancient Lightning Spear | Leyndell, Royal Capital (after Draconic Tree Sentinel) |
| Devourer’s Scepter | Colossal weapon | 30 STR, 25 FTH | Devouring Eclipse | Drop from a specific encounter in Castle Morne, Weeping Peninsula |
The table is ordered loosely from most accessible to most demanding, which mirrors how a typical player would approach the set during a single playthrough. The exact ordering is not canonical: the game does not present the list in any particular sequence, and your route may pull you through a different order depending on the dungeons you choose to clear.
Where each legendary armament lives in the open world
Locations are the most common reason players miss legendary armaments. Several of them are tied to optional content that a focused run can easily skip, and one is locked behind an NPC quest that is easy to forget.
Early to mid-game pickups
The Grafted Dragon is the earliest entry most players will see. It sits inside the Fringefolk Hero’s Grave, a dungeon that requires a Stonesword Key to enter and that is designed around a chariot trap, so the location itself acts as a soft skill check. The Godslayer’s Greatsword is tied to a specific Godskin Noble encounter that only appears after the player triggers a particular invasion, which is the first entry that depends on story state rather than exploration.
The Golden Order Greatsword requires travel into the Mountaintops of the Giants, but the cave it lives in is short and the boss is optional. The Sword of Night and Flame is the most frequently recommended entry for new players because it sits in a relatively short dungeon, the requirements are modest once you split points between intelligence and faith, and its skill lets you fire a long-range magic attack that handles many overworld encounters on its own.
Late-game and capital pickups
Ruins Greatsword is a festival reward: it only appears in Redmane Castle’s plaza after you have triggered the Starscourge Radahn boss fight, which means you need to follow the festival questline to its conclusion. The Bolt of Gransax is the most dramatic entry because it is embedded in the roof of Leyndell, Royal Capital, and the spear itself is visible from below the city walls, which is a piece of environmental storytelling that doubles as a waypoint.
The Dark Moon Greatsword is unusual because it is not a direct drop. You acquire it by trading a remembrance item to Enia at the Roundtable Hold, and the remembrance itself is tied to a specific boss that many players will only fight once. The Marais Executioner’s Sword is found at the Shaded Castle, a legacy dungeon that is easy to overlook because it sits on the side of a mountain away from the main road.
Questline-gated entries
The Devourer’s Scepter is the one entry that is genuinely missable. The weapon drops from a specific encounter in Castle Morne on the Weeping Peninsula, and if the player progresses certain NPCs past a particular point before returning, the encounter no longer rewards the weapon in the standard way. Reports from players who missed it suggest that co-op trading remains an option: if another player who already owns the weapon drops it, the receiving player still gains the item and the achievement credit. That workaround is widely discussed but it depends on matchmaking cooperation and is not an official design intent, as noted in the PC Gamer legendary armaments guide, which provides useful background for this point.
Stat requirements and what they imply about build direction
Reading the requirements as a group is more useful than reading each one in isolation. FromSoftware uses legendary armaments to force players into hybrid attribute spreads that ordinary weapons usually avoid. Several entries ask for 20 or more points in an attribute the player might not otherwise invest in, which is a deliberate friction that encourages thinking about build identity before slotting the weapon in.
Single-stat heavy entries
Two of the legendary armaments lean on a single dominant attribute. The Bolt of Gransax asks for 20 strength and 40 dexterity, and its skill, Ancient Lightning Spear, scales aggressively with dexterity once upgraded. The Ruins Greatsword asks for 50 strength and 16 intelligence, which is the highest single-attribute gate in the set. Both of these are designed for players who are already deep into a combat-oriented build, and both reward heavy investment rather than spreading points thin.
Hybrid intelligence and faith entries
Four legendary armaments demand a meaningful split between intelligence and faith. The Sword of Night and Flame is the most accessible of these, with a 24/24 split that is reachable within a normal mid-game build. The Godslayer’s Greatsword asks for 18 faith, the Golden Order Greatsword asks for 21 faith and 28 intelligence, and the Dark Moon Greatsword asks for 38 intelligence. These weapons are designed for caster hybrids rather than pure casters, and they underperform when the player has not committed to the relevant schools.
Arcane-leaning entries
The Marais Executioner’s Sword is the only legendary armament that asks for arcane as a primary stat. With a 23 arcane requirement and the Brotherhood’s Contemplation skill scaling with arcane, it is the natural choice for status-effect or blood-build players. The Grafted Dragon mixes strength, dexterity, and faith, and the Devourer’s Scepter combines strength and faith, which rounds out the category without overlapping any of the intelligence-heavy weapons.
