Dark Souls 3 BEST Ultra Greatswords [2023]

What are Ultra Greatswords Dark Souls 3?

Ultra Greatswords are the most prominent and mightiest class of weapons you can come across in Dark Souls 3. Ultra Greatswords are meant to be two-handed as they are cumbersome and require considerable Strength to wield properly. They also cannot be parried while two-handed, with the exception of the rolling and running attacks.

Comparison table for the mentioned ultra Greatswords:

No.	Name	Stability	Durability	FP Cost	Skill
1	Lothric Knight Greatsword	45	100	10(-/15)	Stomp
2	Fume Ultra Greatsword	55	170	10(-/18)	Stomp
3	Astora Greatsword	75	100	13(-/13)	Charge
4	Greatsword	45	100	10(-/20)	Stomp

Ultra Greatswords, as far as viability in combat is concerned, are slow in their swings, albeit far-reaching, and connecting even one hit will deal massive damage on your foe. On top of that, these big boys naturally benefit from hyper armor, meaning you can face tank incoming attacks during specific attack animations, allowing you to continue a combo whilst being struck!

Best Ultra Greatswords In Dark Souls 3

However, even if you are avid about obliterating your enemies with raw Strength, Ultra Greatswords come with a relatively steep learning curve. This is because when using an Ultra Greatsword, your swings need to be precise and calculated, as random swings will leave you wide open for getting punished by your enemies. Keeping this in mind, you will find several Ultra Greatswords in your playthrough, each different in its own right, reigning from different areas of the game and once wielded by different warriors. Although, as with every other weapon class, not all Ultra Greatswords were forged equally, and some stand out from the rest when fitted on specific builds.

In this guide, I will be going over four of the best Ultra Greatswords in Dark Souls 3 (not ranked in any particular order), what makes them great, how to upgrade them, and much more.

Lothric Knight Greatsword

	Physical	Magic	Fire	Light	Dark	Critical
Attack	131	0	0	87	0	100
Defence	55.0	45.0	40.0	45.0	45.0	-
	Strength	Dexterity	Intelligence	Faith
Scaling	D	D	-	-
Requirement	24	16	0	0
Skill	Stomp
Stability	45
Range	-
Durability	100
Weapon Category	Ultra Great Sword
Wgt.	16.5
Attack type	Standard/Thrust
FP Cost	10(-/15)
Purchasing Value	7000
Soul Value	350

Coming at you as the first entry in my list of the Best Ultra Greatsword in Dark Souls 3 is The Lothric Knight Greatsword, the Ultra Greatsword of the venerable knight of Lothric. As its lore goes, it is imbued with the Strength of lightning, which has always been the trademark of dragon hunting across the Dark Souls trilogy. If you are looking for massive damage numbers with little regard to other aspects of an Ultra Greatsword, such as attack speed and stat requirements, then the Lothric Knight Greatsword should serve you well. I’m not joking, but this weapon is capable of reaching some of the highest numbers of AR/damage in Dark Souls 3 on specific builds!

The Lothric Knight Greatsword is unique in several ways, which makes it quite versatile in comparison to its brethren as far as build-fitting is concerned. Albeit being slow and stamina-hungry, the Lothric Knight Greatsword comes with vital base stats such as 131 physical damage and 86 lightning damage – yes, in case you’re wondering, it does naturally do significant lightning damage. This, coupled with its solid range and hyper armor on certain attacks, makes it a force to be reckoned with, even at lower Soul Levels.

Moreover, it weighs 16.5 units, which is quite heavy for a weapon, so, unfortunately, you can’t be scrupulous with heavy armor pieces (especially Havel’s set) when wielding this giant sword. The weapon requires 24 strength and 16 dexterity to be wielding and comes with a D scaling in both Strength and Dexterity, both of which can be buffed to A-tier with the appropriate infusions.

Despite the high stat requirement, it really makes it worth it once you upgrade this weapon. As far as the upgrade path for this weapon is concerned, first, obviously, you should fully reinforce it to +10 with titanite. Then, perform the proper infusion, depending on what sort of build you want to fit it onto.

