Greatsword

The greatsword is one of two two-handed weapon types in Echoes of Aincrad. It gives up the ability to carry a shield in exchange for longer reach and heavier strikes.

Role

Greatsword play is about spacing and timing big hits. Its windups are slow enough that weaving it into a combo requires either patient opening reads or a reliable companion team-up, but the damage on a clean hit is higher than any one-handed option.

Place in the Weapon Roster

The greatsword sits in the two-handed sword category and is one of six confirmed weapon types in Echoes of Aincrad. The other five are the one-handed sword, rapier, dagger, mace, and the two-handed battleaxe. Within the two-handed sword category itself, the visual appearance of specific drops may vary, so a single greatsword and a larger claymore-style blade can share the same category and move set while looking different in the hand.

Loadout and Playstyle

Because the greatsword is wielded in both hands, a greatsword build does not use one of the shields. The full character loadout for a two-hander is one weapon and three armor pieces, with the shield slot empty. The lack of a shield removes the most reliable source of passive blocking, which pushes the playstyle toward aggression: close the gap, land big wide-arc swings, then read the next incoming attack and disengage, parry, or counter rather than turtle behind a guard.

Signature Partner: Zash

The partner most closely tied to the greatsword in revealed material so far is Zash, a two-handed-sword-wielding young man who is described as caring for his allies. He joins the party while the group is looking for a new member for the floor-1 raid. His Support Skill lays a shield overlay on top of the HP bar, so incoming damage eats through that overlay before it starts chipping real health, which gives a greatsword player a small window of safety during committed swings. His Combination Skill is AoE-focused, which pairs cleanly with the weapon's wide horizontal arcs when a pack of enemies has closed in on the party.

Sword Skills on a Greatsword

Every weapon type has roughly ten sword skills in its learnable set, and the greatsword follows the same standard three-slot layout as the rest of the roster. Two equipped skills stay visible on the HUD for the primary input, and a third is tucked behind the action-shift hold: pressing the modifier swaps the display over to that third skill along with the current partner's Support and Combination Skills. Weapon proficiency rises the more the greatsword is used in combat, and the proficiency system from earlier entries has returned in some form, but the developers have not confirmed whether clearing proficiency thresholds is what specifically unlocks the full sword-skill roster for the weapon type.

Drops, Randomized Aspects, and EX Mod Slots

Greatsword drops follow the same randomized-stat-roll loop as every other weapon family in the game. Rarer drops also have randomized aspects on top of their base stats, so two greatswords of the same rarity can roll with noticeably different profiles. Every weapon ships with four EX Mod Slots, which can hold traits that enhance the weapon further. Some drops arrive with a signature built-in mod already attached; the floor-1 show, for example, featured a blade that inflicted freeze buildup on hit and reduced sword-skill cooldowns near frozen enemies. It has not been confirmed whether a greatsword can drop with random mods already filling some of its EX slots or whether those slots are populated entirely at the blacksmith.

Upgrading at the Blacksmith

Greatswords are upgraded through the Smithy and Gear Enhancement system in town. The process consumes unwanted weapons as feeder material along with Tempered Steel, the dedicated smithy upgrade material, in exchange for a stat bump on the piece being improved. Because the upgrade loop is the same across every weapon family, a greatsword main can recycle unwanted one-handed swords, rapiers, daggers, maces, or battleaxes picked up during exploration into greatsword upgrades rather than selling them off.

Stat Scaling and Growth Points

Greatsword attack values often key to the heavier attack stats on any given drop, and scaling is read off the weapon's own stat block rather than a fixed weapon-to-stat rule. On top of that, Endurance matters a lot for a greatsword user because the weapon's large swings and sprint-plays drain stamina quickly; investing Growth Points into Endurance extends the stamina pool and keeps combos and disengages from stalling out mid-fight. Sword-skill damage still scales with Dexterity, and SP capacity still scales with Mind, so a greatsword build typically spreads points between Endurance for sustained pressure and Dexterity for hit damage. If a build pivot is needed later, Growth Points can be reset by spending Col, which makes experimenting with a new stat spread safe rather than permanent.

Team Role Alongside Partner Skills

Because the greatsword gives up the shield slot, the partner's kit does a lot of the survivability work on a greatsword build. Zash's overlay shield covers committed swings, while the healing-zone and analysis options on other partners fill in the gap on encounters where crowd control or intel matters more than raw damage absorption. The broader combat system and the rest of the Special Skills toolkit, Support Skills on the left side of the HUD and the shared Combination Skill meter on the right, apply to greatsword play exactly like they do for any other weapon, so the general rules on switch defense, guard breaks, and cooperative finishers all carry over.

Summary of Key Numbers