Why Ashes of War are blocked and what that means in practice
Every legendary armament is non-infusable. You cannot change its skill or apply an Ash of War from another weapon, which is the standard customization path in Elden Ring. FromSoftware’s design choice here is structural: each legendary armament is sold on the strength of its named skill, and allowing Ash of War swapping would dilute that identity. The trade-off is that legendary armaments cannot be tuned for elemental infusions, so a fire-focused player will not be able to convert a legendary greatsword into a fire variant.
In practice, this means the decision to equip a legendary armament is a commitment to its skill as designed. Players who want flexibility in mid-fight stance switching need to keep a non-legendary weapon alongside the legendary armament, which has weight and stat implications. The constraint also explains why some legendary armaments feel weaker than ordinary weapons in raw numbers: they cannot borrow scaling improvements from infusions the way a standard weapon can.
Damage scaling and where each weapon actually shines
Raw attack power tells only part of the story. The skills attached to legendary armaments are the real differentiator, and several of them offer utility that goes beyond direct damage.
Skills that change positioning
Marais Executioner’s Sword pulls enemies toward the wielder, which turns a normally passive encounter into a one-sided trade. The Grafted Dragon’s Last Rites is a delayed but wide swing that catches groups, which makes it useful in dungeon corridors where multiple enemies are clumped. The Golden Order Greatsword’s Establish Order is a chargeable wave that punishes enemies at mid-range, which is a rare property among greatswords.
Skills that scale with hybrid stats
The Sword of Night and Flame has two stances: a heavy melee swing and a long-range magical attack. The magic attack uses intelligence and faith, which means the same weapon that handles close combat also handles sniping, and the player can alternate between the two without swapping gear. The Dark Moon Greatsword’s Moonlight Greatsword projectile has frostbite buildup that scales with intelligence, and the spell’s range is long enough to act as a panic button against fast enemies.
Skills that reward high-investment builds
The Ruins Greatsword’s Graves’ Pick deals bonus damage based on the number of nearby gravity-aligned enemies, which means it shines against groups but feels ordinary in one-on-one fights. The Bolt of Gransax fires a wide lightning spear that hits multiple targets in a line, which is the strongest crowd-clear option in the set. The Godslayer’s Greatsword’s The Queen’s Black Flame is a faith-scaling Black Flame spell that does percentage-based damage, which is a structural advantage against late-game bosses with large health pools.
Build archetypes that use the legendary armaments well
For additional context, Builds that center on a legendary armament tend to lean into the weapon’s identity rather than treating it as a sidearm. The following archetypes are the most stable ways to incorporate the set, and they map onto real encounter design rather than theoretical optimization.
- Strength-faith paladin: Devourer’s Scepter or Godslayer’s Greatsword paired with heavy armor and seal-based incantations, leveraging the faith scaling on the skill while using strength as the main melee stat.
- Intelligence greatsword caster: Dark Moon Greatsword or Golden Order Greatsword, with a staff as the off-hand and either intelligence-only or intelligence-faith hybrid spell loadouts.
- Dexterity lightning: Bolt of Gransax as the primary, supplemented by lightning-based Ashes of War on a non-legendary off-hand to keep the elemental coverage consistent.
- Arcane bleed hybrid: Marais Executioner’s Sword combined with blood-loss accessories and an arcane-scaling sidearm, leaning into the Brotherhood’s Contemplation pull as a setup tool.
- Early-route caster: Sword of Night and Flame with a faith-intelligence stat split that is reachable in the first 30 levels, using the magic stance for overworld sniping and the physical stance for boss trades.
These archetypes share one trait: they treat the legendary armament as a centerpiece rather than an addition. Treating the weapon as a sidearm usually produces a build that is worse than a fully customized ordinary weapon, because the legendary armament cannot be infused to cover gaps.
Comparing legendary armaments on three practical axes
Rather than restating the table, it helps to sort the nine weapons by what they actually do in a fight. The second table groups them by their strongest use case, the attribute investment they demand, and how forgiving they are when the player’s build does not match their ideal spread.