If you’re looking for hitting the high notes of AR, you could go for either a Heavy infusion with a  Heavy gem (which buffs its Strength scaling to A-tier) or a Sharp infusion with a Sharp gem (which buffs its Strength scaling to A-tier). With this, coupled with the lightning blade buff, be it via a lightning resin or a miracle through Yorshka’s Chime, you can reach over 900 AR!

While over 900 damage on a strength and dexterity build sounds pretty insane, this is not the most popular build that the Lothric Knight Greatsword is fitted onto. A bit unorthodox, but insanely effective is a Faith/Regen build. Given that the weapon has a solid lightning stat, you can carry out a Blessed Infusion with a Blessed Gem, which grants it an A-tier scaling in Faith and 113 lightning damage and grants passive HP regen.

This HP regen is 3 HP per tick, which becomes more potent with every reinforcement you put this weapon through. Rocking something like the Sun Princess Ring with this build makes it very powerful, reaching almost 800 AR with solid health regen – what more do you need?

Location: Dropped from Lothric Knights carrying this weapon, commonly found directly south of the Twin Princes Boss bonfire. It can be purchased from Greirat of the Undead Settlement or Shrine Handmaid if you give her Greirat’s Ashes.

Fume Ultra Greatsword

	Physical	Magic	Fire	Light	Dark	Critical
Attack	149	0	0	0	0	100
Defence	80.0	55.0	65.0	60.0	65.0	-
	Strength	Dexterity	Intelligence	Faith
Scaling	A	E	-	-
Requirement	50	10	0	0
Skill	Stomp
Stability	55
Range	-
Durability	170
Weapon Category	Ultra Great Sword
Wgt.	25.5
Attack type	Standard/Thrust
FP Cost	10(-/18)
Purchasing Value	-
Soul Value	100

The Fume Ultra Greatsword has permanently cemented its place in the list of the best Ultra Greatswords in Dark Souls 3 for several reasons that I will explore shortly. This is a throwback weapon to the primary weapon of Raime, the Fume Knight from Dark Souls 2. Moreover, this weapon stands out right off the bat because of how heavy it is. It is considered the heaviest Ultra Greatsword in the game, and naturally, comes with a very high strength requirement to wield. Thus, you’re better off two-handing it to make the most out of it – what this also means is that it complements an aggressive playstyle designed to put your enemies six feet under in a few hits.

The Fume Ultra Greatsword is one of the hardest-hitting weapons in the game, and using it to its best does follow a steep learning curve as stamina management is crucial with this weapon. The Fume Ultra Greatsword comes with a whopping 149 base damage which is well balanced with its weight of 25.5 units. It is also quirky in a few ways, e.g., it can serve as an effective pseudo-shield when blocking.

While it lacks 100% damage absorption, its damage reduction and stability are still quite passable. Therefore, with some passive health regeneration items, you can quickly recover from any chip damage, making the blocking mechanic with this weapon pretty viable. The Fume Ultra Greatsword requires a whopping 50 strength and 10 Dexterity to wield and comes with an A scaling in Strength and E scaling in Dexterity.

As far as upgrading the Fume Ultra Greatsword is concerned; unfortunately, it can not be infused, limiting you to really one option – a Strength Build. This kind of makes sense because if you’re already dumping 50 points into Strength to wield this weapon, there isn’t a lot of room for focusing on another stat. However, since this will be a pure strength build, you can allocate extra points to other stats such as vitality – be sure to allocate 60-66 points to Strength as it is the ideal range for making this weapon a monster!

So, the only means of upgrading this Dark souls 3 best ultra greatswords is +5 with Twinkling Titanite, an upgrade material used to reinforce unique weapons, the Fume Ultra Greatsword being no exception to it. Moreover, while the weapon cannot be infused, it can undoubtedly be buffed, and while that is an open-ended selection, I would recommend running any Dark buff such as the Affinity sorcery.

The Fume Ultra Greatsword has some powerful attacks, which, when hit right, deal massive damage. Its two-handed right heavy attack deals Strike damage instead of Thrust damage, probably because the sword technically has no tip to it, despite the fact that it visually comes off as a Thrust attack. This facilitates a great combo, i.e., the right light attack into a jumping right heavy attack, which really takes away a ton of your foe’s HP. Another good combo that is common amongst vertical ultra greatswords is the right light attack to the right heavy attack – this combo has a high chance of connecting on the second hit as many seek to punish the light strike attack but are instead met with heavy thrust attack.

