One of the easiest ways to ensure your melee weapon does more damage in Elden Ring is to two hand it.
While some melee weapons aren’t capable of being held with two hands, most of them are, which gives you an immediate damage boost at the cost of being able to use an item in your other hand. There are certainly pros and cons to two-handing a weapon in Elden Ring, but whether you should or shouldn’t mostly comes down to how you’ve constructed your build. If you’re going for a pure Strength build with a weapon like a greatsword or a scythe, then two handing the weapon might be the ideal route. But other builds that rely on certain weapon skills won’t benefit much from that style of combat.
In any case, you need to know how to two hand weapons in Elden Ring before deciding if it’s something you want to take advantage of.
Two handing weapons in Elden Ring, explained
All it takes to two hand a weapon in Elden Ring is a simple button combination, which you can see below for a mouse and keyboard, PlayStation 5 controller, and Xbox controller:
- Mouse and keyboard: E (hold) + the attack keybind for whatever armament you wish to two hand
- PS5: Triangle (hold) + R1 or L1
- Xbox: Y (hold) + RB or LB
The key to two handing a weapon is to know what armament you want to use two handed. For example, if you’re currently holding a sword in your primary hand and a shield in your off-hand, you need to press E/Triangle/Y and then the button that’s used to attack with your primary hand. This will make your shield disappear and put both of your hands on the sword. If you’re dual-wielding swords, however, you need to press the button for the armament you want to two hand, which causes the sword in the other hand to disappear.
You need to also remember to hold E/Triangle/Y the entire time. If you let go before you press the button for the armament you want to two hand, all that happens is you’ll attack with that armament. Hold the button, press the attack button for the armament you want to use, and your character will two hand whatever weapon is in that hand.
Once your character is two handing a weapon, you can check your stats page to see how large of an attack increase you receive. It’s often a substantial increase that can make your life a lot easier for some of the tougher fights in Elden Ring. But you also want to weigh the negatives of two handing a weapon. The largest negative is usually with defense as you can’t hold a shield in your off-hand anymore.
If you’re planning to change your Elden Ring build before the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC launches, check out our previous guide on all of the new weapons coming in the update.
