Elden Ring: Best Fist weapons, ranked

Fist weapons are beloved by FromSoft fans, and Elden Ring improved them overall. Thanks to weapon upgrade systems, strong Ashes of War, and a better dual-wielding moveset, Fist weapons have never looked better. Let’s find out what the best ones to build for are.

We’re going to be looking at five of the nine Fist weapons available in Elden Ring. While all of them can be viable for your run, there are a handful that fill better build niches or simply function better than others overall. Also, for the purposes of this list, we will not be including the four Claws—the game puts them in a different category, and so will we.

5) Grafted Dragon

• Stat Requirements: Strength 20, Dexterity 14, Faith 16
• Unlocked By: Defeating Godrick the Grafted in Stormveil Castle, northwestern Limgrave, and forging his Remembrance.

The Grafted Dragon is a weird customer on this list. Unlike the other weapons listed, this one doesn’t get a free second dragon head for easy dual-wielding. In fact, even if you get two Grafted Dragons, you won’t be doing the Fist weapon’s special dual-wielding attacks. Instead, you’re expected to use a shield or Seal and punch people with a single fist, which can work well for a Strength/Faith build.

The Grafted Dragon is notable for its good damage and fantastic skill. Bear Witness! is a huge Area of Effect that covers the land in fire—though it only scales with Faith, making that a very important stat for this weapon.

Speaking of scaling, the Grafted Dragon’s isn’t great. It gets outscaled by most things on this list in raw damage and attack speed. We still recommend it over most of those weapons, thanks to Bear Witness!, but it might not be the most optimal choice for your fisticuff fighter.

4) Veteran’s Prosthesis

• Stat Requirements: Strength 15, Dexterity 12
• Unlocked By: Defeating Commander Niall in Castle Sol, northern Mountaintops of the Giants.

While the Tarnished might seem confused about where they’re supposed to wear the Veteran’s Prosthesis, that doesn’t make it an ineffective weapon. Quite the opposite—with good reach, a strong moveset, and access to Lightning damage, the Prosthesis fills an important niche.

That’s not all, though. The Prosthesis’s Art of War was what barely knocked the Spiked Cestus off our list. This skill causes a tornado to appear around the user, not unlike Storm Stomp. Then, it has a follow-up attack that explodes in a decent area after a grand leap. This functions well as an anti-crowd weapon, though most bosses will muscle through it without much issue—notable exception being Malenia, who gets splatted by it.

However, its low scaling keeps it from being a truly powerful weapon. While its base damage and numbers are plenty to beat the game with, it doesn’t scale into late-game content quite as perfectly as you’d want.

3) Clinging Bone

• Stat Requirements: Strength Eight, Dexterity 22, Arcane 16
• Unlocked By: Killing Ensha of the Royal Remains when she attacks you at Roundtable Hold.

This definitely unhealthy pair of bone fragments hide great potential. Like the Prosthesis, this is a long-ranged fist weapon, breaking the norm in a great way. However, unlike the Prosthesis, the Clinging Bone has the stats to back you up—Reaching B scaling in Dexterity and C scaling in Arcane, this Bone scales quite well into later levels.

In addition, its unique Art of War lets you grab a humanoid enemy and steal 30 percent of your health back. It deals efficient damage, though its long startup makes it unwieldy. And your list of valid targets isn’t stellar in PvE, since you can’t even grab many strong enemies unless they’re humanoid shaped and not too tall.

Still, with how few Arcane weapons are actually in Elden Ring, we can’t help but give props to one so quick and legitimately effective.

2) Cipher Pata

• Stat Requirements: Faith 30
• Unlocked By: Jumping to the lower level of the Rountable Hold—where Mad Tongue Alberich is—and heading to the rooms on the left.

Yet another dagger-like weapon, the Cipher Pata can be found very early in spite of its 30-Faith requirement. However, that comes with a very fun gimmick—it’s a pair of Lightsabers. Its Weapon Skill is a fast attack that goes through blocks while moving you forward significantly. This gives you mobility in fights where you’re otherwise trundling along, and lets you surprise foes in PvE and PvP.

As a weapon only scaling off Faith, most punching builds won’t have much use for the Cipher Pata. However, someone only wanting to spam Incantations will find great use out of its A Faith Scaling. This fact alone brings it quite high—its unique strength as a pure Caster weapon can’t be understated.

1) Star Fist

• Stat Requirements: Strength 12, Dexterity Eight
• Unlocked By: Heading to the colosseum near the end of the Leyndell, Royal Capital dungeon.

The best fist weapon in Elden Ring is the Star Fist. Of all of the generic options for fists, the Star Fist reigns supreme, boasting the best scaling, base damage, and its own bonus Bleed. While it gets outranged by the Katar, it’s not by enough to make the Star Fist the only generic fist weapon worth using in Elden Ring, muscling out otherwise good options like the Iron Ball and Katar.

Credit where it’s due, the Spiked Cestus does do more Bleed when made an Occult weapon for an Arcane build. But, that’s kind of it. The Star Fist hits harder, making the Spiked Cestus more of a niche sidegrade on the Occult scale. Meanwhile, these spiked balls work perfectly as an Occult, Heavy, Quality, or any other weapon type you want. You can’t do much better than these in terms of raw damage with a Fist weapon in Elden Ring, making it our top pick for most builds.