Its weapon art, Stomp, when activated, gets your player to lunge forward with a low stance and increased poise, following it up with a strong attack. This is particularly useful as your player will actually shield themselves with the Fume Ultra Greatsword when in that low stance, tanking any physical attack and trading it with a crushing blow. Last but not least, the weapon has massive hyper armor, and you know what that means – easy trades for days!

Location: Dropped by Knight Slayer Tsorig underneath the Smoldering Lake. He can be found beyond the areas with the rats and the basilisks, but before the exit that goes up to the ballista. Go to the left of the stairs to the exit, and you will find him in front of a pool of lava.

Astora Greatsword

	Physical	Magic	Fire	Light	Dark	Critical
Attack	132	0	0	0	0	100
Defence	50.0	40.0	35.0	35.0	40.0	-
	Strength	Dexterity	Intelligence	Faith
Scaling	D	C	-	-
Requirement	16	18	0	0
Skill	Charge
Stability	75
Range	-
Durability	100
Weapon Category	Ultra Great Sword
Wgt.	8.0
Attack type	Standard/Thrust
FP Cost	13(-/13))
Purchasing Value	-
Soul Value	100

The Astora Greatsword used to be arguably the most overpowered Ultra Greatsword around the launch of Dark Souls 3 and, despite the nerfs, still remains as one of the best Ultra Greatswords in Dark Souls 3. This Greatsword, as its lore goes, was bestowed upon elite knights and is now a relic of the ruined land of Astora. This weapon is the complete opposite of the Fume Ultra Greatsword as it is the lightest Ultra Greatsword in the game, from which you can infer that its strength requirement is probably quite low.

The Astora Greatsword is the most versatile Ultra Greatsword in the game, and you’ll come to appreciate that shortly. While it looks like a regular greatsword, its range is really on par with other Ultra Greatswords, which complement it really well, given that it is a Thrust Weapon. This, combined with the Leo Ring, makes it a dreadful force that, with the proper build, can kill your enemies with ease, be it PvP or PvE.

The Leo Ring is a ring in Dark Souls 3 that strengthens thrust weapon counter attacks by 15%; in case you don’t know, a counter hit occurs when being hit with a thrust attack in the middle of an attack animation, which often leads to exchanging blows. The Astora Greatsword comes with a stat requirement of 16 strength and 18 dexterity, which is relatively easy to meet and is particularly useful given that it can be obtained quite early in the game. It comes with a D scaling in Strength and C scaling in Dexterity.

As far as upgradability is concerned, the possibilities are endless with the Astora Greatsword – this is where its versatility plays a role. Apart from full reinforcement with titanite, you can fit it onto several builds. While it does achieve an A scaling in Strength with a Heavy infusion via a Heavy gem, I would still recommend against it as its damage can be maximized even further with a Dexterity build. This is because its Dexterity scaling can be buffed to an insane S-tier with a Sharp infusion with a Sharp gem.

Then go ahead and dump as many points as you can in Dexterity, saving some for vitality, endurance, and preferably Faith so that you can use Talismans. This is particularly important as you would most definitely want to rock the Blessed Weapon sorcery, which boosts physical damage, the primary damage stat you would want to focus on here. Apart from a Sharp Infusion, the Astora Greatsword is also one of the best weapons in the game to use for elemental infusions, thanks to its low requirements and high scaling.

For instance, you can achieve an S scaling in Faith with a Blessed Infusion via a Blessed Gem or an S scaling in Intelligence with a Crystal Infusion via a Crystal Gem. This makes this Dark souls 3 best ultra greatsword weapon very viable for sorcerers, pyromancers, and other magic users in the context of hybrid build.

If you can’t tell already, this weapon is a beast, particularly in PvP. If you go for a pure dexterity build with blessed weapon, you would be maximizing its physical damage. And since we’re majorly outputting physical damage values, no matter who you’re fighting, they will die in at least 3-4 hits since, as opposed to elemental damage, physical damage doesn’t have any resistance to it.

