Elden Ring DLC Best Hand-to-Hand Arts Guide

Welcome to our Ultimate Guide to hand-to-hand arts, or martial arts, in Elden Ring. Despite having only two weapons in this category, this weapon type seems to be quite popular. Instead of focusing on the move sets, I'll quickly cover the attack rating of their different infusions.

Infusions and Attack Ratings

If you've watched a few of my weapon breakdowns, you'll probably know how to complete this phrase: Dry Leaf Arts and Dan's Footwork mirror each other's attack in all infusions for all stat distributions. This makes covering their attack quite simple:

• Heavy Infusion: Slightly beats Keen.

• Lightning Infusion: Beats Fire.

Whether you choose Heavy or Lightning will depend on if you want to focus on Strength or Dexterity for the rest of your setup. Despite feeling like quality weapons, the Quality infusion is not strong enough at level 150. Once you have enough stat points, Flame, Sacred, and Magic infusions are probably not going to be common choices. This is because hand-to-hand weapons are paired weapons, and most people who pick this up are committed to using it as a paired weapon. Holding a catalyst for casting can be awkward.

The more interesting infusions are definitely the status ones. This is because their paired move set does a lot of multi-hits quite quickly, allowing you to build up status fast. For all motion values for hand-to-hand combat, specifically look at the number outside and not the bullet portion. From my testing, this seems to be the case for damage and Poise damage. The status build-up is the same, so it doesn't build up twice or deal damage twice despite the bullet number being there just once.

As for the Occult infusion, neither Dry Leaf Arts nor Dan's Footwork has a base status effect, so this is also not a great choice.

Unique Weapon Arts

Let's look at the two unique weapon arts only accessible to hand-to-hand arts: Palm Blast and Dry Leaf Whirlwind.

Palm Blast

Palm Blast gives hand-to-hand arts access to a ton of hyper armor in PvP. The uncharged version grants 200 hyper armor, while the charged version grants 700 hyper armor. This hyper armor also grants a 50% reduction to incoming Poise damage and a 7.5% damage reduction during hyper armor.

For PvE, charging Palm Blast is enough to Poise through moves that are not guaranteed to Poise break you. This hyper armor lasts the entire way throughout your charge if you choose to charge it, and you will most likely choose to charge this weapon art the vast majority of the time, especially in PvE. Charging this weapon art more than doubles its damage and nearly doubles its stance or Poise damage, going from 20 stance damage to 36. The skill's AoE also becomes much larger, making it easier to land the charged version of this weapon art.

One thing to note is that charging this skill does not increase the status damage dealt. Its base status damage is already a pathetically low 65%. This skill focuses on dealing damage and Poise damage.

Dry Leaf Whirlwind

Dry Leaf Whirlwind is a quick succession of four kicks, with the first and last kick being extra strong. It does not count as a jump attack but is considered a kicking attack, so it is buffed by the Shattered Zone Talisman and Divine Bird Warrior Gauntlets, just like any other move from the hand-to-hand arts that involves kicking. This Ash of War is fairly good at building up status damage and also deals a respectable 28 stance damage if you manage to land all four kicks. In fact, Dry Leaf Whirlwind has slightly higher stance damage per second than charged Palm Blast, but it does not grant you any hyper armor while in the air. Maybe it will get buffed in the future, but for now, Palm Blast comes out on top.

Moveset Differences

Before discussing the move set differences between the two weapons, it's important to note that hand-to-hand arts, like other new weapon types, are suffering from an oversight in their PvP Poise damage. In one of the previous patches, all weapon types got their own PvP Poise damage multipliers for different skills, which the devs have forgotten about. So, hand-to-hand arts are dealing less Poise damage than intended.

One-Handed Light Attack Chain

The only difference is the first hit of the light attack. I have the Dragon Communion Catalyst on my off-hand to better help you tell if I'm one-handing or two-handing the weapon.

Two-Handed Light Attack Chain

For the two-handed light attack, which is basically the paired light attack chain, the first and last hits are different. The second to fifth hits are all the same. Dan's Footwork has a longer reach and step-in due to its first light attack, making it easier to land thanks to the extra range. It also has 50% more Poise damage on the first hit.

Heavy Attacks

I know these are paired weapons, but I still want to discuss the one-handed heavy attacks. The Dry Leaf Arts one-handed heavy attack deals slightly less Poise damage on the second hit and comes out a tad bit faster.

For the two-handed version, the heavy and charged heavy attack of the Dry Leaf Arts deals more Poise damage than Dan's Footwork. While the first hit of the heavy attack is roughly as fast, you can recover much quicker after the second heavy attack of the Dry Leaf Arts because you perform both hits simultaneously with a double Palm strike. Therefore, I think the Dry Leaf Arts heavy attack comes out on top, but remember, these heavy attacks don't grant any hyper armor whatsoever.

Which One is Better?

If you want to run martial arts for your DLC playthrough, you will have to start with the Dry Leaf Arts, as you get this very early on. Dan's Footwork is locked behind a quest much later into the DLC, but it is worth it to swap to Dan's Footwork once you get it. The reasoning is simple:

• Heavy and Charged Heavy Attacks: Dry Leaf Arts come out on top, but this is not too relevant because the heavy attacks of these martial arts are not strong attacks to be spamming.

• Palm Blast: A much more consistent option for a charged attack due to its hyper armor and huge charged radius.

• Light Attacks: Dan's Footwork exchanges a bit of speed for a longer range and reach, comes with more Poise damage, and has the potential to utilize the Shattered Stone Talisman and Divine Bird Warrior Gauntlets.

Once the Poise damage bug in PvP is fixed, the hand-to-hand arts light attack will be much stronger, which is where Dan's Footwork will shine.