For players who want to flatten their adversaries under great heaves of iron, wood and stone, Dark Souls 3 has you covered.
Great hammers are not only some of the most fun weapons to add to your arsenal, they’re also some of the most effective for all sorts of builds!
Join me today as we go full cave-man, and look at some of the best bonkers available!
10. Dragon Tooth
For those on you who’ve played Dark Souls 1, you’ll be familiar with this big guy.
Wielded by the formidable Havel, the dragon tooth is one of the most iconic pancake-makers out there.
Boasting great range, damage and scaling for strength builds, the dragon tooth also has an innate passive of +12% magic and fire resistance!
How to get: Dropped by Havel in archdragon peak.
9. Old King’s Great Hammer
The burnt chicken leg.
This artifact of a weapon has existed since the days of old Izalith, and sports a fiery moveset to match.
With slight scaling in strength, faith and intelligence, the old king’s hammer is decent for hybrid builds.
Its weapon skill – ‘molten perseverance’, boosts your poise massively, and can be followed-up with a heavy attack to spout volcanic magma from the ground!
How to get: Soul transposition with the demon king boss soul.
8. Gargoyle Flame Hammer
Another hybrid-build weapon, the profaned-flame-infused gargoyle hammer is a fearsome contender.
Hitting the same scaling as the old king’s hammer, this weapons skill has a bit more utility for engaging long-distance foes.
‘Kindled fury’ – the unique skill of this weapon – turns your hammer into a flamethrower, spouting fiery death in a straight line towards your targets!
How to get: Dropped by rock gargoyles wielding the weapon in the profaned capital/grand archives.
7. Morne’s Great Hammer
Dropping the intelligence scaling but sticking with faith, Morne’s hammer is awesome for miracle/strength hybrids.
It has incredible damage and some of the most poise of all great hammers, favoring aggressive playstyles.
When paired with its weapon skill, it becomes even more formidable.
The skill – ‘Morne’s rage’ – is essentially an in-built wrath of the gods! What’s more, it triggers a perseverance-style effect, boosting the already insane poise even further and reducing damage taken!
How to get: Dropped by Eygon if killed, or looted from his corpse in Irina’s old cell late-game.
6. Spiked Mace
Steering away from the flashy show-off weapons now.
Spiked mace may seem boring on paper, but it has some great tricks up its sleeve!
Not only is it awesome for strength builds, it actually slightly favours dexterity builds, which is very rare for great hammers!
Not only does it have innate bleed damage (which can be great for luck builds), it sports a bunch of true combos which will annihilate foes in PvP!
How to get: Dropped by evangelists found all across the world – earliest being the undead settlement.
5. Great Mace
Straight from the arsenal of the dreaded cathedral knights.
The great mace is a nice, straight-forward great hammer, perfect for any strength builder.
It has the fantastic perseverance skill, great range and overhead swings.
When paired with a high-strength build, it becomes the third most-damaging great hammer in the entire game!
Thanks to its no-nonsense approach and ability to be infused and buffed, the great hammer can slot into a ton of builds.
How to get: Dropped by mace-wielding cathedral knights.
4. Vordt’s Great Hammer
This unassuming weapon is actually a complete powerhouse.
Many players may overlook Vordt’s hammer, being a boss weapon from the first boss of the game, but in actuality it is one of the best hammers available in DS3.
It deals incredible damage over long range, and has the highest frost damage of any weapon, period.
This makes it fantastic for extended fights, as the frostbite will proc easily in 2 or 3 hits, chunking enemies and impeding their stamina management!
What’s more, it doesn’t require any stat other than strength, allowing it to fit into a ton of builds!
How to get: Soul transposition with the soul of Vordt.
3. Pickaxe
If you’ve read our top strength weapons list, you’ll have seen this guy before.
I cannot stress enough just how powerful the pickaxe is.
It deals entirely thrust damage, meaning the leo ring is a perfect fit, and that’s where the insanity starts.
Hitting a foe with the pickaxe will stagger them, meaning the second swing is guaranteed and counts as a counterattack!
This means you’ll 2-shot most enemy players as long as you can land a single hit – which is easy thanks to the pickaxe having the faster great axe moveset.
How to get: Located on a corpse in the Irithyll dungeon – near the giant.
2. Ledo’s Great Hammer
The iconic hammer of the ringed city DLC, Ledo’s is a strong contender for my personal favourite strength weapon in the entire game.
Not only is it surprisingly fast and long-range, it deals the most damage of any great hammer when paired with a high-strength build.
It can buff itself even further with its weapon skill ‘Call to stone’, which will have you spin this great lug of a hammer quickly across the ground, stun-locking enemies and coating it in sharp, attack-boosting stones.
This buff lasts about 40 seconds, but if you use a charged heavy attack, the hammer will consume the stones for a massively damaging AoE explosion which will kill opponents if it lands.
How to get: Dropped by silver knight Ledo when he invades in the ringed city.
1. Great Club
Being the best strength weapon in the game, it’s no surprise the great club tops this list.
Whilst not as flashy as many of the entries here, this big ol’ stick is easily the top hammer available.
Having insane damage, great range, early acquisition, an awesome moveset, the ability to be buffed and infused, the warcry skill…
The list just goes on and on.
If it’s sheer effectiveness you’re after, you can’t get any better than the great club.
How to get: Dropped by the exile wielding it outside of Farron keep.
A game animator by trade, Tom’s insight into the game development world gives him a strong appreciation for the art form that is video games. Kicking off at the age of 3 with Spyro: Year of the Dragon on the PS1, Tom’s tastes in games has hardened over the 19 years he’s spent playing them. He now lives for the challenge that titles such as Monster Hunter, Dark Souls, Dead Cells, and many more offer him. Enjoying nothing more than a session of number-crunching game data and another platinum trophy on his PlayStation account, Tom is dedicated to leaving no stone unturned in even the most brutal of gaming content.