As far as its movesets are concerned, its two-handed light attack is a horizontal swing that has ample range and, coupled with solid hyper armor, makes it relatively easy to trade with. On top of the fact that its two-handed rolling attack can’t be parried (rolling attacks being the easiest attacks to parry), its two-handed heavy attack is a thrust attack, which, with the Leo Ring equipped, will hit very hard. Last but not least, its weapon art, Charge, is what makes it so unique as it can not be found on any other Ultra Greatsword.

It has insane hyper armor and can almost one-shot opponents if it manages to connect from start to end – it is, however, very easy to parry, so use it carefully, preferably in combo with the two-handed light attack. Try it out for yourself!

Location: Looted from a corpse at the graveyard near the Cleansing Chapel at Cathedral of the Deep.

Greatsword

	Physical	Magic	Fire	Light	Dark	Critical
Attack	159	0	0	0	0	100
Defence	65.0	55.0	45.0	45.0	50.0	-
	Strength	Dexterity	Intelligence	Faith
Scaling	D	D	-	-
Requirement	28	10	0	0
Skill	Stomp
Stability	45
Range	-
Durability	100
Weapon Category	Ultra Great Sword
Wgt.	20.0
Attack type	Standard
FP Cost	10(-/20)
Purchasing Value	-
Soul Value	100

Only OGs remember how great the Greatsword was in both Dark Souls 1 and 2. It was brought back in Dark Souls 3, designed similar to the Greatsword in Dark Souls 2, and holds a spot in the Best Dark Souls 3 Ultra Greatswords. It is one of the heaviest of Ultra Greatswords and, as its lore goes, “highly destructive if intolerably heavy .”It stands out for several reasons, especially with regards to its upgradability.

The Greatsword is one of those swords that actually pack a hefty punch while looking completely ordinary. It is pretty heavy, sitting at a weight of 20.0 units, and requires an equally heavy stat investment before it can really shine with the rest. It comes with a solid 159 base damage, already hinting at how much damage you can get through this Dark souls 3 best ultra greatsword. Moreover, it comes with a stat requirement of 28 strength and 10 dexterity along with a D scaling in both Strength and Dexterity.

As far as its upgrade path is concerned, the Greatsword, contrary to other Greatswords, actually performs poorly with heavy, sharp, and refined infusions, making it a bad choice for physical or quality builds. Instead, the Greatsword experiences the most tremendous AR increase with a Raw infusion via a Raw gem, up to 414 physical damage on +10 reinforcement. Conversely, you could also mix things up by going for a Dark/Chaos infusion with a Dark Gem which increases its Dark damage significantly – you could rock something like the Affinity sorcery with it to really maximize that spicy dark damage.

The Greatsword has a solid set of moves, which become more potent when you realize that it has the most extended range out of all other Ultra Greatswords. Furthermore, it has a powerful vertical attack as its two-handed heavy attack, something that is also exclusive to itself in the entire Ultra Greatsword arsenal. This is great in PvE for crowd control, i.e., damaging multiple enemies at the same time, as well as in PvP due to its farther reach and roll-catch capability. I would, however, advise you to be careful with this weapon as relatively experienced players will try to bait out your attacks in an attempt to roll behind you for a backstab. This is particularly easy as missing your hit leaves you vulnerable due to the relatively long swinging animation.

Location: Looted from a corpse on top of a broken bridge in Farron Keep. Go straight ahead from the first bonfire until you reach a broken bridge, look behind you, and you will see another piece of the broken bridge and a body holding an item; that item is the Greatsword.

Summary

The appeal of Dark Souls 3 is its diverse arsenal of weaponry, and you wouldn’t be experiencing this game to its fullest without at least having tried all of the weapon classes it has to offer. No two weapon classes play the same from whips to straight swords and crossbows to reapers. As you get used to them, you will realize their strengths and weaknesses and condition yourself to make the most out of them. On top of that, learning how different weapon classes work is essential in mastering PvP in just about any RPG game, let alone Dark Souls – knowing what your enemy’s weapon is capable of is as important as being familiar with the weapon you yourself are wielding.

Out of all the weapon classes in Dark Souls 3, Ultra Greatswords are my favorite– the idea of a warrior wielding a sword more than twice their size gives me literal goosebumps. If you’ve been a die-hard fan of Ultra Greatswords ever since Dark Souls 1, or even if you are a newbie looking to try it out, you should definitely start with the best of the best.