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Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree: How to get the Anti-Dragon Katana

How to get one of the best weapons against dragons

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree’s Dragon Hunter’s Great Katana – that’s a mouthful – might seem like a pretty skippable weapon at first glance. It’s a big katana, so it moves slower than regular ones, and since there’s another big katana at the other end of Gravesite Plain, you might think “why bother?” The answer is the Bayle boss fight. And basically every other dragon, but especially Bayle.

Our Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Dragon Hunter’s Katana guide points out where to find the anti-dragon weapon and what makes it so good.

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree: How to get Dragon-Hunter’s Katana

The Dragon Hunter’s Great Katana comes from the Ancient Dragon-Man, a humanoid-ish boss in the Dragon’s Pit mini-dungeon. Dragon's Pit is in eastern Gravesite Plain, and you'll have to cross the Ellac Bridge to get there.

Complete the dungeon, defeat the dragon man, and you’ll get his sword. Strangely enough, he doesn’t really use its skill that often during battle, and he relies on dragon Incantations and generic swordplay instead. Oh well, makes life easier for you.

Anyway, completing this battle is technically optional, but you need to do it to complete Shadow of the Erdtree’s Igon quest and reach Jagged Peak.

Dragon Hunter’s Great Katana stats and scaling

The Dragon Hunter’s Great Katana requires:

  • 15 strength
  • 20 dexterity

And it’s scaling looks like this:

  • Strength: D
  • Dexterity: D

Like most katanas, this one’s dexterity scaling increases as you upgrade the weapon, so make sure you’re focusing on dexterity as your main stat with a bit set aside for strength as well. Since it’s a speciality weapon, you need Somber Smithing Stones to upgrade the Dragon Hunter’s Great Katana.

What you get from it in return is:

  • Physical:125
  • Magic: 0
  • Fire: 0
  • Lightning: 0
  • Holy: 0

Dragon Hunter’s Great Katana skill: Dragonwound Slash

It also comes with the Dragonwound Slash skill built in.

Pressing the skill button coats the katana in a magical aura with jagged gravel stones and does a little slash right in front of you. If you hold the skill button, it unleashes the magic aura in a big arc ahead of you and deals quite a bit of damage.

The natural use for this is against dragon enemies, but you can use it against anything if you want to.

For more help with Shadow of the Erdtree, check out our guides for where to find Scadutree Fragment locations, how to duplicate Remembrances, and what Shadow of the Erdtree boss order to tackle the biggest challenges in.

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