Today, we are talking about another build, which is very simple to use, tanky and has really heavy hitting. I am loving it. And this build is called the Storm Cleaver.

The Gear

Let’s start with the gear and set up so we can wreck anything and everything.

Our weapon of choice is the Executioner’s Heavy Greataxe +25 with the heavy affinity. In the offhand, we have a Godslayer’s Seal +25 for our buffs. By the way, if you want to achieve rapid weapon upgrades, you’ll need a lot of support from Elden Ring Runes.

The Ash of War on the Executioner’s Heavy Greataxes is Lion’s Claw, and it is really amazing. Not only is it a really cool animation, but this attack hits really hard and does 30 stance damage, which is devastating. But what I really love about this Ash of War is the hyper armor it gives you. When you hit L2 to use this Ash of War, you are going to ignore every attack from a boss and land a devastating blow to them uninterrupted.

So, with enough health and defense, we can easily trade with bosses even on New Game Plus, which brings us on to the gear and Talismans. We have the Haligtree Knight Helm, giving us +2 Faith. We have the Leyndell Knight Armor, the Royal Remains Gauntlets for a little healing at 18% and below, and the Leyndell Knight Greaves. It’s mainly a fashion souls loadout and why not?

As for our Talismans then, we have the Shard of Alexander boosting our Ash of War: Lion’s Claw, the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman boosting our physical defense and you could swap this out for a different defensive Talisman, depending on what you’re fighting and what damage you are taking. We also have the Dagger Talisman boosting our critical hits and this is working with the Executioner’s Heavy Greataxe, which already has increased critical damage. And finally, we have a utility placeholder, the Erdtree’s Favor +2.

In the Flask of Wondrous Physick, we have the Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear boosting our lightning attacks and we have the Stonebarb Cracked Tear, which makes our attacks more likely to break enemy stance. That’s the major focus of this build - breaking bosses.

The Executioner’s Heavy Greataxe has increased critical damage further boosted by the Dagger Talisman. The Lion’s Claw does 30 stance damage to enemies and the Stonebarb Cracked Tear is also boosting our stance damage for 30 seconds. So, we break enemies faster and then we finish them with boosted critical damage.

As for Incantations, we have Electrify Armament (being boosted by our Faith stat and the Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear), Golden Vow and Flame, Grant me Strength.

Stat Spread

Next up, let’s have a look at these stats. I started with the Hero class. We have Vigor 55, Mind at 20, Endurance at 25 and Strength at 54. This actually gives us 81 Strength from the bonus of two handing the ax. We don’t change our Dexterity, Intelligence and Arcane. Faith is at 48, but the Haligtree Knight Helm is boosting this up to 50 and that 50 Faith boosting our electrified attacks.

Combats

Finally, let’s talk about combats.

Lion’s Claw has carried me through the game and New Game Plus.

Like I said, you can trade quite comfortably with bosses by spamming Lion’s Claw and breaking their stance for your boosted critical hits, but you can also land some very nice heavy charged attacks for even more stance damage as well.

To be honest, I really don’t use much else. Like I said before, you may find yourself defeating bosses too quickly to actually get a critical hit on them. So, you can always try the Axe Talisman or Claw Talisman if you want to bring in charged attacks and jump attacks and you could also look at Damage Negation Tears in the flask instead of the Stonebarb Cracked Tear to trade even more safely with Lion’s Claw.

Please note: if you use code “CSCCA”, you can get 5% off. Or, you can check out “Free Elden Ring Runes & Items Giveaway” event.