Wiki / Weapons
Two hands (the greatsword)
One long blade in both hands: slow, long reach, big hits, poise while it swings, and a brace for a guard.
Status: Built, not yet played by people · Last checked: 14 Nov 2026
One long, heavy blade held in both hands. It is slow, reaches far and hits hard. Its big swings are hard to stop, and instead of a block it has a brace that takes hits at half strength. It runs on stamina. Built on 14 Nov 2026; not yet played by people.
What makes it different
| Two hands | Hand and shield | |
|---|---|---|
| First light | A little slower | Quicker |
| Reach | Longer | Shorter |
| Standing string | Two wide sweeps | Three cuts |
| Heavy (Great wheel) | A turning swing: harder, and later | Overhead cleave |
| Jumps | About three quarters of the usual height. The recovery leap and the jump from a ledge are the usual ones | |
| While attacking | Poise: see below | A hit stops the attack |
| Guard | Brace: see below | Block |
| Guard + attack | Pommel strike | Shield bash |
| Ultimate | Earthsplitter | Sunfall |
The moves
| Move | How | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Great sweep, Return sweep | Attack, two taps | The standing string |
| Long thrust / Rising arc / Reaping sweep | Standing: side, up, down + attack | |
| Great wheel / Charging point / Skyward arc / Hammer blow | Hold attack: none, side, up, down | The Great wheel is a turning swing: the hold coils the body, the blade starts slowly, comes round low and through, and is still turning long after the hit |
| Air wheel / Air cleave / Air arc / Air spike, Meteor | In the air | |
| Running sweep, Driving point | Running: attack, attack | |
| Shoulder charge, Leaping cleave | Sprinting: attack, attack | |
| Pommel strike | Guard + attack | The hilt driven forward out of the brace: a small hit, a strong flat push and a stagger |
| Earthsplitter | The ultimate | A longer wind-up than Sunfall and a longer reach; the same strength |
Poise
While one of its big swings plays (a heavy, the ultimate), one light hit does its damage but does not stop the swing. The greatsword's own light attacks have no poise: they can be stopped like anyone's.
- It only holds just before the strike and during it. A hit early in the wind-up stops the swing as usual.
- It shrugs off one light hit per big swing, and costs a little stamina.
- It does not work against heavies, skills or ultimates, nor with the stamina bar empty.
- A light still interrupts a heavy that is being loaded.
The brace (its guard)
Hold Guard: the blade is held upright in front in both hands.
| A hit from the front | Taken at half damage, with no flinch and no push. The attacker is not thrown back |
| Cost | Half the stamina a block would cost |
| From behind | An ordinary hit |
| Perfect brace | Takes nothing, fills the bar a good amount, and the next hit that lands does more. Once: bracing twice gives one bonus |
| A fully loaded heavy | Breaks it, like any guard |
When to use it
- Keep the enemy at the end of your blade: you reach further than they do.
- Throw the heavy when the enemy is poking with lights: poise carries it through one of them.
What beats it
- Speed: its lights are slower and it recovers slowly after every move.
- Hitting early in the wind-up, or with a heavy.
- Getting behind the brace.
- It jumps lower than every other weapon.
How it is carried
It is heavy. At rest and walking the hand hangs low and a little behind, the blade slanting down and back with its tip on the ground; in a run it is dragged further behind; it is lifted only to strike. In the brace the blade stands upright at arm's length in front, the hands low, clear of the head.
Its swings are turns: the blade leads and the body follows, a slow start and a late stop. The string's second hit (Return sweep) is a full turn; so is the heavy.
Nerd section: the exact numbers
Built on 14 Nov 2026, checked by 14 automatic tests (tests/great.test.ts); not yet played by people. Adding ?weapon=two hands to the address tries it with any hero.
Numbers changed on 14 Nov 2026 by the balance pass. The table of changes is on How the weapons compare; the values below are the new ones.
In numbers
| Two hands | Hand and shield | |
|---|---|---|
| First light strikes on | frame 8 (0.13 s) | frame 6 (0.1 s) |
| Reach of the first light | 34 px | 30 px |
| Standing string | 2 + 2 = 4% mashed, 2 + 7 = 9% with the second on the glow | 4% / 9% |
| Loaded heavy (Great wheel / Overhead cleave) | 9%, frame 14 | 8%, frame 10 |
| Jumps | 88% of the usual speed, about three quarters of the height | |
| Other moves | The sword move with the same job: lights 2 frames later, heavies 4 frames later, 5 frames more recovery, 2 px more reach; heavies 1% harder | |
| Pommel strike | 2%, a stagger of at least 0.3 s (18 frames), 10 stamina. Strikes on frame 7 (the shield bash: 5) | |
| Earthsplitter | 14%; wind-up to frame 30 |
Poise in numbers
| When | From 2 frames before the strike until the last hitting frame |
| How many | One light hit per big swing |
| Cost | 6 stamina for the hit shrugged off |
| Not against | Heavies, skills, ultimates |
| Not when | The stamina bar is empty; a heavy is still being loaded |
Until 14 Nov 2026 the lights had poise too; against an opponent that strings light hits that won the greatsword 71% of its matches.
The brace in numbers
| A hit from the front | Half damage (never less than 1%). The outfit's weight then counts as on any hit (fixed 14 Nov 2026: a braced hit used to ignore it) |
| Perfect brace | Takes nothing, fills the bar by 20, and the next hit that lands does 20% more, once |
With a Sturdy outfit the lower jump and the outfit's count together: 88% of 94% of the usual speed, about two thirds of the usual height.
History of the carry (14 Nov 2026)
Changed after the owner said the hero held it as if it were light. In the brace the blade used to pass through the head.
Fairness, measured
Ten seconds on a still target: 23% mashed, 69% with perfect timing (hand and shield 28% and 62%).
Forty fights of the old test opponent per pairing (it fights at arm's length and mashes):
| Against | Wins / losses / out of time | Damage dealt / taken |
|---|---|---|
| Hand and shield | 19 / 13 / 8 | 5899 / 6229 |
| Dual wield, mixed pair | 18 / 11 / 11 | 6573 / 6555 |
| Two daggers | 12 / 13 / 15 | 6320 / 6626 |
| Two swords | 14 / 17 / 9 | 6234 / 6753 |
| Two axes | 14 / 19 / 7 | 6003 / 6643 |
| Two maces | 17 / 14 / 9 | 6742 / 6396 |
| Staff | 23 / 3 / 14 | 6769 / 4250 (the test opponent does not use the staff's reach) |
How it got there: without poise the greatsword lost 32 fights of 40 to the sword; with poise through the whole swing and no cost it won 31 of 40. Poise for the last three frames of the wind-up, at 4 stamina a hit, is the middle. (That sentence describes the state when this table was measured; the balance pass later made it the last 2 frames and 6 stamina, as in the poise table above.)
Not built
- Only the greatsword: no other two-handed weapon has its own tuning.
- Its moves use the sword's poses, slowed to its timings; only the carry, the brace and the Pommel strike are its own.