| Armament | Strongest use case | Investment profile | Forgiveness off-build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bolt of Gransax | Crowd clear at mid to long range | Dexterity primary, strength secondary | Low without 40 DEX |
| Ruins Greatsword | Group fights against gravity-tied enemies | Strength primary, intelligence secondary | Low without 50 STR |
| Godslayer’s Greatsword | Late-game boss damage via percentage-based Black Flame | Strength and faith hybrid | Moderate |
| Golden Order Greatsword | Mid-range punish and caster hybrid support | Intelligence and faith hybrid | Moderate |
| Dark Moon Greatsword | Long-range frostbite pressure and panic casts | Intelligence primary | Low without 38 INT |
| Sword of Night and Flame | Overworld sniping and hybrid boss trades | Intelligence and faith hybrid | High for a hybrid weapon |
| Marais Executioner’s Sword | Setup pulls into heavy attacks | Strength, dexterity, arcane hybrid | Moderate |
| Grafted Dragon | Dungeon corridors and group swings | Strength, dexterity, faith hybrid | Moderate |
| Devourer’s Scepter | Faith-scaling colossal weapon with self-buff skill | Strength and faith hybrid | Moderate |
The takeaway is that the set does not behave like a tier list. Each entry has a role, and the most forgiving weapons for off-build use are the hybrid ones, while the single-stat entries (Bolt of Gransax, Ruins Greatsword, Dark Moon Greatsword) punish players who try to slot them into a spread they were not designed for.
Common mistakes when collecting the set
Most collection failures come from route errors rather than combat difficulty. A few patterns repeat across player reports and are worth understanding before you start.
Skipping legacy dungeons
Several legendary armaments sit inside optional legacy dungeons that have no story reason to visit. The Shaded Castle, in particular, is off the main road and is easy to pass on a focused run. The Fringefolk Hero’s Grave is reachable early but its trap-heavy design causes many players to clear the area and leave, missing the Grafted Dragon in the boss room.
Triggering irreversible story events
One legendary armament becomes harder to acquire once the main story crosses a particular threshold. Players who rush into the Mountaintops of the Giants without exploring the Weeping Peninsula can miss the Devourer’s Scepter encounter because the relevant NPC quest state changes. The fix is mechanical: keep Weeping Peninsula content queued before you push the story forward, even if you are not planning a full clear.
Confusing remembrances and direct drops
Dark Moon Greatsword is acquired through Enia, not as a direct boss drop. New players sometimes defeat the relevant boss and assume the weapon will be in the reward pile, only to find nothing. The remembrance-to-weapon path requires a specific menu interaction at the Roundtable Hold, and missing that step will leave the weapon unobtainable until the next playthrough unless the player finds an alternative path through multiplayer trading.
Route planning for a single-playthrough completion
If you want all nine legendary armaments in one run, the cleanest strategy is to plan the order of side content before you commit to the main story. The route below is one workable order; it is not the only one, and it is shaped around the assumption that you want to minimize backtracking rather than minimize early-game power.
- Weeping Peninsula: collect the Devourer’s Scepter in Castle Morne and any related NPC progression before leaving the area.
- Stormhill and Liurnia: clear the Caria Manor dungeon for the Sword of Night and Flame and acquire the Grafted Dragon from the Fringefolk Hero’s Grave.
- Caelid: trigger the Radahn festival and collect the Ruins Greatsword from Redmane Castle’s plaza after the fight.
- Altus Plateau and Mountaintops: pick up the Golden Order Greatsword in the Cave of the Golden Order, and clear the Shaded Castle for the Marais Executioner’s Sword.
- Leyndell, Royal Capital: defeat the boss near the Draconic Tree Sentinel and collect the Bolt of Gransax from the city roof.
- Roundtable Hold and legacy dungeons: trade the relevant remembrance to Enia for the Dark Moon Greatsword and revisit the Divine Tower of Caelid for the Godslayer’s Greatsword.
The order is designed so that each region is cleared before the story moves past the relevant access point. The single most important rule is to clear Weeping Peninsula before entering Leyndell, because the Devourer’s Scepter is the only entry with a hard miss condition tied to story progression.
How the legendary armaments compare to the rest of the weapon roster
Legendary armaments are not a damage tier. They are a curated set with named skills, and several ordinary weapons outperform them on raw numbers. The strength of the set is identity: each entry is a finished design rather than a base for customization, and that gives them a place in build theorycrafting that ordinary weapons do not fill.
Single-target damage
For pure single-target damage, several ordinary weapons with the right infusion outperform most legendary armaments. The legendary entries win on identity rather than on the number on the stats screen, and players chasing a damage leaderboard usually ignore the category.
Crowd control
Bolt of Gransax and Ruins Greatsword are among the strongest crowd-control weapons in the game because their skills scale with the number of targets in range. The Legendary Armaments set has a stronger showing here than in single-target comparisons.
Build identity
Each legendary armament is associated with a thematic build through its skill, its model, and its stat requirements. That identity is the real draw, and it is the reason the set is a meaningful achievement: collecting the set is a statement about the kinds of characters you have built, not a statement about maximum damage.
