Elden Ring Best Lightning Weapons Ranking 2023 (1.10)

For this Elden Ring guide, we're going to go over all of the lightning-based weapons and rank them from D tier to S tier. 

Elden Ring Lightning Tier List 2023: Best Lightning Weapons After 1.10

Elden Ring has a limited number of lightning weapons. Only seven of them deal lightning damage, and three of them only do so when you activate the weapon skill. None of them scale with faith either. Maybe the DLC will add more lightning weapons with faith scaling, that would be nice. Now we rank all lightning weapons from the worst to the best by breaking down the cons and pros of each one. 

No. 7 - Dragon Greatclaw & Dragonclaw Shield (D Tier)

Starting off at number 7, we have the Dragon Greatclaw, and imagine throwing the Dragonclaw Shield as well because it is equally as useless. Both of these obviously split lightning damage and they just don't get any unique weapon skill whatsoever, Dragon Greatclaw gets Endure and Dragonclaw Shield gets Shield Bash, don't know why they don't get anything unique when you actually literally acquired off the draconic trace sentinel and that boss actually does get a bunch of lighting attacks and we didn't care to add a single one of those things onto either of these weapons. You can do more damage against dragons which we guess is the only redeeming factor but the Dragon Greatclaw is a colossal weapon with a very poor moveset and it's very slow as well, so they're just going to have to get the bottom.

No. 6 - Stormhawk Axe (C Tier)

This weapon actually would like to put it a bit higher on the list, unfortunately, it's weapon skill Thunderstorm does just get directly outcast by Stormcaller which is an actual word that you can equip onto other weapons. And if you put onto things like Great Axes and Talbots and weapons like that you can just do way more damage than you ever would with this weapon, and it actually consumes less FP, and also Stormcaller does more stance damage. So there's not much of a point to the Stormhawk Axe, it does actually boost your weapon with 120 lighting damage which is the only way to actually get lightning onto this weapon, hence why it actually makes it onto the list still. But it only lasts 40 seconds and 120 lightning damage is still not that great, because if you look at weapons like the Dragon Halberd and the Dragonscale Blade which we'll get into they actually boosted by 160 lightning damage for 45 seconds and it adds Frost as well. There's a bunch of this like average mediocre stuff going around this weapon, so it definitely is deserving of a buff but we can't really get anything higher than this.

No. 5  - Veteran's Prosthesis (B Tier)

Veteran's Prosthesis is a fist-based weapon and fist base weapons actually tend to be great in terms of DPS and the movesets. This one in particular does actually have the most range out of all the fists and it gets that slash and piercing type damage, so therefore their running attacks are actually some good poking attacks. Unfortunately, though the weapon skill does actually leave a lot to be desired, it weapon skill does decent damage and only consumes 10 FP but the first part about it with that little AOE kick that you do get doesn't really do much damage, it only serves as an obstacle to actually get to the good part of the weapon skill itself, but overall it still is a decent weapon.

No. 4 - Dragonscale Blade (A Tier)

Dragonscale Blade is going to be a katana that unfortunately doesn't actually get lightning damage or a passive status effect until after you use its weapon skill - Ice Lightning Storm which is 25 FP you do this slam-down animation that is very similar to Lightning Slash Azure 4, and for 45 seconds afterward, you do get bonus. Lightning damage 160 and 80 Frost buildup as well which is decent and this level actually does also bonus damage to dragon-type enemies as well. It is a solid weapon overall, unfortunately, you can only get that passive status effect after you use the buff which all the other katanas get passive status effects without a weapon skill and without the buff itself. 

No. 3 - Dragon Halberd (S Tier)

Dragon Halberd is very similar to the Dragonscale Blade, and you have to use its weapon skills to actually gain the lightning damage and the frost build-up. The reason that's why we rank this one better is because of multiple reasons. One is a light attack combo which is nothing but poking attacks that deal great piercing damage and you get this amazing horizontal spin to win for its heavy attack, and it's Ash of War Spinning Slash which prints like another reskinned version that only costs 17 FPS if you actually want it to buff it's just going to be cheaper and you can do the entire combo for 28 FP, that absolutely just melts enemies and it actually does great stance damage as well. Due to its movesets and its highly damaging weapon skulls going to prefer the Dragon Blade and it is deserving of an S tier.

No. 2 - Dragon King's Cragblade (S Tier)

Dragon King's Cragblade and Dragon Halberd, we were tossing up as to which one we did prefer number two, obviously ended up going with the Dragon King's Cragblade because the Dragon Halberd weapon skill is a little bit more situational due to that Frost, the fact that it actually has short range with its AOE and they don't really get much hype drama, and it is a long animation so against certain types of enemies you're not going to really get the entire combo off. But with the Dragon King's Cragblade's Ash of War Thundercloud Form for also 28 FP, you can just fully charge it gets infinite high promo, and go a long distance as well, and it does insane Poise damage - it gets about 70 points and stance damage which is just ridiculous. It actually does more damage against dragons compared to the Dragon Halberd. Overall it's an amazing weapon with a good moveset and high damaging skill, gets good high promo and insane police damage.

No. 1 - Bolt of Gransax (S Tier)

Probably to nobody's surprise why this one gets number one because it's a cheese machine, you can sit at the back of the map and then snipe, enemies, before they even get close to you, because it does damage as well. But this is going to be a spear whose piercing damage and protein attacks obviously amazing, does actually get the second-most range out of all the spears as well. And it actually also does that bonus damage to dragons but its weapon skill Ancient Lightning Spear for 25 FP just does insane damage since you can fully charge it paired alongside the Godfreys Icon goes incredibly far and travels very quickly to the point where it just cheeses everything. If you just keep running backward and keep fully charging it, you're not going to miss it because it travels that fast. So definitely it is going to be one of the best weapons in the entire game and definitely the best lightning weapon.