Have you been playing Elden Ring and found yourself saying, “Sure, one weapon is cool, but what if I had two?” Then you’re in luck. In Elden Ring it is very easy to dual wield armaments. Whether you want a spear/sword combo or to use two of the same, you can do it easily.
Simply go to the equipment screen and equip the desired weapons to your left and right hand slots, and you’re ready to go. There are some nice bonuses to dual wielding as well, such as the ability to power stance when you have two of the same type of weapon equipped.
In this article, we are going to look at how to dual wield, the benefits that it brings, and the areas where it can be found lacking.
How To Dual Wield
The act of dual wielding is simple enough; you just need to equip two weapons that you want to dual wield in your left hand weapon slot and right hand weapon slot. You can do this with all the weapons in the game with the exception of most ranged weapons, as they require both hands to fire.
Why Should You Dual Wield
Elden Ring is not an easy game, especially if you are new to Dark Souls or other Souls like games. Dual wielding allows you to deal double damage while also allowing you to experiment with weapons you may not have had before.
If you wield weapons in both hands, it can let you take advantage of two different weapons’ light attacks. So you can have a slow hammer in one hand and a quick dagger in the other.
This will allow you to still have quick light attacks and a powerful heavy attack. Even better, you can still easily use two hand weapons for devastating heavy attacks without entering the menu screen. All you need to do is press the Y/Triangle button with the left or right bumper, depending on which hand the weapon is in, and to bring the second weapon back out, you use the D-pad.
What’s Power Stance?
If you have two of the same weapon type equipped, you will gain the ability to power stance your weapon (two curved swords, two spears, etc.2,). This is a handy feature brought over from Dark Souls two which will allow you to attack with both weapons together, increasing the damage each press of the attack button will do.
Power stancing will not happen automatically, so to make a power stance move, you need to press the left bumper/L1 if you are playing with a controller or the right mouse button on a PC.
How To Know If The Weapons Are The Same Type
If you are looking to take a power stance but are unsure which weapons are the same class, you can check the weapon type on the equipment screen.
Conveniently, in the default setup of the weapon list, is sorted according to weapon type, so you should be able to find ones that are in the same category on the same row.
The Negatives
Because Elden Ring is the type of game that will punch you in the face after delicately helping you up, dual wielding weapons has a couple of drawbacks.
It will stop you from being able to use a shield, as you will have a weapon in both hands. This means that you will be limited to dodging enemy attacks instead of blocking them.
The number of moves and combos available to you will be limited, especially if you are not power stancing, leaving you vulnerable.
Final Thoughts
There are so many different play styles to try while playing Elden Ring. Sure, you will deliver high amounts of damage while two handing a single weapon, but if you prefer to use an armament that is lighter and faster, then you will benefit from both dual wielding and power stancing to increase your damage output.
Dane started off gaming at the tender age of 3 with the first Atari console. His favorite video game genres are turn-based RPGs (can I get a shout out for Tactics Ogre?) and fighting games. Read more...