Using legendary armaments in PvP versus PvE
The skill set attached to the legendary armaments interacts differently with human opponents than with AI. A few comparisons are worth understanding before you take these weapons into competitive contexts.
High-pressure skills in duels
Skills that pull or push, such as Brotherhood’s Contemplation on the Marais Executioner’s Sword, are stronger in PvP than in PvE because human players can be caught out of position. The Golden Order Greatsword’s wave is a fast mid-range punish that is hard to roll in narrow arenas, which makes it a dueling favorite.
Long-range skills in invasions
The Sword of Night and Flame’s magic stance and the Dark Moon Greatsword’s projectile are widely used in invasion contexts because they let the wielder control space from a distance. The Ruins Greatsword’s bonus damage scales with nearby gravity enemies, which is more reliable in PvE encounters with grouped mobs than in one-on-one duels.
Limitations to keep in mind
Legendary armaments are non-infusable, so a meta shift that favors a particular infusion does not help them. Players who want to remain competitive across patches often keep a non-legendary weapon as a flexible option and only swap to the legendary armament for specific matchups.
Reading the legendary armaments as a design pattern
For developers, the set is a useful case study in how to design signature weapons. Three patterns stand out.
Identity-first design
Each legendary armament has a clear thematic identity expressed through its model, its skill, and its stat spread. The result is that players remember the weapons by name and by skill rather than by a damage number. That is a useful template for any game that wants signature items to feel distinct from the surrounding roster.
Constraint as a feature
Blocking Ashes of War on the legendary armaments is a constraint that could feel limiting, but it functions as a feature because it forces the player to engage with the weapon’s identity. A similar pattern shows up in other games that lock signature weapons behind a single skill or a fixed moveset.
Distributed discovery
The nine weapons are spread across regions, dungeon types, and encounter types, which means the player has to engage with the open world to complete the set. That is a deliberate pacing choice, and it is a useful reference for any game that wants a collectible set to also act as a tour of the content.
Frequently asked questions
How many legendary armaments are there in Elden Ring?
There are nine legendary armaments in the base game. Completing the set is also tied to the Legendary Armaments achievement, which is the main reason most players attempt to collect all nine in a single playthrough.
Can you put Ashes of War on legendary armaments?
No. Legendary armaments cannot be infused with Ashes of War, which means their skills are fixed and they cannot be converted to elemental infusions. This is a deliberate design choice, and it is one of the structural features that separates the legendary set from the rest of the weapon roster.
Which legendary armament is the easiest to get early?
The Grafted Dragon is the most accessible early entry for most players because it sits in the Fringefolk Hero’s Grave, a dungeon that can be reached within the first few hours. The Devourer’s Scepter is also reachable early, but its acquisition is tied to NPC quest state, which makes it easier to miss.
Which legendary armament is the most powerful in raw damage?
Raw damage is build-dependent, but the Bolt of Gransax and the Ruins Greatsword are the strongest entries in crowd-control contexts, while the Godslayer’s Greatsword’s percentage-based Black Flame is a strong option against late-game boss health pools. The best single-target legendary armament varies with the player’s stat spread.
What happens if you miss the Devourer’s Scepter?
If the relevant NPC quest state has already passed, the encounter no longer drops the weapon in the standard way. Players in that situation report that the weapon can still be acquired through co-op, by having a player who already owns the weapon drop it for pickup. That workaround depends on matchmaking and is not an official design path.
Do legendary armaments scale with specific stats?
Yes. Each legendary armament has a defined scaling pattern that often spreads across two or three attributes, and several entries are designed for hybrid caster-melee builds. Pure single-stat builds tend to underperform on legendary armaments compared to ordinary weapons that share the same dominant stat.
Are legendary armaments worth using in a serious build?
That depends on the build. In builds that already match the weapon’s stat spread, legendary armaments are competitive with or better than ordinary weapons. In builds that do not match the spread, ordinary weapons with infusions usually outperform legendary armaments because the legendary set cannot be customized.
Do you need the legendary armaments to beat the game?
No. The base game can be completed without picking up any legendary armament, and the achievement is the only reason the set is required at all. Players who are focused on the main story can ignore the category entirely and still reach the ending.
Where is the best place to start a legendary armament route?
Most players start with Weeping Peninsula because the Devourer’s Scepter is the only entry that is genuinely missable, and clearing the area before pushing the main story forward removes that risk. After Weeping Peninsula, the Caria Manor and Fringefolk Hero’s Grave dungeons offer the next most accessible entries.
Is the legendary armaments set expanded in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC?
The base game’s set remains nine weapons. Players who want a confirmed answer about DLC additions should check the official Bandai Namco and FromSoftware channels, since the verified reference set here covers only the base game.
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